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dr-spectre · 5 months ago

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The autism representation in Splatoon needs to be studied and celebrated because oh my god it's actually really damn good and some of the best in media, especially compared to how its usually portrayed in popular media....

As someone who is on the spectrum and has been diagnosed, it's really comforting to know that one of my favorite game series has such positive depictions of autism and isn't just stereotypical depictions we commonly see in media.

Autism in most media is either portrayed as white nerdy dudes who are cold robots that have super intelligence, can understand alien languages and see the world like they are a fucking Lego master builder or some shit and see blueprints in the sky like in The Good Doctor or The Big Bang Theory with Sheldon. Or it's portrayed as people who are incredibly disabled, cannot communicate and have constant tantrums as seen with the dogshit movie Music (2021). Literally the depiction of autism in that movie is actually fucking dangerous as it shows a person pushing an autistic person who is having a meltdown onto the ground and RESTRICTING THEM! WHICH IS VERY VERY VERY BAD! DO NOT DO THIS!!!! PLEASE!!!!!!!! AUTISTIC PEOPLE HAVE DIED BECAUSE OF THIS!!!!!!!!

Now I'm not saying that these types of autistic people don't exist, remember, it's a spectrum so there's a ton of variety in people who have autism, some people have really high intelligence, some have low social skills and need help, some can talk for hours and hours to anyone, some need serious help to function day to day living and thats perfectly fine. however the type i listed of the super cold robotic genuis is just the really popular stereotype which impacts the perception of autistic people just trying to live and enjoy life like everyone else. Some autistic people are just in the middle and aren't on any of the extremes. There are tons of people who fall into the "low needs" and "high needs" sides of autism of course, however there isn't exactly a ton of representation for people in the middle and sometimes those popular representations of autism can damage the entire perception of the spectrum. And there still isn't a lot of fair representation of "high needs" autistic people in media and that needs to change as well.

Thankfully Splatoon doesn't go for any damaging stereotypes but instead goes for something a little more positive. I think the best examples of this are Marina, Marie and Harmony. While they haven't been canonically confirmed as being on the autism spectrum, they are heavily hinted that they are and show some evidence that supports it.

Harmony for instance is just.... a regular autistic girl, she isn't some incredibly smart girl, no, she's just a regular girl who speaks in a blunt and neutral way but that's about it. As someone who is autistic i can relate somewhat to how she speaks, in real life i tend to just say a few words when talking to someone and i don't really sound energetic or loud about it. i just go "Hey. Hi. Alright. Okay. Oh ok. Uh. I'm good." Some autistic people normally do not speak like they are the nerd emoji and sound hyper smart like Sheldon from Big Bang Theory, and they are not able to speak entirely. That's not what ALL autistic people sound like. There's a decent chunk of them that just speak regularly or speak a little quietly and thats okay. Harmony captures the speech of what a fair portion of autistic people talk like, but not every single autistic person of course. There is a large chunk of autistic people who need support when it comes to communication, and that's perfectly okay. They are just valid as human beings as the ones who can speak.

She also has an interest in music as she is the singer of Chirpy Chips and is seen stimming and fidgeting with an Ultra Hand. Autistic people usually fidget and stim to calm themselves down and keep their emotions in check, maybe Harmony plays with the Ultra Hand because it helps her stay calm when running Hotlantis.

Now it's time to talk about the most popular example of autistic representation in Splatoon. Marina.

She is quite shy when you zoom in on her in Splatoon 2 when you play as an Inkling, but is known to ramble about machinery and excavators to Pearl and Acht for hours at a time. Technology and machinery seem to be a special interest for her as shown with her creating the Shifty Stations for Splatfests, having hacking abilities and building the Memverse. She gets so much energy and excitement from working on the Memverse as shown by her dialogue in the Dev Diaries. However she is not a flawless super genius like in most depictions of autistic characters, she is known to have uncontrollable emotional outbursts, when Pearl even suggests the idea of Off the Hook breaking up she becomes extremely devastated and thinks of the worst case scenario in her dialogue from the Chaos vs Order Splatfest. She sometimes can't control her anger and snaps at Pearl after losing multiple times in a row in Splatfests.

She also has issues with proper work life balance as she overworks herself with working on the Memverse alongside going on a world tour with Pearl, she vents abouts this in her 10th Dev Diary in Side Order. And speaking of order, she chose team order because she wanted to maintain the balance in her life that she has found. A lot of autistic people have strict routines and any changes to that routine will cause them to get really distressed. If someone comes into my space and says "hey we're going out in 10 minutes." I'm gonna get pissed off and be in a terrible mood as my routine has been disrupted and i wanna do something else. Routines give autistic people a lot of comfort and predictability.

Marina's deepest flaw she kept hidden was the desire of a perfect world of order where nothing can change because she's so scared of her new life being destroyed, but she learns to overcome this fear of change with the help of Pearl by the end of Side Order which may inspire autistic people to learn to be more okay with change, even if its very hard.

Marina is also seen wearing her headphones quite often and rarely takes them off which may indicate she might have sensory issues. Some autistic people may suffer with sensory issues and need to wear headphones or certain pieces of clothing to stay calm and keep their emotions from becoming too much. I tend to wear headphones often because i hate my ears being exposed and I'm very sensitive to certain noises.

She also may have another special interest which may be the Squid Sisters as she litters her laptop and keytar with Squid Sister stickers. Marina also talks in a very excited tone when you get Marie's and Callie's palettes in Side Order. She also acts very giddy and excited during live performances with them and starts stimming which is shown by her moving around in place and clamping her hands together.

Another character who you might not think is autistic right away but shows signs of it is Marie. And to be honest i find her to be very relatable.

Marie is known to be more quiet than her cousin and she acted like this since she was a child. Marie also seems to struggle with social situations and struggles to talk with Agent 4 and Neo Agent 3 and wishes they can just leave her alone when you keep talking to her. However she seems to be a lot more comfortable talking with people she trusts and loves like her cousin Callie. She also makes quite snarky and sometimes rude comments but that doesn't mean she's a rude person, she just likes being cheeky and truly cares about the people around her. She even self loathes and worries about her cousin to an unhealthy degree.

A lot of people tend to say that autistic people have low empathy when in reality some autistic people are far from the case. Some autistic people might be TOO empathetic but they cannot show it because it's just so much for them that they can't properly express it. Marie may appear as rude and non caring but she's genuinely a very caring and emotional person but she doesn't know how to show it due to not having developed communication skills compared to neurotypical people. A fair amount of autistic people are not shy people that don't care about you, they just have a different way of speech and communication. 2 autistic people can talk vastly different from each other. It is a spectrum after all. There are some who may have low empathy, but they are not psychopaths who don't care about human life. It's really, really weird to think that and kind of damaging to see autistic people in that kind of light.

Marie is also known to be a picky eater and despises vegetables, refuses to eat the ends of bread loafs, hates tomatoes and pineapple on pizza. (she's literally me holy shit...) some autistic people can have sensory issues when it comes to certain textures and smells and vegetables usually have a weird texture compared to meats and other food groups. They can be seen as "picky eaters" that don't wanna try anything but, some autistic people genuinely cannot eat certain foods and may get sick in the stomach if they see that food and would rather eat anything else. You cannot get me to eat carrots, like I'm sorry but that's not happening buddy. I don't care if they are baked or boiled, i refuse to put that shit in my mouth.

She was also on team order like Marina as she likes to keep things nice and tidy like with most autistic people. Not all but most.

A little tidbit i wanna add as well is that since Splatoon 2, Marie has been seen holding an parasol and for seemingly no reason. Some may say she holds it to seem more professional, however i think she has it around because she likes to hold it in her hands and use it to fidget with, much like Harmony with the Ultra Hand. You can see her spin it around when you stay around her for a little bit in Splatoon 3's story mode. Although I might be looking too deeply into this but i think it might be a cute little detail.

I find it really fantastic that Splatoon not only has good representations of autism, but it's also pretty diverse and shows different elements of the spectrum. Not every single aspect of the spectrum as there isn't an example of a high needs autistic character in Splatoon that I can think of unfortunately, but if you can think of a character who may be in the high needs category of the spectrum then let me know, however we got a pale skinny sea anemone who runs a general store and uses an Ultra Hand to fidget with, a tall black woman who's extremely passionate about machinery and technology, and a Japanese squid woman who would rather eat a Splattershot than a tomato. (Callie and Marie are based off of Japanese culture, look at their clothing and styles of music. If they were humans they would not be white women, sorry to break it to you bud.)

Before this ends i wanna say, if you disagree with me then that's fine. I get it. They aren't canonically confirmed to be on the autism spectrum and a lot of this is just speculation and observation. However don't be a fucking dick about it okay? Don't say that i don't know anything about autism and that I'm crazy and dumb. Don't do that shit. Seriously. I am allowed to look deeper into these characters and find relatability and comfort in them. Don't try to make me feel like a freak for this.

Anyways if i did get something wrong about autism let me know in a fair and polite way. I am human and I'm gonna make mistakes, but don't be a dickhead about it, k? Good. Have a goodnight or good day wherever you live.

#splatoon #splatoon 3 #harmony #splatoon marina #marina ida #marie cuttlefish #marie splatoon #autism #neurodiversity #chirpy chips #pearl houzuki #pearl splatoon #callie cuttlefish #callie splatoon #rambles #text post #long post

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maryrouille · 7 months ago

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Toxic romanticization of studying

In a word of introduction, my profile partly shows that studying and exploring is wonderful. But as a person involved in science*, I would like to show healthy and true patterns of this beautiful adventure in acquiring knowledge.

