I feel weird for pre-emptively clarifying this but I also kind of feel like I should: whenever I call random peoples' kids goblins or gremlins, it's
100% intended as affectionate. To be gremlin is to be human. Everyone goes into goblin mode sometimes and most kids are simply in it 24/7 and that's awesome.
By no means a racist thing. Kids of every single colour, creed and cultural background are equally goblin. I've called more white kids goblins than you've ever seen.
I used to call kids "little monkeys" till I said it and a POC couple were unhappy with me but understanding and informative.
So I'm going to adopt this because* loved calling kids little monkeys... especially because they just ARE, and that episode left a hole in my heart that I feel goblin child might fill.
I remember reading about an incident where a white woman who had a mixed baby with a black father had to stop affectionally calling their son "little monkey" because she, also, had never considered how that must look to an outsider, until her kid had climbed up a tree and refused to come down.
So now she was just standing in the street, a white woman yelling "get down from there you little monkey" to a black child sitting in a tree.
Ok, so, my the "racists stole this word and now I can't use it" is lizard people. Apparently something something Jewish people?
NO!!!!
THIS IS ABOUT TEMPERATURE!!!!
I AM!!!!! THE ONLY MAMMAL IN THIS WORKPLACE!!!!! YOU REPTILES WONT TURN ON THE AIR CONDITIONER UNTIL ALL SELF HEATING CRITTERS ARE DEAD AND HEAT STROKED OUT!!!!
Me and my boyfriend call these people "incubator people", because they don't have the strength to maintain their own body heat so they have to kept in a body-temperature little box like a premature infant.
Everyone in your office is weaker than the average baby.
there are a NUMBER of folktale Woman-Creatures like selkies who exist to make the inherently coercive nature of heterosexual marriage explicit and to externalize male anxiety about how if your wife had actual autonomy she very well might disappear and you might never fucking hear from her again
which is a FASCINATING category of Woman-Creature imo
someone said it's also a cautionary tale about mistreating your wife and I think that's spot on especially for other related types of stories e.g. the crane wife. like I think these stories are very much Husband Anxiety Stories. the Woman-Creatures are black boxes whose interior experience it is impossible to know and who have strange and often seemingly arbitrary rules that you must follow or else they will disappear. idk. like. that's why I think that any empowering-to-women-ness qualities of these stories is incidental. I think they're externalized anxiety about coercive societal heterosexuality and the inability to truly Know one's wife in such circumstances.
you also see a variant of this formula a lot (generally at the more literary end of the fairy tale space) where it's not a creature you capture, but a magical lady who picks you for seemingly arbitrary reasons, bettering your fortune enormously with her magic and wealth and second-hand status.
and then, for reasons usually at least slightly less arbitrary, fucks off again.
the husbandly anxiety here is more about not having access to coercion as an option.
was just talking to Story about this and he told me about one folktale where a guy meets a beautiful woman at a lake and she brings a bountiful dowry of like one million fat cows and such and she is of course a fairy so she's like "my one requirement in our bargain is that if you strike me three times I will leave" and in many versions of the story the husband doesn't ""actually"" strike her -- each time it's something like, one 'strike' involves her forgetting her gloves inside and he walks out and taps her on the shoulder with her gloves, but she tells him that counts as striking her. this sort of thing. which is TRANSPARENTLY like "whoa wouldn't it be fucked up if your wife could enforce consequences for behavior she said was harmful, even if according to your cultural norms it was fine, and you didn't see it as a big deal?" like... lol. what if women could actually be the ones who decided whether or not any given action their husbands took against them was harmful? IMAGINE... PREDEY SCARY....
sorry but someone assuming you have "left a fandom" when you don't post about it a lot anymore feels like bilbo coming home to the sackville bagginses having him presumed dead and selling all his stuff. girl i was just on a little quest????
Hello! I've got two questions which are kinda related to each other, so I'm putting them in the same ask. Please don't feel pressured to respond if you're not comfortable though!!
Do you have any advice for managing ADHD/symptoms of ADHD as a Proper Adult (tm)? I'm a Newly Minted Adult (19), and I haven't been diagnosed one way or another, but I have a lot of the symptoms of ADHD (executive dysfunction, difficulty estimating time, constantly fidgeting, getting focused on something and feeling unable to put it up for hours, probably some others I'm forgetting). I have systems in place that help mitigate some of this (longform journaling, physical to-do lists and chore charts, playing music while cleaning, backing up when I'm trying to get out the door so that when I do eventually leave I'm (close to) on time, pomodoro timers, and so on), but I still feel like I'm treading water, especially as the things I'm responsible for keep growing in number. A lot of things will also work great... for two weeks, and then I'm back where I started. I'm worried that my life is going to end up being controlled by these symptoms (particularly executive dysfunction) and I'll never be able to feel like it's *mine*--ironically enough, the actions I struggle with the most are the ones that I *want* to do, like crafting or replying to a letter. You seem like you spend a lot of time doing things you enjoy and have made a life that feels like your own, so I'm hoping you might have some perspective/advice about this.
