Mini Cat Girls

I can't believe I scored both of them!

Beware!

Avoid sci-hub too👀

From Ask for PDFs from People with Institutional Access

If you want to read an academic article that's behind a paywall just email the author and ask politely if they will send you the article. Most academics will be thrilled that you want to read their work and will gladly send it to you.

I emailed to ask a Harvard researcher and advocate for intersex rights for access to one paper and she sent me seven plus additional resources and permission to stay in touch. Ask for papers!

“Is it okay if I draw fanart of your fanfic?👉🏼👈🏼”

My brother in Christ we shall have a spring wedding

The Night That Changed an Angel (or, why does Aziraphale still wear that shabby vest?)

Mini-Meta Musing (#4)

I've been brooding for a long time about, of all things, Aziraphale's worn velvet vest and the long cream jacket he's kept in "tip top condition for over 180 years now." I love the sweet familiarity, but this is the same angel who popped across the Channel and almost lost his fluffy-topped head in 1793 for dressing like an aristocrat.

"I have standards!"

He's the height of elegance, extravagance even. A dandy. We've seen the same at the Globe Theater 1601, Edinburgh 1827, and even as a Knight of the Round Table in 527 Essex, where he's wearing a glorious pelt across his shoulders! However, sometime after Edinburgh 1827, Aziraphale's stylish extravagance ends. He adopts the dress of distinguished but modest gentility. No seamstresses strain their eyes for days hand stitching ruffles and trims for him any longer. When we next see him in 1862, his clothing is refined, simple, and serviceable. It becomes his uniform, with only minor replacements. Why? What happened to change him?

Edinburgh 1827 happened. And his encounter with tragedy ran over his sensibilities like a locomotive.

On the topic of humans being everyone’s favorite Intergalactic versions  of Gonzo the Great: Come on you guys, I’ve seen all the hilarious additions to my “humans are the friendly ones” post. We’re basically Steve Irwin meets Gonzo from the Muppets at this point. I love it. 

But what if certain species of aliens have Rules for dealing with humans?

Basically, humans are like the Fair Folk to some aliens and half of them are scared to death and the others are like alien teenagers who are like “I dare you to ask a human to take you to Earth”.

We knew about the planet called Earth for centuries before we made contact with its indigenous species, of course. We spent decades studying them from afar.

The first researchers had to fight for years to even get a grant, of course. They kept getting laughed out of the halls. A T-Class Death World that had not only produced sapient life, but a Stage Two civilization? It was a joke, obviously. It had to be a joke.

And then it wasn’t. And we all stopped laughing. Instead, we got very, very nervous. 

We watched as the human civilizations not only survived, but grew, and thrived, and invented things that we had never even conceived of. Terrible things, weapons of war, implements of destruction as brutal and powerful as one would imagine a death world’s children to be. In the space of less than two thousand years, they had already produced implements of mass death that would have horrified the most callous dictators in the long, dark history of the galaxy. 

Already, the children of Earth were the most terrifying creatures in the galaxy. They became the stuff of horror stories, nightly warnings told to children; huge, hulking, brutish things, that hacked and slashed and stabbed and shot and burned and survived, that built monstrous metal things that rumbled across the landscape and blasted buildings to ruin.

All that preserved us was their lack of space flight. In their obsession with murdering one another, the humans had locked themselves into a rigid framework of physics that thankfully omitted the equations necessary to achieve interstellar travel. 

They became our bogeymen. Locked away in their prison planet, surrounded by a cordon of non-interference, prevented from ravaging the galaxy only by their own insatiable need to kill one another. Gruesome and terrible, yes - but at least we were safe.

Or so we thought.

The cities were called Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the moment of their destruction, the humans unlocked a destructive force greater than any of us could ever have believed possible. It was at that moment that those of us who studied their technology knew their escape to be inevitable, and that no force in the universe could have hoped to stand against them.

