Well huh...

A collection of everything from random thoughts to full-on rambles and beyond Commissions / Ko-Fi

[wheelchairtetris]

wheelchair users deserve a minimum of three wheelchairs to meet different needs. like, bare minimum of indoor chair, outdoor chair, and off road chair. chairs that meet different needs for transport, activity, positioning needs, energy levels, etc.

there is not "one chair" that can meet every need. wheelchair users deserve to have multiple chairs that meet specific needs, no matter how complex their seating/positioning needs. we deserve to at least have a backup if our chair breaks that is just as suited to our needs.

[wheelchairtetris]

wow this blew up

for anyone who doesn't know, wheelchairs are very expensive and insurance will usually only cover one every five years or only cover a new one if your needs have changed significantly. the expense is especially true for anyone who has complex positioning needs (i.e. requiring tilt/recline/elevation in power wheelchairs, general group 3 power wheelchair needs, one arm drive for manual wheelchairs, etc.). as with so many disability related issues, those most impacted by their disability are most at risk of harm when adequate support is out of reach.

this post isn't a joke about how we deserve more for being disabled. this is a very real issue for many wheelchair users, for whom using a wheelchair not suited to their needs can cause very real harm. access to multiple wheelchairs that meet your needs can save lives, and the financial limits placed on disabled people (through insurance, through savings caps, through limited income) prevent that from being our reality!

[neonsheepe]

My power wheelchair costs $40,000+(cad) new. I had to buy it second-hand with money I got from fundraising because my insurance would only cover a max of $2300 (despite having tons of medical proof I needed one). I’m one of the people who need tilt/recline/elevation functions.

Insurance does not cover second-hand chairs.

I got super lucky the guy I bought it from listed it as cheap as he did, and I still have to pay over $2000 to get custom cushions so I can use it without getting injured (because an ill-fitting wheelchair can cause damage to your body).

Those cushions have a lifespan of 5 years before they need to be replaced again.

Maintenance and repair costs aren't included/covered by my insurance and will all have to be paid out of pocket.

All so I can get to the kitchen by myself.

[swagpaws]

god i hate how normalized diet culture and shit like bmi and calories are. bmi is based on eugenics. calories are a measurement of how much energy something gives u and not at all of how much weight or fat ull gain. diets have been proven to be harmful and ultimately unhelpful in actually losing weight. fatness has been largely proven to not be inherently unhealthy and doesnt inherently cause health issues.

if anyone has more good links to add on then please do and if anyone knows more on this stuff than me then dont hesitate to correct me!

[more-beanies]

FOOD IS GOOD. FOOD IS GOOD. FOOD IS GOOD!! if you’re eating, ever, and even/especially if it’s hard, know that i am personally SO SO proud of you

[normal-horoscopes]

The BMI was invented by Adolphe Quetelet, the 19th century statistician who invented phrenologist anthropometry. He wasn't just a eugenicist, he was one of the founding fathers of racist pseudoscience. Please do not listen to anything he has to say about your body.

[uglymelon]

“And get this: While epidemiologists use BMI to calculate national obesity rates (nearly 35 percent for adults and 18 percent for kids), the distinctions can be arbitrary. In 1998, the National Institutes of Health lowered the overweight threshold from 27.8 to 25—branding roughly 29 million Americans as fat overnight—to match international guidelines. But critics noted that those guidelines were drafted in part by the International Obesity Task Force, whose two principal funders were companies making weight loss drugs.”

Source: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/08/why-bmi-big-fat-scam/

Why BMI is a big fat scam

Body mass index is used to sell weight loss drugs, set insurance premiums, and counsel patients. There's just one little problem.

[feluka]

When Amal surprised me by telling me she named her newborn after me, I felt like part of my heart had gone to Gaza and remained there ever since.

This part of my heart is now breaking. Amal, who's been on a poor diet because she can't afford better food, is unable to breastfeed baby Mina any longer, and is unable to afford enough formula to compensate, and now both mother and baby are weak and malnourished.

Amal is suffocating from the stress of having to provide for her daughters. Her husband Motasem is doing everything he can (recently, he was almost caught in a bombing while trying to get food) but they're both overwhelmed. I wish there was anything I can do for them.

I'm begging you to donate if you can and share if you can't. I want, more than anything in this world, for these kids to grow up healthy and for their parents to be able to rest.

