#anti medication sentiment

[cybersteal]

BURN CORPO SHIT

[ollierachnid]

I just know they cannot stand each other

[nardaviel]

god i hope everyone who made up conspiracy theories about kate or laughed about the situation feels like the biggest piece of shit. like did they think she was staying sequestered and subjecting herself to all that for fun. some of yall have no soul

[mycological-mariner]

God you ever cant remember whether or not you took a medication? On the one hand you don’t wanna flood your system if you DID, but on the other you really don’t wanna fuck around and find out what happens if you didn’t.

[pearlposts]

From the New York Times best-selling author of The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires comes a hard-rocking, spine-tingling horror novel about a washed-up guitarist of a ’90s heavy metal band who embarks on an epic road-trip across America and deep into the web of a sinister conspiracy.

Every morning, Kris Pulaski wakes up in hell. In the 1990s she was lead guitarist of Dürt Würk, a heavy-metal band on the brink of breakout success until lead singer Terry Hunt embarked on a solo career and rocketed to stardom, leaving his bandmates to rot in obscurity.

Now Kris works as night manager of a Best Western; she’s tired, broke, and unhappy. Then one day everything changes—a shocking act of violence turns her life upside down, and she begins to suspect that Terry sabotaged more than just the band. Kris hits the road, hoping to reunite Dürt Würk and confront the man who ruined her life. Her journey will take her from the Pennsylvania rust belt to a celebrity rehab center to a satanic music festival. A furious power ballad about never giving up, We Sold Our Souls is an epic journey into the heart of a conspiracy-crazed, pill-popping, paranoid country that seems to have lost its very soul.

[mirielvairenen]

Having a yard is bringing out more of my inner cottage core- I’ve got milkweed fizz fermenting on the counter, I had ‘yard salad’ as a side at supper, I’ll be making bread and fridge pickles later this week, the spinning and weaving is going well…

and tomorrow I go back to my engineering job that pays the rent and everything else

[salt-baby]

yes, doctors suck, but also "the medical ethics and patient interaction training doctors receive reinforces ableism" and "the hyper competitive medical school application process roots out the poor, the disabled, and those who would diversify the field" and "anti-establishment sentiment gets applications rejected and promotions requests denied, weeding out the doctors on our side" and "the gruesome nature of the job and the complete lack of mental health support for medical practitioners breeds apathy towards patients" and "insurance companies often define treatment solely on a cost-analysis basis" and "doctors take on such overwhelming student loan debt they have no choice but to pursue high paying jobs at the expense of their morals" are all also true

none of this absolves doctors of the truly horrendous things they say and do to patients, but it's important to acknowledge that rather than every doctor being coincidentally a bad person, there is something specific about this field and career path that gives rise to such high prevalence of ableist attitudes

and I WILL elaborate happily

[soon-palestine]

The House of Representatives has voted to effectively conceal the death toll from Israel’s war on Gaza.

On Thursday, lawmakers voted 269-144 on an amendment to prohibit the State Department from citing statistics from the Gaza Health Ministry. The measure is part of the annual State Department appropriations bill. It was led by Democratic Reps. Jared Moskowitz, Fla., and Josh Gottheimer, N.J., and Republican Reps. Joe Wilson, S.C.; Mike Lawler, N.Y.; and Carol Miller, W.V.

In total, 62 Democrats joined 207 Republicans in supporting the amendment.Here are the 62 Democrats who joined 207 Republicans to ban giving funds to the State Department to cite the Gaza Health Ministry, undermining the organization’s death & injury figures. https://t.co/n7DveMQaPQ pic.twitter.com/Nas0Fgm4Ag

— Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) June 27, 2024

While party leaders often push their members to vote “yes” or “no” on any range of proposals, Democratic leadership gave “no recommendation” to its members on how to vote on the amendment. After the House passes the full bill, it will head to the Senate for consideration.

Mohammed Khader, policy manager at the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights Action, told The Intercept that the amendment is part of a trend of anti-Palestinian sentiment in Congress since the start of Israel’s atrocities in Gaza. “By preventing any recognition of the number of Palestinians killed since October, this amendment is a clear example of genocide denial and is no different from what was done towards victims of genocides in Rwanda and Armenia.”

