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kiiraes · 3 months

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“Shaving our head is a painful decision for any woman, but we are forced to do it.” Nisreen, a Palestinian mother of six, had to leave her home in Khan Younis on 13 December, as the Israeli ground invasion of the city intensified. She has since sought refuge at a nearby UN school, and later to a makeshift tent, with little access to drinkable or cleaning water. “I had to shave my head, because I have no water to wash my hair,” the 49-year-old told Middle East Eye from her tent in al-Mawasi area. “I also did the same to my 16-year-old daughter and my 12-year-old son, to protect them from scalp diseases as their friends developed scalp ringworm,” she added. The ferocious Israeli bombing campaign on Gaza, now in its fifth month, has killed at least 27,500 and displaced more than 1.9 million Palestinians, who collectively have no access to clean water and essential hygiene facilities. Even before the war, more than 96% of the water supply in Gaza had been considered “unfit for human consumption”, due to the Israeli blockade on Gaza since 2007. But the situation has been exacerbated after the Israeli government’s decision to cut off the water supply to the Gaza Strip at the orders of Energy Minister Israel Katz on 9 October. Additionally, the Israeli army seized the majority of water desalination plants in the northern part of Gaza by 30 October, and in the southern part of Gaza City by 1 November, according to satellite images from Planet Labs PBC. Zainab al-Shawwaf, a general practitioner based in Rafah, clarified that the lack of hair care and washing may give rise to conditions like alopecia, scalp ringworm, and bacterial infections, ultimately leading to the development of hair abscesses. Juliette Touma, spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), has warned that “water is being used as a weapon of war” during the current conflict. “Many people are resorting to unsafe sources of water... Clean water in Gaza is either unavailable or available in very, very small quantities.”

Source: Middle East Eye

#palestine #free palestine #support palestine #palestinians #gaza #gaza strip #gaza genocide #palestinian genocide #israel is a terrorist state #from the river to the sea #from the river to the sea palestine will be free

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bootleg-nessie · 8 days

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List of Extremely Cursed Knowledge

Having autism and ADHD is a blessing and a curse because on one hand, I’m basically a walking encyclopedia of random facts and information. On the other hand, a fair amount of that information is so fucked up that it’s not socially acceptable to share it with anyone. So naturally, I took every fucked up fact, every bit of twisted trivia, every bit of cursed knowledge that I could come up with off the top of my head and compiled it into one big list to post on the internet. Some of this information may permanently ruin your (you, the reader) perception of certain things. None of this information should have ever seen the light of day, and a fair amount of it was never, ever meant to be known by humans.

You cannot unlearn anything on this list. This is your chance to scroll past.

You have been warned.

\/ \/ \/

According to FDA standards, a jar of peanut butter is allowed to have up to seven (7) rat hairs before it’s considered unfit for human consumption. If it has 7 or less rat hairs it will still be sold in stores.

If I just ruined peanut butter for you, don’t google the FDA regulations on any other foods you enjoy.

Human teeth have 36 calories each.

The average human body has roughly 125,000 calories. This is actually relatively low, which makes cannibalism in humans generally unsustainable.

Human meat tastes like pork.

Penguins have been observed practicing necrophilia.

Dolphin vaginas secrete a substance that acts like an aphrodisiac on steroids. When scientists swabbed some of it on a chimpanzee’s penis, it masturbated so furiously that it had a heart attack and died.

Dolphins have been known to intentionally commit suicide if kept in poor conditions.

Scientists that work with cockroaches often become allergic due to exposure. Simultaneously, they also develop an allergy to chocolate and pre-ground coffee. Make of that what you will.

Dolphins have been observed masturbating using decapitated fish heads.

Dolphins have been observed getting high on pufferfish venom recreationally, sometimes even passing a pufferfish around like a joint.

There’s a LOT of rape across the entire animal kingdom. Like, a LOT. It’s especially prevalent in dolphins, otters, ducks, penguins, and primates, to name a few.

On a related note, female ducks have corkscrew shaped vaginas. Male ducks also have corkscrew shaped penises that measure in at a whopping eighteen inches.

The barnacle has the largest penis to body size ratio in the animal kingdom, with its penis being up to eight times as long as its body.

Chimpanzees have been observed using frogs as a fleshlight.

A disembodied human head weighs about 10-12 lbs and is balanced in such a way that requires you to use both hands to pick up.

Pigs will eat every single part of a corpse - including bones. In 2012 a farmer in Oregon was eaten by his pigs after having a heart attack and falling in their enclosure. This also makes pig pens a prime spot for dumping bodies.

A body will decompose faster if you fill the rectal cavity with yogurt before burying it

When burying a body, make sure to bury it in a heavily wooded area. If vegetation is too sparse and/or the body isn’t buried deep enough, it will be easily noticeable after a few months because plants will grow in much thicker directly above where the body was buried.

You cannot bury a body in sand, as sand is too porous. The smell will seep through and give away the location

The entire universe could theoretically exist as a false vacuum and collapse into nothingness at any moment without warning.

Any alien civilization advanced enough to detect life on earth is also probably advanced enough to destroy our entire planet almost immediately. At the peak of interstellar technology, the only limiting factor is the speed of light. If they decided to attack, we probably wouldn’t even know it was coming until the entire surface of the planet was already vaporized.

It takes three and a half rotations to fully detach a human head from its body.

Recently deceased bodies can experience rigor erectus, which translates to “death boner.” This is especially common in victims of hanging, as it’s primarily caused by trauma to the cerebellum or spinal cord.

There is an extremely real chance that you have unknowingly purchased a product that was made by modern day slaves at least once in your life. Coffee, cotton, fish, clothes, shoes, and technology are among the most vulnerable industries.

