My First Furby That I Thrifted With His Box. Finding Him Kinda Distracted Me From All Other Doll Projects

I have no words except... yes. Just, so much yes.

TPoH: Update!

Available here on the TPoH website or here on smackjeeves!

WIP of German, Russian, Chinese, Dutch, Polish, Esperanto, Swedish, Latin, Hungarian, Norwegian, French, Spanish and Japanese translations!

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memorybank

(inprnt)

You know what? It’s really like that sometimes.

Snurby.

Pics of Timothy where his shell is more visible.

Chi curious about the new girl that arrived today. She's a bit shy. n_n

Will post updates on Chi's (hopefully) completed armor soon!

Crap picture is a bit crap.

Social Security doesn’t actually publish the rules for disability benefits, I don’t know if y’all are aware of that.  

You don’t get a booklet when you apply or approved that explains how things work.  Not for SSI, anyway; SSDI is a separate thing that works very differently and I don’t know anything about it.  The SS website isn’t the easiest to navigate, and only lists minimal information for many aspects of the program, and for specifics, you have to call them and ask.  When you do that, they offer to send you some pamphlets, which contain the same information that’s on the website, which means you wind up having to call again.

And the thing is, even when you reach someone, they don’t always give you the same information.  Some employees seem ignorant about the entire system, some seem apathetic about everything, and some are doing their best but don’t know everything.  And some do know what they’re talking about.  And there is no way to know what kind of person you’re dealing with, and no way to check their information against something you already know to make sure, because you very well may not have the right information.

I have, in fact, been told things that are incorrect more often by SS itself than by anyone else, and I have been told wildly conflicting things by SS employees.  As an example, I was told initially that I had to report all income, even if it was under $1000. Then I was told I only had to report income if it was over $1000.  Then I was told that they can only go by taxable income, meaning if you made over $1000 at, say, an off-the-books unlicensed popup lemonade stand, or if you sold a dozen of your empty butter tubs on Craigslist for $100 each, that money doesn’t count because it’s not money that is taxed by the US government.

I was told these things within the span of six months, and the most favorable take, the latter one, came from someone higher-ranking than anyone else I’d spoken to.  She said, in these exact words, that “We only really care about taxable income.”

So what would you do?  Go by what is most favorable to you, but run the risk of having it held against you if someone decides it’s wrong, or if it IS wrong but you didn’t think it was because an employee of Social Security itself told you it was correct? Or would you go the conservative route and live in more hardship just to be safe?

We shouldn’t have to crunch ourselves into the smallest possible living situation, afraid of what they might do, not knowing the rules. Even in school, even for the very smallest children there are, there are clear rules, and everyone knows what they are so the kids can abide by them and the teachers can fairly enforce them.

You don’t get that with SS.  You get the information piecemeal and from unreliable sources. We are treated in a way that authority figures agree even children should not be treated. And I want people to know that.

Now, I admit I may have missed something. Some very obvious site, or a rulebook they were supposed to send me and I just never got, but I don’t think that’s the case.  I think they deliberately keep this information kind of under wraps because they don’t want people to “take advantage” of it.  But withholding information people could use to help themselves qualify for benefits they deserve is harming the many people who need help in order to prevent a few theoretical people from fleecing the system. 

Something like 5 million people are on Social Security. Compared to the number of people who genuinely need it, welfare fraud is nearly nonexistent. And yet policy is set, not by the overwhelming need of those who cannot do for themselves, but by the potential abuse of “undeserving” people.

Keep in mind, even those trying to fleece the system have to go THROUGH the system to do it, and it is designed to catch those people using measures that would be absolutely exhausting and almost impossible to fake.  I should know, I’ve been through the approval process.

Keeping information secret that could help someone after they have been approved is low, it prevents us advocating for ourselves and keeps us dependent on a largely untrained or poorly-trained network of social workers, SS workers, and case managers.  It is utterly inhumane.

THAT SAID

It IS worth it to fight.  It IS worth it to be on SS.  It DOES help.  It gets you into the Medcaid/Medicare system.  It helps get you SNAP benefits.  It is not enough to live on forever, not by itself; the system is broken by design; but it is SOMETHING, and without it, even fewer people would be able to survive.  The process is difficult and discouraging.  It is still better to take whatever they will give you, not as alms, not as a pittance meant to keep you quiet, but because they deserve to have to give it.  So TAKE from them.  Take everything you can.

Today I learned

Honey the Cub

I havent seen anyone talk about this yet so im making a post. 

So lets say you’re researching something for a paper (or just for fun) and the research paper you want to read is behind a paywall, or the site makes you create an account first, or makes you pay to download, or limits you to only 5 free articles, or otherwise makes it difficult for you to read what you want.

do not fear! copy the link to the article

go to sci-hub.se         (the url is always changing so its best to check out whereisscihub.now.sh to find what the current url is)

slap the article link in there

bam! free access! 

(source)

Unsplash -  photography, illustration, and art

Pixabay - same as unsplash

Pexels - stock photos and videos

Stockvault.net - stock photos

Veceezy - vectors and clipart

Getdrawings - simplistic images and drawing tutorials

Gumroad - photoshop brushes (and more)

Canva - needs login but has lots of templates

Library of Congress - historical posters and photos

NASA - you guessed it

Creative Commons - all kinds of stuff, homie

Even Adobe has some free images

There are so many ways to make moodboards, bookcovers, and icons without infringing copyright! As artists, authors, and other creatives, we need to be especially careful not to use someone else’s work and pass it off as our own. 

Please add on if you know any more sites for free images <3