I don't get seasonal depression, I just get slightly sleepier and more irritable and mopey when I don’t get any sunlight, but when I said this to my doctor she was like “you should still get a lightbox” and I did and now I have way more energy.  The moral of the story is, if you spend time thinking to yourself “well I don’t actually have [diagnosable problem], I have [milder version that I can just ignore]”, you could instead of just ignoring it get the accommodation for the problem and see if it improves your life. I do not expect to remember this next time I “don’t actually have the real problem”, but maybe eventually I will learn.

We treat accommodations like something that you can only have if you’re really really desperately suffering and cannot function at all without them, but that’s… really really not the case. Or at least it shouldn’t be.

Not to uuuhhh highjack this post, but I have some experience with this. Not only does it corroborate the above but I have found that even you don’t have any need for whatever accommodation that also shouldn’t bar you from getting one if you just…

want it

see years ago my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, and as happens with progressing cancer her mobility was drastically reduced. To help combat this and allow her to retain independence at home Papa (my grandfather) got a shower chair. This is about as self-descriptive as it can get, it is a chair made of metal and plastic that sits in your shower or bathtub. I’m sure those with physical disabilities are already quite familiar with them, for those of you that aren’t just google it.

Eventually my grandmother passed. A couple years after my dad had to stay at Papa’s house for a couple weeks, for his own medical reasons. While there he discovered that Papa had kept the chair. And while Papa was old he was hardly infirm, he didn’t use a cane or have any severe mobility issues. Certainly none that would have affected his ability to stand in the shower. The conversation went more or less as such:

Dad: Why they hell did you keep the shower chair, dad? You don’t need it

Papa: Kevin, you wait until you use it. Then you’ll know why I kept it.

My dad was disbelieving tbh, to him chairs in showers when you don’t need them was a thing that like. Lazy rich people had. wtf could be so great about being able to sit in the shower? Why would an able-bodied person even need to? it’s a fucking shower? wash urself and then get out. Then he used the chair, and according to him it was like he’d had a proper religious revelation. Shortly after his return home (tbh the amount of time it took for him to take a shower sans chair) my dad went out and bought a shower chair.

The ensuing conversation with my mother went as such:

Mom: Kevin why did you buy that? We don’t need it!

Dad: Just use it once, this will change your life.

And it did. After using the chair for the first time my mom straight up wanted to know why they had never thought to get a chair for the shower before. Ever since we have had a chair in the shower.

It has proven itself invaluable.

I have no current mobility issues, and yet if I had to move house tomorrow a shower chair of my own would be one of the first things I purchase for my own home.

It’s so easy to fall into the trap of “this could make my life easier but do I really need it?” And y’know what maybe you don’t need it. Maybe you don’t need that accommodation, but maybe it would make your life easier anyway. When it comes to things that you keep in your home for personal use does it really matter? Besides there is always the very real chance that buying it now, when you don't’ need it but can afford it, will save your ass down the line when you suddenly do desperately need it.

I would also like to point out: if able-bodied people start using things that were originally designed as disability accommodations, they become normalised. They become acceptable. And then all of a sudden they’re widely available, they usually become cheaper, and disabled people don’t get shit for needing them.

Buy the damn shower chair. Get a JarKey so you don’t need gorilla strength to open the pickled onions. Install soft-touch taps. Revel in your newly comfortable life while also making the world a slightly more disability-friendly place.

*banging fist on table* CURB CUTTER EFFECT

Audio description:

[Sound of typing]

Person 1: Morning, Jill!

Jill: Morning, Stacey!

Stacey: What'd'ja get up to this weekend?

Jill: Oh, I had a lovely little breakdown.

Stacey: Did you?

Jill: I did, yeah. Really treated myself. I felt on the brink all week so I decided to stalk my ex just to push myself over the edge.

Stacey: Johnathon?

Jill: That's the one.

Stacey: Oh, he's got a gorgeous new girlfriend.

Jill: I know.

Stacey: Nice.

Jill: And he's just landed himself his dream job.

Stacey: Oh. [pause]. And you're here. [pause]. Ideal!

Jill: That only had me tearing up so I pushed it a little bit further. I tried on a dress from five years ago.

Stacey: [gasp] You bugger.

Jill: Then I grabbed a bottle of wine, box of McVities, whacked on the news, accidentally opened up my phone on selfie mode, and [blows a kiss French chef style] sobbing.

Stacey: Ahh, that sounds good.

Jill: Felt amazing, nothing like a good cry.

Stacey: You must have felt reborn.

Jill: Oh, I certainly felt like I was being birthed by that dress afterwards.

Stacey: [hums in a satisfied way]

Jill: [hums in a satisfied way]

[Pause while Stacey blows on her drink]

Jill: How 'bout you?

Stacey: Oh, I just saw some family.