Fundraiser Vetting info

[rjalker]

I don't think ableists who insist on magically healing all physically disabled characters realize that the only real thing they're accomplishing is telling physically disabled people that we shouldn't exist and don't deserve to see ourselves in fiction.

The Imperial Radch series has literally made me cry multiple times just because it actually has physically disabled characters who are treated with respect and not magically cured.

And then you'll get thousands of ableist jackasses flooding the comments and notes saying that physically disabled characters should all be magically cured and "fixed" because they cannot fucking stand to even imagine a world where we get to exist and be happy and not be constantly suffering from ableism.

There are so many fucking people I've had to block from my Geordi disability post that insist that we must let people magically heal physically disabled characters and we must let people's so-genuinely-called utopian societies practice eugenics like it's just normal. And they are not talking about dystopias disguising themselves as utopias. They literally genuinely believe that you can't have a utopia without murdering all the physically disabled people to stop us from upsetting the ablebodied just by existing.

If you're one of the ableist jackasses who thinks physically disabled characters shouldn't be allowed to exist without getting magically cured before the story ends, you are no fucking better than people who only let gay characters be in their stories to die horribly as punishment for being gay, or become 100% sincerely straight by the end.

Create physically disabled characters, and let them stay physically disabled the entire time. Let your characters who start off ablebodied become disabled over the course of the story.

[cheetz0]

Iran is slowly coming back online, but by "online," I mean they've moved from whitelisting some websites to blacklisting everything. I had no idea what these terms meant, but living in Iran forces you to know about technical network and connection stuff. Basically, instead of banning everything except for a few shitty malware apps posing as "social media platforms", they have now moved to filter out and ban the same usual things as before (like Telegram, Instagram, YouTube, everything). So what does that mean? It means more IPs will be available to bypass the ban, and VPNs will be more affordable. So more people can access the internet, STILL ILLEGALLY and THROUGH A PAYWALL.

It's currently close to 4 AM now that I'm posting this, and I've been crying non-stop since midnight because my friends came back online one by one through an unstable connection and said: "Hi, I'm alive." I had prepared myself for the funeral of so many of my friends. Some haven't come back online yet, and we've formed small "search and rescue" groups to find their contacts or families to check if they're okay.

What remains a fact amidst all of this is that nobody in the world ever gave a single fuck about us. I was one of the lucky ones to connect during the complete shutdown via some newly invented way we were too scared to even publish on GitHub for fear of getting arrested. In the time I was connected, I felt immense guilt for having access to the internet, and I begged you all on my socials to be the voice of the people who were about to get executed.

Not even once did I see someone talk about the internet blackout in Iran, and it enrages me.

We've been massacred, mass executed, and then silenced by getting our only way of communicating with the world shut off and the world treats it as some background noise, some irrelevant news that isn't even worth spending time hearing about.

So I'm asking you again, please, be the voice for the people in Iran. We are barely surviving.

[rjalker]

plain text: So I'm asking you again, please, be the voice for the people in Iran. We are barely surviving.

[thenixart]

[id: Four images: a banner and three pictures listing prices with sample artwork. The banner reads 'The Screaming Emu' in orange across a blue, black, and green bird monster.

The second image shows Andalite heads in varying levels of detail with prices listed: $10 for a sketch, $15 for line art, $20 for line art with flat colors, and $25 for line art with full coloring and shading.

The third image shows a digital painting of the bust of a blue budgie parrot with the caption: $75 for lineless art.

The fourth image shows a dragon standing upright with lines marking off segments of its body listed with prices: No additional charge for the head, +$10 for a bust up drawing, +$15 for a waist up drawing, and +$25 for a full body drawing. /end id]

--

Hey! My commissions are open. For a lot of reasons I need more money than I’m currently able to make at my job. I would be incredibly grateful if you commissioned me.

Contact me via private message or ask through @thenixart​ or via my email: [email protected]

Payments through Paypal or kofi (ko-fi.com/nixkat > accepts card payment). Products are digital and will be emailed in .png format unless otherwise specified.

Extras!

