Skullchicken

Personal blog She/Her 30+ years old Comic Artist/Illustrator 🖤 Shadowrun 🖤 Fairytales and Folklore 🖤 Absurd Humour If you're interested in my art, check out "My Art", "Homepage" or "Patreon". Have a lovely day!

[shamebats]

Imo the best type of system for children to grow up in would be one that assumes the birth parents/primary guardians won't do shit and takes care of every aspect of childcare that's essential for their wellbeing and development, collectively.

[shamebats]

But I'm just a guy who only learned how to brush his teeth properly and got glasses as a child because we had both a dentist and a doctor come to school on a regular basis. The dentist would have us all stand in a circle with our little toothbrushes and show us how to brush and correct our technique. The doctors would give us general health assessments and then have the teachers contact our patents and essentially peer pressure them into getting us any health intervention we needed. My parents only reluctantly got me glasses because they knew the teachers would judge them if they kept seeing me sit in the very front row and still squint to see the chalkboard. So I'm biased.

[shamebats]

The only times I ever remember seeing a dentist or doctor as a child was at school. I'm quite healthy physically and I'm very grateful for all the care I got from the various professionals who cared about my well-being and development more than my actual parents did.

We had free healthcare including dental, mind you, my parents just couldn't be bothered. When my brother, as a teenager, asked our mother if she could take him to his orthodontist appointments (which he'd already arranged for on his own) she basically told him she didn't feel like it and he had to take the bus.

If I could improve anything about that system, I'd take it even further and make it so kids could see a doctor and get meds, treatments, therapy, tests, disability aids etc. without having to rely on their parents as well. I shouldn't have had to put up with being bullied and guilt-tripped about the family finances and the time investment needed to take me to the optometrist every time I needed new glasses.

[shamebats]

Some parents would not take care of their children even if they were given all the time and the resources. Mine are a great example of that — my mother stopped working and became a homemaker when I was in kindergarten, my father worked from the garage and was also always home. They had a car and our village even had a bus that would come once or twice an hour that would take you to the next two bigger cities.

Did that, plus the free healthcare, translate into them actually parenting and caring for us properly? It did not. They only ever did any of that reluctantly when not doing it would make them look bad, and most of the time they did a shitty job because they could never resist the urge to boost their egos by means of bullying literal children.

So I have to wonder: what did they actually contribute to our upbringing? Like they didn't teach us shit and mostly they just endangered our mental and physical health — but hey, at least they gave me cPTSD! That took some work too.

[anarchistmemedistro]

see also family abolition, and youth liberation .

[applefae]

A knee-jerk response to neglectful parenting I see a lot is “people should have to get licenses and take rigorous tests to PROVE that they should be ALLOWED to have kids” which is eugenics. That’s just the starting line for eugenics.

We are at a point in humanity where there is no meaningful reason why we shouldn’t be structuring our societies around wellbeing for all instead of wellbeing for the “deserving”.

Assume some parents will fail. Build social infrastructure that is designed to support failed kids rather than punish would-be parents.

[c3rvida3]

Me and my cousin have an ongoing bit where we pretend we made "slightly better" versions of things where we'll be like.

"That was a pretty good movie, but not as good as my movie, House of 1001 Corpses," or "I guess this song is okay. Kind of reminds me of a song I'm working on called 'Faster Car'."

Never once has it been funny or made anyone but us laugh.

[mucmucvi]

This reminds me of a joke I have with two of my cousins

[ouroborosorder]

”there’s no glory in suffering” and “sometimes the effort is the point” are two ideas that co-exist but god damn if I can ever tell when’s the time for which

[i-point-at-things]

👇👇👇

[ilan]

[feluka]

i hate the way fat antagonists have their weight moralized and used as a metaphor for greed and corruption and i hate the way it's overcorrected into fat people being "soft squishy friend-shaped cupcakes who look like they give incredible hugs" and i long for the day we have nuanced, interesting, and complicated fat characters and most of all i long for the day people are normal about fatness

[she-is-autiblogging]

sometimes abuse victims will think they were/are not being abused. sometimes abuse victims will think it's okay they were/are being abused for whatever reason.

sometimes abuse victims will insist to others that they were/are not being abused. sometimes abuse victims will insist to others that it's okay they were/are being abused for whatever reason.

in fact, leading a victim to believe that what is happening is normal and fine and even good or righteous for whatever reason is a common feature of abuse, whether the abuser did it on purpose or not.

if an abuse victim in your life...

questions whether they were abused

goes back and forth about whether they think they were abused

tells you they weren't being abused, and then later says they were

...these can all be very normal parts of living with abuse trauma and don't mean someone is lying or exaggerating about being abused.

[teaboot]

^^^ These are all things I struggled with for years! Still sometimes I have days where I think "it wasn't THAT bad" or "I had it coming" or "but they're not bad people"- but it was still abuse! It still happened, and it was still bad, and even if I DID do something annoying or bad to make them WANT to treat me badly back, that doesn't mean it was okay!

It's difficult to accept, but impossible to move on without accepting.

