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A poloneck bodysuit sweater that's perfect for transitioning your wardrobe from autumn to winter 💜

Polys - 4294 Swatches - 60

This isn't this month's CC, it's just an extra I had that I decided to finish while I was taking a break from aggressively sequining things ✨

fiber crafts is like oh you think you know how to count? think again. also count again.

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.

my family is fucking addicted to macgyvering and it's becoming a problem. every time something in this house breaks, instead of doing the sensible thing of replacing it or calling someone qualified to fix it, we all group around the offending object with a manic look in our eyes and everyone gets a try at fixing it while being cheered on or ridiculed by the rest.

it's a beautiful bonding activity, but the "creative" fixes have turned our house into a quasihaunted escape room like contraption where everything works, but only in the wonkiest of ways. you need a huge block of iron to turn on the stove. the oven only works if a specific clock is plugged in. the bread machine has a huge wood block just stapled to it that has become foundational to its function. sometimes when you use the toaster the doorbell rings. and that's just the kitchen.

it's all fun and games until you have guests over and you have to lay out the rules of the house like it's a fucking board game. welcome to the beautiful guest room. don't pull out the couch yourself you need a screwdriver for that, and that metal rod makes the lamp work so don't move it. it also made me a terrifying roommate in college, because it makes me think i can fix anything with enough hubris and a drill. you want to call the landlord about a leaky faucet? as if. one time my dad made me install a new power socket because we ran our of extension cords

to the people saying this isn't safe in the tags: my dad has a engineering degree and my brother is a mechanic this is like. state sanctioned macgyvering. safe sane and consensual macgyvering. our house will not burn down. in fact, i think it has made us all better in approaching problems from all angles when they arise, which has served me well in life, especially in high stress situations.

does our hot water switch off every thirty seconds making showers an exiting exercise in counting and resilience? yes. but one time the door of the train toilet broke, trapping me inside, and i went "well i can either succumb to the panic of claustrophobia or do this family-style" and then spent twenty minutes breaking down the lock with my shoelace and the belt i was wearing. so i'll take the cold water any day

Never have I wanted to see inside a stranger's home more

OP lives in a point-and-click adventure game

at some point we gotta acknowledge that getting the majority of your news and takes and general opinions from tumblr is not meaningfully different than getting it from tiktok even though on here it's in textual form. understanding the world through the lens of viral videos vs understanding it through breathless unsourced text posts written by dykeastarion69

#this is what made me switch to actually reading news sites regularly some years ago#(and when something's controversial or doesn't seem quite right I look up multiple news sources to try to get a fuller picture) (@thirddoctor)

A quick reminder that the Associated Press is totally free, and also often covers the news stories that Tumblr users say no one is covering. NPR is also free. So is ProPublica.

Also, here's a chart that might be helpful, in terms of determining bias and reliability: Interactive Media Bias Chart

All this + SIFT

If your tummy itches when you wear jeans, you have a nickel allergy and should paint the back of the buttion with nail polish. Okay I am going into the woods forever now. I love you.

WHAT

Sensitivity to nickel is extremely common amd despite this, clothing manufacturers often use it because it is cheap. A coat or two of nail polish is an effective barrier between the allergen and your skin. Goodbye forever. Do not forget my wisdom

I mean, the Nazis piloted their programs on disabled people because nobody would give a shit and they knew it. The first one was a 5 month old infant named Gerhard Kretschmar, willingly surrendered by his parents. They started Aktion T4 with a disabled infant. 200k to 300k people died under this specific program.

Life unworthy of life.

That is how oppressors will see us. Not as criminals or corrupting influences but as things that should simply not be allowed to live.

Your activism needs to include and protect us from day one. Folks didn't show up for us after we showed up to get you your marriage rights. I still can't fucking marry...I can't even have a civil union, or even have a partner they decide we are close enough to that we are "holding out as married". Y'all want to unionize. There is no union to protect us. (Don't fucking talk to me about the IWW, they have NEVER answered me when I have contacted them four times, and even the name excludes anyone who can't work, fuck us, labor is still a moral virtue I guess, fuck representing those who can't.) Y'all want a survivable minimum wage. I draw max SSI, but have to live on less than 11k a year, and am punished if someone gives me cash to pay to fix the oven that has been broken for 2 years; they'll deduct the full fucking amount past the first $60 as "unearned income". Y'all want SNAP. My disability payments are held against my SNAP. Y'all want housing for everyone. We get our benefits slashed if we live with someone who helps us, but we often HAVE to, fucked either way. Y'all want student debt forgiveness. I can't go to school too much or they might cut my benefits, but nobody can tell me how much that is.

