Item: Loud Teapot

Fully seconded, with a side of "also the process can kill you and even if it goes perfectly, it will change your body forever in ways you cannot possibly foresee."

If you get involved in any abortion access work, you will quickly learn that mums are among the loudest and most numerous of advocates. "We need more of those" always, but there are so many of them already. SO MANY

My understanding is that a very significant percentage of women who get abortions ARE moms. Moms who have responsibilities to the kid(s) they already have and don't want their existing kids to get hurt by 1) their family being forced into a ruinous financial situation or 2) having their mother die.

Late-term abortions invariably involve pregnant people who wanted to become parents, but something went wrong enough with this pregnancy that wasn't gonna be possible. Miscarriages are often the same, and often use the same exact procedure to deal with the fetal remains that would have been an abortion procedure had the pregnant person gotten it done the previous day.

Obviously not all those cases involve moms, because gender or no prior kids or both, but the point holds.

fun fact! oh. ohhhhhh no..oh no. they've got him

Melon collies

Breaking my 6 year tumblr absence to post some Phantom fan art 🎶  

It is crazy that “don’t be kind because you’ll be perceived as having ulterior motives” is infiltrating into so many facets of society. Don’t be kind because it might be perceived as flirting. Don’t be kind because it might be perceived as manipulation. Don’t be kind because it might be perceived as fake.

IM GONNA KEEP BEING EXTRA KIND I DONT CARE FUCK YOU

You know how kids are supposed to be exposed to some level of dirt and grime as they grow up so their immune systems can learn what's a deadly disease and what just causes some slight irritation? And if a kid grows up in a too clean environment they're likely to develop severe allergies or a hyper immune disorder?

I think the over sanitation of the internet is doing similar things to people's psyche.

No that ship with an age gap isn't the same as pedophilia, you're just having the moral equivalent to hay-fever.

1925 "Bubble Dancer" by Armand Godard. From Art Deco, FB.

pom pom crabs are some of the most unethical animals in the ocean

this man is a serial abuser

His pom poms are two sessile invertebrates he holds in his hands and starves so he can punch stuff with anemones who are so desperate to eat that they’ll use maximum sting on anything that gets close to him. When they starve to death he just finds more

ACTUALLY, IT IS WORSE

The crabs will force the anemones to clone themselves if one dies OR steal others’ anemones if both die

They haven’t found these anemones in their free-living form, so, as far as we know, this anemone species is these crabs’ slave species—it’s only known in association with pom pom crabs

Cool paper on this: Schnytzer, Y., Giman, Y., Karplus, I., & Achituv, Y. (2017). Boxer crabs induce asexual reproduction of their associated sea anemones by splitting and intraspecific theft. PeerJ, 5, e2954. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2954

So if I understand this right, "slave species" is a biology term only used for this ONE SPECIFIC CREATURE OF ALL THE COUNTLESS LIVING ORGANISMS ON THIS ENTIRE PLANET?!

Oh, the slave species thing is outdated information from the original study in the 90’s. To be fair, that study is still very very respected, it was just wrong about this specific thing.

Their anemones aren’t a unique species, they are only visually distinct because the crab farms them in a very specific way - making a fragment of a larger hawaiian anemone, or finding a newly spawned one. When they carry it around, they force the anemone to adapt to an entire new lifestyle. The crab’s nocturnal behavior slowly kills the anemone’s photosynthetic symbionts, from which it gets its color. After that, the crab can control how much food the anemone actually gets by using it to mop up food off the sea floor, and take excess out of its mouth. Since it doesnt have to reach for sunlight, or reach to catch food, this encourages dense, but short tentacles.

The shortcoming of this study was just that its very hard to get the anemone away from the crab without killing both, and its equally hard to get an anemone to bounce back from this state.

Due to their introduction into home aquaria, we now know any anemone they take will end up in this state, (bubble tips, aipistasia, haitian anemones, the list goes on) and we also know they are not bound to carrying anemone’s specifically. They’ve been seen collecting zoanthids, palythoa, and euphyllia (though euphyllians usually don’t survive).

