Untitled

[tzxazrael]

"The sheep was lucky someone put it in a wheelchair" Are you sure that it's lucky to have its suffering continue?

are you even asking this question to the right person? idk wtf you're talking about and i haven’t used tumblr for a couple of years.

[gallusrostromegalus]

The 1969 Easter Mass Incident

Content Warnings: Religion, food, symbolic cannibalism, symbolic gore, penis mention, Blasphemy, SO MUCH BLASPHEMY, weapons, war mention.  Mind the warnings and your health always comes first. Its a HILARIOUS story, I promise.

As always, all the names have been changed to protect people’s identities.  This is a long one, so Press J now if you want to skip it.

When my dad was a young man and still a practicing catholic, he participated in a small church communion that nearly got him and six other people excommunicated.

Father Patrick ran a small church outside of California Polytechnical and tended to be… rather more liberal in his interpretations of scripture than most of the church was, which made him something of a hit with the local students and liberally-inclined populace.  Pat went to all manner of civil demonstrations, condemned the shit out of the vietnam war and the politics that lead to it and so on.  In January of 1969 a series of incidents lead him to start exploring “nontraditional” means of holding Mass as a means of reaching out to his community and exploring his own faith, which ultimately culminated in the 1969 Easter Mass Incident.

For those of you who weren’t raised catholic, Communion is this ritual where you become one with Jesus by eating a really horrible bland wafer cookie and taking a shot of wine (called hosts), which then *literally* become the flesh and blood of jesus in your mouth, allowing him to become one with you.  It’s big McFucking deal, and you have the opportunity to take communion at every mass.  All this had to be explained to me second-hand because after this and Dad’s 51 days in the army, Dad decided he wouldn’t inflict religion on any children he might have in the future.

*

“Hey dad,” Six-year old me asked the first time he told me this story after my practicing friends were talking about getting wine at church. “Isn’t that cannibalism?”

“We’re getting to that.”  He waved.

*

The First Incident in January when, due to a serious cock-up by the church, all the hosts Father Pat received were moldering and spoiled and probably would have killed someone if he’d actually fed anyone them.  But it was the first mass of the year, when a peak number of people came in after vowing to got to church more for new year’s.  He couldn’t NOT have communion.

“I’ll bake.” offered Maria, the parish secretary and probably the best baker in the county. “So we have hosts.  Jesus will understand.”

Father Patrick, not one to pass up the chance at Maria’s cooking, immediately agreed.

A Host is supposed to be composed solely of unleavened wheat flour and water, which is why they taste terrible.  It’s a theological point of some importance relating to Exodus or something but Maria had an important theological counterpoint: Jesus both divine and loves all his children, ergo, Jesus would neither be a nasty bland cracker nor want his children to suffer as such and so instead, she made Mexican wedding cookies.

They were a SPECTACULAR hit.  Many praises were heaped upon father patrick for the Much Better Wafers and that they’d be sure to show up next week as long as Maria kept making them.  Father Patrick figuring that hey, anything that gets people in the doors is good and really, if it was turning into Jesus once inside the parishioner, did it really matter what the wafers were made of?  So he continued to let Maria bake the Hosts, and encouraged her to try out new flavors, like nutmeg and cinnamon.

This went on swimmingly for a few weeks until The Bishop showed up for a surprise visit the same week Maria decided to experiment with rainbow sprinkles.

Dad remembers hearing the bishop through the windows roaring “THE HOLY BODY OF CHRIST DOES! NOT! CONTAIN! RAINBOW! SPRINKLES!”

The matter went clean up to The Archbishop, who decided that while Pat was probably right to not feed spoiled hosts to his parish, he should attend some remedial classes to remember what Communion was all about, so that if it happened again, he’s come up with a more suitable substitute.

Father Patrick returned in late March, full of spite and some fascinating new ideas.

*

“Is this where the Cannibalism happens?” Six-year-old me asked, eager to get to the good parts.

*

At his remedial classes, the teacher had stressed the importance of transubstantiation, aka “That bit where the wafer and wine, Actually, Literally, become the flesh of Jesus Christ and we expect you to swallow.”  Also on the syllabus was understanding the importance of Christ’s suffering and sacrifice.

“So, I was thinking about Easter Service.”  Said father Patrick one afternoon while dad was doing his computer science homework at the church because his dorm was a barely-standing fire hazard and the library was where you went to have sex.

“Well, we do re-enactments for christmas.  Why not on easter?  Why not re-enact the crucifixion of Christ right here? Make it real for everyone.  Trauma’s great for bonding a community together.”

“Who’s playing Jesus?” asked Maria, always one for a good laugh.

“That’s the thing- A Host, it doesn’t look much like flesh, right?  Doesn’t look like much of anything, really.  Not great for reinforcing one’s belief.

