#STEM education tools

[beingjellybeans]

Young Filipino Innovators Shine at Swiss Innovation Prize 2024

The Swiss Innovation Prize 2024 recognized the ingenuity of Filipino innovators, awarding top honors to groundbreaking projects in sustainability, digitalization, and prosperity. The grand ceremony, held on November 21, 2024, at Azalea Hall, Somerset Central, Makati City, highlighted transformative solutions selected from over 160 entries submitted by young scholars, entrepreneurs, and…

[ctrinity]

Top AI Math Apps: Free Tools to Master Mathematics | 2024 Guide

Are you looking for innovative ways to engage your students and enhance their math learning experience? AI-powered educational tools offer a wealth of opportunities to make math more accessible, interactive, and effective. From interactive geometry software to personalized tutoring, these apps can help students of all ages develop a deeper understanding of mathematical concepts. In this blog…

[liketolaugh-writes]

Bruce looking past the fact that (recently adopted) Danny is a powerhouse and recognizing that he has other skills also. <3

Danny is a STEM kid and just as brilliant as his sister, you cannot convince me otherwise

Danny gave Bruce the handwritten list of powers in the morning. Bruce stared at it over his cup of coffee, then gave Danny a flat, somewhat disbelieving look. Danny shrugged sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Sorry,” he said, perching on one of the stools. “I can point out the ones I don’t use if you just want to work on the ones I do. At least I have an idea of what needs improving with those.” Alfred gave him a cup of coffee and a plate of bacon and French toast, and Danny smiled at him. “Thanks, Alfred.”

“We’ll have to prioritize your training,” Bruce allowed after a moment, frowning down at the paper. Dick leaned over to look and whistled. “But all of these will be addressed eventually. You should have at least a moderate grasp of every tool at your disposal.” He looked up. “You intended to work in the lab today, correct?”

Danny nodded, playing with a strip of bacon. “I’ll probably spend most of today making a big batch of phaseproof coating,” he said. “Then I can experiment with mixing it with paint and maybe coat some of your spare weapons in it? That should work for the bo staff and escrima sticks, maybe a set of brass knuckles. But I’ll need to make a different solution for the edged weapons.” His mind wandered, thinking of how he could adapt what he knew of the Bats’ gear to work against ghosts.

“Who’re the brass knuckles for?” Dick asked, raising an eyebrow at Danny. Danny flushed and shrugged.

“Batman,” he said. “You don’t really use a weapon, right?” Bruce grunted. “But phaseproof cloth isn’t something my parents ever really figured out. I can work on it, maybe, but I thought brass knuckles would be an okay compromise for now.”

“Hn.”

“Good thinking,” Dick praised with a smile. “It’ll be easy to add to the utility belt too. Should we ghostproof my main set or a spare?”

“The main, I think, if you’re okay with it,” Danny said, tilting his head thoughtfully. “You probably won’t even notice. But the edged weapons should all be spares. Ecto-treated metal tends to glow.”

“Not great for stealth,” Dick nodded. “Whatever you think is best, baby spook. We have the resources.”

“You’re hyper-specialized,” Bruce noted without inflection, sipping from his coffee. Danny winced.

“Sorry,” he muttered. It was easy to forget that all this was pretty useless outside of Amity Park. Bruce shook his head.

“It’s not a problem. But we’ll need to diversify your skillset. Your talent for chemistry and engineering should expand beyond ectoscience alone.” He studied Danny contemplatively. “Higher education might be beneficial, perhaps a PhD.”

Danny’s eyes went wide. “What? I’m barely passing high school!”

“I had Casper High send over your transcripts,” Bruce said. Danny flinched. “You had a B+ average in middle school, with a particular bent for math and science. You also participated in several advanced extracurriculars, including a junior astronaut program, space camp, and competitive robotics. Further, you clearly have a comprehensive understanding of your parents’ work, which eludes both the Justice League engineers and JL Dark. You had these talents prior to acquiring your powers, and it would be a waste to discard them in favor of your raw combat ability.”

Danny stared at Bruce, open-mouthed and speechless. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d considered even the possibility that he could have a future outside of his hero career.

“…Do you think I could do that and be a superhero?” he managed after a minute, quieter than he’d meant to.

Bruce nodded sharply. “Most Justice League heroes maintain a career outside of heroics,” he reminded Danny, without even sounding like he thought Danny was an idiot for asking. “Aside from myself, there is also a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, a museum curator, a forensic scientist, and a fighter pilot.”

Danny had known that on some level, but it had always seemed unreal. Practically a myth. “When am I going back to school?” he asked, hardly able to believe that he was suddenly looking forward to it.

“At the beginning of next semester,” Bruce said. “Your parents’ trial should be completed by then. I assume you don’t want to be announced publicly until that happens.” Danny shook his head fervently. “You may need to complete some make-up classes online, but we can discuss that next week.”

“Thanks,” Danny said sincerely. He was talking about a lot more than his re-enrollment.

[weaselle]

i am convinced that human evolution and development was centered around the basic up-grade from "i steal your resources" to "i steal your behaviors and concepts"

We got clever enough and we just started copying absolutely everything we observed just because now we could figure out how to copy concepts and things that other animals were doing

see that squirrel hoarding acorns for the winter? we can do that. okay now how do we make these acorns edible, cause they are poisonous to a number of animals and we don't do great with them either. What if you put them in the fire? or just on hot coals? what if you put them in water on hot coals and boil them? Oh if you soak them in cold water for 24 hours and maybe change the water a couple times you can totally eat them? YOINK storing acorns for winter is our idea now.

or, you ever seen a weaver bird do it's thing? if not i'll give you one guess what they do

or how about the tailor bird that uses spider silk to stitch the edges of a big leaf together to make a nest in

or sometimes they'll stitch a bunch of leaves into a little cup for a nest

like i'm not trying to downplay how clever it is to be the first humans to weave or sew, and indeed, being the first person to weave that anyone knew about probably happened many times throughout human existence but my conceit is that most if not all of those times was a human seeing something in nature that was basically weaving and going "i'ma do that, and get real good at it - i'ma take that concept and really make it mine"

like it wouldn't surprise me if humans got dogs because we saw how ravens were treating wolves and went "shit yeah, great idea - YOINK that's my idea now."

most of the things that we think of as special human skill or behavior can actually be found elsewhere throughout nature -- all over there are animals using tools, farming, ranching, building, etc.

my favorite primate behavioralist anecdote is a group of people studying tool use in chimps were spending their days in the bush logging the use of twigs to catch termites, and over the campfire at night they're like "it's so boring i wish they'd do something more impressive than this completely basic tool skill."

and one of them was like "actually... how do we know its not a difficult skill? has anyone tried to use a twig to catch termites and see?" and so the next day, like good little scientists, they went out and recorded their attempts at catching termites with twigs.

And lo and behold out of the whole group and all their attempts that day, only, like, a single termite was caught by a human, mostly by chance. Suddenly the whole situation flipped - they'd been thinking of it as basic unskilled tool use, but actually the chimps knew how to do something that none of them could easily figure out on their own - or even together as a group!

y'all, they had to go back to watching the chimps do it to figure out how. Think about that. University degrees, scientific minds, educated people... and they had to be taught how by the chimps.

It turns out there's a reason that young chimps will spend like a year closely studying how an adult is fishing for termites. You gotta select the right kind of twig or leaf stem, maybe you fray the end like a paint brush depending on particulars, you gotta have just the right poking and little shaking technique to provoke the termites into biting the twig, it's a whole thing. There's even regional/cultural differences in the general approach to termite fishing that are distinct between groups that live in different areas.