A decapitated head remains conscious for several seconds after separated from the body.

The entire koala population across Australia is currently undergoing a major chlamydia epidemic. It’s actually been extremely devastating for them and they’re currently facing the threat of extinction because of it.

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 2 months

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By: Andrew Doyle

Published: Mar 11, 2024

As a child of the Eighties and Nineties, I remember well that homosexuals were fair game in the mainstream media. One columnist in The Star railed against “Wooftahs, pooftahs, nancy boys, queers, lezzies — the perverts whose moral sin is to so abuse the delightful word ‘gay’ as to render it unfit for human consumption”. After the death of Freddie Mercury, sympathy in The Mail on Sunday was limited. “If you treat as a hero a man who died because of his own sordid sexual perversions,” one writer cautioned, “aren’t you infinitely more likely to persuade some of the gullible young to follow in his example?”

It was sadly inevitable that the AIDS crisis would exacerbate this ancient prejudice. A headline in The Sun declared that “perverts are to blame for the killer plague”. And while a writer for the Express held “those who choose unnatural methods of self-gratification” responsible for the disease, letters published in its pages followed suit. One reader called for the incarceration of homosexuals. “Burning is too good for them,” wrote another. “Bury them in a pit and pour on quicklime.” Someone had been reading his Dante.

I happened to come out in a much less hostile climate. In the early 2000s, we were enjoying a kind of Goldilocks moment, neither too hot nor too cold. We weren’t generally on the receiving end of homophobic slurs, but nor were we patronised by well-meaning progressives. My memory of this time was that no one particularly cared, and I was more than happy with that. Being gay for me has never been an identity, it’s simply a fact, as unremarkable as being blue-eyed or right-handed.

And so it has been troubling to see a resurgence in the last few years of the kind of anti-gay rhetoric that was commonplace in my childhood. Of course, it could be argued that the rise of social media has simply exposed sentiments that were previously only expressed in private. As Ricky Gervais has pointed out, before the digital era “we couldn’t read every toilet wall in the world. And now we can.”

Yet the most virulent homophobia appears to be coming from a new source. Whereas we have always been accustomed to this kind of thing from the far-Right — one recalls Nick Griffin’s remark on Question Time about how he finds the sight of two men kissing “really creepy” — but now the most objectionable anti-gay comments arise in online spheres occupied by gender ideologues, from those who claim to be progressive, Left-wing and “on the right side of history”. The significant difference is that the word “cis” has been added to the homophobe’s lexicon. Some examples:

“Cis gay men are a disease.”

“Cis gay men are truly some of the most grotesque creatures to burden this earth.”

“I hate cis gay people with a burning passion.”

“If you’re a cis gay man and your sexuality revolves around you not liking female genitalia I hope you die and I will spit on your grave.”

“Cis gays don’t deserve rights.”

“There’s so many reasons to hate gay people, most specifically white gays, but there’s never a reason to be a transphobe.”

“It’s time to normalise homophobia.”

Of course, any bile can be found on the internet, but these kinds of phrases are remarkably commonplace among certain online communities. Even a cursory search will reveal innumerable examples of gender ideologues casually branding gay men “fags” or “faggots”, praising the murder of gays and lesbians, and claiming that the AIDS epidemic was a positive thing. Many thousands of examples had been collated on Google Photos under the title “Woke homophobia: anti-gay hatred & boxer ceiling abuse from trans activists & gender-identity ideologues”. The site was taken down last year, presumably because it violated Google’s policy on hate speech — or perhaps because it revealed the toxicity of the ideology the company has spent so long promoting.

If such ideas were restricted to the demented world of internet activism, we might be justified in simply ignoring it. But we now know that the overwhelming majority of adolescents referred to the Tavistock paediatric gender clinic were same-sex attracted. Whistleblowers have spoken out about the endemic homophobia, not simply among clinicians but also parents who were keen to “fix” their gay offspring. And of course there was the running joke among staff that soon “there would be no gay people left”.

And now a series of leaked internal messages and videos from WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health), has revealed that clinicians in the leading global organisation for transgender healthcare have openly admitted in private that some teenagers mistake being same-sex attracted for gender dysphoria. The result of the “gender-affirming” approach has amounted to what one former Tavistock clinician recently described as “conversion therapy for gay kids”. Homosexuality was removed from the World Health Organisation’s list of psychiatric disorders in 1993, and yet here we are medicalising it all over again.

So how did we reach the point where gay conversion therapy is being practised in plain sight by the NHS? Much of the responsibility has to lie with Stonewall, a group that once promoted equal rights for gay people but now actively works against their interests. It has even gone so far as to redefine “homosexual” on its website and resource materials as “same-gender attracted”. It should go without saying that gay men are not attracted to women who identify as men, any more than lesbians should be denounced for excluding those with penises from their dating pools. What trans activists call discrimination, most of us call homosexuality.

Indeed, activists often claim that “genital preferences are transphobic”, or that sexual orientation based on biological sex is a form of “trauma”. The idea that homosexuality is a sickness was one of the first homophobic tropes I encountered as a child. Now it is being rebranded as progressive.

As for Stonewall, its former CEO Nancy Kelley went so far as to argue that women who exclude trans people as potential partners are analogous to “sexual racists”. She claimed that “if you are writing off entire groups of people, like people of colour, fat people, disabled people or trans people, then it’s worth considering how societal prejudices may have shaped your attractions”. It is worth remembering that Stonewall is deeply embedded in many governmental departments and quangos, as well as corporate and civic institutions. Anti-gay propaganda is being reintroduced into society from the very top.

