#but I don’t want people to think I’m copying

[dirtypuzzle]

well, i hate to be the one to say it, but they burnt their political capital on something that was both incredibly necessary and unbelievably insufficient, further entangling american healthcare into unprecedented levels of tomfuckery. if you actually go digging into the myriad ways our healthcare systems is fucked, i don’t even think M4A would fix it without the kind of backend policywork that a) makes terrible campaign copy, and b) is really fucking hard to get right.

like. M4A is the end goal, in that i think single payer is the most likely thing to work once we get there, but getting from A to B isn’t just difficult, it’s fighting against all tenets of systemic and bureaucratic inertia in ways few people are really appreciating. if we were to slap M4A on this steaming pile of horseshit, it would probably fail hard, and then we’d be even farther away from decent healthcare.

the ACA is very similar. it did some of the backend work that nobody ever wants to explain or talk about, and no matter how good a tourniquet, those aren’t meant to stay on longterm. the ACA’s requirement that insurers spend 80-85% of every dollar on medical payouts, for example, while intended nobly, ended up incentivizing providers to jack up prices and insurers to allow it bc 15% of a big number is still more than 15% of a smaller number. most providers, especially hospitals, don’t even know what their prices should be, that’s how skewed it is, and they have no incentive to find out. hospital costs jumped 159% between 1997 and 2012. i don’t have the numbers off hand, but i’m sure even post-COVID costs have fucking skyrocketed.

the fight i’ve been fighting, and mostly losing, is convincing people to see both the macro and the micro, the newtonian politics and the quantum. you’re fighting on two fronts, and as with any war on two fronts, you can lose by losing either, but you can’t win without winning both.

you’re fighting a global wave of fascism, which is aided by wealth inequality not seen in centuries but whose bigotry becomes self-sustaining and which cannot be only solved by improving material conditions. you’re also fighting the corruptive force of late-stage capitalism, whose biggest players have incentive to fuel right-wing extremism and whose influence taints most aspects of society’s mainstay institutions.

on one side, the rhetorical fight to convince the populace to support you while protecting vulnerable populations and containing the spread of fascism. on the other, unknotting decades of bad policy, republican sabotage, and bad law—what to keep, what to throw out, and what to rewrite to be more tailored or targeted.

you have to be right, and you have to sell it; you have to be looking at the big picture, but that can’t come at the cost of day-to-day governance and politicking.

which is mostly moot now anyway bc trump won. we’re gonna be in survival mode for the forseeable future. but let it be said that leftists fight on one front, and liberals fight the other, but they rarely coordinate; both have sabotaged efforts to coordinate in the past, the macron situation in france being the most recent. of course, liberals in power aren’t the same as the liberal populace, but i think i’ve gotten off-topic enough on this post already.

I have more than one person in the notes of my post saying they did not in fact know that the ACA stopped insurance companies from being able to deny coverage for a pre-existing condition in case you were wondering where we're at. People don't know the ACA and Obamacare are the same thing, they don't know it's why they have healthcare, they don't even know what it does. How do you even deal with that?

[twiishaa]

twisha’s merry christmas event! a white christmas with portgas d. ace

ace x fem!reader, fluff! your boyfriend, ace, had always dreamed of a white christmas. It was christmas day, the whitebeard pirates were at sea, but a christmas miracle occurred-- it had been a snow day! Who can build the biggest snowman?

your jaw dropped in shock from the information you just got from your boyfriend, portgas d. ace.

“WHAT?! you’ve NEVER experienced a white christmas?”

ace chuckled a little. “yeah, when I was living with dadan there was never any snow, and I guess we haven’t landed on any winter islands during…. winter…”

you were both on whitebeard’s crew, and it was true—you rarely stopped at winter islands at all. marco walked past the two of you, joining in the conversation.

“yeah. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a snow day,” he added.

you were speechless. how had the greatest pirate crew in the world not had a white christmas?

sighing, you got up and started making your way to your room, mumbling under your breath, “greatest pirates in the world living under a rock or something,”

but ace heard you.

“hey, you’re part of us, too!” he yelled from where he was sitting down.

—

a few days later and christmas finally rolled around. you had woken up a bit earlier than you usually did— something was off, why was it colder than usual? confused, you made your way to the main deck—but you got your answer right after opening the door.

