Its dangerous to go alone Take This!!1!11!!!

Certain words can change your brain forever and ever so you do have to be very careful about it.

Remembering the time my old nb roommate who went to an LGBT law conference and was heaping the absolute biggest bitchfit texting me cause “some cis guy” was talking about trans people and trans men in particular and my roommate refused to listen to what this guy said cause “why should I listen to him” and I said “are you sure he’s cis?” And then towards the end of the presentation he said something that indicated to the crowd he was a trans man and then suddenly my roommate started to consider what had been shared.

Absolute loser behavior, but not completely unique. We’ve all gotta stop saying only x people can talk about x issues for us to listen. Too many people in the in group will have dogshit takes no one wants to challenge because “well, they are x identity.” Likewise, plenty of people on the out group actually know what they’re talking about and have something to contribute to the conversation.

Especially when it comes to sexuality and gender, you relying on someone outing themselves or you clocking them to decide whether their words have merit is shitty, because you won’t always know if they ARE the group “allowed” to talk about it. And even beyond that, I knew a fuckload about transness before I realized I was trans, it helped me REALIZE I was trans. “Listen to x voices” got sooooo warped in the discourse.

loudly going "YOU'RE GOOD YOU'RE GOOD" to myself to ward off the memory of every embarrassing thing i've ever done

Fun fact from a therapist who works in the field of inteusive thoughts: did you know that one of the (many) techniques we are taught to work on with people is to literally yell (in their heads or maybe even out loud if necessary) STOP at thoughts that are distressing or unpleasant and than redirect away from it?

Yall are doing good work out here.

Calling your intrusive thoughts a name like they’re an annoying roommate is my method and it is definitely not because of Succession that I call mine Tom and or Greg now.

“Shut up, Greg.”

hey netizens! i'm not sure how many people are aware, but youtube's been slowly rolling out a new anti-adblock policy that can't be bypassed with the usual software like uBlock Origin and Pi-Hole out of the gate

BUT, if you're a uBlock Origin user (or use an adblocker with a similar cosmetics modifier), you can add these commands in the uBlock dashboard to get rid of it!

reblog to help keep the internet less annoying and to tell corporations that try shit like this to go fuck themselves <3

Where do I copy-paste these to? "My filters"? "My Rules"?

'my filters'! if you look closely you'll notice the format is different between the two pages. the (website)(##)(additional text) format goes in filters

if you have an android phone get newpipe

thank me later.

newpipe is:

this is not sponsored newpipe just absolutely fucks

newpipe also has a grade A privacy rating on tosdr.org, in contrast to youtube’s grade C

yo it also works on tablets!!! just installed it on mine and the screen fits👍

I was wondering how it does on tablets! let me know if it is buggier or better on tablet than phone.

hey since i’m occasionally giving out adult advice. anyone wanna know my very adult and very boring and very sensible suggestion for grief gifts for friends and family when someone close to them dies

alright. this is shamelessly stolen from my godparents when they did this when my grandma passed about ten years ago, and since then i’ve been on both sides of this and it’s surprisingly thoughtful and useful. this is particularly important when people are like, in charge of funeral prep, but anyone who just heard someone close to them just died is gonna be in a certain headspace, so it probably works regardless. people are gonna be sending cards and flowers and other very nice, but ultimately useless gifts.

don’t do that. go to the grocery store and order one of those deli party platters. the ones with like, four different kinds each of meats and cheeses, maybe some sides, and veggies, and bread, and condiments. get the vegetarian version if you know they’re vegetarians. whatever. you know better than i how many people are gonna be eating it, but guess maybe, like, four day’s worth of food.

because, here’s the thing. cards and flowers are very nice, and remind you that you’re in people’s thoughts. but you know what you just. don’t even want to think about when someone dies? making dinner. going to the grocery store. ordering takeout. whatever. you don’t want to have to think about food. you just want to eat in between planning a funeral and working through your grief.

without getting too into it, when my grandma died, we were thrown for a loop. and we ate nothing but what was on that goddamned deli platter for days. because it was quick and easy and fresh and tasted good and we didn’t have to think about food. and ten years later, i don’t remember those cards or flowers, but i sure as hell remember the deli platter.

so next time someone’s going through something, when a family member or close friend just passed. go to your nearest grocery store, and if you can, walk a deli platter over to their place. as soon as you can after you hear. they may look at you weird when you hand it to them, but trust me, in the long run they’re gonna thank you.

