#also even if our insurance pays some of it we still have to pay a certain amount and i think it will be expensive

[evilminji]

Actually? You know what would be darkly hilarious?

If, when the GIW can't get ghosts declared both malicious AND non-sapient/sentient? They push for "dumb animals" instead.

Which is accepted. Ghosts are animals. Checks out, says scientists everywhere.

HOW "dumb"?

What? Says the GIW, mid-victory high fives. They did not expect a follow up question. They SHOULD have, as this is the SCIENTIFIC community and that is literally their job, but here we are.

How. "Dumb"? The scientists repeate slower. What methodology did you use? What is your sample size? Are their different sub-species? Is this dimension like ours? Is Ghost the equivalent to Mammal? It says here their are humanoid ones.

What IQ are we talking about here and HOW DID YOU TEST??

A goldfish, parrot, and dolphin are all animals. WILDLY different levels of intelligence. You can't treat them the same. Technically speaking, WE are animals.

The GIW does not like where this conversation is going. Tries to shut it down.

.......well NOW the scientists are both offended AND invested. How DARE you try to push faulty science and hide the Truth from them! They're gonna do their OWN studies! *picks up the phone and dials that one embarrassing spiritualist friend they had in college* Hey! You still think you can summon ghosts? I'll pay you to try it for Science!

And like? As a Ghost? It's degrading as hell. But ALSO these fuckos just Whoopsie'd you into having both protections under the law, since animal abuse IS illegal, AND just put the ENTIRE planets scientific community on their asses.... by accident.

So you take a deeeeeeep breath you don't even need. Remember you're doing this for the little ghost babies and fluffy ghost animals. And show up at a research facility like "yes, hello, I am Ghost. Here for you to poke and prod at. Please ask me to name the object on the flash card or whatever IQ tests do these days."

Should you HAVE to prove your own fucking sentience? No. But? You do it. You're even polite about it. Ask for a copy of the study they plan to publish so you can BEAT some mother fuckers with it. The scientists nod in understanding and use the BIG font for your copy so it'll hurt more.

They've been there.

And just? Shitty people getting what they wanted only to have it blow up in their faces?? I see all these angst "but what if they were declared ANIMALS" prompts and I just?? Are we talking PARROT or goldfish!? One has the average intelligence of about a human 4yr old and the other is a FISH! People get RIGHTFULLY furious when you treat INTELLIGENT animals badly.

And would, in fact, adapt pretty easy to discovering one of said animal has become HUMAN lvl intelligent. It's easy to grasp the idea of human intelligence lvl dolphin or monkeys. Maybe there was some mutated strain, maybe in uetro tampering. Who knows. But if I tried to sell you a human intelligent housefly? Gold fish? Lizard?

You wouldn't believe me. There is some kind of trick at play.

So if GHOSTS are seen as animals? Everyone nods and then later? Someone comes in TV and very excitedly informs you "we found INTELLIGENT LIFE amongst the ghosts!" You'd believe it. Probably be really excited by your conversation starter for the day. Get a taco and move on with your life.

But? Having to willing sit for a barrage of testing? Is going to suuuuuuck so bad. Poor Danny. SATs all over again. For HOURS. At multiple facilities, just to be CERTAIN it's not a one off. All because he not certain he can insure good behavior from other ghosts and This Is IMPORTANT. He ALSO can't be certain it's even SAFE.

Might be a trap.

But if he has to do it again and again and again? Mexico to Bavaria to China to the Maldives? If this is what it takes for the scientific community to bitchslap the GIW into ORBIT before the UN? Hand him that pencil.

He has no where more important to be.

@hdgnj @nerdpoe @mutable-manifestation @ailithnight @the-witchhunter

[ms-demeanor]

I've been following what's been going on with Belphie the kitten and his person, Greer Stothers, has just mentioned pet insurance in a tag on a post and I wanted to give an example from my life backing up why pet insurance can be a good idea and why I think it is worthwhile.

Two years ago my sister's dog had bloat while she was on vacation. The kennel he was staying at recognized symptoms and called my sister to clear them to take him to the emergency vet. My sister is very financially secure and this dog is an enormous part of her life, so she said yes with barely a moment of hesitation. That ended up being about twelve thousand dollars of emergency surgery.

Large Bastard and I got pet insurance for Tiny Bastard the same week because we realized that if someone had presented that option to us, we would have had no choice but to have Tiny Bastard put down, and we didn't want to be put in that position.

I did a lot of research about different kinds of pet insurance and different levels of coverage and annual maximums and deductibles and so on and so forth. Tiny Bastard is a senior dog, so this was going to be expensive no matter what options we went with, so I chose a moderately priced plan with a $500 annual deductible, unlimited annual coverage, that pays 80% of the bills incurred annually below the maximum. What that means is that we pay the first $500 of care totally out of pocket, after which point we are reimbursed 80% of any vet bills for care covered by the plan.

The first year we had this plan I was kind of iffy about it. It's a noticeable monthly expense and we didn't even spend the deductible in vet bills the first year. Except that a month before the policy was set to renew, Tiny Bastard got diagnosed with diabetes. We now have monthly insulin costs and syringe costs; there are tests she has to have regularly to monitor her overall condition and we need to do more frequent vet visits to track symptoms.

Suddenly the insulin alone means that the insurance is break-even within six months and the additional visits and tests are something we can afford instead of something we'd have to put on credit.