Meanwhile, the Crown Prosecution Service has been meeting with trans lobby groups such as Mermaids and Stonewall to discuss changes to prosecutorial policy in cases of sex by deception. Since these meetings — only revealed after sustained pressure from a feminist campaigner who submitted Freedom of Information requests — the CPS has recommended what Dennis Kavanagh of the Gay Men’s Network has described as “a radical trans activist approach to sex by deception prosecutions that would see them all but vanish”. In trans activist parlance, the barriers to having sex with lesbians and gay men are known as the “cotton ceiling” and “boxer ceiling”. Now it seems the establishment is attempting to support the coercion of gay people into heterosexual activity.

Consider a recent post on X by Stephen Whittle, OBE, a professor of equalities law at Manchester Metropolitan University. In a reply to LGB Alliance’s Bev Jackson, Whittle took issue with the notion that “love is all about genitals” (an argument that Jackson has never made). Having dismissed this straw man as “a very hetero/homo-normative perspective”, Whittle then claimed that “a lot of gay men can’t resist a young furry ftm [female-to-male] cub”.

While it is true that there are some bisexuals who identify as gay, it is simply not the case that homosexual men “can’t resist” certain kinds of women. As Jackson rightly noted in her response, this is rank homophobia, “disturbed and disturbing on every level”. Yet it has been expressed by an individual who has been described as a “hero for LGBTQ+ equality”. With heroes like these, who needs villains?

Another example is Davey Wavey, a popular online influencer, who has encouraged gay men to perform heterosexual acts in a video called “How to Eat Pussy — For Gay Men”. It may as well have been called “Gay Conversion Therapy 2.0”. We are firmly back in the Eighties, where gays are being told that they “just haven’t found the right girl yet” and lesbians are assured that they just “need a good dick”. And yet now these demeaning ideas are being propagated by those who claim to be defending the rights of sexual minorities.

The Government’s recent guidance on how schools are to accommodate trans-identified pupils — in which biological sex will take precedence over identity — has been met with horror from gender ideologues. One of the common refrains one hears from activists is that it represents “this generation’s Section 28”. But this is to get it precisely backwards. Gay rights were secured on the recognition that a minority of the population are same-sex attracted. In dismantling the very notion of sex and substituting it for this nebulous concept of “gender identity”, activists and their disciples in parliament are undoing all of the achievements of previous gay rights movements.

The widespread homophobia of the Eighties, epitomised by Section 28, was based on the notion that homosexuality was unnatural, dangerous and ought to be corrected. Present-day gender identity ideology perceives homosexuality as evidence of misalignment between soul and body. In other words, it seeks to “fix” gay people so that they fit into a heterosexual framework. It is no coincidence that so many detransitioners are gay people who were simply struggling with their sexuality. Gender identity ideology is the true successor to Section 28.

The proponents of this revamped gay conversion therapy dismiss our concerns as “transphobia” and “bigotry”, or as part of a manufactured “culture war”. Worse still, the new homophobia is being cheered on by those it will hurt most. While prominent gay figures continue to feed the beast that wishes to devour them, we are unlikely to see this dire situation improve any time soon. It was bad enough in the Eighties, when gay people were demonised and harassed by the establishment. Who thought we would have to fight these battles all over again?

#Andrew Doyle #woke homophobia #homophobia 2.0 #gay conversion therapy #gay conversion #conversion therapy #anti gay #gender ideology #gender identity ideology #queer theory #intersectional feminism #religion is a mental illness

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stareyedsheeple · 4 months

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hello!! im doing this as part of the social media storm for the icj hearing on january 11th-january 12th, and also because i generally feel as though i haven't done as much posts about palestine as i would have liked to. more under the cut.

the violence committed against the palestinian people by israel has been going on for nearly 100 days at the time of writing– although it has been going on, truthfully, for roughly 75 years. the death toll has risen to 23,000+ and counting. palestinians again and again have been chased from their homes, with the amount reaching 1.9 million palestinians with their houses forcibly taken away (x), and some fully destroyed. they have been brutalised and treated as less than human for existing on land that the israeli government deemed theirs. the streets of palestine smell of rot and flood with sewage; the palestinian people have held their dead infants for the camera for the camera to see, recorded their children dying, far more than anyone should ever have to do, just to gain enough compassion from the world to stop israel's bombardment, just to make sure their lives and their entire existence isn't lost to bombs and false statements from israel about whats currently going on, and yet again and again western governments have continued to turn a blind eye and in the us' case, assist in the genocide of the palestinian people while preaching peace and unity. 97% of water in gaza is unfit for consumption, and "[...] famine is right around the corner."

in this case, it also falls upon us, people outside palestine, to spread the word about palestine and hope enough pressure falls upon our politicians to make real change for palestinians, who have undergone unimaginable amounts of pain and deserve to see a world where they can live freely and without suffering. moreover, in motaz's words (who everyone should definitely follow, he is a good journalist and is extremely resilient in the face of what has happened to him), (edit: he has now left gaza, but nonetheless, i believe it is important to uplift palestinian voices regardless of where they are) we cannot call ourselves a free people if we can be so against such an awful thing happening and see no yield from our presidents and governors past a shrug of the shoulders and a vague statement about not liking the death of innocents. we cannot call ourselves a free people if israel can so blatantly bypass several laws, killing hundreds of journalists and health workers (one more journalist was killed recently, hamza al-dahdouh. i would feel wrong to not mention him during this portion. his father is staying strong even in the face of it, and i wish him a dignified funeral when this is all over and a proper time for his surrounding family to grieve.) trying to ease the strain in gaza, who have done far more good than i could ever hope to do in my lifetime, along with many more innocent civilians, because what does that say about the effectiveness and application of these laws? what does that say about our actual safety at the end of the day, that if, in the eyes of western governments, the right person is behind the trigger, they can shoot whoever they want with no consequence? the genocide of the palestinian people by israel is directly related to everyone on this planet, and until we have them and everyone else under the boot of a genocidal regime freed, we are not free either.

