Covid Isn't Over Bitches

Xen (They/Them with a side of She, and a sprinkle of He) 22 🔆🌙 ♍ ↑♒

[snidely-whipstache]

Mutual Aid for Trans Texan

Hey y'all I decided to make a separate post since the other one was getting long and was losing traction anyway.

I've been going through it lately and could really use some help. I was forced to quit my career in December due to the trauma surrounding an assault on the job that made it impossible to continue that line of work. That's all the detail I'm going to go into online.

I had a different job for a few months but over half the staff including myself walked out due to working conditions and what had to be the worst management I have ever encountered. I'm still looking for a replacement but it's been a while now with no leads.

I'm selling off some of my excess crap I have in storage but bills are coming up at the end of the month and I'm getting incredibly stressed about it. It's a difficult time for everyone so please don't feel obligated, but anything anyone can spare would be really, really appreciated. 🌈🙏

Venmo: @Tristan-R0557

Cashapp: $TristanR0557

[snidely-whipstache]

Due to the recent news in Texas, I am now saving up to flee the state. Please reblog this.

[falseknees]

[anilyan]

Time to message Hoyo about the colorism...

This is the text I prepared to send to Hoyo, to their emails ([email protected] | [email protected]), feedback, eventual surveys...

Feel free to copy paste and send this exact thing as well. Feedback is appreciated before I send anything.

Shorter version below, and imo it's better.

-----------

Subject: [Constructive Feedback] You can and should darken the skin tone of Natlan characters

Regarding the skin color discussion started by the reveal of Natlan characters:

We fans understand that the world of Teyvat is fictional, and that the Nations and characters are informed by different real cultures that end up being mixed to create a fictional setting. But it's also undeniable that some Nations in the world of Genshin are primarily inspired by some cultures more than others, and that character traits tend to reflect the main countries the Nation they inhabit is based on.

There are no consensus amongst fans regarding how accurate outfits are, and we know very little about the Nation itself, but it's undeniable that Hoyoverse researched and put a lot of effort into designing Natlan. Which is why it's a shame that all that effort is being drowned by the obvious racism and colorism reflected in the designs.

After Sumeru, Natlan was the only chance Hoyoverse would have to prove they were not afraid of designing characters with darker skin tones. Many people had hope, and the people of some of the cultures Natlan were based on hoped to see themselves represented. Even if you do not care about representation and respecting your fans, you should care about not bastardizing all of the good things that the new nation has to offer, and having at least some characters with a darker skin tone was the bare minimum that made sense.

YOU STILL HAVE TIME TO FIX THIS. Darken their skin tones. Significantly. Even Chinese fans are mocking you over your decisions, you're running out of excuses.

Hoyoverse has proven capable of change and adjusting their values over time - for example, your early depiction of female characters in Honkai Impact 3rd paled in comparison with the great writing of current female characters being put out, to not call it sexist. So me and many still want to believe you can recognize your mistake and fix it. You are a company that heavily supports fan and fan works, and who constantly invests in things that have a positive impact in society, which is why many people like to support you, and why this is so disapointing to see.

Do not let this taint your legacy. Tech otakus were supposed to change the world, remember? And perpetuating colorism is not how you should do it.

-----------

Shorter version:

Regarding the skin color discussion started by the reveal of Natlan characters:

We fans understand that the world of Teyvat is fictional, and that the Nations and characters are informed by different real cultures that are mixed to create a fictional setting.

But it's undeniable that different Nations are inspired by different cultures, and that character traits tend to reflect the main countries the Nation they inhabit is based on.

With so much clear research put into the characterization of each nation, Natlan included, it's a shame to let those efforts be drowned by designs that reflect colorist and racist views.

It would make sense to have characters with significantly darker skin tons in Natlan, and many fans hoped for that.

Hoyoverse has proven capable of change for the better - for example, your early depiction of female characters in HI3 leaned on sexism and paled in comparison with the great writing of current female characters.

There are other things that the company does right, and you can do it again. Tech otakus were supposed to change the world, remember? And perpetuating colorism is not how you should do it.

So don't let this taint your legacy. Even Chinese fans are mocking your decisions.

Darken the skin color of the Natlan characters. You still have time.

[thelostpretzel]

AU: Caelus is the one with the Stellaron meanwhile Stelle is a Stellaron Hunter

^ this one is a pre-plot moment where it was not specified who will take the Stellaron

[stuckinapril]

Wanted to let you guys know that Let’s Talk Palestine has just launched fundsforgaza, an initiative created for the purpose of spotlighting families in urgent need of emergency funds. This list highlights families who’re trying to evacuate Gaza, but which aren’t getting enough attention. Please donate if you can—and whether or not you can, spread this to as many people as possible. The delay between this second and the next could make a difference in whether a family gets to live or not.

[wonderlartcafe]

Flowering Plum and Moon by Ohara Koson. Ohara Koson (1877 – 1945) was a Japanese painter and printmaker of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, part of the shin-hanga (“new prints”) movement.

