man the site that used to be full of people horny for the onceler now getting really hyped about tree law is some serious poetic irony

i had to

in reference to this tweet: https://twitter.com/huntrixi/status/1677633543940481024?s=20

If those trees were pollarded annually, the cut areas would NOT look like that. There would be big knobs of old growth at the trimming sites. Not seeing any of that here. The way those trees were topped (not pollarded, which is a very careful process that has to begin when the tree is immature) is excellent way to kill them due to loss of hydration, open sites to infection and parasitism during the best time of year for both, lack of nutrition due to so little greenery and new budding growth being left, sunburn and other exposure damage, and a myriad of other possibilities. Plus, if they were topped annually, they would not have the lovely drooping branches seen in the other picture but would have tons of vertical suckers instead.

This is what an annually pollarded mature tree should look like:

If this was done by the city, the public works arborists should be protesting in front of city hall and screaming their heads off right now. I'm not hearing about that, so... Tree law!

The Studios: *speak*

Botanists and other Tree Experts:

Update and confirmation of Imminent Tree Law:

He mentions later in the thread that not only do they not trim the trees annually, they’re trimmed at best once every 18 years. Supposed to be every five, and only in dormancy, which even my layman’s ass knows about tree trimming.

And yes, Universal can probably eat the fine. But it’s gonna be a whopper even if the trees survive (which is as mentioned kinda unlikely), California is a triple damage state for tree law, and it may increase dramatically if there were nesting birds in the trees.

All this to be a Captain Planet filler villain to some writers. And yes, it’s currently just the writers officially picketing there; SAG-AFTRA recommended against it for petty bullshit like this and the suddenly necessary sidewalk construction.

I asked my dad— a retired arborist—about TREE LAW and he just kinda blinked and said (i paraphrase because Dad Tangents, amirite?):

"Worst and best case I ever saw was a guy who was caught in the act of cutting down a C&C tree by two Department of Urban Forestry supervisors while they were randomly driving around on a Saturday. Not only did he have to deal with the cops showing up and months of paperwork and bureaucracy, but he also had to pay the fines AND cover the cost of the tree removal + stumping + buying a new tree + planting the new tree + wages for the regular crew plus the extra workers they needed to get the jobs done. That tree ended up costing him upwards of $35K, and that was over 20 years ago."

So yeah, respect Tree Law or pay out the bootyhole.

a study i did because i realized idk how to draw environments at all LMAO

STOP SCROLLING THIS IS A PAINTING

women should lift weights because it prevents osteoporosis in old age and makes you a more capable person in everyday life please shut up about butts and waists and hourglasses i'm going to fucking kill

;___;♡♡♡♡

genuine question from someone who would rather chew their arm off than go to a public gym, and also doesnt have a lot of money: how do you safely get into strength training? are there youtube channels, apps (android), etc anyone recommends that makes it approachable and don't lean into diet culture / body shaming?

also the biggest thing that keeps me from working out is that I already have joint and spinal issues and moving the wrong way can fuck up a knee or a shoulder or my spine for days. I really don't want to injure myself, and have unwittingly done so before. resources that are extremely clear on exactly how to move and offer gentler / alternative ways to move for people with limited range are vital.

Okay, so this may not technically be strength training, but muscles are dumber than bricks and cannot tell the difference between your own bodyweight and actual weights.

So, may I recommend:

He runs a YouTube channel where he goes over how to work your way up to more complex exercises (for instance, his pull-ups videos start with using a door jamb and moving your weight back and forth) so it's good for easing yourself into things.

You also don't have to fork out for expensive weights and such if you don't want to/can't. Substitute with stuff you either already have at home or can get from the supermarket and build up the weight you can exercise with. 500 gram cans of butter beans then 750 gram bottles of pasta sauce. 1 litre drink bottle then your 1.5 litre milk bottle. 3 litre bulk-buy bottle of laundry detergent. Etc. One of my dogs weighs 13 kilos and I pick her up on the regular (to her delight). One weighs 16 kg and I pick him up too (to his consternation and mild disapproval). You don't have to fit out some fancy home gym before you can start strength training.

