It's True

My name's Sarah and I'm totally bummed the fuck out! 27 Mainly reblogs of whatever's popular with my whining mixed in to keep it real. I reblog from sex workers on occasion so please don't follow if you're under 18

[missstrogen]

Help my girlfriend stay housed!

My gf's household received an eviction warning for 2,200$ and they need help to cover it! Please give her whatever you can so she doesn't get evicted, it would really mean the world to me. If you can't donate, at least please reblog okay?

Her ko-fi

(my ko-fi as backup if the above link doesn't work)

[lopkelepke]

[junk-thunder]

greybeard gf giving me the throat of the world

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

Porcupine-Fish Helmet from Kiribati, c.1800-1880 CE: this helmet was crafted from the carcass of a porcupine-fish

This helmet was made using the skin of a porcupine-fish that was killed and then carefully dried. The front edge is lined with vegetable fiber and human hair, and it's equipped with coconut-fiber ties that were used to fasten the helmet onto the wearer's head.

Above: another porcupine-fish helmet from Kiribati

Helmets with this design are also known as te barantauti, and they were created as part of a traditional costume that was worn by the warriors of Kiribati (an island nation located in the South Pacific). Most of the surviving examples date back to the mid-1800s.

Above: a porcupine-fish helmet displayed with a high-backed cuirass, wrist-guard, and spear, c.1800s CE

Te barantauti were typically worn with body armor that was crafted from coconut-fiber and stingray skin, along with braided wrist-guards covered in shark's teeth, high-backed cuirasses, and wooden swords, spears, and daggers studded with stingray spines and shark's teeth.

Above: wrist-guards and cuirasses from Kiribati, c.1800-1880 CE

In some cases, the warrior's helmet was crafted from coconut-fiber instead. The same material was also used to construct sleeves, belts, and "overalls" that effectively covered the rest of the body.

Above: a coconut-fiber helmet with a full set of armor

The porcupine-fish helmets provided very little protection -- they were primarily created and used as a way to intimidate enemies during ritual combat.

As this article explains:

The men of Kiribati were famed for their fierceness, and when it came time for battle, they dressed the part, in head-to-toe armor made from coconut fiber and stingray skin. Their weapons were wooden swords lined with sharks’ teeth.

The crown jewel of Kiribati armor, though, was a spiky helmet made from the porcupinefish. A member of the blowfish family, a porcupinefish looks like an adorable big-eyed cartoon character—until it’s threatened. Then, it sucks water into a cavity between its body and skin and inflates to several times its normal size, stiffening the spines that usually lie flat.

Porcupinefish helmets, known as te barantauti, were made by capturing one of these agitated, puffed-up porcupinefish, killing it, peeling the skin away from the body, and drying it. The spiny skin that remained was reinforced with coconut-fiber padding and fashioned into a brittle helmet.

Though the helmets offered little in the way of actual protection, they instantly made their wearers appear bigger, taller, and more formidable.

For Kiribati warriors, this intimidation was more important than protection from death. That’s because in traditional Kiribati culture, a person who took someone’s life—even in a fair fight—paid with their most prized resource: their land. So instead of going for the kill, warriors sought to wound and humiliate their enemy. Fish-skin and coconut-fiber offered just the right amount of protection.

Above: a shark-tooth spear from Kiribati, c.1800s CE

Unfortunately, most of the surviving helmets, weapons, and pieces of armor are now housed in Western museums:

Over the years, dozens of these helmets made their way into museums across the globe, while few remain in Kiribati. The Smithsonian actually has three, the British Museum five, and Sweden’s Världskulturmuseerna “at least eight,” according to their digitization curator Magnus Johansson. One te barantauti even wound up at the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium, in the tiny town of St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

Over the last four decades, since Kiribati gained its independence from the United Kingdom in 1979, the armor has taken on a new meaning—as a potent symbol of local culture. It features on tourist trinkets, but also stamps and school mascots. “The armor is not just a garment to me,” says Rareti Ataniberu, an I-Kiribati craftswoman. “It is a piece of art, a craft.”

Above: an armored warrior from Kiribati, mid-1800s

Sources & More Info:

Hakai Magazine: Kiribati’s Porcupine-Fish Helmets were More about Drama than Defense

Atlas Obscura: The Mystery of the Puffer-Fish Helmets of Kiribati

Pacific Presences: Fighting Fibres: Kiribati Armour and Museum Collections

Time Magazine: Why Indigenous Artifacts Should be Returned to Indigenous Communities

The Museum of New Zealand: Te tauti from Kiribati

The Museum of New Zealand: Rere (Knife or Short Sword) from Kiribati

The British Museum: Porcupine-Fish Helmet

[mizuthe-cat]

I wish I had this hat

[bitchautism]

here's two articles about how JK Rowling just posted on X an upskirt photo of Freda Wallace, a transgender woman, after deadnaming her and misgendering her repeatedly online.

