gravity-makes-you-fall

Champagne bowl Lobmeyr around 1900

- the ‘WE HAVE A VERY AFFECTIONATE PET MOUNTAIN LION’ bed

- the ‘OUR NINJA BODYGUARD HAS TO SLEEP *SOMEWHERE*’ bed

- the ‘YOU’RE GROUNDED - DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT SNEAKING OUT’ bed

This graffiti appeared overnight at 5 different job centres in Birmingham.

It’s referencing the increasingly harsh benefit sanctions in the UK which are punishing disabled people in particular.

Claimants who cannot work due to severe disabilities or chronic illnesses are being categorised as “fit for work” in order to meet targets and are not being given enough money to survive.

The majority of people who legally challenge their benefits sanctions or ‘fit for work’ decision have them overturned, but only after months without the money they need.

Estimates generally put the number of people who have died in the last few years directly due to benefit sanctions in the thousands. These include people who have died of starvation, exposure, because they couldn’t afford electricity to keep their insulin cold, or because they couldn’t afford treatment, among other things.

The DWP has even sent letters to people declaring them fit for work when in fact they have already died from their illness.

Fuck the DWP and job centres.

Della, The Cat Who Adopted Dinner

Meet Della. She lives in a farm in Ireland, and she has kittens. That’s not all she has, though: a few hours within giving birth, she came across these newly hatched ducklings. Her mother instinct kicked in, and she brought them along and started to nurture them. If she had come across them a few hours before or after giving birth, her hormone level might not be the same and she would have eaten them. It’s amazing to see them draw milk from her, and one can only guess that this is an instinct from the ducks, as they have come across an unusual source for nutrition and just learned from the kittens. As the ducks grow older, they start to behave more like ducks and less like kittens. This includes constantly walking away from the box and mother has a lot of work keeping them in place. They have no problem keeping in line though, and even though they grow a lot faster than their “siblings” they loyally follow their mom around the farm, as ducks do.

listen, just Listen for a second, okay.

Gimli Gloinul is from the line of Durin okay, he’s from the line of KINGS, his bloodline stands up against Legolas’ perfectly, if the elves and dwarves got their shit together for a hot second they would be like “YES, PERFECT, A DIPLOMATIC MARRIAGE TO BIND OUR HOUSES TOGETHER AND NEVER SHALL THE TWAIN THROW ONE ANOTHER TO DRAGONS…again.”  because you have a king’s son and a king’s nephew which, well, I love Dain but he’s not an EREBOR KING and GIMLI IS FROM THE FAMILY OF EREBOR KINGS.

And Gimli acts like he’s from the line of Erebor kings, too, okay, he’s a diplomat and a warrior and a nobleman, he’s the sort of person who SAYS things like ‘faithless is he who says fairwell when the road darkens’ and stares down Elrond Peredhil in his own home when his strength and faith are questioned.  And he’s the kind of person who swears his allegiance to people he barely knows because it’s Right and Good and Gimli knows it.

And Thorin Oakenshield was handsome, and his sister the lady Dis is beautiful, and Gimli’s cousins Fili and Kili were fine young dwarrows, and Gimli’s mother is a great beauty.

Basically my point here is that Gimli, proud strong gimli with his firebeard hair and bold laugh and mithril tongue and clever fingers, broke the hearts of everyone in Erebor and not a few people outside of Erebor when he married a goddamn elf.  Like.  Not even Arwen Undomiel (WHO MARRIED A GODDAMN HUMAN, it’s been a weird couple of years in Middle-Earth, everyone wonders strongly if they’ve been drinking too much).  Like he’s not even marrying a great beauty of the elves, Legolas isn’t ugly by elvish standards but also he’s nothing particularly special, and he’s not a great diplomat, and he’s BARELY a king’s son because everyone knows that Mirkwood elves are…a little odd.  Legolas is a big cheerful hunter who sings songs he doesn’t remember all of, who chatters to trees and has no sense of the right thing to say even if he’s developed enough self-preservation to know the wrong thing to say, and FOR THE LOVE OF MAHAL HE FIGHTS WITH A BOW.

“GIMLI” Gloin bellows “YOU TURNED DOWN THIRTY-TWO SUITORS FROM FINE DWARVISH LINES FOR THIS”

“Ignore him, amrâlime, he’ll get over it” Gimli says in amusement as he beckons Legolas over to his forge, where he’s carefully smithing mithril-inlaid gold marriage clasps that will grip fine elvish hair.  It’s too hot in the forge to wear shirts, if you’re working.  Every dwarf in twenty feet stops what they’re doing to watch Gimli’s biceps flex as he holds up a jewel for Legolas’ inspection.