To update this, the astronaut didn’t actually do it, she and her wife were getting a divorce and the wife plead guilty to lying to the feds about it

And framing your ex for a crime mid-divorce while they are actively in space is some Agatha Christie level shit

"The dragons must choose their own riders. Last year Goldenheart killed five teenage boys before finally choosing his rider."

"Wow I'm surprised you didn't put him down. At least you neutered him, right?"

"...what?"

"You know, so he couldn't breed? Seems a bit too aggressive to pass those traits down to offspring."

"Oh no he's actually one of our top breeders. Cause he's so big and strong."

"He killed five children. I'm sure you could find dragons that are big enough to get the job done that don't have a taste for human flesh."

"Well no, they all do it, so we can't change it. It's just their way."

"Then pick the dragons that are less aggressive and breed them with other dragons that are less aggressive until you get a dragon that can actually go its whole adult life without killing people. Jesus Christ, do you people not know how domestication works? It's like mankind's third invention!"

"....."

"You know what, get your wing together so I can teach you guys what a Punnett Square is. I'll also need your behavioral records of each dragon, their pedigrees, and some....specialized veterinary equipment."

#i blame dragonriders of pern for this#which is especially gratuitous because THE DRAGONS WERE ALREADY GENETICALLY ENGINEERED#why didn't you fucking DOMESTICATE them while you were making them gigantic and telepathic?#i am gelding that goddamn dragon before i take it into battle

somewhere in the world

a mother is singing her baby a lullaby for the first time, a shelter cat is going home with an excited family, a kid is starting the first pages of what will be their favorite book series, a couple in a long engagement is finally having their wedding, a gardener is stepping outside to see their produce flourishing and almost ready to be picked, a father is becoming a grandfather eager to hold his new little love, a teenager is putting the keys into their first car, someone is moving on from a break up and walking past a place they used to go with their ex without feeling an ache, a patient is taking their first steps forward after a long surgery, a child is getting all giddy with anticipation for their birthday party

because life all around us is beautiful even though there is chaos and sorrow that can often overshadow it.

Wolf fishing for salmon at Brooks Falls, just upstream from where the Brooks River flows into Naknek Lake in the Katami National Monument, Alaska.

Ok so I'm looking up pictures for tomorrow's deep dive, and I just have to share this one I found on iNaturalist:

This little guy is not a willing participant in this study.

(Bonus: can you guess what animal this is?)

Image source

"men don't need to be afraid walking around at night"

Unless they're black

"men make more than women in jobs"

Black men make less than white women on average

"men don't get followed around by people who mean them harm"

Black men are heavily policed and regularly jumped and killed for just walking down the street

"no one tells a man what he can and cannot do with his own body"

Black men are repeatedly assaulted and have their hair forcibly shaved or cut for wearing their hair natural and in culturally important styles. Black men who choose body modifications like tattoos or piercings are branded as thugs. Black men who have children and black men who don't have children are both regarded as players, hounddogs, absent fathers, and baby daddies, as if the logical answer is that no one's first choice of partner and father of their children would ever be a black man.

"no one judges a man's worth based on his clothes"/"a man isn't ever in danger no matter what he wears"

Black men are required to look presentable and professional according to eurocentric standards, push themselves into clothes not made for their bodies, and be highly uncomfortable in their daily lives or else risk 'fitting the profile' or 'matching the description' and getting detained by police AT BEST for the crime of existing in public. Black men wearing comfortable clothes are seen as sloppy, thugs, gangsters, street rats, hood and ghetto.