On Wednesday, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., the only Palestinian member of Congress, took to the floor to make a similar argument. “This is genocide denial,” she said.

After reciting the death toll and other statistics about casualties, Tlaib said she intended to introduce the list of Palestinians killed in Gaza to the congressional record. “It is important to note this to everyone here: The list is too long that I can’t even submit it because of the text limit,” she said. “That’s how many have been killed.”

The Ministry of Health is the only official entity tracking the death toll in Gaza; its figures have been cited broadly, including by the U.S. and Israeli governments. Over the last eight months, Israel has killed at least 37,765 people and injured another 86,429, according to the ministry’s latest figures. These numbers are likely an undercount due to the decimated medical infrastructure, killed medical workers, and thousands feared trapped under the rubble in Gaza.

“It’s despicable but not shocking that 62 Democrats joined Republicans to refute the Gaza death toll,” one Democratic staffer told The Intercept. “Democratic leadership should be ashamed for refusing to take a stand and call out the blatant anti-Palestinian racism and genocide denial in our party.”

Moskowitz and Gottheimer are among several Democrats who have repeatedly worked to undermine the movement for Palestinian rights and pro-Palestinian speech.

In April, the pair joined Republicans to lead a resolution condemning the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” as antisemitic. In December, the duo joined Republican Reps. Elise Stefanik and Steve Scalise to lead a resolution condemning university presidents and calling for their resignations for allegedly tolerating antisemitism on campus. In November, the two Democrats joined 20 others in censuring Tlaib, for reasons that included posting a video calling for a ceasefire that contained the phrase “from the river to the sea.”

Gottheimer has gone even further, calling Democrats who don’t support Israel a “cancer” and suggesting that Muslims in America are “guilty” of Hamas’s attack on October 7. Along with Lawler, he headlined a call hosted by No Labels, in which he spoke with university trustees about how to push the FBI to take a bigger role in investigating campus protests. During that call, Lawler suggested that student protests for Palestine were the type of activity that inspired the TikTok ban.

The pair also joined 60 other Democrats in expressing their “disgust” at South Africa’s 84-page suit accusing Israel of genocide and praising White House spokesperson John Kirby for calling it “meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basic in fact whatsoever.” Not long after, the International Court of Justice concluded that Israel is plausibly committing genocide.

[daegu-based-terrorist]

Hello! Don't have to answer but I'm very curious about the religious climate in contemporary DPRK. How tolerant is it of various religions? Does you family have to travel to the city to go to masjid or are there multiple established Muslim communities? Are there particular aspects of North Korean religion or spirituality that are relatively common, also in pop culture?

In the USSR it seems it was a strong culture of secularism (culturally still very xtian) and perhaps some anti-theist leanings (but English-language resources on the USSR tend to be biased).

From what I've heard passed down from my relatives who lived/live Komi and Karelia, it was very much a people do their own thing and mind their own business in terms of religion and faith. Nowadays from where I live in diaspora I hear much of islamophobic sentiment in the news and anecdotes from Russia, and Indigenous religions generally aren't taken seriously at all besides being regarded as superstition.

in the dprk muslims make up about 0.1% of the population. we are an absolutely miniscule minority in the country and that is mostly because islam doesn't actually have a history of strong presence in the region. north korean muslim families like my own only exist because of mixing with other asian muslim groups (my family is partially hui, a chinese muslim ethnoreligious group) or because their grandparents were converted by muslim forces coming to fight on either side of the war during the korean war. my paternal grandfather's parents were converted by a uzbek(?) medic during the war. so my grandma was half hui on her dad's side and my grandpa was the child of converts. because of this relatively random way people ended up being muslim there isn't actually a particularly large concentration of muslims in any one place in the country. there is a mosque in pyongyang that is mostly used by iranian embassy staff, foreigners living in pyongyang and a small number of native north korean muslims.

my family are sunni so we never went to the pyongyang mosque. my father and his family would have a small celebration for eid every year in wonsan and that’s usually how worship would take place. if you were muslim in the dprk you generally knew all the other muslims in your province so people would get together in private residences for religious holidays.