Our plan (through ManyPets) covers medication, surgery, diagnostics, medical equipment, and euthanasia and cremation. It doesn't cover pre-existing conditions, joint conditions for dogs who were signed up over a certain age, dental care, spay/neuter, vaccinations, or prescription food but honestly all of that makes me just kind of wish we'd signed her up earlier - her knee problems *would* be covered if we'd had her signed up as a puppy, and the monthly cost would have been lower if we'd signed her up then. And there are at least a few emergency vet bills that I wouldn't still be paying off on my credit card. Hell, I've probably paid more in interest on some bruising she got in a fight three years ago than I have for this policy as a whole.

I am glad that Greer is able to take care of Belphie. I am glad that my sister was able to take care of her dog. But I'm also really, really glad that for a relatively low cost, I would be able to take care of Tiny Bastard if she were catastrophically injured, or if she needed emergency surgery. I'm glad that I'm able to take care of her now with her medications and her additional vet visits.

There are a lot of people who say that pet insurance isn't worth it, especially not for young animals. But if your young animal gets very sick, or gets badly injured, or eats a hairband and needs an emergency endoscopy, then it will probably be VERY worth it. It's a risk/reward question. You feel like you're wasting money if you're paying for a policy that you never use, but honestly that just means you're lucky to have a healthy pet.

I'm lucky that Tiny Bastard was relatively healthy before I got the insurance; I'm also lucky that she was insured when she was diagnosed with a chronic illness that will need lifelong care. This enables me to provide care for her that would otherwise be financially unmanageable, and that makes the insurance *extremely worth it* from my perspective.

And Belphie is a good example of why it's a good idea to get coverage even for very young pets. Greer is recommending it because this kitten has required a tremendous amount of care during a period in his life when it's generally taken for granted that a cat will be healthy. (And Greer is not stupid for forgoing pet insurance - pet insurance is still a relatively new concept and there are lots of people who are leery of it for a number of good reasons)

So I'd say that if you've got a pet or are getting a pet it is very worthwhile to find a pet insurance plan that fits in your budget. There are a variety of plans out there and some are very inexpensive. Check coverage levels (you can even get some with wellness plans that include dental care and vaccinations) and see if there's something that works for you.

I personally don't think I'm ever going to own another pet without having pet insurance. It's ridiculous how much easier it is for me to say yes to diagnostic tests or different treatments than it was before because I know I'm going to be able to fit Tiny Bastard's care into our budget.

[alligatorjesie]

I love how OP is complaining 'capitalism isn't an answer to these questions' when if we just sit down with a shit scoop and dust away the clean surface litter of 'why people vote against their own interests' the stinky cat turd that is capitalism is right there under the surface.

Capitalism explains a lot of why people are stupid and vote stupid, and if definitely explains why a lot of us who are not so stupid and don't vote against our own interests still have to deal with corrupt corporate legislation that force shit options upon us.

In America we've turned schooling into a numbers and testing game that punishes schools who don't test well. That sounds correct on the surface but then when you dig around in the bullshit a little you realize they're literally only teaching these kids how to test and not how to do fucking anything else.

human restoration project did a long fuckin' video on how teaching the test is dicking over American public school systems

skip intro did one about a fictional school but it reflects a lot about what is wrong with real schools.

It's money.

It's always money.

Now we have schools filled with students who can't read good and teachers who ain't really allowed to teach anything but 'the test' and ain't even being paid well enough to babysit and a lot of this isn't this way because voters are stupid. It got this way because corporations own school book publishings. They decide what we learn and how we learn it from lobbying the fuck out of Congress to make it this way. Schools don't get a choice how they teach, and if they don't do it the way Congress wants then they don't get funding.

It's not even a conspiracy.

It's very look-up-able.

We literally just had a ballot measure in my state that was 'hey should we give the already poultry amount of we designate for public schools to private schools instead of public schools?' and thank fuck it lost but that shit got over 30% yes votes. Most of the houses that had 'vote yes on 2' signs in their yards didn't even have children living there.

I also noticed how a lot of those yards also had trump signs in them but that's a conversation for another day.

We don't have healthcare because we're told there's no better system out there besides the one with the absolutely fucking useless middle man who can deny you help because they deemed that cancer you developed from DuPont pouring Teflon into the waterways was pre-existing condition just to ensure shareholders get more of the pie at the end of the quarter. This wasn't even a measure we got to vote on this was just forced on us because of greed. Cooperations have corporate interests and lawyers and lobbyist that are paid very well to make that company as much money as possible.

This is one of the reasons you can't walk into a hospital in America and ask 'hey how much would it cost to do x?'. They won't tell you a price because it's fucking made up.

No joke. You can't find out how much it will cost to have a baby in a hospital in America and the hospital won't give you a price ahead of time because that price is heavy influenced by things like; if you have insurance or not, what income bracket you belong in, if your paying some shit in cash, just to name a few bullshit reasons.

We keep getting food recalls because huge food corporations have have financial interests to demand to monitor their own food safety rules instead of allowing the government to do it. We have a whole government agency that could be better staffed to handle this but there isn't a financial incentive to do that so we don't.

9 times out of 10 the reason shit sucks is because someone wanted to make money over being a decent human being.

It's not even fascism it's just regular ol' corporate greed.

which has roots in fascism no doubt.

Honestly, we could fix most of the problems in America if we just got rid of lobbying.

surely we could educate the people in matters of economics and social theory to make them less stupid in their voting.

Perhaps, but that's a multi-generational project of improving education, which doesn't solve the short-term problem of winning political campaigns. Indeed, the former is rather predicated on the latter.

