#Commonly Asked Questions

[aroacesafeplaceforall]

Commonly asked questions

A list of posts that answer commonly asked questions! What is aromantic? What is Asexual? What is Aspec? What is allo? “How can you call someone hot? Aren’t you asexual?” "How do you not experience the "need" for sex???" "How is it different from celibacy?" "Can you still enjoy sex?"

[wordmoth]

Commonly Asked Questions!

1. How words like “tea” and “chai” traveled the world

Ever wondered why some people call it tea and others call it chai? Turns out, it all traces back to China, where the word for tea is cha (Mandarin). Depending on how tea left China- overland via the Silk Road or by sea with Dutch traders- different languages picked up different words. Overland? You get words like chai (Hindi) and sha (Japanese). By sea? That’s how English got tea (Dutch thee). Geography really said, “let’s make vocab spicy.”

2. Why does English have silent letters?

Silent letters are basically ghosts of English’s past. Back when Old English became Middle English, spelling wasn’t standardized, so people just wrote words phonetically. Then came the printing press and Norman French influence, and suddenly we had words with French-inspired spelling that didn’t match English pronunciation. Fast forward: English kept evolving, but the spelling didn’t. Now, knight is pronounced nite, and the k is just there for the vibes.

3. Why do accents exist?

Accents are basically linguistic fingerprints. They form when groups of speakers are separated by geography, class, or culture and start tweaking the way they speak. Over time, little changes in pronunciation stack up, creating new accents. Add in migration and colonization, and boom- you’ve got English sounding wildly different in New York, London, and Sydney. It’s evolution, but make it phonetic.

4. What is a contranym?

Contranyms are those sneaky words that mean two opposite things. Like, dust. Are you dusting to remove dust or to add dust (e.g., icing sugar)? Same with cleave-it can mean “to split apart” or “to cling together.” English is chaotic, and I, for one, respect it.

5. Why does ‘lol’ no longer mean ‘laughing out loud’?

Remember when lol meant you were actually laughing? Yeah, those days are gone. Now it’s more of a punctuation mark for tone. It can soften a sentence (that was awkward lol) or add distance (yeah lol sure). Basically, lol stopped being literal and became cultural-welcome to the evolution of internet slang.

6. Do animals have languages?

Animals communicate, sure, but do they have language? Not really, at least not in the way humans do. Human language has syntax, grammar, and infinite possibilities. Animals tend to have signals- like bee dances or whale songs- that are cool but limited. So, while dolphins are smart, they’re not writing Shakespeare.

7. Why do we say ‘on the bus’ but ‘in the car’?

English prepositions are a mess. But here’s the gist: we say on the bus because buses, trains, and planes are seen as shared, open spaces, like platforms. In the car works because cars are private and enclosed. It’s less about logic and more about vibes.

8. How many tenses does English really have?

If you’re out here thinking English has 12 tenses, congrats- you’ve been bamboozled. English actually has two tenses: past and present. Everything else (will go, has gone, is going)? Those are aspects, not tenses. Linguistics likes to complicate things, but now you know.

9. How do newborns start learning language?

Babies are linguistic sponges. From birth, they can tell apart sounds from any language. But by 6 months, they’re like, “I’m only focusing on the languages I hear daily.” They pick up patterns, learn stress and intonation, and start babbling. By 12 months, they’re onto their first words. Tiny geniuses, honestly.

10. Why do some languages have gendered nouns?

Grammatical gender isn’t about logic- it’s about history. Proto-Indo-European, the ancient ancestor of many languages, started with animate vs. inanimate categories. Over time, these split into masculine, feminine, and sometimes neuter. English dropped gendered nouns, but French, Spanish, and others said, “Let’s keep it for ✨drama✨.”

[the-liliger]

There are several questions we are all used to in life. What superpower would you want? What do you want to be when you grow up? What's your biggest regret? I haven’t lived too long, so I haven’t had many chances to do something so horrible nothing can be compared to how much I regret it. Until recently.