people were very private about religion, no one cared if you were muslim, but the country is over 60% atheist and the majority of religious people are shamanist and buddhist and live in pyongyang so there is a lot of curiosity from other north koreans if you rock up to the function as a muslim or christian.

speaking of christians they are on a whole other playing field. they have tens of thousands of more believers then muslims. they are active in the government, have several churches (very jealous) and protestant north koreans are represented by the korean christian federation which is a christian communist organisation which aims for reunification, organises aid for north korea from the international christain community, runs protestant north korean churches and oversees the operation of pyongyang theological seminary who recently got a new building (i swear to god the next time someone calls north korean christians oppressed-)

buddhists also have their own federation and make up a much larger percentage of the religious population. there are 60 buddhist temples in n.korea but only about half of those are active as places of worship. monks are paid by the government. they also have some sort of college for the training of their clergy and sometimes s.korean buddhists are allowed into the country to help lead and participate in religious ceremonies. buddhism is probably most relevant to pop culture as you can see it references in music, movies and books.

overall your biggest problem being religious in the dprk is waiting 10 centuries for the government to give you a requested religious book. I'm not even kidding my dad sent the formal request for a second Qur'an for our household to the gov when i was 3 yrs old and it only was delivered when i was 6 😭 it has my name printed in it and the signature of some government official in it which is cool

[communistkenobi]

This is extremely silly. The stigma around demanding to see a lawyer when arrested/detained is a result of copaganda far more than it is anti-lawyer sentiment (the tumblr post they link as evidence for this claim is explicitly describing copaganda lol). I think people should be extremely precise in describing what the reactionary reasons for disliking lawyers are - antisemitistic conspiracies about all lawyers being jewish, pro-cop justifications that lawyers prevent our brave and handsome police from doing their job, etc, these are things that are legitimately reactionary. Disliking lawyers as a specialised class who primarily act to protect and maintain capitalist interests is not. There’s an enduring sentiment on tumblr that hating any highly-paid specialised professions (doctors, lawyers, professors, even journalists) is de facto reactionary, obscuring the very legitimate and productive reasons why people despise and distrust them - these people are gatekeepers to wealth, to medical care, to justice, to autonomy, to knowledge, and this gatekeeping process is incredibly violent and punitive. These professions cannot be separated from the systems they manage and maintain - this is a deeply neoliberal and individualistic understanding of how power functions and the corridors it flows through. Dismissing this as uniformly reactionary, or some misguided leftwing argument that nefariously slips in reactionary beliefs under the hood, is goofy and counter-productive. Be precise in what you’re criticising! Stop making dumbass horseshoe theory arguments!

[transmutationisms]

Feel free not to answer this ask so you dont have to step into this particular hornet's nest but do you have any thoughts about people sharing inaccurate science about COVID in order to push for more COVID regulations? I agree that COVID is being neglected and we need better policies but I'm also a biochemist so it pisses me off to see people cite research in a way that makes exaggerated and terrifying claims. Two years ago, I was warning my colleagues against this condescending "just trust the science" approach but now the same crowd pushing that has shifted to pushing "don't trust any of the positive science, only my catastrophic interpretations of it". Can't we mask without also trying to convince each other that COVID is a guaranteed one way ticket to death and permanent disability?

you must be new here haha i swing bats at this hornet's nest like once a month. yeah i think the current state of covid communication sucks a lot. i mean the truth is that "follow the science" is always a disingenuous sentiment; Science doesn't speak, and scientists disagree with one another. and it's naïve to pretend majority consensus is a reliable mechanism to identify truth—anyone who has followed the covid aerosolisation about-face will recall that although linsey marr was not the first researcher to challenge medical orthodoxy on airborne disease transmission, even well into the covid pandemic the idea of aerosol transmission was marginalised by global health authorities because it was politically inconvenient, out of favour with powerful established academics, and reminiscent to some of pre-pasteurian miasma theories of disease. those who would "follow the science" were not presented with a convenient dichotomy between reasonable evidence-backed expert consensus and fringe peddlers of heterodoxy; to evaluate these positions required actually, yknow, reading and evaluating the arguments and evidence from multiple competing positions, and deciding which had the greater explanatory power. which is good epistemological advice only insofar as it's so obvious as to be trite.

