i may post here occasionally, but i've started letting myself be a lot more free with my expression over on: welcome to the new weird
i don't recommend following if you're looking for polished, coherent pieces -- it's absolutely a repository of entropy.
but if you like chaos, then... consider following? it's been so long since i've been here and i'm trying to get back to whoever i was when i was younger.
i'm 35 now and feel like i'm starting all over again. i'm at peace with that.
So, it turns out I have autism & ADHD and that that can explain pretty much all of my issues and "quirks" and sensitivities over the years.
It only took 34 years of being in and out of psych offices for someone to test me. Weird, right?
So, PSA: If we've ever had a close friendship, kinship, or relationship, you may be entitled to a complimentary neurodivergence assessment.
A Lovely, Non-Traumatizing Way To Break The News About Santa To Your Kids | HuffPost Life
Read this viral Facebook post.
An old article, but I think this is an amazing way to not only encourage empathy and selfless giving, but to help kids not feel lied to about the whole Santa thing.
If you don't feel like reading it, the article is essentially about "transitioning kids from receiving from Santa, to becoming a Santa" and I think that's wholesome AF.
A year ago, I realized that every time I logged onto Twitter, I felt my blood pressure rise. It's a platform that runs on anger and outrage, and I wanted someplace better to spend my screen time. In my almost-year on Tumblr, I now realize I log on here and get one or two good laughs every time I check my dashboard.
Tumblr has given me a lot lately, but it is a bit different than other platforms. I'd like to give back a little and provide a quick-start guide on how being new to Tumblr worked for me.
Finding Things to Follow
The biggest thing I had to get used to was realizing that on Tumblr, you don't necessarily follow people or celebrities or politicians. You follow your interests. In fact, it's pretty common to follow only strangers that post things you like. That can make your empty dash daunting to fill! Let's fill it with things you love and make you happy.
Make a list, mental or otherwise, of things you're interested in. Be both broad and specific! Board Games. Magic The Gathering. Supernatural. Marvel. Video Games. 8-Bit. Urban planning. Any and all things that you like!
Pick one of your interests and search for that tag. Flip between "Latest" and "Top" and browse around to see what kind of content is in that tag. You'll notice images, art, gif sets, TikToks, videos, essays - all sorts of things!
If you see a lot of things you like, cool! Click the button to Follow that tag if you want to keep up to date on it and find things later (we'll come back to this).
If you see a post you love, check out who posted or reblogged it. Scroll around on their blog. Do they post similar stuff? Are there other things you like here? Are they posting often? If you like what they post, follow the blog! Congrats, you've followed your first blog!
Take some time and check out some other tags and follow the same process - follow tags you like and blogs you might be interested in. It's not possible to over-follow! You can always curate your list later. This isn't Twitter - no one cares if you unfollow someone. Find what makes you happy.
Go back to your main dashboard - how are things looking? Filled with things you're interested in? Excellent. If things don't work for you, don't be afraid to unfollow blogs.
Want to follow more blogs? New episode of Andor drop? Go to the "Your Tags" header and scroll around to find some more juicy content. Check out blogs you like, follow 'em if you like em, rinse and repeat! That's curating your dash!
Your Blog is Your House
Okay, so you have a dashboard of content that you like - but what do you do with it all? Someone once described a Tumblr blog to me like your little house that you can fill with all the things you like. There is no rhyme or reason, and you don't need an excuse to reblog something other than the fact that you liked it!
If you see something you like, reblog it! To me, I reblog things when I say "I like this and I want it to live in my house so other people can see it when they come visit"
Reblogging is like passing a message along to other people. You can just reblog it on its own to amplify it, or you can add your own tags, or if you have a funny reaction gif/thought/video/thousand-word-essay, add to it when you reblog!
Use tags. People actually find posts through tags here. Use them to help people discover that really cool reblog you found! You can also search for tags on specific blogs. This makes them great for categorizing posts on your own blog. For example, I use #2022 Game Journal when I blog about whatever game I'm playing so I can do a year-end review later and find all the posts later.