we MUST call for a free palestine, for every palestinian within it, for those who were killed calling it, so that maybe in this lifetime we see real change for palestinians, so that maybe everything gets a little better in the world. it won't be a fast change, it'll require a lot of yelling and stomping and pushing against israel and the us and everyone else who benefits from whats happening to the palestinian people, it'll take the disassembling of a country built on the corpses of palestinian people and planning to take far more away with its bombings of lebanon and syria, but that does not mean its impossible, just hard. i do truly believe change can be made with enough people dedicated to the cause and enough pressure placed upon governments who can intervene via protests, boycotts, educating one's self about the genocide via literature and documentaries, and calling + emailing representatives about the genocide. below is an assembly of links talking about whats going on and also statements by palestinians, i'll stop rambling on. free palestine. and FUCK ISRAEL!

info on the sde teimen concentration camp (couldnt find a non-paywalled vers of the article linked in post)

decolonise palestine

gaza is starving

wael al-dahdouh's statement on his son (and general family)'s death

south africa's statement submitted to the international court of justice

palestinian hostage says he was sent into a hamas tunnel strapped with bombs

article + video of idf soldiers detaining dozens of palestinian civilians (including elderly people and children) half naked into a stadium

reporting of attacks on refugee camps and hospitals, of which there are many, so heres a few (x) (x) (x)

more than 10 kids per day on average lose one or two limbs in gaza

several amputations done on palestinian children without anaesthesia

the brutality of israeli prisons && camps

house to house executions in gaza by israeli soldiers

coverage of palestine in the media and bias towards israel

and, finally, what you can do to help. do not roll over and lie still under the weight of all this suffering. you must continue fighting, you must shape that weight into a weapon, and yes, it will hurt, and yes, you will get tired and worn out (in which case, you rest. you working yourself to the bone is of use to no one) but eventually, something will happen, and until then you hold that weight like a fire in your chest and direct it towards helping those who need help. never forget that weight. never forget palestine. nothing lasts forever, and neither will this. there will be a free palestine.

i'd advise tuning into the icj hearing if you have time– i personally will not be available, but i'm sure whatever goes on over there will be of some value to whats going on. follow palestinian journalists (motaz, hind, bisan, plestia, and many others, who are risking their lives to deliver the news to outsiders, who have done more than anyone should be obligated to in a thousand lifetimes, who deserve safe families and good lives and a long rest and a thousand years in a free palestine, on their beautiful homeland) if you have the linked platforms and can, continue talking about palestine along with them. treat yourself kindly. for the fourth time i've said this in this post, and however many more times it needs to be said, free palestine!

#i hope i worded this well #endisraelsgenocide #palestine #important #🗯

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cakerollk · 1 year

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Gozu lore jumpscare

i think I shall post gozu lore here under readmore!! one day I’ll get over my irrational fear of talking too much on twitter and do more oc stuff but for now.... GOZU LORE

tho pls be mindful of the trigger warnings!! They’re all just briefly mentioned but still!!

TW: religious cult, cult brainwashing, self flagellation, forceful removal of teeth, animal death, consumption of animal corpse, child marriage, arson, large scale masacare.

(temporary placeholder image bc my ass can never finish anything)

Formerly of Liyue, Gozu is an independent agent who contracts her particular set of talents out to those who can pay for them; or ones that take her interest. It all has an endgame objective-finding her younger sibling who went missing several years ago when she was aboard.

The only lead she has is he could have been taken by the Fatui into the Haeresys, so if it means accepting the Harbingers’ coin; then so be it.

---

Gozu was born and raised in a cult that preaches of false gods, using their own bloodline as ‘offerings’ to appease these gods. Since birth she was subjected to brainwash into believing all gods outside their own are malicious and evil, the scaremongering propaganda has been passed down throughout the generation.

All members undergo rigorous training to become the perfect vessel for their God to possess, inhabiting their body as a vessel. They ingest small amount of poisons to build up immunity, fast to the point of near starvation while doing vigorous physical training, partake in self flagellation as a way of keeping one free of human vice.

All children of the temple are required to partake in a coming of age ceremony in which they are tasked to kill an Adepti beast and consume its flesh to ‘absorb Adeptus energy’. Prior to setting out on their journey, the candidates have their canine teeth removed and dressed in nothing but a white robe, armed only with a ceremonial knife.

Those who failed (‘killed’) the trial have a mock funeral held for them back at the temple. Members outside the core circle are told that the candidates have tragically been mauled to death by the Adepti that they sought to slay, nothing of their corpse left. It’s this propaganda that continues to embed fear of higher beings into cult members into absolute obedience.

But in reality these failed candidates have only passed out from starvation from being left to fend for themselves in the wild, told not to return until they’ve killed an Adepti. They are found by trusted members of the cult and then sold to the Fatui. The cult itself gets their funds mainly from trafficking women and children of their temple, only recently that they’ve come to work with the Fatui in creating false Sigil of Permission (The one Childe has and gives to the Traveller in the game is a finished product).

Gozu’s mother had attempted to leave the cult with her and her then unborn brother, the attempt was later discovered by the cult leader and the mother was subsequently locked in solitary confinement. Gozu was told her mother had passed shortly after the birth of her brother, but in truth she too was sold off to the Fatui.

As Gozu gets older, her rebellious streak too increased, having gotten it from her mother. She hasn’t quite broken the illusion of her cult family yet, but her gut instincts told her something isn’t right. Her disobedience resulted in numerous punishments throughout the years.

