#trending app for doctors

[codenance]

Doctor Appointment Mobile App Development for Your Clinic Guide

How to Build a Doctor Appointment Mobile App for Your Clinic?

Is your waiting room regularly jam-packed with patients? You have not managed your appointment scheduling process well if you see this happening.

Implementing medical appointment software is a surefire way to fix the problem. Regardless of whether it is a mobile app or a web platform, both your staff and patients will benefit from it. It’s no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic makes them resent having to crowd together in a tiny room.

We’ll begin by examining a system for booking doctor appointments online and why patients expect it. How can you meet their expectations? We’ll show you how in this article.

On-Demand Services App for Doctor’s Appointments and Its Benefits

Scheduling appointments with a doctor via an app has two benefits. Firstly, they provide the convenience of scheduling visits with the doctors and hospitals of your choice. As a second benefit, these systems store each appointment and piece of data in one location. Staff at your hospital will appreciate it.

In the real world, it goes like this:

From the standpoint of a patient. Appointments can now be scheduled through an app instead of calling your office. Rather than waiting for an appointment to come open, they can schedule a visit with their doctor at any time. Neither you nor your patients need to waste time.

From the standpoint of a clinic. A clinic booking system software is based on an app or a web-based platform. Using an online doctor booking app development simplifies processes that your staff might struggle to manage manually (e.g., entering patient information, scheduling doctors’ time slots, handling paperwork, etc.). Apps can also help track patients’ visits and improve communication between doctors and patients. It is easier to confirm, cancel, or reschedule appointments this way.

The solution promises cost savings, but how does it accomplish that?

You can minimize unused appointment times when you use an app or a web platform to manage your hospital appointment system. You may lose money as a result of no-shows or cancellations.

Setting up reminders and notifications on your app will help you avoid no-shows. When patients miss their appointments, you can schedule them back-to-back as soon as possible to prevent losing money on unused time slots.

Clinics can also prevent overlapping appointments by developing an appointment booking system. In the healthcare industry, overlapping appointments are a major problem. Automated solutions can prevent double bookings in the first place and help prevent them from occurring in the first place.

Amid pandemic turmoil, this issue is too crucial to ignore. To comply with social-distancing standards, you need as few patients as possible in your waiting room.

Here Are the Basic Features of an Appointment App for Doctors

The features you want in a doctor appointment booking app should be determined before you begin Android mobile app development for your clinic.

Here are five essential features for your doctor appointment app you should consider including.

1. Physician Profiles

Patients and potential doctors can connect for the first time via an app. Physician profiles need to be clear and comprehensive. All necessary information should be included, such as photos, capabilities, experience, and everything else the patient will need to make a decision. It would also be useful to include the cost of consultations and treatment.

2. A Patient’s Profile

Patients’ information should always be accessible to doctors, whether they are seeing a patient for the first time or for a follow-up. Mobile applications come in handy for storing this information. Any details about a patient can be retrieved from it (name, age, medical history, treatment plans, insurance information, etc.) before an appointment.

3. Option for Searching

A large database might make searching through all the profiles difficult for patients. A search option will help them find what they’re looking for. Filtering profiles by desired treatments, doctor ratings, and location are all available.

4. Reservation Form

A doctor appointment website or app should be able to help you schedule a visit as easy as booking an online appointment. A patient should have easy access to appointment time slots and dates once they select a physician. Making booking an appointment as simple as possible is ideal.

5. Alerts

Here’s a quick guideline. To reduce unused appointment times, you should implement reminders and notifications when developing a hospital appointment booking app. To minimize missed appointments, you can send them to patients before scheduled appointments.

Read Also: Online Video Conferencing App Development Cost

[mariacallous]

Neo-Nazis and white supremacists are sharing Hitler-related propaganda and trying to recruit new members on TikTok, according to a new report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) shared exclusively with WIRED. The TikTok algorithm is also promoting this content to new users, researchers found, as extremist communities are leveraging the huge popularity of TikTok among younger audiences to spread their message.

The report from ISD details how hundreds of extremist TikTok accounts are openly posting videos promoting Holocaust denial and the glorification of Hitler and Nazi-era Germany, and suggesting that Nazi ideology is a solution to modern-day issues such as the alleged migrant invasion of Western countries. The accounts also show support for white supremacist mass shooters and livestream-related footage or recreations of these massacres. Many of the accounts use Nazi symbols in their profile pictures or include white supremacist codes in their usernames.

Nathan Doctor, an ISD researcher who authored the report, says he began his investigation earlier this year when he came across one neo-Nazi account on TikTok while conducting research for another project.

He was quickly able to unmask a much broader network of accounts that appeared to be actively helping each other through liking, sharing, and commenting on each other’s accounts in order to increase their viewership and reach.

The groups promoting neo-Nazi narratives are typically siloed in more fringe platforms, like Telegram, the encrypted messaging app. But Telegram has become a place to discuss recruitment techniques for TikTok specifically: White supremacist groups there share videos, images, and audio tracks that members can use, explicitly telling other members to cross-post the content on TikTok.

“We posted stuff on our brand new tiktok account with 0 followers but had more views than you could ever have on bitchute or twitter,” one account in a Neo-Nazi group posted on Telegram about their outreach on TikTok. “It just reaches much more people.”

Others have followed suit. One prominent neo-Nazi has often asked his thousands of Telegram followers to “juice,” or algorithmically boost, his TikTok videos to increase their viral potential.

An extremist Telegram channel with 12,000 followers urged members to promote the neo-Nazi documentary Europa: The Last Battle by blanketing TikTok with reaction videos in an effort to make the film go viral. Researchers from ISD found dozens of videos on TikTok featuring clips from the film, some with over 100,000 views. “One account posting such snippets has received nearly 900k views on their videos, which include claims that the Rothschild family control the media and handpick presidents, as well as other false or antisemitic claims,” the researchers wrote.

This is far from the first time the role that TikTok’s algorithm plays in promoting extremist content has been exposed. Earlier this month, the Global Network on Extremism and Technology reported that TikTok’s algorithm was promoting the “adoration of minor fascist ideologues.” The same researchers found last year that it was boosting Eurocentric supremacist narratives in Southeast Asia. Earlier this month, WIRED reported how TikTok’s search suggestions were pushing young voters in Germany towards the far-right Alternative for Germany party ahead of last month’s EU elections.

“Hateful behavior, organizations and their ideologies have no place on TikTok, and we remove more than 98 percent of this content before it is reported to us,” Jamie Favazza, a TikTok spokesperson tells WIRED. “We work with experts to keep ahead of evolving trends and continually strengthen our safeguards against hateful ideologies and groups.”

Part of the reason platforms like TikTok have in the past been unable to effectively clamp down on extremist content is due to the use of code language, emojis, acronyms, and numbers by these groups. For example, many of the neo-Nazi accounts used a juice box emoji to refer to Jewish people.

“At present, self-identified Nazis are discussing TikTok as an amenable platform to spread their ideology, especially when employing a series of countermeasures to evade moderation and amplify content as a network,” the researchers write in the report.

