Cute and Small and Ready to Brawl

Aqua ☆ She/They ☆ Polyamorous

[oooocleo]

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[microsff]

Every morning, the queen asked her magic mirror to show her the most beautiful person in the world.

The mirror replied "To whom?"

"The miller who made the flour for my bread," the queen would say, or "Whoever spun the thread my shawl was made of".

The mirror would show her, and she'd be amazed.

[nullen-void]

The first time, she says "To me," and the mirror dutifully shows her her reflection. And she is pleased.

The second time, she says "To the King," and she is pleased to see herself once more.

The third time, she says "To the Royal Advisor," and is once more satisfied to see herself.

The fourth time, she says "To the scribe who takes the King's letters." She is shown the man's wife. And she seethes, but quiets herself, for it is only right that a man loves his wife.

The fifth time, she says "To the Court Wizard," and is shown the man's departed mother as he remembers her from his youth, radiant and smiling and warm and larger than life.

The tenth time, she says "To the Stable Master," and is shown the fastest horse in the stable, majestic and free as the wind even in captivity

"To the baker," she is shown the man's daughter, young and adorable and full of joy and laughter.

"To the artist who did my portrait," she is shown a painting of a woman done by the man's teacher, who he still looks up to now that he is well established himself.

"To the Royal Knight," she is surprised but not displeased to see the castle's entire guard force in the middle of doing drills.

The one hundredth time she asks the mirror, and it asks her "to whom?" she once again says, "To me." And she does the same the one hundred and second, and again and again and again.

It is a different person each time, and they are all beautiful.

[beaft]

i am not a psychiatrist but i do find it really weird how autism checklists are so often focused on "outward" signs of autism rather than what is going on internally. i don't know how to explain it but "do you make eye contact with other people" feels like a much less relevant question than "how does it feel when you have to make eye contact with other people?"

[beaft]

while i'm here, the other one that always pisses me off is "do you interpret idioms literally, for example 'bull in a china shop'?"

well, no, obviously. i know what "bull in a china shop" means because that is a popular phrase with a clearly defined meaning. and if i hadn't heard it before, then i would still not interpret it literally, because it has the cadence of an idiom and i would probably be able to work out from context what it meant. what is the point of this question

[beaft]

third and final complaint: "are you good at noticing subtext?"

i feel like the problem with this question is best illustrated by a conversation i had with a friend a while back, where i said something like, "i feel very safe with you because you don't do subtle hints and you are always very straight-up with me about what you are thinking and feeling."

and he laid a hand on my shoulder and was like, look dude i'm gonna be straight up here. i am subtle with you constantly and you simply do not notice <3

[beaft]

@luckyybones hope you don't mind me screenshotting but you are actually so correct

[bovid-beauty]

"Fascism"—New Federal Rule Would Require Federal Funding Recipients To Deny Trans People Exist

The rule could have heavy impacts towards trans people across society.

Last week, the Trump administration quietly released a sweeping new federal rule that would use funding threats to force institutions across the country to reject transgender people. The 400-page proposed regulation would codify the administration's anti-trans executive orders into binding federal policy, imposing a blanket prohibition on federal funds going toward "gender ideology"

The proposed rule, formally titled "Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance," rewrites the government-wide framework governing all federal grants across every agency. Among its most consequential provisions, it requires that before a federal grant recipient can receive money, the award must pass a "pre-issuance review" conducted by a political appointee—not a career expert or peer reviewer—to ensure it is "consistent with applicable law, Federal agency priorities, and the national interest." The regulation explicitly instructs these appointees to screen for "denial by the recipient of the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic." [...] An institution that acknowledges transgender people exist—through its policies, its training, its healthcare, its bathroom access, its HR procedures, its name-change processes—could be deemed to "deny the sex binary" or to “support the notion that sex is mutable” and have its federal funding blocked.

Importantly, the gender ideology prohibition has no age limitation—hospitals could be targeted not just for providing care to minors but for providing gender-affirming care to adults, because prescribing hormone therapy to a transgender patient of any age could be deemed promoting the belief that "sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic."