What if, instead, we- and I mean you, Maria, I can’t cook to save my life- make a man-sized loaf of bread, maybe in the shape of a T, and we have some of the boys dress up as romans and whip the bread and we pour the wine on so it’s bleeding and them- then we make a big wooden cross and actually nail the bread to it with, I don’t know, railroad spikes, more wine all over. And we raise the cross, all while telling the story of the crucifixion.”

He paused to take a drink, Maria slowly crumpling onto the floor in horrified laughter and Dad now thoroughly distracted from his homework.

“Then we lower the cross, and invite everyone who wants to take communion up to tear a hunk of Jesus off.  Just descend into his corpse like vultures.  I think that’d really be a good bonding experience for the church.”  he nodded thoughtfully.  “The hard, part, I suppose, will be finding enough romans.”

“I WANNA BE LONGINUS.” bellowed my father, barreling into the room.

And so, the plan was hatched.  Dad hit up every other guy in the Church and eventually rounded up four more romans, three of them from the Education Department of Cal Poly, and one guy from Chemistry, who just liked to watch things burn.

This, being a play, naturally meant that there was a rehearsal, and test Bread jesus.  Maria had decided that if they were going to start being extra-literal, she needed to make the most lifelike Bread jesus possible, and made a distressingly buff and human-proportioned Jesus by Advanced bread-braiding, complete with plaited hair, quail’s-egg-and-raisin eyes, bready muscle groups, and an eight-pack because why not make the lord completely shredded?*  She also made the important theological decision that since Jesus loves everyone and was happy to die in spite of all his suffering, he should be smiling, and had a toothy corn-kernel smile.  He was Wonderful and Terrifying all at once.

“Maria,” asked Father Patrick after a few minutes of delighted and horrified cooing over Jesus’ toothy grin and abdominals. “Why is he wearing a tea-towel?

“Well, he’s the Son of God. A Man.  With all that entails.”  She said, pointedly staring at Father Patrick while everyone stared at the suspiciously lumpy tea-towel.  “And he might have… burnt, slightly.”

Everyone nodded and agreed that the tea-towel was the best course of action.  The rehearsal goes splendidly and everyone agrees that this is the most delicious Jesus they’ve ever had.

*

Easter Sunday arrives and the Church is PACKED, from the more lapsed Catholics showing up for a high holiday, parents visiting for spring break and a whole horde of newcomers who had gotten wind that something was up and they ought to come.

Dad is a lanky as hell 21-year old composed mostly of technical jargon and acne but he is STOKED to be playing Longinus, the roman that speared Jesus on the cross, because he gets to do the BEST technical effect in the whole parade.  Since he came in at the end me missed a good portion of the sermon, but did hear the “oooh” from the crowd as the massive cross was dragged in by the other Romans, followed by horrified gasps and high screams and a discernible “What the FUCK” as they brought in Bread Jesus 2.0, whipping him enthusiastically, and hammering him into the cross, the sound of wine splashing onto the floor loud in the terrified silence of that Parishioners.

Finally Father Patrick gets to the part about Longinus, and Dad comes sprinting down the aisle as hard as he can, because in order for Bread Jesus to be seen by everyone, his middle had to be about 10 feet off the ground, so Dad had to run, shrieking latin curses,  down the length of the church, with a big honking spear and take a flying leap at Jesus in order to spear him in the gut.

Please take moment to imagine you are some normal god-fearing catholic who has decided to visit little bobby or maybe patricia at college and you’re all going to church together like a nice family and this Fucking madman has decided to go all Silence of the Lambs on mass and now there’s some sort of underfed translucently pale man in ill-fitting Roman armor and cape flying at a horrifying glutinous effigy of your lord and savior, with an actual fucking spear, screaming like a madman.  Don’t you feel yourself drawing closer to God already? Defensively, perhaps, like an octopus trying to ooze itself into a crevice against the horrors of the ocean.

However, two things happen that were not planned on

1. Dad misses.  In his defense, Bread Jesus is close to but not quite the size of a man- more like the size of a doughy teenager, and his middle is a small target 10 feet up in the air and dad is has a computer science minor, not an athletics scholarship.  He misses by about 8 inches and instead very solidly stabs Bread Jesus right through the groin, leaving a big hole in Maria’s tea-towel and the spear jutting out at a decidedly… attentive angle, as Bread Jesus’s Bread Dick drops to the floor with a splat.  Nobody notices this, however because

2. In rehearsal, Dad had managed to get the spear right in jesus’s navel but neither Father Patrick nor the other romans could get the wine up there to make his middle appropriately bloodied.  

Maria come up with the Genius solution that since wine is made of grapes and Jam is made of grapes, she could make a jelly-filled Jesus for Dad to stab.  There was a normal-sized test loaf and when dad stabbed it on the table, it had a nicely gooey dribbling effect.