Like things too. Likes don't amplify posts, but they're nice to let a poster know you appreciated it! I also use likes a bookmark. Sometimes I don't have time to watch that TikTok, so I'll like it as a reminder to come back to it later.
Be Weird. You can have sideblogs to hold more specific content, but don't be afraid to just scoop up anything you like and put it in your house! Reblogging is how content gets passed around.
Random Blog Tips
Wow nice job, your blog's looking great! Before you know it, someone will find it, check out your posts, and maybe give you a follow if they like what you've made or what your reblog! The last thing I'll touch on here are some nitty-gritty tips that can help you think about all the meta stuff about Tumblr:
Tumblr is the most anonymous social media platform. No one has to know who you are. Take advantage of all the privacy options.
You can also hide likes and who you follow from public view - that's no one else's business! Turn off asks too if you want.
Play around with your settings in general - there are lots of customization options and other dash tabs that you can use to find new content. You can also turn on timestamps so you know if a post you see is a "heritage post," as they say. Content is evergreen here and I personally like to see that in action.
You can filter and hide tags that you don't want to see.
Just block people liberally, it's cool.
You can pay to remove ads (nice), but you can also leave the option to see Blazed posts on. Blazed posts are ones that people pay for impressions for - and any post can be Blazed. The kicker is, there's no ad targeting. It can be quite funny or quite annoying depending on what you want.
When viewing the notes on a post, you'll see comments, reblogs, and likes. For the reblogs section, I like to filter by "Comments only" to find what people have added to the post.
Like all social media sites, there are dark corners here. I think Tumblr more than most puts you in control to curate your Dashboard to only see what you want. Block a user, hide a post, and move on.
That should be quite enough to get started! Tumblr can take a little more time to "get" compared to other social media platforms (and get in on the long-running jokes!), but trust me, after a week, you'll notice the difference between checking your Tumblr dashboard and checking your Twitter timeline.
Why we’re compelled by images of abandoned shopping malls, waiting rooms, and corridors
"Liminal spaces seem to acknowledge that the world is in a state of transition, dragging us along with it. The pace of modern life seems impossible to keep up with, yet our lived reality does not change.
So as society waits for the breaking point to come, liminal spaces make the anticipation of those fears visible, and reaffirm that other people are looking at the world the same way. If limbo is all we know, perhaps we take some comfort in the banality of its ubiquity."
Didn't end up taking photos on Saturday night, but this year's costume was a pretty big deal for me, in terms of self acceptance and personal freedom.
TW: body talk, dysmorphia, death, ED
For those who are unaware, I've yo-yo'd weight-wise fairly dramatically throughout my life, from a size 2 to a size 12 at a height of 5'10" and have invariably done a great deal of damage to myself, both mentally and physically, in the process. I'm attempting to look at things differently, and to accept myself however I am, on a day to day basis.
It's difficult, and I absolutely loathe talking about it (it makes me so incredibly uncomfortable when people make comments about my body, even if they're "positive") but if I don't learn to do this I am convinced that the years of anorexia and alternating binge eating will claim my heart and actually kill me. Not trying to be dramatic, just honest.
So this year was a challenge in a lot of ways for me. After nearly a decade fitting into "skinny" sizes, I lost T-Rex earlier this year and ate myself from a size 4 to a 12 pretty rapidly.
I've been trying to avoid starving myself, but old habits don't die easily, and at times it isn't even conscious, which is frightening.
Anyways, I made it a point to say this because honesty and transparency are important to me and I wanted to make note of this year's costume and why it meant so much to me. Not to mention my absolute love and support of queen Brit and her triumphs.
I put ALL of my physical insecurities on display and the world didn't end. That's pretty cool.
Mother Hunger: Therapist Says Almost Every Woman Has It
Therapist Kelly McDaniel coined the term "mother hunger" to describe the grief of having a mom who couldn't nurture, protect, or guide her d
I don't particularly like the name of the term, but I absolutely recognize the three pillars (and sometimes lack thereof) in my own life and the lives of those around me. Worth a quick read particularly if you're AFAB but absolutely applicable to all.
