#slip irl

[slipstreamborne]

I think there should be a resurgence in porcelain knicknacks and figurines.

The popularity of vinyl blind box sets and 3D printed super hero busts across demographic groups that would otherwise mock Precious Moments and china cabinets full of blown glass hummingbirds and cut crystal puppies shows that people just love having little guys with no purpose but to stand around and be looked at, there's just a range of rather strong opinions about style and subject matter.

The next generation is almost certainly going to find what you love bafflingly odd at best, a hideous dust catcher at worst, so why settle for yet more cheap plastic junk to clog landfills and shed microplastics when you can have "heirloom pieces" that smash dramatically when called upon, erode beautifully when subjected to the sea, and are a continuation of our 30,000+ year tradition of little clay people that bring us delight?

[slipstreamborne]

The great tragedy of trying to track down a 25+ year old fanfic that was dear to you except all the search engine tricks you used to bend the Internet to your whim in the chaotic cowboy days of GeoCities webrings don't fucking work anymore because even though the html bones of some of the great pre-ff.net libraries still linger in the mists, AI and search engine optimization have made it impossible to pluck anything useful or specific from the firehose of muck Google has become.

[slipstreamborne]

Anthropologist-approved 100% accurate depiction of what it's like to lay out hand bones fucking CARPALS in anatomical order.

[slipstreamborne]

Nothing tickles me more than reading a serious fic and seeing where a writer meant "wanton" but instead typed "wonton."

[slipstreamborne]

I fucking love minced oaths. "Sugar" in place of "shit" might be my favorite, but I was just in a church-run thrift shop and the cashier dropped something and exclaimed "Sugar and spice!" with the same fervor one would drop a "God dammit!" and it was absolutely delightful.

[slipstreamborne]

Listen, if your holiday season kind of sucked like mine did, I've decided that today is Christmas and also New Year's. Got some movies going and champagne chilling and an appropriate seasonal hot beverage and one of those giant tins of popcorn that's half caramel a quarter plain and a quarter cheese. Doing this shit over in my comfy sweats and slippers with no one to make exhausting demands of me except my cat, whose demands I am fulfilled by. Fuck it.

[slipstreamborne]

Anytime I see a UFO conspiracy theorist get excited about the government being in possession of "non-human remains", as an anthropologist I want to gently sit them down and explain that "non-human remains" is common medicolegal parlance for "animal bones/tissue." "Unidentified non-human remains" just means "it's got characteristics that make it clearly non-human but we haven't sent it to an expert to be formally identified as a pig or deer or part of a coyote just yet."

Animal remains get mistaken for human and turned over to authorities all the time by people not trained in osteology. Sometimes the bones look close-ish enough to human that the mistake is understandable (bear fore-paws without the claws are famously similar to human hands... which makes a very alarming morning for hikers who find the scattered remnants of a bear that's been field-dressed and skinned). Sometimes the bones are clearly non-human to anyone not hyped up on too much true crime, but they get taken by authorities anyway just to prevent them from being called in again.

Either way, what authorities care about most is clarifying that the remains aren't human (and thus not in need of a death investigation), so once that's established, the label "non-human remains" is applied for inventory purposes. Depending on the agency/circumstances, there may not be any further attempt to identify exactly what kind of animal they're from.

And that's how you can get government records about "non-human remains" being found in the desert near a secretive military base. Aliens didn't crash land, someone out on a hike or a soldier doing a foot patrol or even authorities investigating the crash of a military plane stumbled over some scattered animal bones and either thought they might be human or were under orders to recover anything that could possibly be bone or soft tissue because you always prefer being over-cautious and letting an expert later determine that a bit of bone isn't human over risking leaving any potentially human remains behind.

[slipstreamborne]

I love the field spinal surgery scene in Murderbot for so many reasons (the tension, the unique intimacy of trusting someone to cut on you, the amazingly gross sound design for the spine crack, "you don't have to eat me, just cut me"), but I also find it very funny because SecUnit's dialog is almost exactly the same as the lab instruction for the back in gross anatomy (traditionally the first lab you do, when basically no one has ever handled a scalpel before):

No, you haven't cut deep enough. No, still not deep enough (back skin, am I right?) It's okay, they can't feel any pain and they specifically consented for this to happen. This entire scenarioro is extremely serious but admittedly a little fucked up so have a small joke to break the tension. Think of your future patients and/or pretend to be on your favorite medical drama if needed.

Okay, you are done with skin and muscle. Look at all those spinous processes! Very nice exposure. Laminectomy time so we can see spinal cord! Here's some upsettingly non-medical looking tools* to get through the bone. No, you have to push harder. Crack it. CRACK IT.

Good, good now PLEASE IF YOU DO NOTHING ELSE DO NOT CUT A NERVE UNLESS TOLD TO OR THERE WILL BE oh look at you good job well done you are a natural I'm very proud :)

*To quote my copy of Grant's Dissector, 18th edition, p. 24, step 5, "Use a chisel, power saw, or bone nibblers to cut the laminae of vertebrae T6 on both sides of the spinous process."