#to be clear i am an adult not using insurance

[lolanbq]

On principle I absolutely ReFuse to get a therapist's approval for top surgery. I cannot begin to describe how irate I get when basically every practice I check out requires gender affirming surgery and gender affirming surgery only to jump through extra hoops.

[tomatoluvr69]

Sitting down to floss and brush my teeth has been lifechanging. On a completely unrelated note how the fuck am I supposed to have this skeleton for several more decades. It’s all over for me lads 😔

[deliciousbasementtrash]

Playing Nurse for the Batfam

From Injustice Gods Among Us Year 5 #15

Summary: you are a nurse working for Gotham General Hospital. Batman has offered you a job. Will you take it?

Pairing: Slowburn Jason Todd x reader, (maybe a why choose with Dick Grayson as well?? Idk tell me what you guys want)

Warning: Adult language, parental abuse, parental neglect

Word Count: 1.6k

Note: These characters are not my own they belong to DC. The only character that is 'mine' is the reader. I am going to be as nondescript as possible for the reader as well for physical attributes. This is a continuation series; I’m not sure how long it will be. Also for some reason, my replies to comments are not showing up. I’m not ignoring your comments Tumblr won’t let me respond :( But please, please comment I live for it 

Part One, Part Two

Part Three: Skip-Bo and Chess

My mind raced as I went over the contract. Everything seemed too simple, too easy. The only terms and conditions I had to abide by were that I wouldn’t reveal his identity and that I would need to essentially be on call from the hours of 21:00 to 7:00, but roughly 24/7. The pay was a ridiculous amount. The insurance was crazy good. I didn’t realize it was possible to get that much coverage. But this went against everything I have represented in my life. Would I be betraying the people of Gotham, my patients, and my fellow coworkers, by taking this job? Would I be betraying myself and my past history? 

Gotham City: 16 Years Ago 

My father and I stood over my mother’s grave. It was strange. My mom was a woman who breathed life into everything. She never wore a dull color, she danced whenever she could, and she sang horribly and off tune. She wore her hair in two long braids with colorful ribbons. She wore sweet perfume. She wore red lipstick. She wore so many necklaces and bracelets she jingled when she walked. She snorted when she laughed. And now when I looked at her all I saw was dirt and a gravestone. Her colorfulness, her loudness, her laughter, her joy, all of it was gone. I knew I couldn’t cry though. Not in front of Dad. He got so much meaner when I did. Sometimes I wonder what my beautiful, colorful, caring mother saw in this cruel bleak man. But I guess his bitterness was supposed to balance out her sweetness. 

But without her, it felt like I was choking on the disgusting taste of my reality. We were grieving. We had no money. And the debt just seemed to be getting deeper and deeper. I tried selling homemade cookies at school to help out. I raised about 22 dollars. I came home with a smile on my face and handed my father the money. He pocketed it without another word. It was almost worse when he was like this.

It felt like he was a teapot that was brewing and I was just waiting for the wrong thing to set him off. 

Some days when I came home from school he was home. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t look at me. Other days he wasn’t there. I had to scavenge the house for food or walk to the convenience store with what little money I had scurried away. 

It felt like my life had become black and white without my mom. Everything seemed so hopelessly bad. Then one day my dad came home with a smile on his face. My first instinct was to tense my body and avert my gaze. I didn’t know what he was going to do. 

“Sweetie, come with me. I have an idea,” my father said, grabbing my wrist and pulling me out the door with him. 

He drove like a maniac and pulled up towards a seemingly abandoned building. My blood ran cold with anticipation. 

My father practically ripped me out of the car and dragged me inside. Inside there were about twenty men all pretty beat up. All of them looked at me. I picked at my hangnails and looked at my father. 

“Y/n, these gentlemen need to be healed. Be a doll and heal them.” My father’s words were clipped, and my pulse raced. I merely nodded and healed man after man. It became clear to me, even at my young age, that these men were a part of a gang. Who’s? I had no idea. 

That was until a fat man in a tuxedo and a cane walked up to my father. He handed him a bundle of cash, they whispered some hurried words and the grotesque man leaned down towards me.

His short fat finger booped my nose, and the man tilted his head back and laughed at my reaction. I wanted to bite his finger off. I wanted to go home. I wanted my mom. 

For the next two years, my father did business with anyone that could pay him. Our life went from living by the penny to living in luxury. All due to my power. The richest of the rich, politicians, businessmen, criminals, and villains, all used my services. And eventually, they tried to buy me. 

That’s when I decided to run away. Or die trying.

Gotham City: Present Day 

I sat across from Sam, my best friend, and nurse colleague. “What do you think I should do?” She was the only one that I trusted enough to tell everything to. Of course, I left out the whole, ‘My boss would be Batman thing.’ 

“Girl, if you don’t take this job I will kill you,” Sam said, taking a large bite of her pasta. 

“Do you think I’m betraying my younger self? I promised I would never be bought. I would never work for a corrupt man.” 

“Maybe you should discuss with Mr. Wayne, that you would like to remain a nurse part-time. That way you ease your conscious about everything but still live in a fucking MANSION and make BANK, you dummy head. And this way you’re reclaiming your past. You get to choose. You’re not trapped.” 

I mindlessly pushed my food around my plate, lost in thought. “That’s not a terrible idea.” 

“Of course not, I never have bad ideas. Take one more night to think about it. But I think you have your answer.” 

That night I tossed and turned in my bed. I grabbed my phone, the bright screen making me blink. 

[I accept your terms, but I do have a few remediations to the contract. Signed, y/f/n y/l/n.] 

One week later. 

 “How are you taking to your new living situation, Miss y/l/n?” Alfred asked as he expertly julienned an onion. I not as gracefully diced several cloves of garlic across from him. 

I looked up at him, smiling, “I’m still getting used to it, to be honest.” It had become a silent routine over the past week. When I wasn’t working at the hospital, or patching up Batman, I got bored. So, I started helping Alfred with cooking. 

He taught me how to play chess. I taught him how to play Skip-Bo and dominos. I had grown quite fond of the man over the short period. It most definitely was my daddy issues clinging to the first nice man I saw. But Alfred Pennyworth seemed truly kind to me. 

I hadn’t met any other members of Bruce’s family, but supposedly they were all meeting for dinner tonight. For some reason, my pulse spiked at the thought of meeting them. My past gave me anxiety when meeting new people I didn’t know. 

As if reading my thoughts Alfred asked, “How are you feeling about meeting everyone tonight?”

I cut a piece of garlic a bit harshly, “I’m– I’m fine. Do you know if I am to meet them after the dinner or before?”

Alfred’s eyebrows quirked, “What do you mean? You most probably will meet them at dinner. You are attending are you not?”

“I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to eat with the family or not,” I stated, hesitantly. 

I heard a twang of metal as Alfred set down his knife. He gave me his full attention as he said, “Master Wayne may seem abrasive, Miss. But I assure you, he would never have to eat separately unless that is what you wished.” 

Abrasive was one way to put it. He often reminded me of a feral cat when I tried to heal him. He would practically hiss that he was fine. I had to politely remind my employer a few times that this was what I was here for and to let me heal him. 

We cooked in silence for a while, when out of the blue I asked Alfred, “Alfred, are you happy?”

Alfred always holding his poise answered calmly, “Happiness is something that fluctuates in my life, Miss. I will say that knowing that Master Wayne and the rest of the family are in your capable hands is reassuring me as of late. I also have been enjoying your company, no matter how many times you beat me in Skip-Bo.”

I laughed, a true genuine laugh. “Hey, you win every time we play chess!”

