The Four Elemental Power Walks
Water:
Earth:Â
Fire:
 Air:Â
my favorite thing about this is that each of them is walking in a different direction, itâs like these girls are off to conquer the entire goddamn world
Theyâre gonna meet in the middle
In the middle they will find the avatar, master of all elements and the force:
Tag: three little orphans one queue three
Untitled
boring & disrespectful:Â âoh, i canât survive without my morning coffeeâ, âenergy drink makes it so that i can get through my boring workâ, and so on
living properly: treating caffeinated beverages like very mysterious & powerful magical potions that can give us unforeseen abilities
drink 15 cups of coffee in a day and you can clip through walls
me, approaching my local barista with trepidation and awe: potion seller. I am going into battle and I require your strongest potion.
potion seller: trenta macchiato plus five shots as usual, then?
me, extending my credit card with a trembling hand: fuck me up
Untitled
Todayâs pet peeve: a piano is not âa harp in a boxâ.
A piano is a dulcimer in a box.
A harpsichord is a harp in a box.
To be even more pedantic, itâs a hammered dulcimer in a box. Dulcimers are a pretty broad family and not all are, well, hammered.
A piano is the result of a frustrated dulcimerist going âwhat I really need is to be able to wield more hammers at once. No, more than that. More.â
To be fair, Iâd say a harpsichord is more of a guitar/lute/etc. in a box, given the twanginess of it.
Proposal: rescore all of J S Bachâs harpsichord concertos for six-string banjo.
One of my coworkers once described an accordion as âa piano that squashesâ.
Strictly speaking, an accordion is a mutant harmonica.
slight correction: a BUTTON accordion is a mutant harmonica. a piano accordion is a box of oboes
i’m into this semantic musiciany thing going on here. are there more musical mutants?
Untitled
Do you ever find things you wrote when you were little and just really want to die a little?
Me at age 11:Â âI am a sea of feelings. I am an emocean.â
Emocean underlined three times
I’m fat, and I have a restrictive eating disorder
This post may be triggering. Iâm about to talk about being fat, and my eating disorder, and an exchange I had with a new therapist at my treatment center. Itâs an assumption that has become so common place it hardly phases me anymore. But it should. It needs to. Because itâs an example that even within a treatment facility with a weight set point mind set and a health at every size governing philosophy, when the staff see me, and see my body, and my size, thereâs an assumption that I either have binge eating disorder or compulsive eating disorder.
Iâll share the interaction, and then why itâs so important. I sat down to an orientation for a new group Iâm joining. The therapist and I have met in passing, but have had no direct interaction before this. She asked how my recovery was going. I told her Iâve had a lot of set backs over the last six months, but Iâm four weeks in to eating AND sleeping, which is a huge accomplishment. Iâm really starting to feel true hunger and my dietitian is thrilled that Iâm actually eating. And the therapist said, âOh, so, you mean feeling hunger and eating in a good way?â
And I just stared at her for a moment. Iâve gone for so long not knowing what actual hunger felt like, doing anything and everything to busy myself the moment my body twinged in that direction, suddenly becoming desperately busy and oh look, itâs too late now, Iâll just eat at the next meal, or perhaps the nextâŠ
When I first entered treatment, I was nauseated all the time. The amount of food on my meal plan felt impossible. Every meal was a nearly unbearable experience. My meal planâs been raised multiple times since then. Now, I wake up hungry and cranky until I feed my body. Itâs still hard to eat. But Iâm doing it. Every day. Â So many things have changed.Â
But not that Iâm fat.