I second Hybrid Calisthenics, that's the program I use. It's run by one guy who's taken it upon himself to make exercising more accessible and it's completely free! Each exercise has different variations based on your ability and each variation is further divided into different levels of difficulty so you can work up to where you want to be. If you can't do a single push up for example then this program will help you work up to the point where you can, and if you're a master of push ups then there are more advanced body weight exercises you can tackle so you can keep moving forward in your training without stagnating. The routine offers a full body workout with absolutely no equipment required for the beginning levels. The only reason you would need to buy anything is if you want to work up to a full pull up, at which point you would need actual pull up rings

Here's his actual website which I feel is easier to navigate than the YouTube channel on its own and organizes things in a way that's easy to understand. He explains everything you need to know about the routine and each individual exercise has both a text description and a video tutorial

*chanting quietly* tree law tree law tree law tree law

It is time.

will never forget when i worked in a fast food joint. some customer wrote like “86 cherries” on their mobile order, as like a pretentious way of say no cherries, but the store was run by a bunch of high schoolers who are working their first job so they collectively went “why the fuck does this guy want 86 fucking cherries” and like piled them onto his milkshake

so when i made this i didn’t expect ANY notes so i feel like an asshole now for not explaining. so incase you check the notes, 86 in restaurant terms means “unavailable or out of stock” but has kinda morphed into “omit” or “leave out”. but none of us had worked in a restaurant before, also why would you not just say “no cherries” it’s the same amount of characters to type

Man ordering food: I work in the restaurant business ;)

Children working at restaurant: this guy must really like cherries. Got something in your eye there sir

you see whenever i dont understand someone's sexuality or gender or pronouns or whatever i go "ohwell this has nothing to do w me!" and move on w my day

when i see people constantly bitching about the way this person identifies i will defend them to death even tho i do not understand bc i think there's better things to do than sit there and throw a temper tantrum bc someone on the internet whom i will never ever meet uses confusing pronouns or uses a contradictory label that doesnt make sense. it is what it is

he works security

Mad because you don't have bird vision?

Seethe . You will never b them

Came to me in a dream

Dank spidey memes

Unhinged behavior.

LAPD detonated 5000 lbs of fireworks in the middle of a residential area, injuring at least 17 people and causing $900 million in various damages in a low-income, majority-POC neighborhood.

They then continue to pursue caging the person whose fireworks they stole while news media misreports to cover for police incompetency and destruction.

post on the damages

post on the explosion

in depth article

It took TWO YEARS to get the names of those involved with this incident. There are people still protesting, still living in hotels, still with unfulfilled claims to the city from this shit

*hands you unhinged child*

begging people to understand that there's a difference between getting into handicrafts as a hobby and being forced to engage in constant busywork for the sake of persistence. yes I'm sure you enjoy weaving. im not sure you'd enjoy it if it was all you did every day to keep a family of fourteen clothed while they work fields. and I'm sure they'd enjoy gardening in their free time too, but after a few years of ploughing stones under the sun, they'd probably also wish they could just buy stuff from a store. cottagecore fantasies aren't reality, and just because peasants had a better class position than you do doesn't mean their lives were better than yours are now.

your honour their married and thats their child

Taking T didn't ruin my singing voice, and frankly I'm sick of folks panicking and ignoring the fact that cis boys go through two or three years where their voices are fluctuating and cracking and changing before they settle.

Your voice isn't ruined, it's changing.

If you want to make that transition easier, you gotta keep using it. Sing! Even if your voice cracks in goofy ways. Even if you have trouble placing your voice comfortably. It gets easier, I promise. Get a voice teacher (if you can) who has experience with vocal changes for pubescent cis boys if it's really making you anxious or if you're having a hard time controlling it.

To be clear, I'm not trying to be dismissive of people's emotions, nor am I trying to tell you about your own experience. If you feel something intensely, that's fair and valid. Respectfully, you should unpack that with a therapist or supportive peers.

However, when one of the main TERF tactics against transmascs is convincing trans guys that T makes you Worse in a Variety of Ways, and that you'll be ruining your body if you take it, I am EXTREMELY dubious of how many people online report any part of their body being ruined by T. Sounds suspiciously like TERF shit. And, yes, even Actual Trans People can play into TERF talking points. I'm begging y'all to stop the rampant fearmongering surrounding T.

