That Awkward Artist

Fri, 27 Aug 2021 12:20:51 -0400

rakeeshsorrel:
khapikat222:
callese:
Report Disney, Report Universal, Knotts, the Large Golf Courses.
Report them en mass and force their business behavior to change.

If you want to report water waste by Disney, Nestle, Universal, Palm Springs Golf Course, etc., go here and select “multiple types of waste”, because nothing else actually fits real wasters like them. (The other nine options are about ratting out your neighbors [7], complaining about cleanliness in hotels [1], or complaining about restaurants serving water unasked [1]. Fuck all of these.)
“Multiple types of waste” requires a comment, but somehow I don’t think anyone on Tumblr will have any problems sharing their opinion. In vast detail, if necessary.
You can also take photos of Disney’s, Knotts’, Universal’s, etc. water waste and attach it to the report.
This can be done through desktop or mobile.
Have fun!

Court rules California gig worker initiative is unconstitutional- The Sacramento Bee

Thu, 26 Aug 2021 21:40:43 -0400

Court rules California gig worker initiative is unconstitutional- The Sacramento Bee

Thu, 26 Aug 2021 19:20:45 -0400

I’m putting this up for two reasons.

1) to help other people.

2) because I replied privately to the information when I was sent it as an Ask, after testing it, forgetting that anything you reply to privately vanishes from your in box never to be seen again.

Thu, 26 Aug 2021 17:00:44 -0400

roach-works:

sunlightslastglimmer:
piningforthefords:
the idea that meds/therapy can’t fix problems caused by situational/societal issues can coexist with the idea that meds and therapy can be very helpful for many people and shouldn’t be demonized or presented as useless for risk of scaring people away that might really benefit
#god yeah i am so sick of this new wave of pseudo woke doomerism #about how mental health treatment is pointless bc the world is such a mess #like yes there are many many problems in the world but that doesn’t mean getting help for your mental health won’t make you feel at least a #like any worldview that boils down to ‘the correct response to our current situation is abject despair’#is just not something i can get behind #so pls don’t peddle messages of hopelessness to people who are already inclined to believe them
Strong strong strong cosign @storybookprincess
the best takeaway is that proper medication and treatment can significantly improve the management of a person’s mental illness, and also that late stage capitalism’s way of blaming individual people for their society’s systemic problems is a big factor in why so damn many of us are depressed in the first place.
therefore, we should not only destigmatize taking medication to treat mental and physical illnesses, we should push back when we’re blamed for getting sick in an economic system that materially profits from our degradation.

Reblog if you are antifascist.

Thu, 26 Aug 2021 14:40:35 -0400

phoenixyfriend:phoenixyfriend:“Accidentally Asexual” should be an AO3 tag for when a character gets...

Thu, 26 Aug 2021 12:20:36 -0400

phoenixyfriend:

phoenixyfriend:
“Accidentally Asexual” should be an AO3 tag for when a character gets written as ace mostly because the author was ace and Forgot.
Like the character was intended to be allo but an ace author just. Forgot. That sexual attraction isn’t just a plot device.

#are we SURE sexual attraction ISNT just a plot device??? (via @tina-nina)
Libido ex Machina

Wed, 25 Aug 2021 21:40:31 -0400

biglawbear:

Studies showed that DARE literally increased drug use

Wed, 25 Aug 2021 19:20:50 -0400

roach-works:

justsomeguycore:
also while i’m ranting about gender i always see debate about whether girls are rewarded for being tomboys or not and it’s like. actually girls are rewarded for mirroring whatever the situation demands of them. girls can’t be too prissy and refuse to play in the creek, but girls also can’t show up to girly events covered in mud. girls can’t have makeup art as a hobby or else they’re superficial, but if they never wear makeup they’re a slob and dumpy, etc. it’s not that girls are universally rewarded or punished for being tomboys, they’re rewarded for bending over backwards to always be exactly right for any given situation and punished for breaking those boundaries. so yes a classically pretty girl who cleans up nice is rewarded when she can ALSO be a tomboy. but a girl who is a tomboy all the time is definitely punished for never being able to achieve that prerequisite feminine side. this debate is over now thanks
in conclusion, the way sexism works is that women are supposed to be accessories to men, so girls are specifically punished for doing their own thing until they learn to do whatever other people want them to without even having to be told.