Now, wild chimps have been observed using objects as tools to fashion crude spears for hunting (it's the mothers doing it by the way, and slowly some of their kids have been growing up doing it, which will probably result in refinements and developments eventually.

ants do both farming and ranching. For real. Some species of ant grow a fungus they eat AND it's a domesticated fungus, like our corn, it can't actually reproduce and survive in the wild without the ants farming it. They maintain its growing conditions and feed it leaf litter mulch, and the fungus produces some kind of ant food idk i forget the details about that. But that's farming. They are farming a domesticated mushroom, basically. And other species of ant will maintain a herd of aphids; they'll move them from grazing area to grazing area, and protect them from predators, and they "milk" them for a liquid food substance and also every now and then they straight up eat one. That's ranching.

beavers sometimes have muskrat... tenants? pets? The muskrats low key pay rent by changing out the reed bedding they all use, and they live in the beaver's lodge with them and eat some of the food. So. idk

Some Tarantulas keep frogs as pets

anyway my point is, i think the true human skill that sets us apart is our ability deconstruct and reconstruct anything we see into something that is for us. Oh, you eat that? Now WE eat that. You have the perfect teeth to drill little holes in specific tree trunks to let the sap ooze out and eat it because it's high in sugar? We don't have those teeth but we're gonna do that now and if we can't figure out a tool that's as good as your teeth at it, watch out, because we will absolutely just also steal your fuckin teeth.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

This is encouraging news! Poached cheetah cubs are popular on the black market, and any tools that can help stem the trade will be much-needed.

This poaching has been going on for many decades; actress Josephine Baker could often been seen with her pet cheetah Chiquita in the 1920s, and mid-century demands from zoos for cheetahs likely also fueled illicit trade. Today they are still seen as status symbols, with many ending up as pets on the Arabian peninsula in spite of increasing prohibitions.

Many poached cubs never survive to be sold to new buyers, and every cub taken out of the wild reduces the already plummeting population; perhaps 10,000 at most remain in the wild today, down from 100,000 a century ago.

Want an easy way to help? Don't share, like, or otherwise support videos that show big cats and other wild animals as pets (yes, that includes supposed "rescues" like Messi the cougar who is treated like a housecat instead of living in a proper big cat refuge--and whose owners have had more than one cheetah that they show off on their social media.) Educate others on how wildlife are not pets and while they may seem to be cute and cuddly, keeping them robs them of the chance to have a truly wild life and supports unsustainable, and often illegal, wildlife trade.

[andhumanslovedstories]

My hospital is offering to pay for my masters degree in either nursing or education, which is interesting and something I’m pondering. Of those two, probably education. I’m not interesting in nursing research, and I have NO desire to become a nurse practitioner. There’s never been a time when I thought to myself, “boy I wish I had to know MORE about pharmacology.” My chief loves in nursing are 1) talking with patient, 2) successful symptom management, and 3) it’s impossible for me to do my job at home. I clock into my shift and then baby? Ooh baby, I clock the fuck out.

Education is interesting to me, I genuinely love teaching, I think there’s nothing cooler or more satisfying when you figure out the right way to explain something so that someone really gets it. Unfortunately my mother whom I love dearly and respect highly is a nurse educator who loves the exact same parts of nursing as me and loves teaching for the exact same reasons. I’m not sure I’m ready to literally become my mother.

(For real, this morning mom and I were chatting, me about my presentations on conversational tools to de-escalate and connect with patients in mental health crises, and Mom about her project to prevent and treat delirium through nursing interventions, and we were like “jesus christ we are basically devoting ourselves to the exact same passion project on opposite sides of the country. After Mom made this observation, we cackled, in the exact same identical way.)

What I actually need to do is to convince my hospital to pay entirely for my masters in creative writing, which is the masters I’m actually interested in pursuing, which is also the masters that I need least to advance my career or skills. It just. Seems fun. Its always seemed fun. I got my first bachelors in History and English with a concentration in creative writing, and that’s always seemed like more real of a degree to me than my bachelors in nursing. I’m a liberal arts girlie forced into a STEM world. Anyway, I do refuse to pay for grad school, so that’s gonna be a big factor. I’ll tell the people in charge of the hospital education budget that if they pay for an MFA, I’ll write the best fuckin unit newsletters anyone has ever seen.

[faeriekit]

Health and Hybrids (V)👽👻💚

[I can't remember the original prompt posters  for the life of me but here's a mashup between a cryptid!Danny, presumed-alien!Danny, dp x dc, and whatever prompt made the one body horror meat grinder fic.]

PART ONE is here PART TWO is here PART THREE is here PART FOUR is here and this is part five💚 Ao3 Is here for all parts

Where we last left off... Batman had a meeting! Danny acquired age appropriate enrichment toys. All is well. You know. Except for the everything else. But it’s fine and MM is on his way so it’ll all be great soon for sure! :)

Trigger warnings for this story:  body horror | gore | post-dissection fic | dehumanization (probably) |  my awful attempts at following DC canon. On with the show.

💚👻👽👻💚

One…Morning? Evening?

Well. One day, Danny rediscovers his tongue.

Most of the muscle is there. Things taste better after he remembers how to taste.

(If everything tastes like iron, well…Danny tries to ignore that.)

Its main function is social. When Danny needs the quiet humans he can’t see to Shut Up or Go Away!, it is now within his power to blow a raspberry.

A slightly bloody raspberry. But still! A success! And when the fuzzy red human buzzes and whines about scaring them off, Danny blows it one too.

If all it does is make the human cry more, hey. That’s not Danny’s business.

*

The buzzy human comes back with its friends, with fresh sheets, spilling nervousembaras!sednervous all over the room.

Blech. Danny saves himself the trouble and phases through his bed and through the floor below. He does not need to be grabbed again.

He has more energy than he used to. It gets him farther than he’s used to; by the time he finds and works his way through an apple, a pear, and a whole plate of chicken wings, he’s still not sleepy.

…Huh. He rolls over underneath his usual haunt: a conference table. He isn’t feeling the urge to drop into his core. He’s achy, sure, and his limbs hurt and his mouth hurts from eating and he can’t see, but also…

Is Danny bored? Is he finally well enough to be bored of being sick and injured?? That’s. Is that progress? Is it…regression??

Danny sulks under his conference table (his now) with a pile of chicken bones and a few stems and doesn’t know what to do.

If he goes back to his bed…will the sheets already be done? Will people be waiting to get him? Did he lose his…ugh, he doesn’t want to think of them as toys. His…enrichment? Educational tools?

…Okay they might be toys. Whatever. When Danny feels better, he’ll grab something more age appropriate. Maybe he’ll get them from his—

Danny flinches.

…From his house.

If he can get there.

Whatever. He doesn’t want to think about that right now. He wants to figure out how to get rid of his trash without revealing his location. Or leave his conference table shelter.

Danny drums his claws against the low-pile carpet that stretches below him. Should he stay? Rest up? Wait for the threats to his admittedly-kinda-pathetic territory to leave? Should he…go get more food? Should he explore more? He feels all kinds of sore and tired but his head mostly feels clear. Maybe if he—

There’s a hissing noise. Danny bristles. He hisses in like, but—oh. It’s a door.

…Oh. It’s the door.

Uh oh. That’s um. That’s.

Uh oh.

Danny quickly pretends that he hadn’t hissed. He invisibly pushes the top of his head through the thick wood of the conference table. They shouldn’t be able to see anything if he peeks.

Well. Unless they can? But if they can, that’s. Uh. That’s a whole new problem.

Several tall, colorful, adult humans walk into the room. He can’t quite tell how many. Just a bunch. And they’re tall. But hey, they’re color coordinated for easier determination, at least.

Danny lowers himself back down through the table. Should he leave? Will they see him if he tries to leave? Can they spot him?

He sits and worries and he dithers as the humans slowly surround the table and the hidden ghost underneath. Should he…should he go through the floor? Will they know he’s there? Is it even safe to get back to his cot yet?

Feet start appearing underneath the table. Danny shies away from them. He pulls his chicken bones away from them too; if they step on one, they might notice him.

Then everything gets quiet. There’s only one quiet, droning voice.

So maybe Danny peeks again.

There’s a giant shadow at the front. It’s probably human. It has black arms and black legs and a patch of what is probably skin in his very fuzzy vision. It stands beside a lit screen.

Danny squints.

