Comedian Nikki Black was diagnosed with breast cancer at 23, and then went through the difficult and very invasive process of fighting her disease. She had a full mastectomy, followed by chemotherapy. When the chemo made her hair fall out, she decided to process some of her feelings and feel more in control of how she looked with a series of photographs and head/face paintings:

In an essay for xoJane, Nikki talks about how breast cancer is a hyper-sexualized disease, and she found many people talked to her about her body in a way that felt pretty dehumanizing and disconnected from what she was actually experiencing:

Unfortunately, I began experiencing an open sexualization of my disease I had not anticipated. Immediately after going public with my diagnosis and posting a video of a cancer set on my Facebook wall, I received messages saying things like, “Those were my second-favorite pair of boobs in Philly.” 

People openly asked me how I was going to handle reconstruction before I had even made that decision myself. One guy asked me what size I was going to get, and I attempted to answer frankly by saying probably the same size.

“Good choice,” he said, then he pointed at my soon-to-be removed, cancer-filled breasts and added, “And I mean, good choice.”

I felt like my body was on the chopping block long before I was even in surgery. I was told I could, at the very least, do some kind of fetish porn, which suggested that my post-mastectomy body would be niche, would be other, would be up for consumption.

It took awhile for Nikki to get back to a place where she felt like she could start making her body feel like hers again, and the earlier photo series reminded her how art can be a powerful tool. Through an organization called P.ink that helps breast cancer survivors get in touch with tattoo artists who specialize in covering scars, she found Holly Feneht, owner of The Gilded Lily. They communicated back and forth about what Nikki would like, and eventually settled on something floral with a fish, because Nikki is a Pisces.

Nikki writes that the tattoos are just one step in a process of getting back to herself:

It’s not that I wanted my pre-mastectomy body back -- now that I am beginning to see the light I am grateful for the good things even terrible experiences give you --I just want the body I have to feel like it is mine.

What's there to add besides wild applause?

Komari the kitten was rescued and brought into a loving home that also housed six loving ferrets. Ferrets are basically domesticated weasels, but sometimes they manage to do hilarious stuff that is worthy of the internet. The six ferrets agreed to be big brothers to Komari, and as you'd expect, cuteness ensued. It also probably helps their owner to have a cat in addition to six ferrets, because saying "I have six ferrets" aloud is the type of thing that ends dates and job interviews very quickly.

Here is Komari on the saddest day of her life, living on them mean streets. 

And here she is on the happiest day of her life, in her new home.

At this point it's still easy to discern which one is the kitten.

But over time, it's tough to determine where ferret begins and kitten ends.

They do eat separately. Please keep in mind that this person has a monthly budget set aside for ferret food that accommodates six ferrets.

Finally, Komari outgrew her big brothers. She can finally change the TV channel from football without fear of reprisal, and call shotgun when they all pile into the family minivan. 

We're glad Komari has a safe and loving home. Hopefully her six older brothers from another species don't tease her for being adopted the rest of her life. They'll all probably enjoy being dressed up in weird animal costumes by their weird owner this Halloween.

There's so much to keep track of in the busy life of Katy Perry, pop star and T-Swift provocateur. Sometimes it can be hard to remember that before she became the person with the most Twitter followers in the world, she once sang backup vocals for Christian metal band P.O.D. (That's the band who's like "I...feel so aliiiiive...for the very first tiiime..." Remember that? What a grating time in music.)

Here's Perry in the music video for the P.O.D. song "Goodbye For Now," which is currently going viral. (Start around 3:10 for Perry.)

Here she is singing with the band on The Tonight Show:

And here's a compilation of just the Katy Perry parts if for some weird reason you don't feel like listening to an entire P.O.D. song of your own free will in this, the year 2015.

When the Homeland production team were seeking Arabic graffiti artists to "lend authenticity" to the show's version of a Syrian refugee camp, they had a hard time finding artists who would collaborate. Five seasons in, the show has earned the reputation as "the most bigoted show on television" for its perpetuation of negative stereotypes of Arabs, Pakistanis, and Afghans. 

