Arcticbluebird - He Take A Big Steppy

My latest cartoon for New Scientist

HEY HEY LISTEN THE VOICE OF THE MTA TRANSIT SYSTEM, ALL THE ANNOUNCEMENTS ON THE NYC SUBWAY LINE??

SHE'S A TRANS WOMAN AND TRANSITIONED AT 66!!!!!! THE BACKGROUND HUM OF MY CHILDHOOD, AND SHE'S LIKE ME!!!! WHAT THE FUCK

that task you’ve been putting off? that chore you’ve been procrastinating? whatever responsibility it is that you’ve been ignoring, try this: set a timer and dedicate 15 minutes to doing it, and when the timer stops, so do you. you may not complete it in that time frame, and that’s totally okay, because now you’ve made some progress. and guess what? a small victory is still a win.

somethin small. tryna get the creative juices pumpin in my brain.

Ghost Trick is like. What if the key to finding yourself lies in helping other people. What if while saving people’s lives you can also mend their broken hearts and souls. What if a dog loved his owners so so much. What if a giant statue of a roast chicken crushed a woman to death. What if a guy danced everywhere instead of walking. What if you can’t go back to fix all of your mistakes but can still stop yourself from doubling down on them. What if you didn’t remember someone you loved but everything you do is charting a course that can save him. What if you hit a guy with a hard hat at the speed of a bullet. What if you did that with a sweet potato instead. What if a power you’ve only used to try to ruin someone can save her. What if our fates change but we always find our way back to each other. What if a guy became immortal by being killed by a magical meteor. What if that happened to a cat instead.

You can now buy jigsaw puzzles with my illustrations! 🧩 Browse all my jigsaw puzzles on Society6 You can choose from 200, 500 and 1000 piece sets, and several different artworks. The one featured in my photos is the 500-piece version, find it over here: The Forgotten Garden Jigsaw Puzzle by Ulla Thynell

one of the biggest things I can advocate for (in academia, but also just in life) is to build credibility with yourself. It’s easy to fall into the habit of thinking of yourself as someone who does things last minute or who struggles to start tasks. people will tell you that you just need to build different habits, but I know for me at least the idea of ‘habit’ is sort of abstract and dehumanizing. Credibility is more like ‘I’ve done this before, so I know I can do it, and more importantly I trust myself to do it’. you set an assignment goal for the day and you meet it, and then you feel stronger setting one the next day. You establish a relationship with yourself that’s built on confidence and trust. That in turn starts to erode the barrier of insecurity and perfectionism and makes it easier to start and finish tasks. reframing the narrative as a process of building credibility makes it easier to celebrate each step and recognize how strong your relationship with yourself can become

wdym an average platonic bond cant be deep and meaningful do none of you remember the power of friendship

Spicy-brained friends, I would like to propose an update to the very useful ‘if you hate everyone, eat, if everyone hates you, sleep, and if you hate yourself, shower’ mantra to live by

Have you suddenly become a petty, hateful little gremlin who thinks people should face the firing squad for (checks notes) leaving teabags on the counter, breathing loudly, or daring to exist in the same space as you? Perhaps mundane and reasonable requests like ‘hey, we agreed to hang out now, let’s hang out’ make you want to scream and move to a yurt in the woods.

You. Are. Overstimulated.

People talk a lot about being overstimulated, and the physical/mental effects of it. What I haven’t seen is people talking about what it does emotionally, and it took me an embarassingly long time to link up those nitpicky, resentful emotions with the state of overstimulation/meltdown/shutdown.

These feelings do not mean that you’re a bad person! They probably aren’t how you actually feel about the people around you. They probably do mean that your nervous system is at its absolute limit and any request/demand/stimulus is Too Much and taking you into fight or flight territory.

Go lie down in a dark room for an hour, or find somewhere safe and familiar to stim for a bit. If it’s happening a lot, schedule yourself regular low-stimulation shutdown time

Signed: someone who moved in with their nearest and dearest only to have a massive crisis of faith about Suddenly Hating All of Them. I don’t hate them, it’s just overstimulating living with people. If I can spare anyone else a similar 9 months of suspecting that they may actually be a bit of a shit person, then this post is worth it!

another option:

turning it into a windows 95 logo is also acceptable.