Ramblings

what it sounds like

[jottingprosaist]

Random sci fi bit:

Someone walks into a room announcing, “I hate to be the bearer of bad news…” and their alien friend spits water because the translator said, “I’m unhappily pregnant with new evil.”

[lizardlicks]

Who the fuck programmed their translator, Google?

[autisticexpression]

Probably.

[thedailyshow]

[gay-hopeless-romantic-deactivat]

The U.S. in a gif series.

[pdawgz]

Pls keep reblogging this till this become a classic tumblr post , because it needs to be

[bunjywunjy]

do you have any cursed/blessed harris hawk facts?

Harris’s Hawks are the only pack-hunting raptor on the planet! they go after rabbits with tactics similar to those found in a pack of wolves, driving it away from cover until one of them can go down and nab it.

this also means they’re more social than other hawks, and will do things like stand on each other’s backs or hold hands for no reason

[noping-out-deactivated20241117]

Me: rolling around in my wheelchair inside a store taking a bunch of photos

Customer: “Can I ask what you’re taking pictures of?”

Me: “I’m documenting my ADA violations case.”

Customer: “What violations?”

Me: Points out five violations I can see from where we are. Explains how to see patterns of ADA violations.

Customer: (in a hostile tone) “Well it can’t be *that* bad. I mean, *you* got in here.”

[noping-out-deactivated20241117]

Me: yelling at someone for illegally parking their motorcycle in the access aisle for disabled parking

Complete stranger: comes up to me, gets right in my face and starts yelling at me for being mean to the motorcyclist

[noping-out-deactivated20241117]

If you see a member of a minority class fighting a violation of their civil rights and you decide to throw yourself, uninvited, into the disagreement on the side of the person violating their civil rights, you are officially one of life’s villains and I hope you fall off a cliff.

[ayliffe]

HOW 2 TORRENT

so! disney+ is a thing but you don’t want to give the mouse your money? i completely sympathise. here’s a list of things not to do, because that would be illegal :o

1) get a torrent client. i’d recommend deluge – it’s free, it’s lightweight, and it doesn’t make you watch ads.

2) there are tons of sites to torrent stuff from, but by far the most famous is the pirate bay. the url changes fairly often, but it’s easily googleable. here is a link that works as of my typing this post up. it should look like this:

3) type something in and search! for example:

as you can see, there are tons of results. what you’re most interested in, though, is the SE column – that shows how many people are uploading the file/s. torrenting works on a peer-to-peer basis, meaning that you can’t download a file unless somebody else is uploading it. fortunately, for anything remotely mainstream, there will be seeders. ideally, you want a file with the most seeders (SE) and the fewest leechers (LE). in this case, “leechers” just means people who are downloading the torrent. the more leechers and the fewer seeders, the slower the download.

4) click on the magnet button for the file you want to download. deluge should give you a window like this:

click “add”, and the file will start to download! depending on how many seeders there are, it might take a while, but the good thing about torrents is that you can pause the download and shut your computer down without corrupting any of the files.

5) and you’re done! but obviously don’t do any of this because that’s illegal. :/

N.B. it’s generally easier to download a whole season or series of a show than it is a single episode. if you only want a particular episode, download the season/series then just delete all the episodes you don’t want lmao

[ayliffe]

@secretagentofcaos yes you can, thank you for reminding me! here’s how you do that:

this is the screen for when i was torrenting a tv show a while back. as you can see, i went to the “files” tab on the bottom half of the screen, which shows all the folders and files in the torrent. to stop a file from downloading, simply right-click on it and select “do not download”.

–

@theasphodelmeadows​ yes there is! basically, you look at the comments of the torrent you want to download. you find the comments by clicking on the name of the torrent, which should give you a page like this:

scroll down and see if there are any comments. if the torrent is bad, you’ll very often get people saying so. if there aren’t any comments, that’s fine – once again, look at the ratio of seeders to leechers. the more seeders and the more leechers a torrent has, the more likely it is to be legit, but to make sure, definitely install a decent antivirus and have it scan everything you download.

oh, and this should go without saying, but just in case: use an adblocker, ideally ublock origin. privacy badger is another good extension to use. and if you have a vpn, use that when you’re torrenting for an extra level of privacy.