“oh my god! it snowed!” you squealed in excitement. soon after, everyone else hurriedly came outside, to be met with the delicate white drops falling from the sky, creating a soft white blanket below.

obviously, the last one to get up was ace, still rubbing his eyes.

because of his devil fruit, he didn’t feel a thing since he was warm all the time. but that changed when you launched a snowball at his torso.

“oh, you!” he started chasing after you, two massive snowballs in either hand.

—

needless to say, your snowball fight went on for a while, at one point become a full-blown war between the divisions.

tired from hurling snowballs at people, you tried to get rid of the snow on a bench and sat down on it.

“so, have you been enjoying the white christmas?” you asked, as ace sat down next to you.

“—and aren’t you cold? you’re literally not wearing a shirt,” at which ace gave you a toothy grin.

tackling you into a hug, ace said, “the cold doesn’t bother me that much, see—I’m really warm, aren’t i?” it was true. ace was basically your little portable heater.

he let go soon after, saying, “there’s one more thing I haven’t done yet, though,” you looked at ace, raising an eyebrow.

“oh yeah? and what’s that?” he’d been talking about a white christmas for ages, what else?

“well, I’ve always wanted to make a snowman…” ace started.

“ohhh! that’s easy, let’s make a snowman!” you cried, getting up excitedly.

—

“baby, look! it’s a snow you!” turning to look at ace, you saw the ‘snow you’.

a wonky snow-thing that looked like it was going to topple over at any moment.

“do you like it?” you could hear marco absolutely cackling in the background.

walking up to the snowman, you examined it—“why don’t I have a nose?” you questioned, glaring at ace.

“oh… I couldn’t find a carrot,” ace admitted, scratching the back of his neck.

some parts of it were cute, though—like how he used your favourite scarf as an accessory and copied your hairstyle.

“alright,” you huffed, “time to make a snow-ace to go with it.”

“really?” ace said, his eyes sparkling, before tackling you in another hug.

“you’re gonna make ME? as a snowman? this is the best christmas ever!”

—

but by the end of the day, the heavy snowfall had stopped, and you were all getting ready to get some sleep after a long day.

before you retreated back into your room, you asked ace,

“did you have fun today?”

your boyfriend beamed at you. “I had the best time! thank you for staying by my side for so long,” your heart sped up a little; sometimes, ace would say something really touching unexpectedly. despite dating him for a few years already, they always caught you by surprise, making your cheeks heat up and you stumble over your words like a high-schooler.

you rested your head on ace’s shoulder, closing your eyes; he put his warm arm around your waist. “of course, baby. I love you,” you whispered.

before going to his room, ace left a kiss on your forehead. following him, you also went to your own room.

and outside stood snow-ace and his slightly wonky girlfriend.

taglist @hearts4hansol

⋆⁺₊❅ and lastly, here's a link to the taglists! merry christmas~‧₊˚🎄✩ ₊˚🦌⊹♡

[livi-in-digital-circus]

To be loved

For day 3 of Bunnydoll Week 2024 - Children

Ethan had had enough. Ever since his and Owyn’s younger sister had been born, it seemed that everyone in the circus had forgotten about him. He knew little Arabella had serious health problems and had to stay under their parents’ observation most of the time, but that didn’t mean the twins weren’t important.

The younger rag bunny threw another rock into the Digital Lake. His brother was probably looking for bugs with Kinger since he was the chess piece’s favorite ‘grandchild’. In fact, no one liked Ethan except Mom, Dad, and Owyn. He was always fooling around, destroying the props on adventures, and was locked in his room by Caine a few times. Sometimes he even thought that Ragatha only loved him because he was her child, when in reality she was deeply disappointed by his behavior.

A single tear fell from his eye. He was just a kid.

“You okay, kiddo?”

Ethan wiped away the tear and turned to face his father. Jax had his hands in the pockets of his overalls and a look of exhaustion on his face. He had been sitting with Ellie for the last two hours, occasionally rubbing her tiny head to soothe her.

“How’s Mama doing?”

“Still needs some time to recover.” Jax sighed. He hated to admit that watching over their newborn was quite a challenge for him, especially since Ellie’s condition was still a mystery for Caine to solve. Ragatha was not feeling any better. She hadn’t gotten out of bed since the birth, needing a lot of rest. All the circus members were required to help with the fussy rag bunny, who was still uncomfortable with a button in place of her left eye. Even though she was only a digital being, the pain she felt was strangely as real as possible.

