HR: if they work 40 hours a week u have to give them benefits

Big company: hmm okay. They shall work 39

HR: if they work 8 hours u have to give them a half hour lunch and intermittent breaks 

company: 7 hours and 50 minutes, it is 

the law: if theyre employees you have to pay for benefits

company: lets staff through a temp service and wait so long to hire them in they quit out of frustration

the law: You must pay them this and no less.

company: I shall pay them that and no more.

The law: you have to pay your employees

Company: then we’ll replace them all with interns

The law: you gotta increase wages

Company: we’ll cut hours

the law: you have to give raises

company: mayhaps they would enjoy an extra five cents

the law: employees have rights

company: around here we call them “independent contractors”

I swear EVERY SINGLE ONE of my employers has been at LEAST two of these at once.

Me, banging pots and pans together: UNIONIZE

It recently came up in conversation with my toddler that some birds can talk, and this has caused her great concern.

See, we were talking about how movies are pretend and how in real life, animals don’t talk. I mentioned that there are some birds who talk a little bit, but not like the animals in movies, and she just looked at me like “???”

So I informed her that some kinds of parrots can copy sounds that people make, and can learn how to say words. I thought this would give her a giggle, as fun new facts often do, but she was just deeply perplexed and a little worried about this.

“Birds can talk?” “Do they ask questions?” “What do they say?” Why do they talk?” “Do chickens talk?” “What about Blue Jays?” “Why do some birds talk?” “How do they talk?” “Birds TALK???”

We showed her a video of a parrot doing the “Hello, pretty bird, give a kiss” thing, and she was dead silent the whole time, hugging her comfort pillow with her knees to her chest. We asked if she wanted us to turn it off, and she shook her head. But we also asked if she wanted to see another one, and she shook her head even harder.

I don’t know why it has distressed her so greatly to learn that some birds can mimic human speech; but then again, I don’t know why it doesn’t distress the rest of us more to know that some birds can mimic human speech.

I keep thinking about that post that’s like “The first person to hear a parrot talk was probably Not Okay.” Because that’s exactly what happened. She had never been introduced to the concept, and her entire worldview got SHOOK.

Part of why Ravens are considered Spooky Bad Things We Associate With The Faeries is because they can and do mimic human speech - but much, much better than a parrot. With a parrot, you can tell something is off about the sound. You can tell it doesn’t belong to a human. Ravens don’t sound like that, no, cause they’re overacheivers. (And passerines). They sound EXACTLY like the voice of whoever they are mimicking.

But more importantly they love the sound of human laughter. No one knows why. But it is totally, 100% possible, and it happens to this day, to walk along the paths in the Black Forest and suddenly hear a strange kind of giggling sound, or maybe even a very clear, definitely human sounding “hello?” “Hiiiii!” Or “let’s go!”.

However, it takes a lot of practice for them to copy sounds as perfectly as they do, so you’re equally likely to hear something that definitely sounds human-like, but the words make no sense and the sound is unlike any language you know.

Ravens at the Tower of London do this all the time. Theyre pretty sociable with humans though, so they do it quite openly. I have seen videos of people, mostly Americans, look absolutely spooked out of their skins when a big ol’ raven (mind ye, these are birds that are 2 feet tall with a 5 foot wingspan) comes waltzing up on the deck and starts talking to them.

And ravens, especially the ones there that have been bred and raised by humans for centuries, don’t just imitate - they have one of the same language processing genes we do, and they understand the way a toddler might that things, places, and individuals have names, and can string together basic sentences much like an african grey.

I know because I used to work with one, Darlene, who knew, quite well, what she wanted and how to ask for it. If you were preparing her breakfast, she would hop on up and investigate. She used to be an illegal pet, and had been taught “manners”. That is to say, if she went for something and you told her, sternly, “mind your manners missy!” She would stop, look at you, perhaps for up to a minute, and then point with her beak to what she wanted. If that did not work, she would ask, in plain English, “grape?” Or “Darl have grape?” And lord help you if you gave her anything less than what she asked for. She would throw it at you, and try to bite you, sometimes while saying “No!” In the same tone as I imagine she was reprimanded in her home.

So yeah. Parrots arent the only ones.

WHAT

Was anyone gonna tell me that ravens can talk or was I meant to read about it on a tumblr post?!

that’s the best one i’ve ever heard

i hate when apps know that i’m screenshotting something. when i screenshot something, that’s me acting outside your realm of understanding, app. i am beyond what you consider the observable universe. you’re not supposed to perceive me. we don’t know when god screenshots the earth. we don’t know when he’s like, “okay i’m just gonna take a pic in case i ever want to add dinosaurs back to something later and don’t remember how.” and if we did, we wouldn’t act all smug about it like, “hey, you wanna share that post? you could just click here to share it.” no, man. you didn’t catch me. i screenshotted this for my own reasons. what’s next? i can’t take a photo of my computer screen with my phone out of laziness without being shamed by the printer i don’t own?