At 16, the leader deemed her unfit to stay at the temple any longer and put her in an ‘arranged marriage’ to an acquaintance of his; Chang Ge was her to-be fiance, but she knew better than to believe she would be shipped off to live as a married woman, considering she knew Chang Ge’s profession is an inventor who oversees a brothel full of marionette prostitutes.

She was able to slip pass a sedated Change Ge and escape the house of horror. It took her weeks to find her way back to the temple, but she was merely hours too late and her brother had already been taken away. All 54 members of the cult were massacred and the temple burned after all was done. As no one was able to give her answers as to where her brother’s whereabouts was, Gozu sealed their souls into the family heirloom whip.

The patrolling Milithe of Liyue harbour were alerted of the incident by the sheer magnitude of the fire coming from the mountain, by the time they arrived to the burning temple, Gozu was gone and none of the soldiers could figure out where all the bodies had gone to.

---

Gozu’s Vision is Hydro, which she had received during the night of the temple burning. While most Hydro users’ elemental colour is blue, Gozu’s is a deep red due to her passively using it to mask her scent of rot and decay, essentially dying the blue with blood red. She embedded her bull whip with Hydro, and as a result she can greatly control the new additional length.

Her whip is a family heirloom that’s been passed down through the generations, and it’s mainly used for ceremonial self flagellation. After Gozu has successfully entrapped all 54 souls of the cult members into the whip, she is vulnerable to its cursed property, and is constantly at a risk of possession.

It’s why Gozu has to constantly run her Vision passively to soothe it, it’s not to say she hasn’t been possessed by the whip in the past, especially during her early years post-temple burning. Anyone who comes into contact with the whip is also at risk of getting possessed, hence why Gozu keeps it on her at all times.

As the whip is sentient, Gozu always hears eerie whispers and pained cries of the trapped souls. She’s long learned to tune them out, only keeping tabs on voices that are telling her useful information e.g someone is approaching from behind, the thing she’s seeking is near, frantic whispering amongst the souls of a person she meets emitting dangerous vibes etc.

Other than her whip, Gozu is equipped with numerous knives strapped on her body, all of which are made from the bones of slain Adepti beasts. They do not grow dull, and they will always find their way back to her. This is made so by Gozu having performed self-surgery to sew pieces of the Adepti bones onto her rib bones.

Other stuff:

-She has teeth indentures, purposefully made sharper than the average human canines. They’re made from molten Mora.

-To present day she still doses herself with a controlled amount of poison, ergo continuing to build her immunity towards most strong poison. But this habit has led to her losing her sense of taste for the most part.

#Gozu tag #genshin impact #genshin oc stuff #smiles with broken teeth

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dogtoling · 1 year

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Would the culinary culture in Splatoon be different if they can only eat chunks of food? (I keep thinking of all the sensations/experiences that come from chewing food)

yes. well, clearly in splatoon it's not, but we already know the inklings are canonically just Human Lite despite not having teeth to chew food like we do, which would render a lot of foods TERRIBLE to eat even if you believe they do not have a radula. even if they JUST had their beak and a soft, flat tongue, they don't have anything in their mouth to grind food into paste... which, if you recall, is how we process like all food (unless you're REALLY excited about the meal, or lack teeth, or have a toothache. in the case of the latter, im sorry man)

Generally cephalopods are carnivorous, so stuff like rice and pasta or even bread aren't things that they would've come to eat naturally. The same goes for vegetables, which even the first game implies are a new thing in Inkopolis or squid culture (although it's unclear if this is even true or if it's a joke or exaggeration, this has never been expanded on). My headcanon is that these vegetable-based foods only recently became popular among Inklings due to influence from other cultures, namely species that are herbivorous. So as more mixed-species societies popped up, different foods that were fairly alien to other species also did, and eventually may have snaked their way into those species' diets if they were well-enough liked.

Generally I think Inklings' own culinary cultures would pretty much exclusively include meat (seafood), with the exception of fruit, which Inklings enjoy for their flavor, color and water content. But I think Inklings would be pretty simple with their cooking, meaning there's probably rarely much seasoning or even a side of any kind given those are mostly vegetable-based things - save for recent decades of course. Traditional inkfish food is probably finger food, grilled, deep-fried, or even raw. Small fried fish and fried shrimp are ever-popular, and utensils are really a fancier, newer thing. I like drawing inklings with suckers on their fingers, which also means that finger food would be the most natural way to eat something for them given that they can taste what they're about to eat before it's even in their mouth (which, among other things, is a very easy way to check if something is edible at all before it's in your body. Or if it's spicy).

Generally I think Inklings enjoy crunchy or crispy and fried food, which is typically meat or at least includes meat (usually that of crustaceans), and finger food is preferred for its simplicity and natural feel. The Crusty Seanwiches and Schwaffles are a very good example of the kind of food that is popular with Inklings, which also seek out the high calorie content because MY GOD, the energy consumption of even just one turf war has to be ridiculous. So as a whole i'd say they prefer food that is easy to eat by hand, rather than stuff that is so mushy you can't bite it at all or grab it... sauces are on thin fucking ice unless they are for dipping in.

When it comes to Octarians, I like to think their culinary culture is different from that of the surface, largely because of their wasteland surroundings unfit for farming much of anything even if they wanted to, and isolation from the rest of the world. Instead of the squids who like to fry and grill things, Octarians probably have more raw, pickled, dried and salted foods - these are foods that are easy to make and very easy to store for long periods of time, which is crucial when your society doesn't have all the food in the world to pass around as a given. They might have kelp as a side dish or an addition in soup every now and then, but most of their food is definitely some form of meat. Vegetables are mostly absent from Octarian cuisine due to not really being nutritionally helpful to octarians, like almost at all. Surprisingly, in spite of this, wasabi is a really big thing and is used as a spice similar to how we use like, salt and pepper. They'd have salt and uh... wasabi powder.