Every now and then, I get to forgot that Iâm fat for a little while. Itâs usually not long before Iâm reminded, before an assumption, or a seemingly innocuous question brings it back to the forefront. Right. I exist in a large body. There are a lot of assumptions that go along with that.Â
 And my answer was a laugh, and a clear explanation, because Iâve had to do it so many times before, ticking off each thing on my fingers. âOh! I have a restrictive eating disorder. My behaviors are restricting, purging, starvation, diet cycling, and using exercise as a way to punish my body. My meal plan is a minimum I have to eat each day, going over that is great but I canât go below. And I have restrictions on water, because I have a history of water loading.âÂ
 "Oh!â was her reply.Â
I followed immediately with the example I always use, preempting the inevitable bingeing question. âWhen I started here, I thought I binged. I was like, âI totally binge. Iâll eat an ENTIRE cheeseburger!â And the staff was like ââŠThatâs not a binge.ââ
And she stepped in and finished the sentence with, ââŠright, thatâs a portion.â
And suddenly we were back on the same page. She had adjusted her internal diagnostic criteria of me, and what I struggle with, and the rest of the orientation went great. Iâm excited about the group, and I think sheâll be a great facilitator. I do feel a bit heartsick though that she didnât take a moment to look at my file, or speak to my current treatment team before our orientation. It would have saved me from that moment, where I have to explain, again, that while yes, Iâm fat, the disorder that Iâve been struggling with for over 30 years is restrictive, based in control, anxiety, and trauma, as well as genetics and a solid dose of disordered modeling. The reactive eating Iâve done, what feels like bingeing to me, falls squarely in the realm of a portion, or at its most extreme, a large meal.Â
Now thereâs some great stuff over at www.youreatopia.com and @bigfatscience & @everythingeatingdisordered if youâd like to understand how you can not lose weight, and even gain weight, while being in a restrictive state. This is especially true while diet cycling, which has been my path in between ED behaviors for the past 15-ish years. To quote @heavyweightheart âIt turns out human bodies are a little more complicated than lawn mowers.â Weâre not just fuel-in, energy-out robots. There are all kinds of processes that occur making us very different than, say, a carâs engine. And each of us has unique needs.Â
 And hereâs where we veer into the why: Why these underlying assumptions matter so very much, why they must be examined and challenged, and why there needs to be more open and honest dialogue around the reality of eating disorders occurring in individuals of all body sizes.Â
I went to my neurologist recently to discuss the increase in my migraines in both frequency and severity. I told him in clear and blunt language that Iâm in the early stages of eating disorder treatment for a restrictive eating disorder and on exercise restriction. He asked why. Not kindly, or with compassion. But very bluntly. âWhy?â And I explained.Â
He then went on to bring up weight loss three times and walking an hour a day four times in the remaining time of the appointment. Did he say these things over and over because he thought this was what was best for my overall health, taking into consideration the serious damage Iâve done to multiple organ systems with my decades of starvation and purging? No. He said these things because of the theoretical damage that could occur based on correlation between these issues and obesity. My blood pressure, pulse, blood sugar, and other metabolic measures of health look pretty damn good for someone with as many health issues as I have, none of which are weight related, but many of which are ED related.Â
Itâs so ingrained.
Youâre fat. Get healthy. Lose weight. Exercise. My psychiatrist put it really well. She said, âIf you had gone in for a well check, checking in and making sure youâre eating a variety of food and getting some exercise makes sense when discussing migraines. But itâs like you went in and said, âIâve been through hell. And Iâm still there.â And his response was, âLetâs get some walks in!â He didnât actually listen to you, or hear you.â
I was asked recently whether I thought there was any point when inpatient treatment would have been appropriate. And I said yes. When I was 19, and passing out daily in class, and my movement teacher told me I couldnât return until Iâd seen the doctor. They diagnosed me as hypoglycemic. I was at a ânormalâ BMI, the smallest Iâd ever been, but still not underweight. I had never missed a period, and the fact that I worked out 2-8 hours a day showed how really dedicated I was to my health. I used the diagnosis as an excuse to become a vegetarian and cut even more food out of my diet, and learned how to eat just enough to not pass out in class. 19 years after that, I finally sought treatment.Â
We say it over and over and over. Eating disorders impact all manner of people. Eating disorders are mental health disorders first, and cause a myriad of health issues, further psychological issues, and relationship and social issues. And not everyone who has them is underweight. Yes, the pictures of skeletal women are the most shocking, attention grabbing, and likely to get people to raise both money and awareness, which ED treatment desperately needs. But the cost is that the rest of us, those in average size bodies, and yes, those of us in fat bodies, are receiving extremely dangerous messages, repeatedly, about our bodies, and our health.Â
Iâm not referring to our theoretical some day health, that health that my neurologist is so focused on. Iâm talking about our health right now.
