#foggysharkstarlight

[vergess]

hello do you happen to have an explanation/definition of what pinkwashing is? don't trust googlie with a term so new and it does not line up with my understanding of the terms it's made up of (-washing = covering or changing the original or true depiction, pink- = I only know this term in politics from pink-collar and I am 99% certain it does not mean the same thing here)

Oh, yeah, you're absolutely correct about it not being a pink-collar thing.

For my followers, pink-collar refers to paid work outside the home that is traditionally held by women. The "pink" refers to women, femininity, etc. Just girly things, if you will.

In pink-washing, however, the pink refers to pink triangles, a prominent symbol of queer survival after pink triangles were used to mark sexual deviants (that is, gay men and trans women).

Pink-washing is the use of "we have queer rights, unlike those barbaric savages" to justify state violence.

Right now, the term is mostly coming up in discussions of Israel. In that specific context, it refers to the fact that Israel is far and away the most progressive and well-protected place for queer people of all sorts in the middle east. Which the Israeli government often likes to point to as proof that their brutal ethnic cleansing is a "necessary force" to protect queer lives from Islamist extremism.

It's a sort of, "look, I know what I'm doing is bad, but what they're doing is way worse: look at how badly they treat their queers. Obviously I must be violent to help civilize the animals, for the sake of their queers," often while actively killing queer civilians for being for the wrong race.

Unfortunately, pink-washing is itself strong evidence that a state devalues her queer citizens, thinking of them not as vulnerable people to be protected (as the state will insist is the case), but rather as tokens to be trotted out as proof of the state's "goodness." And should any queer person defy the role of "good little token," they are inevitably and severely punished. As they say (they being in this case an Israeli sociologist whose name escapes me entirely), "A trans woman in uniform will be given medical care, but a trans woman who refuses military service will go to a men's prison."

Pink-washing is also extremely, EXTREMELY common in the U.S. though this doesn't get as much air time lately as Israeli pink-washing. But, the U.S. very regularly uses pink-washing around gay (not so much trans) rights to justify both imperial and domestic violence. Even at the per-state level, it is extremely common for people in "progressive" states to say absurd shit like, "well we treat our gays with respect, unlike Alabama!" to thought-stop themselves from noticing how miserable their lives are as a direct consequence of state action (or even state inaction to stop violence, as is often the case with capitalism and policing problems).

There's also a significant problem in Canada with their pretty solid record on queer rights being used as a counter-argument to their mistreatment of indigenous peoples. This too is pink-washing.

Pink-washing also devalues to lives and specifically the queerness of the people being targeted for violence. You know. By killing them and stuff. But also by denying that they deserve the very right to life and safety that is supposedly the mission statement.

If the entire point of pink-washed violence really was queer liberation, they would suck at that because they keep killing all the queer people they don't fucking like.

[mathosapabeads]

tea blend arrived today! I haven't drank any yet but it smells soooo good. I didn't know horsetail could be used for tea!

i love horsetail for tea, it has a pleasant mild grassy taste! the whole plant is edible but what is jn the tea is mostly the leaves and branches of the infertile stalks. pilamayaye 🖤

[cellarspider]

@foggysharkstarlight 1009! I used a macro to click about 50 times a second. Once I got that many, it was too crowded to reach the button.

Unrelated--I cannot actually post replies for some reason, Tumblr will not let me do that, either on mobile or desktop. Does anybody know what the hell is up with that?

🦀it’s very hard to use the website like this🦀

[vergess]

Thank you for reminding me of the word "shock jock." A discussion came up recently among some friends about things like 'nazi phases' and saying/doing intentionally inflammatory bigoted things as a teen or young adult. Several of us had rather awful periods of our adolescence but I was struggling to describe how it was different for me, what internally set me apart (because externally there is functionally no difference).

Full disclosure, I'd forgotten the word entirely until @arionwind pointed it out. I was sitting there for like 3 paragraphs trying to explain the difference between heartfelt bigorty, ignorant bigotry, bigotry for the sake of starting a fight with an audience of bigots, etc etc. it was terrible.

Then in comes Ari like, "you mean shock jocks?"

Truly, that's a word we never should have let fall away. Because yes, the antisemitism of shock jocks is still antisemitism! It worsens the safety and welfare of Jews!

But it can and should be addressed differently because it has a different root cause.

[vergess]

Hi can I ask if you know more about those 4-5 major kinds of sleep aides? Because I have tried several, all prescribed, and uh. "hangover" doesn't even begin to describe what they do to me. we're talking taking half of the smallest dose, and still sleeping for half a week. I've had insomnia my whole life as well as inattentive ADHD and every medical professional with the ability to prescribe me things immediately wants to shove a sleep aide down my throat as soon as they learn this about me and now I'm wondering if I've just gotten unlucky and only gotten the Bad Kinds (for me). (I'm guessing this is sort of like how SNRIs fuck up big time but SSRIs either don't do anything or do only a little bit to me)

I'm NOT a doctor, and this is NOT medical advice, just my personal experiences.

You prooobably don't need sleep medication, but rather, need a stronger stimulant/extended release/a second dose before bed.

I know that sounds contradictory. Take uppers to fall asleep???

But if you have ADHD and you're having reactions that bad, then the sleep meds are interfering with your already suppressed (by the ADHD) brain function.

