happy Thursday the 20th

I’d have to wait months or even years for another chance to reblog this, so why the fuck not?

next days you can reblog this on a Thursday the 20th

August 2015

October 2016

April 2017

July 2017

September 2018

December 2018

June 2019

February 2020

August 2020

You know, just in case you wanted to set your queue for the next 6 years

TODAY

Next:

May 2021

January 2022

October 2022

April 2023

July 2023

June 2024

February 2025

March 2025

November 2025

if u r trans no matter what ur agab and ur gender may be there is a good chance u will have a voice in ur head telling u that u need to lose weight to pass and to have people take u seriously . that is the voice of the DEVIL do NOT LISTEN TO IT !!!!

This is absolutely true, unlearning that devilry is an ongoing process, and the best I've done is becoming the kind of person who can love and be loved by fat people.

Some would call me a thin person, but I've never felt like one (short, muscled because I work in a performing/physical job, and my family is Italian - I look like the men in my family and we're built sturdy)

I nearly killed myself in my teens through an eating disorder, because that seemed like the only way to survive if I had to be a girl.

And I was recently in the wedding of my best friend, and talked her and her brother (on separate occasions) through some intense anxiety about their clothes not fitting.

People just tell you things, when you're a trans man? I don't always like it, but these ones are my friends.

To the bride, my best friend and aerial doubles partner, I told her how strong and perfect she looked in her dress. And that she could absolutely lift me up over her head, in case she wanted to upset her family.

To her brother, a nice man I'm still getting to know, I offered a kind ear about how much our rental suits didn't fit, and why he was worried about looking ugly at his sister's wedding (he loves her so much and just wanted to look good with her)

All of us were worried about "looking fat" in our outfits. I can confirm that the bride looked stunning and so did her brother.

And at the end of the night, I took off all the ill-fitting clothes and had a literal pajama party in my hotel room with my friends who don't care a bit about my size. Some of them are fat, all of them are gorgeous.

And tomorrow I have to get out of bed for a necessary appointment with my top surgeon. I already know that the first thing he'll say on seeing me is, "You've lost weight!". Yes... that is often what happens after surgery if your body reacts poorly to anesthesia and painkillers. I lost 10lbs in 2 weeks, and that isn't healthy at any size, much less my own?!

I'm going to continue to fight the Devil who tells me and my friends we need to be less.

Alright, quick question to those with face blindness/prosopagnosia:

When you read a book/text and a character is described...

One thing I need allistics to understand is that autistic people often have wildly different perspectives of what conversations are "acceptable" and what aren't. Many autistic people talk about "private" topics really openly, and allistics see that as oversharing. Other autistic people consider everything private and avoid asking/answering questions, so many allistics see them as weird or like we have something to hide. I for example am in the second category and since I was a child, I had strange boundaries on what's acceptable to ask and what isn't. That's alright, it's simply just another autism thing.

Sharecropping.

FYI if your employer does this, if they have done it for a long time especially, you and your coworkers could be owed huge amounts of unpaid wages and it would be an easy suit if there is a paper trail like this and your employer is placing strict requirements on your behavior while not at work. Employment lawyers generally work on contingency. Just food for thought.

Hmm. Alarming trend in mass incarceration in Central America.

Also: Very disingenuous wordplay here.

Where do we begin?

– Very disingenuous for multiple outlets to run with “the West”. Though this initial AP article does specify that this refers to the Western Hemisphere, the choice to run headlines with “West” kinda implies that there are no other island prisons in “The West” (as in the European Union, the United States, Australia, etc.).

– One of the most infamous incarceration schemes on the planet is Australia’s “Pacific Solution,” a “solution” to refugee migration centered on the imprisonment of asylum seekers on island prisons, including the infamous prisons at Nauru and Manus, both opened initially in 2001, and re-fortified after 2012. (Nauru is extremely isolated, in the South Pacific, 3000 kilometers away from the Australian coast; the Manus detention centre is far away off the northeast coast of Papua.) Since 2012, over 3,125 people have been sent to Nauru while over 4,180 people have been sent to Manus. (The “last refugee held on the Pacific island of Nauru under Australia’s offshore detention policy” was “evacuated” to mainland Australia only on 24 June 2023, not even a month prior to this headline.)

– Obviously the EU incarcerates refugees on Mediterranean islands, notoriously at Moria on Lesbos, whose international reputation as the home of Sappho has been supplanted by its reputation as a de facto prison for asylum seekers. In October 2015, over 10,000 people landed on Lesbos in just one day. In 2017, the island averaged 2,500 arrivals per month. By 2019, humanitarian investigations showed that over 10,000 people were being held in a facility with a maximum capacity of 3,000. In 2020, fires left over 12,000 refugees on the island without shelter. By December 2021, Doctors Without Borders raised alarm that over 2,200 refugees were living in “dire” conditions on the island. As of early 2023, Lesbos (along with Kos, Leros, Chios, and Samos) is hosting over 4,500 people who are stuck in “reception and identification centers.”

