Tweet by John Rogers: “I’m an infamously even-tempered man, but if you take Terry Pratchett’s name in vain for some small-minded bigoted fuckwittery I will push you down a set of fucking stairs and laugh at the bounce.”

fun facts!

in UK law, it didn’t count as bestiality because it wasn’t alive, and it didn’t count as necrophilia because it wasn’t human

Wow! I'm never asking for any context on anything ever again!

The more i learn about the UK the more i feel bad for the people living there

I see some people need to be reminded of the chicken fucker post.

My point being... who the fuck cares?! Yeah, it's gross. Are you basing whether or not what sounds like as shitty a politician as any, is bad or good based on a sex act with what, at that point, was essentially an object?

Yeah, it wasn't a living creature, and it wasn't even the object that was once a deceased loved one.

I'm sure I'm gonna get the WORST anons for this being like "y r u defending necrobestiality" or w/e but seriously. Look up the chicken fucker post. Is it actually doing any harm? No? Then why tf do you care. Ohhhh, it's SCANDALOUS yeah next I'll show y'all some ankles. Get a grip. This is the same shocked tittering that allowed people to call out the trans US state rep for liking "loli" (which, people argue whether it is or isn't but that LITERALLY DOESN'T MATTER).

Quite frankly, outside of actual rape/CSA/abuse of animals I don't ever want to hear one single detail about what kind of harmless-but-weird fuckin' a politician is into ever again. Quite frankly, if it weren't for the politician part, I'd trust a (dead)porkfucker over a puritan any day.

Dude you're defending David Cameron. Get off your self righteous high horse

Like I'm sorry you missed that the puritan and pig fucker are the same person.

The funniest thing about the Cameron situation is that it's Sunak's tacit admission that there isn't a single Tory MP he can trust more than Call Me Dave Cameron. Let that sink in.

Man but the notes on that post really are just tumblr showing they have no idea how anything works.

"report to your local animal abuse people not to cops" local animal abuse people would be animal control. Animal control officers are cops.

"rabies is treatable if you go to the doctor right after the bite" rabies is PREVENTABLE, not treatable. There is no cure for rabies. If you suspect you came into contact with a rabid animal, you need to get a series of rabies vaccinations to prevent the virus from taking over your body. This is not a treatment and it only works if you go right away. If you show any symptoms of rabies it is too late.

"rabies is fatal in animals but treatable in humans" rabies has a 100% fatality rate and is not considered a survivable disease at this point in time. If you contract rabies YOU WILL DIE. The "treatment" in humans is called the Milwaukee Protocol, only 14% of people survive it, and it leaves you with massive brain damage and effectively turns you into a vegetable. You do not return to a normal life afterwards. Very few people who have undergone this process are capable of doing more than laying in a hospital bed and eating and breathing through tubes. To my knowledge only one person was able to live a semi-normal life after years and years of ongoing therapy and was not expected to have made it even through her first year after treatment.

I cannot stress enough how rabies is unlike any other disease you may be thinking of. It's required on a federal level in this country to vaccinate pretty much any domestic animal that comes into contact with wildlife for one reason and one reason only: it is not considered possible to cure rabies and the spread of disease would threaten all mammalian life including our own if allowed to continue to propagate.

Didn't expect this post to blow up so much but to clarify:

Yes, some small town animal control folks aren't cops. However, they all work very closely with police when it comes to seizing animals from owners, issuing fines, etc. They might not technically have a gun and a badge in every city, but rest assured, they are still also technically a branch of law enforcement. The difference is splitting hairs imo.

What inspired this post were the notes on a different post about anti-vaxxers not wanting to vaccinate their dogs for rabies. Most of these notes were in agreement that anti-vaxxers are in the wrong. HOWEVER most of these notes also sorely sorely sorely misunderstood exactly how dangerous rabies is.

Unfortunately now this post has some of those same notes:

Rabies is not rare in the US. The only reason for anyone living here to think that is because they do not have a lot of contact with wild animals and do not work in vet medicine.

