Cleaning women washing a crucifix, 1938

via reddit

Me, thinking they’re hosing an emaciated child down the stairs: oh jesus…

Me, realizing it is in fact our lord and savior on the cross: oh, Jesus…

i should not be laughing about that note

— B. Dave Walters

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but if the phrase “self care” doesn’t resonate with you, try calling it “system maintenance” and see if that clicks.

pro tip, u do not have any banter about chip cards that your cashier hasn’t already heard just do not say anything about the chip to your poor cashier, if u even think about saying “it’s different everywhere you go!” theyll hope u die

don’t ever banter with a cashier. they want you to die as soon as you walk in

being on register is like playing a game where youve heard all the possible dialogue already and youre just smashing buttons so the dialogue goes away faster

And instead the customer gets to skip your dialogue

Fuck what the customers get, they have no rights

Was just informed by my mom that I do in fact have ADHD and the reason I thought I didn’t was because ever since I was seven whenever I got super energetic my mom would have me go chop wood so now when I’m feeling The ADHD I go chop wood and I thought it was just some sort of routine I started when I was little and wanted to blow off steam

I’d also like to point out that my sister has a really hard time staying present (I can’t remember the term because we’ve always called it Tethered at my house) and whenever she’s feeling Untethered my mom has her knead bread and make syrup because they’re repetitive and easy things to do that ground her

Now that I’m thinking about it- my brother has days where he doesn’t talk and doesn’t eat unless he’s prompted, and on those days my mom sits him down in the fish pond in the backyard and plays Mozart and because he’s so used to that being his wake up he always comes back in after like an hour rambling about random things

Oh yeah and when it rains my mom has a required hour where we all have to go outside and run around and whoever finds the most worms for the garden wins and then we go inside and my mom makes us tea and we watch Studio Ghibli movies

Wait!!! When one of us has a bad day at school we make a fire in the backyard and roast homemade sausages and my mom tells us stories until we laugh and then she tucks is in bed like we’re five again and sings us songs

Uh.... wait guys is my mom a witch raising a bunch of fae kids hold on-

“I didn’t know I had adhd because my mom gave me such an effective coping mechanism” is such a high bar to clear and she soared over it like a space-plane.

Your mom is what all parents should aspire to be

while I’m at it, i may as well post my “how kinky people look at sex reveals how autistic people experience the world better than anything else I have seen” post.

A majority of people in the world appear to view sensation like this: there are some feelings that are Good, and some that are Bad. Pain, of course, is Bad, fundamentally Worse than other sensations, like pressure or touch.

Some people are autistic. They spend their entire lives comparing being touched in ways they hate to being in pain, because people refuse to understand any other way. The world is hard to live in for them, because the feelings that hurt them are not categorized as Bad, and therefore what is torturous is not understood as torture.

Kink really unnerves a lot of people because it upends a lot of assumptions about how brains feel things. How can you want to experience something in the Bad category?

But I think kink better understands and allows for the actual complexity and reality of how brains feel things.

It’s actually more like this: There are very few, if any, actually inherently Bad stimuli. Instead, everything has a threshold at which it is unpleasant, even unbearable, and a threshold at which it is neutral or even good. Those are not necessarily opposite ends of the spectrum and can in fact overlap in weird ways. The intensity of a stimulus, or how much it pushes the limits of your processing, is not necessarily the same as “how much” stimulus, either.

Everyone is different in where their thresholds lie. There is a ton of diversity. This is…okay.

Furthermore, your thresholds are not fixed. You can adjust them a lot based on circumstances, such as how predictable the stimulus is, how much control you have over it, how much control you have over the rest of your environment, the amount of things you’re simultaneously processing, and so on.

In other words, if you experience something in an environment that is controlled, planned, and has low levels of unpredictability and extraneous stimuli, in a way that is curated to your ability to process it, that can cause a dramatic shift in whether you experience that thing as pleasurable or horrible.

Sometimes, people engage in otherwise unpleasant things in a controlled and agreed-to manner so those unpleasant things can become…good. Autistic people try to make their worlds as predictable, controlled and planned as possible so they can process “everyday” things with less pain. (And sometimes they do the first thing too.)

Honestly? I think what has convinced me most of this idea is seeing things people who are “anti-kink” say.

I see posts written by people who believe that doing a thing categorized as Bad in a sexual context is inherently going to cause harm, regardless of consent. The implication, though, in singling out “kink,” is that there is a “normal, natural” form of sex that is not “inherently harmful,” that lacks the characteristics that make pain, for example, harmful.

These people are regarding “normal” sexual activities, certain forms of touch or stimulation, to be inherently “safer” and less hurtful.