But Doctor points out that even when viewing non-English-language content, spotting these patterns should be possible. “Despite seeing content in other languages, you can still pretty quickly recognize what it means,” says Doctor. “The coded nature of it isn't an excuse, because if it's pretty easily recognizable to someone in another language, it should be recognizable to TikTok as well.”

TikTok says it has more than “40,000 trust and safety professionals” working on moderation around the globe, and the company says its Trust and Safety Team has specialists in violent extremism who constantly monitor developments in these communities, including the use of new coded language.

While many of the identified accounts are based in the US, Doctor found that the network was also international.

“It's definitely global, it's not even just the English language,” Doctor tells WIRED. “We found stuff in French, Hungarian, German. Some of these are in countries where Naziism is illegal. Russian is a big one. But we even found things that were a bit surprising, like groups of Mexican Nazis, or across Latin America. So, yeah, definitely a global phenomenon.”

Doctor did not find any evidence that the international groups were actively coordinating with each other, but they were certainly aware of each others’ presence on TikTok: “These accounts are definitely engaging with each others' content. You can see, based on comment sections, European English-speaking pro-Nazi accounts reacting with praise toward Russian-language pro-Nazi content.”

The researchers also found that beyond individual accounts and groups promoting extremist content, some real-world fascist or far-right organizations were openly recruiting on the platform.

Accounts from these groups posted links in their TikTok videos to a website featuring antisemitic flyers and instructions on how to print and distribute them. They also boosted Telegram channels featuring more violent and explicitly extremist discourse.

In one example cited by ISD, an account whose username contains an antisemitic slur and whose bio calls for an armed revolution and the complete annihilation of Jewish people, has shared incomplete instructions to build improvised explosive devices, 3D-printed guns, and “napalm on a budget.”

To receive the complete instructions, the account holder urged followers to join a “secure groupchat” on encrypted messaging platforms Element and Tox. Doctor says that comments under the account holder’s videos indicate that a number of his followers had joined these chat groups.

ISD reported this account, along with 49 other accounts, in June for breaching TikTok’s policies on hate speech, encouragement of violence against protected groups, promoting hateful ideologies, celebrating violent extremists, and Holocaust denial. In all cases, TikTok found no violations, and all accounts were initially allowed to remain active.

A month later, 23 of the accounts had been banned by TikTok, indicating that the platform is at least removing some violative content and channels over time. Prior to being taken down, the 23 banned accounts had racked up at least 2 million views.

The researchers also created new TikTok accounts to understand how Nazi content is promoted to new users by TikTok’s powerful algorithm.

Using an account created at the end of May, researchers watched 10 videos from the network of pro-Nazi users, occasionally clicking on comment sections but stopping short of any form of real engagement such as liking, commenting, or bookmarking. The researchers also viewed 10 pro-Nazi accounts. When the researchers then flipped to the For You feed within the app, it took just three videos for the algorithm to suggest a video featuring a World War II-era Nazi soldier overlayed with a chart of US murder rates, with perpetrators broken down by race. Later, a video appeared of an AI-translated speech from Hitler overlaid with a recruitment poster for a white nationalist group.

Another account created by ISD researchers saw even more extremist content promoted in its main feed, with 70 percent of videos coming from self-identified Nazis or featuring Nazi propaganda. After the account followed a number of pro-Nazi accounts in order to access content on channels set to private, the TikTok algorithm also promoted other Nazi accounts to follow. All 10 of the first accounts recommended by TikTok to this account used Nazi symbology or keywords in their usernames or profile photos, or featured Nazi propaganda in their videos.

“In no way is this particularly surprising,” says Abbie Richards, a disinformation researcher specializing in TikTok. "These are things that we found time and time again. I have certainly found them in my research."

Richards wrote about white supremacist and militant accelerationist content on the platform in 2022, including the case of neo-Nazi Paul Miller, who, while serving a 41-month sentence for firearm charges, featured in a TikTok video that racked up more than 5 million views and 700,000 likes during the three months it was on the platform before being removed.

Marcus Bösch, a researcher based in Hamburg University who monitors TikTok, tells WIRED that the report’s findings “do not come as a big surprise,” and he’s not hopeful there is anything TikTok can do to fix the problem.

“I’m not sure exactly where the problem is,” Bösch says. “TikTok says it has around 40,000 content moderators, and it should be easy to understand such obvious policy violations. Yet due to the sheer volume [of content], and the ability by bad actors to quickly adapt, I am convinced that the entire disinformation problem cannot be finally solved, neither with AI nor with more moderators.”

TikTok says it has completed a mentorship program with Tech Against Terrorism, a group that seeks to disrupt terrorists’ online activity and helps TikTok identify online threats.

“Despite proactive steps taken, TikTok remains a target for exploitation by extremist groups as its popularity grows,” Adam Hadley, executive director of Tech Against Terrorism, tells WIRED. “The ISD study shows that a small number of violent extremists can wreak havoc on large platforms due to adversarial asymmetry. This report therefore underscores the need for cross-platform threat intelligence supported by improved AI-powered content moderation. The report also reminds us that Telegram should also be held accountable for its role in the online extremist ecosystem.”

As Hadley outlines, the report’s findings show that there are significant loopholes in the company’s current policies.

“I've always described TikTok, when it comes to far-right usage, as a messaging platform,” Richards said. “More than anything, it's just about repetition. It's about being exposed to the same hateful narrative over and over and over again, because at a certain point you start to believe things after you just see them enough, and they start to really influence your worldview.”

[medstudentblues]

good morning! i usually prefer handwritten notes but it is not just feasible when i journal before or after duty when i have a million things to say because every duty as a JI doctor is a battle won in the PH, so i downloaded day one and the stoic app to try which suits me better.

so far i’m leaning on the stoic app! there are a loooot of prompts and i’m just obsessed with the trends where they track and make graphs of my mood/sleep/etc. you know how type As are with graphs!! craaazy. the stoic prompts / processing of emotions are one less thing to worry about it.

i just downloaded both and i’ll try them for a week of trial, to see which suits me best.

[mio-actuallywrites]

The World You Once Loved 2

Apparently being in your world is still surprising for you.  PREVIOUS NEXT

2/?

//Reader lives in Japan.  not proofread

Fyi through out all these parts NO book 7 spoilers.  also I assure you next part I will try to make it longer!!

Apparently 8 months in Twisted Wonderland means 16 on Earth. And those 16 you have spent in a coma. Apparently your Roommate Oboko said you had got ran over by a car and have been in a coma ever since. 

She had also told you the night before you woke up, items had appeared in your room, apparently in your suitcase. (Haha I wonder why)

After the doctor came in, checked on your vitals and health you were told you needed to stay a day or more in the hospital. So after getting to eat earth food again, thinking about what you missed in that last year, thinking about all those memories and how they are doing right now you were ready to go back. 

After getting Oboko to drive you to your place, you finally entered the house you thought you would never return too. 

