Without Irritable Reaching After Fact and Reason @syzygystardust13 - Tumblr Blog

Gets stuck in the past and makes a random village get way smarter and less violent in a generational sense because I keep smacking people over the head with a stick and telling them that it’s the devil’s metal whenever they try to use lead for something in my presence and there develops a very niche regionalized superstition that an angry warlock will jump out of a tree and beat the shit out of you if you touch lead with your bare hands

what-even-is-thiss

Gets excommunicated by the Catholic Church for telling people that they can banish the devil from their water if they boil it therefore saving hundreds of people from a cholera outbreak but I don’t care and keep trying to convince the locals to use soap more often

what-even-is-thiss

Meets another iseksied person in the far past and beats the shit out of them for participating in the slave trade and eating moldy bread

what-even-is-thiss

Gets seen as crazy when I say I’m distilling peppermint oil to banish the miasma but people start asking to have some real quick when the Black Death comes to town and I am unaffected due to my constantly minty fresh house repelling rodents and fleas alike

finleythecatperson

You’re not at all worried about being labeled a witch and burned at the stake?

what-even-is-thiss

Witch burnings were very specifically a mid 1500s to mid 1600s phenomenon and I went back further than that so I’m fine as long as I don’t try to convince people that the earth revolves around the sun.

finleythecatperson

You’ve thought this out thoroughly and I appreciate that

cantanopeshitthatwastaken

It’s interesting how diseases rip through schools at incredible speeds despite being in an arguably modern, clean(ish) environment. I wonder if it has something to do with the whole “you need a doctor’s note to excuse your absence of even one day” combined with the average price of going to a doctor, the lack of education on things like “you’re still contagious even after the fever goes away”, and the overwhelming message of “if you don’t struggle through it, you’re a failure!”

thatgiraffebutt

On my campus there tends to be a problem where even I you have the doctors note professors will still take points off of your final grade regardless of how sick you are. I’ve seen people show up to class with the stomach flu, pneumonia, respiratory infections and all sorts of other contagious ailments.

literallyaflame

Here’s a fun story:

The school system I grew up in put an absolutely ungodly amount of pressure on kids to Show Up Every Day No Matter What. Many schools are like this, but looking back, my town’s was borderline fucking dystopian. They asked me why I didn’t just “postpone” a surgery at one point— when I was fifteen— to give you an idea of how monumentally obtuse these people were.

So, in elementary school, I started having chicken pox symptoms, right? They were mild because I was vaccinated (yay!) but my mom recognized them quickly and took me to the doctor, because my mom is a reasonable human being with standards. The doctor said “yup, you’ve got those pox, it may seem mild but please for the love of god DO NOT take her to school, she is very contagious even though she may FEEL okay.”

So I had to stay home from school until I got clearance from my doctor to go back. I was an angry little gremlin the whole time, because I wanted to go to the school library and read books about the human skull, but my mother said, “no, you cannot leave this house, and do not scratch the bumps please.” So I sat at home and tried not to scratch the bumps, like a good little gremlin.

A few days into my Chicken Pox Related House Arrest, we got a letter from the school. I was far from the only person with chicken pox, as it so happened. Like… a tenth of my second grade class had Confirmed Pox. We all fell ill within DAYS of each other.

So how did this happen, you ask? Well, a kid had chicken pox, and he came to school anyway. “Ah, well perhaps they didn’t know,” you may very well say. “Maybe his parents didn’t notice!” No. No, they noticed. In fact they KNEW it was CHICKEN POX. They sent him to school anyway.

The kid’s parents…….. were, in fact, teachers at the school. And they KNOWINGLY made him go to school sick, because they didn’t want to risk hurting his precious “perfect attendance” record. They figured that since he wasn’t, like, Literally Dying, it was better for him not to miss school. Never mind the fact that they were actively endangering hundreds of little kids.

Fast forward to my freshman year of college. A kid came to class with mumps because he ‘couldn’t afford to miss’. Guess what happened? Mumps outbreak! Diseases are, as it turns out, good at being diseases! Vaccinations are phenomenal, but they can only do so much, and some people rely on herd immunity to not be killed by preventable illness.

This entire attitude needs to die. It’s dangerous. Food service workers are forced to show up sick, little kids are forced to show up sick, college students show up sick because they’re afraid of flunking out.