[xxlelaxx]

So my friend got pregnant on accident and she asked me to be the godmother (I think that is madrinha or Patententante). And I'm so so happy for her.

But at the same time we've been trying for almost a year soon and I can't help but being a little bit jealous and sad even though I'm mostly happy for her.

Now my period is late and I'm trying not to get my hopes up cause I know the moment I get my period I will cry my eyes out. I also had a little fight with my bf about things he could do to improve his fertility cause he hasn't changed almost anything and I'm starting to be a bit upset. But now he is upset... Not at me just at things in general.... And I don't think I can handle this right now.

[kawaiijohn]

Help a queer family of disabled nerds

Hey my name is Dante, I live in the Midwest with three of my best friends. We have four cats, one of which is my babyman whom I love very dearly.

His name is Latke Library Card Mango (LLCM). He's very orange and he's the light of my boyfriend, Kris, and I's life.

Cat pics are great right? Have a few.

A few months ago, latkes chronic bladder stones condition acted up which resulted in two emergency vet visits and a week long stay with his actual vet to get the stone removed.

It was the size of a chickpea.

Here's a photo of his post surgery when he had a nakie tummy. He was very very happy to see us.

He's since recovered, but the cost of this put us back around 1300 dollars in total. He's now on a special diet with rather pricey food to prevent this from happening but it might still act up eventually.

We've paid down some of his debt, but the interest is making it become more and more as we try to pay it down.

On top of this, our pipes backed up into our basement and refused to work suddenly a few weeks ago. We live in a house that is over a century old, and the clay pipes keep getting roots growing into them that causes them to not drain.

The roto had to come out and high pressure the roots out to clear them (which required expensive equipment), This put us back another grand.

To add to everything, our 700+ auto insurance bill is due in November, which is the worst time for this bill to need due, but both myself and Kris drive over ten miles to work during different shifts on opposite ends of town- neither of our jobs have public transit anywhere near them.

We are currently barely making ends meet-

I am a lunch lady at a public high school. I love my job. I feed kids who possibly don't even eat at home some days. I do work I am proud of.

However, I can only work around 25 hours a week without risking losing my insurance as a disabled person. My job does not have longer hour positions available, and I am too disabled to work more than this without ruining my body like I have done in the past.

I have been going without buying groceries out of fear that what little money I have in my account will be needed in an emergency. I will be out of work for a week this month, around Thanksgiving, and during Xmas break- unpaid due to me working in a school. Me being out also means no guaranteed meal every day.

Kris works in a factory. He is currently working 55+ hours a week to make what we can to pay off the bills and keep our house. He only has one and a half knees that hurt all the damn time and is barely eating either just to afford everything. His factory keeps calling for sudden shutdown weeks with little notice at the worst times, and he's the main breadwinner in the house for us.

The other two in our household, one is severely disabled and can barely work 10 hr/week (he is waiting on hearing back to receive SSI) on top of having multiple medical appointments a week to figure out what is wrong with his body and why it keeps failing. The other is a freelance artist who is working her butt off to make money while carting the previous to appointments nearly every day. She is full up on commissions at the moment, but when she opens them I'll reblog her posts.

I really didn't want to make this post. I hate asking for help. But we are drowning and there's no sign of land. None of us can afford to live on our own, nor can we move back in with our parents for various reasons.

All I'm asking for is some help. I don't care how much. Five dollars is five dollars. Five dollars is half an hour less we have to kill ourselves to make ends meet.

Even if we don't make the full amount, every dollar will help us get a bit closer to paying this stuff down so we can afford gas and regular grocery trips again instead of having to save up to go once a month like we are currently doing.

Our goal is 2000 dollars.

Yes, this is the high amount. I do not believe we will ever reach it. I can hope we can raise this much at some point.

But for now that's the dream number.

It's the number that is looming over our heads, telling us to pay up or lose our home.

It's not something we need this very moment, but just what we need in the next few months to be able to afford living without destroying our body or working three jobs/ridiculous hours.

We thank anyone who can spare a few bucks to help us, and if you can't afford it just pass this post along to someone who might be able to.

Please send as friend/family if you can, PayPal is threatening to withhold money sent as transactions now if you receive over a certain amount.

This includes sending things through my ko-fi account- so here's the preferred methods:

Progress:

388.74/2,000

Thank you for reading. I love you.

[zinniajones]

Text of thread at https://kolektiva.social/@zinnia/110418489814171631:

Yes - this is what is happening in Florida due to SB 254, which was signed into law on Tuesday 5/17/2023, taking immediate effect. This immediately cut off 80%+ of adult trans people in Florida from having their HRT refilled, because SB 254 uniquely prohibits only nurse practitioners from prescribing only gender-affirming medications.

This has already been in effect for 7 days now.

Trans adults in Florida have already been cut off from their HRT refills for a week now, including those of us who have been stable on these medications for years or decades.

This is VERY different from the general situation of trans youth care bans in 19 states, many still working their way through the courts.

This has *already* happened, to *all* of us: all trans adults in the third most populous state in the US.

The number of trans adults on HRT massively exceeds the sliver of the population that are under 18 and are prescribed puberty blockers or hormone therapy.

These laws, advanced under the pretext of 'protecting children', are now directly impacting a far larger group of people who are not children and are not subject to those pretextual concerns.

Other arguments about withholding public Medicaid funding for transition treatment also do not apply here: SB 254 does not even allow receiving this care through private insurance or paying cash out of pocket. The care isn't simply not covered - the care itself cannot be provided regardless.

What is happening in Florida requires special attention above the situation of trans youth care bans nationally. This is having a vastly larger impact quantifiably.