After entering the front door, your eyes immediately trailed to all around the house, all the furniture was the same, but it was werid to see new and not old furniture, I guess living in Ramshackle caused you to get used to the sometimes uncomfortable and dusty furniture. 

“All are you going to enter?” Obokos voice rang in your mind as she suddenly lightly pushed you in, bringing you out of your shock. 

“Sorry Oboko-Chan I’m just still in… shock you know??” You replied hoping she would just shrug it off. 

“It’s fine, however I have your phone with me if you wanted it, I was gonna give it to you in the car. But I wanted you to get adjusted.” She replies as she hands you the phone. “I’ll be in my room if you need me!” She yelled as she left. 

You stood there for a second as you grabbed your phone and went to sit on the couch. 

You put in the password you would never forget, no matter how many worlds you been in you will always remember. *insert password* seeing as you logged in, you had million of notifications, filled with texts, updates and snaps that were left unseen for the months you were gone. 

You opened up Magi- no Instagram and viewed every news peice you missed. The new Taylor Swift album, the new update to Genshin, the upcoming movies, new trends etc. It seems like it will take AWHILE to catch up on all of those events. 

After looking through the app you decided to go into your room, and see the place you thought you would never see again. 

However right when you entered the first thing you noticed was the luggage you clearly packed a few days ago. You went over to the luggage and opened it, once you opened it the first thing you saw was the picture of you and the first years + Grim. You guys were all at Ramshackle probably at a sleepover. 

Under the photo you found your diary you kept that you bought at Sam’s shop. It was filled to the brim with the 8 months you spent there, going from your first unbirthday party to (Something that happend in chapter 7)

After picking up the diary and putting it on your desk, you grabbed your school uniform, and hung it up. Once you hanged up your school uniform in your closet you then grabbed the photo and hung it up next to your desk. 

Thinking about what to do with your life now that you finally returned after it being your goal for so long. But wasn’t completing a goal make you happy?

Today marks the 1st anniversary since you left. If you were right it had been six months since you left in Twisted Wonderland. Your friends were now 2nd years and some were about ready to graduate. And again, If you were right, they were in the middle of finals, since you left during that period. 

Yes although you did have the period of tears, and overwhelming sadness of leaving all of those memories behind, right now you were living your BEST life right now. 

While you were in your 3rd year of Highschool. Like Night Raven, you stayed at the High School with your Childhood friends, Oboko and Saki. Yes you did have your fun with them, but what about those past memories that you dearly loved and held at your heart?

“Reader? Are you there? We still have work to attend to and close shop, not zone out.” Your co-worker snapped at you. 

“Sorry Keiko, I tend to a lot.” You responded, although it was a little bit of a lie, you would still cling onto those memories from time to time. 

“Anyways, I’ll finish the dishes you start locking up.” She responded, completely ignoring your response. 

You nodded in response and left the Cafe’s kitchen to go lock up all the windows, doors, blah blah whatever this job paid good that’s all you cared about. 

After quickly finishing it up, you walked to the back door walking past Keiko who was still washing dishes, you were always fortunate when you didn’t have to. (Who even likes washing dishes???)

“Bye Keiko! See you tomorrow!” 

She had mumbled a response as you left the door and entered your car. 

While jamming out to the new album of your favorite artist, the drive home was relatively short. Basically 5 minutes.

You pulled into the driveway and couldn’t wait to get into your home. All that felt nice was a nice warm shower and watching your favorite episodes of your favorite show/anime. With a cup of hot chocolate on the side. 

As soon as you entered the dorm avoice hit you. 

“Hey, reader, just like 5 minutes ago there were some people saying they knew you and kept assisting them. I don’t know if you know them but the acted like they knew you for a while or so. They are in the kitchen currently because they acted like they haven’t eaten in awhile. Uh please be safe?”

/ENDING WAS RUSHED, once I have time I’ll go back and edit. 

[ashen-vulture]

A Vulture In Therapy #2.5

A Nice Little Interlude (The Roost)

First <<< Previous << x >> Next?

The looming city was intense and claustrophobic to my quiet, rural, country-kid senses. I don't have an appointment yet, but I want to familiarize myself with the route.

My hands were shaking as I found a place to park and stepped out. Everything looks the same. I pull out my phone to see if my map app could illuminate the way, but it seemed about as lost as I was. Luckily I printed out the address and directions.

Surely I wouldn't get lost.

...

I got lost.

Whenever I get lost like this I inevitably devolve into a hyperventilating, crying mess, but this time I was only feeling a tightness in my chest and a fog filling my eyes. I just needed a place to sit down and recover. Somewhere quiet.

I noticed a narrow walkway out of the corner of my misty eyes and seemed to call to me. On the second floor of an older looking building hung a sign that said "The Roost (Witches, Familiars, and Spirit Bonds Welcome)."

As I ascended the long ramp I could smell fresh bread and coffee. The tightness in my chest relaxed as I went inside. There was a lot of vertical space inside, with small walkways along the walls with the occasional fox, cat, and snake. There was a tree growing up in the middle of a luminous green circle, bearing fresh fruit, and with crows and owls existing amicably within range of one another.

"I knew this place was magic, but..." I began to whisper to myself, taking in the beauty of the small cafe.

The air here felt relaxing and familiar and easy even though it was a little cramped. I walked up to the counter to order, stuttering through the menu. The elderly woman behind the counter smiled warmly, her wrinkles stretching her heavily freckled face in a kind and lively way.

"You must be one of the new witch apprentices."

"Huh?"

She pointed to the array of skull, dream, and vulture pins on my purse as I was paying.

"Oh! No, I'm..." I remembered the stories I've heard from other therians. Was it worth the risk? I just want a calm place to sit and get my bearings.

...

... Then again, asking a local for directions might help, too.

"Actually I'm a Therian... I'm here looking for Doctor Erian's clinic, but I got really lost... Do you think maybe you..."

She waved her hand, "oh dear don't be too worried, you're just a block over! One of those new 'therian' things, eh?" Her words were blunt, but she was saying them with kindness, "I've been hearing stories about it, seems like a strange new trend, but I can't fault folks for it! Why if it has been around when I was a young'n' I'd have probably turned myself into a macaw!"

She turned to scratch the head of her equally elderly Scarlett Macaw familiar, who mimicked the sound of a bright, cheerful bell in response.

I smiled at her. She finished giving me directions. I finished ordering and paying, then I found myself a comfy little window seat at The Roost and watched the street below.

Yeah. This is a good place.

