the assassination of franz ferdinand was actually the most hilariously botched assassination attempt of all time though like i can’t even explain to you how badly it went i mean there were six guys and the first one chickened out and the second one forgot to factor in the delay on a hand grenade so it exploded like three cars past the archduke’s so the guy took a cyanide pill and threw himself into a river, but the cyanide was expired and the river was six inches deep so the police just pulled him out and took him off to jail and then everyone else basically gave up and headed home, and then the driver of the archduke took a wrong turn and the car stalled next to the last of the six guys, and he was just like “what a crazy random happenstance” and started world war one
You forgot to mention that the last guy only happened to kill Franz because he had just come out of the sandwich shop where the car stopped
It is obvious to even the most casual observer that this particular event has been meddled with by at least two groups of time travelers trying to change history. Please, if you invent a time machine, leave the assassination of Ferdinand alone; the space-time continuum there is already showing obvious cracks from the strain.
“Can we all just agree that the greatest tech advancement in Star Trek is a universal video format? Klingon ships, Romulan ships, Vulcan ships, Human ships … not once does a captain say “On screen,” followed by a plugin error message.
- (some guy on Facebook, anonymously quoted on reddit)”—
“Stand by, Captain — it says we need to update the Java plugin so we can run GoToMeeting.”
“Why didn’t they just use WebEx?”
“The Romulans must not have a license for it.”
“But it’s free. Isn’t it?”
“If they’d Skyped in, we could’ve just used the ship’s webcam.”
“Captain, the warbird doesn’t show up on my list of Facetime contacts.”
Let’s say you make some vegan chocolate chip cookies. (I looked a recipe up for the sake of this post). These cookies are made with almond milk.
You have a friend that you’ve known for a few months now, and you think it would be nice to surprise them.
So, you offer them one of the cookies. You don’t tell them they’re vegan. As far as your friend is aware, they’re made with cow milk and chicken eggs.
Your friend takes one bite, and a few minutes later you’re using their epi-pen on them and calling 911.
See, what just happened is that your hypothetical friend here has a nut allergy that you didn’t know about, and the almond milk in the cookies was enough to put them in the hospital.
You could have avoided this whole situation by informing your friend that they’re vegan, thus prompting the question “It’s not made with almond milk, is it?”
This doesn’t just apply to cookies. While I’ve never found one, if you happen to know of a vegan fake meat that’s not made with soy and looks and smells exactly like the meat version, don’t serve it to someone and not tell them until after they eat it.
“But I, a vegan, would never do that!”
Great, then this post isn’t about you. This post is about the people who post shit like “when you give your friend vegan food without telling them and they like it *insert gif here*”, and it’s also about the thousands of people who reblog it.
- Avery
And some people have dusgestive issues or health issues that conflict with some vegan ingredients too
I can’t have soy products. At all. It makes eating anything a real pain in the ass, but it’s also one of the top reasons I’m not vegetarian or vegan - a LOT of substitution is done with soy-based products and those will put me in the hospital real quick.
i’ve definitely told you about this before but my dad and my uncle have this whole star wars vs star trek rivalry where they’ll get each other passive aggressive gifts (my dad is a star wars fan, and will always get my uncle star wars merch. my uncle claims star trek is so much better and star wars is lame. he will always get my father star trek merch. this has been going on since my parents got married.)
this is going to be a good year for arguing
my uncle just arrived. my mom shouted “kids, uncle rich is here!” my dad bellowed “MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU” down the stairs. my uncle shouted back “YOU CANT SEE IT BUT IM GIVING YOUR DOG THE VULCAN SALUTE” i love christmas here
dinner was alright until over dessert my dad brought up “so, richie, you see the new star wars movie” until it devolved into a wine fueled shouting match. highlights include “WELL AT LEAST WE DIDNT HAVE JAR JAR GODDAMNED BINKS” “AT LEAST WE DIDNT BLOW UP–” “YES YOU DID. FIRST MOVIE. YOU BLEW UP A PLANET” “shit”
this years argument, like every year before it, ended with “nice to see you.” and them slapping each other on the back which i think is a guy way of hugging goodbye.
Have I ever told you guys the true story of the Revolution Christmas Tree?
This one absolutely 100% happened (unlike the drunk zombie geese story which likely only 35% happened, but maybe I’ll tell you about it one day). It happened to my family when I was 4 y/o.
So imagine Evil Commie Land in the late ‘80s: severe food shortages, no heating (seriously, people slept with their stoves on for heat and sometimes the gas was cut off and came back randomly during the night and carbon monoxide poisoning was a thing). Also large, beautiful, historical chunks of our capital city were being bulldozed into oblivion because our megalomaniac shithead supreme leader wanted to build the biggest fucking thing there was. Anyway, it sucked.
On top of that we were also technically not supposed to celebrate Christmas, because religion is the opiate of the masses etc. etc. But we did anyway, every year and with great enthusiasm, running as we did on the sweet fuel of go ahead and tell a motherfucker they’re not allowed to do something.
So. Christmas. The way we did Christmas back in the day was to make it as secular and proletarian as possible: officially no church services, no religious carols, no Jesus thingy, no calling Santa Claus Santa Claus (we called him Old Man Frost idk)
The only thing we did exactly the same as regular Christmas, in the privacy of our homes, was the Christmas tree. This is how you got a Christmas tree:
you went to the marketplace where Christmas tree sellers were
these were not like, official, state-sanctioned commercial workers, but people with the capacity to somehow provide you with 1 pc. coniferous for Proletarian Christmas celebrating purposes
I have no fucking idea who they were or how they got them
anyway, you went to the marketplace where Christmas tree sellers were and you talked to one of them and you told them what kind of Christmas tree you wanted (options were: fir/spruce, medium-ish/small)
you paid them in advance and agreed on a date where you’d come by and pick your Proletarian Christmas tree
you picked up your Proletarian Christmas tree, brought it home to the family and decorated it with stuff you inherited from your great-grandmother or your mom made out of candy wrappers like 15 years before
you celebrated Christmas. Proletarianly.