Wed, 25 Aug 2021 17:00:46 -0400

capricorn-0mnikorn:

dsfjhd34jb2ibd-deactivated20210:
I think a lot of abled people get confused about ableism because they fail to recognize how diverse a category disability is. There are so many kinds of disabilities - intellectual, sensory, motor, chronic illness, neurodivergence, limb differences, to name a few - and people in these categories will have different needs.
Which is why you often end up with disability advocates saying seemingly “contradictory” things. One group may be advocating for more support while another wants increased independence. People with a terminal illness will fight for a cure and more research whereas some ND/sensory disabilities want to stop having their experience medicalized, and so on. The kinds of ableism that people experience will also vary for that reason.
And having one kind of disability doesn’t make you an expert on all of them! Which is why it’s important to have diverse disability rep within organizations and groups. I’ve encountered organizations in the past that claim to be accessible/disability friendly because they have one disabled person on their board, only to find them woefully unequipped to deal with my very different disabilities.
This disability pride month I really encourage abled “allies” to examine the ways they try to flatten disability into a monolith and to make an effort to listen to and uplift diverse disabled voices.
I also think a lot of normate* people get confused by the concept of ableism, because they think all ‘-isms’ must. be saying something false about another person’s traits or qualities.
But here’s the thing:
That’s not what ableism (or any other ‘-ism’) is about, at all.
Ableism is really about judging the value of a human life based on a set of physical or intellectual traits considered important by the culture.
Yes, it’s true that autistic people are socially awkward, and often have to stim in various ways, to help regulate their stress.
So what?! They’re still human, and they still deserve to exist in your world as they are.
Yes, it’s true that many people with C.P. can’t walk, or walk funny, or can’t speak easily.
So what?! They’re still human, and they still deserve to exist in your world, as they are.
Yes, it’s true that people with chronic pain and chronic fatigue need to conserve their energy, and can’t always do an activity at the drop of a hat.
So what?! They’re still human, and they still deserve to exist in your world as they are.
Etc. Ad infinitum.
_____
So instead of asking: “Did we put in a ramp?” Normate people who want to be inclusive toward the Disabled Community should ask: “Who are we excluding from this space? And how can we change that?”
*definition of “normate”: “the constructed identity of those who, by way of the bodily configurations and cultural capital they assume, can step into a position of authority and wield the power it grants them.” It’s a word coined by Rosemarie
Garland-Thomson, in 1997. At it is to “Disabled” what “Straight” is to LGBTQ

Wed, 25 Aug 2021 14:40:47 -0400

aqueerkettleofish:

prismatic-bell:
sindri42:
someoneintheshadow456:
lostsometime:
lonesparkthefriendlykraken:
antique-scarecrow:
antique-scarecrow:
I find it suspicious that you never see posts along the lines of “cishet people should stop using the word ‘queer’, that’s a word that only queer people get to use.” Not because I think that it’s necessarily true, but because that’s the normal way social conversations around reclaimed slurs & pejoratives evolve. You rarely hear people on tumblr saying “black people/hispanic people/asian people aren’t allowed to say [slur that has been used specifically against them].” Because most of us recognize that that’s nonsense, and that you don’t get to tell minorities which words they can and can’t reclaim.
But tumblr didn’t do that with the word 'queer’. It didn’t go the usual route of discussion around who can and can’t say what. Tumblr just jumped straight into trying to erase the word completely. And that is because the discourse around 'queer’ isn’t a conversation that evolved naturally within our community. It was purposefully (and successfully) created out of thin air from a sudden, relentless onset of terf propaganda. Terfs who hated having a trans-inclusive umbrella term for our community, who wanted nothing more than to disrupt unity. Well congratu-fucking-lations, it’s been disrupted.
2 years is all it took. 2 years of relentless comments and inbox messages from people pretending to be concerned strangers, friendly anons who wanted you to know 'you should maybe not use that word 🙂.’ 'a lot of people have trauma around it so maybe use a different word 🙂 a less inclusive word 🙂.’ 'queer isn’t an identity it’s a slur 🙂.’ and suddenly our most powerful trans-inclusive umbrella term is blacklisted.
2 years of this and suddenly you had half a generation of lgbtqa+ teens who had been told this over and over again, by friendly trustworthy strangers, to the point it passed the evidence threshold and just became a Belief. because young teens heard it so often from so many 'random’ people, and weren’t aware of where it was actually coming from. hint: the discourse around queer has ALWAYS been about disrupting unity
I only got here recently and I remember Queer Nation, so
as long as it’s Queer Studies, Queer Literature, and Queer Theory, you’re gonna have cishets using the word, and guess what? that’s what you want.
you want cishet people to be taking classes studying the works of important figures in queer history. you want people educating themselves on queerness. that’s the goal. and what’s more, you want people to stop thinking of the words used for queer people as “bad” or “dirty words” because that kind of thinking in itself perpetuates the idea that the people the words describe are also bad or dirty.
Or maybe we have a problem with the word because it literally means “degenerate” and LGBT people are still treated as freaks even to this day.
Queer has ONLY been reclaimed in progressive urban areas of the USA. Y’all are telling 95% of the world to cave to a very small very privileged percentage of the population meanwhile everyone else STILL used it as a slur. Academia isn’t reflective of the real world - it’s privileged people deciding for everyone else.
Let’s apply the same logic to “retard” or the n word. Let’s call African American studies N word studies. Let’s call psychology retard studies. And let’s tell black people and ND people who are uncomfortable with this that they’re all racists and ableist who want to put people in boxes.
If you’re offended by that but not this it’s clear you have some double standard.
“Queer” does not in any way mean “degenerate”. It means Peculiar. Non-standard. Unusual. It can be accurately used to refer to anything which is not part of the majority in-group.
And yes, that’s frequently used as an insult by members of the majority in-group, because they can’t think of anything worse to be than ‘different’. But the fact that something has been used as an insult is absolutely not a valid reason to stop using it. If you allow the stupid bullies to just take words away from you whenever they want, pretty soon you don’t have any language left.
That would be like saying ‘oh, some nazis thought that symbols from norse mythology looked cool, that means all norse myth is owned by nazis now and anybody who isn’t a nazi isn’t allowed to read those stories anymore’. Fuck that! It’s not theirs to take, and you should be fighting them if they try! If somebody was traumatized by somebody wearing the hammer or whatever you should respect that by not casually displaying it around them, but you shouldn’t give the assholes power over everything you say and do and think.
If you give up this ground, then the homophobes file the hurting word away away with their other weapons and then just pick something else to take away from you, and keep chipping away until there’s nothing left, because you gave them that power. If you refuse to surrender, if you make the word mean something better than the way they’re trying to use it, you make it unable to be used to hurt anybody ever again.
Queer has been reclaimed a hell of a lot more places than that, and I think you know it.
Of course she knows it. She probably doesn’t know that the word “gay” did not come into usage for people with same-sex attraction by way of the word meaning “happy”, but rather by way of the related homonym that meant… basically…degenerate.
Also, the “Progressive Urban” myth really has to die.
I grew up in fucking Alabama in the 1980s.
I lived in Florida in the 1990s.
And while Virginia is rapidly turning blue, I live in a red county so far out that I list the county as the city on my mail. The nearest stoplight is a 30-minute drive, the nearest McDonald’s is 45 minutes. In a two mile radius of my house there are eight farms, including cows, chickens, pigs, horses, wheat, and corn.
We have queer people here.
We had queer people in Alabama in the 1980s.
We had queer people in Florida in the 1990s.
We have queer people in Texas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Idaho, Georgia, Arizona, New Mexico, etc.
Also, in all of the places above, you will find progressives. The entire notion of a “red state” exists to create the idea that there are whole parts of the country where Conservative Values reign supreme, but the reason all these Red Strongholds are enacting these voter suppression laws is simple… all of these places are having a problem with an increasing shift away from conservative values.

