When we talk about being fat-positive and we say, “weight is not an indication of health,” I will reblog it. But I want us to also say, “health is not an indication of value.”
I could be at any weight and I will never be healthy, because I am chronically ill. Someone might be chronically ill and fat, or they might be chronically ill and not fat, and it really doesn’t matter.
When you make it about health, you’re saying health is the pinnacle of human achievement, and you’re shitting on those of us for whom health will always be a pipe dream.
the purest form of serotonin is when a cat looks at u and u go like “what?” and it meows at u
like, that is a very unspecific response I still have no idea what you want but I applaud how adorably you meowed all the same, well done
This post led me to reminisce on the nature of cat’s meowing, and I have a funny story
I befriended a feral cat once who had spent her life in the forest without human interaction. I was worried about her because she had a paw damaged from an old injury and was emaciated but obviously nursing kittens that were hidden away somewhere. It took me weeks of putting out food and sitting across the yard every evening for her to trust me even a little and when she decided we were friends and she expected dinner every night she started coming to my door and trying to call for me in the evening, but she didn’t meow. Why would she? Cats only meow naturally as kittens when their vocal chords/ears aren’t fully developed, adult cats communicate with vocalizations that aren’t audible to humans. She probably tried making noises I couldn’t hear to call me but ended up sticking to the one I always responded to- a horrible yowling growl that she had made at me when we first encountered each other in the forest. Except once we were friends she would make this noise while purring and rubbing affectionately against a nearby tree or the porch railing (because she didn’t want to touch me yet). This understandably freaked my family members out but I was touched that she had taken the time to find a way to basically yell FUCK OFF in an affectionate way.
Fast forward to when she finally trusts me enough to bring her hidden kittens out of the forest to me, long story short I gained their trust and put them in this big pen, that I had previously used to keep chickens in, so they’d be safe and to keep her from having another litter. Except she was already secretly pregnant again! (Fix your pets, guys, they make SO many babies) and ended up having her new babies in this pen. I kept my distance, sitting on the outside once they were born until she seemed comfortable enough to let me come inside. The kittens were a bit wild, hissing viscously at me as soon as they opened their eyes, but they warmed up to me. There were four of them and soon they all wanted to be the center of attention during the twice daily play sessions. I’d be playing with one and another would meow insistently behind me and I’d immediately answer them and give them love, teaching them that humans could be friends that answer their needs- making them adoptable once they were weaned. Mama cat (Artie) would just watch me play with them, and I guess she was doing some thinking because one day when they were about a month old I was playing with them and one meowed behind me. I was confused because I hadn’t realized there was a kitten behind me and when I turned, there wasn’t. The only cat there was Artie looking at me really intensely. I turned back around to the kittens and I heard the meow again, I turned back to Artie and responded in the way I always did with the kittens “yes baby?” And she meowed again in an exact imitation of her kittens! After that she would.not.shut.up. It was like she had cracked some kind of code, meowing for attention and snacks and just to say hi. Her two older kittens, the ones she’d had in the forest, had never meowed at me either but started to once they saw how I responded to their mom. and I find it endlessly fascinating because before that it had never occurred to me that cats only meow at humans because they were taught by other cats to keep meowing past kittenhood because that’s the best way to get a human’s attention.
Imagine befriending some weird giant with the wrong number of legs that you met in the forest who seems nice enough but doesn’t seem to be able to hear you, until your friend explains that all they can understand is fuck off! And I’m a baby give me love!
ok but does the character really need to be a straight white man? is that relevant to the plot or are we just catering to the audience? it’s forced representation like this that detracts from the storylines that really matter
I just don’t understand though, how can a character be straight, white, cis, male, able-bodied AND Neurotypical at the same time??? Why do they need so many labels??? Seems fake to me
most big herbivores are, frankly. if you have a pretty steady supply of food and don’t have to worry about missing a hunt and starving to death, you can afford to throw your weight around more and generally be more aggressive!
that’s why the most dangerous big animals in the world are almost all herbivores.
this is also why walking right up to these things in Jurassic Park would have been a fantastically bad idea
Sauropods would be fucking TERRIFYING and it annoys the hell out of me that media constantly portrays them as passive and harmless. That Indominus from Jurassic World would have been SLAUGHTERED against an Apatosaurus, let alone a whole HERD of them
I know we’re all committed to the joke/meme that 2020 is a hell year, because we’ve been doing that joke for many years now and we’re super attached to the notion that years come in discrete packages that can be anthropomorphized or whatever. We like to be cute like that.
But the black lives matter uprisings are good news. They are not evidence that something is wrong with 2020 or with us in 2020. They are evidence of the opposite - that people in 2020 have hearts and souls that are willing and able to resist longstanding injustice and imagine a better future.
We may yet be lucky enough to look back on 2020 as the beginning of the end of a lot of bullshit.
Nicely said.
Same. And one of the beautiful.tbings is that it’s not just the United States. There have been vigils, protests, memorials, and uprisings around the world.
being tired all the time is such a mystery…. is it anaemia? vitamin d deficiency? chronic fatigue syndrome? depression? insomnia?? is it just the crushing weight of being alive in a capitalist society??? someone cure me
remember when tumblr used to have the format for reblogged additions on posts be indented instead of vertical and if the post had enough additions to it (which happened frequently because no one on tumblr can shut their fucking mouth) it would just push all the text off the side of the post completely and it became unreadable. it would get so far pushed over that it would just be exactly one character per line and you had to read the post like that. that was a real thing that happened
Sweet sweet nostalgia
Remember when this changed and everyone was FURIOUS for whatever reason
i still miss it. they RUINED tumblr by making it MORE FUNCTIONAL. I come here for a TRASH SITE that DOESN’T WORK.
