Arcade Nebula

Venipede plural icons — requested by no one

i'm sort of having a mild brain fog moment rn so i can't fully articulate what i'm on about, but i think a lot of able-bodied artists view things like canes and crutches as interchangeable. and they often don't know enough about the wide range of mobility aids to make an informed decision about what their character might actually use based on their disability

some ask games have prompts to ask about every member of collective , but beyond even 20 those can be really unwieldy , let alone when reach hundreds , thousands , and beyond . 

these questions gear for collectives with hundreds-plus populations , though some can still apply for any size , and write in way that aim to be framework and origin neutral . this is for any who would like to participate , no matter type of experiences :)

as always , use discretion as to which answers should be public , or prefer as private journal prompts - even if that might be all !

about general population :

📰 newspaper - if countable , what is population ? how much of that population can others expect to encounter ?

📊 bar graph - do population experience sudden booms of growth or loss , or is change more steady ?

📥 inbox - how much do collective record about population , and with what tools ? is there requirement to get entry , such as certain amount of front time or personal elaboration ? 

🧮 abacus - what is overall feeling on size ? hope to get smaller , bigger , or remain at current size ? 

about member experiences :

🎈balloon - have any experience with members that express less development or identity than others , such as fragments , walk-in silhouettes , and precursors to animism or creation ?

🎁 present - if answer to balloon is yes : have any particular methods to help develop individuality or take root as part of collective ? is there any method which hurt more than help ?

🪆 matryoshka doll - have any experience with duplications or doubles , where multiple separate members share source / mirror ? 

🛎 bell - have any experience with snapshots , where multiple separate members embody life stages of one shared source / mirror ? 

🪞 mirror - do source-based words such as fictive , chrómtive , and aesthetive get much use around collective ? why or why not ?

🖼 painting - do origin-based words such as walk-in , split , and animaborn get much use around collective ? why or why not ?

about experiences of front and switch :

🌧 rain cloud - do collective switch frequently , infrequently , or not at all ? if switch is usually possible , is there ever time where anyone get stuck in front ? 

☂️ umbrella - do collective have control over switches ? if so , how much ? 

🌊 great wave - is there any large consistent group of fronters or front observers , or do most only like to show up once or twice every so often ? 

🌥 sun behind cloud - how many tend to be in or around front at once ? is front more often blurry or clear ?

🌈 rainbow - do front contain some sort of mask , vessel member , or inherent function which grant sense of unity ? if so , how do this feel when contrast with fronters' individual identity - erasure , blanket , or something else ?

about collective life :

🥅 goal - what is process behind collective presentation , hobbies , and life choices ? who get more or less say in these matters ? do any areas of life allow total freedom ?

🪃 boomerang - what is process behind compromise when , inevitably , not everyone is happy with choices ? what about when compromise is not possible ?

🥍 lacrosse - have any items which belong to only one member or small group of members , or is everything shared ? is there process behind discard shared items such as vote , or can anyone discard ?

🎼 musical staff - what is communication like , both internal and external ? what tools help or hinder ?

🤿 snorkel - is there any offline space in which collective choose to be open about plurality ? if so , how much do others know about population ? 

about experiences of headspaces , otherworlds , and other collective spaces :

🌻 sunflower - how many spaces do this collective experience ? if none , is this something that wish to change ? if one or more , what is preferred term ? 

🍀 four leaf clover - how large is each one , or how large would ideal space be ? how much information enter records , and with what tools ?

🪷 lotus - do certain groups belong to certain spaces ? is this by choice to form communities , function of how brain put order , necessity such as mermaids live in water , or something else ? 

🦊 fox - is there wildlife , or wish for there to be ? if so , what kinds ? would collective term these as fragments , NPCs , something else , or nothing at all ? 

about community experiences :

🌋 volcano - what is something other people should never say to large collectives ?

🏕 campground - what is question that want other people to ask ?

🏰 castle - what is something that wish for other people to understand about large collectives ?

🏝 island - what would be one piece of advice which give to other collectives , large or small ?

open questions :

🎨 paint palette - what terms help with comprehension and expression of experiences , in any area ?

The whole metaverse can no longer be properly viewed without an account and I am definitely not making one just to see your contact info or opening hours.