[just-jordie-things]

I will need a headcanon of Choso reacting to you showing him Caramelldansen, Dancing Toothless, Chipi Chipi Chapa Chapa and more like that

My doctor said if I dont get that hc my heart might give out soon 😞

~ Nanami Flowershop Anon

i- am i not trend savvy? i only know dancing toothless D: am I NOT COOL????? HELP ME STEF IDK HOW TO WRITE THESE ONES

but uuuuuuuuhhhh here's some tiktok related ones? don't be madddd

he probably watches you while you watch tiktoks and for the most part has no idea what you're looking at. videos of people talking? annoying music? what is so intriguing about this that you'll cuddle with him for hours while scrolling thru it?

and when you start repeating certain quotes that he just doesn't follow at all, why did you say that? what does that mean? and when he asks, you tell him it's from tiktok, and it doesn't really help him to understand. because what's the context of you saying it now while you're cooking dinner?? you tend to giggle at him when you barely answer his questions. it furthers his confusion, but it's sort of cute, so he keeps excusing it

after awhile you install the app on his phone for him to scroll on when he's bored. he insists that he's ok watching with you- he is getting cuddle time out of it after all- but soon enough when he finds himself bored, he opens it up.

i think the side of tiktok choso finds himself on would be animal and asmr related. ((i think he'd definitely like wisp the kitten!! he's a cat guy he just doesn't know it. and there's something about that messy little furball that tugs at his hearstrings)) he has no idea what asmr really is or how he ended up there but it's just so addicted. soon enough he's watching videos of people playing with slimes or dragging makeup brushes over microphones. he doesn't even wear headphones, and if you asked him, he would not know how to explain what he likes about it

it would take TIMEEE for him to catch on to meme culture. there's just so much to it and it's not exactly an easy thing to explain without just making him experience it for himself, but with your help he's eased into it and eventually is able to keep up with some of your references

((he's really excited to get better at it and surprise yuji with what he learns))

i hope these were ok!!

[damnfandomproblems]

https://www.tumblr.com/damnfandomproblems/771335241789063168/6918-were-not-saying-everyone-is-faking-just-that?source=share

While I get what you're saying here, I just want to add, because you mentioned it down at the bottom of your post, that the "TikTok Tics" is a mental illness of its own. Some, not all, are not making up the their Tourette syndrome like tics that they developed after it went viral on the social media app. I am in no way defending the "trends" and "acts", however, we have to ask why people are doing it to start with? Attention? Sure, I'm sure some of that plays a part. But not completely and not in every single case.

What I'm getting at is that there is a mental illness at play here too. It may look like it's made up to a lot of people, and understandably so, but the individuals that developed the tics have gone to doctors and have been studied to figure out what was wrong. If you want to check out, look at it here:

https://www.tumblr.com/damnfandomproblems/771335241789063168/6918-were-not-saying-everyone-is-faking-just-that?source=share

Does that explain away people faking DID? No, no it does not. There's a lot of people these days that kins characters and everything and I have found that weird. But I'm saying we shouldn't judge every person who may have these issues. They may have a bad homelife, their parents may be jerks, maybe they've been bullied at school, maybe there's peer pressure, maybe they have another mental illness that isn't connected and they're just confused. Being on social media at such a young age is not good for their developing minds. We have no clue what the long term ramifications are for growing up on a tablet or phone... but I think we're starting to see the effects of it.

Same anon:

this is the link to the TikTok Tic article in my first post. Can you post it with my post please? It didn't copy and paste right. Entirely my bad. If you don't know which one I mean, it's the one that mentions that doctors studied it.

(Linked article)

Posting as a response to a previous ask.

[coochiequeens]

I've posted many times about how surrogacy exploits women but there's also the fertility industry exploiting people despretate for bio kids and how they don’t care about the future impact on the resulting kids.

Netflix's 'Man With 1000 Kids' puts a spotlight on the lack of international regulations for sperm donors

July 9, 2024, 6:00 PM EDT

By Elizabeth Chuck

A Netflix docuseries has put a spotlight on the unregulated world of sperm donation, particularly the lack of stopgap measures that might prevent donors who have been banned by one country from simply going elsewhere to donate more.

Released earlier this month, “The Man With 1000 Kids” explores the fallout from the case of serial sperm donor Jonathan Meijer, a Dutch man who fathered children around the globe via donations to sperm banks, as well as through private meetings he reportedly held directly with prospective mothers. The Dutch Society for Obstetrics and Gynecology prohibited him from donating sperm in the Netherlands in 2017, but he continued to donate to other countries afterward.

The result of Meijer’s actions is there are hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of half-siblings who may not realize they are related to one another. Their risk of accidental inbreeding is real: In 2021, The New York Times reported some of Meijer’s offspring had come across one another on the dating app Tinder.

"Once, I swiped on a sister and she swiped right on me at the same time,” said a half-brother, Jordy Willekens, who lives in the Netherlands. “I have a very trained eye by now.”

Experts and advocates for donor-conceived people say Meijer’s story is not an outlier. 

“There’s nothing keeping donors from donating anywhere. If a donor is banned in their home country, they just go somewhere else,” said Wendy Kramer, director of the Donor Sibling Registry, which she co-founded in 2000 with her son, Ryan, who was donor-conceived. The worldwide matching site has connected more than 26,000 half-siblings and donors so far, and Kramer said some people have found over 200 matches.

“There’s no regulation. There’s no oversight,” Kramer added.

There’s nothing keeping donors from donating anywhere. If a donor is banned in their home country, they just go somewhere else,” said Wendy Kramer, director of the Donor Sibling Registry, which she co-founded in 2000 with her son, Ryan, who was donor-conceived. The worldwide matching site has connected more than 26,000 half-siblings and donors so far, and Kramer said some people have found over 200 matches.

Without any sort of global tracking system, donors who have been banned in one country are easily able to keep donating in other countries, said Jody Madeira, a professor at Indiana University Maurer School of Law who is writing a book about fertility fraud by doctors and serial donors. 

“They shouldn’t donate. They promise not to. But ‘shouldn’t’ doesn’t mean ‘can’t,’” she said. “And there’s no lightning bolt that’s going to come down because there’s no international registry.”

Countries have rules for the number of offspring sperm donors can produce, though many are recommendations rather than laws. In the Netherlands, nonbinding guidelines limit clinic donors to 25 children. In the U.S., guidelines from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine suggest a cap of 25 children per donor in a population of 800,000. Norway limits donors to eight children, Spain limits them to six children, and Sweden limits them to 12 children across six families.

In an email, Meijer criticized such regulations, writing that in his experience as a donor for 17 years, “one of the trends I see is that countries with the highest government regulations for donors, creates a serious shortage of qualified donors.”

Meijer called himself “one of the best donors you can wish for” in videos on his YouTube channel and says the Netflix documentary, which he declined to participate in, is full of lies.

He also argued that he did nothing wrong by donating internationally.

“You have to realize that I follow the guidelines of the international sperm banks,” Meijer said in a YouTube video posted Thursday. “They don’t inform their recipients, the people that order the sperm from their stock — they will never inform the parents about the amount of offspring that they have created with the same one donor.”

“So you might say, ‘You had to inform the parents correctly about a number.’ But I was following international guidelines,” he added.

Two large international sperm banks that Meijer mentioned in his video, California Cryobank and Denmark-based Cryos International, did not respond to questions about their screening processes for accepting sperm donations. 

Cryos International says on its website that its donors cannot donate to any other sperm bank. In 2021, then-CEO Peter Reeslev told the New York Times that all Cryos donors are made aware of the exclusivity clause.