[cosmogenous]

jobs for girls who can't focus and are tired all the time and aren't rlly that good looking and get startled easily

[valtsv]

the second best thing about minecraft is that you can kill people with fireworks fired from a crossbow. the best thing about minecraft is that you can kill yourself with your own fireworks gun trying to do this if you're not wearing armor with a high enough protection level.

[valtsv]

[transhuman-priestess]

Periodic reminder that you should never trust a chiropractor with your body under any circumstances

[transhuman-priestess]

Chiropracty is a quack medicine in the extreme. It was invented by a guy in the 19th century who said a ghost taught it to him. It claims it can fix cirrhosis by cracking your spine. Chiropractors are one of the biggest groups keeping anti-vaccine fraud alive. Oh, and they can kill you doing a “routine adjustment”

Like I won’t go so far as to say “Ban chiropractors” because doing so would definitely backfire, but you should literally never ever under any circumstances seek their assistance for any health problem at all.

[transhuman-priestess]

Since this is getting a few notes I may as well attempt to head off one of the inevitable objections that’ll show up if this gets far enough.

“If Chiropractic* doesn’t work, why does insurance cover it?”

Well, it’s very simple you see, insurance hates paying for things, and chiropractors are cheap as fuck.

Let’s say you injure your back scrubbing a toilet or something. You go to a real doctor, a good doctor who doesn’t blow you off. That doctor may tell you to take some Motrin and call them if it doesn’t get better, but they also might prescribe you a stronger anti-inflammatory, or a muscle relaxer. Your insurance has to pay out for the visit and the medicine.

Let’s say they do that and two weeks later your back still hurts. Your doctor orders an MRI. Your insurance now has to pay for an MRI, which can be a couple thousand dollars, well more than the premium you’ve paid this month, which means they’ve lost money on you.

So you’re lucky and the MRI comes back that you’re okay but you need physical therapy. That’s another couple grand that your insurance has to pay out.

But maybe you weren’t lucky. Maybe the MRI comes back and you have a herniated disc. You’re gonna need surgery and physical therapy, and now you’ve not only cost them more than your premiums bring in in a year, you’ve hit your annual maximum which means they have to pay everything from now on. They aren’t happy.

So let’s start back at the beginning. You injure your back, you instead go to a chiropractor. The chiropractor doesn’t have a decade of medical training, they have a certificate from a for-profit college that says they’re a chiropractor. They charge your insurance for an office visit, crack your back a bit, and send you on your merry way.

You might feel better for a while, because the placebo effect is more powerful than you think. But even if you do feel better, there’s still the chance that you’ve got damage. You may still need physical therapy, you may still have a herniated disc.

But if you keep going back to that chiropractor, they’re never gonna tell you that, and even if they do, it’ll be after 2-3 sessions, so 6-8 weeks at a minimum, during which time you’re putting more wear and tear on that injury, and eventually, you have to go to a real doctor.

But here’s where the magic happens. See, you injured your back in December. Now it’s February. Because your insurance put off sending you to a real doctor for two months, some actuary gets a big fat bonus for “reducing costs” in quarter 4. Meanwhile, your real doctor orders an MRI that shows that the damage is, in fact, much worse than it probably was to begin with. And there’s some evidence of injuries after the fact from the chiropractor. Oh, and by the way, there’s a chance you’re gonna be in pain for the rest of your life even with surgery.

But hey, your insurance managed to post a profit in Q4.

* “Chiropractic” is the “official” term for whatever the hell it is chiropractors do. I don’t respect it enough to use it unless I’m mocking someone who’s defending it.

[transhuman-priestess]

Alright you guys can have this one back but I swear to god if anyone mentions a fucking podcast on it I’m committing arson.

[narrativerehearsal]

This goes double if you have any kind of joint hyper mobility or ehlers danlos etc.

Pretty sure @thebibliosphere mentioned getting fucked up by a chiropractor, and I don't have ehlers danlos but I am hypermobile. I went to a very well trained osteopath (theoretically better than chiropractors and, at least in the UK, more regulated but still use some of the same techniques) for a few years and while I would feel better after each appointment, nothing ever really got better and I now look back at the way he handled my neck (which was way, way less extreme than chiropractic work but again, still on the same kind of track) and cringe.

What did help me was finding a physio who specialised in hypermobility and who actually checked my strength and range of motion to figure out where my stability was the worst and give me stabilising exercises. My bad joints are always going to need work but at least with a decent physio I have a hope of strengthening them and reducing pain and damage rather than getting easy temporary relief and making things worse in the long run.

If nothing else convinces you, the fact that every single chiropractor on youtube listens to clients listing off wildly different issues and then does the exact same few adjustments on them no matter what should be a red flag.

[thebibliosphere]

I was, yeah. I did chiropractic care for years because it’s what my previous MD recommended and it was covered by my insurance. And it worked great for me, because, as it turned out, I had actual misalignments from my joints being out of the sockets from undiagnosed Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. They were literally popping my joints back into place and relieving a significant amount of my pain in the process.

It turns out the whole “your spine is out of alignment” thing is very convincing when your spine is literally out of alignment due to a subluxated tailbone, hip, shoulder, etc etc.

