#chicken parent

[artfaithfully]

I hope you find Joy today💖✨🐛🐓

[canisalbus]

Sobbing over Machete, who can only be seen smiling in one part of the growing up compilation, as a wee little lad.

Sobbing over the face that he was a toddler in that part, a child who had yet to be separated from his family or know the abuse of his "teacher," who only knew the joys of cute snails and holding his favorite pet chicken.

It seems like all of his issues were compounded after his family left him :(

It is what it is. Considering the cards he was dealt, he managed to play his hand pretty well, I think. I've been mulling over this a bit lately, and I'd go as far as to say that in the eyes of his contemporaries, his childhood probably wouldn't even have been unusually unhappy or unfortunate. By most metrics he was a wildly successful individual.

Historically speaking, child abandonment has been more widespread than a modern day person might initially think.

(source)

I'd also like to believe that his parents meant well and the decision to give him up wasn't an easy one. They were going through an impossibly tight squeeze of financial and emotional hardship, and Machete, the youngest child, was constantly sick with mystery illnesses they didn't know how to deal with (anemia + weakened immunity system being the main cause for most of them). Rather than having the entire family suffer and starve, they arranged to have him be left at a monastery, hoping to give him a fighting chance to survive.

If there's a silver lining to it, it was a immense stroke of luck he ended up somewhere where he was looked after (monks were known to have better understanding and access to medicine than commoners). Moreover, he was also taught to read, a rare and priced skill at the time, which ultimately enabled him to claw his way into the upper echelons of the society. Not only did he survive, he prevailed against all odds.

Machete himself probably has mixed feelings about his childhood. He doesn't like to think about it, and (like most people) doesn't realize or admit the extent it affected him. His parents only exist on some conceptual, untouchable level to him, and I don't think he has any desire to try to find out who they were and if they're still alive. He might harbor some repressed, aimless and faceless resentment for them for deciding to wash their hands of him for a reason for another. Maybe it's the root of his inferiority complex and persistent sense of inadequacy, knowing there must've been something wrong with him for that to happen. But then again, it's hard to truly miss something or someone you don't have a personal connection to, or any memories about. In the end, he wasn't worth their time then and they're not worth his time now.

He can recall some of his time in the monastery and it was mostly a pleasantly uneventful existence, filled with strict but soothing routines and a sense of community. His mentor (father-figure, whether he likes it or not) was a cold and brutish man who disciplined him harshly. His relationship with him is tense and inflamed, but he realizes he wouldn't have gotten as far as he did without his tutelage, connections and patronage. If he hadn't sponsored his studies in Venice, he would've never crossed paths with Vasco either.

[joosiewiththeboof]

He's got a lot of catching up to do

[homeofhousechickens]

So she was upset that I put vegetables in the food puzzle because she doesn't even really like vegetables but she wanted to be included so she was sad the leghorns pecked her. She literally marched right over onto my lap and sat down after they were done.

[fyllophobia]

cheep cheep

[cinamun]

Had to update this post because how in the world did I forget about Bob and Elijah Pancakes?

[longreads]

Amory Rowe Salem writes a beautiful piece for Longreads about family firsts, learning to love and lose, and taking care of chickens.

While I wasn’t a trained educator capable of making cetaceans and early American history and square roots come alive for them, I was still a person equipped to teach my children about the living and, when necessary, the dying.

Read Amory’s essay, “Hope Is the Thing with Feathers,” at Longreads.

[bvckbiter]

the jokes write themselves

[cystolt3113]

I have no idea what i was doing with the landscape.

Also today is Ullambana Festival, so Shen got extra parents time.

[ducktracy]

i am a chronic "i need to watch that"-er, and i'm very lucky but also cursed to be surounded by excellent friends always recommending me excellent things. and i finally want to get off my keyster and actually WATCH them, but i have so many different serieseseseses i'm in the middle of that it's really hard to commit to one. so i made a watchlist of every series i'm either watching, beginning to watch, or wanting to watch. and then i decided to do the same with movies. and books i'm reading/want to read. and decided i should keep track of my art ideas and projects too. and this is great because with the shows especially, i've made a system where i watch one (or more if i have the time) episode of a show a day, and then make my way down and alternate between shows every day. and so far this has been working out great for me. but standing back and looking at my list is just making me say Oh, god. if you're wondering what's Eliza watching/reading/needing to work on, i have excellent news for you:

i'd also like to add that this is all on top of a continuation of last year's resolution in which i have thousands of golden age cartoons listed in a google doc, i roll a random number generator, and let it dictate the GAC i watch for the day. i am drowning

[strawbebbiesart]

chimckens 🐓🌽

[skecherss]

Forced to engage in Solomon-esque shenanigans this morning

[pocketramblr]

yum!

[yardsards]

primadonna girl, yeah

all i ever wanted was the world

[spacedace]

When I say I want a Broody Batman, I don't mean Broody as in "Byronic Hero" I mean Broody as in "Hen aggressively fluffed up over a clutch of eggs/chicks willing to fight god to protect them"

I want Batman to stand up and a dozen little legs to be spotted from beneath his hammer space logic of a cape.

I want someone to get to close to one of his little chicks and start making that demonic angry chicken noise.

I want him to sit in one spot and refuse to move come hell or high water because he's gotta make sure all his little ones are warm and safe from predators.

I want each bat-adoption to be there because Alfred slipped an orphaned child in need of a good home/parent under the cape like a farmer shoving day-old chicks under a hen that went Broody and is slowly starving herself to death trying to hatch unfertalized eggs.

No more of this standing on the ledge of a building with lowered head looking sad in the rain bad parent Brooding Batman. Only aggressively protective and good parent Batman.

[leapdayowo]

there is nothing better than warmed up soup rn