#people are like WHAT you want to STOP EATING MEAT so all the COWS will go EXTINCT

[oca-rinn-a]

my mom started a new job and sent me this picture she took of a cow today and (': i need to visit badly

[professional-jaywalker]

Vermin

a short essay about being bug hearted, and killing bugs.

I think one of the most cruel thing to love might be invertebrates. Insects. Arachnid. Worms. Pest. With any other animal, it is seen as unreasonable to want to eradicate. Some insects do manage to earn human's favors, bees (but only the useful ones), moths and butterflies (but only the cute ones), and if you're facing a true bug lover, beetles and dragonflies and perhaps even spiders and centipedes and scorpions. But not all, and it's still simply reasonable, to hate even seeing them.

I've loved bugs since I was a kid. I think it felt wrong not to, because people didn't like them, and people didn't like me. I don't think I've ever understood what in how they move felt less alive for people than a puppy. Still now I love bugs. I love mosquitos and I love botflies and I love hornets and tiny annoying ants that crawl through the windows and cockroaches and the wasp that stung me on the thumb when I accidentally grabbed a stick she was resting on when I was 9.

You cannot possibly live a human life without killing countless things. It's impossible. The most vegan, most peaceful human, refusing to walk on grass to not harm the grasshopper that didn't jump fast enough, will not be able to live a life without killing an insect even accidentally. It's something I have thought about a lot overall. I'm not vegan. I've thought about it. It would make sense, I don't see a lot of difference between my own flesh and the flesh I eat. But somehow it feels even more insulting, to be something that kills, and to pretend I don't. I eat insects, too. I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly how I feel about it all.

Maybe it makes me an hypocrite, to be so perturbed about the way people treat insects when I still eat meat. But it's, I think, in the end, the fracture between someone seeing a dead cow, and a dead fly. Most people wouldn't have the courage to kill a cow. They would feel guilt. In fact, a lot of people already hide the fact that meat is flesh and is, strictly speaking, part of a cadaver. People who refuse to eat a fish with the head. Pork, not pig. Beef, not cow. I hate that too. But insects ? People kill a fly without even thinking about it. It's annoying, then it's dead. A dead fly doesn't elicit guilt.

People expect me to be the same. Even knowing I love insects, it's seen as amusing that I acknowledge them as more than a mindless automaton, and, if I can, if it costs me nothing, avoid killing them. I have killed countless insects. I've had to, purposefully, many many many times. But it is, in fact, killing. I just want to be allowed to recognize that.

I work in a lab, on ants. We dissected more than a hundred, ovaries, poison gland, brains, understanding how they work, how differentiation happens and how they communicate it. Reconstructing brains to evaluate changes in different structures, measuring how many proto-egg each individual has post-dissection and correlation to dominance, reading articles and articles about theory.

These specific ants like shallow humid grooves for their nest. Today we tested a large foraging arena, brightly lit for the cameras, dry, wide, open, empty. Ants panic after being picked up even with the least harmful tools we have. When in an unfamiliar space, we've had them in the past run until they died of exhaustion, unable to find the entry of the nest to hide. Two of them were placed in the foraging arena to test the cameras, test if we could read the tags they have on their back. Again and again, they like to follow the walls, possibly because it feels less exposed. And again and again, they stop, groom each other, and calm down if they meet, huddled into each other.

I can't claim to know what's going on in ants brain, whether they feel things similarly to us. But it's hard not to project.

Ant tagged 16, and ant tagged 12, close, unmoving.

[autistichalsin]

I think a lot of non-Americans don't realize just how deeply meat eating is tied in with conservatism here, and a lot of Americans don't realize just how much that isn't a thing in a lot other cultures. Like yes, duh, there are a lot of cultures where due to the local ecologies, a diet made up of a lot of meat is the norm. But what I'm talking about here is the specifically American style of meat eating.

Here, not only does meat-eating get conflated with gender, but it does with national identity as well.

Meat eating is seen as masculine; vegetables (and sometimes even just sweets!!) are seen as feminine. "Soyboy" and "soyjak" are called such because soy is seen as feminine, partly for being a vegetable, and partially because of some fearmongering over the estrogen content of plants, especially soy. The most common rationale for vegetarianism- compassion for animals- is relentlessly mocked, and stereotyped to be for teenage girls in a rebellious phase. In fact, there was a national chain restaurant a few years ago that introduced a veggie burger to its menu and advertised it as "for when you teenage daughter is going through a phase." South Park had an entire episode mocking the main characters for a temporary decision to not eat meat, saying it would literally make them grow vaginas, because veggies are for women and women are STOOPID.

Further, meat eating gets conflated with American identity, particularly if it's beef. People make all kinds of noise about supporting farmers (even though, hint, there's a 97/100 chance your steak did NOT come from a cow farmed by a local, small farm, but instead by a corporation, unless you specifically go out of your way to shop local). And it's no coincidence that so many Americans are so against even token efforts at environmentalism considering just the strain ranching and the infrastructure to support it (I.E. growing feed for the cows) takes on the environment. Environmentalists get branded as woke commies because trying to take even the tiniest efforts to stop ranching from fucking up the environment (take a look at what's happening in the Amazon due to ranching, fascinating stuff. And yes by fascinating, I do in fact mean horrifying) means less beef and that means you HATE AMERICA and just want our MEN to be a bunch of weak SOYBOYS.

This insanity goes so deep, in fact, that multiple hardcore Christian cults literally instruct their members that their kids expressing a desire to become vegetarian or eat less meat is a sign they are being brainwashed by satanist cults.

America has set up this ridiculous, bizarre, utterly insane meat-worshipping culture where tossing a slab of beef on a grill and charring it is seen as the epitome of masculinity and Americanness and being a Good Christian, where skipping meat for ONE MEAL will turn you into a degenerate satanist leftie commie soyboy, and it's as hilarious as it is frightening. There are even movements to ban "Meatless Mondays" from public schools (some school districts will pick a single day of the week not to serve meat in the cafeteria) because it will "corrupt the youth" and/or is "unhealthy" for them to not eat meat for one meal a week. It's absolutely bizarre beyond words.

[haveyouseenthisskeleton]

What are the skellies most disliked food and why? Main skellies + maybe the Farm bros if you like.

Undertale Sans - Anything too sour. Sans hates sour food with all he has (too bad he also makes the best faces while eating some and so it's Papyrus' best way to get revenge).

Undertale Papyrus - Anything sticky, greasy, smelling too strong or having a texture his autistic mind can't bear. Papyrus is a lot more difficult with food than what people's think and he doesn't like to try new things. He's really fine with his 3-4 dishes he can perfectly control and rejects everything else.

Underswap Sans - Anything with lemon in it. He hates lemon and he can detect it in any dish, wich instantly makes him gag and stop eating. Lemon is ruining nice dishes. Stop putting lemon everywhere!

Underswap Papyrus - Biscuits that are supposed to be crunchy but reveal to be spongy out of nowhere. It ruins everything. It disgusts him.

Underfell Sans - Edge freaking putting pineapple or shit veggies on his greasy comfort pizzas. You don't touch his pizza you insufferable oversized bitch. He raised you for 20 years, now he's free to eat the hell he wants! He could also never eat lasagna ever again. Just the sight of it makes him sick. Never again. He never wants to eat anything Edge used to make Underground ever again actually.

Underfell Papyrus - All the industrial shit his brother brings home. They lack good food for years Underground, it's not to poison themselves with bad food on the Surface. He can never understand his brother's diet.

Horrortale Sans - Meat. Any kind of meat. It gives him nausea and if it's bloody it's even worse. Too many bad memories associated with it. Now that he has farm animals, he could never eat meat again anyway. It hurts him too much to imagine one of his cows in his mouth. He's fine with veggies.

