in short, i love you

they need to invent drinking that's good for you and a way to fuck music

hate how adhd and autism are becoming astrology-level personality explanatory mechanisms

the entire point of life is to be silly, kind, and really weird btw.

When I was in vet school I went to this one lecture that I will never forget. Various clubs would have different guest lecturers come in to talk about relevant topics and since I was in the Wildlife Disease Association club I naturally attended all the wildlife and conservation discussions. Well on this particular occasion, the speakers started off telling us they had been working on a project involving the conservation of lemurs in Madagascar. Lemurs exist only in Madagascar, and they are in real trouble; they’re considered the most endangered group of mammals on Earth. This team of veterinarians was initially assembled to address threats to lemur health and work on conservation solutions to try and save as many lemur species from extinction as possible. As they explored the most present dangers to lemurs they found that although habitat loss was the primary problem for these vulnerable animals, predation by humans was a significant cause of losses as well. The vets realized it was crucial for the hunting of lemurs by native people to stop, but of course this is not so simple a problem.

The local Malagasy people are dealing with extreme poverty and food insecurity, with nearly half of children under five years old suffering from chronic malnutrition. The local people have always subsisted on hunting wildlife for food, and as Madagascar’s wildlife population declines, the people who rely on so-called bushmeat to survive are struggling more and more. People are literally starving.

Our conservation team thought about this a lot. They had initially intended to focus efforts on education but came to understand that this is not an issue arising from a lack of knowledge. For these people it is a question of survival. It doesn’t matter how many times a foreigner tells you not to eat an animal you’ve hunted your entire life, if your child is starving you are going to do everything in your power to keep your family alive.

So the vets changed course. Rather than focus efforts on simply teaching people about lemurs, they decided to try and use veterinary medicine to reduce the underlying issue of food insecurity. They supposed that if a reliable protein source could be introduced for the people who needed it, the dependence on meat from wildlife would greatly decrease. So they got to work establishing new flocks of chickens in the most at-risk communities, and also initiated an aggressive vaccination program for Newcastle disease (an infectious illness of poultry that is of particular concern in this area). They worked with over 600 households to ensure appropriate husbandry and vaccination for every flock, and soon found these communities were being transformed by the introduction of a steady protein source. Families with a healthy flock of chickens were far less likely to hunt wild animals like lemurs, and fewer kids went hungry. Thats what we call a win-win situation.

This chicken vaccine program became just one small part of an amazing conservation outreach initiative in Madagascar that puts local people at the center of everything they do. Helping these vulnerable communities of people helps similarly vulnerable wildlife, always. If we go into a country guns-blazing with that fire for conservation in our hearts and a plan to save native animals, we simply cannot ignore the humans who live around them. Doing so is counterintuitive to creating an effective plan because whether we recognize it or not, humans and animals are inextricably linked in many ways. A true conservation success story is one that doesn’t leave needy humans in its wake, and that is why I think this particular story has stuck with me for so long.

(Source 1)

(Source 2- cool video exploring this initiative from some folks involved)

(Source 3)

being severely mentally disabled or autistic or things like being institutionalised arent about masking

i hate when i see a post talking about hsn disabled people and level 3 autistics and intellectual disability and how we are institutionalised and all the replies are low support needs people saying ‘im scared to unmask because theyll institutionalised me’

i dont know how to explain why i dont like it but also how severe disability is isnt about how well you can mask

real people are institutionalised right now and real severely disabled people are here and we deserve to have the spotlight sometimes stop taking it away whenever you can

i feel like if people wanted to know we existed more then they wouldnt be so quick to say theyre the absolute worst as it gets and whatever and just other things that do not make sense and ignore that we exist

and also nonverbal people go here but im not nonverbal so i dont want to say anything about it

Even if lsn unmask, they'll never be at the level of hsn/lvl 3 autistics. At least not on the severity. Bc no amount of masking will make a hsn/lvl 3 autistic person go on in life as a lsn/lvl 1 person.

I honestly don't know where this "fear" of theirs comes from because when they unmask, all people would think is "they're weird/ cringe/ rude" or "maybe they're autistic" and not "this person is so severely disabled they can't take care of themselves at all and could/ are a danger to other people. So we need to lock them up"

im scared of being institutionalised. im violent and aggressive and a problem and it might be too much one day. maybe not even because of me but because its tiring to look after me. dont know when. i dont like change or strange people.

i can only mask when asked to and i cant do it right. asked to like.. please stop hitting that, sometimes i dont want to, i find it painful to stop, i dont notice when i started again

if i could, no matter how much i try to mask, ill never look like even msn or level 2, let alone lsn or level 1. it will never happen.

and ill always be intellectually disabled. that makes it more? i cant just decide to not be intellectually disabled anymore, cant mask things that arent there

a lot of lsn level 1 autistics think theyll be like me if they unmask. heres why you (you = lsn level 1s who think this) wont.

i need someone to wash me, i need someone to pick my clothes if its more simple than pyjamas, and i can dress myself if its simple clothes (my pyjamas) but i still might get stuck and need to be helped, i need someone to do all buttons and complicated thinks for me.

i can eat myself with simple plastic cutlery sometimes, it depends on the food, i find it very hard and i drop it all over myself and everything else, but i can do it! i use my hands most of the time. i need to be watched so i dont choke. same with drinking but i usually pour it all over myself and everything else. this is every single time.

also need to be watched all the time, supervised looked after, im dangerous to myself and i dont recognise danger. i get injured a lot and i run away (cant really do this anymore since i cant walk anymore, but i still try to elope even though i cant! thats how much my brain just wants to go and leave. cant understand consequences. no impulse control)

not talking about other things because it is too complicated and dont know how to. and also theres more things for all these that i dont know about or how to talk about

and for me no help means death. not enough help means bad health and infections. im neglected right now, but have more help and more people to help than you could ever imagine. neglect looks different for me.