It will have worse impacts qualitatively as well: adults are responsible for taking care of and protecting trans kids and making sure they do not hurt themselves.

Whereas as a trans adult, we have no one standing guard at the brink but our own self and the void to which we are accountable.

These are the facts as they stand right now. These are the facts as they have stood for a WEEK and NO ONE nationally is putting any attention on this because there are 19 trans youth care bans all across the country going on, along with everything else targeting trans people and the LGBT community broadly.

This is a specific harm that is happening now and has been happening for 168 hours.

It is not a hypothetical issue to raise awareness of, as if it were at the stage of some proposal that needs to be fought back. This has already happened and is happening right now. Active harm is happening until this law is rolled back.

For all of Florida's history since the inception of the applicable regulatory and licensing bodies, nurse practitioners have been allowed to prescribe hormone therapy, testosterone blockers and other relevant gender-affirming medications.

That has been the case since I moved here in 2011. There was no reason why this wouldn't be the case. It's also the case in every other state.

This new law is a carveout of prescriptions when used for one purpose, gender-affirming care, from nurse practitioners specifically, in a way that has never been done before. It affects all ages.

It has immediately obstructed access to HRT prescription refills for more than 80% of TRANS ADULTS in Florida.

It has also prohibited first appointments for HRT via telehealth with in-state or out-of-state MDs or DOs - first appointments must be in person. This will require expensive and time-consuming travel that is beyond most trans people's means: driving to Georgia from Florida can take 8 hours.

This was an intentional targeting of almost all trans adults in Florida, and the means by which we have received our generic, FDA-approved medications for years. And it included closing every possible door that would let us find another way to keep taking the medications we have taken for...

Well, for me it was 3,891 days when the clock stopped

[iguinn]

Urgent Donation Please Read

Hi this is Cross we're remaking our old post because it's losing traction and we still need a lot of money before October comes so we don't have to scramble for even more money. Which we will need to do anyway because of computer related issues, so we're bumping the goal a bit higher. Here's the situation:

We're out of our mom’s insurance and we can’t get our own because of various reason, we need money to get the necessary paperwork for our disability to be back in our mom’s insurance asap and it will take months to arrive, until then we need money for our meds and our yearly ear doctor consultation, our mom who needs monthly eye injections because she had a stroke last year and it deeply affected her eye and she only has one and because her request to have the injections done for free at the hospital will take months to process she needs to still pay for months worth of injections plus some even more disability paperwork she requested for us and her hasn’t even gone through yet and we need that for better disability aid since that is the only income we have plus some that helps us pay a bit of our rent cause our mom isn't working at the moment and we are starting college this month and cant work, thankfully the money to pay college isn't a huge issue cause we got a huge disability scholarship cause they accepted our old paperwork but we will need update ones before the semester ends to keep it which is ideal since while we have no income other than aid we would still have to pay less than normal it would still be over the money of our current scholarship and therefore less affordable and we need all this before October. And also we recently found out that the previous owner of our computer kinda fucked it up severely and we need to buy some more up to date components so it work's properly and doesn't just randomly break down like it has happened before and we need this computer for school too.

paypal: https://paypal.me/froilovemail?country.x=PT&locale.x=en_US

goal:

38€/2000€

[sentient-cloud]

Ok so. Hi. Me again! Last time I swear. Hopefully. I’m Tavian. Me and my mom and our cat have been through some things. We’re homeless, lack of a better word. We’ve been living in various hotels for about 3 years. Lost jobs from health issues, my moms been in and out of the hospital and has heart failure. I’ve got health issues myself that make holding down a job hard to impossible, especially if we’re going to keep the insurance that my moms depending on to keep her heart alive right now. That said I acknowledge I am far from a stranger for coming on here and begging for money in the past. I know I’ve asked for more than anyone can ever expect and I am beyond grateful for the help that’s allowed us to stay somewhat afloat. Words can’t describe how thankful I am the generosity of others has allowed us to quite frankly stay alive.

I need to acknowledge this isn’t the level of emergency past things have been. Especially now, when maybe people are in much more dire need than us.

That out of the way, we’ve been given an opportunity that quite frankly feels life changing. If we can come up with $300 by November 1st (or well as soon as possible, it’s what will lock the apartment for us) we can move into an actual apartment. A real lease, kitchen, bedrooms. No mold or bugs. She’s extremely generous with working with us to pay extra rent until we catch up with the full $2,400 amount that’s the technical move in cost. The only sticker is that extra $300 on top of what we can offer. If we can get that we’ll be able to move into a real place and out of hotels for the first time in years.

I acknowledge this is a big ask, but fuck man I have to try don’t I? I’m technically planning for $400, because this would allow us to get an air mattress to share and a month of service on my phone (so my mom can contact her work and so that I can have a way to get in contact with y’all about commisions and such.) But $300 is the bare minimum to have a real house.

I know this is a lot to ask, I can offer commisions, pay what you want, if anyone’s interested in my art. I have PayPal and Venmo and cash app, if anyone’s able to help. I also can promise I will refund your money, if you send in money and the deal falls through in the meantime. I’ll even still give you that commission. Dm me for details I guess? Fuck man. Fuck.

400/400. !!!

I’m speechless. Thank you all so so much, I will keep everyone updated (we tour the apartment tomorrow? And talk about when the money will be exchanged and the lease can be signed. I really can’t express enough how life changing this is for us. As I promised, i will keep everyone updated, and if this opportunity falls through (I’m scared of allowing myself to be too hopeful, haha it doesn’t feel real you know?) I will let everyone know and issue refunds, it’s the least I can do. I really can’t express enough how grateful we all are.