There's a reason the jewish tradition for mourning is that for the first week after someone dies, the immediate family doesnt do ANYTHING but mourn. No Cooking. No Cleaning. No Working. The community comes to handle those things. Bringing every meal, cleaning the mourner's house(s), etc.

This aint a new concept. its in fact very very old.

figured out a way you can search for posts that are tagged TWO things on a blog!!! feeling clever

for anyone else who didn’t know, this is the format!:

https://[blogURL].tumblr.com/search/%23[tag1]%2C%20%23[tag2]

remove the [brackets] when using it!

mods are asleep, share hacks that make the site usable against its will

watching reddit go into a full death spiral is like watching the specifically trans equivalent of the library of alexandria go up in flames

like yes reddit is also the only place on the internet you can get an actual answer to any question in general. but it’s also a huge centralized community database about which surgeons will fuck you over, who takes what insurance, which doctors you can trust, how to write a template therapist’s letter, insurance appeals, peer support, questions that feel too stupid to ask anywhere else, diy guidelines, “hey this is embarrassing but,” finding trans people in your area, explaining why you need PTO without getting way too personal about it, safety tips, et cetera you get the picture

Someone on trans Reddit just bought the url transgender.org and have put out a call for folks to help turn it into a replacement (and more). Here's a link on r/ftm but it's open to everyone

I’m sorry friends, but “just google it” is no longer viable advice. What are we even telling people to do anymore, go try to google useful info and the first three pages are just ads for products that might be the exact opposite of what the person is trying to find but The Algorithm thinks the words are related enough? And if it’s not ads it’s just sponsored websites filled with listicles, just pages and pages of “TOP FIFTEEN [thing you googled] IMAGINED AS DISNEY PRINCESSES” like… what are we even doing anymore, google? I can no longer use you as shorthand for people doing real and actual helpful research on their own.

it's poor form to air your petty grievances with someone when it comes out they did something actually bad. save that for companies, like when you learn duolingo removed kanji from its beginner's japanese courses as part of their collab with crunchy roll

duolingo is shit for japanese imo*, here are some apps i reccommend:

Hey Japan - comes with a cute shiba inu bc fuck that aggressive owl. its basically duolingo made specifically for japanese and much better at teaching you HOW the language works.

Kanji Study - its the grey one, made by one person. it covers the first 80 kanji plus the main radicals that make kanji up, PLUS hiragana and katakana FOR FREE. you can practice by drawing, flash cards, multiple choice, and you can decide whether you read or select the romanji/character/meaning. i learned hiragana in 5 days using this. the upgraded version (one time payment) with higher level kanji goes on sale a few times a year, consider supporting the app if you find it useful

Todai - more advanced but good for reading comprehension. japanese news in... japanese. highlights which JLPT level words are and gives percentages of each level for each article. has inbuilt dictionary to check words you dont know.

Takoboto - my preferred japanese dictionary but there are loads out there. i like it bc i can search in english, romanji, kana, or kanji and it breaks down kanji compounds into individual characters. it also shows different conjugations eg: to eat, eating, ate, to be able to eat, etc

those are just the phone apps i use, there are so many other resources out there that are free and not pulling bullshit like skipping one of the 3 'alphabets' of a language

*to be clear the reason i think duolingo is shit for japanese is that it doesnt follow the JLPT pathway. which... you dont NEED exactly, but i think the country that had to make a new, easier language profiency test bc not enough people were passing the existing one will know how to build courses that teach their language. plus duolingo is doing *gestures* whatever shit that is up top.

if you seriously want to learn japanese, memorise your kana (drop romanji asap or youll forever struggle and I'll come to kick your shins) and find the ebook of genki 1 that someone uploaded, or some other JLPT N5 course. but NOT duolingo.

