Things that will make your computer meaningfully faster:

Things that are likely to make internet browsing specifically meaningfully faster:

Things that will make your computer faster if you are actually having a problem:

Things that will make your computer superficially faster and may slightly improve your user experience temporarily:

Things that do not actually make your computer faster:

This post is brought to you by the lady with the 7-year-old laptop that she refuses to leave overnight for us to run scans on or take apart so that we can put RAM in it and who insists on coming by for 30-minute visits hoping we can make her computer faster.

There are people saying "what does this mean" so:

Meaningfully Faster

Faster Browsing

Faster if you are having an actual problem

Superficially Faster

Will not make your computer faster

If you are using an older computer and it is tortuously slow and you can't upgrade the RAM or swap in an SSD but you *can* install software, I would strongly recommend installing Linux.

The vast majority of people these days use computers primarily for web browsing and occasionally use an office suite. Most people don't even store their music or photos on their computers these days. If your computer is basically an internet machine that you don't use for anything other than browsing and basic word processing/spreadsheets, then there is no reason not to switch to Linux.

I would recommend installing Linux Lite, which is a well-supported, widely-used distro that most computers built within the last twenty years should be able to run. It's called "Lite" because it is an operating system that requires minimal processing, storage, and memory to run.

To do this you will need:

Here is where you can download Linux Lite.

Here is the Linux Lite help manual, I've linked you directly to the step-by-step installation guide. If you get to a step that you don't understand, search the terms that you're unfamiliar with phrased as questions like "why do I need an ISO to install linux?" or "how do I enter UEFI BIOS on my version of Windows?"

Follow the instructions for installing Linux Lite, and then you can install software on your new OS. Linux Lite comes bundled with Libre Office, which is a free office suite like Microsoft Office that has programs similar to Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. It installs with Chrome, so I would recommend installing Firefox and uninstalling Chrome as soon as you're able to get on the internet.

After that you can pick and choose from a wide variety of linux-compatible software and you can use your computer as a regular computer. I'd say that it's probably a good idea to be picky about what software you install, and to try to keep your computer as lean as possible if you're trying to get a longer life out of an old device.

There are a lot of people in the notes who are saying "my computer can't even load four tabs" or "my computer can't even open the software I need to do this" and if that is your computer I think you've pretty much got nothing to lose from installing Linux. If your computer is essentially unusable in Windows then it's probably not going to be *less* functional in Linux, unless you're keeping the computer the way that it is for some very specific software you're using.

A lot of people think that they can't uses Linux because it's entirely in the command line or doesn't have a graphic interface or something, but most linux distros only look about as different to users as windows does to mac or vice versa.

This is what the Linux Lite default desktop looks like:

It's got a start menu and a task bar and folders on the desktop, same as any other computer. It's very easy to use and has the help manual installed right there as soon as you're up and running so that you can troubleshoot your way through any issues.

Really, seriously: if your computer is slow as fuck and all you use it for is web browsing, this will make your computing experience significantly better without having to buy anything but a thumb drive.

People are reblogging just the first section of this post and asking what these things mean, so I'm reblogging this in hopes that they'll see the comprehensive update in the notes.

I spy, with my little eye, a photo that was faked by an AI image generator! Can you spot the clues?

FB is turning into a parade of fake AI images churned out by click-farming pages. More misinformation is on the way. Learn some tricks for spotting AI photos!

a video call for help from @haya-orouq19 who is in gaza

[Transcript: Please don't scroll if you want to help a family in Gaza. Hey everyone, this is Haya Orouq, I am 18 years old from Gaza City. Today is the 167th day of the war in Gaza City. And through this war we lost our house, my university was bombed. My whole childhood neighborhood area was completely damaged. We have been displaced to three different places in search of a safer place but unfortunately there's no safer place in Gaza. Everywhere there's bombing, everywhere is dangerous, so we are now displaced in Deir al-Balah. And me and my family lost everything, we have nothing left here in Gaza.

And my mom is very sick also, she is suffering from Lupus and because she has Lupus, she is a kidney failure patient in need of an urgent treatment and care outside of Gaza. The hospitals here is so poor and bad and the quality of her treatment is getting worse and worse because the quality of the hospitals is bad, because of the conditions of the war. So please guys, help my family, we deserve to- we deserve a decent life, we deserve to start a new beginning and deserve a new life.