Teto from Spoken For is plural!

[PT: Teto from Spoken For is plural!]

unfortunately kossai would end up with something like this :

speaking as an autistic person who figured it out

so many autistic people struggle with their diet. it's very common for autistic people to have very restricted foods they will eat and this can lead to nutritional deficiencies. while nutritional deficiencies can be helped with supplements, these don't eliminate the shame surrounding "picky eating" and don't resolve difficulties finding food to eat at restaurants, friends houses, etc.

so I compiled a list of things that helped me expand my diet. my diet is still more restricted than the average allistic person's but I've improved it a lot

1. identify the problem

figure out why you struggle with the foods you do. is it texture? is it taste? is it inconsistency in flavor/texture/etc.? identifying the problem you have with foods allows you to work out solutions

2. take baby steps when adding new foods to your diet

don't try adding 3 new ingredients in one meal. add one thing at a time. this will help you isolate what did or didn't work and why it did or didn't work.

find things to add that are similar to your safe foods- for example, if chicken is safe but sauces are not and you want to try a sauce then gravy might be a good choice. if blackberries are safe and you want to try another fruit, a raspberry might be a better starting place than an apple. this will help you figure out the characteristics of food that affected your opinion on them.

3. approach everything like a science experiment

isolate your variables and re-evaluate successes and fails of every trial. you are trying to investigate your relationship with food.

science is a creative process. adjust your process as you go.

4. research methods of cooking new foods

every different way of cooking something will produce a different flavor and texture. changing up seasonings and other ingredients surrounding the food you're trying might improve or worsen your opinion on that food.

adding fat and salt usually improves the flavor. trust. you will most likely have more success with vegetables (and anything savory, honestly) if you cook them with fat and salt (and seasonings). even if you don't like a lot of seasonings I would still recommend fat and salt.

some foods also come in different preparations, for example the difference between tomato paste, tomato sauce, tomato sauce with chunks, diced tomato, sliced tomato, and whole tomato. if you don't like the texture of regular tomatoes but can handle the texture of pastes and sauces then you can try substituting tomatoes in recipes with tomato sauce or paste.

5. create patterns in what works

do you like things grilled more often than you like them baked? what about frying? if something is working, try that method of cooking first when introducing a new food.

if you find that certain textures or flavors are working well for you, seek out other new foods with similar textures/flavors.

6. cook for yourself

having a hands on relationship with the foods you're trying will improve your relationship with those foods. it gives you control over them and gives you the opportunity to interact with the parts of them that you may not trust [yet]. you also have taste testing powers to perfect what you're working on before you give it a try. this will improve your success rate.

7. learn to substitute preparations of ingredients

like I mentioned in #4, many ingredients can be prepared many ways. these preparations can often be swapped to change texture (or even taste).

8. interact with your trial food before tasting it

before you try a new food, hold it in your hands and feel it and smell it. this prepares your brain for the sensory experience of the food you're trying and reduces the surprise factor. the surprise factor can really deter people from liking a food when the texture/taste/etc. wasn't what they were expecting.

9. give everything 2 chances

if you don't like something on the first bite, wait a few minutes and try again. sometimes when foods weren't what we were expecting that failure to conform to our expectations can get translated into disliking that food. giving your brain time to process the food and coming back can sometimes yield different results on the second attempt.

don't go through this a thousand times. if it's not working by the 3rd or 4th attempt it might be time to put that food away. you're only going to make your relationship with that food worse.

10. you don't have to try new foods alone

foods don't have to stand alone. you can cook things with dipping sauces, in soups, in desserts, etc. these are often more successful ways to try new foods because the new food isn't the only focus.

quite frankly, some foods are just not very good on their own. while some of us sensory seeking autistic people like to drink straight lemon juice, most people would agree it's better in something else.

it's not cheating to mix your new food in something else. it's also not cheating to try your new food in something that "hides" it like a cauliflower pizza crust. that's still cauliflower! maybe that cauliflower pizza crust will be a stepping stone to eating cauliflower in other dishes, and maybe it won't, either is okay.