However, this time the loaf was torso-sized, still hot from the oven and upright, so when dad speared the very end of the loaf, all the steam-pressured jam had collected at the bottom and a spray of lukewarm smuckers exploded out from bread jesus, turning the first three pews into a splash zone of symbolic entrails.

There was  a hot, sticky minute of complete silence in the church after that. 

Then, Father Patrick indicated it was time for the cross to be lowered, and continued on with the normal preparations of the Host, he himself covered in hot smuckers, as though nothing particularly ordinary was occuring, quietly kicking the bread-dick under the altar. At the end of it all, Father Patrick and invited everyone up with the Last Oration:

“Thou, O God, has kindly allowed us to have a part in this Holy Sacrifice; for this we give Thee thanks. Accept it now to Thy glory and be ever mindful of our weakness. Amen.”

…And everybody came up, shuffling like terrified zombies, pinching off tiny bits at first but then the madness took them and they began tearing apart bread jesus by the handful, weeping as they partook, scattered prayers and begging for forgiveness.  The whole congregation was kneeling about the altar, tearful and united in their guilt and their need for God.

*

“IS CHURCH ALWAYS LIKE THAT?” six-year-old me asked, absolutely stoked.  I’d convert on the spot if I got a show like that.

“No, it’s normally bland wafers and lots of chanting in latin.”

“Well that’s boring as hell.” I remember muttering and Dad snorting the coffee he was drinking out of his nose.

*

As people filed silently out of the Church to a gloriously sunny California afternoon, faces wan and smeared with wine and jam, Father patrick turned to Maria and asked “You don’t think that was too much, do you?”

“No.”  Said Maria with a sarcastic deadpan so intense it was hard to tell from sincerity.

It was the exact same tone she used when the Archbishop and Six other high clergy showed up, clutching a letter someone had written, Livid and almost foaming at the mouth, demanding to know if such blasphemy had transpired.

“No.  That’s crazy.”  She said, staring down the archbishop like he was an idiot.

“Such imaginations some people have!” Said Father Patrick, much less convincingly.

“And you-  you didn’t…  Spear an effigy of our lord and savior?”  the archbishop demanded of my father.

“Do I look like I can jump that high?”  Dad asked, having in the interim been drafted for 51 days then nearly died of pneumonia from it, and therefore no longer afraid of the Church, the Law or God.

Somewhat relieved that he’d only received the extremely detailed ramblings of a doddering parishioner, the Archbishop sat down and complemented Maria on her most excellent Mexican Wedding Cookies, may he please have another plate for his nerves? Perhaps the ones with sprinkles?

Dad went on to help build the internet, Father Patrick converted to Buddhism and Maria became a Nun.

*For those of you wondering, Jesus was made of Challah.

If you got a laugh out of this, please consider donating to my Ko-Fi or Paypal, as telling stories on the internet is my only source of income right now.  Thank you very much and I hope you enjoyed it!

[birdghost]

We’re funded all the way up to SENEGALS! and so close to ringnecks too!!

With 1 week left, I think we’ll get all the way to the eclectus parrots…

Back it here! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/birdghost/birdy-buddies-hard-enamel-pins

For $149 you can get EVERY SINGLE funded pin which is a GREAT deal - it’s like $6 per pin at this point :o

[parrot-parent]

Pls they added an eclectus goal 🥺

[tzxazrael]

oh god... why do i like pins and birds so much... i shouldn’t have spent that money... but i did!

[catchymemes]

[aeliad]

HI LET’S SHARE NICOLE’S WORDS ON THE SUBJECT! 

It has been literal years but every time I see Martin’s tweets posted somewhere and his word is shared as truth while her post is not shared it sort of reiterates the fact that we trust men to speak about feminism more than we believe women who experience it. 

Interesting, innit? https://medium.com/@nickyknacks/working-while-female-59a5de3ad266

[wiseacrewhimsy]

Reading her account of how their boss treated her blows me away. Men are so emboldened that they will literally admit to illegal discrimination casually and face no consequences.

[the-geek-cornucopia]

In all the years of seeing this post I’ve never seen a link to her side. Didn’t even know she’d written one.

[pluts04]

Adding screenshots of her post. His whole post is there without needing a link. Hers should be, too.

Also, she posted this is 2017! It’s fucking 2020 and I’ve seen his side of this for years, but it took 3 years for her side to make its way to my dash…

[thou-creature-of-the-deep]

I’ve reblogged his story at least twice; it’s time for Nicole’s.

[featheredadora]

Well this is finished now. Not realistically proportioned sadly, as the keys would have been too fiddly to sew on. But I hope Zelda likes it!