My biggest wake up call in treatment was when my dietitian sat me down, looked at me seriously, and said, âWe need to talk about your weight.â I flinched, sure that she was going to say that Iâd gained a huge amount of weight adding in more food, that I was messing up my meal plan, that I was failing at recovery.Â
Instead, she said, âYouâre losing weight alarmingly fast. You have to start eating again. Everyday. Your full meal plan. All that long term damage you thought you wouldnât have to worry about?â She pulled out some charts and showed me some very scary things. âYouâve been doing this for 30 years. Itâs now. The long term damage is happening now.â I was shocked. Wasnât I supposed to lose weight? Wasnât I supposed to shrink away into nothingness? Or at the very least, into a ânormalâ BMI?
My restriction, dieting, and exercise addiction were supported and even recommended to me by my doctors. And whatâs so scary is that when I tell doctors outside my treatment team Iâm in recovery, and on exercise restriction, itâs still being recommended. My dietitian was horrified. My therapist was furious. My psychiatrist gently but firmly suggested I find a different neurologist.Â
Itâs hard enough to confront that what youâre doing is hurting yourself. Itâs excruciating to confront that your eating disorder also hurts the people you love, and who love you. Thereâs no break from recovery. Thereâs no day off. And when youâre fat, you also deal with a daily onslaught from every direction suggesting, prodding, lecturing, even screaming at you that you are invalid in your body. That you are not worthy as a human being until you reach a certain weight. And that your well being is dependent on you losing weight. Â
We live in a culture where being thin is so closely aligned with being healthy, that that goal is worth anything. Itâs worth a doctor telling me to actively do things that will harm me. Heâs not the first. Heâs just the most recent this month. Not this year. Not this season. This month. It causes assumptions so deeply ingrained that even amazing, supportive therapists at the front line of this work still catch themselves making a judgment based on the size of the body of the person sitting in front of them. Â
Iâm having to unlearn a lifetime of information while itâs still being forcefully given to me by doctors, friends, biological family, the media, random strangers on social media, random strangers on the street, and every single packaged food loudly proclaiming it has less fat, less calories, and more all natural ingredients!!! I have had to narrow my focus. I listen to my treatment team. I do my own research. I trust the chosen few who are supporting me with everything they have.Â
Iâm fat, and I have a restrictive eating disorder. These things can, and do, exist in the same body, at the same time. If you take anything away from reading this, know that I am not the only person who exists in a large body who has a serious eating disorder. And it may not be the kind you think.
This is so important
Thank you for sharing your experience, it will help so many people, including me.
Untitled
He has the hairstyle of Ariana Grande.
my six-year-old daughter on the uruk-hai Aragorn fights at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring
(via jonnyplantey)
his name is lurtz!
New York Is Holding A Statewide Primary On Rosh Hashanah
New York Is Holding A Statewide Primary On Rosh Hashanah
In other goyische bullshit newsâŠ
9% of New York state residents are Jewish.
18% of New York City residents are Jewish.
Jews living in New York state make up roughly 12% of the entire worldâs Jews. Twelve percent of all the Jews in the world in that one American state.
This isnât a âthere are so few of you we forgotâ thing. You donât forget a group that makes up nearly 1 out of every 10 people in your stateâs population. This is a âwe donât care about Jews or their opinionsâ thing.
This is antisemitism.
