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Ok so my kid had an ear infection, right? As kids often do.

The doctor scraped out a bit of earwax to have a better look inside.

I was sent a bill for $200 PER EAR for this 5 second procedure which I did not give permission for them to do.

That was key- they did not ASK me if they could do this "procedure". And, as I OWN a medical practice (it's me. The medical practice is me, sitting in my house on video calls) I knew to call them when this bill came in to be like "You did not obtain informed consent for this procedure, and it was not en emergency procedure. You had full ability to gain my consent and didn't. I'm not paying."

And the massive hospital who owned the bill said "yuh-huh you do have to pay."

And I said "I own a practice. I know these laws. I do not owe you money for this."

And they conducted an "internal review" and SURPRISE! Decided I totally owed them money and they had never done anything wrong ever.

And so I called my state's Attorney General office, and explained the situation because, as I mentioned, I know the law. The AG got in touch within a couple days to say they were taking the case and would send the massive hospital conglomerate a knock it off, guys letter.

Lo and Behold, today I have a letter where said hospital graciously has agreed to forfeit the payment.

"How not to get screwed over by companies" should be part of civics class.

Know your rights and know who to call when they're infringed on. This whole process cost me $0 and honestly less effort than I would have expected.

May this knowledge find its way to someone else who can use it.

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They are emailing eachother

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bring back tumblr ask culture let me. bother you with questions and statements

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hey! i can answer this!

basically, most if not all gaza fundraising was happening on gofundme simply due to name recognition and brand trust. however, gofundme quickly proved itself to be actively complicit in the genocide through its targeting of palestinian fundraisers for deletion and suppression.

my own friend siraj lost over $27,000 he had painstakingly raised over several months when gofundme arbitrarily declared his previously verified fundraiser fraudulent. he instantly lost access to food and housing for his entire family and has not been able to regain that progress since.

by contrast, chuffed has basically never given gaza fundraisers any problems. it actively promotes palestine-related fundraisers on its front page.

chuffed has also been used by the sameer project, crips for esims for gaza, and other palestine orgs for over a year now. after a particularly bad wave of deletions (of which siraj was a victim) people began migrating their fundraisers to chuffed, and it's become the go-to host site for new crowdfunding campaigns.

so if you see a fundraiser on chuffed, that's why!

my friend siraj has since moved his fundraiser to chuffed. if you got something out of this post, please consider donating to him. he needs ~150 euros to afford food for his family.

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I think a lot of people who make mpreg jokes do it because they consider pregnancy something that 'tames' a person and 'knocks them down a peg'. They think pregnancy is something that marks a person as inherently submissive. Getting pregnant means being submissed to them. They also think that male pregnancy is a feminist concept not because it recognises trans and intersex men as men, but because something 'feminine' and 'submissive' is forced upon a man. Because that's what pregnancy is to them - something that is done to a person. They think pregnancy is emasculating. Remember this meme?

To people like this it's a feminist line because a woman dominated a man by impregnating him. This is an incredibly fucked up and misogynistic view of pregnancy, and it also reveals the shallow understanding of feminism a lot of people have: masculinity is dominance and femininity is submission, so the idea of a man in a feminine position is inherently feminist, because he is submissed. Especially if he was put in this position by a woman, because then the switch is complete - the woman is the dominant one by forcing him into something.

And yes, I said the idea of a man in a feminine position is inherently feminist to them, NOT the man himself. The feminine position he is in makes him an object to be viewed and discussed, not a subject with thoughts and beliefs. The pregnant man is not a feminist, he's a feminist concept. That, I think, is the core of the problem with mpreg jokes - to people who make them, a pregnant man is an idea, a symbol, a fictional situation, instead of a real human being. They ignore the existance of actual men that can get pregnant in favour of the idea of them, because the first one has agency, and the second one has no agency (because he exists in their head). To people like that, pregnant men = blorbos jokingly impregnated by defying biology, or blorbos in ABO AUs, not the living, breathing trans and intersex men. They imagine pregnant men for many reasons: as a sexual fantasy, to make a joke, to declaw and tame them, but never to actually consider what it's like for real life men with uteruses. Pregnancy is just another situation they can put their blorbos in, not a real thing some men go through. So there's no space in their minds for the discrimination we face in gynecological and prenatal care, or the fear of being forcibly impregnated as a way to detransition us. Pregnant men are theoretical to them, just like catboys, so they get annoyed when we remind them that we exist and shoo us away claiming they're not talking about us.