still neglected because thats how much help i need. and i didnt know im neglected myself i cant understand it myself and still find it hard to so i have to be told. i only get to say it and know it because a different close person helps me and helps me write. because im lucky. i have infections right now!

lower support need people dont understand how i can be neglected but its because i need so so much help and i dont get all of it. i still get a lot of help more help than you ever do. but could die any day.

and then more level autism things. semiverbal ‘talk’ here does not mean mouth words

cant read any nonverbal cues. dont know they exist except when told directly they exist but i forget quickly and it doesnt mean anything to me because the concept isnt there. do not reciprocate, just talk about myself and special interests to have conversations.

dont interact to new people or even really close people a lot, dont respond to people, ignore people stay in my own world even if its dangerous. have meltdowns from people being around me trying to talk to me when i dont want to even if theyre the closest people ever and i love them so much.

online i like more, can take so long get so much help communicate better. can get rid of it when i want. still have severe issues.

help does not fix me. im still not right for social places. not made for it not even disabled ones. i cant keep friends, i can only have friends keep me. too disabled to be friends with people who arent educated and okay with it. friendship is very different for me. have my first friends now at age 18 and one will be my full time carer when i can move.

have severe sensory issues. in a low sensory environment almost all the time and still have at least one daily meltdown. rarely have days with no meltdowns, have multiple in one day often. sound, temperature, touch, light, smell, all the sensory things. even just no reason sometimes or reasons i dont know about. no one knows.

have lots of meltdowns over things like people being around me, im really violent and aggressive. meltdowns over not being able to do what i want all the time. severe issues changing task cant tolerate change. takes months/weeks planning preparing for one day out and takes me hours to be able to adjust to go out places.

big stims 24/7 i find it painful not to. stims all the time. severe pica and self injurious behaviour and mutilation. so much echolalia. cant follow social rules. arfid. takes a long time, hours days weeks if i can to switch tasks. very dependent on special interests for all of life, cant function without them. cant cope if i cant interact with them. will refuse body functions for them. will refuse so much for so many reasons.

its not ‘i need reminders’ its ‘i need physical intervention, sometimes to be forced no matter what the consequences are’

this barely scratches the surface of me. and its not the best. this took me 4 hours to put together havent done much anything else and i had a lot of help and also learnt about a lot of myself things i didnt know. i had so much help for this. theres things i dont know about still and just too much to ever make a list or anything of it.

and my words still arent all perfect even with help so please dont take my words and decide you understand it when i cant communicate differently. post might be all messy too. so lucky to be able to make posts like this.

unmasking will never make you be like me, you dont choose to be like me! i didnt choose it. its just how i am

a while back I was reading off crash bandicoot creepypasta to my girlfriend in monotone to bother her and like one quarter of the way through a really long one I gradually realised it was crash bandicoot transformation erotica that had been incorrectly labelled as creepypasta, so I'd say that's probably the hardest time I've ever had keeping a straight face

the worst of it was when I realised that the protagonist was slowly transforming into crash bandicoot because of his desire to stomp on boxes, so I let out a little shaky "nooo..." to steel myself

you are in my notes asking me to post crash bandicoot fetish content. I am not doing that. you can go get that for yourself. I don't like that thing.

Billy Lane, winner of the Seattle Mr. Leather contest in 1998 and first trans man to compete in the International Mr. Leather contest.

I think this might be one of the funniest replies to a post on here that I’ve ever seen

if the muppet show was still airing chappell roan would guest star and thered be a running bit of miss piggy thinking shes trying to steal kermit but shes actually trying to flirt with miss piggy the whole time

they lock eyes while shes performing good luck babe and miss piggy is visibly considering it

daddydom ASMR but 5 seconds in he gets attacked by a cackling witch

i’m sorry but what the actual fuck

a cackling witch

Quite possibly the funniest movie you could ever try to compare the bear fx to

Yo cousin all the windows and doors just fuckin vanished you want should I look for that creepy thing under the bed or

and what if I told you nine was less afraid of love than ten. what then.

for a moment i lived in a beautiful world where doctor who didn’t exist and this was simply a seven-ate-nine joke too layered for me to understand

"ohh what if my kid starts identifying as a CAT because of the trans agenda we have to prote—" well they've always done that. do you remember the psychological effects of h2o on young girls. of warrior cats on autistic children. i believed i was a demigod because of percy jackson. twilight came out and kids were telling their friends they were secretly vampires. this is just a thing kids do. worry less

Funniest fandoms are where the fans are like, "I'm obsessed with this. I don't recommend it even slightly."

i was linked to this absolutely wild thread from 14 years ago on a forum for aquarium enthusiasts from michigan: a guy has a 90 lb rock in his aquarium that was infested with a bobbit worm (the penis thing is a misconception) that poses a threat to the rest of his fish and solicits help on how to kill it. but because he can't feed the worm poison without risking the decomposing body killing the other fish, he's doing looney tunes shit to it

warning for occasional pictures of scary worms that looks like jrpg bosses

Operation Mongoose 2

I'm on page 3 out of 14, and have been wondering what it would feel like as a bobbit worm if it could somehow understand that these much more powerful superintelligent aliens were conspiring to kill it. I'd feel terrified, but in a way I think I'd also feel flattered. Imagine 14 pages of superintelligent forum posts just about you

"cinema is dying how can we save it" if you have eddie and the symbiote fuck NASTY in venom 3 you will make 10 billion dollars

what doesn't kill you makes you stay on tumblr for 13 years and counting