#the first one is their birth order

[scorpiotrait]

hybrid spawn status report:

A-BB (alien; donor = Bjorn Bjergsen):

Top-Notch Toddler trait earned, childhood Creativity aspiration completed, in range for Responsibility trait, A in grade school

B-JZ (human; donor = Johnny Zest): 

Happy Toddler trait earned, childhood Creativity aspiration completed, in range for Responsibility trait, A in grade school

C-BJ (alien; donor = Baako Jang): 

childhood Motor aspiration in progress, B in grade school

D-CV (vampire; donor = Caleb Vatore): 

childhood Mental aspiration in progress, C in grade school

E-GL (alien; donor = Geoffrey Landgraab): 

aged up with Wild trait

F-DC (alien; donor = Darryl Charm): 

aged up with the Sunny trait

[angelsdean]

imagine if spn were an actual soap opera. imagine like 5000+ episodes. rewatches would take forever

[hookedonyonics]

anyone else get put on the pill basically immediately after they got their period, then were off it while chronically depressed and cycling through antidepressants, then had a hormonal IUD for 8 years?

My IUD finally wore off a while ago and it's been so weird since.. I feel like I'm losing my mind. Like some weird emotional stuff but also sexually...

Like. Is this just being a woman and hitting my sexual stride approaching my 30s? Or did I inadvertently like dampen or block off access to my sexuality for 14 years...

[bumblingbabooshka]

Tuvok’s Children

[coochiequeens]

Two men who had a baby through exploiting a woman want to talk about equality in parenting.

When Paul Morgan-Bentley and his husband welcomed their son, Solly, they were struck by how little is expected of men when it comes to raising kids.

Solly was born in 2020, just as lockdown began, via a surrogate. So far, Paul and Robin’s parenting journey has been beautiful and life-affirming, without any of the homophobia they feared they might encounter. 

But it’s also been an incredible lesson on how gendered society remains.

“Lots of people were lovely or didn’t bat an eyelid which was lovely, but what we did find repeatedly just how little was expected of men at all when it comes to being a parent – being a fully engaged parent with primary responsibility,” Paul tells PinkNews.

Paul, who is head of investigations at The Times, wants parenthood to be equalised, and believes that can only be achieved by doing away with gender norms and encouraging all parents to pull their weight equally.

“In a non-traditional family, you just get the job done and you can feel really liberated from expectations,” he says.

“Lots of women face years and years of cultural expectation about what it means to be a woman and how that means you should be caring. 

“We write it on the slogans of young girls’ t-shirts that are sold in supermarkets – it’s all about caring and nurturing and boys are ‘cheeky little monkeys’ and are not expected to be nurturing. It’s nonsense.” 

Before and since becoming fathers, Paul and his husband were surprised by just how gendered things still are.

“To our faces we haven’t faced much direct hostility – often it’s embarrassment,” he continues.

“In the IVF clinic, even going through that process, all the paperwork is mum and dad – we had to cross off mum all the time. 

“We’re not massively sensitive about it but society has changed in lots of ways and actually what we found is that often the institutions haven’t kept up.

“Often with hospital births, most hospitals in the UK kick dads out – or any partner out – and you can only come back in visiting hours. What message does that send to the mother?

“It’s all geared towards a heterosexual couple and there’s this idea that there is a mother who will be looking after the baby.” 

Those attitudes also extend into the way parental leave and childcare work.

“If you look at how childcare is organised in the UK, you have some help – very little help, actually – financially from the state during that first year of parental leave, and then nothing for most families until your child is three. 

“Either the government doesn’t believe one or two year olds exist, or there is still fundamentally this subconscious belief that a wife is at home looking after the baby.” 

These realisations inspired Paul to write The Equal Parent. Released in March, the book interrogates societal attitudes towards parenting and looks in-depth at the mistakes we’re making when it comes to raising children.

Paul believes it’s time society moved into the 21st century and accepted that parenthood doesn’t look the same as it did in the 1960s.

“We should be playing to our strengths and communicating as parents and couples in relationships and working out what’s best for everyone – not just doing things because it feels like the normal thing to do because of our gender,” he adds.