So, after nearly a year being on T, I'm here to say that YES my voice cracks and YES my voice fluctuates and YES sometimes it feels like I have to relearn everything I knew about being a vocalist, but goddamn if I won't have fun figuring it all out, because I know this is just one stage of the transition I'm going through, and it's worth it.

thank you so much for this. i’m a professional singer who’s wanting to go on t but it’s IMPOSSIBLE to talk about it bc even other trans men and mascs keep peddling this “t ruins your voice you’ll have no range and will never be able to sing again” garbage. and it’s infuriating because i’ll make posts asking specifically people who are singers what their experience was, and people will show up to fearmonger about how their voice is ruined when they themselves admit they didn’t sing before t, didn’t have any training during the transition, and haven’t done much singing afterward.

and when i try to point out that i know several trans men who are still professional singers after transitioning people are always like “what makes you think you’ll be one of the lucky ones?” what makes you think i won’t????? i have over a decade of training and performance experience under my belt as well as teaching experience, which requires knowledge of the anatomy of changing voices. and tbh i’m furious that i was put off t for so many years because i was told i would have to give up singing when apparently what’s more likely is that i’ll just have to take some time off while my voice changes to retrain.

basically, there’s a shit ton of fearmongering around “t voice” and it’s kept me from going on t for literal years when t could save my life and i’m very mad about that.

There are multiple articles out there and all of them say going on T as a singer is safe, as long as you train your voice to change with you.

Men and women aren't two completely different species. It's not like a trans guy experiencing voice crack is something cis boys don't go through. Just because afab teenagers don't experience it, doesn't mean it's catastrophic for a trans guy.

Cis boys have the same issue and usually stop singing for a while, but continue singing after.

(I love this thread. All the educators are really careful and use affirming language for the kids they teach. A lot of them also say boys can be treated very harshly during this period, and it's probably very sudden for the kid. The belief (I fear) is that he's "becoming a man" so he shouldn't be helped or treated kindly anymore.

I think this is cis women panicking because they'd never want to change their voice and feel the need to project on us, like always. And then it spreads to transmasc circles.

^^^^!!!!!!!!!

Start to finish. I sound great and I sound like myself.

hey i'm going to chime in (ha ha) as someone who hated singing as a woman and who still doesn't sing well as a man: T gave me a singing voice i like to sing with. i sang in the car all the year my voice was changing, and it was terrible and it was fun, and i sound like if kermit the frog fucked the decemberists and that's cool with me, actually.

not everything T does to you is a blissful upgrade, but it sure as hell hasn't ruined any part of me. it's nice. this whole thing has just been nice.

I’d like to chime in as a music educator/voice teacher to just add some tips and tricks here!

Taking T in no way “ruins” your voice — that’s not what testosterone does to the body! Inside your larynx (your ‘voice box’) you have what we call the vocal folds, which are two flaps of skin that are very thin on the inside. They’re shaped kind of like a V, and when you put the folds close together and push air through, they vibrate and create sound! When you stretch them, the sound is higher, and when you loosen them, the sound is lower.

What testosterone does to the vocal folds is thicken them, which lowers the pitch of the sounds you make! When moving from thinner folds to thicker folds, there’s always going to be a period of adjustment — you have to remember, these are muscles, and new ones! They can often struggle to hold a certain pitch because your muscles are changing and functioning in a new way. This is what leads to voice cracks — your body is trying to put a pitch in head voice or chest voice when the new musculature indicates it should be elsewhere. The voice ‘cracking’ sound is literally just your voice switching rapidly between chest and head voice!

The period of time in which your vocal folds are still thickening and haven’t quite settled, you are referred to as a cambiata — essentially, an in-between voice. But that doesn’t mean you should stop singing! In fact, you should absolutely KEEP singing in order to get used to your new musculature and passagio (the places where your voice switches from chest to head and head to falsetto).