-Additional characters are $5 per character. -Simple backgrounds like colored rectangles or circles or polka dots cost nothing. Complex backgrounds are $15. -Saucy/Suggestive art (T&A mostly and some kinks) has an additional charge of $25

I draw:

-Monsters, aliens, fantasy creatures -Animals and Furries/Anthros -Humans

I do not draw:

- Genitals, Body fluids, Sexual Acts - Incest, Pedophilia, Sexual Assault/Sexual harassment

Art examples:

[id: Art of a tumbleweed made of human arms. /end id]

[ID: A simple drawing of Laios Touden from Dungeon Meshi as a wolfman-type werewolf with a tail. He's drawn from the hips up and wearing his plate armor. /End ID]

[id: Digital art of the Pokemon, boldore, a deep blue and orange rock monster with three limbs and two yellow lined ears in the middle of its face in the place of eyes laying down on a simple green grass background bordered with grey. /end id]

[id: Digital art of the character Chur from Magi-Nation seated cross-legged in profile with his face turned towards the viewer. He is bald with scaly green skin, dark green facial hair, orange eyes, and a yellow gem embedded onto his forehead. He’s wearing a brown and grey fur bikini with arm and leg guards that have orange spikes on the shoulders and orange claws on the boots. The tail on his fur bikini is pointed curved upwards and is striped. 

Behind him is a red-orange rectangle as a background. /end id]

[id: A digital painting of two women, one tall Black and with red hair and one shorter white and prematurely gone grey, on a hike in a birch-maple forest in autumn. They are on a wood planked path with a split in the path in front of them. The taller woman holds a map folded in one hand and points at the path directly in front of them while the shorter woman looks at her and looks to be speaking. /end id]

[szmaciarz-pospolity]

Happy pride month to Kevin Levin and NOBODY else

[kariachi]

Sometimes you come across media crit and it's like 'folks who don't understand a person can become a better version of themself and still be an asshole' vs 'folks who don't understand that self-improvement and/or good intentions don't make a person not an asshole' fight to the death.

[kariachi]

Random Concept: Various mutants from B10 leaving traces of themselves behind them.

Acidbreath only drinks out of glass, and his saliva and breath leaves it etched where they made contact

Cooper and Malware both unconsciously reorganize the programming of tech they interface with

Kevin unconsciously uses his powers to small degrees, sometimes leaving oddly patterned spots on items he's had lasting contact with due to absorbing and manipulating their materials

Animals Clancy uses his powers on tend to be Different afterwards, sometimes exhibiting minor physical alterations but most commonly mildly increased intelligence

Mike chews shit when he's stressed or hungry, his movements could be tracked by following the string of star-shaped scratches, indents, divots, and holes left in his wake

[kariachi]

Random Headcanon: In the modern, western world there’s a very strong stereotype? cultural expectation? social pressure? around mutants regarding proper use of their powers. ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ are very defined, very distinct, no grey allowed. A mutant is expected to use their powers in service of others, specifically in protection of others, as this is seen as the only really ‘valid’ use of them. After all, if you can heal people why wouldn’t you become a doctor (no matter whether you have the temperament or stomach for the job), a firefighter if you can control water (even if you have terrible asthma that would be ill-served by the smoke)? People’s health and safety are on the line, and you could, technically, help. So you have to.

Mutants, and by extension others with powers, are expected to become cops, firefighters, superheroes, because the predominating culture states that these and more power-specific jobs like doctor are the only jobs that allows them to be a ‘good’ person. To do otherwise is to be horribly selfish at best, or under suspicion of being actively malicious at worst. And doing so young is encouraged, to prevent ‘going down the wrong path’.

A mutant who goes starts fighting crime as soon as they have full control of their powers? Is good and righteous and an icon

A mutant who keeps their head down and opens a bakery? Is selfish and untrustworthy and a suspect by default

You either become a hero or you’re considered a potential villain.

The fact that this means a sad number of mutants, when faced with health concerns and prejudice and desires to not be any of the things society says they have to be, see the black and white options and say ‘fuck it then’? Only serves to fuel the fire.

You see a bit of this with Alan (as soon as he’s proven not to be a villain the sheriff declares he’ll work with them and nobody bats an eyelash) and Cooper (fourteen, same as Alan, but as soon as he has any contact with Plumber work everyone is all for him to drop everything and join the organization, seeming more entrenched than even the Tennysons by his second UA appearance) especially.

Servantis didn’t have to do much to get Alan, Manny, Helen, and Pierce to want to work with the Plumbers, essentially just wiping and replacing a few memories and letting cultural conditioning and social pressure do the rest of the work for him.

[kariachi]

Random: The study of mutant genetics is a whole damn issue all on it's lonesome.

Ya know how people say 'we need to cure cancer' and people who study cancers sigh and point out that there's like hundreds of the damn things? Or how people go on about the cold and specialists drink heavily because it's not really just one issue? Dynateratological geneticists are part of that drinking club.