Horrortale Papyrus - Meat as well, to the point he gets triggered while shopping sometimes. Willow is traumatized and has PTSD of what he had to do to the humans Underground. The smell of meat cooking instantly makes him freak out and he can get sick just smelling it. He doesn't want to take the life of another animal (or human) in his life anymore.

Swapfell Sans - Fish. He hates the smell of it, either cooked or uncooked and all the fishbones in it want to kill him. He's not going to let them win. He's also disgusted by seafood because he ate a rotten shrimp one and paid for it for two weeks with a high fever.

Swapfell Papyrus - Veggies. Ew. His brothers won't stop trying to make him eat some since he was a kid. He doesn't need veggies. They're lame and trying to make him healthy. You don't decide what's healthy for him. If he wants to eat McDonald's for the rest of his days, he's going to do it and no one will stop him. Hisssss.

Fellswap Gold Sans - Bananas. And that has nothing to do with the fact he ate one with the skin when he arrived on the Surface. He knows better, obviously (no, he doesn't).

Fellswap Gold Papyrus - Soap with food flavor. How was he supposed to know you're not supposed to eat that when he arrived on the Surface? That's confusing!

Farmtale Sans - Industrial food. He can never understand why people eat this garbage when people like him are working really hard every day so they can eat healthily. What's wrong with you all!

Farmtale Papyrus - Mushrooms. He hates mushrooms. Why did someone even invent mushrooms for? It's boring, it's tasteless and people put it in a lot of dishes for no reasons. He hates mushrooms! He doesn't even know how to tell which one can kill him and which one are edible.

[korn-official]

The Kerrang! Challenge starring Jonathan Davis & Munky!

This weeks contestants are:

Name: Jonathan Davis and James 'Munky' Shaffer

Occupation: Tortured singer and guitar-mangler & Kerrang! stage headliners, KORN!

Specialist Subject: Clowns, blindness, and obscenities.

**

1. What is BSE most commonly known as?

James: "is it a European thing? Oh great."

Jonathan: "Mad Cow's Disease?"

James: "Yessss!!!! Good guess, man!”

Jonathan: "I'm a vegetarian now, and BSE was one of the reasons I stopped eating meat. It freaks me out. I don't want my fucking brains running out my nose."

2.On entering the EEC, how many cigarrettes can you bring with you?

Jonathan: "Oh, man, What the fuck is it? Three?"

James: "Remember being on the boat at Dover, and there were all these guys with cartons? I'm gonna say 30 cartons."

Jonathan: "We'll say five cartons."

Kerrang!: "It's 'chokey' for you, then."

3.How many installments of "Childern of the Corn" have there been?

Jonathan: "Three. The first one's the dopest, the second one was kind of cheesy, and the third one I didn't see. Bet it sucks."

4. Who won the Euro 96 competition?

James: "Nobody in the band's into sports"

Jonathan: "What is Euro 96?"

James: "Just pick one."

Jonathan: "Norway."

5.name Slayer's second album.

James: "There was Reign in Blood, then ...."

Jonathan: "Seasons in the Abyss, maybe.."

James: "We'll say South of Heaven"

Kerrang!: "It was Hell Awaits.”

(The duo scream with the embarrassment of it all.)

Jonathan: "Fuck, I knew that song. Play it backwards and it goes, "Join Us", I liked it."

James: "Sicko.”

6. Name Keanu Reeve's rock band.

James: "I saw them on The David Letterman Show.”

Jonathan: "Er, we’re gonna suck…”

Kerrang!: "not as badly as Dogstar."

7. Who plays Quentin Tarantino's brother in From Dusk Till Dawn?

Jonathan: "Haven't seen it. Bruce Willis?"

James: "Boris Karloff."

8. What was the first single from Bon Jovi's keep the faith album?

James: "Keep the faith, that was it. Oh fuckk, I should have got that wrong. Oh no..."

Jonathan: "You fucking rocker!”

9. What is maize more commonly known as?

Jonathan: "Corn, we use Maize as a dummy name when we do warm-up shows."

10. As a result of losing her royal title, how much money has princess Diana been given?

Jonathan: "Was it 43 million pounds?"

Kerrang!: "No, she's not that important."

Jonathan: "I heard a story that when Diana and Prince Charles went anywhere, people had to build a toilet. Then the toilet seat got sent back to the Royal Family, so no one could ever sit on it. The whole monarchy's fucked."

11. Who directed the Italian horror film "tenebrae"?

Jonathan: "Oh, Fellini?

Kerrang!: "No."

Jonathan: "Fellini is the only italian director we know."

12. What is 15 percent of 400?

James: "Oh, man, mathematics."

Jonathan: "Okay, 10 percent will be 40 bucks, is it 45?"

13. What colour is London's Central tube line?

James: "Lime green.“

Jonathan: "I wasn't down there. so I can't tell you. We suck. How many have we got - two?"

14. Which band's second album is named "Ignition"?

James: "Ah, Offspring."

Jonathan: "They're from Huntington Beach, where we started the band. They're cool, but I'm not into that music at all. Noodles is a really nice guy, although he seems to be full of himself."

15. Who played the photo-journalist in "Apocalypse Now"?

Jonathan: "Dennis Hopper. He is in my favourite movie, 'Blue Velvet'. I wish I could live 'Blue Velvet'."

16. Whereabouts would you find the human tragus?

Jonathan: "That's a hard one…I'd say the face. Fuck, it's the head. Is it a bone? The ear. Morturary College comes in handy again."

17. Which rap band sampled a riff from Slayer's Angel of Death?

James: "Public Enemy, 'She Watch Channel Zero?!'. When we were 18, we used to play that in the recording studio."

18. Name the four horeseman of the apocalypse.

James: "Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Dennis Hopper"

Jonathan: "There's the white horse, the brown one..."

19. Which comedian recorded a live album and vidoe called 'no cure for cancer'?

James: "Denis Leary. He's raw, man. He's hosting a new comedy over here, called 'London Underground' or something.”

20. What are the ingredients of a good bloody mary?

James: “Vodka, tomato juice, celery, tabasco, and a dash of pepper."

Jonathan: "Worcester sauce and maybe some long green beans. They're great for a hangover, and on a plane too. I don't know why, but God they're good."

21. What do the opposite sides of a dice total?

Jonathan: "Seven, I know that from shootin craps."

Kerrang!: "Isn't that a tad messy? Boom ching, I thank you."

22. Spell the word enema.

Jonathan: "E-N...There's a 'Y' in it. fuck it. E-N-Y-M-A."

23. if a Londoner said that they were going to "up the apples and pears", what would they mean they are doing?

Jonathan: "Fucking— drinking? We have no clue.“

Kerrang!: "Up the stairs."

Jonathan: "Okay, I've gotta remember that. 'I'm going up the apples and pears, man.'"

24. How many centimeters are there in a foot?

James: "A hundred?"

25. Which is the correct saying: the yolk of an egg is white, or the yolk of an egg are white?

Jonathan: "The yolk of an egg is white, no?"

Kerrang!: "It's yellow.”

James: "Oh, man. that's like 'which is heavier, a pound of rocks or a pound of feathers?'. That is cool."

[robsheridan]

Poster for the unproduced 1984 live-action horror adaptation GARFIELD: FIRST BLOOD.