Alfred smiled softly, “Miss I have been playing chess since I was five years old. If I lost I think I would have to revoke my Englishmanship.” 

After my laughter died down, another question popped in my head, “What are they like? Mr. Wayne’s family?”

Alfred smiled, “Those children are loud, argumentative, loyal, funny, stubborn, etc. I love those children with everything I am. You will too, Miss y/l/n.”

An unfamiliar sense of warmth bloomed in my chest, “Thank you, Alfred.”

“Thank you, Miss y/l/n.”

As I was getting dressed. I could not pick out what I wanted to wear. Did I want to go casual with a tee shirt and jeans? A bit more formal with a dress? Semi-casual with a skirt and sweater? I decided on the last one, with some tights on underneath. I wanted to make a good impression. It felt like the first day of school. I made my way down the stairs. No one had arrived yet. I took a seat next to Alfred, my leg bouncing. 

Alfred patted my shoulder when we heard the door open, “It will be just fine.” 

The loud oncoming footsteps mimicked my thundering pulse.

[lastoneout]

Wheelchair excitement is being more than slightly dampened by concern that either my insurance is going to deny me and I won't be allowed to pay for the chair myself because I have Medicade OR that the physical/occupational therapist and/or wheelchair assessment people will decide I don't actually need one despite my primary, who again is a former EDS specialist and is very certain my quality of life is bad enough I need one, and turn me away.

Like my mom has gotten a wheelchair through Medicaid basically her whole life and she told me that the assessment people aren't allowed to turn you down, they are ONLY there to help you decide what chair will best fit you and take the needed measurements and make adjustments once it's made, the only person who can decide if I truly need one is my doctor and the prescription is the final say, but most of the stuff I've been finding online about the process is saying the assessment people are part of the initial decision about my need for one and their say has just as much weight as the doctor writing the prescription, and I am sadly WELL AWARE of how anti-mobility aid a lot of physical therapists can be so the thought of getting that far and being shut down is concerning me greatly.

I'm also worried my insurance will only approve me for one of those manual transport/hospital drive ones that are too heavy and weirdly built for the passenger to propell themselves meaningfully on their own...I know I can fight it and one of those straight up will not work for me but still. Also I've heard Medicaid will refuse to pay for one if you don't need to use it inside the house, which I won't need mine for that plus my house is way too small for me to even use it in here at all, and I guess I could lie but eugh I am not good at that.

I probably shouldn't worry until I actually get in touch with the assessment people, and tbh when I called them earlier this year to ask what the process was they told me all I need to see them is a prescription from my doctor so I'm really praying everything goes smoothly but like shit typically does NOT go smoothly for me so I know my ass is just gonna be freaking out and over thinking it the entire time.

I just really need this chair. My quality of life is gone, it's so hard for me to even find the will to do the things I need to to regain what mobility I can because I know it will never be enough to allow me to actually do the things I want to do and I don't get to do anything fun in the meantime so I'm just depressed about this constantly, and I truly do not know how much longer I can sit here and watch my entire life go by without me. I want to be able to run errands and spent time with my family and go to museums and parks(masked ofc) and go to school and it is abundantly clear that no amount of knee braces, pain meds, and physical therapy will get me there, so it is truly cruel and unfair to say I should just not do all that because the thing that would let me do it at all is somehow "bad" for me.

I deserve the dignity of risk. I deserve to give informed consent. I deserve to be treated like the fucking adult I am who is more than capable of doing physical therapy and other exercises at home to maintain my muscles and mobility. I can be trusted to know when it's appropriate to use my aids and when it isn't. I am so FUCKING sick of being treated like a literal child by doctors who insist if I get in the chair I will simply give up and never walk again, I'm almost 30, I have self control, I'm not lazy. Every single activity I have given up, be it work or hiking or walks has claw marks in it, I am the opposite of lazy.

I just don't think I can take much more of my life being denied to me by abled people who clearly think all disabled people are lazy idiots who can't be trusted to make their own decisions. I genuinely cannot take it. If this doesn't work I don't know what I'll do.

(I think for now to temper the anxiety I'm going to write down all the measures I've tried to fix myself(PT, knee braces, rollator, ect.) and why they haven't been enough to achieve the VERY REASONABLE goals I have for myself. Also all the ways my current medical conditions limit me. That should help me feel more like I can actually convince the right people that we are well past the time that this should have been considered. Fingers crossed anyway.)

[queenwendy]

Sometimes I get morbidly curious and scroll through the terf tag (bad idea) and half the time it makes me sad but the other half it makes me laugh my ass off because like… they seem to think anybody can walk into a doctor’s office, declare “I am trans!” And just get sex reassignment surgery??? Like, what???? That isn’t how that works at all

I’m a trans woman in the western US, and I am lucky enough to have A) supportive family and B) really fucking good healthcare through my family. To be clear, if you do not have A and especially if you do not have B good fucking luck getting blockers, much less hormones or dear god surgery! It’s nigh impossible!

In early 2018 when I was almost 15, I came out to my parents. Immediately I was put in therapy (that had more to do with the depression and suicidal ideation I experienced while in the closet than being trans). While social transition (different name, different clothes) happened pretty quickly, it wasn’t until my mental health stuff was dealt with that my therapist and doctor, both on the trans youth specialist team, started talking HRT.

The first step was puberty blockers. To get that approved I not only needed parent permission and a ton of forms, I was all but required to bank sperm (as a 15 year old!) and I had to socially transition and meet a bunch of WPATH requirements (I actually like WPATH a lot, to be clear) and wait through a months long waiting list just to get an appointment with a psychiatrist, who then asked me a bunch of questions (he was nice, I do not remember the questions, this was years ago) to ensure I didn’t have some other problem. After passing that, I got a prescription for nogonadotropin as a puberty blocker.

From the time I first told doctors I was trans to the time I had my first blockers shot, a little over 6 months had passed. To be clear, in the US, that’s fast. In the UK? That’s impossibly fast.

It then took another 6 months of blood test, questioners, meetings with my doctor and my parents and my therapists before I was finally cleared for estradoil tablets. 1 mg/day. I got them nearly on the year to the day from when I came out. I was nearly 16

Again, that is crazy fast.

Within a year and a half my estradoil doseage had increased to 6mg/day and I was on 100mg/day of progesterone as well. Eventually that became 200mg/day. Years later I switched from estradoil tablets to estradoil shots.

The entire time I have seen the same therapist, not just for trans healthcare but also mental health stuff. I got SSRIs for anxiety, got an ADHD diagnosis, etc.

In fall of 2022 (I was 19), I reached out to my doctor to say I wanted bottom surgery. We had talked about doing it before, but I had always said “I don’t know if I’m ready.” I was unsure. And even though I could have gotten at least an orchiectomy after I turned 16 if I really wanted to (with parental permission and I am sure so much medical red tape I would have been an adult by the time it happened), I never wanted it. My doctors were surprised I wanted it, so were my folks.

I had to meet with my therapist several times, coordinate with a social worker, and get 2 or 3 letters of recommendation from doctors. Then I needed to unravel who and what my insurance cost and find surgeons I wanted to consult with. That took MONTHS. It wasn’t until fall of 2023, a full year later, that I was FINALLY was able to schedule with two of the three surgeons I wanted (we’ll get to that third one in a bit).

It is now the last days of august 2024. I had my first consultation, which was out of state, earlier this month. It went well. If I had scheduled a surgery date right then and there, there would have been a year long wait time. Which again, is a very very small wait time. I didn’t though, because I wanted to consult with other surgeons and I knew that would be smack in the middle of graduate school.