2. Do you have any advice for accepting/coming to terms with having to actively manage mental health for the rest of your life? I recently realized that what I thought was Me Doing Fine was actually Me With Mild Depression, which like. What the hell, man. I'm kinda thinking of myself as being whatever the mental health version of immunocompromised is, where I *can* have good weeks or even months, but a) it takes me more effort than most people to maintain and b) it's much easier to slip back into depression. I know it's better to realize this now than realize it ten years down the line, but I'm still feeling this weird combination of denial/anger/sadness/resentment/fatigue about the whole thing (like, you're telling me I have to do extra work?? Just to not feel shitty all the time?? For 60+ years?!?!?!). Similarly to pt 1, you've mentioned having depression but still seem to enjoy much of your life, so I'm wondering what your take on it is.
Okay that's it!! This turned out way longer than I expected, oops 😅 Thank you for the various wisdom you share, and please pet your kitties for me :)
Heya, Anon! Sorry it took me a while, but, you know.. I also suffer from executive dysfunction. XD
On managing ADHD as an Adult
My advice here is what works for me, someone who is AuDHD (and also a hoarder, to up the difficulty challenge).
At 19, you are in a place where you can learn new skills, but your systems are still going to carry you throughout most of your life. And that is fine. The most important thing to learn is when and how to meet yourself as you are, and how to graciously accept your limitations while still pushing yourself to do better.
What has helped me:
Be ok that not all of your systems are going to be aesthetic. If I regularly dump my clothes in a pile in a specific place on the floor, I either need to put a basket there, or completely block the space. If I forget what is in a container or in a drawer, it needs a label. I am going to take better notes at work in the notepad app vs by hand in a leather-bound journal or some hyper-optimized note taking program. And so on.
Understand when routine can lead to a type of time/clutter blindness. If the chore board is collecting dust and you're skipping days, it's time to reboot and remix the routine. Don't force yourself into a system that isn't paying off. It's better to jump from system to system if they work, even for a few weeks, than doing nothing at all.
Convenience is worth the expense/investment. Automate bills if possible. Have 2 bathrooms? Buy duplicate cleaning supplies and put them in each room, so everything is *right there*. Got to where you have some extra income? Grocery delivery, meal boxes, housekeeping, lawn services -- all of those remove cognitive load off your shoulders and are not "giving up", even if you are capable of doing these tasks.
Get some use out of your fidgeting. I pace when I have bees in my brain. When I'm in that mode, I try to look for any trash I can pick up, a counter to wipe, anything to quickly tidy. Something that takes no more than 30 seconds. It really helps with keeping the clutter down in my working areas. I also have some exercise equipment that is fidget-friendly -- an under-desk pedal machine and an indoor rebounder.
Body double when possible. This is like parallel play, but for work. Have someone else in the room, or in a voice/video chat while you work on a task. A lot of folks find they focus well this way.
Rewards cannot be something you regularly do. My reward for doing big projects and deep cleaning is to listen to an audio book during the chore. I cannot listen to an audio book at any other time, because I'll just skip the chore and go straight to the book. This is because I am lazy and my internal boss is a big pushover. So, the reward MUST be special, not something routine like "30 more minutes of video game time for the day."
Don't tell people about big plans if it gives you a serotonin hit. I have learned that telling people about my planned projects gives me almost the same amount of satisfaction as showing off finished work. Then, I just never actually begin. So, I hold off until I've put enough work in to commit.
Don't wait for Big Stuff to practice locking in. Practice with something low stakes. I have been doing my nightly GOOD NIGHT cat photos for like a decade now with about 99% reliability because it is low stakes. And it's proven to me that I can indeed commit to a regular task.
The first 10 minutes will suck. Get used to it. I love to hike, I love to make things. But the first 10 minutes are absolute ass. But enough repetition and I can convince myself to start because I am now confident there will be a payoff.
Don't try to do everything all the time. Half-assed is also better than no-assed. Some days, it's cereal for dinner so you have the spoons to clean the toilet. It's better to negotiate with yourself than do nothing at all.
Be honest with the people in your life that you trust + take responsibility for when your mental health makes you do dumb shit. I have an awful memory. My partner knows this and I have to delegate some things to them to remember for me. I get agitated when my routine and plans get stalled and I go non-verbal or get snappish. My partner knows I am not angry at them, but I still apologize for my behavior as soon as I am able to.
Know when less is more. Regularly declutter your living space. Lack of space and too much stuff can make you over-stimulated. Don't worry about sunk cost . Things that never worked out, like old organization systems, old hobbies -- these can find a new life with someone else. If you find yourself routinely having decision paralysis, remove the number of options. This could mean shrinking your wardrobe, doing a craft room purge, etc.