[tzxazrael]

[rebeccathenaturalist]

I admit I’m a sucker for adorable animals in videos and pictures. With all the troubles in the world today, sometimes it’s nice to vicariously immerse myself in piles of puppies, kittens, and other cute critters. Unfortunately, sometimes the media I’m consuming is a source of troubles itself. Many times ignorance about animal behavior is at the root of the cruelty, though there are situations that are born out of greed for money, prestige, likes, and so forth.

Obviously some of these videos have worse origins than others. The upset gecko gaping its mouth at its supposed rival in a mirror isn’t being nearly as badly mistreated as the loris that’s starving to death due to an incomplete or incorrect diet. What’s important is developing a critical eye for this sort of media and learning more about how to assess whether the animals involved are actually enjoying themselves or not.

Here’s some sauce for those of you who want to read further:

http://blog.whyanimalsdothething.com/ - Why Animals Do the Thing (@why-animals-do-the-thing) is a great start to learning more about animal behavior, which ones are healthy and which ones indicate stress (here’s an especially good post that goes into even more detail about some of these viral videos and photos: http://blog.whyanimalsdothething.com/post/128327199132/animal-science)

http://thehsi.org/2015/04/01/the-cruel-cost-of-cute/ - the Herpetological Society of Ireland explores more about the cruelty behind staged frog photos and more

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/whimsical-wildlife-photography-isnt-seems - more on those staged photos, including some good links throughout the article

http://chimpsnw.org/2013/10/take-action-tuesday-new-childrens-book-exploits-anjana-and-tiger-cubs/ - goes into more detail about how TIGERS and similar organizations exploit wildlife for profit

http://www.rabbitwelfare.co.uk/pdfs/BathingBunnies-RO.pdf - if you absolutely must bathe a rabbit, here’s when and how to do it as safely as possible

Species portrayed: Domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris), Sunda slow loris (Nycticebus coucang), orangutan (Pongo sp.), tiger (Panthera tigris), white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), scrub frog (Rhacophorus sp.), rhinoceros beetle (Dynastinae sp.), domestic rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), tokay gecko (Gekko gecko)

12-11-19 note: Hey, I’ve added a transcript of the comic panels above down below the read more cut. I have to run to an appointment now but will try to add neat links people post in the notes later on. Meanwhile, please reblog this version so that more people can enjoy this comic, including those who may have trouble reading the written text or who use text readers. Thanks!

Keep reading

[blindbee]

[avodaco]

me when i get my student loan

[g8dtier]

this is the money cat. reblog in 30 seconds and you will find yourself with more wealth

[strikercorbie]

#this is the only money cat i will reblog because it’s actually doing the manekineko pose151,646 notes (via lolwhutninja)

OMG YOU’RE RIGHT

[nonespark-blog]

and it has its right paw up! the correct paw for this. and from the markings on its ears, it looks like it might be a calico cat. which is the luckiest kind!

[carrionbeast]

extremely lucky cat

[ladynorbert]

I don’t even care if it actually works, I’m mostly reblogging because it’s freaking adorable.

[sweet-cherry-fairy-deactivated2]

cute cat and need money, good post, 10/10

[allthenamesilikearetaken]

in case anyones interested in the other versions

http://www.namaii.com/manekineko/maneki-neko-types.html

[mmusclechan]

Y’know I reblogged this a bit ago and was saved from financial probation and getting kicked out of school because of it, just mere months from graduation. Got a call from the financial aid advisor telling me that they made a mistake with filing my account (or some other sort of clerical error) and said that, basically, they owe me money. Welp.

[winjennster]

Last time I reblogged the money cat, I won two $100 gift cards at work.

[alce-the-gem-girl]

money cat do your magic

[emmathedestroyer]

money cat help pls

[meltedberrycake]

money cat, pls give us the monei to get a beautiful pet bird

[tzxazrael]

money cat! and information too :D

[sweetiesugarbird]

When cockatiels go

hop!

Reblog if you agree

[ultrafacts]

According to the CDC, in 10 percent of those drownings, the adult will actually watch the child do it, having no idea it is happening. Drowning does not look like drowning—Dr. Pia, in an article in the Coast Guard’s On Scene magazine, described the Instinctive Drowning Response like this:

“Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. The respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function. Breathing must be fulfilled before speech occurs.

Drowning people’s mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. The mouths of drowning people are not above the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and call out for help. When the drowning people’s mouths are above the surface, they exhale and inhale quickly as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the water.

Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface. Pressing down on the surface of the water permits drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe.

Throughout the Instinctive Drowning Response, drowning people cannot voluntarily control their arm movements. Physiologically, drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment.

From beginning to end of the Instinctive Drowning Response people’s bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning people can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds before submersion occurs.”

