there is no theme here

[eymurn]

In your 20s, you'll feel like you're losing the race. It's important to understand that there is no race.

[writing-prompt-s]

Several "silent protagonist" type adventurers are getting on the guilds nerves with their refusal to speak, so in an attempt to teach them a lesson the guild leadership forces them to team up. Much to the guilds annoyance they all manage to work together flawlessly in spite of never speaking.

[greelin]

sorry to hear that you haven’t been feeling all that great lately. Do you want me to hunt you for sport

[greelin]

no worries if not. will be thinking of you regardless

[dog-journey]

Lili Chin- The Play Way

In January 2020, I attended Dr. Amy Cook's PLAY WAY seminar at Pasadena Humane Society. The seminar was about "social play" as a tool for rehabilitating reactive/stressed/fearful dogs.

"Social Play" has been defined as something different from playing with toys (tug, fetch, etc.) It is literally "goofing around" with your dog in a way that they like, that makes them happy. Body language responsiveness, movement and timing is everything.

Not only did we get to see some inspiring and entertaining video footage of Amy Cook playing with her dogs, some attendees had also brought their own dogs to play with, while Amy offered coaching.

We saw the Play Way live!

It was an amazing and delightful experience and I couldn't wait to get home to play with my 15 year old Boogie (now passed on) who hadn't been interested in Tug or Fetch in over a year due to his vision loss. The Play Way class was like learning a new language, a new vocabulary to play with my dog.

This infographic cannot possibly do justice to all the material covered in the Play Way seminar, which also focused on play as "therapy". For now, I hope this is enough to pique everyone's interest in the subject and how to be mindful and respectful of our dog's body language and of our own body language in conversations with our dog.

Also read: Whole Dog Journal article on The Play Way

Image description and text under readmore.

Description begins.

[image: Five pairs of dogs showing playful behaviors. From left to right: A dog playbows to another, a dog hipbumps another, a dog chases another dog that is running away, a larger dog rolls on its back, playfully wiggling to a smaller dog, and lastly, two dogs play bitey face.]

The Play Way with Amy Cook PhD. playwaydogs.com

illustrated by Lili Chin doggiedrawings.net

Social Play is an excellent way for a dog to be in a happy state of mind and to be physically relaxed or loosened up. Playing also lets us know if a dog is truly relaxed or concerned about anything, so we can more effectively help them feel better.

Good play is an INVITATION. We invite our dog when they are looking at us, not when they are busy. We don't pressure them, as grabbiness, pushiness, and nagging are a turn-off. Pause and greet again before making a new suggestion. If your dog doesn't take up your suggestion but is still attentive, try something new.

FLIRT! Use SUSPENSE.

Not all play involves touching, but good play will have an element of suspense! Take pauses. Do not rush.

Yes: Start with slower, softer energy.

Yes: Give your dog plenty of room to move around freely.

Yes: Invite, wait, listen to your dog's response (body language)

Yes: Take "no" as an answer. PAUSE. Try something different.

No: Don't make your dog feel trapped or overwhelmed.

No: Don't make your dog wrong.

You want your dog to feel SAFE to open up and play with you.

IF you touch your dog, use the 3-SECOND RULE. Pull back after 3 seconds, staying engaged. Does your dog come back to you?

[Image sequence: Greet: A human claps their hands then says hi and reaches their palms out towards a small dog, which wags its tail. Friendly Pause: The human pauses, kneeling on the ground gently reaching out towards the dog, which stands still, confused. The human leans back, bringing their arms back in. The dog orients to them, thinking: “maybe”. Greet Again, New Invitation: The human turns away from the dog, folding down towards the ground and turning their face to look at the dog from over their shoulder. They say, hello! The dog approaches the human. Then, the human taps their fingers along the ground, and the dog playfully investigates, thinking “interesting”. Finally, the human leans back up, still kneeling, playfully wiggling their fingers in the air in front of them, and the dog happily play bows.]

With SOCIAL PLAY, the use of toys or food is not essential because you are not teaching your dog how to play. You are playing with your dog and learning what they like!

[Image: A vertical gradient scale goes from a reddish 8 at the top to a yellow 1 down at the bottom. A dash-line box encloses the numbers 5, 4, and 3, and the happy faces of a human and dog.]

Be in your dog's ENERGY RANGE!

What is your dog's energy level?

If your dog is overexcited (eg, 8) slow down to a 6-7.

If your dog is unsure or shy (eg, 2) try 1-3.

Play is a CONVERSATION. Here are some ideas to develop a "play vocabulary" with your dog:

YOU are the PREDATOR!

* Stay on the floor

[Image: Four vertically aligned orange squares showing play moves: 1. “Claw” Hands- Hands outstretched, fingers curled into “claws”. 2. Flat Hands- Hand outstretched, fingers pressed flat together, wrist bent back. 3. “Bitey” hands- A variation on “claw” hands where the fingers wriggle to “bite”. 4. “HAR” mouth- a human with their mouth open in a bitey-face gesture.]