UPDATE: This is actually because of the laws about when the elections are supposed to be, and as soon as they noticed, they started scrambling to fix it. Elections are held (by law!) on the second Tuesday of the month, and this year it coincides with Rosh Hashanah. They have to pass new legislation to be able to reschedule it for Thursday the 13th, but thatâs what they are doing. This was not intentional.
Untitled
Bards are too powerful. They can learn mass suggestion. All they have to do is yell âEverybody clap your hands!â and make up to 12 people do the Cha Cha slid for 24 hoursÂ
âŠ. a level 20 bard can force you to do the Cha Cha Slide for a year and a day
Untitled
so if thereâs one single trope iâm always down to fight itâs the animal bride (folklore motif 402??) which a lot of you are probably familiar with as the selkie – the fisherman either falls in love, steals her skin to trap her on land/gain power over her, or they fall in love and THEN he steals her skin to keep her from leaving, and either way she spends a lot of time gazing sadly out to sea and then she or her child finds the skin and never returns again.
and thatâs awful on a whole lot of levels – itâs not love, itâs control.BUT. but the thing is. you how selkies/seal women was a pretty common variation of this? another really popular one was swans.
i just want you to think about that for a moment. swans. likeâŠI get it, theyâre pretty, graceful birds, certainly itâs easy to imagine them magically becoming pretty graceful ladies? but have you ever fought a swan. swans are awful. swans are the devilâs geese. imagine seeing a pretty magic lady and being absolutely enchanted by her, and stealing her magic feather cloak, and then you go up and say âhey iâm in love with you, let me make you my queen, it will be great, weâll be so happyâ and she just looks at you for a moment andâŠ
you know i was going to say maybe she just shouts for her sisters and suddenly youâre realizing youâve made a terrible terrible mistake bc youâre surrounded by big fucking birds who are all hissing. but honestly if this swan lady is as aggressively down to brawl as any other generally unhappy swan, then sheâd straight up fuck you up on her own. sheâd just deck you roundhouse, honestly. you donât fuck with swans. why does this trope exist
okay but consider this: a woman walks to the park every day and feeds the swans and watches them paddle gracefully around the lake, sighing to see how beautifully they swim.Â
finally one day, a swan comes up to her and says âwhy donât you come and swim with us? you always sigh so wistfully to see us on the water, and you would be most welcome to join our company, for you have always been a true friend to our kindâ
and the woman says, âi canât swimâ
and the swan says, âweâll teach youâ
and the woman says, âliterally i canât swim, my husband stole my sealskin and should i venture into deep water i would surely drownâÂ
and the swan says âyour husband fucking WHATâ
the next morning the womanâs front yard looks like this.Â
and neither the woman nor her husband are ever heard from again, though for very different reasons.Â
tagged for imaginary swans doing the lordâs work
A++, two thumbs up.
It may also interest someone to know that swans can projectile poop.
I know a real-world mama swan who got shot in the wing and walked four miles overland to get back to her babies and dad swan, with her broken wing bleeding and dragging the whole way. She just kept going. Donât mess with lady swans.Â
Also? Swans donât have a lot of obvious physical markings that divide the males from females. So some idiot might be like, âdamn, thatâs a sexy bird, I wanna marry herâ and then like. Itâs a dude swan. You just transformed thirty pounds of angry aggressive bird into 200+ pounds of angry aggressive adult man, who will totally kick your butt. (Also Iâm pretty sure that if you turned a lady swan into a human, you would not get a willowy little 5âČ0âł girl. Youâd probably have a 6-foot amazon with biceps the size of your head. Swans are heavy birds and it takes a LOT of muscle to get them into the air. They are among the baddest bitches in the bird kingdom)
And when a swan decides to beat you up, it is not with fancy martial arts. Swans are brawlers. They have bone clubs built into their wing joints specifically for beating people up. A human swan is gonna come at you screaming and spitting and just keep punching you in the face until you regret every decision you have made ever in your life and also some of the ones your parents made too.Â