[court-jobi]

i was just (re)reading your "reheat" oneshot and one part that stood out to me was izuku apparently "making a show" of him rolling up his shirt sleeves because reader finds it attractive. but my question is how did he find that out???????? did reader tell him that they find it to be alluring??? i need answers (just please dont do it nsfw, i'm not really into it lol) 👀👀

(btw i love your writing<3)

Ahhhh I'm SO glad someone caught this! I'm a sucker for the little details, and you found one of my favorites 🥰🥰 SFW it is~

And truly, it honestly shouldn't be such a saucy thought, Izuku rolling up his sleeves... It's a pure and simple fact that you love every bit of Izuku, whether he's dressed up or down. What's not to love? But here we are, and I'll tell ya exactly why.

How you came to enjoy this harmless little show was the sum of many 'harmless' moments, though they all have one thing in common:

Acts of Service.

Reheat shows it best, but here's how our darling Izuku reckoned it was a solid plan of distraction...

Pairing: Midoriya x reader

Reheat: ORIGINS

Izuku is an extremely thoughtful person, as we all know and love. He'll be in your corner to listen, tell you just what you need to hear, and do it all with a smile on his face. He'll also be the first to step up and offer his best if it would help make your life easier.

The first time you watched him do it was a night he came around while you were in a self-imposed baking marathon-- and were quickly running out of surface space in the kitchen. Once setting down his workout bag down at the dining table and shucking off his coat, he'd immediately come in reporting for duty...

'How can I help' chirps off Izuku's lips without missing a beat, and before you could even make mention of washing the dishes as you go (to help expedite the process later), he was already rolling the cuffs of his hoodie to keep the ends from getting absolutely soaked. When he catches you staring from he oven range at what he's doing, he assumes it stems from feeling guilty about putting him to work, or refusing the idea that he'd tidy up for you. It's such a high pile that's filling both sides of the sink already, and it's threatening to topple over onto your tray of still-cooling macarons.

He sees it as a stellar trade off: you cook, he cleans. It's a no-brainer in his book!

The next time he does it, you're visiting him at UA while he's hosting some late afternoon office hours (in case some students wish to stop by for some pre-exam help). It's a slow afternoon, and when he complains about it over text, you surprise him with a little green tea boba pick-me-up. By the time you arrive, he's on the phone with some insurance company about a rate change that he's been meaning to call about.

He's a bit grumpy over it. Why they keep hiking prices like this, he'll never fully understand, but would kill for some transparency in billing, y'know?

"No- I'm not interested in upgrading the policy, it's covering everything I need it to -back at my starting rate. No, no dependents. No secondary vehicles either-- maam, I rent an apartment; I don't even own a home yet- why would I need a byline for acreage protection?!"

Poor Izuku's brows are tented as he navigates the skin sufferable conversation... But all the while, he's flexing -a flick of the wrist in each movement- as he cuffs his sleeves towards his elbows.

You don't realize you're staring until he stops moving. Looking up to his eyes again, they're more confused at you now, with a built shoulder precariously balancing his phone to his ear.

'What's wrong?' he mouths to you.

You immediately shake your head, and just motion for him to carry on. You rest your chin in your hand when he continues, but he doesn't say more on the topic when the woman returns from the other end of the line with more bad news.

"-b-boating protec-?? Ma'am, may I be perfectly real with you? I-I am on a teacher's salary! Can I please just revert back to what I was paying before so I don't have to auction off my AllMight limited editions??"

So firm, so capable... so stupidly attractive doing such a small thing... Izuku maybe a bit preoccupied at the moment, but he's starting to catch onto you, for there's gotta be something behind your interest in his forearms.

Finally, it all clicks into place. In Hatsume's Tech Lab, where you're picking up Izuku from after an off-site field trip of sorts for his support course students does Izuku finally get what's going on.

He's taken up some elective classes for their class route, in addition to his hero course homeroom. In the R&D department, he's trying on some gloves and explaining their features to you in excitement for its intended recipient, his good friend Shoto Todoroki, while his students all bound off elsewhere.

"He even came up with the design; pretty stylish, I'd say! Much better than his first costume, less bulky as well. Mei says we're the same size so I could try for fit before she ships them out to him- hhhnr... well- still kinda hard to- c'you hold this one, baby? here, lemme get them on for real.."

Setting the gloves to your waiting hands, your eyes double in interest. Tongue wets your lips slightly. And shockingly, your mouth moves before you can stop yourself.

"Oooo, my lucky day~ Roll 'em up, babe~"

"that's the problem with this tech. There's safety resistance in the cuffs: they're great for compression, but it's a bit tight for tryin' to get over-- w-wait. What?"

Izuku chances a look at you in that one, thirsty moment.

"Do you-- like this?"

"Mhm~"

".. just- rolling up my sleeves? Like this?"

"Mhmmm~"

Though you've solidly convinced Izuku that his scars are to be worshipped just as much as his heart, he can't believe your starry-eyed look while he does this.

Cheeky, Izuku thinks surely you're messing with him, "Goodness the way you're looking at me, you'd think I was showing you my six pack..."

"Eh, that's nothin'," you tease, "impressive, don't get me wrong, Mr. Midoriya- but anyone can work out. This.. takes finesse."

Izuku sprouted a warming blush over his ears, wrenching a calm exterior into place despite your loving teases.

