served my duty as an autistic artist and made a bunch of autism creature reaction images

The fastest way to shut down my "freelance life means I have to constantly be working" thoughts is to remind myself that if I was a boss holding a worker to the standards I hold myself to, their union would hunt me for sport and nobody would blame them.

Not me immediately screenshotting this and posting it to the OPP freelance writers chat I'm in

I tell myself: "I'm the owner of the company. But more importantly, I'm also the head of Scriveners Local 23, and I have some demands."

So what that means is that I have a four day work week. I work monday-tuesday and then Thursday-Friday. Fuck the boss if they don't like it.

I have a workplace wellness program that means I can take breaks for yoga, meditation, exercise, and naps.

I have unlimited paid personal days thanks to my project oriented work structure--I get to decide what's the best balance between production and restoration. Fuck the boss if they don't like it.

I have five days each quarter for vacation. attending a convention, conference, expo, bookstore event tour, or a writing workshop *is not a vacation.* that's business-related travel. taking a day or two for a weekend jaunt *is not a vacation.* that's unlimited paid personal days. Five working days. Each Quarter. Vacation. and since I always have wednesdays off, it doesn't count.

I know there's a piece of your brain saying "I have to hustle, I have to hustle"

I know

My brain does that too

And without the union boss in my head, I'll just work until I drop. That's what I did for years. And then I burnt out so bad that this is the first time I have actually made real, noticable progress(1.) similar to my pre-burnout rates in years.

Because the union boss went on strike, and the boss' bottom line was *destroyed.* If I have to crunch now, the union boss enforces recovery time. that's all overtime. but since I don't get paid a wage, I get all that back in time.

The boss never wants to see a strike like that again.

There is power in a union, even if it's only the union in your head.

(1.) only it's not similar. it's half the "speed" of pre-burnout. It's probably my actual true real speed and not my sweatshop labour hustle culture speed. FUCK THE BOSS IF THEY DON'T LIKE IT.

this is the single worst way i've ever read to describe an erection, frank herbert

so. what was your gillian-induced awakening?

Python installed successfully 🐍😎

He's ready to begin computing

meine scheiß Schlange Gniesbert ist schon wieder in meinen Gaming pc geklettert

mmm yeah this bothers me but i’m too tired to type out any thoughts rn. ugh

this is funnier and funnier every time i see it because. look i've said mermen is sort of incoherent due to a bunch of obvious cuts. but the part of the arc over episodes 7 and 8 that reads most clearly is that ed convinces himself of this exact thing and the show depicts this as specifically completely wrong.

like ed says the exact words "i'm not ready for whatever this [relationship] is" and goes off to be by himself and settle into a world beyond piracy that's more peaceful and quiet. and then the show says, actually that was a stupid idea and he was doing it as an excuse to run away from intimacy out of the fear of being hurt; if you wait to perfect yourself before you decide you're ready for a relationship you will be waiting forever. what he has to do instead is find the courage to accept that relationships are hard and scary and neither of them will ever be perfect and they won't always know what's the right thing to do and they will hurt each other sometimes, but they're going to put in the work and gradually learn and get better and get through it, together

I think the idea that you have to go off by yourself and be completed healed in isolation is fake tbh. Like yeah in real life it's healthy to pause romance and work on yourself but in the context of a romcom the point is that relationships are part of growth

I mean, even in real life, the situations where it's important to pause romance to work on yourself are pretty rare. I can only think of 3 actual examples where a therapist may even suggest that you need to take a break from a romantic relationship.

Maybe there's more, but for the majority of mental health issues that people experience, having emotional and romantic attachments is not a hindrance to working through those issues. And in fact, the interpersonal relations and intimate connections we have with family, friends, and yes, even romantic partners, can greatly aid our healing.

If you're struggling in a relationship (and issue #1 above does not apply), you don't separate and work on yourselves as individuals before you can be in a relationship again. You work on yourselves individually and as a couple.

If you're struggling with depression, you don't have to cut off all romantic ties until you're better, especially considering the fact that depression can be a lifelong struggle that comes and goes and has to be worked on long term. You can't put your life on hold every time you have a mental health issue to deal with. You work through it and, if you're lucky enough to have friends and family that you're close with, they help you through it as well.