So along comes 1989. Shit boils over and by December 21st, we have a violent revolution right on the streets of our capital city.
Now, I was 4 and my brother was 6 months old and our parents decided that we absolutely cannot go without a regular Christmas in our house, especially now that the world is about to go to shit. We didn’t have anything, presents or nice food or. Anything? Basically. The one thing we had was dad had arranged to get our Christmas tree on the day. So he tells my mom that he’s going to pick it up, and instead of knocking him cold and chaining him to the radiator, like the sensible woman she usually is, my mom goes ok just put on an extra sweater you don’t want to catch a cold haha right?
Let me break this down for you in case there’s any misunderstanding as to what we’re talking about. Outside:
violent riots
army
snipers
tanks
plainclothes secret police randomly shooting people dead in the street
I seriously cannot stress the snipers enough
So off goes my dad to pick up our Christmas tree. And he’s gone for five hours, on a trip that normally takes like 30 minutes at a casual stroll. And the more time passes, the deeper my mother sinks into an all-out nervous breakdown. She’s barely keeping it together, my grandmother is trying to comfort her, while my brother is sleeping quietly, which is a good thing, because at some point there’s a weird rumbling outside our building.
‘What’s that?’ say I, 4 years old and desperate for some straight, no-bullshit answers
‘Nothing,’ says my mom. ‘Nothing’ is the second stupidest thing to say to an observant, intelligent kid who’s been locked up for a week and kept in the dark about shit that’s very obviously happening just outside.
‘No, really, what is that?’ say I, seriously determined to get a straight, no-bullshit answer.
Years later, after piecing bits of memories together, I realized there are only so many ways to skirt around ‘It’s a tank, dear’, which is the single stupidest thing to say to a child who’s been locked up for a week if you expect them not to run outside because they want to see, damn it.
So when my dad finally comes home five hours later, with the goddamn tree, she’s either too exhausted to say much, or doesn’t want to have that conversation in front of her kid, who is seriously right on the brink of smashing something out of frustration.
It wasn’t until I was in highschool that he told me he’d actually been shot at several times, because sneaking around street corners carrying a large tree is not at all suspicious when everyone is so strung up. Any sniper who might have been around absolutely did not think he was probably a revolutionary agent smuggling weapons or w/e instead of a dad trying to make a nice Christmas for his family BECAUSE WHAT THE ACTUAL EVERLOVING FUCK
So this is the story of the Revolution Christmas Tree, aka the story of how my dad almost got shot lugging around an overpriced bit of spruce in the middle of violent street fighting so his kids could have Christmas.
There are some levels of parenting you just can’t beat.
The Author-Who-Lived: J.K. Rowling’s Refusal to Accept the Death of the Author in the Internet Age
Man I fucking hate this attitude. I especially hate that Rowling gets this shit thrown at her. God FORBID she continue to engage with her own fucking work.
I don’t get why this is even a thing? I mean, why WOULDN’T one be interested in the author’s intentions and the ideas they had that didn’t make it into the finished work and so forth, regardless of whether one actually thinks they managed to express them well?
People seem to think they’re entitled to take over someone else’s work. News flash: JK Rowling created the Harry Potter series, not you. If you don’t want to hear what she has to say about it, stop looking at her twitter account then.
Yes. This. Now I’m all in favor of AUs and headcanons and whatnot, and in Rowling’s particular case I can certainly see reason to criticize the way she’s revealed some things, but talking about it like she should just “accept” that once she’s published something nothing she has to say about it matters? Ridiculous.
Everyone *else* gets to have headcanons, why shouldn’t she?
Like - it annoys me when people jump on Harry Potter meta or interpretations because of something JKR said on twitter or in one interview, because there is no way to keep track of everything she’s said and she changes her mind sometimes, and ultimately my meta is about the books, not what the author was thinking. I understand being annoyed if a lot of people have jumped on you for it, too.
But that isn’t her fault, and she has the right to talk about her own books.
Agreed.
All of this.
Rowling is under no obligation to accept Death of the Author. Nor are we as readers necessarily–if you want to, that’s great, but it isn’t the only way to be a reader.
On that note, it isn’t just a matter of ‘if everyone else can have headcanons, why can’t the author?’ it’s a matter of the author’s headcanons being canon, even if that josses someone else’s headcanon. She gets to decide this stuff, because she made the world we’re playing in. She was the one who sat down and did the hard work. Just because she was gracious enough to share it with us, some people seem to feel entitled to grab it and shout “No, you’re wrong! This is OURS now! MINE! All mine!”. Believe in your headcanons as much as you want, but don’t expect anyone who isn’t you to accord any importance to them, and don’t be surprised when people get amused at the entitlement inherent in the notion that your opinion is somehow every bit as legitimate as the opinion of the woman who did all the hard work.
I was very attached to the idea of a Ravenclaw Teddy Lupin. Guess what? He’s a Hufflepuff according to the woman who created him and his parents, and I’ve no right to insist otherwise.
the princess diaries was anne hathaway’s first movie and like can you imagine being in her place and just casually being told oh btw julie andrews is your co-star no pressure welcome to hollywood
So I saw Meg Cabot speak when she came to St. Louis and I did not do anything like fall flat on my face or embarrass myself horribly (a miracle, considering that the writer I wanted to grow up to be was Meg Cabot). But more importantly, she talked about The Princess Diaries, and I learned several things:
the movie was being made before the book was published, which she said was very weird for her
Whitney Houston’s production company was the one that made it, so apparently both Meg Cabot and Anne Hathaway really could regard Whitney Houston as their fairy godmother
the reason Mia’s father is dead in the movie (he’s alive in the books) is because the original draft of the movie didn’t have that many lines for Mia’s Grandmère. When the production company approached Meg Cabot about this, they said “Julie Andrews wants the part, but she’d like more lines so we think we would have to kill Mia’s father and–” “YES KILL HIM KILL HIM DEAD.”
