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britneyshakespeare · 4 hours

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i have been working with kids for four years and i had to write my first ever note just now about a seventh grade boy being inappropriate towards me. i don't know what the hell this could possibly lead to or what. he was trying to feel my legs repeatedly to the point where i had to stop sitting next to him (and i was subbing for his one-to-one para!!!). he's got high support needs. in that kind of job, you're supposed to sit next to them all day and look over their work.

the teacher whose classroom this was happening in could also tell something was wrong. the whole class was acting kinda crazy because it was the day before school vacation week and there was another class coming in to share projects. so like, he was swamped with keeping order already. but we were sitting two feet away from his podium at the front of the room. the kid was giving him and me a hard time when he wouldn't take out his chromebook as he was instructed. and then when he did take out his chromebook, he immediately, for some reason, places it on my lap. he had been ogling my legs the whole time. he puts his computer ON MY LAP. and i'm just like, stunned, because what the hell? can you not keep it on your own lap, for some reason? i don't even know what to say, i just hold it a little above my lap while i'm thinking why on earth would this be happening? he would NOT do this to his regular para if she were here, would he? this can't be normal.

and the teacher sees this and within a minute places a stool in front of the kid for him to put his laptop on. and i'm like. oh ok. yeah. he notices exactly what's happening and that that's not appropriate. and then when the other class comes in to share projects he tells me "miss b——, you don't actually have to sit next to c—— this whole period if you don't want to." and he grabs me a chair for me to go sit with the other paras in the back opposite corner of the room. like he KNEW. and thank you mr. d—— for recognizing that because i was just kind of shocked and didn't know if i was overreacting in my head to all of this.

when there's a point in the class where the kids are discussing stuff, i privately mention what's happened to the para who's sitting closest to me. and she says that the thing about him calling me pretty is something he's been known to do, but the fact that he kept trying to touch my legs is new behavior. and that's a completely different class of behavior. i was telling him NO, don't do that, and he kept doing it. and the fact that he was calling me pretty repeatedly, even when i was giving him instructions that he wasn't taking. and this is the second to last class before the end of the day, so she says she'll take a walk with him before learning center and talk to him about it, and i'm grateful for that. she does. the kid apologizes to me as soon as i come into learning center. but like. WHAT the hell.

i'm STILL like what the hell. this is unfathomable to me. the other adults who i told about this or who witnessed it were supportive of me. but. what to do??? i wrote a long note to his regular para about this, because i knew she was going to hear about it at least from the first para i told. the second para i told about it after school had a kind of... i'm not gonna say enabling reaction, but i suppose since it had already been "taken care of" (or at least, he had been spoken to and apologized) she didn't really have much to add in the way of discipline. i told her what happened after school and she was just like... a little bit, laughing? like oh, yup, that dog. she at the very least confirmed he KNEW what he was doing, that that was not an accident. she said to me "i had a feeling he was going to develop a crush on you" (me and these other paras were together for most of the beginning of the day too). but it's like. it's not about that.

i have worked with children for FOUR years. children have had crushes on me before; i'm quite unfazed by it. boys from the ages of 5-to-15 have told me i'm so pretty before and asked me to marry them. i've never had them feeling up my legs before. i've never had them making me physically uncomfortable. it's NOT about this seventh grader having a crush on the pretty substitute. he is NOT unusual for that, at all. but i've never had a boy of any age or education level repeatedly touching my knees and thighs. THAT is problem behavior!!!

because what if i wasn't assertive enough with him to tell him to stop? what if i was a girl his age? worse, what if i was an adult who encouraged this behavior? i don't come to the middle school to be a seductress. i had no intention in putting on a pair of tights and a skirt this morning of being viewed as an attractive object, especially not by a pubescent boy. what if i did though? what if his interpretation of me wasn't so incorrect and offensive? what if i let him keep touching me inappropriately and saying flirtatious things to me? me, an adult in my mid-twenties, towards a middle school boy?

in no world would that be ok. if i had been feeling up and overly-complimenting a CHILD at my place of work, holy shit would there be reports about me. so a child acting that way could never be ok either. if it'd be firable for me to be reciprocating that action, then that action should not be happening to me. ever. and that child should never repeat that action again to any other adult again.

