#and a personal rant

[bixels]

As gen-AI becomes more normalized (Chappell Roan encouraging it, grifters on the rise, young artists using it), I wanna express how I will never turn to it because it fundamentally bores me to my core. There is no reason for me to want to use gen-AI because I will never want to give up my autonomy in creating art. I never want to become reliant on an inhuman object for expression, least of all if that object is created and controlled by tech companies. I draw not because I want a drawing but because I love the process of drawing. So even in a future where everyone’s accepted it, I’m never gonna sway on this.

[yrrtyrrtwhenihrrthrrt]

In light of Brian Thompson being shot dead on my birthday (🎉🥳🎂) I'd like to share a personal story about UnitedHealthcare.

During the peak of COVID, my family all got sick. I couldn't be on my parents' insurance because they were both older and on Medicare. So, I had insurance through my University: UnitedHealthcare.

For some reason, rather than roll-over each year, I got a new plan each year that ended after May and didn't start until August, so I was uninsured for the summer months, but it was a weird situation that the university denied, and told us we were supposed to be insured year-round, it was messy.

Both of my parents went to the hospital, and I got sick too. I had to take care of my pets, and myself, and try to stay alive and keep my pets alive when I was so weak I could hardly move. When my parents came home, my condition got dramatically worse (I think my body knew it couldn't give out, because there was nobody to take care of me, so once my parents were okay, it completely crashed and failed.)

I started experiencing emergency symptoms. It was a bit hard to breathe, my chest hurt, and I was extremely delirious. I wanted to call my insurance to see if I was covered (this was during the summer) and I was connected to some nice person, probably making minimum wage, who told me with caution in her voice that my plan was expired. I had no active insurance, but she urged me to go to an emergency room. I remember saying something to the effect of "You just told me I don't have insurance, I can't go to the hospital, I can't afford it."

She sounded so genuinely worried and scared. I remember she said "You really don't sound good, you sound really sick, please call 9-1-1" and I think I just said "I can't afford it without insurance, don't worry, I think I'll be okay."

And she paused and said "I don't want to hang up the phone with you like this." And it sounded like she was holding back tears. And I don't remember what I said, I think that I would be okay, and I hung up.

I still think about her. I wonder if that phone call haunted her, or if she had dozens of calls like that a day. I wonder if she thinks about it at all, if she wonders if I died after she told me I didn't have insurance and therefore couldn't go to the hospital without incurring a tremendous financial burden. I wonder if she feels guilt or blame-- of course she shouldn't, it wouldn't have been her fault if anything had happened to me. Maybe it's self-centered to wonder if she thinks about it. I'm not the main character and it was just her job. But, still.

I think about how evil it was that we were put in that situation. Because offering year-long continuous coverage through the university plan would maybe cut into profits, maybe not benefit shareholders enough, maybe cut into Thompson's $10 million salary. While his minimum wage administrators have to feel afraid to hang up the phone, because on the other line someone might be dying, and they wouldn't know. While his patients hang up and decide to take their chances rather than put their family through that trauma.

This is UnitedHealthcare. This is Brian Thompson's legacy. This is why, understandably, an entire nation is jubilant that he was gunned down like the vermin he was. I don't care about his widow. I feel pity for his children, despite the fact that they will inherit millions, but I feel more pity for the children of his victims patients who are gone because they didn't want THEIR children to inherit crippling debt. Brian Thompson got what he fucking deserved. I pray that he not be the only one. I pray for continued safety, peace , and anonymity for his killer.

American healthcare is a disease.

[lionofchaeronea]

Please forgive me for ranting, but...I am so tired of AI. Just so tired. I don't want Microsoft Copilot, or Google Gemini, or Meta AI, or whatever other energy-sucking, water-wasting, mediocrity-spewing LLM is currently being thrust upon me. I just want to be left alone to create in peace.