fundamentally a huge driving force of this situation is the social, political, and institutional forces that make expert knowledge (a generally good thing) all too often synonymous with inaccessible knowledge. i don't mean inaccessibility caused by knowledge being specialised; obviously this is inevitable to some extent simply as a result of the fact that no one person will grasp the entirety of human knowledge. but the fact that knowledge is specialised, specific, highly technical, and so forth doesn't automatically mean, for example, that it has to be monetarily gatekept from all but a select few with the resources to persevere through a highly punishing, nepotistic, hegemonic university system; this is a political problem, and one that additionally has the effect of enabling and sheltering low-quality work (see: replication crisis) behind the opaque walls of university bureaucracy and the imprimateur of the credentials it grants. in lieu of an ability to actually engage with, read, or challenge much of the academic research being generated on any given topic, the lay public is supposed to rely on signs of reliability like possession of a degree, or institutional reputation. what we in fact see again and again, and with particularly high stakes in the case of something like a pandemic, is that these measures are instruments of class stratification and professional jockeying that don't inherently ensure quality information: MDs can and do peddle anti-vaxx lies and covid / long-covid denialism; the CDC and WHO can and do perpetrate bad and outdated scientific advice, like that masks are unnecessary and isolation periods can be shortened for convenience. many of these are just blatant cases of kowtowing to political pressure, which arises from the capitalist logic that counterposes disease prevention to economic growth.

this all leaves us in a position where it is, in fact, smart and correct to evaluate the information coming from 'official' and credentialled sources with scepticism. the problem is that in its place, we get information coming out of the same capitalist state-sponsored scientific institutions, and the same colonialist universities; the idea that some chucklefuck on twitter is telling you the secret truth just because they correctly identified that the government sucks is plainly absurd. where covid specifically is concerned, the liberalism of academic and scientific institutions is on display in numerous ways, including the idealist assumption, which many 'covid communicators' make, that public health policy is primarily a matter of swaying public opinion, and therefore that it is always morally imperative to form and propagate the most alarmist possible interpretation of any study or empirical observation. this is not an attitude that encourages thoughtful or measured evaluation of The Science (eg, study methodology), nor is it one that actually produces the kind of political change that would be required to protect the populace writ large from what is, indeed, a dangerous and still rampant virus. instead, this form of communication mostly winds up generating social media Engagement and screenshots of headlines of summaries of studies.

meanwhile, actual public health policy (which is by and large determined at the mercy of capitalist state interests, and which by and large shapes public opinion of what mitigation measures are 'reasonable', despite the CDC repeatedly pretending this works the other way round), remains on its trajectory toward lax, open exposure of anyone and everyone to each new strain of covid, perpetuating a society that is profoundly hostile to disabled people and careless with everyone's life and health. this fucking sucks. it sucked that we have treated the flu like this for years, and it sucks that we are now doing it with a virus that we are still relatively immunologically naïve to, and that produces, statistically, even more death and disability than the flu. and it sucks that the predominating explanations of this state of affairs from the 'cautious' emphasise not the structural forces that shape knowledge production under capitalism, but instead invoke a psychological narrative whereby individuals simply need to be sufficiently terrified into producing mass action.

[marxism-transgenderism]

Genuinely would love to know what you think that trans women have in common with femboys

Well for starters we have the shared desire to take estrogen to alter out bodies and, short of that, dress and act more femininely/as woman/however you wanna phrase it. In a time of "anti-drag" bills and restrictions on access to hormones i hope i don't have to point out how these shared desires back us all into the same corner.

Look a lot of people replying to my post have assumed I'm defending a lot of wild shit i never mentioned in the post. Idk which twitter femboys pissed y'all off so much but I never said we have to court any particular group, especially not some creeps online who harass us.

But I'm deeply deeply worried by this growing sentiment among transfems on here that anyone else doing transfemininity different from us are just a grifters or aping our identities. Not only because we should respect others but girl how many of us went through a phase of being feminine boys before realizing we were trans women. Hell, i know so many girls on here who identify as both trans women and feminine men.

