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in one of the servers I'm in, we've been discussing looking back at your old art, and a couple people mentioned that getting compliments on their old art makes them feel like their artistic growth isn't as evident to other people as it is to them, or like they havent improved as much as they thought for people to still be complimenting their old work

but it's really not like that! Your personal perception of your art is inherently going to be very different to the audience. This is how i explained it in there & i thought i'd share it here as well:

A compliment on your old art doesn't undermine the growth in your new art, it's just admiring the qualities of your work that were already there!

Our art can change direction, our grasp of the fundamentals can get stronger, and this means our personal standards will always go up and the choices we would make creating a piece change, so when you as the creator look back on your old art, you're hit with a lot of "oof, I'd do x and y and z differently now".

But your audience doesn't have any of those hangups, to them youve drawn some good art, and when they look at your current art, you're making even stronger art, and both of them are worth admiring.

not that any of this makes it any less psychic damage inducing to look at your own old art LOL but putting yourself in the shoes of the audience and looking at it for what it is rather than how well it reaches your current standards can still help a little with that

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from letters to a young poet by rainer maria rilke

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THE ENTIRE WEST IS BEING PUT UP FOR SALE AND I AM BEGGING YOU TO CALL YOUR SENATORS

Trump’s budget bill has many, many things in it, but buried amongst it is the MILLIONS OF ACRES OF PUBLIC LAND FOR SALE.

This is the entirety of the Arizona state forests, the entire Cascades mountain range. Swathes of pristine desert around the national parks in Utah. On the doorstep of Jackson Hole.

THIS BILL IS BIG, BUT IT CAN BE AMENDED AND ABSOLUTELY MUST NOT PASS AS IS please.

If you have ever enjoyed the wilderness, we stand to lose it all forever.

CALLING your senators - NOT JUST IN THE WEST. ALL SENATORS, is CRUCIAL.

Outdoor alliance has a great resource for reaching out.

I don’t have a huge following but please, everywhere I have ever loved, the forests I grew up playing in, the land I got married on, is all at risk and I am begging.

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it really is crazy how quickly people were willing to just let chatgpt do everything for them. i have never even tried it. brother i don't even know if it's just a website you go to or what. i do not know where chatgpt actually lives, because i can decide my own grocery list.

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I saw a post saying that Boromir looked too scruffy in FotR for a Captain of Gondor, and I tried to move on, but I’m hyperfixating. Has anyone ever solo backpacked? I have. By the end, not only did I look like shit, but by day two I was talking to myself. On another occasion I did fourteen days’ backcountry as the lone woman in a group of twelve men, no showers, no deodorant, and brother, by the end of that we were all EXTREMELY feral. You think we looked like heirs to the throne of anywhere? We were thirteen wolverines in ripstop.

My boy Boromir? Spent FOUR MONTHS in the wilderness! Alone! No roads! High floods! His horse died! I’m amazed he showed up to Imladris wearing clothes, let alone with a decent haircut. I’m fully convinced that he left Gondor looking like Richard Sharpe being presented to the Prince Regent in 1813

*electric guitar riff*

And then rocked up to Imladris a hundred ten days later like

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Ok breaking containment for this one because I need everyone who will listen to hear this.

Women who suffer bad cramps are told cramps shouldn't affect school/work/etc, but no one ever investigates further because no one can possibly know if what someone experiences is just typical pain or something much worse.

Well after 15 years of stage 4 treatment-resistant endometriosis that came with pain as bad as, if not worse than, actual labor contractions every month, all the while being told I was 'typical' and 'just had bad cramps', I've finally been healed (another post for another time). I have had what everyone describes as the elusive 'normal period pain' for several months now, and I am begging you to look me in the eyes and listen because I need everyone who can hear this to hear this.

I have been on both sides of this. I have the hard-earned knowledge of what a period 'should' feel like.

If you have to put in any effort to hide your cramps, you need to get help.

Even during of the PEAK OF CRAMPING (i.e., as bad as your cramps possibly get), you should still be able to stand, speak, walk, eat, work, and sleep with no problems. These tasks should require very-little-to-no extra effort beyond what you would normally do when you aren't on your period. When you do these things, you should feel grumpy and a little bit icky and maybe a twinge of nerves and NOTHING MORE.

If you have to sit in the corner and hope no one approaches you because you can't speak or stand without showing pain, even slightly, you need to get help. If your pain is showing on your face, you need to get help. And most importantly, IF YOUR PAIN DOES NOT RESPOND TO 1-2 TYLENOL OR IBUPROFEN, YOU NEED TO GET HELP.

Your period cramps should make you grumpy. Your period cramps should make you feel a little icky and tired. Your period cramps should make you feel your insides existing/moving a bit and a twinge of nerves that makes you groan slightly then the "pain" should stop there, NOTHING MORE.

If your cramps put you on the floor but you make believe you're the captain of a ship who has just been stabbed and has to hide it to fight on, and you force yourself to power through the day, please understand: you are not okay, that does not make you okay. Just because you can power through the pain doesn't mean you aren't sick. If you have to force yourself through any basic task beyond the effort it takes you to do when you aren't on your period, and I am holding your face and looking you in the eye as I say this because I need you to hear me: You aren't normal. You don't 'just have bad cramps'. You are sick and you need to get help.