[ghoul-haunted]

reading texts focused on crassus really is like, wow! these authors sure are fighting it out! and it doesn't stop

[faultsofyouth]

When the post office told me I could call them if I needed to cancel my appointment, I thought that meant I could call their building. But here I am, on hold for 30 minutes, and when I finally get to speak to a person they are going to be at a call center

[nomaishuttle]

sry im in the mood t just talk abt my family tree i dont know why this happens 2 me

[belle-of-a-time]

Bun In the oven? No no, cake in the oven. I’m baking a cake because my period is late…

[navree]

listen do i know that the massacre of innocents doesn’t have any historical basis in herod’s reign? yes. but if i ever get free rein to make the augustus biopic from life to death, will i include it? absolutely i will and no one will stop me.

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

I promised you some lions! Let's talk about manes, males, and management.

This is Tandie, the current male lion at the Woodland Park Zoo.

Notice anything odd about him? He's got one of those hilarious awkward teenager manes. Except... this cat is nine years old.

I was, of course, immediately curious.

Manes serve a lot of purposes for male lions, including being an indicator of health and fitness - it's actually a sexually selected trait and a social signal. Mane texture / hair quality / length is dependent on nutrition and the body having energy to grow (and carry around!) that much hair! The color is also a signal: males with darker manes have been found to have higher testosterone levels.

In one research report, wild males were much more likely to avoid a lion decoy when it had a longer or darker mane - but the girls really loved a dark mane. It's thought this is because a long, dark mane is an indicator of mate quality. Males with longer, darker manes have higher testosterone and were pretty healthy: meaning they had more energy for fighting, had a better chance of recovering if they got injured, and generally had a higher rate of offspring survival. Manes matter!

So, back to Tandie. He was actually born at the Woodland Park Zoo in 2014 alongside two brothers, to dad Xerxes and mother Adia.

This was Xerxes (rip).

Obviously, a very large, dark, lush mane on Xerxes here. So where did these blond muttonchops come from on his son?

I asked the zoo docents and got an answer that didn't make a lot of sense. They told me that after the three cubs grew into adolescents, they were moved to the Oakland Zoo together. But living together suppressed his testosterone, and he never grew a mane.

Hmmmm.

Here's a photo from 2016, when the brothers debuted at Oakland. They're a year and a half old in this photo.

(Photo Credit: Oakland Zoo)

And here's from an announcement for their third birthday.

(Photo credit: Oakland Zoo)

Okay, so these dudes obviously all were growing manes as of 2017. I think Tandie is the one on the left in the first photo, and laying down in the middle on the second. What happened?

I was just in the Bay Area for a zoo road trip, of course I went to Oakland and tracked down a docent to ask some questions.

It turns out that shortly after the brothers turned three, they started acting like adult male lions: they started scuffling regularly. It's a normal social thing for male lions to live in groups, called coalitions, but according to my lion experts there's generally a baseline level of some social jostling within them. It wasn't quite clear from what the docent said if they couldn't manage the boys together, or if they just wanted to avoid the scratches and small wounds that result from normal lion behavior. Regardless, they put all three of the boys on testosterone blockers in order to be able to keep them together as a social group.

Now, I don't know a lot about the use of hormone alteration as a form of captive animal management, except in the case of birth control. I don't think it's something that's unethical - there was just a webinar on it that I saw go by - but I don't think it's commonly done with big cats. Lions have kind of complicated reproductive cycles, and for instance, we've been learning that female lions can take much longer to come into estrus again than expected after coming off hormonal birth control.

In males, testosterone blockers (or being neutered) means they lose their manes. This is why a lot of rescues will do a vasectomy on their males instead of a neuter - it allows them to keep their mane and the social signals that accompany it.

Tandie returned home to Woodland Park Zoo after Xerxes passed in early 2022, and the docent told me all of the lions had been off their blockers "for while." I'd guess those things happened around the same time, since bringing the trio down to a duo at Oakland would reduce some of the social tensions.

Hormones are such interesting things, though. One of Tandie's brothers has a full mane again, and the other is still totally mane-less.

As for Tandie, his mane is growing back in, and it looks like he might rival his dad for length and coloration.