ssv-normandy:when people casually mention something you’re completely obsessed with and it takes...

Wed, 25 Aug 2021 12:22:14 -0400

ssv-normandy:

when people casually mention something you’re completely obsessed with and it takes every fuckin ounce of your self control not to propel yourself into the stars and scream for the rest of eternity about how much you love the thing

Tue, 24 Aug 2021 21:40:43 -0400

melsanfo:

godh8er:
WATCH THIS VIDEO
a very, VERY important post. spread everywhere and screen record the video to your phone. or message me and ill happily send you the video. give to every woman and girl you know.
bc as they both said / demonstrated, its not only super easy to do, but super easy to miss.
Reblog to save a life.

Ban Mansions

Tue, 24 Aug 2021 19:20:44 -0400

Ban Mansions:

probablyasocialecologist:

A 2020 study found that Americans living in lavish houses in rich neighborhoods are responsible for 25% more greenhouse gas pollution on average than those living in more modest homes in poorer areas, mostly because heating, cooling, and powering more space requires using more energy.
Another 2019 report found that building super homes—defined as those larger than 25,000 square feet (2,323 square meters)—requires chopping down 380 trees, while the average U.S. home takes just 20. Left untouched, those extra trees could all be sequestering greenhouse gases. All the extra concrete and glass—both carbon-intensive materials to produce—further increase mansions’ wasteful footprint.
Then there’s the land or buildings razed. Wagner noted that “sometimes entire little woods are torn down to build these subdivisions full of mansions, like neighborhoods of McMansions, and so you’re losing trees which are part of the carbon cycle and you’re losing space for wildlife.” If it’s not woodlands, it’s often other buildings being torn down. That essentially wastes the energy that it took to construct the original building—a concept called embodied carbon.
Mansions all look different. Drake’s 50,000-square-foot (4,645-square-meter) Toronto manor includes an NBA-sized indoor basketball court, while Jeff Bezos decked out his $165 million, 13,000-square-foot (1,208-square-meter) estate with seven fern gardens. One of the newly divorced Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s mansions, worth $60 million, employs (ironically) minimalist design elements, like a massive stone bathtub that they could fit their entire family into. But the common thread is that all these monstrosities take a ton of resources.
That means rich people’s mansions are gobbling up our dwindling carbon budget.

sixth-light:“I don’t think that every villain in the world actually thinks they’re being a good guy,...