The inspiration for writing this post this time was not the phenomenon from Tumblr (although you can also observe it here), but from Pinterest. There you can come across cycles composed of quotes and photos whose aim is to motivate young girls to learn, succeed and get good grades. These images often also show examples of characters from movies, TV series or real life that you can aspire to be like. Overall, I have to agree that it really works! But I would like to draw attention to certain elements that need to be verified.

1. You shouldn't get up at 5am

First of all, the correct amount of sleep is one of the most important factors affecting the proper and effective functioning of our brain. During sleep, nerve cells regenerate, organize information acquired during the day and consolidate memory traces, which is directly related to learning. Lack of sleep increases impulsivity, deepens negative thinking and slows down the body's reaction time!

2. You can be a genius without good grades

Of course, good grades are a pleasant confirmation of our knowledge and praise for hard work. However, sometimes it is worth considering whether the structure of exams themselves, especially those with closed questions, affects the results. We often study for one specific exam, the knowledge of which may be very… limited and sometimes not useful, so it is worth prioritizing the topics that we study hard.

3. It's not cool to think you're better than others

We are different and have different priorities in life. It is also worth considering how many people escape from the rat race and start a slow, stress-free life. So we have to agree that judging people based on grades or responses under stress (sic!) is not cool.

The good thing about romanticizing studying

As I have already said, these types of collages are really motivating. So let's talk about what's great about them and what's worth highlighting and saving for later.

1. Knowledge is beautiful, but your outfit and surroundings can also be

We know that we should never judge a book by its cover, but… the issue of social perception painfully confirms that we do and will continue to do so because this is how our brains work. And isn't it nice when someone looks at us and thinks this girl is so classy?

Moreover, a nice outfit that makes us feel good gives us a lot of self-confidence. There are also many studies confirming the positive impact on motivation and concentration of a neat and aesthetic workplace.

2. Not just cramming, but also discovering

Broadening your horizons is easier with passion and real commitment. And to achieve this, the topics must really interest us. Not everyone has yet found something that they are extremely passionate about in science, so that is why you have to dig deeper and discover different areas.

3. Don't be afraid to use your knowledge in practice

Schools and universities, unfortunately, have their own rules and they do not always allow you to show your 100% potential. Thus, share your knowledge with others externally, write essays, blog and social media. This form of activity also makes you learn things faster and easier. In addition, contacts with others will expand your knowledge.

Therefore, I must say that it is worth choosing your inspirations carefully. Nothing helps you enjoy studying better than a clear head and lack of prejudices.

*This post was inspired by my own experience with studying. If anyone is interested, I think I can share my mistakes that did not help me in an academic adventure :)

#study aesthetic #healthy studying #study motivation #studyblr #dark academia #light academia #studyspo #study inspiration #study inspo #study blog #studying #productivitytips #studyblr community

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olderthannetfic · 6 months ago

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hi, as someone who is tragically gen Z and only ever read AO3, can I ask: what was so great about LiveJournal? Like, I know that there were fics posted there (and I've even read about the "purge", so I get why it isn't used anymore) and that it was sort of a forum-type thing. But what I don't understand, wouldn't Tumblr fill in the latter function? How was that site any different? I see a lot of people reminiscing about it and I'm confused

A big factor in LJ's greatness is timing and nostalgia.

It was genuinely great, but it wasn't quite as great as all of the Lo, shall the Golden Age ne'er come again? posts suggest.

LJ arrived at a pivotal time in the development of the internet both in terms of technical stuff and how many people had access. Many fans who are now in their thirties to fifties first discovered fandom through LJ and many were at a time in their lives when they were feeling energetic and up to making lots of new friends—and to figuring out how to make a site work for them.

I got on LJ in 2002 when it required invites. Fandom arrived in droves in 2003, first via coordinated campaigns to get invites to key people and then when LJ opened up free account creation to everyone. Back then, LJ's features sucked. It was impossible to search properly, among other things. At its height (2005-7, let's say), there was a reasonable site search, and fans had developed all sorts of community resources for finding each other.

People often remember this phase but not the early days of suckitude.

This development parallels how Tumblr used to not have that private chat feature and how a lot of fuckyeah[whatever] type tumblrs have helped curate the site and make it much more usable for fans. Fandom draining away from LJ after strikethrough also parallels people draining away from Tumblr after the purge.

There are people who talk about Tumblr the way my cohort talks about LJ...

And to the shock of no one, they are people who came of age on Tumblr, who found fandom via Tumblr, who were on Tumblr during pivotal times in their lives and ones when they had energy to make friends and figure out how a site worked.

Those same Tumblrites are now making all the same geriatric-sounding posts we LJers do about how other sites lack the required features to be good for fandom while missing that 90% of tumblr's "features" at its height (2012-2016, let's say) were actually fan-created and were basically the same as any fandom newsletter or links page or all the versions of this kind of personal curation stretching back to long before the internet existed.

What life phase you hit a site at matters.

With all of that said, no, LJ was not a forum. It was a blogging site with threaded comments.

The key point to understand is that conversation was always happening in a specific person's space. Unlike on a true forum, people were in the comments on a particular post in a journal owned by another fan. (On a forum, there's the first post in a thread, but it's still more of a communal space with less of a hierarchy.)

Overall, the LJ format can have a feeling a bit like you're over at someone's house for tea. There's more of a sense of intimacy and also behaving yourself in front of community members.

Tumblr being obscure and impossible to find anything in does give it some of the same vibe relative to Twitter, but it's still part of modern social media that tries to shove every rando into the face of every other rando.

But it wasn't just vibes: LJ also had robust privacy features where you could lock a post to this or that group of friends. You could moderate your comments section properly. Tumblr has far fewer controls to force people to behave or leave on a technical level.

The biggest thing many people miss about LJ is the threaded comments. At least by late LJ and on Dreamwidth, you can expand and collapse threads, making it far easier to deal with a massive comments section. But more than that, things are properly threaded with multiple levels of hierarchy that are all easily visible in the same place.

On Tumblr, it used to be extremely difficult to find all of the actual commentary on a post. Nowadays, it's far easier, but you still have to scroll chronologically, and multiple versions of a post with a long chain of commentary may be much more divorced from each other than what would happen in a LJ comments section.

But could we use Tumblr pretty much how we used LJ?

We could.

I do.

The key things that people tend to miss about LJ, aside from the younger and more excited version of themselves or the friends they've lost since then, are:

Heavily text-based

It may sound odd on the modern internet, but there are a lot of people whose brains don't like or handle an image-heavy site well. They were everywhere in SF book fandom. They were everywhere on the early internet. Today, they're hanging out on Dreamwidth and still going to their SF cons. They're usually not on Tumblr.

You could follow the discussion

Threaded comments help, but a lot of it is about having some place you can check for updates. It wasn't actually that easy to follow big LJ discussions unless you were subscribed to comments and reading along as things were happening instead of coming along after the entire mass of comments had been left.

The tone of the discussion is intellectual and one's enemies are "idiots", not "problematic"

All this requires is a penchant for longwindedness and an itchy blocking finger to remove anyone slinging ad hominems from the comments section.

On tumblr, it's as simple as conversations happening in the replies on a popular account and that person not tolerating suibaiting and threats.

(And make no mistake, a lot of LJ discussion was in the comments on popular accounts, not spread equally between everyone's.)

It does require that multiple people like that tone and want to engage in that way, but lots of people do want to.

These days, I interact with tumblr by checking my askbox and reading my activity page. The vast, vast majority of my posts are ones where I'm the OP, so if I block someone, they're booted from the discussion entirely.

For me... yeah, Tumblr functions almost exactly like LJ.

Also like LJ, while I'm hosting the conversation, if you hang around, you'll see the same people again and again in the comments. They may or may not also host that kind of conversation in their space, and there's a larger pool of lurkers who have some notion of which people count as regulars. Other people are watching from the shadows, enjoying or deriding the takes of the usual crowd.

People presumably do like reading my lengthy commentary or they wouldn't be here, but my tumblr wouldn't be popular like this without a healthy pool of other people who chime in regularly. It's not just that there are more people: it's that you see the same people over time. There's a bit more sense of place and community than on some parts of the internet.

So, in my opinion, the failure to just recreate LJ fandom on Tumblr was a skill issue.

Threaded comments were great, but LJ culture came from mailing lists, and mailing lists had the same issue as tumblr with the diverging threads.

We solved that back then by clipping out only the parts we wanted to respond to (you'd write "snip" around the quotation to show it was incomplete). We solved the smaller LJ issue by linking to other posts we were referencing and doing discussion link roundups. We solve it on tumblr by, again, linking to what we're talking about and even quoting multiple reblog chains in our own reblog of just one chain.

Tumblr's technical features and even general crap-ness aren't really the problem. 90s and early 00s sites regularly went down for periods of time unthinkable today.

The missing piece is people.

When one is in an active fandom with others who curate or with friends who let one know what's up, a site with imperfect features is easy to figure out and retrofit for fandom's needs. When one already feels out of touch and is between fannish passions—or at least fannish passions anyone else cares about—seeing the potential in a new site is hard.

Threaded comments are different and better.

