hey look a title

Made by me! My first ever animation!

I love him so much ohmygod

I love him, the scrunch is adorable and so smooth!!

Apologies for the format and need to zoom, but I thought this response was wonderful

Image is a picture of page 42 from The Sunday Times in the UK (undated). The page is called Style Voice, and the segment is called Dear Dolly, subtitled: “your love, life and friendship dilemmas answered by Dolly Alderton.” At the bottom of the page, there is a note that says “To get your life dilemma answered by Dolly, email or send a voice note to deardolly@sundaytimes.co.uk or DM @theststyle.

Text of the segment reads:

[submission]

Dear Dolly,

I was already a little overweight, but things spiralled during lockdown. As a home-schooling, working-from-home single parent to two children, there was little time for contemplative yoga or solo mini-marathons around the park. After contracting the virus (it dragged on and on) and then not being able to leave our tiny flat much due to the lockdown, the only excitement of the day seemed to be a gin and tonic at 6pm, rounds of Netflix and peanut butter on toast.

I eat when I’m stressed and when I’m bored, and I was very stressed and very bored. And now the buttons are popping off my jeans. My clothes don’t fit, I don’t want to spend a fortune buying pretty new things in “L” when I have to get back to “M.” And how will I ever feel glamorous and attractive again after piling on the pounds and covering my face with a mask? Please help. I don’t want to be single for ever.

[response]

As I read your letter, the first thing I thought was what a challenging time you’ve been through in the past six months. You’ve had to educate, entertain and care for not one but two young children, all day, every day, without the help of a partner, while being mostly confined indoors in a tiny living space. You contracted an illness that was largely unknown and potentially debilitating. All this happened during a time when you couldn’t see friends or extended family, or go to the pub, or go away, or go anywhere for that matter. I want you to read that back and acknowledge what a difficult set of circumstances you’ve been living through recently.

With that in mind, I’m going to present you with a possibility: you haven’t overindulged at all. You haven’t eaten too much, you haven’t messed up a routine. You have been giving yourself exactly what you’ve needed in a time of immense stress – you have been in complete communion with your mind and body. You’ve allowed yourself the gentle anesthesia of a cold gin and tonic after a long day with kids, and restful nights with a comforting and familiar food as you prepare for the following morning. You’ve used your few spare hours to recuperate, instead of flinging yourself around your small flat in front of a YouTube exercise video or making complicated kale salads. All of this makes complete sense. You have not made any mistakes.

A clever thing the diet industry did to the collective consciousness is attach morals to eating: certain foods are bad (peanut butter on toast), certain ways of eating are bad (in front of Netflix). And if we are to believe the fallacy of “you are what you eat,” every time we put food in our mouths, we give ourselves permission to rate our morality. But our chosen meals aren’t proof of our goodness or badness. Deprivation or hyper-control doesn’t equate to health and virtue, appetite isn’t something feral and dangerous to be disciplined. Food is an inanimate object that we can use as we like – to nourish, energize or comfort. How we eat will always be in flux depending on our circumstances, whether that be emotional or physical.

I think the best thing you can do is acquaint yourself with the idea of intuitive eating. It’s a seemingly simple concept that many of us have to relearn at some point in our lives. Intuitive eating is about tuning in to your body, listening to what it wants and responding compassionately. It’s about quietening the chatter you’ve been absorbing your whole life – all the contradictory rules and convoluted calorie counting – and instead focusing on the requirements of your appetite and tastes. We are all born with an innate ability to do this (you never see a toddler leaving 20 per cent of its meal on a plate because it read an article saying this is what French women do), but tragically it is a skill that is stolen from so many of us.

Because another clever thing the diet industry did was make us believe that our instincts are wrong, that if we ate what we want when we wanted it, we’d live off a mountain of éclairs, a river of Baileys and nothing else. That’s just not true. If you can find a way to eat intuitively, without any cycles of restriction and reward, your body will find its way to the weight where it is naturally most comfortable.

And if all that fails, try this: every time you go to feed yourself, imagine that you are feeding one of your children. Every time you finish a meal and you want to berate yourself for the decisions you made: imagine you are speaking to one of your children. If they came to you – tired, anxious or ill – would you give them a calorie-counted meal, or would you give them what they were craving? If they ate something that brought them joy, would you remind them afterwards that they could have eaten something that was less pleasurable but lower in fat? Would you tell them to take notice of the letter on the label in their clothes and attach a sense of self-worth to it? Would you let them believe that the letter on that label was an indicator of whether someone will fall in love with them?

The sad truth is women are conditioned to feel like physical failures if they don’t conform to an impossible specification, so the language of self-hatred is easily accessible to us. I don’t want to pretend that this propaganda isn’t incredibly powerful, and I don’t want you to feel even more self-hatred for taking it on and believing it. So, for now, try a trick instead: imagine you are your own child and care for yourself accordingly. That might be the only way you’ll allow yourself the logic and kindness you deserve.

This made me cry.

What fabulous advice this is. Ye gads.

ermm. teehee

Unfortunately— and literally no one is talking about this— if you buy many many little treats for yourself, cumulatively, this can add up to a larger amount of money, if you add the numbers together. I’m not sure if there’s anything to be done about this but thought I would bring it to the attention of my beloved and far-reaching audience

i should draw

great job guys. hit the showers

Thank you if you reblog and please consider learning more about Narcissistic Personality Disorder and other stigmatized mental illnesses!