Tue, 24 Aug 2021 17:01:05 -0400

sixth-light:

“I don’t think that every villain in the world actually thinks they’re being a good guy, but I do think that everybody creates a value system that justifies the actions they’re taking, and and I think there’s a difference between those two things. Not everybody believes that they’re on the side of righteousness, but everybody has a way of justifying the actions they’re taking. Not every villain has to be a misunderstood hero, and in fact I think there are a lot of instances throughout history of people who were obviously doing the wrong thing and probably had an understanding of that on some level, but had some rationale or justification for it. A lot of villains in literature and media have these weird, Thanos-esque philosophies of what it is that they’re trying to do, and I think human motivation tends to come from more primal places than that. So a lot of the villains I write can be brilliant or clever (and, in fact, probably should be), but their motivation tends to be primal. They wanna be rich, they wanna have power, they wanna live forever. There’s something deep down that is, when you break it down, not too complex. Right? If you look at the real world, the people that are doing bad stuff don’t need complex motivations. They wanna rule the world! They wanna be rich! They wanna be unafraid that other people can ever screw them over, so they screw other people over. Evil is boring. Right? I kinda believe in the banality and mundanes of evil. Evil is just selfish impulses, which at the end of the day are really easy to understand. It’s easy to understand why people do bad things. It’s like “yeah, ok, you’re selfish and scared and cruel, I get it”. Being good is complex and beautiful and hard.”

—
Brennan Lee Mulligan, when asked how to create villains for ttrpgs
(I found this quote to be really meaningful in like…life in general which is why I posted it here. When he said “evil is boring”, it felt like something clicked in me that I had known deep down but hadn’t had the words for.) (via @earthmoonlotus)

cithaerons:cithaerons:cithaerons:A Google doc with resources for Afghanistan GoFundMe Emergency...

Tue, 24 Aug 2021 14:40:49 -0400

cithaerons:

cithaerons:
cithaerons:
A Google doc with resources for Afghanistan

GoFundMe Emergency Funds for Afghan Artists
Afghan Child Education And Care Organization (AFCECO) (orphanage)
Visions for Children e.V. (assisting Afghanistan and other countries lacking educational infrastructure)

Form for U.S.-based attorneys willing to help Afghans with their SIV, P-2, and humanitarian parole cases (via Afghan Diaspora for Equality & Progress)

Tue, 24 Aug 2021 12:21:09 -0400

queer-google-searches:

My very unpopular opinion apparently:
Straight cis perisex able-bodied neurotypical people using aids designed for disabled people (I.e weighted blankets, grabby claw, sock holder, etc), going to therapists occasionally to keep up their mental health, using fidget toys, choosing to call their bf/gf their partner, using pronouns besides the ones associated with their gender just because they like it, and doing a million other small things that make us fitting in and being accepted a little bit easier is in fact exactly the type of support these communities need, and will ultimately help us so much more than gatekeeping ever fuckin will

hopepunk-humanity:cowboyhats:whats-your-name-man: champagne-stark: champagne-stark: prsephonies: ...

Mon, 23 Aug 2021 21:40:49 -0400

hopepunk-humanity:

cowboyhats:
whats-your-name-man:

champagne-stark:

champagne-stark:

prsephonies:

when i was a teenager it felt very revolutionary to be cruel to myself. like some kind of slow passive protest against how much everything hurt. i starved myself of sleep and food and tenderness because it felt right. it felt sharp and angry and radical and i wanted to be those things. adulthood is the realisation that the world is already working to cut into you well before you learn how to do it yourself. caring for yourself and others is the real protest

Michelle K, I Know I Deserve More

This is the idea that puts the ‘punk’ in hopepunk

Mon, 23 Aug 2021 19:20:27 -0400

aniseandspearmint:

what-even-is-thiss:
goblinenbybitch:
what-even-is-thiss:
what-even-is-thiss:
Me: So because of my income I qualify to use this local food pantry and…
Dad: Yeah, game the system!
Me in my head: Why do you say “Game the system” every time someone in our family needs help from a charity or the government? Are you afraid to admit that maybe we aren’t completely self reliant even though your personal politics dictate that the system should work for its citizens and we are citizens lucky enough to be born into the system? Does it baffle you that I have no strong feelings about accepting help affording food? What did the 1980s drill into you? Why did you never accept help, or so you claim? Was it just not there? How many nights did you live off of potatoes and salt because nobody would help you? Would you have even accepted the help? Why do you insist upon seeing accepting aid as a sort of con?
A lot of people I know, even if they’re progressive, still see accepting aid as a shameful thing, even if they think that other people should do it, so I’m gonna stop that cycle. *ahem*