like i am simply not there to be treated as an attractive young woman. i put on a skirt that shows too much knee and get paired with a boy, though, and that's apparently just a natural consequence. hooo-ly shit. like i don't know what to do. first of all, the more time passes since this has happened, the more i am just unable to stop thinking about it. i wasn't "hurt" or too emotional in the moment but i'm just still processing it and it gets worse. i'm just more and more disgusted.

i don't know what i expect to come out of this, or the email i sent to his regular para. like, am i gonna have to attend a fucking meeting? what is the precedent that this sets for him? WHY do i feel BAD for him about this? well, because he's a child, of course. a child who has done wrong he may not be able to understand. but he knows WHAT he did. he just doesn't know WHY it was wrong.

and i couldn't even say something to him that was like, "well, how would you like it if i was touching you like this?" because young boys do not understand how inappropriate it'd be. i'm sure this kid thought he was gonna get away with what he was doing at the very least. but probably not unlikely he (being a child with no concept of how wrong it'd be) thought he could get some sort of "positive" attention for treating me like this. either way he was simply doing what he wanted to do, with no perspective of how it would make me feel or that it could be classified as harassment. teenage boys think it'd be awesome if the older attractive woman would reciprocate their affections. they're wrong. i, as the older attractive woman of his affection, cannot be the one to convince him of that, though.

i don't know. i don't know. like it's just so not ok. but if i didn't tell another adult about this, he would've gotten away with it. he would probably do it again. and him being in trouble for it is not the same as him understanding that it was wrong. unless someone has a REAL talk with him about inappropriate attention and consent, it's not unlikely that he'll just repeat the behavior in a setting where he thinks he won't be caught or told on. THAT'S the problem. me, i could just never have to be this boy's para again. in my email, i didn't say that i would never be ok working with or around him ever again. he already knows i didn't like it and i'm not afraid to tell on him; as far as that lesson applies to me, individually, i think he's become too ashamed to repeat that.

i don't know. i don't know. i very much expressed that i, i guess, "forgave" him in the email that i wrote. i clarified that i was writing it for the sake of having it on the record. i think that could potentially be very important for the purposes of preventing further similar or escalating behavior from him in the future. i don't want him to be in trouble. i don't think i will be blamed for this, especially not with how promptly i acted, although i don't know to what extent this will be framed as me thinking i'm a "victim." i'm not... i don't feel victimized. i feel disgusted. i feel afraid for the sake of what could happen to or with him in the future, if he thinks behavior like his towards me today is ok.

i feel like if i end up having to further respond to this, this will be made about me. in a way it kind of was. is? in the moment it was happening, it was certainly about me. because i was the one this boy was giving all this unwanted attention to. but to make the consequences of this about me and to involve me any further, i also don't want. because i said what i said already, i don't care if a student has a crush on me. this isn't about me being the pretty substitute. i'm the pretty substitute all the time, to tons of people. that's not really something i've been concerned about up until now.

but do i have to reexplain my personal embarrassment? that i was wearing a skirt? that he was ogling my legs? really? what more do i have to gain from sharing that, other than having the adults at my place of work confirm or deny me in their heads as the pretty substitute? i don't know. perhaps that's REALLY overthinking it. but i don't want to be the substitute that caused a problem for this special ed kid. i don't wanna be the reason that he can't be around me anymore, the person people think of when they're monitoring how he's acting around girls and young women. i DON'T want to be the one people think of when they think of his past misbehavior. i'm NOT here for that.

that's just fucking humiliating. and in this being a thing that could follow him, i have to be ogled and touched over and over again in people's minds for this to be taken seriously. but for this to be swept under the rug would be even worse, no? i don't know. i hate this. the principal is a nice guy; i wouldn't be surprised if he and/or people from the special ed department reached out to me sympathetically about this. but i don't wanna be reached out to. i don't wanna have ppl i work with tell me "sorry that kid was just so attracted to you he couldn't help himself" like come on. if the kid himself doesn't change then i don't really care to remember this incident. and no one reaching out to me and saying they've talked to this kid will actually prove to me he understands. this is the kind of inappropriate behavior it takes years for people to understand why it was wrong, especially a child who has no idea. i mean come on.

