I don't even know my own name

25 yo they/he chronically unwell and Polish

[calcifiedgravity]

I repost random things and overshare sometimes. If you need a name, call me Cal - from Calcifer. It fits my username kinda AND it is from Howl's Moving Castle which is one of my favorite movies ever.

Anyway... It's lonely here huh (Earth).

Rn reading: Some Strange Music Draws Me In by Griffin Hansbury (at least trying to, ADHD is a bitch)

Comfort media: Drawfee and Drag Race

If I followed / liked your poetry themed blog It's because I have one too - here

Same goes for art - here

Collage of my favorite* queer (mostly gay and/or transmasc) books:

*Giovanni's Room actually annoyed the hell out of me but it pairs so well with Swimming in The Dark...

[kineticpenguin]

At the risk of sounding anti-intellectual, I think that college should be free and also not a requirement for employment outside of highly specialized career fields

[kineticpenguin]

At the risk of sounding like an effete intellectual, I do actually think you should be allowed to just take college courses indefinitely

[yourunderwaterskies]

technically you can, if you don't care about degrees.

Free Harvard courses. Free Courses from Stanford. Free Courses from MIT. Free courses from Yale. Free courses from Princeton.

Free courses on Coursera.

Free Courses on EDx Free Courses on Alison

For paid, there's The Great Courses+/Wonderium. 20$ a month for unlimited courses.

When searching, the phrases you're looking for are Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), or you can do a general search of say, "free online college courses." Oh, and so you don't get surprised like I did, have an avoid: Hillsdale College is a conservative Christian site and not a valid MOOC place. Sign up with them and you will get things like THIS IS WHY THE LEFT IS TURNING YOUR KIDS TRANS AND GAY in your inbox.

[aloeverawrites]

@yourunderwaterskies I wanted to say thank you so much for adding these links, seriously, they've been life-changingly helpful to me-

And I also wanted to mention that humanitarian organisations have free courses too, like the Red Cross on international humanitarian law.

Humanity in War

Learn more about the Red Cross International Humanitarian Law (IHL) Program to train policy professionals, government officials, academics,

Kaya

Kaya is a free humanitarian learning platform which offers hundreds of training opportunities across a range of key topics, including the hu

[segamascott]

[teumessianandlaelaps]

Killjoy voice

Disregard for environmental ecosystem sustainability and colonialist mindset against indigenous lifestyle is what drives anti-hunting sentiment.

[calcifiedgravity]

Actually, hunters being mostly conservative gun loving assholes, some of them rich "lets fly to Africa to kill an endangered species" types, forcing kids to participate in their bloody hobby against their will and posing with corpses, shooting dogs and passersbys "by accident", agressive lobbying, feeding wild animals during winter just to have the excuse that they need to cull the weak ones that would have died naturally if not for their "help" is what drives the anti-hunting sentiment. Focusing on the few good apples that are doing it to help the ecosystem (because WE made all big predators endangered species) or native people who are not really the type of hunters most people imagine when reading a post like this is not going to change all that.

[un-monstre]

Bloopers are movie aftercare and it’s fucked up that we got rid of them

[calcifiedgravity]

Bloopers should play after the credits of a movie or the final episode of a show. Yes, some movies / series make separate little movies / shows "making of XYZ" that might containe some bloopers or at least actors talking about having fun on set, but I am not invested enough in most media to watch them. Maybe except the LoTR behind-the-scenes and Making of, because LoTR is just built different.

[prokopetz]

I know this makes me a Bad Socialist, but I can’t help but find it hilarious when two rawr-kill-the-bourgeoisie types get to talking and slowly come to realise that they’re setting the bar in very different places with respect to the definition of “bourgeois”. Like, one of them is talking about the direct exploitation of the working class, while the other means “anyone who lives in a house”.

[easternhognose]

The guy with a good car is not your enemy

The woman with a few designer purses is not your enemy

The surgeon who makes more in a month than you do in a year is not your enemy

The family that vacations for 2 weeks in the summer is not your enemy

Ceos, billionaires, politicians, factory owners, private prisons, weapons manufacturers, Elon musk, Peter theil, owners of islands and multiple private jets, Jeff bezos, these people are your enemy. They are the enemy of all the working class.