A Cairo-based group of artists got the call about working for the show, and decided to take the opportunity to call them out on their sh*ttiness in a badass way. They explained in their statement, cleverly titled "'Arabian Street Artists Bomb Homeland: Why we hacked an award-winning series':

Given the series’ reputation we were not easily convinced, until we considered what a moment of intervention could relay about our own and many others’ political discontent with the series. It was our moment to make our point by subverting the message using the show itself.

Artist Heba Amin explained how pointed the production teams' request was:

In our initial meeting, we were given a set of images of pro-Assad graffiti- apparently natural in a Syrian refugee camp. Our instructions were: (1) the graffiti has to be apolitical (2) you cannot copy the images because of copyright infringement (3) writing “Mohamed is the greatest, is okay of course”. We would arm ourselves with slogans, with proverbs allowing for critical interpretation, and, if the chance presented itself, blatant criticism directed at the show. And so, it came to be.

Here are some of the photos of their work on set:

50 Cent didn't just declare bankruptcy, he shouted it from the rooftops. Now, only a few months later, he's rollin around in hundred dollar bills like he's Scrooge McDuck.

On Wednesday, the famous rapper updated his Instagram account with multiple posts of him goofing around with piles and piles of cash. Maybe he got a dollar for every, "He should change his name to 25 Cent" joke?

This is a great prank. Bankruptcy looks hella fun!

We're happy for you, 50, but let's see what this pile looks like after the first of the month.

In Old Orchard Beach, Maine, Ralph Duquette gave his daughter Heather a surprise on her wedding day that no one in attendance will ever forget, unless they're jerks. Ralph, who is a leukemia survivor, didn't come through his battle with cancer unscathed—he's losing sight in one eye, and relies on a wheelchair to get around. While they were planning the wedding, he and Heather had discussed whether it was realistic for him to walk her down the aisle, and agreed it was impossible. But this old fighter had a trick or two up his sleeve. He wasn't going to take "impossible" for an answer.

Over the summer, he secretly worked with physical trainers to acquire the strength necessary to walk the length of an Olympic-sized wedding aisle. Then, conspiring with the wedding DJ (the sneakiest of all wedding professionals) to play the wrong song so he would have time to position himself, Ralph surprised his daughter by rising as she emerged and taking her arm for her last walk as a single woman. The entire tear-wrenching scene was caught on video:

After the ceremony was over, Ralph was even able to give Heather the traditional father-daughter dance. It was a beautiful day for everyone involved, and a perfect way for Heather to start her new life with some guy.

A black bear wandered into Bozeman High School in Montana, and who were they to deny this young mammal an education? The aspiring scholar was spotted on the football field around 7:30 a.m., and soon managed to make its way into an open garage door and into the school. Its tour of the grounds was well-documented on social media:

Luckily, a sheriff's deputy was on the premises for a booster club meeting, so he kept an eye on the furry intellectual until police arrived on the scene and chased it out. Despite the fact that the failing U.S. education system clearly had no room for the bear, its fate was a lucky one compared to this guy:

David Updike is a Cambridge, Massachusetts man who enjoys taking photographs in the park. A neighbor spotted him doing just that, and, fearing he was photographing other people's children, she reported him to the cops for suspicious behavior. 

After being detained by six police officers who cornered him on the sidewalk near his home, David decided to let his anonymous neighbor know how the experience felt via this open letter:

Dear Neighbor,

Yesterday was a beautiful day, I think you will agree. I decided to take a short walk from my house on Hamilton Street to Dana Park, which I have been coming to almost daily since 1989, the year my son was born. As I often do, I brought my camera, sat on a bench for about 10 minutes, did one lap around the park and headed home.

I had barely gotten across the street when three police cars pulled up: I was told to stop, and swiftly surrounded by six policemen. I was “detained” there for approximately 20 minutes and questioned; another officer returned to the park to find out why you had called them.

My suspected crime, apparently, was having a camera in a public park, and allegedly taking pictures of children. As it turned out, I had taken no pictures that day. But I have been photographing in this neighborhood for 30 years, and have published a children’s book of poems and photographs, always with permission.