Because there's a whole host of different genes that, when 'on', cause individuals to present as mutants. Not every mutant will have all of them. Most will not. What genes are possible, and what they do, changes with the species, and interbreeding among sapients is not that fucking rare you don't risk somebody walking in with a gene that should not be there because their great-x-grandma was a monsterfucker.

But that's not the end of it. I've mentioned before, what other genes a person has affects how they present as a mutant. How one develops in utero affects how they present as a mutant. You can have otherwise identical twins and their mutations will still present differently, if only slightly.

And the 'mutant genes' themselves affect other genes, typically causing them to behave in ways to better support the mutations at play. Someone with electricity powers won't just have those relevant genes working alone, they'll also be altering how the genes that play into their nervous system function in order to make sure they don't fry themselves. (And when these don't work, well, there are reasons mutants have a low pregnancy success rate and high infant mortality.)

Before we even get into how much still isn't understood- such as what if any affect 'mutant genes' have on other genes when they aren't on, whether they're tied to other genes, how this differs between them, how many there are, etc.

All of which means that pretty much everything involving the genetics tied to mutants is complicated, every patient/sample/subject is unique, there are folks fuckers could dedicate whole lifetimes to studying alone, and every time some flea-bitten bastard shitstain goes up in public talking about 'finding the cause' or 'a cure' or 'preventing this' these people lock themselves in closets and scream so fucking loud-

[kariachi]

why yes these fuckers do know more about how many species there are on this planet than everyone else, some poor fucker getting a call from a colleague in the middle of the night,

''i don't know what this is i think it may be kumari'' ''...how the fuck would they be part kumari?!'', ''i don't know! they taught us not to kinkshame in 101!'',

[kariachi]

Random Mutant Stuff- As expected from a smol, young mutants tend to struggle with figuring out how to work their powers. This varies of course, from kid to kid and from mutation to mutation. A kid may not have proper powers, their mutation may be purely in form and function, and they'll probably catch on at about the same rate a non-mutant kid would. Kids with full-on powers? It can take a while. In a healthy environment it can take a kid well into elementary school to get a full grasp on their powers and how to properly control them. And in some cases they may never gain full control- something more commonly seen in forms of psychic power like pre/postcognition, aura reading, shit like that. Especially since some have multiple different mutations, or mutations that present in multiple ways, it can be a lot.

However things end up, regular practice with their powers is important to the physical and mental health of not only mutants but the people around them. Unfortunately, in the West, this plays a part in why there are so many problems going on with mutants. A sort of feedback loop has developed where children are discouraged from practicing with their powers because using them when you don't have full control is Bad, as evidenced by damage caused when some or another other mutant, who also was discouraged from practicing with their powers, used them and things went Badly. As a result of this, mutant kids raised in non-mutant homes can take into their teens or even into adulthood to gain full understanding and maximum control of their powerset. As one might guess, this isn't healthy for anybody, especially when the kids are old enough to be getting some power behind them, but too young to be practicing safely on their own.

Doubly especially when you take into account the Western insistence that a mutant's moral fiber is based entirely on their using their powers to fit as close to the 'hero' paradigm as possible, which you may notice as being in opposition to the insistence that one not use their powers if they can't control them. How, pray tell, does one use their powers 'for good' when they're actively discouraged from learning how to use them at all, and a slip-up with these unpracticed powers risks getting you classed as a bad person?

These aren't universal problems, on Earth and in the galaxy. More community-focused cultures tend to have fewer problems as parents and children both get more support. Cultures with more positive or neutral opinions on mutants tend to have fewer problems, as children grow up with less trauma and more options in life. Areas with more opportunity for individuals to safely engage with their powers tend to have fewer problems, as greater understanding and control lead to higher confidence and fewer accidents.

It's mostly the last two that activists in the West tend to focus on improving. In pursuit of the latter, pro-mutant groups and charities continue to work on making safe locations for practice with one's powers available, often in the form of properties set-up specifically to allow a full range of power usage in a safe and controlled environment. You'll also see mutant-focused schools, often boarding schools of up to a few thousand students, dedicated to allowing a safe place to learn both general facets of education and one's own powerset in, again, a safe and controlled environment, while also lowering exposure to anti-mutant prejudice in hopes of minimizing resultant trauma and it's ongoing aftereffects.