[wintersmitth]

Can I add to this? Another good place to download torrents is RARBG. It’s got basic same layout as piratesbay. There’s also https://yts.mx/ which has lightweight movies in pretty good quality. But only movies! 

Also there are several accounts on twitter (such as @ logolessdesres and @ downloadinhd)  or even tumblr accs ( @ hd-source and @ logolesmxtionpicture)  that post download links to movies/series through mega nz. Which, if you are in Germany, is your best way. If you are from Germany, do not torrent stuff without a VPN installed, and even then, better not risk it! 

But I mean. Don’t do any of this stuff, it’s illegal. 

[ayliffe]

excellent addition here, particularly the germany bit

[kalichnikov]

not that i would ever encourage doing this, but just for the sake education, there are a number of proxies of the pirate bay that mirror its servers in case the main URL gets taken down. If one were wanting to find such a proxy (which again, can’t imagine why anybody would want to do that when you can subscribe to a few streaming services and get everything you want right at your fingertips on-demand) a simple search of “pirate proxy” would help you find a list of currently available mirrors in various languages

[baelatargaryen]

Steve dealing with casualties vs. Tony dealing with casualties

[zivitz]

That’s because Steve is an actual trained soldier who has a couple of years of active combat during wartime under his belt, and Tony is a well intentioned rich dude in a fancy suit. It’s almost literally night and day, war v. peace. Steve has a much healthier perspective, to be honest, for their line of work.

[fugayyyku]

That’s…such a bad analysis.

Steve has an incredibly bad perspective for a peacetime officer. His whole perspective is that they try to save as many people as they can, but ultimately people die in the course of their ultimate goal: ending the “war”. Meanwhile Tony’s ultimate goal is to save people, that’s it. There is no ideology behind him truly, only the desire to save people’s lives.

There’s a scene in some generic foreign cop show, I can’t remember which, where an ex-soldier joins a precinct and on duty he and his partner chase down a perp. The perp is a violent offender and he runs down and alley and out into a street. There’s a few cars, a few pedestrians, but overall it’s not crowded. The ex-soldier has a shot on the perp, even though there’s a good few metres between them. He stops running, lines up his shot, and prepares to fire.

His partner stops him, shoves his gun down and screams at him for, well, they cut away but it’s implied a pretty freaking long time.

Because it’s not okay. There are different rules when you deal with civilians instead of soldiers. You do not have the freedom to make potentially lethal judgment calls. It doesn’t matter how confident this man was in his judgement, it’s not his judgement to make.

Police officers making judgment calls outside of what they should be allowed is literally every criticism against the police force you will find.

Soldiers do not make good law enforcement.

The real conversation in civil war is about needs. Is it peacetime? Then no, Steve can’t do whatever he wants. But is this wartime? Has the threat reaches critical that soldiers are needed, and are allowed to violate civilian rights in the name of restoring peace? Because then that’s different.

Literally a summation of civil war is that tony has the right perspective for a peacetime officer, while Steve has the right perspective for a wartime officer. It’s deciding what condition the world is in where the lines blur.

But please dear god don’t reduce iron man’s character to “a rich dude with good intentions”. Iron man’s character is so complicated people literally write papers on it.

[miss-kitty-fantastico]

“Tony has the right perspective for a peacetime officer, while Steve has the right perspective for a wartime officer.” This is the best analysis of their characters I have ever read!!!

[hedgehog-goulash7]

Reblogging for the last two comments. ON POINT.

[onelineinthesand]

@chirpingtiger   Seems like your kind of post. 

[chirpingtiger]

Oh boy. Yeah, @onelineinthesand it really does.

Especially because this isn’t really examples of them “dealing with casualties.”

The first one is Steve reacting to a rescue mission where a junior member is spiraling into a depression out of guilt that she couldn’t save everyone.