Remind yourself that you are not an optimization problem to be solved. You will fuck up, you will need more time to recover, etc, etc. It's fine, just adjust your commitments whenever you can to give yourself room to breathe. Burnout is far more difficult to recover from than taking pre-emptive mental health breaks.
On the grief of living with a disability
I've written about this kind of grief before. You are doing yourself a kindness to admit that some things are not going to get better. It's ok to be angry at a future you felt got taken from you.
This grief will never go away. It can sometimes motivate you -- living well out of spite, for example. It can lead you to form lifelong community bonds. And sometimes, it just sucks ass.
Don't let the grief turn into toxic stoicism. Many big problems can be broken down into more manageable little problems. Seek professional help where you can -- get medicated if necessary, hire a professional organizer, go to therapy, join a support group, etc. Like my advice about housekeeping, this is not a form of "giving up". Trying to think your way solo out of a mental disability is akin to trying to run a marathon with a freshly broken leg.
What also helps me is documenting the good times in my life. That way, I have something to look at when I feel like the past year was just a haze.
So what I take the same dozen hiking and museum photos. So what if my crafting documentation skips steps or fizzled out. I still have all these artifacts that help me remember a live well-lived.
Notice I said well-lived, and not necessarily *productive*.
Because remember that you are not an optimization problem to be solved. Even if I didn't have ADHD, I wouldn't be able to do all the things I want to do. So, I try not to beat myself up about *only* reading so many books, making so many arts, etc.
I hope all this helps. It's easy to turn self-awareness about your mental health into self-loathing, so above all, give yourself grace. <3
Scottish artist Sir Andy Goldsworthy (Order of the British Empire) rearranged leaves around the base of a tree in order to make it appear to be glowing.
(Thought I’d upload my recent comics to Tumblr! I totally forgot it only lets you upload 10 pics at a time, and this is 11, but fingers crossed it works!)
My one boring tip to anyone in their 20s is to resist the temptation to rot in your room every time you get a free moment. Dismiss any neuroses you have about going outside and "being perceived". Be a dictator about it, plan your hangouts like they are binding commitments. No excuses! Go to the bar with your friends. Be kinda hungover at work. Socializing is like exercise; even if you don't feel like you want to, you should still do it because it's good for you.
......suddenly struck by the idea for a piece of worldbuilding of "fae don't like iron bc it is the most stable element*"
*as in elements higher you can extract energy via fission and lower you can extract energy via fusion but iron itself there is no excess binding energy to extract at all
There's an open pit in the middle of our office plan that drops down into a bunch of very sharp spikes that kill you instantly. This is bad. People keep falling in there and dying. Someone put a sign up, the other day, all bright yellow so you can't miss it, that says "Beware!!! Spikes!!!"
The office immediately split into two factions over it. One says that if anyone falls in the spike pit it's their own fault for being so stupid and not watching where they're walking, so we should remove the sign. The other says that the sign is an insult, there shouldn't be a spike pit in our office at all, and having the sign up like that is just normalising the existence of the spike pit, so we should remove the sign.
We ended up removing the sign. Probably for the better. Still... for a while there it looked like it might have worked...
Nobody has ever been capable of writing a scathingly harsh and well formulated satire about the perils of modern capitalism, that doesn't just get immediately one-upped by some random food service worker talking about their actual week.
I feel like when people make those posts about like "If the Jedi had done everything perfectly then Anakin wouldn't have been Like That and Done Those Things" actually just want the Jedi to somehow be omniscient.
Like they need to have somehow just known from the beginning of time that Palpatine was bad and evil and manipulative and engineering their destruction so that they could make all of the perfect choices to fight that same manipulation of Anakin and the Senate. But those "perfect" choices are only available with a certain level of information that would have required literal god-level omniscience to acquire.
"If the Jedi had done everything perfectly" is a nonsense statement. They DID make all the right choices, but they made the right choices for the information they HAD, and the resources they had access to. The Jedi did everything right with Anakin. They took him in, they loved him, they made exceptions for him, they were lenient with him, they gave him the skills and tools he needed to survive and thrive, they rewarded him, they trusted him, and he murdered them anyway. The Jedi were loyal to the Republic's ideals and protected as many people both within the Republic and outside of it as they could, they were capable of seeing its corruption but also capable of seeing that it was genuinely still one of the best options out there for most people, they fought against becoming soldiers and then accepted that role anyway when war broke out and people needed to be protected, and the Republic turned on them anyway. Because doing everything right wasn't enough.
I don't know how often people in other stories and in real life can say that sometimes you can do everything right and still lose before it sinks in for this fandom that it's something that also applies to THIS story. There are quite a few characters who absolutely made mistakes, who made the wrong choices, who succumbed to fear and greed and selfishness. But there are also characters who did EVERYTHING RIGHT and still lost because the whole point is to show that one person's selfishness can have a massive impact that goes much further than just them.
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