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Apparently there are a bunch of hoops you can jump through to get all of your medication completely covered that my new psychiatrist was able to do and my old psychiatrist wasn't, so if you're struggling to cover your medication, make sure that's something your doctors are aware of. I think the vocabulary you want is, "Can you petition my insurance to cover this?" and "Does the manufacturer work with any patient assistance foundations?"

theres totally something in there about Cant Find The Clit jokes and gender affirmation can someone do the punchline for me

Hi! I’m back! Pls take a look at my kazakh spider-girl 🕷️🇰🇿🕸️

‘Pumpie' 

Elephant soft toy made of grey felt, dressed as a sailor in a smart, dark blue, woolen jacket and matching trousers, England, 1900.

Pumpie and his V&A friends post-restoration 🐘 🐻🐇

Pumpie photographed by original Victorian owners, at the seaside and with friends:

yeah

so i saw this tweet earlier

you too can have a pingus for the low low price of One Thousand Five Hundred pounds quid

hey girl you wanna see my grandiose Pingus

peter sisseck IS Pingus

My new Spider-Sona

i think it’s p awesome that the first compasses invented in china were not magnetic, but in fact mechanical - the cart with the little wooden man pointing south was built in a way that no matter which way the cart turned, the little man would always point south

this is a model of what it looked like

how does this work? it’s so cool and confusing

the gears are aligned in a way to always turn the little man in the opposite direction as the cart at the same rate of rotation. so if the man points at you, and you turn the cart clockwise 90 degrees, the man will be turned counterclockwise 90 degrees, and still be facing you. if you turn the cart counterclockwise 90 degrees, the man will be turned clockwise 90 degrees, and still be facing you

as for how they got the cart to point south to begin with, that goes into fengshui and cardinal direction geomancy. but long story short, the workshops that built these carts would have their front doors facing south to begin with (using the sun and the stars to figure out which way is south), so all they would have to do is build the cart facing that direction, and the little man will always point south

thank you!

[ID: A small cubed box with two wheels forming a cart, with gears visible beneath the box’s clear cover. Atop the gears there is a wooden figure of a person pointing. The cart sits on a shelf /End ID]

Of course, they also did come up with magnetic compasses. But this is so much cooler!

My ideal aesthetic is what I'm calling "sexy tomboy". That is to say, I am 100% femme through and through, but I want to look like what a straight man's idea of a "masculine woman" is. I wanna be masc in the way that LaCroix is fruit flavored, just a little extra something to make things a little more interesting

This you?

I don't think I'll ever recover from this one

daily reminder that boycotting is not a moral stance but a political strategy, so the whole “there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism” argument is not the gotcha you think it is

you can refer to BDS if you’d like a list of companies to focus your efforts on. you can refer to this website if you’d like to become more conscientious about what you’re buying and check for brands/products to avoid.

*please note that i am a palestinian who has been boycotting my entire life. do not try to explain to me in the tags or reblogs or replies what a targeted boycott is or complain about giving up your comfort for something that you (incorrectly) believe does not make an impact. being quiet is free. exercise your right to remain silent today.

Since the r-slur is making a comeback (you know, the word that starts with R, has six letters, and ends in D), I'm gonna make a little PSA:

For those who genuinely are confused about what word OP is talking about (and there's plenty of reasons somebody might not know it and dancing around it isn't helpful for them):

It's "retard" and the variant "retarded".

And because I've seen some people legitimately try to argue this: No, you cannot use this word to insult other people "because you reclaimed it". To reclaim a word is to apply that word to yourself as a means to stealing it's power from those who use it against you. As soon as you weaponize it against somebody else you're no longer reclaiming it, you're just hurling a slur at other people.

As a reclaimer myself, the whole point of me using it is to make neuro/developmentally abled people uncomfortable and self reflective and to invoke shame in those who use the word casually. Calling myself a retard has a purpose and it's to get people to think about the uncomfortable reality of their participation in an ableist society. When people act surprised or disbelieving regarding discrimination I've faced, when people want to pretend like I seem perfectly "normal" or that they've never witnessed my more upsetting symptoms, when I'm told I can't possibly be "one of those", when people think they've never said or done anything abelist to me, I use that word to remind them that I'm not fucking buying it.

There's no point in using the slur on anyone but myself because it relieves the other person of the social pressure of confronting the victim of the slur being used. If I'm right here, in their face, showing them that I'm real, I'm a person just like them, I'm living and breathing and feeling and yet my life is made harder every day not because the world can't accommodate me, but it won't, and I use that word retard, they will (hopefully) hate it. I want them hear it and not want to hear it, to feel just a fraction of the pain and anger it causes me to hear it thrown casually about for this that and the other thing.

I know others will have different reasons for reclaiming the word but for me it's pretty clear that I would not be liberating anyone by using it for them. It's still very much an ugly, cruel, hateful word when coming out of my own mouth, and that's the point. No one wants to look me in the face and say I deserve that word, but they would rather pretend it's never applied to me than confront that I am who is being denigrated when people throw the word around thoughtlessly.