And on top of it all, misinformation campaigns are encouraging people not to get vaccinations! It’s 2019 and we’re flirting with the plague! Next thing you know some blogger is gonna be like “actually we should all be fucking rats and eating our meat raw, death to all science and god bless america”

madd-catter

Many kids at my school will show up really sick because we only get like three days of excused absences without a doctor’s note.

gen-is-gone

this is what those in literary academia call “foreshadowing”

(note the dates)

anarchistmemedistro

this post aged like an ice cube in an oven

deathcomes4u

worst part is! IT’S STILL HAPPENING! SCHOOLS AND WORKPLACES ARE STILL LIKE THIS!!! THEY LEARNED NOTHING!!!!!!!

mod2amaryllis

thotsoflore

Literally looking like the kind of note you find in a post apocalyptic horror game jesus

sunnywalnut

If only we as a society learned from our mistakes

wheelchairoftheseus

Your wheelchair movement guide is AMAZING I kinda want to print it and hand it out to people who step into my way in an effort to get out of the way.

If you ever make one about how hard it is to open and close heavy ass doors I WILL print it and tape it to my workplace door lol that place is a MENACE (hospital clinic so every single door has a closure and nothing has buttons).

Thank you for writing!

aw you’re so kind thank you! if you want to shame management about heavy doors, this reddit post might be helpful? i think about it every time i struggle to get a door open and i sometimes show it to people who don’t get it. hm but you can’t tape that to the door… what if you started timing how long it takes you to get through the worst door and leave a sticky note on the inside once you’re through. “today it took me a minute and 47 seconds to move the three feet through this door” etc? it would be passive aggressive as hell but it might be a wake up call LOL

syzygystardust13

Also, management that is supposed to be dealing with this shit is in a bug fancy admin building somewhere else, so I'd really just be shaming the clinic supervision who have been wonderful but have 0 control over door installation.

Love how the people who are actually responsible for the issues make themselves so inaccessible that they don't have to witness the problems they are refusing to solve.

#disability #rant #wheelchair #working while disabled is...so brutal #but god i love my actual job

wheelchairoftheseus

Your wheelchair movement guide is AMAZING I kinda want to print it and hand it out to people who step into my way in an effort to get out of the way.

Thank you for writing!

syzygystardust13

"Today a patient had to come help me, a medical care provider, get through the door, so I can provide their medical care"

"Today, I have injured my shoulder on this door. I am in pain. Therefore it took me 4 minutes to use the door the second time I needed to."

"HR assures me all the doors are wheelchair compliant. The fact that my wheelchair physically does not fit in the space between the door and this STUPID TABLE suggests HR is wrong."

Low key, I should but I'm on a training rotation and so don't have many legal protections and don't want to be fired, which has already been quietly mentioned as a possibility related to my complaints. Yay.

tothechaos

hate when people say something along the lines of "we must get along so well because you are/i am [some astrological sign]" to me. what are you fucking talking about. we get along because im fucking nice. a decision which i regret when you say shit like that

tothechaos

this post is a good rent lowering gunshot. in case anyone needs one of those

antlered-vixen

I am so tired of short-attention-span, trim-the-fat culture. All writing advice these days is for how to write like Chuck Palahniuk. "Cut 'think', cut 'feel', cut 'wonder' - only action, only pushing forward, show and move and move and move." What if I could emulate this style, and still don't want to? What if I want to write like Henry James, with three paragraphs of introspective musings between each dialogue line? The music advice is, "make it shortform, make it Tik-Tok compatible, make it punchy, hit the refrain as soon as possible." What if I want that 10-minute prog rock piece? What if I want that symphony? What if I want it slow and luxurious and lazy? Movies. Series. Poetry. Bodies. Everything is "trimmed trimmed trimmed trimmed, stripped bare, you have three seconds to win me over, make it airport chic." I don't want to win you over, then, I guess. I want the fat left it. I want the pleasure and the indolence and the indulgence. Fuck this art-advice that's always "your art needs Ozempic."

aropride

people make jokes about how people who weren’t allowed to watch spongebob as a kid are always talking about how they weren’t allowed to watch spongebob but as one of the aforementioned people who wasn’t allowed to watch spongebob my insight on the matter is: you would not BELIEVE the amount of times spongebob comes up in normal adult conversations. i don’t often think about him of my own accord but people reference him and i have to say. what? and they say. it’s from spongebob?? and i say. oh i never watched spongebob. and they say why? and i say. i wasn’t allowed to. and then a few weeks later it happens again

depsidase

headspace-hotel

katacala

Something that gave H.P. Lovecraft nightmares is the work of my favorite artist. In "At the Mountains of Madness" he specifically mentions "the strange and disturbing Asian paintings of Nicholas Roerich."