Following the success of CUJO in 1983, studios were scrambling to find the next hit “killer pet” flick. Notorious grindhouse auteur Ron Sharleton, seeking a big-budget movie deal to fund his struggling production of CANNIBAL QUARTERBACK 2, set his sights on the most unlikely of properties: Jim Davis’ beloved comic strip Garfield. Sharleton, a self-proclaimed fan of Garfield who called the strip “a subversive celebration of misanthropy,” believed an “alternative, adult” spin on the character could thrive in tandem with its kid-friendly cartoons. Describing his rationale in an interview later, Sharleton said: “You have all of these R-rated films that come out and become big hits and the studios want to suck every penny out of one idea, so they sanitize it and repackage it as a cartoon for kids. So I said, why can’t we do the reverse?”

GARFIELD: FIRST BLOOD was pitched as a dark, gritty reimagining in which the titular cat, pushed to the brink on a particularly bad Monday, finally snaps and kills Jon’s dimwitted dog Odie. As he tastes Odie’s blood, Garfield is overcome by how good it felt to put a permanent end to something that annoyed him. He then realizes that everything and everyone annoy him, and his murderous rampage begins.

Describing his take on the character, Sharleton said: “Garfield never really sat right with me as a children’s character. He’s so much darker, more complex. You have this cat who is filled with contempt; he looks at the world around him with radical skepticism and scowls at the prison of tedium mankind calls ‘society,’ and he responds with this very self-indulgent nihilism: Be lazy, be a glutton, don’t participate in anything because it’s all bullshit. Garfield looks at Jon waking up early on a Monday and putting on his tie to go to a job he hates, and he sees a pathetic fool. It’s all such a powerful rejection of the Reagan Wall Street capitalist disease that has poisoned the 80s. ‘Work hard, climb the ladder, buy a boat!’ Garfield says fuck that, stay home, eat lasagna, accept no master. But living as an iconoclast in a conformist world has filled him with all this tension. There’s anger in there, you know? So I wanted to examine what would happen if Garfield was finally pushed over the edge. Where’s the line between a passive nihilist and a violent anarchist?”

Warner Bros execs were intrigued by Sharleton’s pitch (and the lucrative cash cow of the Garfield brand) and funded a short “proof-of-concept” trailer, directed by Sharleton, to convince Garfield creator Jim Davis of the idea. The trailer reportedly went “all-in” on Sharleton’s signature “splattercore” horror, including a scene where Garfield grinds up Liz Wilson alive in a meat grinder and bakes her flesh into a lasagna he then serves to Jon. The presentation to Davis was described as “one of the most disastrously miscalculated meetings in modern Hollywood,” with Davis stopping the trailer midway to ask the room “are you people completely fucking insane?” before storming out.

Reflecting on the meeting years later, an anonymous former Warner exec said “we knew it was a long shot, but we really felt like the only way to sell the concept was to push it as far as possible. In retrospect I think yeah, we did let it go too far. We were so absorbed in it that we didn’t realize how jarring it would be for a guy like Jim Davis to just be thrown into this cold. I think it was a mistake to open with the Nermal blender scene, but we wanted shock, and we thought… I don’t know, everyone was doing a LOT of cocaine back then. Well, everyone except Jim Davis."

-----------

UPDATE: T-shirts and poster prints now available!

NOTE: This alternate reality horror story is part of my NightmAIres narrative art series. NightmAIres are windows into other worlds and alternate histories, conceived/written by me and visualized with synthography and Photoshop.

If you enjoy my work, consider supporting me on Patreon for frequent exclusive hi-res wallpaper packs, behind-the-scenes features, downloads, events, contests, and an awesome fan community. Direct fan support is what keeps me going as an independent creator, and it means the world to me.

[teddybearsandspaceships]

Notes for another Cleo stream, this one from April Fools. (Cleo has been uploading VODs again \o/ so it will probably be available on Youtube soon! Still available on Twitch here.) Featuring Real Life talk and permit office shenanigans with Grian, Scar, Etho, and Pearl.

Cleo reads out a message congratulating them on the Real Life win only a minute into the stream [making life hard for the mods, who pin a message not to talk about spoilers, as usual ^^]

Cleo´s opinion on if their win is canon: “Why wouldn´t it be real? Why wouldn´t it be?” The test, going by TV series rules: if the special gets mentioned in a later episode it´s canon.

They discovered the allays having coffee at the kitty café that False put there :D

Apparently the group was initially concerned if people would be mad, but they were still making content. The “April Fools” part was just that it was a one-off.

In-game chat: Grian announces the permit office is open. Special opening hours for April 1st! Pearl and Cleo are immediately suspicious and say it sounds like a trap. Joel says that Grian is actually nice to day (but on midnight he turns back into a nightmare.) Cleo is not at all convinced.

About Real Life: ~"the first thing everybody did was wave to each other, and dance, and give hugs, and I think that says a lot"

Pearl apparently had a 0/10 experience at the permit office. The permit office is closed again. nobody is surprised.

After the recording, Scar mentioned that he was told he should get a lap belt too… Scar is not Scar-safe. Cleo is frequently concerned/worried about Scar, which is only appropriate. "I´m not worried he´s gonna hurt himself, I´m worried he´s gonna, just, tear down the fabric of society.” "He´s a special little sausage, and also needs poking with sticks on a regular basis. Like big sticks – not little sticks, massive, massive sticks."

ooh apparently three glass permits are up for grabs! Grian, Scar, Cleo, Etho, and Pearl have a discussion in front of the permit office. Very soon this involves talking about loopholes to the permit office rules, but Grian tells them to stop it, he will just make up more rules. Pearl says she might be an NPC, Cleo says AI is not that advanced. Scar has skins, hats, and plans for him and Skizz has permit enforcers, but no spoilers

They looked at the permit office and the backrooms, listened to some unsettling music, and then started talking about cooking (more specifically Scar started talking about his meat. That he cooked, as Etho was glad to hear him clarify.) Grian thinks Etho would eat grey sludge nutrition paste.

Etho´s daily sandwich: a foot-long baguette, provelone cheese, hungarian salami, lettuce, tomatoes, salt and pepper, balsamic vinegar-based dressing. With dill pickles on the side. Grian calls it the most gourmet sandwich. "The more I learn the more I both admire and get confused.” Etho doesn´t understand the big deal [tbh neither do I? It´s a sandwich.] Scar says it´s because of how mysterious Etho is. Etho considers dramatizing everything part of the job as a youtuber.

"being tortured by Grian is fun, right? Right?" - Cleo

What would be Cleo´s mission if someone had created her? Pearl: to burn things down? Cleo asked if she´s burned down things recently. Etho: "She´s a trap door flipper."

repeated discussions about if Pearl is an AI or not

"you don´t have to be an NPC if you don´t want to, you can break your programming" - killing Cleo, however, would not be unexpected. Pearl has already stabbed her in the heart repeatedly. Not in Real Life! They were together that series. [Is it just me or does Pearl´s “yeeah…” sound a little more hesitant ^^]

Bonus: Cleo contemplates stealing cOW

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s2 episode 10 thoughts

woohoo! this episode has "museum" in the title and i love museums! but it also talks about cults in the description and i'm less keen on those

update: there were no real museums :( i feel lied to and cheated

we open on some cows. i was admiring their cuteness and their wonderful sounds by writing "moo" in my notes before we get a JUMPSCARE to a beef processing plant which. augh. unpleasant. i do not care for meat related story lines.

we see this woman working at the processing facility and she comes home to her kids and no husband in sight (a single mom who works two jobs, who loves her kids and never stops, iktr)

and she's getting in the shower but we see some fellow with glasses is WATCHING her. the question is from where and how?!? oh very creepy!!!

then the older brother leaves and we find him in the morning stripped to his underwear in the woods and whimpering. and his back is covered in writing.

so naturally my first thought was "what does this have to do with the meat? or did they just jumpscare me with unrelated meat imagery?"