– And in the Western Hemisphere? The US prison at Guantanomo, also on the coast of an island in this same sea.

– One of the most notorious island prisons was the early twentieth century French penal colony on the periphery of the Caribbean region at Guiana (run by a France, a “Western” power, in the Western Hemisphere), known internationally as “Devil’s Island.”

– The federal government says the prison will be built “in harmony with nature.”

– A prison … in harmony with nature.

– An island prison in the Caribbean, a region fundamentally and intimately connected to centuries of imprisonment, plantations, Indigenous genocide, antiBlackness, racial castes, and chattel slavery, all achieved and enforced through the bounded, isolated geographic containment structure allowed by islands.

– And this is extra-worrying, because it seems it’s a regional trend, evidently for Honduras, El Salvador, and Colombia.

– Merely a few days before this headline about Honduras, international outlets were profiling Honduras’s direct neighbor, El Salvador, with headlines like “Inside El Salvador’s new ‘mega prison’” (Al Jazeera) and, within the past couple months, headlines like “Prisoners are being tortured to death in El Salvador’s prisons” (VICE News).

– From less than a week before this AP headline, we have BBC: “El Salvador’s secretive mega-jail.”

– Don’t forget nearby Tapachula’s detention of asylum seekers.

Still discussing implementation of literal island prisons despite our collective familiarity with carceral archipelagoes.

In about one year’s time between 2022 and 2023, El Salvador arrested over 68,000 (68 thousand) people (of whom 63,000 remain incarcerated). Bring up Guantanamo and I’d imagine that apologists, fans of punishment, managing editors, etc., might claim “semantics” and argue about technical definitions of “colony”; or how imprisonment of asylum seekers takes place in a “detention centre” rather than a “prison”; or the specificity of “island prison colony”. But like:

A general cane guide for writers and artists (from a cane user, writer, and artist!)

Disclaimer: Though I have been using a cane for 6 years, I am not a doctor, nor am I by any means an expert. This guide is true to my experience, but there are as many ways to use a cane as there are cane users!

This guide will not include: White canes for blindness, crutches, walkers, or wheelchairs as I have no personal experience with these.

This is meant to be a general guide to get you started and avoid some common mishaps/misconceptions, but you absolutely should continue to do your own research outside of this guide!

The biggest recurring problem I've seen is using the cane on the wrong side. The cane goes on the opposite side of the pain! If your character has even-sided pain or needs it for balance/weakness, then use the cane in the non-dominant hand to keep the dominant hand free.

A cane takes about 20% of your weight off the opposite leg. It should fit within your natural gait and become something of an extension of your body. If you need more weight off than 20%, then crutches, a walker, or a wheelchair is needed.

Putting more pressure on the cane, using it on the wrong side, or having it at the wrong height will make it less effective, and can cause long term damage to your body from improper pressure and posture. (Hugh Laurie genuinely hurt his body from years of using a cane wrong on House!)

(an animated GIF of a cane matching the natural walking gait. It turns red when pressure is placed on it.)

When going up and down stairs, there is an ideal standard: You want to use the handrail and the cane at the same time, or prioritize the handrail if it's only on one side. When going up stairs you lead with your good leg and follow with the cane and hurt leg together. When going down stairs you lead with the cane, then the good leg, and THEN the leg that needs help.

Realistically though, many people don't move out of the way for cane users to access the railing, many stairs don't have railings, and many are wet, rusty, or generally not ideal to grip.

In these cases, if you have a friend nearby, holding on to them is a good idea. Or, take it one step at a time carefully if you're alone.

Now we come to a very common mistake I see... Using fashion canes for medical use!

(These are 4 broad shapes, but there is INCREDIBLE variation in cane handles. Research heavily what will be best for your character's specific needs!)

The handle is the contact point for all the weight you're putting on your cane, and that pressure is being put onto your hand, wrist, and shoulder. So the shape is very important for long term use!

Knob handles (and very decorative handles) are not used for medical use for this reason. It adds extra stress to the body and can damage your hand to put constant pressure onto these painful shapes.

The weight of a cane is also incredibly important, as a heavier cane will cause wear on your body much faster. If your character struggles with weakness, then they won't want a heavy cane if they can help it!

This is also part of why sword canes aren't usually very viable for medical use (along with them usually being knob handles) is that swords are extra weight! However, a small knife or perhaps a retractable blade hidden within the base might be viable even for weak characters.