Jill: Oh.

[pause while both nod]

Jill: Oh! So massive breakdown.

Stacey: Huge.

[End description]

You're doing God's work

People will say “I don’t dream of labor” like that is nice but I just want to shelve books and generate curricula for information access and youth literacy and just because I am opposed to the fact that labor is an obligation to survival under capitalism does not mean that I don’t aspire to labor for the benefit and maintenance of society. I dream of labor that is meaningful and life-giving to my community. I know capitalist alienation has convinced you that existence is ineffectual but it’s not a revolutionary belief. It’s an outgrowth of individualism.

This is hands down the best tik tok ever made.

mAM dOES yOUR hUSBAND HAVE NIPPLES

A universal experience.

[Transcription: all speech in the video is auto-tuned]

Story time: I’m a vet tech and one time I was [???] this lady for an appointment with her little dog who was covered in bugs

I searched this dog high and low for bugs, couldn’t find a single one

I said ma’am can you please point out these bugs to me

She said oh my gosh can’t you see them they’re right on his belly

She showed me her dog’s nipples and proceeded to try to rip them off

I said ma’am no stop

Those are his nipples

She said

There’s no way, he’s a boy

I said ma’am that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have nipples

Those are definitely his nipples, notice how they’re so symmetrical

She said no way, he’s a boy I said

Ma’am doesn’t your husband have nipples

I add vet tech storytime….lady brings in a kitten, terribly concerned he’s got a cold or asthma or something…he’s always making this alarming sound in his chest but he’s so active and affectionate and loves to snuggle. Neither her or her husband have ever had a cat before, so she just wants to make sure they get everything right and take good care of their newest family member.

I pet the kitten as I give this lady pamphlets and a personalized Cat Owner 101 lesson.

The kitten is leaving a great time, nearly comatose with happy in my lapm

She goes “That’s it!! That’s the sound!! What’s wrong with him?! If there’s anything we can do, we’ll do it! He’s my son’s best friend, we love him!”

I stare at her helplessly, fighting every impulse because this woman is so genuine in her love and concern for this, the first cat her family has ever experienced.

“Ma'am,” I say, so, SO gently.

“Ma'am, he’s purring. It means you’re making him happy.”

the video was sO FUNNY and then the last reply melted my entire heart

UNMUTE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

the lip syncing has me shook to absolute death

YOU CAN’T WATCH ONE WITHOUT THE OTHER HALF!!!

THE ENDING NOOOOOO

Idk who needs to hear this, but saying you're shaving for yourself doesn't change the fact that if you were a man, the idea of shaving all your body hair to have a soft leg would sound crazy to you.

Your body hair eventually softens. You get uses to seeing it. You get used to your body.

I can attest! My leg hair has been growing free for 3 years.

I think I’m on year two? At first it was really prickly and itchy and awful (like for a month, my hair grows slowly, but shaving was also awful) and now my hair is very soft

I'm on year 5. Not like a solid 5 years of no shaving, but I could probably count the number of times I've shaved in the past 5 years on my hands.

I'm on year 7, same conditions as @sapphos-witch-gf , but those were probably in the first couple of years too. It's very soft and I love the look on men/boys faces when they question me and I'm completely unabashed and confident on my stance. Womanhood is so confining that the tiniest of things can feel like a power play to men. It's wonderful telling them that I don't shave for the same reason they don't, as I know how difficult it is for the average man to relate himself to a woman, and they get a delightful look on their faces when they see I've put us on the same level, even if only for the conversation.

Fr. Men always think it's some intentionally feminist thing they can argue. But it's not. For me it's just "cause why would I?" It's an hour of my week (I didn't regularly shave long enough to get to the point where I need to do daily shaving) for my legs to not be that different and then the hair just starts growing again!

5 years of zero shaving. Haven't been asked to justify myself yet. Then again I avoid men lol but I think despite the fact that I'm pretty hairy with dark hair people just don't notice. To think I used to be so self conscious as a teenager. What a waste of my time.

Straight up so much time wasted on self hatred, insecurities, and self consciousness. We had it beat into us that if we didn't look perfect, we were worth less. And it doesn't serve us to be thinking about leg hair.

basically, i think the general rule of thumb is: if someone REALLY wants the blood that’s inside of your body, and they’re like… a vampire, or a dracula, or some sort of mansquito, then that’s probably okay. a dracula and a mansquito are made for removing things like blood and swords from inside your body. that’s basically fine.

if something wants to get at your blood, and they’re, say, some kind of murdersaurus, or maybe a really big frog, that’s where the problems start to arise. a really frog is not made for removing blood, and your blood knows this, which is why it is so vehement about wanting to stay IN your body instead of coming out. 

unfortunately this will not deter a really big frog, because a really big frog is full of things like prizes, and value, and quite a lot of hatred, and it would REALLY rather like to replace any and all of those things with your blood, and basically by any means possible.