(we later learn that it is, in fact, related. but this all happened before the title sequence even aired, so i was a little suspicious!)

cut to our beloved duo. mulder says this waking up in the woods with writing on the back and no memory thing has happened to a bunch of other kids. and scully's like "but why does this interest you?" and he says the sheriff claims they're being possessed which does seem up his alley

they're in the car with the sheriff and mulder was a gentleman and let scully sit in the front <3 he said my queen, you have endured so much, and motion sickness shall not be one of your troubles

at this point i realized the earlier meat scenes WERE related because the sheriff is introducing this new religious cult, who are vegetarians and bought a ton of cows to keep as pets. cows are cute but a bit large for pets in my opinion.

next they SHARE AN UMBRELLA on the way to the church's sermon thingy

okay so the leader is typing while someone reads his words which is certainly a presentation style. they all wear red turbans. and scully says she doesn't think they seem like the type to get involved in all this. she wanted them to be innocent so she could pet their cows. i'm onto you.

mulder hears a few lines of their chanting and says that these are "walk-ins'', which means the people think enlightened beings are controlling their bodies. okay theological king!

they go to talk to the boy who was in the woods in his underwear and man. we get this shot of mulder in the back. and his coat. is so comically large. i had to pause. take a deep breath. and remember the origins of my url.

the teenager says he thinks he was maybe possessed by an animal spirit or something, he doesn't know, and scully's sleuthing around the house when she discovers a child (the teenager's brother) and they are having a chat (again how much of this work involves talking to children) but SOMEONE is WATCHING THEM and it is CREEPY!!

cutscene to the pair eating ribs together and scully has sauce on her face and mulder wipes it off for her. and i squeaked. a squeak emerged from my body. look what they've driven me to. i am a woman with dignity squeaking over a rib date.

and why did they both look so good? but i was especially admiring mulder, in his silly little rib eating fit, explain the cult's reasoning behind a new spirit taking over the bodies of those who lost hope. i was embarrassed at myself for how attractive i found him. but then i remembered there are a lot of people who have probably been in a similar situation. so thank u for following this blog so i feel less alone in that manner.

oh nooo a bunch of kids are being mean to one of the church members on the side of the road... mulder gets up to intervene and tells them to gtfo (we love a man that stands for morals and justice)

the lead bully is ANGRY and sees scully come out and says "why don't you run along with the little wife" in her direction which is exactly what i have been saying but no one listens to me.

(neither of them seem to care that this happened which makes me think it's not the first time such words have been tossed in their direction)

and he's all "my father will hear about this" because the girl notices scully has a gun and gasp. he's the sheriff's son! so mulder's like "yeah i think he WOULD like to know about this" and they beat it

there's a moment where scully says it's hard to know who is in the wrong without having a scorecard, implying that keeping up with small town drama is impossible, and mulder is gazing at her. like GAZING at her. i think he heard the wife suggestion and was seriously mulling it over.

then the sheriff's son is making out with this girl for a time i considered far too long. but she goes back to where she lives and she sees a dog! a very cute dog! she appears to know this dog and goes to visit when BAM! dog-related kidnapping occurs :(

she ends up down to her underwear in the woods and she's hallucinating a giant crow eating her and also being swarmed with bugs which seems deeply unpleasant

scully does a check up on her because she is a DOCTOR and you had best not forget it! she seems fine... except... weird chemical in blood... a chemical you'd need to be some sort of doctor to know about... and we see the cult leader used to be a doctor before getting kicked out of the doctor world... it's not looking great for him

they pay him a visit but he won't let them enter his place because they will defile the sacredness of the space with their meat-eating aura. and then all of the members of the church swarm our duo's car and OHH it was creepy. but they manage to bring him into the station for questioning.

they're trying to ask him about the weird chemicals and he's going on about the injustice of eating cows and at this point the sheriff starts screaming at the guy. and mulder has to escort the sheriff out and tell him to be normal.

he says something about the guy starting a lot of trouble for being a holy man and i was thinking to myself. famously holy men DO cause a lot of trouble. this is perfectly on brand.

so then the rest of the church members were protesting outside of the bbq restaurant where our besties recently ate. and the sheriff's son comes out and throws COW BLOOD on them. he took his notes from carrie i see. the sheriff is PISSED and wrangles him up.

while all of this is going down, a strange man is beckoning to scully. and i am of the opinion that strange men beckoning to women should be avoided, but this is what separates me from the fbi agents of the world, because she goes over and he says he wants to show them something

at this point, the score to the show was going hard. i was jamming out. it was really getting dramatic as they rode over to some place and then got out of the car.

this strange man is talking about how he used to own this land, but he sold it and got rich, and he's saying that the new people inject the cows with stuff. i felt as if this episode was trying to make me a lil vegan.

scully's talking about how growth hormone is safe but the guy is not buying whatever the government has to say on the subject. and yeah like scully the government did just take you for a while so maybe they're actually lying? who knows. she went to med school and i didn't. frankly i don't want anything extra in my cow

we see the glasses of the man who was watching them earlier doing some cow injections! the amount of red flags here is staggering...

at this point, our regularly scheduled plot is interrupted by an excellent (and by that, of course, i mean entirely unrealistic) CGI helicopter crash that had be yelling at the screen. i LOVE 90's CGI it always fills me with whimsy. like sorry i know this was a serious scene but it looked funny and i laughed!!!

the two people on the helicopter are dead, and one of them was a doctor, who was found with a briefcase full of cash and a mysterious liquid... hmm..

mulder enters the room. "scully? you're not gonna believe this"

YESSSS! he said the LINE! i had seen it meme'd into my vocabulary far before i had ever decided to watch this show, or even had any idea what it was referring to. i would just mumble "scully, you're never gonna believe this" to myself whenever i learned any surprising information. for at least the last 5 years or so. so this felt very full circle to me. he did it.

he also proceeds to say something that scully can, in fact believe, because she already figured it out herself

so here's the situation: the doctor was treating a bunch of kids, including all of those who had gone into a frenzy in the woods. but what is the through-line here...?

we see glasses man again and then a RANDOM FARMER IS SHOT DEAD!

they go back to the house of the mom and the kids, and she's like yeah my son was getting vitamin shots from that guy. man i hate to tell you but i think there was more than vitamins in those shots. but mulder is... distracted by something.

there's a light coming from the bathroom mirror and he realizes there's something behind it. so he wraps his hand up and PUNCHES IT (bad luck be upon him for 7 years)

he finds what he refers to as a "private little movie studio" with a running camera and a TON of vhs tapes... nasty!!! not good!!!

cutscene to the sheriff's son, who has undergone a kidnapping and has not woken up! sheriff is naturally in deep distress. it turns out that he was actually murdered.

the car of our duo passes that of the gunman who shot that random farmer and scully realizes she knows that face... and i'm thinking that it did not look familiar at all. maybe it's someone she went to school with?

mulder is interrogating the video man, and he's getting real rough with him. he smacks him on the head, which is justified considering he was filming people in their home, but i do worry that mulder's interrogation violence will someday get him fired. the dude swears up and down that he did NOT kill them, but he did do the kidnapping and writing, because the doctor was experimenting on those kids and turning them into "monsters"

scully makes a connection... the gunman she saw before... was the FELLOW THAT KILLED DEEP THROAT???!!!! she has to excuse herself from the room at this revelation

mulder is deep in interrogation mode and the glasses slash video guy is saying that the doctor paid people- himself included- to inject the cows with a mystery substance, and that he must have been doing it to the kids he was treating as well

scully's back in the room and her and mulder are so close. so close. there is no reason for them to be that close. but here they are.

