[dykealloy]

what are the rules for breakfast today?

[rabbitkinglune777]

makes me sad that most YouTube art videos are about "how to make your ocs interesting", "how to grow your account in social media", "how to not make mary sues" like what happened to just drawing for fun and sharing it- oh wait I forgot this is the result of lolcowing people for their technical art skills and or clout related things.

[rabbitkinglune777]

we are in an era where people openly and harshly judge people's creative output because of the normalization of having a "freak" of the week. it makes me sad cuz as artists we should be having fun, not treating social media like an art competition or forcing our art to be "perfect" and digestible.

[rabbitkinglune777]

another thing is the constant need to market yourself and assimilate into a squeaky clean brand via treating social media like full time job rather than hobby you put your art on and occasionally get paid for. it's not a moral failing but I swear it's another form of art being controlled and governed by capitalism.

[sevdahalma]

most fantasy books or fics i’ve read that contained a desert biome fell back on real world prejudice and misconceptions in place of authentic worldbuilding for a place and people, and it is so telling that the trope seems to repeat itself

things like

the desert as a lifeless wasteland where ‘life is crushed underneath the shifting sands and blazing sun’ blah blah blah. deserts are full of life and they are beautiful and people have lived and prospered in them for eons. please read a book

the desert as an ugly or barren terrain where everything is harsh and threatening

the desert as something scary

the inhabitants as backwards religious zealots

the men as overly violent and oppressive

the inhabitants in need of outside instruction/intervention, i.e. “civilizing the savage”

the “harem” and women as exotic, sensual, mysterious

writing tribalism with no knowledge of how tribes actually function

djinn (or for the westerners, genies)

Islam Lite (the aesthetics or spiritual practices appropriated and stripped of meaning)

sprinkling random arabic words for ✨flavor✨instead of expanding your worldbuilding to include language as well

clothing as oppressive or mysterious, instead of serving its actual purpose (protecting you from the elements, which should be obvious but i guess it isn’t. covering your skin keeps you cooler and safer in most deserts)

people who live in deserts as ignorant, superstitious, uneducated

this isn’t worldbuilding, it’s just ignorance and bigotry

[thegenderal]

even before i lived in a place with a massive population of feral cats decimating the wildlife i had read the studies and knew the data said that TNR did not work and we need to be trapping and euthanizing feral cats but now that i’ve lived in a place where there are an enormous number of feral cats it’s like, inconceivable to me that anyone supports TNR, not just for the health of the world but for the sake of the fucking cats

[thegenderal]

nobody will even acknowledge it not even in most conservation circles. We have a solution to a massive, massive problem that is more humane, cheaper, easier, takes less time, prevents animal suffering, and saves valuable members of our disappearing ecosystem. And nobody is even willing to theoretically acknowledge that it exists outside of a few very small circles.

[thegenderal]

it works. It works. It is better for the cats. It’s better for the cats. Living in a place where you cannot drive 10 minutes without seeing a new roadkill cat almost every single day really makes you think about how much suffering could have been prevented if we just dealt with the problem we have created. It’s not a pleasant way to go, being hit by a car. Or being ripped apart by a predator, or eating a poison, or starving to death, of dying of an infection, or an illness, or any of the hundred thousand ways an animal in the wild passes without human intervention. Euthanasia is simply falling asleep. It is fucking wild to me that saying you think we should take responsibility for our mistakes and ensure that cats fall asleep peacefully instead of capturing them and then hurling them back out into the world SPECIFICALLY in order to allow them to die in agony makes people treat you like a fucking serial killer.

[thegenderal]

And if you don’t care about cats dying in agony do you care about the world around you? There’s a species of bird we only know ever existed because someone’s cat brought home our only example. That’s horrific. We’ve lost so much biodiversity because we simply won’t listen to the research, which again, has proven that TNR is not effective.

[thegenderal]

a peaceful death is not the worst thing that could happen to an animal.

[thegenderal]

@cathartidae sources for ya!

Sources:

https://ask.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/UW468 “How Effective and Humane Is Trap-Neuter-Release (TNR) for Feral Cats?” 