This is what Roerich's paintings look like:

chaifootsteps

#hp lovecraft thought penguins were grotesque and horrifying#he was not a difficult man to frighten

tavern-get-togethers

One thing about mobility aids that people don't seem to understand is that the aid is positive to my life. Without the aid I can not go anywhere. When you tell a disabled/chronically ill person in a wheelchair that you wish they could just get rid of the wheelchair you are putting emphasis on the aid somehow being the problem. The aid is the solution! The aid is the accesbile part! It's the thing that makes my life more managable. When you tell me you wish I didn't have my wheelchair you're not telling me you wish I felt better or happier. You are telling me that my wheelchair is an inconvenience to you.

Ps: If your intended message honestly is that you wish I felt better/happier then just say that instead.

wheelie-sick

Things to research before getting your first custom manual wheelchair

one of the biggest things I can recommend to anyone getting a new custom chair (but especially a first custom chair) is to understand all of the parts of a wheelchair and what they do. I decided to make a guide with wheelchair parts to research and places to look for information to make this process a little bit easier. additional link suggestions are welcome.

General resources:

Permobil - The Wheelchair Handbook

Motion Composites - Preparing for Your Wheelchair Evaluation: Before the Evaluation (Part 1)

Motion Composites - Preparing for Your Wheelchair Evaluation (Part 2)

1. Frame

Motion Composites - Folding vs Rigid Wheelchair Frames: How to Choose

Permobil - Manual wheelchairs: rigid and folding frames. How do you choose?

GTK - Oh what’s in a frame? Comparing Multiple Materials

Motion Composites - Wheelchairs: Carbon Fiber Versus Aluminum

2. Front frame angle

Motion Composites - Understanding the Impact of Rigid Wheelchair Front Frame Angle

Sunrise Medical - Rigid Frame Wheelchairs – Frame Angle and Inset

4. Seat dump

Permobil - Ergonomic Seating and Manual Wheelchairs

Spinlife - Wheelchair Back & Seat Angle

5. Caster size, style, and position

Motion Composites - Front Casters for Manual Wheelchairs Practical Guide

Sunrise Medical - Front Caster Position in Manual Wheelchairs

6. Caster forks

New Mobility - Caster Wheels and Forks

Sunrise Medical - Maneuverability in Manual Wheelchairs - What Fork to use?

New Mobility - Innovations: Emerging Trends in the Wheelchair Market (information about single sided forks)

7. Footplate

Motion Composites - Footrest Options to Support Function and Mobility

When Tania Talks - Active User Wheelchair Footplate Options

8. Calf strap

Spex Seating - Lower Leg Support Considerations in Wheelchair Seating

9. Seat pan

Permobil - Solid Seat Insert for Wheelchair: Taking a Closer Look at Cushion Components

10. Seat cushion

Permobil - What to Look for in Seating & Positioning Products

Permobil - How to Choose a Cushion in Long Term Care

Permobil - Cushion Geometry: Linear and Contoured

Freedom Mobility Center - Wheelchair Seat Cushions: 5 Tips for Choosing the Right One for You

Mobility Basics - Seat Cushion Rigidizer

Motion Composites - Selecting the Right Cushion for Your Wheelchair a Clinicians Guide

Motion Composites - Covering the Basics of Wheelchair and Back Support Covers

11. Seat belts

12. Clothing guards

Sherman Oaks Medical Equipment - Wheelchair Clothes Guards / Side Guards Guide

13. Arm rests

United Spinal Association - Wheelchair Armrests What Do They Really Do?