…Oh. He can’t quite tell what it’s about, or what’s exactly is being shown on the screen, but he knows what a powerpoint presentation is supposed to look like: a person, a lot of talking, a screen, and a lot of people listening. They’re just…talking. They’re not even talking about Danny.

Okay. He’ll rest under the table. It seems…safe enough for now.

It’s better to listen to human heartbeats and breathing in a room than it is to sit in his silent one, waiting for some new horror to break the everpresent quiet. Danny lays on his belly, nose to the carpet, and counts how many feet are under the table. (There are sixteen feet.) Some humans are wearing real shoes, with inch-thick soles of hard rubber at the bottom. Some are wearing things that look like shoes, but are too flexible, with soft soles that bend and curl as they flex under the table. Very few of them have laces or fixtures. Huh.

A wrapper falls. Danny watches the ball of foil flutter to the floor, at peace with his position, tired of inspecting shoes. And then a face pops down.

Danny freezes. (It’s not the smartest move.)

The face that popped down probably sees him back, considering how still it goes. And then, very slowly, so slowly, a hand reaches down. Danny flinches back, and—

…It grabs the wrapper. The adult carefully gets back up. The face disappears.

Danny doesn’t move. Danny doesn’t leave. Danny doesn’t breathe.

He waits. The human slowly goes back to tapping its toes, wiggling in its seat—and vibrating, in a way that says bored/bored/bored the way the younger human sometimes does.

…No one says anything. No one does anything. No one jumps under the table to get him, there isn’t a break in the speaker that indicates identifying Danny as Present, or as A Problem. Danny is simply…hidden.

He should leave. It would be smart to leave. Danny would be safer if he left.

But also.

Maybe.

This might be the first time he’s been so close to humans in so long.

They don’t know he’s here. It should be…safe. If he just. Listens to the indistinct sound of human voices. Let them wash over him, like a radio left on in the other room.

Danny’s sated. He’s achy. He’s bored. He’s sad. He’s lonely.

…He stays.

He doesn’t notice his humming or the quiet purr in his chest before the hand comes back down again. Danny flinches away from it, the hum guttering to a stop where it had laid.

There’s something about its hand. The hand came down, before, but now there’s something more to it. Another color—a darker color. It’s hard to tell in the shadow underneath the desk. Maybe a—green? A blue? Maybe?

The hand shifts, just a little. And then the thing comes flying at him. Danny jolts backwards, digging his claws into the mere millimeters of carpeting underneath him, and—

Oh. The thing isn’t moving. It hasn’t even exploded.

Danny reaches out a hand. Taps it, gently. It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t attack him. It doesn’t excrete anything acidic or bite him. He sniffs it, just to be doubly sure, and nope. It smells like plastic. The wrapper crunches under his hands, even when everything sounds mute and muffled. The noise is borderline imaginary, so Danny can’t exactly tell what it sounds like when he plays with the little plastic flaps.

He can tell what it is now, though. The food bar goes down whole, wrapper and all, into his gullet.

Nice. The outside tastes bad, of course, but it’s nice.

The hand goes away, and no one bothers Danny. It’s nice. There are voices, but they aren’t yelling. They aren’t mean to him. They aren’t talking about what his insides look like or how bad he is or how to take more pieces off of him.

…Danny’s core thrums evenly. Peacefully. Maybe he will want that nap after all. His body gets kind of grouchy when it comes to plastic. He can pretend that it isn’t grumpy with his improvised diet with a nap.

Danny curls up on the floor, core beating along with the quick and even taptaptaptaptap fluttering of a too-quick human heart, and settles in for a quiet one.

(When he wakes up again, no one is around to see him throw out his chicken bones in the tiny trash receptacle by the doorway.)

(His toys and new sheets are all there when Danny gets back to his cot.)

(He’s too relieved to do anything but take a second nap.)

*

“So,” Wally tries, leaning against the wall. “The… Alien? Extraterrestrial?”

Barry shrugs. Fishes a cheeto out of his bag. “Bart’s been calling it a ghoul. They crashed half a mile off the Kent farm a little after you popped out of the Speedforce; there’s a huge chance something happened to them as part of the temporal anomaly.”

“Happened as in…?”

“Yeah.” Barry takes another cheeto. “Bad.”

And theeeere is the visible guilt. There isn’t exactly any great way for Wally to feel after his unintentional resurrection led to an unintentional…something else.

“…Ah.”

Barry shrugs. There isn’t anything they can do about it; short of rewinding time and shoving Wally back into the Speedforce, which has been shoved off the table with a great deal of force by all of the man’s former teammates, there’s no way to undo the accident that landed the poor alien smacking straight into good-old-fashioned American dirt.

“Don’t worry about the way it happened. It wasn’t your fault, and it sure wasn’t intentional on your part,” Barry points out, and offers the bag of Cheetos towards Wally. The snack is gone in microseconds. The curse of speedsters is really footing the bill of all their emotional eating.

“So, they’re…do we know what they are? Because they definitely shapeshifted fangs as soon as I found their little—whatever that is. Container? Unit? Under the table.” Wally traces the vague shape of the thing’s cerulean heart in the air. “One second I was holding a glass paperweight, and the next I was on the opposite end of a very angry shadow-snake. I think they would have done worse than bit me if it hadn’t had a clear escape route out of there.”

Barry balls the empty bag and shoves it into a pocket. If he litters in the Watchtower, it’s going to be water cooler gossip for years. Bats would never let anyone defile his super cool, super-secret base with garbage without his own form of petty revenge. “Medical says it likely serves as an organ for him,” he says instead, since monologue about how inconvenient it is to be held responsible for his own actions wouldn’t be professional. “So. Think of it less as a container; think of it more as a turtle shell. Medical is pretty sure it’s a part of their body. Messing with it would really hurt them.”

“Yeowch.”

“Mmhmm. One micro-sec.” Barry darts out and away from his nephew; he just remembered he has bottled smoothies in his room. In the time it takes him to fetch two from his mini-fridge—one of his favorite flavor and one of Wally’s—and circle back, the dust motes in the air have hardly even realized he’s gone. They hardly drift even upon his return. “Here.”

Wally catches it easily. To anyone else, Barry would barely have blinked away. To any other Speedster…Barry knows intimately how lethargic and thick time feels against his skull. Slowing down to a mortal, human speed can feel maddening. Sore. Viscerally and bone-shatteringly wrong in his skin, maybe.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.” Barry would do that and more for his family.

They drink their smoothies.

“You know,” Barry breaks back in, the thoughts of their previous conversation looming lightly in his mind, “Medical says that the fact that we sometimes see their—let’s call it a core—is really, really bad. It’s not a shock that they’re hiding. It would be like climbing in a closet when you’re so vulnerable that you don’t feel like you can defend yourself.”

The rim of Wally’s smoothie bottle drops from his lips. The man frowns. “Oh?”

Barry shrugs. “Imagine losing your skull so that your brain is exposed all the time. Imagine being a cell and having your cell wall break so your nucleus is exposed?”

They both wince at the image.

“Oh boy. And Bart is…playing? With that entity?”

His uncle snorts. “You tell me. I think you’ve seen more of them than I have at the moment. All I did was catch them hanging out in a conference room. I have to admit, the purring can get a little loud in the…” he makes a vague gesture that could mean anything from room to atmosphere to Speedforce.

Wally’s been mostly of the same mind—the physics of the entity, whatever they are, aren’t specifically third-dimensional. It might be related to how they only sometimes manifest, or how they manifest with only partial corporeality.

“It’s been at least some play and some games for him, I’m sure,” Wally admits, a smile pulling at his mouth nevertheless. “I spotted him going through a stim toy website before he suddenly and mysteriously had a mission on the other side of the planet. But I think most of his concern is the…”

Wally winces at the thought of the myriad of medical issues the entity’s faced since his arrival to Earth. Barry’s wince stretches to match. They both saw the report.

“…So it’s been a lot of food on Bart’s part. A lot of managing his care of them too; Superboy and Rob aren’t the most straightforward team in the world, but I think they’re largely keeping Bart in check on this one— not that they’re on base as much as Bart is.”