The policeman returned and wanted to see my “flip phone,” and then asked me if I knew how he knew I had a flip phone: I didn’t. He knew, he told me, because the woman who called the police had taken a picture of ME, sitting on the bench, and shown him the picture. They then took away my phone, scrolled through the few pictures that were on it.

They continued to hover around me asking questions. As it happened, I was standing near the house where my son now lives, and when my wife appeared, walking down the street after work, and saw me standing in front of his house with six policemen, she instantly feared something terrible had happened to our son. She was shaking, and I explained the situation. She is an English teacher at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School; I am a college professor of English. Our son spent much of the first 15 years of his life in Dana Park.

You must be new in the neighborhood. I am often in the park, on foot or on a bike, talking to friends who have children who play in the playground. I know you were standing very near to me for the entire time I was on the bench, though I could not figure out why. Now I know: you were taking my picture.

Suggestion: the next time you suspect someone is up to no good, perhaps you should say hello, speak to them first and, if still anxious, ask what they are taking pictures of. That’s what people do in a neighborhood park: talk to each other. This would save someone the humiliation and degradation of being stopped and held by the police, and might save the police from wasting their time when they could be doing something more useful, like managing the daily mayhem in Central Square.

The fact that you now have my picture in your phone is both sadly ironic and, well, creepy. Could you please delete it?

Your neighbor,

— David Updike, Hamilton Street

Wouldn't it be wild if something like this happened to the guy who does Humans of New York?

Hey, do you remember that movie Bring It On, or are you blind to the nostalgia that surrounds us, lifts us up, and let's us feel for brief moments like we're back in the snuggly cocoon of the early aughts? The cast of the beloved cheerleading comedy recently reunited for EW and revealed behind-the-scenes facts, like that Jesse Bradford is still smoking. And last night, Kristen Dunst performed a cheer from the movie on The Late Late Show. Host James Corden had the audacity to ask, "Do you still remember any of the cheers from Bring It On?" Dunst answered "Of course!" and did a (too brief) rendition of "Brr! It's Cold In Here!" accompanied by lots of fans in the audience.

Danny Meyer, owner of the Union Square Hospitality Group, has announced a plan to abolish tipping in all his restaurants in New York, which include such well-known eateries as Union Square Café and Gramercy Tavern. (They're well-known if you live in New York, anyway.)

Meyer's influence on restaurant policies is far-reaching, so this decision could have a huge impact on workers all over.

It takes a lot of people to make a restaurant run. It's not only your waiter, it's the busser, the bar-back, the food runners and the chefs, of course. But tips can't be legally shared with many of the people working in the restaurant. There is a limit then, to how much someone cleaning up after your splattered burrito disaster can make. Meyer wrote in a letter to the USHG company his reasons for the big policy change, and that it relates to those employees:

There are countless laws and regulations that determine which positions in a restaurant may, and may not share in gratuities. We believe hospitality is a team sport, and that it takes an entire team to provide you with the experiences you have come to expect from us. Unfortunately, many of our colleagues — our cooks, reservationists, and dishwashers to name a few — aren’t able to share in our guests’ generosity, even though their contributions are just as vital to the outcome of your experience at one of our restaurants.

Once these changes are implemented, the total cost you pay to dine with us won’t differ much from what you pay now. But for our teams, the change will be significant. We will now have the ability to compensate all of our employees equitably, competitively, and professionally. And by eliminating tipping, our employees who want to grow financially and professionally will be able to earn those opportunities based on the merit of their work.

Meyer's restaurants won't be the first to implement a no tipping policy, but considering he has 1,800 people working under the USHG umbrella, it's a big story attracting some criticism. Some folks are afraid they won't be able to "punish" servers for perceived bad service by stiffing them, if they're that kind of monster. People also won't be able to leave enormous tips that make them Internet famous. Could "no tipping" be the end of restaurant drama forever? No. Not so long as people keep taking their children to dinner.

Ivanka Trump, the eldest daughter of GOP front-runner Donald Trump, said in an interview that her father "would be amazing for women in this country." She sat for the interview at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, in which she defended her father, saying he has always worked hard to treat women equally. The question came up over Donald's much-publicized dispute with Megyn Kelly, and remarks he made about fellow GOP candidate Carly Fiorina's looks.

