"but the text never explicitly stated it!!!" hey, so that's actually what they tried to teach you in those english classes you barely passed 😁
Xuebing Du
KIROKAZE
taylor price

Janaina Medeiros
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
wallacepolsom

祝日 / Permanent Vacation

blake kathryn

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NASA

⁂

Kiana Khansmith

titsay
Jules of Nature
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me

★
cherry valley forever
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
occasionally subtle

#extradirty
seen from United States
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@sialise
"but the text never explicitly stated it!!!" hey, so that's actually what they tried to teach you in those english classes you barely passed 😁
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
You can stop in the middle of cleaning!?
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.)
I promise the more regularly you clean, the faster it goes by too. Like that initial 'get everything just clean as I can' state seems so daunting that you can't see yourself doing it all the time, but if you just do a few maintenance things every week it's so much faster every week. I have a schedule so I do dishes every day but like Mondays I do bathrooms, Tuesday I do the living room, etc etc. so I have my few things I try to do every day but I only worry about rooms once a week
Also you're allowed to reward yourseld for doing cleaning. You can give yourself a snack or a reading or video game break after accomplishing things
[IMG: Erin Ekins (she/her) [@.QueerlyAutistic] tweets:
There's this entire myth that loads of people are faking/exaggerating sickness for some social/financial benefit, but the reality is that most are actually pretending to be LESS sick than they are because that's what society demands.
A followup tweet from the same user adds:
The big bombshell spoiler is that people aren't faking illness or disability, they're faking wellness and functionality.]
(Addendum: The further spoiler is that people who get accused of faking illness or disability are often people who have stopped hiding their symptoms or have gotten to the point where they can't hide them anymore.)
this is your gentle reminder to stop fighting against your adhd and instead structure your life around it
buy a pack of chapsticks and put one in the pocket of all of your coats and jackets because you always forget to bring one and chapped lips is sensory hell
leave important things where you can see them. if they go in a box or a drawer you will forget they exist
put any appointments or deadlines in your phone calendar As Soon As you get them. set a reminder for a week before, a day before, an hour before, as many as you need as often as you need them.
when that little voice in your head says "i dont need to write that down, ill remember it" that is the devil talking!!! write it down anyway!!
plan for down time. have a few hours at the end of every day to just do fun stuff like engage in your hyperfixations. even if you didnt get all of your work done that day, have the rest anyway. you probably spent the whole day beating yourself up for not doing what you Should be doing, so you still need the break.
if you never eat vegetables because its too much effort to chop and cook them, get the frozen or canned shit. it doesnt go off for ages and you just have to microwave it. theres no point buying fresh vegetables if they just keep going off and being left to rot in the bottom of your fridge
if you struggle to decide what to have for dinner every day, take the decision out of it. choose a set of meals and eat those on rotation until you get sick of them, then choose some new ones and do it again.
its not stupid if it works! our brains literally have a chemical deficiency. you are allowed to accommodate yourself. go forth and stop making your life more difficult than it has to be because "this shouldn't be this hard". it is hard, so make it easier.
THIS ^^^
But also for any other neurodivergencies!
I especially felt the canned/frozen veggies. I enjoy cooking but don’t always have the motivation to do it. Because of this I started to buy jars of pre-minced garlic (which also helps my sensitivity to strong smells that are especially on my hands/fingers).
When I could I’d make larger batches of meals to eat another day.
It’s hard to get through a day sometimes so do what you can to lighten up the load
Revive like a zombie JUST to drop the entire show google drive
My chronic pain doctor suggested I exercise more
I asked him “how?”
He looked confused. Said I should try a bit every day
I said “not when, how?” I asked what exercises I should do
He suggested half a dozen options that had all been explicitly banned by other doctors. I’m not allowed to run. I’m not allowed to bike. I’m not allowed to use my rowing machine or my punching bag.
I walk my dog whenever I have the energy and when it doesn’t hurt too much
What else can I do?
He told me I should exercise more
And then he changed the subject.
