#I only have internet friends

[kaleidiope]

My computer mouse broke a while ago, and I'm very upset I bought a new one, but I can't draw straight lines with it; for whatever reason it keeps arcing and curving which is a no-go for what I do. I need to have very steady lines for tuning and drawing, this new mouse doesn't allow for that, and I'm very upset. I can't do the only things that make me happy now :( Ever since my hand started shaking and my hearing's been messy, traditional art and melody making have kinda sucked,, and now you're telling me digital art and tuning is now not possible? I enjoy writing, but my cognitive abilities have been getting worse, too. So that's only an option sometimes Drawing was one of the few things I could do when shaky and unwell, and life took that from me now too via mouse death?! c'mon now

[apticho]

my hope, my star

[buttercupshands]

rewatched Kurogiri's holiday story from ultra impact (not related to sketch at all)

(but it did inspire me)

on another note

finally!!

[ravenkings]

gonna be real with you guys, i'm increasingly entertaining the idea that luigi didn't actually do it

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

Hi if you have a Dropout subscription, you need to watch From Ally to Zacky right now. It is so damn funny.

At one point, I was laughing so hard at a joke Ally made I missed several minutes of it and had to rewind.

If you need to laugh or smile, I cannot more highly recommend it.

[darlinguistics]

'its just IMPOSSIBLE to not be addicted to your phone nowadays its UNREALISTIC-'

heres some advice to being less chronically online. for gen z (and younger??) who dont even know how to start thinking about it and have only heard shitty advice from older adults who just genuinely do not get it, from a fellow gen z and my experiences so far.

*these are personal and may not all 100% resonate but its still good prompting to start thinking about things! PLEASE feel free to add your own stories/advice in the notes! support your fellow humans, dont gatekeep what youve learned, lets have these conversations! and no negativity/pessimism please <3

first thing is to make it a less scary thought, a more concrete idea and not a hypothetical. it doesnt have to be all-or-nothing, cold turkey, a huge announcement and a fundamental shift in your personality. the internet will be in your life for the rest of your life, this is an ongoing relationship you are trying to make healthier thats all! and it takes one step at a time and some self-compassion, but a true effort nonetheless. 'dont you think thats a bit too serious-' if youre my age you quite literally grew up and developed online, it is literally part of your psyche the way your childhood is, it IS serious, you deserve to treat it seriously.

dont save your login info/dont stay logged in for social media accounts, having to manually log in when you want to go on like youre on some elementary school chrome book is a really healthy and clear boundary to have between being logged off and logged on.

-> bigger challenge - uninstall it on your phone in general, only log on on your laptop/pc if applicable for you!

if youre motivated to, try to work on your posture too. i only say that because most of our bad posture is at least partially related to being on our phones a lot, and when i started wanting to fix my posture, completely separately and unrelated from trying to break my phone addiction, it made it easier to lose interest in my phone since i didnt want to ruin my progress with my posture. it made me start to have a mindset like 'well if you cant do this on your phone with good posture then dont do it' and 'if youre on your phone so long your posture starts to cave in, youve probably spent too long on your phone anyway'

listen to music more. its easier for me to kinda write off my phone and do other things if i just open music or a podcast or long youtube video on it. i know we all love long video essays, but i recommend music more specifically for me at least because im less inclined to pause music or scroll while listening to it for some reason? whereas using a show or video or podcast for white noise, im way more likely to also be scrolling on my phone and that is my activity lol. music for some reason i dont want to interrupt and instead of being on my phone i can clean or do something productive on my computer etc

this one is sooo hard but try to fall asleep with some distance between you and your phone, even just a couple feet. mine stays on the desk next to my bed which isnt that far but its better than on bed like it used to be. when you wake up you probably wont feel like reaching for it right away if its far and even better if you have to get up for it because then at least you stand and move your body first thing instead of looking at your phone first thing. and try to get more and more of your morning routine done before touching your phone over time.

-> for me, i started by just trying to at least wake up a bit in bed before touching it, then stand up before touching it, then stand and stretch, then going to the bathroom first, making coffee first, feeding the cat first, etc. its surprisingly helpful to have a specific chore/task in mind that is The requirement so that everytime you do it you get a lil dopamine rush for unlocking your phone from yourself lmao. when the weather was nice i used to make my Requirement being outside first before going on it and i LOVED that. esp as it got easier and i started doing more and more before going on it and finally walking outside with coffee and my phone felt like such a pleasant little reward.

find a hobby that uses your hands. example: i really need to get back into knitting because when i did it regularly so much time that wouldve been on my phone was spent knitting with music/podcasts/shows/(even online lectures! when i felt productive lol) playing. its the same amount of physical relaxing - barely moving lol - but uses a longer attention span and a much better dopamine hit than scrolling, i literally MADE things.