This doesn’t mean that a person that is yelling for help and thrashing isn’t in real trouble—they are experiencing aquatic distress. Not always present before the Instinctive Drowning Response, aquatic distress doesn’t last long—but unlike true drowning, these victims can still assist in their own rescue. They can grab lifelines, throw rings, etc.

Look for these other signs of drowning when persons are in the water:

Head low in the water, mouth at water level

Head tilted back with mouth open

Eyes glassy and empty, unable to focus

Eyes closed

Hair over forehead or eyes

Not using legs—vertical

Hyperventilating or gasping

Trying to swim in a particular direction but not making headway

Trying to roll over on the back

Appear to be climbing an invisible ladder

So if a crew member falls overboard and everything looks OK—don’t be too sure. Sometimes the most common indication that someone is drowning is that they don’t look like they’re drowning. They may just look like they are treading water and looking up at the deck. One way to be sure? Ask them, “Are you all right?” If they can answer at all—they probably are. If they return a blank stare, you may have less than 30 seconds to get to them. And parents—children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why.

Source/article: [x]

Follow Ultrafacts for more facts!

[mermaibee]

BOOST FOR THE SUMMER. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE.

[1q8njk-deactivated20221112]

Can I just say thank you to OP for putting such a detailed description on this?

I’ve been a lifeguard for 6 years now and of all the saves I’ve done, maybe two or three had people drowning in the stereotypical thrashing style. And even those, like the save I made last weekend, it was exactly like OP describes where the person’s head is going in and out of the water but it isn’t long enough to get any air. Mostly you recognize drowning by the look on someone’s face. If someone looks wide eyed and terrified or confused, chances are they’re drowning. That look of “oh shit” is pretty easily recognizable. And even if you can’t tell for sure: GO AFTER THEM ANYWAY. I’ve done “saves” where a kid was pretending to drown and I mistook it for real drowning, but that’s preferable to a kid ACTUALLY drowning.

Also please remember that even strong swimmers can drown if they have a medical emergency, get cramps, or get too tired. If your friend knows how to swim but they’re acting funny get them to land. And even if someone can respond when you ask them if they need help, if they say they do need help? GO HELP THEM.

However . If the victim is a stranger, I can’t recommend trying to get them. Lifeguards literally train to escape “attacks,” because people who are drowning can freak the fuck out and grab you and make YOU drown as well. If you do go in after someone, take hold of them from the back and talk to them the whole time. IF YOU ARE GRABBED: duck down into the water as low as you can get. The person is panicking and won’t want to go under water and should release you. Shove up at their hands and push them away from you as you duck under. Don’t die trying to save someone else.

Please guys, read and memorize this post. Not all places have lifeguards. Being able to recognize drowning is such an important skill to have and you can save someone’s life.

[inspector-loki]

Just incase!

[witchofobsession-deactivated202]

In a water park once, I was suddenly grabbed by a child and he dragged me under the water without warning. I was going to get angry with him when I resurfaced because I thought he was being an ass, until I looked at him go back in and out hyperventilating the entire time. I grabbed him under his arms and began trying to drag him out while screaming for the lifeguard.

When the lifeguard got us both out, a woman came running down and accused me of harming him and said he had been completely fine in the water. That there was no reason to drag him out of there. The lifeguard had to explain to her that her son had been drowning, to which her response was to say that she didn’t hear him call for help.

People seriously need to learn the signs.

[bunjywunjy]

What animal looks like it would screm the loudest

the bare-throated bellbird is so loud that it can cause permanent damage to human hearing at close range!

and they absolutely look like it.

[peppermintquartz]

edit: i couldn’t resist

[peppermintquartz]

That felt too mild so may i present AAAAAA bird v2

[wagahai-da]

if anyone wanted to hear the sound

[serialreblogger]

this is just that bird from the Incredibles

[tzxazrael]

lol. it’s a different kind, but a bellbird is the immediate thought that came to mind. the White Bellbird is officially world’s loudest bird, at up to 126 dB...

so basically... WTF BELLBIRDS?? lol

[pudgtiel]

Reasons to not get a bird/parrot for anyone considering one! (I was asked for information)

Birds live upwards of 20 years. Budgies (parakeets) and cockatiels who are usually considered “starter birds” can live to be 25!

Birds need large cages and lots of time outside of the cage. Imagine if you were confined to one small room your whole life and never let out.

Birds don’t eat seeds only. It’s a common misconception that birds can eat seeds their whole life and be healthy. They need proper pellets, and lots of fruit and veggies.

Birds SCREAM. Even my budgie makes my family upset when they visit and he’s not even comparable to a larger bird. Google videos of Cockatoos screaming. I dare you. Imagine that every day for the next 80 years for hours at a time.

