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me: hmm time to google something

google every time: can i PLEASE have your location PLEASE 🥺🥺🥺 I need to know where you live so BAD 😫😫😫😫 Where do you fucking from?????? 😩😩😩😩😩😩

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*struggles while writing* i suck and writing is hard

*remembers some ppl use ai* i am a creative force. i am uncorrupted by theft and indolence. i am on a journey to excellence. it is my duty to keep taking joy in creating.

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Cant have fucking shit in Detroit

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“Why are so many trans girls into werewolves and robots and slime and monsters?”

Because society views us as monsters. And when you’re viewed that way you have two options.

The first, you can break yourself. You can take a knife and carve off all the corners, take sandpaper and smooth all your rough edges, you can take everything remotely variant about you and you can try and obliterate it in order to make yourself acceptable to people who do not know you and never will.

The second option is that you can say “okay, if I’m a monster I’m going to enjoy being a monster. I’m going to take those rough edges and rough them up some more. I’m going to take all my sharp corners and make them knife edged. I’m going to embrace how weird and broken and fucked up I am and I’m going to make it a part of me. I’m going to love, fight, live, and die as a freak, but I’m going to do it on my terms and no one else’s”

I’m never going to be cis. I’m never going to be straight. In fact I’d rather die than be either of those. So I’m going to take what I am and make it my power instead of my shame.

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Would anyone like to join me in my New Year's tradition of reading about good things that happened this year?

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To quote myself, imagine if you bought a pocket calculator at the store in 1980, and then in 1981 Texas Instruments sent you a letter saying, "The terms of use for our calculator have changed, in order to use the calculator you agree to waive any right to a jury trial or class action suit against Texas Instruments or any of its parents or subsidiaries. Continued use of the calculator constituted a binding agreement to these terms. If you do not agree you must immediately stop all use of your pocket calculator. No refund will be provided."

Seriously, writing that out really made it strike me even more how utterly abusive the modern age is to consumers.

The EULA, or End User License Agreement is a binding contract which one party may unilaterally change at any time for any reason and in any way they choose; the counterparty may not negotiate or change the terms of the contract and their only remedy in the case of changes that they don't like is to withdraw entirely from the contract.

Such contracts govern all use of software, which, since software governs the majority of our lives, mean that they now govern the majority of our lives.

Want to order a pizza? Better send the legal contract with the pizza company to the lawyer you keep on retainer and after looking over the documents he'll advise you on the legal ramifications of the pizza transaction.

Oh, you don't keep a lawyer on hand to advise you about ordering pizza or playing video games?

Well, then you can't complain if you don't like something buried in page 20 of the contract you signed with the pizza delivery company.

One of the massively dehumanizing things bureacracy does is demand something that is in practice impossible, like, "Keep a lawyer on retainer to scrutinize the terms of every pizza delivery contract, video rental, major appliance, and video game you interact with." and then condescendingly tell you,

"Well, if you don't do something as simple as that, whatever happens next is *your fault* and blaming someone else shows a weakness in your character."

One of the confounding problems if you want to argue with people who have some kind of luddite leanings is that, well, new technology feels nowadays like an imposition from hostile forces who know that they have you over the barrel because, uh, it is that thing. It is deliberately designed to be that thing.

I like having a cell phone. I hate waiving my right to a jury or to participate in a class action lawsuit. I would pay more, as a consumer, for a phone contract that did not have a binding arbitration clause. I couldn't find one.

So I decided that owning a phone was the lesser of two evils, and that will now be treated as a free choice which I have no right to complain about.

After all, if I wanted the right to join a class action suit I could simply forgo phone service and conduct all communications by the post.

And since I am allowed to choose whether I wish to have legal rights or a telephone, I am not allowed to complain about missing one or the other. After all, *I agreed* to give one of those things up :) :) :) :)

I think this move towards mass abuse of consumers really is one of the more underrated factors in, say, modern American politics.

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If you see a post talking about problems related to a behavior you do (or problems related to not doing something) and your first and only reaction is to rant about how the post is insensitive to your very specific circumstances which make changing your behavior impossible, consider:

Not everything is about you and this might just be one of those things.

That is also the reaction of every person in the history of humanity who simply didn't want to change their behavior. Everyone has extenuating circumstances. The worst person you know has internally compelling reasons for their behavior. The challenges that you personally experience will always feel like a reasonable excuse for your behavior because they're the things you personally are experiencing. The consequences of some behaviors are mild enough that extenuating circumstances can excuse them (see #1). The consequences of others are bad enough that it is necessary, if one wants to live a decent life in this world, that you figure out a way to change regardless. It is your personal responsibility to figure out the difference between these and take the appropriate actions. Here's a hint: the more emotionally attached you are to your excuse, the more likely it is that it's excusing a behavior that needs to change.