I'm not saying we are all exactly 100% the same. As i said in the post we have differences in identity and what we like to be called and that does shape our communities. But when that's the only substantial difference that any of us can come up with then i can promise you that the world at large does not care. They want to strip all of us of our rights and healthcare all the same.

What we have in common is that we exist on the same spectrum of transfeminine gender, far closer to each other than some would like to believe. And so when i see a website full of girls who seem more focused on how annoying the people next to us are than how we're all in immediate danger then forgive me for thinking we need to course correct.

Especially when i see so many of us defaulting to the same rhetoric of "they're terrible fetishists engaging in immoral behavior" that the christian right uses against us. You can think sissy kinks are weird and creepy but how are these arguments any different from the blair whites of the world raging against anyone who's not a Medically Diagnosed Dysphoric True Transexual. Cause so far the only substantial thing i can make of the arguments against me is "they're not using the right pronouns that allow them to say femboy" which is just saying they're doing transfemininity wrong and therefore they're bad.

This is getting to be longer than i wanted lol but I want reiterate that we don't need to ally with anyone who doesn't wanna ally with us. Whatever racist transphobic femboy twinks on twitter and 4chan y'all keep talking about are not who I'm talking about. What I'm wanting to point out is that there are people on here who are already in our communities. People who call themselves boys and girls and both and everything else in between who's transitions and identities are not that different from yours or mine. And right now this insistence that they are doing it wrong and are therefore our political enemies is driving and wedge where there doesn't need to be one. I promise we can all just make out and have puffy nipples together

[hoiststowline]

mercy's shore

ratchet x female!reader

originally posted on my ao3 here!

"What is the point of having your number if you never pick up the fragging phone?" Startled, your hold on the device wavers as you yank it away from your ear, his volume loud and displeased. "I've been trying to contact you all damn morning, where have you been?" 

His grouchiness overlays his concern, but it's not as heavy as it normally is, bearable to a wide extent. "Sorry. I got caught up with something, but I have a free minute. What's up?"

Ratchet sputters, and his engine revs theatrically in the background alerting you that he's driving, likely on the way to your house. "Oh, you can spare me a minute?" That may not have been the best sentence to say, even in your delirious state. "And you got 'caught up with something?' y/n, that is probably the poorest excuse I've ever heard, and trust me, I've heard it all." 

Your nose wrinkles, carefully surveying your options in the next reply you dare provide. It would appear no matter what you said unless it was the plain truth, it would not satisfy the doctor. "I...can I try again?" It comes out eventually, meek and stifled with exhaustion alongside a bout of attempted humor. 

"Can you what?!" Wrong choice slapping you profoundly in the face, the phone moves apart from your ear as he shouts. "Did you hit your head? What the scrap is the matter with you?" 

Sighing, you stand off the couch, hesitantly bringing the phone back to your ear, achy joints expecting his anger to flare once more. "It's been a long day," You start, pausing in case he decides to interject. "I was sleeping when you called, I really am sorry."

"It is only two in the afternoon," It's quieter, but still overmuch alarmed. "And sleeping? This isn't like you. I know your schedule very well, you don't take your 'naps' at this time of day." The fact that Ratchet claims to know your schedule is amusing, but you don't have the energy to tease him for the sentiment. 

"I was-" You move around the furniture, heading into the kitchen for a glass of water. "I was tired, Ratch. I didn't get much sleep last night." Part of you questioned if divulging the medic was the best idea, for he would only insist upon checking you over and monitoring your symptoms if he found any. 

"And why is that? Assignments, or work-related activities?" Unable to remember the last time you felt such fatigue, the only thing you wanted at this very moment was to go back to sleep, alone, in a dark room. "It better not have been to watch garbage on television." 

"That doesn't matter." You start, knowing what comes next. 

"It does." Going to argue back, you spin to the window in the kitchen as the tell-tale sound of a truck coming down the road reaches your ears. "Open the garage, now. I'm outside."