These words scan with a fantastic degree of confidence considering that together they make no sense at all

sometimes if you squint hard enough there are individual coherent sentences

i sent this to my philosophy teacher, and this was his reply: 

 This is a very interesting question.

There are a few ways to go about answering it that come to mind.

Considering Intent. This is kind of like the Kantian way of doing things: as long as you’re doing something for good reasons, it is OK. Conversely, doing something for bad reasons is wrong.

Dracula has arguably good reasons for sucking blood - that is how he sustains himself. He would die otherwise (or whatever the equivalent of death is for those that are undead), and we generally think that when having to choose between survival and death, it is almost never wrong to choose survival (even at the expense of another’s life - think of self-defense killing).

The mansquito likewise has arguably good reasons, assuming they need the blood for the same reasons that a Mosquito needs blood.

It is worth pointing out here how when it comes to common pests like Mosquitos, Black Flies, Deer Flies, etc., no matter how annoying they may be to us, and how much we may hate them, we do not really think that they are evil. Yeah, we wish they were wiped off the face of the Earth forever, but we don’t think that they are bad. They’re just doing what nature has programmed them to do. For the same reasons we do not say that a Tornado is evil, even if it destroys whole towns. 

So this moves us towards considering something like the “Nature” of these beings. In Philosophy this is sometimes called “Natural Law” theory. A Natural Law theory is one that proposes that there are certain natural laws, and breaking those laws is unethical. (Natural Law theory often goes hand in hand with Christian philosophy, and things like homosexuality used to be (still are, even) argued against purely from a standpoint of Natural Law - “It’s not natural!” (whatever that means).)

So again, Dracula and mansquitos are just following their natures. We can’t really fault them for it. We can be annoyed or angry, but we can’t really say that what they’re doing is bad in any real sense. The same, of course, would probably go for the Murdersaurus, whose basic nature is to murder. Again, just doing its natural duty.

The Really Big Frog is different. Assuming that a Really Big Frog is like a typical Frog except Really Big, sucking blood would be “deviant behaviour.” This is not what normal frogs do. Moreover, it is harmful to others. It’s Evil. The problem with Natural Law theory is that it assumes usually one kind of normal behaviour, and anything that doesn’t fit that is “deviant,” wrong, weird, etc. Maybe it works when you’re talking about rocks, plants, and bumble bees, but it seems to be grossly over-reductive and restrictive when it comes to describing people and other things.

So this could move us away from this whole style of thinking, and towards something that is more individual-based. I’m thinking now of Nietzsche, and what we call in philosophy Perspectivism. This idea is like relativism, in that each person has their own perspective, which grants them their own, unique, individual style of flourishing in the world. Some people like Cats, others like Dogs, others have Ant Farms - it’s all good. So long as my own style doesn’t interfere with yours, it’s all good. And even if it does, that’s isn’t necessarily a bad thing. 

Nietzsche emphasized that it was very important that there were people in society who acted oddly, pushed at the boundaries, and generally make the majority feel uncomfortable or downright scared. This, according to Nietzsche, is the only way society can progress - by being challenged like this. So, is Dracula a Nietzschean free spirit, challenging me by asserting that sucking blood may be a worthwhile thing to do, and that I ought to expand my horizons? Perhaps. Certainly moreso than the murdersaurus, who will probably just murder me. The Really Big Frog could be OK too. Or not, but it kind of depends on how forcefully the RBF attacks.

this changes everything oh my god

do you understand why it trips me out that people can drive 45 minutes and be in aNOTHER COUNTRY? I drive for 45 minutes and im like

a city over 

I live in “Italy” and took a day trip to go to “Austria” and “Germany”

 #it is literally impossible to leave texas #you will be in texas #FOREVER

Chums, that’s sweet, and all, but Australia just ate Texas for breakfast. 

If you drive for 45 minutes in Australia you aren’t a city over, you’re just 45 minutes away from the city.

If you drive for 45 minutes in Australia you may not even leave the cattle station.

If you drive for 45 minutes in Canada you may not even leave your driveway.

If I drive 45 minutes in the us I’m just at another mcdonalds

If I drive for 45 minutes in Northern Ireland I’m 10 minutes into the sea.

I can’t drive. 

Bro (talking about a girl he’s interested in): She’s pretty cool. But kinda intimidating. She hates—well she doesn’t hate men but she hates the…man thing. Me: …penis?

Bro: No. The—the thing. The bad cultural thing. The paternal thing. 

Me: Ohhh. The Patriarchy?

Bro: That’s the bitch.

Me: I feel like we should probably not call the patriarchy ‘bitch.’ All things considered.