"Finesse, huh?-"

"Slower, babe," you sink onto a palm again, batting your eyes again, "you look good like this."

"Y-You're a mess..."

"I'm your mess now, handsome."

Izuku peeks up and out towards the hall having just settling his right cuff into place. Then, he's looking back to you all mushy at what he finds there. Complete love. It's earned you a kiss -to affirm his feelings for you, of course!- but also to get you to stop fawning over him where anyone could see.

Your fingers will trail over the sensitive undersides of his wrists while he cups your cheeks into place. Any insecurity he may have once held about his scarring has been snuffed out by you a long time ago, but Izuku now realizes it's not just an accepted sight, but a welcome one.

"Good to know this is a sure method to get your attention, honey," he'll whisper between kisses.

It's the preemptive motive that gets you:

Izuku is so ready and willing to help anyone at a moment's notice, to take charge and get things done: to the point where watching him prep to get his weathered hands involved is an attractive sight. He's the first to go the extra mile for you, no ask too big or favor too small.

It might be a quick adjustment to his outfit for comfort, but the look suits him so well. So yes, even as he rolls up his shirt sleeves, you find him insanely, unfairly handsome.

[gregorygerwitz]

apparently this is the year for this...

Please Help Us Out With Bills

Currently, I'm virtually unemployed due to health issues and my employer all but refuses to give me short term disability pay because I don't have a diagnosis yet. I'm doing DoorDash as much as I can, which brings in ~$150 a week if that. It leaves my roommate, @kitthekazoo, to cover most of the mutual bills - like rent - virtually on her own. But that does mean she can't pay her own bills (like car and insurance) after paying the second half of our rent this month.

Like I said, I'm doing DoorDash around doctor's appointments and other activities, like school (which is paid for by my employer, who I still technically work for, I'm just on an extended medical leave - it's excused time off, but I don't get paid at all), but that doesn't bring in much. My checking account (where my DD money goes) is negative almost $400 because things keep taking out and every single one of those charges also incurs an insufficient funds fee of $31.

I would need ~$750 just to get positive enough to pay Kit back for my half of this rent payment. Plus I have my own bills to pay - car insurance, credit cards I'm desperately trying to catch up with the payments on, gas so I can keep doing DD, etc.

I know it's a lofty goal, but getting $1k by the end of the month will keep us sane and housed while I navigate my medical issues. Hopefully, after we run a few tests next week, they'll have a better idea of what's going on and when I'll be able to go back to work, and these money issues won't keep coming up...

I'll link my accounts below, including my etsy where you can buy some crochet projects from me if you want something in return for your donation! Or feel free to message me here or on etsy if you want something made that isn't listed in my shop.

Thank you in advance for any little bit, even if you can just reblog to spread the word. 💜

paypal venmo: amwallace95 etsy

so far: 230/1000

EDIT: I fixed the links!

[purupurple]

so as you probably know, i've teamed up with moonsprout games and makeship to make squishies of characters my husband and i created for bug fables, tanjerin and cerise. so far, tanj is doing alright, but cerise is dragging behind. however, i'm concerned about if they'll be funded at all. i'd like to go over why its so dire that at least one of them achieves their goal.

so, i don't like talking about serious and personal stuff and i very rarely do it, but just a little over a year ago i had been hospitalized with no health insurance. thankfully i recovered quickly as it was just some sort of icky cold that turned into pneumonia despite my efforts in recovering as fast as i could. that being said, i live in america, and being hospitalized with no health insurance is a very bad situation and now i have debt. on top of that, i've had two unrelated ER visits later last year where i did have insurance, but they didn't cover everything (america, i swear…) so that's MORE medicical debt. not to mention my husband is still paying off a lot of student loans… so we've got our hands full. of debt, that is.

what i'm getting at here is that these plushies getting funded is crucial to help me pay off these medical bills and some more that are expected later on this year related to receiving mental health care, specifically from the process getting diagnosed for autism and/or adhd as well as being able to learn how to handle anxiety attacks. i would even be happy if just one of them was successful (poor cerise is lagging behind…) so i'm officially making this a cry for help. please, help us fund the tanjerin and cerise makeship campaigns! if you're not in a spot to buy even just one of them, then all i ask is that you share this post and tell your friends, families, and/or any other interested parties. both my husband and i very much need all the help we can get!

but i also made this post not just to go over our tough situation, but i wanted to let everyone know that there's now a gleam giveaway! it's a raffle you can enter by following the steps on the gleam page to get an art commission from the box art cover artist schweise and me, designer for the fruity bugs!

tl;dr me have big medical bills husband has student loans and me will draw something for the one who wins the gleam raffle so sign up for that if you're interested

please spread the word, and thank you in advance for reading! here's the links below

gleam page - tanjerin squishie - cerise squishie

[superblysublimecreation]

Hey y'all! Long time, no post.

A few days ago now, I got into a car crash 5 hours from home in Gary, IN while trying to help a friend move from home. We hit a pole going 30mph, airbags went off, and my car is totaled. We're really lucky the damage wasn't worse as the pole cracked all the way up and had a chance at falling on us.

Due to having to pay for an emergency hotel room, releasing my car from police custody, and having to pay my car insurance deductible, I'm officially broke.

We all need to get checked out still as two of us have some chest pain around our sternum and heavy bruising. I've also still got bills to pay as well. I don't like asking for help, but I could really use it now.

I've added my ko-fi below. I've got comms open which I've not taken before so please be patient with me on that. I've also got a small selection of stickers in my shop available. Every bit helps, even just sharing around.

