No Meaningful Title

Mostly fandom stuff (Animorphs, Young Wizards, Harry Potter, Anathem, many others.), but who knows what will come down in here. Also, I will reblog anything Chanur saga related.

[robotslenderman]

The recent hot VS cold polls have made me realise that a lot of people have no idea how to cool down.

As someone from a hot country that's regularly on fire, here's some tips:

WATER IS YOUR FRIEND! WATER! IS! YOUR! FRIEND! You can transfer SO much heat into this bad boy! You cannot cool down without water!

Wrists under the cold tap. Splash your face and the back of your neck. Fan yourself.

In some countries you can buy a little handeld fan with a water sprayer.

Damp tea towel around the neck. Stick an ice pack in there on hotter days.

Half fill a water bottle with water, stick in freezer. If you use a bottle with a straw, make sure it's lying on its side with the straw side up and out of the water. When frozen top up the rest of the way with tap water and off you go.

Desperate to cool off? Wet T-shirt. Sit in front of a fan. This will nuke it, just don't get hypothermia and don't fall asleep like this.

Cold showers are also your friend in summer. Some people get psyched up by these. Personally, I sleep like a baby, so I'm good to have them before bed. Just keep in mind that it takes a bit of time for the cool to circulate, so your body will tell you that you're colder than you actually are. I find that when I have cold showers I need to step out of the spray when I think I'm cold... I'll just wait, and thirty seconds later the temperature has evened out and I actually need to step under again. Rinse and repeat until you maintain coolness even after stepping out for a bit.

If you can't do cold showers, turn the cold shower on anyway and just stick your arms under. When they're cold, lift your arms up above your head. The sensation of cool blood draining into your body is fucking weird and kinda unpleasant but less unpleasant than being hot.

Feet in a tub of water with ice. Blood naturally flows to your extremities when hot, so take advantage of this. If you don't have a tub of ice water, sticking a wet rag on your feet in front of the fan works too, it's the less powerful version of the wet T-shirt.

Drinks lots of water but make sure that water has electrolytes as well. Stay in the shade.

Keep air circulating. Fans don't actually cool rooms down, they just help transfer heat from your body to the moisture on your skin or the air via evaporative cooling.

Block north facing windows early in the morning so the sun doesn't get in. If you're in the northern hemisphere, this is opposite for you. Keep in mind that if your home is brick, the bricks will still heat up and slowly release heat into your home even after the sun goes down so this will only do so much.

If it's hotter inside than outside, close all your windows but two, making sure they're on opposite sides of the house/unit you're in. Point a fan out of one window, making sure that the doors between the rooms with the open windows are all open. This will help create a mini pressure system in your home, pulling cooler air in and pushing the hotter air out via the fan. Bonus points if you can get that fan high up where the hot air rises; even within a single room the top is much hotter than the air by the floor. Adjust the amount of open windows based on how many fans you have, but generally you want more windows with fans open than windows without fans to keep the pressure correct.

Obviously, use your common sense for these. Not everything WILL work for you, just use the stuff that does and adjust what needs to be adjusted. Some of these will be impossible to use in the workplace but others you can still use. Others are best used at home. If humidity impacts your ability to use any of these, get a dehumidifier if that's an option, or use more ice instead of evaporation.

Also keep in mind that the skinnier you are, the faster these will work. More fat means more insulation, means more heat, so you may need to be more patient with some of these or use them in combination.

[robotslenderman]

Bringing this back for my dying mutuals

[jv]

Something it always pissed me off is when foreign people on the internet talk about my country like if it was a stars wars planet: Spain is scorching sun, wine, flamenco, etc.

So since I come from the rainier-than-London Asturias and now live in the "colder than Paris in winter" Madrid, I get pissed by this absurd generalizations.

But then... I realize I do the same thing with other countries. UK is rainy. Norway is cold. Greece is hot and dry.

So, folks, help me learn. Is your country weather more or less well described by whatever the stereotype is? Does that represent just a part of your country or is actually a good picture of the entire thing?

[uboat53]

There is no description I've ever heard of the United States that actually matches the whole. If you're lucky, you'll match about a quarter to a third of it.

I live in California, so it's more likely that what people have heard matches where I live, and, even then, it barely reaches half at the best of times.

[jv]

yeah, in the US I would apply this more at a state level. Is it all Minnesota cold as balls? is it Washington rainy all around? because in Spain is the opposite, you can get from california weather to Minnesota weather to Seattle weather in a 7-8 hours car trip.