she says the stuff in the bottle was unidentifiable. that's actually not what she says, she said something about the number of proteins it had, and that means nothing to me but mulder goes OFF. he takes her outside the room and starts yelling at her about this meaning something.

here, at this moment, is where i realize what was happening: deep throat had mentioned to scully how they were dealing with people so cruel that they injected alien dna into kids. and i was putting 2 and 2 together JUST AS our main characters were. which honestly i feel like i should have picked up on that earlier but i hone in on character details and not alien details so sue me.

anyway mulder is absolutely gagged. he's yelling about "deep throat dying for this", and scully looks super super scared. he tells her to head out and that he wants this gunman taken alive

next we see him knock on the door of the... cult leader?!?! yes, you heard me right! mulder explains that he KNOWS it might offend this dude's religion, but he needs help. and so all of the kids and the families involved with the secret alien injection are taken to the barn where these people worship. tensions are boiling.

scully asks the sheriff where mulder is and he says that he left because he thought he knew where the gunman was. and this was not part of the plan, the splitting up and going to an undisclosed location! but i can imagine that this was deeply personal for him on the levels of 1. having lost deep thoat 2. having lost his sister and requesting any information pertaining to aliens and 3. these were the folks that kidnapped him at the end of s1 so. he had some scores to settle.

he goes to the beef processing plant, where he finds a TON of gasoline poured all over the floor. now, if i were mulder, being both deathly afraid of fire and also generally concerned with my life, i would have gotten tf out of there. but i am not mulder, and he keeps going on his quest to find this man.

gunman launches a sneak attack from behind a cow. which is not a bad place for a dramatic stakeout/fight scene but boy i'd hate to be there irl. and things are looking tough for mulder, who gets off his feet, only to be locked inside the building while this dude gets his lighter. he's about to drop it when...

scully walks in! with backup! she's got her gun pointed at him and he's wavering but the sheriff shoots him like 800 times. because he was the one that must have killed his son, so it was deeply personal. he's crying while doing this.

mulder stands over his body so sadly, knowing that he will never get the information he wants

scully concludes the episode by writing her case report, talking about how the kids who were infected have started getting sick. none of the kids from the church were infected, so it seems they were a control group. so in that case, the cult leader would have to have been in on this whole thing! oh, it's dramatic

but wait! if our duo had so recently eaten the infected meat, does that mean they are susceptible to aliens in their blood? and who knows who else ate the meat that was shipped out all around the country! aliens could be running rampant!

(i don't think that is actually the case- i'd have to imagine eating alien protein once is a lot different than getting it injected in you regularly for your whole life. but still. could complicate an already complicated situation. i mean, they've already endured evil cocoon bugs, exposure to that fungal virus, scully's coma... their doctors must be baffled at their medical history)

anyway, pretty good episode! i wish i could explain the joy that crossed my face when he said the line. and when they had a little rib date. oh man i needed that. that was good for me. i'll pass on meat imagery, like always, but it was interesting how they built this episode out of that one line in the s1 finale- or that they had planned it that way from the start. i didn't think we'd ever see what that whole process looked like! and it's good to get more info on our late friend deep throat. i still don't fully believe he's dead. you have to keep some suspicions on these things in sci fi.

[tia-amorosa]

Sunset Died - Wolff/Sekemoto

Young and old life

Some time later. A rainy afternoon. The sky is cloudy and it won't stop pouring. It's often known as the bad-mood weather, but the mood in the Wolff household couldn't be better at the moment. After being in labor for most of the night, Morgana gave birth to a healthy baby girl in the morning.

The little girl arrived a little early, but little Maureen is doing surprisingly well. “Hello, beautiful. I'm so glad you don't have the same nose as me"/ ‘hnhn, would that have been so bad?, yours has also become more beautiful with age’/ ‘With age… Hey, I'm not retired yet’.

Thornton tried to imagine what she would look like later. But nothing could be deduced from this little human yet. “I'll put her down for now, Sam needs me for a bit today too"/ ‘O.k. what about Yumi?’. After Morgana had put her daughter to bed, she turned to her husband and looked at him with a snivelling expression: “hh, I think she's going to leave us soon. She's sleeping a lot at the moment”.

Thornton stroked his wife's face. “Hm, isn't it true that old people usually often die in winter?” Morgana nodded. “mhm, that's almost normal, their metabolism slows down faster at this time of year. And when people reach a certain age, it sometimes goes faster and sometimes slower. But she really wants to go to the cemetery before she dies to give her son a proper burial. that's her dearest wish.”.

“And what will happen to Sam? She hasn't said anything about it yet…"/ ”hh, I don't know, Thornton. I know she's been in contact with youth welfare office, but I have no idea what she's discussed with them. . He'll be starting school soon and I'm sure he'll have lots of questions at some point. I don't want any strangers answering these questions to him” / ‘hm… I'll take care of him a little. you can rest a little longer’ / ‘hn, thank you’.

Thornton, meanwhile, had no more trouble taking care of Yumi's grandson Sam as well. “hey, what's going on?"/ ‘There's a lot of noise outside and lightning…’/ ‘yeah, the sky must be angry’/ ‘why?’. He looked at the little boy and stroked his head lovingly. “I don't know, maybe someone's been misbehaving"/ ‘not me… Where's Gram'ma?’/ ‘She's tired and asleep’/ ‘hmm, is the sky angry with me?’/ ”What? No, definitely not. I'm making somethin to eat now, okay? And when you've eaten, it'll be nice weather again tomorrow”.

After Sam got his food, the adults also had dinner. Morgana couldn't really sleep. And in the meantime, there were meals with meat again. Even if everyone had to get used to the fact that it was wild meat and not that of domesticated farm animals. They didn't want to slaughter the cows yet, as people wanted to benefit from the milk for as long as possible.

Later. Morgana put Sam to bed because he was already pretty tired from the day. Then she took another look at Yumi. Above all, she listened to her breathing. It was regular and a soft snoring could be heard from time to time. That was something the little boy was familiar with, it even calmed him down a little. but what if he can't hear Grandma's breathing anymore? “Good night, Sam. We're going for a walk tomorrow”.

After looking around the house again to make sure everything was in order, Morgana went into the bedroom. She was very thoughtful, and her husband noticed. “How long do you think she'll last?"/ ”It's really hard to say. Some days she's really well and others… She just wants to stay in bed. I always have to animate her to eat and drink at least. Today I let her sleep most of the time. And tomorrow…I'm going to the cemetery with her”.

“Are you taking Sam with you tomorrow? Shall I accompany you?"/ ”No, I can manage that. You take care of our girl. She makes me so happy, Thornton"/ ‘hehe, I made a special effort to put the right swimmer with you,’ he said jokingly. Morgana couldn't help but giggle softly. “You talk such nonsense sometimes, hnhn ”

“How did you actually come up with the name Maureen?”. Morgana smiled as she recalled her memory. “hn… Back in medical school, I had a fellow student called Maureen. She was beautiful and I was always a bit jealous because she was so good-looking… I don't even remember what subject she chose to become a doctor in the end. But it was a lot of fun with her“/”fun, huh?“/”what you're thinking again. Let's go to sleep now”.

