The Red Panda Collective

the queer autistic queen of cats | 29 transfem | so so tired

[kosmogrl]

[nekomimidusteon]

(attempting to flirt with the girl who pinned me on my back, head hanging off the bed for easy access to my throat) damn are you the sword of damocles because ur hung and threatening imminent demise.,..,.,.

[the-red-panda-collective]

sometimes I get juuuust the right amount of high that I start to consider posting my lewds again

but my head’s so fuzzy…if I laid in a field would u stalk me through the tall grass, pounce from the shadows and sink your teeth into my neck?

Is that a good and normal thing to ask?

[bitchautism]

my spores

[the-red-panda-collective]

spreading its spores 🙂‍↕️

[sumetal]

if leon kennedy was a little bug with a long proboscis it'd be called resident weevil. but he's not and it's not and i just don't know anymore

[pastabuilt]

[owldude]

why did no one tell me quantum computers looked like that

[owldude]

what the fuck

[cappucino-commie]

[petulantpony]

we could have been secret highschool girlfriends

[malignedmare]

author’s note: everyone can tell we are inseparably wrapped up in each other, the both being girls part is the secret.

[orthoscheme]

*Holding out my hand in a peace sign* You can't spell execute without cute! *In my other hand drags a long gnarled blade scraping loudly against the stone*

[yaldabaothadeez]

These crow lady comics, that I can only trace to “some anon on 4chan”

-

[xander-the-bastard]

I’ve got a few more saved

[kosmogrl]

[manwhorewednesdays]

This is actually such a crucial part of healing from neglect and abuse and I have to add to this.

Because indeed, people who like you will not roll their eyes and sigh at the idea of accommodating your needs, they will value your voice and be upset with you about injustice done to you, not at you for "being difficult". They will be happy when you find a way to live a better life, and help you to get there. If you are struggling, someone who loves you wants to see you smile, not tell you to smile because "you have it so good".

[thesweetiepienovels]

Someone said “The slow burn of becoming yourself” and I think that might be one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard. It’s such a good reminder of how much it takes, how much character development, how much change, and beauty and courage it takes to reach your soul and I hope no one ever gives up on becoming themselves because it’s a never ending journey that only gets better.

[iamthelowercase]

Yes, "nice dichotomy, IDIOT!! Now what lies outside it???" is a classic for a reason. But please consider as a companion piece "nice dichotomy, COWARD!!". Sometimes, one will be more applicable than the other.

[escuerzoresucitado]

[godpup]

uh oh

[demonprincex]

How Do I Become Less Obedient?

Autistic Advice#12: Noncompliance is a liberating social skill - but it must be developed.

If you’ve never been all that disobedient before, you can and should start really, really small. For example, you can wear the slightly revealing or gloriously trashy-looking garment that makes your mom roll her eyes and sigh despondently every time she sees you put it on. You will feel judged and disapproved of when you put it on, but that is fine. Your goal is to sit with the uncomfortable feelings and continue with your desired behavior anyway.  Saunter down the steps in that highlighter-yellow Garfield crop top with your chest hair flowing over the neckline, and harness as much courage as you can muster. It’s okay if you feel like a beacon of sin. Just keep it moving. Your emotions are not the target here. Your behavior is. You can feel however you are feeling in the moment so long as you keep acting like you’re free.  Do you have a favorite TV show that a partner or roommate vocally hates? Try watching that show around them without apologizing or defensively joining them in mocking the program. At first, you probably won’t be able to enjoy the show while in their presence. You’ll feel self-conscious about everything they find annoying or cringe-inducing about the show, and so focused on their reactions that you can’t relax. That’s okay. Allow those feelings of embarrassment and guilt to exist and pass through you without giving up. In time, you will be able to ignore these reactions more, and enjoy the activity.  You want to see the needle of discomfort moving down just a little, like Link’s body temperature meter in Tears of the Kingdom when he puts on a breathable outfit in a hot climate. You’re not gonna go from roiling hot to frosty cold in an instant. But after a certain point, you won’t be actively in pain anymore. Things are just gonna slowly suck less, bit by bit, until they are finally okay. That’s true of most major life adjustments, I find.  Probably the best way to develop self-advocacy skills while growing in your distress tolerance is simply by telling other people no. Do this without explanation or hedging. Nitpicky aunt wants to hear all about your dating life? “No, I don’t want to talk about that.” Unreliable ex-friend wants you to do them the tiny favor of moving their entire home gymnasium into a new third story walk-up? “No, I’m not available.” Manipulative shift supervisor wants to cajole you into sticking around for another three hours to close? “No.”  As many advice columnists smarter than me have already intoned, “no” is a complete sentence. “No” requires no explanation. “No” is not subject to debate. “No” can be repeated over and over like a broken record if a disrespectful person acts like they can’t hear it. And you can walk away at any time to make your “no” physical and impossible to argue with, when someone has proven they don’t respect your boundaries. 