LJ's built-in way to see everyone's blog in your own style was better. The automatic timestamps and the ease of seeing a paginated archive of an entire blog was better than tumblr's endless scroll and lack of clear date labeling. But some of that can be fixed with xkit or knowing your way around tumblr well.

A lot of it is nostalgia for the lj era and a refusal to take the time to figure out how to use tumblr in an oldschool internet way.

So by all means, people, weigh in about what made LJ great or how the culture felt at the time...

But if I see one more god damn response going "You can't have a conversation on tumblr!" in reply to my tumblr, which contains nothing but conversation, I am coming for you.

#fandom history #fandom meta

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flimsy-roost · 1 year ago

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I realized the other day that the reason I didn't watch much TV as a teenager (and why I'm only now catching up on late aughts/early teens media that I missed), is because I literally didn't understand how to use our TV. My parents got a new system, and it had three remotes with a Venn diagram of functions. If someone left the TV on an unfamiliar mode, I didn't know how to get back to where I wanted to be, so I just stopped watching TV on my own altogether.

I explained all this to my therapist, because I didn't know if this was more related to my then-unnoticed autism, or to my relationship with my parents at the time (we had issues less/unrelated to neurodivergency). She told me something interesting.

In children's autism assessments, a common test is to give them a straightforward task that they cannot reasonably perform, like opening an overtight jar. The "real" test is to see, when they realize that they cannot do it on their own, if they approach a caregiver for help. Children that do not seek help are more likely to be autistic than those that do.

This aligns with the compulsory independence I've noticed to be common in autistic adults, particularly articulated by those with lower support needs and/or who were evaluated later in life. It just genuinely does not occur to us to ask for help, to the point that we abandon many tasks that we could easily perform with minor assistance. I had assumed it was due to a shared common social trauma (ie bad experiences with asking for help in the past), but the fact that this trait is a childhood test metric hints at something deeper.

My therapist told me that the extremely pathologizing main theory is that this has something to do with theory of mind, that is doesn't occur to us that other people may have skills that we do not. I can't speak for my early childhood self, or for all autistic people, but I don't buy this. Even if I'm aware that someone else has knowledge that I do not (as with my parents understanding of our TV), asking for help still doesn't present itself as an option. Why?

My best guess, using only myself as a model, is due to the static wall of a communication barrier. I struggle a lot to make myself understood, to articulate the thing in my brain well enough that it will appear identically (or at least close enough) in somebody else's brain. I need to be actively aware of myself and my audience. I need to know the correct words, the correct sentence structure, and a close-enough tone, cadence, and body language. I need draft scripts to react to possible responses, because if I get caught too off guard, I may need several minutes to construct an appropriate response. In simple day-to-day interactions, I can get by okay. In a few very specific situations, I can excel. When given the opportunity, I can write more clearly than I am ever capable of speaking.

When I'm in a situation where I need help, I don't have many of my components of communication. I don't always know what my audience knows. I don't have sufficient vocabulary to explain what I need. I don't know what information is relevant to convey, and the order in which I should convey it. I don't often understand the degree of help I need, so I can come across inappropriately urgent or overly relaxed. I have no ability to preplan scripts because I don't even know the basic plot of the situation.

I can stumble though with one or two deficiencies, but if I'm missing too much, me and the potential helper become mutually unintelligible. I have learned the limits of what I can expect from myself, and it is conceptualized as a real and physical barrier. I am not a runner, so running a 5k tomorrow does not present itself as an option to me. In the same way, if I have subconscious knowledge that an interaction is beyond my capability, it does not present itself as an option to me. It's the minimum communication requirements that prevent me from asking for help, not anything to do with the concept of help itself.

Maybe. This is the theory of one person. I'm curious if anyone else vibes with this at all.

#actually autistic #autistic #audhd #neurodivergent #nd #long post #actuallyautistic

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bobbiedebruyn · 10 months ago

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So you just joined Tumblr?

Tumblr basics + Fandoms/Gifmaking

Congratulations, you just landed at Tumblr! This hellsite (affectionate) can seem intimidating and complicated at first, but once you grasp the basics of it it’ll quickly turn into your own personal little hut in the forest. Tumblr is a website where you and only you curate your dashboard, you’ll see the content that you seek on your own. In this post, I’ll explain the basics of Tumblr and the basics of how fandoms function here with the help of Bob. Okay, let’s get started.

1. Blog customization

The first thing you should do as soon as you land on Tumblr is add a profile picture and header before you interact with people. You want to be distinguishable from bots and therefore avoid getting blocked. You can also add anything to your bio, there's no character limit. Some folks add their name and pronouns, but there are no rules about that. There are also no rules about profile pictures. It can be a picture of you, a picture of your dog, a picture of a rock, or a picture of your favorite character. If you plan on staying on the fandom side, you might notice that a lot of fandom blogs have colorful-looking icons (a cutout of a character on a colorful background), for these icons and also headers I suggest checking out source blogs that make those icons. For starters, @iconheadersource is a goldmine where you definitely going to find something that’d suit you and your blog.

Tumblr on mobile and Tumblr on desktop are two different creatures when it comes to customization. On the desktop, you can customize your blog with coding (HTML + JS). Now Bob will demonstrate to us some examples of blogs on desktop.

If you want to customize your desktop blog, I suggest checking out @phantomcodes and @glenthemes for the codes.

Tutorial on how to install themes

Using javascript on Tumblr pages

2. Search Engine

Nice! You've made your blog look pretty! Now, let's shift our focus to the search engine and ways to discover content. As mentioned earlier, you curate your dashboard by looking for things you enjoy and like. Search using hashtags or the names of your interests (TV shows, movies, birds, music, etc.) to find your piece of cake. For instance, folks who create posts about TV shows you like use tags to ensure their posts reach others interested in the same thing. So, let's go ahead and search for something right now.

Once you search for that specific tag, you are redirected to the corresponding tag page. Here, you can see that posts are sorted by "Latest" or "Top" (indicating posts with the most notes). On the right side, you will find related tags and blogs which are frequently using the searched tag. By following the tag, both the tag itself and the posts tagged with it will automatically appear on your dashboard in the "Your tags" section. You have the option to filter tags according to your preferences. In the settings, you can choose to block specific tags if you prefer not to see content related to some particular topics.

The only method for sharing posts and content on this website is through reblogging. On Tumblr, reposting others' content, including art, gifs, and fics, is not accepted. Reposting means downloading art, gifs, etc., creating your own post, and then sharing it. And that's a big no-no, strongly discouraged. Your likes essentially function as bookmarks, and you have the option to set them to be private. When you save something, it doesn't appear on your friends' dashboards.

We don't censor things here, and I advise you not to do so too. If you need to mention a word that might be potentially triggering or could be flagged on another social media, feel free to say it. Many users have specific topics and tags filtered out, so if you use variations like "K!tKat" instead of "KitKat" in the tags, it can bypass the tag filter, potentially causing more harm as people will see content that triggers them. And remember to always tag posts that have flickering or flashing!!!

If you want to organize your reblogs or make comments on a reblog, use the tags section and not the comments section itself. This is called "#add tags." Feel free to type whatever you want, but keep in mind that the original poster receives notifications when someone reblogs their post and adds tags. Yes, all tags are visible to us.

Okay, so let's quickly recap this information with the help of our dear friend, Bob.

3. Social interactions

So let's move on to one of the crucial topics - how to make friends on Tumblr? Personally, I don't think there's one particular formula for that. Sometimes you just see a funny bloke posting about something as random as desert rain frogs, grab them, and go "You're my friend now" and that's how you become mutuals.

However, there are other, more common ways to become friends with someone. You can start by reblogging someone's post, adding tags to the reblog, and then following the person. Create your own posts, tag them to ensure they reach the folks who are interested in the same things as you, and participate in fandom events and challenges if you're into that. Interact with people you want to befriend, message them, send them asks. You will eventually find your crowd. You'll also find swifties, and fans of supernatural who never moved on from that destiel love confession four years ago, they also can be your friends, at some point, you will become friends and chill with each other. Be open to new interests to make sure your dashboard is not dull and boring.

Tumblr doesn't have the supposed hierarchy, and you don't have to listen to anyone who tells you otherwise, you curate your own experience and blocking is pretty normalized here. Notes and followers (which are private for everyone) don't really matter, stick to your beliefs and your vibe and you'll be fine. We're all equal losers here.

4. Fandom / Gifmaking

Fandoms play a significant role on Tumblr, they're closely tied with gifmaking. As a fellow creature of fandom, I'm adding this part because we don't gatekeep - more gifmakers and fandom enthusiasts mean a better fandom experience. As I mentioned earlier, everything has its tag, making it easy to find your favorite TV show fandom by searching for the tag. This is also how you can connect with people who share an interest in that specific TV show. Upon entering the tag, you'll stumble upon numerous moving pictures – these are GIFs. People create GIFs of everything, from their "blorbo" (the term for favorite character) to beloved ships and favorite moments. There are also plenty of creative GIFs with different coloring and complicated effects. And the best part? You can do it too!

There are a lot of ways to make GIFs. Some people use Photoshop, and some use Photopea which is an excellent accessible option. I'll be linking posts for Photoshop under this text. For Photopea tutorials and guides, please check out @photopeablr.