My second consultation (which, ugh, I need to do some phone calls for to figure out transportation!) is in a few months. The third one? I’m still on a waiting list to GET A CONSULTATION.

To be clear, neither my parents nor my doctors ever pressured me into anything. My folks were completely blindsided when I came out and had basically no idea how to proceed besides using a different name. My doctors always said “well, here’s your options and all the risks. You want that? Okay, think on it for a month and we’ll discuss next steps at our next appointment.” All of this was my choice. Mine. And they never tried to stop me either, just make sure I was being safe and following procedure.

Both my younger sister and my cousin on my mom’s side are trans as well. Considering we have several blood relatives on that side of the family who are also LGBTQ+ going back at least to the 1940s, assume there’s a genetic predisposition for it. Both my sister and my cousin have had a lot harder of a time getting HRT, even though my sister has the same insurance, same provider, same psychologist as me (idk what my cousin’s insurance situation is).

Odds are, I will have my graduate degree (environmental engineering) before I undergo surgery. Maybe even before I have a date for undergoing surgery. If all goes well, I graduate in may 2026. I’ve agreed with my girlfriend that once we graduate in 2026 if we’re still together I’ll feel comfortable getting engaged, so it’s very possible that I will be fucking married before I get SRS. Y’know, assuming it isn’t outlawed or anything.

When I was 14, I figured out I was a girl. Without talking to anybody, I knew I wanted a female body and that the puberty I was going through wasn’t right. Looking back, there were times I almost knew when I was 11, when I was 7, when I was only 3. At that age, I considered “surgery is something I might do when I’m older. I dunno. Right now I have crippling depression and cheat dysphoria, I really just want to be called the right name and pronouns and have HRT.”

I am now 21. I haven’t undergone any surgeries in that time, at all (except wisdom teeth removal ig. Does that count?). I have had one (1) SRS consultation, and the soonest I could get surgery is a year from now, but odds are it will be in two years. Maybe three even.

There is no epidemic of children being told they are trans and getting surgeries. That doesn’t fucking happen. If you’re really worried about kids getting unnecessary surgery look into the weird world of rich white girls getting facelifts and breast enlargement surgeries and stuff. At no doctor’s office in this country can you walk in with one set of genitals and walk out with another at the drop of a hat. There is a YEARS long medical process that happens before a consultation is even scheduled. And before that there is a trans person’s entire earlier life of doubt and questioning and fear and pain.

[ahedderick]

Tick

@aijatar regarding your question on tick-borne illness, I decided to make a separate post to answer.

This image is from the CDC info page on tickborne illness, and shows 8 different types. It's a bad graphic in my opinion, because it looks quite muddled; looks better if you zoom way in, though. Oops, no! If you zoom in far enough to see individual counties, the map turns black and the colored dots are tiny and almost impossible to see. Well, crap.

I don't have the spoons to type out (and spell-check) all 8 diseases, but you can check the CDC site for more info. My son had Babesia/Babesiosis (both spelling seem to exist in medical documents?). Babesia is similar to malaria, and characterized by lengthy fevers (over ten days, sometimes) that come and go in cycles. Son would spend two weeks absolutely knocked out from fever and fatigue, appear to get better, then rinse and repeat. Despite the fact that this is a crystal clear sign of malaria (in the tropics) and babesia ( in the eastern USA), it took us three years to get a diagnosis. And believe me, we were trying. He spent two more years on powerful antibiotics and anti-malaria meds (it's so similar to malaria that it responds to the same drugs). This was ages 13 - 18, and pretty much dominated his life for that time.

Honestly, I think permanent damage was done to his immune system and - just overall? He has never had as much energy as he should, for a well-nourished young adult. He gets sick from colds/flu really easily, and takes longer to get better. If we had only had competent medical help when I was telling his local Dr about the VERY CHARACTERISTIC AND NOTABLE pattern of fevers that act exactly like malaria.

Anyhow. This info is us-centric, but it behooves any of us who spend time outdoors to learn about the different illnesses, because you really can't count on getting a Dr's help unless you are informed enough to hand-feed them the info AND request tickborne-illness specialists if you suspect a problem. Yes, I am permanently salty about it. God bless the specialist we eventually found; she was great. NONE of the thousands of dollars of tests and treatment he needed were covered by our insurance.

[phoenixyfriend]

I think one of the things that makes it possibly not... super clear why I'm so anxious about finding a job that pays enough. So uh. Here's the thing.

"In December 2022, 51% of people who earn more than $100,000 reported living paycheck to paycheck. [...] After taxes and adjusted for cost of living, $100,000 amounts to just $35,791 in New York, New York." - Time Magazine

Now... a lot of these people probably have dependents. Some are probably paying off student debt. Some may have medical debt. There are lot of reasons for a person to be living paycheck to paycheck.

But to pay off a most basic apartment in an outer borough, utilities, insurance, transportation, all taxes, and food, a touch of medical or dental, basic hygiene needs, the occasional treat? I need a 70k salary.

I could sell my car, in theory; the transit infrastructure is good enough, if I find a place near a subway station, even if I cannot do anything without it where I am now. I could get a roommate in a 2b instead of going solo in a 1b. I could live in the spare room of my parents' friends, even though I know from a friend that it's suboptimal. There are ways to make this work, obviously. There are people who make this work, millions of people in NYC who have been doing this for generations, and I am willing to compromise the way so many people do, sure, but...

Well, I'm bad at people. Getting a romantic partner isn't in the cards, really, and finding a roommate online is theoretically possible but fills me with anxiety to think about. It sucks that the rent is such that I have to. That health insurance is such that I have to. That I can't reasonably think about grad school until I've stockpiled some savings up again, just in case there's an emergency, because of the aforementioned health insurance situation.

People do it, sure, but there is not a single county in the entire United State where the minimum wage is enough for a single adult to live alone in an apartment. That's not really okay. Why should so many of us have to give up the most basic and affordable of luxuries because the economy favors those who came from wealth?

NYC might have a higher minimum wage than most, but a $15/hr minimum wage still doesn't mean much when the living wage is $25/hr for a single adult with no dependents.

(Did you know, the advice used to be that your rent should be no more than 20% of your income?)

IDK where I'm going with this. It's not a situation with an easy answer, and I'm not in a place to change anything directly. All I can do is keep looking for a job that pays me enough to survive, find someone I don't think is going to be a horrible roommate... or look into doing Chicago instead of NYC, I guess.

I just know that I can't stay in the suburbs forever. This place is killing me.

[vergess]

tell us more about your crazy hut job?

I'm a "Mental Health Rehabilitation Technician," which is an extremely funny and verbose way to say I'm the overnight counselor for a halfway house.

A halfway house is a type of live-in program for people who just got out of long term hospitalization, prison, etc and need help re-adjusting to normal living. In most cases, halfway houses only rehab people for 6 months. But, in my case, it's for people who completed rehab for addiction, but because of their disabilities, still need support learning complex processes like navigating pharmacy orders and medicaid before they feel comfortable living on their own. So, they stay as long as it takes them to become comfortable managing their own insurance, utilities, meds, etc.

The position is analogous to being an overnight counselor at a summer camp, but year round and for adults with detailed but ultimately straightforward medical needs (eg: I am not qualified to do inject anything but epipens and insulin; any other injection is "a nursing home problem.")

