A Star-Forged Ruby

a collection

fucking rent asunder into their base components

Love how whenever the baby is done with an item they just fucking throw it

Right now, there is a nationwide assault on our LGBTQ+ community, especially our trans neighbors, family, and friends. It’s dangerous, wrong, and un-American.

I want to send a message to anyone living in a state that doesn’t respect who they are: Michigan has a place for you.

So earlier this week Amazon offered $100k to Seattle Pride to help fund the Pride parade but they wanted:

They wanted to name it after them, y'all. I just...I canNOT with that.

Seattle Pride told them no, and cut ties with them. Also:

[x]

Kudos to Seattle Pride. They know what they're doing.

This High Schooler Invented Color-Changing Sutures to Detect Infection

By Theresa Machemer

Video Transcription from user @/lelegenevieve on TikTok: “If you’ve been supporting the Black Lives Matter movement or are looking for ways to support, please stop scrolling and signal boost this video. I’ve been coding—pretty tirelessly—everyday for my website pb-resources.com. It’s an education tool and resource I’ve been using to compile information to fight police brutality and white supremacy. There are calls to action, educational tools, and different places to donate. Today I added this section that allows you to input your information and send automated emails; and everything is filled out for you. It was also really important that for me to adds way to support the Black trans community. And in a few days, the website will be generating ad revenue and 100% of the proceeds will be donated; so all you have to do is visit the site to support BLM. Lastly, I’ve been asking you guys to follow me on Instagram (@/alexisdenisew) so I can hit 10k and get the swipe up update and I’m almost there. So if you haven’t already, go follow.”

If anyone with experience with audio transcription formatting would like to repost this with a better transcript, please do, my experience is limited.

As of today, June 16th, 2020, Alexis is at 11K followers on Instagram and has the swipe up feature, but please continue to share this website!

Naomi Novik, Hugo Awards, 2019 (via runawaymarbles)

California nonprofit Ocean Voyages Institute has been handing out special GPS devices to mariners to attach to abandoned fishing gear for later collection and they just brought in over 40 tons of ghost nets in the Pacific. | Photo: Roy Hollowell | #ghostnets #pacificgarbagepatch #ocean #oceancleanup #oceanconservation #gps #fishing #conservation #fieldwork #endangered #endangeredspecies #wildlife #wildlifeconservation #animals #endextinction #science #biologist #research #Tech4Good #Tech4Wildlife #hope #ConservationOptimism #KeyConservation Read more here: https://buff.ly/2ZyeBps

I still believe this kind of story is what makes America “great,” and I refuse to be told otherwise.

When Bethany Edwards and Anna Simpson invented the world’s first flushable pregnancy test, they were trying to save the environment—not women. The idea was simple: Make a medically-accurate test out of sustainable materials instead of the non-biodegradable plastic that current manufacturers use. “Single-use diagnostics are only used for a few minutes and then discarded or incinerated,” Edwards explains. “Discarded plastic [pregnancy test] housings are landfill-bound, existing far beyond the product’s extreme short lifecycle.”

So together, Edwards and Simpson, who met at UPenn during grad school, formed Lia Diagnostics. The test—which is 99 percent accurate on the first day of a missed period, and has has been cleared by the FDA—is slated for online sale (at $10 a pop) starting mid-2018. The test is simple, really: It looks like any other pregnancy stick test, but pinched in the middle and with an edge that looks pin-pricked like a sanitary pad. Lia Diagnostics’ website claims it goes down as well as 3-ply, a toilet paper weight that rural plumbing can’t handle but that city toilets flush just fine.

This flushability, Edwards says, “was part of our very initial research; it was a clear, unmet need that drove the overall product design.” As she and Simpson conducted that research, asking women whether they’d use the test, they heard stories about people taking pregnancy tests at work to hide their results from someone at home. Some women told them about their need to hide sticks deep within the trash. That’s when Edwards realized the difference their product could make was much more than environmental.