Birds are extremely messy. I have to do a thorough cleaning of my bird’s area every week, and spot clean every day. There’s feathers, thrown food, poop, and bits of shredded toy.

Birds are extremely destructive. Even a budgie can chew through your nice windowsill!

It’s very hard to tell when a bird’s sick unless you have experience. Even then it can be very difficult. I’ve personally lost birds by not realizing until it was too late. Once you notice something is wrong it’s often too late.

You’re basically adopting a forever two year old. They have bad days and will scream and bite, some will throw tantrums. They get hormonal and their moods are ridiculous.

There’s absolutely no guarantee your bird will like you! You may get stuck with an aggressive, screaming ball of feathers!

Parrots are not domesticated, with the exception of some budgie varieties. Birds like pigeons and chickens are. They are much more likely to do well in captivity and naturally enjoy human attention more so than parrots.

This is all I can think of right now, feel free to add anything if you can think of it!

[bewareofbird]

Life is bad and I need a home for my boys ASAP.

It’s a whole mess, but the short version is my home is no longer a safe place to be and I have to get out right away.

I have a friend who is offering me a place to stay and I get to keep Rowan, Zyda, and Marii, but all my other pets have to be placed immediately. I hate it, I feel absolutely sick, and my heart is breaking into so many pieces.

I’ve found people I know who to take most of them already, but my cockatiels remain.

If you are in the Puget Sound/Seattle area and are interested and able to take in a couple of very good boys, please let me know. They are flighted, and I can provide more info when contacted @welcometoyell

[fairytale-villain]

A good thread on whether “queer” is a slur and if it should be used or not.

[quarterinthequeerjar]

“If I am unashamed of being queer, you do not get to give that word BACK to the fuckwits who made it a slur.”

[dani-kin]

you do not get to give that word BACK to the fuckwits who made it a slur

[brinconvenient]

EVERYBODY WHO CAME OUT BEFORE YOU HAS TAKEN THE ROCKS AND BOTTLES AND MADE THEM INTO SHIELDS AND WINDCHIMES

Holy motherfucking shit. Don’t fucking come at me about Queer is a slur. I FUCKING KNOW IT IS. It was hurled at me like a fucking spear all through my youth. I know it’s a god damn slur. And it’s mine. You don’t get to take it away from me because you can’t take also away the scars it gave me while I was standing in front of my younger queer siblings in this community. 

[jenroses]

always, always reblog this one.

[kyraneko]

If my enemy swings a sword at me and I take that sword away from them, it’s my sword now. And the person telling me I can’t use it because it belongs to my enemy and I have to give it back to them sounds quite a bit like an enemy themselves.

[excalibelle]

^^ god that analogy

[serakosumosu]

@deadcatwithaflamethrower

[deadcatwithaflamethrower]

Yesssssssssss.

[dkgwrites]

This came around again, but it’s worth sharing and remembering.  You have the right to only accept certain words be used to describe you, but so does everyone else.

[aqueerkettleofish]

I have this bookmarked to through at people who DM me about using the word Queer.

[yayfeminism]

Very informative thread -source

[geekremix]

Oh no I’ve been duped. Shit…

[jenroses]

Yep.

[tzxazrael]

hahahaha “numpties who make a regular habit of leaving money on the table”

i mean come on, this is how you tell a bad business model from a good business model. if they’re just throwing away money, they’re eventually going to throw away business.

[flockdynamics]

So I got Gwen and Ichabod in the shower together. Ichabod, as you can imagine, was the happiest motherfucker in the world. A shower AND Gwen?? Sign him the fuck up!!

So we get going, and Ich is obviously super into it. He’s cooing and trilling and chirping and doing his shower dance, spreading his wings all the way out to get As Wet As Possible. This, however, leads to Gwen getting somewhat…engulfed.

Gwen does Not Know what to do about this. She is Very Concerned. Mostly she just sits there and deals with it. But occasionally her head pops out like:

HELP?? WHAT DO??

Anyways I fucking lost it, I was wheezing in the shower, my soul left my body, I’m a shell of a person. These birds are such dorks.

[wrensflock]

I have PASSED AWAY I LOVE THEM

[thisisthinprivilege]

I work at a daycare with infants.

One of our baby girls is fat, in the 99th percentile for her age. She is super cute and sweet. Lately, she has been sick with various breathing issues, so she has been reluctant to take her bottles. Normally, she’ll take 4 ounces of formula at lunch and 8 ounces in the afternoon. Today, I was lucky to get to her take 5 all day.

There was a substitute covering a lunch break in my classroom today. We emphasized to her that we need to keep trying to get the baby to drink her bottle until she finished it. She said, “Why are you guys so worried about taking her bottle?”

My coworker replied, “That’s where all her nutrients are. She needs the nutrients and the water.”