[Image: A series of play interactions between a human and a dog. 1. The human play bows at the dog, kneeling with their arms splayed out onto the floor, saying “I’m gonna getcha!” 2. The human holds claw hands out towards the dog- Suspense! 3. The human gently pushes the dog back on the chest, saying “Silly puppy!” The dog pushes back towards the hand. 4. The human uses bitey hand to gently grab at the dog’s muzzle, and says “Bite you!” 5. The human uses a finger to poke the dog’s butt. 6. “Head butt!” The human gets on all fours and butts into the dog’s side with their head. 7. The human uses bitey hand to grab at the dog’s butt. “Bite your butt!”]

YOU are the PREY!

[Image: Four vertically aligned orange squares showing play moves: 1. Hiding face- A human hides their face behind their hands. 2. Pulling away- A human on all fours leans away from the action. 3. Piano hands- a human dances their fingers across the floor. 4. Rolling, flopping over- a human rolls onto their back, legs in the air and arms folded into their chest.]

[Image: A series of play interactions between a human and a dog. 1. A human crawls away from a dog on all fours, then peeks over their shoulder at the dog, asking “Gonna get me?”. Then, the dog jumps up onto the kneeling human. The human rolls onto their back and celebrates with the dog, “You got me!” 2. The human kneels, folded forward onto the floor doing piano hands. They say “Hello”. The dog approaches, and the human hides their face from the dog. Then, the dog fake bites the human’s cheek, tail wagging. 3. A dog watches curiously as a human shakes out a blanket. The human then hides under the blanket and the dog climbs up onto them, thinking “You silly! I get you!”]

How is your dog responding?

[Image: a human kneels on the floor and watches as the dog walks away from them. It thinks “need to look.”]

If your dog disconnects from you and looks towards something more interesting or concerning (that is not too close), let them process the other thing. Don't pressure them to come back to you.

When you let your dog look and dismiss the other thing on their own, the more of their attention that you really have when you get it!

NOPE. You are being WEIRD.

[Image: four examples of a dog showing stress. 1. Look Away: A dog turns and looks away. 2. Shake off- A dog shakes off like they’re wet. 3. Stress yawn- A dog yawns. 4. Busy Sniffing- a dog sniffs the ground.]

At first you may get a lot of "Not Now"s. If your dog shows confused signals or becomes busy doing other stuff, hold back. (Especially with the “shy" dogs) Your dog may not understand what you are doing.

When they approach you again, check your energy level, greet again, and try something different.

[Image: A human wiggles their fingers at a dog, which play bows with an open mouth and says “Bite you!”. Another drawing of the dog play bowing facing forwards and panting, tail wagging.]

When you do something that your dog likes, they will keep coming back to you. Their bodies are loose and curved. They may roll around, jump on you, or fake-bite you. They may even laugh!

Now that you know what your dog likes, you can do it over and over again!

Taught by Dr. Amy Cook playwaydogs.com

illustrated by Lili Chin doggiedrawings.net

Description ends.

[navigatorsnorth]

Phenomenal spare wheel cover I walked past the other day

[viralfrog]

[stuckinapril]

lol i hate today’s era of absolutely zero nuance takes. a friend didn’t behave exactly as you’d wanted them to? cut them off. a guy didn’t text you back instantly bc he has his own life? he’s just giving you breadcrumbs. doing something makes you uncomfortable? don’t do it anymore. someone isn’t instantly available for you? disinterest. just absolutist statements that often don’t apply to the multilayer situations of everyday life. like. stop. literally just stop it

[rollerska8er]

It's incredible how much pop psychology and therapyspeak boils down to treating individualism as the phenomenological norm for human beings and any form of human communication or relationship based on negotiation, compromise, self-sacrifice and trust as an act of violence against the individual

[kosmogrl]

[lunarriviera]

[transfemmbeatrice]

thought of this immediately and was delighted to discover it’s the same op

[trek-tracks]

When a student copies an essay online instead of writing it and then painstakingly changes every word to a synonym until the text no longer makes any sense...

call that the Ship of Thesaurus

[trek-tracks]

Any educator who doesn't feel this on a visceral level has never had to experience the psychic pain of reading the phrase "Unused York City."

[trek-tracks]

This is the fifth anniversary of me receiving the paper that contained "Unused York City." With ChatGPT slop invading my classes like original thought-choking kudzu, I now look back on the copy-paste + Spinbot days with a surprising amount of rosy nostalgia.

I was once in the office and another professor called me over. She was teaching a course on global citizenship.

"I can't figure out what this student is writing about," she said. "She keeps using the phrase 'perspiration stores.' Perspiration stores this, perspiration stores that."