#mailbox

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starryoak · 2 years

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I know the Pokédex/Professor Laventon hypothesizes that Hisuian Sliggoo and Goodra’s Steel typing is due to the high content of iron in Hisui’s rainwater, but I’ve gotta be honest. I think can’t help but think that there’s even more heavy metals in Hisui’s water supply.

I know Pokémon are basically magic, but my natural instinct to seeing a species of Pokémon that’s highly sensitive to water conditions evolving into a primarily Steel type, supplanting its natural Dragon type, is that there’s something not good in the water making it do that.

As well, Hisuian Sliggoo and Goodra weigh almost twice, or in Sliggo’s case, triple, what they naturally do in other regions. Again, Pokémon are magic, but there’s a reason they’re called heavy metals. It could explain their sickly appearance and behavior noted by Laventon as well, heavy metals are generally speaking, really bad for you, health-wise.

I think Hisui’s water supply is naturally tainted with all sorts of nasty shit unfit for human or Pokémon consumption and it’s only iron that’s detectable with current (1800′s) technology. Even if it’s all just iron, if it’s enough to cause a branching evolution, I’m concerned that it’d be dangerous to people. Iron overload is a thing, after all.

#hisui #hisuian pokemon #goomy #hisuian sliggoo #hisuian goodra #sliggoo #goodra #pokemon #pokemon headcanons #headcanons #pokemon worldbuilding #worldbuilding #pokemon legends arceus #pla #my posts

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thezoologistsgastroblog · 2 months

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Start From the Beginning: Invasive Snails and the Reason to Study Gastropods

To understand the benefits of snails, we must also understand the detrimental effects they can have when mismanaged. Specifically, let’s narrow our search to the dangers of invasive species of snails, who end up in ecosystems not suited for them due to external factors such as human intervention. In order to properly grasp the influence of snails, it is important to recognize the negative impacts an uncontrolled invasive snail population can pose for the environments not meant for them.

A solid way to analyze the affects a species has on its environment is to simply study the environment deprived of it. Another way is to measure the effects they have on an environment in which they are not typically found; environments where they are, for all intents and purposes, outliers. The ecosystems of these places function independently of any invasive species that may be introduced to them, and thus, we can potentially consider unusual ecological flux as the activity of such invaders, whose presence, made up of their feeding habits, reproductive rates, and prey/predator interactions, may contribute to abnormalities in an unsuited area. If we were to measure the effects invasive snail species have on these places, we may therein consider how they are meant to contribute to their home environs.

To illustrate, we need to observe actual instances of ecosystems altered by invasive snails. Let’s begin with the New Zealand mud snail (Potamopyrgus antipodarum), a species of snail native to New Zealand that has quickly spread around the world. These snails are incredibly hardy, being resistance to a solid range of temperatures and variations of local water levels, and quick to reproduce, capable of 2-3 birthing periods per year with an upwards of 60 eggs per clutch. Combined with the rapid sexual maturity rate of the species, allowing around six generations to spawn per year, they are incredibly dangerous to leave alone, as they will rapidly grow in numbers when introduced to unfit environments.

The hardiness of the mud snail allows it to easily out-complete local species, especially other invertebrates such as snails, allowing it to quickly consume vital producers of food, most of which are plants. In turn, the mud snail provides little toward other predator species due to their hard shells and the inability for most native fish species to break down their bodies effectively. In the event they are consumed, they also have the potential to transmit local parasites, which bank on their lack of resistance to quickly spread through their reproduction.

Continuing, another example is the apple snail (Pomacea maculata), a type of snail that has been inadvertently introduced to various U.S. wetlands. A study performed on the effects these snails have on the areas they invade found that the snails contributed to a large net loss of plant biomass, which is consumed rapidly by apple snails exploiting their rampant growth rates and accessibility. In turn, the nutrient cycle of the given wetland types was sped up considerably because of the rapid nutrient breakdown apple snails perform distributing resources into the soil.

In both given cases, the detrimental effects are a detriment to the food web and the distribution of resources. Both species have a clear and consistent impact: sapping the overall health of the local ecosystem through the consumption of its greatest benefactors whilst contributing little in return. Such forces are adapted to their own local predators, but not to those that are introduced without warning and with little room for counter. It is without proper understanding and management of snail populations that these environmental detriments are observed.

However, we can also see, in these cases, the inverse: the benefits given by invasive snails–what values they have that would, in the context of their natural environment, contribute to the ecosystem, with these effects mildly observed through the observed detriments. The negative impacts are not negative because of the mere existence of the snails themselves, but of the misplacement of their positive ones, as they are not simply ecological mistakes but incorrectly relocated environmental players.

Both the apple snail and mud snail possess voracious appetites, contributing to the acceleration of nutrient cycles due to their capability to break down resources into easy-to-access forms. The mud snail’s benefits are lost in the wrong ecosystems because their new competition struggles to break down their bodies and shells, both of which would normally be vital. While the acceleration of the nutrient cycle via apple snails is detrimental, their digestion is designed for the environments to which they belong, wherein local snail populations consume and digest at rates consistent with their own homes.

Building on this, the mud snail can and will siphon mineral resources for their own health and to build their shells, a process which they perform via seeking out those materials in local bodies of water, consuming metal substances suspended inside. This behavior can cause metal poisoning if the snails carrying these materials are consumed by predators, but can purify the waters they reside in of dangerous metals such as copper, which can prevent contamination of local sources of water, so long as it is performed in moderation.

While mud snails can be massive carriers of local parasites, some parasite species struggle to adapt to them, causing them to be largely unable to exploit them adequately. Due to the mud snail being capable of out-competing local invertebrates, these parasites can quickly lose access to the species they commonly prey upon, reducing their chances of reproduction considerably. This could result in the decrease or eradication of certain parasites, preventing damage that those species could cause.