Not only did it rain the whole time during the day, the sky also poured down over the city at night. But as they say again and again? Rain is followed by sunshine. And so Morgana hopes for good weather the next day so that she can accompany Yumi to the cemetery. Because she promised her that she would bring her son to a beautiful place with her. Unfortunately, the cherry tree is not in bloom at the moment. But in spring, who knows… Maybe they'll both be reunited then?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

End of this Part

@greenplumbboblover ⭐

Note: I know the whole thing with the youth welfare office may not be very realistic, but there are still people in the background who you don't see and who survived and are doing their job *wink*

[missbaphomet]

Replies won't let me type the full response so here

@thefalse first of all, there's more to meat/dairy consumption than "it tastes good". There are health issues that necessitate eating meat and animal products, and they provide vital vitamins, minerals, and proteins. Your body will specifically even give you cravings for food high in these nutrients when you're in need. Secondly humans are omnivores, our healthiest diets consist of meat AND plant. Livestock also consumes a huge percentage of food waste that humans, including vegans, can't or won't eat. This can be "ugly" food, food too close to expiration, food you can't keep overnight like baked goods. 30% of the diet of that pork chop that I had last Tuesday was food people threw away. Only 36% of food (by calorie) grown globally is eaten by livestock, 55% makes it onto the plate of a human. 9% goes to biofuels.

If you're as worried about resource scarcity as you claim maybe start trying for renewable resources??? The problem isn't "oh wow animals are so bad for the environment", the problem is "companies and corporations are doing bad things for more money and they're only getting worse." You can stop eating milk and honey all you want, but that's not doing literally anything towards what you claim to be advocating for. We can develop new ways to farm that are sustainable and renewable but we can't unfuck the environment with a simple "just don't buy meat lol". It's infinitely more complex than that.

Did you know it's illegal to harvest seeds you got from a tomato at your local Walmart and cultivate them for yourself? That is assuming the plant hasn't been rendered sterile to enforce reliance on whatever company sells the seeds. I personally think that's a bit more fucked up than having a grilled cheese every so often.

Also no one is arguing animal abuse is good, but it's pretty common knowledge that if you abuse your livestock, it reflects negatively in the product. Put simply: animals that are abused then slaughtered for meat make shitty meat. Is there some sketchy shit happening in factory farming? Abso-fucking-lutely. Many livestock animals live on the bare minimum. I absolutely think that livestock should have good lives. Obviously not every cow and pig and chicken can be raised with the same quality of life as a champion show poodle, but they absolutely deserve a nice pasture and good scratch and a warm, comfortable shelter.

You know who provides these things? Local farmers or even just hobbyists. I have several family friends that raise chickens, and we get more eggs than we could ever hope to reasonably eat as a family of four. If you don't eat the egg, toss it back to the chicken! She will happily eat her eggs because they're nutritional and make a damn fine meal. My family also has connections to a family owned cattle farm, and we split a cow up the middle every year, and did for almost 20 years before the owner got cancer and stopped selling beef to focus on his health, and it was damn good beef too. Pigs aren't prominent in my area, but I'm sure I could find one semi-locally. My DM keeps bees and my family went from basically never using honey to buying it by the pint. I think the only thing that my family buys from the store that we couldn't get anywhere else is milk and cheese because pasteurization and cheese making is a huge expensive process that isn't really reasonable to maintain for just a small family.

Ultimately the argument of "but animal abuse" boils down to factory farming, but the solution then becomes just don't buy meat and other products from factory farms.

[thekimspoblog]

Sweetness

Jimmy is around in "Slippin Kimmy", but there's no suspense or tension about his relationship to Kim. He's always loved her, he always will, even as he fights her it's almost inevitable that he will do what she asks. There's nothing "will they or won't they?" about this relationship.

The real whirlwind romance in this story is between Kim and a pistol.

We see her practicing at a shooting range with this handgun at the tail end of Episode 1. Then, in an extended flashback in Episode 2, we see where she got it: during the crisis at the Florida clinic, it was knocked out of the active shooter's hands and Kim grabbed it. She didn't use it on anyone; she just wanted to take the gun away from the bad guy, but she also chose to flee the scene before the police showed up. At first, Kim wanted to get rid of the gun, but after being attacked by the crooked cop she decides to keep it and learn to use it.

The gun continues to make appearances in Episodes 3, 4, 5, and 6, mainly as Kim attempts to do business with Dawson, and I want to spend a lot of time on the duality of Kim's feelings towards this object. In her mind, the pistol represents acquiescence to an extremist worldview, where everything comes down to a matter of life or death. And even as someone who's become disillusioned with the government, Kim is still warry that true justice cannot be carried out without an appreciation for nuance. On the other hand, the gun also represents responsibility: There's a recurring theme this season about Dawson and his meat industry, how everyone wants to eat steak but few people want to kill the cows, and how the money Dawson has made from doing the dirty work for the public is what has made him rich enough to perpetrate all this political corruption. The implication being that perhaps the "Law" is something similar; we put our faith in a higher institution to maintain social order for us, but this doesn't eliminate the ethical problem of vigilantism; it just outsources the power to make difficult choices to an untrustworthy third party. It doesn't matter how you order society; as long as you entrust one person to hand down punishments for everyone else, that person is going to be exempt from punishment themselves. The way Dawson sees it, the only alternative - the only mature choice - is chaos. He wants to return to the anarchy of the wild west, where if you're a MAN you don't come crying to Big Brother about your problems, you deal with your enemies with your own two hands.

This all comes to a head in Episode 7, when Kim finds Mary in the church playhouse. Mary gives Kim an ultimatum: if Kim endorses (or at least condones) Mary's crimes as justified, then she must give her food and shelter in the Church. If she condemns her actions, the moral thing for Kim to do would be to end Mary here and now. Mary has no remorse for the people she's killed, she even tells Kim she plans to kill more people, but she also realizes that without support she will probably be dead in a few weeks anyway. She just doesn't care anymore, she's too hurt confused and angry. She dares Kim to put her out of her misery, because that way at least Kim would stop Mary from taking other people down with her.

In spite of everything that has happened, Kim makes the choice to call the police and turn Mary in. Even though she knows getting the law involved means Jimmy will be going back to prison, and likely this time she'll be joining him. But emergency services don't answer the call: the rioting in Cheyanne means that the police won't arrive for hours if at all. Outsourcing this ethical quandary to the justice system has officially been taken off the table, so Kim must choose between helping Mary or killing her. And still, Kim does neither, opting instead to tie Mary up until police arrive or she can think of a better plan.

She keeps the gun trained on Mary just to keep her in check, all the while Mary egging her on to just pull the trigger already. But then, a distraction! Kim turns her back on Mary for two minutes because she thinks she heard Jimmy scream, and that is enough for Mary to wriggle free of her bindings and tackle Kim. She wrestles the pistol away from Kim and escapes out the Church's front door. Kim never sees the handgun again.

So everything comes down to a matter of perspective, and more specifically a question of whether Mary's victims deserved to die. Episode 7 put Kim in a position where she was going to break the 6th commandment no matter what, where her choice was between murdering a murderer or sparing that murderer's life so she can continue to kill other murderers. Was it cowardly, that Kim refused to do either option, and in doing so she ended up letting someone else make the choice for her? Or was it brave, that in spite of everyone around her trying to push her to her extremes, Kim refused to approach the dilemma as a binary? Maybe what's important is that Kim found a line she wasn't willing to cross, even if part of her knows that line is arbitrary.

In any case, this was the second time Kim's held a gun but it won't be the last.

[harrison-abbott]

When I was a child I decided I wanted to be a vegetarian. This post is only meant as a biographical story and I’m not trying to seem like a hero, or anything: am only telling a story.

As a kid, I just thought it was wrong to keep animals on a farm, in captive, and then kill them and eat them. That was about it. So I decided to stop eating meat.

My brothers all remained meat eaters and they took the piss out of me for ‘switching over’ to vegetarianism. And, at school, when I was in the canteen, kids would notice that I didn’t eat the meat and asked me why.