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6523511/ “A Case of Letting the Cat out of The Bag—Why Trap-Neuter-Return Is Not an Ethical Solution for Stray Cat (Felis catus) Management” (also has a thousand references attached that are handy)

Not a reference so much as the human society actively admitting that TNR does nothing to decrease population, actively contributes to harming wildlife, and doesn’t actually help the cats in any way, just reduces some of the nuisance behavior that people complain about: https://www.animalhumanesociety.org/resource/real-impacts-trap-neuter-return

Unscientific from here on out as i don’t feel like trying to find the studies i read in like January of last year:

https://hahf.org/awake/the-trouble-with-trap-vaccinate-neuter-return/ “The Trouble With Trap-Neuter-Re (Abandon!) from the hillsborough animal health foundation, articles also link to studies

https://abcbirds.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/The-Evidence-Against-TNR.pdf from the american bird conservancy, has scientific articles quoted. 

[thegenderal]

Even More Sources on TNR being non-viable and ways that cats are impacting the world from birds to *hawai’i’s monk seals*

Animal Emergency and Referral Center of Minnesota. (2022, October 26). Indoor cats vs. outdoor cats. Animal Emergency & Referral Center of Minnesota. https://aercmn.com/indoor-cats-vs-outdoor-cats/

Campbell, V. (2017, January 25). The Obituary of the Stephens Island Wren. All About Birds. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/the-obituary-of-the-stephens-island-wren/

Castillo, D., & Clarke, A. L. (2003). Trap/neuter/release methods ineffective in controlling domestic cat “colonies” on public lands. Natural Areas Journal, 23(3).

Coe, S. T., Elmore, J. A., Elizondo, E. C., & Loss, S. R. (2021). Free-ranging domestic cat abundance and sterilization percentage following five years of a trap–neuter–return program. Wildlife Biology, 2021(1). https://doi.org/10.2981/wlb.00799

del Hoyo, J., Collar, N., Kirwan, G. M., & Sharpe, C. J. (2022, October 25). Guadalupe storm-petrel (Hydrobates Macrodactylus), version 1.2. Birds of the World. https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/guspet/cur/introduction

Dickman, C. R., & Newsome, T. M. (2015). Individual hunting behaviour and prey specialisation in the house cat Felis catus: Implications for conservation and management. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 173, 76–87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2014.09.021

Edge. (2019, June 19). Guadalupe storm-petrel. EDGE of Existence. https://www.edgeofexistence.org/species/guadalupe-storm-petrel/

Galbreath, R., & Brown, D. (2004). The tale of the lighthouse-keeper’s cat: Discovery and extinction of the Stephens Island wren (Traversia lyalli). Notornis, 51(4).

Hawai’i Department of Land and Natural Resources. (2025). Feral cats. Feral Cats. https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/hisc/info/invasive-species-profiles/feral-cats/#:~:text=Feral%20cats%20on%20islands%20have,kill%20approximately%202.4%20billion%20birds.

Loss, S. R., Will, T., & Marra, P. P. (2013). The impact of free-ranging domestic cats on wildlife of the United States. Nature Communications, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms2380

McGregor, H., Legge, S., Jones, M. E., & Johnson, C. N. (2015). Feral cats are better killers in open habitats, revealed by animal-borne video. PLOS ONE, 10(8). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0133915

Medina, F. M., Bonnaud, E., Vidal, E., Tershy, B. R., Zavaleta, E. S., Josh Donlan, C., Keitt, B. S., Corre, M., Horwath, S. V., & Nogales, M. (2011). A global review of the impacts of invasive cats on Island Endangered Vertebrates. Global Change Biology, 17(11), 3503–3510. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02464.x

National Research Council. (1992, January 1). Scientific Bases for the Preservation of the Hawaiian Crow. U.S. National Library of Medicine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK235935/

NOAA. (2024, August 29). Toxoplasmosis and its effects on Hawaiʻi Marine Wildlife. NOAA Fisheries. https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/pacific-islands/endangered-species-conservation/toxoplasmosis-and-its-effects-hawaii-marine

Read, J. L., Dickman, C. R., Boardman, W. S., & Lepczyk, C. A. (2020). Reply to Wolf et al.: Why trap-neuter-return (TNR) is not an ethical solution for Stray Cat Management. Animals, 10(9), 1525. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10091525

Reed, L. (2022). The effects of free-roaming cats on native wildlife populations. Wildlife Rehabilitation Bulletin, 40(1), 17–21. https://doi.org/10.53607/wrb.v40.250

Salano, E. (2024, October 5). Eliciting the effect free roaming cats have on Native Hawaiian wildlife using stable isotope analysis. UKnowledge. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/biology_etds/103/ 

Steele, J. H., Thorpe, S. A., & Turekian, K. K. (2009). Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences. Academic Press. 

science says it’s long past time to stop prolonging the suffering of feral cats, for the sake of the people, the native wildlife, and the goddamn cats themselves.

