boppin around the interwebs

icon by @makowwka on twitter / 23 / just a trans dude trying his best / ask to tag ♡

[heronfem]

Hi guys. If it's not raining, it's pouring, and boy do I need a new umbrella.

My best friend and their partner are facing eviction. It's been a very rough living situation from the start and the kind of money that at one point was barely possible and now simply isn't. With one unemployed and the other badly underpaid, the money simply wasn't possible this month. The slumlord who owns their place has pounced on an opportunity to force them out, which is a real hoot since the building is so unsafe it doesn't actually have a certificate of occupancy now. My own household just moved, is exhausted, and is strapped for cash but trying to come up with more ways to help, so here I am. Again. Hoping for kindness from strangers.

I'd like to get anything possible together to help them cure the rent, which will buy us a little time to figure out some ways to get them into somewhere that's got an actual certificate of occupancy and isn't wildly overpriced per tiny square footage. They also have a cat! The cat would also like this to not be happening, or he would if he could think with more than his single brain cell..

Rent cure is 1200, the other 300 is for getting a start on application fees. Thank you for even just reading this, and I'd appreciate if people can share it around. I'd like the very fast tigers to stop chasing me.

Cat tax for reading so far:

To donate:

Venmo: @Vinndication

PayPal: here

Ko-fi: here

0028/1500

[violaceum-vitellina-viridis]

hi I'm the best friend ✌️ I am actively applying for various forms of state assistance but we don't qualify for the emergency relief fun until there's a court and judge and possibly cops involved, apparently, which is cool and fun and definitely not existentially horrific,

prior to right now we've been coasting by on a mix of late payments, charity, and my father's charity specifically, and I'll be real: my father was a not insignificant reason why I moved out here, because the money he can give me occasionally is great but everything else about him is questionable at absolute best

which is to say a year ago I left a state that was killing me to get away from an abusive family, an abusive and failing marriage, and I really just want to be able to settle here and live.

the cat is Black Magic the Inconvenience Demon, and if you search that tag on my Tumblr (and Tumblr is cooperating) you should find more random bits about him, but he's a bastard and the love of my life, have some more cat tax:

(that last one ft. Ray, my partner and roommate, in the process of stealing Magic's toes (clipping his claws) which as you can clearly see is a federal crime)

[recoveryforray]

oh hey look more cat tax

if you would like to keep this criminal in kibble, please chuck a few dollars our way 🙇

[anarchopuppy]

sometimes being a fan of something means not wanting them to make any more of it

[snissel613]

why arent corals kosher

I refuse to believe that Halakha recognizes coral as a fish and not at most a plant

[knaidelmaidel]

let me get this straight, you want to try to eat it???

[snissel613]

all I’m saying that if I did, Hashem wouldn’t stop me

[knaidelmaidel]

i mean בדרך שאדם רוצה ללכת and all that, but someone should stop you

[justanormalpersin]

If it isn't edible, it doesn't need to be kosher. If you want to eat a rock, you don't have to worry about it being kosher. You still shouldn't eat rocks

its not an avera , but it is still a really dumb idea

[snissel613]

you can even argue that being dumb and eating rocks is an aveira. But it's a different aveira

[clayandsorcery]

I need goyim to understand that this is literally what passages of Talmud look like.

[cantotallyeven]

[steelwoolf]

I have questions about whether we’re eating live coral, like a parrotfish swimming around biting chunks off the reef. If we’re doing that, coral shouldn’t be kosher because the little coral animals lack fins and scales. If we’re eating the calcium carbonate deposits the corals have left behind after dying and decomposing, that’s an entirely different question.

Depending on the size and amount of coral you eat, eating coral wouldn’t be bad for you. Are you swallowing large enough chunks to cause intestinal blockages? or grinding it up and using it as an additive? People use coral as a source of calcium in vitamins.

But given that corals globally are in danger due to warming oceans, please don’t eat coral.

[snissel613]

I do t think live coral needs fins and scales to be kosher for the same reason that seaweed doesn’t need fins and scales to be kosher

[tikkunhayam]

I would argue that halachically, corals should count as shellfish. In that they live in the water but have no bones, but possibly a calcium carbonate “shell” that the soft coral animal retreats into. Even fleshy soft corals such as Xenia and the various leather corals found in the red and Mediterranean seas would likely more closely resemble slugs or clams if not considered algae.

Not to mention many species of soft or large polyp stony corals (much more edible upon initial impression, compared to small polyp stony corals) are toxic. Dying of Palythoa toxicity is NOT kosher.

[fromchaostocosmos]

Also if one where to break a piece of coral off of the main body and eat it wouldn't that violate the Miztvah the forbids from eating a part of an animal while the animal still lives?

I would argue is does.