“Why are you a vegetarian?” I got that question, in those exact same words, so many times. They were so baffled about this choice that I had made. They couldn’t understand it.

I remember in class. Mr Crandles – he was showing the kids how to make a sandwich. It was one of those lessons where they ‘showed the children how to make food’. So he had some tomatoes and cucumber and lettuce, etc, on a board, and he was presenting to the kids how to cut them and so on. And then he said,

“And we could put some ham or chicken slices on. But, we also have people who are vegetarian,” and then he pointed at me. “So we can use a slice of cheese instead.”

I don’t even get how he knew I was a vegetarian. But it was strange that he pointed me out in front of the 30 kids as this ‘specimen’ who was, umm, a veggie.

There was another time, in the next year, when my teacher was Mr McGhee. And the topic of vegetarianism came up. It wasn’t to do with me directly. I.e., I didn’t trigger the topic. Mr McGhee went on a rant along the lines of: “Oh, I think vegetarians should just grow up. I don’t understand why they think it’s perfectly okay to chop off the heads of fruit and vegetables, and not assume that it’s okay with animals as well. I do not get why it’s fine for them to kill apples and onions and not to kill pigs and cows! Jesus, they should not be so sensitive.”

And, all the kids in the class erupted with laughter.

That’s what he said.

This would have been in the late 1990s and early 2000s. When I was at primary school I mean. It was just so bizarre that ‘vegetarianism’, back then, was seen as something so outlandish.

I suppose all of the mockery I got for it hardened me. But, as I’ve said in various posts before, I don’t judge other people for what they eat. It’s not my business. I don’t attack others for what they consume. Simple as that.

About eight years ago I switched from vegetarian to vegan. After I read into how cruel dairy and chicken farming was. But I still don’t go around campaigning for veganism either. I do not feel I carry the banner, as it were, for a choice of diet.

I’ve never really been that interested in food anyway. I eat pretty healthily. I’ve never insulted anybody else or mocked them for what they eat. That’s my conclusive point.

[nervousron]

I was replaying fresh meat and I really wish the game showed the like effect that it had on mikey. I read a fic like whet he became a peskatreian (I've butcherd the spelling but a veggie that eats fish) and freaks out whenever Trevor talks about cannablism.

I might write sm about the aftermath of fresh meat trikey style.

This doesn't make mush sense but I'd love to hear your thoughts about fresh meat, especially the aftermath

Duuude yeah Meat by @nevergonnasimpyoumikey ?! Its such a good fic. Michael is a tough rocko macho guy, but he's definitely gonna be affected by the trauma hes gone through.

Also sorry i never oublished this ask! I had been coming back and rewording it a hundred times then never posted. So heres the things i stopped and started! Theres a lot of repeating in there from me restarting ideas, so sorry for the repetitiveness!

I love thinking aboutbjow micjael feels before and after. Slightlu conflicted, but mostly angry. Hiding his shame and guilt behind fury. I think Michael would totally develop a small grudge against Trevor over it. In the beginning im sure he's pissed, but at least gets the karmic joke of it all. He lied to Trevor and tried to have him killed. Now Trevor's life decisions post-ludendorff are what will kill Michael. He gets it, he's piss-scared, and he's pretty sure he's gonna die. But there's a part of him that hopes that Trevor's loyalty will win out. Hes fucked him over countless times, and T always came back no matter what. Maybe this time wont be different? Trevor will show up at the last second and everything will be fine. But then again-

after the abuse he deals with from Cheng and his men, he starts getting more scared. He doesnt want to deal with that, so he gets angrier. Angry at Cheng, Trevor, Dave Norton, and himself. Then back around to Trevor because if hes gonna die, hes not gonna die being self reflective about the consequences of his actions.

When youre playing as Franklin you can overhear two of Cheng's men talking about sending Michael's meat to Trevor when theyre done killing him. I really hope one of them mentioned it to Michael too, because thatd be a fun nightmare for him to have on repeat.

And his lines when hes a cow from peyote are fun to throw into this mess:

"Aint no one gonna make bacon outta me, baby"

I thought i was a man, now i eat grass? Is that better?

I used to eat meat, now people want to kill me. Why, im not so bad. I mean sure i used to kill people and now i eat flowers, but give a recidivist ruminant a break, will ya?

I think the smell of meat would be nauseating for him for a while. But considering he kills on the regular and is more than accustomed to gorey smells, I think itd twist in a particular way that makes him more inclined to "power through it" and just eat a bunch of medium rare bleeder burgers, almost like exposure therapy. He throws up all of it, but he at least thinks theres some progress there.

I think deep down michael was hoping trevor would come back for him. Cause if he did, it would mean he was forgiven. He knows what he did was the end all be all of betrayal, and he knows that in a sick way this is probably karma and he definitely deserves it. But he doesnt want to die, and definitely not in a meat grinder. But alone in a cold cell he probably laughed to himself over the irony. Trevors fuck-up being the reason he dies. The whole mess he was trying to avoid by fucking atrevor over in the first place.

I would love to read anything and everything youve got about fresh meat!

[riddlemethisjeremy]

On that post about autism winning you put in the tags how cannibalism isn't a great survival food source can you elaborate more on that because I'm genuinely curious

yes actually !!

So there are a few reasons for this

The first one, which im pretty sure i mentioned in the tags, is that human flesh is actually really low on calories.

And i know

"calories bad 😡😡😡 high calorie food isnt good for you etc. etc."

This is a diet culture myth

Calories are actually the human body's main source of long term energy your body converts it into fat to store it and then burns the fat to make energy when food is scarce/when you're using a lot of it at once.

Having a high calorie diet is like pretty good for people in stamina sports because it means they won't burn out too quickly.

When you're in a survival situation where food is scarce, you're gonna want foods either high in sugar so you can get your energy boost straight away (humans are not this because we burn through sugar like its gasoline) or high in calories so that you can preserve your energy and live longer, and so you can last off the same bit of food for longer. Food that is high in calories tend to be filling because your body is getting a bunch of storable energy really quickly and you do not need as much of it at once to live.

Because humans store energy as fat, though, a lot of the calories in it tend to burn when you would be cooking human flesh, meaning that most of the useful survival nutrients likely will be wasted. And making the assumption that this is a city person who is resorting to cannibalism as a final option, they probably would not be able to stomach raw human/not a hundred percent but it could possibly kill you? I know human meat gets compared to pork/chicken quite often and they're both white meats, which you can't eat raw. So in the basic sense of getting energy off of the food you're eating, humans just don't have the correct nutritional balance to sustainably keep you alive you'd have kill and eat another person every like two-three days whereas animals like pigs/goats/sheep you could live off for at least a week before they start to spoil (and even then if you cook it thoroughly uts still technically safe to eat for like almost a month) so if you can find something similar in your wilderness environment do so

Also don't quote me on this but pretty sure a good way to tell for meat with decent calorie intake is muscle vs fat

Beef cows are often bred for muscle as opposed to fat because the fat just lacks nutrients and doesnt satisfy hunger very well

So if you have a himbo friend they're going first just saying

But also humans aren't really naturally built to build muscle as well as they build fat, so either way chances are you'll still end up lacking calorie intake.

Reason number two !!

A pretty fuckin big one

Kuru

Kuru is a protien disease (i think thats the word). I dont know all the sciency shit but basically inside your brain you have these little chemicals and theyre unique to you. They like float around your body a little and vibe idrk why they're there.

However

When you ingest human flesh

The other persons little protein things attack your ones.

