puppy wants a break from it all

Finn/Indigo, 20s, they/them, animal sideblog is theyrecreaturestome

[sandsvendor100]

Hi

[sandsvendor100]

And I Need A Mommy Or I Die, That Will Be All.

[queer-as-in-fuck-12]

drug addicts deserve housing, food, water, and healthcare btw

[trying-trying2lyk]

i love writing out numbers and then putting them in parentheses like "one (1)" even when i dont need to i think its funny

[justatiredlittlesnail]

[storm-of-feathers]

yeah yeah rainbow capitalism is bad and whatever but like. when I was a child, being pro gay was not the popular or lucrative choice. I'm happy that times have changed.

[storm-of-feathers]

I miss rainbow capitalism. I do. I miss when it felt like public opinion was still pro gay. I understand it was always an empty gesture, but it mattered in a sense of knowing how socially acceptable being queer is. If that makes sense.

[capacity2]

a question for you

Lay it on me mister fuckinyouhard0989

[capacity2]

He’s so shy he died

[dmdog]

It lives in the arcade and leaves sticky little footprints on the linoleum. Naming it Gumble

[titleknown]

Blogging this tweet because this explains SO MUCH about the mindset of pretty much all the folks I’ve known who’re against single-payer, it’s not even funny…

[hopesterling]

This….

This never occurred to me. Not once. That Americans are against Health Care because they think it actually costs tens of thousands of dollars for a broken arm, hundreds of thousands for a complicated birth, millions for cancer treatment.

Because they’ve never known anything different. The idea that a broken arm is only a couple hundred bucks; a complicated birth a couple thousand; cancer treatment only tens of thousands; all easily covered by existing tax structures.

[withasmoothroundstone]

This explains a lot.  And it’s a good example of what I was talking about in my post on scarcity being used to prop up ableism – always question the idea that a resource is genuinely scarce.  Even if it seems obvious that it is, quite often that’s the result of careful manipulation and misconceptions that you’re not even aware of.  

And never think you’re too smart to be fooled by that kind of thing, it doesn’t work like that.  Similarly, don’t think people who are fooled by something are stupid.  Nobody can have all the information about everything, and nobody has the time and energy to investigate and put together conscious conclusions about every piece of information they’re given.  It doesn’t take being stupid, or even just gullible, to believe something like this.

[lizardtitties]

I currently live in a country without free medical care and still, it’s enormously cheap compared to the USA. An American expat wrote a piece for our English language paper about how she paid more for parking at the hospital than giving birth to her baby that’s pretty interesting:

https://grapevine.is/mag/articles/2016/01/06/healthcare-in-iceland-vs-the-us-weve-got-it-so-good/

[thebibliosphere]

Yesterday I had to go to the hospital cause I injured my eye, I’m frankly dreading what the bill is going to be, but what made me balk was being told in the pharmacy that my insurance was denied for the antibiotic eye drops and it’d be over $100 out of pocket. So I didn’t get my eyedrops.

I’ve had these same drops before living in the UK. They cost me seven GBP.

It’s the exact same drug, same steroid, same strain of antibiotic. But somehow the US gets away with charging $100 for a generic non brand version of a drug which is easy to create and widely used. It’s downright robbery, but also a form of eugenics through poverty and class warfare. You keep the poor poor by making sure basic necessities remain unattainable and then you make it seem like the norm so no one fights it.

The rest of the world is not like this.

Eat the rich. Resist.

[dyannehs]

When I was travelling in Germany once, I seriously hurt my ankle. In a few hours, it had swollen to twice its size, and I went to a little ER in a tiny town. I spoke no German and only one nurse spoke English. They ran an X-ray and an MRI to determine what had happened (turned out I had bruised my peroneus brevis muscle and pulled the tendon), gave me a ton of very regulated meds for the pain and swelling, including some supports so I could walk…and my poor little 22-year-old ass was sat there, knowing all of this would cost thousands, if not tens of thousands, back in the US. I was shaking.

I’m in the exam room, post diagnosis and with pill bottles in hand, and in walks the one nurse I’ve been able to speak to the entire time. She pats my hand and tells me (and this is verbatim—I will never forget this conversation as long as I live), “I’m so sorry. We had to run those tests, and they are expensive. You don’t have insurance so you will have to cover the full cost.”

I start crying.

She continues, softly, as if telling me someone has died, “It’s going to be three hundred.”

I start sobbing, certain I’ve misheard, certain that I would be absolutely fucked, broke and going into debt in a foreign country. “Thousand?” I clarify.

Her entire demeanor changed, and she looked at me as if I had sprouted four extra heads. “No,” she says, “euros.”

That moment radicalised me.

[queern-bn]

My family got charged several thousand dollars for a late-night trip to the ER when I was a kid after an oops at home resulted in a large cut that needed almost 40 sutures. We lived in the US at the time.