Now most people will tell you if your cramps are beyond a 3 out of 10 on the pain scale, you should see a doctor. While this is usually true, you have to consider chronic pain CAN AND WILL BREAK YOUR PAIN SCALE. Most people will only compare pain they currently feel to pain they may experience one day but probably never will. "Sure these cramps feel bad now, but if I had a leg amputated with no anesthesia, that would hurt WAY worse, so this pain can't be that bad-" No. Your pain is what it is, objectively, full stop. My cramps were at a 10 out of 10 every. Single. Time. And nobody told me claiming they were a 6-8 because I thought to myself 'what if I lose a limb one day?' was completely wrong. 10 pain is 10 pain. And if there's something that hurts worse than that, guess what. The thing you are experiencing right now is still a 10 out of 10 on the pain scale. Just because you experience it every month doesn't mean it's magically not as bad is it is. And if your pain is worse than a 3 out of 10, you need to get help.

Now when I say get help, I mean find the root cause of your pain. You can't just throw drugs and hormones at it without knowing what it causing your pain. Endometriosis, fibroids, pcos, cancer, adenomyosis, polyps, thyroid issues, there is always a cause. And if you leave it untreated, it will grow and get worse to the point where it resists treatment and the drugs and hormones you've been throwing at it for years don't work anymore. You have to find a doctor that will investigate. If your doctor tells you you 'just have bad cramps' get a new doctor. I know you've been told that but please hear me: no one ever just has bad cramps. A healthy human body doesn't spontaneously cause itself pain so bad you can't stand up; there is ALWAYS a cause.

I was sick for more than 15 years. My entire life was put on hold and now I'm in my late 20s trying desperately to play catch up for everything I missed. I want to pick up 12yo me, spin her around, and tell her she doesn't have to die before she finally stops hurting. I don't want anyone to suffer the same fate I did simply because everyone told them they were normal. A little twinge of pain here and there is normal, suffering is not. I promise you your pain is real, it is not normal, and dear heavenly day I am begging you you need to get help now.

TL;DR: There is no such thing as 'just bad cramps.' If you feel anything more than grumpy, icky, and pain greater than a 3 out of 10, you need to find out what's wrong with you before it gets worse.

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Ace allos! ✨

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REBLOG IF YOUR BLOG IS A SAFE SPACE FOR AROMANTIC PEOPLE AND IF YOU THINK THEY ARE VALID

I want to see how many people actually are willing to say this and not just act like it

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PSA: Credit Card Phone Scam

(Or, how Tumblr just saved my ass)

I saw a PSA recently about a scam going around with spoofed official numbers calling and asking for information, and how you should hang up and call back using the correct number rather than just go along with what the caller is telling you. But this is Tumblr, so I'll never be able to find the post again.

I decided to make my own, because this literally just happened to me an hour ago. Hopefully my story can spread some more awareness and save other asses the way mine was saved.

Around 7:30pm tonight (Friday), I got a phone call from a 1-800 number. I almost didn't answer it, then I saw it was 1-800-465-4___, and I recognized that as the start of the CIBC phone number, so I picked up.

Me: Hello?

Guy: Hi, is this [MrsD]?"

Me: Yes.

Guy: Hi, [MrsD], this is _____ from CIBC, how are you tonight?

I thought, okay, this is a sales call. Right before I'm about to sit down for dinner. Typical. Mentally, I'm already putting together an exit strategy, preparing to say no to everything and get off the phone ASAP. But then—

Guy: We've just flagged suspicious activity on your CIBC Visa card. It was an online BestBuy transaction for $980.00. Was that your transaction?

Me, flustered: Uh. What? Sorry, how much?

Guy: $980.00 at BestBuy, was that you?

Me: Oh. At BestBuy?

Guy: Yes, your card was used at a BestBuy in [town nearby]. Was that you? Did you go to [town nearby] today? You don't live in [town nearby], right?

Me: Uh. No?

Guy: Okay, so I need some information to verify this transaction.

By this point, my brain had caught on that something about this was hinky. First of all, I thought he said it was an online purchase, then he said it was in person. But maybe I'd misheard, he was talking fast. My second thought was that every other time there was a suspicious transaction, I got an automated phone call and a text message with instructions to call back. I've never had a person call me directly.

My third thought was, well, the phone number on the caller ID was right....

THEN! I remembered a Tumblr post I saw recently, and I remembered what it told me to do.

Me: I'm skeptical about this call. I'm going to call CIBC myself and look into this.

Guy: What? Ma'am, you can just tell me, I can verify—

Me: No. Thank you, but I'll call the number on the back of my card.

Guy, getting more agitated: Ma'am, if you look at the number on your card, you'll see it's the same number.

Me: You know that can spoofed, right?

Guy: Uh— but ma'am—

Me: Sorry, but I need to make sure. I'm going to call CIBC directly.

The guy kept sputtering, but I hung up on him. In that moment, I really didn't think that he was a scammer. In fact, I thought I was being paranoid and was maybe kinda rude to the guy. I wondered if I was being overcautious, and I felt a bit guilty.