Hey everyone! I’m going to a food pantry next week so I can eat some bread before I start getting my paycheck and I’m feeling generally neutral about it!
I’ve been looking into affordable housing / low income housing, and I thought I’d feel a lot more self conscious about it, but it isn’t bad? And idk, I guess growing up I always imagined that low income apartments were gonna be in disrepair and dangerous - and then I found out there’s one literally 10 minutes from my house.
It’s fucking W I L D how anti-poor propaganda, no matter how subtle, can impact you. Even if you think you’re a progressive / leftist, you need to check your unconscious biases from time to time.
I knew someone that felt guilty for accepting the child tax credit and I asked them “Well did it help you and your child?” and they were like “Oh, definitely.” and it’s like well what’s the issue, then? You yourself believe in universal basic income. Why are you avoiding what is basically a trial run of that? If you preach about communities helping each other and governments working for their people then you need to be willing to accept that help. It’s for you! You don’t need to be literally be a starving skeleton before you accept help.
There is SO much anti-seeking help shit INGRAINED into the average American.
It’s considered ‘American’ ~~*cough*Christian*cough*~~ to be the one helping someone, but a failing and ‘Unamerican’ to seek help. It’s also tied into that whole, ‘Americans think if themselves not as poor, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires’ thing (which is in and of itself a facet of the whole pull yourselves up by the bootstraps bullshit)
Its SUCH bullshit, but the depth of it in the average American’s unconscious thought process is undeniable.
It’s hard to break out of it, but remind yourself, you deserve help if you need it, for whatever reason. There is no arbitrary level of suffering before you can reach out and seek it.
You need food. GO TO A FOOD BANK
You need clothes? FIND A CHARITY THAT PROVIDES.
You need housing? To go on disability? Gonna be real here it’s hard, and they system is set up to waste time and make you want to quit in despair, but start the process if you need it. Keep at it. Don’t let the system win.

thebibliosphere:Okay, I’m getting a lot of questions about stress losing its effectiveness as an...

Mon, 23 Aug 2021 17:00:39 -0400

thebibliosphere:

Okay, I’m getting a lot of questions about stress losing its effectiveness as an ADHD coping skill and now how that can happen, so I’m going to paraphrase how my therapist explained it to me.

Stress as stimulus is a rubber band.

It’s stretchy and can be expanded to hold multiple things together (deadlines, self-care, social obligations). But the thing about rubber bands is they only work for so long before they lose their elasticity, and suddenly you’re having to pull them tighter and tighter to get the same staying power.

Suddenly, a rubber band that had no issue holding a 12 pack of “pens” together for years will need to be double wrapped around itself to hold those same things in place. And sure, it still works. A couple of “pens” might fall out from time to time, but you can just put them back and wind things tighter, right?

Except you cannot use a rubber band indefinitely.

No matter how tightly you wind it, the elastic will eventually be too stretched out to be useful and things will fall apart. It may even become brittle and snap, which is the worst-case scenario. Yet, many of us will still try to use the broken rubber band, all the while growing more and more frustrated that the thing that worked so well for so long is no longer serving its intended purpose. We might tie it together, creating functional knots in the elastic so that we can keep using it. But ultimately it’s a short-term fix and it will snap again soon. And it will keep snapping at more regular intervals until all you have left is broken pieces of elastic and what feels like your entire life scattered at your feet.

Because a rubber band is not intended as a permanent solution to something. It is an effective yet temporary measure designed to hold things in place until something better comes along.

And stress is the rubber band of the brain.

It is an important survival tool that keeps us alive, aware of our surroundings and, in small, healthy doses, productive. Good stress exists. It releases important chemicals your brains need to function, like dopamine and adrenaline, which are things ADHD brains are extremely deficient in, and struggle to regulate in the same way neurotypical brains self-regulate.

But where it becomes a problem is when you become reliant on it, and your brain and body stop having healthy stress responses. By utilizing stress constantly as a form of stimuli, you are effectively wearing out the rubber band that holds things together, and when it snaps, you’re left with a brain and body that’s been so fried by corsitol* you are left feeling burned out, tired, sickly and possibly even deeply depressed. And the more you do this, the harder it gets to bounce back from.

Which can happen to neurotypical people too! Prolonged stress is not healthy for anyone! It just so happens that stress is an unfortunately useful form of stimuli, right up until it’s not.

Using the rubber band of stress is easy. Learning not to use it is hard. But recovering from overusing it is even more so.

So what’s the solution? Unfortunately, there’s no simple answer. Therapy can help. Medication can help. Building better support structures and social groups can help. Changing your environment to be more accessible can help. Ultimately, you need to find things that work for you and do your best to make sure they are realistically attainable and also healthy. Which is no easy feat. It will be hard, but it is worth it. And I have to believe that because I’m a year into intensive therapy with what feels like minimal progress to show.

But as my therapist keeps reminding me. Progress is progress. Whether you move an inch or a mountain, you’re still moving, and that’s what counts.