Spinlife - Wheelchair Arm Rest Choices

Motion Composites - Armrests: Getting the Support you Need

14. Back supports

Motion Composites - Solid vs Upholstery Backs

Mobility Management - How to Choose the Right Back Height for your Client

Freedom Mobility Center - Why a Solid Back is Preferred Over a Sling Back

Mobility Basics - Back Supports

Sunrise Medical - Tips for Selecting Prefabricated Wheelchair Backs

Motion Composites - Covering the Basics of Wheelchair and Back Support Covers

15. Head supports

16. Push handles

Motion Composites - Push Handles: Pushing Around

17. Wheels

Motion Composites - Rolling Along: The Importance of Rear Wheel Selection

Sunrise Medical - Comparing Wheelchair Wheel Spoke Options

Mobility Basics - Manual Wheelchair Wheels

18. Tires

New Mobility - Everything You Need to Know About Selecting the Right Wheelchair Tires

GTK - Solid versus Pneumatic Tyres

Mobility Basics - Manual Wheelchair Wheels

Motion Composites - Tire Selection: Balancing Performance and Maintenance

19. Brakes

Motion Composites - Wheel Locks: Unlocking Safety and Function

20. Push rims/Hand rims

Motion Composites - Getting a Grasp: Understanding the Impact of Hand Rims

DME Hub - Wheelchair Hand Rom Options and Factors to Consider

21. Anti-tip wheels

22. Camber

Motion Composites - Camber - Degrees of Performance

23. Center of Gravity

Motion Composites - Rear Wheel Position 101

#find this later #disability #wheelchair

wheelchairoftheseus

how manual wheelchair users move (explainer for non-users)

frequently when i’m out and about with someone walking, they can’t anticipate what path i will take and therefore they’re in my way pretty frequently. this is fine! i can politely ask them to step to the side. but it makes me think about how little non-wheelchair users understand the way wheelchair users move. as someone who used to walk everywhere, it was an adjustment period for me to figure out how to navigate the world in a chair. here are some things that didn’t occur to me so that you don’t cut off your friend right as they’re building momentum to go up a ramp 😆

for context, i use an active manual chair. the world is very different in a power chair. even among active manual chair users, there is a huge diversity in physicality and strategies for getting around. this is a general guide that i think will apply to most manual wheelchair users. i’m starting super basic and getting more complicated as i go.

———

1. manual wheelchairs are a momentum game. it is very easy to maintain speed and direction. but speeding up, slowing down, or turning, is hard. one thing this affects is if we’re on a wavy sidewalk or other twisty-turny walkway, that is a pain in the ass and i am taking as straight a path as i can.

2. wheelchair users also have to pay attention to the slope and condition of the pavement, so our path somewhere will be different than yours, even if we’re taking the same route to the same place. for example, i usually have to go down slopes straight, not diagonally, to avoid tipping over sideways. one area this affects is crosswalks. many intersections have one curb cut for both roads you could cross, which means i will go down curb cuts to a crosswalk as if i am aiming for the middle of the intersection.

your path in orange, mine in blue. to you it seems indirect, but to me it’s the path of least resistance.

i also will be building speed in the second half of the crosswalk. this is a much easier way to tackle a ramp. if i approach with momentum, i won’t have to drag myself up the slope once i get to it.

3. building momentum and maintaining it is only half of the job. the other half is stopping. manual wheelchairs cannot stop on a dime if they’re moving with any kind of speed. if i tried to stop immediately when going downhill, i would fly out of the chair. so don’t walk right into the path of a wheelchair in motion and then stop! i will have to turn to the side very quickly and hope i don’t tip. i can’t tell you how often parents pushing strollers will stop their stroller directly in my path and then get offended when i am alarmed and turn sharply to avoid hitting their child. from their perspective, i was being careless and going “too fast.” in reality, normal walking speed takes a few feet to slow down from and stop.

4. in terms of slope. see this street in san francisco?

i can’t go down this street, it’s way too steep. i would give myself friction burns on my palms trying to control my speed. if i was in a situation where there was no avoiding this street, like in an emergency, i would be breaking my straight-slope rule and zig-zagging in the middle of the road.

this would require several zig-zags back and forth, more than the four that i drew. i also could not go up this road other than with this method. up or down, i risk tipping over sideways if i’m not careful.

4. in a similar vein, consider terrain. slopes with grass or carpet take huge amounts of energy to get up. this grassy hill isn’t insurmountable, but it would take me like thirty minutes to get up there. honestly i would probably go backwards, because it’s easier to pull yourself up a slope than push yourself.

other types of terrain can be completely immobilizing, though. this decorative gravel pathway is beautiful, and inaccessible to me. my casters (front wheels) simply will not go through that.