"no man fears rape"

The rape and sexual assault of black men ties directly to black buck stereotypes and black fetishization to the point where liking a black person or having your dating pool be open to black people is treated like a sexuality much like being gay. People are both threatened by and aroused by our bodies and that leads them to perform extreme acts of violence on us, including rape, SA, coercion, trafficking, and more. Much like how "tranny" and "lesbian" is a porn category, so is Big Black Cock. Sometimes with us featured as the rapist. Sometimes with us featured as the victim. Almost never with us featured as intimate, passionate, loving, tender. Black men are either to be feared and reviled, or to be broken and forced to submit. Direct ties to slavery with white people still getting off to our suffering.

Just say you don't care as much about black people's suffering and go, jesus.

I have privilege because I sometimes pass as a man? Try walking in my shoes for a while. Turns out being a black man vs being a black woman isn't always so different.

I do think it's really interesting that I have a lot of black butches and trans mascs on this post verifying in their tags that yes they've lived both as 'black woman' and as 'black man' and 'black man' is really not the improvement it's advertised to be and in the mean time I have also a bunch of nonblack people and especially white europeans saying this post is stupid and no one who agrees knows anything about what it's like to be a black woman and I'm just wondering out of the two options who do you think is more knowledgeable about what black people go through? 🤔

My nephew was 6 years old when his mother sat him down and explained to him very plainly what happens to black boys and black men who are out at night.

Both of my parents worked in education. My white (passing) mother was a special ed teacher in a middle school. My father was her district's administrator. She was paid more than him. Significantly. They both have Master's Degrees.

My nephew was 13 when Trayvon Martin was killed. His mother asked him to please make sure he came home before the streetlights came on, and if he couldn't make it to not wear a hoodie and certainly don't wear it up. No matter how cold.

My nephew and my father were both pinned down and had their afros shaved/ruined by teachers, people they should have been able to trust. My nephew, my cousins, and more than one of my uncles have had the same happen to their locs. When my mother became pregnant very early in my parents' marriage, no one believed that she actually *wanted* to marry my dad but that she'd accidentally become pregnant and married him to not be ashamed. When my parents adopted my sister who is much darker skinned than my other sister or myself, the assumption was that she was a child from one of dad's previous marriages (he's only ever been married to one woman: my mom) and that my sister was only there because of a custody battle. The first time my dad came to pick me up from school, the office refused to let him in the building and called the police on him for trying to abduct me, because everyone knew my mom was white and the logical conclusion of a black man picking up his black/mixed kid from school was that he was a kidnapper and not that he was my fucking father.

My father arrived home late one night after flying in from Japan and was understandably in comfortable clothes after being exclusively in suits in Japan in the middle of summer for 6 months. Our neighbor saw him pull into the driveway, let himself in the back door... and called the police saying a black man in a hoodie was breaking into our house. We'd lived there at that point for more than a decade. My nephew and I have been followed around in stores for wearing beaters and basketball shorts in the middle of summer. My cousin was harassed by cops while sitting at the bus stop because he had his hood up and was listening to music on his ipod. My uncle was cornered by airport security and ended up missing his flight because someone gave a 'tip' that he 'looked suspicious' in his jeans and a t-shirt.

Every single one of my older black relatives, male and female, have been raped. Every single one. Some of the younger ones too.

This is not a 'what if' post. This is not a 'higher discussion of systemic violence' post. This is a 'stop erasing the experiences of black men because you think there is no way on earth a black man can suffer outside of [just racism]' post.

two years ago I posted this and two years later this still rings true, but I want to draw attention to something:

This is the post that netted me my "reputation" for saying that black women have it better than black men or that black women caused these problems.

This post was made in specifically because of radfem talking points, in direct response to a radfem post I saw and was mad about. Two years later I am seeing white radfems say the same about F1nn5ter. My response is still the same. A: trans women aren't men, B: that's not even true of cis men because marginalized cis men experience all of these things on a regular basis.

No where in this post does this blame black women for anything or say that black women don't experience this- in fact I specifically mention black butches in multiple reblogs and in other posts discussing this exact topic. Black women are frequently forcibly degendered and masculinized, and God forbid a black woman actually be GNC and masculine or transgender because then her risk of violence to be enacted upon her is at an absurd height.