[poetrynstuff]

I saw a TikTok about Kit Connor expressing how uncomfortable the experience of filming sex scenes was and someone commented “Poor billionaire”. People REALLY don’t understand how big the difference between a small millionaire and the average billionaire is. Like, 3-5 million (that actor’s estimated networth) is closer to YOUR networth than Taylor Swift’s. Because a billion is (hold on to your socks) 1 thousand millions. And she has 2 of them. You can be in debt and most actors, influencers and small to medium business owners will all be closer to your negative networth than to Elon Musk’s wealth.

Millionaires against billionaires sounds ridiculous until you realize most of them are not the problem and having them on our side could reeallly help.

Also listen to this awesome song:

[kaylmao]

shh don’t worry catholics aren’t real

thank god. i mean thank something else

[thoughtfulrobot]

WHAT DO YOU MEAN "GERARD" IS PRONOUNCED THE SAME AS "JARED." I HATE BRITISH PEOPLE

[fairycosmos]

my dead wife. the ad free internet

[calcifiedgravity]

For a low price of selling your soul and credit card information to every website ever you can dig up her dead corpse from the communal grave, hug her cold lifeless rotting body and pretend nothing's wrong!

[vaspider]

Hi, if you're here to say "you're bad if you curse and that makes you instantly wrong," do me a favor and fuck off.

[shaaknaa]

"The sky is blue" vs "The sky is fucking blue."

Does the sky stop being blue in the second case or...

[greatmountainfloofsquatch]

Conceivably, the sky might be copulating with the color blue.

[calcifiedgravity]

Instagram add breaks make me instantly turn off the app. Which is good, because scrolling on Instagram is not productive, but also fuck Meta for being so greedy they not only put countless adds in your feed but also sometimes want to physically force you to look at them.

That being said, if it was a "mental health break" or "eye strain break - look away from the screen" every 10 minutes in EVERY social media app it could be so cool and good for everyone.

[alicentsgf]

no you do not need to hold fictional characters "accountable". they are not real.

[alicentsgf]

[calcifiedgravity]

Also "In this political climate this fictional queer character is not the representation we need..." SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP

You know how you "support women's rights and women's wrongs"? Where is that attitude when you sanitize, police and censor your own community? Let queers be messy, bad, morally grey, disgusting, obssesive. Making bad choices and having weird/evil urges is human. Let us be human.

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

tumblr is (rightfully!) horny for trains but i need you to understand buses can be just as sexy as train transport. sexier even! if this sounds fake it's because the bus systems you've interacted with have been purposefully hobbled by bad funding/management. i promise well-run bus transit is SO fucking hot actually start panting

[calcifiedgravity]

A bad bus transit in the summer is also fucking hot because the AC doesn't work and you do start panting but you wish you didn't.

But, for your consideration, the best of both worlds:

A modern tram with nice AC. The driver doesn't have to deal with other people cutting them off when leaving the bus stop or a traffic jam. It's sleek, it's kinda train-shaped, an absolute bombshell. Also the tracks are surrounded with grass and and it looks cool. + It's more accessible in a way to some disabled people and the elderly than an average subway - even if every station has an elevator the underground system can be confusing and hard to navigate or even frightening if someone is claustrophobic.

[phoenixyfriend]

Game show called "What's Wrong With You" where a bunch of doctors compete to see who can diagnose a mystery illness (chronically ill patient whose lab results keep coming back normal despite obvious symptoms) first and most accurately.

Pros:

Doctors paying off their medical loans with prize money

Chronically ill people getting free testing (MRIs, CAT scans, X-Rays, bloodwork, etc) and possibly a diagnosis

You can ding points for 'anxiety' and 'you just need to lose some weight'

Doctors are incentivized to find an answer, not just find something billable

Cons:

HIPAA

Wrong Diagnoses made because they were rushing

[epicmusic42]

HIPAA can be bypassed via agreement to air/be on the show. There'd need to be lawyers heavily involved with setting up the specifics of how the paperwork works, but its absolutely doable.

I don't knkw how to handle the issue of wrong diagnosis bc folks were rushing tho

[phoenixyfriend]

More lawyers prepping the young docs to avoid triggering malpractice suits, probably.

[cazort]

I want to watch this show.