I'm an avid book-reader, enthusiast, collector, and lover. I've read many books, though not nearly enough, and have yet to read a book I did not enjoy. As all books are incredible in their own way, picking a favorite obviously is a challenging process, thus I have a three-way tie for favorite, and am unable to rank books any further than that. My three favorite books include: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski, Billy Summers by Stephen King, and Everything Everything by Nicola Yoon. The novel Everything Everything was the first of these favorites to gain the unobtainable title of favorite. It's a beautiful and inspiring story, that I've reread one a year for five years. I'd also like to state that I have no problem with lending my books to others and giving book recommendations. I quite enjoy sharing incredible literature with others. But recently, I made the mistake of entrusting my beloved, well-cared for copy of Everything Everything with a stranger. With someone with not a care in the world for books and literature. Someone who I shall never trust again, and will hold a grudge against forever. She, whom I will not name, dog-eared, dozens of the delicate, worshiped pages in my copy of Everything Everything. I will regret to my grave, ever even giving thought to letting her lay eyes on my adored novel.

Although it does not contain the many memories attached to my original copy, my generous elder sister bought me a new, hardcover copy, which shall never be soiled by hands other than my own.

[bleachsmutfest]

Ok so let’s do Late Entries until end of summer, August 31! But of course you can submit stuff later. Heck you can write something in December and tag us and I will reblog it 💖

[akkivee]

This might be a bit of a dumb question, but what is the significance of the placement of Sasara's earrings/piercings?

they say tragus piercings can relieve migraines!!!! and since he got those earrings after he got brainwashed, the theory/hc is that sasara may have symptoms from the true hypnosis mic in the form of headaches!!!

[classicsmosh]

[X]

[cringelordofchaos]

top 3 of your biggest kins and why!!

Yayayay someone sent me an ask !!!

Sorry for my lack of response! Will get to it now!

Also I assume you mean fictionkin - sorry if you didn't!

Luz Noceda

Dvdhnfjdjd WHERE DO I EVEN BEGIN? I've been so fucking obsessed w her and could relate to her WAYY too much since I started watching. Just... Ugh. So much of it. Being "the weird kid", inconsistent and lackluster grades / performance, being overly obsessed with a specific franchise (though mine come and go and return every few weeks lol), having a mom who really cares about you and wants the best for you and has had similar experiences growing up and being isolated or cast out but accidentally made you feel like you had to conform because that's what she kinda had to do??? idk but still encourages her child's true self and feels super guilty Abt it all yada yada. having little to no friends (I have one! (Speaking of offline) before visiting the demon realm. Fanfic writer (I never have the patience or motivation to finish anything I start though), being impulsive, not knowing whay you wanna be, being into witchcraft, feeling like you're somewhere where you don't belong (the human realm) and would gladly escape into a whole different realm, Bisexual (I'm questioning this though), gender nonconforming, being told that you just have to "apply yourself", insecure, similar clothing style, considers herself a "dummy", poor attention span for things she's uninterested, indecisive, etc etc, THIS SCENE THIS SCENE THIS SCENE

(ps the way camilla hovered her hand above the screen / luz when she saw how sad she was 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺)

It's just. Everything.. I remember the first time I watched it I was like "Luz is so me in almost every single way. Except she makes a ton of eye contact, I don't rly do that" lmao... I would rewatch s1 and S2 on loop every day for the whole summer, I am NOT exaggerating. I rly love TOH I'm so.glad I got the opportunity to watch it and it means sm to me and I keep rewatching the scene from thanks to them and auhggjt.

"all I ever wanted... Was to be understood!" HEJDJFJDIDJRUJDJEKF DJJFFJNFB FIKF

AARON MITCHELL

oh my GOD when I saw this movie for a few days I'd cry sm just bc of how much I related.to him. He chews his shirt. I used to do the same when I was twelve and a bunch of my shirts had holes and still have holes but I stopped and now I just grid my teeth instead lmfao and they hurt ouch. a piece of gum is a lifesaver for.me. He's OBSESSED with dinosaurs - for me it's not dinosaurs specifically but like I've said earlier I tend to get OBSESSED with things way too much to the point everyone knows me for that thing. He's implied to have ZERO FRIENDS before meeting Abby who shares his obsession w dinosaurs (just like me and my one n only friend fr) (why do I keep getting attached to characters who previously had zero friends wtf.) LOVES to talk Abt his interest. Obsessive. Shy. Awful social skills. Takes things too literally sometimes. Calls his dad father sometimes cuz why not ("Thank you, father." after he gave him his phone back "just as promised" (except he broke it in pieces but he.kept his promise so aaron doesn't care lmao.) carries a notebook and pencil w him randomly?. his older sibling and parent argue abt the siblings college choices and you're just forced to watch and the tension is rising and you're feeling anxious and Uhm yeah. SOMETIMES KINDA ROBOTIC IN HIS SPEECH? I've noticed? Blunt. Has a TON of things related to his obsession. (For me I have primarily a tonshit of sonic themed things.) dislikes being alone. Dislikes admitting his feelings. Nerd. Uses obsession as a way to understand, contextualize and communicate with the world and his surroundings. Also chews his fingers. Always wearing sweatpants. Fidgety. Ect etc. Just lile arhghfhfng. HIM.

