a nice, neutral title

I'm Michelle.  Queer, she/her. https://www.etsy.com/shop/YarnFauna

[moringmark]

[clonerightsagenda]

What would a hairball from a skeletal cat look like

Hm! So obviously a skeletal cat does not have fur, a tongue, or a stomach, so it could not develop a hairball in the usual sense. (I'm now imagining other cats attempting to groom it for social reasons and getting their tongues stuck to the bone, though, a la licking fossils.)

But let's play in this space a little. Assuming the skeleton cat is not connected by tendons, which I rarely see in skeleton cat art, it is probably being held together by some sort of magical field. Let's say that field can get confused and accidentally start treating other nearby objects as part of the skeletal cat. Your cat jumped in a leaf pile? It's got leaves now. Your cat stole some food off your plate and it can't eat it but the food is now floating around as part of its body. Eventually the magic determines that these new items are not, in fact, cat-substance, and expels it. Notable examples include when someone's skeleton cat got into their marble collection and several hours later shot them in all directions like a ball bearing gun.

[times-like-these-deactivated202]

[the-hydroxian-artblog]

[limbolanegames]

WHOA! Dr. Habit is finally small enough to fit through mail tubes- he worked really hard on being this small. The Dr. Habit plush is now LIVE on Makeship!

[haventacluewhatimdoing]

Love that this alien arm is clearly just green bubblewrap. 70s prosthetics I love you

[circular-time]

Classic SF once again betrayed by a clear, static-free signal and a flat digital screen

This is how I remember classic Who and Star Trek, folks, with signal ghosts and scanning lines (but usually with more static/snow)

[sepdet]

Sharing this on my main because it appears from the notes that it's useful for some modern viewers.

You KNOW classic SF used the limited displays of CRT television and the static of transmitted signals the way theaters use stage makeup and lighting to make inexpensive props look great fine— take advantage of the medium! But it's hard to imagine how it looked if you've only seen Blu-ray HD restorations.

I swear to you, despite classic Who using bubble wrap for years as one of its go-to materials that reflected light in interesting ways, we never realized that's what it was.

[scribefindegil]

I was in a long-term relationship that fell apart partially because I was ace and my partner was very much not, and every time we looked for relationship help we got told that I was the problem. Not just that a significant mismatch in sexual desire could be a problem in a relationship, but that it was My Fault, Specifically, for not being willing to suck it up and have a bunch of sex I didn't want. To my ex's credit, he cared about consent much more than any of the professionals we talked to and refused to pressure me even when my (lesbian, billed as progressive and pro-LGBT) therapist was actively telling him to.

But it meant that we had absolutely no help or support when we were trying to work on the relationship in ways that *did* value my autonomy. There's basically no advice for people who want to try to make a relationship where there's a big desire gap work that isn't "well you should just have sex anyway" or "just break up lol". And that sucks!

Sometimes breaking up is necessary, and that's what ended up happening with us because there were other reasons we worked better as friends, but there *should* be better frameworks for discussing what people want and need that don't automatically assume that one partner's feelings are automatically more important or valuable than the other's.

[geese-in-flight]

I was dating someone who wanted to be accommodating and work with me to figure things out but lacked the EQ to do so in any effective way. It was my first relationship and I was still figuring out what being ace meant for me. It’s been eight or nine years, but I still remember very clearly the moment I realized we’d been approaching the entire discussion as if my orientation was the problem to be solved, and that it would be equally as valid to say that hers was.

She was significantly less impressed with this revelation than I was, but I tried to hold on to it ever since (although obviously the real problem wasn’t either one of us, but the mismatch and the lack of tools to deal with it). I think it’s super important to remember that we aren’t the ones in the wrong while our theoretical partners are the ones in the right. I was surprised by how much I’d internalized the assumption and I don’t think I’m the only one.

[ineffectualdemon]

The other frustrating aspect of this is allo relationships will often have periods of time where libido does not match (I'm not derailing and this will swing back to asexual people)

Just after giving birth, during a family crisis, during a mental health episode, during health problems, during stressful periods at work

There are a lot of times when one person is horned up and raring to go and the other has no interest

And the solution often presented is that the person who is going through something should just put out because they are the problem instead of like...finding ways to engage in non sexual intimacy to reaffirm closeness

An asexual person is going to get 10x the amount of pressure and blame put on them and no advice on how non-sexual intimacy can help their relationships and if they get that at all it will only be to sell it as a bridge to sex they don't want.

I really hate the selling of intimacy as only equaling or facilitating sex. Intimacy comes in many forms and should be explored more by every couple as a non sexual act. And it the given importance it deserves. In fact I would argue if we as a society put more value on non sexual intimacy more relationships would be happier and healthier

And asexual people would stop getting shit for being themselves.

[scribefindegil]

Yeah, exactly! There are many different forms of intimacy, physical and emotional, and we need to stop viewing non-sexual forms of intimacy as inherently lesser.

And also you're right that while this post is specifically about the asexual experience, these problems affect everyone; desire gaps, whether temporary/circumstantial or ongoing, affect many if not most long-term relationships. And the solution needs to reaffirm bodily autonomy and compassion for everyone, not just carve out a specific exception for ace people. Too frequently I see people and institutions that, even when they're attempting to be affirming, essentially say "Well this is what a committed relationship Needs To Look Like . . . unless you already id as ace I guess" instead of allowing their general idea of what relationships can look like to expand and become less prescriptive.

No one should be pressured into sex they don't want. This should be a basic and non-negotiable tenet of feminism. But it goes out the window as soon as it's in the context of a committed relationship that isn't otherwise abusive.