But to an autistic person, a touch may feel much worse than pain, no matter how gentle it appears to be. To an autistic person, many “vanilla” and innocuous acts might feel unbearable. But they don’t get treated with suspicion, because the people for whom they are Bad are not Normal.

When you are autistic, agency over your own perception is one of the biggest things you have to fight for in order to heal and be healthy. “This hurts me because *i* say it hurts me” is…basic. Because people don’t believe you when your hurts are non-normative.

“This feels good because *I* say it feels good” seems like it’s just the other side of the coin.

I still remember, back when I was with my ex, a day where his parents and his football-player-sized brother had come to visit when I was already somewhat near overload. They wanted to visit a museum. They’d drive. That meant five people in a car. I asked if it was far; they said not really. I asked how big the car was; they said it was plenty big. I weighed up how awkward it would be to insist on driving myself versus their answers. I caved.

It was a normal-sized sedan.

The drive was 75 minutes long.

I sat in the backseat of that sedan, pressed up against my ex who took the middle seat for me (and, to his credit, did his absolute best to give me some space), quietly losing my mind. Human touch started out feeling like spiders and progressed to a kind of full body skin-nausea that I honestly don’t think I can describe. I was dissociating by half an hour in. There were bruises in my thighs from my nails. And I didn’t know when it was going to stop because they hadn’t told me.

Eventually, they pulled over to argue about whether they were lost, and I lasted about thirty seconds before scrabbling the door open and fleeing down the verge of the road. I genuinely don’t think I managed to speak more than a word or two to any of them for the whole museum trip. To this day I cannot remember how I got home.

But yes. Kink is clearly the thing that hurts people.

I’ve posted before about how purity/anti-kink stances are fundamentally anti-autonomy, anti-critical thinking. They’re predicated on the belief that individuals cannot/should not establish their own personal boundaries or personal preferences for what is attractive/interesting/pleasurable/comforting/safe, but instead need a central moral authority to decide these things for them.

Also, I keep running into this thing where neurotypical people seem to only kind of perceive “pain” as a unified concept or sensation. Nurses and healthcare people seem confused when I try to describe type of pain instead of number on a pain scale. Post-wrist surgery a few years ago, I went in for a follow-up appointment, and the nurse asked me where on the pain scale I was, and I said “It’s not so much that it hurts, as that it’s developing a stiffness that I’m a little worried about,” and she just sat there staring at her paper looking baffled as to what she was supposed to write.

Whereas, in my personal experience anyway, neurodivergent people are more likely to be able to distinguish between kinds of pain, and they are not all created equal. So like the pain of tattooing, or of sore muscles after a good hike, is borderline compelling, while dental pain or menstrual pain is torture. I would choose tattooing pain as an experience over a lot of things that most people don’t consider pain at all.

This connects back to, of all things, that very interesting book on venom that I read a while back. I have seen many amused and perplexed comments on the scientist Justin Schmidt’s insect sting pain scale and his highly poetic comments on the different types of pain the stings cause.

The fascinating thing is, these nuances are not actually illusory or just Justin Schmidt being weird—insect venom causes pain in a wide variety of ways depending on how the venom works and what nerves it specifically affects. There are a huge variety of shades to the ways humans can feel pain. Bee venom, for instance, activates nerves that are sensitive to heat, causing a “burning” pain.

Venom is a blend of very specific biochemical keys fitting into very specific biochemical locks to fuck shit up in precise ways. Each insect’s sting really is a subtly different and distinct flavor!

Farewell online privacy

What happened?

Trump happened.

just get a VPN?

You can’t just tell people to ‘get a VPN (Virtual Private Network)’. Buying a VPN is like buying a house. It’s very very important. Having no VPN or having a ‘wrong’ one can seriously damage your life. Especially for Americans because their privacy laws are garbage. I am going to try explain why you should get a VPN but bare with me, I am from Germany and my English is far from perfect. 

Let’s start with a simple test. Click this link here: https://whatismyipaddress.com/ It will tell your IP adres, your ISP (internet service provider), and your location. The location might not be very accurate, but then again, it’s just a simple website. Imagine what the government can do!

So basically, everyone can find out where you live. But there is more danger. Your ISP. Your ISP logs your every move online and they are required to keep it in case the government wants access to it (or if a 3rd party wants to buy your data (yikes). They have everything. What websites you visit. How long you stay on a website. What you download. Your search terms. European laws are more subtle on this but if you are from the US you are #@*#&, especially because Trump doesn’t support the open internet. It’s scary but maybe in the future you can’t get a job because the recruiter knows your searched on ‘how to deal with depression’ or anythings else that’s supposed to be private because it’s your f*cking right. Or you get a $100k fine because you pirated a movie 15 years ago. You need a VPN. You’re dumb for not using one. but what does a VPN do?