The second is Tony trying to guilt the team into signing away the basic human rights of an entire group of people because someone finally made the death toll of Sokovia sink in for him by bringing up the fact that “hey, there were American kids in that city too.”

Steve has an incredibly bad perspective for a peacetime officer. His whole perspective is that they try to save as many people as they can, but ultimately people die in the course of their ultimate goal: ending the “war”.

And I think the people who replied were a little bit confused because this is actually TONY’S line, not Steve’s.

This has BEEN Tony’s mindset, ever since the first Iron Man movie.

Iron Man:

Iron Man 2:

Age of Ultron:

Captain America -The Winter Soldier:

And even in Civil War, he’s “winning the war” before it starts by urging everyone to back a document that strips anyone who is enhanced of their basic human rights and gives the governments the ability to completely overrule all due process if the target is enhanced.

Additionally, the “peace time officer” comment only really applies to a privileged rich man in a peaceful first world country.

Sokovia was at war. It’s specifically pointed out multiple times that they are, and have been, in a state of unrest.

Just because America is not currently at war, doesn’t mean the rest of the world is at peace. It’s this kind of dangerous assumption that leads to actual refugees being turned away at the borders of safe countries because they are “making up excuses” to immigrate.

It’s this particular America-centric view that’s been Tony’s downfall since the first Iron Man movie.

As long as his weapons aren’t being used on American soldiers, he doesn’t care what becomes of them.

Tony doesn’t care at all about the death toll on Sokovia - which is why he suggests that they escape and simply blow up the city and everyone on it.

An idea which your “bad peacetime officer” shuts down hard.

To Tony, every life in that city is expendable for the sake of winning the overall fight against Ultron.

Sure, he’ll help rescue people from buildings when Cap tells him, but he’d much rather focus on “kicking ass” against the Ultron bots.

And the only time we see him actually feeling bad about the death toll from Sokovia is when he’s confronted about the One American Casualty™ that happened during the battle.

His entire speech in Civil War is him projecting his feelings and revelations onto the other Avengers. The fact that innocent people get hurt when they’re careless is something the rest of them are well aware of, and have been trying to avoid from the start.

Hell, let’s just look at how Tony deals with a fight in a crowded city versus how some of the others deal with it.

Tony in a crowded city:

He shows reckless disregard for nearby civilians, is carelessly firing live explosives and his repulsors right beside a crowd, and levels a multi-story building by smashing Hulk through it, bringing thousands of tons of rubble to street level in the most dangerous way possible, without even checking that the streets below are clear.

Hell, the HULK shows more empathy for the nearby civilians who were running and hurt than Tony does.

(Because they don’t matter. They’re not American. The most important thing is that Tony needs to win the fight against Bruce.)

On the other hand, let’s look at some of the combat from the others in city situations:

Natasha is calling warnings to people and carefully navigating narrow streets in an appropriately small vehicle. She does most of her pursuit on foot, and uses her fists and tasers to lower the risk of collateral.

One of Steve’s foremost concerns is for the people, both inside and outside of the train: Getting the pedestrians to safety. Getting the train brought carefully to a stop. Keeping rubble from hurting anyone inside when they smash through a wall. Making sure that there’s at least help waiting for everyone who was onboard before rushing off to the next emergency.

Steve even dismisses any personal hesitations or grudges he might have against the Maximoff twins in favor of saving as many innocents from the collateral as possible - there is no “fight” to be “won” in his mind. There’s only innocent people who need to be saved. His fight can wait.

Steve, Natasha, and Sam have three massive airships to bring out of the sky and completely destroy before they wipe out a few million people in the name of Project Insight. And they have to do this in the middle of Washington DC.

They all risk their own necks to take the ships out, and take care to aim every one of them into the water - the only place where the human population is basically zero. This puts them all at risk of drowning or going down with the ship - something that is very clearly a PTSD-level traumatic experience for Steve and Sam in particular - but they do it anyway because they’re not going to risk letting these ships hit land and kill innocents.