Next time a doctor tells me that, I'm asking "how?"
the first thing I did in my journey out of bed was kind of an accidental win. I bought a weighted blanket when I didn’t even have a gp because my other one left the area just before the pandemic hit, and didn’t give me any suggestions where to go when I was struggling a lot with brain fog; so I was without support or painkillers for a year.
it’s pale pink and fluffy. lighter than the one the company recommended for my age and size, and it’s still very heavy for me. the way all of the beads pull in such an unwieldy fashion can make it difficult to pull onto the bed. I could only handle half an hour at a time at the beginning.
but slowly, completely by accident, it actually helped. especially my core muscles and thighs from turning over in bed. I was just feeling anxious. I had no room in my head for thoughts of exercise. but I actually put on a scant bit of muscle. it was crazy
the second bit of exercise I started doing was to get out of bed and sit in a chair by the window instead of laying in bed.
the third, wearing clothes. showering a little more often. putting two braids in my hair instead of one.
then doing laundry
then learning to cook again, because brain fog had robbed me of most of what I knew.
and of course cooking meant more and better food, which gave me more energy and helped my body get a bit stronger
in there were stretches. I had no room in my head for videos or books so I did the three I could still remember from back when I saw a good physio years ago. I could only do three repeats at first, not even the five that was a recommended set.
all of that helped me get strong enough to make it to sit through a two day course at the pain clinic, and thankfully they weren’t like OP’s doctor, they were adamant that pacing is vital to any improvement if you have chronic pain. pushing too far too fast is the enemy. low and slow. persistence. is key
it was crazy to sit in that chair with my blanket and a pillow to hold onto so I could lean on it, and prop myself up, because a lot of what they said I’d kind of worked out. but they were scientists and doctors who had all experienced chronic pain and so they had the terminology and were able to piece it together
and most of all they vindicated my own course that I’d stepped on by accident.
and finally when my new gp asked me every month whether I’d thought about taking some walks I was able to say ‘I believe I’ll get there, but not yet. and the pain climic agree with me.’
and I did get there. I don’t walk as much as she would like but honestly I don’t think she’ll ever be happy lmao
the thing most doctors, even many chronic illness specialists and chronic pain specialists fail to account for is that the activity you’re already doing is important (vital, even, because personal maintenance and living life is very important!) and it’s already exercise and strain and very energy consumptive. it counts! and also they greatly underestimate the incredible value of seriously seriously small, tiny, incremental steps that can actually account for massive improvement over time for the chronically ill—if we’re allowed to pace ourselves properly, for, like…ever and not just a certain period of time
I don’t know your pain, I don’t know your body. but I recommend that you sit down and think about—or perhaps actually just take note over the course of your days and weeks, what activity you’re already doing. maybe at first you’ll only notice when something makes you hurt, but take note of it. because that matters*. and you can build off of that. slowly slowly slowly.
you’re a persistence predator. we walk slower, we do everything slower; and many of us will never get to a place where the average physio will approve of our condition.
but fuck them. we can build muscle; I’ve seen it. we can gain small amounts of improvement without undoing all of the good work we put in. but we have to be patient, and persistent, and we have to be cautious and we have to be brave
*I do feel the need to add that I also learned how to arrange my day so that some activities hurt less. and I learned over the course of a year —and really i’m still learning—to see my days in fifteen minute to half hour increments because I have to consider PEM as well. stretches have to happen if I sit in the chair too long. especially if I’m on my computer. a very short walk is best if I’ve been out and sitting at tables because that puts so much strain on my back. it takes spoons and it’s really tempting to think it’s too much but I generally find the pain the next day if I don’t takes more spoons than if I do. most activities at home are done in fifteen minute on thirty minute off shifts. when I say slow I mean slow
that’s not always possible. I don’t have kids, and just sent the cat I was living with to another home with someone who could bend without crying all the time. I have time and space to set that pace and not everyone can. life can be complicated.
but
you can exercise. you just need to vastly vastly change what the word exercise movement activity mean for you.
anyway I hope that helps
big pain day today so I’m feeling very bitey esp about doctors
you’re a persistence predator.
@this-is-ableism Not ableism, but I think it could be useful for people on your blog as well as here!