[boundless-ennui]

I was at a friend's house to check on carcasses I had macerating in his yard. A little grey cat ran up to me, yelling her head off in friendliness and wanting nothing more than to be pet. I had nothing to give her but let my friend know he should catch her since she was so friendly. I am ashamed to admit I didn't give her much thought beyond that, finishing my work and giving her a last pet before going home.

My friend told me how he'd seen her before but she always vanished before he could catch her. He works far too many hours and is always tired so he couldn't prioritize catching this cat.

Three months pass with no sign of her. I go back with my partner to check on carcasses and this same little grey cat appears. This time, however, a tooth has been snapped off and her tongue is so badly cut that she can't keep it in her mouth. She was thin and dirty and screaming to please be given some food.

This time I couldn't look away. I asked my friend's girlfriend if I could borrow a cat carrier. She loaned me one and a tin of wet food that the grey cat willingly followed into the carrier. She didn't care at all about being put into the carrier - all she wanted was a hand on her. She'd arch up against the top just so my hand would rest on her back for a moment.

We drove through rush hour traffic to the only shelter still open. We knew we couldn't keep her and I couldn't stand the thought of putting her back out on the streets to die slowly.

The shelter couldn't take her. Her ear was clipped so she was a "community cat" and outside their ability to help. They tried desperately to offer alternatives to me as I cried over her carrier, knowing I couldn't take her home but also that if I didn't I couldn't live with the thought of her back on the streets.

I made a Hail Mary call to a local friend who is very connected in our city. They didn't have my number saved but answered all the same to hear me sobbing about a cat I'd found and to please help me find a place for her. Please. If I don't find something then she'll be alone on the streets again to die.

My friend came through. I could keep the cat in their garage overnight and in the morning my friend would be back in the city and could find someone to help the cat.

The shelter folk gave me a crate and some food - their hands were tied but they didn't want to leave me with nothing. They were good people doing the best they could in their own system. Community cats were ones they weren't allowed to "waste" resources on. Ostensibly they'd been dealt with and their fate decided. There was nothing the shelter folks were allowed to do for them.

I took the cat to my friend's garage. She was settled into a crate on towels, happy as a clam to be warm and safe. This was a cat made to be loved and to love, as she immediately began trying to groom one of my friend's roommates. He stayed in the garage with her, giving her food and water and in exchange having no say on whether she was in his lap or not. She was always in his lap.

Nobby Nobbs (so named for the only other character known to man that is as scrungly as she is) was then formally adopted by my friend. Her tongue has healed, her fur remains scrungly, and she's every bit the rabid love bug I suspected her to be when she came to me yelling to be pet.

She's a TNR cat. Someone thought they were doing her a kindness in that and if nothing else she didn't add kittens to the world but that doesn't negate the pain she suffered before I found her - the broken teeth, the lacerated tongue, the ulcerated cheeks, the flea-bald patchiness of her coat.

I say this as someone who adores this cat and has the privilege to see her loved and cherished: I wish she'd never had to suffer what she did. I wish people were alright making the harder call that leads to less misery on the side of the cats.

TNR is a polite fiction, nothing more. Just so the humans can pretend they've done right by the same cats they're letting loose to die miserably somewhere else. As long as the humans don't see it it's fine.

The shelter folks told me she's a community cat and that I could take her home and release her by my house. Then I could feed her myself and keep up with her and know where she was! I could still keep her, after a fashion.

I am not proud of how I snarled back that I would never exchange a quick death for a slow one. I would be giving her a different funeral plot, not giving her a life. Even near me she'd be just as vulnerable to the innumerable predators that find cats quite delicious, let alone cars and poisons and the other cruelties humans practice on stray cats.

She's the second stray cat I've met that when I held them the cat melted in my arms, purring and so desperately wanting to be loved. The first cat I was able to trap and take to a local shelter only to find when I called to check on him a day later that his health had been so terrible, so beyond help, that he'd been put down. All the love in that tiny body lost because the people I lived beside didn't care enough to trap the cats they had.