(ok, maybe not really Minnesota, I don't think there's any place in europe you can get that, really, without going to the north of norway or so)

[hmeras]

Washington (state) is not all a pile of dreary, gray, rainy, and miserable. You're thinking of the state west of the Cascades (and even then, we don't get much rain during summer) - cross the mountains and you're in much hotter, drier territory with very little rain.

[gatesofminrathous]

there will never be anything as funny as the mutual disbelief between long form and short form fic writers about each other's style.

short form writers look at people writing 100k+ fics as though this is some sort of talent given as part of a fae bargain, that the commitment required shows some sort of ungodly mental fortitude.

meanwhile long form writers look at people writing 1000 word one shots like god I would cut off my left nipple to be able to say anything concisely. i would love to play with multiple ideas. free me from the shackles of this child I have birthed. i love them but I now must take them to t-ball and doctor's appointments and they're going to destroy everything I own.

[brushstrokesapocalyptic]

youtube video essay titled THIS BOOK BROKE ME, the thumbnail is a picture of the necronomicon, the video consists of incoherent ramblings in the woods at night. the channel goes dead after this, and despite numerous search efforts over the following years, the youtuber's whereabouts remain a mystery to this day.

[notabled-noodle]

normal vs disordered: executive dysfunction edition

normal: taking up to 20 minutes to get “in the zone” (or slightly longer if it’s a “boring” task)

not normal: really struggling to sit through the time it takes to get in the zone, stopping a task unless you’re into it immediately

normal: not wanting to do a boring or repetitive task, but doing it anyway because you know it has to be done

not normal: spending hours, days, weeks, etc not doing a task because you cannot bring yourself to do it

normal: not wanting to switch tasks when you’re halfway through a different task, but being able to do it if you have to

not normal: once you’ve started a task, you end up getting sucked into it and you cannot switch until it’s done

normal: finding it helpful to have a to-do list to remind you of everything you need to do

not normal: not being able to function without a to-do list, written instructions, and other physical reminders of tasks

normal: getting more done in a teamwork environment, or preferring to do tasks around others

not normal: not being able to do anything (or finding it hard to do things) unless you have an “accountability buddy” with you

if you feel like you constantly need to trick your brain into doing things, that’s probably executive dysfunction. if you get frustrated, overwhelmed, and just wish you could get stuff done, that’s probably executive dysfunction. remember that you’re not lazy, and that there are coping mechanisms out there for you

[a-mel0n]

reblog if you’ve had an online friendship that’s lasted more than 2 years

[luxe-pauvre]

“In that predicament, if I’m lucky, I’ll remember the observation, usually attributed to Joan Baez, that “action is the antidote to despair.” People tend to quote this in the context of political or environmental activism, but it applies to everything else, too: an overfilled inbox, a cluttered garage, an intimidating creative project or overdue tax return. If you can get yourself over the gap between knowing what you need to do and taking an action, things can only get better from there. Which means that at least the nature of the immediate challenge is clear: not to “become more productive” or “get motivated” or “make a plan for the month” or something like that, but just to do one thing to address whatever situation you’re in. […] If you can approach your daily life in this way for a while – as a sequence of momentary, self-contained, eminently doable actions, rather than as an arduous matter of chipping away at enormous challenges – you might notice something profound, which is that, in fact, this is all you ever need to do. You can make your way through life exclusively in this manner. (As E. L. Doctorow said of writing, it’s “like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”) And not just that: actually, it’s all you ever could do. There is no achievement, in the history of human civilisation, that has ever been accomplished by any means other than as a sequence of doable actions. In the end, it isn’t really a question of “breaking big projects down into small chunks.” It’s more a matter of seeing that “big projects” are nothing but psychological constructs, quasi-illusory entities summoned into existence by taking a particular view of what our lives really consist of – which is moments, and the actions that unfold in them. After all, in any given moment, we’re never actually “working on a big project” or “addressing a major challenge” or anything similar. We’re always just taking an action. And then another. And another.”

— Oliver Burkeman, How to get out of a rut

[mollyjames]

Cleaning gets easier when you remember it's a thing you're doing to make your life less miserable, and not a thing you're doing as punishment

[mollyjames]

[edhelwen1]

You can stop in the middle of cleaning!?

[wheeloffortune-design]

Yes! Because it's not a goal to be achieved, but a cycle!

Instead of seeing the house as clean/not clean, it helps a lot to see cleaning as a constant upkeep of your environment. Taking care of your home, and of yourself, is a good thing!

