[sometiktoksarevalid]

[darkspaceboytoy]

Incredibly violent take of mine but I actually don’t think you need to relate to a story in any way to enjoy it. You can enjoy a story even if you can’t point at a character and insert some aspect of your personality or identity into them. In fact I would argue the need for a character like that to be present in every single story you experience is a sign of stunted growth.

[dispatchesfromtheclasswar]

[ordinarytalk]

Recovering from autistic burnout as a high-masking adult:

To recover, you literally need to manually learn skills that most people learn as a toddler

You need to learn what makes your body uncomfortable, and what to do to fix it

If you are high-masking, that usually means that you have learned to ignore every distress signal your body sends unless it is a distress signal that a neurotypical person would recognize. People have likely been unintentionally gaslighting you about your lived experience your entire life

If you feel bad or panicked for no reason, stop and try to pay attention to your body. Are you tense? You are likely feeling physical pain somewhere. If you've been gaslit about your pain your entire life, you might not be able to identify it.

Go through a sensory checklist.

SIGHT: Try closing and covering your eyes. If this gives you relief, the lights are probably too bright. You may also need differently-colored lights

SOUND: Cover your ears. Does this give you relief? If so, you may need earplugs or noise canceling headphones. You may also benefit from a neutral or pleasant background noise, like soft music or brown noise.

TOUCH: Are your clothes uncomfortable? Your chair? Your body? Do you feel greasy, like you need a shower? Do you need softer, sensory-friendly clothing?

TASTE: Do you need to brush your teeth or tongue? Would chewing on something help?

SMELL: Is there a strong or unpleasant smell in the room? Do you need to clean or empty a trash can? Would an air purifier help? Would a pleasant smell like a candle help?

INTEROCEPTION: Are you hungry? Thirsty? Tired? How is your posture? Are any of your muscles tight or sore? Scan your body slowly from head to feet, tensing and loosening each group of muscles. Going for a walk or doing a series of quick stretches may help a lot.

Learning how to do this stuff is not intuitive, if you've had an entire lifetime of gaslighting telling you that everything hurting you isn't a big deal and you're being dramatic over nothing.

This takes time, it takes work, it's not intuitive, and it's hard. Most people forget how hard it is, because they learned this as toddlers.

If you want to recover, you need to relearn your whole body. And get over your idea of "normal" and just wear the damn sunglasses and put on the headphones. If people stare, fuck em. You're disabled and they can deal with that.

[thefloralmenace]

If you're struggling with the cost of living right now (reasonable), this is your PSA to...

Google universities/colleges near you.

If you can't get out to more than one, look up which one has the highest tuition.

Look-up when the graduation date is

Drive neighborhoods near the university the week before graduation

So much stuff gets left out on the curb. Wealthy college students tend to prioritize convenience over money, so instead of carefully reselling their perfectly good stuff, they frequently give it away or put it out with the trash because that's easier than moving, reselling, or donating. Take advantage of this.

I furnished pretty much my entire apartment from college giveaways and yardsales.

What I got for free:

Mattress and box springs

2 10 ft area rugs

The massive 9-drawer chest (that has a label on the back that it was custom-made and shipped across the country) that my TV sits on.

Two 13 x 2 ft raised garden beds

My desk - just sanded it down and refinished it.

Three short stools

An organizer rack

Watering can

Tommy Bahama outdoor cooler (retails for $350)

Chairs

Shelves

What I got for cheap:

Two futons for $50

Custom coffee table with storage for $25

Three tall stools for $30

[thefloralmenace]

Seeing all the tags where people are warning that picking stuff up OFF the curb is illegal in their area has the same vibes as the oranges in Grapes of Wrath, and I hope all your city councilmen get eaten by the live furniture from Monty Python.

[lowpawly]

people foolishly dismiss desserts and treats as having no nutritional value when they actually are necessary for refilling your sanity stat. to prove my point please observe the emotional stability of the next person you meet who doesnt let themselves ever eat any form of dessert

[robert-hadley]

Photo by Miguel Flores-Vianna

[thenixkat]

third time having a quick time event with a swarm of paper wasps at work and yet again coming out unscathed

I must reiterate that in spite of what arrogant people who hate wasps for having the audacity to be willing to defend themselves,

Wasps very much would rather not risk their lives fighting a kaiju to the death every time one gets close to their home and their babies. Their first response is to hover at your eye level and assess whether or not you just happen to be passing through or if you are going after their nest.

Do not panic or attack (ie swat at them), panicking is the behavior of a kaiju clearly there to eat their babies. Move away slowly from the location till they stop hovering watching you and go back to their nest area. They will keep watching you while perched around their nest.

If you have to pass back through where their nest is, give them as much space as you can and move slowly.

That is how you pass the wasp vibe check.