There was a moment of silence between father and son before Ethan decided to say what was on his mind. He was stubborn and grumpy, definitely taking more after Jax. But like any other kid, his mentality was fragile.

“Why no one loves me?”

Jax’s eyes widen. He had softened a lot over the years, but only when it came to Ragatha and their children. To hear his own son ask him the same question he had asked himself when he was much younger was something he hadn’t expected at all. Did this mean that he had failed as a father?

He was no saint, that was more than obvious. But on the day the twins were born, he promised himself that he would not be like his own parents. Yes, from time to time he called them little [BEEP]s, however, that was just his way of showing affection.

“What the- what are you talking about?” Jax tried to keep the tone of his voice stern, but the slight tremble was definitely there. “Stop talking nonsense, kiddo. Mom loves you, Owyn loves you, and I love you. Hell, even Kinger loves you! And don’t think otherwise.”

“But Uncle Caine locks me in my room and won’t let me play with the others.”

“Because you’re annoying him.”

“Annoying him is fun.” Ethan pouted, his short leg kicking a larger rock. How could something that was supposed to be a mix of both Jax and Ragatha turn out to be almost an exact copy of his father? “You annoy him too.”

Damn, this kid was too smart for his own good. Jax wanted to say something, but he knew he should refrain from some words. Instead, he just crouched down and put both of his hands on Ethan’s shoulders.

“Listen, Ethan. I’m not good at this whole dad talk, but let me tell you something.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “It’s not the number of people that matters most when it comes to loving someone, as long as their love is genuine. I remember your mother crying with happiness when she saw the two of you for the first time. But you were annoyingly noisy compared to Owyn, I almost grabbed you by the onesie and threw you in the Digital Lake.”

The rag bunny let out a giggle, his father’s words immediately making him feel a little better. Seeing the change in mood, Jax smiled under his breath but didn’t stop his monologue.

“Then you became extremely clingy and wouldn’t let Mom leave you in someone else’s arms, even for a while. She gave you lots of hugs and kisses, even more than she gave me! So if you think she doesn’t love you, then I’m sorry, buddy, but you’re so wrong.”

“She loves me even when I cause too much chaos?”

“Ethan, [BEEP], she would give her life for you, Owyn, and Ellie. Causing chaos doesn’t mean you don’t deserve her love, and I know that from experience.”

Without saying anything, Ethan snuggled into Jax’s soft fur. Comfort from his dad was all he needed right now and he was more than happy to get it. Even though he knew full well that it was Ragatha's words that Jax quoted regarding love.

Still, it was enough to make him believe he was truly loved.

“You know your old man used to steal my centipedes?” Kinger handed Owyn a butterfly net, ready for another bug hunt. “But I found them all, thanks to your mama! Weird, right?”

“Mama doesn’t like centipedes.” The oldest rag bunny spun around with the net, which was bigger than he was. It was fascinating that he was interested in bugs at such a young age, unlike Ethan.

Both twins were going through a hard time, they hadn’t even had a chance to get to know their younger sister properly. Not to mention that they had barely seen their mother in the last few weeks. Owyn, being the calmer one, handled the situation better and tried to spend as much time with Ethan as possible. Their behavior was different, but there were still twins who cared so much for each other. The moment Owyn saw his brother enter the main area, he immediately ran up to him.

“Ethan! Do you want to catch butterflies with us?”

“Huh? Oh, not really.”

“Actually.” Jax suddenly came up behind them, causing the younger twin to jump. He grinned and then put his hands on the boys’ shoulders. “How about we go see how Mama and Ellie are doing?”

“We can?!” The twins shouted in unison.

“Only if you don’t tell anyone.”

Jax and Ragatha’s shared bedroom was larger than the rest as it was created by erasing the wall between their separate rooms. It was pure coincidence that they were next to each other. Before the twins arrived, Caine made a few changes, like adding a double bed and some baby supplies.

At that moment, Ragatha was lying on the bed with baby Ellie nestled against her chest. After a few hours of soothing the newborn, they finally managed to get her to sleep. Ragatha yawned, growing increasingly tired and desperate to rest as well. Just as she was about to close her non-button eye, the door opened and she soon felt two more rag bunnies clinging to her.