[junequeer]

THIS IS OPEN TO COMMENT UNTIL JULY 13, 2026

[featherandstorm]

This is all very bad and horrible, but I want to be clear that it’s worse and more sweeping than just eliminating trans research.

This torches everything. And I do mean everything.

A very abbreviated list of its ramifications include (but are not limited to):

ending funding for ALL DEI related initiatives

allowing the government to terminate grants at any point for any reason

preventing researchers from publishing, going to conferences, and being part of academic societies

requiring that topics must support the president’s agenda.

What this means, and if anything I’m under selling it, is the death of science and research in America. It allows the government to restrict any topic they please at a whims notice, putting officials who have no background in the topic in charge of deciding funding continuity. It controls what gets researched and if/how researchers are allowed to share their discoveries. There are no books to burn if the government never allows them to be written. This is fascism plain and simple.

Please, if you only ever write one public comment, this is the one to do.

[genderkoolaid]

Bringing back this guide to writing an effective public comment. This gives you the basics you need to know, what you need to include, a basic outline you can follow, etc.

Public comments are not a vote, it is a chance for you to say "here is an issue with this law I think you need to address" and provide justification for legal challenges if it goes forward:

"Comments raise the bar that agencies have to meet when making a rule; “if an agency fails to adequately respond to significant, relevant comments in a final rule, members of the public may seek to challenge the rule in court on that basis and claim it could be struck down.ˮ"

But also, if possible, don't stop at writing a comment. Don't stop at calling your representatives. You should ideally be talking to people in your community about this and organizing resistance on-the-ground; there is a good chance people are already doing that even if you aren't hearing about it.

[brainscrems]

Also, please keep in mind, this is 100%, without a doubt, wholly unconsitituonal. They will try to enforce it regardless, but that does not make it legal. Do not treat this as law because it is not.

[darkspaceboytoy]

Incredibly violent take of mine but I actually don’t think you need to relate to a story in any way to enjoy it. You can enjoy a story even if you can’t point at a character and insert some aspect of your personality or identity into them. In fact I would argue the need for a character like that to be present in every single story you experience is a sign of stunted growth.

[uss-edsall]

At 1 PM on a Friday I get an email from my boss. I'm busy as hell so I don't check it immediately. Then I get a phone call from my boss, which has almost never happened before. I'm a white collar worker, a historian. There's never a 'historical emergency' requiring a phone call to kick me in the ass and get to work.

The request is so urgent my boss needs it by the end of the work week. Which, y'know, is 5 PM on a Friday. So I have four hours to do it.

It's a forwarded request. Somebody contacted a member of the donation team asking for help, "I need a map from the Vietnam War to use for a presentation." It's somebody she's trying to coax into giving a five figure donation to the museum.

The request was asked to the donation team member, who then emailed my boss, who then emailed and called me urgently.

This map required:

North and South Vietnam in it

All four areas that South Vietnam was divided into for military purposes ('Corps') clearly delineated

Four cities, all of them horrifically misspelled, and only identifiable because I know what battle the requester is asking about (it’s in III Corps on the border with Cambodia) (the requester danced around the battle but I’m knowledgeable enough to identify it)

Has Laos and Cambodia in it

Has the Ho Chi Minh Trail in it

So. I was mad about the 'you have literally four hours to find a map with a lot of requirements.'

I was then mad at myself about finding a copyright free map from Texas Tech University within half an hour, proving her right for asking me to do it.

Then, after I found a map that perfectly met the requirements, I was equally amazed, baffled, and horrified when I read further into the forwarded email chain.

The donation team team member they were speaking to used AI to generate a map.