Sorry to inconvienence anyone, I already feel bad enough getting family into a crash and losing my car.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

This requires some backstory but I'll try to be brief.

My fiancé and I live with my mother. We pay her $300/month "rent" to cover extra utility and grocery costs. We usually buy our own food though.

Unfortunately we have been without a steady paycheck for a few months now. We both worked a fast food job that was horribly taxing on our mental and physical healths. I quit early April, fiancé quit in May. Our savings dwindled rapidly.

Our finances hit a critical in the last month. We still owe my mother rent for September and October, but at least she won't kick us out. We might not be able to pay our car insurance ($210) next month, and if it lapses it will be illegal to drive our only car. The car also needs repairs.

Now to the point: We needed to cancel the few remaining monthly subscriptions we still had. Namely Amazon Prime.

My mother has been using our Prime subscription (with our permission) to watch a show. She went to watch the show 2 days ago and got an error message. We hadn't warned her that we were cancelling the Prime.

She literally started yelling and crying about how ungrateful we were and how rude we were for not telling her ahead of time. (A 63yo woman throwing a temper tantrum.) She then demanded we turn it back on. Her exact words were "Just take it out of rent each month." (Remember we can't afford to pay her rent right now, so we're still footing the bill for the Prime.)

My fiancé is mad enough at my mother for her reaction he's refusing to speak to her or even go to Thanksgiving/Christmas dinners unless she apologizes, which I severely doubt she would even if asked.

I admit we should have warned her we needed to cancel the Prime subscription, but AITA for cancelling it?

What are these acronyms?

[hearvex]

can i ask for this Juan guy lore :v i saw his tweet when it had like 3k and thought it cant be good but i dont know anything about him. its upsetting to see 12k likes tho like why are people fighting against human fights tho

oh this is a long one, who's Juan Guarnizo, the streamer who has recently tweeted against the french union in regards of the qsmp.

juan guarnizo is a colombian streamer (who now lives in mexico with his wife). he's participated in Tortillaland, a roleplaying minecraft series, as a wizard of sorts. He then decided to create a "spin-off" series (more cinematic/pre-planned) called "El Dios de Todo" (The God of Everything, his character's catchphrase). So he partnered with Euphonia, a popular Minecraft Studio that has created games such as SquidCraft, Dedsafio, SawMinecraftGames, and more.

He announced he was looking for several roleplayers for this project, and people started complaining on twitter because some of the requirements were pretty much insane.

Some include, full availability for 6 hours a day everyday for an entire month, good quality microphone, not being able to livestream the content, just record it to be used after the proyect was released, knowing how to rhyme/rap/sing/imitate voices and animals/general voice acting talent and being able to improv. All of that for the price of 0$. The payment? The enriching experience of being part of this unpayed proyect with your favorite content creator.

Well turns out people still didn't like this idea, justifiably so, and continued to call him out on twitter. His initial response was as follows:

(Hello, I understand that you know little about the project so I'll explain it to you: The God of Everything is a series based on a story that we will tell in the most cinematic way possible, therefore it is only possible to have one pov and not 40. Participants will be able to take advantage of the series on different social media platforms but not live. How much benefit they decide to get out of it is up to each person. The 6 hours a day thing is insurance, because there will most likely be days where your participation is half an hour and that's it. Also making it clear that professionals such as voice actors who will also be in the series will be paid for their work. We are creating an experience never seen before for me, the roleplayers and the audience, whoever wants and can experience it will enjoy it very much. It is something that we are putting all our heart and desire into for those who want to see the story. Communities that are not going to see it at all, at least don't fill it with your toxicity or bad vibes.)

Basically excusing himself by "I'm doing good by allowing you to join, please don't let toxicity ruin this". Which was still off, because professional voice actors would be getting payed but somehow the rest wouldn't, weird overall. Several POVs would be recorded but only one would be able to broadcast it, Juan. "we'll pay you with exposure" ahh deal

I haven't followed him since this happened, some claim he then did pay the actors, but even if that were the case, that would've never happened if it weren't for people calling out his exploitative bs. Which is exactly what's happened with the qsmp, only this time it's not a cancellation on twitter dot com, but a whole entire french union.

What I think their fans don't understand is that this is not a mob campaign against their faves, it's about protecting the working class from the privileged who refuse to pay them correctly or sometimes never at all, granting them rights to defend themselves when cases like these arise. This goes for people who claim Juan learned from his mistake, he clearly didn't if his immediate reaction to the union was:

(It's good that they formed a union, so they all hold hands together and fuck off)

So either he's forgotten his "lesson", or he only payed them (if that even happened) because he got caught and wanted to prevent a future cancelation).

[wander-wren]

every once in a while i like to poke my head into "anti [x]" tags just to see what the other side thinks. recently i was looking through "anti ao3" and found a really funny post claiming that ao3 is not anticapitalist, but actually the Definition Of Capitalism, bc it relies on volunteer labor while supposedly having the money to pay a staff.

oh, honey.

but i am not going to make unsubstantiated claims on the internet, no, and this gives me an excuse to look at ao3's whole budget myself, which i've been meaning to do for a while. these numbers are taken from the 2022 budget post and budget spreadsheet.

ao3's total income for 2022, from the two donation drives, regular donations, donation matching programs, interest, and royalties was $1,012,543.42. less than $300 of that was from interest and royalties, so it's almost all donations. and that's a lot, right? surely an organization making a million dollars a year can afford to pay some staff, right?