“Reproductive coercion is definitely a part of intimate partner violence,” says Nancy Neylon, executive director of Ohio Domestic Violence Network, a Columbus-based non-profit assisting domestic violence shelters throughout the state. She defines reproductive coercion as a type of sexual abuse that manifests in many ways: “This can include forced, unprotected sex in order to ensure pregnancy, tampering with birth control, even threatening to have sex with another woman and get her pregnant. Abusers are sadly very creative as they try to achieve and maintain control over their partners.” In this sick quest for power, the same plus sign that brings some women joy brings an abuser new information they can use to control their partner.

The ability to keep pregnancy test results secret could save lives, National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) associate director, Gretchen Shaw, tells me plainly. “[I]t’s not a perfect answer,” Neylon adds. “If [a woman was] pregnant and wanted to get away from the abusive relationship without the abuser knowing about the pregnancy, this would be helpful. Of course if she is, then there are other decisions she needs to make. But [she] could make those decisions more safely.”

After next year’s launch, the test will be available for purchase on pre-order at MeetLia.com. (If internet use is monitored at home, women can use incognito browser at the library.) Lia Diagnostics then ships it to you, thankfully, not in a conspicuous envelope. “We’re working very hard to balance the FDA requirements and maintain discretion,” Edwards says. The test itself is thin enough to slip inside a traditional, discrete mailing envelope.

Neylon says 1 in 4 women who experience partner abuse—be it sexual, emotional, or physical—face reproductive coercion. The concern is so widespread, she believes it needs its own place on the Power and Control Wheel, a diagram listing patterns of abuse that domestic violence professionals use to guide victims through awareness of their situation.

“[Reproductive coercion] is very widespread but something women may not even recognize themselves,” Neylon says. “Women may not understand that abuse can be something other than physical violence. They may think if they are married that it’s his right to demand sex and have children. The abuser may damage the condom without telling her, the abuser may engage in unprotected sex with HIV or an STD without telling her, or she may have sex to avoid promised physical abuse.”

Black Women are the gift we don’t deserve, this is truly precious. She did a lot for these boys who will grow up into men. Black Women are the greatest, you are loved also. Don’t forget that ever.

Woohoo!!! Your vote is your voice. Bring down the rafters.

KEEP IT UP!

Don’t stop! Shock em with your amazing numbers!

BLOW THESE FUCKERS DOWN!

GO FUCKING VOTE

C'MON FLORIDA WE ARE THE LOWEST ON THAT LIST !!!! GET YA BUTTS OUT N VOTE !!!

I’m so proud of y’all! Kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight.

A lot of ‘humans are weird’ posts play with the idea that humans are one of the few species that actually evolved as a predator and, as such, we are unusually strong and fast— but what if we’re not.

What if we’re tiny?

What if, to the majority of species in the galaxy, ten feet tall is unusually short— it basically only happens due to rare genetic conditions— and the average human is basically cat sized or smaller?

Instead of being terrified by our strength, the aliens’ most pressing concern is how exactly they’re going to communicate with us when we’re all the way down on the ground.

There are experiments, with aliens crouching low or humans standing on high platforms— but it usually ends up being either uncomfortable for the alien or dangerous for the human, or both, and just generally impractical for everyone.

But, while the diplomats and politicians are trying to figure out a dignified and simple solution, the ordinary people who actually have to work with the aliens have found one. Humans are, generally, pretty good climbers, and most species have conveniently places scales, feathers, fur or clothing that can act as a hand or foothold. Sure, some humans have a fear of heights, but those aren’t typically the ones going into space. Besides, climbing on a living alien often feels safer than climbing up a rock or something— at least you know you’ve got somebody to catch you.

Soon it becomes accepted that that’s the way humans travel with aliens— up high, easy to see and hard to tread on (there were quite a few… near misses, in the first few meetings between humans and aliens), balanced on somebody’s shoulder like the overgrown monkeys that we are.

Many humans see this as kind of an insult and absolutely refuse to go along with it, but they aren’t the ones who end up spending a lot of time with aliens— it’s just too inconvenient to talk to somebody all the way down on the ground. The ones that do best are the ones who just treat it like it’s normal, allowing themselves to be carried (at least, it’s ‘carrying’ when the aliens are within earshot. Among themselves, most humans jokingly refer to it as ‘riding’), and passing on tips to their friends about the best ways to ride on different species without damaging feathers, or stepping on sensitive spots (or, in at least one case, ending up with a foot full of poisonous spines…).

