7frogsspeaks

[7frogsspeaks]

I was an art major. People in both STEM and humanities regularly told me that they wished they had an "easy" major like art because my homework was "just drawing".

Every semester, those same people would enroll in a ceramics or painting course thinking it would be a fun free credit. They generally dropped out after the first week because they couldn't handle the coursework. Turns out art is hard!

[7frogsspeaks]

Please don't apologize this is the funniest and most correct possible take. This is a canon Death Note bit to me

I think it’s like a little bit of a yellow flag eyebrow raiser when ppl specifically use the white skin tone emojis

[7frogsspeaks]

Living in a mostly rural state is amazing for a lot of reasons, but one of the funnier ones is that even though our apartment is effectively in the middle of a strip mall that's visually indistinguishable from any other American suburban sprawl I sometimes look out the window and see that the guy down the street is out walking his horse

[7frogsspeaks]

The concept of an "orphan" really only exists at all because we live in a society that considers the nuclear family a mandatory structure.

How many "orphans" could grow up perfectly loved and supported by their communities but aren't allowed to because they can't claim a single person as a "reliable" primary caregiver?

The manufacturing of “unwanted” babies and children has a long and ongoing history and it’s partly about coercing women and girls into giving up babies they don’t “deserve” and partly about laundering the children of people who can’t afford to care for them RIGHT NOW into “unwanted, abandoned” children. Many countries have now outlawed international adoptions because of the number of cases in which adoption brokers stole children who had families and whose families wanted them.*

The vast majority of children in “orphanages” since the invention of the concept have been children whose families do want them back but can’t afford to keep them. John Boswell’s study of child abandonment in the European Middle Ages even found that this was true of children given up to monasteries—people sometimes needed the kid back! (Remember a child is a resource—a source of labor and old-age security)

And if you DO have a lot of children being born whose birth parents GENUINELY didn’t want them… then what you’ve got is a society in which people with childbearing organs do not have access to reproductive autonomy. Self-evidently.

*The Child Catchers by Kathryn Joyce goes into detail on how this affects evangelical Christian politics in the USA, it’s a ten year old book but it was unfortunately prescient for many of the developments of the last decade

[7frogsspeaks]

6. "High level" part-time jobs effectively do not exist, and the ones that do are all temporary positions with either a set end date or no job security. If you are unable to work a bare minimum of 32hrs a week you have zero chance of having anything resembling a career, no matter what's on your resume.

7. Working a bunch of temporary positions looks terrible on your resume, so the longer you are unable to work full-time the worse your prospects will be.

8. In the US in order to receive any government health benefits (which disabled people often need to afford the amount of medical care/support they require), your income is capped at poverty levels. Working more hours or at a higher pay often means making less money overall simply because the costs of employer/marketplace healthcare are far higher than additional income can compensate for. Even if your income isn't over the cap, if your employer is good enough to offer health insurance to part-time employees you still lose your government benefits by default. It's actually more financially viable to just work a shitty minimum wage job for the rest of your life.

when abled people talk about employability + disability I don't think they entirely understand the domino effect of unemployment/underemployment that can happen in a disabled person's life

the kinds of jobs that are considered 'unskilled' or 'entry level' are inaccessible for various reasons (e.g. involve having to stand up for long periods of time)

the time in your life when many people are expected to start working these entry level jobs is while you're still in school. the sheer exhaustion of school means that even when those jobs aren't completely inaccessible, many disabled people simply do not have the energy to do them

without any work experience, it's very hard to get work. the kinds of jobs that tend to have more accessible workplaces are either not entry-level or require a certain level of education to enter them. also without having gone through a hiring process before, it's very hard to even know what to expect from a job, which only creates additional barriers

even if you do have work experience, being disabled is not really taken as a valid reason to have gaps in your resume, which means you immediately look like a suspicious/risky hire to a HR department

disabled people, once we do have jobs, are more likely to be underemployed than abled people, meaning that we have fewer opportunities to demonstrate our skills in the workplace, and are less likely to be able to accumulate a back catalogue of good references to take with us in the 'getting a new job' mission. this itself keeps us underemployed

NOT to mention the fact that the exact same process can happen with respect to education (the being in special ed -> being able to go to university pipeline is basically non-existent. and if it is there, it is very hard to navigate). I'm not sure yet another 'employable skills program' can get us out of this one, chief

[7frogsspeaks]

@creatingblackcharacters I feel like this discussion is relevant to your blog, curious to hear your thoughts.

i am as white as a white american can get and the thought of using the white color emojis sickens me to the bone. bitch if you dont make me simpsons yellow

[7frogsspeaks]

If you, like OP, are a white person who is weirdly uncomfortable with "white" emojis, congratulations! You have unresolved white guilt. I have some questions for you:

Do you think that only people of color should be allowed to accurately represent themselves online?