Which I feel is the only proper reaction to that.
Also according to Meg Cabot, Anne Hathaway is a sweetheart.
12 girls on tumblr complain about a problem they all had and make it out to be some grand injustice that happens to anyone when really they can't think beyond themselves. Are you going to ignore all the good done just because it didn't happen to you?
Hi, anon, I’m gonna be honest and say I’m…genuinely not sure what you’re talking about here? I’m guessing it has something to do with either the one post or another one of the recent posts that I’ve reblogged about medical equality lately, though, based on the tone, so I’m going to answer this assuming that.
First of all, no, I’m not, as you seem to believe, acting out due to personal insult. I’ve been reasonably fortunate in medicine, actually, from a certain perspective: when there’s something wrong with me, it’s spectacularly wrong and generally speaking impossible to write off (too concussed to speak, intolerant of a medication to the point of seizures, etc.). My experience is actually coming from my training as an EMT and in reaching out to doctors to learn what it’s like working in the medical field. Thanks for the assumption, though.
Second of all, this isn’t an issue of a few girls on Tumblr, it’s increasingly an issue that has the potential to affect a lot of people. Women, yeah, are a part of that group. So are trans individuals, people with existing disabilities, or people of color. Is it going to affect all of those people? No, of course not, that would be an absurdly generalized statement. But it affects some, and when you look at the sheer number of people who fall into the group, ‘some’ of them becomes a not-insignificant number. However, this does not change the fact that the medical field at large has helped innumerable people, nor would I ever want to devalue that. It is completely possible to acknowledge both the flaws in the medical system and the vast good that the same system can do and has done. Since the goal of medicine as a discipline is always to help the most number of people possible, I would say that acknowledging the flaws in the system and acting to change things is actually quite in spirit with the same attitude that leads to all that good being done in the first place.
Third of all. Okay. Look. I’m eighteen. I am first-aid certified. I am a trained EMT looking for somewhere to take my certification exam. I am a junior in college (on SUCH a scholarship, I might add, because my family’s broke) currently on the pre-medical studies track. I am looking into which medical schools I should apply to. I am talking to doctors and nurses to see what field I might like to specialize in. I keep a medical kit and provide first-aid care to my friends and classmates when they need it. So you just damn call me when you decide what else I need to be doing to be qualified to make a note of the fact that some people do not consistently receive the attentive listening and respect they are entitled to. Not to sound like too much of an idealist or whatever, but in my personal opinion, if only twelve women had ever experienced this sort of thing, it would still be unacceptable.
If you weren’t talking about the medicine thing, feel free to consider this a free lesson in specificity. Tip: it pays to be particular about the post you’re griping about, because otherwise you get a long rant about medical equality you weren’t looking for.
If shawty not feeling you and YOU choose to stick around, then you’ve accepted a friendship role. She didn’t “friend zone” you, you friend zoned your fucking self
If ass is all you want and she’s not putting out, then say your farewells and stop wasting both her time and your time. Don’t be a fucking lame and pretend to be her friend so you can fuck later down the road, AND THEN act like a fucking child when she doesn’t let you fuck later down the road. She don’t owe you shit.
You were a good friend to her? Congrats, she owes you nothing.
You always listened to her whine about her boyfriend? Congrats, she owes you nothing.
You chose to stick around in hopes of getting some pussy when she made it clear she didn’t want to give you pussy? Congrats, she owes you nothing.
guys someone talk to me about poe dameron - best pilot in the resistance, top dog, guns-blazing male protagonist - and how he was so kind. how he took an ex storm trooper at face value and with unconditional, immediate trust and even a fierce kind of joy- yeah, you go buddy! fight the darkness. i’m here to help you. i’m here to work with you. i’m not here to take control- we won’t get out of this unless we work together.
how he didn’t treat him with suspicion or macho posturing despite the fact that he’s a top tier pilot and has probably been at war with people like FN 2187 for years. how the first thing he does once they’re out of immediate danger is give him a name, treating him like a person worthy of respect and not like another faceless white mask. how he is patient with a panicking Finn even under the incredible stress of a life or death situation, ensuring he knows what to do and being endlessly positive and encouraging instead of berating him when he falls short.
how he gets out of his jet at the end of the big firefight and sees BB8 and his whole face just lights up. how he unselfconsciously runs to BB8 like a kid, automatically lowering himself to BB8′s level.
how he doesn’t need to be the spotlight, the center of attention. when they gather around the hologram to strategize, star pilot and battle veteran poe dameron shuts up and listens.
how he never has a Trek-reboot Jim Kirk-style playboy sequence, no endless string of girls. not even a hint, and you know they could have stuck it in there if they wanted to. how we never see him treat another being, human or otherwise, with anything less than respect, optimism and good nature. i’m just. i mean. do you realize how significant this is?
you guys, if poe dameron is the future of male protagonists in big action movies, sign me the fuck up.
I WAS ALREADY IN LOVE WITH HIM I DIDN’T NEED THIS POST TO REMIND ME
I want to write an action movie about some older retired government agent who’s married and settled down. He’s started to let his guard down. And that’s when the past comes back to haunt him.
They come for him while he’s home alone and he’s resisting their interrogation techniques, refusing to betray whatever or whoever they’re after. Except then his teenage daughter comes home early.