As for my followers and anyone who sees this, I hope this helps. When Doctors don't give real solutions to pain/mobility issues/chronic illness symptoms because they brush it off as a "weight problem", carefully finding what you can do to strengthen your body and lessen pain can be vital.
googling shit like "why do i feel bad after hanging out with my friends" and all of the answers are either "you need better friends" (i don't; my friends are wonderful) or "your social battery is drained, you need to rest and regain your energy levels" (i don't; i've got tons of energy, it's just manifesting as over-the-top neurotic mania). why is this even happening. it's like some stupid toll i have to pay as a punishment for enjoying myself too much
I actually, genuinely think social event aftercare would fix me. I need someone to put me to bed and say "you were fun today and no one hated you"
#theres a thing called 'larp drop' thats essentially this#esp since when having a great time you might be more inclined to disregard your limits and ignore discomfort#(and forget to eat/drink if its larp whoops)#and then once you have a moment to yourself it all comes crashing in#source: once forgot to eat at larp and had a sobbing fit in my car that ended the instant i bit into a chicken nugget - @queerfarmgremlin
this is also true of festivals, conventions, pride parades, concerts, and any situation where you have a lot of fun with other people!
Finding out people are actually slash gen not taught to Actually Read in school in favor of just looking at the words for half a second and keeping it moving whether you understand it or not is crazy but does explain a lot of things
You start noticing like "why do so many people online seem to just pick out a few words they recognize and decide what they think you mean from that instead of actually reading what you said" & then you look at the education system & it's like Oh okay. Oh that's actually really bad
#phasing out phonics in US curriculums was one of the tragedies of our times
Me: You know how when you were a kid and you’d wish that you’d get sick or injured in a way that would justify why you didn’t live up to your potential?
Everybody, apparently: No?
Run into a cave and break your ankle so that people have to come find you and they see you lying at the bottom of this beautiful cave and maybe there’s a waterfall and the light from the crystals makes you look really beautiful and they say “Are you okay?” and you say “I think so” and they say “oh my God have you been here alone this whole time with a broken ankle” and you say “it’s okay” and they say “you’re so brave” and you are brave and you look so beautiful surrounded by cave crystals and everyone stands over you and says “oh wow” and “you poor beautiful thing” and “I’m so sorry we let you run into the cave but I’m so glad we found you” and let them carry you home and promise to be your best friends forever and that everything’s their fault and also they named the cave after you and you’re prettier than all of your enemies and your enemies all died of jealousy while you were in the cave.
“How to Respond to Criticism” by Danny M. Lavery for The Toast
seems like plenty of people are lacking the Vitamin
using "what were YOU doing at the devils sacrament" to mean "yeah i made an embarrassing reference but you understood it which is also embarrassing" is very funny to me
my favorite part is that absolutely nobody says this except here. so if you use it in public, it's a dead giveaway that you spent the last ten years on tumblr. but then again, they recognized it, which means they were at the devil's sacrament
I tested this theory in the wild the other day at work. I was on a call with my department lead and a few other folks and I replied to an email the DL had sent me, thinking that, because he was on this call, he wouldn't notice when I sent it and would not catch me multitasking.
However, he replied to said email within five minutes, asking a question that required an answer. So I answered and was like "Also, I was going to apologize for answering emails during this call, but I see we're both here at the Devil's Sacrament, so I don't think an apology is necessary."
I watched him read that on screen and try not to laugh. And then at the end of the call as everyone started saying goodbye, he goes, "Hey, MJ, I meant to tell you. I like your shoelaces."
And I looked straight into my camera, stone cold serious, and said, "Thanks. I stole them from the president."
And the rest of the team was like, "What...the fuck...?" before he abruptly ended the call for everyone.
So now my DL and I know this about each other. He could be any one of us.
At a certain point, the appropriate response to "What were you doing at the devil's sacrament" becomes "stealing shoelaces from the president."
Cry like shooting stars Cry like healing scars Cry like wishes come true Cry like you're born anew
full painting videos, HD images, and PSD files will be DMed on my Patreon.com/Yuumei on Sept 5th
cut open a package of bacon while making food tonight, and then paused to take a pic because I realized the way I open bacon is probably not normal
is it just me? does anyone else do this?
update:
(ID in alt text)
I think we've all done something very important here. thank you for your input!