#tales from diana #long post #sorry i should probably put this under a read more but it was just a long stream of consciousness #and idk. im tired. im so tired #do you wanna be known as the substitute teacher a kid kept touching inappropriately? probably not #thank god for the first para i told bc she took it really seriously seemingly. i mean idk what she told him in their conversation #not EXACTLY what she told him. she obviously said this was wrong and she reiterated in learning center again #that if that were her daughter she'd be through the roof and that she'd be telling his regular para #i mean of course i had to tell the regular para directly. i would rather it come from my mouth #i'm the one who has the most information of how and why it happened. i think other ppl telling it would just reduce it to #'he thought she was so pretty and he kept staring at and touching her legs cuz she wore a skirt' like come on #the indignity of that!#i already feel undignified enough.#and also thank god for the social studies teacher. the more im processing this the more im like thank god #i dont know him well. he had already been a nice dude to me before in my interactions w him #like as a sub you notice the people who are really affirming of the strange and irregular work you do #earlier this week i was subbing for the math teacher across the hall for instance and he came in before class started and said #that if anyone's giving me a hard time to just send them to him. bc that group can be a little rowdy/wild #my classroom discipline skills are not that bad where i felt the need to have someone more experienced defend me so to speak #like i know i look young and am assumed to be new. but with most classes. i can handle most misbehavior #i can put my foot down in a way kids normally respect. i know how to keep em on task #and for MOST of the day with this kid that's what i was doing. but if that social studies teacher hadn't done what he did #i might not feel so bold in just straight up walking away from that kid. after saying stop stop stop repeatedly #like he had his own job to do independent of me but i remember the gestures and like. i could cry. he KNEWWWW #that's just a very trustworthy person i feel. he didn't want me to suffer through that any longer #a lot of teachers (unfortunately) largely ignore the kids with paras and/or expect the paras to communicate to the kid exclusively #that teacher is not like that. he was willing to mind that boy while i escaped that situation. so so grateful to him

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cinnaminsvga · 3 months

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zee exclamations anon here!!! thoughts on min yoongi recently? how’s your emotional relationship with the memory of such an icon of your youth? also how do you feel about the little guy lately? as an artist, does he linger still as a muse? as a person, is he a vase of love still? i was just listening to time adventure from the adventure time soundtrack, and this line “will happen, happening, happened, and we will happen, again and again, cause you and i will always be back then” made me think that past is eternal, and love that once were will forever be when it was, so, it made me think of how in young forever they say “as today’s me, i want this moment to be eternal, i want to be young forever” and how yoongi now says “i want to grow up together” and how it seems it’s different but i think is the same. cause you and i will always be back then. we will grow up together, cause we are already together, cause we were together, so we are young forever. i think hope is just a loooot of love. or i think thats what it costs. like in that paramore song 26 “reality will break your heart, survival will not be the hardest part, it’s keeping all your hopes alive, all the rest of you has died, so let it break your heart” i think youth is so hopeful, and its hard to maintain that much hope as you grow up. it’s hard to see things as you once did, or feel em as you did, cause your heart breaks and things happen. so “i want to be young forever” is just so beautiful, cause its aware of how precious all of it is in that unique moment as everything is, and longs to keep it forever that way, and yet, “i want to grow up together” is the most hopeful thing to say. we’ll happen, happening, happened. some things must change to remain the same. it seems unforgiving when a good thing ends, but you and i will always be back then. growing up is an act of hope. love is eternal. the song ends with “you and i will always be best friends”. so how do you feel it zee?