Y'all want us disabled fucks to volunteer? GUESS WHAT, MOTHERFUCKER? THEY HOLD THAT AGAINST US.

FUCK. THIS.

I want ALL the things y'all want. Y'all need to familiarize yourselves with our struggles.

Fucking see us.

Fucking SEE US!

“I’m tired of voting every 4 years”

You’re 26 and there’s 80 year old black women who remember a time when they couldn’t vote but STILL aren’t tired of it. Maybe it’s a skill issue on your part.

You should also be voting more often than every four years. Use your rights that people fought and bled for.

My given name is perfect tbh. 10/10 no notes. Perfect balance of unique and familiar. Fits my personality.

Honestly bizarre that tomatoes get all the flack for “not being a vegetable” because they're technically a fruit when:

A) There are a ton of fruits that get categorised as vegetables. Like this also applies to pumpkins, squashes and cucumbers.

B) The fucking mushrooms are standing there at the back of the crowd in this witch trial, trying to look inconspicuous because they somehow got into the vegetable club with no fucking controversy despite the fact that they're not even plants.

Technically, there's no such thing as a "vegetable" from a strictly categorical perspective. "Vegetable" just means a plant or an edible part of a plant. So, that means fruits are a type of vegetable. Therefore, tomatoes are vegetables.

I am so serious when I say that now is the time to take your activism offline. I am not spending the next four years squabbling on social media or getting woke points by reblogging posts that my followers already agree with. There are real places in your offline community where you can do good if you seek them out

Also: DEESCALATE ALL CONFLICT THAT ISN'T WITH THE ENEMY. We have so so so so much in common, are so much more aligned, with each other than we do the people we need to fight against. We're going to have disagreements. We're going to feel strongly on different sides of an issue. But now more than ever we need to find ways to address those things without alienating each other and pushing others out of our movements.

Thank you for adding this!! There are lots of people who we are aligned with in values if not in action, and we need to harness those shared values instead of yelling at each other. Trump won the popular vote, which means there's a hell of a lot of people out there who actively want facism. We don't have time to argue about who's right and wrong about minutiae.

@eebeesee's comment a few weeks ago was that the two of us don't quite agree on what the ideal society looks like. But in our lifetimes we are not going to get to a point where those differences are anything more than theoretical. So debating them can be a fun exercise in political theory, but letting that disagreement get in the way of actually accomplishing any of the 2000 things that would have to happen before our goals actually diverge is a great way to do absolutely fuckall.

Water is pretty nice to drink despite how horribly it treated the crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald

spin this wheel

I survived because the fuck it we ball inside me burned brighter than the it's so over around me

I dunno man. I found out today that a subway sandwich is $14 now. A shitty subway footlong sandwich that isn't actually 12 inches long and is occasionally made with expired ingredients and was never a great option to start with. I ate those in high school because I was broke and at the mall a lot.

There are poke bowls in my city from a local place for $16. Super fresh fish and veg, warm rice, more than I can eat in one sitting, for the price of a sandwich and a drink at america's most mid-tier sandwich shop.

Someone in another post said (paraphrased) you used to be able to get something mediocre for cheap, but now the mediocre things cost as much as the nice things so why would you?

This is me when I realized I could get a proper bowl of curry from the fancy indian food place for basically the same price as a fuckin McDonald's hamburger meal these days

I heard an ad the other day for a "fantastic deal! Four dollar four inch subway snack sandwich!" And like. I'm sure that would seem like a much better deal I'd I wasn't one of the ones who grew up with obnoxious "five dollar foot long subway sandwich" ads.

A dollar an inch of sandwich. When it used to be 2.4 inches. 240% markup is GOOD? Fucking bite me

Yeah with fast food having delusions of grandeur these days it's really made me appreciate the non-chain food places in my area. The other day I went to the local Hawaiian BBQ place and discovered that they have teriyaki chicken AND Beef BBQ musubi for 3.99. and they come in pairs. PAIRS.

I KNOW.

So I immediately bought an order of each and had 4 delicious musubi and a drink for less than a combo at Burger King.

So yeah, show em we don't need their shit sandwiches.

There's some hilarious irony in that by creating an ad campaign so incredibly catchy and memorable that it entered public consciousness (the dream of any marketing team), Subway ensured everyone of a certain age range would view them as the poster child of fast-food price gouging.