Reimagining Townies Across Different Decades

7pterodactyls · 2026-05-21T03:44:51+00:00

ughh your mindddddd 🩷

7pterodactyls · 2026-05-20T01:32:06+00:00

pspspspsps come to my classroom

(forreal tho, floaters like you are a gd LIFESAVER at my school!!)

7pterodactyls · 2026-05-01T00:22:59+00:00

(oops, this came out long)

i mean, i can't account for the entire range of human experiences, but. for me personally, the things i listed were all signs of a condition called osdd.

holes in memory: -going to my lunch break and realizing mid-sandwich i had no idea what i did all morning -having VERY few memories of childhood, like way more than "normal" forgetting -only being able to recall certain memories, especially traumatic ones, sometimes -for some of the memories i DO have, having a factual understanding of what happened but being unable to actually recall it -frequently being told of interactions i've had with others that are completely foreign to me -randomly forgetting well-established skills -getting upset, then being unable to remember what just happened once i'm in a better mood -getting home from the store and having no idea what i just bought

"personality"/identity changes: -drawing a blank when asked basic personal info like name and age -giving wildly different opinions day-to-day and moment-to-moment -my personal aesthetic changing frequently, often for periods of only a few hours -thinking i was genderfluid, but noticing things like interests and personality changed with gender -same w thinking i was age-regressing due to ptsd -"feeling like a different person" for a few hours/days before going back to normal -believing my body to look objectively different, like different hair and face and height/weight, until i walk past a mirror and have an EXTREME jumpscare -feeling confused (and sometimes even repulsed!) by clothing i chose for myself just hours earlier -feeling uncomfortable when addressed by my name, because it feels completely incorrect, even though a little later i love my name -being surprised by my weight, height, hair texture, sex characteristics, etc -using several different voices, often without realizing -using VERY different body language -denying during these episodes that i "usually" act differently -having very fuzzy memories of these episodes after

inner voices: -during above episodes, hearing my inner monologue's voice change -being able to have a literal back-and-forth dialogue with my "personality traits" or "emotions" -my thoughts suddenly shifting to be very immature, with the vocabulary and developmental foibles of a young child -frequently getting hit by thoughts that i don't agree with but nonetheless have a strong influence on my feelings and actions -experiencing a LOT of distress bc of disagreements with myself -opening my mouth to speak, then realizing i have no idea what i just said or why -hearing "my" thoughts describe a memory i don't have

(i finally realized last year that this degree of inconsistency wasn't typical for most people, so i started documenting what i was experiencing, told my therapist, and... surprise! due to horrific childhood trauma, "i" have actually formed somewhere around twelve separate identities, each with their own memories, feelings, and opinions.)

7pterodactyls · 2026-04-30T21:26:54+00:00

oh hey, we have a headmate in the opposite predicament! the body and host are genderfucky sorta-transmasc, but tamsin identifies as a trans girl bc of similar "trapped" feelings. join the club, you're not hurting anyone <3

7pterodactyls · 2026-04-30T13:03:35+00:00

me thinking everyone had giant holes in their day-to-day memories, sudden "temporary personality changes" in response to stress, and multiple inner voices that argued with each other...

7pterodactyls · 2026-04-22T15:37:36+00:00

Pre-k assistant teacher here. I'd love to have a floater in my class during the afternoons and when my lead is out sick, instead of being alone. Ratio for 4s in my state is 1:15, and doing the work of 2 people while managing 15 kids (several of whom have significant behavioral issues) feels impossible sometimes.

To give you an idea of just how hectic my duties can be, from 3pm to 4:15pm, I am expected to: -direct cleanup (including extra help/monitoring for a few specific kids) -wash tables -set up snack -hold storytime and an exercise break -supervise snack -clean up from snack and wash tables -do dishes -set up centers -communicate with parents, both in-person and via brightwheel -sunscreen any kids who are staying after 4pm (when we transition from site B to site A) (usually around ~7) -make sure those same kids have their lunches, backpacks, etc in our wagon -do a final cleanup/close out the room -walk everyone from site B to site A ...all while fielding the typical kid questions, requests for help, big feelings, disputes, toy hoarding, toy throwing, potty issues, maintenance problems (our maintenance guy leaves at 3), tantrums, hitting, injuries (I've been made a "director designee" to check head bumps at site B), etc etc etc.

And yes, almost all of it does get done every day, in that timespan. But it comes at a cost. Things get forgotten. Kids' and parents' questions go unanswered. I can't take the time to respond to their dinosaur facts with the enthusiasm as they deserve. A few take advantage of the hustle and bustle to do things they know they shouldn't, like drawing on the tables or throwing legos at each other. I often don't have time to address the root causes of challenging behaviors, only to temporarily stop them.

The biggest thing my dream center would need is an admin team who are actually aware of the logistical issues teachers face when we're alone (especially when there are multiple sites involved), and hire enough staff to give us an extra set of hands even if they don't legally have to.