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the more you think about what Huntr/x's team thinks of them the funnier it gets

not just Bobby. The sound team at their concert are so confused because they literally didn't start playing the instrumentals for How It's Done when Rumi, Mira, and Zoey crashed that final concert. The song just started. Playing. Out of nowhere. Like the stadium was haunted or something. In perfect sync with the girls skydiving onto the stage, which like, none of you practiced that in rehearsals, but okay.

Someone has to have noticed that the plane never landed, right? What happened to that plane? Nobody knows. Huntr/x doesn't seem concerned about it. Surely something reasonable must have happened, but nobody knows what.

The girls can summon weapons out of thin air. Which like, super cool props and special effects and all, except their prop artists and special effects team didn't have anything to do with it. Did the girls make them themselves? How?? Do they have a secret other special effects team that the first one doesn't know about??? Is that team also the one who handled the skydiving stunt??? And all the flying stuff????

Nobody hooked them up to the sound system at the Saja Boys' midnight concert. They didn't even have in-ears. Where did that music start playing from. How could everybody in the stadium hear their voices. They didn't have mics. Everybody just assumes that someone else must've done it, but like, nobody knows who did it.

HOW DID THEY MAKE IT DAYTIME AFTER THE SAJA BOYS CONCERT AT MIDNIGHT???

I feel like the funniest explanation is that everyone Huntr/x works with has decided to follow Bobby's lead to protect their sanity. Some crazy shit that nobody planned for happens and they just have to shrug and say, hey, that's why they're internationally renowned superstars. They're just that good. Why not. Sure. Throw a knife into the crowd, I'm sure it's fine.

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My two greatest fears are permanence and change

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respect the pouch! 🌸🐾

redraw (x)

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People in the UK especially, please don't give your ID to Spotify

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i actually feel like i’m about to throw up

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so bECAUSE OF THE PILOT TRAILER I WENT OUTSIDE AND STARTED SCREAMING AT 12AM SO NATURALLY SOMEONE THOUGHT I WAS BEING MURDERED AND CALLED THE POLICE AND WHEN THEY GOT HERE I HAD TO GIVE THEM MY EXPLANATION FOR SCREAMING AT 12AM SO I JUST SAID HOMESTUCK AND ONE OF THE COPS EYES SUDDENLY GOT REALLY BIG AND THEN HE SAID "VIVZIEPOP HOMESTUCK ANIMATED SERIES PILOT TRAILER??!?" AND THEN HE WATCHED THE TRAILER ON HIS PHONE I HAVE A GROWN POLICE MAN SITTING IN MY DRIVEWAY CRYING ON HIS PHONE I HAVE A GROWN POLICE MAN SITTING IN MY DRIVEWAY CRYING AND CURSING AT HUSSIE UNDER HIS BREATH HIS PARTER GAVE HIM A SHOCK BLANKET OH MY GOD

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Okay so bad news for everyone on YouTube right now

Starting the 13th, we will have an AI determine if we are children or not and if you are a child, than you are forced to send your ID, send a selfie or a credit card

This has the obvious cons of having your privacy being revoked from you and and in case there is a security breach, major identity thefts.

So what do we do in this scenario?

Well right now I have real idea as this is relativity new to me, but I do have two plans

Plan 1. Bug the shit out of them, send letters and send emails about how much of bad idea this is.

Include why the AI will mess up and target adults who watch cartoons, include privacy issues, censorship issues, anything you can think of that relates to this. I want you guys to bug the hell out of YouTube until they reverse this idea

Here their address for letters

Send a mass amount of letters on the 5th of August and than another mass amount on the 8th

Plan 2. Blackout.

Since the thing is coming out on the 13th.

The plan will be to completely avoid YouTube at all cost for that day (and beyond), no watching, no sharing, no uploading, no nothing.

Download videos before things go down, watch Netflix. Whatever you do, don’t touch YouTube.