im gonna be honest anon the way i just went slackjawwed when i saw this in my inbox HAHAH love u and ur little song references its like getting a personalized web weave in my inbox so thank u

hnngnghhg ive actually been rewatching some of his suchwita eps because i miss the little guy... it also massively sucks that he isnt gonna be Around for a bit, but cmon i just wanna see his bald ass head... just give me some excitement in my life... yoongi save me

and yea ofc he lingers as a muse to me... he's literally my ideal type HAHAH its kinda hard not to reference him in anything i write. even writing for other fandoms, i cant help but yoongify them somehow... i just love men who love softly but care so deeply. and yeah perhaps i have yoongi on a pedestal inside my brain and yeah maybe the version i have of him in my head isnt quite accurate but like... ITS HARD!!! NOT TO LOVE THE LITTLE GUY!!! AUGHHGDHG HES MY BEST FRIEND but not like /parasocial more like "hes my childhood imaginary friend that held my hand on the first day of school" sorta thing. he's a part of me, whether anyone likes it or not!!! like a parasite but its kinda awesome even though i think he wants to kill me sometimes. we could be like venom or something (idk never watched the movie).

kinda like how every interest ive ever had in my life kinda never leaves,,, it waxes and wanes but like at the end of the day, a lot of the stuff ive grown to love and maybe forgotten still keep a place in my heart. yoongi is my youth, and i choose to live youthfully for a long time. like ive said before, youth and love and all those sorts of things... its a lifestyle. time destroys so many things but those two stand against its claws. IT IS WHAT IT IS!!! BUT BY GOD, LETS HOLD HANDS WHILE WE'RE AT IT!!! anyway love u anon

#i am cringe so i am free or whatever it is they say #also sorry this took so long it literally made me go :0 every time i saw it in my inbox tho LMAOOO #love u anon thanks for always sending these things to me #lets me remember i still exist in someones brain. for whatever reason #kinda crazy that people know me on here. like hi guys im zee. im here. we're here. let's have fun #WAHOOOOOO *yoshi jumps into lava*#Anonymous #answered

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rosicheeks · 8 days

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Hello my sweet soft trophy,

I see you are in sad girl hours and I am here to say that whilst I am all for you feeling your feelings, I will not let you put yourself down.

Every time you have graced us with a full face reveal it’s like a literal angel has appeared on my timeline. When you post pics of yourself it makes me start to believe in a creator because only some divine being could create something as beautiful as you.

You may be struggling to see the beauty in yourself right now but I guarantee there are people out there willing to give all their earthly possessions just to hold your hand.

These feelings will pass, my treasure, I promise.

#yeahhh uh don’t mind me……. just gonna *hides face and screams a little bit*#this is one of the most heartwarming asks I’ve ever received???#not sure how to reply tbh I’m still a little speechless #you sent this a few nights ago when I was feeling the big Sad #and I’m going to get to the rest of the ask but I wanted to mention how much I appreciated the first sentence #‘I am all for you feeling your feelings’ ngl I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before and that gave me such a wave of relief #I understand what it was followed with cause I’d say the same exact thing to someone else #it’s just hard to shake sometimes when I’m in sad girl hours and I’m feeling really down #I’ve been rereading the rest of the ask and I still don’t know how to reply?#you are so sweet??????#thank you doesn’t seem to cut it but thank you 🩷#I’m going to write this out and put it in my special journal to look at whenever I’m feeling down #I truly don’t feel like I’m worthy of all these compliments and it’s really hard to believe anyone would even want to hold my hand for free #but I think it’s super sweet you think all of these things #and I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you took the time to type it out to send to me #thank you for warming my heart and making me smile 🥰🥰#I’m going to hold this ask close to my heart 🩷#ask #sweet asks #fav asks #save

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snowangeldotmp3 · 1 month

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born to be a mezzo soprano forced to be an alto 💔

#fun fact about me i wanted to be a broadway actor for a long time #i learned to sing by copying other artists voices. guess what’s REALLY bad for your voice lmaoo #i also can’t read music so that didn’t help me at all.#i also don’t know if i’m actually considered an alto like i know im not a soprano but i #can sing higher and within a healthy range but it’s definitely not soprano #idk i never took choir #todays the first day of my period i’m currently in Agony someone send help 🫶

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mkstrigidae · 9 months

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Apparently, the solution to my APWH writer's block was just opening up a new word document and rewriting the whole damn next chapter.