5. in terms of walkways and obstacles. if there’s a deep gap in the pavement lined up the way i’m going, and it’s, say, an inch wide, that is an obstacle for me. my casters are one inch wide, and my back wheels are an inch and a half. i’ll get stuck in it like a train on a track.

i have to straddle this, even if it means being too close to the middle of the sidewalk and preventing us from walking side by side.

similarly, if a crack is greater than an inch high, i’m gonna wheelie over it. at two inches, i have to. a wheelie may require a change in speed, either faster or slower depending on the person.

i have 4 inch casters, so a lip as little as 2 inches will stop me in my tracks. a lip as little as one inch, hit with any speed, can knock my casters out of square. casters can get knocked out of alignment pretty easily depending on the chair. i’d rather not have to pull out an allen wrench and a level, so i’m gonna wheelie.

this happened when i hit about a 1.5” lip on a pavement crack when i was going downhill at maybe 3mph.

6. putting it all together. see how diagonal this crack is?

this is another situation where i have to go straight relative to the slope. because that crack is wide, it will probably also require a wheelie. if i tried to approach that straight relative to the sidewalk, my left caster would get up the slope, i’d wheelie, then my right caster would land in the crack. i have to go this way.

(also lol at the trash can blocking the curb cut)

these are just a few things to keep in mind when walking about with a wheelchair user! ofc the best strategy always is just to listen when someone asks you to move out of their way 😆 but i think being able to anticipate movement a little better will help it seem less random. feel free to ask any questions!

depsidase

onedirectionforever

“you support gay rights so you must be gay”

i support animal rights do i look like a fucking alpaca to you

onedirectionforever

turns out i am gay

monsieurenjlolras

holy shit how’d this alpaca learn how to type

mywitchcultblr

Diversity win! The alpaca is gay!

adreamthatsworthkeeping

thebirdkiwi

he was a llama

fritextramole

a llama?! he’s supposed to be dead!

legallybrunettedotcom

inbabylontheywept

Until death, all defeat is psychological.

pmamtraveller

Mammal in a Sunday Dress, by Georgina M. Cox, 2026

originalaccountname

Mammal in a Sunday Dress explores the uneasy relationship between femininity, civilisation, and the animal body. At first glance, the figure appears modest and withdrawn. Her posture is composed, her gaze seemingly lowered towards her bare feet, recalling the conventions of nineteenth-century portraiture where women were often depicted as passive objects of observation. Yet as the viewer moves closer, the illusion collapses. Her eyes are not lowered at all. She is looking directly back. The delayed eye contact transforms the encounter. The viewer approaches believing they are safely observing a woman; instead, they realise they have been observed themselves. The work refuses the traditional power dynamic of portraiture, denying the comfort of anonymous spectatorship. Looking becomes a reciprocal act. For Cox, the painting considers humanity's persistent desire to separate itself from the rest of the animal kingdom. The title quietly undermines this distinction. A "mammal" is not another creature—it is us. The Sunday dress, rich with cultural associations of femininity, morality, and respectability, becomes an attempt to distinguish ourselves from nature. Yet clothing cannot alter biology. Beneath lace and ritual remains the same vulnerable animal body. The work also reflects on the historical relationship between women and nature. Across art, religion, and philosophy, women have repeatedly been positioned as closer to instinct, emotion, reproduction, and the body itself, while men have been aligned with reason, culture, and civilisation. Mammal in a Sunday Dress does not reject this comparison. Instead, it questions why proximity to nature has so often been treated as something lesser. Chiaroscuro isolates the figure within darkness, allowing the luminous dress to symbolise the performance of civilisation while the bare feet quietly return the body to the earth. Neither is presented as more truthful than the other. The painting exists in the tension between performance and instinct, refinement and biology. Mammal in a Sunday Dress ultimately asks a simple but unsettling question: if every layer of culture were stripped away, what would remain? Not a king. Not a saint. Not a gentleman or a lady. Only another mammal, looking back.

source

sirfrogsworth

This is especially frustrating because the only reason we know the wind speed is because NOAA's Hurricane Hunters literally fly into the hurricane and collect vital data. They fly in and out of the storm over and over in 8 hour shifts.