Now let’s look at the worst case scenario on Steve’s side:

The whole team is working to stop a terrorist group from releasing a deadly disease into a densely crowded city.

The terrorists don’t care who they kill - they’re blowing things up and driving trucks into crowds and gunning down guards.

This isn’t a fist-fight with the Avengers.

The terrorists want to kill as many innocent people in this city as they possibly can, and will accomplish that through whatever means necessary.

Steve’s team are all working small and fast, and with mainly hand-to-hand combat, trying to reduce the potential risk of crossfire hitting nearby civilians while the terrorists are specifically going out of their way to attack and hurt the innocents around them.

When the terrorists resort to poison gas, the team works to disperse it. When the terrorists resort to guns, the team strikes fast and hard, and keeps it contained. When the terrorists try to unleash a deadly disease, the team gets the disease vial back at the risk of their own lives.

Then the terrorists resort to military-grade explosives.

This is it - the worst case scenario for the team. No matter how careful you’re being, no matter how skilled or powerful you are, no matter how much combat training you have under your belt…the enemy will occasionally choose the nuclear option.

And you won’t be able to do anything to stop them.

This is what Rumlowe does.

He gets them close, then makes his final jab at Steve and detonates enough C4 to level the marketplace.

Wanda’s first action is to contain the bomb - not only to protect Steve, who she could have easily bubbled a shield around - but to keep the detonation from killing the hundreds of people gathered around them and collapsing the foundations of any of the nearby buildings, killing more.

At this moment it’s about far more than “don’t let Steve get killed by this bomb” - it’s a matter of making sure that some psychopath’s attempts at killing them don’t get anyone else caught in the crossfire.

She’s surrounded on all sides, so her only choice for relocating the actively detonating explosive that she’s slowly losing her grip on, is to throw it straight up and try to clear the skyscrapers before her powers give out on her.

Unfortunately, she loses her grip before it’s completely clear, and the bomb destroys part of a building.

*Note, this is a good five seconds after the initial detonation, and there is STILL enough kinetic force left in that bomb to take out an entire floor of the building. This was not a small explosion in any sense of the word, and it’s a miracle she was even able to hold it that long.

Wanda immediately looks horrified at this, because she realizes that there were likely people inside that building - people who would have been hurt or killed by the explosion.

She doesn’t need to see the bodies, or have it rubbed in her face that these were human beings with families before she cares about the consequences of this, because she was NOT “too busy kicking ass” to realize that there was a risk of collateral due to the crowds.

She is well aware that an explosive hitting a building can kill people - she lived through that scenario herself.

She didn’t toss it into the building on purpose to simply “get rid of it.”

The whole time she was trying to get it clear of everything, to reduce or eliminate the civilian casualties that could result. She knew she couldn’t just throw it a few feet above everyone’s heads and have everything be fine, because she had no guarantee that those buildings would be empty.

But in this one scenario, even her best attempt couldn’t completely cancel out what the terrorists had set in motion, and there are still eleven deaths as a result of their bomb.

(The news report shown later actually lists that more than just the eleven Wakandans were killed in the incident, but the news only focuses on the eleven people that Wanda failed to save from the bomb. That’s what we call “twisting the story.”)

In every one of these situations above, the Avengers are constantly aware of the people around them - the collateral damage.

All, that is, except for Tony. His only thought is “how do I destroy this building without getting sued” which is why he purchases the build site a few seconds before smashing Hulk through it but doesn’t bother to check that the streets below are clear.

It’s why Tony needs Charlie Spence’s mother to make a point of rubbing it in his face that “my son is dead and I blame you for it,” before he even realizes that innocent people died during Ultron’s attack on Sokovia.

During a battle, Tony’s main focus is always protecting himself or taking out the enemy. Bystanders are an afterthought, if he even realizes they are there at all.

(See the party scene in IM2, for example.)

The other big issue is that Tony is incapable of looking at a bigger picture than just “winning the fight.”

(See the whole plot line of Civil War.)

Steve tells Wanda they can’t just roll over and give up if they weren’t able to save someone, because if they do that, there’s going to be even more loss of life in the future.

