Spectra's Blog

Pronouns don't matter to me. Call me whatever you like. Loves many things. Asks are open~!

[herzspalter]

This guy canonically likes big heavy cars vroom vroom

Another sticker yet again hoho

[naonic-blog-deactivated20230221]

John Oliver Buys $15M of Medical Debt for $60K and Forgives It All, Because He Could

Once again John Oliver proves that you can do anything with money and lawyers

[partisan-by-default]

Oliver then proceeded to detail how with $50 and knowledge of the law he was able to successfully apply online to create a debt buying company named “Central Asset Recovery Professionals,” or as Oliver put it, “CARP” named after “a bottom-feeding fish.”

After setting up a rudimentary website for CARP, the satirical, but still real company was offered a $15 million package of medical debt for $60,000.

Oliver explained that the debt was out of statute, which means it is the kind of debt that a collector can only continue to collect, but not sue the debtor for.

Then, instead of chasing down the 9,000 debtors in the debt package as a normal collection agency would, Oliver decided to stage the largest one-time giveaway in television history and work with the nonprofit RIP Medical Debt to forgive the $15 million with no consequences for the debtors.

[helloquirks]

Okay but now I know what I want to do of I get rich?

[beabaseball]

You dont have to be rich to do a bit of this actually

RIP Medical Debt is a charity (and therefore takes donations). They buy the rights to medical debt and then forgive them. So far they’ve forgiven over 1B in medical debt.

So a little ray of hope for someone out there today.

[shayvaalski]

Donating $10 buys $1,000 of medical debt. This is real, it works, and we’ve done it ourselves. You can too.

[yummy-tummy-time]

As of June 29, 2024, the charity is still active under a new name, Undue Medical Debt

[xdeez]

[rabbithaver]

[nsu1122701]

Rei ♡´･ᴗ･`♡

[fibro-memes]

[glumshoe]

Wheat fields are more mystical than fields of other crops. You are 7,000 times more likely to meet an old god or see a portent of doom in a wheat field than in a field of like… soybeans.

[greatrazinsofthesunne]

For your consideration: cornfields

[glumshoe]

Cornfields are less mystical than wheat fields but more mystical than soybean fields. Two-bit monsters congregate in corn fields to eat people, but their power is nothing compared to the things that manifest in wheat fields. 

[systlin]

Have been in both wheat and cornfields; can confirm. Cornfields host monsters who eat people. Wheat fields attract old gods. 

[whadyameanhesdead]

I have a theory that this is because the notions most of us have of “old gods” are pretty intrinsically European, and wheat was (and is) the staple crop of European life. It is quite literally tied to the ancestral rituals and beliefs of most white people. Odin, the Morrigan, and even Zeus are actually linked to a set of peoples who cultivated wheat.

Meanwhile, corn (maize) is a crop native to the Americas. It features in the white cultural imagination in a very different way. Corn is a motif seen not in our ancestral myths, but in a much newer genre: the American Gothic. With its focus on the tensions between man and nature and—perhaps more importantly—the United States’s history of genocide against its indigenous population and trade in enslaved Africans, the American Gothic is VERY preoccupied with agriculture. Our monsters come out of corn fields because corn is a symbol for not only what we did to the Native Americans (who were the first to grow the crop), but of what we are doing to the very land itself. Corn is a monument to our cultural sins.

Meanwhile, I suspect that corn features very differently in the imaginations of people of color. If you asked a Native American person or a Latinx person what sort of mysticism they associate with corn fields, I imagine their answer would be very different than ours.

TLDR: White people associate wheat with our ancestors’ gods because our ancestors grew wheat. We associate corn with terrible monsters because it is a literal sign of our own monstrosity.

[moniquill]

Native American here, can confirm that small plots of corn feel safe and homey; ideally they should be interplanted with other crops. You find turkeys and possums and raccoons in the corn. It might tell you important knowledge.

However.

Giant monocultures of corn, where the corn grows unbroken for miles and miles, not near human habitation, devoid of local wildlife, just corn on corn in the soft wind? Corn mega monocultures? Those sound like screaming.

[malus-syl-vestris-deactivated20]

“monocultures attract people-eating monsters” is not the take I expected to see today but I’m glad I saw it

[dressesandalchemy]

The anthropological analysis and discussion on folklore is spot on. 10/10

[roseofmyeye]

Corn lore

[vanrouchu]

can i ask for some fluff headcanons with Towa?? 🫶

sparks fly

towa fluff headcanons

A lot of the things Towa experiences when it comes to love are firsts for him. It took him some time to get used to blending in with humans, trying to live normally and up until now he still encounters bizarre things that threaten to let his true identity out with the way he doesn't know how to react to them.

Physical contact is perhaps one of the things that Towa had to grow accustomed to when he entered a relationship. He wasn't made of the same flesh and skin as normal humans but whenever he held your hand, he could feel the warmth of it the same way.

The need for physical contact wasn't as urgent for him but he took every opportunity to hold your hand or give you a hug after he was informed that it's the most common way to show affection.