11. don't force it

you won't be able to blunt force your way through food sensitivities. you will only make your relationship with that food worse. if it's not working then put it away and, if you really want to, revisit the food later down the line.

number one check yourself. Number two comparing TMA/TME to anti-Blackness is a false dichotomy and I need white queer people to stop trying to compare themselves to Black people every single chance they get. oh my god

The two are NOT similar. If you really wanna play the game of equating race and gender, then the equivalent to “Black and nonblack” would be transfem/trans woman and non-transfem/trans woman, not TMA/TME. I can assure you that NO black person is going around saying “antiblack racism affected vs antiblack racism exempt.” Because That Is Stupid.

EVERYONE is affected by antiblackness, because of how deeply it’s ingrained into our entire societal structure. You cannot write off specific demographics as not being affected by certain forms of oppression or discrimination, because the nature of living in a white supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy is that ALL of these systems are INTRINSICALLY connected with each other, and affect EVERYONE to some degree. There are countless historical examples of antiblack legislation directly impacting poor communities of other racial groups- including white people. There are primary targets of discrimination, obviously, but nobody is truly “exempt” from any sort of oppressive system unless they are at the VERY top of the damn food chain.

In the same vein, the intersection of transphobia and misogyny is ALSO deeply ingrained into our society. And because of that, nobody is truly “transmisogyny-exempt.” Even people who aren’t the primary targets are still directly impacted and negatively affected by transmisogynistic systems. I find TMA/TME to be useless in terms of categorization because it directly posits that everyone who gets sorted into the latter group just doesn’t experience any oppression or discrimination derived from transmisogynistic bases at all, which is ridiculous, because that happens All the time.

A trans man or enby who’s mistaken for a trans woman and is assaulted for it, a cis man who’s belittled and attacked on the basis of being Too Feminine, a cis woman who’s publicly shamed, derided, and transvestigated for having testosterone levels that are “too high,” are all examples of non-transfem/trans woman groups being negatively affected on the basis of transmisogyny.

Poor white people being affected by legislation meant to target and attack Black populations and the massive trend of colorism throughout Asian communities are examples of nonblack groups being negatively affected on the basis of antiblackness.

You cannot sort people by what oppression they do and do not face, and attempts to do so are inherently exclusionary and are bound to lead back into denying people of their lived experiences, just because they don’t line up perfectly into these specific categories of “this genre of person goes through this” vs “this genre of person doesn’t go through that.”

I believe that TMA/TME was coined with the best intentions, but the problem is that it’s a clumsy dichotomy and the way a lot of people tend to use it ends up leading back into the same issues of being binary (“amab trans people experience this, afab trans people don’t experience that”) and then THAT leads back into a whole heaping mess in and of itself

Talking about the way transfeminized people are targeted by transmisogyny is not a bad thing in and of itself! But like, you can just say transfem/non-transfem- or even just “transfeminized” to describe the position oppressors will often place people into in order to enact transmisogynistic violence against them- instead of directly trying to state what different groups of people Do And Don’t Experience. you can say “primary targets of transmisogyny” without directly implying that certain groups are exempt from it all together.

If the community was anything like it was maybe twenty-ish years ago, I would’ve left. There’s far too many aspects of my alterhumanity that would’ve had me grilled, disrespected and harassed to hell and back. I’ve heard enough accounts from fictionkind who either saw this firsthand or shortly thereafter. Honestly, you don’t even need to go as far as twenty years ago when cases like Tirea Na’vi’s happened in 2010. Don’t even get me started on the community’s history with linking and the concept of choice-based experiences in general.

You can do the things that you see from our communities’ past. The current state of your community has never impeded you from doing that. I may not post my essays on Tumblr as much as I used to, but I still write them and post them to Dreamwidth!

You want forums? Join the Nonhuman National Park! You want to see more discussion and commentary on people’s experiences? Participate in conventions! Be it as staff, as a panelist or an attendee— make connections! Look into ways to safely organize in-person meet-ups and clubs! You want to see more art or other creative works from alterhumans? Boost artists in our community! Download our peers’ zines and games on Itch.io! Read our peers’ writings, whether it’s poetry, essays, short stories or ramblings! I know it feels nonexistent, but our community IS thriving and full of culture!

I did a thing