So, here's the link in the bio and you can help me by sharing the video, repost, comment, like, whatever you can do can help. Every one dollar can make a difference. You can make life-changing difference to my family, you can save my family, you can save my mom. I am also trying to reach out to as many celebrities who are interested in helping people like me by making videos about the family that needs help in Gaza, like me. So I will mention them in the comment and please go to them, ask them to share my videos, and to make a video about my campaign and ask them to share my link. This is so urgent, I need your help guys because my account is prevented from receiving and sending messages so I can't reach out with them. I will mention them so please help me, and help my family.

I can't bear seeing my mom struggling with death because she has a dangerous disease which is Lupus and she is a kidney failure patient and I can't bear seeing my older sister suffering from hunger. So please guys, you can do it and please make #HelpHayasFamily. Share this video, whatever you can do can help. You can share the link as widely as possible, you can share the video. End of transcript.]

you can donate to her campaign here!

trans women are everywhere and are so eager to be seen and heard but only if they feel safe around you. if you hardly ever have trans women interacting with you, especially online, then consider there might be a reason for that and you should address it

(i Will go back to everlasting haitus if that GFM slows down too much btw, seeing it to its goal ASAP is my primary focus right now)

every once in a while you just gotta go "This Reality Is Not Acceptable" and put yourself all in on one cause and not let up on it until it is done, to make sure at least one fact of that unacceptable reality, changes. at least one more tragedy avoided.

that is what i have chosen to do here.

i'll admit i'm not especially good at drawing more realistic portraits/people, but i took a crack at it for this. in the back of mind, is the thought: i want to be able to draw a proper family portrait for them a year from now, if they'd like one, and have nobody suddenly be missing from it.

donate, boost, share the GFM yourself on any platforms you may have/on websites i'm not on, in your community servers, anywhere sympathy and action can be found. please.

as of this reblog, another good chunk of progress has been made! we still have a bit of a ways to go, but just look what we can do when all boost, share, and chip in what we can together! every little bit helps, so let's get that last third in, tumblr!

some people have lamented only being able to "just" boost/share, vs donate, but that's still good! that's still help! you still get more eyes on it, and then people who can donate can even know the GFM exists, and can do so! any bit of help, is help, and i extend gratitude to you all. think we can get it done? i think we can get it done!

if anyone new here is concerned about this whole thing being a scam, the first pic is me and my SDit as a puppy last spring, the second pic is me a couple days ago with megace, a cancer drug that increases appetite to treat cachexia in very sick people. just one of several new specialty medications i take now, lol. the second pic has been edited to redact my personal information. the difference in how i look is substantial, at least to me. for anyone who needs more info in private, i can provide evidence of medical tests, care, meds, bills, whatever; can provide evidence of all that other shit with my car, family, service dog in training, etc too. i'm not okay, lol, and i'm not keen on dying before i even get to see the specialized oncologist. just the newest of many very cool tricks gd loves to play on eden 👍

venmo: enimi / cashapp: $stoat / paypal.me/stoat / i also have Wise as an option for international transfers

Hey Jewish Tumblr,

Do you have any good books I can read to better understand antisemitism and the Jewish experience in modern day?

Before you say to Google, I'm not knowledgeable on researching nonfiction enough to know what's a good resource and what's not, and I'd rather ask real, living Jews than blindly trust Google. I'm afraid if I just Google it, I'll accidentally get something that's actually antisemitic and I don't want to give am antisemite my money. I'd rather give a Jewish scholar/author my money.

Anything from a scholarly book, to memoirs. Anything that you think is a good resource to explain antisemitism to someone who's never experienced it first hand.

Thank you for your time and consideration, and I hope you have a wonderful day 💜

i highly recommend deborah lipstadt. she is a jewish historian, diplomat, and author who has written several books about antisemitism and has even consulted for the federal government several times about recognizing and combatting holocaust denial and antisemitism. you might know her from the david irving libel suit that she won when he tried to sue her for including him in her book about holocaust denial. i think there was even a movie made about this lawsuit.

her book “antisemitism here and now” is about the rise in modern antisemitism and what to do about it. i haven’t read it myself but it is highly recommended by several jewish professionals i trust.

Eh, to be honest I think she kind of falls in the “criticizing Israel is antisemitism” camp, so tread with caution

Honestly that’s the issue I have with a lot of modern scholarship on antisemitism: too much focus on antizionist and not enough focus on what is actually materially harmful to Jews today (imo, Christian fascism and white supremacy)

Suggestions:

Inevitably there will be quibbles about the specific politics of various NGO's, but the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance has plenty of educational material, as does the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Resource/education collated lists at various websites are also abundant.