#I've been going back and doing some minor edits to older chapters recently- it's also been a necessary reread #because there are a lot of fucking details in this story #and it feels like i'm doing that thing where you spin plates on a stick but i'm spinning like 200 plates #just apwh things #this isn't just me being like 'i'm making progress again!!1!' for the thirty-fifth time either #like I have a full complete draft of chapter 16 that I'm about to start revising #shit's getting chaotic #there's not so much a chekov's gun as there is a chekov's whoopie cushion #i.e. a previously mentioned aspect of life at winterfell causes an objectively silly situation #but because this is me we're talking about- that silly situation quickly brings a lot of simmering things to the surface #there are a couple of fun mya conversations though which is good #sansa and mya's conversations are some of my favorites to write #because they're the only scenes where sansa isn't constantly second-guessing herself and kind of just is herself #the outside world is beginning to encroach on the Winterfell Bubble™ and ho boy is it a doozy #seriously i rewrote this entire fucking chapter and i'm so mad that THAT's what it took #anyways am definitely in the market for some beta-ing soon #and kind of need someone to bounce ideas off of because i am desperately trying to figure out #how to commit a hypothetical crime #and how to solve a cold case #send help lmao #I am prob going to make everyone extremely angry in a few chapters so enjoy the Winterfell Bubble™ while it lasts

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strangefable · 10 months

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just have to crylaugh when a perfectly random innocuous thing slams into you like a fucking freight train and reminds you that no, actually, you're never going to stop being traumatized about your dead parents

#just kidding i'm actually such a fucking sobbing wreck i called my boss and took the day off #over a stupid fucking youtube video of all things #i can't remember my dad's voice and it's killing me #so many little things are just... gone... forgotten to time #and i'm aching so bad #hey universe maybe next time just send someone to stab me it would hurt less #sorry to traumadump on tungl dot com and whatever but i need to get this out somehow and this is what's open in front of me so... sorry #maybe i'll get embarrassed or some shit and delete it later idk #but right now i just fucking need to pour this out somewhere that's louder than just screaming into my pillow #on grief #tw death #tw dead parents #tw grief #and to anyone who's worried i'm sorry i'll be fine i promise i'm just having a bad grief day they happen #and i get stupid and scream so i don't choke like i used to #this is probably healthier than bottling it up right? lmao i don't even fucking know i'm just a wreck don't mind me

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ppulverse · 3 months

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it's funny how you always remember the little things people do for you even though you know they've definitely forgotten about them a long time ago

#sometimes i see stuff related to girl meets world and i remember this dude i was friends with #bc back in 2016-2017 my life was a whole mess #and even though i definitely wasn't the target demographic for gmw it was my comfort tv show at the time #so i was pretty upset when it ended #and i remember saying smth about it when i was getting ready to watch the finale #and this dude for absolutely no reason was like ''send me the link i'll watch it with you for moral support''#mind you he knew nothing about the show except for a few things i had mentioned in previous conversations #but he still watched the whole episode with me and tried to understand it #and it was probably such an insignificant thing for him but to me it meant the world at the time #(a few months later our friendship crashed and burned and it took me literal years to get over it but that's not the point rn)#anyway. i wonder if i've ever had that kinda impact on someone's life #like. doing a small thing that i don't remember but the other person will never forget #it's smth interesting about human interactions #🌙.txt

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srptchkds · 2 years

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Younger me rlly looked at these grass types and thought they were the ideal parental figures

And I was absolutely right

#who wouldn't want someone who tried to send you to hell or a time traveler as a parental figure #ngl i made a found family with nearly all the PMD characters in my little head #psmd #pmd #pokemon super mystery dungeon #pokemon mystery dungeon #GTI #pmd eos #grovyle #virizion #took me a solid minute trying to spell virizions name smh

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themagnadefender · 8 months

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I'm watching Grimm and the found family dynamics are killing me. Also Trubel I love her so much why was she only in 30 episodes I needed a spinoff with her I adore her so much, her and nick>>>> I wish we could've gotten so much more of her, she deserved to be there for the whole show, she was always so alone 😭 and then when nick took her in she was so loyal and badass what a babe

cannot put into words how over the moon i was to see this!!!! 😭😭😭 thank you so much and so sorry for the word vomit ahead lol

but i toooootally agree, trubel deserved more screen time and we deserved more of her!! her own show would have been /mwah. while i did loooove the setting of portland and of course the cast of grimm, i think giving trubel her own little gang and expanding on the world would have been so fun. UGH. but hey, im just happy they brought her back at all <3 happy to know that there is someone out there in the world who GETS it

and i totally agree!!! her and nick's relationship was one of the best in the show, and for it to have come in as late as it did and still work SO well was fantastic. i think the thing about nick and his refusal to be the Lone Grimm Stereotype was one of the BEST parts about his character, but you do see him have his lonely moments as a grimm because no one can really relate to that even if they know about the wesen community. because the only other grimm he knew out there was his mom, and she just had her own mission to tend to and couldn't stick around for long so even though she was alive, he couldn't even talk to her about all the shit he goes through.