It was more fun that way y'all have just become boring assholes
Kudos mean different things to different people. I’d like to get an idea of what kudos mean to readers, to writers, and to people who both read and write.
If you’d like to share your opinion, visit this 2-question Google form. It doesn’t collect your email address, and you’ll be able to view the results as soon as you submit your answers.
I’ve provided a list of possible meanings for kudos, based on discussions here on this blog and on a similar kudos survey I did 2.5 years ago. While these definitions of kudos might not be exactly what you mean, I hope that they will come close. Please check off as many meanings as you feel apply. I know that people can use kudos for more than one reason.
I’ll be sharing the results of this brief survey on the blog. If you’re curious about what people mean when they give kudos, now’s your chance to find out!
Commenting fanfiction is the easiest thing in the world once you start doing it.
I leave a comment on every single fic I read. Sometimes when I read published books I go and leave a comment somewhere the author can find it. Granted, I literally majored in ‘leaving comments on fics’ (English Education), but once you start doing it it just becomes second nature. Now you’re gonna go to the Ozymandias school of leaving comments:
Problem: I can’t leave kudos again.
Beginner: This is a second/third/fourth Kudos
Advanced: This is my second/third/fortieth time reading this, I still love it so much. Here are a few new things I noticed. I like the way you personally do x, y, z compared to other authors I’ve read (in this ship/genre/fandom).
Problem: I don’t know what to say :(
Beginner: Just list what you did to read this fic. “I stayed up late reading this”, “I read this on a crowded train”, “this kept me company while sick”.
Advanced: X,Y,Z parts made me get butterflies, and I had a physical reaction to this part of the story, I squealed outloud when characters did x,y,z. I blushed at this part. I laughed out loud here. Whatever.
Problem: I’m embarrassed to leave a comment (what if I annoy the author?)
Beginner: Short answer: you won’t EVER annoy the author (unless you’re needlessly mean) But to start, be generic, you don’t have to spill your soul in the comments section. “I liked this” “I enjoyed reading this” “nice fic”.
Advanced: This really meant a lot to me that you wrote this. This is something I feel like I’ve always wanted to read. This fic hit me in all the right places. Etc.
Problem: I don’t know how to express myself/my experience
Beginner: My beginners go to is to highlight a line, put that in your comment and say “i liked this” or to identify basic emotions you had while reading and comment those “this made me happy” “this part made me sad” “i almost cried” “you made me laugh” Advanced: “Highlighted line” This line made me smile because it has to do with character development/it’s really romantic/it’s so unique/it’s moving. Sometimes I don’t highlight a line at all, I just talk about the stuff I’ve noticed were unique to the fic. “I love the way you did this particular thing with this character”.
This? This is an amazing post. This is the Captain Awkward of commenting posts—it addresses all your fears directly and gives you actionable scripts for each one.
One of my readers always leaves a string of hearts as a comment. That’s good! That’s enough!! Just fucking comment!!!
I want mental health to be so normalised that little children can tell their parents if they’re feeling mentally ill just like they would if they had a stomach ache or a fever.
I want mental health to be so normalised that school lets you go home after a panic attack episode like they do if you sustain an injury.
I want mental health to be so normalised that when someone’s in recovery the people around them ask for progress reports and send get well soon cards just like they would for any other sort of recovery.
I want mental health to be normalised because every mental health disorder is just as frightening, just as damaging as a life threatening injury and we pass people by every day who are so unwell in this sense but who don’t receive a fraction of the care they deserve just because mental health is unseen.
I was just about to spiral into a bad panic attack, and my boyfriend goes “Stick an ice cube in your mouth.” I’m not really sure where he got the idea, and I kinda laughed at it because I didn’t see how it would help, but he was insistent. So I did it.
And now I’m on my second cube, because it worked.
He explained his reasoning to me when he got home.
1. I would initially think “what the fuck” and be distracted from the anxiety. (Correct.)
2. The cold of the ice would shock my system, bringing me back to the physical world and reality, drawing my focus to the cold in my mouth, and keep my brain away from thinking “I’m panicking, I must be dying.” (Correct.)
3. He assumed I hadn’t drank much water today and wanted to keep me hydrated. (Triple correct.)
It also forced your mouth to make saliva!
When you go into fight or flight mode, non-crucial body functions stop working so you have more energy to do what you need to do to survive (oooor to spiral into a panic attack). By forcing yourself to make saliva it helps calm you down because since fight or flight is an all or nothing response, they can’t happen at the same time.
Learned that from my old therapist, who would use it with veterans with ptsd
I’m doing this right now and its working????
THIS! Do this!
Anxiety is an emotional thing BUT there are feedback systems in place in your body that pay attention to physical states as well, which is why you then experience raised heart rate and so on when anxious. Eliminate or confuse one feedback system? Reduce anxiety.
Go be free!
biting into a lemon also works
Btw, this is part of Dialectic Behavioural Therapy, DBT for short, which was invented by a woman with borderline. It doesn’t only work with panic attacks but also self harm, negative thought spirals, and sometimes even intrusive flashbacks.
Eating very spicey stuff works as well. I used to keep little packets of wasabi in my jacket, and that saved me more times I can count.
my asshole cat once again comes to me and does his usual indications for “hey, there’s a problem I need you to fix, please help.”
because I love him and he is weirdly smart and actually really good at figuring out problems and getting help (like when he lets me know the bird feeder is empty because he wants to watch the birds) I trustingly get up and follow him.
he reaches the window, outside of which is a thunderstorm. he is very afraid of thunderstorms, and normally does not go anywhere near the windows when they happen. upon reaching the window he indicates in his usual fashion, “here is the problem, please fix it.”
no idea whether to be flattered and endeared that my cat thinks I control the weather, or frustrated because my cat is now mad at me for refusing to control the weather on his behalf. this is the second time this has happened.