well, let's look at expenses. first of all, they lose almost $37,000 to transaction fees right away. ao3 and fanlore (~$341k and ~$18k, respectively) take up the biggest chunks of the budget by far. that money pays for, to quote the 2022 budget post, "server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses."

in some years, otw also pays external contractors to perform audits for security issues, and for more servers to handle the growing userbase. servers are expensive as hell, guys. in 2022, new server costs alone were $203k.

each of their other programs only cost around $3,000 or less, and otw paid around $78k for fundraising and development. wait, how do you lose so much money on your fundraising?? from the 2022 budget post: "Our fundraising and development expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, and the tools used to host the OTW’s membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors."

then the otw paid an additional $74k in administration expenses, which covers "hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as communication, management, and accounting tools."

in case you weren't following all of that math, the total expenses for 2022 come out to $518,978.48. woah! that's a lot! but it's still only a little over half of their net revenue. weird. i wonder what they do with that extra $494k?

well, $400k of it goes to the reserves, which i'll get to in a second. the last $93k, near as i can tell, gets rolled over to the next year. i'll admit this part i'm a little unsure about, as it's not clear on the spreadsheet, but that's the only thing that makes sense.

the reserves, though are clear. the most recent post i could find on the otw site about it were in the board meeting minutes from april 2, 2022: "We’re holding about $1million in operating cash that is about twice the amount of our annual operating costs. There is another $1million in reserves due to highly successful fundraisers in the past. The current plan for the reserves is to hold the money for paid staff in the future. It’s been talked about before in the past and we’re still working out the details, but it’s a rather expensive undertaking that will result in large annual expenses in addition to the initial cost of implementation."

woah....they're PLANNING to have paid staff eventually! wild!

so let's assume, for easy numbers, that the otw currently has $1.5 million in reserves. before we even get to how to use that money, let's look at the issues with implementing paid staff:

deciding which positions are going to be paid, because it can't be all of them

deciding how much to pay them, bc minimum wage sure as hell isn't enough, and cost of living is different everywhere, and volunteers come from all over the world

hiring staff and implementing new systems/tools to handle things like payroll and accounting

making sure you continue to earn enough money both to pay all of the staff and have some in reserves for emergencies or leaner donation drives

probably even more stuff than that! i don't run a nonprofit, that's just what i can think of off the top of my head.

okay, okay, okay. for the sake of argument, let's assume there is a best-case scenario where the otw starts paying some staff tomorrow. how much should they be paid? i'm picking $15 an hour, since that's what we fought for the minimum wage to be. by now, it should be closer to $20 or $25, but i'm trying to give "ao3 is capitalism" the fairest shot it can get here, okay?

ideally, if someone is being paid to help run ao3, they shouldn't need a second job. every job should pay enough to live off of. and running a nonprofit is hard work that leads to a lot of burnout--two board members JUST resigned before their terms were up. what i'm saying is, i'm going to assume a paid otw staff is getting paid for 40 hours of work a week, minimum. that's $31,200.

at $400,000 per year, the otw can afford to pay 12 people. that's WITHOUT taking into account the new systems, tools, software, etc they would have to pay for, any kind of fees, etc, etc.

oh, and btw, if you're an american you're still making barely enough to survive in most places, AND you don't have universal healthcare, vision, or dental. want otw to give people insurance, too? the number of people they can pay goes down.

it's. not. possible.

a million dollars is a lot of money on the face of it, but once you realize how MUCH goes into running something like the otw, it goes away fast.

just for reference, wikipedia also has donation drives every year. wikipedia, as of 2021, has $86.8 million in cash reserves and $137.4 million in investments. sure, wikipedia and ao3 are very different entities, but that disparity is massive. and i should note that if you give $10 to wikipedia they don't give you voting rights, i'm just saying.

by the way, you may have noticed that i didn't mention legal costs at all here. isn't one of otw's big Things about how they do legal advocacy?

yes, it is. they have a whole page about that work. and i can't for the life of me find a source on otw's website (and i'm running out of time to write this post, i'll look harder later), but i am 90% sure i learned before that most, if not all, of otw's legal work/advice/etc is done pro bono. i've also seen an anti-ao3 person claim their legal budget is only $5k or so, but they didn't have a source. but keep in mind that if they don't have a legal budget, all the numbers above stay the same, and if they do, there is even less money available for paid staff.

you can criticize ao3 and the otw all you want! there are many valid reasons to criticize them, and i do not think they're perfect either. but if you're going to do so, you should at least make sure you can back up your claims, bc otherwise you just look silly.

[crypticsesh]

Sooo I don't know if this will work. But I'm looking for some advice and/or suggestions from anyone really.

I'm in Florida. South Florida. Last year the last hurricane we had damaged our roof. FEMA said because our house was still liveable that they would provide a tarp and nothing else.

Our homeowners insurance won't even come inspect the roof for anything less then 4k and as I'm the only one working in my house, we simply don't have that to pay for an inspection.

As a short backstory - I live with my disabled mother who I help take care of. I'm also disabled, but I'm not as bad as my mother. So I'm still pushing through my chronic pain so we have something coming in. It's so hard and takes every ounce of willpower I have. But I'm trying to make sure she's comfortable and taken care of.

I don't know where to even start looking for assistance. I need some suggestions.

Where do I look when our insurance deductible is too outrageously high and FEMA just stopped caring.

Our septic was damaged as well, but we've been finding ways to keep it going. Because that's a hell of another expense.

Any advice, suggestions, anything would be greatly appreciated. I would be in your debt.

Please. I need help.

If you can share this I would be eternally grateful 🫶