Insisting that OP needs to provide explicit instructions for how to start or stop the behavior for someone in your very specific circumstances is unreasonable and probably annoying.

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The Very Basics of Not Killing Your Computer

AVOID HEAT STRESS

If you have a laptop DO NOT use it on a soft surface like a pillow or on a blanket, it’ll block the vents on your computer and make it get really fucking hot inside.

If you have a desktop you gotta open it up and blow out the dust sometimes.

If you are moving your laptop in a bag turn the laptop off. Don’t put it to sleep, don’t just shut the screen, turn it off, because otherwise it’s in the bag generating heat and there’s nowhere for the heat to go in the bag. OFF. Not sleep. OFF.

DO NOT DROP

Okay I know that should be obvious but drop damage to your hard drive is bad bad news. Be as careful as you can to set your computer gently on flat surfaces; don’t leave it hanging out on a bed where it can get knocked off, don’t set it on the roof of your car. And yes, just dropping it a couple inches can kill your hard drive or totally shatter your screen.

DON’T PUT SHIT ON YOUR KEYBOARD

Look I’ve seen four people ruin their laptops because they had a pen on the keyboard and closed the laptop and it fucked up the screen and the keyboard and it sucks so much and you feel awful after it happens because it’s so avoidable just don’t put things on your keyboard and always check that your laptop is clear before you close it.

PROTECT YOUR PORTS ON YOUR LAPTOP

You’ve only got one power jack and a limited number of other inputs on your computer and if they detach from the motherboard you’re fucked. USB ports get damaged because people use them a lot and eventually it weakens the connection and then they just stop working and it sucks. You can get around this with USB ports by using a USB hub to connect things like your keyboard and mouse.

For your power plug you just gotta be careful. Avoid tripping over the cord at all costs, don’t yank the plug out of the computer. It will SUCK VERY MUCH A LOT if you have to buy a new computer because the power port lost contact with the motherboard.

Don’t move your computer with things plugged into it. Take the power cord off before you put your laptop in the bag, take out the USB mouse dongle, do not travel with little nubby bits sticking out of your computer that can easily get caught or get tweaked or snap off inside of the thing.

(I really can’t emphasize enough that most of the “it will cost more than it’s worth to fix this” laptops I see are because of USB ports and power jacks. People don’t seem to know that this isn’t something that can be fixed easily; a broken power jack is a “remove the motherboard and resoldier components” job, not a “plug a new one in in fifteen minutes” job and most computer repair shops aren’t going to solder things for you and if they DO it’s going to be very expensive)

RESTART YOUR SHIT AT LEAST ONCE A MONTH AND JUST LET THE FUCKING UPDATES RUN

You should probably restart more than once a month but whatever. This is actually something that I consider part of reducing heat stress because when your processor is straining to keep up with all the background bullshit that’s running from a program you opened three weeks ago it’s going to use up resources and get hot and look just restart it once in a while.

Also the updates are almost always okay and safe and generally running updates is a good and secure thing to do (though maybe follow a blog dedicated to the OS you run because if there IS a problem with the updates that blog will probably talk about it before the update gets forced on your computer)

ANTIVIRUS BULLSHIT

Yes you should probably be running an antivirus.

Sophos is free and it’s fine. But don’t pay for it - if you’re using Sophos use the free version.

If you’re looking for something paid and a little more comprehensive I recommend ESET - get the cheap version, renewals cost less than the initial purchase, and feel free to get a multi-year version, the credentials follow your email not the computer so if your computer dies before your license expires you can install the license on a new computer.

DO NOT INSTALL NORTON OR MCAFEE THEY ARE EXPENSIVE BULLSHIT. Kaspersky is whatever. It’s less bullshit than Norton or McAfee but not as good as ESET for about the same cost.

If you think you’ve got a virus run the free version of Malwarebytes and get your shit cleaned.

KEEP LIQUIDS THE FUCK AWAY FROM YOUR COMPUTER

Again this should be obvious and yet. But seriously, just make a rule for yourself that drinks aren’t allowed on the same table as your computer and you’ll save yourself a lot of headaches.

PLUG YOUR COMPUTER INTO A UPS

Okay I fucking hate amazon but here’s a thing you should be using, just search the rest of the internet for “surge protector/UPS” and you’ll find something that isn’t from amazon - APC is a solid brand for this.