Look, my father is very blunt. He's very direct. He is not gender specific in his criticism of people, and people that he doesn't particularly like or people that he does like but thinks they're wrong on a particular issue. So I don't think that he's gender-targeted at all. Like I said, I wouldn't be the person I am today, I wouldn't be a high-level executive within his organization if he felt that way.

Ivanka also discussed how the race has impacted her friendship with Chelsea Clinton. Did anyone know these two were friends? It seems like an unlikely friendship, almost like a bear and a wolf, or a raccoon and a coonhound. We're not comparing them to animals, but animals are more fun to watch than children of powerful politicians.

It has not been an issue for us. I have great respect for her, she's been a great friend to me. I've been a great friend to her. So, you know, the politics of our parents is not relevant to our friendship.

Lastly, she gave her thoughts about the recent Democratic presidential debate, which Donald live-tweeted and found to be quite boring.

Well, I thought the debate was excellent. I thought the debate was interesting to watch, so I enjoyed watching. Like I said, I'm a businessperson, not a politician, so I'll leave politics to other members of the family and the many, many people who are involved in the race on both sides. So we'll see who emerges.

That's a very good answer. She's insulating herself to make clear which side of the family business she runs. It's actually the answer of a skilled politician. Perhaps Donald should take on Ivanka as a secret advisor, because she speaks thoughtfully and intelligibly.

SportsCenter's Scott Van Pelt brought the much needed real-talk to the media circus surrounding Lamar Odom's condition. He was an NBA star, and continues to be a vital force in the world of sports. To forget that in the wake of the Kardashian Kraziness is to disrespect him. 

“His name is Lamar Odom, and we knew it long before he got married on a TV show we don’t watch.”

Dennis Hof, the owner of Love Ranch where former NBA star Lamar Odom was found unresponsive, told the Kardashians to "go to hell" when their publicist requested he remain silent. Khloé Kardashian rushed to Sunrise Hospital & Medical Center in Las Vegas on Wednesday to be at Odom's side as he remained on life support. She is also technically still making his medical decisions since they are not yet legally divorced.  Hof said he received a call from the reality TV star's publicist asking him to keep his mouth shut after Odom was found frothing at the mouth at his establishment a day earlier.

Speaking of the Kardashians, I got a call from their publicist today saying, ‘Are you going to do any media?’ and I said yes I’m going to go on Nancy Grace. And she said, ‘Please don’t do that, we’d rather have Khloé say what needs to be said.’ I told her to go to hell.

It is funny that Hof told them to go to hell on his way to be on Nancy Grace, which is undoubtedly itself one of the nine circles of hell. Nancy makes it clear during the interview that she is not a fan of prostitution, even when it's legal. She's also famously and ridiculously not a fan of marijuana, which doesn't have any bearing on this except that those clips are great. Hof and Grace should just agree that whichever one of them gets to hell first has to save the other a seat. Until then, everyone keep rooting for Odom.

Don't call the cops with consumer complaints. Especially if that complaint is about meth. That's what one man in this redditor's hometown did recently, leading to one of the best cautionary tales about the effects of drugs, the risks of buying drugs, and the risks of involving the cops in your drug purchasing process. He tried to call the cops because he thought his dealer sold him something that wasn't the meth he paid for. After doing whatever cops do to test for meth, they issued their own review:

Whether it was actually good meth or really watered-down meth, we'll never know (although apparently toilet bowl cleaner is being added to meth these days to make it blue like in Breaking Bad). The cops don't have a five-star rating system. The moral of the story here is that if you have a complaint, there's always the Better Business Bureau (or in this case, the lesser-known Better Shady Business Bureau), there's the Federal Trade Commission, or you could write a letter to Drug Consumer Report. Surely whoever the Ralph Nader of the drug world is could have given this a more precise evaluation than "still methy enough to arrest you." Unfortunately, one of the side effects of meth is not being able to think through the responsible ways to encourage best practices among vendors.

A four-year-old named McKenna sang Martina McBride's "I'm Gonna Love You" to her mom, who has stage four Hodgkin's lymphoma. It was posted to YouTube a few days ago, and after being shared on Ellen DeGeneres's Facebook page, it has garnered over 150,000 views and 400,000 likes. We must warn you, it's Sobfest '15 up in this vid.