And the baddies send one of their henchmen out there to deal with her. And RetiredActionDad is all “Don’t you touch her! I’ll kill you! Rar!” But the baddies just laugh.
Except they realize, after a little while has passed, that the one guy never came back from dealing with the daughter.
And then go outside and find the missing baddie floating face down in the pool.
The rest of the movie is the teenage girl calling in favors and running around following the baddies to save her RetiredActionDad.
So Taken, but in reverse.
It should be called The Liability.
I would watch the hell out of this.
And then in the sequel, the daughter has joined the FBI, following in her dad’s footsteps. But the brother of the villain from the first one wants revenge. So he kidnaps her mother. She and her dad head abroad to find mom in the villain’s secret lair…while mom has already escaped has been busy hiding in the air vents and stabbing goons with knitting needles. Turns out she was a Russian spy who defected and married her government handler forty years ago, and can handle herself.
It’s funny how Hillary Clinton will nae nae on stage, reference Beyoncé, try to court Latinos by saying she’s an Abuela, reference Star Wars, and literally change her accent depending on her audience, doing anything to appeal to everyone yet an old, unfashionable, unkempt, Jewish, socialist is winning with millennials by a 2-1 (and growing) margin just by being true to himself. Hmmm
The problem with Hillary and the people running her campaign is that they are running on the same mindset as everyone of that generation: they truly believe that millennials and younger voters “only care about memes” and are uninterested in politics or making the world better. What they don’t understand is that this younger generation isn’t uninterested in politics or the political process, but that they see American politics for what they are: a game of broken promises, where you can barely differentiate between liberals and conservatives as this point. The Democrats and Republicans running for office are all more invested in the interests of the rich and powerful than they are of the people. This generation isn’t untierested in politics, it’s just tired of playing a game that is clearly rigged. The reason Bernie is wrecking every other Democratic candidate with young voters is because he’s actually speaking about issues that this generation cares about, mirroring their fears and anger, and providing plans for possible solutions to problems like income inequality, the rising cost of higher education, the racism embedded in our social systems, the rising cost of living with no rise in wages anywhere on sight, etc.
You can whip and nae nae all you fucking want and wish the Force to be with me, but what I really wanna know is why students are leaving universities with $30K+ of debt to a shit job market to be underpaid for their skills, or why our police departments are being given access to military grade weaponry, or why black people can’t drive without being harassed by police officers, up to a point where they will sometimes end up dead. Hillary can eat me.
okay, that story about your roommate and the spaghetti squash sounds intriguing.
okay this story falls under the ‘sarah is bonkers & has to make everything she does way more difficult than it should be’ category of life decisions
so this happened when i was an undergrad, & i lived in an apartment with this other girl in the same town my parents live in, which was actually an ok setup because i could borrow their car & get free food without having to listen to my father snore or play james taylor’s christmas album. my mother belonged to this farming co-op thing where she’d get a bunch of weird ass veggies & stuff once a week from local farmers (& i grew up in arizona so like. sometimes it was weird shit). & i often got all the extra weird food my parents didnt want to bother cooking because i was a poor college student & didn’t complain about it.
so one week my mom picks up her veggie order & gets this giant monstrous spaghetti squash, its HUGE. my mother HATES spaghetti squash for whatever reason. hates it. naturally she offers to give it to me & i’m like ‘yeah ok sure’ & she’s all ‘sarah i can walk you through how to cook this but i don’t want it in my house i hate these things but tell me if you need help cooking this’ & i’m like ‘MOM i can cook a fucking squash it’s fine i’m 20 years old’
& i become VERY DETERMINED to cook this damn thing because my mother had implied that i didn’t know what i was doing & was helpless & just floundering my way through life. how cooking a giant evil orange oblong squash was gonna prove this i can’t tell you but that’s what i thought. i think i wanted to demonstrate that i was RESOURCEFUL and HEALTHY and ATE ADULT FOOD SHE DOESN’T LIKE.
naturally it was NOT FINE.
i bring the damn thing home & decide it’s too big to really do anything with so i’ll cut it open before i cook it because that’ll be easiest. i DID NOT read any directions on how to cook a spaghetti squash because i was determined to DO IT MYSELF LIKE AN ADULT WHO EATS SPAGHETTI SQUASH AND NEEDS NO HELP FROM NOBODY.
so i pretty quickly realize that i’m pretty unable to actually cut the squash open. it’s massive & has a thick rind & i can’t get a knife into it. i spend probably twenty minutes sitting on my kitchen floor with the squash in my lap trying to stab it with every knife in the kitchen & i can’t even get it fucking started. if i’d owned a fire ax i probably would’ve taken a fire ax to it. & naturally the situation evolves from simply a test of my adulting abilities to a TEST OF MY HONOR AND STRENGTH. I’VE GOT A 4.0 i tell myself I CAN OUTSMART A SQUASH but i can’t because i can’t cut it open. i have a bit of a meltdown at this point because my self worth, which is fragile & bewildering on a good day, is being torn to shreds by a stupid fucking orange gourd.
the logical thing to do at this point would have been to give up because i’m not all that wild about spaghetti squash anyway but i CANT ADMIT DEFEAT I HAVE TO OWN THIS STUPID MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!!
so i decide to stick the squash in a giant pot & boil it for a while until it gets soft enough to be cut open. brilliant. i’m a genius. i’m so pleased with myself. everyone in the entire world could have told me this was a bad idea. if i’d called my mother to ask for her help she would have probably had a heart attack but i didn’t do that because i’m DETERMINED TO WIN.