I called the number on the back of my credit card, waited 15 minutes for an agent, and told him what just happened.

IMMEDIATELY—

Agent: You didn't tell him anything, did you?

Me: No. I said I wasn't in [town nearby] today, but that's it.

Agent: Good. You did the right thing by calling us, let me look into the transaction for you.

Then, a minute later:

Agent: I'm not seeing any transaction like that. There's no flags on your card, nothing suspicious at all.

Me: So it was a scam?

Agent: Yep. Entirely fake.

I was honestly surprised. I really thought that there was some kind of mix-up and that I would be apologizing to this guy for being rude to his colleague.

Looking back on it now, I can see all the telltale signs of it being a scam call:

Time of day. Early evening on a Friday, chances are people are either sitting down for dinner or in a hurry to get somewhere. In this situation, a lot people probably wouldn't think twice about giving "the bank" some information just to get off the phone. (Joke's on them, I have no life!) But the way that I reacted to his introduction did evoke the desired reaction of Ugh, what now? Leave me alone! that the scammer was banking on (pun intended).

Sense of urgency. The scammer spoke fast, threw details at me quickly, and made sure I knew that I had to give him my information right away. This honestly threw me off. It was overwhelming, and I felt concerned and a bit frantic for a few seconds until I thought about what I know about scams and what I'd just read in that Tumblr PSA.

Complete lack of empathy or understanding about my skepticism/anti-fraud precautions. The last time I had to get a new credit card number due to fraud, the agent I spoke to said things like "I know this is frustrating", "I'm sorry this is a hassle", etc. And of course the CIBC agent I spoke to tonight was immediately grateful that I'd called them directly and reassured me that CIBC would never ask for information. By contrast, the scammer was outright dismissive of my concerns and got agitated when I wouldn't just trust him right off the bat.

Emotional provocation. Similar to #2 & #3 above, the scammer was very good at making me feel things. Worried and fearful at first, then guilty about being suspicious, to the point where I actually apologized to the guy. (Granted, I am Canadian, but still!)

And finally, I cannot stress enough: the spoofed phone number. I am a pretty well-informed person. I keep up with news about scams and whatnot. I know that phone numbers can be spoofed. I've been in front of my phone when it just starts to ring and I can see the auto-dialler number appear briefly before it gets replaced with a number that has my area code. But tonight—early evening on a Friday—I was cooking dinner and my phone was across the room. It had rung several times by the time I got to it. I only picked it up because I recognized the CIBC number. And when the scammer started his spiel, the fact that the number was the same was enough for me to give him just a tiny moment of trust. Had he actually gotten past that first barrier and started requesting my information, I think I would have caught on, because people asking for sensitive information over the phone is a huge obvious red flag. I like to think I would have caught on, anyway. But maybe not! That fake number almost had me.

TL;DR: No matter what the number on your caller ID says—that it's your bank, your energy company, your internet provider, whatever!—if the person on the other end is requesting sensitive information urgently, don't panic. Stop. Think. Then tell them nothing, hang up the phone, and call your service provider yourself using a verified phone number.

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Sleipnir doesn’t make sense

One thing I never really understood was Sleipnir (meaning “slippery one” fyi) in depictions of Norse mythology. Sleipnir is an eight-legged horse, the steed of Odin and the son of Loki, and he is commonly depicted like this:

(image not mine)

But why would you depict an eight-legged horse like this? Horses gallop the same way most other mammals run, with all feet leaving the ground at one point, so having extra feet here doesn’t seem like it could make the horse any faster. I’m also not sure it would give it any more stable footing, since it doesn’t have a wider base.

If you want a stable eight-legged form that can reach great speeds for its size, wouldn’t you want to start with what nature has already provided? Wouldn’t you want something more like… this?

(my drawing)

“But wait!” you might say, “Sleipnir was conceived when Loki, in horse-form, seduced another horse! That’s why it looks all horsey, just with extra bits!”

Well, that’s a good point, but consider that Loki as a deity was originally based off the spider, and his name even derives from the old Swedish word for spider (source). Therefore, it’s not too hard to believe Sleipnir inherited his horse half from his mother and the more spidery half from his father. In conclusion:

Spider-Horse, Spider-Horse, He does spider-things of course! Weaves a web, Makes you gawk, Riding round ‘til Ragnarok! Look out! Here comes the Spider-Horse.

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Is this anything

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Happy pride month specifically to folks on the asexual and aromantic spectrum who oftentimes feel isolated and left out of the conversation. You belong here as much as the rest of us and I hope that you are all loved in a way that is comforting to you.

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It’s sad how much of what is taught in school is useless to over 99% of the population.

There are literally math concepts taught in high school and middle school that are only used in extremely specialized fields or that are even so outdated they aren’t used anymore!

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its so windy my poor poor chickens are being blown around like dry leafs they look like this

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I can be shaped by more than the things that hurt me

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I love kids they’re all like.. “when i grow up i’m gonna be an astronaut and a chef and a doctor and an olympic swimmer” like that self confidence! That drive! That optimism! Where does it go