“Donors sign and commit in contractual terms to not donate in any other tissue establishments than Cryos before and undertake not to donate sperm to other sperm banks/tissue centers in the future as well,” he said.

On its website, California Cryobank says potential donors are rigorously screened, with less than 1% of applicants qualifying to become donors. It lists a number of accreditations and licenses it says it has, including from the American Association of Tissue Banks, which performs on-site inspections, and the Food and Drug Administration, which has rules about quarantining sperm donations and testing them.

But those rules do not address the number of offspring a donor can have or what happens when one country tells a donor to stop donating.

While no efforts are underway to create a worldwide registry of sperm donors, Colorado will implement a law next year that states that it forbids anonymous sperm or egg donations, meaning when donor-conceived people turn 18, banks and clinics will provide contact information for their donors to them.

The law also caps the number of families that can use a single donor and requires sperm and egg agencies to make a “good faith effort” keep permanent, up-to-date medical records on donors.

It is the first law of its kind in the U.S. Australia and a number of European countries already prohibit anonymous sperm and egg donations, giving donor-conceived people access to more information about their identities and family histories. 

But some advocates say that even with the new Colorado law, there is still no oversight mandating accurate record-keeping on the number of children born from any single donor, especially since other states won’t be keeping count.

“There’s no entity keeping track of the number of kids for one donor, and nothing changes with that. Sperm banks and egg clinics will continue to have no accurate accounting of the children born to any one donor,” Kramer said. “The conversation doesn’t make sense until you have accurate record-keeping.”

It also doesn't help with the problem of sperm donations from a single donor in multiple countries. Kramer said that the discovery of half-siblings always comes with a slew of emotions for donor-conceived people but that it can be especially fraught when the newfound relative is in a different country.

"Oftentimes these people are so excited to have found each other, and they want to meet, but distance is prohibitive because of cost and time,” she said.

Language barriers can also make it harder to communicate important information.

“It’s really important to know your family health history, and also medical updates,” Kramer said. “Are you healthy? Do you have any genetic concerns? Because this can help with screenings and preventative medicine.”

Erin Jackson, founder of We Are Donor Conceived, a support group and online resource community that has about 3,600 members on Facebook, lives in California and was donor-conceived in Canada. She has found nine or so half-siblings and suspects she could have 100 or more she does not know about yet.

“I was born in the suburbs of Toronto, and I moved to San Diego,” she said. “I know that if I’m going to find more siblings, they’ll probably be in Canada. And there’s a sadness that comes from knowing I’m, like, a $600 flight away from any of them. It’s really not easy to just pop over and integrate myself into their lives, even if we both want that.”

As for Meijer’s voluminous number of sperm donations, Jackson said she was “disturbed but not surprised.”

“There just aren’t legal protections that would stop someone from doing this,” she said.

“There’s a lot of psychological damage that comes out of this type of situation,” she added. “I can’t imagine being one of this guy’s children.”

[t00thpasteface]

Hiiiii₍⁠₍⁠◞⁠(⁠ ⁠•⁠௰⁠•⁠ ⁠)⁠◟⁠₎⁠₎

Could you explain the hipster Vs fandom war. I've been on here for like four years and I never knew that existed lol and btw I really really love your art and you are one my biggest inspos for how I imagine and draw my Clark.

i'm not sure i can explain it in a way that makes sense, and certainly not in a way that makes you say "i understand why this was such a big deal", but gl'bgolyb knows i can try.

first, let me take you on a sensory experience... picture in your mind the following things... skinny jeans... nerd glasses... a weirdly dapper fashion sense in a time where everything is baggy and neon... boom, you have 2010-2014 online tumblr hipster culture. and also 70s elvis costello, oddly enough.

although admittedly i don't know his stance on pumpkin spice lattes.

anyway. now that that's burned into your brain, consider a significant population of this exact type of person that has already been well-established on this microblogging platform around the turn of the decade. tumblr doesn't really have an app yet because smartphones haven't taken over everyone's life yet, and online fandom culture is still largely dominated by deviantart as the main "fandom hub". most people, myself included, are getting their main meme fixes from facebook (which your parents were not yet on) or the icanhazcheezburger image-aggregator network. THEN EVERYTHING CHANGED WHEN THE FANDOM NATION ATTACKED.

somehow, a huge crowd of people who considered their favorite books/movies/games to be core personality traits began to set up shop on this fair slate-blue isle. i number myself among this crowd, having been lured here by google-image-searching for miscellaneous fanart in 2011. the "old guard" largely belongs to, and continuously attracts new bloggers within, a burgeoning subculture that 100% defines itself by bucking popular trends and social expectations... whether or not this is actually accomplished by purchasing beverages from starbucks and putting old film filters on every photo, i cannot say.

you may be seeing an issue already arising: hey, if the hipsters hate everything that's popular and gatekeep all their interests, and the fandom bloggers are obsessed with extremely popular franchises and are hell-bent making them even more popular, isn't that going to cause a little friction?

well, yes. it caused a fuck ton of friction. a division arose early on between "the fandom side of tumblr" and "the hipster side of tumblr." some people, like myself, played both sides. others abstained from the rigid dichotomy and considered themselves to be on another "side," like the science side of tumblr, known for explaining relatively straightforward STEM concepts in large essays that began with something like "listen up fuckers."

ahhh, unfriendable. such a narrow little window in time where cheezburger sites and facebook had equal sway in the online zeitgeist.

interestingly, as someone who trawled a LOT of aesthetic tags, the most popular of which was simply #aesthetic (it was shockingly consistent in there), i never actually saw hipster bloggers complaining about fandom bloggers. it was always the other way around, with fandom bloggers bragging about how much they're freaking out the squares to get cool points with other fandom bloggers, all while never actually engaging with the hipster bloggers because their tags rarely overlapped.

hi, marge! we're freaking out the hipsters!

regardless of whether there was any material reality to it, or if it was simply a Minitrue level of entirely fictional warfare, this concept entrenched itself into the fandom bloggers, likely as a way to still feel "edgy" and unique while, again, obsessing over extremely popular and mainstream things like doctor who, pokemon, avatar the last airbender, the brand-new mcu, and other decidedly non-counterculture media. even with things it felt like no one irl had heard of, like hetalia and homestuck, those were online juggernauts nonetheless, the former of which had dominated deviantart for years and the latter of which prompted hotels and convention centers across the world to implement very strict rules about unsealed body paint. people treated fandoms like they were some sort of exclusive country club with membership fees and a dress code. and dunking on hipsters became an entire genre of Fake Internet Story, which were already pervasive on this website.

what's the point of being in a clique if there's no outgroup to flex on? #swag

this whole phenomenon ran concurrently, even symbiotically, with other tumblrisms like "tumblr university" and those horrendous "not like other girls" memes...

which means, of course, it was absolutely dead in the fucking water once DashCon happened in 2014. i don't need to tell you what happened at DashCon (there's a million essays and videos about it if you're one of today's lucky ten thousand who's never heard of it), but all across the fandom side of tumblr, it felt like finding out your parents lied about santa claus. turns out the fandoms you're in don't actually say anything about who you are as a person, a bunch of tumblrinas can't just will a fully functional micronation into existence just by wearing tacky merchandise in a public venue, and magic probably isn't real.

i wish i had some grand way to end this story, but really the moral is the same as it ever was: online drama is eternal, inescapable, and completely fucking worthless. if you only post to get mad at shit, especially if you're just making up a guy to get mad at, cut that out. touch grass. look at images of cats. i don't remember any of the enemies i made from this era, but i fondly remember all the friends, and i'm richer for making those positive connections. that's all for today's episode of Tumblr History with Toothpaste Face... remember to tip your waitress and stay minty.