so i stick the damn thing in the biggest pot i have, put it on the stove, & feeling very pleased with myself go to take a nap because i’ve fought a battle that i am winning
my roommate gets home maybe an hour and a half later, drops her stuff off, sees me sleeping on the couch and walks into the kitchen. and naturally, as soon as she walks into the kitchen the vegetable bomb that i planted in a pot of boiling water on our stove goes the fuck off which is what happens when you put a large round semi-hollow object in a pot of very hot water so steam builds up inside and then forget about it. so roommate walks into the kitchen
and the squash TAKES FLIGHT.
because, surprise, when you let an incredible amount of steam build up inside something shaped like a bomb it will BURST A HOLE IN THE SIDE AND FLY INTO THE AIR LIKE A RED HOT GOURD PROJECTILE
it sounded kind of like someone firing a cannon in our living room so i wake up thinking someone is SHOOTING AT ME, vault over the couch screaming to see the squash launch out of the pot of water straight up into the air. it misses my roommate’s head by maybe a half a foot. she screams and i scream and we both hit the deck and the squash smacks into the ceiling and then to the ground, splattering squash insides all over us and the floor.
needless to say i had a lot of apologizing to do because i almost murdered her with dinner, & i then had to tell my mother that i’d completely failed in making my point about being mature & self sufficient, but had discovered that spaghetti squash work really great as weaponry if the situation ever arises.
i think she laughed at me for forty five minutes.
so there you go, that’s the story about how i almost accidentally committed squash bomb homicide
fights in the s’chn t’gai household must be wild. like “father, i find your behavior illogical” “my son spock, it is your behavior that is illogical” two weeks pass without them speaking to each other at all after those intense accusations were flung
me: are you looking for an alphabetical list, The Greatest Hits, a pie chart, least square fit…
I can’t say with authority what the right order for this list would be because I’m not a doctor, but I would suggest starting with the diagnosis (or diagnoses) which have the most impact on your day-to-day existence and working your way down, Greatest Hits style–so, for example, if you have endometriosis that causes you severe pain, that would come above well-managed bipolar disorder, even if the bipolar is an every-day thing and the endometriosis proceeds in a monthly cycle. Of course, if you’re seeing a doctor for a particular complaint–suppose you’re experiencing chest and throat pain with a cough–I’d suggest starting with whichever diagnosis (or diagnoses) has the most immediate implications for that complaint. So for the chest/throat pain and cough, you’d start by listing, say, asthma, allergies, or an immunodeficient disorder, if one of those was applicable, and then work your way down your list from most to least pertinent.
…now that I’ve written all that, I’m realizing that this was probably a rhetoical question, so feel free to ignore me.
Hey, ever heard of somebody who just dropped dead of a heart attack suddenly, nobody thought they had anything wrong with them? Everybody thought they were perfectly healthy?
Know why they were never diagnosed with heart problems, never had a chance to get preventative treatments?
Fatphobia.
Medical anti-fat bias means that many thin people never get tested for cholesterol or other things that are indicative of heart disease, because many doctors think there’s no need to test them. Meanwhile, fatties with no history of any problems with these things get tested every single time. Often when they go in to see a doctor for something totally unrelated, doctors want a cholesterol check.
Because a correlation between fat and heart disease exists, some — too many — doctors assume that only fat people are likely to have it.
Fatphobia in medicine isn’t only killing fat people. It’s killing thin people, too.
-MG
Literally experienced this, thin privilege backfiring on me. My small fat roommate and I were the same age. We both went in for a physical at around the same time. She got a whole shitload of bloodwork that gave her cholesterol level, blood sugar, and told her about many vitamin deficiencies. I asked for the same, and was told my insurance wouldn’t cover it. I had better insurance than her.
I had to beg to get my b12 level tested, because my family has a history of depression and I’d heard there was a relationship, and my doctor kind of fudged a reason to check that and one other thing. Later, I got a bill, because my insurance refused to cover it.
Turned out my b12 was DANGEROUSLY low. I was well into the “psychiatric side effects” range. (I’d just gotten used to hiding in the bathroom and sobbing multiple times a week at work. I… don’t do that anymore.)
What other vitamins am I deficient in? I have no idea. I’m taking C and D and kind of hoping for the best.
Because fatphobia and healthism say that because I’m thin and relatively young, I can’t possibly be unhealthy.
Weight first treatment kills everyone
This is why I shy away from the doctor. Every single ailment I have is because I’m fat according to them. It hurts my feelings a lot. Maybe I’m just sick because I’m sick?
My doctor actually recently (two weeks ago) had the gall to try to diagnose me for sleep apnea and allergies (caused by the sleep apnea) because I made an appointment for a check up because I was sick, congested, and had a sore throat.
He gave me a prescription for fucking Zyrtec and told me I should get a sleep study done because my weight was likely the cause.
I went and got a second opinion from a local walk in clinic and turns out I had a fucking upper respiratory infection (caused by a virus) and it was on its way to becoming pneumonia. It had NOTHING to do with my weight.
I’m lucky I didn’t actually end up in the fucking hospital over it.
Yeah, you should let your doctor know that the one study that claimed to prove that fat physiologically caused sleep apnea turned out to have been falsified. The researcher admitted to it, retracted the study, and accepted censure. We’ve posted about it a couple of times now. The researcher’s name is Robert Fogel, and if you look around, you can find the official retraction. Maybe take that in to your doctor.
On the other hand, poor sleep does seem to cause weight gain, which suggests that for any correlation between fat and sleep apnea, the causation runs the other way.
-MG
The amount of fatshaming in medicine is ridiculous. I noticed during the very first year of my medical studies that doctors will try to pin everything on people being fat, including the flu or too thin hair. They will even say stuff like “but they weren’t even overweight????” when a person dies of heart failure as THE FIRST THING they can think of. They never say “but they didn’t even smoke” or “they didn’t even have high cholesterol”. They say “wait they weren’t fat why were they ill”
It gets even worse in Psychiatry. “Well if you lost weight maybe that would help the depression”, “I don’t understand why he’s still so unsure of himself. He lost about 40 pounds, he looks great.”