Groaning, the line clicks dead, leaving no option available to defend the idea that you were fine. You could hide, and claim you weren't home, but you know he's seen your car in the driveway already, and he wouldn't leave until he saw you. With dread, you watch the red and white ambulance pull onto the pavement, radiating the vibe that you were really in for it this afternoon. 

"Hi Ratchet," Your palm hits the button that opens the garage door, exasperation filling your tone as he pulls inside. "So kind of you to say you were dropping by."

"Hush up, I've just about had it with your nonsense." He doesn't mean it, because he wouldn't be here if he did. "If you run and lock yourself inside like last time, I will throw something at you." 

The idea had crossed your mind, but you knew it was all in vain, even if you did try such an escape. "Yeah, okay. I'll just remember to wash you with paint stripper next time around." 

"That is not funny." His passenger-side door pops open, impatience showing clear as day. "Get in y/n. And it's not a request." 

Your hand squeezes into a fist, but relents, knowing you were at the end of a losing battle. "Fine. Can I go get my bag, at least?"

As if he was anticipating you to quarrel with him, Ratchet begins his sentence without thinking. "I just said-!" When he processes your words, his voice box spatters, followed by an ex-vent. "Very well. But don't try anything, I'll be waiting." 

You disappear back through the interior garage door, back into your kitchen, and out of Ratchet's line of sight. In his initial investigation, your outward appearance seemed normal, with no obvious signs of trauma or injury. Still, you did have an aura of distress and melancholy, even if you were bickering with him habitually. Ratchet reviews his options, mindful of what he understood was the best solution to your long day, and after a few kliks pass, you return to the garage, bag on your shoulder as you close the door over behind you. 

"Told you I'd be right back," Shuffling around the ambulance, you step up into his cabin, sliding into the seat as the door swings shut. 

"I have validation for my wariness." His center console blinks as he speaks. "If you must sleep, go ahead. I'll be quiet."

"I'm good," Head tilting back, you're met with the soft beige of the headrest, and seatbelt clicking over your waist. "I'm sure you'll give me a run for my money when we get back to the base, so I'll sleep after." 

"You're lucky that I don't understand that idiom, or I'd probably leave you on the side of the road." Another jab he has no intention of following through with. "Are you going to discuss then why you are so exhausted? And don't give me the scrap about how you didn't sleep well. I know that. I want to know what was keeping you up."

The urge to scream at him 'You aren't my doctor' is nearly irresistible. You physically have to bite your lip, staring out the window with declination in your body language, but you have to take a step back to confront the larger picture. Ratchet hardly ever left the base, and it appears this journey was made entirely on your behalf, but the reason you felt so coddled and overwhelmed was because he was demonstrating compassion the only way he knew how. Ratchet was a worrier at heart, and him coming out here because he couldn't get ahold of you made guilt settle in the bottom of your stomach. 

"I know you're not ignoring me, y/n." His voice is flat as the seat nudges your back. "You're on such thin ice, I-"

"I'm sorry." It comes out a bit more warble than you intend, watching as his rearview mirror tilts downwards to look at you. "I was up all night overthinking. My brain was going a hundred miles a minute, I-" Your voice hitches, swallowing down a sob that rises in your throat. "You were only trying to help. I'm sorry." 

Ratchet doesn't reply immediately, but the mirror doesn't move from its position. Eventually, he ex-vents, and you can picture him hanging his helm in a defeated manner, unsure of what he could possibly say to make you feel better. 

"I should have just told you." You say quietly, looking back out the window. "It really has been a long day, but I'm okay now, Ratch. I swear, I would never lie to you."

"I know that." It's insistent, but he cannot get the image of you near tears out of his processor. "I would still like to review your vitals back on base, just to make sure you truly are fine."

A soft smile crawls onto your rosy cheeks, nodding twice. "Sure, if it'll give you better piece of mind."

"You're going to be the death of me yet, y/n." Your window rolls down halfway, enjoying the breeze that hits your face. "Would you rest better at the base, or shall I take you back home after the evaluation?" 

"Are you going to take a nap with me?" You blink, silently begging him to say yes. 

"That wasn't an option." He comes to a stop at a red light. "You have two. Pick one."

