The best art advice I’ve ever heard regarding backgrounds was when I attended Nathan Fowkes’ workshop and he said that a background is not just a background. An environment is not just an environment. Give it a temper, give it some characteristics just like it were a regular character. And then he used a rock as an example: let’s see you draw an angry rock, a sad rock, a tired rock… And how would you draw a friendly forest? Or a sleepy lagoon? Whatever communicates your scene better. It sounds funny but he was dead serious, and remembering this advice has helped me so much ever since hearing it.
Monthly Archives: February 2016
Autism Self Diagnosis Tools
Quizzes:
Quiz1 (this is similar to what my psychiatrist made me take for my diagnosis, also pardon the mention of Asperger’s)
Quiz 2Traits:
Asan’s list
A good chart of traits (pardon unnecessary gendering/aspergers)
More traits (pardon asperger’s)
List #1 I created
List #2 I created
List #3 I created
Dsm-5 Criteria
Alternate Criteria
Atypical Traits (warning super gendered)
Resource Page
Asan Resource PageVideos:
This channel has amazing videos on all autism topics! (neurowonderful’s channel)
Autism Tumblrs:
Actuallyautistic tag
@autismproblems
@askanautistic
@autisticliving
@neurowonderful
@piggyschuyler
@butterflyinthewellAutism Merchandise:
Does anyone else experience special interests that you are unable to act on?
For example, my special interest could be indoor rock climbing, but I’m physically incapable of doing that. It isn’t my special interest, but it certainly could be if I didn’t actively avoid thinking about it because I start crying every time I realize it’s impossible.
A few years ago, pet rats were my special interest and I experienced a near physical pain after I’d exhausted all information sources, but still could not acquire pet rats.
Does anyone else run into physical barriers with their special interests? What do you do to deal with that? How does it make you feel?
For me, as I said, I experienced quite a lot of pain I could nearly describe as physical. It made me quite depressed. I tried to not think about it, but it was my special interest: I couldn’t not think about it.
Thankfully, one day, I’d had enough and just decided I was getting rats with or without my parents permission (but not really because my mom did agree to it eventually just not necessarily at that time). I ordered my cage and got three rats the day it came. And all was well.
I’ve never had quite that experience (…yet, anyway). But I have had something vaguely similar by the way of anxiety and burnout getting in the way.
I was very happily engaged in a special interest and spending a lot of time on it and I was pretty content and doing the best mentally I had been in years, but then I started to get really anxious about it because I was doing so much better but had not gone and done the things I thought I was supposed to like responsibilities that my anxiety had caused me to neglect. I was better so I needed to go do those things and instead I was spending all this time on my interest–I did not understand then that the reason I WAS better was probably a lot to do with how I’d been engaging with my interest. So rather than trying to find a balance, I was so anxious and guilty about the situation and put it all away and tried to force myself to be normal. This did not work, but I was too anxious about everything to get back into my special interest. I completely ruined that interest AND my progress. I was pretty instantly miserable and in hindsight it’s hard not to be very frustrated with this act of seeming self-sabotage. But I really did not understand the role of special interests at the time plus anxiety disorders by nature are not required to be rational. I don’t know if it was that level pain or perhaps just that way of experiencing the pain? I just remember it being awful.
And then another time I was doing something similar, being engaged in a special interest and it was helping me feel better but then there was a big life change that broke all my routines and caused a bunch of stress and I went through burnout where I just didn’t have the ability to do much of anything. I had a REAL hard time with my visual processing and as this interest (like most of them) was research based it meant that trying to read or take notes was basically impossible. Even when I got my tablet to read to me, my bran was just completely done with everything and refused to engage with the interest. I haven’t had one since, actually, it’s been a year. I think I would recover a lot better if I could get a special interest but my brain is apparently still stuck in ‘AH NO CAN’T’ mode. *sigh* Anyway THAT was kind of beyond pain because it was coupled with burnout so it was kind of like the whole world collapsing on me while the floor was ripped out from under me….just….very not good.
In general though, I think I’ve been lucky in special interests. They’ve always been things that I could access in some way or another enough to satisfy me–any limitations or barriers I’ve mostly just rolled with and it hasn’t been painful except for the times above.
it’s still really weird trying to think about all the data we lost… pretty much, if it’s not a commission we’re still working on, or from our mypaint scraps we don’t have it anymore, all poof
in a way it’s kind of freeing, but we have lost a lot of evidence of our skills in various crafts and won’t have the energy to rebuild that any time soon as far as we can tell, so it reduces possibilities for odd jobs (which is about what we can manage right now, if that)
You know what I want to see more of in sci fi? Aliens who deviate from their species’ “norm.”
Like, queer aliens, but queer in alien terms; like, aliens whose typical family unit is a trio comprised of three different gendersexes, but sometimes aliens will form trios that only have two different gendersexes, and they still produce viable offspring, but only of the two parent gendersexes, and that carries a social stigma because each gendersex is supposed to play a separate role in the family unit.
