Wdym An Average Platonic Bond Cant Be Deep And Meaningful Do None Of You Remember The Power Of Friendship

since mrs, ms, and mr are all descended from the latin word magister, i propose the gender neutral version should be mg, short for "mage"

You're going to do better when you take the labels "healthy", "good", "negative", and "unhealthy" and put them far far away in general but from coping mechanisms and emotions in particular

It was truly life changing for me when a therapist told me this:

"A coping mechanism is a method you use to survive and if it keeps you alive it's doing its job. It's only a problem when you apply it to situations it's not meant for. You need to learn how to put it back in your bag of tools and pull out the appropriate coping mechanism for the situation. And if your situation changes back to one where your old coping mechanism still works you can go back to it."

Your coping mechanism isn't "negative" or "unhealthy". You're just trying to take a hammer to a situation you need a screwdriver for

It's about using the appropriate tool for the situation but the goal is always the same: survive

In a similar note you don't have "negative" or "bad" emotions

You just have emotions

And you're not a monster for feeling a certain way.

You are responsible for your actions but even then an actions ability to do help or harm depends on your situation

Is it manipulative to burst into tears and go on a rant about how you're the worst person alive when someone corrects you?

Depends!

Is the person asking just a friend, coworker, etc asking for something completely reasonable?

Then yeah that's not a good look

Is the person someone who will scream and yell and insult and maybe even hit you until you have shown what they consider to be the 'proper' amount of remorse and debasement?

Then no it's not manipulative, it's a survival tool

I know the internet hates nuance but seriously. Having certain coping mechanisms or feelings or having done certain actions does not make you a monster

But it is important to learn how to find the correct tool to a situation.

If you try to use a hacksaw to attach bookshelf to a wall it's going to go pretty badly and cause a fair amount of damage in the process

But don't beat yourself up for owning a hacksaw. At one point you needed it and at least it's there if you need it again

when i was a teenager it felt very revolutionary to be cruel to myself. like some kind of slow passive protest against how much everything hurt. i starved myself of sleep and food and tenderness because it felt right. it felt sharp and angry and radical and i wanted to be those things. adulthood is the realisation that the world is already working to cut into you well before you learn how to do it yourself. caring for yourself and others is the real protest

So the Smile released a new song yesterday…

Commission Me!

:)

(message comes from friend of bees @ellieofthewoods )

Just to make a point, every time I finished a panel of this I would export it as a PNG on the perceptual setting and use it as a color reference for the next panel

IT'S BAD

PLEASE CHECK YOUR COLOR SETTINGS

EDIT: If you're still having problems, it might help to switch from "Save/Save as" to "Export (as a) Single Layer". Just. Make SURE the box labeled "Expression Color" is set to RGB. I've been messing with this all day, and it looks like this combination of settings will allow exported PNGs to maintain their colors perfectly. To you. So far both Discord and Toyhouse still only display desaturated images and I cannot for the life of me figure out why

Your daily dose of cat memes

It's okay to be an inconvenience.

Hey so you know how Uptown Girl and Party Rock have the same BPM? Guess what else has that BPM…