First responders can’t always save everyone.

But imagine if every time a doctor or a firefighter or a search and rescue team worker didn’t get there in time - imagine if they just quit. Imagine if a rehab center worker or an animal rescue worker just walked away every time they found a person or animal that was just too far gone to help, regardless of what they tried. Imagine if a cop stops an active school shooting, but can’t get to the gunner before he takes out one final victim - imagine if they quit the force.

Steve is telling Wanda that quitting isn’t a solution. It just adds to the problem.

If they don’t have her with them on the next mission, then they have nobody to stop the train. Nobody to redirect the poison. Nobody to watch their backs. Nobody to physically contain the bomb for the crucial few seconds that it takes to reduce what was easily going to be several hundred casualties down to a mere eleven.

One less rescue worker isn’t going to prevent casualties - if anything, it’s going to increase them.

Tony’s argument for accountability is laughable at best, because after months and months of pretending that what he did in Sokovia and Johannesburg and everywhere else he’s left a heap of bodies in his wake was A-okay, he suddenly realized that one American kid was killed as collateral in that otherwise expendable third-world-country, and suddenly he wants to entirely shut the Avengers down, and put tracking chips on all his enhanced “teammates,” so he won’t have to feel guilty over killing someone who “mattered.”

Acting like Steve is some mindless war-obsessed soldier is not only highly disrespectful of the armed forces and veterans, but completely ignores everything that’s been laid out in movie canon.

Steve was ALWAYS incapable of sacrificing lives for “the greater good” or “the bigger purpose.” It’s why he went after Bucky’s squad when the military planned to leave them all for dead because it wasn’t worth the risky rescue mission. It’s why he disagrees with Project Insight, even when everyone else (yes, Tony included) was pushing for it to be implemented to protect the “real” innocents from the criminals who hadn’t shown themselves to be evil yet.

Hell, it’s why he doesn’t want to kill Vision until they’ve exhausted all other solutions to slow down Thanos without ending the synth’s life.

It’s like Dr. Erkstein said about Steve in The First Avenger… “not necessarily a good soldier…but a good man.”

The real difference that you’re ignoring between your initial gifs is that Steve is a man who cares about every life lost, ally and enemy alike, and is hurt whenever there are any casualties:

Whereas THIS:

THIS is a man dealing with caring about a collateral casualty for the first time in his life.

This is a man who has not even realized that people have died as collateral in all of their other fights until just now.

A man who can look Wanda dead in the face and tell her that they need to be aware that people like Charlie Spence DIED in Sokovia - ignoring the fact that she lost her twin brother and a good portion of her country’s population in that very battle.

All Tony knows is that he was guilt tripped for one American who was killed accidentally in Sokovia, and so he’s going to grill the whole team as if they were just as ignorant of the fact that people died as he has been, and demand that they pay for it. He thinks that he has the moral high ground as “the only one to realize that people who MATTER were killed,” and is lording that over the others in the form of forcing them to submit to the Accords.

Him, conveniently, not included.

(And again, that “I must win this war, consequences and collateral be damned” mentality of his comes to rear its ugly head.)

You aren’t comparing a war-time officer and a peace-time officer in these gifs.

You’re comparing a first responder and front line soldier - someone who does his best to save or spare every life in every situation - to a man who builds weapons of mass destruction and doesn’t think that he’s hurting anyone when he pushes the button because he doesn’t have to personally watch them die.

All he sees is a little number on his screen, indicating a new high score.

[everywhichship]

Always reblogging for the last comment

[whyihatetonystark]

damn, that last paragraph gets me every time. because that’s probably exactly how he sees the people he kills. Like an accomplishment, something to brag about. “Hey, I got 36 terrorists and you?” It’s times like these that I miss the comics approach to violence. Namely, that the good guys don’t kill. But you know, what’s the MCU without excessive violence? Disney would never pass on all that extra money.