Bases have a lot of variability as well, and the modern standard is generally adjustable bases. Adjustable canes are very handy if your character regularly changes shoe height, for instance (gotta keep the height at your hip!)

Canes help on most terrain with their standard base and structure. But for some terrain, you might want a different base, or to forego the cane entirely! This article covers it pretty well.

Many cane users decorate their canes! Stickers are incredibly common, and painting canes is relatively common as well! You'll also see people replacing the standard wrist strap with a personalized one, or even adding a small charm to the ring the strap connects to. (nothing too large, or it gets annoying as the cane is swinging around everywhere)

(my canes, for reference)

If your character uses a cane full time, then they might also have multiple canes that look different aesthetically to match their outfits!

When it comes to practical things outside of the cane, you reasonably only have one hand available while it's being used. Many people will hook their cane onto their arm or let it dangle on the strap (if they have one) while using their cane arm, but it's often significantly less convenient than 2 hands. But, if you need 2 hands, then it's either setting the cane down or letting it hang!

For this reason, optimizing one handed use is ideal! Keeping bags/items on the side of your free hand helps keep your items accessible.

When sitting, the cane either leans against a wall or table, goes under the chair, or hooks onto the back of the chair. (It often falls when hanging off of a chair, in my experience)

When getting up, the user will either use their cane to help them balance/support as they stand, or get up and then grab their cane. This depends on what it's being used for (balance vs pain when walking, for instance!)

That's everything I can think of for now. Thank you for reading my long-but-absolutely-not-comprehensive list of things to keep in mind when writing or drawing a cane user!

Happy disability pride month! Go forth and make more characters use canes!!!

i desperately need like a canopy bed or a tent bed or an in-wall bed or something i need to be tucked in i need to be protected from the elements i need to be in a little hole in a den in a nest im just a prey animal trying to get by

do you get it or do you not know anything

call out post now

This would fix me

i drinka the coffee i get big

dating and relationships are the ultimate “you cringe you lose” compilation

sounds like a joke post but unironically one of the first hurdles to forming healthy happy relationships is to learn to suppress the impulse to go “eww lame” about stuff that partners or potential partners are into.

the chances of meeting someone who isn’t into at least a few things you think are really really lame is very slim, and instead of chasing after the dream of meeting somebody who only, exclusively, likes stuff you also like, it’s better to just like. learn to be more chill about people liking stuff you don’t, and hope that they’ll return the favor and be chill about you liking stuff they don’t.

One of life's biggest cons is how often one task turns out to be several smaller tasks in a trench coat.

IBS and IBD sufferers rejoice at our fresh crisp minds

Nice illustrative example of correlation not equaling causation.

i would also like to add that while i feel it is very necessary for me to use my wheelchair on Friday at the concert, i wont be able to. the venue is grass and gravel. i have the privilege of being able to switch to my cane even though it will hurt more. many people do not have that option. please hear them and understand that they are people who need to be able to enjoy their life, just like everyone else

Body horror is weird when you know a lot disabled people because some times people say body horror and it the most deep wrong dread scary things and some times people say body horror and it will be a normal human with the body type of my friend alex who has marfans and the walking pattern of my friend kahurangi who has cerebral palsy and the hands fingers of my friend marama who has a congenital limb difference and bad arthritis

When I was 8 years old my friend in my special ed class at school was diagnosed with brain cancer. She was 6 years old. She moved when she could with this slow drag shuffle because she couldn't really pick her limbs up. She lost control of her face and eyes and hated not being able to pick what she was looking at. She became skinny and shrivelled and wasted at the same time as she became bloated and swollen and uneven . I watched her lose the ability to walk and then to crawl and I watched her lose the ability to feed her self and then to un curl her hands at all. Toward the end she stopped speaking even though it was one of the ability she had left because she didn't have any thing she wanted to say any more. toward the end she looked scared all the time I remember it. She died 5 months after being diagnosed at age 7 . At her tangihanga I remember her mum breaking down and falling to hands and knees and then curling up into a ball face down crying on the harakeke mat in front of the coffin. It was the first time And only time I have ever seen an adult cry like that. It's been nine years there is a memorial stone with her name and a butterfly carving on it at the local park in the footpath. I remember how she walked and moved. I watch a horror movie and I see her

even if you care deeply about some specific kind of suffering you do not have to fill your life with as many upsetting stories of that type of suffering as possible. that is just signing up to have a bad time.

does you absorbing this information help you benefit a cause? and even if you are benefitting a cause, are you doing something productive with more of these stories or are they just making you feel bad? are you taking more effective action or just getting overwhelmed with sadness? is surrounding yourself with stuff that upsets you helping you more than it hurts you?

sometimes, the only way i know my roommate is still alive is the $30 cheese that appears and disappears from our fridge

the reviews are in