malsehn

have you ever seen a junebug get to grips with a window screen? it’s remarkably persistent, but not very focused. all that matters is location.

how to junebug: choose the location you feel you can probably get some shit done on today. be specific. not ‘the bathroom’ but ‘the bathroom sink’. you are not choosing a range, you are choosing a center; you will move around, but your location is where you’ll keep coming back to. mentally stick a pin in it. consider yourself tethered to that spot by a long mental bungee cord.

go to your location. look at stuff. move stuff around. do a thing. get distracted. remember you’re junebugging the bathroom sink and go back there. look at it some more. do a different thing. get distracted. get a sandwich. remember you’re junebugging and go back to the bathroom sink.

nt’s will go crazy watching you, and if they demand to know When You Will Be Done you will probably have to roll them in a carpet and stuff them up the chimney. you’re done when you feel done, or you’re too bored to live, or it’s bedtime, or any number of other markers, you get to pick. but the thing is, by returning repeatedly to that one spot, you harness the ‘hyperactivity’ part instead of wasting all that energy battling with the ‘attention deficit’ part.

not only will the bathroom sink almost certainly be clean, and probably the mirror and soap dish too, you might’ve swapped in a fresh toothbrush, a new soap, you might’ve unclogged the drain – you will probably also have cleaned or fixed up several things in the near vicinity, or in the path between the sink and where you get the fresh toothbrush, or maybe you did your grocery shopping cuz you were out of soap, or maybe you couldn’t find a clean hand towel and ended up doing laundry.

this is good. you got shit done! it wasn’t necessarily Cleaned The Bathroom in the way nt’s think of it, but screw ‘em. things are better than they were.

Can I witness the suffering of others that I am unable to relieve and think, “It is unfortunate that this is happening to these people,” or do I also need to experience a surge of pity?

Sympathetic feelings are encouraged and seem to be expected even when compassionate action is not possible. Am I obligated to feel sadness when I see the tombstone of a child that died in infancy? When I observe footage of atrocities in distant countries, is it enough to think, “This is unjust. This should not happen. If I find an opportunity to vote or donate money to causes working to prevent or end this, I will do so.” or must I also be emotionally affected by it in order to be an ethical person? Is it okay for me to kill a cockroach without sparing a pang of sadness for ending its life when doing so is unavoidable? What about a squirrel that runs in front of my tire?

Sympathy in the DPRK’s case would likely mean you want to help with the position they’re in, eliminating their problems to help them thrive. Different from empathy above, you share the ideas and reasons of the regime.

civilization 5 barbarians: a small rapscallion of a skeleton. his heart is full of malice that his tiny body cannot accomplish, so he settles for smacking your beverages off of the coffee table when you aren’t looking. his shenanigans are tiresome

civilization 6 barbarians:

this fucking dude -

“the beast walks,” said Harshsmell the dwarf emperor, stroking his expansive shield-beard.

“and the Fifth Age of this world comes to a bony end,” moaned Bibarel the elf, prancingly.

“that isn’t true,” said a shadow near the wall. a man stepped out of it. four swords glittered on his back, and a hood covered his face.

“who are you, and how the balls did you get into my throne room?!’ shrieked Harshsmell

“I have come to put an end to this giant skeleton bullshit”

“fool!” shouted Harshsmell beardily. “no mere man can kill Fuckmountain! he pisses fire! his teeth are made of diamonds, and inside his head are thoughts only of malice and fucking shit up. no heart lies in his chest, because he’s a FUCKING SKELETON. he’s literally made of bones, the least-stabbable organ. you can’t kill that, dipshit”

“I’m gonna.”

“he ate two castles,” Harshsmell continued, moaning. “at the same time. i was there.”

the man stood his ground. Harshsmell glared at him dwarfily. “GUARDS! this man distresses me. take him away”

the guards moved forward to seize the intruder, but he stood his ground. though his face was not visible, Bibarel studied him.