Now we live in Canada. Last year my leg got rolled over by one of the front tires on a pickup truck. I spent 3 weeks in hospital, had 3 surgeries, one of which included skin grafting to cover the half of my leg that was degloved in my accident. I had IV antibiotics 4 times a day, I had physiotherapy daily, I was on a lot of meds for pain and having complex wound dressings changed every day. After all that, I had a home care nurse visit me every 1-2 days for 6 weeks to help with my wound care. The greatest expense to us as a family for the amazing care I received was my parents and husband using the parkade next to the hospital, which was like $13 a day. If we’d lived in the US, that injury absolutely could have bankrupted us.

[cranquis]

This information needs to be part of the US med school curriculum.

[beaniebaneenie]

I remember the moment that radicalized me.

I went to the UK for graduate school, and being there for that long meant I had to buy insurance for the duration. 18 months was something like £800 (this was in the early 2010’s). I, being American, figured “oh ok, that’s the premium and if I need serious medical care, I’ll get charged deductibles and all other kinds of fees at the time of care), because that’s how it works here.

Some time in the early part of that winter, I got incredibly sick. I’m immunocompromised, so sometimes that happens. But being a broke ass grad student in a foreign country, and dealing with unrelated financial abuse from family members, I figured I couldn’t afford going to the hospital. I figured I’d go to their version of Walgreen’s (Superdrug, and yes that is really that store’s name, load up on cough drops, some OTC meds, and try to ride it out as best I could.

One of my friends in my program came over to check on me and offer help. When she got to my room and saw how sick I was, she asked why I hadn’t gone to hospital. I was near tears and said I couldn’t afford it.

This is when I suspect my friend knew she was dealing with an American who was ignorant of how socialized healthcare actually worked, and realized that I couldn’t really be reasoned with. So she said, “I’ll pay for it- let’s go.”

Off we went to hospital, my friend did the talking bc my voice was so shot. The receptionist said, “as you don’t have an appointment, you may need to wait quite a bit.” I heard that and figured 5+ hours was at least what I was in for.

23 minutes later, my name was called.

My friend went back with me, bc I was pretty out of it. The nurse leading us back apologized for the “huge wait” because having a sick patient wait “nearly half an hour just for medical care” was unacceptable. I was stunned.

The nurse and doc asked some questions, looked at the medical records I had on my phone (bc I was a foreigner with very little medical history in the country), did a few rapid tests. The whole time, I’m seeing an old-timey calculator ringing up charges and freaking out… even though my friend said she’d pay, I was so conditioned to believe this would cost a fortune.

About 30 mins later, the rapid tests confirm I have both bronchitis and pneumonia. Doc writes me a prescription for some serious heavy-duty meds. My American ass is thinking, “ok, so now I go home, wait for 4 days for the pharmacy to fill it, then go get it.” The doc tells me that there’s a pharmacy counter on the way out, and I can stop there to collect the meds before heading home.

I’m skeptical but thank him. My friend gets me to the pharmacy counter. I give my name and hand over the paper, fully expecting to be told that it’ll take days to fill. The pharmacist turns around, pulls a bag off the shelf, hands it to me. Because my meds were already filled and waiting.

Me: you had them already?

Pharmacist: of course- there’d be no point in sending you home without medication, that’s why you came here. To get medical help.

Me: that’s so fast? (I am very confused)

Pharmacist: well, we expect people to have these illnesses at a higher rate this time of year, so we do our best to stock up on our end.

Me: that’s so nice? Also, what do I owe you?

Pharm: sorry, love?

Me: what do I owe you? For the medication? And the visit. All of it, how much do I need to pay?

Chat, her whole fact changed. She realized I didn’t just sound funny because I was in respiratory distress. I had an American accent. She reached over and patted my hand.

“Love, that’s what the health insurance is meant to be for. You’ve already paid for this. We’re not taking extra money off you, we don’t do that here.”

The entire visit was less than 2 hours, absolutely free, and everyone worked to be as efficient as possible in the goal of providing comprehensive healthcare for me, the patient.

Once I got home with the meds, I did actually recover pretty well (and relatively quickly, as far as I’m concerned). I talked to the friend after, and she admitted that she knew it was going to be free, but that I wouldn’t or couldn’t understand that in the brain fog of serious illness, so she said what she had to in order to get my stubborn (and terrified of bankruptcy) ass to the doctor.

That’s what healthcare should be. A goal of providing comprehensive and compassionate care to your patients, being well-staffed enough that no one waits for hours, anticipating medication needs, ensuring that patients leave with the medical care they sought- and that they’re not afraid to seek it, because they know medical care won’t make them homeless.

[fforsythiaaa]

Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.

[littlealienproducts]

Migration is Natural Stickers by stickiemi

[afurioushawk]

You can really tell who actually grew up poor and who's been LARPing this whole time.

[biglawbear]

Cooking basic stuff doesn't require a ton of herbs and spices. Also, they can be found cheap. Also, once you have them they last a long time. I've had a full spice cabinet since I was 18. Like. You can get staples on hand.