[ Caveat emptor: yes, many of this resource link pages will include ADL links and info, because whether or not you agree with the Antisemitism Defense League's politics regarding Israel, or their approaches, they are an org that is explicitly about fighting antisemitism.

Like I fully acknowledge there are very fair criticisms to be made about ADL, but also they are frequently referenced or linked for a reason in these kinds of resources/education lists.

My personal stance is that it's useful to take in information from a variety of resources and then also recognize the inherent politics/missions of various orgs as influencing thoss resources. also recognizing what different groups do or don't include in their discussion is useful! Basically none of these links are a total endorsement of everything you may find or every organization's every action or political alignments. You should be exposed to a broad variety of discussions and viewpoints about a topic, especially one where part of the issue isn't merely historical facts, but also individualized experiences and interactions. You don't have to agree with an org's stance on criticizing Israel and whether or not it's antisemitic. But you may as well learn the point- and counterpoint- of that argument to better dissect what you personally believe, and also to at least understand how various arguments are rationalized. ]

A lot of these are aimed at educators of children or college students but regardless of your age may be useful because the educator is assumed to be an adult.

"The trannies should be able to piss in whatever toilet they want and change their bodies however they want. Why is it my business if some chick has a dick or a guy has a pie? I'm not a trannie or a fag so I don't care, just give 'em the medicine they need."

"This is an LGBT safe space. Of COURSE I fully support individuals who identify as transgender and their right to self-determination! I just think that transitioning is a very serious choice and should be heavily regulated. And there could be a lot of harm in exposing cis children to such topics, so we should be really careful about when it is appropriate to mention trans issues or have too much trans visibility."

One of the above statements is Problematic and the other is slightly annoying. If we disagree on which is which then working together for a better future is going to get really fucking difficult.

Someone who says they don't care if dudes wear dresses and makeup is a better ally than someone who says they're a safe space for women and non-binary people. I am not joking.

yeah I went to a gay bar recently with my husband tumblr user beemovieerotica, and a VERY confused capital S Southerner straight man in cargo shorts and a trucker hat showed up

apparently he (who through my drunken memory I remember only as Earl) liked some woman, and she told him that he wasn't cultured enough and needed to attend his first drag show (she also flaked on him)

Now I'm reasonably androgynous and was wearing makeup, a short leather skirt, and black heeled boots, but still when this guy came up to me when I was standing off alone and asked "So. Do you come here often?" with a very earnest expression, I thought. Surely not. This guy doesn't think I'm a straight woman does he????

Anyway I start talking with this guy and he has no idea what the fuck is going on but he is just a very kind and earnest dude and asked a lot of questions (while asking if it was alright if he asked those questions). I track down my husband and friends and I'm like y'all. We need to make sure that Earl has a Good Fucking Time tonight.

Man was completely out of his depth. At one point they put on a puppy auction to raise money for Pride, that started with a 6 ft drag queen in all her glory leading a leather pup out on a leash to the tune of that damned RSPCA "in the arms of the angels" song

We look at Earl. Nervous. He squints, laughs, and then goes "I was wondering why people were dressed like that!" He turned to me and asked "So they're like dogs?" And I said yeah pretty much. And he just chuckled and went "Yeah I thought so with the tails! Never seen this before!"

When the first drag king came out, Earl looked at me wide eyed and went "There's a dude version too?!" And I said yeah they're called drag kings. And he said, low, "Drag kings."

During one of the queens performances, he frowned, shook his head and told me, "Your legs are better than hers." in a tone that implied he thought there was some travesty taking place and I should also be getting paid

When he found out I was there with my husband (and that I am not a woman) he profusely apologized and said "I'm so sorry, it's dark in here and I thought you were a hot chick! I wouldn't have said nothing if I knew you had a husband, I'm so sorry about that."

When beemovie invited me to the dance floor with him later and I still had a drink in my hand, Earl said "Oh don't worry about that I can hold your drink, you get on out there and shake your ass with your husband!" Then before we left, Earl bought me drinks for "Putting up with me all night and answering everything. Y'all helped me have a great time tonight."

like. You gotta recognize there's going to people who have never had interacted outside of their of their own community. This includes you. And just because your community is familiar with all the right vocabulary and how to correctly say something, it doesn't mean they're actually going to support you. If someone like Earl shows up, confused and out of their depth but kind and curious and earnest, you gotta have patience and truck through the small things, so when he goes back to his friends and his coworkers and they snicker asking how the drag show was, he can genuinely talk about how included we tried to make him feel and that he had a great time

The person matters more than the language

I will reblog this EVERY TIME.