He started here, in February:

Yesterday:

What a difference four months (and maybe proximity to a girl) makes!

[thoughtportal]

Opinion Here’s how to get free Paxlovid as many times as you need it

When the public health emergency around covid-19 ended, vaccines and treatments became commercial products, meaning companies could charge for them as they do other pharmaceuticals. Paxlovid, the highly effective antiviral pill that can prevent covid from becoming severe, now has a list price of nearly $1,400 for a five-day treatment course.

Thanks to an innovative agreement between the Biden administration and the drug’s manufacturer, Pfizer, Americans can still access the medication free or at very low cost through a program called Paxcess. The problem is that too few people — including pharmacists — are aware of it.

I learned of Paxcess only after readers wrote that pharmacies were charging them hundreds of dollars — or even the full list price — to fill their Paxlovid prescription. This shouldn’t be happening. A representative from Pfizer, which runs the program, explained to me that patients on Medicare and Medicaid or who are uninsured should get free Paxlovid. They need to sign up by going to paxlovid.iassist.com or by calling 877-219-7225. “We wanted to make enrollment as easy and as quick as possible,” the representative said.

Indeed, the process is straightforward. I clicked through the web form myself, and there are only three sets of information required. Patients first enter their name, date of birth and address. They then input their prescriber’s name and address and select their insurance type.

All this should take less than five minutes and can be done at home or at the pharmacy. A physician or pharmacist can fill it out on behalf of the patient, too. Importantly, this form does not ask for medical history, proof of a positive coronavirus test, income verification, citizenship status or other potentially sensitive and time-consuming information.

But there is one key requirement people need to be aware of: Patients must have a prescription for Paxlovid to start the enrollment process. It is not possible to pre-enroll. (Though, in a sense, people on Medicare or Medicaid are already pre-enrolled.)

Once the questionnaire is complete, the website generates a voucher within seconds. People can print it or email it themselves, and then they can exchange it for a free course of Paxlovid at most pharmacies.

Pfizer’s representative tells me that more than 57,000 pharmacies are contracted to participate in this program, including major chain drugstores such as CVS and Walgreens and large retail chains such as Walmart, Kroger and Costco. For those unable to go in person, a mail-order option is available, too.

The program works a little differently for patients with commercial insurance. Some insurance plans already cover Paxlovid without a co-pay. Anyone who is told there will be a charge should sign up for Paxcess, which would further bring down their co-pay and might even cover the entire cost.

Several readers have attested that Paxcess’s process was fast and seamless. I was also glad to learn that there is basically no limit to the number of times someone could use it. A person who contracts the coronavirus three times in a year could access Paxlovid free or at low cost each time.

Unfortunately, readers informed me of one major glitch: Though the Paxcess voucher is honored when presented, some pharmacies are not offering the program proactively. As a result, many patients are still being charged high co-pays even if they could have gotten the medication at no cost.

This is incredibly frustrating. However, after interviewing multiple people involved in the process, including representatives of major pharmacy chains and Biden administration officials, I believe everyone is sincere in trying to make things right. As we saw in the early days of the coronavirus vaccine rollout, it’s hard to get a new program off the ground. Policies that look good on paper run into multiple barriers during implementation.

Those involved are actively identifying and addressing these problems. For instance, a Walgreens representative explained to me that in addition to educating pharmacists and pharmacy techs about the program, the company learned it also had to make system changes to account for a different workflow. Normally, when pharmacists process a prescription, they inform patients of the co-pay and dispense the medication. But with Paxlovid, the system needs to stop them if there is a co-pay, so they can prompt patients to sign up for Paxcess.

Here is where patients and consumers must take a proactive role. That might not feel fair; after all, if someone is ill, people expect that the system will work to help them. But that’s not our reality. While pharmacies work to fix their system glitches, patients need to be their own best advocates. That means signing up for Paxcess as soon as they receive a Paxlovid prescription and helping spread the word so that others can get the antiviral at little or no cost, too.