Actually this is insane I'm not even entertaining the rest of these points

Cooking is absolutely a skill that requires some effort in terms of time money energy. But like. It's a survival skill.

If you can only cook simple cheap dishes then you can put in the effort to find and learn simple cheap dishes.

But like. Cooking is a skill that pays off. Once you know how to cook something you can do it forever. You can learn meal planning and substitutions. You can make up your own recipes.

When my mom and I were poor as dirt when I was a kid, she'd just make buttered noodles because that's all we could afford. We didn't order takeout.

Now that I'm an adult that can cook anything your heart desires? And has fed crowds for Thanksgiving and Yom Kippur breakfast?

My go to meal each week is just... Baked chicken breast or fish. Whatever was on sale. Then some kind of roasted fresh veg or microwaved can veg. I cook for an hour on Sunday and eat for the week.

Yeah learning to cook on my own was hard and intimidating and it sucked and took me a couple years and sometimes I'd fuck up and make something incredible and end up wasting money and ordering pizza.

But it's so fucking worth it. I can make good food and plan and eat cheaper and healthier. It's a skill for life.

[myfootyrthroat]

"I need to cook at home, but I'm not even sure how to make authentic khao poon, and coconut milk and fresh basil are so expensive! And I won't even have enough basil left over to make pine nut pesto, so I'll have to buy more when I buy the pinoli!"

Actual poor meals: Noodles with garlic & sesame oil. Pasta with a can of Hunts tomato sauce. Pasta cooked in V8. Rice and beans. Pancakes for dinner. Etc. Etc. Etc.

[lierdumoa]

Also spices and things are way cheaper if you go to an actual East Asian/Indian/Mexican etc. grocer instead of trying to buy it from the ethic aisle of Whole Foods.

[ursavorpalis]

some reasons cooking is overwhelming to some people:

motor issues make handling knives or hot objects risky

OCD or sensory issues preventing working with certain categories of foods

Executive dysfunction

Standing up hurts or is impossible

no fucking kitchen in the apartment

(do not at me with solutions to these problems. some exist, in some cases they are effective, not all.)

[i-said-im-a-fucking-star]

puts my uncomfortably wet hand on your shoulder. see here, gay boy- can i call you gay boy?

[captainsnoop-deactivated2020041]

i hate it when game devs put “fixed several issues” in patch notes 

no. tell me what you fixed. i wanna know what the glitch was.

you know those patch notes that are like “fixed an issue where if the player sat in a bush for too long, they’d become the size of a skyscraper” 

i wanna read those. tell me those. 

[necroesque666]

[sindri42]

[sindri42]

[ahdok]

Adjusted value of Bees. Now that was a special one… because every item in the game had a minimum value, and a beehive was a container for bees, which each had a minimum value… which meant the moment one of your dwarves picked up a beehive, your entire fortress’ net worth skyrocketed… a value used in determining how powerful the foes that visit and try to murder you are.

[prokopetz]

Reblogging for the explanation of what “adjusted value of bees” actually means, because I know several folks following this blog have been wondering.

[probabilitydirigible]

Okay but you’ve all forgotten the best Dwarf Fortress bug of all “Flying creatures give birth in midair, leading to tragedy” 

[probabilitydirigible]

Actually I lied it’s the one where after a major update werewolves and vampires started climbing the nearest tree and refusing to come down. It turned out that he’d given evil creatures the ability to sense each other, but forgotten to set a maximum range on it, so werewolves were aware Hell was underground and trying to flee by climbing 

[thepageofhopes]

This has to be my favorite patch note ever

[teaboot]

My mom likes to tell me about how when I was a little kid riding public transport with her I'd always smile and giggle and chat with weird old ladies who smelled like cat pee and homeless folks and strangers dressed in bizarre outfits but any time a tidy and respectable businessman in a suit and tie waved at me I'd immediately clam up, and she takes a great deal of pride in my supposed inherentability to clock personalities but the truth is I do vaguely remember those bus rides, and it was never about the clothes or the hair or the smell, but more because everyone "strange" asked interesting questions and listened to what I had to say and seemed to think about what I said while the neat and tidy and rigid folks only ever acted like they were going through the motions, which was boring as hell and also pretty annoying

[teaboot]

Well-to-do finance manager with tidy shoes: "Why hello, sweetheart. Can you say 'hi'? Aren't you cute. Are you on a trip with your mom?"

4 year old me: why must we do this

Fantastic old woman in the leopard print coat: "Why yes, my tooth IS real silver! Nobody ever asks me that. Do you like cats?"

4 year old me, suddenly paying attention: Finally, A Person Of Intellect

[greycatbird]

Common Loon, Franklin County NY, June 2026

[isthereaduck]

There are no ducks in this post.

[tropiyas]

[bobdylan-n-jonimitchell]

Joni Mitchell, 1988 © Larry Klein.

[lestatfag]

STAY SAFE!! [ID: the Gilbert Baker pride flag with the words “Happy pride to all those who are unable to celebrate openly and safely. You are loved and seen!” in all-caps black text over it. /end ID]