It is also valuable to acknowledge the methods by which invasive species can be combated and potentially suppressed. Another species of apple snail (Pomacea canaliculate) is invasive to regions including East/Southeast Asia, and can reproduce rapidly through rapid sexual maturity and a rate of two-to-three birthings per year. To counter these reproductive rates, a common pet kept in China, the invasive red-eared slider turtle (T. scripta elegans) was tested against the apple snails. The result was that when subject to predation from the turtles, the reproductive rates of the apple snails went down, subject to stress and pressure which reduced chances of egg production and survival. This is directed thusly toward egg populations, with only 20% of eggs laid successfully hatched, and the remaining juveniles were far more vulnerable to predation. The red-eared slider turtle and apple snail both inhabit China, which could potentially reduce the negative impacts these snails have on the environment.

These examples paint a very valuable picture as to the nature of invasive snails: not only do these snails still have benefits, but the local ecosystems they invade can and will resist in any available capacity. It also shows that these snails are still, at their cores, natural and viable parts of the ecosystem, simply misplaced from the environments where they belong.

How does any of this apply to you, the reader? Well, let us remember our goal: acknowledging and understanding the detriments of invasive snails. With what we have learned, the answer is to apply this information in study and ecological work. To ecologists, this means carefully measuring the impacts invasive species have on pervaded ecosystems and discovering the extent of them. For malacologists, this means using these principles to understand, predict, or influence how an ecosystem interacts with invasive snails. For the rest of us, it typically means volunteer work, assisting in projects countering, studying, or otherwise handling invasive snails, helping others with what we are far less capable of confronting.

One final question needs to be answered with our conclusion: what does negligence do for invasive snails? Specifically, would simply ignoring snails as a whole in most every ecosystem be an adequate response on our part, so we might not cause damage due to a lack of knowledge? The answer is no. Most every invasive species on the planet, from ants to birds, has been introduced intentionally or unintentionally by humans. The sheer volume of human development and industrialization often guarantees that, regardless of intention, nature will be entangled with our works and oftentimes transmitted between different biomes as we move between them. Common amongst examples of these are epidemics/pandemics, such as the Black Plague, COVID-19, and the Spanish Flu. In each instance, a disease presiding in one region is spread through humans, typically through conflict or commerce. The result was, of course, rampant outbreaks and mass death, an outcome derived from cross-contamination humans propagated. Regardless of our choice, we will, at some point, cause damage if we neglect our surroundings in the wake of progress.

By starting with a basic question, we worked towards a more critical understanding of a wider issue, going from simply pondering the environmental damages caused by invasive snails to identifying the more complicated aspects of their behaviors and impacts. A clear thought process emerges: by learning about snails, we understand their benefits, their detriments, and the ebb and flow of both in nature. By asking a simple question, we sowed the seeds for the argument for encouraging the study of and interest in snails.

Citations:

Jing Guo. "Predation risk affects growth and reproduction of an invasive snail and its lethal effect depends on prey size.” National Center for Biotechnology Information. Pablo Martin, Chunxia Zhang, Jia-en Zhang, Manabu Sakakibara, National Center for Biotechnology Information, 14 November 2017, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5685626/. 14 February 2024.

Alonso, Á., Collado, G.A., Gérard, C. “Effects of the invasive aquatic snail Potamopyrgus antipodarum (Gray, 1853) on ecosystem properties and services.” Springer. Edward P. Levri, Rodrigo B. Salvador & Pilar Castro-Díez, Springer, 17 January 2023, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10750-022-05116-z#citeas. 14 February 2024.

Chase M. O’Neil. “Invasive snails alter multiple ecosystem functions in subtropical wetlands.” ScienceDirect. Yuxi Guo, Steffan Pierre, Elizabeth H. Boughton, Jiangxiao Qui, vol. 864, ScienceDirect, 15 March 2023, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969722080421?via%3Dihub. 14 February 2024.

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bloodenjoyer · 1 year

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tagged by @mircallasgrave thank youu ^____^

1. are you named after anyone? nope!! my deadname took SOME inspiration from a girl in the 60s who had some connection to a band (<thats all ill say) baz is just short for basil which came from nowhere particular...i DO also go by judy though and that definitely is partly inspired by judy from the secret history

2. when was the last time you cried?

maybe a few days ago i kept thinking of doomsday/rose tyler in general and was getting really emotional about it . my actual problems im more inclined to repress though

3. do you have kids?

nope!

4. do you use sarcasm a lot?

yes but also no. the answer is no but yes. I am always being completely honest and completeyl joking. i am never entirely sincere but ever joke i make secretly rings true at its core

5. what is the first thing you notice about people?

man idk

6. what color are your eyes?

green or hazel im not sure

7. scary movies or happy endings?

silly question

8. any special talents?

i dunno i can do this weird thing with my right shoulder that makes it look dislocated

9. where were you born?

california!

10. what are your hobbies?

media consumption LOL movies books music etc...like...idk. sometimes i try to play instruments (i did play flute for years but im a bit rusty now, and i play bad guitar sometimes), same w drawing im j not very good at it. and writing. Whatever. im a bit of a jack of all trades useless creative type tbh

11. do you have any pets?

dogy i love her so much

12. what sports did/have you played?

violently hated sports growing up and im pretty physically ....unfit so i never did sports. i guess i do like swimming though and im decent at it

13. how tall are you?

same height as rod serling

14. favorite subjects in school?

history philosophy literature english. Oh anything humanities i suppose

15. dream job?

actor LOL but genuinely nothing at all

tagging @bivampires @gingersnapsunleashed @frankiecorleone <3

#it always takes me a bit to get around to doing these oopsy

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thelreads · 1 year

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Horse meat is actually safer for you than most animals as horses have a higher body temperature, so the diseases that survive there aren't well adapted to humans. They aren't optimized for taste or quantity, though. Source: The Elusive Samurai, from the horse man who loves horses, ally of the samurai who decorates his armour with his 2d waifu.