{source}

[rcdiostcrs]

presenting: eleven elaine skellington.

so, obviously eleven is the adopted daughter of jack & sally, as well as sister to my oc seven & gamecn’s oc thirteen.

she’s twenty-three years old.

rachel sennott fc.

polyamorous, biromantic, & bisexual.

basically, eleven has a lot of love to give, but you have to earn it to receive it.

alrighty, here’s the dealio, eleven is like her mother: a living doll (though eleven is porcelain, not rag). no one knows who created her. doctor finkelstein refutes the claim that he is responsible and no evidence as been found to make one disbelieve him.

see, eleven wasn’t found in halloweentown. she was found in valentine village (what i hc the town behind the heart door is called). it was a very confusing time for all of the valentine folks to see this obviously halloween kid in their town. no one has figured out how she got there.

but she is very welcomed in the valentine community, even so much as having close friends & visiting the place constantly.

she was brought to halloweentown on september eleventh (11.11) the year before auradon was established. at just a year old, she could already walk and say full words. jack & sally were smitten by this little girl made of cloth, pulling her into the family as their child. as her creation date is unknown, sep 11 is her honorary bday.

this date is also where she got her name from.

speaking of her name, she goes by the full “eleven,” but some people call her “ellie” if they think a number is a silly name.

like how seven sometimes goes by “sev.”

she has a golden doodle named “four hundred forty four.” yes, this is a long name. why such a long name? eleven enjoys numerology—especially angel numbers. sequences of fours symbolize stability. if one sees fours in a sequence, then they are putting down roots or grounding themself. she knows that if she’s ever feeling doubt about her place in life, she can look at her dog & feel sure in herself once more.

plus, seven had already claimed “two” for his cat.

two & 444 don’t like each other. zero & 444 are besties, tho.

speaking of numerology, eleven is a number about being at one with the universe & one’s self / inner wisdom.

even if her name didn’t come from this meaning, she’s delighted with it anyways for the same reason she likes 444′s name—she can look at herself & feel sure because she’s always going to have her own wisdom & the universe on her side.

eleven wants to be an electrician. she is currently under apprenticeship for this work.

since she’s a doll, she can remove her limbs. each part of her body can come apart & be put back on. this is good for her since she can just send an arm or a hand to do a thing that’s too far for her.

she is glued at each limb & her neck. se also has minor glue spots where she has chipped before.

she has a whole lot of tattoos. they cover up the glue lines holding her together. her favorite is the barbed wire around her throat.

eleven absolutely adores her family. especially her brothers.

she jokes that she’s the odd one out—only one to not have a previous life, only one to not be twenty, only one to be a girl—but she doesn’t ever feel left out.

while she wouldn’t kill for her family, she would make anyone who hurts them have a miserable rest of their life. no one touches a skellington & gets away with it. not if eleven has anything to say about it.

i’ve mentioned before that i think the skellingtons would be kind of ostracized in royal auradon circles for being figurehead royals. eleven, as crown princess (only in name as jack will never die & therefore never leave his throne), is far too aware of this. it’s always her name on the invitations to royal functions. it’s always her name in the mouths of snobby royals.

it’s the same with those of halloweentown who have conflicted feelings. they feel that if their king will never die, what is the purpose of calling his kids “prince(ss)?” why even have children in the first place? they aren’t even royal by blood, only adoption.

she tries to not let it get to her, but it’s hard sometimes.

when she’s off the clock, she & seven dress a lot alike. comfy & oversized sweaters, dark colors, lots of layers. the main difference is that eleven uses blues, reds, & blacks while seven uses oranges, blacks, & neutral tones.

however, she has a secondary aesthetic of “goth, but make it fusion.” if you’ve ever heard of hawiian goth or cowgoth—that’s what i’m talking about.

freckles!! they aren’t natural, but eleven takes the time to put a brown eyeliner to her face & a toothbrush w/ brown eyeshadow to her cheeks every morning.

[arolesbianism]

Also I've finally properly pinned down the Midas and Mascot lore tm and I'm so happy abt that except for the fact that I still need to design their mom and I still need to give her a name before I can go all in on the big boy lore drops I wanna do

[communistkenobi]

They put Tayy Dior’s name in quotes as if that was a fun little nickname her friends called her. It places emphasis on the fact that her name is ‘unofficial,’ and given that legal name changes in places like the US can be expensive, difficult & time consuming, the ‘unofficial’ nature of transgender peoples’ names is commonplace. Using deadnames of trans people in media reports is an endorsement of the difficult nature of this process.