See, it turns out, sleep is one of those things you need to focus on to do, but most ADHDers don't have any stimulant/focus left in them by bedtime. So instead of falling asleep, they drift into complicated ("buzzing") thoughts and keep themselves distractedly awake, often with bonus anxiety.

If that sounds like you, I would suggest an experiment.

Next time you have 2 days off in a row, skip your ADHD meds on morning #1 (yes your function that day will suffer from being unmedicated! That's why it's on a day off), and instead take them right before bed that night.

Then, do whatever you can to make yourself comfortable that does not include the internet or video gaming. I exclude those two options because they are almost custom designed to overstimulate and sinkhole an ADHDer's mind.

I recommend taking a hot shower, listening to some music or podcast, or practicing your daydreaming skills by hypothesizing on your favourite characters or tropes (also known as "meditating on a subject" instead of "mindfulness meditation").

Once you can feel the stimulants kicking in, lay down and try to drift off.

If you're lucky, and it turns out you just need a second dose before bed, you'll wake up the next morning feeling almost medicated and surprisingly functional, and you can take your morning #2 dose as normal.

Then, you can report to your doctor that you tried taking your meds before bed, it helped your sleep, and you'd like to get a second dose prescribed for bedtime use. Your doctor may be unfamiliar or uncomfortable with this because stimulant medications have a bad reputation and ADHD does too. In that case, you can ask about splitting your existing dose in two instead.

Otherwise, I unironically suggest having a coffee or energy drink before bed. It's not as good, but caffeine can help in a pinch. (Actually, if you've ever noticed that coffee makes you sleepy, you can probably skip this experiment).

If you're unlucky and the stimulant keeps you awake instead, then day #2 is also a day off and you can do whatever you need to recover from the experiment, be that napping or going to bed early etc.

If the experiment fails, and you've had such poor reactions to sleep meds, then it's time to consider that you don't have insomnia, but instead one of the many other sleep disorders comorbid with ADHD. These include delayed sleep phase, narcolepsy with insomniac symptoms (I have this), or atypical circadian rhythm (the GF has this one).

None of these are well treated with sleeping pills. In fact, all of them tend to be worsened by sleeping pills, in contrast to traditional insomnia.

But they do respond fairly well to two things: light boxes, and melatonin, both of which are available over the counter or prescribed.

Using a light box when you wake up, and taking a single dose of melatonin 4 hours before you want to sleep (eg: 6PM dose for a 10PM sleep time) will take about 2 weeks to show results.

But it can make a staggering difference in sleep quality for delayed sleep phases and circadian rhythm disorders. Basically what you're doing is violently forcing your body to have a "correct" circadian rhythm by using artificial melatonin to start the sleepytime process, when your natural supply isn't working.

The light therapy meanwhile acts as an artificial Morning much more concentrated than a usual morning (though in the summer you can just sit facing the sun for half an hour with your eyes shut instead), which trips the body-wake-up systems that are usually suppressed or disrupted. It's a sort of "jump start" for systems that exist but don't start when they're supposed to.

Of course, all of this assumes you don't suffer from sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea, the king of sleep disorders, will completely fuck you no matter what you do until you get a CPAP mask. There's just no way around it. It's super common, and if you sleep alone (not with partners) it's also super easy to never notice you have it.

People associate sleep apnea with being fat, but actually it's very common across all weights, because it's caused by a small deformation in your tongue or throat. When your body fully relaxes, these slightly deformed muscles end up completely closing your airway.

Sleep apnea is as easy to diagnose as it is hard to notice, fortunately!!

The doctor gives you a little oxygen meter to wear while you sleep one night (at home, even! No sleep lab needed!) and if your oxygen drops below a threshold, that's apnea baby.

Because apnea prevents you from actually sleeping for more than a few minutes at a time (though you usually won't wake up all the way to notice it), it tends to make you feel like death itself if you take sleep medications. This is because your body is loaded up on sleepytime chemicals but physically cannot sleep, and thus cannot process out the chemicals, so you'll feel like you stayed up 2 or 3 nights for every night you "slept" (passed out) with the pills.

[vergess]

I love all of the levant spam posts so so so much <3 my family is from various countries along the mediterranean but we're much more north and west so it's nice to see how different and also how similar the eastern regions are

I sat on this ask for a few days because it... means a lot to me to be able to see it in my inbox. I really... I don't know how to express the depth of my appreciation. I'm so glad that other people are enjoying it!

There's relatively little Levant content on tumblr, and it's certainly not categorized/tagged as Levantine! So it was very fun to go through and think of all the little EG animal names to search them out!

[vergess]

out of curiosity, how much of those reply tips do you actually get? it wouldn't surprise me if website/payment processor takes a cut, but the suggested amounts are all fairly small.

I doooon't remember the exact amount, but it's less of a fee than Paypal has. Like... it's microscopic actually, and the fact that each tip cashes out immediate instead of "when you have $200 worth" makes it really competitive.

IF! YOU! CAN! GET! IT! SET! UP!

Which is such a fucking ordeal that it took me like a year.

[vergess]

@foggysharkstarlight

Top three: Prompt "kitten party" from an image reading "GAYSEX"

Middle: Prompt "Gay sex kitten party" from random noise

Bottom: "Kitten party for kittens" from random noise

Thank you so much for donating!!

As a reminder: These are AI generated, using my own model based on public domain images, and run offline on my own hardware. No training data was stolen to create these images.