until trubel!! and same for her, like you said she was so alone and had been through SO much, until they found one another. and not just solely because of their relationship to one another but because he also introduced her to all his people, too, who she cared about and who cared about her in return. there is simply nothing like a character who has had to fight their whole life to survive and has felt like they had to do it all on their own, finally being given a soft place to rest and being allowed to just relax and feel safe 😭 like idk what episode it was but after she got back from being kidnapped by chavez and co. and she says, "i just knew if i could get to you, i would be okay." like 😭😭 yeah!!! 😭 she never had a safe place in her life until she met him, and then nick became that for her. and we got that vulnerability but that she was still allowed to remain a badass in her own right, beating people up and threatening them and all that good stuff!!

TRULY a character of all time. am forever going to be obsessed with her. every scene with her was iconic. she is everything to me. also so glad they gave her a motorcycle. as much as i loooved that she got to take aunt marie's truck, i think her going from juliette's bike to a motorcycle with a bunch of superhero features was exactly what she deserved <33

#answered #grimm #thank you so much for sending this to me!!!#sorry i just went off here with no direction #i know no one who watches the show irl or online so it's just nice to know people are still fans of it!#and that someone took the time to let me know of their love for it and trubel <3 #warmed my heart #thank you !!#feel free to drop by any time haha

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pallases · 1 year

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#personal #i miss having a best friend like it sounds so pathetic but there’s no other way to put it… i miss having someone to share an earbud w on the #bus and to go driving around town and picking up fast food w and someone to invite over to hang out and play video games and make art w and #spend the night and honestly just text back and forth w without restraint…#i literally have no one to hang out w for the whole summer like 😭 there’s my one roommate i’d feel comfortable w hanging out w one on one #but she’s in another state wrdhdjf and the other one lives really close to me and i love her too but our conversations without the other #roommate can feel so stilted sometimes 🙈#im sure i’ll meet up w her at some point this summer but i want to give it some time so i’ll actually have things to talk abt LOL #then there’s my old best friend who if i reached out to her im sure she’d find the time to hang out but she also hasn’t really reached out #to me since like november and there was like a solid three months where i would send her posts that reminded me of her and she never replied #to me so. i don’t know #we did end up running into each other on campus before spring break and she offered me a ride without prompting and we listened to into the #woods the way home and sang along and it was FUN it was good and we decided we should try to get back into the swing of things but then we.#did not so. yeah i don’t know! was it bc finals took over our lives or bc we really have moved onto separate paths who knows. anyway

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cloudy-cranium · 5 months

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What kind of wish list do you have? That'd be a great idea for me but I'm not sure how to organise one.

Oh I have several systems I use to make this time of the year less of a nightmare, I'd love to share! Unfortunately I do not have a "succinct" setting so here, sorry :) here's the short version, too much under the cut.

TL;DR: Steps to an easy gift list:

1, REUSE your lists each year.

1b, LONG LISTS! Yeah no. Longer than that.

2, Categories can help

2b, Steal gift ideas from others!!

3, for REAL change your options up

4, Be specific about what you actually want

Wishlists were a pain for me for a long time. Eventually I got lazy and then I got smart. I also listened to complaints people had about others' wishlists, and tried to avoid their issues. I've used like one list for I think the last 4 years now, just refreshed. I have it in categories mostly to help me.

Tip 1: Refresh it every year. Instead of starting from scratch every season, when people start asking for my new list I just pull up last year's and delete everything I received/bought myself/just don't really need anymore.