Most of what i know about the symptoms of kuru come from this one zombie game my dad used to play (z nation or gen z or some shit like that it was a super hardcore survival game) so like dont quote me too much on this

But basically it deteriorates your brain functions. You like start getting forgetful/judgement/risk evaluation gets affected/emotional management fucks off completely (you get all manic sometimes i think and like hysterical laughing is common in later stages) and eventually your brain just kind of in general stops functioning and you die.

And it takes a little while like a couple weeks or something i think depending on the amount of human flesh you consume.

And like you won't always contract a lethal level of kuru i think, like generally the further away from the brain you are the better off you'll be? Like if you eat a human brain you're practically dead on arrival but if youre munching on toes you have to eat like four or five people's worth to die

Fun fact: the penis is the only place on the human body this protein isnt found which means eating dick is safe.

But yeah kuru is nasty and i do not recommend to the average tumblr user.

Please bear in mind that i am not a science nerd do like the more scientific shit i am not a hundred percent on and you should probably take this with a lil grai of salt because i might have oversimplified or misunderstood something

But this is more or less why cannibalism is not a great survival tactic and should definitely be the last of last resorts

[lucreziasredwyne]

who: @tiriusrowan where: the lady of the arbor requests an audience with the hand of the king regarding recent developments within the reach, most notably to convey her concerns with rising factions and...multiple other things.

six weeks had gone by in what felt like a blur, and perhaps the reason for that was because they had been a mere blur: more than a blur. rather a whirlwind, in which life itself seemed to turn upside down and the centre of the universe itself had become refocused. and yet, with that refocusing came the uprooting of what it was to become a mother: all the things one once considered important no longer held nearly as much value, and some other matters held more value than ever before.

there was no denying the exhaustion her body seemed to constantly feel at all hours of the day, the way her body had sacrificed so much for her first child; and birth itself was only the beginning.

it was customary she was to remain nursing within the privacy of her own state apartments, since the journey from brightwater had indeed caused her enough exhaustion to sleep through most of the ride, whether it be night or day. sleeping or feeding, seemed to be what her day consisted of: there were moments where she felt more like a human than a cow. in the end, she had wished to venture to highgarden to be closer to her aunties, lady simonetta hightower and lady aiyla rowan during the time of recover. and lentis. how much lentil soup and overall meat her ladies made her eat.

and she was content with taking the time to recover and continuing to allow politics and court to do as it always did; only, the reports from her husband only further unsettled her. she felt a sense of anxiety in the bottom of her stomach thinking about what she would return to. the last time there had been emerging factions within the most powerful of courts, there had been civil war.

and they had already survived one. her page seemed surprised when she extended a request to meet with the hand, and when it was returned with agreeing only if it were held within her own apartments, lucrezia found herself agreeing. when tirius rowan entered the room, she quietly thought how he seemed more at ease and fitting in his role, and whilst she did not entirely raise from the chair in which she sat, she leaned forwards to place kisses on each side of his cheeks as was expected as per their tradition and culture.

"as-salamu alaykum." she greeted him, looking up at him for a moment, unable to avoid a slightly shy smile crossing over her features. it were as though seeing an older brother again; and now she was a mother. avoiding the slightly rose tint coming to her cheeks, she cleared her throat, allowing the ladies in waiting to offer him food and drinks as per his wishes; she had ensured his usuals were available for selection. "thank you for coming to see me. you are very much aware i would have come to your apartments." the bleeding had stopped, as had the aches that plagued her body; at least the majority of the most painful ones.

"arlo is sleeping...gods, they really do sleep so much, do they not?" she asked, her voice almost incredulous, happy to speak about it with someone she knew would understand. that pink tint remained on her cheeks however.

she moved to bring a pillow against her, her movements more careful than usual, though maintaining eye contact with him. she remained wrapped in a warm robe over her dress, as she found herself getting cold entirely too quickly. "i wanted to ask you something, and speak to you about something else after. something that has concerned me. but first, how is it house tarly have ended up in your disdain of all people?"

[orcinus-ocean]

Is anyone here a farmer or has anything to say about pigs? 😀

Because I want to make a case for the (relative) unintelligence of pigs.

I am sick to motherblubbing death of hearing "piGs aRE aS sMarT aS cHiMpS aNd eLePhAnTs!!1" Animal behavior and intelligence is an interest of mine and I just... can't see this.

From what I see, pigs are just an ordinary mammal. Of course they can recognize faces, solve problems, and remember. Almost any mammal can do that (except for morons like koalas and sloths).

One thing I've noticed with intelligent animals, like dolphins, whales, elephants, apes and parrots, is that they tend to have "intent" to their physical movements, a clear sense of humor, and an extreme curiosity to anything new. More scientific than that, they will have complex social behavior and need for mental challenges.

Pigs, on the other hand, move randomly and twitchy, are only interested in immediate physical needs, and seem completely uninterested in new things. "Food? Belly-scratch? If not, I'm out."

Maybe they can beat dogs in some cognitive tests, but chimps can beat humans in some cognitive tests... yet chimps have nowhere near the mind and awareness that we have.

Of course vegans love to shout from the rooftops about “PIGS ARE LIKE CHIMPANZEES” to get us to stop eating them, but as for farm animals, I think cows seem a lot more intelligent than pigs. They seem to have stronger lifelong bonds and more complex social lives than pigs, and most importantly of all, if something new turns up in their environment, they walk over there and STARE. They’re very curious.

I constantly see three animals repeated as "the SMURTEST" by people who don't really know anything about animals (and thus, countless online magazines who did all of five minutes of research before writing on a topic): Dolphins, octopuses, and pigs.

Dolphins, okay, yeah, maybe, but other toothed whales are often said to be much smarter than small dolphins anyway, and many of dolphins' greatest feats, can also be seen in wolves. Wolves are smart, but I've never even seen them on a top-10 list of "world's smartest animals".

Octopuses? They show great problem-solving skills, but that's also it. The max any octopus can live is about 5 years, which means they don't have time to learn stuff. As for super-intelligent vertebrates, the shortest-lived is crows, averaging 15-20 years.

I think what these three animals have in common is that they're all "animals we used to think of as really, really stupid, but then it turns out they weren't."

Dolphins were thought of as "just big fish", without any more thought or feeling than a tuna.

Octopuses were seen as "a slug with arms", just a dumb invertebrate.

And pigs were thought of as just "meat on legs", not needing any consideration. (And thus could "rightly" be given the treatment we would NEVER bestow on a dog, cat or horse.)

But that's as far as I would take it. Dolphins are clever, I think they have an edge above most mammals. While many "special" things about them (lifelong bonds, mourning for the dead, problem-solving, having their own "name" in their vocalizations) are also found in wolves, I see in dolphins the "intentional movements" (showing great awareness, it's hard to explain without comparing) and humor seen in very few other animals.

Octopuses are the smartest invertebrates, and probably smarter than some birds and mammals, but that's also it. They definitely can't compete with crows or elephants.

And pigs... of course they have emotional needs and appreciate mental enrichment, of course they can love and solve puzzles, they're probably also smarter/more aware than dogs in certain ways, but that's as far as I would take it.

A very important note is that intelligence is not a ladder, where you're automatically above or below the one closest to you. Rather, there are many different types of intelligence (it's even this way with people between individuals, let alone different species from vastly different taxa).

So, say that there are 10 categories of intelligence (just pulling a number out of the air), maybe one species fills 4 of those, and another species fills another 4, but they're not the same categories. They thus have completely different types of intelligence, and ways of understanding the world.

That's why we can never "rank" them, from more to less intelligence, in a neat list.

In my opinion, the most intelligent animals on Earth after humans are probably elephants and killer whales. Orangutans. Some parrots (kea and grey) and corvids (don't know about specific species) are also up there. And pigs don't even scratch the bottom of the list.