[penrosesun]

Breaking a piece of coral off to eat it would not violate the commandment to not eat a part of a still-living animal because the coral in a colony, not a single being. It would be like eating a handful of bees out of a hive, which, while treif and also inadvisable, would not be a violation the way that eating the claw of a Florida stone crab would.

As for why someone would eat the calcium carbonate deposits left behind by dead coral, I’d have to assume that we’d be talking about someone who is doing so for some sort of mystical or pseudoscientific reason, as I can think of few culinary or nutritional uses for calcium carbonate to begin with, and none at all that you couldn’t better source from other places. If the reasoning is anything to do with spirits and crystals and energy resonances, then it may be an avera on additional grounds, by virtue of maybe being some form of avodah zara.

[lethalbutterfly]

Calcium carbonate is the same stuff as Tums, so theoretically eating dead coral could help with heartburn, but in most cases it would just be easier to find and acquire tums. That being said I would not oversimplify the diversity of the human experience to the point that I would assume an underwater heartburn emergency could never occur. It would be contrived af though.

[penrosesun]

Hmm. I suppose if people were consuming it medicinally, then it would be equivalent to the Bekhorot 7b ruling on the medicinal consumption of donkey urine (and therefore treif, but not completely ill-advised)

[keshetchai]

Oh, also good for osteoporosis, I suppose!

But yeah, it all goes back to "seems easier to just use regular ol' marble dust.

...related important question: are we sure that coral is considered alive, and an animal of any kind, like, halakhically speaking?

I mean:

Coral doesn't bleed (which is the important part about eating a still living animal)

They don't have lungs or gills

They generally don't move? (I guess corallimorphs can...kinda crawl? But otherwise no they don't move).

How is coral really different from like, fungi above water? Sure it can be a collective mass (mushrooms and their mycellium colonies!), but it's not capable of bleeding, and it doesn't have lungs or gills, and it doesn't really move. It just kinda...spreads.

I'm just saying we have to establish that coral is significantly different from like, a portobello mushroom. Fungi are kosher but aren't technically plants.

[keshetchai]

No because fungi are bottom feeders of the ground and yet mushrooms are kosher.

The issue is whether or not these are creatures according to Torah. From Leviticus 11:

These you may eat of all that live in water: anything in water, whether in the seas or in the streams, that has fins and scales—these you may eat.

But anything in the seas or in the streams that has no fins and scales, among all the swarming things of the water and among all the other living creatures that are in the water—they are an abomination for you

and an abomination for you they shall remain: you shall not eat of their flesh and you shall abominate their carcasses.

Everything in water that has no fins and scales shall be an abomination for you.

Now, I am going to reference Bible hub here mostly because they have a nice Strong's Hebrew concordance feature that sefaria doesn't have that is easy to copy and paste from.

But basically I would argue that the important words we have to distinguish here are:

the teeming

שֶׁ֣רֶץ (še·reṣ)

Noun - masculine singular construct

Strong's 8318: A swarm, active mass of minute animals

life

הַחַיָּ֖ה (ha·ḥay·yāh)

Article | Adjective - feminine singular

Strong's 2416: Alive, raw, fresh, strong, life

and creatures

נֶ֥פֶשׁ (ne·p̄eš)

Noun - feminine singular

Strong's 5315: A soul, living being, life, self, person, desire, passion, appetite, emotion

So. Is coral an active (teeming) mass of minute animals? Well. It is a living colony in the same way that mushrooms are colonies of living things. But other things that swarm or teem are like... krill. shrimp. Locusts. Flies. Ants.

Y'know, stuff that moves. Swarms. Coral doesn't teem or swarm. It's static.

Which leaves us with living and creatures.

I would argue again that "living" implies regular movement — for example, you can have living waters. (Same root word for mayyim chayyim).

But also the other terms which appear beside the root word for life/living over and over again are basically:

Creeping, moving (Strong's 7430 רָמַשׂ ramas)

Flesh (Strong's 1320 בָּשָׂר basar)

Flying or soaring (5774 עוּף)

Having a soul (or literal breath) (5315, נֶפֶשׁ)

And nefesh is of course, also the last one in that list!

So is coral alive in the way Torah usually means things are living beings? Well, coral doesn't creep or move. It also doesn't have blood (which, arguably, means it can't have a carcass. It sort of has bones! But no carcass). It...MIGHT have flesh? I'm sort of unclear about this.

It can't fly or soar.

Which leaves us with:

Do corals have flesh? and,

do corals have souls? And if not metaphorically souls, do they have breath?