My partner was asleep. I woke her up to crawl into her arms and sob, my heart breaking for the stupidity of the humans who hadn't cared enough to grant this poor little cat the chance to be either an indoor cat, loved and cared for, or to grant him a quick death long before I met him. I've other stories of the cats they kept around, essentially feeding the poor souls to the predatory birds and wandering dogs that frequented our area.

TNR doesn't work. It is a lie humans tell ourselves so we can pretend we haven't failed these animals on a massive scale. Cats are invasive and cause massive harm in their turn. It is humanity who needs to deal with this crisis, this horror we've made, and I pray one day we look it square in the face and vow to make it right.

[thegenderal]

sorry

[dykeofalltrades]

for the record, this includes barn and farm cats. ive grown up in a place where theyre common. theyre not better off

[nesmamomen]

FUCK EVERTHING Israel killed seven members of my family. I saw my brother taking his last breaths. My brother was young, he hadn't done anything wrong. They killed him while he was hungry!!!! I tried to stop the bleeding, but he died, tears streaming from his eyes...

My little sister is suffering from a chest injury and a thigh injury and needs urgent treatment. I will never forgive anyone who sees this post and ignores my little sister's suffering.

[nesmamomen]

My sister Toto needs help

My sister Toto needs help

My sister Toto needs help

Please don't kill my sister with your silence. Please save my sister; she needs treatment and psychological support. To donate here or via PayPal here

[nesmamomen]

$400 LEFT LEFT LEFT To save Toto

Verification here

[butchmagicalboi]

Help Nesma's sister out by donating 🙏🏽

$18,689 out of $50,000

Share and/or Donate

@rob-os-17 @beserkerjewel @rickybabyboy

[pronouncingitwang]

at some point in your life you will be boiling fruit, water, sugar, and lemon juice in a pot to make a syrup or jam. the instructions will tell you to simmer for a certain amt of time. your timer will go off and you will look at the pot and go, "hm, this doesn't look thick enough. maybe i'll let it go for another 10 minutes." this is the devil speaking. it's only so liquid right now because it is at boiling point. it will thicken when it cools down. learn from the follies of my youth and do not let this happen to you

[yokowan]

at some point in your life you will be making a sauce or a stew in which you need to add cornstarch to thicken it. and you will prepare a slurry of starch in cold water and think "this looks like way too little starch to thicken this amount of liquid." this is the devil speaking. cornstarch instantly polymerizes at 95°C and if you add too much it will turn into an impossibly thick goop.

[le-jardin-inculte]

at some point in your life you will be making some sort of cream based dessert that requires gelatin to thicken it. and you will soak some gelatin sheets in water and think "this is too few gelatin sheets for this amount of cream." this is the devil speaking. it will thicken in the fridge and if you add too much you will end up with milk jelly

[shithowdy]

at some point in your life you will be baking cookies. you will take the sheet out after twelve minutes as the recipe instructs and the cookies will still be glistening and soft. "these don't seem cooked enough," you will think to yourself, "i should place them back into the oven until their edges are nice and golden." this is the devil talking. this is how you get dry, overdone cookies. the cookies will continue to bake on the warm sheet for several more minutes and then harden up after sitting on a rack for a while. trust the process. trust the process.

[whitachi]

at some point in your life you will be adding a small pasta to a soup and you will think "that is not enough small pasta." this is the devil talking. the pasta will absorb the stock and expand. this is how you end up with a soup that is a solid mass of soggy ditalini.

[araceil]

At some point in your life you will be adding garlic to a dish and you will think "that is not enough garlic." These are angels speaking. They are correct. Add more garlic.

[wutheringheightsfilm]

every day it just concerns me how little compassion people have. no compassion for those living in the global south. no compassion for immigrants. no compassion for disabled ppl. no compassion for addicts. no compassion for prisoners. no compassion for children. like holy shit ...