The daytime crew does most of the actual hard work, in terms of teaching people how to interact with society and get their meds on time and so on. My job is to go through the checklist of things the state wants sterilized every day, and sterilize it all. Floors, counters, walls, trash cans, phones, etc etc. Since the facility is in an 8 bedroom house, not a medical building of any kind, there's a LOT of sterilizing of just about everything all the time. Once the sterilizing is done, I organize the paperwork from that day that the daycrew did.

And when clients need help they come to me overnight.

I help with anything from panic attacks to counting out medications to budgeting, though for the most part I'm just acting as The Keeper Of The Cigarettes.

Everyone is allowed to keep their cigarettes in their rooms, but most of them prefer to lock them in the office lockbox, since they're so expensive. If they want a smoke overnight, they come to me and I unlock the box and they take what they want. If they keep cigarettes in their room they're free to go smoke whenever as long as they do it at least 20 feet from the building.

Everyone currently living there has been there for at least a year, and the facility itself has existed for decades, so it is well known in town and by the residents. In town, no one would ever dare call "The Group Home" anything as derogatory as "the crazy hut," to be clear. I don't live in some kind of monstrous backwoods dystopia, haha.

But the residents can call their home what they like. I'm not gonna be the kind of asshole who tells people they can't have a bit of fun renaming their living situation. Especially when... you know... just because people call it "the group home" doesn't mean they actually respect our residents. If calling their house the crazy hut brings them joy and lets them feel bulwarked against the social exclusion they face, then crazy hut it is.

[altschmerzes]

also. once a-fucking-gain The Fuckening Continues To Continue With My Fucking Dad’s Fucking Estate and the way everyone is handling it in a way that seems COORDINATED to be as cruel to me specifically as possible. sorry for Continuing Oversharing lmao hopefully this is just. done now.

to recap the previous Fuckening, i was misled in a way that feels extremely clear and deliberate by the HR lady at my - abusive, now deceased - father’s work to think i was a beneficiary of his life insurance policy. I Am Not. my sister is the sole beneficiary and im named as the contingent which based on surrounding context is something he did as a “fuck you” to me for not having anything to do with him for the last seven years. as a result of the way the HR lady spoke to me about it - grouping my sister and i together as a unit, as Beneficiaries, plural, etc - i ended up under the clear impression i was one, until a phone call with the insurance company cleared up that he basically disinherited me as directly and deliberately as possible. even so, i have been dealing with the major bulk of the stuff his work and associated accounts and estate stuff needed from the family, because my sister is too despondent to want to deal with any of it and is refusing to answer phone calls, emails, or do any paperwork. my mom is babying and coddling them about it, as per the usual approach to my sister, who it is a cardinal sin to upset in my family.

so today i get Another email from the HR woman at my dad’s work. she is like haha yeah too bad i wasn’t clearer that you don’t get anything before making you do all this work! anyways, we need xyz paperwork from you guys still :). and i just.

she is. STILL hounding me for shit i dont have and am not INVOLVED IN because my fucking sister - who by the way is a grownass adult, and i know i sound insensitive but they’re almost 24 and i know they’re grieving but im not exactly having a fucking awesome time here - is dodging all attempts to contact them.

so i email her back and say i am almost entirely uninvolved in any of this please contact my mother or sister for further assistance. and then screenshot the email and texted it to my mother and told her hey. im done dealing with this. please take point on this because my sister’s inability to answer an email has caused ME to carry the burden of all of this constantly and i have compassion for them and what they’re going through but im fucking done. but in like. lawyer speak.

mistake, clearly, to mention my sister at all bc in the ensuing back and forth where im attempting to make it clear that my sister’s consistent non-responsiveness from the very beginning have made me the only person who will answer a phone call or email from this HR lady who has important paperwork she needs to do, and i am fucking Finished and will Not be doing this anymore because for obvious fucking reasons im uninterested in doing any more work for this estate situation - and fuck this lady for effectively lying by implication to get me to chase my mom and sister down for her. and all my mom is doing is getting defensive and protective of my sister. ignores a message i sent her that was long enough it wasn’t containable in a single phone screen and sends back two brief sentences about how my sister is completely blameless for anything and they don’t even have the paperwork HR Lady wants from us. and goes around and around about how my sister has done Everything Right and any contact i’ve gotten from HR Lady is not related. despite this woman saying to me repeatedly “we have not heard from your sister” as an explanation for why she was emailing to calling me.

the whole time too im like. texting her in Lawyer Speak lmao i am writing this as if i am communicating with Combative Opposing Council.

and it just. my fucking mom. the fucking fact that my mother is prioritizing my sister over me even in a direct conversation with me when she knows well and fucking good why i might be KIND OF UPSET RIGHT NOW - and it’s something she herself seems upset! - about is just like. gd. yeah. this isn’t news but this is such a clear and fucking. ice cold reminder that she has one child she will invest any amount of energy into and it is not me and it never will be. she has room in her heart to care about One Kid At A Time - which she has fucking all but TOLD ME to my face before - and it will never, ever be me.

“i know we’re ignoring you lately but your sister needs us and the squeaky wheel gets the grease” real thing my mom said to me when i was like, sixteen. fucking incredible. nothing ever changes does it.

like i know my sister was getting really close to the fucking bastard before he kicked it and is devastated about this but does anyone want to spare two fucking seconds to consider that my father fucking died too and just because im not SAD about it doesn’t mean im not dealing with some seriously upsetting and emotionally heavy shit. like perhaps the administration of my abuser’s estate - which he CUT ME OUT OF as directly as he could without writing a will to disown me in - isn’t something i should be forced to deal with and be retraumatized by because my sister, the precious baby of the family, is fucking sad. my mom said to my grandmother at some point about all this that “[gav] and [sister] didn’t get the same dad” and the fact that she is at least that aware of how this is impacting me and is still getting defensive of my sister when talking directly to me about how this is impacting ME is like. jesus jennifer.

they can just all go to hell and leave me the fuck alone.

[adultswim2021]

The Drinky Crow Show #5: “Whale Show” | December 1, 2008 - 12:15AM | S01E02

Well, hello there. It’s the Drinky Crow Show from AdultSwim.com. In this one, Drinky Crow has blown his brains out and needs to find them in order to figure out what happened the night before which caused him to blow his brains out. He finds his brains, and they tell him: He found a pretty gal who had him take him out to sea. Drinky was happy to oblige, thinking perhaps he’ll get his cloaca sniffed. Before he’s able to get to any kind of base a big sea monster gobbles his date up.

Drinky shares this tale of woe to a pub filled with enraptured bar flies. After a night of having his beers paid for by sympathetic-ear-havers, Drinky realizes he can profit off telling his story over-and-over. So he does, with stupid puppets and stuff on a street corner.

His rinky-dink puppet show version of his story gets some attention from a big corporate entity, who buys Drinky’s heartbreak, keeping him and Uncle Gabby on as writers. And that’s where the episode sorta falls apart somewhat. The episode goes on another bizarre flight of fancy where Drinky keeps buying black market brains to keep his scripts fresh, which are now being performed at a Sea World style theme park. The suits encourage the writing partners to appeal to teens and engage in meta-humor. Okay, so it’s episode two (or three counting the pilot [or five, if you’re watching this in production order {which is how the Adult Swim website (adultswim.com) has it}]) and we’re already doing an episode that’s about the show itself?? COME ON! 

There’s a part in this where the park show includes a paid promotion from the Navy. My guess is that it was a reference to the fact that Adult Swim often did run ads for the US military, a fact that should piss us all off more than it clearly does. The Navy is also a big enough part of the Maakies-verse that maybe I’m wrong about that, and it’s actually just a coincidence. In a vacuum, the Navy would be the most likely entity to advertise itself in this world. I don’t know, I’m just flashing back to Brak solemnly saying “be an Army of one” and frowning right now. I am denying the world my smile, and that's bad news.