you can read or listen to the full piece for free here

[demonprincex]

Feeling unsafe is not the same thing as actually being under threat — and if we mask and people-please reflexively, we are likely treating many completely harmless situations of disagreement as if they were mortal threats. It’s important to learn to distinguish between a situation where you have no freedom to speak up, and one where you can live authentically as yourself, and simply get more comfortable with not pleasing everyone. So in any situation where you are free to, try saying “no” and riding out how scary it might feel.  When you first say “no” without explanation or apology, you will feel anxiety. That’s okay. In fact, you should pat yourself on the back for reaching the borders of your comfort zone. It is in this area of unfamiliar, slightly scary, yet possible action that we are able to grow.  You might panic the first time you tell your spouse you’re not cooking dinner every night anymore, and he’ll have to figure out the meal planning himself, or the first time you let a call from a manager go unanswered while you’re off the clock. Great! You are training your body to recognize that nothing bad happens when somebody is a little peeved at you. You’re detaching your sense of safety from another person’s feelings, and tearing apart that enmeshment hurts the way ripping off a band-aid does. 

[demonprincex]

#this article made me finally understand what distress tolerance is and why it would make sense to train it#but i have absolutely no idea how to apply this to my own life#none of the examples would work for me#i don't even mask well anymore i just go on autopilot when asked questions like ''is an 8 am appointment ok'' and say yes 😭

My recommendation for you would be to slow down the process. If your instinct is to automatically say yes, just don't say anything for a second. It's okay if the moment feels awkward. It's not a weird thing to stop for a moment and think. You can even say "I need a moment to think about that." when someone throws you a question or recommends a course of action that you aren't sure how you feel about.

If those options fail, and you still reflexively say yes, you get to change your mind! You can call back and say "I need to change the time for an appointment." You can text your friend and say "Actually, I decided I don't want to see that slasher movie, sorry." You are allowed to speak up after the fact! That is just as legitimate! If you can't access your feelings in the heat of the moment, give yourself some time and space, and then do what you wanna do.

[fageleh]

There are external, structural factors that influence how easily we can say no, of course. It’s far riskier to turn down the demands of a manager who has the power to fire you or a caregiver whom you rely on to stay bathed and fed. And you should never feel ashamed of recognizing such pressures and acting strategically when you’re under them. You’re not a failure for acting with your own self-protection in mind, and giving a potential abuser less ground to mistreat you is sometimes the healthiest boundary-setting that you can do.

[headspace-hotel]

Seems legit

[headspace-hotel]

we all hear about kudzu being introduced as "erosion control" in the South but I don't think contemporary people understand on a gut level what that means

these are images from a 1930s pamphlet that endorsed kudzu, entitled "stop gullies: save your farm"

It was Bad.

[headspace-hotel]

Invasive plants need to be understood as part of a much larger cycle of incredible violence against the land.

[peat-moss-and-starlight]

For context: erosion on that scale occurred as a result of our clear-cutting entire states. The land east of the Mississippi used to be covered in old-growth forest to an extent that we literally can’t imagine anymore, because most of us have never seen a forest over 100 years old. It turns out if you remove all vegetation from a landscape, you end up with a bunch of loose soil ready to move downstream. A fast-growing plant that covers everything in dense vegetation sounds like salvation when you’re surrounded by 40-foot deep gullies that get wider with every rainstorm.

[epicyurian]

A lot of the south too was covered in Canebreaks, basically bamboo forests like a lot of South Asia, I don't know the specifics of the ecology, but bamboo being a grass I assume is rhizomatic like other grasses and forms a big net of roots that prevent erosion. *I assume* (pleez ecologists weigh in)

[headspace-hotel]

Yes, the destruction of Canebrakes was a direct cause of this erosion we see here. Canebrakes were destroyed, using slave labor, to make room for cotton plantations. You can read about it here.

Canebrakes built up incredibly rich, fertile soil and are amazing at preventing erosion. They form incredibly strong mats of rhizomes. And their roots are known to go 10 feet deep into the soil.

The erosion we see in these pictures was a result, very much directly, of the Canebrakes being destroyed.

[headspace-hotel]

This is a case study in how violence against ecosystems goes so closely hand in hand with violence against people. The violence against the indigenous caretakers of the land, and the violence against the enslaved captives that were forced to clear the Rivercane and work the cotton fields that would degrade the soil into nothing.

[angel-oneiros]

Alexandre Hogue, Crucified Land, 1939

[headspace-hotel]

This painting was added in another reblog chain, it's good to have it on this thread