Basically you want a fat surge protector that has a little bit of a battery backup and you want to plug your computer (desktop OR laptop) into that instead of into the wall. The benefit of this is twofold:

1) if there’s a power surge the UPS will prevent your computer’s power supply from getting fried and possibly frying parts of your motherboard

2) if there’s a power outage and you’re *at* your computer you’ll have enough time to save what you’re working on before your computer loses power (like, you’ll maybe only have a minute or two on a small UPS but that’s still time to hit CTRL+S and keep from losing work)

At a bare, bare minimum your computer should be plugged into a surge protector but NOT directly into the wall.

BACK YOUR SHIT UP

[we interrupt this yelling for me to tell you that Western Digital has apparently released their new My Passport line and I’m obligated to inform you that you can get a 2.5″ USB 3.0 backup drive with FIVE FUCKING TERABYTES OF STORAGE for $130. Or you can get 4TB for $93. Or you can get 1TB for $53. basically what I’m saying is that it is not only cheap computer season it is also cheap hard drive season.]

[also if you’re getting a backup drive get western digital not seagate seagate fucking sucks and has a much higher failure rate]

Uh, okay, anyway - Do an image backup of your computer every once in a while so that if you get infected or your hard drive dies or whatever you can just restore from backup and move on like nothing happened.

HERE’S HOW TO DO AN IMAGE BACKUP.

SAVE YOURSELF THE WEAR AND TEAR

You know what is cheap? USB Keyboards and USB mice. You know what is not cheap? Fixing the touchpad on a laptop or replacing a laptop keyboard.

Get yourself a USB hub, a USB Keyboard and a USB Mouse (wired or wireless, doesn’t matter) and if you’re using your laptop at home plug *that* into your computer.

Also if your keyboard on your laptop breaks it’s fine just to use a USB keyboard instead I promise; if the screen breaks it’s also usually cheaper and easier to get a used or inexpensive monitor than it is to replace the screen. Your laptop is basically just a very small version of whatever bullshit is going on inside a desktop, if the peripherals break but the core components are fine you can just use it like a desktop.

Unless it’s a piece of shit that doesn’t have any USB ports or video out in which case you got ripped off, friend, demand functionality in your devices I’m sorry.

/rant

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Gendered parenting is so weird. As a little kid I was a total daddy's girl, I was told I would always try to sneak the garage, I was always very interested in everything he was doing and would follow him around while he was working, but while my family was never the type to outright say "you can't do that because you're a girl", they simply didn't entertain the idea that I could possibly be interested in cars. Then when my little brother was born, it was just assumed he would become a mechanic like our dad because he was a boy. Even though he, unlike me, didn't like being in the garage much and wasn't all that interested in what dad was doing. Once he got to a certain age, dad started making him help and would drag him away from his actual interests for it, which lead to a lot of arguing and not much actual learning.

Gendered expectations sort of create doubles of children. There's the real child with their actual personality, interests and behaviors, and then there's the Gender Child.

My real brother hated soccer and team sports. The Gender Child that existed only the minds of the adults in his life enjoyed playing soccer because that's what a Boy Child likes.

Growing up, I always felt like adults didn't actually know me as a person and they weren't interested in getting to know me. Because they felt they'd already learned everything there was to know about me when they were told "it's a girl".

When I talk about how I never got gifts I actually liked from my relatives (to this day I still don't like getting gifts that aren't something I picked out myself), it isn't actually about the gifts themselves. I don't even remember them. What I do remember is the feeling of being given gifts that were seemingly not bought with the real me in mind. They were for the Girl Child™️ version of me. The me that adults wanted me to be, not who I actually was.

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my earnest hope for 2025 is that everyone embraces being a little weirder and freakier and less judgmental bc we will all be better off for it like to charge reblog to cast

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If nobody ever explained this to you, if someone you see a lot does something you like and you never ever tell them that, they might think you don’t like them or don’t like the things they do for you.

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hi! you've been posting about using corsets to manage dysautonomic symptoms lately, and i was wondering if you had any insight into the action mechanisms behind how that helps/advice for what types of corsets to look for and what sensations to be aiming for in your body when using them as a mitigation?

i have a bunch of dysautonomia/potential POTS symptoms (episodes of racing heartrate and lightheadedness, usually helped somewhat by keeping my feet elevated and often tied to barometric pressure changes or doing A Lot Of Stairs Daily for extended periods, really poor temperature regulation and inability to function when im overheated, constantly freezing extremities, coathanger pain and extreme constant muscle tension in my neck/shoulders, an innate need to be constantly guzzling water, the list goes on and on), and ive been doing some really basic research into corsetry for fashion silhouette reasons lately anyway. if i could combine the fashion items i'm eyeing up anyway with a functional disability aid, that would be... some of the most awesome shit i've ever encountered? lol.