The first human spacecraft were… exactly what we should have expected them to be. There were no elegant solar wings, no sleek, silvered hulls plying the ocean of stars. They did not soar on the stellar currents. They did not even register their existence. Humanity flew in the only way it could: on all-consuming pillars of fire, pounding space itself into submission with explosion after explosion. Their ships were crude, ugly, bulky things, huge slabs of metal welded together, built to withstand the inconceivable forces necessary to propel themselves into space through violence alone.

It was almost comical. The huge, dumb brutes simply strapped an explosive to their backs and let it throw them off of the planet. 

We would have laughed, if it hadn’t terrified us.

Humanity, at long last, was awake.

It was a slow process. It took them nearly a hundred years to reach their nearest planetary neighbor; a hundred more to conquer the rest of their solar system. The process of refining their explosive propulsion systems - now powered by the same force that had melted their cities into glass less than a thousand years before - was slow and haphazard. But it worked. Year by year, they inched outward, conquering and subduing world after world that we had deemed unfit for habitation. They burrowed into moons, built orbital colonies around gas giants, even crafted habitats that drifted in the hearts of blazing nebulas. They never stopped. Never slowed.

The no-contact cordon was generous, and was extended by the day. As human colonies pushed farther and farther outward, we retreated, gave them the space that they wanted in a desperate attempt at… stalling for time, perhaps. Or some sort of appeasement. Or sheer, abject terror. Debates were held daily, arguing about whether or not first contact should be initiated, and how, and by whom, and with what failsafes. No agreement was ever reached.

We were comically unprepared for the humans to initiate contact themselves.

It was almost an accident. The humans had achieved another breakthrough in propulsion physics, and took an unexpected leap of several hundred light years, coming into orbit around an inhabited world.

What ensued was the diplomatic equivalent of everyone staring awkwardly at one another for a few moments, and then turning around and walking slowly out of the room.

The human ship leapt away after some thirty minutes without initiating any sort of formal communications, but we knew that we had been discovered, and the message of our existence was being carried back to Terra. 

The situation in the senate could only be described as “absolute, incoherent panic”. They had discovered us before our preparations were complete. What would they want? What demands would they make? What hope did we have against them if they chose to wage war against us and claim the galaxy for themselves? The most meager of human ships was beyond our capacity to engage militarily; even unarmed transport vessels were so thickly armored as to be functionally indestructible to our weapons.

We waited, every day, certain that we were on the brink of war. We hunkered in our homes, and stared.

Across the darkness of space, humanity stared back.

There were other instances of contact. Human ships - armed, now - entering colonized space for a few scant moments, and then leaving upon finding our meager defensive batteries pointed in their direction. They never initiated communications. We were too frightened to.

A few weeks later, the humans discovered Alphari-296.

It was a border world. A new colony, on an ocean planet that was proving to be less hospitable than initially thought. Its military garrison was pitifully small to begin with. We had been trying desperately to shore it up, afraid that the humans might sense weakness and attack, but things were made complicated by the disease - the medical staff of the colonies were unable to devise a cure, or even a treatment, and what pitifully small population remained on the planet were slowly vomiting themselves to death.

When the human fleet arrived in orbit, the rest of the galaxy wrote Alphari-296 off as lost.

I was there, on the surface, when the great gray ships came screaming down from the sky. Crude, inelegant things, all jagged metal and sharp edges, barely holding together. I sat there, on the balcony of the clinic full of patients that I did not have the resources or the expertise to help, and looked up with the blank, empty, numb stare of one who is certain that they are about to die.

I remember the symbols emblazoned on the sides of each ship, glaring in the sun as the ships landed inelegantly on the spaceport landing pads that had never been designed for anything so large. It was the same symbol that was painted on the helmets of every human that strode out of the ships, carrying huge black cases, their faces obscured by dark visors. It was the first flag that humans ever carried into our worlds.

It was a crude image of a human figure, rendered in simple, straight lines, with a dot for the head. It was painted in white, over a red cross.

The first human to approach me was a female, though I did not learn this until much later - it was impossible to ascertain gender through the bulky suit and the mask. But she strode up the stairs onto the balcony, carrying that black case that was nearly the size of my entire body, and paused as I stared blankly up at her. I was vaguely aware that I was witnessing history, and quite certain that I would not live to tell of it.