[wutheringheightsfilm]

i made a separate post about this but actually there are plenty of people cough white people who care about animals more than they ever do human people . not what i'm talking about make your own post

[nourishedbytime]

[tennesseewillams]

idk i always kind of roll my eyes at all those posts that are like “people used to be ugly in movies” like….. well☝️i don’t think that’s true. i think male actors have always had more leeway to look a bit imperfect. we’ve had average/weird looking male actors in every generation, including this one. but people have always needed to be “hot” for movies. and they did crazy shit for it!! marlene dietrich getting teeth extracted to hollow out her cheeks, carole lombard undergoing her (non-cosmetic) facial reconstruction without anesthesia because they thought it would look better, etc ad infinitum. do you know the kinds of diets they had women on to keep them skinny…. not to mention beauty standards for women of color tryna be in movies. like there’s a reason the three biggest black actresses of classic hollywood decades were josephine baker, lena horne, and dorothy dandridge: all pretty lightskinned with smaller mouths and noses -> approximating whiteness (no shade i love these women sm). i think the difference Today is that there are simply way more procedures you can get done since cosmetic medicine has evolved so much. so people can change more of their face with better and more reliable results than they could in the 1930s. point being that people have definitely always needed to be conventionally attractive to be in movies but given the physical scope of what could be conceivably changed about your appearance there was simply more diversity in like facial structure and features

[kawuli]

random PSA, I know a lot of people use duckduckgo as a Google alternative search engine, but it always kind of annoyed me when I was using it because it felt like No Name Brand Google

I have switched to using Startpage.com and vastly prefer it. for one thing, instead of displaying an "AI summary" at the top of the search results (unless you turn it off, yes I know), it displays the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article, with link, whenever it finds one that's relevant.

also a waaayyyyy better sense of design than duckduckgo

also private, European based, least annoying search I've used lately (RIP old "don't be evil" Google)

[yomikoreadsbooks]

Keeping a list of Google alternatives just in case…

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

i have one of those, scraped from multiple different rec posts:

Search Engines

Infinity Search is an alternative search engine with a special focus on privacy

DuckDuckGo is a popular search engine for those who value their privacy and are put off by the thought of their every query being tracked and logged. Uses bangs, ![site] for in-page search (sells your data to microsoft and draws from fucking bing)

WolframAlpha is a privately owned search engine that allows you to “compute expert-level answers using Wolfram’s breakthrough algorithms, knowledgebase, and AI technology.” A data search engine.

Boardreader is a search engine for forums and message boards. It allows you to search forums and then filter down results by date and language.

Based in France, Qwant is a privacy-based search engine that won’t record your searches or use your personal details for advertising. Uses “&” as a bang search.

Another privacy-based search engine is Search Encrypt, which uses local encryption to ensure that users’ identifiable information cannot be tracked. Metasearch across multiple engines. 

Offering unbiased results from several sources, SearX is a metasearch engine that aims to present a free, decentralized view of the internet. Can be self-hosted. 

Gibiru’s tagline is “Unfiltered private search” and that’s exactly what it offers. Requires AnonymoX Firefox add-on for privacy. 

Disconnect allows you to conduct anonymous searches through a search engine of your choice.

Swisscows provides fully encrypted searches to protect your privacy and security. Built-in violence/porn filter cannot be overridden. 

MetaGer offers “Privacy Protected Search & Find” through its anonymised search. A plugin will allow it to be made a default.

Gigablast is a private search engine that indexes millions of websites and servers real-time information without tracking your data, keeping you hidden from marketers and spammers. Variety of filtration and refinement options for searching. 

Oscobo is a search engine that protects your privacy while you search the web. By not using any third-party tools or scripts, your data is protected from hacking and misuse. Has a Chrome extension to allow use in toolbar. 

https://search.marginalia.nu/ an independent DIY search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and attempts to show you sites you perhaps weren't aware of in favor of the sort of sites you probably already knew existed. Use old-school searching rather than query-based for the best results. 

https://www.mojeek.com/ 

https://wiby.me/ - It’s goal is to index as many personalized websites as possible, and NOT commercial sites. 

https://4get.ca/ it works a lot like SearX, but honestly better. It doesn’t have its own index, but pulls from many others. I think it’s the best for research, since it allows you to search for answers from different indexes, is easy to configure, add free, and avoids censorship as much as it can.

https://www.searchenginemap.com/ for more on how search engines relate to each other.

https://yep.com/ is a crawler

https://www.etools.ch/ retrieves from Google, Mojeek, Bing, and Yandex, like Searx

https://www.dogpile.com/ 

https://searxng.org/ (next gen Searx)

https://luxxle.com/ - possibly conservative?

https://presearch.com/ - good for academic?

https://kagi.com/smallweb - free/randomised Kagi.