Wally smiles. It’s not a very happy smile, or very relieved of his earlier guilt, but it’s a smile nevertheless. That’s fine. Barry’ll work on the rest on Sunday; they’re due for a good luncheon out somewhere nice. Their JLA-approved food budget can foot the bill. Maybe…Indian? There’s got to be good food in Delhi they haven’t tried yet.

“At least J’onn’s back on base next week.” Wally sighs, crooked and a little weary. “Maybe this will finally get them to stop running every time someone gets within forty feet of them. Like, they realize they’re losing vital fluids, right? Wait, is Bart even giving them any water?”

“…I’m going to hold off on that worrying thought. I have a different one I’m sweating over. Do we even know if Bart will let our resident telepath get within forty feet of his new playmate?”

Wally groans, face in his hands. Barry can’t help but laugh a little—perhaps tinged with desperation.

Sidekicks. Always with the new problems. At least last time they had this problem, Kon could talk.

[familyabolisher]

> there exists an arbitrary social distinction between ‘STEM’ and ‘humanities’ which (put crudely) invests greater intellectual merit in STEM as a category of learning more directly involved with positivism and empirical deductions & with a greater capacity for describing an ‘objective’ reality, as opposed to ‘humanities’ as a subject area with less deference to positivism and more deference to subjectivity and fewer obvious methodological paradigms

> this objective/subjective binary gets translated into what is effectively a ‘facts vs feelings’ distinction

> this distinction rests on about a hundred different incorrect premises (that positivism is the most intellectually rigorous exercise and that the conclusions it arrives at are describing a prediscursive reality and that little or no subjectivity is ever imposed on scientific conclusions; that the study of literature, art, history, philosophy, theology, music, etc., can be collapsed into a ‘vibes-based’ approach and don’t themselves rely on methodologies, specific epistemological branches, specialised terminology, &c. &c.; that the study of literature, art, history, philosophy, theology, music, etc. and also the study of mathematics, biology, physics, astronomy, chemistry, computer science, psychology, etc. can be grouped into two distinct categories with no overlap and that have nothing to say to one another; that we should be giving discursive weight to the idea that ‘intellectualism’ is a measurable property and a laudable one, and that this is not the discourse of eugenics; this list goes on for a while)

> somehow, rather than challenging these hundred different incorrect premises in any serious way, there exists a significant chunk of humanities students (most often students of literature) who reify the idea that their subject is essentially based on ‘vibes’ and intuition, such that really anyone should be able to do them; they defend the intellectual merit of their subject through the suggestion that ‘STEM people’ who lack their fluency in literary studies are in fact not as ‘intelligent’ as they imagine themselves to be

> this is largely reacting to a cultural phenomenon of ‘STEM people,’ empowered by the widespread perception of their subject as being more intellectually challenging and socially worthwhile than humanities, deriding the study of humanities subjects either as being ‘easy’ or as not being worth the effort in the first place; or both

> nevertheless, it sucks

> suggesting that ‘STEM people’ (or, more broadly, ‘everyone’!) ought to have a fluency in literature (and that their not having this is somehow of concern in a vague sense; implicitly a moral failing) ignores several key facts, including: that a study of literature is as predicated on access to particular time and resources as is a study of, say, biology; that lit studies are as capable of political conservatism as any other discipline and that political conservatism can easily come from practices of ‘critical thinking’ which apply literary methodologies to reach reactionary conclusions; that, just as a study of biology requires the acquisition of knowledge beyond the quotidian and/or intuitive, so too does a study of literature

> it is good to develop critical reading skills and to be able to read broadly and confidently, as these are useful tools for navigating and politically articulating the world around you; it’s bad and also just weird and boring to ignore the contingencies that the development of those skills rest upon in favour of trying to one-up your perceived academic rivals; it’s also weird and boring to be extremely put out that someone is more interested in astrophysics or microbiology than they are in the history of the novel

> all education in all forms is stratified by access contingencies; if you see the critical faculties that you imagine only a humanities education to be able to give you as morally necessary skills, why aren’t you focused on challenging those contingencies?

> none of this would be a problem if we removed the access barriers to all branches of education that capitalist intellectual production demands we keep in place; all of this is essentially a slapfight between a lot of people who have been fortunate enough to gain access to higher education and have internalised the social impetus to disregard + disdain those who didn’t

> all of you are so fucking annoying

[trainsinanime]

I sometimes reblog posts about US Americans being weird here, but honestly I don't love how angry or smug most of these posts are. It's just that angry and smug posts tend to get more traction, and so they get reblogged more, and so I tend to see them and reblog them myself. Hm, maybe there's a lesson for all of social media and for me in particular here.

Anyway, what I want out of these posts is not for any US Americans here to feel bad; it's just "funny" and perhaps, perhaps a tiny bit of consideration for how being US American means you experience the internet on easy mode.

This is not your personal fault. Nor is it ethically wrong. It's just a thing that exists, and it may be worth thinking about it.

Examples of that easy mode include:

It's your language. The vast majority of people on the internet need to know a second language to at least participate passively, let alone actively post. It's not just the internet; for e.g. my job, all documentation for all the tools is only in English, and I was required to listen to English lectures and write both my bachelor's and master's thesis in English, my second language, to pass. That's why e.g. posts about bilingualism tend to cause a bit of a discussion, because knowing a second language isn't a special skill but a necessary survival tool.

It is your world-wide culture. The list of most popular video games, TV shows, movies and songs tend to be fairly similar across the world (in particular the part of it we call it the western world, another discussion that I'll get into below), and they're dominated by the output of US media. There is no equivalent to e.g. Disney anywhere outside of the US.

It's your debates and discussions. Because of the huge importance the US has economically and culturally (not to mention militarily), we tend to discuss US topics a lot, and we tend to discuss them from an American point of view.

This introduces American oddities into a lot of the world. For example, I'm a STEM guy, I have a STEM education, a STEM job and my primary hobbies are also STEM based, so what I notice are imperial measurements like feet and inches. Those are not "one of two equally valid choices", they're the unique hobby of the English-speaking countries, and within them, increasingly only the US. But we still tend to see them here as if they were a normal usual thing, and often europeans (including me) feel compelled to provide translations into these units.

But it's not limited to that, court room dramas are another example where courts in the English-speaking world tend to work very differently from those in the rest of the world. E.g. there's no pleading guilty or innocent in most of the world. There are boundless more examples of that, and these things can be grating every once in a while.

As I said before, I don't think there's any moral value here either way. You're not wrong for being an American (but you're also not better because of it). As I hinted at before, I'm still in a very privileged position myself, being from a wealthy European country, and my culture even without Disney is still far closer to that of the US than it is to most of the rest of the world. I'm sitting in the very same glass house, just maybe a different corner (TODO fix this metaphor before posting).

For example, I'm talking about court rooms and inches versus meters, but if we're thinking about history and ethics, there's deep issues in both of them. When it comes to measurements, it's ultimately the question of whether you use the measurements of London or those of Paris. For most of the world it's a colonial imposition either way. You can make arguments for why one is better for technology than the other (and as you can probably guess, I have strong opinions here), but in the grand scheme of things, neither of them is more "ethical" or more "universal", not really anyway. Same with the way legal systems work, where again, countries either adopted (and more often than not were forced to adopt) either the English system or the French system (with quite a few countries choosing to adopt the German version of the French system as well).

I know that's a boring digression but it's something that's usually missing from these posts, especially ones written by europeans, including some I've written myself. I don't really have a conclusion to any of this either, except perhaps that this is something that's worth being aware of.

[echologname]

Murder Drones Theory: V was the mechanic

Each disassembly drone in a squad seems to have a specific role to play in order for their mission to succeed. In the case of N's team, J was the leader and N was the pilot but we have yet to find out if V had a similar purpose or not. However, if I were to propose an educated guess, she might have been a mechanic, in charge of dealing with any issues to the ship during transit. Of course, this knowledge would be lost to her upon their arrival to Copper 9, as with N forgetting he was even the pilot, let alone how to fly since JcJenson doesn't want their disassembly drones to come back.