Edit: just realised that duolingo may be your only real option if your first language isnt english (too easy for me to forget, sorry). in that case, make sure you supplement duolingo with your own kanji study!!!

Link to all the Genki exercises that let’s you do them in different ways (writing, matchups, multiple choice etc)

A few months back, I read about a study that found that people who were told to regularly think about things they’re grateful for reported significantly improved physical and mental well-being at the end of the study. So I started going for a walk every day before work and making myself come up with 5 things that I’m grateful for. And I know it sounds like the most cornball shit ever, but it has fundamentally changed my brain chemistry.

I was aware that I was becoming a little bit too much of a sarcastic little hater before I started this experiment. Now I am almost startled to catch myself saying shit like, “Wow, look at the flowers on that tree, I am so grateful I decided to walk this way,” unironically, completely unprompted, and outside of the specific time in the day when I do the gratitude practice. I’ve rewired my brain to look for things to be grateful for, and so I look around me more and find more of them, which makes me feel happier, which makes me find even more good things.

For the record, I’m not saying, “Only think positive thoughts! No bad vibes!” Toxic positivity is probably about as unhealthy as only thinking negative thoughts. Sometimes shit does just suck. I’m not telling you to be grateful for the bad things around you. Being a sarcastic little hater definitely has its place. But setting aside like 2 minutes per day to come up with 5 things you’re grateful for will genuinely improve your outlook. It doesn’t have to be big stuff—sometimes the best I can manage is simple shit like, “I’m grateful that zippers were invented,” but even that forces me to be in the present moment and deepens my appreciation of the world around me. Try it, even if you have to do it badly or sarcastically at first. Even if you only do it so that you can come back and tell me I’m wrong in 3 months. Set a daily alarm on your phone and give it a try.

not to oversimplify an extremely complex discipline but if i had to pick one tip to give people on how to have more productive interactions with children, especially in an instructive sense, its that teaching a kid well is a lot more like improv than it is like error correction and you should always work on minimizing the amount of ‘no, wrong’ and maximizing the amount of ‘yes, and?’ for example: we have a species of fish at the aquarium that looks a lot like a tiny pufferfish. children are constantly either asking us if that’s what they are, or confidently telling us that’s what they are. if you rush to correct them, you risk completely severing their interest in the situation, because 1. kids don’t like to engage with adults who make them feel bad and 2. they were excited because pufferfish are interesting, and you have not given them any reason to be invested in non-pufferfish. Instead, if you say something like “It looks a LOT like a tiny pufferfish, you’re right. But these guys are even funnier. Wanna know what they’re called?” you have primed them perfectly for the delightful truth of the Pacific Spiny Lumpsucker

I was in martial arts for years, and in particular I kinda specialized in working with the younger kids.

The two Big Rules when instructing younger students was- 1. Compliment before Critique 2. Don’t say ‘but’, say ‘now’

Praise kids on what they get right first, especially if they are struggling. Like OP said, kids don’t like to engage with people who make them feel bad. They need encouragement when learning new things.

Number two boils down to this. If you tell a kid a compliment, then say “but you need to fix this”, that ‘but’ completely negates your compliment. It’s gone. It was canceled out like adding a negative to a positive. Using “hey, that punch is looking great, now let’s focus on your stance” doesn’t verbally cancel out the progress they’ve made. It’s like they’ve checked off something on their list of stuff to work on.

Wording can absolutely make or break a child’s motivation and interest.

Rebloggling as it’s relevant in a Medical Education context

Honestly I use all of these to teach vet students too. I think people in general respond better to positivity in teaching. Not coddling, but acknowledging when a student got part way to the right answer, or had a good thought process, is something I’ve found keeps students engaged and builds confidence, which encourages them to keep going instead of shutting down and just “getting through” a lab or a rotation

By the way this has NOTHING to do with kids. This is a great way to talk to anyone, especially adults. We deserve excitement and encouragement just as much as kids do.