Other Searchers

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free.https://cosine.club/ is an electronic music similarity search engine

[gondorrevealparty]

They need to eat less because they're so small and weak. Why are they so small and weak? Because they eat less. Let's base our entire society on this distinction.

[aristocrating]

its 2026 i cannot handle any more fucking "author A obviously ripped off author B" discourse by people Who Have Only Seen the work of author B and admit themselves that they have no further knowledge of the literary landscape they are moving in. like.

[insomaniackills]

Folks really need to reacquaint themselves with this concept

[crabussy]

hi trans kiwis and friends. if you haven't seen the news, they're trying to pass a frankly insidious bill in aotearoa to define the terms 'man' and 'woman' based on biological sex. this unsurprisingly reflects a lot of similar cruel efforts happening overseas at the moment. IT HASN'T PASSED YET, but I figured I should speak up about it because this is happening as we speak.

(screenshot from the linked RNZ article)

it seems very fucking bleak!!!! please don't lose hope! it hasn't passed yet and a lot of the shoddy bills suggested by the coalition have been shot down already. it's still worth knowing about. you don't have to share this post if you don't want to. I just know that a lot of my followers are kiwi. if there are any updates as to what we can do to push back against this, I'll make a relevant addition. kia kaha, okay? love you all.

[crabussy]

UPDATE: you can now very quickly and very easily submit a comment on the bill! these will be counted and considered in parliament.

it took me less than three minutes, and that's only because I wrote a whole paragraphs on why this is a stupid idea. all you really need to put is "don't pass this bill" if you want. it'll only take 30 seconds.

if you're able to and you want to, please consider reblogging! the more reach this gets, the better. thank you all so much [:

[bigfatscience]

What is your stance on eating junk food on a daily basis? I know that you are an advocate for eating without restriction for optimal body function and getting nutrients for health, however junk food, especially, sugary snack foods do not possess sny nutrients. Would you recommend eating only junk food because it is what you want and are used to or substititing with healthier, more nutritional alternatives?

My stance is that unrestricted eating means unrestricted eating. Yummy yummy candies, cakes, ice creams, tarts, chips, pizza, burgers, fries and other goodies are part of a normal varied diet. It’s perfectly OK to eat them every day as part of an otherwise varied and satisfying diet. It is nothing but cultural biases like classism and racism that vilify such foods. It’s even wrong to claim that they don’t have any “nutrients” (though I also don’t believe in analyzing our foods in that way so I won’t indulge that aspect of your question any further, beyond pointing out that it is incorrect).

Most people who have the privilege of food security live their lives restricting those foods, and so they begin to take on a special obsessive place in their lives. People crave those foods, then eat them and feel guilty, so they restrict them again. People moralize about those foods and link the eating, or avoiding, of those foods to personal feelings of worth. This is all disordered. 

The truth is that those yummy things are just foods. No different in the grand scheme than a carrot or an avocado or that god-awful kale.

So when people who have the privilege of food security truly embrace unrestricted eating, those foods lose all their power. They become just another option in a wide sea of food options. Some days you eat them, and some days you don’t, and you don’t worry about it at all. Doesn’t that sound better than obsessing all the time?

But honestly, this topic is far too big to cover in a single ask. I spent two years working with a dietitian and educating myself online to learn how to eat intuitively and without any restriction at all. I am lucky that I was able to access that support and it has been truly life changing for me and my family. If you want to learn how to get from where you are to a place of peace with food, you can start your education here:

The Food Psych Podcast

The Fat Nutritionist

The Ellyn Satter Institute

Anti-Diet by Christy Harrison 

[bigfatscience]

From Christy Harrison, MPH, RD, CDN

Pro tip: ALL foods have nutritional value. I feel like at least once a week I hear someone say “X food has no nutritional value.” Usually the food in question is high in carbohydrates and/or fat. . But guess what carbohydrates and fat are? NUTRIENTS! Technically they’re called “macronutrients,” but #dietculture conveniently erases that fact by shortening their name to “macros.” . Carbs and fat are nutrients, and our bodies need them in order to function. If that’s not nutritional value, I don’t know what is. (Plus, carb- and fat-rich foods often contain other important nutrients [like vitamins and minerals and protein], too.) 