Sanitized language is a tool of oppression, always has been and always will be.

And yes, I get being pissed off by slurs. I do. But in the times we are living in right now, we really need to all pivot our priorities to safety.

"Earl" will talk to all his Busch drinking, tractor-pulling, gun toting, conservative voting friends about the nice and friendly and harmless trannies he met, and they will understand him.

They do not know what gender non-conforming, trans-femme/masc, demiboy, agender genderqueer bisexual lesbians are, and quite frankly, they do not need to.

What we need from Earl and his friends is for them to feel neutrally enough about us to not become violent with us, and to spread the idea that violence against us is not necessary or warranted. They are simply not going to do that in a language that is not their own.

Spiders? Hate them but see their use. Mosquitoes? Begrudgingly acknowledge that they like... feed bats. But can anyone explain what the fuck ticks are doing that's helpful??? Because frankly I'm not convinced they're doing anything nice for anyone

ticks are a massive source of protein for the many many creatures that eat them, same as mosquitos. they're integral to the food chain.

also, parasites of all kinds are incredibly important to ecosystems for many reasons: they help keep populations- especially of large herbivores and predators- low and healthy, they help individuals develop immune strength, and they are often integral parts of their food webs.

much of life is parasitic. it's a very successful life-plan and food strategy. dont hold it against them: blood is a really nutritious food and the creatures they target (generally) have a lot of it. it's not their 'fault' they have the capacity to carry even smaller parasites/diseases. that's just how life is

Deer is big creature, has microbe community inside it making it super good at digesting plant, turning plant into easy nutrients.

Small creatures would like nutrients. Deer is too big to eat, hoards all the nutrients. RUDE! Not everybody can be a wolf! Not fair :(

Tick bites deer. Tick takes tiny bit of deer's blood, falls off deer. Tick now contains deer's nutrients

Small creature eats tick. Nutrients in deer go into small creatures.

In this way, deer can become food for spiders, birds, lizards, beetles, ants. It couldn't happen without ticks. They are the portable snack packs of the forest

What about fleas? I hate those little bugs

I think there's nothing wrong with being disgusted by parasites, it's just an instinct that evolved to stop little guys from taking all your nutrients.

And infectious diseases spread really easily by contact with blood, so the snack packs of the forest are also like public transportation systems for blood-borne pathogens.

But outside of your very understandable desire as an organism to keep your blood inside and pathogens outside, parasites are an amazing and thought provoking aspect of life's diversity.

Wild animals can have dozens of different species of worms and arthropods living on or in them. (Most big animal species even have their own parasites that can only live on that animal.) To the parasite, animals are worlds; a deer is like a planet inhabited by its own fauna, just like deer inhabit the landscape.

Isn't it awe-inspiring that you can go into a habitat and see animals inhabiting it, but each animal IS a habitat with its own animals...

And it keeps going! Parasites often have their own parasites, called hyper-parasites! And hyper-parasites can have hyper-parasites! How many layers of animal are there?!?

Parasites are symbiotic creatures that decrease the fitness of their partner, but "parasite=harmful" is not quite right, since parasitism interlocks the fates of organisms in complex ways. Sometimes a parasite has to spend the first part of its life cycle in one animal, and the second part in another totally different animal. How do they get there? Maybe the second animal eats the first one. The parasite needs this predator-prey interaction to happen to continue life! If the predator turns to other prey, the parasite can't live. But if the predator loses its other prey and has nothing to eat except that prey, well that might seem like a good thing except now there are 27 of you in the same predator's digestive tract, and the predator is now weak and struggles to hunt. If your host starves, you are all dead for certain!

Parasites in a situation with two hosts, one predator the other prey, sometimes might change the prey's behavior to make it easier for the predator to catch. This might be considered helping the predator. Is the parasite "harming" the predator or just taking a cut of the profits when it makes a kill? It's complicated!

Another way to do it is to be a parasite that lives inside a parasite that lives on the outside of an animal, and when the animal grooms itself and bites the ectoparasite out of its fur, the parasite living inside the parasite can now grow inside the host animal.