Walkable cities and public transit mean nothing if they’re not accessible to disabled people 

#like are there places to sit down?????? are there stairs everywhere? are the sidewalks uneven? #can your buses and trains actually accommodate a wheelchair user?

Choosing to use mobility aids is not giving up. 

It’s actually a huge step to choose to pay attention and listen to your body’s needs and you shouldn’t have to be embarrassed or feel like a failure for using them.

My cat’s killer whiskers + her favourite blanket

The evil ghouls at Nestlé are still pumping, too.

Golf course owners:

sick of pathologizing our favorite characters. “This one has anxiety, this one has ADHD”

we need to expand our diagnosis. Mario has acid reflux. that guy from Supernatural has herpes. Wonder Woman has a UTI. we have the power here

hey not to supernatural gif in 2021 but uh

goddammit 

I simply think that if a company decides to remove a show from their platform entirely, they should have to give the rights and the digital copy of that show back to the creators. The fact that the creators of Infinity Train, OKKO, and Mao Mao have no access to the work they put so much money and effort into is completely absurd.

Actually I’m not done talking about this.

When a creator sells the rights to their work to a streaming company, they do so with the understanding that the company is going to host their work on the streaming service. If that content is no longer hosted by the streaming service, the streaming company should not be able to retain the rights to that work. The rights should be returned to the creator, as should and physical or digital copies of the show that the streaming service had, so the creator can try to sell it to other streaming companies or host it themselves into heir own site. The fact that this isn’t the case is absolutely fucking ridiculous.

vampire hunter? no i said vampire HAUNTER. this jerk sucked all my blood out so now i spend my afterlife knocking over shelves and scaring off potential victims and just making the castle generally pretty cold

it's always 'bleh why are the plates floating', 'gah who knocked over my blood goblet' and never 'sorry for killing you' ok starve then!

and what are you going to do about it? have a priest exorcise the place? yeah good luck with all the crosses and holy water you piece of shit

It’s a lovely morning in the gothic castle, and you are a horrible ghost.

Intrusive Thoughts are unwanted thoughts or images that you find distressing and/or disturbing. 

more information on what intrusive thoughts are!

what intrusive thoughts are: https://moodsmith.com/intrusive-thoughts/

how to cope with them: https://www.betterhelp.com/advice/how-to/how-to-stop-intrusive-thoughts-and-live-your-life/

!!!!!

I- so i’m not just fucking insane and evil?

I feel like a lot of peoples getting offended by this doesnt realize that none of those are actions we want to do. My ADD absolutely fills my head with extremely upsetting intrusive toughts almost 24/7. The very fact that they disgust me and upset me is what makes it an intrusive tought. Its not something you want to act upon, its your brain assaulting you non stop with everything that you hate and despise.

This idea that intrusive thoughts are someone’s “true id” talking is particularly harmful to us experiencing these thoughts themselves.

If y'all haven’t yet heard it before you heard it here now, these thought are everything we hate and despise, and nothing else.

if your alarm clock rings at the wrong time, that doesn’t make it the Right Time just because that’s the time the alarm is ringing. it means something’s wrong with the alarm.

She Hulk talking constantly about how hard it is to be a woman and spouting feminist talking points left and right while still insisting that its giant green female "monster" has long toned limbs flawless skin a snatched waist and straightened hair in a perfect blowout is. Definitely something.

Hey ableds:

It literally just takes ONE accident: one car ride, one fall from the stairs, one stroke, one tick bite, one fever, one covid, one punch, one fight, one injury, one night for your body to stop responding the way it used to.

And if it's not an accident, it's just going to be the time passing. You growing old. You being sixty, and starting to feel a little dizzy when you stand up. You being seventy, and your legs not working like they used to. You being eighty, and your strength, mobility, independence being stripped away.

It's just a matter of time. Could be tomorrow, could be twenty years from now.

For you to come to terms with new words to define yourself. For you to feel the need for a fight you did not see coming. For you to become what was once the bottom of your jokes: an old man or woman, a cripple, a handicapped, impaired, maimed, everything you thought you'll never going to be. You'll become dependent from others, you'll need help, you'll need accessibility.

So why are you so distant from the disabled community? Why dont you fight with us, for us? Why are you waiting to feel alone, too?

Okay will admit I wasn’t expecting this turn in the discourse

You guys speaking like every country in the world has easy access libraries smh

Great point — if only there was a way to access books for free if you don’t have access to a library. But what could that be? It’s surely not linked in the comment directly above you