This one is resolved when Drinky happens upon the brains of the sea monster that ate his girlfriend. Absorbing the monsters memories makes him realize that his girlfriend only faked her death for the insurance money. And now I no longer have to talk about this episode (which wasn’t that good, in case it’s clear). 

EPHEMERA CORNER:

Metalocalypse - Season Two DVD (December 2, 2008)

It’s important to note every single DVD release, or else I will die. 

This one didn’t advertise any extras, but hid everything as Easter Eggs. At least, that’s what I was told via a review from DVD Talk. 

MAIL BAG

Fun fact: Drinky Crow is one of the few shows the network openly doesn't like. Quoting the 16th anniversary disillusionment theater marathon: "We are fans of Tony Millionaire’s Maakies comic strip so we tried to turn it into a TV show. Turns out it made more sense as a strip. The Drinky Crow Show 2007"

Those bumps use too much sass mouth for my tastes, but I guess it’s admirable that they can be self-deprecating. I remember they said something about how they shouldn’t’ve commissioned 20 episode seasons from shows like Saul of the Mole Men. Very class LESS thing for them to do. But considering that they feed into the military-industrial complex, as noted in the above review, this should not be surprising.

[nicetomeetyouimqueer]

So a couple of days I was talking to my sister. And long story my mom decided to get a new job two states over. And basically gave my siblings and I 3 months to figure shit out. It was a rough time this also kicked off her insurance and we were going through it. So my second oldest sister and I live together. And I don’t know how the convo started. But basically as we talk about the multiple ways our parents fucked us up. Partially because of covid I haven’t got a hair cut in years. And so my sister was trying to find somewhere for me (which I appreciate). But at some point I “came clean” about impulsively cutting some of my hair a few months ago. She and no one who saw me noticed. But I felt such guilt and turmoil.

Why did I feel so guilty?

And when I told her that, she was so surprised that had been bothering me for so long. And I confessed I have been wanting to cut my own hair for years. But our mom would also invalidate me. For context I self diagnose as Autistic for multiple reasons. As a kid, my pediatrician noticed very early I was struggling with somethings. And throughout my childhood I has seen multiple specialist and have diagnosed developmental and learning disabilities. Because of that, my mom would often treat me younger than I am. Like up until my dad’s death (I was 21) she assumed I would live her for my most of my adult life. (To be clear there’s nothing wrong with needing that type of support, it’s just not what I need). And like because of years of that, I felt like I couldn’t do that for myself. And it’s going to take time for me to come to terms with what I can and can’t do.

[sweetbriermouse]

Fuxk Shiz Up

I start my new job Monday. I now need to prioritize things in a freedom oriented way. This is going to result in things being far far more stressful and troublesome in the interim.

Firstly, my brother practically lives with us now. So does his cat. The bedframe out in the 3rd bedroom busted so this weekend has become a clear everything out that we possibly can, replace the bedframe, hang curtains because the 3rd bedroom is non-conforming and is also the laundry room and has the back door... which faces the parking pad...

My phone is cracked and slowly dying so I now need to replace it and fix my truck. Woot.

My fiancé and I are slowly going mad because no plans stay the same in this house, neither of us enjoy my brother being here because it's a 900 sqft house with myself, my fiancé, our kiddo, my mother, my step-dad, their cat and our 2 large breed dogs. And every other weekend my stepbrother. And now my brother. Not fun.

Brightside, new job for me means truck fixed in 2 months or less. My debts paid and my credit score raised in 5.5 months or less. My fiancé will be switching to a higher paying job in roughly January earning about the same or just shy of what I make.

For a cheap, fix up house in our area, we are looking at about 7-15k down-payment, appraisal, inspection, and closing costs. That range is based on a range of prices for house I've been looking at already. We aim to get as good a house as we can for less than 100k and hopefully keep the repair costs to 20k or less.

This means that between 6-7.5 months at my job and I'll be debt free with bills only sitting at roughly 450 a month out of my 2.4k earnings. My fiancé will be bringing in an estimated 1.7k with around 750 in expenses per month.

Theoretically, we could be saving over 2k per month and have that down payment saved up anywhere from may to September 2025. Literally less than a year from now to buy a house.

Catches: moving out might screw my mom over financially, so I would probably need to continue contributing financially or I would need to give her extra money to reduce her debts. I will still be giving her money anyhow because we have a family phone plan that's better than my options on my own. I will also be giving her money for insurance because it's cheaper to do the multicar family plan we have than to get my own individual coverage.

There is also the chance this won't even happen because I am disabled and technically not medically cleared for work beyond 12hours a week, and I am jumping into a full time job. A place of our own still might down the line with my fiancé making more starting January, but it would extend that timeline to double or triple if I lose my job.

It would give us freedom though. No random drop ins from my brother when he needs a place to crash, no more lack of privacy because thin walls and shared homes, no more cramming things where they don't fit because no matter how much you get rid of you still went from roughly 1300sqft to 900sqft and increased from 3 pets 3 adults to currently 4 pets, 5 adults, a toddler, and every other weekend a teenager. No more dinner conflict because everyone has different tastes and very little overlap. No more sharing 1 bathroom with too many people.

If we could just manage to get our own place my mental health would improve so fucking much. My fiancé's would too. And I could have people over without worrying about my step-dad being asleep, my mom being tired and having a migraine, my brother randomly showing up, etc.

I love my family. We get along. We wound up in this situation because it was what we could afford to keep us all housed. I'm ready for a change and honestly kinda willing to strain my health to get a house and build up a nest egg or make extra payments so we can get by and get our own space.

[chappell-roans]

off topic but I just saw a post and the whole adults reading watching media for kids or ya is bad discourse is so stupid my god. youre an adult you should be reading Tolstoy like f-

TOLSTOY LMAO.

okay so. in discourse extremes are often bad, i do think people can consume whatever they want but there is a frightening rise in adults consuming exclusively media aimed at children. and not exploring any further. the great gatsby is too hard, i'll just watch moana again. which, is fine. i've seen moana like 5 times! it hit me hard as a young adult! but like i'm not going to only watch those things. and then companies (say, disney, but basically every entertainment company) is listening to this and making things more and more dumbed down and yeah idk. again, really nothing i can do about it and acting like no one should enjoy these things is also unhelpful. but idk i do think something changed and while i (for the most part) aged out of reading john green type of ya fiction (still wanna read his nonfiction ngl), a lot of people haven't?? and IDK. i'm not saying you're wrong and like there's layers to it. there is plenty of children's media that is GOOD and made for all types of people to enjoy, but idk. i think it's the all/nothing mindset i guess sfnldm. (and just to be clear, i know that you aren't asserting everyone should just go live in fairytales and go to disneyland everyday, anon, i truly just am a sociology nerd at heart and so am going to take this opportunity to reference some articles that i read literal years ago fohisd.)

there are some articles i've read about it in passing and they're probably going to sound harsh, take with a grain of salt, i'm not saying it's all right, etc., but i mostly just find this stuff fascinating. articles and quotes below. (i ended up copy and pasting... most of the articles, so i bolded the important parts. siodfnlk again. for general reading and mostly for myself. i haven't even read tolstoy FSDKNJ.)

but i am putting this above the cut:

"But we will never make the world better if we act like this. Thinking of yourself as a smol bean baby is a way of tapping out and expecting other people to fight on your behalf. It also makes you a more pliant consumer. Social media is awash with the idea that ‘it’s valid not to be productive’, as though productivity were the only manifestation of capitalism and streaming Disney+ all day is a form of resistance. It’s much rarer to encounter the idea that we have a responsibility about what we consume, or that satisfying our own desires whenever we want is not always a good thing: “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” has morphed into “there is no unethical consumption under capitalism”." --- Everyone needs to grow up

The infantilization of Western culture

"If you regularly watch TV, you’ve probably seen a cartoon bear pitching you toilet paper, a gecko with a British accent selling you auto insurance and a bunny in sunglasses promoting batteries. This has always struck me as a bit odd. Sure, it makes sense to use cartoon characters to sell products to kids — a phenomenon that’s been well-documented. But why are advertisers using the same techniques on adults?