Yes, you are more likely to get rabies from a wild animal (bats, skunks, raccoons, and foxes are the most common) however when it comes to unvaccinated domesticated animals, dogs, cattle, and cats make up 90% of rabies cases. So yes, be very cautious about any bite or scratch from a stray dog or outdoor cat. The only reason it is less common for domesticated animals to spread it than wild animals is because rabies comes from contact with other rabid animals, so it is more likely that wild animals will have contact with rabies than domesticated which are typically hanging out with humans (which are, thankfully, largely not rabid). Dogs are the #1 rabies vector worldwide, it is only in countries with robust vaccination protocols and dog-owning culture that keeps them inside most of the time that the risk transfers mostly to bats. The majority of human rabies-related deaths are caused by bites from stray or outdoor dogs.

Animals who are suspected to have rabies are killed, decapitated, and their brains destroyed in the process of testing for rabies. There is no other way to test for rabies. "Nooooo the poor doggo :(" and "it's not the dog's fault the owner sucks" sure but consider: rabies testing requires biopsies of the brain and brain stem, aka punching holes in the tissue in order to examine the changes on a microscopic level. That's uh. Not survivable. There is no other way to detect rabies in an animal. It doesn't live in the bloodstream, it just uses it as a highway to zip up to the brain and then starts doing its thing. Even though it is spread via saliva, blood, and brain matter, we have yet to be able to reliably detect it in rabid animals in anything but the last. (it is detectable in the first two but only at the late stages, well after the animal has become infectious and when it is obvious to anyone who has seen a rabid animal before that the animal is rabid)

It is not required on a federal level for all domesticated animals to have a current rabies vaccine- unless said domesticated animal came into contact with a wild animal known to be a rabies vector, at which point the CDC gets to decide and not the individual state. To me this is a really stupid rule because imo all of the continental US and Alaska should be vaccinating for rabies (Hawai'i and other island nations we've colonized don't need to if they've wiped out rabies or never had it spread, though import laws are super strict in those areas on purpose as a result) and if the dog or cat has a fight with a wild animal or a Mysterious Bite Wound the owner's just gunna be told to vaccinate anyway except now they have a lengthy quarantine ahead of them so we might as well just do it in advance everywhere.

So I've gotten a couple of these based on this post and respectfully? I don't think you're understanding the severity of the damage rabies leaves behind, which is why the Milwaukee Protocol is not considered effective treatment.

29 people to date have survived the Milwaukee Protocol. Of those 29, 28 of them are still in their medically induced comas or in a similar vegetative state or have passed away due to other causes. There is brain activity, so they aren't braindead. The majority of them are not awake either and have not been for years and are not expected to ever wake up. They *might* dream, but they show no signs other than some mild activity on brain scans of being sentient anymore. It is debateable whether they are actually alive or if they are a step above braindead and teetering on the edge.

Of those 29 survivors, 1 of them was able to return to full conciousness. The fact that she survived by itself is nothing short of a miracle. The fact that she was capable of being more than a still body hooked to machines is a medical marvel. She is permenantly disabled. It took years- decades- of ongoing therapy after she woke up to get where she is now and she has spoken about how difficult the journey was and how lucky she is to not be like the remaining 28 survivors. Because that's what it came down to. Luck. She was never expected to survive let alone wake up.

This is also why rabies is not considered a survivable disease. The other 28 survivors are barely registering enough brain activity to be considered "alive". No motor functions, no higher thought, no communication, no voluntary muscle movement, no control over your background functions, no awareness of their surroundings, nothing. We keep them alive because of the very, very slight chance that they'll wake up and be able to be like Jeanna Giese. A few have woken, but none have shown the recovery she did. They have yet to be able to reproduce this success.

And- don't get me wrong, Jeanna is still disabled and shows many symptoms of extensive brain damage. She leans and lists to one side when she moves. Her speech is slow and slurred. She has trouble with overstimulation and with processing new stimuli. I have brain damage too- those are my symptoms as well. She is still considered to be capable of living a normal life, just like I can, as long as accessibility is an option.

