Make the most of the next two months

Feel free to add on.

wow! as a broke college kid, i wish there was a way to access books and movies as well as scientific articles that the new administration isn't necessarily a fan of. man. If only there was a free and trusted vpn ( up to 10 gigs of downloadable data) to use in conjunction with an anonymizing router (also free up to 10 gigs) to safely, er, permanently borrow media in an untraceable way as well as share files. Man, what's that browser that keeps your online activity anonymous? I'm awfully attached to firefox, personally. If only i had a browser extension that would throw a smoke screen over my browsing data while blocking ads at the same time.

what was i talking about? hmm. weird.

Also consider this your semi-regular reminder to use your local public library, now with extra post-election urgency! I'm gonna be real I can't promise we will always be there for you if conservatives are in unchecked power in the American government for too long but lololol anyway I can't think about that right now or I will have a panic attack hahaha BUT! we are here for you right now and we have:

We are here for you. Please use us.

...Also maybe do some research on where and how your local public library gets its funding and how you can do your part to ensure we keep getting funding so we can keep being here for you. OKAY GOOD TALK I LOVE YOU BYE.

Because my comics have gone around the internet, many people have asked if I’ve “gotten better yet”. The answer is a firm NO because that’s not how post-viral illness triggered by an infection that causes organ and brain damage works. Please consider your behavior and who you are leaving behind.

Check out the People’s CDC here where they provide weekly updates on the COVID situation in the U.S.

ID in alt text and below!

ID: a 10-image black-and-white cartoony comic.

The 1st image is titled Pandemic Year 3 and dated January 2023. The drawing shows a masked boy with fluffy hair, Joey, surrounded by unmasked people. The text reads: At some point, the people around me decided that the price of me staying alive — a few small inconveniences for them — was too high. In image 2, Joey sits at a table with his drawing tablet looking concerned. The text reads: The world, many loved ones included, is actively hostile to me continuing to live. How do I cope with that? I don’t have the answer. I’m just really alone.

Joey, stressed and frightened, clutches his laptop. The text reads: And I mean really alone. A figure on the laptop screen says: High-risk people will take care of themselves. Joey yells: How?

This image is split into two panels. The first one reads: How do I keep myself safe when the store, work, and school, is a death trap? For each word, a triangle displays that maskless environment. The second panel shows Joey’s sad face in a Zoom window. The text reads: I’m taking my final semester of undergrad online to the displeasure of many.

Joey lays face down in a pillow. The text reads: If you’ve been following me for any time, you know I got Covid in February 2020 at 19 years old and have become disabled by long Covid. Everything smells and tastes like rotting meat, I can’t keep anything I eat down, and I’ve started randomly fainting after years of dizziness.

Joey is shirtless and masked and hooked up to an EKG. The text reads: I’m one of millions of Covid survivors for whom re-infection is much more dangerous. Not to mention everyone who was already high-risk.

Joey lays on the couch and looks at social media posts where people are posting photos of themselves maskless in crowds. The text reads: The general public is very happy to isolate high-risk people from society if it means never having to think about us ever again and continuing with the actions that kill us. That’s eugenics, by the way.

This image is split into two panels. The first one shows Joey laying down, clutching his heart, and crying. The text reads: And it’s not just the people who don’t see us. The second panel shows Joey looking disheveled. The text reads: The cognitive dissonance is unlike anything I’ve seen. A speech bubble says: Are you sure you won’t do indoor dining?

Joey holds his hands lovingly under his face and raises his arms. Hearts are around his head. The text reads: If you’re here with me and isolated from the rest of society while being continually told that your life doesn’t matter and that you’re crazy, I see you. I love you. You’re not alone.

Joey is shirtless and looking down at the portable EKG attached to his chest. The text reads: To the rest of you, I’m here asking for my life. I’m 22 and deserve to not only live but live joyfully. How much death and suffering is acceptable to you? The week of writing this, January 11th through 16th, at least 3,907 Americans have died of COVID. Recorded deaths have been over 2,500 weekly for months. Data from the People’s CDC. Recorded deaths are an undercount as many places stopped collecting or reporting data. End ID.

i love adhd. i have a lot to do at work today. i take my meds. i open the word document. i immediately misspell “benzodiazepines.” i go on tumblr to post “benzodiazepenis….” for the mutualés. and then it’s 45 minutes later and ive caught up on tumblr and checked the weather and read a fic and texted an ex and ordered new pens and looked up a recipe for chicken pot pie and posted about adhd and done zero work.

you CANNOT leave this in the tags that's so perfect and accurate

Yeagh for fuckin real...