If you're dealing with grief or self esteem or guilt, or trauma, or any of a million other issues, you rely on support systems within your life to help you deal with those situations, and your support systems can absolutely include a significant other. Unless the relationship itself is causing harm to you or the other person, there is no reason to cut yourself off from your support system just because you have shit to work through.

here's a fun parchment fact for you re: reusing a surface: sheepskin was often used for legal documents because it's hard to scrape out a word and rewrite without it being obviously damaged, unlike good quality calfskin where it can be undetectable that something has been altered

for the final day of @gbweddingweek

flowers/"forever."

things ed would enjoy

- wearing sunglasses on his head

- sticking his tongue out at babies on the bus

- timelapse videos of clouds moving across the sky

- nibbling a snack and pretending he’s a small forest creature

- looking at tattoo artists’ instagrams

- changing the sheets and smoothing them out so they’re all perfect

- watching grand designs and providing a sarcastic running commentary (‘oh you’re going to lay the foundation yourself? with no construction experience? nice one mate that’s gone so well for everyone who’s tried it before’)

- drinking through a curly straw

- sending stede pictures of literally any two objects/animals/anything next to each other and being like ‘me n you’

"me n you"

Source (Season 2 - October 3rd 2023)

I'd forgotten how fun this is

“You can’t tell a pirate who to love! Eat steel, dogs” is canon to me 🥰

Fun fact: Cheetahs only attack prey that runs

jesus that is good to know.

Yup, that’s the point you just stay still and let it do whatever the fuck it wants that doesn’t involved you getting eaten. 

REALLY FUN FACT for big cats cheetahs are fucking docile as shit

my grandfather ran a cheetah sanctuary in south africa and he’d just lie with them and sleep among them and they’d rub against him and chirp at him they’re big fucking babies

Another Fun Fact: Cheetahs are incredibly nervous animals. One of the (many) reason’s they’re going extinct is that cheetahs are so sensitive and nervous, some of them are literally too nervous to breed. Others will breed, but stress themselves out so much, they’ll lose their cubs. So zoos with breeding programs had to figure out how to make cheetahs comfortable enough to first of all, get laid and secondly - not spazz themselves into miscarrying. So what’d they do? They gave the cheetah’s their very own Service Dogs! The dogs make them feel safe, protected and secure!

AJHHHHFDDGHH SO PRECIOUS

this post just got so much better

THIS IS OFFICIALLY MY FAVOURITE POST

this is emmett and cullen they are best friends

This is the greatest thing I’ve seen all day.

Dogs are truly angels.

so THATS why these cheetah ft dogo pics exist

the anxiety cat

Also! Cheetahs are not in fact classified as big cats, they are simply very large lesser cats, due to the fact that they purr, meow, chirp, and cannot roar. Also many cheetahs have learned to recognize wildlife photographers are friends and not foes, so they will just come up to people and be friendly occasionally as pictured at the top of the chain. Some will even leave their Cubs with photographers to look after while they hunt. So. Yeah. Cheetahs are great

this works because cheetahs are actually fairly social animals, and they look to members of their group for context on how worried they should be about any given Situation. but since cheetahs are also nervous social animals, they can work each other into an anxiety spiral pretty easily over things like “being in an enclosed habitat” and “there’s a guy over there”.

so by introducing a dog as a member of the group, the cheetahs will now look to the dog for context clues on how worried they should be! and the dog Is Not Worried At All, Thanks, so the cheetahs think everything must be chill even if they were personally unsure about it, and they stop being so freaked out about literally everything.

Cheetah: oh god what’s going on how are we feeling weird spotless cheetah

Dog: :) fine, thanks

Cheetah: :) oh, okay

Because Internet, Gretchen McCulloch

Posts that remind me to nerd out about the intricacies of historical fiction writing

This isn't historical fiction, but period fiction, but I remember having a jarring OH reaction when discovering something that's just a standard part of English now was less than a hundred years old by reading a book. the book was Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers, published in 1930, and in the first chapter a judge is speaking:

I'm not catholic—of course I don't feel guilty for experiencing pleasure! << is protestant and feels guilty for experiencing rest