It also highlights the absurdity of appealing to ‘official’ legal records of name and gender marker - which official records? even when you go through a legal name change process, it’s not a single application that changes it everywhere. At least in my experience in Canada, and I believe this is the case in other federated states, you have to separately change your photo ID(s), your birth certificate, your federal/national records, your tax records, your employment and tenant records, your bank records, your billing records, and so on. These are all separate applications/appointments. And legal name and gender marker are separate applications. I had to essentially obtain a set of permission slips from a provincial office that allowed me to change my name and gender marker on municipal, provincial, and federal records. There isn’t one single ‘official’ record that informs all other records of your ‘real’ name and gender marker, it is a collection of diffused departments & offices that do not communicate with one another and must be altered one at a time by the individual themselves. In many cases, states retain a record of your original name and gender marker even after applying for a change, meaning it is literally impossible to ever fully change your name and gender everywhere, administratively speaking.

So, which record is the ‘official’ record for trans people? Cis people treat ‘official’ records of legal names and gender markers as if they are uniform, centralised, and coherent in order to contrast the ‘unofficial’ nature of a trans person’s “preferred” name and pronouns, to highlight the fundamental fraudulence of our lives that go against the rational objective nature of the state, but there is in many states no single official record, for trans and non-trans people alike. That is because when cis people insist on calling trans people by their deadnames and ungender them, they are not actually referring to official records - as official records can conflict, and there is no agreement on which single record is the authoritative one - but are instead treating sex and name assignment at birth as if it is sacrosanct. This first ritual of naming, of gendering, and of recording the results of this ritual is the actual ‘official record’ they are referring to, a ritual that can never be altered or forsaken.

Tayy Dior’s name is not a nickname, it is not a quotation to insert into her “real” “official” deadname, it is not a preference. It is her name, and the media - even “trans inclusive” media - is making sure that it is, at best, the second thing they call her as they gleefully report on her violent murder

[yamujiburo]

Why I Love Hanamusa

I get this question very frequently but have never given a really in depth, definitive answer. All just kinda implied through my comics and spread out asks. So here's this I guess! Long post ahead:

First, as a Pokémon fan in her mid 20s, I love seeing a ship where the characters are both in their mid/late 20s. Already, they’re much more relatable to me and my current experiences. Most Pokémon ships are between preteens, which can be cute but ultimately don’t interest me as much as they used to when I was a kid myself. Not enough to get super invested in and draw a lot of fanart for anyways haha.

I’ll also start by saying that canon doesn’t always influence whether or not I’ll ship something. I’m much more drawn to potential. Could the characters work together? Do their personalities work together in a nice way? I feel like this so much of fanon is anyways. Especially with queer relationships because they’re rarely depicted in the first place. A lot of the context for these ships is usually up to the fans to piece together or make up in general. And that’s the fun part to me!

Jessie and Delia have only met in the anime a handful of times. Any interaction they’ve had has either been pleasant, or just a typical Team Rocket interaction, with Delia dismissing them/not seeing them as a threat. Already a great jumping off point for me since, truly, they don’t have any actual beef or true, ill feelings towards each other. It’s not TOO out of the realm of possibility for them to potentially fall for each other. “But Jessie chased Delia’s son around trying to steal his Pokémon!” That’s where that dismissive and aloof attitude that Delia has comes into play. I’ll go more into Delia’s whole deal a bit later but I do think this aspect of her personality is a large reason why this ship can work. It’s not that she doesn’t care that Jessie has a bad past, but she can tell that, on the inside, Jessie’s a good person. And, in a scenario where Jessie is trying to become a better person, is forgiving enough to give her a shot. I feel like this is such a solid foundation for a ship. A character who has done wrong but is trying to be better and another character who is willing to help them be better. A classic dynamic!

It’s not just one-sided though; where Jessie is the only one benefitting and learning from the relationship. I believe Delia could get a lot out of being with someone like Jessie. To understand why, I think it’s important to know these characters’ respective backstories.