[alkararants]

The Social Media Circus: Mindless Trends, Fake Experts, and the Death of Originality

I hate social media. I hate everything about it. It has made us lazy, mindless, and uninspired. Even so-called creators have stopped being creative. When something goes viral, everyone just copies it. If cleaning videos get views, suddenly, every other creator is making cleaning videos. If a specific editing style becomes trendy, everyone jumps on the bandwagon.

And the worst part? Regular people are the ones funding these lazy creators while struggling to pay their own bills. Not naming names, but what’s the point of watching, donating, buying them gifts from their Amazon wish lists, subscribing, and commenting on the videos of someone who deliberately turns their own home—the same home they live in with their children—into a disgusting mess just so they can film themselves cleaning it and make money?

The other day, I came across a supposedly well-known TikToker—someone who lies constantly and secures ad deals without disclosing them. Apparently, it’s common knowledge at this point. I didn’t even know who she was until I saw an exposé on her. Anyway, she just bought a Porsche.

Doesn’t that bother you? No education, no hard work, no wit—just a scam, and suddenly, they’re rich enough to buy luxury cars. Why do people support this? I’m genuinely curious. And then there’s the rampant misinformation. Everyone is an “expert” these days. If someone writes “doctor” in their bio, people just assume they’re legitimate. Meanwhile, anyone and everyone is publishing books—on health, diet, workouts, even cleaning tips. Real hardcover books, e-books—whatever. And they do it all without a single verifiable source. How do we allow this?

Sometimes, I seriously think that giving people too much freedom is a mistake. Even respected professionals—doctors, lawyers, teachers—have turned into clowns for the sake of internet fame. They spread false information or post deliberately controversial content just to enrage people and cash in on that sweet, easy social media money.

Teachers, for instance, now casually share private conversations with students online. They post ridiculous dances, attention-seeking rants, and unprofessional content. I miss when people carried themselves with elegance, intelligence, and dignity. If you can’t even respect your own teacher, who will you respect?

What is happening?! I remember when being a YouTuber was something fresh and exciting. Everyone had their own style, their own content, their own personality. Now? Everything looks the same. Take beauty creators—once unique, now just walking billboards for the same sponsored products, following the same micro-trends, producing identical content.

Waiting for a new video used to be exciting. You’d wonder, What will they come up with this time? But now? There’s no curiosity. No anticipation. Just recycled trends and predictable content.

And can we talk about how loud everyone is? Overly familiar, exaggerated expressions, frantic energy—as if they’re all on something. Same facial expressions. Same gestures. Same scripted lingo. And don’t even get me started on the lingo. “Hey, girlies!” “Slay, queen!” “Babe!” No, thanks. I’m not your babe. And slay what, exactly? What queen? Who even wants to be a queen?

If there were a time machine, I wouldn’t wish to be a queen. Imagine growing up as a royal wife, constantly monitored, forced to follow endless rules, regularly cheated on, pressured to give birth to a son—only to lose that son to political schemes because someone, somewhere, had a reason to kill him. No, thank you.

And it’s not just the creators—it’s the comment sections, too. What’s the point of posting the same comment a hundred times? “You slayed, queen!” “OMG, slay!” The same thing, over and over. What’s the appeal?

And why do people spend hours watching others eat? I get that kinks exist, but are there really five million feeders on these apps? What’s so entertaining about watching someone shove a dripping Big Mac into their mouth?

Honestly, I hope every country eventually bans these so-called content creators—or at least requires them to attend a proper content creation course or something. I wish these “free” apps would start charging ridiculous fees just to use them, so people would finally stop wasting their lives on these mind-numbing, meaningless videos.

[freeonlinecoachingclass]

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[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

Doctor Who: The Legend of Ruby Sunday (Worth the Wait).

In a season that has been decidedly hit and miss (with more of the latter than the former), The Legend of Ruby Sunday stands as a both startlingly detailed and wonderfully well-made. It might even be better than Boom! (the standout for this season so far) but I’m undecided on that one. It’s really astonishing how much of this episode just works, straight off the bat, especially given how many elements are in play at once. And there are are lot of elements. The Legend of Ruby Sunday is a dense, meaty slice of science fiction that feels worthy of the show’s spectacular, confident 2005 return. We have a woman who seems to have been multiplied and scattered across time and space but who, on present day Earth, is a tech billionaire preparing to release a new app that will change life on the planet in some mysterious and unspecified way. We have a time window that lets us see into Ruby Sunday’s equally mysterious past, developed in secret by UNIT (who have been spying on the tech billionaire). We have a dark cloud hanging over the TARDIS itself and ominous portents that He Who Waits is ‘returning’. It’s heavily implied that He Who Waits is something like the Celestial Toymaker but worse; far, far worse. And finally, at the end, we get a big, scary reveal that unveils the tech billionaire as a mere pawn in someone else’s game and the real identity of He Who Waits (and what he has to do with the dark presence lurking around the TARDIS). By golly that’s a lot of things and they all gel together nicely, creating a plot that feels kinetic and energised without feeling rushed.

Unfortunately, in order to review it properly, I’m going to have to spoil the big reveal at the end, so if you haven’t seen The Legend of Ruby Sunday yet, consider this a hearty, two-thumbed recommendation, go watch it, and then come back here for the analysis. SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT.

Done? Okay? Brilliant. So it turns out that He Who Waits is- and there’s no easy way to say it so I’m just going to come right and drop a bombshell on y’all- the no-kidding god of death (Sutekh to his friends). The tech billionaire (Susan, but it doesn’t matter) is one of his vessels, come to bring the gift of death to the noisy, babbling universe while the dark cloud around the TARDIS is Sutekh’s own body, scattered but waiting to manifest. And manifest he does, immediately causing his vessels and harbingers to turn into zombie-things whose merest touch can turn people to dust. Cue the ‘TO BE CONTINUED’ bit and roll the credits, because that, ladies and gents, is how you do a fucking cliff-hanger.

Doctor Who really does seem to be at its best when it’s doing full-on cosmic horror lately (the ridiculousness of The Giggle notwithstanding, it still leant heavily into that vibe; even moreso Wild Blue Yonder). Don’t get me wrong: I wasn’t necessarily a fan of the wishy-washy supernatural elements introduced this season (the stupid bloody fairy circle for 73 Yards can grab its cunty little goblin friends from The Church on Ruby Road and fuck right off), but I’ll forgive them since this is apparently what they were building to. The Doctor- the pinnacle of intelligent, problem-solving rationality- matching wits with a god death embodying the blackest, deepest depths of terror and superstition? Yessity-fucking-please! And the route we took to get here: the reunions and cheer of UNIT overcast and overshadowed with a palpable sense of looming dread as a storm rolls into London, presaging the terror to come. It’s great! It’s even gotten me psyched for the next episode; the final instalment of this season and this story. Well, it’s mostly got me psyched.