[queer-is-future]

so when straight people ask me why I say I’m “queer” or “gay” instead of sharing my actual identity as a panromantic demisexual non-binary sapphic queer I just tell them “ok look, when you’re talking to someone who isn’t local and they ask you where you’re from and you either say the name of the largest city nearby or ‘town name, suburb of large nearby city’ so they can get some geographical context of where you’re located right, bc they’re probably not going to know the name of the little town you actually live in.”

but if you’re talking to a local you can say the name of your actual town bc they have a greater chance of knowing where/what that is.

ok well when I’m talking to a straight person I start with queer bc chances are they aren’t as familiar with the context of all the little towns in that big queer city and need gps (gay positioning system) to find me.

if I’m talking to another queer person and I say I live in a suburb of gay city in a town called panromantic on the demisexual side of the tracks which is in the county of queer and I live off the intersection of non-binary and sapphic, they’d probably be able to find me with little to no problems, make sense?

[honeypleasejustkillme]

i thought i was at my lowest but holy shit it gets lower

[dee-the-red-witch]

Ok, good. You're using her pronouns, and you're doing it consistently. That's... better.

But are you using her adjectives? Her nouns? Do you call her girl, woman, lady, wife, mom, girlfriend, and everything else when it's appropriate? Are you giving her her appropriate context when you're talking to her and about her, or are you just carefully gender neutralizing everything else so that those pronouns stand the fuck out like mad when they happen and make everyone including her feel like you're emphasizing stuff weird?

[elhopper1sm]

Unpopular opinion but the reason being a teenager sucks is less to do with hormones and social cliques and more to do with the fact adults fucking hate teenagers. The fact that adults expect teenagers to be able to take on adult responsibilities yet don't deserve rights of an adult. They don't see teenagers as human beings and they aren't prepared to see kids with their own formed identities and humanity. Teenagers are so sexualized and seen as needing to take on more and more adult responsibilities. Yet when they want rights and humanity they are denied. The years your brain spends wanting nothing more than to form an identity are being taken away from you. Teenagers are essentially being kicked out of social spaces unless they have an extra 40 dollars lying around anytime they want to go out. Teenagers being kicked out of the mall just for existing or groomed into the school to prison pipeline. And now creating legislation to keep them off the Internet. Our society hates teenagers. And does everything we can to hurt them. The fact that anyone makes it out of their teenage years without trauma is a fucking miracle frankly.

[cowgyaru]

wolverine sevika you are so special to me ….

[disregardcanon]

alright, i'm fucking done with the tiktok ban shit. here's what trump has promised to do on day 1 of his 2nd term. january 20th 2025

mass deportation program

2. end birthright citizenship

3. use every trick in the book on border policy to fuck people over

4. pardon january 6th defendants

5. "end" the war in ukraine. (through talks with putin. uh huh)

6. tariffs, tariffs, tariffs, consumers paying tariffs

7. no more electric vehicle expectation

8. drilling for oil. Leavitt promised the administration would “expedite permits for drilling and for fracking all over this country

9. american cars i guess

10. go after trans girls in sports.

11. go after gender affirming care

[bixels]

The final TF2 issue really got to me. Spoilers, but it’s the reveal that all of this suffering and murder and war over gravel and shitty land was for nothing but senseless, bottomless hatred. That the administrator can’t even remember where this revenge plot started as she flashes through different false memories of her parents’ deaths. There was never a tragic backstory or justification, only terrible people doing despicable things. And despite how crass and stupid and unserious TF2 is, the story subverts every expectation by showing the survivors and inheritors willingly breaking the cycle. Ms. Pauling lies to the administrator and chooses not to save her, and finally lets her die. (Hurts even more if you read into the subtext that Ms. Pauling is in love with the administrator.) She lets the final cache of Australium go and walks away from the burden and legacy of a century-old bloodfeud. Hale lets Gray’s daughter go and live her life freely. Spy is the first to arrive at Scout’s house and meet his big family, finally takes off his mask, and helps with the kids. Even Merasmus exhaustedly makes peace with himself and Soldier and chooses not to curse him or something. There’s nothing to finish, no promises to keep, and no one to avenge. The only thing to do is break the cycle and walk away.

