God So True

reading letters from 1818 is wild

“it’s that time of the year when I get colds for no apparent reason again” have some Clairitin hon

imagine… Alma Deutscher: Finding Cinderella

Musical prodigy Alma Deutscher aged 11 (seen here with younger sister Helen), is staging her first full-length opera, Cinderella.

Composer, pianist, violinist… Alma learned to read music before she could read words. She began playing the piano aged two and at four years old she was composing her own music.

ADOPTION FUN FACT

If you’re adopted internationally into the United States, BY adoption LAWS you’re legally a citizen, but you still have to apply for documentation and if it’s not done by the age of 18 you have to pay over $500 and get a judge to reopen your adoption case. 

Even More Fun Fact: No one actually tells adoptive families, this so many find out after they’re 18 when their kid needs to get a passport, wants to apply for financial aid, get certain jobs, vote or some other shit that requires proof of citizenship and now it’s too late because they’re 18 or over. 

AND EVEN MORE FUN FACT! You can sometimes even be deported because you can be considered foreign-born, non-citizens! 

Oh and they won’t accept adoption papers or a birth certificate as proof. 

Adoption is FUN. 

Do you think brachycephalic dogs are fine?

Let’s all just take a long look at the following two images. The top one is how a healthy dog should look. 

Brachycephalic breeds such as in the second image include dogs such as the French Bulldog, American Bulldog, Pug, Pekingese, Shihtzu, Boxers, and more. You may have heard smack about them previously or not at all, or you may be fully on the brachycephalic bandwagon still. I just want to refresh everyone’s memories a bit on why these are such horrible breeds and why they should not be continue to be bred. I have seen, every day for almost 3 weeks straight, dozens of deformed brachycephalic dogs being AI’d, being monitored during pregnancy, and having puppies delivered by C-section. I am sick of seeing this, and so this post is born.

Brachycephalic dogs commonly (and by commonly I mean almost every single brachycephalic dog) suffer from a syndrome called Brachycephalic Airway Syndrome. This syndrome involves the following, to varying degrees:

1. Narrow nostrils and overgrown bones within the nasal cavities (or, in other words, normal sized bones in a horribly shortened face) which obstructs airflow.

2. A trachea (i.e. windpipe) that is too small.

3. Everted laryngeal saccules (stage 1 of laryngeal collapse*) which can obstruct airflow.

4. A soft palate that is too long and obstructs airflow within the larynx.

These deformities translate into the cute, snorting, snoring, wheezing, overheating dogs that we all dote on. However, as if that’s not enough, these dogs can also have a multitude of other problems such as enlarged tonsils, vomiting and acid reflux, *full collapse of the larynx, jaw malformations resulting in dental malformations, skin disease, eye disease, heat intolerance, and inter-vertebral disc disease. They often require corrective surgery at a young age, and even then are not going to be completely healthy.

In other words, they’ve got it real bad. And people are still breeding them even when they are showing clear signs of anatomical and heritable abnormalities.

These dogs suffer unnecessarily just by being alive. Please don’t support their breeding, and don’t talk about them like they’re normal and healthy. They are not.

Everyone loves polite villains to contrast with brash and sarcastic heroes, but consider the dynamic of polite villains clashing with equally well-mannered heroes. It’s very good. Very civil. Very alienating to everyone around them.

The Spider Queen

They were the one thing her mother hated and her father loved, the three tarantulas that had come to visit the little girl with the pink toy teapot that poured out real tea. She was always happy to see them, would get out her mismatched teaset and hand out cups - light pink for Jer, hot pink for Kei, and yellow for Mey. 

She had always been a rather odd child. Her mother a bitter human and her father an elven druid in search of knowledge, and herself a half-elf. She had a proficiency for accidental magic, even before the expected age. Yet no one could explain how she conjured tea into her little pink teapot, fresh and steaming. She refused to say, simply smiling and saying that the spiders had taught her. 

When she started school, both parents were relieved, hoping their daughter would begin to make friends with other elves or humans, or half-elves. For a bit, they thought it was working. Their daughter spoke of three little ones that she enjoyed spending time with, named Jer, Kei, and Mey. She came home with various gifts gift from the three, from a beautifully and expertly crafted white silk hair tie to a dress woven in patterns that even the most professional seamstress hadn’t seen before to a simple black friendship bracelet woven from what looked hair. Her parents were willing to ignore these strange gifts in favor of being happy that their child was interacting with other humans. 

Then, of course, the school sent a letter telling them to visit the school while the children were at lunch. The teacher sat them down, explaining that the girl didn’t interact with other children, and at recess sat beside a tree and talked to three large, alarming spiders. No matter how hard the school had tried, they were unable to either get the tarantulas off of the premises nor were they able to convince her to get them to leave. Her parents were disappointed, watching throughout recess as their daughter ran off from the group of children heading for the playground to sit beside a tree and talk to the spiders that had grown exponentially. They were now half the size that she was, and clicking their pincers excitedly. 

The parents could do nothing, no matter what they tried - banishing spells, fire, forbidding her to ever see the spiders again. They watched as their daughter grew up, hitting puberty and pimples breaking out along her face, her insecurities arising, the spiders following her nearly everywhere; her first heartbreak, and the ensuing hug(?) that lasted forever; when she graduated, they were waiting offstage for her and clicking their pincers along with the rest of the crowd’s applause. By that time, they were as large as she was. 

She got all A’s in her classes, excelling most in nature magic, a battered little pink teapot in her backpack always. When she went off to college, they went too, and her parents frowned in disapproval at it, but said nothing. She studied history, memorizing tales of the Spider Queen, an evil woman taught and mentored by three spiders who influenced her to take over the world. 

It made her think of herself, to an extent, but never once had Jer, Kae, or Mey ever tried to tell her to take over the world. Instead, they told her that she could accomplish her goals, she was better than she believed herself to be, and listening to the bullies of her school was a bad idea. She trusted them, after they had kept her from losing herself to her own low self-esteem. So, when they told her that she was who she read about, she trusted them. She refused however, to do as her previous self had done, and rule the world. 

Instead, she pursued a career as a Shaman, a helper and selfless person who didn’t worry for herself and instead helped maintain the balance of light at dark, knowing that without one there couldn’t be the other. Her career led to her own writings, published works that gave her a name in the history books, one her past life had already had. The Spider Queen. 

Image Prompt

I SPENT. A WHOLE. FUCKING. SEMESTER. PAINTING THIS. MONTHS.

I WANT IT TO GET LOTS OF NOTES, GIVE IT LOTS OF NOTES, YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW PAINSTAKING AND TIME INTENSIVE THIS WAS.