Well, coral do respirate. But so do plants. And neither of them have lungs. Also according to @montereybayaquarium's website coral get oxygen from algae? (Don't worry Monterey bay aquarium no one is actually going to eat the coral, this is all hypothetical)

Coral reefs get their bright colors from the algae — called zooxanthellae — living in their tissues. The zooanthellae provide the coral polyps with oxygen and nutrients produced from photosynthesis. In return, the coral polyps provide zooanthellae with carbon dioxide (a byproduct of the polyps’ “breathing” oxygen) and shelter.

Coral polyps can have mouths, but they don't really breathe with lungs. So I'm not sure they have that kind of nefesh (breath of life). And corals are like, a bunch of skeletal base material with living polyps on the top. But are they fleshy? But all their color comes from the algae living in them.

For this I go back to the presence of blood being a big factor, because again, mushrooms have flesh but don't have blood, and so halakhically...that fungi is a plant.

Also apparently Octocorals don't have those exoskeletons? So at that point how would we know something is an octocoral versus like...a seaweed?

I think either seaweed isn't meant to be kosher, or actually corals are kosher because seaweed is. Oysters have gills and hearts. Scallops have a gajillion eyes. Really easy to see those aren't plants.

Basically if you look at a coral does it have a breath and soul, does it fly or creep, does it bleed, does it have flesh, does it move around in general? Could it possibly be a plant, halakhically speaking? (Not by scientific taxonomy!) Would bronze age folks look at it and go "yeah, that's a plant."? Also important: what IS a plant? Halakhically?

Many such questions. Anyways I don't think corals have souls.

[yedidnefesh]

So... The Gemara does seem to view coral as a tree, or at least it discusses coral as producing wood in Rosh Hashanah 23a. OP appears to be in the right that it's halachically a plant!

[heronfem]

Hi guys. If it's not raining, it's pouring, and boy do I need a new umbrella.

My best friend and their partner are facing eviction. It's been a very rough living situation from the start and the kind of money that at one point was barely possible and now simply isn't. With one unemployed and the other badly underpaid, the money simply wasn't possible this month. The slumlord who owns their place has pounced on an opportunity to force them out, which is a real hoot since the building is so unsafe it doesn't actually have a certificate of occupancy now. My own household just moved, is exhausted, and is strapped for cash but trying to come up with more ways to help, so here I am. Again. Hoping for kindness from strangers.

I'd like to get anything possible together to help them cure the rent, which will buy us a little time to figure out some ways to get them into somewhere that's got an actual certificate of occupancy and isn't wildly overpriced per tiny square footage. They also have a cat! The cat would also like this to not be happening, or he would if he could think with more than his single brain cell..

Rent cure is 1200, the other 300 is for getting a start on application fees. Thank you for even just reading this, and I'd appreciate if people can share it around. I'd like the very fast tigers to stop chasing me.

Cat tax for reading so far:

To donate:

Venmo: @Vinndication

PayPal: here

Ko-fi: here

0028/1500

[violaceum-vitellina-viridis]

hi I'm the best friend ✌️ I am actively applying for various forms of state assistance but we don't qualify for the emergency relief fun until there's a court and judge and possibly cops involved, apparently, which is cool and fun and definitely not existentially horrific,

prior to right now we've been coasting by on a mix of late payments, charity, and my father's charity specifically, and I'll be real: my father was a not insignificant reason why I moved out here, because the money he can give me occasionally is great but everything else about him is questionable at absolute best

which is to say a year ago I left a state that was killing me to get away from an abusive family, an abusive and failing marriage, and I really just want to be able to settle here and live.

the cat is Black Magic the Inconvenience Demon, and if you search that tag on my Tumblr (and Tumblr is cooperating) you should find more random bits about him, but he's a bastard and the love of my life, have some more cat tax:

(that last one ft. Ray, my partner and roommate, in the process of stealing Magic's toes (clipping his claws) which as you can clearly see is a federal crime)

[recoveryforray]

oh hey look more cat tax

if you would like to keep this criminal in kibble, please chuck a few dollars our way 🙇

[pollsforadults]

Spin the wheel. Now, imagine you're on a first date with someone who says they`re a [result]. How does this affect the odds of a second date?

100% guarantee I'll want a second date

It's significantly more likely

The odds don't change

It's significantly less likely

There wont be a second date. Absolutely not

Voting ended on4h

Picker Wheel - Spin the Wheel to Decide a Random Choice

Picker Wheel is a wheel spinner for a random picker. Various functions & customization. Enter choices or names, spin the wheel to decide a r

(anon submission)

[heronfem]

Hi guys. If it's not raining, it's pouring, and boy do I need a new umbrella.

My best friend and their partner are facing eviction. It's been a very rough living situation from the start and the kind of money that at one point was barely possible and now simply isn't. With one unemployed and the other badly underpaid, the money simply wasn't possible this month. The slumlord who owns their place has pounced on an opportunity to force them out, which is a real hoot since the building is so unsafe it doesn't actually have a certificate of occupancy now. My own household just moved, is exhausted, and is strapped for cash but trying to come up with more ways to help, so here I am. Again. Hoping for kindness from strangers.