The above put half of North Vietnam in South Vietnam, made the Ho Chi Minh Trail a country, made 60% of Cambodia part of South Vietnam, put the DMZ extremely high up in North Vietnam, completely disconnected the southern tip of Vietnam, misplaced all of the Corps zones, etc etc

At the very last second the donation team member had a moment of divine clarity, remembering there's three historians on payroll to ask for this kind of thing from. So she contacted my boss while saying, "I had fun with this, but I decided I should check for accuracy before I send it to the donor! I need a fact check by the end of the day, then I send it"

My boss, while not the most knowledgeable on the Vietnam War, does know her geography. She took one look, and knew it was so off she called me to tell me how urgent it is that I look at the email and respond

good fucking god, jesus tap dancing goddamn christ, I'm glad I was asked to look at it and then find a real map

[the-murmuration-project]

My fear has never been that AI would replace human intelligence. My fear has been that the people who Know Things and the people who Make The Decisions are almost never the same people.

We’re throwing real intelligence out on the street to starve while worshipping the shambling Frankenstein-ed corpse of knowledge puppeteered by those who see us as disposable assets.

[theyellowbrickroad]

i had the best human interaction of all time last night. i was sitting at a bar eating an appetizer and this guy comes up to order a drink and stares at my food and comments how good it looks. when i am drunk i use the word bitch like it is a comma, i plug it into any space in a sentence possible. so naturally the first thing i say to this stranger is, “go ahead and take one, bitch.”

he looks SO shocked and taken aback and goes “what did you just say? how do you know my name?” so i sit there for a moment trying to figure out what the fuck he is talking about, and then go, “…. bitch?” and he looks so relieved and tells me his name is mitch.

i cannot stop thinking about this. oh my god. imagine going into a bar and someone you know for a fact youve never met approaches you and says “go ahead and take one, mitch.” im cracking the fuck up. he looked like he thought this was the fucking truman show

[wildwildwildflowers]

photo dump of my trip to door county last week, that place is just full of amazing landscaping and I love it. if I ever get rich (won’t happen) I would love a little cabin there

[rad-roche]

you can't beat him up. you can't. he's the birthday boy. he's only sixty years old for the love of christ

[draconym]

I've been in an evil mood for hours and I just discovered there was a piece of glitter stuck in my contact lens so I'm going to assume it was that the whole time and now the curse has been lifted.

[draconym]

yeah it was the eye glitter. I'm fine now.

[parkchanwoohoo]

[ruinedchildhood]

[barghestblack]

Gar!

[thegeekstressart]

I’ve been slowly working on illustrating my own Tarot deck about black cats.

I have a long way to go, but I’m nearly done with the major arcana.

Here are some of my favorites:

I set myself a design challenge (as I often do). I wanted to limit the color palette and the brush styles to create a very consistent look.

And since each card focuses on black cats, it forces me to think deeply about symbolism and design to make sure the meaning of each card is clear and each design is unique.

But there’s still a lot of variety coming through. It’s not all class, or all silliness - just like cats

I have a forearm tattoo of the cats in this one ☝️

I’m so happy with how both of these two managed to feel dark, but adorable at the same time.

And then there’s this one absolute diva:

Most of these used my own feline friends for reference.

There are more but I don’t know yet how many I want to share online. If I can actually complete the entire deck I would love to have it made. But I have a ways to go, so for now I continue to chip away, one card at a time.

[thegeekstressart]

Hey guys… I finished it. All 78 cards.

Much more to come soon!

[kactusnz]

@teaboot black cats with yellow, for you and son boy <3

[optimysticals]

Absolutely stunning

[thenearsightedmicroraptor]

Yet another redraw for the @poketcg-art event! I'm so happy I could manage to snatch up a card for Hoenn during the first checkpoint, Hoenn was my first pokémon game and Cacnea one of the very first figurines I owned <3 I've been enjoying painting digitally and using limited palettes, and making this was a real party.

Original card by Tika Matsuno, Poketcg-art's scan of the card is below!

Also a gif of my progress below the cut, so you can watch my scary flats turn into an adorable cutiepie in just a few layers:

[kamin4ikk]

[quartzprinz]

White-browed Tit-warbler, seen in NW China's Gansu province. by 鸟影语丝