This brave team flies two identical Lockheed P3s called Kermit and Miss Piggy.

You can see the dangling ornaments in the videos to determine which plane they are in.

And when I say they fly into the hurricane, I mean they fly *into* the hurricane.

Here they are in the eye of Milton.

And here they are in the eye of Irma.

As you may notice, this flight was in Kermit.

So the next time you see live data about a hurricane's wind speed and pressure, just remember how that was collected and don't be a giant turd about it.

And please vote because conservatives want to kill NOAA.

mooncustafer

This is serious But I also just want everyone to know that Kermit and Miss Piggy have retro-style nose artwork of the characters:

thefrogman

I was so enamored with the ornaments. I didn't think to check for nose art. Thanks for adding this!

ralfmaximus

could be provided commercially

Privatization is laughable, because every single MAGA proposal I've seen about privatization centers around selling NOAA data for a profit.

The organization & planes would still exist, but instead of providing the data as a free public service, the jackasses want to paywall it.

gallusrostromegalus

Upstairs Kevin Is Actually For Real The World's Most Perfect Betta Fish

So for those of you not familiar with my recent descent into fishkeeping, about 2 months ago a friend of mine who does Hazardous Waste cleanup (specifically cleaning up hazardous places like meth labs) called me up and asked:

"You have fish, right?"

"...Why?" I asked, having become aware that the Fish Distribution System is even more aggressive than the cat one.

"I found a fish in the back of an abandoned trap house. Alive." She clarified.

I could feel my fate settling upon my soul.

"...Send me a pic so I can ID the species and I'll see what I can do."

She sent me a picture of a small purplish squiggle in six inches of fetid green muck. But when I arrived to collect the sludge creature he turned out to look like this:

He's difficult to photograph in focus, but he's a deep wine-dark creature with an iridescent blue sheen. The red patches on his fins mirror where the fins of a Plakat/wild Betta splendens would be, and the rest of his fins are a ghostly shimmering white. This fish was in six inches of toxic green shit.

Naturally, he needed the finest tank I could put together that afternoon.

I think I did alright.

He's so fucking cute. He always swims up to watch when anyone approaches. I've got him trained to do a little dance when I feed him. He likes watching me doing anything in front of his tank.

That's all actually pretty typical of Bettas- they're very intelligent and curious creatures and like learning, which is more than I can say for some of my relatives.

Where Upstairs Kevin (so named because his tank is in my upstairs bathroom) really shines is that a lot of Bettas are... Not sociable. They often eat shrimp, attack other fish in their tank (or get stressed out of they can't commit enough violence to maintain their personal space) or constantly harass and nip the snails in their tanks. Most Bettas are genuinely happier being alone.

Kevin fucking loves his snail (Bluebert) and will shimmy as fast as he can over whenever Bluebert falls off something (it's fine, this is a normal way for mystery snails to get from one place to another).

When I had my Nego D'Aguas in the holding tank, I had to put three of the smallest ones in with him because they were being harassed in the small tank, and he was a perfect gentleman with them. He was trying very hard to shoal with them, but they're very zippy. He was visibly upset (lethargic, dulled colors) when I moved them back to the big tank.

Today was the real acid test: I'm going to move him from his 5 gallon to the 10 gallon so I can use the 5 as a hospital/spare plants tank, and I needed to know if I could have shrimp in with him. Even Betta that are cool with other fish can still see a shrimp and decide they're at the buffet. Unfortunately, there's no real way to know without putting shrimp in with the Betta.

So earlier today, I got half a dozen super-discounted Rilli shrimp (LFS has a massive overstock of them for some reason) and added them to his 5 gallon. There are a bunch of hiding places for shrimp in there and if he was aggressive with them I'd move him to the 10 gallon immediately (I don't want to do that just yet because I need to move the furniture around in there a bit).

Friends.

The shrimp are fully swimming in the open and Kevin is just following them around, curious, but only curious. No gill-flaring, no posturing, no lunges or snapping. Some of them are red, a color that normally triggers aggression in Bettas, and he's just. Hanging out, watching them eat biofilm off the moss. One of them accidentally landed on his head and stayed there for 3 seconds and he only went "???" Until it took off again.

My beautiful and perfect and son who is so kind and gentle with his tiny friends.

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