I'd like to get anything possible together to help them cure the rent, which will buy us a little time to figure out some ways to get them into somewhere that's got an actual certificate of occupancy and isn't wildly overpriced per tiny square footage. They also have a cat! The cat would also like this to not be happening, or he would if he could think with more than his single brain cell..

Rent cure is 1200, the other 300 is for getting a start on application fees. Thank you for even just reading this, and I'd appreciate if people can share it around. I'd like the very fast tigers to stop chasing me.

Cat tax for reading so far:

To donate:

Venmo: @Vinndication

PayPal: here

Ko-fi: here

0/1500

[draizetrain]

i think when u clean your house it should stay clean forever. what do u mean i have to do it again

[rederiswrites]

Just watched Adam Conover (of Adam Ruins Everything) make such a solid point that I think we should spread far and wide. Yes, having AI write your emails is lazy, sure, but people love being lazy. We need to really emphasize that sending AI emails (or using AI responses on social media, or publishing AI flyers, or or or) is rude.

It's rude. You're making someone take their time to read something you couldn't bother to write. You're telling them they were so unimportant you couldn't be bothered to actually take the time to say something yourself. And frankly, you're lying about it while you're at it.

It's rude.

[frownyalfred]

“Superman’s suit should be Kryptonian” “Ma Kent should make Superman’s suit at home” or how about the third fun option where the suit is the Kryptonian skinsuit BUT it gets damaged by Kryptonite and Ma Kent has to figure out how to sew/mend Kryptonian cloth that seems to have a mind of its own and won’t stop SQUIRMING.

Thousands of years of Kryptonian technology vs one Midwestern mom with her favorite show on? I’m putting my money on Ma.

[frownyalfred]

From my reply: maybe the repairs have to be done as a tiny line of kryptonian script which is why ma’s stitches keep coming out. Until she gets it under her lamp and magnifying crochet glass and realizes that’s how all the other repairs were made! Then she painstakingly hand stitches the kryptonian script and it turns out this is a highly specialized career back on krypton that took decades to master and she figured it out in one or two days

[frownyalfred]

ok final thought: the same line is used over and over again, and Ma assumes it’s some sort of prayer/saying/purposeful sentence. protective.

Clark translates it for her: “May the script of this House (El) protect you.”

thousands of tiny overlapping lines where the suit repaired itself in the Fortress; and then, in Ma’s delicate blue stitching, carefully inscribed: “May the script of this House protect you.”

in her stitching, the meaning changes ever so slightly. there isn’t a symbol or glyph for the Kent House, but the thread speaks for itself.

Clark Kent carries the blessings of both Houses on his skin, always.

[depsidase]

[lesbiansforboromir]

You actually cannot skip to being good at a creative endeavour that you haven't put much practice into. You cannot trick your way out of the 'knows that your work is not what you want it to be but don't know how to improve it' stage by planning or reading or talking about it really really hard. At some point you just have to craft through it until your brain finds it's own unique way back to the 'everything I make slaps' stage and be prepared to start the cycle all over again. You just have to make that project you're excited about slightly less good than you want it to be. (Says this standing in a pool of blood and covered in blood and also coughing up a little blood)

[lesbiansforboromir]

everyone stop reblogging this I hate to be reminded of my own good advice

[avadaniels]

i love to be the most laidback customer to ever grace an establishment. comrade i will wait one william years for your goods and services

[crabussy]

trans women and trans men and nonbinary people and everyone else being friends and holding each other close and falling in love and thinking of each other. I'm making this my future. let's all be okay together

[orphanedsource]

the place I work at remodeled these split gendered restrooms into “inclusive restrooms” and never told us what they meant while construction was ongoing. I need you to know every atom of potential criticism or whining that could’ve happened disappeared when people found out this meant we got 10 fully separate private bathrooms with sinks inside. I’ve not heard a single person crack a joke about the inclusive signage. this is the world TERFs are trying to steal from you

[disorientation]

Having a "stupider people have done this" attitude about the things you want to do can open so many doors

[uwillneverknowwho]

Literally always take headphones with you. If you decide that you probably won't need them today, that's the devil talking. You will. You will

[spin-the-wheel-polls]

make a bunch of wheels with bread/cheese/meat/vegetables/sauce/extra so that you can Spin for Sandwich

you're making a sandwich!! Spin THIS wheel 2-4 times for the toppings!

How is it!

good!!

it's alright

ew

EW

inedible

Results

Voting ended onJun 3

op note: I GOT JAM, JAM AND HOT SAUCE. IM DEAD.