Do you have ADHD
do you think I would have learned excel for this if I didn't have ADHD?
Because we don't teach history right.
We teach history like it's a work of fiction where the characters act the way they do because they were written that way. And not like the real world with real people who were just as human as us and had reasons to act the way they do. And that the same mistakes and foibles they had could happen to us too.
And even this history is woefully undertaught. People learn it to memorize the events of the story and then forget about it. They don't learn to comprehend it, they don't learn to learn from it.
This will be a long story, but settle in, because this is important.
I was fortunate enough to have some great teachers growing up, in a small, fairly well-funded school system (and during times when everyone still agreed that fascism was bad). In 8th grade, our school had an interdisciplinary unit for about a month focusing solely on the Holocaust. Every class taught something related to it, even math. For a month, we read horrifying stories and watched documentaries and did research assignments on the Holocaust. By the end, any one of us would have said we were experts on the subject.
And at the very end, our entire grade (about 100 kids) was broken into four groups, and we were told that as a reward for all our hard work on the Holocaust unit, we were going to compete for a trip to Disney World. Only one team could go, but the entire team would get to travel there and spend a few days in the park, all expenses paid.
The competition was simple: the group with the most team spirit would win. We were instructed to come up with a team name, a catchy slogan, and a logo (something simple and easy to draw). We were allowed to prove our team spirit however we wanted. That was it. That was all of the instructions. The competition would last a week, and short of stopping physical violence, the teachers stepped back and let us have at it.
It was terrifying.
At first, everyone just hung up posters in the halls and cheerfully recited their slogan whenever the teachers were watching. Within a few days, posters were being torn down and shredded. Verbal fights were breaking out in the hallways. It wasn't enough to say your team was the best, everyone had somehow decided. You also had to prove that everyone else's team was inferior. People started making up lies and gossip, saying that everyone in a particular group was lazy or ugly or smelly or what have you (we were 13). Slurs were thrown around. (Again, we were 13.)
By the final day, the groups were marching down the halls in formation, shouting their slogan in unison. Shouting slander against the other groups. The floor was covered in tattered paper.
I was shy and introverted and weird and unpopular and mostly stayed out of it. But those images are burned into my memory. These kids had turned into vicious monsters, all for a stupid school project.
The teachers had us march down the hallway to the auditorium to announce the results of the competition. The groups were little armies now. Most students marched in lockstep, shouting their slogans. We were seated together in our groups. The teachers dimmed the lights, quieted us down, and the teacher in charge of this whole project said that before he announced the winners, he had something to share with us about the person who was responsible for this entire competition. He turned on the projector and displayed a portrait of Hitler.
Everyone lost their minds. Kids were booing and throwing things. We knew that Hitler was a Bad Guy.
The teacher calmed us back down, and then explained that there was no trip to Disney World, and the fact that not one student questioned for a moment that such a massively expensive and complicated prize would be granted for such a silly competition was honestly kind of disappointing. This entire week, he said, was our final exam. The final exam for the Holocaust unit.
We had spent a month learning about this. About how this "bad guy" inspired a whole hell of a lot of people to march in lockstep shouting slogans and plastering their symbol all over everything. That one bad guy had told them that they were special, and other groups were trying to take away what was rightfully theirs for being the best, and they ultimately got extremely violent. We had learned all about the Hitler Youth and the SS and book burnings and, of course, the concentration camps. We'd all read the Diary of Anne Frank. We'd been marinating in this information for a month, in all of our classes.
But we hadn't learned. We hadn't really understood what they were trying to teach us. Not that this happened. But that this happens. It can happen very easily, especially if people aren't watching out for it.
The kids were furious. They shouted that this wasn't fair, that we were only following instructions. The teachers had lied to us. They had told us to do this, and now they were mad at us for following directions?
He was ready for this, of course. Calming us back down again, he pointed out that all they'd done is tell us to give ourselves a name, a slogan, a symbol, and demonstrate "team spirit." That was literally it. No one told us to rip posters down. No one told us to march in the hallways. No one told us to spread rumors and shout insults. No one told us to fight each other.
They didn't have to.
All it takes to get people to behave this way is to tell them that their group is special, they deserve good things, but the good things aren't there because those other people are taking them from you.