Things I don't relate to - wearing shoes in bed. What the actual fuck Aaron. Also he wears socks. I don't do that unless I'm nailed down to the floor until I succumb to their nonsensical rules. Ok they KINDA make sense but I don't like them. I don't care that my shoes or feet will smell afterwards get those fucking socks away from me.

. anyway sorry. There's probably more but yeah I forgot. I actually got the urge to cry when just thinking about him a couple of times. Like wowza dawg he's just like me fr and I mean it. I can really really relate to him and I act a lot like him and I acted even more like him when I was about his age and was obsessed with exclusively sonic for like a year straight. lol

Enderman

Ok this one's a short one but yeah I can relate to them. They're just minding their own business, in their own piece, picking random things off the ground (or ground itself..), DESPISE eye contact and will get really violent if you make eye contact with them (I am not exaggerating I actually get really angry and uncomfortable with uninitiated eye contact from ppl I'm not comfy with like don't look at me stop looking at me stop looking at me.) makes random sounds sometimes, such as screeches and hisses. Unlike them I DO like water and I LOVE rain HOWEVER I DO NOT LIKE touching smaller amounts of water on surfaces where I don't expect water to be and get really grossed out and uncomfortable from it. Unless they're with their own kin they're just kinda going around, alone, minding their peace unless provoked. Like most mobs - both hostile and peaceful - acknowledge your existence, hostile ones attack you, peaceful ones like horses and sheep and pigs and wolves and cats and whatnot may look at you if you look at it and pay attention to you and some can be befriended, enderman is neither like them, they're minding their own business, they don't initiate contact like, ever, and only engage w the player when having to defend themselves... when feeling threatened EVEN if the player didn't mean to scare them, like idk I'm.noy.really used to strangers having good intentions with me so I get defensive easily .... that is irl, on the internet I definitely don't get ever scared from social interactions ahaha 😎 yeah.

So yeah the only thing I KINDA can't relate to is not liking water - I only dislike water in a very specific context so yeah. And I do make eye contact w family members usually like I've mentioned earlier - I don't know, do endermen make eye contact with each other? I'm not sure, I don't remember. There might be more to them that I relate to but I can't recall anything at the moment

Everything I've mentioned about these characters in This post - I can relate to. These are just my feelings put imperfectly into words.... but I feel a lot about them and have felt a lot about them for quite some time.

Ducbfjrj there's also a list of characters I relate to (link in intro post) but these were the ones I related to the most

[giftskull]

me watching ii 2: oh so yang is the chaotic boy and yin is the calm collected girl. lightbulb called them 'bros' but i thought she meant it gender neutral style like dudes. normal

me watching ii 3 the overthinkers: YIN HE/HIM???????????????

the yin-yang in my brain having a gender crisis:

[tortadecuchufli]

The worst part about knowing how psychological evaluations work is that I see misinformation online and really wanna correct it but I can't divulge specific information for ethical reasons.

It makes me so unreasonably angry aaaaaaaa

[little-pup-pip]

Haii! This isn't really a request but i was wondering how you made the moodboards so lined up? I was also wondering if you had any tips? I really want to start making some ^^ /gen /nm /genq

This is a really good question!! And because I wanted to answer it thoroughly, this answer got really really long lol so the it's under the cut!

The short answer is that I crop all of my pictures manually! I usually do that in the gallery on my phone, but it can also be done here on Tumblr. The aspect ratio you're looking for is 1:1, which makes a perfect square!! If you scroll through the pictures on (most of) my moodboards, you'll see that they line up uniformly as squares, which lets me make perfect 3:3 grids! Also, I don't usually use gifs, but those need to be cropped by a third-party app or website most of the time if you plan on using those.

As for general tips, I gave some advice here! I don't have much advice on how to make moodboards because I think everyone has a unique style that they bring to their content. I'll tell you a few things that I do for my stuff, though!

I usually stick to about three main colors per moodboard, unless it's supposed to be colorful specifically!

I have a few go-to items that I put in my moodboards: blankets, stuffies, pacifiers, sweaters, books, and sometimes also lights!!

I add as many tags as I can think of to my stuff! That's how people discover new content!!

The last thing I can think of is I always try to make the theme of moodboard clear. Like, I ask myself 'if there was no title or request attached to it, would people still be able to guess what it's supposed to be?' This is easiest with characters because you can just put their face in there! Idk thinking about that helps me sometimes with sticking to a theme!!

That's all I got. I hope this helped at all!! If you have anymore questions feel free to ask! If that's all, I hope you have fun making stuff!

[g1r-ap0ca1yps3]

A question I get asked quite a bit as a trans person is if my parents support and I feel like people don't understand how complicated this question is for a lot of trans people including myself.

Neither of my parents I would say aren't necessarily supportive but they aren't necessarily rude about it. Neither use the correct name or pronouns. I don't correct them as I'm just really tired but they do know what I prefer and have known for a long time. My mom uses they/them pronouns for me and my deadname and she avoids saying gendered terms and refers to me as gender neutral terms. This does bother me a lot because she's outwardly a trans ally and is very education on trans topics but I had to try an understanding her position and now I'm a bit less bothered by it. My father is a different it was not a surprise to me that my dad completely ignored me coming out multiple times while my mom tried her best to understand and have conversations with me. He's always been slightly transphobic to the point even before I came out I would have agreements with him over trans rights and such so I wasn't expecting much in the first place. But he literally forgot my name and my 10 year old little sister came into my room and told me that when she called me Conan he asked who that was and she had to say my deadname to which he responded in an annoyed tone "I don't get why we have to switch names" he also stated to my brother when He told him I was trans (with my consent) "this is too soon" (I havent been cis since I was 9 but my dad isn't very present so He doesn't know that) He also calls me girl, baby girl, ma'am, gal, and other very feminine terms.

So in summary yeah it's extremely complicated they're not kicking me out or arguing with me about it but neither really respect me.

[thirteens-earring]

[scoriarose]

Pinned Post Placeholder - Work in Progress

My girls Intro

Scoria Rose pic/favs/birthday/morph/personality/ name meaning/ prior posts including her Sakura Kurimu pic/favs/birthday/morph/personality/ name meaning/ prior posts including her

F.A.Q

You Cohab your snakes??? Previous Asks

Guides:

Enrichment/Toys (inside their enclosure) Enrichment Activities (outside their enclosure) Foods! (Different foods, what's safe, and what's a sometimes treat) Feeding guides (weight vs feeding amount) Enclosure Necessities (lighting, hides, water ponds, food areas, activity areas, safety considerations, optional aesthetics) Common Enclosure Mistakes (do it for your reptile not your human aesthetics!) Things Every Snake Keeper Should Have (information, medical, equipment) Enclosure and Substrate Types (Pros/Cons) Making a Cool/Wet/Moss Hide Making a baby bin / temp enclosure (for emergencies/vet visits) Help I lost my snake! (What to do when they escape) Scale Rot (how it happens, how to avoid it, what to do if your snake has it) How to communicate TO your snake (how to show you aren't a threat, how to express what you're trying to do) How to understand your snake (reading their body language, and encourage them to "talk" to you to express their wants and needs, "airplane") Choice Based handling & interaction (bonding) When you first get your snake! Dangers to keep away from your snake! (dangerous toys and enclosure dangers, red lights, heat pads, NO THERMOSTAT OR TEMP GUN -_-') Outdated lies and idiot keepers/vets (look out for these and keep your pets safe)

[unopenablebox]

i love TAing. some parts of it are stressful but running office hours and just getting to talk through a concept with the students until we've identified the source of their confusion and successfully resolved it is so satisfying and fun.

[dialogueless-duel]

okay I submitted Mickey from Spiritfarer and realized after the fact that I kept calling him a buffalo when he is very much a bull. so I formally apologize for not being able to tell large bovines apart because that is absolutely a bull

its okay weve all been there

- mod jelly

[gingersnapwolves]

So today I want to talk about puberty blockers for transgender kids, because despite being cisgender, this is a subject I’m actually well-versed in. Specifically, I want to talk about how far backwards things have gone.

This story starts almost 20 years ago, and it’s kind of long, but I think it’s important to give you the full history. At the time, I was working as an administrative assistant for a pediatric endocrinologist in a red state. Not a deep deep red state like Alabama, we had a little bit of a purple trend, but still very much red. (I don’t want to say the state at the risk of doxxing myself.) And I took a phone call from a woman who said, “My son is transgender. Does your doctor do hormone therapy?”

I said, “Good question! Let me find out.”

I went into the back and found the doctor playing Solitaire on his computer and said, “Do you do hormone therapy for transgender kids?” It had literally never come up before. He had opened his practice there in the early 2000s. This was roughly 2006, and the first time someone asked. Without looking up from his game of Solitaire, the doctor said, “I’ve never done it before, but I know how it works, so sure.”

I got back on the phone and told the mom, who was overjoyed, and scheduled an appointment for her son. He was the first transgender child we treated with puberty blockers. But not, by far, the first child we treated with puberty blockers, period. Because puberty blockers are used very commonly for children with precocious puberty (early-onset puberty). I would say about twenty percent of the kids our doctor treated were for precocious puberty and were on puberty blockers. They have been well studied and are widely used, safe, and effective.

Well. It turned out, the doctor I worked for was the only doctor in the state who was willing to do this. And word spread pretty fast in the tight-knit community of ‘parents of transgender children in a red state’. We started seeing more kids. A better drug came out. We saw some kids who were at the age where they were past puberty, and prescribed them estrogen or testosterone. Our doctor became, I’m fairly sure, a small folk hero to this community. 

Insurance coverage was a struggle. I remember copying articles and pages out of the Endocrine Society Manual to submit with prior authorization requests for the medications. Insurance coverage was a struggle for a lot of what we did, though. Growth hormone for kids with severe idiopathic short stature. Insulin pumps, which weren’t as common at the time, and then continuous glucose monitoring, when that came out. Insurance struggles were just part and parcel of the job.

I remember vividly when CVS Caremark, a pharmaceutical management company, changed their criteria and included gender dysphoria as a covered diagnosis for puberty blockers. I thought they had put the option on the questionnaire to trigger an automatic denial. But no - it triggered an approval. Medicaid started to cover it. I got so good at getting approvals with my by then tidy packet of articles and documentation that I actually had people in other states calling me to see what I was submitting (the pharmaceutical rep gave them my number because they wanted more people on their drug, which, shady, but sure. He did ask me if it was okay first).

And here’s the key point of this story:

At no point, during any of this, did it ever even occur to any of us that we might have to worry about whether or not what we were doing was legal.

It just never even came up. It was the medically recommended treatment so we did it. And seeing what’s happening in the UK and certain states in America is both terrifying and genuinely shocking to me, as someone who did this for almost fifteen years, without ever even wondering about the legality of it.

The doctor retired some years ago, at which point there were two other doctors in the state who were willing to prescribe the medications for transgender kids. I truly think that he would still be working if nobody else had been willing to take those kids on as patients. He was, by the way, a white cisgender heterosexual Boomer. I remember when he was introduced to the concept of ‘genderfluid’ because one of our patients on HRT wanted to go off. He said ‘that’s so interesting!’ and immediately went to Google to learn more about it. 

I watched these kids transform. I saw them come into the office the first time, sometimes anxious and uncertain, sometimes sullen and angry. I saw them come in the subsequent times, once they were on hormone therapy, how they gradually became happy and confident in themselves. I saw the smiles on their faces when I gave them a gender marker letter for the DMV. I heard them cheer when I called to tell them I’d gotten HRT approved by insurance and we were calling in a prescription. It was honestly amazing and I will always consider the work I did in that red state with those kids to be something I am incredibly proud of. I was honored to be a part of it.

When I see all this transgender backlash, it’s horrifying, because it was well on the way to become standard and accepted treatment. Insurances started to cover it. Other doctors were learning to prescribe it. And now … it’s fucking illegal? Like what the actual fuck. We have gone so far backwards that it makes me want to cry. I don’t know how to stop this slide. But I wrote this so people would understand exactly how steep the slide is.