The reason they don’t feel patronised by this is that they know, and they know that nearly everyone else in the galaxy knows, that humans are not just pets.

After all, you’d be surprised when a small size comes in handy.

Need somebody to look at the wiring in a small and fairly inaccessible area of the ship? Ask a human.

Need somebody to fix this fairly small and very detailed piece of machinery? Ask a human, they’re so small that their eyes naturally pick up smaller details.

Trapped under rubble and need somebody to crawl through a small gap and get help? Ask a human— most can wriggle through any gap that they can fit their head and shoulders through.

If you’re a friend, humans can be very useful. If, on the other hand, you’re an enemy…

Rumours spread all around the galaxy, of ships that threatened humans or human allies and started experiencing technical problems. Lights going off, wires being cut— in some cases, the cases where the threats were more than just words and humans or friends of humans were killed, life support lines have been severed, or airlocks have mysteriously malfunctioned and whole crews have been sucked out into space.

If the subject comes up, most humans will blame it on “gremlins” and exchange grim smiles when they’re other species friends aren’t looking.

By this point, most ships have a crew of humans, whether they like it or not. Lots of humans, young ones generally, the ones who want to see a bit of the universe but don’t have the money or connections to make it happen any other way, like to stowaway on ships. They’ll hang around the space ports, wait for a ship’s door to open and dart on in. The average human can have quite a nice time scurrying around in the walls of an alien ship, so long as they’re careful not to dislodge anything important.

Normally nobody notices them, and the ones that do tend not  to say anything— it’s generally recognised that having humans on your ship is good luck.

If there are humans on your ship, they say, then anything you lose will be found within a matter of days, sometimes even in your quarters; any minor task you leave out— some dishes that need to be cleaned, a report that needs to be spellchecked, some calculations that need to be done— will be quickly and quietly completed during the night; any small children on the ship, who are still young enough to start to cry in the night, will be soothed almost before their parents even wake, sometimes even by words in their own tongue, spoken clumsily through human vocal chords. If any of the human are engineers (and a lot of them are, and still more of them aren’t, but have picked up quite a few tricks on their travels from humans who are) then minor malfunctions will be fixed before you even notice them, and your ship is significantly less likely to experience any major problems.

The humans are eager to earn their keep, especially when the more grateful aliens start leaving out dishes of human-safe foods for them.

This, again, is considered good luck— especially since the aliens who aren’t kind to the humans often end up losing things, or waking up to find that their fur has been cut, or the report they spent hours on yesterday has mysteriously been deleted.

To human crew members, who work on alien ships out in the open, and have their names on the crew manifest and everything, these small groups of humans are colloquially referred to as ‘ship’s rats’. There’s a sort of uneasy relationship between the two groups. On the one hand, the crew members regard the ship’s rats as spongers and potential nuisances— on the other hand, most human crew members started out as ship’s rats themselves, and now benefit from the respect (and more than a little awe) that the ship’s rats have made most aliens feel for humans. The general arrangement is that ship’s rats try to avoid ships with human crew members and, when they can’t, then they make sure to stay out of the crew members’ way, and the crew members who do see one make sure not to mention them to any alien crew members.

The aliens who know, on the other hand, have gotten into the habit of not calling them by name— mainly because they’re shaky as the legality of this arrangement, and don’t want to admit that anything’s going on. Instead they talk about “the little people” or “the ones in the walls” or, more vaguely, “Them”.

Their human friends— balancing on their shoulders, occasionally scurrying down and arm so as to get to a table, or jumping from one person’s shoulder to another, in order to better follow the conversation— laugh quietly to themselves when they hear this.

Back before the first first contact, lot of people on Earth thought that humans would become space orcs. Little did they know, they’d actually end up as space fae.

Space fae… I love it… aliens would wake to a full hot breakfast ready… and maybe some missing currencies

humans as marginally less-drunk Nac Mac Feegles

I love it because this one doesn’t get all evopsych or essentialist about humans? It doesn’t make inapt universalizing assumptions. It just goes “what if we were Smol, in galactic terms” and I appreciate that.