Keep reading

Mon, 23 Aug 2021 14:40:38 -0400

kaijutegu:

STUFF NOBODY EVER TOLD YOU ABOUT TEETH (and how to take care of them if you are poor and/or depressed)
Contrary to what the US health industry would have you believe, your teeth are NOT luxury face bones. You need them. Healthy teeth are a cornerstone of good health in general for a lot of reasons. You can’t eat well without them. You need them to speak. And tooth bias is real.
This makes me very sad because I love teeth. I am not a dentist. I’m a biological anthropologist whose expertise is oral disease and the evolutionary anatomy of teeth. My dad’s an oral surgeon and I worked in his office from the tender and illegal age of 8 to the ripe old age of 18, which is when I went to college. At 12, I was assisting with the disposal of biowaste, aka packaging up the teeth to send them to dental schools. I live, breathe, sleep, and occasionally eat teeth. I found a human incisor on my floor this morning and wasn’t even surprised. I study how teeth go bad partly so that I can help living people protect the teeth they’ve got. It’s my goal with this post to teach you about a couple of different types of procedures and oral injuries, as well as what you can do to help keep your teeth functional. So in this post, what I am going to do is outline a few common things that can go wrong with your teeth, how they happen, and how to catch them before they get bad. A lot of the advice in this post is for people who maybe can’t get to the dentist for a cleaning and checkup every six months. This post is also gonna be LONG AS HELL and there is going to be a separate post called “luxury face bone hacks for the busy/broke/b’mentally ill” or something like that, so like. If you don’t like super long posts, just hit this one with a like and actually read through that one.
First, let’s talk about dental anatomy.
What Are Teeth?
Teeth are extremely cool. They’re these amazing little packages of dentin pulp, protected by enamel, nestled into the jaw like truffles in a box of chocolates, held in place with a teeny tiny ligament. They’re gorgeous– enamel is a beautiful substance, translucent and opalescent. Teeth are also extremely weird when you think about them. You have these weird not-bone things emerging from holes in your jawbones. They’re snapped into place with a biological bunjy cord and you can actually SPRAIN THEM if you put too much pressure on them.
Here are some important things to know about teeth!
First, the nerves in your teeth were never meant to be exposed to the air. They only process stimulus one way: pain. This means that when you get a cavity or do anything else that exposes the nerve, it is going to hurt like a bitch.
Your teeth may come loose! Usually they stay put and go back to normal in a day or two. Don’t panic. This is usually the result of you spraining your dental ligament that holds the tooth in place.
Root canals suck but they can prevent dental abscesses. Dental abscesses can kill you. If they spread and get into your sinuses, they can cross the blood/brain barrier and you will die. This doesn’t happen much any more, but in rare cases… it can.
The phrase “like pulling teeth” is a misnomer. Pulling teeth is extremely easy if you know what you’re doing. Extractions are usually a very simple procedure. What’s complicated is things like root canals and setting up implants, which, in the case of implants is the literal opposite of pulling teeth.
Pregnancy will fuck up your teeth because a.) the fetus is leaching your vital essence and other nutrients and b.) your hormones are telling a lot of ligaments in your body to loosen up to get ready to give birth. Sometimes wires get crossed and other ligaments at non-mobile joints get the loosen up message, too. Just be sure to keep up your dental hygiene regimen during pregnancy and you’ll be fine.
Your gum tissue isn’t just weird wet skin. It’s a mucous membrane that protects the mouth. It can get diseased and inflamed, so pay attention to it! Also, there’s a lot of blood vessels so if you poke yourself with something, you’ll bleed like a stuck pig for a minute. The kind of bleeding you should be worried about is prolonged bleeding, where you see blood welling up around your teeth for no apparent reason.
Now that you’ve been equipped with some fun facts, lets talk about diseases and procedures.
Braces: if you’re reading this, you probably don’t need them
First: Pediatric orthodontia is largely a scam. People who put standard braces on their child before that child has lost all of their baby teeth are stupid and causing their child needless pain because those teeth are going to fall out anyways and the alignment of the adult teeth was decided long, long ago. The kids who NEED orthodontic intervention are kids with bad crossbites/underbites/overbites. This requires specialized headgear most of the time and is more intense than the standard braces because they are made to solve a much bigger problem. The standard bracket-and-wire braces? Don’t put those on a child. They won’t help. Also, your kid doesn’t have their third molars yet, and those are the molars most likely to come in twisted anyways.
As an adult, you may want braces for cosmetic reasons or for comfort reasons. This is a CHOICE that is YOURS TO MAKE. If your dentist suggests you need braces, ask why. You don’t have to get them. Now,If you have certain kinds of dental overlap- like, your lateral incisors have been pushed behind your frontals- then yeah, you should get braces. But is it the end of the world if you don’t get braces? No.
Wisdom tooth removal: you might not need it