(no obligation to answer, of course, i don't expect you to like, be willing to give something adjacent to medical advice to an internet stranger, but if you want to ramble at length about this topic, i'd be greatly helped by the information! either way, sending solidarity your way and i hope the Horrors retreat again for a time soon.)

Oh gosh, let me be very clear. I DO NOT RECOMMEND CORSETRY FOR DYSAUTONOMIA

What is MEDICALLY recommended for many dysautonomia patients, including POTSies like my cousin, or OH long haulers like me is COMPRESSION GARMENTS. Things like compression socks, gloves, joint braces, etc. The compression makes it harder for blood too pool downwards with gravity in your extremeties, which can also reduce the frequency of fainting spells for those of us with accompanying syncope. There are some GREAT ones available at most department stores for pretty cheap. Walmart fucking sucks, but they carry affordable copper lined compression gloves that i have been using with regularity for about 5 years now to manage blood-pooling/swelling and joint pain.

The additional problem I have (and critically the additional TRAINING that I have) is that on top of my condition meaning I'm unable to stay upright for extended periods without swooning, I have hypovolemia. There is just....sort of less blood in me???? Volume-wise at least. So when it pools, it leaves a much more oxygen deprived brain behind than it even would have without that. What's the medical intervention for this come to find out? Compression garments again!

Well, I've been making and wearing corsets since I was 12 so that's AWFULLY convenient lmao since buying one would mean either convincing a doctor to prescribe me a medical corset (my doctor doesn't like doing stuff like this due to my tendency for severe deconditioning) or saving up a few hundred dollars for someone who can construct an appropriately tailored daily-use corset.

Thank fuck I can just make one instead lol.

That said, I am actually planning to make the project into a visual process here on tumblr (maybe ravelry too) because I'm strongly on the side of knowledge being shared. I doubt there will be many who could make use of my exact plans, but maybe seeing how the process is built helps them anyway!

Here are my primary recommendations for using corsetry as compression garmentry in the meantime:

Due to the severity of my symptoms, and the limited nature of my current corsetry options, I have been intermittently "tight-lacing¹" throughout the day to retain cognitive function. For the love of fucking god, do not do this to yourself. Ensure that whatever corsetry you may purchase is able to be comfortably worn as compression garmentry with about a 1inch gap between the lacing panels rather than allowing the corset to be fully tight-laced shut.

Functional corsetry is largely intended to redistribute the weight of heavy layered outer clothing, which means it will have gussets for your hips to ensure they are not overly compressed. Lingerie corstry rarely does this, often ending at the wearing waist instead to avoid over-constriction of the hips. Whichever route you take is fine, and likely determined by what compression you may or may not need around your low back, but make sure that whatever design you choose allows for full hip movement/rotation

Compression corsetry can also double as a pretty fabulous frame for binding breast tissue or packing a fuller bra cup look into the chest, but if you do this INSIDE the corset rather than ADDED TO THE OUTSIDE and sealed internally into the corset by the outer fabric, it may change the compression function of the garment, so you will want to work with someone knowledgeable about which placements may work best for you.

You will need to learn how to breathe differently in a corset. I recommend looking into the breathing and vocal exercises that opera simgers use to train, as often they must be able to perform at high lung capacities in similarly structured garments. This will have the double effect of giving you additional resilience OUT of the corsets to passing out if you have syncope symptoms. When you know more about intentional breathwork, it becomes easier to alter your breath throughout the day to maintain cognitive functioning and balance/consciousness.

If you're going to use ANY compression garments for an orthostatic dysautonomia condition, I recommend doing a few things: buy a couple of the thing you're using, and then SEVERAL UNDER LININGS. This allows you to wear the outer compression garment daily for much longer before needing to trade out to your spare and wash the first. Just replace the liners each day. Also, keep your liners and compression garments in a small container by your bed with a full water bottle and some kind of portable electrolyte [I have a metal water bottle with a water filter pod in it so I can refill it at most water sources, and a small tupperware of a sodium and sodium bicarbonate 50/50blend in a little folding storage cube by my bed]. When you first wake up, your body is gonna really hate trying to re-regulate, and you're more likely to have rapid onset (as opposed to daily cumulative) symptoms of the condition. So before you stand up in bed, pop some electrolytes, drink at least 8oz of water, and strap into your compression garments before you actually stand up. This makes it easier for your body to move through regulation without you passing out suddenly for anyone who has fall risk flags like syncope. Lastly, keep a stimulent around for emergency blood pressure drops or days when you can't seem to regulate. Caffeine and prescription stimulents like Ritalin or Adderall are common (I get Ritalin already for ADHD, and it has substantially lowered my rate of falls), but there are other options out in the world too. Just. Don't fuck around with stimulents casually. They can be really critical for dysautonomia if you're dealing with a lot of it, because they're CNS-actors and tend to be regulating for us, but stimulents are, nonetheless, prone to some nasty side effects (known more than a few people who ended up with severe malnutrition issues or psychotic/manic episodes being induced and while those things are obviously things that can happen, and don't necessarily mean you should or should rule a support out, knowing your specific areas of risk when using a stimulent medication can be really important. If you need stimulents regularly to raise your BP and aren't already taking it for another reason, I'd recommend exploring BP raising meds for daily use with your doctor instead so you can save any stimulent use for when it's most urgent without having already accumulated risk factors.