Jessie is an orphan/foster child who grew up in poverty. Her mother Miyamoto (from The Birth of Mewtwo) was a Team Rocket operative herself, who went on a mission to find Mew. In order to do this, she had to leave Jessie when she was just a toddler. Unfortunately, Miyamoto went MIA on her mission leaving Jessie to more or less fend for herself. Jessie went through life with zero stability, evident by her MANY different careers and constant moving around. It’s implied in the show that she went from foster home to foster home, and later in life tried being an idol, weather girl, florist, wine connoisseur, actress, most notably a nurse and finally a Team Rocket field agent. And even while in Team Rocket, she, James and Meowth were always doing odd jobs to get by. We see that Jessie used to be a sweet kid, and even adult, but the world and her circumstances repeatedly did her dirty, leading her to become the character we know today. Hot tempered, mean, selfish, etc. But despite this, her soft side does still shine through for the people and Pokémon she cares about. She is incredibly loyal.

Delia, unbeknownst to a lot of fans, also had a rough past (see Pocket Monsters: The Animation). Like Jessie, she had a lot of dreams and aspirations like wanting to be a model and even a trainer. But when she was 10, her mother didn’t let her, telling her that she had to stay home and learn to run the family restaurant (she’s an only child). Delia’s father left her and her mother to be a trainer, and never returned. When she was 18, she married Ash’s father and became pregnant shortly after. But right after Ash was born, he also set off to be a Pokémon trainer. And soon after that, her mother passed away, leaving Delia with just the restaurant and baby Ash. This gives so much context to Delia’s attitude in the show. We see that Delia is pained whenever Ash leaves on a journey, but she never shows that pain to anyone. ESPECIALLY Ash. She’s very quick to shoo him off when he shows any sign of wanting to go on another journey and even when he returns home, she acts more excited to see Pikachu than him almost every time. Without all this backstory, it’s easy to just read this as a funny gag, BUT with context, I think it really shows how quickly Delia shuts down and detaches in order to not confront her own feelings. She’s afraid of losing people and getting hurt again.

All that said, I think Jessie and Delia provide each other with EXACTLY what the other needs. 

Aside from becoming rich and famous, Jessie’s biggest aspiration is to get married. In my opinion, this is more so an underlying want for love and stability. There is no one more stable in the show than Delia. Delia’s lived in Pallet her whole life, she’s worked at the same restaurant since she was young and she is always there when Ash comes back home. She has all the love, patience and stability Jessie needs and craves. While forgiving, Delia’s not stupid and can keep Jessie in check. Delia’s also just an angel, which I feel, would make Jessie want to be better. And on top of all this, on more of a surface level, Delia’s a chef and excellent cook. She shows love through cooking and Jessie, who grew up poor, regularly starving and eating snow, happily receives that love. Jessie’s able to live a happy and healthy life with someone like Delia.

Delia, as stated, is very stable. Likely pretty monotonous and solitary, especially living in such a small town like Pallet. This isn’t a bad thing but it’s a little sad when you consider that Delia also had dreams of traveling, being a model and a trainer. She had to give up so many dreams in order to fulfill her duties as a restaurant owner and mother. And even now, when Ash is off on his journey, she feels the need to always be home and be that stable pillar, leaving behind any ambitions she had, thinking it’s too late for her (she’s only 29 btw). But then along comes Jessie, dangerous, passionate, an absolute firecracker. Someone who’s whole life has been about chasing dreams and either, never giving up on them or finding a new dream to chase. Upon learning about Delia’s past aspirations, I could see Jessie pushing her towards them, letting her know that life’s too short and she has nothing to lose from trying. On top of this, Jessie’s also loyal. She, James and Meowth are depicted as doing anything for anyone who gives them food or shows them kindness. Delia does both so there’s no way Jessie would leave her. This fulfills an essential need for Delia, who is afraid of the people in her life leaving her.

There’s so much potential for mutual growth and learning between these two and I adore that. They compliment each other, they help each other and they bring out the best qualities in one another.

I’m not really sure how to end this and I could truly talk about them even more but I don’t want this to be tooooo long haha. OH I could end it with maybe the most funny aspect of this ship that I've brushed over and also what drew me to it in the first place. Jessie. As Ash’s stepmom. THE END.