Tips for singing through your voice change as a cambiata:

1. It’ll take a while. Don’t rush it. It could be up to a couple years before your voice really settles

2. Don’t push your voice! There may be notes you could hit before that you no longer can or low notes that you’re almost able to hit but not quite — don’t force them! This is what actually does damage to the voice, because you end up grinding the vocal folds together, which can create friction and eventually callouses! If a note seems out of your reach, let it be! It’s better to not sing a note/switch octaves for that note than force it and end up damaging your voice.

3. Ranges! While you’re going through a voice change, it’s best to stick to the cambiata range of ~F3 to ~F4, and move lower/higher as it feels natural. Here’s a little video so you can actually hear what I mean!

4. Most importantly: keep singing! Your vocal muscles are like any other muscles, and they get stronger/weaker depending on how much you use them. It may feel awkward as you adjust to the changes just because you can’t actually see them, but I promise you it’s completely normal for your voice to do the things it’s doing! I mean hell — I’m a cis woman and my voice was lowered by testosterone during puberty, and I’m an opera singer now! It’s your body’s normal and natural reaction to testosterone, and it’s not going to ruin your voice.

Also just a side note while I’m here because I’m passionate about this — the human voice is not as gendered as people want it to be. I won’t rant on it here, but there as cis men who sing soprano (countertenors!) and cis women who sing tenor or lower (contralto — this is me!). Singing is absolutely not “boys are this and girls are this”, it’s a spectrum with a whole lot of overlap. If you’re a pre-T/no-T trans man? You’re a countertenor. It’s a real voice part, and is highly sought after in the world of classical singing. Just listen to this — it’s John Holiday, masculine as all hell, and he’s a countertenor.

And if you’re a trans woman? Well then you’re one of the beautiful and rare contraltos, women with deep voices who are ALSO very rare and highly sought after (not to brag or anything, but welcome to the club lol), just like the gorgeous Korneva Julia.

People really want voices to be binary, and they’re just…not. Real people who study the voice know that it’s SO much more complex and beautiful than that. Okay rant over lol

From this interview with trans singer/songwriter Mal Blum:

"Interviewer: [...] There’s this whole narrative around testosterone and what it does to your voice. As someone who loves to belt at karaoke, I know it was something on my mind when I was deciding to start HRT. So I can only imagine how it impacts folks who sing professionally. Could you talk a bit about how those two things—making music professionally and going on T—affected each other?

Blum: Even people who aren’t singers for work or people who are just casual singers, like you’re saying with karaoke, they’re worried about losing their singing voice. It’s interesting just because I feel like transition is so much steeped in this cultural understanding of all the things that you stand to lose if you medically transition, but we don’t really think about as a larger cultural idea the things that you gain. [...] I can’t tell anybody what the right thing to do is for them. I did lose my old singing voice, but I got a new one. It’s hard because you don’t want to lose the thing that makes you happy. But for me—I don’t know, it wasn’t really making me happy."

[Emphasis added.]

update: currently almost 8 months on t and i fucking love my voice.

a huge example of this for me in a cis person is justin bieber.

now many people don’t like him / his music, that’s fair enough if you don’t, but many people also said he wouldn’t have a career anymore once his voice fully dropped, because he had quite a high pitched voice still as a 14/15 year old kid.

and while “bieber fever” is not quite the thing it was when he and I were both teenagers, he’s still a popular enough singer. like he’s regularly in the charts with his newer songs and people still regularly buy and play and know his newer music. he absolutely still has a career and people still like his voice and music, some in my experience even more now than they did when he was a kid.

cis men who go through puberty and voice drops can still be professional singers, so there is deffo no reason trans men on t also cannot be ❤️

ok like the fact that hobie brown gave miles advice at a time when miles was angry. he was not happy with hobie for coming in and being everyone's favorite guy and breaking down the wall when miles couldn't and then instructing miles on how to do it when he doesn't even have the same power as miles. but hobie gave miles this advice, and miles took it. and he utilizes it repeatedly throughout the movie.

and when miles turned to hobie and asked him if the same thing (the death of a cop i believe) had happened to him to and hobie nodded.

or how hobie never called miles 'kid'.

they literally just mean so much to each other and value each other's knowledge i cannot.