I really wish I had more for you, but unfortunately treating and managing orthostatic conditions has been a nightmare for all of the 30yrs I've been diagnosed with one. It's getting better for sure, but it's still rough out there for us.

Ultimately, here's what I'll say: if you like corsets aesthetically, take the time to get yourself a really well made, tailored to you corset, and let the tailor know that you're looking for something that may be daily use. They'll balance out some of the more formal and rigid boning with enough flexibility that you should be safe wearing the corsets for up to 4-8hrs consequetively. And while I don't recommend jumping into the long haul right off, if you wear it for an hour and it's comfortable and you can think a little more clearly and you're moving faster than you're used to without toppling, maybe try it again for two hours next time. Never keep it on for longer than is comfortable, and let your body tell you what comfortable is going to look like. With time, as you get used to wearing it, it'll be easier to mark places you'd like more or less compression for future versions. As with any compression garment, make sure you have a comfortable underlining tho, or you'll have some hard-to explain marks on your skin after a few days.

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giving birth sucks tbh. not only do you and the baby you’re birthing almost die, usually you shit yourself and often you tear your taint. then you have to push an organ out of your body (placenta) and if even a little of that remains in your body, you can hemorrhage to death or develop an infection that essentially rots your body from the inside out. even if you had a relatively “easy birth”, you bleed for weeks on end. even after that stops, your body and brain is changed for the rest of your life, the pregnancy leeched minerals from your bones, that can cause osteoporosis later. minor urinary incontinence is not uncommon, brain scans of people who gave birth show permanent changes in their brain, you’re never quite the same.

I say all of this not to say giving birth is disgusting but it is a harrowing and visceral experience. society downplays how fucking awful it is and makes it out to be a ~magical~ experience but it isn’t a magical transformative experience for everyone. it can be an extremely traumatic experience for someone who wanted to carry a pregnancy to term, much more so for someone who did not want to be pregnant in the first place or someone who knows their baby won’t survive the birth. anyway, abortion is a right. pregnancy and birth aren’t just inconvenient, it’s fucking awful.

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I’m the house resource nurse but no one needs any additional nursing help so I’m embarking on a really stupid fetch quest, wish me luck

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Love when people belittle resistance to nuclear plants by pretending the only concerns people have are "nuclear fallout" and "toxic waste" rather than,perhaps, the massive clusters of birth defects that pop up in the wake of a TON of industrial industries, including nuclear, all of which are often defaulted to THE SAME SMALL RURAL TOWNS thus ensuring that those towns are subject to a cumulative level of toxicity that can be seen in the physiological prognosis of the entire town for literal generations

Like I'm sorry. Sometimes a logistical concern isn't as simple as "those dumb hicks don't know nuclear plants are safe now". I always remember the hullaballoo folks made about "but what if solar fields kill all our fields and the sheep have nothing to graze", accusing them of believing the solar panels would "absorb too much of the sun" rather than the more complex (and if not exactly reasonable, at least an understandable conversation to need to CONFIRM UNDERSTANDING OF before acting on) "hey a lot of the parts in this are heavy metals, and you're asking us to alter large amounts of terrain in ways that could disturb root systems and if that mixes badly this could kill our crops, can you confirm that won't be an issue?"

And like. I dunno. Maybe interconnectedness means that when someone says they're not sure they agree with you that the pros outweigh the cons, you need to consider the possibility that could actually be true.

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i haven’t used a bong in 12 years bc when i was 19 i hit a bong at a party that was so tall you had to stand on a step ladder to get your mouth on it & then i called my older brother in another timezone sobbing on the toilet and he asked what was wrong and i said i couldn’t tell if i had peed or was peeing or had stopped peeing and i said “what if im still peeing and i walk back out to the party with my pants on and i’m still peeing and i can’t tell and i pee everywhere” and he took a deep breath and mustered all of the patience in the entire world in that moment and said “i cannot stress enough how much that will not happen.”