Her hand replacements are far more unique than J and N's. Suitable for the potential for multiple tools (maybe that's how she broke her chain in ep 2?).

Even though her drive to rip apart drones seems quite contrary to "fixing" perhaps this desire to see the internal workings of machinery stems from once knowing how they work.

[sea-lestial-dream-witch]

Welcome Spring Rituals🌺🌼🌿🍃

Spring is a time of rebirth and rejuvenation: the bees are back, flowers are blooming, and plants and animals are no longer dormant and hibernating. Throw away the old and make room for the new during this season.

Here are some ways to welcome the season of Spring. Many of these are quick or easy, great for beginner witches, those on a budget and witches in hiding!

• Cleanse while you clean: Do a deep clean of your home or space. Use lemon, white vinegar, rosemary - something potent and cleansing. Wash your pillowcase, blanket and bed sheets. After your space is clean, open the windows and light a candle/incense or use room spray to freshen the area. You can also banish stale energies while doing this. *Please exercise caution while using cleaners*

• Throw out the old: Donate, sell, give away, recycle and dispose of that which you no longer need. A fresh, clean space creates a clear mind.

• Garden: Plant herbs, flowers, and plants native to your area. Don’t have a lot of space or know-how? Next time you go to the grocery store grab cilantro, basil, green onion (or look into other easy options) and chop off the bottom of the stems at an angle, place in a cup of tap water indoors by a window that gets plenty of sun. Such plants can easily survive in water and after they grow roots place them in a small cup or bowl of soil. If you can’t buy soil go outside and grab some if it’s organic and safe (untouched by unsafe pesticides and fertilizers). Some things can grow by being planted whole or sliced (ginger) or by extracting seeds (tomato) so take your time and do research before you spend unnecessarily.

• Save the Bees: Learn about flowering plants in your area that attract bees. Buy some seeds and plant away! You can also look into flowering plants which attract butterflies and hummingbirds if you wish. If you cannot buy seeds you can learn how to remove them from the insides of some flowers and plant them.

• Flower power: If you live in an area with many flowering plants, go out and admire their beauty. Envision how they’ve survived year after year, how the balance of rain and sun allows them to flourish, and how they’re part of a delicate, beautiful, natural system. If you have your own garden, pluck some flowers if you wish and make a beautiful bouquet to decorate your space with.

• Crystal cleanse: Renew your crystals by cleansing and recharging them. Gather rain water or use moonlight (or a preferred method) to pamper them a bit! Go a step further: clean and cleanse your altar and witchy tools.

• Mindfulness: Spring is a wonderful time to meditate more - light some incense, use meditation tools such as a tuning fork or chimes. Listen to guided meditations. This is also a great time to journal more and sort through your thoughts. Leave behind old, stale energies of the previous year to allow newer, better things to take that place.

• Burn the past: Write a letter (to yourself) about past grief, regrets, and failures. Burn this letter and bid farewell to the feelings and emotions attached to it. After, you may write and keep a separate letter full of goals, wishes and aspirations to last you until next Spring or longer.

• Kitchen witchery: Cook and/or bake and imbue the foods you make with positive things such as peace, good health, and prosperity. Look into recipes specifically meant for spring and utilize produce which is commonly used during springtime. Add color to your food through the use of different veggies, fruits, spices, herbs, etc.

• Expand your craft: Ever tried sun magic? Wind magic? Used sound in your craft? Learn how to make sigils, try a new spell, make a spell jar, research and aspect of witchcraft you don’t know much about. Educate yourself on cultural appropriation, respecting closed traditions, how people around the world welcome springtime, the history of witchcraft both in the east and west.

• Expand your skills: Try something new! Take an art or cooking class, buy a cookbook, learn to crochet or sew, consider hobbies that are practical and exciting. Invite new skills and interests into your life. Study plant identification, learn how to garden on YouTube, learn how to identify stars… whatever may interest you, be open to it. Look for online tutorials, videos, free apps, library books, and people to aid you.

• Create: Spring brings vibrant colors and we can find so many ways to honor this. Draw, color, doodle, write, sing and dance. Paint a birdhouse, or some stones. Decorate your Grimoire or Book of Shadows. Add color to your life.

• Glamify: When you have free time, try on different clothes, makeup, hairstyles, and jewelry. Mess around, have fun with it, and see which combinations make you feel best. Glamours are such a subtle way to practice your craft. Wear colors that make you happy whether it’s clothes, accessories, hair or nail polish!

• Rest: Stop. Slow down, breathe mindfully. Turn off or silence devices, log off social media. Take a substantial break from screens. Take a nap. Have a soothing cup of tea. Stare at the sky. Spring is a time of growth and growth requires rest.

•Pampered and polished: Massage yourself from head to toe with lotion or body oil. Take your time and go in slow circular motions. Don’t neglect your scalp, face, neck, shoulders or feet. Visualize leaving old pains and worries in the past.

Do something extra for yourself, whether this means added rest, an at-home facial, deep condition for your hair, maybe you need a good back scratch or to stretch out, or a cooling or heating pad (frozen veggies or warm dishcloth can be used) over your eyes or a sore area. Listen to your body and tend to yourself when possible.

Take a steamy shower or bath. Toss flower petals, herb sprigs or citrus slices into your bath. After, indulge in a lotion, perfume, or body oil you enjoy. Wash away the energies of the past and the remnants of winter. Surround yourself with what makes you happy and feel good.

• Say thank you: Thank special people, loved ones, and pets. Take a while to think about those who uplift you, support you, make you laugh, and listen to you. Show gratitude towards others. You may also thank the universe, nature, and God or deities you worship however you see fit, whether this means time spent in nature, prayer or offerings.

• Share your bounty: Cook and bake for your loved ones, give them something from your garden such as flowers, herbs, veggies etc. This can also be as simple as giving someone a genuine compliment. Have a “one dish” party with friends/family in which everyone pitches in. Come together and teach people something or learn something new. Plant a garden with your friends/family/community. Share your resources but do not dim your own flame to keep others lit. Take time for yourself, too.

🌊sea star witch🌟

These are mere suggestions and we tend to know what suits us best. I understand not everyone has the time, energy, spoons, resources or funds for all or half of these activities.

If you’re stumped, burned out and exhausted (like I am) don’t feel pressured to try all or most of the above. Slow down and tend to yourself.

Sit back and enjoy the beautiful spring skies, listen to the birds, watch the flowers grow, watch clouds pass by over head. Appreciating spring can be as simple as this!

[echoes-in-the-multiverse]

Black Holes: A metaphorical view of Trauma in Dissociative Identity Disorder. Part 1

Written by Olive. This is a personal and educational post.

This post covers in more detail why new dissociative identities may be formed in adulthood and define integration in terms of the end-goal treatments for DID.

When trying to understand the complexities of life, metaphors are very powerful tools to visulise our experiences. We find many aspects of Black Holes can be an analogy for the way trauma interacts in the lives of individuals with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). In this post, we will explore the anatomy of black holes and explain how we relate each aspect to our lives, whilst providing an educational light on the disorder’s realities. 

Singularity.

At the centre of every Black hole is a point known as the singularity. This point is considered to be where all the mass of the black hole is centred under infinite density. When something passes the event horizon of the black hole, it will travel inwards towards the singularity.

At the heart of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) lies chronic, severe childhood trauma. We envision this trauma as a singularity, events from which all experiences are affected and the initial formation of alters. Even alters formed later may stem from this foundational trauma. The trauma is deeply stored within us like an infinitely concentrated source of pain. It disrupted our childhood integration, leading to remaining fragmented, and continues to hinder integration efforts today. 

The Event Horizon.

Past the event horizon, considered the boundary that defines the black hole, the escape velocity required to overcome the gravitational force of the black hole is greater than the speed of light. This means nothing can escape from a black hole, not even light. 