I've been making GIFs for three years at this point, and those are the tutorials I used when I was just starting out:

how to make a gif:

comprehensive guide 101

basic gif making tutorial + mvp player installation

gifmaking for beginners

how to install MVP player on a PC

film downloading & screen-capping tips

correct photoset dimensions

coloring

how to fix orange-washed characters

how to: coloring east & southeast asian celebs

channel mixer

colored background

color manipulation

vibrant coloring

how to brighten dark scenes

color isolation

effects

glitch effect

blending

crossfade transition

gradient effect in the text

gradient text

red colour accent on the b&w gifs

how to add a gif in a template

blurring gif backgrounds

using templates

text

text tutorial 1

font resources

understanding fonts and typefaces

split text

subtitles

other

icon tutorial

gif headers

For more tutorials, inspirations, and resources - please check out @usergif. It's a good source blog for all gifmakers.

Wait but what's a source blog? These are blogs that center around a specific theme, creating content for a particular topic. They are managed by multiple editors, these blogs track their own tags to reblog content related to the theme. They can be source blogs dedicated to gifmaking (just like @usergif), a TV show, a movie, a character, a celebrity, a sports team, or literally anything else. Typically, these blogs incorporate terms like "network," "source," "central," "creators," "hub," or "daily" in their usernames, making them easily distinguishable from regular personal blogs. Examples of source blogs that come to my mind right now are @dailyanakin, @heartstoppercentral, and @nancywheelercentral.

Let's also talk about tracking tags, which are often included in blogs's bios, whether they're from source blogs or solo gifmakers. You can add these tags to your posts when creating a gifset related to a specific source blog or something you know a particular gifmaker would appreciate. Basically, the gifmaker can search their tracking tag, much like a regular Tumblr tag, and view the most recent sets in which someone used their tag.

The last thing I want to talk about are usernames, and main and side blogs. On Tumblr, we have two types of blogs: the main blog and the side blog. The main blog is the initial blog created when you sign up for your account. This blog has full functionality and all features, allowing you to follow other blogs, like posts, and send asks to other blogs. In addition to the main blog, you can create side blogs on your account. Side blogs lack some of the features of main blogs; you can't like posts, follow other blogs, or send asks from a side blog. They have slightly different functionality – a side blog can be password-protected, have multiple users, and allow you to send direct messages to people. Other users can follow your side blog, and you can receive asks from them.

Many people use side blogs as URL holders. For instance, when a new TV show is announced, someone might be the quickest to save all canonical character names. You can then message that empty side blog to inquire if they're willing to trade that specific URL or if it's available for a giveaway. Canonical URLs are often challenging to obtain, so many people add letters in between or at the end or use symbols like "-", and they also mix names and surnames of different characters.

5. The End

Okay, so we've just covered how Tumblr works, how fandoms operate, and how to get into gifmaking. I hope this guide by me and Bob has been helpful to you. If you have any questions, feel free to send them to my ask box or simply ask Bob. I hope you enjoy your stay here, and that your experience with this website will be a positive one.

#tumblr #welcome to tumblr #tumblr etiquette #how to tumblr #fandom community #fandom culture #photoshop tutorial #gif tutorial #gif resources #kas.txt #mine

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jackdaw-kraai · 14 days ago

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Comprehensive Anti-Body Odor Guide

Do you stink? Do you not wish to? Do you feel like you've tried everything and are at your wit's end? Never fear, I'm going to take you through every single thing I know about reducing and managing offensive body odor and feeling better about it, because point number one:

It's Not Your Fault:

Regardless of what advertising, social media, your peers, your family, intimate partners, or anyone else has told you, you're not morally inferior for struggling with your body odor, and it's not a sin on your part. You are a human being, and therefore, an animal. A mammal specifically. Your body naturally produces scents and odors for all kinds of reasons, including to signal something socially (yes, really) or as a symptom of something being wrong in your environment or body.

You are going to smell.

The thing I'm going to help you control is whether or not, to your own nose or that of others, you smell bad.

But know that even if you follow every step and tip and trick I give you, you are never going to be scentless or naturally smell like something other than a human being. Your body, naturally, will never produce scents like those of perfumes, soaps, or other things you and others consider pleasant.

This is okay.

You are not a flower, a fresh-baked pastry, a musk gland, or anything else. You are a human. You're going to smell like a human. I know this can be difficult to deal with, but that's a fundamental thing I need you to accept and be okay with before we proceed, okay?

It's fine and morally neutral to produce the natural scents a human body does, and fundamentally, you cannot change that.

All that being said, scent is an important sense to the human experience, and plays a much bigger role in our lives than we're popularly led to believe. You may have heard of the fact that taste is mostly smell, or that smell is the sense most strongly connected to our deep memory. This is all true, but smell is also an important way to gauge health and social well-being, which is why smelling in a way we consider bad can be such a struggle. Therefore...

Accounting For External Factors:

There are many reasons other than the topics that we're going to touch on that can contribute to offensive scents. Your cleaning habits, being sick, your general environment, it can all contribute to smelling bad.

First to address the heavy and serious stuff, because unfortunately, if this guide is to be as comprehensive as can be, it needs to be addressed. Head's up for discussions of addiction, mental health, abuse, and poverty, and how it can affect a life. If you're not up for it, but still want the tips, skip to the next enlarged, bolded heading where I'll continue to address more common, less heavy causes of BO.

Without further ado.

Sickness, especially addiction, can heavily contribute to body odor, and may not always be easy or even pleasant to deal with. Infections can smell bad. Smoking can cause some serious Bad Odor in your mouth, clothes, house, ect. Depression can contribute to being unable to care for basic hygiene, which, of course, can smell bad.

I need to reiterate: this is not a moral failing.

This is your scent functioning as intended.

Bad smells can often signal that something is Wrong with the person carrying it, in this case you. It allows you and others around you to know that there may be something going on in your life which either prevents you from grooming yourself properly, or cannot be groomed away at all. This is normal. We are a social species with social adaptations. Being able to know that something might be wrong with our troop, even if no one knows how to put words to it, is a vital survival skill, even in the modern day.

If your ear, privates, or other part known for being "dirty" itches, burns, otherwise hurts or irritates, and stinks, go to a doctor, you likely have some sort of infection or other minor injury that makes you more vulnerable to infection. Fungal, bacterial, and even viral illnesses and infections can produce some of the foulest scents you've ever smelled, and often throughout history this was one of our main diagnostic tools. Even today we still use it to note that something's wrong, with me telling you this in this post as a prime example.

Again, this is not you being filthy, or morally depraved, this is you being sick. However embarrassing it is, it's part of being human, completely normal, and treatments are often readily available. These kinds of issues can arise from all sorts of normal, every day activities, even issues related to your private areas. While certain activities I won't name at a risk of being censored can and do lead to these issues, other sources can be: sweating in tight or poorly breathing clothing, walking through nature, sitting on a surface that happens to have bacteria or spores, wiping after going to the toilet, using any kind of public bathroom even if it's cleaned regularly, and many other such riveting and scandalous activities. All this can happen even when fully clothed and if you wash regularly. It's normal, and a part of being human, I promise you.

Go to a doctor and get a diagnosis if possible, even if treatments are over-the-counter. Bacterial and fungal infections often have extremely similar symptoms, to the point even professional misdiagnosis is not uncommon if the professional isn't paying attention.

Common "alternative" treatments made from household ingredients and especially essential oils can exacerbate any symptoms severely due to being in large part comprised of nutrients that feed the infection (in case of things like herbs, garlic, sugar, and honey), insufficient disinfectant (hand sanitizer, drinking alcohol, mouthwash), or outright harmful chemicals (common cleaning products, essential oils, mouthwash). Please only use certified, and well-known medical treatments when handling these issues.

Incorrect treatment can worsen the condition and sometimes hurt like hell.

However embarrassed you are, please, please seek professional experience rather than trying to go it alone if at all possible. A misdiagnosis is unlikely to kill you, but can be extremely uncomfortable and prolong the issue. Resort to self-diagnosis only as an absolute last option if you cannot get a professional opinion anywhere else. If you're unable to afford or access healthcare, you might have to risk it, but try and search for possible accredited social programs and charities first.

If you are a minor and cannot trust your current guardians to help you, try and see if you can't confide in a possible school or extracurricular employee like a certified nurse or medic, and an other trusted adult failing that.

Only self-diagnose a possible infection as a last resort, I cannot stress this enough.

And always, always alert emergency responders if symptoms seem to worsen, as any infection you might have could turn septic if left untreated.

This can kill you.

I cannot overstate this enough, an untreated infection left to go septic can and will kill you. If you suspect you have an infection and symptoms aren't alleviating after a few days, if any discomfort you experience is bad enough to even partially incapacitate you, and especially if symptoms seem to worsen or spread, ignore all other instructions and immediately visit a doctor or call your local emergency services to notify them of your status. Even if you don't have an infection, none of these symptoms are normal, and you need prompt professional, medical assistance.

Mental illnesses and addiction are other illnesses which are often ignored or forgotten about when considering why you might smell bad. Even putting aside how these afflictions can make you more susceptible to more conventional illnesses, being unable to take care of your own hygiene is another signal that something is wrong, as grooming is another way to show health. If someone is in a poor state of grooming and doesn't seem to care, check in on them, they might need help for some other issue not immediately visible.

If you are the person suffering from these issues and any instructions further down the list are infeasible, ineffective, or unsustainable for whatever reason because of your situation, it's not your fault.

You are ill and need treatment before you can tackle other issues.

Being depressed to the point of being unable to shower or do laundry is not a moral or personal failing, it's an illness and these are the symptoms.