[silvaurum]

"i would kill a pedophile to protect my child" ok but would you teach your child how to say no? even to adults? even to adults you like? would you teach your child the words "penis" and "vulva" and then use them? would you let them ask questions about their body? would you answer them honestly? would you learn how to cope with your feelings when you talk about human bodies, so they don't feel ashamed? would you set a positive example for how you talk about your body? would you tell your child they don't have to hug or kiss anyone? would you tell your family the same? would you stand by them when they refuse to hug someone? even someone you know has never done anything to hurt them? would you let your child avoid food they don't like? would you let you child avoid people they don't like? would you believe them? would you sit in the discomfort of not knowing all the answers and not take it out on them? would you love your child the same if someone did hurt them? would you make them feel valued just as they are? would you let them talk to doctors or nurses in private? would you let them express their feelings? would you show interest in their life? would you let your child say no to you? would you help your child feel safe coming to you when they make a mistake? would you apologize to your child? would you believe them? would you put aside your anger to focus on what would make your child feel safe and loved? would you put your ego aside for your child? would you take your child's concerns seriously? would you listen to your child? would you believe them?

[mikkeneko]

that one thread about going back into a burning building to save your beloved pet gives me a lot of the same energy as this -- yeah, it's fun to fantasize about the Heroic Deed that you would commit on behalf of your loved one, while side-eyeing or outright sneering at people who aren't willing to make such grand declarations. but the odds that you're going to be called on to perform the Grand Heroic Deed is pretty low; in the meanwhile, are you performing the mundane, tedious, and sometimes unpleasant day-to-day work of preparing your loved one for this scenario? have you tested your smoke alarm batteries in the last six months? have you trained your pets to go to the door in case of an alarm? do you have a fire extinguisher in your house?

[beemovieerotica]

the cognitive dissonance from people who want the products of modern medicine but get weird about animal research. like im sorry but this is necessary for the survival of the society we currently live in. and the scientists who work on these things are not evil cackling psychopaths. anyone you talk to in animal research has incredibly complex feelings about their work and incredibly complex relationships to the animals in their care. there are regulations and oversight and penalties in place to make the work as humane as possible and scientists are overwhelmingly the ones enforcing and advocating for better care.

[beemovieerotica]

@velvetdemon I'm doing a full reply because I want to give this question the time and space it deserves, and I really do appreciate your curiosity about this.

The short answer: It is deeply unethical. There are nowhere near enough willing patients in the world to be able to do this, and it would be criminal to put them through this.

The long answer: The one side of the equation you're focusing on is: how much of a drug is too much, to the point where it will cause negative side effects or even death? And this is crucial to know. But it's not just a matter of finding out the lethal dosage of a heart cholesterol medication, you need to know that it can actually lower the cholesterol of any living thing. There is no way to know this without giving it first to...a living thing.

But beyond this, I need to emphasize: The goal of a drug trial is to effectively cure people who are already suffering from disease, who are living on limited time.

Drug trials don't just happen on any member of the public, they need to happen specifically on people affected by the disease you're trying to treat. There is at any time a very limited and very marginalized population of the world affected by early onset, familial Parkinson's disease. Because you cannot ethically induce disease in a human being, you are working with, speaking with, and helping patients and their families who are hopeful and desperate for a cure.

If you were to jump straight to human trials from petri dishes, not knowing absolutely anything about how the drug functions in a living, breathing animal body, it would look like this:

We didn't know that minute quantities of the drug interact lethally with x, y, z medication that people are commonly also taking. X number of patients have died as a result.

We didn't know that the drug is fatal to people with [common variant] in their genetics. X more patients have died.

We didn't know the drug exacerbates x, y, z chronic illnesses. X number of people have acquired permanent, lifelong disabilities.

We didn't know the best way to deliver the drug, so we tried multiple ways: the people who received it intravenously are now suffering from a painful, costly, and debilitating condition that did not happen with the ingested form.

I could go on, and on, and on.

The vast majority of these problems can be nearly or almost entirely averted by testing other animals first.

These are all people who possibly could have waited for the normal progression from animal testing to human testing and thus received better outcomes. Some people will pass away in the time it takes to get to that point, and that's heartbreaking, and we all wish science could be faster.