“Ah, hello my babies. I missed you so much.” Gently, she lifted a hand to stroke her sons’ heads. “Just remember to be quiet. We don’t want to wake your sister from her peaceful slumber.”

Ethan leaned out from behind Ragatha’s back and his eyes widened the moment he saw Ellie for the first time. She was tiny, her chest rising and falling slowly. The missing left eye didn't make her any uglier, honestly, the blue button added a certain charm to her already adorable appearance.

Jax lay down as well, admiring his daughter and especially his wife, who was more than close to dozing off. Owyn also changed position, squeezing in between his parents’ legs to make sure Ellie had plenty of space around her so as not to disturb her.

“Come here, buddy.” The rabbit pawed at the spot between him and Owyn. Ethan smiled and immediately hopped onto the mattress.

For the first time in his life, he actually felt loved.

Thanks for reading!

[zappedbyzabka]

I’ve seen a lot of werewolf Johnny, which is quite cute, but what about werewolf Daniel?

[theswedishpajas]

💙🌌💀🌌💙

[serandipity]

Hey so I see a lot of people into m.outh w.ashing and I think it’s potentially a neat horror game but if you’re gonna reblog art with the body horror guy can we please use just simple tags like tw gore or tw body horror or cw gore or cw body horror? I’ve been jump scared way too frequently recently by people reblogging what is essentially un tagged gore basically and while it’s not gonna send me into a panic attack it’s getting genuinely uncomfortable to look at

Appreciate the consideration. Thanks.

[akkivee]

The community only has Japanese fans participating; I am vaguely familiar with most of them, as the idol has few outspoken fans on twitter. Everyone is aware of each other. None of them speak or are learning English. I've also never spoken to them directly. I wish for the message to be understood by everyone, because the project runner is going to place the messages on the backvround of their birthday illustration for the character and place it in Tokyo, her canon birth city. I know that I would be the only English one 😭

Hopefully I can find an answer, I have until mid September. Thank you for your advice! I am just too shy to reach out to them haha

ahh the obvious foreigner problem i get it lol 😭😭😭 praying for your bravery!!!!!! you can do it!!!!! it’s scary but do it for the idol!!!!! 💪

[guentzel]

.

[angelic-eros]

Sometimes I wonder how much of myself I have to bend and shape and work around before someone will say they’re proud of what I’ve become

[mossy-paws]

do you have a list of what all the phighters are gonna be in your mermaid au :0

still really nervous to say who’s who because I don’t want people to copy any of my ideas because I’ve seen someone be scarily close to what I’ve been doing and stuff (no blame on them though because to be fair I guess it’s a little generic, it’s just a tad nerve racking I would say :’DD!), but you can refer to some of my older posts for what’s what :DDD! Sorry LMAO I just got anxiety and I’m silly like that

[bighandsforabigheart]

People don’t realize that when I say my top/bottom is fixed it’s not an “I prefer this one but I don’t mind the other~” thing, it’s an “I will die just from seeing the alphabets in the wrong order on a license plate” kinda thing

[remma-demma]

My lab partners in physics are literally useless I feel insane. I asked if either of them wanted to stay after class to work on it so I didn’t have to do it all myself and one said she just got a puppy the day before (fine, if that’s true I guess) and the other said … “suuure” and then kept going out of the classroom to call someone and he left halfway through class in a rush. I 100% believe he called his mom and was like “you gotta pick me up NOW”

[totsandnuggsrebloggs]

@ the aroace community

Girl help. How do we survive?

[oh2e]

[image description: a comment left by @not-all-there98 that reads: “You get this as a writer too. "Oh you should go into journalism!" Um, yeah I write gay porn, I don't have the skill or interest in being a journalist.” End description.]

its actually very silly that if ur any type of art kid as a teenager everyone is like oh have u thought abt graphic design or advertising. yeah the little emo dude who fills sketchbooks with anime gore all day would be great at making customers buy product.

[gingersnapwolves]

So today I want to talk about puberty blockers for transgender kids, because despite being cisgender, this is a subject I’m actually well-versed in. Specifically, I want to talk about how far backwards things have gone.