Trauma is not always visible, it can be mental, emotional, or even physical and does not leave a lasting effect on the body. This can be reflected by the fact that light cannot escape from a black hole therefore it cannot be seen and is only observed from objects around it. Victims may not be believed if they do not have “physical evidence” on their body but evidence of trauma can be seen from the history of the environment around them. 

The event horizon of a black hole can be likened to the window of tolerance for individuals with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Once something breaches this threshold, causing overwhelming stress or trauma, it can lead to fragmentation in the brain. It's crucial to understand that the nature of these experiences can vary greatly. They can be as seemingly insignificant as a photon of light or as impactful as an entire planet. Similarly, some black holes may exist near planets without consuming them, reflecting how different individuals respond differently to potential trauma.

This metaphor illustrates how anything can be traumatic for a system, potentially causing a split later in life. The severity of the trauma does not need to match that of the initial childhood trauma for it to cause further disturbances in integration. Everyone has a unique window of tolerance, which is why not everyone with severe childhood trauma develops DID, but all individuals with DID have experienced chronic severe childhood trauma. 

This can result in systems having dissociative identities that are very specific, such as being the only one to handle money, or whose whole role is to complete a mundane task of life, such as being the one to take a shower or hoovering because this may for some reason overwhelm an individual, such as the fact it is repetitive or it could be overstimulating. Even the thought of being in a situation that could reactivate traumatic memories can cause the brain to split, such as dreading a visit to a family member, this shows examples of fragmentation being a defensive mechanism because the individual will now be able to handle the situation and did not need to be retraumatised for the brain to become aware that the current system is overwhelmed by this task. This conceptual framework is supported by the work of Van der Hart, Nijenhuis, and Steele (2006) in “The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization”, where they discuss patients developing new dissociative identities in adulthood and the theory that later in life structural dissociation becomes a mental defense tool, despite beginning from traumatisation. 

Hawking Radiation.

As is also presented in the work of Hawking (2018) in “Brief Answers to the Big Questions”, in quantum theory, space is filled with matter and antimatter pairs, such as a proton and an antiproton, that spontaneously appear, collide, and then annihilate each other. If this spontaneous appearance occurs near the event horizon of a black hole, the matter particle can either fall in or escape and appear to be radiated by the black hole. Theoretically, the anti-particle is traveling backward in time so if the anti-particle falls into the black hole this can also be a way it loses mass. As the anti-particle travels it will eventually in time reach where it first appeared and then travel forward in time because the gravitational field scatters it. This process is known as Hawking radiation, and it explains how black holes dissipate over time and why the very first black holes formed in the universe are no longer present. 

The process of Hawking radiation can be likened to the slow yet significant role of processing trauma. To be effective, it must proceed at a pace an individual can handle, and it may never feel certain when a breakthrough in trauma recovery will occur. However, it brings hope that healing from the trauma that caused DID and its symptoms is possible. Through therapy, dissociative parts can become more integrated, meaning they will have a greater connection of memories without amnesic barriers and better communication. This can lead to either functional multiplicity, where all integrated parts work together while maintaining multiple dissociative identities, or final fusion, where all dissociative identities fuse into a single, unified personality. A clear distinction between fusing dissociative identities and integrating them is further supported in the work of Llyod (2023) in “Integration and Fusion in DID/OSDD: Part Two”, which verifies my use of the word ‘integration’.

Written by Olive. This is a personal and educational post.

Bibliography

Van der Hart O, Steele K, Nijenhuis E. The Haunted Self : Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization. W.W. Norton; 2006.

Lloyd M, The CTAD Clinic. Integration and Fusion in DID/OSDD: Part Two. YouTube. Published December 17, 2023.

Hawking S. Brief Answers to the Big Questions. Hachette UK; 2018.

[women-throughout-history]

Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft was a trailblazing writer and passionate advocate for women’s rights, whose ideas were far ahead of her time. Her most famous work, ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman’ is considered to be one of the earliest texts advocating for gender equality, making her a key figure in the history of feminism. She argued that women, like men, are rational beings and deserve equal education. This belief stemmed from the idea that for society to progress, both men and women need the tools to contribute intellectually and socially. Born in 1759, Wollstonecraft didn’t come from a wealthy or influential family, but her personal drive and intellectual curiosity pushed her to become a self-educated thinker, reading texts such as the Bible, of ancient philosophers, Shakespeare, and Milton. At age 24, she started a girls’ school with her sisters and friend, Fanny Blood, in Newington Green, which played a crucial role in shaping her ideas about education and equality. Her first work, ‘Thoughts on the Education of Daughters’ (1786), laid the foundation for her later writings on women’s liberation. She firmly believed that if women were denied the same education as men, society would suffer as a whole. Wollstonecraft’s life was marked by her fierce independence. As a writer in London, she became part of a group of political radicals known as the Rational Dissenters. Her social circle included figures like William Godwin, whom she later married. Living through the tumultuous French Revolution, she closely followed the Enlightenment’s emphasis on reason and political liberty, principles that greatly influenced her work. Her ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Men’ (1790) was a response to Edmund Burke’s critique of the revolution and aristocracy. It set the stage for her later arguments for women’s equality. In 1794, she had a daughter, Fanny, with American entrepreneur Gilbert Imlay, but their relationship ended in heartbreak. She attempted suicide twice, first in May, then in October 1795. Wollstonecraft eventually found happiness with philosopher William Godwin, with whom she had her second daughter, Mary Shelley—who would go on to write ‘Frankenstein’. Sadly, Wollstonecraft died shortly after giving birth in 1797. Despite her short life, Wollstonecraft’s legacy is enormous. She laid the groundwork for future generations of feminists, emphasising that women deserve the same educational and intellectual opportunities as men.

Mary Wollstoncraft’s Writings: A Vindication of the Rights of Women Thoughts on the Education of Daughters

[indigostudies]

it's been a while—a bit more than six months!—since i first made an intro post for this blog, and since then, i've gained a lot of followers, and my focuses have shifted slightly, so i wanted to make a langblr reintro post to reflect that.

you can call me jiayi (家宜). 2024-2025 is my fourth year in post-secondary education overall, and my second year working on my bachelor's degree.

originally, i was an intended combination STEM-humanities major, but due to a variety of reasons, i am now exclusively focusing on humanities. my majors are chinese, middle eastern languages and cultures, and linguistics. i'm also passionate about translation and sexuality studies and asian languages in general, especially turkic and sinitic languages.

i am west asian and speak english, chinese, and turkish as my mother tongues, and i am more or less functionally conversational in german, at around a B1 level. my current language focuses for independent study are korean and bengali, but i'm also interested in mongolian, vietnamese, shanghainese, and kurmanci.

for my study tools, you can find an ask i answered here that extensively details what programmes, apps, and sites i use to study (slightly out of date currently, but not wildly so). besides that, you can find my collection of resource posts generally under the tag #resources, my chinese-specific posts under #���语, and answered asks under #inbox.

i'm always open to asks and dms! i want to use this account as a resource for other people with interest in learning languages, and i'd love to make friends :)

[athena5898]

(Al-Akhbar English) Red Scare Reborn: US Anti-Communist Push and Global Consequences

Ali Awwad

Between 1917 and 1920, the United States grappled with intense fear stemming from the Russian Revolution, which ignited anxieties about the spread of communism and anarchism. This fear led to widespread repression against leftists, unionists, and immigrants, culminating in arrests, investigations, and a climate of suspicion. A similar wave of paranoia resurfaced in the 1950s during the Cold War, known as the “Second Red Scare.” Senator Joseph McCarthy spearheaded this period with his aggressive campaign against alleged communists, expanding the witch hunt beyond politicians to include intellectuals, artists, and civil rights leaders. These events were justified under the guise of national security but were ultimately aimed at enforcing ideological conformity and silencing progressive voices.

Now, with the election of Donald Trump as the 47th US President, echoes of this Cold War legacy resurface. Trump’s administration is pushing the “Decisive Education on Communism” bill (H.R. 5349), designed to implement an anti-communist curriculum in schools. While ostensibly focused on educating students about communism’s “crimes,” this bill mirrors past repressive efforts, using education as a tool for cultural censorship and ideological control. The bill, spearheaded by Representative Maria Salazar, has faced opposition to amendments that would include education on fascism and other oppressive ideologies, highlighting its partisan agenda.