-> you might be thinking, 'but mindless knitting isnt better than mindless scrolling is it?' but that mindless feeling on your phone is just that, mindless. the mindless feeling you get when doing something like knitting is actually closer to a flow state, which is actually incredibly good for you, like a fulfilling nutritious meal as opposed to 'empty calories' or whatever

get a widget for your homescreen that shows your screen time. i have one and of course it doesnt always stop me but seeing that time go up all day the more i use it and the pride of keeping it low is really helpful

practice grounding. in general.

spend more time on anonymous activities and have more privacy and less attachment with your 'persona' - what i mean by that is, i consider things like scrolling through tumblr (for me personally!) to be relatively harmless because i dont try to like,, brand myself here. if youre a tumblr regular you know the jokes - 0 follows, 0 notes, screaming to the void, moots you dont talk to, blorbo pfp and urls, fake names everywhere, and we're having fun! basically targeting the 'everyone is famous now' thing with this one - embrace being a nobody with no personal stakes here

-> personally ive never kept up with having social media accounts that are actually just, me irl - like a facebook or main instagram, like a locals account yknow? but i think it goes for that too - stop spending so much time trying to further personalize your online presence in the hopes of it representing you perfectly - because it never will, and it shouldnt, and you shouldnt aspire for that. your social media presence is lighthearted and incredibly surface-level, treat it like that! thats not me bashing social media either, having that mindset will make it more enjoyable bc youll be using it as it should be used!

do following/followers or camera roll/files or app purges. this is also a soft launch type of way to practice easing into a better mindset. aside from just literally getting rid of junk, the process of trying to judge whether or not you need something is good practice in mindfulness! even if you dont delete everything you feel like you maybe should, thats fine, youll do other purges in the future too. eventually youll get better at parting with things and realizing when things that feel good in a moment are actually bad for you. and it forces you to regularly check in on your more long-lasting parasocial relationships online and how theyre serving you or not

speaking of parasocial - for actual friends, if theyre irl, think about how much you interact with them online vs in person and why you think that is and how it affects you. maybe youll wanna see them more irl if possible (i promise its better for your friendship), maybe youll realize you dont need to keep tabs on them anymore (old high school acquaintances lookin at you). for celebrities and fandom things - try to think about the bare minimum content from them you could do with. you dont have to unstan all your faves and stop enjoying things - but do you need their notifications on? if you have designated fan accounts, are they still a source of joy or of stress? do you need them on all the platforms or just one or two? do you need to have all that saved content of them? are there aspects of this that you love that could be found elsewhere, maybe even offline? (again you dont have to stay one way forever, just encouraging checking in with yourself!)

if youre of the genre of online where you just cant help yourself from getting involved in big discussions or discourse and arguments - i recommend journaling when you get upset by something online, articulating your feelings without the idea of someone ever reading it and without the goal of 'winning' or being the most correct and logical or even the most sympathetic and morally good. take away every audience aspect of it. what is this really about for you, and why would strangers online deserve to hear your personal well-thought out opinions? why would your thoughts deserve to be simplified and misconstrued and underappreciated the way they would be in this discussion? is there even an outcome to this where you feel truly satisfied? are their people who are more worthy of hearing your thoughts who arent part of this audience? is this a conversation that is best held online where so much communicative nuance is inevitably sacrificed?

in the end these are all just practices in remembering how in control you are. and that goes for if any of these are scary or too difficult sounding too! these all become less scary if you remember that as soon as anything becomes too uncomfortable or painful, you have all the power to stop doing it, make a change, and try again later. so much of advice for quitting bad habits can be intimidating because the pressure and the shame that would come from failing scares you out of the possible benefits of trying - just go ahead and kill that shame from the jump. of course youre going to fail! you are going to have setbacks! thats part of it! you have agency in this, always. the internet is not inherently or completely evil nor good. build trust in yourself to make the calls on when it is serving you and when it isnt on a case-by-case basis, and then give yourself permission to learn through trial and error.

and remember you are worth all of this effort. i believe in us <3

[theriverbeyond]

sometimes you really are severely deficient in the Vitamin and that vitamin is HRT