“friend, is that Skullantula the Up-Fucker that you carry?” he asked

“it is,” said the man. he unsheathed one of his swords. it was made of jagged blood, but inscribed on the side with ancient elfin magic was a skull. both of the skull’s eyes were eight-balls.

the guards stopped in their tracks. one of them gave the sword an appraising nod and a thumbs up

“and Stabslicer the Grim,” the man continued, “and the Killblade of the Metalzillas, and the Large Fucking Hellscalpel, the last sword forged by the hands of the fire wizards of Double Lava Mountain”

“the fire wizards,” rumbled Harshsmell, “have been dead for two hundred years”

“and I’m the one who killed them”

“holy shit. fuck.”

“yeah, I know, right?”

“who are you, that could do such great things? no one man should have all that power”

“i am no man,” said the intruder, and finally pulled back his hood to reveal his face. he was three wolves. “I am Three-Wolves. I am three wolves.”

“forsooth,” Bibarel medievaled.

“yeah, pretty much” Three-Wolves said. “so are we stabbing some skeleton motherfuckers or not?”

Harshsmell fretted at his shield-beard. the long-fossilized remains of ancient side-dishes fell from its depths and shattered on the floor. “for the past thousand years, no dwarven army has left the depths of our mountain home, The Home Mountain. you will march alone”

“but your dwarfiness,” Bibarel interjected, “perhaps we can still help? we could offer him a mount.”

Three-Wolves stared stoically through one of the throne room’s many window-axes. “i was just gonna get an Uber or something”

“this is no mere transportation that we offer you, friend,” preened Bibarel. “it is the lord of the giant war scorpions, Bloodvizier VII, King of the Bugmoors”

“his mighty carapace is stronger than dwarven kill-steel,” Harshsmell boasted. “and his bitey things are like fearsome spears, if the spears were really fucking sharp and full of poison and attached to a scorpion”

“bears piss themselves at the very mention of his name,” Bibarel said. “not even little bears. the big ones”

“hell yea,” said Three-Wolves. “i’ll take it. also also the elf, because I need directions”

the journey was a long and arduous one, past the lightning spires of Napalm Druid Valley and across the abyssal Killfjord of the Squid Wizard. they knew they were getting close when they saw the giant head of an evil skeleton across the horizon, because that is what they were looking for

Bibarel stared in elfish terror as the beast Fuckmountain Deathmonster swallowed an entire mountain of swords, then ate a handful of catapults for dessert “already he has slain the hobbit viking warhost from the lawless northern lands of Fuckshire. do you truly think you can stab such a terror?”

“stabbing is for assholes,” Three-Wolves said. “i’m gonna skip straight to killing him”

Three-Wolves adjusted his vorpal codpiece and unsheathed all of his swords, and his cape billowed dramatically in front of the sun. then he kicked the war scorpion and they took off at a full arachnogallop across the obsidian plains, which were entirely covered in hobbit blood

seeing them approach, Fuckmountain reared back and stuffed a fair maiden into his mouth. her skin was as white as snow, fresh snow and not the shitty old stuff, and her bosom was really big. “please don’t come any closer!” she shrieked “it will eat me if you do”

but Three-Wolves did not hold any pity or lust in his three separate, discrete wolf hearts, only vengeance. he leapt from Bloodvizier VII and did six backflips before landing on Fuckmountain’s head. Fuckmountain roared, and lava shot from his eyes and melted swords shot from his skeleton dick. while he was roaring, Three-Wolves swung down and hurled the legendary sword Stabslicer the Grim into one of his eye sockets

“fool!” Bibarel moaned, from the middle of a giant puddle of his own fear pee “he doesn’t have eyes for you to stab!”

“i wasn’t stabbing shit,” Three-Wolves shouted back “it’s just hard to hold four swords, and i never liked that one”

he reached inside of his cloak and pulled out a dagger made out of enchanted hell-uranium, and covered with chainsaw blades. he pushed a button and they all glowed, but they glowed black

“it can’t be!” Bibarel gurgled. “the Laser Edge of the Starlich has been lost for aeons”

“like balls it has!!” Three-Wolves bellowed a mighty war bellow and sliced off Fuckmountain’s head, and stabbed him through the spine, and cut off his skeleton dick. he landed, and all the evil skeleton dust was already blowing away behind him

“friend, that was truly amazing” Bibarel gushed. “you have saved our kingdom!”

“yeah i totally did,” Three-Wolves said, stoically sheathing all of his weapons, and putting the safety cap back onto his vorpal codpiece “but there’s an even badder guy out there”

“what could ever be worse than a giant lava-pissing skeleton?”