[demilypyro]

we gotta post more about pomni's teeth

[whencartoonsruletheworld]

was getting images from the tadc wiki and got jumpscared by the fact there's still four humans we know nothing about who entered the circus and abstracted prior to pomni's arrival

like in my mind i was just thinking "yeah, there's ribbit and kaufmo" but like. there were FOUR other people who the other characters knew who broke like that.

we know ragatha was the first person to enter the circus after the developers, so that means that at the very least SHE has watched SIX DIFFERENT PEOPLE enter the circus and basically kill themselves. no WONDER she's so stressed about getting pomni and jax to chill. over the last nine years she has had SIX of her friends spiral into depression and die.

did the others know these guys? how many of them? did zooble only see ribbit abstract or did they see previous people wither away? did jax watch other characters abstract before ribbit? did he start blocking off his emotions and relationships in hopes that the abstractions wouldn't hurt before the ribbit incident even happened? who was the first to abstract? did they even know what was happening- was kinger ever in a state to warn them? there's no way caine would bring it up, that's basically admitting there's a flaw in his system. who abstracted first and did anyone know what was happening?

who WERE these people and what happened to them?

[annabelle--cane]

I’m going to make the bold assumption that you have some Heathers knowledge so - what’s up with the 3 new songs I just heard in it today?? For context it’s the UK Touring Production. It had a different song in the place of Blue, an extra song for heather Duke, and an extra one for Veronica. Their might’ve been a 4th but my memory is failing me. Are these exclusive to this version or?

heathers isn't one of my greatest spheres of knowledge, but I do basically know what's up with those three

"you're welcome" was was originally written to take the place of "blue" in the version of heathers licensed for schools to perform in order to take out some of the most explicit content, and later the writers decided to replace the song in normal version of the show as well because they thought "blue" was a bit too straight comedy for an attempted rape scene and "you're welcome" has a marginally darker tone and gives more of veronica's pov.

"I will never shut up again" and "I say no" were both new songs added at the london production in 2018, the first professional heathers production since the off-broadway version closed four years previously. often the idea with off-broadway shows is that they're not quite done yet and can have some last big changes made in a transfer to on broadway, but since heathers didn't get that they made those big changes for the west end. the intention behind "I will never shut up again" was meant to expand on duke's motivations as she was the only lead character without much solo material, and I believe "I say no" was meant to beef up some of veronica's agency but it was mainly just a new power ballad to release as a single with their highest profile cast member (carrie hope fletcher was playing veronica at the time).

it's of course very hotly contested whether these songs do what they were meant to or function in the narrative or are, yknow, good, but that's the facts of What's Up With Those New Songs as I know them

[annabelle--cane]

estrogen would not have saved jd but at the very least it could not have made the situation worse

[annabelle--cane]

equating toxic relationships with drug use is a common enough analogy ("you're bad for me but I keep coming back"), and while I find it a little trite that "I say no" hangs its whole extended metaphor on veronica Just Saying No to jd because a) that's not how addiction works and b) that's DEFINITELY not how abuse works, it almost loops back around to become coherent when he Breaks Into Her House To Kidnap Or Kill Her. by being a kind of nothing song with no lasting ramifications on the plot beyond the twenty seconds of dialogue it replaced, it accidentally makes a statement about the harms of oversimplified PSA slogans. task failed successfully.

[taiey]

#the melody is pretty good so I'm not mad at the song's existence or anything#it's just so funny to me that they gave veronica this big empowerment ballad about rejecting her abusive boyfriend#that does not work to put an end to the abuse even a little bit#heathers

[onceuponymous]

Velvet from @zal-cryptid's webcomic Misfits in Toyland! Plush is much more in my wheelhouse than my attempted dollmod of Carol. I don't have Velvet's pretty star pattern, but the purple and white leaves worked well enough. (Their limbs are sewn on more securely underneath the big black stitches)

[onceuponymous]

If anyone wants to buy Velvet for $20 or more, I will take that money and donate it directly to author Zephyra's Ko-fi. I'll cover shipping within the United States, but if anyone outside the US wants to buy I will ask you to pay for the shipping costs.

[the-east-art]

Moot on Twit suggested I do this scene heehee. At least in HailMaryStuck Karkats swears are musical?

[onceuponymous]

pray for PHMstuck Karkat

bonus: an excerpt from my mind wandering during work:

"So who's Eva Stratt? I guess the first person to consider is Rose... absolutely not Rose. She canonically knocked Dave unconscious against his will to send HERSELF on a suicide mission to fix the sun." (Have now reread your posts and remembered that it's not a 1:1 match and KARKAT was the one sent involuntarily. I just felt that the defense of Rose here was worth sharing)

[mimorobo]

Alphys the Royal Scientist!!

This had no right taking so long (cough cough I started making her a YEAR ago) but she's finally here and i think she turned out pretty awesome!

The tail is so fun to animate, head was the trickiest part to make and she doesn't really have glasses (idk how I'd do that) but its ok

My favourite yellow lizard scientist...

[thesockdrawersblog]

The Abstracted Side of Things PART TWO!

This was a long one! I got stuck on the dialogue for a while, cuz I felt like it kept coming out wrong!

[lethalhedgehogs-deactivated2023]

Hey hi hello @kerrtesy I liked your idea so much I had to draw something for it as soon as I could. Really interested to see if you expand on it, and if not, thanks for sharing your cool thoughts with us! :)

Also, is Luigi fluent in shy guy noises? The little "bwooow" that they do? I need to know this

(link to the og shy-guy luigi post)

[lunareel]

!!!!!! This is so freaking awesome, I have been staring at this for hours. I did end up drawing more for this AU, but they're currently in progress.

Also yes he is fluent much to everyone's dismay: