A Thing

use overdrive, libby, hoopla, cloudlibrary, and kanopy instead of amazon and audible.

use firefox instead of chrome or opera (both are made with chromium, which blocks functionality for ad-blockers. firefox isn't based on chromium).

use mega or proton drive instead of google drive.

get rid of bloatware

use libreoffice instead of microsoft office suite

use vetted sites on r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH for free movies, books, games, etc.

use trakt or letterboxd instead of imdb.

use storygraph instead of goodreads.

use darkpatterns to find mobile game with no ads or microtransactions

use ground news to read unbiased news and find blind spots in news stories.

use mediahuman or cobalt to download music, or support your favorite artists directly through bandcamp

make youtube bearable by using mtube, newpipe, or the unhook extension on chrome, firefox, or microsoft edge

use search for a cause or ecosia to support the environment instead of google

use thriftbooks to buy new or used books (they also have manga, textbooks, home goods, CDs, DVDs, and blurays)

use flashpoint to play archived online flash games

find books, movies, games, etc. on the internet archive! for starters, here's a bunch of David Attenborough documentaries and all of the Animorphs books

burn your music onto cds

use pdf24 (available online or as a desktop app) instead of adobe

use unroll.me to clean your email inboxes

use thunderbird, mailfence, countermail, edison mail, tuta, or proton mail instead of gmail

remove bloatware on windows PC, macOS, and iOS X

remove bloatware on samsung X

use pixelfed instead of instagram or meta

use NCH suite for free software like a file converter, image editor, video editors, pdf editor, etc.

feel free to add more alternatives, resources or advice in the reblogs or replies, and i'll add them to the main post <3

so many responses of “its nice that you’re privileged enough to be able to steal from Target willy nilly!” and that’s not at all what this is about. like, yeah, shoplifting and loitering and graffiti and breaking the rules is, obviously, part of “do crime”. but they’re not parts you have to do.

would you help someone get an abortion where it was illegal?

would you help a trans friend get healthcare that had been criminalized?

would you shelter someone fleeing persecution, even if the law said not to?

would you help a gay couple stay together when the state decided their relationship was unlawful?

instead, would you report someone else for breaking the law? will you snitch on your hungry neighbors for stealing food? on your homeless neighbors for sleeping where they’re able?

retrieval team for objects in the backseat

custodian of the parking garage tickets

"All clear my way"

en-route dining concierge

The original Tweet says "At a certain magnitude of cunt severity, getting misgendered by your family stops hurting and starts being funny. I have D cups, Grandpa. The waitress thinks you have dementia."

One of the lesser known early symptoms of dementia is that people start being more disagreeable.

Part of this is probably the natural result of being increasingly confused and upset day to day constantly. Another possible thing is that the same mechanism that causes dementia is also attacking the part of the brain that does emotional regulation.

my HEAD and i cannot BUILD

IT. snage and snatred

Because it is confusing. It would almost feel easier if there was no love there at all. But sometimes there was love. In the way they tried to protect you. In the sacrifices they made. In the ways they worried about you, cared for you, wanted a good life for you.

And at the same time, there were still things missing.

Maybe comfort did not come in the way you needed it to. Maybe your feelings were not always understood, or noticed, or handled gently. Maybe you learned to keep certain parts of yourself quiet because it felt easier than trying to explain them.

That kind of hurt is difficult because it does not always come from cruelty. Sometimes it comes from people who loved you deeply, but did not know how to emotionally connect in the ways you needed. People carrying their own wounds, limitations, fears, or ways of surviving.

And you are allowed to acknowledge both truths at once.

You are allowed to recognize their love and still grieve what you needed but did not receive. Those things do not cancel each other out.

Forgiveness, for a lot of people, is not pretending nothing hurt you. It is slowly accepting that someone can love you and still fall short of understanding you completely.

That does not make your pain dramatic. It does not make them monsters either. Sometimes it just means everyone was trying with the emotional tools they had, and some of those tools were not enough.

And I think many people quietly carry guilt for still feeling hurt by parents they know tried their best. But being loved imperfectly can still leave wounds. It makes sense that it affected you.

At the same time, you do not have to stay trapped only in anger forever either. Sometimes healing looks like understanding that your parents were human before they were parents. People shaped by their own experiences, their own upbringing, their own emotional gaps.

That understanding does not erase your feelings. It just softens the sharp edges around them a little.

You deserved emotional safety. You deserved gentleness. You deserved to feel understood, comforted, and emotionally close to the people raising you.

And if they could not fully give that to you, it is okay to mourn it.

But I hope you also know this: the love you needed is still something you can experience in your life. Through other people. Through chosen family. Through the way you learn to treat yourself now.

The story does not end at what you did or did not receive growing up.

Extra bricks up for grabs -> 🧱🧱🧱🧱

“Ooughh…”

@alilcajun @aralioideae

Stolen from the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

On Android 

With the release of Android 12, Google began allowing users to delete their ad ID permanently. On devices that have this feature enabled, you can open the Settings app and navigate to Privacy > Ads. Tap “Delete advertising ID,” then tap it again on the next page to confirm. This will prevent any app on your phone from accessing it in the future.