“this” Three-Wolves said. he held up a stone covered in runes, and decorated with crystals made out of the souls of powerful monster-stabbers “it was in his head or some shit”

“a Thrall-Stone of Beam'uvee” Bibarel gasped. “but the art of making those is lost. there’s only one people who ever knew how to make them”

when they arrived in the lands of the turbo-dragons, nothing but misery and woe awaited them. Misery and Woe were the names of the sphinx liches who guarded the front door

“TRAVELERS” they shrieked, in scary voices of bones and mystery. “BEFORE YE PROCEED YE MUST ANSWER OUR FIVE RIDDLES”

and then they were dead because Three-Wolves also twisted their heads off. he was thinking about starting a collection, maybe

Bibarel the elf stayed simperingly close as they crossed the land. Castle Knifedick, loomed above them, covered with towers that were shaped like knives and also dicks. war drums echoed from the hillsides, and later, war saxophones. the legendary kill-legions of the turbodragon war host marched down to meet them

“Piss-gargling mortal!!” shouted Skullhate von Hateskull, the Bloodconsul of the Turbodragons. the Bloodconsul was elected by popular referendum every two years, because the turbodragons had a rich tradition of democracy and a robust social safety net “you should not have come here!!!”

“yeah probably” shouted back Three-Wolves, and unsheathed three swords at once “but i did”

the turbodragons readied their many arms, halberds made of crystalized shark blood and javelins made of regular shark blood. acid dripped from their stingers and their fangs and just their general anatomy, really. for a moment there was no sound on the battlefield except tense silence, and also screaming, because Three-Wolves had already started murdering them

“FUCK!” shouted the dying turbodragons “ARGH”

Three-Wolves was in his element now, and that was the element of murdering shit. a siege pterodactyl flew past and shot ballista bolts made out of the middle fingers of fossilized frost giants, and he chopped them all in half. he got cornered by a legion of thirty one shrapnel golems and machete elementals, and he bellowed the mighty Warcry of the Berserker Liches, which worked really good because he had three separate mouths for bellowing with. after he killed them all he still had enough killing left over for like thirty turbodragons

“Seize them!” shouted Skullhate von Hateskull “we shall rip the blood from their bones and feast on their guts!”

and then while his mouth was open, Three-Wolves pulled back his arm. it bulged with thews and stuff, and he threw the Large Fucking Hellscalpel like a javelin. it stabbed out all of Skullhate von Hateskull’s teeth and impaled his head, and then kept flying into space, because Three-Wolves was a really good thrower. but he was not dead yet. Three-Wolves did four backflips and jumped off of a ballista bolt in the middle of the air, then punched through his chest and pulled out all six of his dragon hearts, and took a bite out of one just to show that he wasn’t fucking around

the other turbodragons stared at this really hard, and all of them immediately both peed and cried from fear. they ran away, and some of them flew.

“friend, you did it!” Bibarel squealed elfishly. then he stopped and stared at something on the ground

“well i mean, yeah” Three-Wolves said, then noticed that Bibarel was acting stranger than usual, and he was usually pretty strange already “also what the balls is up with you”

instead of answering, Bibarel pulled a ring off of Skullhate von Hateskull’s finger. it was made out of fire, and it was inlaid with blood rubies and the teeth of especially evil smurfs, which glowed with wicked necromagics. “it is the Ring of Grimfucler, the thrall-ring of the skull lords, minted in the dark heart of one of the seven secret underground moons”

Bibarel was going to say more arcane BS, but then Three-Wolves took the ring from him

“no, friend!” gasped Bibarel “its allure enraptured hella kings in the Before Ages, but you must resist it! all who wear the ring succumb to its dark ways!”

“sounds fake” Three-Wolves growled “also it’s gotta be at least a +2 or something, so blow me”

Three-Wolves put the ring on and the ghosts of powerful king-wizards and war-sages loomed over him. they wailed with a billion centuries or pain and stretched out bony-ass bone hands at him.