While these locations are geared primarily towards individuals- especially children- born with their powers, there is a strong push to get those who acquire their mutations later in life to engage with them as well. Activists and experts consider them to be their own subgroup especially vulnerable to the negative effects of Western society's views on mutants, especially as far as children and teenagers are concerned.

The goals there aren't only for the sake of these individuals, but also for their children. The mutant children of those who acquired their mutations later in life are more likely to be isolated from their community, more likely to suffer from mental health problems, and more likely to have internalized prejudices against mutants than mutant children of those born with their mutations, as a result of prejudices their parents learned before acquiring their powers and never unlearned.

[kariachi]

that last bit's been in the head a while, well all of it has but that especially, inspired by the tendency in works for people who acquire their powers to not consider themselves mutants, and their children to also be classed as 'totally not a mutant' despite being born with their powers, i figure in a set-up like the one i'm working in that'd probably lead to some problems for the kids, as they're raised to see themselves as distinctly separate from the group that can most relate to them, and from whom they can probably find the most acceptance and relevant guidance, possibly even raised to believe themselves better than them and likely raised to be held to a higher standard than other mutant kids,

[kariachi]

Random: In the west it’s generally found that individuals who acquire their powers, while very much a minority among mutants, are statistically more likely to go into hands-on ‘public service’ fields such as medicine, emergency services, or heroing, than individuals who were born with their powers. There’s no one answer as to why, but the most popular theory is, since most in this situation are adults, a combination of growing up knowing what a ‘good’ person with powers is supposed to do and not having grown up getting that knowledge rammed down their throats while also dealing with the prejudice against mutants, leads to them being primed to see these roles as ‘required’ while also being more likely, statistically, to be in a mental, social, and financial space where they can and are willing to do them.

In cultures where mutants choosing to not dedicate themselves to the ‘the public good’ isn’t held in a negative light the numbers are far more even.

[kariachi]

then of course you add on the people who dreamed of being superheroes when they were kids, that’s it’s own whole percentage of the ones who do hero stuff,

the difference between growing up knowing that good people with powers do X and then gaining one day gaining powers, and spending your childhood hearing about if you don’t do X you’re Bad while also being mistreated because you’re a freak and that’s Bad, one side ends up a lot more open to X than the other,

ben: i always dreamed of being a superhero, kevin: that’s cool my parents got phonecalls from the school because i didn’t,

[kariachi]

Random Headcanon: There exists a site/app called ‘DynaDine’ that rates restaurants on matters important to mutants. Calorie averages, taste, smell, nutritional information, treatment of mutant customers, price, expected payment, the details of ‘all-you-can-eat’, etc. It has a dedicated staff of reviewers with a wide range of mutations, who vary in how well they pass for ‘normal’, and with a paid subscription users get the opportunity to leave their own ratings to go in the ‘User Experiences’ sections of each page, as well as monthly coupon offers.

[bird-gifs-collection-agency]

While its eyes are not as big as its mummy's, this baby tawny frogmouth is still using its beady peepers to see the best it can

[unfrostedstrawberrypoptart]

[Image Description: Gif of a tawny frogmouth chick next to its parent. The chick is bobbing its head side-to-side, making it look like it’s dancing. End description]

[rabbitkinglune777]

cool. another black child died in a hate crime

[rabbitkinglune777]

South Carolina jury finds store owner not guilty of murder in killing of Black teen | CNN

A South Carolina jury on Monday found a store owner not guilty of murder in the 2023 shooting of a Black 14-year-old.

apparently the murder happened in 2023 after doing some research but the murderer has been found not guilty.

black children get murdered and become victims of hate crimes every fucking day. this is ridiculous

[rabbitkinglune777]

im posting this here despite the website being extremely white centered, I want people to understand how in this country it's basically ok to murder and victimize black people, especially women and children in the name of "self defense" and white America will reward you for your antiblackness.

[bigopenspaces]

South Carolina teen falsely accused of shoplifting fatally shot by store owner: Police

A South Carolina gas station owner was charged with murder on Monday after allegedly shooting and killing a 14-year-old boy he believed was

[greenapplegirl90]

Unapologetically Paris: A Young Black Trans Texan Was Killed — Then the Record Struggled to Name Them

Paris Harris was 21, Black, trans, and loved. After they were killed in Dallas, police and media records struggled to name them with dignity

This article is about a trans person who got murdered in my city, and misgendered in death.