__

(do not add undescribed images to my post)

[akindplace]

do you guys remember when we googled something and we would get results that were actually related to the things we searched

[sunthoon]

Project Hail Mary fans after finishing the book and the movie

[toruandmidori]

[nat-20s]

You can replace [ACTIVITY YOU ENJOY] with [SCROLLING] but watch out. This sucks bad 👍

[nat-20s]

Some things about this post since getting quite a few notes:

1. If you see this post, highly recommend taking it as an opportunity to set a timer for 15 minutes and switch over to ACTIVITY YOU ENJOY. if after those 15 minutes, you want to go back to scrolling, that's okay!

2. Huge shout out to this popping up in my notifs often, bc I do go back to activity.

3. I think there are times where scrolling is fine. Right now, for example, I'm being connected to a machine for two hours to donate plasma and platelets. Yes this is a brag but it is also a time where scrolling is one of the few things I can do. (Though I will probably also read or watch something on phone lol)

[wizard-council-bureaucrat]

hmmm, this seems to be some kind of curse breaking spell… be free ye reader

[catastrophic-writer-deactivated]

Story Time:

Working in retail is really fun, and the times when major fuck-ups happen, they can be either anxiety-attack inducing, or make it possible to get through the rest of your god-awful shift with a smile depending on the customer. My all-time favorite absolute fuck-up is as follows:

This kind woman is just doing her thing. She scans her membership card from her keychain. The register beeps to acknowledge the scan. We continue as usual. Neither of us notice right away, but after I’ve scanned a few more items, I hear a very quiet, “Um,” from the lady, very polite. I look at her. She is looking at the screen of my register, blinking. I, too, look.

And lo and behold. There is a charge of over four-thousand dollars ($4,000) worth of garlic bread staring us in the face. There are no words for a minute. We’re just… in awe. How did this happen? How the hell did this happen?

She didn’t even have garlic bread in her cart.

I sputter a partial apology - I was incapable of forming actual sentences in the moment - and try to void the garlic bread. Since there was no garlic bread to scan, I try to manually remove $4,000-some from this transaction.

Well, the registers don’t like it when you try to void off more than five dollars ($5) from a transaction, so naturally it pings my manager for confirmation, but she’s not by her pager.

At this point, both myself and the lady are just… dumbfounded. She’s not even mad. I’m not even all that embarrassed. Both of us are just looking at the screen. There’s a bit of laughter, but it’s mostly just… confusion.

I have to call through the whole store for my manager on the intercom because she’s not answering. She shows up, ready to override and void it, when she too, sees what exactly is being voided.

“What… did you do?”

“I genuinely. Have literally. No. Idea.”

She voids it, and I go to finish the transaction and tell the woman her total (minus the garlic bread). My register pings. It tells me that she hasn’t scanned her membership card. Odd. I distinctly remember her doing that. The woman goes to scan her card again, and I notice that her library card is stuck to her membership card. I tell her gently, and she separates the two and scans her card.

My manager, hovering nearby still, sees this and says, “I think it mistook the barcode of her other card for garlic bread, and the remaining digits were read as the price.”

And that’s when the laughter really came over us. There were no hard feelings at all. In fact, the woman was incredibly glad that the receipt still showed the garlic bread and the voiding of. I will remember it until the end of time, my only regret in the entire situation being that I didn’t take a damn picture, because she has proof and I don’t. But I swear to God it happened.

TDLR; Library Card Charged $4,000 of Garlic Bread.

[anais-ninja-bitch]

that’s just how valuable library cards are. each one is worth at least $4000 of garlic bread

[nudityandnerdery]

A picture is worth a thousand words, a library card is worth $4000 worth of garlic bread, if we can figure out how many words the average library card can check out at once, we can probably work out a picture-to-garlic bread conversion here, too.

[neverniko101]

who up perceiving and reacting to stimulus

[kunosoura]

I think it’s normal for people to be mad at each other sometimes even if they’re close friends or family or intimate with each other. Like I think that’s a normal and healthy part of relationships that can happen sometimes

[kunosoura]

“Why were you on Mad At Me island” because at the time I was mad at you and yet our friendship has weathered that without trouble

[tiredragedemon]

I went to Mad At You island because my feelings are my problem. I needed to stomp down the beach until I could sit and watch the sunrise. I built a sandcastle and did some thinking. Then I boarded the good ship You Matter To Me and sailed it all the way to meet you on the Let’s Talk Shore of I Love You Island.

[moonsun2010]

Made an animatic summarising the entire book as a tribute to Dracula Daily and @re-dracula ! English subtitles provided, with translation by me and @ignitingthesky.

if you like this, do check out my kofi! there's a free pack of every single frame

[moonsun2010]

Made another Dracula video—this time in ✨️colour✨️

You can get a (free) pack of the frames here on my Ko-fi.

If you'd like to see more, I've another animatic that also covers the entire book here.

English subtitles done by myself and @ignitingthesky 's generous help.