[tired-of-tonystans]

Worst thing about Tony is that there’s no reason he should have any causalties bc all his firing systems are computer operated so they should be 100% accurate. We saw in the first Iron Man movie that he was able to save those hostages in the small village easily, but when the risk of civilian causalties isn’t spelled out right in front of him, he doesn’t care, doesn’t even think out it.

[soothifying-sounds-asmr]

Shanty Singers Play Sea of Thieves by The Longest Johns

[vrabia]

ok but like. space shanties. 

there’s a thing that should definitely be a thing in sci-fi.

[vrabia]

my brain went straight to the ‘put him in the airlock ‘till he’s sober’ part of ‘what can you do with a drunken spacer’ and i never want to look back from this. 

[honestmerchantsailor]

THIS IS 100% A THING. It’s usually considered a subset of filk, so naturally a lot of prolific filk artists like Leslie Fish have a selection. Sci-fi filk is possibly my favorite genre of music.

Most of these are actually ballads, not true shanties, but still:

The Senate - Space Shanty

Kristoph Klover - Fire in the Sky

Duane Elms - Dawson’s Christian

Catherine Faber - Providence Skies

Julia Ecklar - Ballad of a Spaceman

Leslie Fish & Ann Prather - Hanrahan’s Bar

Julia Ecklar & Ann Prather - Pushin’ the Speed of Light

Leslie Fish - Ship of Stone

Leslie Fish - Guardians

Leslie Fish - Sam Jones

Vic Tyler - Space Hero

Vic Tyler & Duane Elms - Spacer’s Home

You can probably just google “sci-fi filk” and get a zillion more. It’s a surprisingly rich genre for one so unknown to most people.

[figdays]

Soaps // yukonsoaps

The Yukon Soaps Company is Indigenous owned and operated by Joella Hogan. The company is all about a cleaner you and environment. The soaps are made from scratch just like grandmother’s cookies. They are all unique, authentic and handcrafted in Mayo, Yukon, Canada. The most important ingredient is the Yukon. The soaps are inspired by the land and Joella’s travels around the world. When you buy soap from us, you are casting a vote for natural, hand crafted and locally made products.

[holybeings]

Buying for everyone I love with my unemployment money 😍😍😍🤝🤝🌿🌿🌿🙏🏼♥️♥️🌟

[rollingstoneboycomplex]

when Lemony Snicket wrote “I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you everyday” that hurt me

[heavensickness]

Full paragraph hurts even more.

“ (…) I will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where once we were so close… I will love you until your face is fogged by distant memory. I will love you no matter where you go and who you see, I will love you if you don’t marry me. I will love you if you marry someone else and I will love you if you never marry at all, and spend your years wishing you had married me after all. That is how I will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way.”

[awesomefitnessrecipes]

Easily Paleo-ified with some tweaks to the stir-fry sauce.

Love healthy food & fitness? Follow Awesome Fitness Recipes on Instagram

[teashoesandhair]

how do you make your famous roast potatoes? i need them in my face

O M G hello I hope you are having a very excellent day and also it is an honour to be asked for a recipe for the person whose food always gives me Exquisite Envy!!!!!!!

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celsius, or 180 if it’s a fan oven. Americans can convert that into Fahrenheit; I want no part of that nonsense.

Peel some nice big boy potatoes, very starchy boys. Maris Piper are the absolute best, recommend very thoroughly. Cut them until quite smol - I recommend about the size of a PLUM. Fruitstuffs are my metric, for some reason. Make sure there are sharp edges - cutting them into quarters is best.

Put them in a pan and pour cold water on them until they’re just covered. Add a pinch of salt, and bring it to a ROILING BOIL, like the surface of a stormy sea. Turn the heat down and simmer for about 2-5 mins, until the edges of our good lord potates are slightly soft; you can test it by stabbing them gently with a fork (please be aware that gentle stabbing is still stabbing, and won’t stand up as a defense in a court of law.)

AT THE SAME TIME, heat 100ml/g of your fat of choice; I use goose fat, but olive oil is an excellent veggie alternative. Heat it for around 10 mins, until it’s being all sizzly and quite scary actually.