Rabies is considered 100% fatal because Jeanna Giese is a fluke. And until we figure out why it worked for her and has yet to work for anyone else, she will continue to be considered a fluke. The closest anyone's gotten was a little girl who could move her fingers and blink voluntarily. They weren't able to communicate with her and she didn't recover further because she died from pneumonia she caught in the hospital that was treating her for rabies. There was also a little boy who woke but shortly after began to seize and eventually the seizures cooked the rest of his working brain. I do believe he is still alive but in that aforementioned vegetative state. Those who study the disease still consider Giese to be the only actual survivor.

This was Jeanna before she recovered. Of the other 28 survivors that are still alive, this is still the state they're in.

When I say you don't return to a normal life, this is what I mean. This is the rest of your life IF you survive the Milwaukee Protocol, which again, only has worked 14% of the time. Forever. You're not awake. You're not moving. You're not aware of anything. Your body is kept alive while doctors try to figure out why she woke up and you didn't. This is what "surviving rabies" looks like.

Why don't we get preventive vaccinations for rabies? Why are they only given to humans after being bit?

We do! People who are considered "high risk" for contact with rabid animals (vet staff, zoo staff, park rangers, wildlife biologists, etc) often are given preventative vaccination and this is seen as effective 99% of the time (with the 1% being when incomplete vaccination schedule occurs).

We are not vaccinated as a general population because it is expensive and painful- most of these people who are vaccinated as a preventative have their jobs pay for it, and it is relatively unpleasant in regards to side effects. In most cases, it is considered enough to teach humans not to touch or play with animals that they cannot confirm vaccine status.

In Jeanna's case, she was playing with a wild bat she'd caught. The little girl who died of pneumonia was bitten by a stray cat she grabbed. And I think the little boy was bitten by a stray dog that approached him. More than half of rabies cases in humans are children who were playing with unknown animals they managed to catch. It's important to note that there is "dumb rabies" and "rage rabies"- a rabid animal in the "dumb rabies" state is easily caught by children, and sometimes will even approach humans on its own. Children often love animals and are delighted to be approached by an animal or to be able to catch a previously-uncatchable animal (Jeanna still loves bats, after all) so the danger is only able to be mitigated by seriously teaching children how dangerous even "nice" wild animals can be.

I hate rabies so much it makes me cry

No rabies in the UK. One of the only good things about this shithole country. I remember back in the 80s a huge moral panic about what might happen if rabies ever broke out here.

Yeah her claims that pro-Palestinian protestors were going to vandalise the Cenotaph (a memorial to the dead of WWI in London) actually lead to far right groups trying to defend it from the march which went no where near said monument (which Braverman must have known that the planned route didn't go that way).

This, in turn, led to said far right groups getting arrested after they started fighting cops.

Rather than this business at the Cenotaph, if I was "Tommy Robertson" I'd have told my followers to infiltrate the peace march and, at a prearranged time, all start chanting antisemitic slogans. Something to really discredit the marchers. Good job that the fash are hard-of-thinking.

This is going to shock many Democrats, but shitty policies don’t win you young voters, and all the whining and foot stamping in the world isn’t a substitute for policies that address the class war.

If they want young people votes, they should consider doing things that benefit young people.

Neither does Genocide, using political positions like abortion which you have continually done nothing for when you had the power to do so, keeping those kids in cages, continuing to build that border wall and even violating and desecrating Indigenous land to do it, continuing to arm the police state without impunity in spite of the George Floyd Uprisings that got you in power, ignoring Covid safety regulations to bolster the economy thus sacrificing hundreds of thousands of lives for clout, and continuing a violent and imperial project and gas lighting when they can see it.

Just to name a few things. But what do I know? I’m getting paid by the Kremlin or whatever they are saying about me.

Smh Russian bot spotted 😔 how are we gonna make a blue wave happen when you refuse to see the true epoch-ending evil: orange man being bad?

I mean you're not supposed to JUST vote but it's one part.

I hate this shit but... the fuck we going to do let worse shit happen?

Same situation here in the UK. The Labour Party is frankly crap but voting for them is the only way to get the Conservatives out of power. "Both sides are as bad" thinking always benefits the right wing.