"You asked where I would sleep better?" Ratchet knows he shouldn't entertain this, but he dares to answer. 

"Yes. Pick one, or I'll pick for you." He makes the left turn as the light switches green. 

"In your arms," A pout overcomes your face as he barks a laugh, obviously unamused. 

"Forget I asked. I'm taking you back home straight after." The pout melds into a scowl, but you relent, leaning back into his seat as the two of you roll down desert roads. You knew you could do better damage at the base, eyelids drooping as a yawn builds in your mouth. Maybe you would be able to better convince him in person, but for now, you take it with stride as the cool afternoon air swipes across your face. 

[polliwoggers]

been struggling to draw lately so i went through some older stuff of mine and found this, only to realize i never posted it. i don't imagine anybody's still doing stuff for this weird social media-clan au thingy anymore, now that the meme of it has died down, but anybody's free to these names for whatever uses they want, if they want them :)

bonus lore to get it out of my head:

Yarrow-whisker was the previous medic before Quarrypaw, who has yet to gain their full status as a medicine cat in their absence

Geckopaw and Prairiepaw are siblings. Yewtail is only a so-so mentor at the best of times, so Foxfire effectively mentors them both. However, Prairiepaw has swooped in to support Yewtail when they decide to do something stupid and unsustainable on multiple occasions. they really shouldn't have been granted an apprentice tbh. i recently re-read Fire and Ice in the original warriors series so the parallels to Graystripe being a poor mentor to Brackenpaw are intentional

Skypelt came out of retirement to mentor Duskpaw, since they serve such similar real-life purposes. Skypelt doesn't understand everything their apprentice says or does but is generally supportive of such a similar application

Marsh-singer, Whitestep, and Thymeface are all siblings, and are collectively the youngest of the warriors (not accurate to the actual ages of the applications, but eh). to say they are all total gossips would be an understatement. they're also really interchangeable and forgettable. like the Runningwinds of apps.

depending on how positively you want to view the whole "reincarnation" trope some of the canon warriors books have, you could say that Tickpaw is a reincarnation of Musiclight. Otherwise, they just look really similar.

all of the "Cats Outside of Clans" cats are kittypets, with the notable exception of Furzebark, who is a banished rogue with a concerning amount of influence on the Clan(s?). maybe there's a whole band of rogues who are based on insidiously/surprisingly influential applications or online entities! various appstore/playsotre applications could fall under this category, as well as like. roblox, apparently. which is beyond weird to me since that's a game and not a wider application, but it got scarily profitable during lockdown, so...

Redpaw was Yewtail's sibling, but died during their apprenticeship. Probably to the same thing that killed Gravelpounce, but i have no idea what that would be

Flaxflower is generally considered WAY too old to still be alive (since the real internet explorer died a bit ago by now), but since he'd "find a way to be late to his own funeral", he has yet to kick the bucket.

the whole twittypet drama is EASILY the juiciest gossip the clan has had in ages, ESPECIALLY the half-clan checkmark-kits. in-universe, im interpreting the poor management of twitter that's been driving it into the ground irl as a negligent cat owner unintentionally driving their pet to spend more time outdoors with other cats (namely, dashclaw) to get away from them, which resulted in kittens. drummed-up anti-kittypet sentiment aside, many clan cats looking in on the situation just feel bad for her.

Vinewatcher is the most consistently "present" of the StarClan spirits, but is also the most consistently unhelpful. numerous potential prophecies later turned out to just be inside jokes of theirs they decided to continue rehashing into the afterlife. Quarrypaw, having not gotten much experience identifying what makes a legitimate prophecy yet, finds this exceptionally annoying behavior, and would like them to stop. They do not.

[pippenpaddlopsicopolisthethird]

My hot take that i know tumblr will not believe is that, in the USA especially, it is not common knowledge in real life that JK Rowling and by extension Harry Potter are symbols of severe anti-transgender sentiment. You have to be moderately to severely Online or deep in activism circles to know that. Almost everyone here has been an active Tumblr and/or Twitter user for years, which means that you, dear reader, are multiple orders of magnitude more Online AND significantly deeper in activism circles than almost anyone you'll pass on the street.