Being a smoker and having chronic bad breath and nicotine scent stick to your clothes isn't a moral or personal failing, it's an addiction, an illness, and these are the symptoms.

Being a drug user and having physical signs of your use or regularly being in a mental state where hygiene is impossible to maintain isn't a moral or personal failing, they are symptoms.

You are a person suffering from a severe illness, and your struggles with hygiene aren't a consequence, they're a symptom. Either the root issue needs to be treated for these symptoms to alleviate, or you need help in symptom management until such a thing can be achieved, if it can be achieved at all. There are many resources out there specifically for issues like these, and if you're one of the lucky ones, your social safety net is exactly what you are supposed to rely on in times of these. Even if you feel ashamed for needing these services, or are estranged from possible loved ones who might be able to help you due to your issues, please, reach out, and ask for help if you can.

It's a part of being human.

Anyway, all of this was already heavy, but there's still two main elephants in the room waiting to be addressed, so if you're still here, good job. I'm genuinely proud of you. This isn't easy to read, and if it's immediately relevant to you, even harder to confront. So. Take a deep breath. Possibly get up to walk a bit, get a drink, snack, whatever, and let's get back to it.

It can't be avoided when talking about hygiene. Poverty is a major factor in being unable to care for oneself in too many ways to count, and I will be upfront and say I have no personal experience with it, knock on wood. Therefore, while I'll try to be sensitive to the fact that hygiene, like so many other things, is a matter of resources and time, it has to be acknowledged that some of the tips, tricks, and advice I will give can be straight-up impossible for anyone living in poverty, working multiple jobs, caring for dependents, and any other kind of issue that means there can be a strain upon both the budget and time available to tend to one's body odor.

This is not a moral or personal failure, it's a consequence of the inadequacies of our modern society requiring people to sacrifice such vital things as time and resources to devote to personal grooming and maintaining a home. Therefore, while I will try to give alternatives to anything that might be extremely time consuming or expensive, some things just have to be acknowledged as infeasible on certain budgets for either money or time.

If that's you, you are not helpless or lesser, you're just dealing with more obstacles. Pick and choose whatever seems useful or possible from this guide, and I will try and give as much foundational knowledge as I can so you can devise alternative options where possible. This issue might be harder to deal with when impoverished, but with a bit of luck, hopefully you and I can still make progress wherever possible.

And lastly, we have to talk about abuse.

People in abusive environments or relationships often don't have full or sometimes any control over their time or resources. Trying to maintain personal hygiene in these kinds of situations can be next to impossible while also trying to remain relatively safe from the wrath of an abuser. All of the advice I will give in the upcoming sections assume at least a minimal allocation of purchasing power and control over one's schedule and actions. Some people in abusive relationships may be able to make use of them, some may not.

If this is you, I'm so sorry, and I promise you, it's not your fault if you're struggling. Even if your abuser insists otherwise, I need you to hear and trust this: it's not you, it's them. You're not crazy, unreasonable, slovenly, dirty, irredeemable, sinful, damned, disobedient, or anything else they say you are, you are in pain. You're in an impossible predicament, and anyone expecting you to be able to maintain personal hygiene with this kind of pressure is out of their minds.

Find whatever allies you can, severe contact with the person hurting you if possible, and take whatever you can use from this guide that you can. Anything else that seems infeasible or impossible without invoking the wrath of your abuser is immaterial and not your fault. It's their fault, in all honesty. All strength in your struggles, and don't worry about smelling like your fought a war when you're actively in the trenches. Clean up can come after you are safe.

Now, with all the heavy, hard stuff out of the way, and to everyone rejoining us here...

Comprehending Body Odor, The Basics:

Let's start there. What is body odor, and why can it seem so impossible to get rid of sometimes?

Well, unfortunately for you, there's no one easy trick that can rid you of bad smells forever, but rather a myriad of complicated factors that range from basic biology to modern social trends all contributing to why you can gag yourself with the scent of your socks sometimes.

Humans are animals, and the trouble starts here. Animals produce scents, and anyone who's ever been near one or owned one can attest to this cosmic truth. From our poop to our breath, bad smells can come from everywhere, but some sources are more obvious than others. Not pooping or peeing our pants is generally something we learn as a toddler and get better at as we age, so that handily eliminates one of the most common sources of foul smells.

Similarly, dealing with other odors is a learned skill, and one that changes as you get older. Everyone knows the stereotype of teens that smell like gym socks, but rarely do we discuss why this is the case. So, like so many things in the human body, it all comes down to biology and chemistry.

When we enter puberty, we start producing an absolute ton of hormones, and if that's you right now, I'm so sorry, I know it sucks, and all the annoying adults telling you it will get better do so because it's irritatingly true. Just try to survive and you'll get there. As for coping with the sudden influx of unpleasant smelliness, here's the deal. Your body is currently going through a lot of growth, some of it visible, and a lot of it very much not. One of the things currently kicking into overdrive is the production of your apocrine sweat glands, not to be confused with your eccrine sweat glands.

"What the hell are those??"

A thing that will plague you for a long time to come, but, not something that's unmanageable. Let me explain.

The human body is absolutely covered in sweat glands. Just completely covered in it. It's one of the things that makes us special in the animal kingdom, as sweating to this extent is something that's actually pretty rare. Only a few other species have the kind of sweat gland real estate we have, and of them, we definitely make the best use of it. See, part of our evolutionary success comes from being pursuit predators when we're not being grumpy omnivores. It means that instead of ambushing our prey or running it down, we just follow it. For hours. Until the prey is so exhausted it just can't run anymore and, hey! Dinner! Go team, good job, time to hit the showers.

Which we'll need, because part of this strategy, mechanically speaking, is getting rid of the heat our muscles produce as fast as possible so we don't collapse before that poor deer does. Other animals do this through panting, wallowing, sitting in the shade, whatever, but our ancestors didn't have time for that. All of that is either impossible or terribly inefficient while running, so instead what we did is reduce our hair coverage so the sun can more easily reach our skin, increase sweat production to levels almost unheard of, and allow these combined factors to ensure we're basically always walking around in a microscopic cloud of water vapor that acts as our personal heat sink.

It's extremely cool, extremely efficient, and unfortunately part of why you have to deal with smelling awful after you've hit the gym. You see, most of our sweat glands are eccrine sweat glands, which is cool, because these are the ones that mostly produce sweat that consists of water, salt, and a tiny bit of proteins. No big deal, you might feel gross once it dries on your skin, but it's basically odorless, and a quick shower and change of clothes is all you need to deal with that mess, easy peasy.

Unfortunately, this also kicks in your apocrine sweat glands, which also start to produce a lot more sweat, and here's where our problems start. You see, while this kind of sweat is the cause of your problems, it isn't actually the sweat itself that stinks. Sure, it's oily, and opaque, and feels gross, but it's actually as odorless as your eccrine sweat. Modified apocrine glands are actually what produce your tears, ear wax, and even breast milk in those of you capable of it, it's all so cool! Unfortunately, this sentiment is also shared by some of our microscopic fellow earthlings, and that's where we find the culprit of our stink.

You see, while apocrine sweat doesn't smell initially, it actually is designed so symbiotic bacteria living on our skin find it irresistible and start consuming it. Gross! But the worst part isn't that they're your dinner guests in the weirdest of ways, that's actually completely normal. It's that they're rude dinner guests and the sources of the smell that terrorizes gym locker rooms the world over! Their digestion of your apocrine sweat is what causes that stink, and unfortunately, there's nothing you can do to stop it.

Well...

Nothing you can do to stop it permanently.

But you sure as hell can make your displeasure known in the mother of all neighborly disputes.

First of all, let's tackle the source. Now that we know that it's not our sweat itself, but the bacteria that are raining on our parade, the solution is actually pretty obvious: anti-bacterial soap. If you're one of the unfortunate people struggling with reducing your BO, switching over to anti-bacterial soap and shampoo can really help kill the problem at the source, reducing the number of bacteria causing your issues, and allowing for it to take longer for the issue to come back. You will never kill off your bacteria population entirely, and frankly, you shouldn't, they're doing a lot of good too, despite being such rude dinner guests. But culling the population is a great first step in dealing with the problem, and paves the way for the rest of our steps.

And if you're sitting there like "well, that's fine and dandy, but sometimes I just can't shower, you ever think of that?" and first of all, patience, young grasshopper, I'm getting to it, and second of all, yes, I have! If you're one of these people who either can't shower or would need to shower more than you can be bothered to, try using either anti-bacterial wipes or, funnily enough, hand sanitizer with a high alcohol content. Wipes or pads used for cleaning cuts or scrapes and hand sanitizer make for easy portable solutions to a lack of access to a shower or the fucks to use one.

The locations of your apocrine glands that you can safely clean this way are your armpits, the sides of your nostrils, your perineal area, and some parts of external genitalia. We'll talk about that "some" later, but for now, those are the areas safe to wipe down with either a wipe or some hand sanitizer if you can't clean yourself otherwise. Dry shampoo will take care of the glands on your scalp, and baby wipes can take care of the eccrine sweat on the rest of your body if you feel extremely grody. If any other part of your body stinks especially bad and it's not on that short list, you can wipe that down too as long as it's not near any kind of orifice or mucosal membrane (the parts of your body you can touch that feel slimy, like the inside of your nose or mouth).

Now speaking of mucus, it’s time to get back to the genitalia part. Everyone try to stay mature for this, it’s important.