The human jaw is in a state of evolutionary mismatch right now. Basically, our last molar, the third molar, doesn’t come in until we’re an adult. Unfortunately, thanks to ten thousand years of agriculture, give or take a few millennia, we have much more gracile jaws than our ancestors. There’s not always enough room for it. Now, this isn’t true for everyone, because no two skulls are identical and all, but sometimes there is a condition where you really should get those suckers out. If they are impacted, or coming in sideways, they can push your other teeth out of alignment and cause jaw issues down the line. If they come up straight, don’t worry about it.
Cavities: you need to get these taken care of
Cavities are a pain in the ass and are honestly the main reason you should go to the dentist for checkups, so that they can take the x-ray of your mouth and see how any potential trouble zones are progressing. You should call a dentist and seek help if you notice pain that persists over three days, as that’s an indicator of something more serious than just a sprain.
Tooth Grinding: this is a problem
If you grind your teeth, your dentist may recommend a night guard. Actually listen to them about this. Grinding your teeth can cause major jaw alignment problems that are a pain to fix, so just bite the silicone and suck it up. Also maybe talk to a therapist if you can, because grinding can be a result of stress/anxiety.
Whitening your teeth: bad idea
First off, your teeth ain’t supposed to be white. Enamel is not white. Enamel is translucent and pearlescent, so its actual color is very hard to pin down. Your teeth are naturally going to look more ivory-colored over time. That’s just part of being human and having teeth. Embrace it. You are a badass omnivore with thirty-two gorgeous enamel teeth. They weren’t put in your mouth to look pretty, they were put in your mouth to feed you.
Second: Whitening your teeth weakens your enamel. Once your enamel’s gone, it ain’t coming back, baby. There are some gentler whitening methods, like whitening toothpaste, but these are only going to give you about one to two shades worth of improvement. If you have extremely stained teeth and you want to whiten them, make sure you talk to your dentist about all the risks. Unfortunately, there is no truly safe and effective home-style (read: not a million gotdang dollars) remedy for whitening teeth.
There are a few that are kicking around, but seriously, some of them are dangerous. Do NOT rub wood ash on your teeth. That’s lye. Don’t put that in your mouth. Do NOT use actual bleach, hair dye developer, or non-dental peroxide gel. They are poisonous. DO NOT PUT ACETONE ON YOUR TEETH i have seen this exactly once and the person came into my dad’s office with chemical burns on their gums and lips. I do NOT want to see this again.
It is a misconception that brushing your teeth keeps them looking white. Brushing your teeth removes plaque and biofilm, but those buildups don’t actually stain the enamel itself. Instead, really the only way to keep your teeth looking light is to pay attention to what you’re putting in your mouth. If you’re a tobacco user, vape! Tar is a major staining agent. Coffee’s also a major stainer, and the big trick there is to put a little milk in it. See, enamel staining doesn’t come from the color of the food. It comes from chemical properties. Acidic foods stain because acid damages enamel. Food with high levels of tannins, like coffee or tea, stain because the tannins change the PH of the mouth. So what you should do to avoid staining is balance your mouth PH by eating something basic after eating something acidic. Add a lil milk to your coffee or tea to weaken its acidity just a bit. Swish with water afterwards to help clear the acid. Don’t eat lemons or any other acidic food after drinking coffee. Why would you want to eat lemons after drinking coffee, anyways? Seems like a weird flavor combo to me.
And while we’re on the subject…
MOUTH CHEMISTRY
What’s in your mouth? Your teeth, your gums, your tongue, your spit… yeah, your spit. Saliva’s important. It’s probably THE most important thing in protecting your teeth because salivary production constantly washes the teeth, clearing off as much bad bacteria as possible. If you have an issue with saliva production, you should drink as much water as you can throughout the day, and get a bottle of dry mouth tabs for nighttime. Or daytime, if they don’t bother you. This is really important because dry mouth is a major side effect for a lot of drugs, like anti-depressants. This is actually a huge part of my research- the population I study used a natural painkiller, but in the end its use caused them more pain because the way it works, it decreases the efficacy of the salivary glands. They stop making sufficient saliva, the teeth dry out, the mouth PH changes, and the bacteria that destroy enamel go buckwild. If you can’t make your own spit, store bought is fine. Water for the day, tabs for the night.
Now, you might think that ok, acid isn’t great, let’s eat more basic foods to balance that out. You can, but it… isn’t great. Your saliva is naturally acidic for a reason, and if you neutralize it completely, that ALSO messes with your teeth. You should be drinking plain water as much as possible.
Seltzer and Soda
Some people think seltzer may hurt your teeth, but it really won’t… unless it’s citrus-flavored. Reason: citrus seltzer uses citric acid as a flavoring agent, and that messes with your teeth. So if you want to drink citrus seltzer, drink it with a meal or with food. Don’t sip it slow over the day.