But the cost of expediting science could mean a life of profoundly greater suffering or an even shorter life than the one where no intervention happens at all. And at that point, you have completely exhausted your trust, your goodwill, and your patients' hope, after you've failed to do anything or even worsened the lives of people who are already deeply suffering.

[manslaughter]

hi, i’m an animal research professional. making sure laboratory animals stay alive, healthy, and enriched has been my full-time job for several years now.

animal research is not the mad scientist wild west that PETA wants you to think it is. there are extremely strict federal laws in place to protect the well being of these animals. animal welfare organizations like AAALAC ensure that lab animals are treated with dignity & respect and are given enough specialized care & enrichment to be happy and content in captivity, just like AZA accreditation with zoos.

not a single animal from a zebrafish to a mouse to a dog to a macaque goes unaccounted for. if an animal gets moved to a new cage, paired for breeding, has a procedure performed on it, gives birth, gets sick or injured, dies, etc. it is legally required that this information is recorded and kept on file for the US federal government to access. failing to record & retain this information is very much punishable by US federal law.

let me tell you - if you abuse or kill an animal, even a mouse - you are almost certainly getting both fired & blacklisted from the industry. if you abuse or kill a more ‘advanced’ animal, such as a dog or monkey, you will likely face criminal charges. killing a monkey is as serious and disastrous as a nuclear meltdown. you are expected to reasonably explain every illness, injury, or death of an animal under your care. you must record all of this information. animals that are clearly suffering with low QOL are required to be euthanized according to AVMA guidelines.

research animals are highly expensive. yes, even the "lesser" animals like mice. the cheapest mice will run you a few hundred $ per individual, with some of the most expensive mice i've cared for being $25,000 per individual. in research we have the "three Rs" - reduction (reduce amount of necessary animals to a minimum), refinement (refine processes to ensure research is accurate and animals feel no pain or distress), and replacement (replace animals with non-living research models as they become available). i can assure you no proper research team is wasting animals (*do not* say "b-b-but elon musk--" his research team is actively being investigated for animal abuse by the government).

research methods that do not require live animals are currently being looked into & efforts spearheaded by - you guessed it - the animal research industry itself (notice how the animal rights people are strangely silent & unhelpful when it comes to this?) but current technology is rudimentary and does not compare to live animal models.

some research animal fun facts (US edition):

all species of animals are only allowed to have one single major surgery performed on them in their entire lifetime.

institutions with nonhuman primates must have a behavior program in place (run by knowledgeable primate specialists) to ensure that they are happy and receiving enough daily enrichment and social interaction.

institutions with dogs are required to have physical exercise programs in place. this means every individual dog gets a substantial amount of leashed AND free-roaming exercise daily, including playgroups with other dogs.

a majority of nonhuman primates get to retire to sanctuaries like peaceable primate sanctuary, and almost all dogs get retired and adopted out by organizations like homes for animal heroes. some institutions will also adopt out unneeded young rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, etc.

some strains of mice glow neon green (or orange or blue) under UV light. this is not harmful to them and is commonly seen in cancer research.

so yes, you can rest knowing that laboratory animals are treated with the utmost respect by their caretakers. and you can stop this awful, ignorant talk of human experimentation that will only end in the abuse of nonwhite people, LGBT people, disabled people, indigenous people, and so many others. please just take a look at this wikipedia page if you think “ethical” human experimentation can exist.

[sapphireh3arts]

i know folks are gonna call me a pedo for this one, but i grew up seeing my mom and grandma naked. they had health issues and at times needed care and help showering. and i truly think more kids need to be shown the nonsexual reality of naked women at a young age. there is nothing sexual about my grandmothers breasts, they were simply body parts. more women die of heart attacks because people are too afraid of breasts to do real chest compressions, because they are scared to touch their breasts. the sexualization of our bodies literally kills us. i need people to be more normal about naked bodies and i'm 100% serious.

[guttedpulsars]

here is a master list of great art tools that can make your workflow easier! 👇 (updating, please consider supporting me on kofi or check out my other works)

posemaniacs.com/en

if you want to learn human anatomy with the benefit of preset poses, this is for you! you can use it standalone, but as a bonus you can also import poses into the clip studio paint 3D models. (File -> Import -> 3D Pose (Posemaniacs)

line-of-action.com

great for gestures and observational sketches!

zvork.fr/vls/

browser based rig for lighting & shadows

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