Aliens for whom it is the norm to change gendersex upon reaching a certain age, but sometimes (possibly due to a genetic anomaly) it doesn’t happen, so those aliens either a) continue to present as a juvenile gender despite being a stage 2 adult, b) present as a stage 2 adult despite their physical characteristics, or c) undergo medical procedures to change their body artificially, though the technology in that area is still imperfect.
Or disabled aliens who have prosthetic tails/fins/wings/tentacles/etc. Aquatic aliens who can’t hold their breath for an accepted amount of time and so have to carry around atmosphere tanks. Aliens with degenerative conditions that are slowly losing their infrared vision. Aliens who lack their species trademark color-changing camouflage skin. Aliens who are allergic to common foods on their own planets and are frustrated that interplanetary restaurants don’t take that into account when listing which menu items are “safe” for which species.
Neurodivergent aliens who are not connected to the hivemind, who do their best to blend in and guess what they are supposed to be doing, but who are cast out when they are discovered, only to have their numbers build up enough that they are able to build a society on their own using communication aids such as verbal or manual language.
Aliens who are just different in small ways, like generally all three eyes are different colors, except that rare genetic quirks sometimes cause two or even all three to be the same color. Aliens born with five fingers instead of four. Aliens who are more coordinated with their prehensile toes than with their hands, which is inconvenient when most products are designed to be used with hands, but they manage. Aliens born with vestigial wings instead of just residual bone nubs. Aliens born without horns or tusks or spines.
and okay, so I’m basically arguing for more diverse representation of aliens, but like, if our default mode of thinking is to assume that all members of a species are a certain way, then what does that say about how we view our own species? that only ones who follow certain norms qualify as “human”?
or whatever maybe i just think that thinking about this sort of stuff is cool.
someone donated, thank you very much! it’s always a huge help
kinda neg below the cut, but hanging in there
hanging in there, somewhat dead to the world with a pile of work waiting for us when/if we can come back. Very likely we’ll get disability unless our court date is just not the right part of the year (then we’ll have to appeal which is like a 4mo wait or something). So, that’ll improve our quality of life (food, clothes, etc) and work conditions a lot — as well as provide a possibility of paying some commissioners who are no longer interested/want to wait back
We wish we were further along in the process but most of it is really terrible if you have any sort of socialization or language differences. Started therapy again to hopefully get some practical help (and because we’re having communication issues in general lately and need someone to process to and it’s easier to just say things, for us, when that’s their job), because last year really left us messed up and with a few holes in our support… we get burnouts/crashes in general every ?three to five? years or so and they can last over a year, but usually they come after events. Last time we had one we had a much better system of support as far as getting around places and getting fed and such.
So not only are we just not really able to be social in normative or expected ways and less able to take care of ourself, because of our usual dip, but we don’t have anyone really in a position to help us take care of ourself either. For us that translates to higher expenses for means of feeding/clothing/washing ourself that we can access right now, and the like… So, broke all the time and never have enough of anything. Tired of begging though and nervous of the visibility it brings too…
Occasionally can handle being here… funny enough coffee sometimes lowers our anxiety/overstim/?? enough for it, but making a habit of caffeine has always been bad for us (get bad sleep disturbances with night terrors/”exploding head syndrome” and arrhythmia/palpitations/?? after awhile)
Still like/appreciate people approaching us with kindness, but kind of best to think of us like a tree: not going anywhere, you can come to it… but it can’t come to you to and support you, or catch you if you fall… you have to choose to come to it and put your weight to it.
1200 Years of Women Composers: A Free 78-Hour Music Playlist That Takes You From Medieval Times to Now
why do people care so much about lawns!!! “ohhh no anthills make it look uneven” “moss and clover will ruin it” “the grass cant be TOO tall” shut the FUCK up i dont care if you think it looks nice what looks nice about it? there is nothing special about spending thousands of dollars fervently preening sod making sure nothing else grows or lives there FUCK!!!!! OFF!!!!!!!! YUPPIES!!!!!!!!!
it sucks too bc our yard naturally attracts wild life like snakes and raccoons and squirrels and rabbits and even foxes but the constant mowing and shit scares them all away!!!!!
poor snakes!! they dont deserve to have their lil leaf pile homes all fucked up!!
It was started as a wealth symbol… a lawn shows you can afford to grow an inedible fire hazard that takes a lot of work to maintain instead of food (this goes back at least to 1500s). The industrial revolution brought about the possibility of the lawnmower which made it more accessible to the middle class and during the 1950s there was a push for the lawn to be representative of a person in control of their household and life and it stuck.
In short: lawns are generally about keeping up appearances… which in turn is generally about classism.
It’s not that I necessarily have a problem with ALL men, the problem I have is with the idea of male entitlement that exists AT ALL on a wide scale level in our society. That SO many men unknowingly demonstrate. You aren’t entitled to another person’s body. Period. For example one of the underclassmen today was catcalling the girls soccer team of the neighboring school, after I called him out I realized my anger bubbling up inside wasn’t directed at him but at the shear fact that he was never taught that it isn’t okay to do that in the first place.
trystabackingupherstuff 