To which the substitute replied, “But she’s so fat. She doesn’t need it.”

Thin privilege is a small, pretty baby getting better childcare because the caretaker doesn’t think she’s too fat to be allowed to eat.

[thecrazygeek-rant]

This reminds me of a cousin of mine who ended up with her kids being taken away from her by social services for a number of reasons but mostly for nearly killing her baby daughter. How?

By starving her. She insisted that her baby was ‘too fat’ and had an aim to remove any and all ‘chubbyness’ so her baby would be thin. She’d already been warned by her doctor about the baby not getting enough food, but insisted she knew best.

After several months of this her baby passed out cold one day and was rushed into hospital where the doctors found her to have severe malnutrition, a low body temperature and low pulse rate. They asked my cousin what she’d been feeding her daughter and she said “one bottle of skimmed milk a day. I don’t want her growing up fat.”

Even after nearly killing her daughter my cousin maintained her view that fat = bad and ended up with all her kids taken from her because she was starving them and neglecting them.

When your fatphobia leads you to starving your own children then you’ve got serious problems.

(Note. She still, to this day, maintains the view that she was right and the doctors were wrong. “They just want fat kids so they can keep employed treating them for all those diseases that being fat causes.” = her actual words.)

[sinthiasweet]

My mom had me dieting with her when I was eleven. She had me eating less than 600 calories a day because she was worried I was going to “get huge.” She even grounded me once because she found out my friends were bringing me lunches! I ended up passing out, going to the ER, and getting two IVs at once BC I was so goddamn dehydrated. Soooooo surprised they didn’t call child services… And looking back, this was the root of my anorexia. I’m nearly 22 and still fighting it. Please don’t starve your fucking children.

[viergacht]

For fucks sake babies are SUPPOSED to be fat, what is wrong with people? It’s just stored energy, and growing children need stored energy - an 11 year old is just about to hit some major growing years. Damn. 

[fattyatomicmutant-deactivated20]

Fatphobia

Is

Real

and it kills

[mexicanxthighs-deactivated20190]

This is no joke. people will literally starve their own babies cause they don’t want them getting fat. A parent brought in their six month old baby who was having breathing issues and kept getting sick. the parent was asked if the baby was eating regularly and the parent straight up told the doctor that they only feed the baby once a day. ONCE A DAY. A FUCKING BABY. they even had the nerve to say because they didn’t want the baby to get fat. people like this are real. they would rather have a dead baby than a fat one.

[bigfatscience]

My youngest son is a very big boy and has been since he was born. When he was 10 months old I took him for his well-baby check and vaccinations. The nurse noted his weight and said, quite casually, “He is in the 99th percentile for weight so he is at risk for obesity. You may want to keep an eye on that.” I said, “He is exclusively breastfed. He refuses to eat any solids yet.” What did she expect me to do? What would it mean to “keep an eye on” an exclusively breastfed baby’s weight? 

She backed off saying, ‘Well he looks fine!” – proving once again that weight bias is not truly about health – But I know many other parents who are not as informed as I am about weight science and size diversity would react to this interaction by policing their child’s food intake, if not as an infant, then when he was an older child. This is exactly the type of seemingly-inconsequential interaction that starts the ball rolling on a lifetime of dieting, disordered eating, negative body image, and weight-based abuse for too many fat people.

Years later when he was five, another doctor measured his weight and height and commented that he is off the charts on both, but “at least he is in proportion.” And if he was not “in proportion,” I am sure I would have been advised once again to “watch his weight.” 

I no longer allow healthcare providers to weight my children unless it is absolutely medically necessary. They are unable to control their weight talk, which is a known harm for children.

We need to completely eliminate weight talk from medicine, especially when it comes to children. Even the smallest exposure can have terrible consequences.

[loverofbrownsugar]

Wtf…

[mainstreamqueen-deactivated2020]

A friend from college had been going to the doctor because she was having trouble breathing. She was told to lose weight. Over the course of several years, she went back to the doctors time and time again, telling them that she’d been sticking to the diet but because of her breathing problems she had been unable to even walk for more than 20 minutes at a time. The doctor got her into an exercise programme and told her that she just needed to really try to lose weight because that was clearly the reason for her breathing problems. By the time they found the tumour on her lungs, it was inoperable. She only lived three months after diagnosis. She was 25. She’d had the tumour for over five years. The doctor was so focused on the fact that my friend was “fat”, that they refused to look for any underlying cause. They killed her.

[thisisthinprivilege]

Weight-first treatment KILLS. Fatphobia KILLS.

[lady-yomi-deactivated20171102]

I have 2 scary stories to share about fatphobic doctors & parents harming their childs/patients’ health:

1. The 4 years old daughter of a friend of mine came to our house to spend the weekend. She gave me a letter from her mom that said that the child was in a glutenfree diet because she was getting ‘awfully fat’ when eating cookies or bread (my celiac ass; who gets dhiarrea and loses a scary amount of weight whenever I eat something with gluten was like ’???’).