The Nazis were not uniquely evil people. They were just encouraged to demonstrate their team spirit. And there were no teachers to stop it from getting violent. Because the person encouraging them wanted things to get violent.
The Holocaust was not the story of Hitler the Bad Guy. He was there, and he was responsible for a lot, but that wasn't the point. Germany during the Holocaust wasn't suddenly, by total accident, full of evil people.
It was just full of people like us.
This time, it just was a lie about Disney World and a week of chaos. But if we didn't watch out, the next time fascism started to rise, we would get swept up on the wrong side of it. We had just proven that we would. We'd be too swept up in making sure that our special group got the prize they deserved to notice that we were being lied to about the prize in the first place.
That could happen. If we weren't careful. If we forgot the lesson we'd just learned.
After he'd let the horror and shame and embarrassment and indignation of that week sink in properly, he reassured us that it wasn't our fault. The point wasn't for us to prove that we understood the lesson of the Holocaust. It wasn't actually a test after all, it was our final lesson. The most important lesson.
He'd known that this test would go this way, because it always did. He did this every year. He said in all his years of teaching, only one student, one student, had ever questioned it. Pulled him aside in the hallway and said straightforwardly that whatever was going on was messed up and he wanted no part of it.
And you know what? That is how you teach history. You give students the facts of what happened. And then you show them how easily it can happen again.
Sadly, most schools don't have the resources for this sort of thing, and these days they'd probably not be allowed to run this little experiment. But I'm extremely grateful to that teacher, grateful that I was part of that experience. It was harrowing, and it made me and a lot of other people vigilant for the rest of my life in a way I know I would not have been otherwise.
It was over 35 years ago now and it still makes me emotional to think about.
Most people never got to have that experience, to properly learn that lesson. But at least I can pass the story on to you. And you can pass it on to others. Because if you think you would have acted differently, that you would have seen through the ruse, think again.
Teaching history requires such a broad high level picture of trends and an up close look at specific events and the ability to weave the two together that it’s no wonder we come up short.
the epidemic of grown adults playing tiktoks at full volume in public is rampant why are you acting like a 7 year old with their first ipad you have a mortgage
one guy was facetiming his sister, she was in Texas for work and I know this because they were yell-talking at each other. This went on for a few minutes so I got up, walked over and sat down in the chair next to him an asked if she was staying hygrated as I heard Texas can get really hot in the summer and that it looked like she has a bit of a sun burn.
The two of them were flabergasted. And the guy said "what are you doing???"
So I was like. "....well you included me in this call and I'm just worried about your sister."
He goes "Im having a PRIVATE conversation!"
So I goes "If it was private then how the hell do i know youre talking to your sister who is in texas on a business trip?"
Ultimately im not sure he really got the point but he lowered the volume because now he's worried about creeps like me listening to his conversations but at least he's behaving now even if he doesnt understand why
You're a hero, I hope you know that.
I literally did this to someone. She was listening to very very descriptive erotica on the beach at max volume. So I walked over, sat down next to her, and asked her to catch me up on the plot I'd missed. When she asked what the hell I was doing I said "oh I thought this was like a book club thing? Since you're playing it at full volume on a crowded beach?" She suddenly remembered she did in fact bring headphones and was willing to use them. She kept looking at me like I was a lunatic for the rest of the time she was there but it was probably the funniest thing I'd ever done
wannabee twitter already bending the knee to terfs
If we are ever going to stop this, then you guys need to start learning why this happens.
And it's not always because some executive made a decision to favor a TERF. It's because the technology is broken in a way TERFs have learned to use to their advantage.
So content moderation is a HUGE task. It is incredibly inefficient to manually monitor all user reports-- when you "flag" something as spam or inappropriate or 'inciting harm' (what Blueskye is saying the banned users had in their posts). So what actually happens is that the bulk of it is reviewed by machine. The precise "how" is a bit of a black box (if you say exactly, it makes it more vulnerable to being bypasses), but we generally know it's a bit of machine learning ("ai", but not he chatgpt kind) and a bit of automation. Generically this gets referred to as an "algorithm" (which is a meaningless word I don't have time to unpack here).