I have literally heard someone say to a rape victim “He chose you because he knew from your body type that you weren’t likely to outrun him.”
For decades, my mother-in-law had been a bit rounder than most women - mostly genetic, as many women in her family have been that way historically, and been perfectly healthy - but was experiencing a strange, seemingly randomly-occurring symptom of blood in her urine from time to time.
Doctor after doctor would look for the cause, but most fell back on some variation of her being overweight. Meanwhile, she continued steadily gaining weight, year after year, even though she ate less and less.
At the beginning of Thanksgiving week 2010, she went in for a checkup with her new primary care physician. They went over various things - like how tired and drained my mother-in-law felt, for a start - and as they were about to leave, the doctor had them drop off a blood sample, because she had a hunch and wanted to check something (creatinine levels, in case anyone is curious).
When they got home from the visit, the phone was ringing. It was the doctor.
“Good news! I know what your problem is. Bad news, your kidneys are failing. Go to the hospital now.”
Her kidneys had dropped below 10% function, the minimum for healthy living. It turned out, after extensive testing and a lucky incident, that she’d been having small, minor kidney infections for decades, which had been slowly chipping away at her kidney function - hence the ‘random’ blood in her urine.
Doctors had mostly just told her to lose weight and get more fit - when it reality, she was retaining water because her kidneys were slowly failing. She was otherwise completely asymptomatic for kidney failure.
The first week of dialysis, they extracted fifty pounds of water from her. It was agony to go through, but she felt amazingly better after that (wonder of wonders, a working faux-kidney, and she felt better? gasp).
But the fat-shaming didn’t stop there. Later, once we’d determined I could give her a kidney, her assigned transplant doctor’s first statement upon entering the room (she’d been previously instructed to lose weight to a certain point, to make the surgery safer, which she’d actually been doing just fine, if a tad slowly) was, “Your problem is portion control.”
At that point in time, she was eating no more than 800-1000 calories per day, and feeling full from that, but he didn’t believe that she was being truthful, and for the duration of the time she had to interact with him, he continually insisted she was eating too much. (She still eats less than everyone else in the house, and she’s the only one ‘classically’ overweight, though much less so than before the transplant).
By the time of the transplant, she was down to only 3% kidney function, despite dialysis six nights a week. Had this not been caught when it was, we probably would have lost her by then.
Thankfully, since giving her one of my kidneys, she’s been able to maintain a healthy weight and be more active, though she will always remain ‘rounder’ because of her genetics.
For years, doctors assumed all her problems were because she was overweight when, in fact, her being as overweight as she had been was a symptom of an underlying problem.
Unfriendly remind that ~25% of thin people have “obese” problems which leads to awful things, like has been said. If you’re thin, please be careful about believing doctors who just say, “you’re not overweight, so you’re fine!” b/c fatphobia is shit.
This is so obnoxious. I am very small built so not only does everyone think I’m very healthy, but they think I am skinny and constantly comment on how little I must eat. As a small child I was a bean pole and light as a feathery. Then I suddenly gained weight with puberty. I am 5'3" and when I was fifteen I weighed 160 LBs. I was miserable and uncomfortable because I am small boned and lethargic regardless of my weight so I couldn’t handle the extra weight. Literally doctors told me that my weight was healthy. My bmi must have been twice what it is now at 135 LBs. I had chronic knee pain. But because I was “so tiny!” and “not fat just have a cute little double chin!” Because I wasn’t “fat” in other people’s perceptions I was ignored when I complained that my weight bothered me. I eventually lost the weight through vigorous exercise, 90 minutes a day on a bike. (and in hindsight was really over working myself) I still don’t know if that is the cause because due to neglect, poverty and financial abuse I still haven’t received any consistent medical care, my hair became and remains dramatically thinner than during childhood and early adolescence and I have a number of health issues that I don’t recall having before I lost the weight. End rant.
I lost my ovary because of my weight. When I was in college, I was walking to class with my friend, (and carrying about 60+ pounds worth of art supplies), and I felt a hard and painful *pop* in my lower abdomen. I dropped to the ground and was rushed to the campus urgent care, where they told me it was probably a hernia and needed to see my doctor. Now, I’m not exactly skinny. I’m 4'11 and over 160 pounds. Besides fibromyalgia, physically I’m relatively healthy. I went to my physician, a little beanpole of a woman, who, to my every complaint replied “it’s constipation. You need to lose weight and you’ll be more regular.” Well, for two years I kept getting the same response. The same pain, in the same place. Finally one day at work it got so bad that I collapsed on the floor crying in the middle of a breakfast rush. I had to actually get angry and raise my voice before my doctor would send me for scans, and she said “maybe it’s appendicitis.” After getting an MRI, it was discovered that I had a tumor in my ovary that had been there since I was born but started growing when I reached adulthood. In the past two years it had been growing and destroying my ovary. If it had been dealt with when it first presented, They would have been able to save my ovary and since the tumor wouldn’t have been so huge, the surgery wouldn’t have been so invasive and my recovery would have been much shorter and much less painful. But since I was overweight, my doctor just assumed that it could be solved with exercise and a better diet. (Which I had already been working on.) TL:DR because I’m fat, my doctor ignored my unrelated health problems so now I’m less likely to have children.
I was refused birth control by my doctor because of my weight. She essentially told me that she wouldn’t trust me to take the pills on a regular schedule unless I lost a significant amount of weight and proved to her that I had the discipline for it.