“fuck off ghosts!” Three-Wolves shouted, and chopped them all to death. they crumbled into evil dust and he yawned “so anyway i was thinking like taco bell or something for lunch”

“i guess that sounds cool” Bibarel said “i’ve got like a coupon for 20% off”

and they rode off toward the sunset, which was coincidentally in the same direction as Taco Bell. but also meanwhile, in a far off land full of evil and stuff, they were being watched through a scrying pool full of mercury and hero bones, and the dark shape looming over it cackled and said to itself “THE TIME HAS COME. I WILL KILL THOSE GUYS SO HARD”

I’m crying.

start to finish: such glorious expressions, connecting with Lupinus 

rope by cam damage | shot by molly ace | [more here]

the normalization of jealousy as an indicator of love

the idea that a sufficiently intense love is enough to overcome any practical incompatibilities

the idea that you should meet your partner’s every need, and if you don’t, you’re either inadequate or they’re too needy

the idea that a sufficiently intense love should cause you to cease to be attracted to anyone else

the idea that commitment is synonymous with exclusivity

the idea that marriage and children are the only valid teleological justifications for being committed to a relationship

the idea that your insecurities are always your partner’s responsibility to tip-toe around and never your responsibility to work on

the idea that your value to a partner is directly proportional to the amount of time and energy they spend on you, and it is in zero-sum competition with everything else they value in life

When I ask you to hurt me and you hurt me, I feel: - Understood and accepted. Even though it’s strange and complicated, you think that what I want is ok, even good. - Respected and trusted. You believe that I know what I want, that I can take this, that I will set good boundaries to keep us both healthy. - Loved. You care enough to give me what I’m asking for. You want it too. You want my reactions, my pain, my self. - Yours. Yours, yours.

That actually sounds a lot more like alogia (also known as “poverty of speech”) than mutism. With alogia, your character can still talk, but says only the bare minimum and rarely speaks first, which is pretty much exactly what you’re describing. While alogia is typically associated with schizophrenia, it can sometimes be seen in depression too.

Here’s an example of the differences between alogia and selective mutism:

Normal speech:

Q: Do you have any pets?

A: Yes, I have a bulldog named Pete.

Alogia:

Q: Do you have any pets?

A: Yes.

Q: What kind?

A: A bulldog.

Q: What’s its name?

A: Pete.

Selective mutism:

Q: Do you have any pets?

A nods.

Q: What kind?

A is silent.

Hope that helps!

in no particular order (because I have depression and executive dysfunction):

1. If something sensory about cleaning bothers you, eliminate that before you start. For example, I wear gloves to do the dishes. If the sound of the vacuum bothers you, wear headphones and turn up the music. etc.

2. If you can, make a list of everything that needs to be done. Then acknowledge that you probably can’t do it all, and circle all the things that absolutely, no matter what, have to be done. Pick one (ONE! ONLY ONE! START WITH ONE!) of those things and break it down into smaller steps. Then even smaller steps. Seriously, if step one is “stand up” and step two is “walk to closet” and step 3 is “get mop”, that’s fine. It can be that small.

3. Take a break. “But I literally only started five minutes ago!” Don’t care. If you want a break, take a break. “At this point I’ve spent more time on breaks than I’ve spent on cleaning.” Ok, but you’ve spent more than zero time on cleaning, so you’ve accomplished more than you had at the beginning. “If I take a break it won’t get done!” If you burn out it won’t get done either. Take a break.

4. If nothing is working, try what I call bin cleaning/box cleaning. Take a big trash bag and a box. Pick up the first object you see. Step 1: Is it trash? Put it in the trash bag. Step 2: Will you use it in the next 2 days? No? Put it in the box. It’s a problem for Future You. If you’ll use it in the next 2 days, take time to put it away. Rinse and repeat.

5. Did you get distracted and forget what you were doing? Don’t worry about it. Just clean a thing. It doesn’t matter if it’s the thing you were cleaning before. You have to clean lots of things, so just pick a thing and clean it. Eventually you’ll get around to the thing you forgot.

6. If you have to do a thing you really hate, do a thing you like afterwards. I hate doing dishes, but folding laundry soothes me, so that’s a nice one to do afterwards. YMMV. If there are no cleaning things you like that you can do afterwards, see number 3.

7. Make it fun. Play loud music and dance while you’re cleaning. Wear something that makes you feel cute, or if you prefer, something comfy. Light your favorite candle. Whatever.