Drain the potates in a colander and then SHAKE. Rough ‘em up real good, like you’re a mob boss and they’re behind on payments. Then coat them lightly in flour and rough ‘em up again, because they didn’t learn the first time. They should look slightly fluffy, like so:

(I actually slightly over boiled these because I got distracted taking photos of a cat; yours should look less fluffy!)

Put them into the fat / oil, making sure they’re not on top of one another. That is v important; potates need their space. Roast them for 15 minutes, then turn, roast for another 10, turn, and then another 10 until they’re as golden as Achilles’ hair (very golden, famously.)

Sprinkle with coarse salt (pref Maldon) and the seasoning of your choice - I like coarse pepper and rosemary, because it’s nice.

Then you eat the heck out of them and you praise the potate gods, and devote your life to roast potates.

[syfyravalkyrie]

Why can’t all recipes be written like this? This was a delight to read.

[tallangrycockatiel]

Hi yes I made these for dinner today and they were 100% the Best Roasties I have ever acheived, 10/10.

[teashoesandhair]

Warning warning never make these for another human because they will ask you to make them ALL THE TIME

[cockroach-queer]

Some things it is A-OK to say to your doctor:

No

Wait

Stop 

(These are full sentences! You do not need to say any more) 

I am not comfortable. 

I am not comfortable, I would like… 

you to wait a moment.

another person in the room. 

everyone else out of the room. 

a doctor/nurse of my same gender to preform this test/procedure. 

the person who came with me to this appointment in the room. 

you to explain everything before you begin. 

you to tell me what you are doing as you go. 

to do this another day. 

I want to get a second opinion before we proceed.

I don’t understand, please repeat that. 

I don’t understand, please explain more simply. 

Please say that slower/spell that, I want to do some research myself.

I would like to talk to [someone in my life, ie my parents to SO] before making this decision. 

No, I do not need to talk to [anyone] before making this decision, I am confidant on my own and am ready to proceed. 

What are the side effects of this medication/procedure? What are the potential complications? 

Why are you recommending/prescribing this specific thing? 

What other treatment options are there? Why are you choosing this?

Would your treatment plan be different if I were a man/woman older/younger had kids, etc? Why are you choosing this one then?

IS there anything I should know about this treatment you have not yet told me?  

I understand you say not to, but If I choose to do X, against medical advice, what risks am I running? (ie taking recreational drugs while on medication)

How much will this cost? 

Are there any less expensive options/tests we can run first? 

Is there a generic of this medication you can prescribe instead?

I think you are not understanding me, I said…

You are not listening to me, please let me finish describing my symptoms. 

You are not understanding how much pain I am in, let me clarify… 

I do not think it is anxiety/depression/my weight/etc, what else could it potentially be? 

I think by assuming it is anxiety/depression/my weight/etc you are ignoring some symptoms. Please listen again and let’s discuss what else it could be. 

Please write in my chart that you are not testing for X and why not. 

I am in enough pain/this is detrimental enough to my life that non-treatment is not an option. If you can not treat this/figure out what is wrong, to whom can you refer me?

Please write (or help me write) a summary of what we did today so I don’t forget 

What are our next steps? 

If [what you are recommending] is ineffective, what would my next steps be? What other doctor should I talk to? 

What is the best way to contact you if I have additional questions or issues? 

Remember, a doctor is a person YOU pay because they know a lot about bodies in general, to help you figure out whats best for YOUR body. It is still your body, not theirs! They know about medicine but you are the expert in your body. Don’t let them act like they own you. Don’t leave if you’ve still got questions, don’t stay if you’re uncomfortable, and feel free to insist on ANY information you want. 

[aturinfortheworse]

From personal experience: 

I don’t think I can/will follow that treatment, is there an alternative?

That is too hard for me, can we make it easier?

If I’m inconsistent with this treatment, what will happen?

eg. if a treatment requires you to remember daily medication, do something at the same time, or they recommend lifestyle changes you know you can’t or won’t make.