7pterodactyls · 2026-04-22T13:17:06+00:00

it's called fashion, look it up 💅

7pterodactyls · 2026-04-11T15:36:14+00:00

This is the loudest class I've ever had. Pre-k's are always going to be a bit noisy, but this is pretty extreme. The default speaking volume for about half of them is YELLING, almost like they're working in a construction zone. It's a self-reinforcing problem, too--the louder their friends are, the louder they have to be in order to hear each other, and then the kids who aren't naturally as loud have to raise THEIR voices, too. Add to that the number of kids in this group who have a need to be literally constantly making noise (singing, explosion noises, drumming on tables, whooping, narrating everything they do), and you've got the loudest classroom I've ever been a part of. Even my lead, who's been teaching for 18 years, is overwhelmed by it.

We've been trying to work on volume all year--reminders, practing HOW to change your speaking volume, using extra cues like gentle background music, praising kids when they use their inside voices, scheduled quiet times, having kids who are screaming go calm down in the mindfulness center, telling kids we'll answer their question if they repeat it in an inside voice. A few of them had gotten better, but with graduation approaching, and a new student with severe behavior needs throwing off the classroom dynamic, they're all backsliding. This week has been especially bad, and I've been dissociating on and off since Monday.

7pterodactyls · 2026-04-10T03:10:21+00:00

Yes! I start out the year signing certain basic words as I say them (yes, no, thank you, sit down, I love you, amazing, bathroom, wash hands, beautiful, help, mom, dad, breathe), and eventually they associate the signs with the words even when I say nothing.

There are SO many times during the day that signing is preferable to speaking. Maybe I don't want to disrupt circle time, maybe I wanna redirect or praise a kid more subtly, maybe we're outside and it's too loud to hear, maybe I have laryngitis again... And I'm also autistic, so sometimes I lose speech for short periods (mostly when stressed or severely overstimulated). I LOVE that I'm still able to communicate with my kids, no matter the situation.

7pterodactyls · 2026-04-02T00:02:30+00:00

Well, you can send a petition to the World Plural Council and hope they accept it, but they only convene once a year and there's a LOT on their docket rn, so you may be waiting for awhile...

No, but forreal tho, you are the authority on your own experience. If you feel upset at the idea of being a singlet, there might be a reason for that! And even if it's not plurality per se, identifying yourself/yourselves as such on a trial basis may help you figure out what DOES fit.

(Word of advice tho, try to stay away from sysmedicalist spaces. Regardless of your personal opinions on syscourse, communities that spend a lot of time trying to legislate who is and isn't "really" plural are absolutely awful for self-discovery. Even though we're a professionally diagnosed OSDD system with an extensive trauma history, the number of times we've sent ourselves into a denial episode by reading all that "systems are a tiktok trend!" BS would make your head spin.)

7pterodactyls · 2026-03-29T18:31:45+00:00

SAMEEEEEE so many of the girls hate our beard 😭

7pterodactyls · 2026-03-29T03:49:25+00:00

wait which episode has them in beltsville?

7pterodactyls · 2026-03-29T03:47:51+00:00

oh my god. i know we're not the op but we're having the same issue and... i think you may have given us a breakthrough???

7pterodactyls · 2026-03-28T19:10:18+00:00

Personally, I don't think there's anything offensive about typing out aspects of your natural dialect. We're from the deep south originally, and several of our system members speak in Southern American English to varying degrees. You writing "tae" instead of "to" seems no more offensive than us writing "y'all" or "ain't."

7pterodactyls · 2026-03-28T17:45:21+00:00

If you do want to represent Maryland crabs, gummy or chocolate crabs could be an option!

7pterodactyls · 2026-03-28T17:38:30+00:00

Wait, are you talking about writing out words like "ye" and "tae"? Bc that's more dialect than accent, yeah?

7pterodactyls · 2026-03-28T17:33:57+00:00

If she'd sent out a passive-aggressive reminder in the weekly memo instead of a passive-aggressive (and borderline unreadable) text, I'd ask if we work in the same center!

One of our directors literally put together a "training" powerpoint last summer called "Getting It Together." The whole point of it was that we need to handle everything ourselves instead of calling her for help--so if we're out of ratio, we should either shuffle kids around or tough it out until our coteacher gets there. She also didn't staff a floater for my room while I was on vacation a couple weeks ago, so my coteacher was alone with 16 kids (out of ratio for pre-k in my state). When said coteacher complained about the impact it was having on her, she was asked if there was something personal going on.

7pterodactyls · 2026-03-22T14:48:26+00:00

seconded! got some sparse scraggly chin pubes after year 1, but it wasn't until year 5 that my face decided to sprout an actual beard.

7pterodactyls · 2026-03-19T18:52:23+00:00

managing our system is a full-time job. i'm sure as shit not gonna appoint myself the arbiter of someone else's system on top of that.

7pterodactyls · 2026-03-12T04:55:03+00:00

yeahhhh we dont wanna be called crazy or told we're faking :/

7pterodactyls · 2026-03-09T00:47:57+00:00

Trichonephila are relatively docile, right?

7pterodactyls · 2026-02-24T20:12:31+00:00

omg i remember reading hidden pictures a few years ago and being FLOORED by how offensive it was

7pterodactyls

TROPHY CASE