A VPN encrypts all your data so if it were be intercepted no one can ‘crack the code’ and damage your privacy. 

Usually being online goes like this (simplified): Your computer —-> ISP (—–> keeps data —–> sells it)

But with a VPN it goes like: Your computer —–> VPN (encrypts data)—–> ISP (ISP can’t see shit)

Furthermore, a VPN hides your IP address and location by giving you another IP address located in Spain for example (you can often choose from a list and change as many times as you want).  

Now that you know why you should get a VPN and what is does it is important to educate yourself because people often choose the wrong VPN. VPN providers are also businesses and have to obey the law. If you choose a VPN provider located in the US then you are throwing your money away because the laws in the US shits on your privacy. If the US gov wants the provider to give all their logs they have to obey.  The ISP  still can’t see what you are doing online and sell your data but the US gov can interfere with your VPN provider so NEVER CHOOSE A PROVIDER LOCATED IN THE US. 

I just wanted to make that very clear so my followers don’t buy false security.

There is still more danger!  Who says your VPN provider isn’t selling your data? You need to check their logging policy. Do they keep logs? If yes, what for? For how long do they keep them? Tip: Choose a provider who doesn’t keep logs

More about law  The US is part of the Five Eyes program (the worst):  

The Five Eyes, often abbreviated as FVEY, is an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. These countries are bound by the multilateral UKUSA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence (source)

There is also a Nine Eyes (bit better) and Fourteen Eyes Program (better).  You don’t want a VPN provider who is located in one the Five Eyes countries.  If you had to choose go for a provider located in a country that’s part of the Fourteen Eyes Program or even better, go for a country that isn’t part of any program! 

I know this is a shitty explanation and please pardon my english but now it’s time to do your own research. Take your privacy seriously. Maybe WWIII breaks out and you get killed for liking the ‘wrong’ FB-page.  

Go to this website: https://thatoneprivacysite.net/simple-vpn-comparison-chart/

Make sure that your future VPN provider both has green boxes for Privacy Jurisdiction and Privacy Logging. 

I recommend ovpn.se and trust.zone. ovpn is located in Sweden so they are part of the 14 Eyes Program and they keep minimal logs. Their business ethics, however, are alright. 

Trustzone is located in the Seychelles. No country can interfere and their privacy jurisdiction is the best you can get. The US want your data but needs to get it from Trustzone? The Seychelles will simply give them the finger and wave them goodbye. However, this makes this provider very appealing for people who torrent and criminals because they keep no logs (and that is how it shoud be) Also,  there are almost no marketing efforts so this provider is one the cheapest)

Also, often providers such as ExpressVPN are being called ‘The Best’ on websites about VPNs but know that this is just marketing which also makes those provider more expensive (and they too shit on your privacy)

This must be the worst article you have ever read but please, please take your privacy very seriously.

EDIT: I got many people asking me which provider I use. For those who want to know, I use Trust Zone. They offer a free 3-day trial with no strings attached. But still do your own research! 

I am also with Trustzone but I think you forgot to explain one of it’s most important features. It protects you when you are using someone else’s Wi-Fi. If you are at Starbucks and you use their Wi-Fi your privacy is at risk. Anyone with ill intentions could steal your information. Especially if you are using an unsecured Wi-Fi hotspot. With a VPN your data gets encrypted so no one can steal it. 

Wait, what’s going, on? Did trump destroy internet privacy with a bill or something? Where’s the news? Oh wait, why am I getting visions of Alex Jones and selling water purifiers?

He hasn’t yet but he says he wants to. And if he is serious about it it would be really easy to do. Since all our data is already recorded, as the person above explained.

Trump wants more surveillance of Muslim Americans. This in a country where internet privacy is already close to non-existent. 

Trust.Zone has a free trial. Use it. 

btw this post only has 11k notes? That’s quite disappointing for something this important. 

Don’t reblog this post to save a life. Reblog this to protect an entire family!

@earth-ruins @writing-prompt-s Should I get trustzone for my mobile device?

If you use public Wi-Fi, then yes. Which VPN you use is up to you, amigo. Take @earth-ruins advice. Do your own research first. 

@elvesfromthedeep​ just brought the current situation in the US to my attention (March 30, 2017). 

Sources

To all my friends in the US, please read this entire post. Making everyone aware of VPNs is going to be my mission. Your privacy matters. Please reblog this post.