Let’s come out and say it: genitals can stink. They’re actually meant to, it’s part of the whole “social scent” thing, but too much is just too much, y’know? So needless to say, you gotta clean ‘em, but for everyone out there with the whole or partial set that’s more inside than outside there’s an important message: don’t smear fucking soap in there.

“But it stinks!”

It smells. It’s genitalia, it’s what it does, it’s fine.

“But I don’t want it to smell!”

Tough titties, you still need to stop smearing soap on it.

“It stains my underwear!”

I promise you, it doesn’t. Now, everyone who doesn’t have genitalia set that’s more internal than external might be wondering what I’m talking about, and to that I say, shush, this ain’t about you, just listen up.

I’m going to call it a… let’s call it a wallet, to make sure tumblr doesn’t twig and mark this as something it’s not. Your wallet has multiple folds, and a lot of cool properties, but one that’s immediately relevant is that the secretions you always have to deal with aren’t actually ph neutral, they’re slightly acidic. What this means is that those stains aren’t stains, they’re actually places your natural wallet secretions have bleached your undies a bit.

This ph also means you can fuck it up royally if you smear soap in there, so quit it. Rinsing with water will do just fine for the inner folds, and if you really must, you can lightly soap up the outer folds. Soaping it up will do more damage than good, and make you more susceptible to infections and the like. Similarly don’t do anything like douches, or other nonsense that shoves things up in there or smears it on it in the name of “cleaning” it. It’s right next to your waste disposals, and absolutely loaded with mucosal membranes, weird smells are to be expected and are fine. Just keep it clean with water and I promise you it’ll smell less bad than if you use soap.

Cool? Cool. Moving on.

But say it's not your body that's stinky. Say it's your mouth. Well, that too is something you can thank bacteria for, but thankfully is a lot easier to fix. Just do what your dentist recommends you to do, and brush twice daily or whenever your mouth feels gross. If you've got persistent problems, ask them about it. It might be something like a tonsil stone or other foreign object stinking up the place, and they can help you get rid of it easily. Again: doctors are your friends, and dentists are doctors of a very specialized profession.

So, now you're fresh as a daisy! You've either showered or wiped yourself down, you've brushed your teeth, and everything is puppies and rainbows! But we all know that doesn't last long if you've been reading this post up to this point, so how do we keep it this way?

Well.

Deodorant, Clothing, Cleaning, And You:

So we've tackled the skin layer of the issue, and if everything has gone to plan, you're smelling a lot better now! Congrats! But, of course, the real struggle is keeping it that way, so let's get into the weeds, because this is probably going to be a lot of things that you might have never considered before. So, to ease you in, let's start with something you definitely have: deodorant.

You're gonna need it.

I'm sorry, but you do. There's ways to go deodorant-free through life, but let's be honest, if you're reading this post, you probably aren't looking for that kind of lifestyle, so let's get into the thick of it. There's a lot of deodorants out there, but how do you know which one is for you? To put it bluntly, it's gonna take some trial and error, but here's a few guidelines to get you started.

One, you're gonna want something in stick form, preferably a solid stick of deodorant rather than a roller ball like you'd probably envisioned when I said "deodorant stick." Sprays and the like are easy, but if you're struggling with odor, you're gonna want a deodorant that will stick instead of rubbing off throughout the day like most do due to friction from either skin or clothing.

Two, go for something light on the scent. Scentless, if necessary. I know a heavy scent might seem more secure in masking any potential smells, but one, it doesn't, it just blends with the scent and creates a truly nauseating aroma. If you've been in a locker room and smelled a dozen dozen different deodorants and gym sweat mixed together, you'll know the truth of this. Aside from that, perfumes often irritate the skin, and we don't want to make it easier for the bacteria to propagate like they'd do on skin that's more vulnerable to infection due to being inflamed. Go for something lighter, it'll not only be kinder on your skin, but also allow you to actually smell when it's time to clean yourself again and reapply.

Three, look for a deodorant that moisturizes as well as blocking perspiration. It's great that you're reducing sweating, but your skin still kind of needs that moisture, so if you're damming up one source, you need to provide another to make sure nothing funky starts happening. Keeping your skin healthy helps prevent curing one problem by causing another, and irritated skin really isn't any better than smelly skin.

So now you have a deodorant. Keep it with you, along with some wipes, and you'll be set! But that's only half the battle, because all that sweat still needs to go somewhere, so here's the part where you might need to take some notes.

Here's the thing: we're gonna have to talk about fabric. Specifically the fabric you wear and sleep in.

The majority of our bodily filth actually gets absorbed by our clothes and bedding, including our sweat, so if you wanna stay clean, you're gonna need some clean clothes. This is easier said than done, though, as what your clothes are made of matters too, but let's start with some basics.

Here's a rule of thumb if you have no idea where to start: any fabric that touches your skin should be washed after a single day of wear. Everything that touches that layer should be washed after about three times wearing it. Everything that touches that layer should be washed every week.

Mind you, this is a rule of thumb for things you can wash. Suit jackets, genuine silk, leather, ect. obviously goes by its own rules, but if you're struggling to know how often to wash something, don't know how to sort which fabric can tolerate being worn more often than others, or just don't have the time to sort things, this will do in a pinch. Mind you, this is will also wear out your clothes faster if you don't know which garment can tolerate what, but we'll get to that.

Starting from the skin, let's talk about each layer as we go. If you struggle with BO, I recommend switching out your underwear every single day, minimum. Twice a day if you think you can handle it in terms of laundry and the like, once after waking up, once before going to bed. Socks follow the same rules. Wash these garments at 60 degrees celsius, or 140 degrees fahrenheit to prevent any build-up of smells.

After that, we're on to shirts. Tight-fitting tshirts, button ups, blouses, and the like should be washed after every wear. Most people will say you can wear them twice or thrice before you need to wash them, but we're not most people here. We're dealing with stink, and we want to get rid of it, so swap that shirt after every time wearing it. Wash at 40*C, or 100*F for best results if the fabric can handle it.

Pants are tricky, and we'll get more into them later, but if you air them out after each time wearing them and haven't sweated profusely in them, you can wear them three or four times before needing to wash them. Skirts are similar, and if they aren't of a tighter design like a pencil skirt of similar, you can add a wear or two to that number. Wash at the same temperature as your shirts if you can.

Dresses are similarly tricky, but if you're wearing them directly on the skin and have a fitted bodice (the torso section), you need to treat it the same as a shirt, and wash it after every wear. Same washing instructions as pants or shirts.

Pajamas should be washed every two times wearing it, as you sweat in your sleep as well, and sleeping in your bed doesn't help the matter. Wash at 60*C or 140*F with your underwear and socks if possible.

Your bedding should be washed every four to seven days, depending on how much you sweat in your sleep. Yes, really. Yes, I know that's a chore. You're gonna need to do it, sorry. It's a lot of fabric you wallow in, sweat in, and sleep in for eight hours per day, and that's gonna contribute to smells if you don't clean it regularly. Invest in a mattress protector as well, so sweat doesn't seep into it and start to fester there. You'd be surprised how rank a mattress can smell if you sweat on it for eight hours a night, every night, and how that can contribute to you smelling rank after said sleep. It's the reason why you should also put said mattress on an actual bed frame instead of the floor, so air can circulate underneath it and keep it from looking like the bottom of that rock you turn over in the park after a rainy night.

And with all that said and noted...

None of this matters if you don't take note of what your clothes and bedding are actually made of. Because there are fibers that will help you and fibers that will stab you in the back by smelling awful no matter how often you wash it, and I'm gonna tell you which are which.

First of, linen. If you struggle with smells, linen is better than wool, cotton, silk, and anything else when it comes to smells. There's a reason it was the primary fabric of indo-european world since the stone age, and there's a reason I'm recommending it now, and that reason is this: it's the best when it comes to staying clean.

It wicks away sweat, making sure you don't feel icky as well as minimizing smells. It breathes, allowing sweat to actually evaporate rather than remaining trapped against your skin. It helps regulate temperature, feeling cool in the summer and warm in the winter. It lasts for actual, genuine centuries if treated right and can be boiled and beaten to clean it without suffering negative effects. And as a cherry on top, it's mildly exfoliating as well due to the structure of the fibers, absorbing even more filth that would otherwise contribute to feeding the stank bacteria and your BO.

If you learn anything at all from this post, learn that linen is the best fabric bar none to wear against your skin.

Wool is the next best, absorbing moisture like nothing else while remaining dry to the touch, breathing better than most cottons, a lightweight wool will actually keep you cooler in summer than cotton will, and you rarely need to wash it at all as allowing it to air out will take care of most scents and sweat from daily wear. Love wool, adore wool, she's giving us e v e r y t h i n g.

Cotton is third best. This is essentially your economy option if you can't afford, thrift, or otherwise get a hold of the first two. It's decent at absorbing moisture and breathability. It'll handle both heat and cold in a pinch. It won't hold on to most scents if given a thorough wash, and most relevant of all, it's the easiest to find and afford in our modern world.

Silk is kind of the odd one out here, as it's merits aren't in being a skin layer, but an outer layer. In aesthetics it's unmatched, and it's lighter weight than wool while being surprisingly warm. The downsides to it are that it doesn't breathe easily or absorb moisture, meaning it's a very poor choice to wear directly on the skin unless you're fond of swamp ass.

And last and definitely least.

Synthetic. Fabrics.