(image by @wuggen)

I’ll reblog it for the important message but you guys are making this really fucking difficult

Anyhow digital media will continue to disappear whenever profitable so what if I just started burning DVDs again

I have every episode of gravity falls and also that one Russian song parody Collegehumor got in trouble for and I'm gonna sit on them forever like rare collectibles except if rare collectibles could be shared and enjoyed among my family and friends

Anyone else have that thing where you get stressed out when someone else is in a bad mood because now it's your responsibility to make them feel better, but if you're in a bad mood and someone tries to cheer you up you get stressed out because now it's your responsibility to pretend that it's helping to make them feel better.

Oh so this is probably a trauma thing too. Bitches have one terrible childhood and then make it their whole personality. I'm bitches.

i have too much joie de vivre for this

i’m so serious when i say excessive fear of being annoying/creepy/taking up people’s energy etc holds us back. it seems like it’s just little things but they add up. over the past month i’ve ordered food and drinks almost exclusively by asking “do you have a favorite?” and i know if i said that on twitter or wherever ppl would dogpile me for demanding emotional labor of servers or w/e but every single person i’ve asked has seemed genuinely psyched to answer! i don’t ask if it’s busy obvi, and use a phrasing that gives them the easy out of “i don’t have one”— but no one has taken it! the girl at the cafe confessed to me with something like conspiracy in her voice how everybody raves about the gluten free chocolate chip cookies and sure, they’re great, but the delicious, fluffy homemade waffles are RIGHT THERE. the barbera the bartender recommended was actually kind of awful but it broke the ice and we ended up talking for like 45 minutes. the bodega guy declared that he usually makes himself a burger but tonight was “a breakfast sandwich night” and tbh he was totally right. it WAS a breakfast sandwich night

glad u guys are enjoying this post bc i’m quickly becoming incapable of ordering stuff any other way. i sat at the bar at a crowded brunch place the other day and it was a gamble bc i realize the gal was probably stressed, but when i did go ahead and ask she told me “oh the banana french toast. definitely” with an almost religious certainty. now normally i don’t order french toast! i don’t have that kind of courage! but when she came over later to ask me how the french toast was i got to look this human being in the eyes and answer “life-affirming,” to which she responded “RIIIIIIIGHT”. anyway, live deliciously

practice being a performer. one of the oldest and most versatile skillsets in the world. whether you want to get into streaming, getting better at school projects, work meetings, presentations, tabletop games, law, politics, speeches, acting, teaching, cosplaying, music, or just doing a bit with your friends: performing is a very important skill. get on a stage at least once in your life.

"But I stay silly :3" has done irreparable damage/good to my brain . i say it to get thru the day everyday . Work is hell but i stay silly . Lifes falling apart but i stay silly . :3

i hate that i have to keep reminding people of this but if you are sending money to a sex worker for any service or content please do not put ANYTHING in the memo field unless told otherwise by the provider

don't try to be cute or funny with it, the best way to make them smile is by following directions 💕

Paypal, for one, will delete someone's account and steal their money if they catch a whiff of your transaction being in any way nsfw, DO NOT SAY SHIT, just silently send the money as you are told if you need to speak something regarding it do so via DIRECT MESSAGES and FAR from the program of the transaction

i would go as far as to say never to add notes to paypal transactions. i recently saw someone have their account frozen from buying anime vhs tapes, because the anime in question happened to have the word "persia" in the title.

you never know what kind of weird thing is going to trigger their algorithm, so just don't

It's been over a decade, but I'm still saddled with a lifetime ban from paypal and by extension venmo because one of my friends who was paying me back for buying him and his gf at the time dinner thought it would be funny to include "for sensual massage" in the notes section and not only did they not let the transaction go through they took back all the money anybody had EVER sent me via paypal, which thankfully wasn't much.