Wil Wheaton everybody

The Sandown Clown.

Driven by a sound reminiscent of an ambulance siren, the children ventured across a footbridge spanning a gentle stream. There, they encountered a peculiar, unclassifiable entity, often likened to a fusion of a clown, a robot, and an extraterrestrial. Surprisingly, this bashful yet amiable being engaged in a warm conversation with the children for nearly half an hour before they rejoined their parents. Following the encounter, it mysteriously disappeared, leaving behind an enduring enigma that has never been unraveled.

Standing at an impressive 2 meters in height, the Sandown Clown possessed a strangely human-like form, with two arms, two legs, and a head bearing identifiable facial features. However, its resemblance to humanity ended there. Its head, too large for its slender body, resembled a near-perfect sphere. Its skin, as pale as paper, contrasts sharply with its hands and feet, each bearing three digits. The facial features appeared crudely painted on: two blue triangles for eyes, a flat brown rectangle for a nose, and a motionless, oval-shaped mouth with thin yellow lips. Its frizzled, reddish-brown hair extended from beneath a tall pointed hat adorned with a black knob, and its high-collared suit showcased a mix of red and green. Wooden antennae protruded from its head, wrists, and ankles, leaving us uncertain whether they were part of its costume or its body.

Despite its shyness, the clown-being displayed a friendly disposition. It expressed fear of humans and a reluctance to defend itself. It claimed to drink "cleaned" water from the stream, consumed wild berries in an unusual manner, and could write in English using pencil and paper. When asked its name, it responded with "Sam" and described itself as "all colors." It denied being human but hesitated to classify itself as a ghost, stating, "Well, not really, but I am in an odd sort of way." All other inquiries about its nature were met with cryptic responses like "You know."

Follow @mecthology for more strange tales.

Pic created with AI.

Source: Obscurban Legend Wikia.

I like how the AI didn't match the story even a little

I like how the story is reported uncritically as if children never make shit up

Apparently my director went to see a production of West Side Story a few years ago, and the guy playing Chino forgot his gun before coming out for his final scene. Once it got to the big scene where he is supposed to shoot Tony, he screeched “Poison Boots” and kicked the actor playing Tony until he went down. The girl playing Maria then had to jerk the shoe off of Chino’s foot, and had to do the gunshot scene asking “How many kicks Chino? How many kicks, and one kick left for me”. 

There should be a blog dedicated to theatrical urban legends. Like that opening weekend of Dracula where Dracula (still hungover) vomited all over the audience during the first stage direction that everyone has a friend of a friend that worked on the show and was there.

or the one where the bridge never came out for Javert’s suicide and so he just pretended to stab himself and then lay there until the lights went out

best story i heard was when a friend of mine saw a show where juliet forgot to bring the dagger out on stage so she just ripped the squib out of her chest and blood squirted everywhere

During a passion play a friend of my brother was supposedly in, one of the roman soldiers who was supposed to stab jesus on the cross and accidentally grabbed the wrong spear- he was supposed to grab one with a fake tip, but instead he grabbed one with an actual metal tip and, well

Jesus screamed “JESUS CHRIST YOU STABBED ME”.

Since that Jesus had to be taken down due to a bad case of stab-itis, the backup Jesus came in, but he weighed significantly less than the original Jesus- which would have been fine, except that at the end the cross was supposed to ascend upwards with Jesus on it, and the weights hadn’t been adjusted.

So Jesus, instead, ROCKETED UP into heaven (or, just, above the stage).