Image descriptions start.

A series of six infographics titled, “Understanding NPD Part 1.” Each image shows some simple line art with text.

1. A person with a confused expression has question marks floating by their head. A thought bubble coming from them shows a heart shape. The text says: As a narcissist, I often question how I experience love and how to express love properly.

2. The text says: After all, 2 common ways NPD develops are from: 1) Being shown excessive love as a child and/or never being told no – unintetionally overwhelming your ego. Spoiler: Your child won’t get NPD from “being loved too much,” the above is referring to excess entitlement. The drawing shows a smiling person surrounded by hearts. 2) A significant lack of love or praise given to the child, ultimately making them feel worthless. From there, a heightened ego develops to protect the person from feeling this way. The drawing shows a child trying to talk to an adult, who simply says, “I’m busy.” The child then thinks, “Fine I don’t need them.”

3. The text says: I experienced the latter. The drawing shows a frowning child whose eyes are hidden by their fringe. Under this is text that says: My parents never gave me much attention as a kid. The art shows the child playing with blocks alone More text says: And getting praise was an uphill battle. The art shows the child showing their parent a paper that says A+. The parent is tapping their chin with lowered eyebrows.

4. The text says: And now that leaves me a little unfamiliar with love. The art shows someone approaching the grown-up version of the child. The other person has a heart coming from their moth, and the now-grown person looks uncomfortable. Several question marks float above their head.

5. The text says: Often I am too preoccupied with supporting myself (the same way I did when I was a child( that I forget to extend support to other people. It was not something I was shown how to do, so I struggle with it now. The art shows the person thinking with their hand on their chin. They say: I look awesome today. There is a small sparkle by the words.

6. The text says: Even though it does not come easy to me, I am learning a lot about how to show love to other people (and to myself). Ongoing support and kindness from my friends has helped me a ton. The art shows the person standing in between to other people with speech bubbles. One has two exclamation points, and the other has squiggly lines. Text under this says: Even if I recover enough to no longer meet the critera for Narcissistic Personality Disorder someday, I am happy right now that I can teach people what it is really like and I will continue to do so in the future. Advocating for people like me goes a long way towards helping end false assumptions about the disorder and allows people to get the treatment they need.

The final image at the bottom of the OP is a purple userbox. The icon is a stethoscope, and the text says: This blog advocates for those with NPD, ASPD, DID, Psychosis, and any other marginalized disorders. Description end.

This baby can give you SO much leverage.

New Wizard Staff just dropped

you're not annoying, you're bubbly and outgoing

you're not annoying, you just needed help

you're not annoying, you're funny and friendly

you're not annoying, you just had a question

you're not annoying, you had something to say

recontextualize your negative thoughts because I promise you they aren't true.

whenever my program freezes

I was overstimulated and now I’m evil

"what if im a bad person" yeah? well what if you arent? what if you're trying your best and you're growing and you're kind? what then?

Hey when you move out on your own the most important food tip I can give you is “maybe you don’t hate x maybe your guardians just cooked it wrong”

The number of foods I have learned I really like if they’re Fucking Seasoned

The number of foods I’ve introduced friends to that they warned me they’d always hated til I let them try a piece of mine

Also marinade things for 24 hours the second you have your own fridge it is a GAME CHANGER you thought you knew food but you have never met her

Oh absolutely

Steamed diced carrots? Hell no

Seared and peppered carrot spears with bell pepper slices and then with a little bit of butter drizzle? I suddenly love carrots and I'm also eating a SECOND vegetable, its a fucking miracle

Oooh yes also every squash EVER tastes 90% better if you roast it with garlic and roasted red pepper seasoning and just a tiny drizzle of honey

"Stop saying 15 year olds with weird interests are cringe, they're 15" this is true however you should also stop saying adults with weird interests are cringe because who gives a shit

To wit:

I want to share some wisdom from my high school art teacher.

In my AP Art class, there was a girl who was just starting to experiment with mixed media. At this point she was still playing around, trying to decide what direction she wanted to go with her portfolio. So one critique day, she brought in an abstract canvas with some rhinestone highlights and painted and real peacock feathers. She loved sparkles and peacock feathers so she thought she’d try introducing them a *little*. And after everyone had given some input, the teacher gave her his advice, VERY roughly paraphrased here:

“So here’s the thing… I do not like this style. These are just elements that do not speak to me personally, but I see that you like them, and you’re doing interesting things with them.

“My biggest critique is, I only merely *dislike* this piece. I want you to make me HATE it. Go crazy with the things that you like. Don’t hold back trying to make it palatable to people like me. Because I am NEVER going to like it. And if the audience does not like it, it should drive them crazy seeing how much YOU love it.”

Her portfolio was chock full of neon colors and glitter and rhinestones and splashes of peacock feathers and it was a delight. Our teacher despised every piece lol, but she got great marks and I think even won some awards. And more importantly, she was happy and proud of the results. Because she didn’t limit herself by trying to appeal to people who were never going to enjoy what she enjoyed.

Takeaway here: be as cringe as you want. Don’t limit yourself based on other ppl’s tastes. They’re not you, and you are incredible 💕

Witch is a gender neutral term

Talking to myself out loud like a point and click protagonist

Losing it over some of y'all's tags btw Here's my favorites

and lastly.

good night