Parasites' impact on their hosts' behaviors impacts the whole environment! For example maybe a herd of deer likes to browse on the tender shoots down in the swamp, but they do not like the swarms of mosquitoes. By driving off the deer, the mosquitoes help the orchids in the swamp survive. If a bison wallows in the dirt to get rid of parasites, it creates a disturbance that gives rise to a little mini habitat for flowers that can't survive in the tall, less disturbed grass. If parasites make it unhealthy for animals to live crammed in a small area, they might be driven to disperse and move to new habitats, or to have a system of migrating from place to place. If a large animal is itchy and scratches itself against a tree and rubs the bark off, that might kill the tree, which is bad for the tree but great for the woodpeckers that need standing deadwood to hunt for food.

Speaking of woodpeckers, we have recently learned that woodpeckers transmit lichens and mosses to new places! And woodpeckers also were found to harbor freshwater diatoms...which should be found in freshwater streams, but perhaps got onto the bird when it was taking a bath...why does a bird take a bath? Perhaps to get rid of parasites...?

...Basically, everything is so interconnected that a flea could affect an unimaginable number of things. Parasites weave together the ecosystem in ways we barely understand.

Of course, you should still treat your dog or cat for fleas...but that's part of your symbiosis with the dog or cat, so even the space where a flea should be, is a space where organisms are bound together.

something I don't understand is why we make an exception for pathogens. if there's some intrinsic value in the current species of life on earth continuing to exist, why is it a good goal to eradicate a strain of bacteria? why are we excited that we're close to exterminating guinea worm?

With microorganism pathogens, they evolve so fast that we probably couldn't do lasting damage to the ecosystem. The extinction of a strain of bacteria is no more disruptive than any of the wild evolutionary stunts bacteria are constantly pulling.

Death is a neutral part of nature, even extinction is a neutral part of nature, and this isn't contradictory to the intrinsic value of life. Killing an animal is permissible under some circumstances, and that animal individually was a unique event in the history of the cosmos, it was a Life.

Destroying a species could also be permissible, but it would be the absolute gravest, most serious form of taking life. You would have to know what you were doing as fully as that could be known. I think these cases are mainly limited to creatures that are obligate human parasites, they have a relationship with humans and almost nothing else. That is a relationship we're allowed to terminate, because it is OUR relationship, there are no links in it that don't include us directly.

But that's just my opinion

...What about flies? I've heard that they're basically useless, but I don't particularly believe that. I've just never been able to ask and find an answer.

Flies are important in all the ways mentioned above (biting flies in tundra are important for moving caribou from place to place, for example) but they are also really important as scavengers and as pollinators!

Maggots do a really good job at cleaning up rotting corpses, garbage and feces of animals quickly. Without them, our world would be full of a lot more poop and dead bodies, and that doesn't sound like a good or healthy place to live.

It sounds disgusting, but maggots even have an application in medicine to clean up dead and rotting tissue in a wound. The maggots eat dead flesh but won't touch the living flesh.

Flies are pollinators just as much as bees are, and they pollinate some flowers that bees don't visit. For a familiar example, flies are really important pollinators of mangoes. When you eat a delicious mango, a fly did that for you. Thank you, flies.

gotta talk more about maggots bc its super cool

the whole "maggots in medicine" thing is still used! sure, they arent the only way to remove dead tissue, but they work really well and are very cheap!!! if for whatever reason you cant get medical attention and have any necrotic tissue, get some maggots (not just off the ground, there are medical grade maggots out there that are ideal) and sprinkle those bad boys on there! theyll nibble off all the bad tissue and leave the healthy parts of you alone!!!

that said, be careful if you find or get non-medical maggots. some people can actually have an allergy to them, and they do carry diseases like salmonella (im pretty sure thatll only transmit if you eat them, but dont quote me on that). if you need maggots for something but cant get medical grade, reptariums usually have em

I think it's also important to understand that ONLY flies stand between us and a world littered with stinking rotting corpses. I know everyone talks about vultures and other large scavengers as keeping the world clean, but they're only complementary to the activity of maggots. Flies find absolutely every single dead body left on land unless it's sealed completely airtight or frozen solid, the flies lay thousands upon thousands of eggs and then the maggots clean every tiny microscopic scrap of soft tissue from the skeleton. Vultures, opossums, rats, coyotes, and even other scavenging insects simply are not equipped for that total deep-cleaning process. They can all come by and eat their fill of everything they can reach and there will still be plenty of gunk clinging to those bones that only maggots could have taken care of. And while maggots take just days to do their job, microbial activity alone can take months, during which that gunk is breeding some of the deadliest pathogens on the planet. If carrion-eating flies disappeared overnight things might go fine for a little while, but every single animal that ever dies on land or washes ashore would take longer to rot away than it has for most of the history of life on Earth, slowly but surely piling up quicker than anything could eliminate it all. In just a couple years, there'd be enough overlooked rodent corpses alone that you could smell their stench wafting from every meadow, forest and mountain in the world. And by the time you could smell it, you'd possibly already have anthrax, which is one of the soil microbes that surges in an older corpse.