How would it be judged though? The problem is it sometimes takes weeks to months to figure out whether or not a diagnosis is correct and/or a treatment is working,

[roseapprentice]

Do one of those long-haul reality show competitions where you come back months after the main filming to dramatically reveal the results.

Each doctor can order a limited number of tests. You win the most prize money if a test that you've ordered comes back positive for something that makes sense with the symptoms. (Additional checking is required for tests with a high rate of false positives.) Prize money is split if there are multiple winners.

If no one gets a positive test, there's a smaller prize for suggesting a treatment that the patient uses while measurably improving over the course of 3-6 months. And an even smaller fallback prize for subjective improvement.

Since the patient is not required to take the treatments the doctors suggest, there is an element of bedside manner in this aspect of the competition. If your patient trusts you enough to use the treatment you suggest, then you will have a shot at the fallback prize.

[phoenixyfriend]

Yeah, it would definitely be a very 'we filmed for months and the show compresses that into a weekly hour-long episode' kind of competition. My major references for that sort of thing are GBBO and Project Runway.

I think a fun element would be "if a chronically ill person with no degree can identify what's wrong with the patient before you do, they get a cash prize (you are still in charge of actually doing the tests that confirm or disprove it)." So if you spend six weeks doing genetic tests and X-rays but some MCAS girlie listened to a five-minute description of symptoms and went 'yeah, you've got [thing]' before you officially considered it, their chunk of the cash comes out of your winnings

And for everyone saying "this is just the House MD tournament arc"...

NGL I forgot that arc happened... but I was thinking "imagine that SNL sketch about the podcast-doctor-appointment, but it's a competition show about chronically ill mysteries, like House MD in real life, but someone put Sam Reich in charge (Katie Marovitch is there as his right-hand comedian and chronically-ill-herself host)."

[phoenixyfriend]

As I said in the other post where I mentioned dropout: they could NOT do this. The liability insurance would be insane. It would not be accessible to a production studio of that size. There are other things that make it unlikely for anyone, but also some things that make it unlikely for dropout specifically (liability insurance, the ability to award prize money that would actually make a difference to medical debt, the very structure of the company around actors/comedians rather than Random Real Life People).

HOWEVER

I can imagine a game changer episode where some contestants, probably youtuber guests like Dr. Mike or something, have to guess already-diagnosed chronic illnesses of audience volunteers.

No medical testing. Just 'describe some symptoms, and watch as the medical youtubers that are here for a day have to figure out what you've got.'

[calcifiedgravity]

Suggestion!

Make them compete in teams, every team having the same set of specialists, doing the whiteboard differential diagnosis, interviewing family and going to patients houses / workplaces (only if they suspect environmental causes or can't figure it out). It would actually be so helpful if a team of doctors tried to diagnose me and communicated with each other, because irl every specialist looks for what they know best and if they don't see it they give up or force a diagnosis that doesn't fit or send you to a psychiatrist. There are no '"rare disease specialists" unfortunately.

Also they should get penalties for mistreating patients (like anxiety/weight comments but also lack of sympathy and not listening to the patient), the prize money gets smaller for EVERYONE on the team. This way the team pressures their members to behave even if they are the House type of asshole.

[kosmogrl]

[calcifiedgravity]

Love talking to my mom about religion. Every time we deconstruct her Christian upbringing further, brick by brick. We're at "I belive in God but yes all the old abrahamic religions were used to keep unhappy oppressed people docile, we need a new one".

Also gender. After watching FighClub together her starting thesis was "Well men are just inherently violent" 5 minute conversation later we agreed that "Men are more competitive but it doesn't have to be expressed with violence" (testosterone makes people more competitive, and men have it more on average).

I am my mom's gay woke best friend. I infect her with my leftist views and we discuss which actors are hot when we watch TV together. I wish we could have a helathy parent-child relationship instead but I'll take this over a bigoted conservative mother figure any day.

[moldavite]

hopefully i'll get to do something other than endure soon. that would be really nice

[aquilacalvitium]

Write it badly or it'll never be written

Write it badly or it'll never be written

Write it badly or it'll never be written

Write it badly or it'll never be written

Write it badly or it'll never be written

[calcifiedgravity]

It will. NEVER. Be. Written.