Dealing With Executive Dysfunction - A Masterpost

This is the sacred texts, this is the holy grail.

This a GOOD STUFF, people. Read and try, it may work for you 🤞

> “mannish features”

> look inside

> literally just common physical traits among women of colour

you can’t separate transmisogyny from racism. the radical feminism movement is so overwhelmingly white because their idea of what a woman is is so thoroughly steeped in white supremacy.

Like a moth to a flame. Insatiable ☕️🩸

In hindsight it's very insulting to be told that flunking out of college due to adhd is actually "quite common"

just like, if there's a history at your institution of disabled kids not being able to make it you realise that's your fault right. like why don't you fucking do something about it. i guess they tried to do something about it with me and it failed so they let me go. crazy. nice work. why should we try to do any better.

only 5% of people with adhd who go to college finish a degree. FUCKING. FIVE!!! PERCENT!!!!!!!!!!!

that should disgust and enrage you.

if any other demographic of students had a 95% failure rate, we would be demanding reform and studies to understand why that’s happening

when i was at my first university, trying to get accommodations for my ADHD, they just kept asking me what accommodations i wanted, and refused to answer when i would ask what was available to me. how the Hell am i supposed to know what i can have? what’s available???? also, i don’t know!!!! i’m an adhd sufferer, not a fucking disability expert for the fucking college, unlike you, DISABILITY EXPERT WHO WORKS FOR THE COLLEGE.

but because the us is OBSESSED with making sure no one gets anything “”for free””, she literally would not tell me what my options were until i broke down in tears and asked her why she was refusing to help me. and then she did a big sigh, like i was fucking up her entire career by *checks notes* asking the disability center in my university to help me, a disabled student

at the second uni i went to, i tried to explain to a dean that i was literally two gen eds that had nothing to do with my degree away from graduating and that i was burnt out and broke and exhausted and suicidal and i just needed to be able to finish my degree without the gen eds. and this. fucking. guy. looked me right in my face and said in the most patronizing tone he could muster “if you can’t handle it, then maybe college just isn’t for you.” keep in mind that up until that semester, i had been an honor student who made Dean’s List every semester and didn’t get below Bs. if it hadn’t been for my mental breakdown, i would have graduated cum laude, maybe even summa cum laude.

but this dean of students looked a disabled person right in the face and said well i guess you just can’t do it, short bus

Pulled these from a couple articles really quick but yeah the statistics are not kind. I remember writing a scathing essay about my issues with ADHD and college as part of an assignment for academic probation. I got back an email calling me entitled and lazy. Somehow, this thread helps me feel a lot better. I still have about a semester of school unfinished that I’m unsure if I’ll finish but… yeah. Makes me feel better to know it’s not just me.

i've been diagnosed with ADHD for about 15 years now, i just finished a PhD (it took me 7 years) and i never fucking want to put a pen on paper for work again in my life. yeah i 'finished' but at what cost

Stop adapting the iliad and the Odyssey into movies. You'll never succeed. Adapt them into shounen anime, as is their god given right

My new favorite thing: People making their reusable elastomeric respirators beautiful! (Usually the Dentec P100 or the Dentec N95, which are NIOSH-certified and reusable.)

(Above is the artist @nickelpin)

I've been collecting as many of these customizations as I can find, and I think they fall into a few categories:

2. The second is make it fashion, where the aim is to just make something that looks so incredibly cool that you feel beautiful wearing it, and it feels like a stylish accessory. These use lots of shiny elements and swirling patterns (all of the below by @nickelpin)

3. And the third is punk where the mask customization embraces and enhances its non-conforming / resistance undertones. My favorite in this category is by @andrewshumate, who installed a CO2 monitor and set it up so the filters change color based on the CO2 levels in the space.