Anywho that's just my own perspective on it, dunno if it helps.

I think this is a good perspective and clarifies what it actually means to reclaim a slur, so I'm reblogging this!

I was at a courthouse once, and saw an indigenous australian woman in a dressing gown very carefully and gingerly making her way down the steps outside the courthouse, surrounded by family who were helping her down the stairs. We asked if she was OK, because she looked awful. She looked like she should have been wrapped up in bed with blankets and hot soup, not on the steps of a courthouse.

One of her family told us that she had given birth yesterday evening, but that Child Protection services had taken her baby away with no warning, claiming that she wasnt prepared to look after him. What had happened, is that she'd literally only just given birth -- hadn't even passed the afterbirth yet, is holding her blood-coated, crying, newborn baby to her chest -- and a nurse asked what her feeding plan was. She was tired from the birth and distracted by the brand new baby in her arms and thrown off by the timing of the question, but still, she managed to answer, and said she planned to breastfeed him whenever he was hungry.

Well apparently that wasn't enough of a plan for the hospital staff, who reported her and claimed that she was unprepared to look after the child, and claimed that had no social supports, and that the baby was at risk if left with her. All because a brand new mother, 30 seconds after giving birth, didn't have a PowerPoint presentation ready to go that cited the timing cycle she would feed her kid on, and instead simply said that she would feed him when he was hungry.

Child Protection services showed up, took her kid, and she was told to show up to court the next day to contest custody if she wanted her baby back.

So a woman who had given birth less than 24 hours prior was forced to rally her family and show up to court to prove that she a) had a feeding plan for the child, and b) had enough social supports to justify reclaiming her baby.

It was one of the most appalling things I'd ever seen. I don't even know if she won her case. They didn't know at the time we saw them, and after that brief interaction on the stairs, i never saw them again. I sincerely hope she got her newborn baby back.

That was about 5 years ago. And the exact same kind of thing is still happening today.

News broke today from a South Australian whistle-blower of the appalling treatment new mothers frequently receive, including hospital staff taking the baby away from the mother "for medical tests," only for the mother to then be told, with absolutely no prior warning, that the baby was not going to be returned to her.

Here's the article, and here are some excerpts:

finally decided to sit down and watch the incredibles again. there will be no commentary because i’m gonna be too busy watching it

okay i just gotta say

having been married for 3 years now (almost), i really love how bob & helen argue. when i was a kid it just came off to me that everyone in this movie was being super mean for no reason but when you watch it as an adult it’s different. i really appreciate that even when bob is frustrated/angry he basically never lashes out at helen or the kids, his problem is he’s withdrawn and existantialling. i also really appreciate that when they do fight they’re actually more expressing their frustration than attacking each other. it’s only later when things get real that helen (understandably) gets really angry.

also edna’s advice is actually really good, helen’s just melting down over the idea of losing her husband (which is sweet and helps us understand her character) but edna tells her to confront it immediately, hold bob to account by leaning into his concern (all his heroics being forgotten) and reminding him that she’s a super, too. direct action is a blessing in communication.

i love how the movie communicates bob’s competency, like he’s actually handling all the twists and turns of the situation rapidly deteriorating very well, the only thing that throws him off is when his family gets involved. we also see helen’s competency in the plane scene and how she immediately knows something’s up when no one responds on the radio

syndrome is such a fucking good villain, saying ‘i seem to recall you prefer to work alone’ and laughing at him when he believes he’s murdered the guy’s wife and kids???? holy fuck

as previously mentioned bob breaking down and sobbing alone in the containment room shaped my personality

ah the good old days of 2004 when having a voluptuous mom ass was a bad thing. good riddance, we don’t miss you.

also the it’s a neat little parallel to bob’s body image struggles, they really went to great lengths to showcase that these people are equals & soulmates

the kids are really well-written too, they feel very authentically their age and they both have motivations, the writing does a great job of showing how the gravity of the situation sinks in for them and forces them to rise to meet it. dash especially fascinates me in this movie because he’s just the right balance between immature and starting, just starting to get that life is a big deal and stakes are real and you’ve got to care about what you’re doing and try to do the right thing in every situation. the way the kids instinctively protect each other even though all we’ve seen of them so far in the movie is antagonism is just *clenches fist* so good

The Incredibles is incredible on every level

I appreciate the "there will be no commentary because i’m gonna be too busy watching it" followed by 8 of the truest takes on the movie, respect.

The idea that because Columbia students come from rich families that means their solidarity which is literally getting many of these students suspended and kicked out of their dorms is false or privileged or whatever is ridiculous. No, it’s a symptom of systemic collapse that the children of the ruling class no longer buy into the ideology of capitalist-imperialism. Divisions within the ruling class and the military are good for the cause!