If only people of color are "allowed" to use realistic emoji colors, how is that different from admitting that the default emojis depict a white skintone? At that point, why does an actually "white" emoji mean anything special?

Do you think white people need to hide their race online as some sort of weird penance, or do you just assume everyone is white until they show you otherwise and that's why a "white" emoji feels excessive to you?

Do you think all white people should be required to identify with Simpson's yellow?

Do you think it's indicative of racism for a white person to depict themselves with their real skintone in literally any other setting?

Do you use yellow emojis because you're uncomfortable with admitting you're white? Or are you assuming everyone thinks you're white already and confirming it outright feels unnecessary? Have you acknowledged that the reason yellow emojis comfortably represent you is because you're light-skinned?

Does the idea of choosing the "white" emoji option make you uncomfortable because you're not used to acknowledging that your race is part of your identity? Do you think of whiteness as the "neutral default" setting?

Do you think that only white supremacists can be comfortable with being white? Do you believe all white people are inherently bad? Do you carry guilt or shame about this? Are you trying to distance yourself from your whiteness to avoid dealing with that? Do you realize that rejecting your own racial identity makes you more susceptible to being racist? Do you realize that by refusing to identify with your whiteness you're ceding your identity to racists and compounding the problem?

Are you mocking people who use "white" emojis as a way to mask your discomfort with your own whiteness? Is it because you're secretly worried you're racist and need to do something to affirm you're "one of the good ones"? Or is it just a way for you to feel morally superior? Do you police other people's choices because you're afraid of others doing it to you first? Are you just trying to conform to avoid criticism? Does nitpicking other white people over some pixels feel easier than actually confronting your own internalized racial biases and privilege?

Do you think everyone with a skintone that matches the "white" emoji is white?

i am as white as a white american can get and the thought of using the white color emojis sickens me to the bone. bitch if you dont make me simpsons yellow

[7frogsspeaks]

Petitions matter when used properly! They are the single easiest way to gather concrete data about how many people care about an issue, and that data is used in both court and government proceedings as proof of public support.

Having commentary from focus groups is great, but unless you can slap a "and I can prove 20,000 people agree with me" on the end a few opinions are not going to carry any weight in most settings. Petitions are, largely, how grassroots legislation begins, and I believe most democratic governments require a certain number of signatures before a bill addressing an issue will be considered at all. And IIRC in the UK any petition over a certain size is legally required to receive government attention

The credibility of the petition matters, though. Signing your name on a change.org petition an angry high schooler made does absolutely nothing, but an ACLU petition, for example, is both a call for concrete numbers they can use in court and a way for them to gauge how much funding to allocate to each issue.

In short: Yes, petitions are data collection, and that's exactly why we need them. The reason you never hear about petitions making a difference is because they are a single step in a broader plan– the same reason you'll hear about a court verdict but not every piece of evidence that made it happen. Please sign reputable petitions, your local grassroots organizers thank you!

Obligatory disclaimer: Creating or signing a petition is not, by itself, activism. A petition nobody intends to use as part of a broader political action plan is useless. Also, always verify the organizers of a petition are legit before giving them your information because half of the ones you see randomly posted online are just scams trying to get your email address.

does signing petitions even do anything or is it essentially just another data harvesting operation. i certainly would be willing to do it if it wasnt always like 'by signing this petition you agree that we can send you spam emails and text you all the time and also btw theres no box you can uncheck to opt out of this youll have to do that after we already start texting you." or maybe at least if i had ever heard of a single instance of a petition resulting in anything other than the people being petitioned saying "we have heard your complaints and after sitting and thinking about things for a long time have decided to do what we were gonna do anyway and you can all go fuck yourselves. thank you for understanding."

[7frogsspeaks]

That history isn't inaccurate, but Harvey Ball is very much a white person who was creating art for other white people, and the yellow smiley only reads as person-colored in Western culture because it's the closest bright color to white skin. He may not have intended to make an association between the color yellow and white people, but his culture and environment informed his design choices— to someone from an area with very dark-skinned people, for example, using yellow as your first choice to represent a human face would be nonsensical. If we got the smiley face and subsequent emojis from elsewhere in the world they could easily be orange, red, purple, or even navy blue. The only reason yellow has ever been an acceptable default is because the people designating the "universal" color have been white, so they modeled it after themselves (intentionally or not!).

The Simpsons is definitely responsible for furthering the idea that yellow = "normal" (white) people, though.