Tip 1b: Make your list long!! Too long to be able to get everything. That lets you refresh next year, but it also gives people more options to choose from (vital) and reduces their anxiety about getting you the same thing as someone else.

Tip 2: This is optional but I use categories. They help me get more specific ideas, organize my thoughts, can help people narrow ideas down or help with off-list gift inspiration, and can also help people add to their own lists.

**Categories: these are arbitrary and all include miscellaneous items automatically. It's just a tool. Mine are Dog Things, Hobby, Home/Personal, and Kitchen - the dog things are on their own because they don't fit anywhere else; 'Kitchen' has its own category because it's one of my biggest categories personally. Other than that, personalize it: Art Supplies. Programming. Sports & Outdoors. Tools. Books. Games. Whatever's good for you**

Tip 2b: ask all your family/friends to give you their list and then steal their ideas :) works like a charm. I'll add some of mine at the end.

Tip 3: VARIETY. IT'S IMPORTANT. Some people want to be able to drop a lot of money on something you'll definitely like - maybe all your siblings want to buy you that gaming system together. Include it (at least for inspiration). Ask for that weighted blanket you really want. Don't feel bad for including expensive options. Some people want less expensive things - you want a LOT of these, especially easy ones: candy or treats, bath bombs/nails/face masks, candles/wax melts/incense you like, stickers, fun note pads, socks etc. (When gifting, these are helpful to add with a smaller item so it brings a little extra bonus.)

Some people want to buy you something useful. Some people want to buy you something FUN! Some people want to help you by buying something you need anyway; some want to gift you something you can't justify buying yourself but still really want. Include all of these! Give people options!!

TELL PEOPLE WHERE TO GET GIFT CARDS YOU'LL ACTUALLY USE!!! These are such a helpful inclusion!!! Some people are just gift card people. If you don't want generic amaz*n/walmart/fast food gift cards, TELL PEOPLE what stores & restaurants you already go to, especially for things you enjoy. If they can give you 5 nice boba teas one one card, or gift you clothes by putting $50 on a piece of plastic for you instead of actually trying to pick out something you want themselves, they'll do it!

Tip 4: Specificity. Some things speak for themselves, but if you write one word per item on your list, expect to get some things that are technically what you wrote but definitely not what you wanted. To avoid this, list scents/colors/brands/qualities you like ('over-the-ear squishy headphones [noise-canceling?]' is better than 'headphones,' where once I got gifted a new pair of the exact set I hated and was trying to replace); the specific use of the item you need ('spice/food organizers,' 'room organizers,' 'closet organizers,' and several other things can't be substituted for each other); A LINK to an option you like (!!! I learned this from my sister-in-law, where every list item has "like this:" and a link to a model that she already likes. The links will also sho similar items, stores she trusts, more details than you could ever write down & more); okay I got tired of writing. You get the gist. BUT If you include CLOTHES YOU MUST INCLUDE SIZES. NO IFS ANDS OR BUTS. SIZES. Styles too if you don't wanna get fucked over (or!! gift cards!!!!)

Those are the things that do the most for making my life easier. I'll drop a list of examples to steal! Sorry this got away from me lol thanks for coming to my TEDtalk!!

Examples of things in my categories: Dog Stuff (toys she likes, sweater size, things like a better leash or big toy or bed); Hobby (DICE. game accessories. yarn & fibre tools. hair dye things, hard-to-find niche parts, nice markers/paper, art tools, materials, fan merch, new hobbies you want to try, instruction books, instruments, cards, GIFT CARDS to places I already go); Home/Personal (speakers/headphones/other tech, books [please god be specific here], albums, decor/organization, a new vacuum, tools you find yourself needing, stuff for your window/deck/garden, along with clothes I might want and relevant sizes, yoga mat, coats/hats/clothes for the weather, memberships or subscriptions); Kitchen (replacement dishes, nice appliances, accessories, high-quality ingredients, more tools I'd like but can't afford)

#hi i love talking. if u send me asks i will Answer whether I'm qualified or not #love to rant and hear my ideas #thank uuu for asks #answered asks #yes it took me a whole day to organize my thoughts #hope this is helpful to someone. it's just what ive learned im sure ill tweak the system over time #like if u want lol #okay to rb

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