This bill comes amid growing support for leftist movements among young Americans, particularly in solidarity with Palestinians. The rise of these movements has sparked anger from the American right, which is increasingly challenged by shifting public opinions on US foreign policy. Opinion polls reveal that younger generations are more critical of authority and increasingly open to socialist principles. This shift in political consciousness is seen as a direct threat to established power structures, prompting fears of a new “Red Scare” targeting left-wing movements.

Parallel to these developments, conservative think tanks like the Heritage Institute have launched initiatives such as the Esther Project, which seeks to criminalize political activism against Israel and label Palestinian solidarity as part of a broader anti-capitalist agenda. These efforts aim to dismantle these movements through legal and political means, employing tactics reminiscent of McCarthyism. Trump's supporters plan to expand this repression to education and media, purging institutions that oppose right-wing ideology, and even considering military intervention against protesters, as seen in the 2020 George Floyd protests.

While the bill's focus remains on combating communism, its broader aim is to prevent China from challenging US global hegemony. The "communist threat" narrative is being used to justify escalating tensions with China, through economic sanctions and military alliances in the Indo-Pacific. This strategy not only aims to curb China’s rise but also seeks to compel other nations to align politically with the US These actions could lead to a new global conflict, marked by competition for influence, resources, and technology. As tensions rise, nations will be pressured to take sides, increasing international polarization. However, in the midst of this global upheaval, there may also be opportunities for change, as history has often shown.

Full article in Arabic: https://al-akhbar.com/culture/816676

[mel-1n-hell]

Safe Foods + Diet Foods Masterpost

(I live in the Midwest)

This is a list of a bunch of my personal favorite foods and ingredients to utilize when I’m heavily restricting. I usually love making the highest volume possible out of the lowest cals, but I also sometimes eat smaller amounts of higher calorie/denser foods if I’m, say, wearing something tight or whatever and don’t want to be water bloated. I believe in the importance of being at least mildly sated, and also in the importance of multivitamins+supplements! If you’re restricting, there is a 100% guarantee you are not getting enough vitamins to maintain external functions you really don’t want to start failing on you. I lost a lot of hair when I dropped a fuck ton of weight for the first time because I was 14 at my worst and didn’t understand anything/didn’t care at all about body chemistry, but after I was forced to recover, after my hair began growing back and thickening up, it became very important to me—as did many other aspects of my body that are influenced+enhanced by the ingestion of vitamin supplement (also hair oils like rosemary and castor and almond, leave-in conditioners, good conditioner in general // all of these things will support hair health and maintenance, specifically!) So take your vitamins! Especially capsules, because gummy vitamins are easier for your body to flush out. Plus, a lot of them are just placebos dyed a fun color and rolled in sugar. (The “Now” brand offers very high quality supplements and multivitamins in capsules/pill form)

Also, now that I’m an adult and can buy my own groceries, I have much more access to helpful tools that I wouldn’t have been able to access at 14 or wouldn’t have known enough about to even bother figuring out more. I’m much more educated now and feel almost as if restricting is too easy, too fun. Will it become a problem? Maybe. But until then, and as long as I know we’re all bent on our own destruction anyway, I’ll share what I know, because I wish I would have known about some of these things the first time I decided to dive headlong into the pits of despair (‘:

I can share my favorite combos/meals in another post if anyone would like to see it! First, though, a few general rules I follow, as a sort of context to the masterpost:

1. Caloric intake matters first and foremost. It’s just the simplest way for me to track what I’m eating. (Now don’t do this, but) You could be eating the shittiest, sugariest, most processed diet on the planet but if you’re in a caloric deficit, you’re still going to lose weight.

2. All vegetables are safe. A vegetable is not out here making anyone fat or unhealthy. Certain vegetables, like potatoes, are denser in calories, so it’s just a matter of learning how to use them, but if that scares or triggers you, stay away! For me, I always try to maintain that plants are nothing to be afraid of. I’m neurotic enough without being afraid of the food that literally comes from the earth.

3. All fruits are safe. Moderation is more important to keep in mind when it comes to fruits versus vegetables, because fruit contains more sugar, which means more calories overall. But fruits are my favorite additions to breakfasts, or as sides/snacks later on in the day. It’s a little extra something to crunch/chew on, and all fruit is just so yummy.

4. There’s nothing wrong with a chocolate fix!!! Dark chocolate (the higher the percentage, the better!) has numerous health benefits because it contains a plethora of antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals. It can be high calorie, so enjoy it in moderation, but there is absolutely nothing I love more than taking my time on a lux little square of dark chocolate while I’m reading a book.

5. No eating after 10pm. (I know most people choose an earlier time, but I’m a college student in a stem field who walks from her apartment to campus, so I get home later than traditional dinner time most nights.)

6. No eating before 7am. (8am is preferable.)

7. Eliminate as many sugary, processed carbs as possible. They aren’t really satisfying your body, and consuming these kinds of foods while restricting often leads to uncontrollable bingeing.

8. Eliminate fried foods (unless you figure out an air frier for a cheat night or something).

9. If you’re going to focus on any macros/micros, focus on protein and fiber! Protein is greater sustenance; fiber makes you shit.

10. If you binge, you binge. It happens. It comes with the territory of ED’s. Your body is literally pre-programmed to react this way to starvation because it’s a self-defense mechanism, and for many people, it’s an emotional defense mechanism. Just make your best mental and physical effort to minimize damage. Screwing yourself into the ceiling and just eating more will make you feel cosmically worse. Try to catch yourself before saying “fuck it” and continuing to binge harder, because even you know you don’t really mean that, and you know you’ll hate yourself to the moon for it later. Take a deep breath, name a few of the five senses to ground yourself or whatever, and then walk away. Listen to some music. Chew some gum or start sipping on lemon water. And remember: one pound is 3,500 calories. You would have had to eat that much on top of your basal metabolic rate (how many calories your body burns just existing) to gain just one pound. Water retention can be flushed. Fat cannot be.

11. Drink at least two quarts of water a day.

12. Take your fucking vitamins. xoxo

Okay! Now that I’ve rambled enough, here’s the masterpost (:

🥗 vegetables 🥗

1 cup broccoli, chopped (31 cals)

9-10 baby carrots (30 cals)

2 stalks celery (15 cals)

5 garlic cloves (20 cals) / (great roasted in the oven or as a flavor edition! stuff also makes you shit like crazy depending on how much you eat)

1 cup kale (16 cals)

1 cup spinach (7 cals)

1 cup baby spring mix (7 cals)

1 cup cauliflower, chopped (27 cals)

1 medium/small white or red onion (41 cals)

5 mini yellow/Dino egg potatoes (110 cals)

1 medium/small sweet potato (110 cals)

5 asparagus spears (15 cals)

5 medium white or baby bella mushrooms (20 cals)

1/2 cup sliced water chestnuts (45 cals)

🍑 fruits 🍑

6 mini sweet peppers (60 cals)

1 medium green bell pepper (24 cals)

1 medium red/orange/yellow bell pepper (37 cals)

1/4 avocado (75 cals)

1 medium tomato (22 cals)

1 medium banana (100 cals)

1 medium apple (100 cals)

1 medium grapefruit (104 cals)

1 large orange (87 cals)

1 clementine orange (35 cals)

5 medium strawberries (25 cals)

1 cup blueberries, frozen or fresh (80 cals)

10 raspberries (10 cals)

10 grapes (20-30 cals, depending on size + size variation; one small/medium grape is usually around 2 calories)

1 kiwi (40 cals)

1 cup red cherries, frozen or fresh (80 cals)

1 small champagne mango (80 cals)

1 cup honeydew melon, diced (61 cals)

1 cup watermelon, diced (46 cals)

1 cup pineapple, diced (82 cals)

1 medium cantaloupe (186 cals)

2 medium medjool dates, pitted (110 cals)

🍞 grains 🍞

1/3 cup flour, wheat or white (152 cals // for use in mug cakes, personal pancakes, personal cookies, etc.)