Bro: You right. See? This is why I’m stressed! What if I say something dumb like that in front of her!? Anyway. We’re going out again on Friday, I just gotta make sure I’m not patriarch-ing. Can you help me pick out what I’m going to wear? Feminists like flannel, right?

mummy remains were also used starting in the 16th-17th centuries to make a popular pigment for paintings, cosmetics, and dyes called mummy brown or egyptian brown and it was used most frequently in pre-raphaelite works. they used remains of other north african peoples as well. a significant number of these “fine art” paintings by old european “masters” of art literally contain human remains, and many of these paintings depict indigenous peoples across the globe as savages and subhuman. they used the bodies of racialized people to dehumanize and cannibalize racialized and particularly african bodies in their art. it’s beyond horrifying.

(link to the full article)

i remember in second grade i got a new purple sharpener and this girl who i was “friends” with asked me to have it and I was like ???? no my mom just bought this for me yesterday and she said “if you dont give me the sharpener we’re not friends anymore” and i just said “okay” and she was like “So you’re giving me the sharpener??” and i was like “why are you talking to me? we’re not friends” and i wish i was still as savage as i was back then

the best memory i have of middle school is when i was on the bus ride to go home and i had a seat all to myself. i was saving the area next to me for my then-best friend and a little girl came up to me and asked to sit next to me. i said ‘no, im saving it for my friend sorry’, and she got all fussy and said ‘its against the rules to save seats! you can’t do that!’ and i sat back and said ‘watch me’ and every night i wonder where that confidence went

Ok but storytime.

In middle school we had assigned seats on the bus for some reason, and the kid behind me loved snapping my bra strap and calling me crazy. Naturally, the authorities did nothing. I finally had enough and spent a week letting my nails grow long, and sharpened them to pointed claws with a file.

Snapper reached over the seat and quick as a whip I sank my claws into his hand, and I mean IN his HAND. I could feel his flesh as they went and I think the fact that they were still in the wound is the only reason they weren’t bleeding. “You have a choice now,” I said. “Pull your hand away and turn this into something worse that you get to explain, or keep it there and let the driver catch you in the act.”

He didn’t say anything but pulled his hand away, and the stabs turned into hardcore scratches. There was blood. He did not snap my bra again.

Throwback to all these Jesus comics I drew in 2012…

Good post OP

Good post, OP, and if you ever decide to do another may I please suggest “NOT IN HEBREW IT DOESN’T” as a punchline? So much of the Old Testament is HORRIFICALLY translated from the Tanakh, it drives me batty.

WAIT WAIT WHAT DOES IT SAY?????? I NEED TO LIKE,, DESTROY MI MUM FOR BEING REALLY HOMOPHOBIC

Okay, so, strictly speaking, the infamous Leviticus 18:22 does say “forbidden.” Here’s the thing:

Apparently tumblr mobile doesn’t want to show @prismatic-bell ’s long and in-depth essay, so here’s the screenshots, because it still shows up on mobile browsers:

Much appreciated.

I love when scholarship and history debunks bullshit

…I sadly have more bullshit to report.

“removed for violating guidelines”, EVERY screenshot.

…goddamnit

Let’s try this again

I am horrified that @prismatic-bell keeps getting censored + this info is gold.

Many thanks, @pulmonary-poultry. This isn’t the only Jewish post of mine that’s mysteriously stopped showing up in searches and/or vanished from my blog entirely, but it is the one I get the most requests to repost, so this saves me from having to rewrite the whole damned essay. @the-invisible-self, thanks for bringing it to my attention that someone was able to preserve the post!

what the FUCK??? WHICH community guidelines would an analysis of the Old Testament violate??

unless tumblr staff is just removing images that get reported a bunch of times

Never not gonna reblog

@prismatic-bell RESPECT 💜

I mean I’m not Christian, so I don’t completely understand everything going on here, but… proving the fact that all these ___phobes twist religious literature and religion into something they can use to manipulate people into doing and believing what they think is ‘right’ and exposing all their asses is worth the confusion. So… HECK YEAH REBLOGGGGG!!!!!

WHY is this TikTok still on my mind three days later

I am living for these quality avatar tiktoks

This is the worst tiktok video I’ve ever seen 

the cursed image

They did surgery on an orange

this brave mother just gave birth and all you guys can do is make japes and jokes about it. smh

They did a vitamin c-section

i found the video

source

Are you shitting me?

this is what i like to see

old memes die hard

ok but she gettin it

how the hell can she dance like that with wellies on

Beautiful metal tree art….

Sometimes I think about lesbian icon renée vivien lauging so hard she had to leave a lecture bc the man was talking about how a book of anonymously published love poetry was the pinnacle depiction of a young man's desire towards women...... but it was her book. She wrote it. About her girlfriend.

Worth noting the girlfriend in question was also present

Wild Heart, Suzanne Rodriguez