This is a critique of white, radical feminism and how it actively perpetuates racism. Don't get it twisted.

Anyway when I bring up these points with this post, this is the sort of attitude I'm talking about. ALL of these are from a recent post where I am talking about my specific experience as a black trans man and ALL of these are nonblack people taking it upon themselves to give lip service to acknowledging black people are oppressed and then IMMEDIATELY following up with not including black men in their idea of what counts as oppressed.

When I say white radical feminism leaves racially marginalized men out of discussions of their own oppression, this is what I'm talking about.

This was from a post where I said people talk over me frequently and tell me my voice as a black person doesn't matter and I was taught not to tolerate it as a girl and I'm certainly not going to start tolerating it as a man. That people have regarded my presence as a black person as a threat just existing in an area my entire life and I didn't think it was a good thing when I was a black girl and I still don't think it's a good thing as a black man. This was a post about antiblack racism and how it affects me, an entire ass black trans man.

And nonblack people STILL sought to completely erase my perspective off my own post.

Does it hurt, when I point out your racism? Is it uncomfortable to realize that you're not innocent in spreading and perpetuating the same racism that's caused black people to die to violence at astronomical rates? Is it a hard pill to swallow?

Good. Choke.

Since I'm getting a collection of dumbass replies on this again by nonblack people I figured I should remind everyone: THIS IS A POST ABOUT WHITE RADICAL FEMINISM AND HOW IT LEAVES OUT THE EXPERIENCE OF PEOPLE OF COLOR. If you find yourself getting mad because I pointed out that this doesn't work for anyone who isn't white, maybe think about why you're mad instead of putting some bullshit in my notes.

So I'm on Nextdoor, because my city has fuckall for a good organized civic calendar and so that's kind of where I have to get my information.

If you won't listen to @doberbutts, here, I'm fucking white and this is an incomplete list of posts I've seen saying "watch out for this man I think he's casing the neighborhood," all of which showed photos or doorbell video of Black men and boys:

--a kid maybe twelve or thirteen riding his bike up and down the street

--a guy walking his dog

--a food delivery driver with order in hand who walked up to the house, squinted at the house number, looked down at his phone, and walked away (anyone who's worked one of those apps can tell you he was just at the wrong house)

--teenagers with a magazine and clipboard going from house to house. I happened to recognize the magazine, because I see it every single year. Those kids are in marching band and selling magazine subscriptions to fund band camp

--a guy just...walking? Like literally it was Ring footage and he was just walking along the sidewalk "too slowly"

--Black KIDS, maybe nine or ten years old, who were playing ding-dong-ditch. It is indeed an annoying game for the adults in the house, but it's hardly suspicious. I should note I have seen posts like this for both Black and Latine groups of kids, but never white ones

--a different guy with a different dog in a different neighborhood but because both men were wearing a red shirt people were trying to link them

--a Black guy sitting in a car that seemed "too new"

--a Black guy sitting in a car near my house. I told the poster said guy was the brother of the Black family that lives across from me, who are incredibly kind and honest people. I see this guy at least once every couple of weeks, often enough that when he got a new car I noticed and complimented it. The poster did not believe me even though I've lived across from this family for five years

--a third guy with his dog. This one was accused, with no evidence, of being a dogfighter because he had a bully breed with cropped ears. The idea that the dog might be a rescue never crossed anyone's mind but mine

--a few young teens on those motorized bikes that got popular a couple of years ago. The video showed them having a grand old time biking circles around the road, as kids will do. Nothing about their behavior was suspicious except their skin color.

I'd also like to note that on more than one post about ding-dong-ditchers I've seen white people, men and women both, saying stuff like "I'd like to see them come up to my house, we have a right to self-defense in this state." Yes--literally threatening to shoot children through the door for a childhood prank most of us played at some time or other.

So there. You have a precious whitey telling you it's true. Do you believe it now?

4 dabloons