See, as much as I enjoyed The Legend of Ruby Sunday, I do worry that one great episode does not equal a trend and that the titanic confrontation promised at the end of this one might not actually be paid off in the sequel. We could end up with the Doctor getting sidelined by other, more active characters, or Sutekh getting nerfed for reasons of plot-convenience. Hopefully the two-parter got written in one mammoth session on one of Russel T. Davies’ more switched-on days and the quality will remain consistent across the halves, because it would be great if this season could end on a bang instead of a whimper.

Sorry. I don’t mean to sound negative while I’m in the middle of praising something. The problem is that this season has been such a mixed bag, it’s hard not to have my opinion of even great episodes coloured by the quality of the episodes that surround them.

Anyway! Back to the positivity! What works here is as much about what the episode doesn’t do as what it does do. We’re not interrupted, for example, by any unnecessary musical numbers (look, I was fine with the Celestial Toymaker having a song-and-dance routine, because he’s that kind of over the top villain, but the number of episodes that ground to a halt for musicals this season was starting to get ridiculous). We’re also mercifully free of rushed romantic subplots (again, Doctor Who plus romance is fine, it just needs awhile to percolate, and if you’re not going to do it properly, you shouldn’t do it at all, BBC). And, most importantly of all, there’s no overt, straight-to-camera speeches about [INSERT RIPPED-FROM-THE-HEADLINES ISSUE HERE]. I’ve broadly agreed with the show’s politics this season (we’re not lost in Tory Chibnal territory here), but I don’t want to hear any point repeated ad nauseum, even a good point. All the focus here is on delivering a proper, well-constructed story and it’s really refreshing.

I have gripes, of course. I appreciate the low-key diss someone slipped past the editorial team by making the god of death look a bit like a mouse. Disney, whose money Doctor Who now depends on is, of course, the ‘House of Mouse’ and it’s fair to say it’s influence is one of the factors slowly killing interest in the show, so yeah: right on whoever came up with that monster design. Unfortunately, it does have the unexpected side-effect of making Sutekh look adorable, which probably isn’t the vibe they were going for. Also, I’ve seen Lenny Rush on Taskmaster and now I’ve seen him in this and he definitely makes a better comedian than an actor. I mean, fair play to the wee fella, I’ve just googled him and he’s only fifteen so it’s totally to be expected that he’s not quite there yet. It just seems weird he’s in a more serious-skewing episode.

Overall, however, The Legend of Ruby Sunday is a refreshing change of pace in a season that’s struggled to find its feet. Hopefully, it’s a blueprint for both the season finale and Ncuti Gatwa’s upcoming second season as the Doctor. This kind of thing is good. This kind of thing can bring fans together. This kind of thing is what the show needs now.

Please, please, Russel T. Davies. MORE OF THIS SORT OF THING.

EDIT: Yes, I'm aware that Sutekh is supposed to look like a jackal, but 'supposed to' is the operative phrase in this context. From the camera angle privileged towards the end of the episode, with the big ears and adorable little whiskers, the motherfucker looks like a mouse, and that will never not be funny to me.

[denimbex1986]

'All Of Us Strangers and Ripley star Andrew Scott has signed up to voice erotic new audio series The Queen’s Guard, and fans of horny ASMR are simply shaking.

The Queen’s Guard is created by Quinn, an app for audio erotica, with categories including “butt stuff”, “non-binary voice”, and “daddy”.

Essentially, this looks set to be Scott’s raunchiest role to-date, and for someone perpetually associated with Fleabag’s Hot Priest, that’s no easy feat.

Scott will voice the role of Robb the Protector in the horny historical fiction series (yes, there’s more than one episode), though the plot for this titillating tale is currently under wraps. Perhaps in this story, the listener decides when the climax is.

In a short clip posted by Quinn, Andrew Scott walks through a whitewashed room dressed in a silk blue top and matching trousers as he begins to read a section of The Queen’s Guard.

“Look at you,” he says, with a voice so smoky it could cause Bronchitis.

“Look at how beautifully your body bears the marks of everything you’ve been through. I could worship every one of them.”

Scott, who also whispered plenty of sweet nothings to Paul Mescal in this year’s gay drama All of Us Strangers, promised that his fans would get everything they needed and more from The Queen’s Guard.

“I know a lot of you out there love a bit of fantasy and historical fiction,” he said with a slight chuckle, suggesting he knows exactly what kind of fantasies his fans enjoy the most.

“I think you’re gonna really fall in love with this story.”

The Queen’s Guard lands on Quinn on 16 May, and as expected, the reveal has led to a flurry of Scott fans scheduling some me-time in their calendar for that date.

“I screamed so loud I frightened my neighbors,” one fan wrote, as another quipped: “I fear I let out a whistle note only dogs can hear.”

“Carpal tunnel doctor appointments about to go through the roof,” joked a third, as a third predicted: “Amazon is going to be scratching their heads trying to figure out why Fleabag season 2 is suddenly trending again.”

The Queen’s Guard will be available on Quinn from Thursday 16 May.'

[lieslab]

My fellow American

how are you doing with the tiktok ban?

I have nothing nice to say about it. I have never felt so enraged and upset in my life. Every time I think about it, I want to sob. I use it to watch funny videos and I learn things from it, but thinking about all the small businesses that are going to lose customers, the communities that have been built, the love that's been shared, and the exchange of cultures; I've never felt so betrayed by my own country. To just take away people's livelihoods because government officials don't understand something and refuse to learn the truth about it, that's cruel.

Apologies in advance for turning this into an entire angry ramble.

I love the people in America. I love that the sections of our country are full of different people. Different cultures have blended, we've created new things, and grown through so much together. Of course, we have our flaws in a lot of things, but lately as I look at things, it's hard not to be disappointed while living here.

It's just an app, but I've learned so much from that app and I'm just one person. I've learned about gardening. I learned to make sourdough starter during the covid pandemic. So much of my music is pulled from TikTok. I've read books from book recommendations and I've laughed a lot when things in my life felt dark because I opened TikTok.

I think about all the American artists on TikTok that blew up because one song went viral. All the restaurants that didn't have much business, so a person would post a video about it, and it'd hit the algorithm just right and explode with traction. People who prayed for an income finally got it.

With the Americans gone, there will still be others on that app, but all the people from other countries are going to lose views and money because of it. All and all, it's horrible. Their reason for banning the app isn't justifiable. The more I learn about America and the country I'm supposed to have pride in, the more I want to break down because if you look deep into America, Lady Liberty's heart is bleeding.