To me, it’s just one symptom of a broader trend of infantilization in Western culture. It began before the advent of smartphones and social media. But, as I argue in my book “The Terminal Self,” our everyday interactions with these computer technologies have accelerated and normalized our culture’s infantile tendencies.

But some cultural practices today routinely infantilize large swaths of the population. We see it in our everyday speech, when we refer to grown women as “girls”; in how we treat senior citizens, when we place them in adult care centers where they’re forced to surrender their autonomy and privacy; and in the way school personnel and parents treat teenagers, refusing to acknowledge their intelligence and need for autonomy, restricting their freedom, and limiting their ability to enter the workforce."

Visiting America in 1946, French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss commented on the endearingly infantile traits of American culture. He especially noted adults’ childish adulation of baseball, their passionate approach to toy-like cars and the amount of time they invested in hobbies. As contemporary scholars note, however, this “infantilist ethos” has become less charming — and more pervasive.

Researchers in Russia and Spain have even identified infantilist trends in language, and French sociologist Jacqueline Barus-Michel observes that we now communicate in “flashes,” rather than via thoughtful discourse — “poorer, binary, similar to computer language, and aiming to shock.” Others have noted similar trends in popular culture — in the shorter sentences in contemporary novels, in the lack of sophistication in political rhetoric and in sensationalist cable news coverage.

While we might find it trivial or amusing, the infantilist ethos becomes especially seductive in times of social crises and fear. And its favoring of simple, easy and fast betrays natural affinities for certain political solutions over others. And typically not intelligent ones.

Democratic policymaking requires debate, demands compromise and involves critical thinking. It entails considering different viewpoints, anticipating the future, and composing thoughtful legislation. What’s a fast, easy and simple alternative to this political process? It’s not difficult to imagine an infantile society being attracted to authoritarian rule.

Unfortunately, our social institutions and technological devices seem to erode hallmarks of maturity: patience, empathy, solidarity, humility and commitment to a project greater than oneself. All are qualities that have traditionally been considered essential for both healthy adulthood and for the proper functioning of democracy.

Everyone needs to grow up

"You can see it in the widely circulated – and largely untrue – idea that the human brain isn’t developed until the age of 25, which means that anyone younger is still essentially a child. It’s there in the notion that people with ADHD can’t text back their friends because they lack object permanence (a skill that babies develop at eight months old). It’s there in the narrative that, because gay people didn’t experience a normal childhood, they’re living out a second adolescence in their twenties and thirties. It’s there in the hegemony of superhero films and the cross-generational popularity of YA, whose fans insist that grown-up literature is only ever about depressed college professors having affairs.

You can see it in Disney adults; the rise of cuteness as a dominant aesthetic category; the resurgence of stuffed animals; people who identify as Hufflepuffs on their Hinge profile; people throwing tantrums when their Gorillas rider is five minutes late; people lip-syncing, with pouted lips and furrowed brows, to audio tracks of toddlers. Sometimes, it’s less about pretending to be a child and more about harking back to a lost adolescence: narrativising your life like it’s a John Green novel or an episode of Euphoria, bragging about crazzzy exploits like smoking cigarettes on a swing or doing cocaine on a Thursday; hitting 30 and still considering yourself “precocious”.

Most complaints about the infantilism of young people have typically come from the right, which has pointed to safe spaces and trigger warnings as evidence that Gen Z and millennials have been coddled to the point of softness. The right-wing critique of infantilism usually contends that, due to a vague decline in moral fibre, young people aren’t willing to embrace the mantles of adulthood, like moving out of the family home, entering into a stable career, getting married and starting a family.

For the most part, though, swerving these milestones is not an active choice that young people are making: adulthood is something that has been denied to many of us, who couldn’t buy a flat or start a family even if we wanted to. “In an age where so much agency has been taken away from young adults, when they face futures saddled with debt, unable to access the basic material trappings of adulthood, which in turn delays entry into emotional adulthood indefinitely, a retreat into the dubious comforts of a pseudo-childhood will have its pull,” Professor Josh Cohen, psycho-analyst and author of How to Live, What to Do, tells Dazed.

That said, even if the economy is foisting an extended adolescence on us, we can still choose to assert our dignity and refuse to become “baby adults” or 26-year-old teenagers, helpless and dependent. Make no mistake: the capitalist elites want you to think of yourself as a silly little goose.

What would rejecting this helplessness look like? The right see adulthood as a process of settling down, getting married and having children; in effect, conforming to conventional gender roles and being productive members of the workforce. We obviously don’t have to buy into that, at any age. But we can aspire towards a different form of maturity: looking after ourselves, treating other people with care, being invested in something beyond our own immediate satisfaction. Infantilising yourself can often seem like a plea for diminished responsibility.

But we will never make the world better if we act like this. Thinking of yourself as a smol bean baby is a way of tapping out and expecting other people to fight on your behalf. It also makes you a more pliant consumer. Social media is awash with the idea that ‘it’s valid not to be productive’, as though productivity were the only manifestation of capitalism and streaming Disney+ all day is a form of resistance. It’s much rarer to encounter the idea that we have a responsibility about what we consume, or that satisfying our own desires whenever we want is not always a good thing: “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” has morphed into “there is no unethical consumption under capitalism”.

Children are the perfect customers: suggestible, impulsive, driven by an insatiable and replenishable desire for pleasure. This is why, in the 1950s, companies leaned into ‘the teenager’ as an emerging market – you can only sell so many long-lasting household appliances. Adverts today are as eager as ever to speak to us as though we are babies, whether it’s Innocent smoothies telling us not to eat conkers or Heinz ketchup announcing that “adulting sucks”. As Felicity Martin wrote on Dazed earlier this week, pre-teen, teen and young women are increasingly being lumped together, consuming the same culture and being marketed the same products.

In a more subtle way, conservatives self-infantilise by denying their own agency: faced with the supposed “excesses” of the movements for LGTBQ+ rights and racial justice, they see themselves as being pushed towards extremism. But categorising other people as children – who can be overruled in their own best interests – forms part of the same project: in recent years, there has been a concerted effort to raise the age at which trans people can access gender-affirming care. Legislators in at least three states in the US are currently moving to deny this treatment to adults up to the age of 25, on the basis that they are not yet mature enough to provide informed consent. Oppressed groups aren’t always infantilised – in a process known as ‘adultification’, children from racialised minorities are typically viewed as having more agency, which makes them more likely to be criminalised– but the right is happy to deploy a diversity of tactics. Just as it’s a common behaviour in abusive relationships, infantilisation can be a mechanism for political domination and control.

Even if infantilisation is being pushed upon us, even if the helplessness we feel has a tangible basis in reality, even if adulting really does suck, we can still choose to see ourselves as capable of changing our own lives and the world around us. “The harms are undeniable,” says Cohen. “Bottom line: it’s a way of learning to love your oppressor. It takes an acute loss of agency and control and transforms it into a state to be desired and enjoyed. Once you embrace this way of being, the demands and rewards of adult life are going to seem all the more remote and all the more forbidding and unpleasurable.”