And then, again on a recommendation from an MD doctor for my chronic migraines, I got my neck adjusted, very gently I might add, and I ended up having to get an emergency MRI for a possible brain bleed because something in my neck tore.

Thankfully it wasn't a brain bleed and I wasn't about to die.

Unfortunately, they’d torn every inch of soft tissue on the right side of my neck from my upper trap muscles all the way around the right side of my skull. I could barely hold my head up for weeks. Everything was agony.

Its been several years and I’m still dealing with the damage.

The spinal specialist I saw during recovery was very adamant about never letting anyone touch your neck like that, no matter how gentle they are. He told me the majority of his patients used to come from motoring accidents, and now a good solid chunk of them were from people being irreparably harmed by chiropractors. From torn ligaments to strokes, he’d seen it all. All because chiro is cheaper than physical therapy.

When I was finally diagnosed with EDS and started getting proper help, the horror that went through every EDS-aware physical therapist when I told them the chiropractor story was palpable. One straight up told me I should be paralyzed.

And then we started working on stabilizing my joints and muscles so that they don’t dislocate/subluxate as much because while the chiro might have been putting my joints back in without knowing it, they weren’t actually doing anything to address the root cause or stabilize the area.

It was just a weekly stop-gap measure that was inadvertently helping my immediate pain but ultimately lengthening my long term recovery.

I SHOULD have been recommend physical therapy from the start, even before we knew I had EDS, but because chiropractic care is cheaper, that’s what my insurance agreed to cover.

And now my head sits at a slight angle from scar tissue at the base of my skull and sometimes my fingers feel a little numb.

Don’t let people adjust your neck. You might fucking die.

[cass-ass]

A lot of times when your bones are out of place it has more to due with soft tissue issues than with your actual skeletal structure. So if you go to physical therapy, massage therapy, or a yoga/stretching class you're likely to have a better experience with more ACTUAL pain relief than you are with a chiropractor.

Chiropractors often dont pay attention to the tension in people's muscles, which is why @thebibliosphere had their traps torn. If a muscle is pulling something out of place and you dont release it and instead try to move the bone, that's such a recipe for disaster. It's why if someone doesnt stop going to the chiropractor I will recommend that they go to a massage therapist first- so that they at least have reduced damage.

But please, please go to someone who specialized more in soft tissue, usually your bones arent the *actual* issue and if they are, you need a doctor, not a chiro.

(If you have EDS!!! Do not get deep tissue massage. It can make your joints more unstable. Get Myofascial massage or a light-medium pressure massage. )

[wonderlartcafe]

Artist: Tsuchiya Koitsu Title: Miyajima in Snow Date: 1934.

[ashstfu]

kids these days will never experience the epic highs and lows of bubblewrap popping

[clydeonly-deactivated20230901]

what are the lows of bubblewrap popping

[ashstfu]

when you press it and it deflates without popping

[lexieistrying-deactivated202310]

doctors shouldnt have to be brave.

doctors shouldnt have to make the decision between being killed and doing what they vowed to do- help people.

doctors shouldnt be giving conferences on how this is the worst humanitarian crisis they’ve ever seen while being surrounded by dead bodies and rubble.

hospitals should never be anything but a safe haven for the ill and displaced

shame on all of us.

[anathema1868]

4137 palestinians were murdered by israel this month, 1756 being children. their loved ones are mourning under constant threat of their own death.

a terrorist isn't a brown-skinned person holding a gun. a terrorist is someone in a comfortable office ordering airstrikes on children. a terrorist calls civilians 'human animals' as he cuts off their water, food, electricity and fuel. a terrorist makes sure they know they will never be safe. a terrorist is silently allowed this by his allies and viciously defended when the people he butchers strike back at all.

israel is a terrorist state.

[starlightshadowsworld]

Palestinians are not "animals."

They are not "children of darkness."

Little kids are rescuing cats and trying to comfort them when they themselves are terrified.

A doctor broke down when his father and brother came into the trauma unit.

And several of his colleagues hugged and gathered to comfort him.

Journalists are playing with babies.

Doctors are refusing to evacuate hospitals because their patients can't and refuse to leave them.

There's a little boy who gives tea to the journalists and thanks them for spreading their stories.

He's displaced at the hospital, his home is gone.

A kid was asked what he wants to be when he grows up and he said kids in Gaza don't grow up.

Kids are writing their names on their arms so they can be identified.

Momin Kireka is a Palestinian journalist who was disabled by an Israeli attack in 2008.

And despite the difficulty in moving around, he vows to continue to show the world the truth.

Awni, a young Palestinian boy has a gaming YouTube channel he loved so much.

He was killed in the bombing.

Mohammed Sami was an artist who's dream was to open an art gallery.

He was playing with the kids to raise their spirits. And the next day he was killed.

They are victims.

They are going through unimaginable horrors and still find it in their hearts to be kind.

They have hopes and dreams just like you and I.

They are people.

And they deserve to be remembered as such.

[gif87a-com]

[xenthecreative]

Welp today was a rough birthday...

[tokyo-fashion]

Super Moon over Shibuya, Tokyo last night.