Upwards, Not Northwards

29. I like horror movies and folk singers

[usergambit]

RESIDENT EVIL (2026) dir. Zach Cregger

[bundibird]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[alwayswasalwayswillbeourland]

OP's tags

[bundibird]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[alwayswasalwayswillbeourland]

OP's tags

[evahdestrvction]

POSSESSION (1981) / OBSESSION (2026)

[boyd-stevens]

"I’m acting so weird. This is so weird."

OBSESSION 2026, dir. Curry Barker

[goldcrescent]

My new pet peeve is people completely misunderstanding the term Male Gaze and making the term female gaze based entirely on that misunderstanding

[goldcrescent]

the white boy of the month pushing his hair back and reading poetry for the camera is not the equivalent of the dehumanization of women in visual media by way of presenting them primarily as vessels for sexual gratification

[neroushalvaus]

Trevor Noah interviewing Judith “Badass” Heumann

x

[neroushalvaus]

I’m glad so many people have discovered Judith “Judy” Heumann through this silly little gif set. I am sorry to say she has died at the age of 75. She was known as the mother of disability rights. In 1970 she sued the Board of Education to become a licensed teacher and she won. In 1977 she was one of the organizers of the 504 Sit-in, a 24 day protest for disability rights. You can learn more about her story from her book Being Heumann, the picture book Fighting for YES! or the documentary Crip Camp.

Judy Heumann believed in the inherent value of each disabled individual and would never back down on what she thought was right. Her friends and fellow activists remember her as a strong leader.

Judy Heumann

December 18, 1947 - March 4, 2023

May her memory be for a blessing.

[boringkate]

When I was a kid watching tv was idiot coded and nerds read books, but now scrolling shortform videos is considered braindead behavior and watching tv means you're some kinda intellectual. You might think this shifting assessment of media's consumers might make readers into absolute super geniuses, but no. Only perverts read now.

[maelwife]

Maybe one reason time seems to speed up in adult life is because when your full time job leaves you roughly 5 hours of free time a day plus two days off a week your life turns into a sort of monotony that makes the days blend together and creative pursuits move in slow motion as you can only get to them when other your commitments are done.

[maelwife]

When you look back and think damn 2019 wasn’t that long ago where did the time go? Job. Your Job took it.

[alchemistdoctor]

I am begging you. Please learn about stress/discomfort tolerance. Practice raising it. You need this to survive. If someone online can ruin your day with a throwaway comment, you desperately need to understand discomfort tolerance and consciously, systematically build that shit.

Also! Stress tolerance is such an important skill that having a learning disability in that area is a major symptom of a whole lot of other disabilities/mental illnesses! Struggling with it is a huge part of life! It sucks!

Am I saying everyone with misophonia needs to listen to chewing noises all day? No. But you need to find ways to tolerate it enough that you don't treat others like shit if they make a mouth noise near you.

No, you don't have to read the fic with your trigger tags. But you do need to be able to handle scrolling past the tags without being upset.

It is hard! But not having it also makes you so so so easy to manipulate. That grandma is racist AF because her mom raised her to be uncomfortable around black people and she never fought that discomfort. Trans people make so many cis people uncomfortable and that discomfort turns into bigotry real fast.

Letting your discomfort dictate your actions and beliefs about things is a great way to become a terrible person. Learn. Discomfort. Tolerance.

[feastofsnakes]

they added another luftballon while you were sleeping

[upsettingandunfortunateclasshate]

My son's tattoo hurt me deeply

When Tess Morgan's son came home with a tattoo, she was griefstricken. She knew her reaction was OTT (he's 21) but it signalled a change in their relationship

This is gold this, absolute gold, the most over the top melodramatic hysterical ridiculous thing I’ve ever read

[brawlcloud]

This is actually so interesting to read- it’s from 2012 but its full of the same anxieties, even some of the same phrasing that many of the guardian’s later pieces on transness use. really hammers home how much of the terfism that emerged in the late 10s was middle class mothers angry at a loss of control over their adult children- whether that be their bodies or their friends or their opinions- and making that everyone’s problem because they have the power to do so

[monkey-cat-vivi]

He says, “I’m still the same person.”

I look at him, sitting there, my 21-year-old son. I feel I’m being interviewed for a job I don’t even want. I say, “But you’re not. You’re different. I will never look at you in the same way again. It’s a visceral feeling. Maybe because I’m your mother. All those years of looking after your body – taking you to the dentist and making you drink milk and worrying about green leafy vegetables and sunscreen and cancer from mobile phones. And then you let some stranger inject ink under your skin. To me, it seems like self-mutilation. If you’d lost your arm in a car accident, I would have understood. I would have done everything to make you feel better. But this – this is desecration. And I hate it.”

[quasi-normalcy]

Also just the classism of her associating tattoos with “vest tops, dogs on chains, broken beer glasses”; like, just say you hate poor people

[junkfoodcinemas]

Pearl (2022) dir. Ti West

[redstonedust]

it's usually morally correct to make fun of the usa but whenever i hear british people do it it feels kinda tone deaf. idk if we have the high ground here guys. its like your mom making fun of your mental illness like ma'am where do you think i got it from.

[flowerbobatea]

[originalcrime]

dead wife who was MEAN and slept without a TOP SHEET and only went to the beach when it was OVERCAST to SCOWL at the waves

[socialistexan]

Not getting a ton of reporting in US news, but the Trump administration is going after donors to Palestine, including going as far as international extradition under the guide of "counterterrorism"

[hyperlexichypatia]

IDK I think if cis men are being told that being fat will lower their testosterone and make them Insufficiently Masculine, and cis women are being told that being fat will raise their testosterone and make them Excessively Masculine, and fat trans people are being denied the right to medically transition if they're fat, and thin trans people are warned against HRT because it will make them fat (and this is said about both testosterone and estrogen HRT), and androgynous-presenting people are told that only thin people count as androgynous...

Then maybe...

Maybe...

Maybe the weight loss industry is just using Gender to enforce fatphobia.