When I had my gallbladder problems which I lived with undiagnosed for 5 months, (mix of genetics and the Yasmin I was taking. The Yasmin just sped things along) I had an attack that left me weak and unable to breathe properly. So I was rushed to the hospital. Not only was I asked with serious lack of caring if I was in labour.. When I said no, she took her sweet time checking me in and then handed me that god awful heartburn shit that they give people. I nearly puked it up.
When I finally got to see the ER doctor she was more interested with taking a phone call from another hospital then treating me. When she finally did take a moment to “treat” me it was two slaps on the back declared I didn’t have a kidney infection, and that it was acid reflux and my back injury I got from a 40lbs box of chickens falling on me at an old job. With a thinly veiled comment to lose weight my problems would go away.
Saw my GP the next day and he could feel something poking through my ribs and set me up for an emergency ultrasound.
On the way home I had another attack and my mom just thought I was hungry, since I hadn’t eaten in days. Are two grapes puked them back up pretty much right then and there. She called the doctor office and they told her to take me in and that they were phoning to let the hospital know I was coming. When I finally saw the second doctor (7ish hours after I arrived at the ER) he did lab work and found I had a failing liver.
I had an ultra sound the next day and found out that I had gallstones, pancreatitis that was days away from going septic and because of that a failing liver.
Lucky me got surgery four days after everything was said and done, but that first doctor in the ER could have killed me. I’m glad I didn’t believe her that my problem was weight related.
Doctors blaming all my issues on my weight instead of checking and treating my (turns out) severe autoimmune hypothyroidism (which, wow, was contributing to my weight) meant that I had to have a complete thyroidectomy and follow-up radiation treatment because the damage and hypertrophy in my thyroid had turned into a massive blob of thyroid cancer that was compressing my trachea.
Now I may or may not have lymphoma and will have to be on daily medication and a kidney-pummeling amount of calcium for the rest of my life! Thanks, medical establishment.
Thanks to my old Dr, it was 5 years before I was diagnosed with my autoimmune disease! Everything was because I was fat! Broke a toe stubbing it on a wooden stair, it’s because of my fat. The constant chronic pain/inflammation all due to my weight My depression, anxiety and compulsive behaviors are all due to my fat as well Migraines? Fat Insomnia? Fatty fat Anxiety? FAT Every cold or bout of pneumonia FAT Gynecological pain? WAY TOO FAT
Thankfully I have a new Dr and he *listens* to me. I have Fibromyalgia. I have Akylosing Spondylitis I have a rheumatologist I have a pain management specialist I have a gynecologist I have a urologist A fantastic Dr who listens to me, right away.
Me: Both my legs hurt. I can’t walk normally.
Doctor: Ok but you have diabetes because fat
Me: I don’t have diabetes. I don’t even have pre-diabetes. Look, here’s my bloodwork. My a1c is so normal it could ski the Bell Curve.
Doctor: Ok but diabetes.
Me: No.
Doctor: Ok but you should lose weight because your big fat ass is causing mechanical issues in your legs.
Me: … that seems fake, but okay. I’ll do what you say.
Me: Hey doc, I can’t lose weight because I CANNOT WALK OR EXERCISE AT ALL. It’s been 2 years. I can’t go to the bathroom on my own anymore.
Doc: How about I do another MRI on your ankles?
@adhocavenger: Fuck this asshole. Let’s go to another doctor.
Doctor Kate: … this is nerve pain. Maybe you have a compressed disc pressing on your spine. Let’s MRI your spine.
Me: Ok.
Doctor Kate: … uhhhhhh, you have a tumor the size of a large grape inside your spine; it’s compressing your spinal cord and that’s why your everything hurts. Good thing we caught it before it destroyed your spine and left you paralyzed entirely.
Me: … so it isn’t because I’m fat?
Doctor Kate: … fat doesn’t make tumors inside your spine. That doctor is stupid and I will call him and tell his office to never call you again, because he is a jerk. But not being able to move probably caused you to not be able to lose weight like he demanded.
Even if you don’t have a cat please reblog this for all your followers who may have their own precious little baby.
I HAD NO IDEA ABOUT TUNA OMFG
If I remember rightly it’s the trace elements of mercury in canned tuna that is toxic to them. Their kidneys can’t filter it out like human kidneys can.
ok im gonna break this down a bit because some of these are BLATANTLY untrue and it kills me every time i see this.
alcohol: not very good for humans, either, but alcohol effects pets the same way it effects humans: targeting the brain and the liver. the issue? it takes way less to kill your cat than it does a human. you weigh, on average, at least 100 pounds (or 10x) more than your cat does. 3 teaspoons of liquour could kill your cat. don’t do it. alcohol WILL poison your cat.
chocolate:
theobromine (and to a lesser degree, caffeine) is the issue with this one. humans? we can break this down in our bodies. cats, dogs, birds, ferrets? they can’t. it usually takes a pretty big amount of theobromine to cause a pet to actually die, though. it’s present in cocoa, so the higher % of cocoa in a chocolate, the less needs to be ingested to cause serious, life-threatening effects. baking chocolate has a high concentration of theobromine and 1 square can kill a cat or small dog. white chocolate is a low risk, on the other hand. chocolate CAN poison your cat, especially DARK and BAKING chocolate.
caffeine: same story as alcohol: not that great for humans either, causes similar effects as in humans… just quicker and with less caffeine ingested. elevated heartrate, seizures, etc. can be seen. dogs and cats are more sensitive to the effects than humans are. caffeine WILL poison your cat.
dairy: cats are lactose intolerant and so their bodies cannot properly break it down– much like how we can break down theobromine and cats/dogs can’t. however, it’s not going to poison your cat, just give them diarrhea and other gastrointestinal upset. dairy WILL NOT poison your cat, but will cause gastrointestinal upset and diarrhea, so it is strongly recommended to not give dairy products to your pets.