[projectjasper]

i love how the show made sure 1) to show us that for once boston was extremely reluctant to make sexual advances on someone and atom absolutely did all the work, and then also blamed boston for not wanting to see him again, despite the clearly established boundaries; and 2) to explicitly frame the fact that boston as a gay man (particularly a promiscuous gay man) is seen as predatory by having chueam verbally frame the situation as the classic deeply homophobic "homosexual preying on the young and inexperienced and turning them to the "homosexual lifestyle"" idea (reflected in anything from 1961's "boys beware" short to the current "protect children from drag queens" moral panic), and y'all are STILL somehow saying that boston is at fault here, just because he is a shitty friend and a selfish person. like i'm sorry, but a leap from these honestly regular human traits to literal blackmail and sexual assault is not as obvious and easy as some of you seem to think.

[simandy]

Yesterday: rain clouds and thunders. Only a few drops here. No alert on my climate app. Ridiculous storm going on the next city. We got the gov alert. They didn't.

Today: rain clouds and thunders. Heavy rain here. Orange alert on my climate app. Ridiculous storm going on here right above me. Nobody got the gov alert. Anywhere.

Clown country (sertanejo ver.)

[thatskindarough]

They need to make a queer space where the extroverted queers adopt the introverted queers today so we can have our occasional social enrichment but also not have to worry about socializing in the moments we don’t feel like it.

[lunabug2004]

I find it really interesting that I rarely see pure First love. Like, most ppl who comment on his acting mention Khao in some way? At least, when commenting on his performance in FirstKhao-centric shows.

And I understand it's part of promoting as a pair and whatnot, but Khao seems to get a lot more kudos to his acting than first does? For example, I saw a comment on an Only Friends reaction regarding FirstKhao's amazing acting and chemistry. And I was expecting someone to reply agreeing and saying that they are both amazing actors, because they are, but instead they talked about Khao's ability to pull out amazing acting from anybody he works with, even the most ok actors. And I don't think they meant it like this, but couldn't it be read as kinda a diss on First? They didn't comment on his talent at all...

And ya'll, I am biased, so I am aware that anytime one has a "favorite" it seems like they don't get as much recognition. And that might just be what this is! But, I just feel that with as much recognition Khaotung gets for his acting (rightfully so, he's crazy talented), sometimes First just... seems to get the short end of the stick w/ compliments and recognition? He's an amazing actor in his own right and I just don't seem to see ppl say that very often!

[shitouttabuck]

what if i wrote a twisters au……….

[khruschevshoe]

Everyone has been discussing whether or not the Shayne/Courtney wedding is real or fake and I would like to provide you a third option: the wedding was real and legal BUT ONLY for the return of Let's Do This. This is everyone's revenge on Arasha.

[concrete-3ater]

if I had a nickel for every time I was in a fandom and a child character had a breakdown and did something that accidentally hurt another character, and then the fandom all turned on the character and vilified them because they [the fandom] can’t understand that sometimes 14 year olds make mistakes when they’re going through something traumatic, I would have 2 nickels

not a lot but it really is weird it happened twice

[kavehayati]

I support girls but NAH THIS IS REACHING “if you look carefully LIKE REALLY CAREFULLY 🤓☝️”

[box-is-real]

i have some closeted friends online, and one of them just had something bad happen (not going into any specifics at all because of privacy) but like... THAT is why KOSA scares me. how are they supposed to get help? how are they supposed to feel safe ever? if the government can so blatantly try and censor LGBTQ+ identities, and neurodivergent people, and FUCKING GENOCIDE what's next?

and i don't really have to be scared like others. even though i am neurodivergent, it is not super severe, and i am cis straight white dude, i have life on easy mode. i hate when people have to hide and i want to help but i can't. i can't even hug them. the closest i can get is typing on my screen and hoping it reaches them safely and that they haven't died.

im not scared of KOSA because of what it would do to me, but because of what it will do to my friends, and people who are suffering like my friends, and people who are suffering in ways i can't begin to fathom. it's a very hard feeling to describe.

now the government wants to take that link away from me, from my friends who supported me in my times of need, and, hopefully, who i supported well too. it is a feeling of desperation and depression and anger.

im really just typing at this point, and im probably not making a whole lot of sense, but it basically boils down to this, and im directing this at YOU Senators and Representatives of the U.S.A:

Stop KOSA, keep our friendships intact, and ACTUALLY do something to protect kids you fucking inept dumbasses.

sincerely, a minor KOSA will not be protecting.