JK Rowling deadnamed and posted 'upskirt' photo of trans woman on X

The wealthy author escalated a social media spat that resulted in posting a photo from a 2023 event at the Institute of Economic Affairs in

JK Rowling posts upskirt image of trans woman while begging to debate her - LGBTQ Nation

Rowling posted the picture taken from below because the trans woman, she said, was "refusing to debate me."

[sailatina3]

Thank you for posting without the fucking destiel meme

[pocket-deer-belly]

really feels like the amount of transfem donation posts has increased lately. please help them survive.

[eshasunrise]

would it be tacky to link my fundraiser here?

[pocket-deer-belly]

this is the perfect post to put fundraisers actually, go ahead

[eshasunrise]

Donate to Help Eilene Escape Texas, organized by Eilene Shaw

I am Eilene. I intend to travel to Canada, specifically Thunder Bay, Ontario, to see my girlfrien… Eilene Shaw needs your support for Help E

[sloppystyle]

[validblogname]

one fight at a time

[lizardlicks]

Black Hills drilling project canceled after backlash from tribes

A South Dakota mining company has canceled a drilling project in the Black Hills after opposition from Native American tribes and local grou

[wizxrdpendrxgon]

The backlash was a major lawsuit from 9 tribes alongside other lawsuits from advocacy groups like NDN Collective. You can support NDN Collective by donating to them here.

[lazer-exe]

I'm gonna say it, I do think that even the laziest person imaginable should have a roof over their head, food in their stomach, and access to healthcare

[dogpuppy]

[star-angel-selkie]

I hope the odyssey movie is the death of cinema

[hotvampireadjacent]

[hjartasalt]

See him sweeties

[hjartasalt]

He's so sweeties!

[hjartasalt]

Now see him fabulous

[hjartasalt]

Now see him. In the dark.

[hjartasalt]

My pet comma/kidney bean/some sort of slug

[zylahbee]

assuming someones health based on their age in a world where babies can be born with disabilities and illnesses, and elderly who can run marathons and live past 100 makes zero sense.

health will never automatically be a certain level based on age.

[athenagray]

“So... We got the exploding diarrhea. Here's my advice for anyone who doesn't have it yet:

It's going to take a minute for the government to pin down where this is coming from, and then issue a recall, because the FDA has been gutted. But, I can tell you, without a shadow of a doubt : this is coming from Taylor Farms produce, and you will see them recalled.

You'll want to avoid all Taylor Farms produce in the grocery store. They supply McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, about any fast food place you can think of.

Raspberries, watermelons, cilantro, and the veggies you're hearing about are not causing this many people to get sick. It's the shredded lettuce, specifically, that's the problem. But, you'll want to stay away from every type of produce this company puts out, because one strand of shredded lettuce is all it takes to contaminate bushels.

Taylor Farms is the source. Taco Bell proactively pulled their produce from their restaurants. You're going to see other fast food places doing this, and probably will see that before the government names a source. The FDA knows this, but they can't come out and tell us all until there's proof, which takes resources and research, which takes manpower, but the FDA has been cut by about 20-30%

During the Biden term, onions at McDonald's had ecoli. We knew this because DNA testing was done quickly and they were able to narrow it down to one place that caused the outbreak. And, it was traced back to Taylor Farms. This isn't going to be solved as quickly though.

When you get this, make a virtual appointment to your PCP - a "same day sick" appointment. Tell them someone in your family just tested for this and was positive and was prescribed Bactrim. If you go in person, they're probably going to make you poop in a cup and wait until results come back to prescribe.

You'll know when you get this. Trust me on all of this.

You'll want to stay hydrated because this parasite damages the lining of the small intestine. Your small intestine, in turn, secretes more water into the gut, and less nutrients and liquid are able to remain in the body. So no matter how much you shit, you're going to want to drink. A day of this leads to dehydration if you don't increase your fluid intake, and a few days will land you in the hospital.

If you have headaches, weakness, muscle cramps, dizziness, or an increase heart rate - hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Go to the ER for fluids if you can't drink enough.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk. Brought to you by America's 250 birthday celebrations, workforce reduction in the FDA and CDC, and viewers like you.

Please feel free to share this.

And, MAGA - don't blow up the comment section. I argued with y'all on COVID bc I was afraid y'all would die, but I really don't care if you get explosive diarrhea.

And no, ivermectin will not help this at all.”

[alex51324]

As an update, the OP of this post did eventually clarify that they did not have inside knowledge that it was Taylor Farms; that was a conclusion they reached from publicly-available information & history.

However, per CNN and numerous other news outlets, as of Thursday afternoon, the outbreak has been at least partially traced to lettuce supplied to Taco Bell from Taylor Farms, in Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky.

Other states and/or businesses could have received the same contaminated lettuce, or there could be multiple simultaneous outbreaks with different sources: currently, it's not clear.

But anyway, the random guy was right.

[i-am-bic]

"There's no platonic explanation for this" <-you need to be nicer to your friends. Right now

[esmeralda-anistasia]

#STOP SAYING 'PLATONIC' WHEN YOU MEAN 'CASUAL'#RELATIONSHIPS CAN BE PLATONIC AND ABSOLUTELY DERANGED