Sure, but still, in the U.S. it is absolutely unfit for human consumption, because of the uncontrolled administration of hundreds of dangerous drugs and other substances to horses before slaughter. A few examples are dewormers, antibiotics, painkillers, steroids, and diuretics, most of which are labeled “Not for use in animals used for food”. Horses that have been put down by a vet are also unfit for human consumption, as the toxin from the lethal injection will still be in the meat, also there's Phenylbutazone, or Bute, which is a common painkiller that most horses will encounter at some point in their lives, and if these horses are slaughtered, their meat has the potential to cause cancer or other fatal diseases in humans.

Outside of the U.S. the situation might be different, but in the end, horse meat is less nutritious than beef, and Horse milk, a common beverage in Central Asian countries like Mongolia, is also less fatty than cow’s milk. More precisely, it has around three times less fat content, which sure, might be desirable for some people, but in general you're paying more for something that will fill you less.

...

how did we even got to this topic

#inbetween #BNHAC265

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hasufin · 2 years

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Pricey

I’ve been following Dylan Hollis’ TikTok channel for a while now - it’s actually the reason I even got an account on that platform, though I am starting to post a few videos.

I love the videos talking about old recipes. Townsend’s 18th century cooking, Glenn & Friends, even Max Miller. Each one is a fascinating window into one of the most important aspects peoples’ lives.

Dylan almost exclusively does vintage 20th century cooking - 1920s through 1970s. This, necessarily, covers quite a bit of Great Depression cooking.

The Great Depression was no joke. TBH, when I think about it I realize how very little I know or understand about it. But there is no dearth of recipes for feeding people on little to no money - Hoover Stew, Milkorno, Poor Man’s <insert thing here>, and so on.

Now, necessity is the mother of invention. Some of these are awful, some are remarkably good. All of them use foods which would have been cheap at the time.

And that’s a thing which is really quite remarkable. Great Depression cookery focused very heavily on shelf-stable foods. One of Dylan’s most popular recipes is peanut butter bread, because rather than relying on eggs and butter, it uses peanut butter. The Wacky Cake doesn’t use butter, eggs, or milk. Many also use raisins (cooked in water) in lieu of sugar.

However, several recipes use maple syrup. There are recipes which make use of lobster(!) but which make reference to the high cost of oats. Glenn of Glenn & Friends has also commented how hard it is at times to find recipes of the era which are practical: they often call for ingredients which were cheap then, and terribly expensive now.

I honestly find it utterly fascinating how this can work. Today, the biggest contributors to cost in food are processing and perceived luxury. Lobster and maple syrup are pricey; eggs, butter, and sugar are generally the cheapest parts of my foods. Cornmeal (once considered unfit for human consumption) is more expensive than white flour. Of course, it’s nonsense anyway because whole wheat flour is more expensive than either of those (????).

Granted, especially today, if you intend to put down serious money, you don’t buy flour: you buy the bread. prepared foods are invariably more expensive than the ingredients, which at least makes sense; it’s been that way since Roman times at least. Though what is most expensive has moved around a lot. Today, bagels are cheap - though, to be fair, the things we get in the store are wretched shadows of the true, fermented bagels of the past. But stroll through the frozen aisle and ask how much a meal from there costs compared to cooking it yourself.

Still, it’s really something to see how formerly expensive foods are now cheap, and cheap foods have become luxury commodities.

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shortfactoz123 · 2 months

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Over 5 Lakh People In War-Torn Gaza “One Step Away” From Famine, Warns UN

Famine is “imminent” in northern Gaza, where no humanitarian group has been able to provide aid since January 23, the World Food Programme warned Tuesday, as Israel wages war on Palestinian group Hamas.

With a dire humanitarian emergency unfolding in the Gaza Strip and the main UN aid agency there struggling to cope, other bodies have called for help in reaching the thousands of Palestinians in desperate need.

“If nothing changes, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza,” WFP’s deputy executive director Carl Skau told the UN Security Council, while his colleague from the UN humanitarian office OCHA, Ramesh Rajasingham, warned of “almost inevitable” widespread starvation.”Here we are, at the end of February, with at least 576,000 people in Gaza — one-quarter of the population — one step away from famine, with one in six children under two years of age in northern Gaza suffering from acute malnutrition and wasting,” Rajasingham said.

Some 97 percent of groundwater in Gaza is “reportedly unfit for human consumption” and agricultural production is beginning to collapse, warned Maurizio Martina, deputy director general of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Aid is ready and waiting at the border, a spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also said Tuesday.

“WFP colleagues also tell us that they have food supplies at the border with Gaza, and with certain conditions they would be able to scale up feeding up to 2.2 million people” across the Strip, Stephane Dujarric told reporters.

“Almost 1,000 trucks carrying 15,000 metric tons of food are in Egypt ready to move,” he said.

But Israeli forces are “systematically” blocking access to Gaza, said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for OCHA, in Geneva earlier Tuesday.

All planned aid convoys into the north have been denied by Israeli authorities in recent weeks.

The last allowed in was on January 23, according to the World Health Organization.

The main UN aid agency in Gaza, UNRWA, meanwhile, is “at breaking point,” its head said last week, as donors freeze funding, Israel exerts pressure to dismantle the body and humanitarian needs soar.

The Security Council must take action, the other agencies told the 15-member body.