That’s all I can say right now, I also want you guys to let YouTubers know of this situation cause if it’s important for everyone on the website to talk about this immediately

Spread this stuff around, let people know of YouTube’s upcoming policy and how it’ll hurt everyone

Edit: I have taken into consideration and I am going to agree that the blackout should be until the decision is reversed, this is so we are not out at risk as users and so YouTube doesn’t just ignore the original black out

I might have a more detailed plan posted later today, but it depends on everything goes

Another edit: just to remind yall to send in letters and emails about this to google to force their hands to reverse this decision

There is also the law itself, though I can’t speak much on it other than finding lawing bodies that can force YouTube to reverse this decision. If anyone can find a place to file or call for this, that will be greatly appreciated! (I heard maybe the FTC and or the California Consumer privacy right can be considered, but that needs more research)

BIGGER UPDATE: we have a new plan in motion, here is the updated plan for you all to see

and also here's a petition to stop the law that would help support this into becoming a thing

and also a tumblr post about it and how you can help further prevent this from being allowed in office

Don’t forget to send this fellow people outside of tumblr

YouTubers, Twitter users, send it through out and make sure you are heard

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INFORMATION ABOUT QUEER/ADULT CONTENT BEING DELISTED

Hey, I'm sure you've heard by now that several online retailers have blanket delisted queer/adult content. Information seems sporadic, so I want to create a masterpost of what happened, why it matters, and what you can do about it.

WHAT HAPPENED

You've probably heard that Steam and Itch.io have removed all of their adult/queer content from listings. Itch has even gone so far as to prevent creators from being able to get their payouts.

This is not Steam/Itch's fault. Mastercard and Visa have pressured them to remove their adult content. Visa and Mastercard collectively hold over 90% of the market share in payment processing. Unfortunately, if they cut you off, you pretty much lose over 90% of your gross income, which is a death sentence for basically any company.

This is also not just localized to Steam and Itch. Several anime/manga retailers have also been affected, and more companies are likely to follow. I would not be surprised if Patreon cracked down again soon, so if you have adult/queer content on there, I suggest you prepare accordingly.

The reason for this happening is not a response to the current US political climate, or these payment processors randomly deciding to force their puritanical views. It is a concerted effort by a group called Collective Shout, an anti-porn group masquerading as a feminist liberation org. (Look up the meaning of the word SWERF.)

Collective Shout has, allegedly, sent over 1,000 letters to Visa and Mastercard urging them to take action against certain digital retailers selling adult content. Which, thankfully gives us an avenue to respond. More on that in the third section.

WHY THIS MATTERS

For some of you, I don't need to explain why you should care. For others, let me explain to you why this is a massive cocern for everyone, not just adult content creators.

First of all, we've already seen perfectly sfw queer content catching strays from this. You should already be well aware that adult content and queer content are often conflated, and the two are pretty inextricably linked to each other. If you try to ban one, you will, inevitably, end up banning the other as well.

Secondly, this sets a precedent for "concerned citizens" to be able to pressure payment processors into removing whatever content they don't like from the internet. Even if you don't partake in adult content. Even if you're not queer. Even if this doesn't currently affect you or anyone you know right now, it will. They managed to do this with only 1,000 letters. If they get away with it, it'll only be the beginning.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Remember when I said they sent 1,000 letters to make this happen? I bet we can get more.

I wrote a form letter for Mastercard and for Visa. Fill in your name. Print them. Sign them. Mail them out. The addresses for the respective companies are at the top. It shouldn't cost much. Even international postage shouldn't be prohibitively expensive for most people.

Some people are sharing phone numbers and emails. That's fine, but I prefer a physical footprint. You can't see 1,000 phone calls. 1,000 emails don't take up physical volume. If you get 1,000 letters about something, you can see how much people care about it. That means something in this day and age.

SHARE THIS POST. Reblog it. Reblog it multiple times a day. Send it to everyone you know. Seriously. Everyone. Even if they're not on Tumblr. Get the word out. The most successful advertising is word of mouth. So use your voice and make sure people hear it. We've beaten this shit in the past and we'll do it again, but we still need to put in the work.