I have no Idea what I am doing!

Consider following political and social justice tumblrs under a different login than the one you use to find cool art / cat pictures / fandom stuff / kink stuff / etc

Or like just in general, if you're getting most of your political news in the same apps where you do most of your fun / sexy shit,

There's a concept in psychology called "overcoupling," which is basically when a person's trauma is super cross-wired, so to speak, with the present or with a certain topic

Overcoupling can both cause and worsen intrusive thoughts and depression, especially for people with a history of trauma

Or, more simply: If you're mentally whipping back and forth between cute animal, funny joke, porn, genocide psa, and hate crime footage at the speed of scrolling, that can really mess with your head, and sometimes it takes people quite a while to pin it down

Or, if the place you go to relax and look at fandom shit is also where you get all your news about ongoing global crises, that's gonna seriously mess with your ability to actually relax and rest

So, many books, but the knowledge isn't eldritch - it's evidence-based!

Also, before I go into it:

This isn't something anyone needs to stress over or especially panic over, especially if you don't really feel like it's affecting you personally.

I simply was having a thoughtful night and wanted to share a nudge/tip/data point to help people be more intentional

Best of luck!

But yes, further explanation!:

The concept of overcoupling specifically comes from Somatic Experiencing, which is a type of therapy and bodywork. It was invented by a psychologist and trauma survivor, Dr. Peter Levine, in the 1990s. The idea behind Somatic Experiencing, as well as other somatic ("body-based") healing practices, is that, as we know, trauma is stored not just in the mind, but also in the body - and therefore SE says, in order to heal after trauma, we must work with the body too. They have some really cool articles and theses on the org's Research page here

But the reason I know isn't specific to somatic experiencing itself, I just know a lot about trauma, psychology books, and "mind, body, spirit" publishing (kind of a genre tag for a lot of these books, especially for alternative and non-Western healing practices).

Sooooooo,

If you want specific book recs for the eldritch-evidence-based knowledge, I highly recommend:

What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma

by Stephanie Foo

and

In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness

by Peter Levine

Also, for the book recs, since I've been asked before: This is in no way an ad or an affiliate link. I have never used either of those on reasonsforhope/directactionforhope, and I never plan to bc I believe in eliminating perverse incentives in my activism, etc.

--

On a different type of note, in terms of how I figured it out:

i was wrong.

I’m an artist! I’ve always wanted to be an artist! And I’m a pretty good one! But I work two jobs in an unrelated industry so I can pay rent, and when I’m not exhausted from THAT I can do the thing I enjoy and have talent in as a hobby. And when I try to enjoy other people’s art, it’s completely saturated in AI shit made of stolen art generated by an algorithm used by people who have no skill and no desire to learn, who don’t actually appreciate the creative process.

My colleague has a degree in archaeology! He’s passionate about it! But he can’t afford to keep studying and works two jobs to pay rent. And when he’s not exhausted from THAT, maybe he can go online and watch videos and read articles… which are increasingly saturated by fake videos and conspiracy theories and unsourced bullshit hidden behind fancy headlines full of ads.

It’s like… People with skills and interests are too busy struggling with food and shelter to produce real art and real science and real tangible things, because prices keep going up while quality keeps going down, so the creators and the innovators who aren’t lucky enough to be born into wealth are stuck doing mindless shit they hate while machines churn out slop at low quality and low cost, and it’s all just become a race to the bottom.

people always say that internet spaces are americanised because the users are majority americans.

and i do always wonder how much of that is "there are actually a majority of usamericans" and how much is "usamerican cultural markers are a default for many online spaces, and non usamericans are often indistinguishable from usamericans unless you're actively looking".

so here's an incredibly unscientific poll reblog for reach or whatever

No shirt, no bra, completely bare torso, just like cis men are allowed to

It's about desexualizing breasts and "female presenting nipples" and not being criminalized for our bodies if we want to go topless because it's a million damn degrees out. This was a popular growing movement that was still widely known a decade ago!

my mom is in fact aware that dandelions exist. she temporarily forgot the name and there was some miscommunication.

the truth is actually weirder

she’s aware dandelions look like this

she is familiar with this flower. she knows the name of this flower. she declines to believe, however, that these are also dandelions

she does not believe these are the same plant. I tried to explain, and she thought I was either misinformed or lying. so I asked her what exactly did she think the yellow ones were called?

gosh I enjoy this website

The change wasn't immediate... it happened gradually.

"Always at your humble service :}"

Okay so This Thing aka Friend!Ink got lore a while back, I just never got around to posting this drawing haha. It just sort of happened xD

The creativity within the Multiverse had begun growing dry, less and less interest from Creators. Not even necessarily out of insecurity or lack of passion... just... growing boredom. And Ink grew desperate to try and connect to them.

He wanted to interact with them, escape the confines of this reality, he wants them to play with him.

So like a virus he began trying to find cracks in his reality and trying to break through them, trying to find a way to bring more interest, more fascination, break things up... and the Void began gradually leaving an imprint on his magic, influencing it, until Ink's own magic, now intermixed with the Void's darkness, began to consume him.

But it doesn't really care? It grows less lucid, more detached and fervent. And, well... maybe this is the solution to its problems. To make things a little more... interesting, with a slightly more hands-on approach.

The Tail of Hell is its scarf tail! During the change, its eye lights (pink and yellow, of course) grew larger until they overtake the eye sockets. Sometimes they flash and switch their color, but it's always pink or yellow. The void ink is very malleable and boneless, despite imitating Ink's shape.

Squish him and the corrupted side is like Gaster Goop haha, if your hand doesn't straight up pass through it. This thing shows up in the middle of other worlds' story to try and usurp the attention and get the Player/Creator's focus on it instead xD Or it tries to change things up within the story, nudge things here and here to stir up plot

okay so, does anyone know scouts? like, worldwide. they're the same but also different

well i'm a scout girl from europe, from france, and i love going in weekends with my friends at scout camps

and for a while now, i wanted to draw papyrus if we was a scout in france. uniform and all

i didnt put much effort into it cuz i had art block- but that's basically how i think he'd look like