Talking about materials: @nickelpin has mentioned that she uses Angelus 2-Hard or Angelus leather paint.

A lot of others are using Posca paint markers.

I have been daydreaming a lot about designs for a customized Dentec P100 or N95!

(my daily masks are either my Dentec P100 or the comfy 3M Aura N95, and I'd like to have a reusable respirator that looks less intimidating for everyday walks etc.)

First, some cheerful patterns. I actually like the cloud one a lot, I might do it. I think the high-contrast sunflower design is super effective at distracting the eye from the respirator shape.

I’m also really into this night sky version. Feels more beautiful / mysterious / subtle.

These are not my style, but I'm reeeeeally into the idea of bootleg Louis Vuitton designer masks. (This is like, the opposite of punk, lol)

Just thinking about how wearing a respirator (like KN95, N95, or the pictured elastomeric N95s and P100s) is very cool and my personal experience is that everyone thinks you're cool and attractive when you do it.

Project N95 is a nonprofit that sells these and other respirators for relatively cheap, you can find them here: link .

FEDERAL INQUIRY INTO ADHD MEDICATION SHORTAGE ANNNOUNCED

IF YOU HAVE STRUGGLED TO GET YOUR ADHD MEDICATION, YOU HAVE 60 DAYS TO TELL THE FTC YOUR STORY FOR CONSIDERATION IN THIS INQUIRY AT THE LINK BELOW! The FTC must read all responses. So tell them about having to call multiple pharmacies, being unable to get generics, your struggles with insurance coverage, everything!

Plain Text: Federal inquiry into ADHD medication shortage announced

If you have struggled to get your ADHD medication, you have 60 days to tell the FTC your story for consideration in the inquiry at the link below! The FTC must read all responses. So tell them about having to call multiple pharmacies, being unable to get generics, your struggles with insurance coverage, everything! /end plain text.

an article from ADDitude magazine about the matter:

for some reason, a lot of the articles on the matter (okay, 2 out of the 3 i found) are aimed at entrepreneurs?

@copperbadge I think you mentioned this affecting you?

It didn't have a ton of impact on me until very recently but I'll definitely go leave a comment, and I know my readership will be interested to comment as well.

The Additude article has the best info on how to submit it but if you have ADHD it's still a wall of fuckin' text to read and implies strongly you should be sending emails, which is not actually what they're currently soliciting.

So to make it easy:

(@orbleglorb I suspect the weird slant to the articles is because Inc published one, and a lot of sites that serve startup culture crib from Inc and other financially-oriented papers.)

@aimmyarrowshigh

“but shrouded black figures are scary!” not when ur muslim. its the funniest fucking thing. this is labeled on pinterest under shit like “classic horror” “scary phone wallpaper”

but that LITERALLY just looks like a niqabi or someone in a jilbab. Like Look at this pic of me (from a self photoshoot, now w/o the dramatic lighting and dark background)

or this pic of me

or this pic of me

like its so funny i can’t be scared of shrouded figures it just looks like me.

if i saw this i would just be like “Assalam alaikum sister, dope sword you got there”

I mean I think a part of the ‘scary background’ bit is the thing where the individual in question is staring directly at the viewer from a foggy pond in a dense forest. And also the literal burning halo

sounds like a normal Friday night. if a sister wants to go on a walk in the evening who am i to stop her. if she has a burning halo that’s the will of god.

my mom told me that credit card interest paid used to be tax deductible and i looked this up because it sounded totally bananas to me but apparently this used to be the case until 1986. what sort of fantasy world were baby boomers living in

just got a second official warning for my use of "from the river to the sea, palestine will be free" on the OTW volunteer slack

people are also currently asking board to ban saying that the founding of israel was colonialism—equating this to saying racial slurs—and were complaining about my status back when it was "palestine will be free", too

suffice to say, fuck that place, don't give the OTW your money, and don't fucking volunteer there

(the second screenshot is from the warning I got a few days ago)

I'm honestly going to need to reflect on whether I want to keep my fics on AO3. I don't want to support an org that denies a current ongoing genocide