Groomsman Lee Coleman got totally ripped at his best friend's wedding, and that was before the open bar. During a pre-ceremony photo shoot for his friends' September 12th nuptials, Coleman split the back of his dress pants wide open in a jump he says was inspired by Rafiki from the Lion King.

Fortunately for us, wedding photographer Alexa Bedwell managed to capture pants-gate from from start to finish, while the bride was undoubtedly thinking, "Hey, why isn't everyone looking at meee?"

Although everyone loves a great wedding fail, the show must go on. Luckily Alex (wife of pants guy/bridesmaid/seamstress/hero) came to the rescue with duct tape and her handy sewing kit. She wasn't a bit mad at her husbands antics. "He makes me laugh daily, silly little things," she told Reddit.

Just a reminder that your most embarrassing moments are often the moments that make other people like you the most.

Society is slowly losing its ability to communicate. Soon, we'll just be boneless lumps with huge, muscular texting thumbs, it's great that we're getting more options for sexual pictograms than that boring penis eggplant. We got our first shipment of sex-positive emojis with Flirtmojis (flirt + emojis... get it?), but one thing was missing. Can you spot it?

What an exciting array! But what's missing was, you guessed it, femalle genitals! Until now, this was the best way to express "vagina" through emoji:

But now, we officially have vaginas. So, so many vaginas:

The downside to this product is you can only copy and paste them from the website into your text messages (and you'll need to go there to get the full new p*ssy array). This is a much bigger hassle than using the standard pack, but humans have been known to put up with quite a large amount of hassle to secure a vagina in the past. Just think of the nuances of meaning you'll be able to achieve. Below are some examples of what Flirtmoji has to offer, from the graphically sexual, to the festive and patriotic, to the gosh-darn romantic:

Who hasn't needed a John Cusack emoji at some point?

A French porn star was creeped on by an airline on Twitter, an airline that probably thought they were being really clever. Nikita Bellucci is a French porn star who was returning home from a stay in Budapest. She tweeted at the airline to get some information about her return flight:

Translated, her tweet reads:

Can we have some information about Flight TO3743? It’s been deleted four times this morning. There’s no information in Budapest.

That's a totally normal, easy-to-answer question for anyone except the person running the Twitter account for Transavia Airlines (a subsidiary of AirFrance). They responded with the following:

Flight is scheduled for 14.30. It’s just that with you, we prefer when it lasts longer. ;) Have a good day. I remain available. ;)

Grooooosss. After her supporters' reaction to the tweet was overwhelmingly negative, the airline apologized, albeit half-assedly:

I am sorry you were offended by this joke. I was just trying to lighten the mood. Again, I’m sorry. The plane will leave shortly.

Good evening, we apologize once again for this tweet and our delay. Our customer service will contact you soon by email about the delay of our flight. Good night.

Still, Nikita took the opportunity to point out the mistreatment of porn stars in French society:

In France, unfortunately I have noticed that if you are a porn star, you don’t have the right to want to cultivate your mind and you must not share your opinions on the news.

[...]

Open your thighs, look beautiful and shut up ... is all that’s allowed. That’s all we expect of you, nothing more.

Next time, just give her the info.

Moaning, heavy breathing, and screaming could be heard at a Target store in California on Wednesday, and unfortunately it wasn't coming from the cheap electronic ghosts in the Halloween aisle. Gina Young was shopping with her 3 year old twin boys when porn audio began blaring over the loudspeakers.

“What is going on at Target right now?!” Young asks in a video she posted on Instagram of the incident.

There was much confusion, especially among the small children who are too old to understand why everyone was suddenly reacting so strongly. "People offered to help me cover my twins' ears,” Young said. “Others threw their stuff down and walked out. Employees were running around everywhere. Picking and hanging up phones, which worked….for about two minutes before it started up again."

The X-rated audio played for a full 15 minutes before anyone could figure out how to shut the smut show down for good.

Typical Target, you go in for one thing and end up getting a bunch of stuff you didn't even want.