I think it’s like a little bit of a yellow flag eyebrow raiser when ppl specifically use the white skin tone emojis

[7frogsspeaks]

Personally, I started using them specifically because I saw a post about emoji usage statistics. White emojis were used by far the least because the default yellow was already meant to mimic a white skintone, which encourages white people to see themselves as "default". I now more strongly associate the yellow emojis with systemic racism, and use ones that match my skintone as an acknowledgement that my race is not "default" and as a sort of quiet protest against yellow being used as a "universal" skin color. If Black and brown people need to use a non-default emoji to have one that looks like them then I'm doing the same.

I think it’s like a little bit of a yellow flag eyebrow raiser when ppl specifically use the white skin tone emojis

[7frogsspeaks]

This is 100% plausible actually, garlic has a ton of anti-inflammatory compounds in it so your body was probably telling you to self-medicate and it worked :)

I was deep in ME/CFS flare territory after my latest round of antibiotics

then I got an overwhelming craving for raw garlic. Ate clove after clove yesterday (with a knife and fork n washed it down with hot sauce) and today the flare is gone. I could chalk it up to several days of bed rest but I'd much prefer to think I cured myself by blasting my insides to oblivion with 'lic I'm making myself believe it

[7frogsspeaks]

Cis people pick and choose all the time! Stuff like laser hair removal, hair growth cream, and breast and penile implants were created for cis people and are still mainly used by them.

Bodies are largely customizable. HRT also works slowly and gradually and a lot of the changes are reversible, so you can just stop or lower your dose if you start noticing things you don't like. Even changes to hair, voice, breast tissue, and genitalia will partially revert in most people.

It's also very possible to transition to an "androgynous" hormone profile and have a little bit of everything! If you are someone who's curious about low-dose HRT and live somewhere with accessible trans healthcare, this is your sign to go find a doctor or clinic and try it out. It's awesome :)

ETA: It's mentioned in the article above, but re: hair growth, you can take T and a DHT blocker like finasteride at the same time and you'll get effects like a lower voice and altered body composition but won't have any hair growth changes or (I believe) experience significant genital/libido changes. I'm not sure what the transfem equivalent would be, but probably just not taking progesterone?

I know that HRT gives you secondary sex characteristics in one direction or another, but we HAVE to stop telling nonbinary people that they “can’t pick and choose.” Of course, you can’t tell your testosterone that you’d rather not grow chest hair, but there are things you can do!

You could go on T so your voice drops and start shaving so you don’t grow a beard. You could start HRT and then stop once you get the permanent changes you like. You can pursue sterilization instead of bottom surgery. You can get top surgery without being on T. You can go on E and work out a bunch to bulk out your muscles. You can pursue laser hair removal or electrolysis to remove unwanted hair, with or without HRT. You could even just start hormones to see if you like it and then stop if it isn’t to your taste.

Obviously, you can’t order secondary sex characteristics a la carte, but we have to stop being so awful to nonbinary people. We should discuss the options we have, not shut down the conversation with “that’s what you get.”

[7frogsspeaks]

Update: Learning is NOT occurring yet

Two days ago she removed all the crispy plants in the bed where everything died during the heat wave, which I assumed was her way of going "ok so that didn't work". I was incorrect.

Yesterday, she moved the plants from the small pots into the bed. Same spacing, same (lack of) soil depth and I think same soil but hopefully she's removed the old roots. They at least have a tiny bit more root space now but they'll be much more susceptible to drying out.

Today, though. Today, even more herb and vegetable starts have appeared on the deck.

There are ten of them. Three are new types of peppers. One is. Cucumber. I have no idea where she's going to put them.

Continuing to watch this situation with interest. Will update when I have more information.

I can't stay quiet any more I need to talk about my new neighbor's utterly fascinating outdoor plant situation.

So. She moved in over the winter. Perfectly average, nice person. Strong City Girl vibes but not in a bad way. She says she's excited to live somewhere with a deck.

Spring comes, and one day I wake up and there are two ~1.5x3' raised beds on her side of the deck, as well as some small shelving. They look great! Clearly she's a plant person, I can't wait to have so much stuff growing up here!

The beds sit empty for a bit since it's still early April, and then she fills them about halfway. Ah, I think, she must've underestimated how many cubic feet of soil would fill those. You always need way more than you think, easy mistake.

Herb and vegetable starts begin appearing on the deck. Like, a lot of them. Way too many. She isn't planting any of them yet so I assume she's claimed one of the community garden plots (visible from our apartment).

A new bag of soil appears, but she uses it to fill some small pots and then it sits half-full under one of the beds.

Some of the herb starts go into a wooden box that is 3" deep and 16" wide, giving them each the exact amount of space they had in the starter pots.

I am beginning to have Doubts.

Some of the starts get planted in the beds. There's still only 4 inches of soil in there. I can't see over the rim to tell what they are so maybe she knows something I don't. I can hope.