(still unlearning the guilt and anxiety associated with cleaning. it's an uphill battle.)

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

This is why I’ve started putting on an episode of a podcast or a timer and challenging myself to see how much cleaning I can do before it finishes.

Crucially, I’m NOT challenging myself to do all the cleaning before it finishes, because my ADHD brain is pretty sure that’s impossible.

But more cleaning than I did last time? Yeah I can probably do that.

[pentapoda]

Every time someone comments on my old fic, i feel like I'm an old actor getting paid residuals. Appreciate you, old-fic-commenters. Key source of emotional income, tbh.

[hmeras]

I wrote a thing! It's about aan who signed up to become a dog learning to stand up for himself and his humanity more and make some friends

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

And to quote a review from elsewhere

Y'all, this story is incredible, it's got notes of *Jarhead* and *Generation Kill,* along with being a disability narrative and a reflection on the impact of trauma.

[hmeras]

(and of course there's a typo in the description)

[distinguishedbaloney]

[eilooxara]

Non cooking spray stick

[eilooxara]

Non spray stick cooking

[that-house]

Non cooking stick spray

[yeahokayillreblogthat]

yeah okay ill reblog that

[autism-official]

[hmeras]

I wrote a thing! It's about aan who signed up to become a dog learning to stand up for himself and his humanity more and make some friends

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

And to quote a review from elsewhere

Y'all, this story is incredible, it's got notes of *Jarhead* and *Generation Kill,* along with being a disability narrative and a reflection on the impact of trauma.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Recommended tags for my body snatcher space horror from the point of view of the body snatcher

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

#oooh I remember this premise from one of Derin’s old polls#it goes without saying because it’s Derin but go read this#are we getting this or is this just a teaser?#it hasn’t popped up in my Patreon feed yet so I’m leaning towards teaser#but I’m immediately loving the protagonist’s mindset#I love when a writer can make a character so clearly alien so quickly#and the definition of what they consider a “person” is fun#makes me question society stuff#very interested

It won this month's bonus chapter poll, so you get the first chapter. $5+ patreon and ko-fi supporters vote on these. You'll get a chapter every month that it wins the poll. Voters tend to like to focus on one story at a time, so you'll likely get a chapter most months, but it depends on the votes.

[omnybus]

of course the expert computer programmer would be a furry

[toastyglow]

"everyone is paying super close attention to everyone else all the time" actualy statistical error. hypervigilance georg, who enters fight or flight when someone starts breathing differently, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

[bakurapika]

#this one's for the people who hear 'people aren't paying that close attention to you! I mean do YOU pay that close of attention to them?'#and go: unfortunately yeah!!!!!!!#you are georg hope this helps. love u#hang in there one day u will be able to pay less attention all the time (tags from op)

[kedreeva]

Hey hang on a second

As important as it was to contact Tumblr when they made that asinine, fucked up change, now that they've reversed it, you have a chance to say thanks for reversing it.

I know that you're probably still riding the high (negative) from the stress of going through yesterday's changes, and worrying about the fate of your community, and how badly the change would have affected creators. We banded together, and we let the staff know that we didn't like what they were doing, and you know what? They listened. That's part of why we're here on Tumblr and not other places that would have just shoved that down our throats regardless of the hundreds of thousands of complaints. Yeah, they fucked up. Big time. But they also backed off, and it's important to speak on that front as well if you want them to do it again later.

So, even though you may still be mad that they did it at all, take a moment and a breath, and click here. Select feedback if it isn't already selected. And just say "Hey, thanks for listening to your users, and for rolling back the change. I like my community here, and I like that you listened to us when we asked you not to do something we didn't like." It doesn't need to be elaborate. But if we want them to listen to us, making it worth listening to us is a step in the process.

Which also means that if you added a negative review somewhere due to this update, consider retracting or editing it to address the back track on the update. If you were a premium user and you cancelled in order to speak with your money to object to the change, consider speaking again now that you've been listened to.

Staff fucked up. But I'd rather have a staff that fucks up sometimes and then actually listens to its users and fixes or tries to fix it, than a staff that fucks up and pushes through to force the fuck up on everyone. So I'm going to thank them for listening this time, and I'm going to encourage them to listen again next time.

[jv]

I just want to point out the massive amount of brownie points Staff just scored by just being reasonable and listening to feedback. This is the kind of win that extremely rarely you see a tech team achieving from their users point of view.

So...

Once more, Tumblr wins over all other platforms by not doing anything.