Additional context because I know the radfems are going to get their hands on this and love it:

It's not just about hating men.

It's a political statement and protest for equality that specifically seeks to eliminate the way the way Korean women are used, abused, discarded within the patriarchy by their own refusal to participate in any of it or associate with anyone who benefits from it.

It's very specifically about Demanding equality from men in power by refusing to take part in the patriarchy and challenging the way it perceives women.

It's becoming a topic in the west now and so I wanted to add all this context with the addendum that this is NOT an inherently transphobic movement. It's also completely autonomous meaning there is no "leader" of it.

Each person will have their own reasons and method of participating in this movement. Anyone can join or be part of it. Yes this includes radfems and TERFs so when they eventually try to co-opt this movement as their own let's remember that they don't speak for all feminists and theyre definitely NOT the voice of oppressed Korean women who started this, and as such have No reason to put themselves in the spotlight of this movement. And we have no reason to let them.

The worst part of getting deleted by staff while trans for no reason is I went from thousands of followers of whom hundreds would reblog my dono posts to hundreds of followers of whom dozens reblog my dono posts. When people act like transmisogyny is just some online problem, they forget how many real-life consequences day-to-day online interactions have, especially for marginalized people.

Anyway, I'm still trying to collect half the rent and utilities my asshole former roomie is leaving me high and dry with and I haven't seen many donations in the past several days. If you have a buck or two you can throw my way, it would be much appreciated. I'm chronically underemployed (because no one wanted to pay writers or researchers even inb4 "AI") and it would really help me do the things I need to do (like shampooing dog piss and shit out of a carpet) to get a new roomie sooner to help keep me and my pets housed.

$227/$850

cash.app/$Covidsafehotties

Paypal

Venmo (ignore deadnames plz)

$257/$850. Thanks so much!

I did not meet the deadline set by my landlord so I am now homeless. Because of this, Roman is gone, my animals are gone, and I still need my proof of citizenship paper to even get the new place to live. It's $291 left for the citizenship document. I was able to find an apartment that will accept me with the prior evictions that is $700/ month with $700 down payment ($1400 total to move in, yes i did research last night just in case of this haappening). I'm doing tarot readings as always and @scarsofbeauty & @saturnpandora are doing art commissions. Reminder that my i.d and social security card were in the wallet that was stolen so chances of me getting deported w/o official paperwork is high and i have applied to various agencies for help but am waitlisted. I also will be calling the shelter each day to check for openings.

$1623 left for proof of citizenship and place to live. Trying to get this before someone moves in because other places cost $1,000+

pp: teariche@gmail.com

ca: $starshooterr

For all the eggs out here that need to hear this, it's not a fetish because you get turned on by being in the opposite sex's clothes. You're allowed to express sexuality, you don't need to repress it. It's normal to fantasize about having things like the opposite sex's genitalia. I struggled a lot thinking I was just a fetishist because thinking about being a girl would get me so horny. Truth is that sometimes it's a lot easier to express yourself when you're comfortable in your own body. When you don't feel bad about it, when you don't feel yucky for what you have. It's also really common to go back and forth, I had my genderfluid phase in which I was so indecisive I'd constantly go back and forth on it. It helps to take it slowly and explore yourself, things like being genderfluid exist for a reason. Not everyone who is genderfluid is trans, but you'd be shocked at how many people (such as myself) identified as trans after finally calming down with switching back and forth. It's a hard prospect, it's scary sometimes. I doubt myself all the time, but I'm genuinely happier when people refer to me with feminine pronouns, when I'm dressed pretty and I feel like a pretty girl. It's okay not to know either, you won't get an answer immediately. There exists a wide spectrum for you to fall under, so never stop exploring yourself.

Something my therapist told me is, "Cis women also feel sexy when trying on dresses in the mirror."