She doesn't. She plants more and I realize, with horror, that all the starts are going into the half-filled beds.

I cannot identify most of them at this growth stage, but eight are tomato plants.

The tomatoes go into 1/4 of one of the beds. Like everything else, they are 3 inches apart in 4 inches of soil.

I cannot stress enough that there are like 25 plants in each bed.

I peek into her windows. There are lots of plants on the sill that look happy, but they are all very small. I wonder if she thinks that crops, like houseplants, come from the store with the exact amount of dirt they need. I have no other explanation for what's occurring on our deck.

She has exactly two plants in pots an adequate size. One is basil. The other is mint, so at least that isn't in the beds with everything else. I can only hope that their relative success will be A Learning Experience.

A few weeks pass.

Against the odds, her fennel, peas, and garden lettuce shoot right up, easily outcompeting the 4 or so bean plants and half a dozen of something else unidentifiable (carrots?). The peas wilt during the first hot day, as do the starts in the wooden box (which did, amazingly, survive up to that point).

Everything in the other bed is, as she put it, "not thriving". I did manage to sneak in a word about soil depth but I didn't know how to bring up the rest without sounding nosy and rude. I see her for about thirty seconds a week so we don't exactly have a relationship.

She tragically overharvested her basil and the mint is, inexplicably, wilting, so any Learning will have to come from observing the plants on our half of the deck.

The fennel and lettuce continue to be Mostly Fine.

That brings us to yesterday.

The shelving has, this whole time, been filled with 4- and 6-inch pots containing what I assumed were flowers since her one other plant in a pot that size is decorative.

This does not appear to actually be the case.

The pot at the top is starting to flower.

It's zucchini.

W h a t.

When she's not home I use my plant ID app on the other small pots. The 6-inch ones contain zucchini, Swiss chard, and peppers. The 4-inch pots are chamomile and dill.

I realize I never looked closely at the other plants in the bed with the tomatoes. In addition to some sage (small but surviving) and something else too wilted to ID there are six more zucchini plants, so the one in the pot actually has a leg up on them soil-wise. They are six inches tall.

I really hope they survive because I cannot wait to see what kind of zucchinis she grows.

She may be the first person ever to grow this many zucchini plants and not have enough yield to feed an entire busload of people.

I really hope she is at least having fun. And hopefully learning. I may leave her an anonymous flyer for a local farm.

[7frogsspeaks]

I cannot stress enough that most surfaces in any public store/facility are cleaned at least once every single day, and usually much more. People who've never worked in retail, food service, hospitality, or sanitation have no idea just how fast stuff gets gross.

I'm a laundromat attendant, and sometimes when I go on lunch (with everything spotless!) for exactly one (1) hour I come back and it looks like a tornado went through. If we don't have an attendant in for a whole day it's much worse.

If your daily life is largely devoid of trash, dust, rotting food, and body fluids, please be thankful for the hundreds of people anonymously keeping it that way.

[7frogsspeaks]

If anyone is wondering, this is precisely what seeing a good EMDR therapist feels like

I wish depression were an emergency. I wish someone could take one look at how sick I am and go “oh my god, we need to get you to a hospital!” and then when we get there I get rushed into surgery and the surgeons say “it’s a good thing you brought her here when you did, this is a seriously advanced case” and then they put me under and spend the next ten hours pulling metres of long, sticky black strands of gunk out of my body, throwing it immediately into an incinerator so that it can’t infect anyone else. And then they could stitch me back up and I could rest a few days, and when I leave the hospital everyone can see how much better I am and they congratulate me saying “well done, you’ve been so brave, I’m so glad you’re ok. I love you.”

[7frogsspeaks]

Contractually obligated to plug Agatha of Sicily, patron saint of boobs. She was martyred by having them chopped off and is therefore usually depicted like this:

They make boob-shaped cakes for her festival every year

Christians keep stealing shit from other esoteric traditions when St Barbara is right there.

[7frogsspeaks]

If anyone wants a non-horror* recommendation for a genuinely fucked up piece of media that is jarringly nonchalant about being fucked up, please watch/read Made In Abyss. The climaxes of season 1 and the movie (season 1.5) and about half of season 2 had my horror-movie-loving partner watching like

The art and worldbuilding are also breathtaking. I want to study the author in a lab.

* Technically not horror in a classic way, but it really depends on how you define the genre. There is, among other things, graphic body horror

The trouble with chasing after recs for fucked up media is that a lot of allegedly fucked up media is enamoured with the idea of being fucked up, but it's not actually fucked up about anything. The form is there, but not the substance. However, there's no way to communicate this to anyone who doesn't already Get It without sounding like a maniac.