Soda, on the other hand is a goddamn nightmare. The acid’s kind of a problem but the sugar… dear god the sugar. So. your teeth are covered in a bacterial biofilm. Some of these bacteria excrete acid, and that’s what gives you cavities. This is another part of my research- looking at how cavity prevalence changes as sweetening agents and sugar availability changes. As different carbohydrates enter the diet, populations’ disease responses change. I know more about this than probably anybody else in the world, and here is what I know: the best thing you can do for your teeth is stop drinking American soda.
It’s the corn, you guys. The chemical compounds in corn make the cavity-causing bacteria kick into overdrive. Sodas sweetened with high fructose corn syrup create the perfect environment for these dudes to excrete out a storm. Sugary beverages in general promote cavities, but NOTHING does it like sodas sweetened with high fructose corn syrup or any other corn byproduct. Try to limit your soda and juice consumption and if you can, make sure that when you do have them, you’re getting some food,too.
Other Acids
Ok this next part is going to deal with eating disorders. I’m going to be talking about some of the side effects of bulimia, what they can do to your teeth, and how you can take care of them. Eating disorders are serious business and I hope if you need this section you are in supportive recovery and have the love and support and resources you need. If you don’t want to read about what this can do to your teeth, scroll real quick until you seen the big green text.
If your teeth are in frequent contact with stomach acid, acid etching can be a real problem. Your enamel is tough but stomach acid is gnarly, and your gums don’t have that same protection. If you find yourself vomiting frequently, for whatever reason, try to swish water around in your mouth afterwards to help clean it out. I know that’s not the thing that’s likely on your mind after that, but a lot of what we’re doing here is damage control. I’m not here to judge you in the slightest. I’m just here to help you with your teeth.
Do not brush your teeth immediately after vomiting. The enamel is weaker, and you can cause even more damage by brushing too hard. Wait for at least an hour until after you’ve rinsed your mouth to avoid spreading the acid around.
You can also add some (1-2 tsp) baking soda to the water you rinse with, if you feel ok with doing that. It will taste gross and salty but it will help neutralize the acid. You just rinse with this, you don’t swallow.
ok that part is over
TOOTH HACKS
This is the funnest part, I get to tell you good ways to take care of your teeth that require very few spoons and very little money!
Brush ‘em twice a day. Once when you get up to clear out whatever happened the night before, and once before you fall asleep. You can brush more but you don’t have to. Use a soft-bristled brush and whatever toothpaste you like. If you hate mint, kid toothpaste that tastes like bubblegum or berries is totally fine!
Don’t want to get out of bed? totally fine. Use a finger toothbrush! these are designed for babies which is actually great because they are SUPER soft. If you have sensitive gums, these are going to be really helpful.
Don’t have access to a finger toothbrush? honest to god you can just dip your finger in water (though a mix of water and baking soda or water and salt is better) and brush your teeth with just your finger. The point of this isn’t to freshen your breath or anything, it’s just to get the biofilm off of your teeth and protect them.
Floss. This gets the biofilm out from between your teeth and promotes good gum health. Don’t just run it between the teeth- you need to floss below the gumline a little bit to help clean out plaque.
If you don’t have the spoons to do your whole mouth, floss between your molars if you can.
There’s lots of products that are great for people who can’t go through the whole flossing routine. Pre-threaded flossers are ideal because they’re designed for minimal effort and maximum gain. These are also killer for people with physical disabilities that affect hand dexterity.
If flossing hurts because you have sensitive gums, a water flosser can really help. This is more expensive but will last a very long time.
You can also get topical numbing gel that you can smear on your gums when flossing. Just be careful that you’re not flossing too hard because you can’t feel it. This brand is kind of expensive but it has a nice minty flavor. If you have a dollar and a way to get there, I saw Orajel at Dollar Tree yesterday… when I was buying a bunch of those pre-threaded flossers to throw in my car. I oughta do a Dollar Tree field trip to show you like, what products are available at the absolute cheapest in the US. Dollar Tree has a LOT of good dental options.
There’s a tiktok that says you can use a strand of hair to floss. This is a bad idea. A single strand of hair is likely to break and can cut into your gums. If you want to use hair as floss, you need to use a couple of strands twisted together. Go slow and gentle if you’re using hair. Obviously actual floss is better but this isn’t “perfect dental tips for perfect people,” this is “life sucks but your teeth don’t gotta.”
If you can’t floss or can’t brush, gargle. Put two tsp of baking soda in a glass of warm water. Swish it around, spit it out. If you can do that, you’ve helped clear out biofilm and bacterial waste.
Prioritize your teeth. You only get two sets and you lose the first one by the time you’re twelve. If you can only do one hygiene thing today, make it be your teeth.
Eat some pineapple. Bromelain, which is only found in pineapple, is super good at protecting enamel.
That’s… all I got for you now. Take care of your teeth!