It's getting harder and harder to not have the urge to leave. To just make as much money as possible for a few years and get on a plane without looking back. I shouldn't have to watch people break down on an app because they're worried about how they're going to pay the bills now.

The struggle of American citizens is so bad, they are bursting into sobs on an app and begging their followers to follow them on other social media sites, so they can attempt to keep their businesses going. I think about all the people in America who started TikTok pages to help raise money for medical bills. What happens to them now? While the United States government officials get to sit and argue and bicker while making thousands, American people are at home dying because they can't afford a life-saving visit to the emergency room. They can't afford the medication that doctors prescribe them to keep them healthy and alive.

What kind of country are we really? For years, we've had that app. It's been used to advertise everything from movies to books to music to podcasts. People have found tips that have changed their life. We've learned to love and it was good. How many trends have we been through together? How much fun have we had? And now it's all just going away? It's horrible.

So many people say if you don't like America, then leave, but sometimes you get stuck in America. Traveling isn't cheap and the weight of leaving behind the people you love isn't easy either. Other countries have their own flaws, every country does.

The more I learn about America and other countries, the more I feel I've been conditioned to believe in an American dream that died off years ago. I'm watching the kids I grew up with come out of college with a mountain of debt behind them. A fundraiser has been posted because a friend of a friend of a friend was diagnosed with cancer and in America, they can't afford treatment options without debt, their medical insurance won't pay for it.

I've seen people live off packaged ramen because that's all they can afford for food because it's cheap. I've watched children in other states burst into tears because of mass school shootings and those that experience and survive them, they're diagnosed with PTSD and have nightmares. People have gone grocery shopping and never came out alive. People have been killed at music festivals and concerts, just an attempt to have fun.

My younger sibling's school just had a scare a week before Christmas break, they thought a student brought a loaded gun to school. To actually have to fathom that your younger sibling might have not come home and may not come home from school one day. I used to work at a grocery store and my head was constantly on a swivel. I was always reminding myself that I might not come back home. You cannot deal with that weight of paranoia and anxiety without losing bits and pieces of yourself. We've lost ourselves and people keep fighting, but sometimes it's so suffocating here. I've gotten to the point where my hope feels dead.

If you ever want to move to the United States of America, save your mental sanity and don't. If any of your countries are looking for immigrants and you have decent wages and your people can actually afford to live, please let me know. I've grown up here my entire life, but I have no plans to die here. I've never wanted to leave a place so badly before.

[prettyvintageafternoon]

So, a study done by Physicians for Human Rights, the Center for Reproductive Rights, Lift Louisiana and Reproductive Health Impact has found that doctors in the abortion-prohibitive state of Louisiana are now resorting to conducting c-sections for patients instead of giving them D&Cs - a type of abortion procedure that is more often conducted in the event of an emergency, such as miscarriage management. (Source)

...This is where we are at.

For context, these are obviously pro-choice organizations so I cannot be certain that this is a national trend yet. In the interest of fairness, I have to wait for other studies to be done to see if this is something that is happening across the country.

Obviously, I'm extremely concerned because Louisiana has a substantial black population, so black women will obviously be affected by this.

However, I want to make a few predictions.

Prediction #1:

Birthrates are going to plummet exponentially, especially in abortion-prohibitive states. Far fewer people will want to have children if they find that getting cut open will be more likely experience if their pregnancy isn't successful.

However, pro-lifers will blame feminism, "the left," pro-choicers...effectively everyone but themselves for this. They'll say abortion rights advocates are fearmongering about the effects of the bans.

Prediction #2:

Pro-lifers are going to try to normalize unnecessary c-sections as a way to justify the effects of this situation. I promise we will see the regular anti-abortion suspects on and off Tumblr, be it anti-abortion accounts on this app or anti-abortion groups and activists justify this. Full stop.

Prediction #3:

Pro-lifers are also going to valorize women who die during childbirth as a way to make the increase in maternal death resulting from abortion-prohibitive policies more palatable to the general public. They did this with Gianna Molla years ago, so I fully expect to see a similar rhetoric in the next few years, or even months.

Prediction #4:

I expect to see sterilization among women, including women from minority populations, increase at least a little bit. Less women will want to risk pregnancy at all because of abortion-prohibitive policy AND other factors such as parental costs, and distribution of labor related to childbearing, so they're going to seek out the one option that prevents them from getting pregnant entirely.

And then conservatives will come for that too.

[sparkiekong]

Ugh!! Elita back on the smokes again!! Major yuck!! Major turn off. Somebody needs to tell her that. Also she needs to try harder to stop. Chosen one myass!! I bet Lyra and Cat are to blame somehow!

Hi there nonny. Sorry this is gonna be long winded...again.

TLDR: Yeah, it seems she's slipped off the wagon. Addiction is not an easy wagon ride! I'm afraid for some people it's much harder than others. The gang will have relapses and struggles just like anyone else who has addictive tendances. It's not going to stop entirely anytime soon, I'm afraid.

We depict a lot of these types things. Much of mine and @helenofsimblr's writing is taken from real world examples. history, mythology and we do copious amounts of research and add about 300% creativity. Smoking (even the underage smoking) is probably the LEAST worrisome topic in this story and much worse is to come. I hope you're ready nonny... the roller coaster has just started and it's not a smooth ride... It's also completely ok to unfollow for that reason alone if smoking is your line. I promise you that we are definitely going to go beyond that, so stay safe friend! It's quite ok to stop reading. I promise we won't be offended. This story is not everyone's cup of tea and that's ok.

If you're still interested in reading and it's just that I missed adding a trigger or you'd like an additional trigger, please let me know and I will add it. Especially if it's one that you like to use... At the end of the day we're all responsible for our own mental safety on the internet... I can only provide the trigger words to block. You have to do your part. Thanks for the ask friend. I hope you have a lovely and wonderful day.

Rest is under cut with a bit more examples of differences of KSU and IRL world and informational links on medical information on addiction:

There is a key thing to remember about this story and that is that the universe (lovingly called the KSU) is a kind of alternate universe to our own, some scientific developments happened at very different times to our own and smoking science has not yet caught up to ours. In some ways, it's got sort of a sixties feel and in others, it seems like future-vision. It can be a bit confusing, so I'll provide some examples!

A big example is that the KSU recently just discovered ultrasound tech that can be used to check on fetus health and that smoking is generally bad for one's health, but the KSU has been in space for quite a long time, is well established in space and have computers and cell phones... While the real world (the one you and I live in), ultrasound has been around for a long time and is quite advanced, the anti-smoking campaign has been going on for many years with decent success. However, we in IRL we have not until recently (maybe the last 10-15 years) been able to reliably get into space and back safely in various different countries. Admittingly, I don't track all space travel, just the ones that hit the trending list of my news app.

The rest of this is for people who are struggling to understand addiction and/or are suffering or watching someone suffer with it and are looking for understanding. Please! Talk with your family doctors or google your country of origin + addiction help and you can find the help that you or a friend or family member may need.

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Here are a few links that explain a bit about addiction and why it's not always just as easy as "just don't do that" or "Stop".