acespoliticalwaffles - Tumblr blog

[acespoliticalwaffles]

I forgot to mention, I was looking at some different disorder cringe groups on reddit and found one person asking what the criteria/signs were that someone was faking their disorder.

Not one person in that group had a proper answer. Every comment was different variations of "you sort of just know" and "it's obvious when you see it".

It is literally just proof that they have no idea what they're talking about. You could fit the exact criteria to any disorder and they'll still post you there because you're simply different to what they're used to and that's upsetting to them.

I'm going to refrain from posting anymore about r/fdc, but please keep that in mind when you're feeling insecure as a result of those groups. They have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. None of them are qualified to be judging anyone like that.

[acespoliticalwaffles]

[acespoliticalwaffles]

I feel like I should make a post about this because it’s not something that’s very well-known, and that Americans in particular may need to know about given the uncertain state of our healthcare system at the moment. I’ve wanted to write this out for a while, It’s kind of a long post, so sorry about that!

If you have an emergency and have to go to the hospital, you’ll owe the hospital a lot of money. (I got into a car wreck and broke my ankle and my arm. My hospital bill was around $20,000)

You’ll also owe the ambulance provider, if you need one. (My ambulance bill was about $800)

You may get separate bills from the anesthesiologist or surgeon. (My anesthesiologist bill was $1,700)

You may need follow-up appointments. (My orthopedic surgeon billed me for the appointments and his surgery together and it was about $1,000)

You’ve also got to pay for medical equipment you need afterward, like crutches or a walking boot. (Mine cost about $75)

Altogether, I ended up with almost $24,000 in medical debt from one car accident. That’s a really scary number for someone like me who makes $10/hr at a 12 hour a week job.

I got my debt down to $1075 by making some phone calls and submitting some paperwork.

The first thing I did was contact the hospital. They don’t make it easy to find, but many hospitals (perhaps most hospitals?) have financial assistance programs for people who can’t afford medical bills. I don’t make a lot of money, and I have bills to pay, so they were able to help me. I called the billing department and asked if they had any assistance programs for low income people who can’t pay their bills. I had to call multiple times, and I got transferred in circles by people who didn’t know what I was talking about. Finally, I got an appointment with someone in “Eligibility Services” (I don’t know what other hospitals call it, if it’s something different). I had to bring my pay stubs and copies of all of my bills. When I got to the hospital for the appointment, nobody knew what I was talking about so I had to wander a little to find where I needed to go. I spoke with the guy in Eligibility Services, and I waited for a decision on how much of the bill they would forgive. A month later, I got a call telling me it was totally forgiven.

I did the same thing for my ambulance bill and my anesthesiologist, but the process was a LOT easier. I just had to mail some paperwork and it was totally forgiven.

I didn’t bother with the medical equipment suppliers, since the bills came from separate companies and I didn’t feel like going through the process twice for $75. I was assured at the hospital that they had similar programs for debt forgiveness, so I could have probably avoided paying that too.

The only thing I couldn’t get taken care of was the surgeon/follow-up appointment cost, but they were able to put me on a no-interest payment plan.

Medical debt is scary because it’s something that can come from stuff that’s already really scary. I didn’t need the burden of $24,000 in debt on top of trying to get around on a crutch with a broken arm (it’s not easy, believe me!).. but I can’t imagine what it would be like with a bigger debt or a more severe medical emergency. I see lots of people in even worse trouble than I was in, both financially and medically. Please know that there are options for you when that GoFundMe doesn’t do enough. Even if your income is higher than mine, it’s worth a shot even for partial debt forgiveness.

[acespoliticalwaffles]

It feels taboo as a childfree person to admit this but I actually do have concerns about who is going to take care of me when I'm old. The elder care system in our nation relies A LOT on the unpaid care labor of adult children. I just don't think that's a good reason to have kids.

"But you'll have more money!" does not completely put this to rest for me. Neither does "Buy care insurance!" Even if I can afford direct personal care, who is going to advocate for me to get it? Who is going to navigate bureaucracy for me when I'm 80?

"If you do have kids, there's no GUARANTEE that they'll take care of you when your old!" That's true, but doesn't solve my problem.

I think childfree people get very defensive about this question because its used as a kind of "gotcha!" against us, but I actually do not feel we can afford to be in denial about this reality. Based on current trends of more people in their 30s stating they intend to be permanently childfree, we are going to see a huge wave of childfree adults hitting the eldercare system at once in a few decades. Childfree people in their 30s should be advocating around eldercare NOW.

[acespoliticalwaffles]

[acespoliticalwaffles]

If a few folks grabbed some shelf stable foods from my list that would help so much

[acespoliticalwaffles]

A.I. photos are flooding social media and contributing to an Internet where we can't believe what we see. Spotting A.I. 📷s is an important media literacy skill.