Look, I'm going to level with you. My hate for synthetic fabrics didn't start as an altruistic "it dumps microplastics in the water with every wash, is literally just plastic, and awful for the environment." It started as it just being the worst at being a fabric. It doesn't breathe at all. It cannot absorb as it is plastic. It won't keep you warm for shit, and the worst, the absolute worst.

It absorbs and holds on to smells. No matter how often you wash it.

If you sweat enough in a synthetic garment, it'll start hanging on to that scent at some point and good luck getting out at that point.

Genuinely, if you struggle with body odor, check the labels on your clothing and bedding, and see how much of it is synthetic and to what percent and then consider how easily you start to stink in them. I'm genuinely not crunchy or hippie or anything like that to most degrees, it's just not my lifestyle, but I'll die on the hill of natural fibers as being infinitely superior in everything except price, and frankly, that's because in clothing if you buy cheap, you get cheap.

If there's one thing I recommend, it's buying or thrifting clothes that are as close to 100% natural fiber as is possible, and researching what types of fabric are best for your needs. Denim, for instance, is often 90% or more made of cotton, but due to the way it's woven and constructed it's awful for wicking away sweat and breathes like shit. If you struggle with BO, consider getting pants that aren't jeans. It'll really help with odor in your more private regions, as well as swamp ass and similar. Heck, consider skirts or kilts, nothing will breathe like that, and you'll have more legroom than you know what to do with!

All this goes for socks as well. If you struggle with stinky feet, get some genuine woolen socks, lightweight ones for warmer weather too. They'll keep your feet dry and minimize the development of smells. Airing out your shoes also can help, same as your jacket.

And lastly.

The Niche Points:

If you're still struggling, and let's be honest, every single body is different, so you still might, there are some remaining things to consider.

Nutrition is one of them, as a diet heavy on meat will cause worse smells on either end of your digestive tract than one heavier on veggier. Now, I want to be clear: this is not a call to go become vegetarian or vegan or any other kind of diet. If that's your calling, that's your business, but it's important to consider that meat and fish and even mushrooms all have very important nutrients in them that contribute to your health and keeping your body healthy. And as we've discussed earlier, an unhealthy body smells worse than anything that eating meat could cause.

What I'm saying instead is that if you know you've eaten a meal heavy on meat, fish, or similar, you can opt to brush your teeth more thoroughly than you normally would, as well as perhaps using something like a mouthwash your dentist recommends (never use mouthwashes without recommendation, guys. Dental hygiene is not a joke, and just because it's sold in a supermarket doesn't mean it's automatically good for you. Bread is sold there too, and I think celiacs would have some opinions about assuming it's healthy for everyone to eat).

If you think nutrition might be a cause for either your digestive processes smelling worse than usual or you being more susceptible to things like yeast infections, talk to a nutritionist or your doctor. What you eat is more important than you think for your daily hygiene, and a change of diet can help more than you think.

On a similar point, if you've tried all of this and you still find yourself surrounded by smells that make you gag, consider giving your place of residence a deep cleaning or hiring a professional to do so. Cleaning too is a learned skill, and some people are better at it naturally than others. This doesn't mean you can't learn, but it also means there is no shame in paying or asking for assistance if you find you need it.

The Conclusion:

Body odor isn't something we often talk about as a serious factor that can affect someone's self-confidence and general happiness, nor what it actually means when someone struggles to manage it. It's often the butt of the joke, but rarely do we consider the underlying issues that we're making fun of.

Teenagers, adult slobs, college students, sufferers of mental illnesses. We all have a stereotypical picture in our minds of rooms covered in dirty clothes, dirty dishes, and of course, greasy, crusty, stained and ripped clothes with a cartoony little cloud of flies hovering around the subject's head. But think about that image and what it really is: a failure of one of the most base instincts the human species has. We are, all things considered, a clean species, and don't let stories of filthy peasants throughout history fool you.

We have a wealth of evidence of bathhouses throughout every kind of civilization, washing fabrics as a respectable profession, hygienic products older than the pyramids, and mentions of perfumes and fine clothing as old as civilization itself. Humans want to be clean and smell good, we always have. A failure to do so is, as with many things thoughtlessly ridiculed, a worrying sign of either a mind in trouble, or thoughtlessly neglected in the education of how to keep clean.

We're born as near-blank slates, and generally acknowledges as needing to be taught not to defecate in our pants. But somewhere along the line that grace disappears, and the knowledge of how to deal with smells effectively and thoroughly is assumed to be simply known. And as such, a failure of simply knowing is judged a moral or personal failing.

This is bullshit.

People need help in all kinds of matters, hell, we need to be taught how to do sex. The thing that ensures our actual species doesn't die out! If we can agree and acknowledge that even that information isn't truly inborn, but taught, we can do the same for other awkward, unpleasant, and mildly embarrassing topics.

Like what to do when you just don't know how to deal with smelling like a stinky gym sock, and are at your wit's end. So let's handle it with some grace and kindness from now on, yes? At least on this post.

And in that spirit, if anyone else here has a recommendation for how to deal with specific stubborn stanks, or has a specific kind of problem I haven't addressed, I hope you all will take such answers and questions in the respect I've given, and treat each other kind.

#psa #hygiene #human #self grooming #soap #abuse #poverty #addiction

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mediaevalmusereads · 1 year ago

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Baking Yesteryear. By B. Dylan Hollis. DK, 2023.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Genre: cookbook

Series: N/A

Summary: A decade-by-decade cookbook that highlights the best (and a few of the worst) baking recipes from the 20th century

Friends of baking, are you sick and tired of making the same recipes again and again? Then look no further than this baking blast from the past, as B. Dylan Hollis highlights the most unique tasty treats of yesteryear.

Travel back in time on a delicious decade-by-decade jaunt as Dylan shows you how to bake vintage forgotten greats. With a big pinch of fun and a full cup of humor, you’ll be baking everything from Chocolate Potato Cake from the 1910s to Avocado Pie from the 1960s.

Dylan has baked hundreds of recipes from countless antique cookbooks and selected only the best for this bakebook, sharing the shining stars from each decade. And because some of the recipes Dylan shares on his wildly popular social media channels are spectacular failures, he’s thrown in a few of the most disastrously strange recipes for you to try if you dare.

***Full review below.***

Since this book is non-fiction, my review will be structured a little different from normal.

I've had this book for a while, but I didn't want to post a review before making a few of the recipes myself. I was already a fan of Hollis from his TikToks, so that might introduce some bias into my review - just so you're all aware.

Overall, I found this book to be quirky, easy to follow, and fun. I loved the bright colors and retro-feel to the photo shoots, and I appreciated that almost all of the recipes were accompanied by a picture of the thing you're supposed to be making. I also liked the blurbs written by Hollis himself; they very much felt like his voice, with his characteristic sense of humor balanced by his genuine love for baking and "old things."

Perhaps the most valuable part of this book, however, was the emphasis on lowering barriers to entry. I've read my fair share of baking guides that call for special ingredients or equipment, and there are a lot of recipes out there that are finicky and sure ton dissuade new bakers. Hollis's book, however, emphasizes that most (if not all) of these recipes can be done with basic tools - one does not even need an electric mixer (though it does make some recipes easier). There also aren't many fancy ingredients that aren't readily available at most grocery stores, so that also helps.

I do, however, have some minor criticisms which relate to the usability of this book. For one, the organization makes it rather difficult to find a specific recipe (or even category), particularly if you're like me and don't recall what decade it came from. While organizing the recipes by decade makes sense given the book's premise, it does make it more functionally difficult - you can't flip to the cake section, for example, and browse or put yourself within the general vicinity of the recipe you're looking for. Thus, readers will have to rely on either the TOC or the index a lot more, but this is a minor inconvenience rather than a huge drawback.

I also don't think the majority of the recipes are blow-your-mind good, but honestly, given this book's premise, I don't think that's the worst thing. The recipes are largely taken from sources aimed at home bakers, so you're not going to get professional-level pastries out of them. You will, however, get things that are fun and relatively simple to make, and they taste good enough to me that I'd consider making them multiple times.

TL;DR: Baking Yesteryear is a fine book for fans of Hollis's TikTok, but it goes beyond being mere merch. It not only provides historical recipes that are easy to replicate, but it also does a good job of lowering barriers to entry for new bakers. Experienced bakers might not be overly impressed by the recipes, but engaging with food history is a treat in and of itself, and it's delightful to see someone like Hollis engaging with the past with such enthusiasm and adoration.

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brainrockets · 10 months ago

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The Tracker phone call is bothering me A LOT. And not just the asking permission to post about her new girlfriend part. Most people agree that part was shitty. What's really burning my biscuits is the hard truths part.

Especially folks reacting like "oh that needed to be said."

And I know part of my reaction is rooted in how much I can identify with Kristen and her situation.

And I also know that Tracker is also really young so like yanno she's not a bad person even of she's being shitty rn.

With ADHD a lot of times people who are perhaps well meaning (x.x) will do this thing where they explain to you the situation you are in in excruciating detail like you are unaware. And I think that they think that this is going to help. It does not help.

Tracker was there for Freshman and Sophmore Year. So she's aware that Kristen does not have very many people in her corner. In fact the only person she had to help, with religion in particular, WAS TRACKER. And Tracker LEFT! Which she is fully entitled to do! But who was meant to fill that gap of support?