One of the best experiences I’ve had with a medical professional is telling my physiologist “I’m not likely to do repetitive daily exercises” and have him say immediately “Okay, let’s cut some of these out, and at the next appointment we can see which ones are worth keeping.”

[tilltheendwilliwrite]

Also, you are ALLOWED to fire your doctor/specialist.

When I was sixteen, I had to have my shoulder surgically repaired and was extremely nervous about everything. I don’t remember how or why, but for once it was my dad who took me to this appointment, and knowing I was scared, he made sure he came back with me to the room. He cracked jokes and did “dad things” to put me at ease.

Then this ancient mofo doc comes in, immediately grabs onto me without ever explaining what he’s going to do, and starts manipulating what is already a super painful joint.

It was the only time I got away with shouting, “What the fuck?” in front of my dad, who also shouted the same thing.

This doc goes, “Oh, well I need to see how it dislocated to know the best course of treatment.” No, he fucking did not. He just like terrorizing a sixteen year old because he could.

My dad stood up, said, “No. You can ask.”

The doc let go (dad’s not small) and began a regular assessment, then proceeded to tell me he could just, “stick a red hot poker against my shoulder to make lots of scar tissue,” cause that would fix the problem.

I lost my shit, burst into tears, and generally died a little right there at the thought of that man doing anything to me.

Again, dad stands up. “You’re fired. We’re leaving. I’m reporting this.”

Three sentences sat the asshole on his heels. We left, I met another ortho surgeon who was great, had the surgery all fine and good.

Dad did report him. I have no idea if anything came of it, but I’ll never forget the shock on this “holier than thou” face when my dad said, “You’re fired.”

I’ve fired a few doctors/chiropractors/massage therapists since then (yes, I am selective in who treats me).

So know your rights, and never be afraid to stand up to a doctor. They may know more about the body than you, but they do not know more about YOUR body than you do.

[meret118]

Take an advocate with you, someone who has no problem sticking up for you. You’re at the doctor because you don’t feel good. You’re almost certainly not mentally at your best either. You need someone to catch the details and ask questions at the very least. Also, especially if you’re at the hospital, ask the nurses who they would go to, or take their loved to be treated by.

[northernposting]

the only way this can end is badly

[catchymemes]

Via @iamdylancurran (Twitter)

[hank0331]

I’ll repost this whenever I see it on my dashboard.

[nightowlpatrol]

fuck…

[fegeleh]

i’ve compiled a huge google drive folder of anarchist, socialist, feminist, anti-colonial, anti-imperial books+ essays, crip + disability theory, queer theory, critical race theory, film theory, transnational + diaspora trauma study essays, and writings that combine all of the above

some essays i’ve got from school, most of the books and some essays r from beautiful people on the internet

to be updated as often as i get more shit. which is fairly often~

[fegeleh]

new categories r: abuse, domestic violence, consent, rape // film theory +chinese film +soviet film // ananarchism+socialism // anti-prison // crip theory + other disability theory // diaspora, transnational trauma // education // empire + hegemony (anti-colonial/imperial, etc) // feminism, womanism, black feminism // gender + queer theory // history // MENA (middle east/north africa // misc essays // novels // palestine // philosophy (sorry) // pop culture + tv analysis // race,  ethnicity, racism, antisemitism // religion // resistance theory // science (ideology, philosophy, history // yiddishkeit

categories r growing + changing as i put more time into organizing these files and receive more stuff to add. also a lot of the new stuff i’ve received from other ppl i havent had time to look thru properly so i know i’ve miscategorised some stuff but w/e ill get to that in the summer. if u have anything u’d like to add to this drive, please email me @ [email protected]

[fullcravings]

London Fog Gelato Ice Cream - Imagine an Earl grey tea latte with a splash of vanilla but frozen to perfection… this London fog gelato is my new summer favorite! 

https://www.proportionalplate.com/london-fog-gelato-ice-cream/

#icecream #gelato #sweet #sweettooth #dessert #londonfog #latte #tea #sweets #yum #yummy

Congratulations proportionalplate for having the winning submission July 24, 2019!