2 slices Healthy Life wheat, honey wheat, or white bread (70 cals)

1 Country Hearth light bun (80 cals)

1 mini bagel (100-125 cals, depending on flavor+brand)

1 bagel thin (110 cals)

1/3 cup rolled or quick oats, dry (100 cals)

1 cup plain Cheerios (100 cals // 140 cals for honey nut)

1/2 cup rice, brown or white (108 cals, brown; 102 cals, white)

1 “Ole” X-Treme Wellness wrap, tomato basil, spinach, or traditional (50 cals)

🍗 meats 🍗

3 oz (about the size of your palm) boneless, skinless chicken breast, cooked (120 cals)

5 medium chicken fajita strips, frozen (110 cals)

2.5 Simple Truth Organic homestyle chicken tenders (170 cals)

1/2 can Good & Gather chunk chicken, canned in water (50 cals)

1 can Chunk Lite Tuna (90 cals)

11 medium Member’s Mark cooked shrimp (60 cals)

1 tilapia fillet (112 cals)

4-6 pieces thin-sliced deli ham or roast beef (60-70 cals, depending on brand)

4-6 pieces thin-sliced deli chicken or turkey (50-60 cals, depending on brand)

🧀 dairy / imitation dairy and animal products 🧀

1 medium egg (66 cals // 78 cals for large)

1 tbsp I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, light buttery spread (35 cals)

1 tbsp Blue Bonnet, light buttery spread (40 cals)

1 tbsp Blue Bonnet, buttery stick (60 cals)

1 slice Kroger fat-free American cheese slices (30 cals)

1 stick Sargento Light mozzarella string cheese (45 cals)

1/4 cup shredded fat-free mozzarella cheese (45 cals)

1 slice Sargento Ultra Thin cheese, Swiss, provolone, pepper-Jack, sharp cheddar, or Colby-Jack (40-45 cals)

1 cup unsweetened almond milk, vanilla or original (30 cals)

1 cup Silk unsweetened cashew milk, vanilla or original (25 cals)

1 cup Silk unsweetened coconut milk (40 cals)

1 cup Almond Breeze unsweetened chocolate almond milk (40 cals)

2 tbsp sugar-free International Delight or Kroger coffee creamer (30-40 cals, depending on flavor and flavor’s brand)

1 Kroger Carbmaster Yogurt, any flavor (60-80 cals, depending)

1/2 pint Favorite Day low calorie protein ice cream, Mint Cookies n’ Cream (180 cals)

1/2 pint Favorite Day low calorie protein ice cream, Cookie Dough or Mocha Coldbrew Coffee (185 cals)

1/2 pint Favorite Day low calorie protein ice cream, Chocolate Peanut Butter or Mini Donut (190 cals)

1/2 pint Favorite Day low calorie protein ice cream, Caramel Maple Bourbon Pecan Pie (205 cals)

additional: any protein ice cream brand is a great dessert choice and so unironically delicious! I just listed Target’s because it’s cheapest, cost-wise, but Halo Top, Frozen Farmer, Enlightened, etc. -- they all market low calorie ice creams for anywhere between 270-470 cals per pint, depending on which flavor and brand.

🍚💰 god-send diet foods 💰🍚

1 bag shirataki noodles (20 cals)

1 cup shirataki konjac rice (30 cals)

1 pint Frozen Farmer sorbet, peach, strawberry, honeydew, watermelon, or mango (70 cals)

1 pint Frozen Farmer sorbet, strawberry lemonade (80 cals)

1 pint Frozen Farmer sorbet, raspberry (90 cals)

Walden Farms syrups, chocolate, caramel, pancake, maple walnut, strawberry, blueberry, etc . (0 cals)

Walden Farms dressings and sauces, Ranch, Buffalo Ranch, Caesar, Thousand Island, Chipotle Ranch, Bacon Ranch, Creamy Bacon, Italian, French, Honey Dijon, Balsamic Vinaigrette, Spicy Buffalo Vinaigrette, Super Fruits Balsamic Vinaigrette, Raspberry Vinaigrette, etc. etc. etc. (0 cals; there are literally endless flavors and all of them are zero calories. No joke. Look it up, order some on Amazon, Kroger and Walmart carry the most popular flavors)

Walden Farms coffee creamers, vanilla, mocha, peppermint, caramel, hazelnut, etc. etc. (0 cals; these might need to be ordered on their website or on Amazon)

Diet Soda, any flavor or brand (0 cals, obv)

2 tbsp Great Value peanut butter powder (50 cals // PB Fit = 60 cals per 2 tbsp)

Stevia or erythritol sweeteners (0 cals)

PICKLES!!!!!!!! (0 cals)

🥨 munchies 🥨

1 cup SmartFood white cheddar popcorn (70 cals // moderation)

1 cup Skinny Pop popcorn (39 cals // moderation)

18 mini twists, Rold Gold fat-free pretzels (110 cals // moderation)

23 twists, Clancy’s Everything-Pretzel Slims (110 cals // moderation)

3 Twizzlers (100 cals // moderation)

2 Zachary’s Thin Mints, mini dark chocolate peppermint patties (65 cals // moderation)

1 Brach’s Candy Cane (50 cals)

2 Hot Cocoa Kisses (36 cals)

2 Cherry Cordial Kisses (40 cals)

1 square 85% Lindt dark chocolate (58 cals // moderation)

1 X-Treme Wellness wrap, cut into 8 slices and salted+baked into tortilla chips, with 1/4 cup salsa (75 cals) or 2 tbsp Good & Gather queso blanco dip / Tostitos salsa con queso dip (90 cals // moderation)

1 slice Healthy Life bread, toasted and with 2 tsp I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! buttery spread, garlic+onion powder, and some salt (60 cals) OR toasted and with 1 slice Kroger fat-free American cheese, melted (65 cals)

1/2 medium banana or apple with 1 tbsp PB Fit powder + 2 tbsp Walden Farm’s pancake syrup for PB drizzle (80 cals // other sugar-free syrups add 5-15 cals, ex. Maple Grove [5], Log Cabin [10], Kroger brand [15], etc.)

2 slices deli rotisserie chicken / turkey, thin-sliced, spread w 1 tbsp Kroger fat-free cream cheese, rolled around 1 baby dill pickle (40 cals // without cream cheese, 25 cals // don’t knock it till u try it😒😒unless u just don’t like pickles lol)

10 strawberries and Walden Farm’s chocolate syrup (50 cals)

1 sugar-free Jell-O cup (10 cals)

1 sugar-free pudding cup (60 cals)

🧂🥫 other sauces / dips / condiments / ingredients 🥫🧂

Mustard, yellow, Dijon, or spicy brown (5-10 cals per tsp, depending on brand)

Miracle Whip Lite (20 cals per tbsp)

Stubb’s Sugar-Free Smokehouse BBQ sauce (10 cals per 2 tbsp)

Prego Marinara No Sugar Added (60 cals per 1/2 cup)

Chi-Chi’s Salsa (40 cals per 1/2 cup)

Tostitos Salsa Con Queso dip (40 cals per 2 tbsp)

Good & Gather Queso Blanco dip (40 cals per 2 tbsp)

Any sugar-free or fat-free dressing!! Just check labels.

Maple Grove sugar-free maple syrup (5 cals per 2 tbsp)

Cocoa powder (10-20 cals per tbsp, depending on brand and purity of cocoa)

Dark spices are said to speed up the metabolism, and they also allow your brain and stomach to feel more sated after eating, so use lots of seasonings! Plus, flavor :P (chili powder, paprika, cayenne, red pepper flakes, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, etc.)

I hope you all found this post to be useful in some way, or maybe inspiring or motivating! If anyone has anything they’d like to add, don’t hesitate to reblog with your own list of favs. I plan on adding to this if I find anything new or remember something I might’ve glossed over when writing it.

That’s all for now. Stay hydrated and take your vitamins angels❣️