[casspurrjoybell-26]

💖Sweet Revenge💖 - Chapter 17

*Warning Adult Content*

Aaron Keene

I wake up in a strange bed, in a strange room.

It takes me a moment to remember where I am and why.

I'm at Kate's and I'm here because my shop is a smoking pile of ashes.

'Faulty wiring. Old building. Too many appliances in a space not designed for industrial use.'

My God-damn coffee maker, apparently.

The only good news I'd had was the figure I'd received from the insurance company and for the hundredth time, I thank my Grandma for teaching me to always keep my records accurate and up-to-date.

I'd had more than the usual quantity of valuable product on hand and I could prove it.

I'd lost almost everything but at least I could start over.

I wasn't nearly ready to think about that, though... the grief was too fresh.

My shop hadn't been all that special, really... the building was small, old and ugly but it had been mine and it was my Grandma's legacy.

When she died, she'd left me everything and I'd used it all on that shop and now it's gone.

After a few more minutes of wallowing, I force myself to get up and dress.

Kate's apartment reflects her character.

It's full of bright colors and cute accents.

There's also evidence of her other passion... a massive computer, three monitors and a wall covered in video game art and design schematics.

She's almost done with a degree in computer engineering and already works freelance on Indy stuff.

She might act like a ditz but she's smarter than half this town put together.

My shop was more like a hobby for her and I don't blame her for not taking it seriously.

At the moment she's visiting her parents and insisted I stay at her place until I get things figured out.

I don't know exactly what I'm going to do about my business or about my living situation but I do know what to do about one thing.

Kate's kitchen is distressingly under-stocked.

From the contents of her fridge, I get the sense that the most complicated recipe she's followed in a long time consists of two steps... open package.... heat until done.

A trip to the store and a few hours later and I have what I need.

When everything is ready, I stare down at the small, blank card, trying to think of the right words.

Only one thing seems to fit.

I uncap my pen and in my best hand, I scrawl a simple note.

~♡~

The drive across town seems to take longer than usual.

Probably because I'm driving super slow.

The charred remains of my shop is not a sight I'm eager to see.

I park across the street and keep my eyes averted from the ruins as I make my away around the back of 'Ardent Cycles' and knock on Blake's door.

It takes him a few minutes to answer and when he does I see he's still on crutches.

His physical therapist was pissed he'd put so much strain on his leg and told him he'd set himself back on his recovery by at least six months.

He said he didn't care... that he'd do it again and more, if he had to and I believed him but it's clear that he hates the setback.

Worse, he told me his investors pulled out of funding his business.

His shop's been closed since the fire and unless he can find other partners, it probably won't re-open.

It seems we've hit rock bottom at the same time but... if he's willing... maybe we can help each other up.

He opens the door and stares.

I haven't seen him since the day after the fire, when we were both too busy with emergency doctor's visits and fire inspectors to really talk the way we needed to.

He looks a little rough around the edges.

There's a day's growth of stubble darkening his jaw and he's dressed in an old t-shirt and a pair of gray sweats.

"Hi," I say, fidgeting on his doorstep.

"Uh, hi," he answers.

His eyes slide over me with a hungry look and he swallows, Adam's apple jumping in his throat.

"Can I come in?"

"Oh... sure. Yeah, come on in."

He holds the door open and steps back.

Inside, I see boxes on the floor and the walls are bare.

"Are you... moving?" I ask.

He looks away.

"Yeah. I asked the owner to cancel my lease. I won't be able to make the rent on time."

"I'm sorry."

He shrugs.

"There are some affordable spaces in Fenton. I might move there."

Something squirms in my gut and I frown.

"You don't want to stay in Ashville?"

"Of course I do," he replies, running his hand through his hair, making it stand on end.

"But that dream ended when my investors changed their damn minds."

"What if you could start a new one? A new dream?" I ask.

He looks up and his green-and-gold eyes are bright.

"Honestly, Aaron, I don't know if I have what it takes anymore," he says quietly. I swallow and hold his gaze.

"What if you didn't have to dream alone? What if you... had someone to dream with?"

I take what I've been hiding behind my back and hold it out to him.

My heart's pounding and my hand shakes.

He looks at what I offer and his eyes widen.

He takes it and for a moment he's perfectly still.

Then, he drops it on the floor.

[mamukeeto]

New blog post!

New blog post is up! This is a long one, but it goes into detail about what's been going on for me personally and for LMC over the past ~3 months + details plans for the next 4-6 months. Give it a read here or check it out in full under the break below!

Happy belated new year! + updates

It’s been about 3 months since my last blog post, so I figure it’s past time for an update! First off; happy new year! We made it to 2024! I think 2023 was pretty rough for a lot of people, myself included, so we should all feel proud that we made it another year. Existing is exhausting, and every new day is an adventure. I definitely struggled a lot in 2023, and want to go over some of that in this post. With that said, let’s get into the nitty gritty of things…

First up, as of tomorrow I’m attending classes again. It was supposed to be today, but class was cancelled due to inclement weather. My schedule will be completely full Mondays and Wednesdays (8:30am-6:30pm CST), so if you reach out on those two days please allow some extra time for a response. Tuesdays I’ll also be in class, but I only have two on that day as opposed to three on MW, so I’ll have a little bit more leeway that day (I expect I’ll be occupied 10:30am-4:30pm CST). My planned schedule is Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday as class days (with Tuesday evening open for commission work as necessary) and Thursday, Friday, and Saturday as work days, with ideally Sunday as an off/relaxation day but I’ll be using it to keep up on commissions and emails if I need to. I understand that college is a big commitment while I work on clearing out my queue, but I truly feel that it’s the best option to move forward and continue to grow as well as plan out a career and the next 5-10 years of my adult life. Emails/updates/messages will be responded to daily on Thursdays through Saturdays and I’ll do my absolute best to have quick turnaround times on Sundays through Wednesdays, but can’t guarantee it. Regardless, I’m instating a new personal policy of replying to all emails within 24 hours. Communication is still something I’m struggling with and working on, but I am very much dedicated to improving and holding myself to a high standard of customer service. I’ll also be updating my email signature with a few more tidbits of info to reflect as such :) Additionally, anyone awaiting a response to their email or a progress update will be receiving one this week.

Next up, some personal updates! I had a bit of a bumpy ride closing out 2023 due to aging out of my parents’ insurance and having to get my Very Own Insurance Plan. I was rationing my meds until the 1st because I couldn’t afford to pay $200+ out of pocket for them, which resulted in a brief period of poor communication and general sluggishness/feeling like a zombie (those of you with ADHD probably know exactly what I mean). As of January 5th, I’m back on all my meds for good and don’t foresee any issues occurring with getting them, as they’re free with my insurance plan and I live in an area that doesn’t seem to be affected by shortages, thank god. I was also able to pass my first semester of college with a 4.0, which I am INCREDIBLY proud of, and one of my long-term goals this year is to get healthier and more physically active as well as be more open and transparent with myself and my work/the costume making process. This year I’m also aiming to claw my way out of the messy financial pit I ended up in, thanks in part to the Financial Audit podcast by Caleb Hammer. I highly encourage watching it if you’re financially illiterate, temporarily in a bad spot, or you’re just looking for something to listen to. I didn’t receive much of a financial education in my impressionable years and thus ended up in a rather poor spot, and I very much want to fix that and start building toward my future. This podcast and accompanying resources is helping me a TON in that regard. This brings me to my next topic, which is commission and business updates.