It feels odd how happy and warm everything is, but it feels so right and earned. These bloodthirsty, awful, violent men were expendable cogs in a machine of endless violence, and they found a way out. It’s a genuinely great message about letting go the past that burdens you and finding the will and a way to hit the bricks, change, and be happy. Maybe they don’t technically deserve happiness, but they’ve got it nonetheless, and they’re not gonna let it go to waste. They’re still all crazy and violent, but on their own terms now and with people who love them! Smiles.

[zorangezest]

Shockwave somewhere off in the corner with starscream watching this personality swap unfold that he caused somehow

HOLD ON. YOU’RE RIGJT. SHOCKWAVE DEFINITELY CAUSED ALL OF THIS

you inspired me to make this comic why is this becoming an actual au why does this stupid blucking au have lore I’m going to cry

[sleepgarden]

Pupa ✢ The writing reads:

Time envelops and keeps me Not awake / Not asleep In this chrysalis / In this shroud I am stillborn / I am buried alive Yet I change / I am changing / And I ache Held still

I started this over a year ago and came back to it periodically, but I decided to just finally finish it. It’s morphed, undone itself, and transformed many times in the process of illustrating it. Sincerely, I considered giving up on the piece. I am glad I didn’t despite its awkwardness; I admit that it doesn’t sit in the eye well. But somehow I feel that it suits the piece and what it means.

I am, if anything, relieved to have finished an illustration finally. It’s been nearly eight months since my last. Prints are available in my shop. (I also have mini prints for $5cad/$3.40usd!)

[kiwinatorwaffles]

people can do whatever they want with fictional characters forever but one thing that always pisses me off is how aro/ace characters are treated in shipping.

while it is a naive mentality to tell people never to ship aspec characters, saying “aces CAN have sex” and “aros CAN be in a romantic relationship” to defend erasing their aspec identity just to ship them as if they were like an allo person means you don’t respect their identity, nor ours. yes aces can have sex. yes aros can be in a romantic relationship. but they will still be aromantic and asexual while in that relationship. and don’t even get me started on using demi identities as an “easy explanation” for why it’s okay to allowash them. other identities are treated with such absolution, so why should we continuously get the short end of the stick?

so i guess the thesis of this post is that people are absolutely allowed to ship aspec characters but if you mfs don’t care enough to understand the nuances of our identities i’m taking your aspec blorbos and putting them on a high shelf

[linterteatime]

Slugcat distribution system gave them an explosive rabid raccoon and a overpowered sewer rat ❤️

[aashiqeddiediaz]

you know what boils my blood.

over the last 2 weeks, i've seen countless patients walk into my urgent care center, symptomatic for so many things, refusing to get tested for covid and flu, citing that they don't want to knowingly bring it to their holiday tables. i had a patient tell me, verbatim, "i don't want to test for covid, because i don't want to be the asshole who brings it on a plane."

i understand that - i understand that holidays are times where people look forward to meeting loved ones that they might only see once a year, or where they get a break from the hectic back and forth of their lives.

but here's the thing - whether they get tested or not, they will bring whatever they have to their holiday tables. it's pure recklessness to know that you're sick, and walk into someone else's house spreading the disease.

today, january 2, i saw 91 patients, many of them who have tested positive for covid and flu. many of these patients are the same ones who didn't want testing 3 days ago, until their events were over, and now, they will have to reach out to everyone they know to let them know that they were positive because they were showing symptoms well before their event.

the next week or two? we're going to see many, many more, all people with symptoms that started around christmas. these are the only two viruses we test for rapidly in our office, but they are potent and can be fatal in many people.

so here's why i wrote this post, and maybe it's a little late, but - if you care about your loved ones, please get tested if you know you're sick. it doesn't have to be at a clinic if you don't want it to, because the over-the-counter tests work just fine too (if you test within 5-7 days of symptom onset). just...please don't try to run from the knowledge that you might have covid, because immunocompromised people, elderly people, people with co-morbidities like asthma, pregnancy, diabetes, etc...many of them may not recover. and they may not be sitting at your holiday table in the future because of it.

[fae-screams]

maybe killing myself is the only way to sever the attachment i have to you.