You can bet that I went to the supermarket with the kid and told her ‘go & take whatever you feel like eating’ and the poor child came back smiling with her arms full of biscuits and cupcakes.

She didn’t got sick (as a celiac would get) and told me later that she hated the diet her mother made her follow; because her cousins didn’t had to pass through that.

And what’s the scariest thing about this story? Her mother was a NURSE. A fucking nurse who didn’t have a clue of the harm that she was doing to her daughter’s body!

2. My little sister started to feel fatigued and dizzy at 9 years old. She felt nauseated at the sight of food and had abdominal pain that increased with physical activity.

Mom got her to the ER and the doctor dismissed it saying: ‘she’s fat and probably is feeling ill after eating too much burgers, get her to make some exercise and she will be better in no time’.My mom didn’t felt ok with the diagnosis and took my sister with a second doctor who also told her that ‘the child was just fat’.

My sister’s skin was starting to get yellow as the days passed and the abdominal pain was getting awful so my mom (heaven bless her!) got her to the ER for the third time:

SHE HAD STAGE 4 HEPATITIS AND WAS ABOUT TO DIE.

She survived after a long and painful recovery who involved being in bed for a whole year (remember that we’re speaking of a 9 years old child). Luckily they saved her liver and she didn’t went through a transplant… but let this sink:

If it weren’t for my mother, fatphobia would have killed her. Fatphobia kills kids and teenagers, fatphobia kills inocent people everyday. It treats human beings as lesser than others and hurts them in their most vulnerable times.

It’s a real shame that we all have so much stories to share about this issue. A REAL SHAME.

[agreekdoctor]

Future doctors, interns, and residents following me:

FUCKING TAKE NOTE OF THIS!

Don’t let bias against your fat patients kill them!

[clatterbane]

(#and this is just when we actually go to the doctor and tell them we have problems #how many of us just give up #or won’t mention anything that seems like too much of a ‘fat’ problem)

[thelittlestastronaut]

i’d really like my thin followers to reblog this if you can. fat people are already here for each other, we need you guys to help us out too. this is something i never see anyone actually talking about in-depth, and it’s disappointing. be there for your fat siblings, too.

[themoonmothwrites]

This is coming up more and more in my parenting groups now that our children are preschool/pre-k aged, and I see so many parents hemming and hawing about it. But listen: doctors “diagnosing” babies and children as overweight is a massive red flag. Even if they’re really nice. Even if they’re great in other ways. Look elsewhere for care if you can because this bias is so incredibly dangerous.

[defectivegembrain]

don’t know what parent of an autistic child needs to hear this but as long as they’re not harming anyone your kid’s stimming is not a “problem behaviour”

[bowditch]

in our house we have a few categories of stimming behavior.

1. the no category. this is for things that are unsafe. hurting self (head banging, scratching), hurting others, chewing on choking hazards. i know this is excluded in OP’s post, but i’m putting it on my list because if you parent an autistic child and deal with this, you have to be aware that a key to off-limits stimming is redirection. stimming satisfies an important physical and neurological need for the autistic brain, and that behavior is sensory-seeking. if you must say no, please also offer options or help redirecting to appropriate outlets for pressure, motion, rhythm, chewing, etc.

2. the shared space category. listen, i get that a lot of people are assholes about things that aren’t hurting them. that’s not what this category is for. but we have a household with multiple autistic individuals and a work from home situation. “shared space” is the code phrase we use for “please take this stimming to a different location.” sometimes, aural stims like repetitive noises or physical stims like pacing can be legitimately distracting to other people in a room (or car!). in the case of other autistic people, it might even feel painful or mentally consuming. this category is no-judgment “please move to another location to continue stimming this way.” it’s not bad, it’s not wrong, you aren’t being shamed– just do your best to respect others and their needs or comfort, and leave the communal area or lower your volume.

3. the you do you category. it doesn’t matter that nobody else is doing this to feel comfortable or happy– you aren’t hurting anyone else, you aren’t being disruptive in a space other people are using together. go for it.

and in every single category, anger has no place in redirecting a stim. not even the no category. stimming isn’t malicious, there’s no actual moral requirement to be “less weird” or “like everyone else.” even reminders like “you aren’t the only person in this room and that’s very loud” don’t need anger. stims aren’t done at anyone. they’re just the body expressing a kind of neurological hunger, and whether the answer is “enjoy that!” or “this isn’t safe for you to eat (ie, do)” fury doesn’t help.

[anais-ninja-bitch]

oh shit this is a REALLY helpful way to conceptualize stimming and competing needs.