Don’t tell me you just wanted to scroll past this. Stop looking at pictures of cats for a moment, okay? Don’t you realize how important this is? This is dangerous! ‘America, the best FREE country in the world’ my ass.

With this new law your ISP can sell your Internet history which could include passwords, usernames, religion, credit card numbers, race and much more to the highest bidder. So here is what I want you to do. You are going to read the whole thing and before you think ’this is so important. Let me reblog this real quick and go back to admiring cats again-’ NO! Don’t reblog this. Take action first. Then reblog. Sign up for a free trial! Trust.Zone offers one (here). Yes. It might be difficult to set up a VPN for some people. But is that going to stop you from protecting yourself and your family? 30 minutes. 30 minutes is all that it takes. 5 if you know how to install software. The problem with some of you is that you see ‘difficult’ as something negative. I want you to see difficult differently. I need you to push through this stuff. You are going to protect yourself. There is nothing negative about that. VPNs are fun and costsaving too! A VPN bypasses geographical restrictions so you can access websites you normally can’t or you could start Netflix’s one month free trial over and over again- forever. And it’s legal! (unless you use it to buy weapons etc.,) Don’t tell yourself that you are too tired and that you will do this tomorrow. Because that isn’t going to happen and you know it. You have to do this right now. You only have to click on it. Don’t let this/shit/life just happen to you. Take yourself seriously. Get a VPN.

Privacy is not a privilege, it’s a fundamental human right

Ok sorry that it’s so freaking long and also sorry for the language, but this is extremely important. Please reblog!

Reblogging again bc this is important

We have a VPN you should get one too

Please read.

Can you get them for your phones?

^ you can. & when you have a subscription you can use it on your phone and computer. no need for separate subs or purchases.

it is absolutely so important for safety. but one of my fave things to do with my vpn is access non-US netflix. I mean other places have all the new good place eps, all the ‘classic’ bggo eps…

IMPORTANT

reblogging so new people can be aware :)

Long as hell, but read it!!!

I have a lot of feelings on how indigenous groups who didn’t build permanent structures like cities aren’t seen as being as sophisticated as ones who built large cities, without accounting for the fact that maybe it’s in our values systems to leave as light of a footprint as possible and it’s important that our structures are easily taken down or fade with the passage of time because it’s easier on the landscape, but ya know.

This made me think of the story one of my Coast Salish acquaintances tells of how her family would travel from the Puget Sound up Mt. Rainier every year and, sure, following herds but also they had berry bushes and trees and prairies (with camas is the one she always talks about but I’m sure other foods) that were in the care of specific families so they also followed the plants through the year. They cultivated and cared for them, not just coming to gather and move on to the unknown. They came back and to the same places, the same plants and trees every year.

I think a lot of people mistake what a huge connection that is to land and territory. They hear “nomadic” and dismiss it without realizing. It doesnt mean you dont have roots in the area. It means your roots are so ingrained in the area outsiders dont even see them there.

!!!!!

I’m actually writing about this right now, this old human concept I think of as caretaker agriculture

I tell the story of a group of prehistoric nomads that do little things as they pass along a regular route – fell a tree to let the berry bushes get more light, pull out a few kinds of shrubs and burn all those seeds so there’s less competition, dig a shallow trench from the beaver pond to the low meadow. Uproot the trees that only bear a little fruit and leave the over achievers to propagate. Little things as they pass each year, until their route becomes a luscious garden in an orchard of plenty; which, btw, is what colonizers describe finding in parts of the Americas, and in other places around the world.

They take similar care of with the herd they follow. They know the members of the herd very well. The herd has a bull these last few years that is especially caring and protective, keeps the calves safe and doesn’t cause disturbances among the cows, so they will be hunting mostly young bulls that want to challenge him for a few seasons, let such a great old bull father as many calves as possible. In past seasons they hunted cows that that have ignored their calves to ruinous results or started trouble among the herd. In the spring and summer they almost do not hunt at all among the beasts they follow, letting the herd have its calves and raise them. Anyway, that is a time when there is much available for humans to eat. When they pass through the wolves’ territory, they sacrifice two or three large adults and leave them, so the calves are not preyed on, saving maybe ten young lives. Old Ursa on the hill can have whatever she takes, who wants to stop her? She usually only takes one or two in any case, and she’s fresh out of hibernation with cubs to feed. Her father was a menace and in the old days they would sacrifice one and leave it just to keep him from coming too near. In the winter, there is less food for humans and less food for the herd. Hunting among the herd at this time helps ensure those that remain have plenty to eat during the scarcity of the coldest months. And after all, many more calves have reached adulthood under the care of the people than would have otherwise, the herd can spare some now. No one comes close to starvation this way, humans and herd beasts alike come through the winter in good health.