I glanced at the paper and read a paragraph.

"Friend," I said. "She's writing about sweatshops."

[headspace-hotel]

i just spent like 20 minutes scrolling through the notes for examples and I'm screeching with laughter

[heartsl0b]

The Kitchen Entity came crawling out of the oven vent, and now it just hovers here in the middle of the room, like some kind of domesticated jellyfish. When you turn on the microwave, it crackles like a geiger counter. On warm days, it smells like mom's special m&m pancakes.

[enslavedbyfaeries]

The sun beating through my windows during this godforsaken heatwave. 🥵

Paper: Arches/ 100% cotton/ cold press

Brushes: Escoda Optimo liner/ Princeton Aqua Elite

Paint: A. Gallo/ Poems About You

[posiesinapocket]

spiderman brand new day and the importance of care. mj not loving peter due to not knowing him, but still caring about him enough to invite him up, to draw him, to send frank to watch him, to give him advice and be concerned. ned not remembering what spiderman means to him, but trying to find him anyway to thank him. frank worrying about this kid who is determined to save everybody he possibly could. peter caring about jean grey, taking a bullet for her despite almost all his interactions with her being antagonistic, because she exists, and she deserves so much better. jean crying over peter getting shot, because he was kind and promised to be there for her and made good on that promise immediately, even though she ended up there because of him. new york and their care for spidey.

peter parker and his care for everybody- his family, his friends, people he has never met, people who have continually tried to hurt him.

spiderman: brand new day and the importance of care of any kind.

[what-even-is-thiss]

The reason your snacks are unsatisfying is that you need both carb and protein.

Carb starts your engine, protein keeps it going.

No carb, engine don’t start. No protein, engine dies out fast.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Easy carb add on:

Cookie

Fruit (canned or fresh)

Chips

Piece of bread

Popcorn

Crackers

Easy protein add on:

Nuts

Spoonful of nut butter

Cheese

Roasted chickpea snacks

Glass of milk (dairy or non dairy)

Small canned sausages or similar

[what-even-is-thiss]

Sugar in there.

[what-even-is-thiss]

I am pleased by people messaging me telling me that after adding a carb or protein to their snacks or meals they feel more satisfied all day. Yes, my plan is working. People are getting through their days with less hangry.

[gumy-shark]

playing stupid games but im really bad at them so im not even winning the stupid prizes

[lilaposting]

v6 playtest is a nonstarter to me because i dislike basic resolution systems which require the DM to know exactly how difficult a task is before a roll. it reduces the cognitive load of DMing a lot (and so facilitates more and more interesting improv) to be able to see the result of a die roll and just not bother with an exact DC if the roll is obviously very high or low. needing to know levels of difficulty ahead of time really reduces the DM's tools by a lot.

people are wrong that v6 is too similar to dnd 5e, it's actually too similar to forged in the dark. too similar for my taste at least. some people swear by systems like this but i just don't enjoy running or playing them as much. 🤷‍♀️

[anon1mity]

you already had to do that for wod??? what are you talking about

[lilaposting]

ive only ever played V5 (no shade to v20 or requiem, i just haven't played them before), and im sure that the book wants you to have a DC, but the game is structured in a way where there's no logistical challenge to deciding on a DC post-hoc. the dm says "roll dex + drive" and so the player does. the player then says how many success they got, and the DM tells them whether or not they succeed. nothing actually stops the DM from deciding the roll is a success or failure without thinking up a particular DC, and nothing stops them from coming up with a DC after, even if those cases aren't really what the game wants the DM to do.

you can't pull that off in V6, because the DM doesn't just tell the player to roll their stats and then decide based on how many successes, you tell them how Difficult the check is first so they know how many dice to subtract from the pool. the DM can't make it up post-hoc because the player literally can't roll dice until the DM says how Difficult it is. this is my beef. i don't like running games where i can't pull that off, and tend to enjoy playing games where that option isn't available to the DM less.

i may have very idiosyncratic taste, tho. im the sort of person who improvised statblocks on the spot when i ran pathfinder 1e lol.

[owlfuntimes-blog]

When I ran Requiem, I had a similar issue. In that system, you can give your players up to a -3 dice penalty or a +3 dice bonus depending on the situation. There were some built in mechanically (when you're rolling to frenzy, every roll after that to resist frenzy receives an additional -1 penalty until you ultimately succumb), but most rolls you had to determine a modifier in a flash. For me as a DM, that led to me forgetting about this feature altogether because I had too many other things to hold in my brain at the same time. The problem with me forgetting as well is that Requiem rules state that even one success IS a success, with five successes being a critical success. So my players rolling like 8 dice with no modifiers from me were almost guaranteed to get a positive result.

Tough stuff.

[viralfrog]

[rainbow-femme]

Bro they got geep in Ohio