[rthwrms]

HOW TO START (2026)

[bugdotpng]

image transcriptions under the cut

How to Start by rthwrms

for the times when you really truly want to do something, but find resistance or that starting feels impossible

most helpful action to get into a task is: look at it options include: review what you've already done open the tab on screen blur your eyes at first if that helps fullscreen the image browse or skim relevant texts let your gaze move around how it will JUST...LOOK!!!

Your brain has resistance towards starting the particular project in the way that you've previously conceived of it. Instead of fighting that resistance, try to change your approach to starting your work. Ie, start with colored pencils on a piece you were doing in gouache, include a new stitch in a crochet piece, Step one: identify the process Step two: identify places where something new can be included Step three: brainstorm new options to fill these spots Step four: select one or more options and try your piece from this new angle

encourage yourself by asking questions start with: "What am I actually trying to do right now?" then try: "What would this look like if it were more fun?" "How would I do it if anything was possible?"

divide into discrete tasks make the closest or shiniest one literally as small & specific as freaking possible

image text: I BELIEVE IN YOU screenshot text: The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper. W.B. Yeats (via billowy)

there is a window now there is a door

// end post transcription

[moonwyvern]

The blood wyrm and his golden lady ✨

[toyastales]

The Hermann Weinhardt House, a distinctive Victorian-era residence located in Chicago, Illinois, USA 1888.

[rhinco]

i love you semicolon. no one look at my 80 word sentence

[glucowski]

Who killed Snow Doe? 💀🟨🔪

Having no clear memories about the murderer, Jane's mind came up with Boogeyman - an abstract entity that chases her in her dreams and visions. The killer's image rearranges itself with every clue she finds.

[tobernaut]

Thinking of a story about bullfinches and a dragon.

[socialistexan]

French-Iranian author Marjane Satrapi, author of 'Persepolis', dies of 'sadness' at 56

French-Iranian author and illustrator Marjane Satrapi, best known for the book and film “Persopolis”, has died of "sadness", members of her

This one hurt, her work had such a profound effect on my life, thoughts, and politics.

May her memory be a blessing

[depsidase]

[butchfriend]

Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College

[cognitiveinequality]

[sturionic]

For anyone unfamiliar with Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, the entire thesis is that traditional educational models promote oppression by removing students' agency in their own learning. Freire argues that currently education functions as a "banking model" - teachers are the holders of knowledge, and students are empty vessels, waiting to have that knowledge put into their heads like a piggy bank. This reinforces a passive attitude towards information, not seeking and understanding it on your own terms, but waiting for a "banker" to deposit it into your head.

Instead, Freire proposes that teachers and students act as co-creators of knowledge, where students become active participants in their own learning through questions and dialogue. Teachers are also open to changing their understanding of topics in the process of critical dialogue - the goal is not "student learns Fact A and memorizes it as presented," but instead the goal is the knowledge itself, discovered collaboratively by teacher and student, who are acting with empathy and respect towards each other. This also starts the process of the oppressed being able and empowered to question structures of power, take agency, and actively participate in the transformation of society.

So, the irony of writing an AI essay on critical pedagogy is actually insane; because it's essentially the extrapolated endpoint of Freire's arguments that our current educational system creates passive receptacles who not only can't think critically in an educational context, but also become the perfect citizens for a world that doesn't want us questioning structures of power, to view those in power as we viewed our teachers - deliverers of indisputable facts that must be memorized and regurgitated because they command it, and not co-creators of true understanding.

[sandersstudies]

Stopping point if you find yourself on your phone doomscrolling, procrastinating, or “stuck”

You can move to scroll in another space (if you haven’t gotten out of bed yet, move to the couch; if you haven’t left the house yet, you can sit outside)

You can make your current space more pleasant to scroll in (if it’s not possible to move spaces, open a window or light a candle in your space)

You can scroll while taking care of your body (change into clean clothes, scroll while brushing your teeth or washing your face, scroll while drinking water or having a snack)

You can stay on social media but avoid depressing or mindless content (try searching for fun facts, hobbies you’re interested in, or good news)

Hard mode: try just making the switch on your phone from short-form to long-form content (from dozens of short posts to an article, a fanfic, or an ebook; from TikToks/Reels/Shorts to a interesting or fun YouTube video, podcast, audiobook, or film) — this can be the first step in transitioning out of being “stuck,” because you can, for example, go on a walk while listening to an audiobook, fold clothes while watching a video, etc.

Expert mode: Set a timer for one minute and put down your phone. Do anything else. (Take deep breaths, go get a drink, pick up a book or craft.) If you can do this, aspire to two or five minutes and keep increasing your time away from scrolling. (Use your phone to play music, a podcast, or an audiobook if this prevents you from picking it up again)

Good luck! I hope you were able to make your scrolling a touch more cheerful today!

[americachavez]

harry potter fandom experiencing such a revival in the last 5 or so years to the point where 5 out of the top 10 ships on ao3 this year are hp AFTER that woman started fully funding hate campaigns with her royalties is so bleak. fandom isn’t an indicator of morality but what are we doing here man.