Just in the past two weeks I've met professional psychologists, doctoral candidates in counseling, inclusive medical providers, and a good handful more otherwise-accepting professionals who didn't bat an eye when brief HP references were casually mentioned in conversation. These are the type of people who apologize and correct themselves for saying "homeless" instead of "unhoused", but then joke about which Hogwarts House they would be in. This is absolutely a "non-geologists all know the chemical structure of quartz" type of issue.

Understand that I'm not trying to minimize the harm that Rowling, her ideology, her cultish followers, or her newer works have caused. Honestly I just kind of hope that this makes some of y'all feel better as you go into the world and see casual mentions of HP. Most people out in the brick-and-mortar world genuinely aren't attaching an ideology onto their memories of an old book series. Most people you pass on the street or in a store aren't using HP merch to mean they want to hurt you. Assume ignorance instead of malice until proven otherwise.

(T*rfs blocked on sight. They've chosen malice.)

[tieflingkisser]

Biden, CDC silent as North Carolina lawmakers vote to ban masks

Biden's White House has made everyday survival hell for disabled people. Now the last tool in the toolbox is being targeted with zero pushback.

This week, North Carolina Republicans are voting to ban wearing masks in public. The bill passed in the State House easily, was amended and passed in the State Senate, and will next return to the House for a vote on the amended bill. The Republicans also hold a supermajority that could overturn a veto, and killed a Democratic amendment to allow masking for health reasons. Hot on the heels of student encampments demanding that universities divest from weapons’ manufacturers responsible for mass murder in Gaza, Republicans jumped at the chance to criminalize two of their favorite punching bags, leftists and medically vulnerable people. Disabled people and allies have met the news with chagrin, as Republicans carry out the long-predicted next step in their war on medically vulnerable people appearing in public and remaining alive. Unfortunately, as Joe Biden jokes about refusing to put his mask on after a known COVID exposure, and left/labor pundits ignore the topic altogether, “allies” are few and far between. This combination of aggressive targeting and utter lack of solidarity is leaving those who rely on one-way masking to survive more at-risk than ever before.

[...]

Since it became clear (2021-22) that vaccines would not halt COVID transmission, that the virus would quickly mutate around vaccine protection, and that herd immunity would never be achieved, our government and media have worked assiduously to normalize constant reinfections and stigmatize those who object. People who suggest that it is the governments’ role to mitigate disease are painted as annoying and weak, a narrative that came directly from libertarian think tanks. Those who attempt to protect themselves in the face of harsh abandonment are painted as paranoid and mentally ill. What happened in North Carolina today is the unsurprising result of that years-long propaganda campaign. Masks are a critical tool to protect disabled people from COVID, but many people either bought into anti-mask propaganda, or do not think COVID is dangerous. For a leftist- someone who expresses belief in community care and solidarity- being unmasked doesn’t only convey the sentiment “I don’t think I can be disabled by COVID,” it also broadcasts the accusation, “I don’t believe you can be disabled by COVID.” Being unmasked while COVID spreads unmitigated is an insistence on ones’ inalienable right to expose others to COVID without their consent. Meanwhile, the latest CDC Household Pulse Survey found 17 million Americans currently living with Long COVID, and approximately 3 in 10 reporting having had Long COVID symptoms at one point. Viral persistence is currently a leading hypothesis for the development of post-COVID disease, and “persistence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA or particles in multiple tissues for prolonged periods in patients following SARS-CoV-2 infection, particularly in patients with long COVID, is now well documented.” Mounting research shows that every COVID infection significantly damages cognitive function. Research led by Dr. Akiko Iwasaki at Yale School of Medicine continues to find immune dysregulation following COVID, and studies point to a 40% increased risk of developing autoimmune conditions after COVID. And it’s long been established that COVID substantially increases your risk of heart attacks, strokes, and other cardiovascular complications.

[...]

But Democrats continue to stand behind their failed “vaccine-only” strategy (now, without vaccines!) because of the political impossibility of attempting to pivot. Plus, when you’ve had such blinding success mainstreaming far-right beliefs about illness building the immune system and public health being a personal choice, why change horses now?