This is wild from start to finish

I was in Peter Pan once and one night at a performance, the adhesive holding our Hook’s mustache on was wearing off. It was near the end with a big fight scene and when he got attacked, he let his mustache fall and went “YOU RIPPED MY MUSTACHE OFF!” in a scandalized tone and it added a new note of hilarity to the whole scene (which was supposed to be funny anyway)

In my seventh grade play, which was a midsummer night’s dream, Thisbe didn’t have a sword so she stabbed herself with a coathanger

My junior year we were doing Romeo and Juliet and after Juliet poisons herself it was supposed to go dark and she’d get off the stage. well the light crew accidentally turned them back on and Juliet who was sitting up slammed back down on the wooden bed with a loud bang. To which my theater teacher says into the com “zombie Juliet” and everyone who heard that had to keep as quiet as possible while our eyes were filling with tears.

i attended my county’s performing arts high school majoring in vocal studies, (mostly geared towards musical theater and opera styles) and once a year we got a field trip to new york (we were in jersey, so it’s not exactly far). we would do one touristy thing, an actor’s workshop with friends of our teachers working in various performing industries in nyc, and then see a show. 

my first year doing this, our industry contacts were 1 actor, 1 casting director, and 1 producer to get different aspects of the business, and they all gave us amazing advice and told fantastic stories. the actor in question was Zazu on Broadway’s The Lion King for several years, and told the best story by far.

in The Lion King, there are only two pieces of pre-recorded noise in the whole show. one, when Pumbaa does a MASSIVE fart while fighting the hyenas, and the other being Mufasa saying REMEMBERRRRRR as Simba climbs Pride Rock. the actor told us while struggling not to laugh that, during one night’s performance, someone forgot to flip the tape of these pre-recorded noises.

so, at the end of the show, the great climax where Simba finally accepts his place in the Circle of Life, the heavens parted and-

PFFFFFFFFFRRRRRBTFTBTBFTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

everyone froze. and then all ran off stage positively HOWLING with laughter.

the lesson: sometimes there are fuck ups you just can’t recover from.

During a high school production of Beauty and the Beast, where I was assistant costumer and assistant prop master, our director decided that we needed to spice up Gaston’s introduction. You know: in the movie, when Lefou runs in trying to catch the duck/goose that Gaston has just shot out of the sky?

Originally, the actors were going to stroll on stage with our Lefou hauling in the really neat (and real!) taxidermied deer head that we had found in a local thrift store. Now, two days before opening night, our director wants Lefou to run in from off stage and catch a stuffed duck that Gaston has just shot. This, of course, requires two things to work properly as a scene: a gunshot noise, and a stuffed duck.

The gunshot noise, we had covered. Blue-collar, redneck school? Guns a plenty to record. The stuffed duck? Harder than you might have thought to obtain.

Three hunting stores, two taxidermists, and one Pet Supply Store ™, I’d finally found a semi-realistic pheasant squeaky toy. What follows is an account of the ways this dog toy managed to be the nightmare prop of the six show run.

Opening Night: The stagehand, who was supposed to drop the bird from the ceiling catwalk, missed his cue and didn’t drop the it. Lefou’s actor rolls with it and does an excellent job of looking around foolishly before getting cuffed upside the head by Gaston. The stagehand then drops the bird squarely on Gaston’s head. Cue laughter.

Saturday Matinee: Different stagehand throws the bird instead of dropping it and beans Lefou directly in the face with the prop. Lefou falls over. Cue laughter.

Saturday Night: Bird is missing during curtain call. Director hauls the deer head down from it’s place on the tavern wall and tells Gaston and Lefou to revert to the old blocking i.e. no gunshot, no bird, just walk in with trophy. During Gaston and Lefou’s conversation, gun shot sound goes off and a stagehand throws the bird onto the stage…from the wrong side of the stage. Lefou and Gaston stare at it in awkward silence for a solid thirty seconds before Lefou makes off-script, subtle joke about Gaston’s gun going off late instead of early. Cue adults in the audience laughing.

Sunday Matinee: Director begs the stagehands to get the cue right at least once. Gunshot and bird prop go off without a hitch. Lefou accidentally catches the prop when it falls from the catwalk. He’s so startled that he caught it that Gaston runs right in to him. They drop both the gun and the bird props, and grab the wrong prop in their scramble. Gaston spends the rest of the scene gesturing dramatically with a stuffed pheasant, instead of a gun.

Sunday Night:  Director is fed up with bird prop, decides that Lefou should just carry bird prop in after gunshot happens off stage. Lefou accidentally squeezes the prop during the intro conversation, startling both actors into silence with the squeaky toy noise - apparently, neither of them realized it was a dog toy.