The TERFs have a formula. A battle plan, if you will. I've been watching them use it for almost a decade. And they play social media sites like a fiddle every single time.
The way it works is that they coordinate attacks on targets they dislike. (Usually trans people, but ace discourse is a notable example of targets not necessarily fitting that demographic.) They send links to each other of posts to report. They'll flag it for whatever the nearest thing they can is. The blueskye users were wishing ill to JK Rowling, so "inciting harm" was the excuse selected. "Inappropriate or sexually explicit content" is a common selection for other trans content.
Then what happens is the content moderation "algorithm" sees a huge influx of reports for a certain post or user. And instead of making a human manually review all of that, it automatically initiates a ban or takedown. And if the "algorithm" has word censorship built in, it will begin to auto-flag for things containing words in posts frequently flagged, so it begins to auto-flag the word trans itself.
This has been happening for almost a decade. There was a trans youtuber who proved TERF hater group chats flagged his videos so much that it started auto-demonitizing identical videos with the word trans in the title, but leaving ones without the word alone. I strongly suspect this is why we see huge amounts of trans women banned for no reason on tumblr. And this is clearly what is happening now.
How do we fix it? There's no easy solution. All the things about the "algorithm" that make moderation easier for the social media platforms are the exact reasons it's so difficult to defeat. It's hard to teach a machine what's a genuine flag and a malicious one. Again, it's been almost a decade since the issue was raised with youtube, and there has yet to be a solution for rooting out malicious coordinated flagging.
But here's one thing that can help: get TERFs off of social media. Stop letting them bait you into petty fights. Learn how to identify them. Block and report them.
Blocking TERFs and other assorted bigots is especially effective on bsky, because the block function there is nuclear. In short, if you block someone, not only can they not view your account or any of your posts, but any replies they made on your posts will no longer be viewable by others, even if they haven't personally blocked that user themselves. If they quote you, you can even decouple your post from their quote. In short, blocking someone on bsky produces mutual hiding of content, and it's extremely effective at starving these cunts of oxygen. Bigots who can't convince people to fight with them and whose posts don't gain any traction because they're blocked by everyone and their dog leave the platform, i.e. Jesse Singal.
It works, people just need to remember to do it more. Preemptive blocking of dickheads before they start shit with you is the best way to prevent things like this from happening.
they should make a version of socializing that doesn’t make you feel like you’re still the weird 12 year old kid that doesn’t know why she’s not normal like the other kids
Unironically, vegans need to be advocating for more and better sheep, llama, and alpaca farms. Wool is one of the best fabrics we have in terms of versatility, longevity and most importantly, insulation. Even wet, it retains 80% of it’s insulation potential.
AND IT DOESN’T SHED MICROPLASTICS
Like, there’s literally nothing you can do to a sheep that’s as morally reprehensible as dumping plastic down the gullet of literally every other living thing. You wanna talk about animal welfare? Talk about reducing the amount of microplastics produced by rayon, polyester, and spandex.
Bruh plant-based sources of clothing exist and are better for the environment and don’t involve slicing an animal’s throat open please shut the fuck up you cunt
THE WOOL GROWS BACK
Do they think you kill a sheep for it’s wool
A LOT OF THEM DO THINK THIS. They get told this carp by PETA and the like.
People- wool animals are not killed for their wool/hair. Yaks, angora rabbits, angora goats, sheep, alpacas, llamas etc… We SHEAR THEM. Not Flay. Shear. With clippers.
Or some people just gather what falls off the critter, or in the case of “chien” which is dog fluff, you brush that off them.
Healthy happy animals make good fiber. It is monetarily foolish and useless to abuse your animals because then their fiber is bad. You can debate points of husbandry and some parts of industries need change so fight about that.
But wool is amazing.
Adding to this: if you don’t shear your sheeps regularly they are literally at risk of dying from overheating. Or just rolling on their back and never have any hopes to get up again for the herds that enjoy free life in the pastures with only minimal intervention from humans.
And they’re so chill with the process that they’re even calm when a damn 9 years old who has never held clippers before do it for them.
Shearing your sheeps (and other wooly animals) is healthy for them. The best you can do for them is advocate for better living conditions, but asking not to take their wools would be a death sentence.