Society penalizes and shames your trans thoughts. Society also penalizes and shames your sexual thoughts. It's natural that the moments where you can express and feel things that are shameful becomes expressions and feelings of both.

what if i decided i'm straight up not posting any new art publicly until that family's GFM in my pinned is at least Halfway to its goal

(even half my followers donating 5 bucks each would do that btw)

i am willing to make this go on forever, btw, but for obvious reasons, i'd rather not, not because i lack the conviction to do so, but because this is an urgently Time Sensitive Issue and why risk this family not being here a month from now! you never know! that's why i'm asking you guys to do this, i cannot do much, it feels scattered with so many causes, but this is just the one picked, at random, to aim people towards, focused effort style

additionally; while i am citing my followers on that math, it still helps, to boost this, you don't even have to boost this post specifically, i've pinned the original post for this gfm; i'm not asking i be plugged in any way, or to be followed by new people would share it with, but if you enjoy my work and want to see it return, and truly do want to help regardless but are also struggling (i know how it is, trust me) then you can still spread the gfm to others, link it to places and just ask like, your pals? coworkers? in your discords or mutual support chatrooms? suggest donation matching, however it might get this there quickly, for the family's sake

One absolutely hilarious part of human existence is the repeated incidents of spicy bananas. People who have lived their entire lives up to this point just assuming that a specific fruit or vegetable is supposed to taste bitter, tangy, or spicy, having no fucking idea that all this time, they've been allergic to this plant. Because how would they have known? You learn what things taste like by tasting them, nobody's going to tell you that bananas are supposed to be one of the mildest flavours out there. And people already eat so many things that taste hot, bitter, tangy and tart! Because they like how that kind of thing tastes like!

You can just happily much on a plant, thinking "ah, this angry plant tastes sharp because it hates me. Much like all the other sharp angry plants that people eat because they like the sharp", and it wouldn't cross their mind to think that the plant just hates you, specifically.

This is sitting on the shelf of human experiences riiiight next to people who don’t realize they’re colorblind.

My best friend’s husband didn’t realize he was colorblind until after they were married in their mid-twenties and she watched him run a stop sign that was in front of a big bush. He’d lived his entire life not knowing. So when they did some tests and realized “hey, you’re super colorblind,” he got to thinking, it’s X-linked, right? Which means it had to have come from Mom’s side of the family, so he started digging and asked his mom’s dad, and Grampa was like “Well that would explain a lot, I suppose. I kind of thought your grandma was just pulling my leg about the tomatoes.”

Because Grandma had apparently banned him early on from picking the tomatoes in the garden because he was constantly coming in with unripe ones, and he thought she was just being super nitpicky about it. This was a lifelong family joke, that Grandpa couldn’t tell a ripe tomato to save his life, and nobody ever stopped to wonder if maybe he and the grandson who routinely colored the grass red on his drawings might have something going on with their ability to see red and green as distinct colors.

i thought aloe vera gel was SUPPOSED TO burn your skin. like how rubbing alcohol burns when applied to a cut. figured that everyone else was just better at gritting their teeth and bearing the full body aloe sting than i was. i just didn't feel like the stinging was worth the mild healing properties aloe had.

yeah... turns out it's NOT supposed to burn and i was just allergic to aloe

STORY TIME!!!!!!!

My husband comes from a “weird” family. Like, the whole county knows. “He’s a total weirdo. AAAH THAT’S HIS LAST NAME THAT EXPLAINS IT OKAY NO PROBLEM GO FLY FREE DUDE WE LOVE YOU!!” The family’s just a bunch of freaks, like the Addams Family meets the Beverly Hillbillies. I ADORE them.

It was celebrated because they’re so valuable to the local community. This one sells meticulously grown veggies at the farmer’s market, then hisses at you for suggesting they wear soemthing that isn’t tie-dyed. That kid was in kindergarten before she said her first word, and that’s cool because her older sister translated for her NO THANK YOU TEACHER WE DO NOT NEED A DOCTOR THAT IS NORMAL FOR THIS FAMILY GO AWAY. She’s got two quiet kids of her own now and WE STILL DO NOT NEED A DOCTOR GO AWAY. That uncle knows everything there is to know about every car engine ever, and he never wears shoes with laces because he literally never worked out how to tie them (He’s 60). He’s also the top mechanic in his town and makes serious dough that put his super-smart daughter through college, and now she’s an ace veterinarian who pterodactyl screams at acrylic sweaters and keeps everyone’s pets alive. I shit you not, the family matriarch gets excited for tax season every year and begs everyone to bring her their taxes so she can MATH at them. It’s her freaking hobby.

Whatever. They’re in OUR family. It’s totally normal for us. The family’s just full of freaks, that’s all. We encourage our people to go with their strengths and use their skills to make our little corner of the world a nicer place to live in, then teach them how to manage the difficult parts of the world because we all had to learn to do it ourselves. “Because this family’s full of people just as freaky as you. You’re one of us.”