Monday Elementary School Show: Lefou walks on stage with the bird. Accidentally drops the prop during conversation with Gaston. Gaston doesn’t notice the dropped prop and steps on it. Cue depressingly sad squeaky toy noise. Cue ten years olds laughing.

In a dress rehearsal for Peter Pan, Wendy forgot one of her lines and started singing the star spangled banner and the audience was singing along and people got emotional

Once during the closing night of our high school production of south pacific, we were havin our pre-show pep talk, and our director reminded everyone (mostly seniors) not to go off script to try to be funny. Of course we had one lead who decided to ignore this advice. So during one scene where the sailors were “fishing” at the edge of the stage, he decides to pull up his rubber fish, make a comment about how it wasn’t big enough, and throw it back into the “ocean”, which of course, was the audience. Now, this probably wouldn’t have been too much of a problem if he had gently tossed it, since it would have landed right behind the pit. But naturalt, he decided that this fish had to break free in the most dramatic way possible, so he winds up and chucks this fucking foot-long rubber fish with all of his strength. So now imagine the stage crew, all of us huddled together, silently screaming as this limp fish goes sailing over the heads of the audience in what looks like a low-budget reenactment of free willy, only to slap some poor parent across the face. I swear, you could almost hear the chorus of “mmmm whatcha saaayyy” rising from all those backstage. From that moment on, all rubber fish were ferociously guarded by yours truly, under the direction of our stage manager.

This post gets better every time it shows up on my dash

There's the story about one particular performance of Tosca. The opera ends with the title character throwing herself from a parapet to her death. Usually the performer lands on a mattress behind the set, but on one occasion when the diva proved particularly unpopular with the stage crew, they replaced the mattress with a trampoline. The sight of a renowned soprano bouncing back above the ramparts reduced the audience to tears of laughter.

"This isn't war, it's genocide. Free Palestine"

ACAB

i was doing a bunch of fact checking earlier and as far as I can tell this is 100% true

which should fucking HORRIFY everybody because white phosphorous is a nasty, cruel and torturous weapon that should never be used against anyone let alone civilians.

basically it burns and burns until there is no more contact with oxygen, so shards of it will burn their way down to bone inside the victim's body and often re-ignite when doctors try to dig them out. It is easily fatal or permanently disabling and causes excruciating injuries

Jesus fucking christ

so hard to explain your personal inside jokes but. okay so every time i roll a joint i’m like hmm how much is left in the tray.. about a joints worth..

and then i get caught up thinking about a weed butler named jointsworth

thank you jointsworth

"I have taken the liberty of having, Master's bong water replaced"

Would sir care for some munchies?

“…the sight of Elon Musk charging towards Wikipedia with his trademark guile and delicacy was so predictable that it was almost relaxing. He saw a collective resource that people prized and he wanted to hurt it.”

Thoth knows Wikipedia’s not perfect, but I’d sooner have it handy than not have it.

ur friends don't hate you

nobody is secretly mad at you

you have anxiety and that's ok you are loved

Reblog to reassure your mutuals you aren't secretly mad at them

companies underestimate how much locking their content behind needing an account will just make me go do something else. oh your website wants me to make an account to view this content? oh your website doesn't show media to logged-out users? okay. i didn't actually want to see it that bad. yeah. bye ✌️

I compared this to a physical store blocking their entrance with cardboard standees

The harder they make it to stream, the more tempting they make it to pirate.

Always The Paragon

The animals in the Permian didn’t know about dinosaurs.

Tiktaalik had no idea their descendants would be pterosaurs.

Trilobites never saw whales.

Every period in earth’s history was the paragon, the epitome, the peak of evolution, up to that point. Evolution is about what works now. Evolution does not plan ahead, it does not have a goal, does not work toward anything. Every animal in the history of the earth was the best in its own niche, the best for that time that environment, those circumstances. From Dickinsonia, to Ictheostega, to Dimetrodon, to Plesiadapis, none have been the ultimate end product of evolution, just the best for the moment.

That includes Homo Sapiens.

We need to remember that.