fat trimmings: fat trimmings are just fat. if you feed fat to your cats, they will become fat and/or it will increase the level of lipids in the blood, leading to diseases and complications like chronic pancreatitis, which can be fatal. fat trimmings WILL NOT poison your cat, but will lead to disease that can be fatal, so it is strongly recommended to not feed fat trimmings to any pets.
raw meat: cats can eat raw meat. cats are obligate carnivores. cats are designed to only eat meat, and raw meat is not of serious risk to them. disease carried in raw meat? not a problem when you are a cat who has evolved over millions of years to eat raw meat. i hate hearing “cats can’t eat raw meat!” from people with outdoor cats. you realise your cats are eating raw lizard and bird, right? raw meat has more nutrients than cooked meat (which we eat veggies & fruits to compensate for– cats can’t digest these) and, obviously, there are some diseases and bacteria that cats aren’t immune to but cats are less likely to eat rotten meat than dogs are, anyway. treat the meat like you treat human meat and it’s totally fine. cats are DESIGNED TO EAT AND DIGEST RAW MEAT! IT’S PERFECTLY FINE TO FEED YOUR CAT RAW MEAT, but make sure that the meat is in-date and properly stored/cared for. rotten or spoiled meat CAN lead to disease and poisoning, but the same goes for 90% of the animal population!
eggs: its ok to feed your cat eggs. im not even sure why this is a question. raw eggs rarely carry salmonella and even humans rarely contract salmonella from infected eggs. your average cat will never contract salmonella from raw eggs, only in an immuno-compromised cat would this ever be an issue. cats can safely eat raw and cooked eggs, as salmonella is pretty much only a concern in an immuno-compromised cat in the first place.
fish: see raw meat above. fish, however, is a bit of an exception because of higher levels of mercury & low levels of taurine and differing balances of phosphate and calcium mean that it’s not a sustainable diet for cats and could lead to mercury poisoning or bone disease if it is the only protein given. when given ~1 time a week and with varied proteins there is no issue. again, cats are DESIGNED TO EAT AND DIGEST FISH AND OTHER MEATS! however, previous warnings about storing fish correctly still applies, and proteins should be varied due to fish having different levels of phosphorous, calcium, and taurine and mercury content. a primary diet of fish CAN lead to bone disease or mercury poisoning in extreme cases.
grapes and raisins: admittedly, this one is a bit of a wild card. some pets eat raisins/grapes without an issue, but in others, these can cause renal failure and death rapidly. we still don’t know why. animals with prior kidney issues are more likely to be effected by grape/raisin toxicity, and cats are more likely to have kidney issues due to many cats not getting adequate moisture in their diet. grapes and raisins MAY lead to poisoning in some cats and dogs, especially those with pre-existing kidney conditions.
onions and garlic: yes! all members of the allium genus (shallots, scallions, leeks, etc. are included) contain thiosulphate which, when ingested by cats and dogs, can lead to a serious condition in the blood known as hemolytic anemia. basically: their red blood cells burst. this can be fatal and a small amount of onion/garlic/etc. is needed to cause clinically significant issues. onions, garlic, and other members of the allium genus CAN and WILL poison your pet in even small amounts.
tuna: see fish above. canned tuna tends to be soaked in oil which leads to the same issues as fat trimmings in increasing lipid count in the blood. sashimi quality tuna will also have higher concentration of mercury and shouldn’t be consumed more than occasionally in the cat’s diet. canned tuna in oil is often too fatty and leads to the same issues as eating fat trimmings, however, tuna steak/sashimi/etc. quality tuna is the same as other fish: occasional inclusion in the diet is fine!
xylitol: relatively small quantities of this (an artificial sweetener) will cause a sudden drop in blood sugar in dogs, which can lead to comas, seizures, or death. many times, if they are not rushed to the hospital immediately, they will die, and even then, they may suffer permanent liver damage. however… cats are not adversely affected, and typically aren’t attracted to foods w/xylitol in it in the first place. xylitol is NOT likely to poison your cat, but small amounts can KILL your dog, moreso than chocolate!
pleeeeeaaaaase don’t make fun of people for being overenthusiastic about their interests. if you see someone getting really excited about something and you think it’s a good idea to ruin their fun (and don’t think people don’t notice your eye rolls and side glances) you’re an asshole
trying to find that one post where y’all speculate about Finn realizing he needs to provide a surname, and he just goes with “Dameron” because that’s the first one which comes to mind (none of his old friends had surnames or even names beyond their official designations, and he can’t remember that much of his family)
and Rey is like “yeah solid choice, makes sense, I like the sound of it” because Rey is a feral desert child and doesn’t know any better
and of course Poe is charmed, and is like “sure I am happy to provide jackets, surnames, my elite piloting skills, my hand in marriage: anything for my friends”
and idk at some point, someone is like “okay Rey do you have any other name, what’s with the mononym shit” and she’s like “uhhhhh DAMERON” because really if it works for Finn, it can work for her
and the long and short of it is: they see nothing unusual in this and completely miss any implications, and eventually this nonsense gets back to the Resistance fighters and Poe’s entire squadron smirks at him for days
my favorite thing about 101 dalmatians is that, when faced with the realization that there were now 101 dogs in their apartment, their reaction was “i guess we’re gonna need a bigger house” which is entirely illogical and exactly how i would respond in that situation
Yes, I prefer Bernie Sanders. But if Hillary Clinton’s the nominee, I’m voting for her. I will be damned if I live in a country with a President Cruz or President Trump.
Important to remember. We must vote. If you choose not to vote because you prefer Bernie over Hilary or vice versa, then it essentially becomes a vote for the Republican party. Please vote.