Then, to my amazement, she said, in halting, uncertain words, “You are the head doctor?”

I nodded.

The visor cleared. The human bared its teeth at me. I learned later that this was a “grin”, an expression of friendship and happiness among their species. 

“We are The Doctors Without Borders,” she said, speaking slowly and carefully. “We are here to help.”

You can’t get this extremely good kind of content scrolling anywhere else.

This sparks joy.

sugar, i’ve developed a taste for you

reference

Clawsome shirt given out to MH crew during the season 2 wrap party! (photo from @/sulistoryart)

doodled my babies to make myself feel better. Hope ur all doing okay and taking care of urselves 💗

i dont consider myself a 'fashion guru' by any means but one thing i will say is guys you dont need to know the specific brand an item you like is - you need to know what the item is called. very rarely does a brand matter, but knowing that pair of pants is called 'cargo' vs 'boot cut' or the names of dress styles is going to help you find clothes you like WAAAYYYY faster than brand shopping

this also goes for aesthetic or -core titles. 'y2k tank top' is going to get you resellers and fast fashion brands advertising to people looking to meet a current trend. 'thin strap crop tank top' is going to get you a diverse group of results and not upcharge you to hell and back

additionally, shop second hand when you can, second hand and thrift sites typically organize clothes by the cut and color. theyll be more affordable than a depop seller curating you a style to sell you

useful terminology for different kinds of clothing shapes :)

This may seem silly but this is what I needed to hear in 2016, so I’m going to say it now. It’s okay to feel hopeless or angry or scared or betrayed or even just mildly nauseous. However you feel is the right reaction for you. You’re just not allowed to kill yourself. You are too good, too valuable, too important for this to be the thing that takes you. Yes the world is a mess, but taking one good person out of it isn’t going to make it any better.

So take care of yourself. Wrap yourself in that blanket. Get that hug. Eat that mug cake. Find your life preserver whatever it may be and keep going. You are stronger than you realize.

Deciding to do something when you’re feeling defeated is hard. If all you can take care of is you today, focus on doing that. Tomorrow or a week from now you can look at what your community needs to do to weather the storm in the long term. Yes communities are hurting now, but having to grieve one more person isn’t going to make anyone’s life any better. Please keep going. Please don’t let this election take you too.

“i’m not the same as who i was before [x] thing happened to me” does it help to know that you would not have stayed that person regardless

added a graphic to elaborate on the specifics of what i’m trying to say.

basically, everybody changes all the time for all sorts of reasons. don’t let the myth of static selfhood trick you into thinking you’re unworthy. the only way to go is forward, which would be the case no matter what, and that’s okay.

The Way of Kings reread is well and truly underway

One of the stranger things about training brand new nurses is explaining how to min max small talk. It feels very weird to coach people on how to chat.

if I make and post an insanely detailed powerpoint on the twenty different equations I run mentally during casual conversation to make it flow better, everyone has to say that it's sexy and cool and not weird at all

remember, everyone promised to be cool! also disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer assume I said all the things you'd say to be like "i know human interaction is complicated, i know some of what i listed here would be very annoying to some people," and all that

michael sheen as crowley as aziraphale

hey so I wanna reblog this again because I have feelings about Michale Sheen’s acting here

he got the David Tennant mouth stuff right. he got the weird body postures right. look at that second gif. that is an impression that’s so spot on it makes my spine tingle

Michael Sheen is so fucking underrated and I’m soft about it

michael is one of those actors that you cant believe isnt more celebrated or well known because his skill is insane

I’m not saying David didn’t deserve his BAFTA nomination but COME ON Michael Sheen was RIGHT THERE! (They are a pair do not separate).

Sheen’s Crowley-as-Aziraphale was amazing. There’s so many nuances in there, so many decisions about what Crowley movements are intuitive and how Crowley would navigate being in Aziraphale’s body. The bit in the bookshop is still my favorite just for the treat of watching Crowley-as-Aziraphale but not in a public place and what it looked like when he was just on his own. Just those few moments of taking in the shop were so, so good. He’s criminally underrated.

another way of proper apology