On iOS 

To see which apps you have previously granted access to, go to Settings > Privacy > Tracking. You can set the “Allow apps to Request to Track” switch to the “off” position (the slider is to the left and the background is gray). This will prevent apps from asking to track in the future. If you have granted apps permission to track you in the past, this will prompt you to ask those apps to stop tracking as well. You also have the option to grant or revoke tracking access on a per-app basis.

Changes in this part of the brain were previously used to previously used to argue that women are the ideal primary caretakers of children in all cases. And apparently, it’s false. The reason they found these changes in women was that women were already the primary caretaker in almost all cases, not because there’s something inherent to women that makes them better parents.

When I first saw this post go around, I was traveling, but I had something I wanted to say and I could never find it again.

Okay, so, this post isn’t wrong, but what the original gifset doesn’t take into account (though some of the commentary touches on it) is how incredibly situational swearing was in the 1940s.

So, yes, men swore a lot – around other guys, in certain contexts. But they were very heavily conditioned not to swear around women and kids.

I think this might be one of the big reasons why a lot of people my age and younger got the idea that people didn’t swear during the 1940s. Most of us fell into the “kid” or “female” categories, or both, and guys our grandparents’ age would never, ever say “fuck” around us. And those words weren’t usually used in media of the era for similar reasons, so we got the idea that people that age were very prim and polite, when it’s more that they were prim and polite around us.

I remember as a young woman walking in on groups of old blue-collar guys talking among themselves, with profanity flying freely, and then noticing me in the room and immediately clamming up and apologizing to me for swearing around me.

There’s a bit in the Douglas Bader biography I was reading a month or so ago that demonstrates this in a WWII context. According to the book, the squadron pilots swore freely in their radio chatter to each other in the field, to the amusement of the WAAFs (female service personnel) who were listening to the radio in an ops room as they moved counters around on maps (much like we see Peggy doing in TFA) and the embarrassment of their commander:

After awhile, to the regret of the Beauty Chorus [the WAAFs], Woodhall disconnected the loud-speaker in the Ops Room, feeling that some of the battle comments were too ripe even for the most sophisticated WAAFs. (“They laugh, you know,” he said, “but dammit I get so embarrassed.”)

… so, right, even in the middle of a war, pilots saying “fuck” over the radio was something the female staff had to be insulated from.

Say what you will about the baby boomers, but they largely demolished that wall between “swearing around men” and “swearing around women”. Most guys my dad’s age don’t do it anymore, at least not to that much of an extreme. By the time you get to my generation (I’m 40), people might swear or they might not, and they usually don’t swear around young kids, but swearing around men but not around women is just not a thing anyone does anymore. At least I don’t know anyone who does it specifically and consistently who’s not elderly.

It’s not really an individual-sexism thing, more of a socialization thing – sexist on a societal level, sure, but I don’t think Steve would balk at swearing around women, kids, or in a refined or professional social setting because he’s a sexist or a prude. It’s just something you didn’t do as a polite person. Like blowing your nose on the tablecloth in a fancy restaurant. I think he could and probably would unlearn that, but it’d take time.

So, to me, about half the examples up there work just fine (“now why the fuck would I do that” to Bucky – absolutely! Or “Is everything a fucking joke to you?” to Tony) and several jar horribly, because they’re not the right context (like the “there’s only one God ma'am” bit – noooo, you aren’t going to get “fuck” and “ma'am” in the same sentence! not for a Steve fresh from the 1940s! – or “we have our fucking orders” … in a polite, professional context like that, no). Steve would never. Or, I should say, someone from Steve’s culture – who tries in general to be a polite and respectful person, as Steve does – would never. Maybe after he’s had a few years to acclimatize to the more relaxed social climate surrounding swearing in the 21st century, but I think it’d take him awhile; he would sort of instinctively jerk himself back from doing it in all but the most relaxed sort of “palling around with your teammates” environment.

(Headcanon-wise, I could see Steve very quickly incorporating someone like Natasha into his mental schemata as “one of the guys” – not consciously, but on a subconscious level: like, he doesn’t hold back from swearing around her pretty quickly – but taking a LOT longer with someone like Wanda or Pepper.)

1. The Midwest has the most caring racists. The amount of sleeping bags and hot chocolate was surprising and heartwarming, the amount of racism was alarming.

2. People love to give you stuff in Las Vegas

3. Christians love to record themselves giving you a water bottle or a slice of pizza. This is a trap they are going to talk to you about god, and yes some (all) think you are homeless because you are a sinner

4. Most teenaged panhandlers look older than they are (dirty, stressed). Remember they're kids. Most aren't drug addicts. Most are abused for one thing or another. Most of the time it's for being queer.

5. Dont trust RV people ever

6. Dont sleep anywhere where you won't hear people coming and wake up. Trash, sticks, whatever makes noise when people rustle through it. Car camping is so much better.

7. Cops aren't people, they're some strange demon sent to fool you with riddles and drag you away. Treat them like the Fae

8. No one gives handouts in the Northeast

9. No one calls 911 if a homeless person is ODing in California