Also, not for nothing but she's also had the benefits of:

An established religion

Executive function

An entire summer of darkness to build her goddess' brand since she wasn't the one saving the world

I definitely took issue with the whole "now that we are broken up I'll tell you the hard stuff". Like bish what? Why didn't you tell her these things you think are important when you could also comfort fuck about it after? Instead of piling on while she's already NOT OKAY!?

Kristen is well aware that she's not okay. She knows shit is fucked up. Tracker is just giving her more ammo for her self loathing. If Tracker wants to tell her how fucked she is without offering anything to help her get unfucked then she should just not do that. None of this needed to happen. They aren't dating.

Things that Tracker could have done to help:

Offered to do a social media collab between the two SISTER GODDESSES while the night was unending

Minded her own business

Remembered how hard she took it when her goddess turned out to be a bitch

Waited to call

When Kristen was like I'm not okay, ending the conversation

Idk. I wasn't expecting to be ready to fight everyone in the parking lot about this whole thing but I am just so heated about it.

Anyways shout out to all my executive dysfunction babes who know they need help to get their lives unfucked but all folks seem to do is remind them shit is fucked.

#dimension 20 #kristen applebees #fhjy spoilers #tracker o'shaughnessey #fantasy high junior year spoilers

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bleaksqueak · 1 year ago

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I wanted to help drive home just how much reblogs actually do for a healthy art and social community-- not even a social media community, I'm talking about "This is Our Internet, these are Our social circles, and I'm Tired of the Constant Scrolling and Hate Engagement Machine that was invented by techbros and capitalism taking these refuges away from us". This is from one of my posts that has around 40k notes on it and still gets enagement to this day. I wanted to get an even bigger reblog graph on it, but wow, all that engagement actually started breaking the tool. Check out how big that is though! Reblogs and comments (and commenting on reblogs, starting conversations) are not to be underestimated. The social media model of "SCROLL AS FAST AS POSSIBLE feed Likes to the GREAT GOD ALGORITHM" is a new and frankly bullshit method of Internet culture. There's so many artists, writers, and hell, FRIENDS you haven't and likely never will meet becuase they don't appeal to the algorithm. It didn't used to be that way. It used to function via Seeking and Sharing and building communities. We really don't have to just be okay with letting capitalism and soulless techduds taking these networks away from us.

#no idea what to tag this as #internet stuff

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temis-de-leon · 4 months ago

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Gn!MC with chronic joint pain

Characters: Mammon, Leviathan, Asmodeus, Beelzebub and Belphegor (x reader, separately, could be read as romantic or platonic)

Main Masterlist

Anon request: Could I request the brothers with a gn!MC with chronic joint pain? Sure, medicine makes it feel better when they take it, but it never 100% goes away and the meds aren't without side effects. On a good day, they can function relatively normally even if they do certain things at a slower pace. However, on a bad day, they can hardly get out of bed or do basic tasks (brush their teeth, lift a coffee cup, use a hand towel, etc) without difficulty, and require a fair amount of support when flare ups happen

A/N: I'm pretty sure Google thinks I'm the one with chronic pain

Mammon

Although he’s the one who spends time with you the most, it took an embarrassingly long time to notice how significant your winces and fatigue were. After all, his initial belief was that humans were naturally weak.

He thought he understood why you stayed too long in bed from time to time or why your brows would frown when you grabbed your backpack if it was especially heavy some days.

You’d say you couldn’t help it whenever he teased and of course, you talked with frustration each of those times, so he learnt to ignore it; just like you tried to do.

Then came the day when he crushed you in the hallway while running away from Lucifer. The only thing he could do before both of you fell to the ground was twist your body so he could act as a cushion, but even that wasn’t enough.

You started to complain before he had the chance to ask for payment for his ‘sacrifice’, but it wasn’t just words or berating; Lucifer was already doing plenty of that.

It was a mix of gasps and moans of pain that stopped both brothers in their tracks.

The only reason why the eldest didn’t obliterate the younger demon on the spot was because the guilt was already eating him alive.

He helps you with no asking needed, carrying your backpack to and from school, helping you put on your coat or making you breakfast, although it’ll most likely be burnt.

He’ll stop if it makes you feel useless or incapacitated on days when you are mostly okay, but if you’re barely able to lift your head off the pillow, you can bet all your money he’s laying right next to you ready to make you some company, even in silence.

It will take him some time, but, eventually, you will have his undying support.

Levi

Being as distracted as he is, with his eyes glued to a screen most of the day, wasn’t an excuse for him to ignore all the pill bottles in your bathroom cabinet or the way you sometimes couldn’t keep up with him when he was excited and walking too fast.

He feels like a horrible friend when you tell him. He should’ve known!

You will have to explain the whole situation to him in the comfort of his room, moments after he requests your presence for the testing of an arcade shooting game that will, for sure, make your arms sore for the next few days.

Although you assure him you can still play, just not for excruciatingly long periods and on lower difficulty, he still feels like he failed you in some way.

Sharing his interests with you will never be enjoyable as long as it has the possibility of causing you pain.

Fortunately, he knows countless games where long-range movements are not required and you can have fun anyway: visual and choice-based novels, turn-based RPGs, social simulation games…

He especially likes the choice-based ones. From your views on morality to romance and friendship, each important interaction with the characters or the lore helps him know you more and more as the game progresses.

It doesn’t stop there, though.

He will also try, not so subtly, to find games, shows, comics and manga where you can relate to the main character in one way or another.

It could be seen as pity, but that isn’t his intention at all. You should enjoy the media you interact with! Either heroes or villains or something in between, you should have someone you can understand on the screen or paper.

Asmo

Since observing you and everything related to you is an enjoyable pastime of his, it doesn’t take him long before he figures out your medication schedule. At first his beauty-driven mind thinks your pills are vitamin supplements, but then he notices the headaches, the stomach issues and the exhaustion; no doubt side effects.

It is on one of your worst days when he knocks on your door asking to spend the evening together. The only thing you can do to greet him is throw a weak peace sign from beneath the blankets and that’s when he pouts and frowns in worry.

He hopes you trust him enough to talk about it in case you want to keep it a secret and, if not, why would he treat it like a taboo subject?

He may be the only one who straight-up asks with absolute normality.

Changes are not noticeable at first seeing that he already liked being around you and dotting on you before knowing anything, but rest assured he will be there if you ever need him.

On days when you feel like you can’t take care of yourself, the only thing you have to do is send him a message.

Whatever you need, he will do.

From drawing a bath so you don’t have to stand up while holding the shower head to applying dry shampoo on your hair so you don’t get out of bed at all. He will also do your skincare routine and even your makeup if you're up to it; brush your teeth and your hair and organize your room while mindlessly chatting with you.

His favourite shared activity is painting your nails since you don’t have to move at all and you still enjoy each other’s company.

The rest of the brothers need to remind him from time to time that you aren’t a doll for him to dress, but he won’t ever do something that makes you uncomfortable in any way.

Beel

He doesn’t really notice until it comes up naturally in conversation.

You’re both in the kitchen, getting a snack to hold on until everyone is ready for dinner, and he starts talking about a new workout plan he is following in the gym. A famous bodybuilder posted it on his Devilgram account and he was too curious not to give it a shot.

Although he can do it on his own, he likes to spend time with you, so he innocently asks if you want to go with him someday and try it, even if it’s a watered-down beginner version.

It’s not like you can’t go to the gym, but the number of exercises you feel like you can do is limited and you need to be mindful while doing all of them. Hell, even at home you need to be careful with some of your movements, doing simple chores like making your bed or washing the dishes.

You remind him how you cook too, usually doing one-pot meals and trying to use your body as little as possible; there are human influencers (highly recommend) that show specific tricks to make cooking easier for people like you, after all.

Luckily, he understands immediately, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to give up.

Unbeknownst to you, he researches specialized exercises and routines, as well as food, made to alleviate pain and strengthen your weakest points.

It isn’t a definitive solution, and certainly not the best, but it’s the thought that counts and he’s genuinely trying to make your life more comfortable and pleasant; not so draining.

He won’t push if you decline his offers and options (he’ll never force you to do anything, even if it benefits you), but will be extremely happy if you accept.

Belphie

He never asks, but you never have to tell him either, he just knows.

Your pain reflects in the way you move and live your day-to-day life, slower than the rest of them and always taking precautions, medicating yourself periodically even if sometimes that isn’t enough.

All of them have dinner in your room when you’re feeling way worse than usual and each time his memories can’t help but go back to that fateful evening in the attic.

He willingly and excitedly caused you abysmal pain back then, but he doesn’t want to imagine how underestimated his measurements are.

You suffered, yes, but all of that happened in the past.

Asking you what exactly hurts and what makes it worse won’t help his guilt at all.

Now that he can help you, he won’t do anything but.

Being who he is and liking what he likes, he has a trustworthy list of mattresses and pillows that he doesn’t hesitate to share with you.

He knows better than anybody else what a well-rested body can do to the mind and, although it may not help much, he insists you try at least once.

Going shopping for something like this and doing it with him is a double-edged sword; while he couldn’t be a better critic, there’s also the possibility of him falling asleep on one of the mattresses on display.

And you know perfectly well you aren’t going to be the one dragging him back home, so inviting Beel as well is always the best choice; especially since you can hang out after shopping knowing that you will have your purchase delivered.

If you still feel like you aren’t getting any rest, he will use a little bit of his magic to make you fall asleep more easily without waking up in discomfort.

Taglist: @hatchers-hoard @ilovecandys2010 @ollieoven @kingofspadesdelusion @whimsybloom

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