Updates: (Photos from last weekend at the NorCal Ren Faire, October '22)
✓ Living in the Bay Area [[Berkeley]] at the moment (eager to get back to LA in a few years)
✓ Partnered with a lovely artist for nearly 2 years now, Joseph (pictured)
✓ Pursuing acting (1.5yrs left at the Meisner conservatory) while also working in tech full time in SF
✓ Missing T-Rex, the absolute dog love of my life, who left us in February at 12 years old surrounded by bouquets of flowers, sunlight, and love
✓ Loving Suede, my 6.5yr old dane mix baby
✓ Raising Pony, my 5 month old sable merle great dane puppy
✓ Learning how to move forward after the death of my father (Jan 1, 2020) while also managing my mother's further decline into dementia from afar (it's...not the most enjoyable aspect of my life)
✓ Learning how to sew my own wardrobe (slowly)
✓ Neon glass bending when I can
✓ Giving myself tattoos when I'm bored
✓ Learning how to interpret the weather forecast from sensations in my titanium leg (after an epic break last year)
Just like if you break apples and grapefruit down into their chemical components, I’m willing to bet that most people wouldn’t recognize the “ingredients” either. It’s a bunch of words you don’t even know:
Don’t use these scare tactics - Chemicals aren’t inherently bad. Literally everything is made up chemicals. Trust me, your body knows what niacin is. It knows how to digest fructose and calcium sulfate. Even if you only consume the most basic and “real” foods that are pulled directly off the vine, you’re still ingesting a series of chemical compounds that you probably can’t pronounce. That’s okay.
“If you can’t pronounce it, it’s bad for you” is literally the worst pseudo-scientific scaremongering bullshit tactic. I hate it so much.
I’m pretty sure you can pronounce “arsenic”, but that doesn’t change the fact that arsenic is highly toxic. On the other hand, you couldn’t pronounce “cycloadenosine monophosphate” or “nicotine-amide-dinucleotide-phosphate”, though both of them serve vital roles in human biochemistry and you would die if your body wouldn’t produce them.
It’s like millennials do not understand that middle east has been at war for 1000′s of years. That we intervened on behalf of Kuwait. That without “bombing” people that want to kill and oppress others, millions will be murdered and tortured.
you clearly know nothing about Afghanistan nor the middle east
here’s Afghanistan in the 1950′s, 60′s, & 70′s
if you really want to know what caused all the instability & growth of extremist groups I suggest you take a look at the US foreign policy towards Afghanistan during the 80′s
It’s interesting to note that when the communist government came to power in Afghanistan in the late 70′s, one of the first things they did was declare equality of the sexes, made education for girls mandatory, & banned child marriages. The conservative tribal leaders who the US armed & funded (& who later became the Taliban) declared this to be a “war on Islam” & fought against the central government.
The US had no problem back then with encouraging the growth of Islamic conservatism to counter socialism/communism. You created your biggest enemy & you have no one to blame but yourselves.
This is very true, and a large motivation for this was the growing US concern that with the socialist/communist leadership they would side with the USSR/Soviet Union and we would have our oil/gas supply cut off. US had a major dependency at that time, so we basically went in and intervened in their politics and fucked over their national stability. We created the extremism, and we even buddied up to the likes of Saddam Hussein until that became a political inconvenience for us. The instability was in large part due to US intervention in foreign politics for our own self-interest.
Just another reason that Reagan was a horrible president.
During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a U.S.-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. America’s role in Afghanistan led to the rise of Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda.
I think a lot about making a blog where I post what I'm thinking so that people I know won't be able to read it or worry about me. I've largely stopped writing on tumblr because I've gotten to know some of you very well and I get upset when I think about you being worried about me. I don't want people to be worried about me. I just know that the things I want to say about how I'm feeling will either push you away or concern you. I don't want either of those. So I don't say anything to anyone. Sometimes I just want to feel like my own person with secrets again. I feel boring and insignificant without them. I don't know what I want. I don't know what makes me happy. I don't even know what I like. All I know is that if I die soon (freak accident or whatever), that I will have not lived enough to figure myself out. At this point, life does not make me happy. What makes me happy is the thought that there might one day be a moment where a significant chunk of it feels right. All I want is to stop feeling out of place.
violence + science @violenceandscience - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