No, most of them don’t go to college. It’s rural Illinois, of course they don’t. Lots of them end up in specialized trades, like electricians or farmers, and they always kick ass at it. They tend towards jobs that require a lot of focus, and attention to detal, and very specific, in-depth knowledge that is almost useless outside of whatever field they’re in. We’re mostly spread between two or three small towns in Illinois, and I do not think these three towns would function without my husband’s family fixing and growing everything they do.

One of our cousins’ kids got diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder a few years ago. His now-ex-wife insisted that something was wrong and that our cousin was a jerk for not caring enough to notice. The family reacted with “He’s fine, it’s normal, we all did that when we were his age... wait... shit... what do you mean it’s genetic?”

It turns out that like 70% of my husband’s side of the family is autistic as fuck. We’re talking about grandmothers. Uncles. Cousins. People are in their 70s just now figuring out why they are how they are. 

They’re just so famously weird in our community that they attract the other weird people as partners, and then they have weird little kids, and no one really looks twice. A bunch of the people (including me) who married in were informally adopted first. “Oh, your parents punished you for this behavior? We all do that here. Come to the barbecue!” Two years later, I had their last name and was helping watch their adorable little handflappy babies.

We’ve got an entire gene pool over here of autistic people thriving so well that no one noticed we were all autistic.

Also, that cousin got RID of his wife when she started talking about how “tragic” their son’s autism is. Their son is a perfectly normal child in our family and will be raised as such. We joke now that when something needs fixed, “Oh, just call Uncle So-and-So, he’ll autism at it.”’

I fucking love this family so much.

Beautiful, wonderful story, no notes (except maybe asking if there's room for one more at the dinner table).

Anyway, back to the original post, I am in deep gratitude for it, because it's the only reason I thought to wonder if chickpeas are supposed to be spicy.

(Hint: Apparently they're not. The genetic lottery locked the good tasting falafel and hummas behind an allergy wall.)

....what,,, what is aloe vera supposed to feel like?????

It's supposed to feel cool and soothing.

I thought cilantro was spicy for years and people were lying about pico de gallo being spicy. Nope, I'm allergic.

The reason the work you’ve done on how you feel doesn’t seem like it’s working is because you need to do it until it works. It’s never been “this strategy will pull you up” it’s always been “here’s something you can do that will END with you getting out of that hole” the climbing still hurts and the being underground still hurts but that doesn’t mean it’s not working

*doing laundry* “this doesn’t feel better

*cooking meals* this doesn’t feel better

*exercising* this doesn’t feel better

*making art* this doesn’t feel better

*cleaning the apartment* this doesn’t feel better

*somewhere months or years down the line*

holy shit

tl;dr

Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.

Jacob Riis

”We are not genocidal.”

A lot of pop psychology gets thrown around and since I already have a headache, here's preventing you lot from making it worse.

Love-bombing: A manipulation tactic of increasing affection and grand gestures before or after doing something abusive, specifically to weasel one's way out of consequences.

What it is not: A streak of affection and generosity towards friends/loved ones.

Trauma-bonding: Knowingly traumatizing someone to take advantage of their vulnerable state, to then act like the "hero" or the one who cheers them up.

What it is not: Bonding over similar traumas.

Gaslighting: *Knowingly* convincing someone they cannot trust their own perception of a situation in pursuit of one's own narrative.

What it is not: Misaligned perception of events.

Narcissist: Someone afflicted with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, a traumagenic cluster B disorder, that struggles with self-obsession, paranoia, craving validity from the public, delusions of grandeur, and social disconnection.

It is not: Your rubbish ex that cheated on you.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

-Xanthe

Can we also add...

Psychopath: a term no longer used as of DSM-V. Formally used to describe someone with a disorder that affects someones perception or conception of reality, later used to describe someone who was "to dangerous" to allow to live in society.

What it's not: a normal seeming person who secretly is a consciousless monster.

Sociopath: a partner term for the latter definition of psychopath that describes someone who can support themselves but "puts too much strain on society" to be allowed to live freely. Also no longer used.

What it's not: another word for psychopath.

Both of these are used in ableists speech but are most frequently used, even by mental health professionals who should know better, to describe Empathy Deficit Disorder. Thousands manage this disorder without being "dangerous".

I think, and correct me if I am wrong, some of the psycho/socio traits are now managed under the label "AntiSocial Personality Disorder" or ASPD?

Not sure if that also folded, or if it is regional. But that is one I'm familiar with.