At some point he'd pick up a book he found at a local bookstore titled “100 ways to show your partner you love them” and he'd commit to doing every single one no matter how absurd they sound.

Give you 100 roses? Write a song for you? Fold a thousand paper cranes for you? They're ideas that Towa wouldn't think of himself but if someone told him to do that to show his love for you, he wouldn't hesitate to do it—that’s how much he values letting you know that you're precious to him to make up for his lack of humanity.

In his own way, he'll show you he loves you. The miniature automata he makes that were meant to be given to you might not mean much at first glance but they were made with thoughts of you.

He might need more frequent maintenance visits to Lagoon with the way his circuits keep heating up around you but he doesn't see it as a bad thing. After all, someone told him it's similar to what happens to human hearts.

[reccyls]

Tidbits from the Yumekuro artbook:

Cuit has been visiting Tsukiwatari's guild home a lot lately. He and Gran try to teach Itsuki how to cook. Godspeed to them

Both Cuit and Riche list "Kuchen's chocolate" as one of their favorite foods. Riche additionally also lists "Cuit's cooking"

Elma hates any spiders, isopods, basically any animal that has lots and lots of legs.

Searle dislikes people who bully fish

Adel's weakness is Merry Rose, Canaan's weakness is Volks. What is going on in Yume Tsumugi, haha

You've got Lykos and his dream of making a world where children can grow up peacefully, and Alex and his dream of becoming a true hero. Then there is Urbano (I want to take over the world) and Len (I want to become rich)

Shiharu's likes: People who pursue their dreams. Also people's tears

(Not so?) coincidentally, Alma's dislikes include Shiharu's punishments, and Daste's weakness includes Shiharu

The fairies' profile has a bit that describes how they show they trust you and imagining all of that is like imagining a group of stray cats, haha. Caprice will stare at you, Plow will actually keep his mouth shut and listen to you when you're talking, Navi shows he trusts you by pranking you, and then there is Mateo who will show you he trusts you by giving you a cute smile 🥹

The fairies all have a policy, or a point of view about life that they believe in. Fidel's is "There's no cure for stupid" haha

[majunju]

practice

[autistic-af]

I'm all for the movement of "if you're going to accept all autistics, that means all autistics. Even the weird ones" etc

But I much more fancy that we just accept weird people point blank. They don't need to share a diagnosis. They don't need to make themselves smaller just to fit into the world.

Cuz, as a late diagnosed autistic, my weird ass could have used just acceptance. Regardless of why I was weird.

[puddii-ng]

enstars april fools 2024!!!! brunette hajime under the read more,,

[limbosava]

archers gloves vs digital artist gloves being opposite of one another

[staticandlove]

Much like how archers and digital artists are mortal enemies

[ashestoashesjc]

[colorousme]

Behold, the digital artchery glove!

….but Wait…

…….!!!

FUCKA YOUUU!!!!!

[clownsnake]

Ok but wgat if we held hands…..

and we both had carpal tunnel syndrome 😳

[jollysunflora]

not carpal tunnel syndrome 😫

[skullamity-deactivated20250823]

[crankyteapot]

[discodeerdiary]

Something that I first applied to working with children, and have applied in a limited form to working with adults: you don't need to tell someone when they read your instructions wrong. Sometimes it's enough to point out what they did right and then whatever they didn't do? You ask them to do it in more precise words, and you make it sound like it's a new request. Remarkable how fast things get done this way.

[discodeerdiary]

This is also a habit I built up from emergency response training. If I say "I need you to bring me a first aid kit and an accident report" and you bring me just a first aid kit, it's so much more efficient to say "thanks now can you bring me an accident report" than "I asked you to bring an accident report why didn't you bring me one".

[discodeerdiary]

Once you've internalized "a person bleeding out is one of the worst times to start an argument" you start to wonder what other tasks could get accomplished without arguing

[lotus-pear]

characters that lose the most important person to them and are devastated by having to live in a world without them and get stuck in a futile time loop that turns them crueler and crueler and more and more fervently obsessed with the person they initially lost because they just want a world where that person is alive and are initially written off as heartless before the sickening realization that their devotion is so painfully human. you will always be dear to me.

[starlitmothspectra]

I seem to really like the "pathetic boyfailure" type, and I am now realizing it's all Stork's fault.

[yamujiburo]

Femme fatale, girlfailure with a tragic past and spunky preteen boy with electric pet is a winning formula idk idk 

(the veronica taylor/rachael lillis effect)

[leupagus]

It's really fucked up when you treat characters like people and people like characters.

[leupagus]

No seriously it's REALLY fucked up when you treat characters as if they were real live people while you treat people like they're just characters.

[leupagus]

I'm gonna go ahead and repeat: it is super, duper, extra scooper fucked up when you treat a character as if it were a living person while treating other human beings who are interacting with you like they are merely characters who can be written out of your personal story if you just find a remark mean enough.

[leupagus]

You. You get it.

ETA wait why does this have 18k notes