lotstradamus:

I told this story to the group chat the other night and it went down a storm so I thought I’d bring it to a wider audience for shits and gigs. so. in the Year of Our Lord 2002, Avril Lavigne released her debut album, Let Go (which, incidentally, still bangs). to a little 10-going-on-11-year-old already showing warning signs of turning into a complete emo in 2006, Avril Lavigne was unbearably cool. she also, in retrospect, had bonkers masculine energy, which, to a little 10-going-on-11-year-old who would turn out to be really gay, was thrilling in new, weird ways! she had short black nails and wore her jeans so low! what did it mean! I did what any sexually intrigued kid would do: I listened to her album on repeat, I started dressing exactly like her, and I muscled my way onto my dad’s old desktop computer to search for pictures of Avril Lavigne… naked. ‘Avril Lavigne naked’ is what I searched for. I found no real pictures of Avril Lavigne naked, obviously, but a hell of a lot of manips of bodies with Avril Lavigne’s face 2002 photoshopped onto them in various… positions. I learned a lot that day. of course, being a little 10-going-on-11-year-old in 2002, I didn’t know about search histories or the fact that next time my dad typed ‘a’ into his search bar, AVRIL LAVIGNE NAKED was going to pop up and incriminate the fuck out of the Avril Lavigne Lite living in his house. which it did. my parents, being open-minded and understanding souls, gently brought up to me the fact that they’d seen I’d searched for ‘Avril Lavigne naked’, which I shouldn’t do because the internet is a dodgy place where you can see dodgy things, but did I want to talk about why I’d searched for that? was there anything I wanted to tell them? now, as a kid, in times of trouble (i.e. when my parents confronted me with evidence of wrongdoing), I would go completely zen. my brain would go crystal clear and supply me both with a) a feasible excuse and b) the perfect tone of voice to portray both sweet childlike innocence and a slightly judgemental ‘I can’t believe you thought of that, maybe you’re the weird ones’ vibe. I got away with so much shit because I was placid as still waters when challenged with my own bad deeds. but this was kind of hard to get out of. I’m an only child, and an out and proud Avril Lavigne fan to boot. I was still of an age where – and in a time period when – going on the computer was something you did when you needed to find something out. when my friends came round we played outside, or with stuff (?? idk) in my room. we didn’t surf the net. I couldn’t blame it on anyone else. it was, quite obviously, me. I was the one who searched for Avril Lavigne Naked. so how did I get out of it? how did I artfully sidestep my parents finding out I liked girls at the tender age of 10-going-on-11-years-old? how did they go on believing I was a strident heterosexual for another eight whole years? google ‘Avril Lavigne naked’. 

buyakasha:

star wars has such a good sci-fi aesthetic. all the sci-fi these days looks so…… i-pad-esque, y’know? like Apple lived on into the year 3000 and produces everything. but star wars. star wars’ style looks like a microwave you’d find in your uncle’s garage. like the business calculator your mom used. like a SNES. DURABLE. no gloss.

largishcat:

largishcat:

largishcat:

On the first day of Pride, my true love gave to me

A rainbow for all to see

*bell clang*

On the second day of Pride, my true love gave to me

Two queens a’slaying

And a rainbow for all to see

*clang*

On the third day of Pride, my true love gave to me

Three handsome butches

Two queens a’slaying

And a rainbow for all to see

*clang*

TICK PSA

vaspider:

a-daks:

t00tsmcgee:

biologyweeps:

Alright you guys, ‘tis the season again and I’ve already seen bullshit float about so here we go: what to do and what not to do when you happen to have a tick attached to yours truly.

WHAT NOT TO DO:

DON’T cover the tick in anything. Vaseline, nailpolish, whatever. Doesn’t matter. It’ll all suffocate the tick, making it panic vomit germs into your blood stream. That’s the opposite of what you want.

DON’T burn the tick. Same problem, plus the additional option of giving yourself a burn wound in the process. 

DON’T squeeze the body of the tick when you try to remove it. Again this empties the tick’s digestive system into your body. Bad. 

DON’T wait for the tick to detach itself. The longer it stays on you, the higher the chances it’ll transmit anything to you. Plus when ti detaches it may again vomit germs into you. 

WHAT TO ACTUALLY DO

STAY CALM. A tick hanging on you is not a reason to panick. You’re not going to keel over just like that, and if you’re unsure what to do, there are many resources on the internet on how to safely remove a tick, like this one from the CDC (aka the professionals)

USE APPROPRIATE TOOLS. These can be suitable tweezers (the pointy kind, not blunt tipped ones), tick removers (there are cheap ones out there, those you can buy at the vets are totally fine for use on humans, too!). Ideally you can remove the entire tick in one go, however if that doesn’t work and the mouth part breaks off in your skin, that’s not a terribly big deal and you can totally remove it separately after you got the body remove. Again, don’t panic.

KILL THE REMOVED TICK. But not by squeezing it. Flush it down the toilet, submerse it in alcohol in a container etc. Ideally if the tick has bitten you and not your dog, keep the tick around in a sealed container in case you start having symptoms and someone needs to identify the tick species. Also IF you start getting symptoms like the tell tale Lyme disease rash, HIT A DOCTOR RIGHT AWAY AND TELL THEM ABOUT YOUR TICK BITE. Do not wait this out, ticks can transmit a whole host of diseases beside Lyme, so be mindful of that, too! 

Some of those diseases you can actually get vaccinated again, such as tick born encephalitis. Check with the local authorities if you live in a risk area, and if so, get the shots to protect yourself. 

Excellent post! I would like to add that ticks hide in tall grass and bushes mostly. They do not drop down from trees or jump to other people’s heads etc. Ticks aren’t designed to jump, they latch on somewhere on your leg and then crawl upwards in most cases. 

So be careful with bare legs and tall grass!

Ticks will crawl from the cuffs of your jeans all the way up to your hair, where they cannot be seen, and nor could a bite rash be seen (ask me how I know HAHA). 

If you walk through an area that may have ticks for any length of time, check yourself for them! Especially after you get home. Strip down, check your whole body, even your belly button, armpits, between toes, behind ears and ESPECIALLY YOUR HAIR. Long hair in particular is beloved. Comb all the hair, and check your scalp. Deer ticks are tiny. Wood ticks are just under the size of a pencil eraser and can easily be felt.

I just spoke with a friend who also contracted Lyme’s disease as a kid and it’s no “yeah I guess that’s bad?” disease. Chronic untreated Lymes can lead to crippling arthritis and lifelong psychological issues and doctors are just starting to take it seriously. 

CHECK YOURSELF FOR TICKS. IF YOU LIVE IN AN AREA WITH DEER TICKS GET TESTED FOR LYMES IF YOU SUSPECT ONE BIT YOU.

So this is deffo different from what I learned growing up in the woods! Read it all, friends!

snapdragonsoda:

Who took this picture!?  This absolutely PERFECT picture???  It is just… so… perfect.  Distilled autumn pastoral fantasy.  The colorful mushroom, the curl of the fern and flowers, the muted background foliage, the beady eyes and precise whiskers of the tiny squeakbeast!!!  Unreal.  Wow.