This story starts almost 20 years ago, and it’s kind of long, but I think it’s important to give you the full history. At the time, I was working as an administrative assistant for a pediatric endocrinologist in a red state. Not a deep deep red state like Alabama, we had a little bit of a purple trend, but still very much red. (I don’t want to say the state at the risk of doxxing myself.) And I took a phone call from a woman who said, “My son is transgender. Does your doctor do hormone therapy?”

I said, “Good question! Let me find out.”

I went into the back and found the doctor playing Solitaire on his computer and said, “Do you do hormone therapy for transgender kids?” It had literally never come up before. He had opened his practice there in the early 2000s. This was roughly 2006, and the first time someone asked. Without looking up from his game of Solitaire, the doctor said, “I’ve never done it before, but I know how it works, so sure.”

I got back on the phone and told the mom, who was overjoyed, and scheduled an appointment for her son. He was the first transgender child we treated with puberty blockers. But not, by far, the first child we treated with puberty blockers, period. Because puberty blockers are used very commonly for children with precocious puberty (early-onset puberty). I would say about twenty percent of the kids our doctor treated were for precocious puberty and were on puberty blockers. They have been well studied and are widely used, safe, and effective.

Well. It turned out, the doctor I worked for was the only doctor in the state who was willing to do this. And word spread pretty fast in the tight-knit community of ‘parents of transgender children in a red state’. We started seeing more kids. A better drug came out. We saw some kids who were at the age where they were past puberty, and prescribed them estrogen or testosterone. Our doctor became, I’m fairly sure, a small folk hero to this community. 

Insurance coverage was a struggle. I remember copying articles and pages out of the Endocrine Society Manual to submit with prior authorization requests for the medications. Insurance coverage was a struggle for a lot of what we did, though. Growth hormone for kids with severe idiopathic short stature. Insulin pumps, which weren’t as common at the time, and then continuous glucose monitoring, when that came out. Insurance struggles were just part and parcel of the job.

I remember vividly when CVS Caremark, a pharmaceutical management company, changed their criteria and included gender dysphoria as a covered diagnosis for puberty blockers. I thought they had put the option on the questionnaire to trigger an automatic denial. But no - it triggered an approval. Medicaid started to cover it. I got so good at getting approvals with my by then tidy packet of articles and documentation that I actually had people in other states calling me to see what I was submitting (the pharmaceutical rep gave them my number because they wanted more people on their drug, which, shady, but sure. He did ask me if it was okay first).

And here’s the key point of this story:

At no point, during any of this, did it ever even occur to any of us that we might have to worry about whether or not what we were doing was legal.

It just never even came up. It was the medically recommended treatment so we did it. And seeing what’s happening in the UK and certain states in America is both terrifying and genuinely shocking to me, as someone who did this for almost fifteen years, without ever even wondering about the legality of it.

The doctor retired some years ago, at which point there were two other doctors in the state who were willing to prescribe the medications for transgender kids. I truly think that he would still be working if nobody else had been willing to take those kids on as patients. He was, by the way, a white cisgender heterosexual Boomer. I remember when he was introduced to the concept of ‘genderfluid’ because one of our patients on HRT wanted to go off. He said ‘that’s so interesting!’ and immediately went to Google to learn more about it. 

I watched these kids transform. I saw them come into the office the first time, sometimes anxious and uncertain, sometimes sullen and angry. I saw them come in the subsequent times, once they were on hormone therapy, how they gradually became happy and confident in themselves. I saw the smiles on their faces when I gave them a gender marker letter for the DMV. I heard them cheer when I called to tell them I’d gotten HRT approved by insurance and we were calling in a prescription. It was honestly amazing and I will always consider the work I did in that red state with those kids to be something I am incredibly proud of. I was honored to be a part of it.

When I see all this transgender backlash, it’s horrifying, because it was well on the way to become standard and accepted treatment. Insurances started to cover it. Other doctors were learning to prescribe it. And now … it’s fucking illegal? Like what the actual fuck. We have gone so far backwards that it makes me want to cry. I don’t know how to stop this slide. But I wrote this so people would understand exactly how steep the slide is.

[floral-hex]

RAT WARS preorder arrived. This is pretty much the only album I’ve been listening to since December. Every time I try to shift to another album or band, I just end up coming back to this beast.