The first thing I want to address is ongoing refunds for those whose commissions were cancelled or delayed; ALL refunds will be returned no later than February 8th. I’ve been refunding people as quickly as I can over the past few months with income from my shop and finished commissions, and I’m pleased to announce that the last refunds should be sent out by that date and I do not anticipate any delays. Picking up the pieces of my struggles over the summer has been an incredibly difficult process for me personally, as it’s been incredibly embarrassing to let people down and to feel like a failure as a business owner, but please know that I am dedicated to making things right with each and every person affected, no matter what “making things right” may look like. I started my business in 2019 with no prior experience managing a business, and that was my first mistake I think, and I feel so incredibly sorry to anyone whose cosplay plans/convention plans/finances I’ve negatively affected due to my lack of experience and lack of business etiquette. I was very much “taking things as they come” and struggled very hard with time management and reasonable expectations from myself, which I am still working on, and looking back on it now I think I was destined for failure and lucky to have made it as far as I did before it became a problem. I’ve been doing a LOT of self-reflection as well as attending bimonthly therapy sessions while working through this process and while I think I’ll be able to manage taking on one or two commissions at a time (read as: per semester) after my queue is emptied, I don’t feel comfortable opening commissions on a larger scale for the foreseeable future. My current plan is to finish my 2-year fashion degree and then go to my current college for a 2-year business degree, then transfer to a university to major in fashion and minor in business. I love being able to create things for people, but it’s been made quite clear that I need a real education in business before I can do things at the scale I was trying to do them. None of the mistakes I’ve made or things I’ve done have been out of malice, but I understand that I’ve had a negative effect on people regardless and I want to be able to rectify those effects and make sure nothing like them ever happens again. And to be clear, for anyone who isn’t aware: I’ve missed deadlines for multiple clients due to poor communication and poor time management, as well as struggled to refund cancelled or overdue commissions due to a fragile financial situation (part of which is compounded by not being able to properly manage my time and get commissions finished quicker). If you’ve heard or seen someone recommending to not work with me, this is what they are referring to, and I’m incredibly ashamed of it. The issue has still been ongoing, albeit on a lesser scale, while I work on cleaning up the mess and that’s the primary reason I’ve had commissions closed since August. I don’t expect the people I’ve affected to forgive me, but I do ask that anyone watching or reading to please allow me the chance to prove that I’m working on changing and becoming the business owner I should have been from the very beginning. If anyone would like to reach out to discuss these issues, be you a past client, current client, or someone who wasn’t personally involved, I am happy to discuss anything and everything in more detail through email (which can be found via my Contact page).

On a lighter note, let’s briefly talk shop updates. I’m taking a backseat on artist alleys this year to focus on commissions, with the exception of applying for Naka-Kon as it’s within 15 minutes of my house and thus a very small financial and time commitment. I’m also letting new products take a backseat for the same reason; new items will be fairly sparse until my queue is emptied as I want to focus my money and time on commissions until everything is concluded. I should have been doing this last year as well, but the time management was again an issue here; I thought I could handle having my hands in multiple pots and justified it by “diversifying my income” in order to bring in more money to issue refunds faster. I will still be running my shop, as it brings in enough money to be worth the small amount of time I do spend filling orders, but don’t expect any new items for at least the next 4-6 months.

To conclude this post, I want to again apologize. I feel very guilty and ashamed for letting things get as bad as they did, and I’m deeply sorry to anyone impacted. I hope that by the time I make my next blog post, I’ll have more positive updates to share regarding this process and can start showing the results of my first big steps toward marked improvement. Thank you to anyone who has read this far and to anyone who has ever commissioned or supported me. I want to make you all proud going forward.

[mfenvs3000f23]

The OG Agronomists

Interpret (through this blog) the most amazing thing you know about nature – get us excited. This is your blog – you audience isn’t out in the field with you so bring the field to your armchair reader.

Most people that know me, know that I am a bug person. Sometimes, they ask me what the coolest thing about bugs is. I think there’s loads, however I usually always respond with the same answer. Insect agriculture! I first learned about this in-depth last winter semester, when I took ENVS 3090, Insect Diversity & Biology. Therefore, my source is Dr. Andrew Young, but I will cite and link some literature, so you don’t just have to take my word for it!

Insects have been doing agriculture way longer than we have! We think insect agriculture started somewhere between 50-90 million years ago. The origins of farming insects (phys.org)

Humans only started using this practice somewhere around 12 000 years ago. The Development of Agriculture (nationalgeographic.org). Granted, insects have been around way way longer than we have, but I still think this is a crazy feat.

Let’s start with leaf cutter ants. There are around 40 species, and they are characterized by their behavior of chopping up and carrying leaves. Their job of cutting the leaves is made easier by their specialized mandibles, which are like tiny insect power tools. Their jaws vibrate and are super strong, the equivalent of a person carrying a car between their teeth. Just absolutely wild!!!!!

It would make sense to assume that they eat these leaves, but they actually do not use the leaves themselves as a food source! They consume the sap, before carrying the leaves back to their colony. There, they crush the leaves, put them in piles, and inoculate the piles with fungal spores. The ants secrete a substance that protects the fungus from harmful microbes, insuring them a well-nurtured crop. This fungus grows and is fed to the immatures of the colony. To me, the craziest thing about this is that the fungus type is colony-specific and is not found anywhere else. They also have varying caste sizes and “jobs”, for example there are larger ants that clear the forage paths and carry the leaves, while smaller castes will hang out on the leaves being carried, to defend them from parasitoid wasps that want to lay eggs on the leaves. Super cool that they all have a skill that they were made to do!

9 Facts About Leafcutter Ants (treehugger.com)

Then there’s the Termitidae that grows the Termitomyces fungi. The termites forage around for plant material to bring back to the colony, and as they do this, they pick up fungus from the environment. This fungus will also find its way into their specialized gut, where it gets pooped out onto the plant matter they have brought to the colony. The fungus then grows inside the colony and is used as a food source for all castes and life stages. Multiple species of fungus often end up growing, and sometimes the termites will even select for the most productive and successful type. Even termites have a favourite dish on the menu! Termitomyces fungus combs—formation, structure, and functional aspects - ScienceDirect

The last one I will talk about is the ambrosia beetle, known for cultivating the ambrosia fungus. They use their mandibles to carve out galleries in bark, where they will end up planting their fungus spores. The spores are carried by the females in a built-in pouch they have on their bodies. The fungus is used to feed immatures, as well as the adults. The larvae are put in the galleries so that as they grow, they can feed. Before leaving their maternal gallery, they will fill their own pouches with the fungus so that they can grow their own source in a new gallery. Like the leaf cutter ant’s fungus, the ambrosia fungus is not found any place other than ambrosia beetle galleries! Our use of the word “galleries” makes me imagine these carved-out pockets as canvases that the beetles use to decorate with the fungus. Ambrosia beetles breed and maintain their own food fungi (phys.org)

I remember in one of our textbook readings, there was a chapter that explained how mentioning the fact that something is amazing or spectacular can sometimes take away from the information/presentation/view etc. So, I will not do that here.

I just picture these species being so content with their food choice that they’ve decided they’re going to have the same breakfast, lunch and dinner forever and ever and honestly, I relate because that is how I feel about pasta.

Animals big or small, we’re all just out here trying to feed ourselves and our families as efficiently as possible. Maybe we aren’t as different as it may seem. (continued in a second post)