None of us have time to research every image we see. We just need people to notice BEFORE THEY LIKE OR SHARE that an image might be fake. If unsure, check it or don't share.

I've started drawing some comics explaining the basic of AI spot-checking and media literacy in the age of disinformation. Follow along here or on my Twitter.

[acespoliticalwaffles]

no cause some of the shit y'all are saying has me genuinely worried that you don't understand the difference between immigration and SETTLER COLONIALISM. y'all do realize that if jewish people just mass migrated to palestine and lived peacefully among palestinians as neighbors and countrymen, then none of this would be a problem. right? you get that, right? you get that our issue was never "there's too many jews here" but rather "why am i getting kicked out of my house." RIGHT?

[acespoliticalwaffles]

I've been seeing a disturbing number of "queer safe spaces" describe themselves as things like "femme & them" and even worse "she+," conflating femininity & nonbinaryhood. cease this immediately. say it with me: nonbinary people are NOT women-lite and it is extremely violent and straight up incorrect to imply that all they/thems are fem adjacent. this is erasure and this verbiage does nothing but make gnc and nonbinary spaces unsafe for masc and male nonbinary people. nonbinary, genderqueer and other third gender people can be and are masculine and men, we can be hes as well as shes and theys, stop allowing yourself and your peers to view nonbinary as woman/femme-lite, signed a butch nonbinary person.

[acespoliticalwaffles]

[acespoliticalwaffles]

soooo... i still need help!

tl;dr - mixed disabled trans bi man is unable to work, has very little work, and is in dire need of $$ help!

qayqal + redbubble

i have been trying to crowdfund for over 2 weeks now and have gotten nothing so far, and with my knee being as bad as is has been (and made worse by a -50°C cold snap), i am in DIRE need of help with bills!! my rent is $855/mo, and i have. $200+ phone bill, with $106 of it being overdue (see above photos), and an upcoming wifi bill that will be around $75. im looking at needing about $1100 total this month lol

i genuinely have no idea what to do and im kind of terrified, and i have no one who can help me as my parents are ALSO struggling pretty badly with their bills. id like to try to raise $800 at minimum because i know that phone bill is going to eat up anything i make

im offering $2 digital doodles, writing commissions that will be 50¢ per 100 words (dm me for info, i still havent set up a carrd for it yet, but i will update this post with the link once i set that up!), and i also have a redbubble that i plan on adding to over the next little bit. please consider helping me

[acespoliticalwaffles]

the "I believe in abortion only in extreme situations" people (especially women) truly baffle me because I genuinely consider "a human has another human growing inside of them and does not want to" to be a very extreme situation. to me that feels so deeply like an extreme emergency situation. I know this has been said before but it's incredible to me that this does not feel innately horrifying and "extreme" to everyone.

[acespoliticalwaffles]

help a trans disabled chinese guy survive

hey! been a little bit. i've been extremely busy these past few weeks w work & freelance stuff. you'd think that i'd be alright financially w all the stuff i'm doing but the cost of living here is so high that i'm still flat broke.

tldr i need cash for rides to & from work + groceries. anything helps!

c4sh4pp: $seacucumbers

v3nmo: @/seacucumbers

p4ypal: paypal.me/jirachis

rbs appreciated. stay safe yall

[acespoliticalwaffles]

[acespoliticalwaffles]

ATTENTION ARTISTS OF TUMBLR

since tumblr is going to start scraping blogs to train ai be sure to glaze and nightshade your art!! Not only will both of these programs protect your art from being copied but nightshade also poisons any ai that tries to steal it

here is some more info on these tools and where you can download them:

Nightshade: Protecting Copyright (uchicago.edu)

Nightshade: Downloads (uchicago.edu)

Glaze - What is Glaze (uchicago.edu)

Glaze - Downloads (uchicago.edu)

[acespoliticalwaffles]

They are already selling data to midjourney, and it's very likely your work is already being used to train their models because you have to OPT OUT of this, not opt in. Very scummy of them to roll this out unannounced.

[acespoliticalwaffles]

The war in Sudan has reached its 10th month. The war has been met with a global indifference or there has been no desire to act from many world leaders.

8 million people have fled their homes and millions of Sudanese people have emergency food insecurity, with 5 million people on the brink of famine. even the neighbouring country Chad has had to declare a food insecurity emergency due to the mass amount of Sudanese people that have fled to Chad. (By no fault of their own of course)

Faced with a media blackout which is over a week at this point we need to continue to amplify the voices and plight of the Sudanese people.

#freesudan till it’s backwards 🇸🇩🇸🇩🇸🇩🇸🇩🇸🇩🇸🇩🇸🇩🇸🇩🇸🇩🇸🇩🇸🇩🇸🇩🇸🇩🇸🇩