Anyway, yeah, caretaker agriculture is an amazing and ancient agriculture technique that is in many ways greater and more impressive than having farms and ranches, and something colonizing cultures never really recognized as even existing.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again but it is absolutely an example of civilizational inadequacy that only deaf people know ASL

“oh we shouldn’t teach children this language, it will only come in handy if they [checks notes] ever have to talk in a situation where it’s noisy or they need to be quiet”

My mom learned it because she figured she’ll go deaf when she gets old

My family went holiday SCUBA diving once, and a couple of Deaf guys were in the group. I was really little and I spent most of the briefing overcome with the realization that while the rest of us were going to have regulators in our mouths and be underwater fairly soon, they were going to be able to do all the same stuff and keep talking.

The only reason some form of sign language is not a standard skill is ableism, as far as I can tell.

For anyone interested in learning, Bill Vicars has full lessons of ASL on youtube that were used in my college level classes. 

https://www.youtube.com/user/billvicars

and here’s the link to the website he puts in his videos:

https://www.lifeprint.com/

The realization I made when I had a mute character sign in my WIP and then realized that they’re assassins and they all should be able to communicate silently…

Imperialism kills.

They stole the land and killed the children.

This is so fucking upsetting, and the only reason I'm using the word upsetting is because there just isn't a word to describe how awful this is. And what's worse is that we're barely hearing about it. Like wtf when are we as a society gonna just fucking own up to the fact that this shit happened and then DO FUCKING BETTER. Way better. Seven fucking billion times better. This is unacceptable on every damn level.

people who dont watch jojos tell me whats going on in this picture

While hurtling through the time vortex—protected only by the power of pECS and the magic pink hat—Buff Mummy and his good friend Phil, love child of Freddie Mercury and the Joker, exclaim in raw, unfiltered amazement over the fact that this intrepid little glass of wine has more stability than a single hour of my life.

Hey writers, friendly reminder! Every line and every story you write is NOT required to be earth-shattering, spellbinding, or groundbreaking! Sometimes, we seek out stories because they are familiar, because we know how it will end and we LIKE it that way!

So instead of convincing yourself that your story isn’t good enough, or original enough, or worthy enough, try convincing yourself that your story is a JOY to tell and see where it takes you! :)

i have been scrolling the “looks” on the gucci website. whoever designed these desires only to cause pain. so many of the patterns on these clothes actually appear to be moving when I look at them. these models are all hollow-eyed Victorian children trying to advertise to predators that they are poisonous.

These are prey animals whose natural habitat is a couch

these men are dressed like they’re going to a job interview where they will be slowly impaled on stakes in a pit of fire ants if they get the job. if I saw one of these guys standing in a person’s front yard I would assume he was either trying to lower the property values or that his role in a nearby home invasion was “distraction.”

These two are in a running competition to see who can shoplift the largest item.

What do I even say? is it even possible to intentionally create something uglier? are these people under a faerie curse where if someone compliments them they are slowly eaten alive by maggots?

Is this fashion? If this was a style of architecture it would be a car wash. If this was a style of dance it would be the insensate twitching of a corpse that has been hanged. If this was a style of music it would be a harmonica cover of a Pug dying a painful death. If you have sex in these outfits you gain a second virginity. These people are dressed for the job they want, and they want God to kill them.

Reblogging for the description because DAMN that was the funniest shit I've read all month

Enemies-to-lovers, but instead of featuring a villain redemption arc, the heroic one is getting progressively more corrupt, unhinged and fucked up, and the one who was originally the clear-cut villain out of the two is just like "well mark me down as scared and horny"

Bahahahaha love this

black fallow deer seen in the Barycz Valley - Landscape Park in Poland

What a beautiful creature

Anastasia Trusova on Instagram

(source)

i’d like to point out that when i made this post, all of these comments were at the top, but now if you look at the thread they’ve been replaced by completely different comments 

so please, for the love of god, look at the source link this thread is a neverending source of entertainment. people have added so much fucking shit since i made this

I was proctoring an exam for a student today while reading these, and I had to stop because I got to this one and almost fucking died

these are making my day

Okay, this one’s killing me:

These ones got me:

Ooohhh noo I can’t breathe and there are literal tears streaming down my face

Have a very, VERY good laugh people

this post is missing the BEST ONE:

OMFG

Reference

i was trying to remember the “live long and prosper” motto from star trek and for a solid 10 minutes the only thing i could think of was “live big and die”

I just laughed for a solid minute at this

That’s jim’s version