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Aurora Australis

@elennare / elennare.tumblr.com

Astronomer, avid fantasy and scifi fan, reader, writer.
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Radical!, Extreme!, What's next? Free hot lunches served at school?, an education system fully funded and that budget untouchable? teachers assistants in every classroom for the kids struggling? a mental health monitor at every school, A rejuvenated curriculum less stringent and open air free discussion of todays social issues including teaching kids their civil rights!. The list goes on and on!

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Heartbreaking: This person is making great points but they're being a huge fucking asshole about it so you can't reblog any of it

Heartbreaking: This person is making great points but they're saying you're a bad person if you don't reblog so you can't reblog any of it

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look, fandom as a whole certainly has its own built-in biases and problems that need to be addressed 

but like

every so often i think about all of the deep, nurturing lifelong friendships that only ever happened because one day two internet strangers were like ‘oh hey, we agree on which fictional characters should kiss!’

people who are right now helping each other survive via connections they initially forged by liking the same sailor moon girl or something

the internet is a goddamn garbage pit but it is also a goddamn miracle

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i really like looking at google image searches for “firemen rescuing cats” or something because you get super cute pictures like

AND THEN THERE’S THIS ONE

“THAT’S RIGHT TWAS I that set the house ablaze!!!”

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3fluffies

Dying.

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ciatri

Every fucking time I know what’s at the bottom and every time I still lose my shit.

I’m so happy this post is back again asdlkfjsa

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gayelectro

HAPPY TEN YEARS TO “TWAS I THAT SET THE HOUSE ABLAZE”

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bobcatmoran

Happy 11th to “TWAS I THAT SET THE HOUSE ABLAZE”!

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Story concept: A gang of women who have gathered together and hang out due to having a similar background - none of them were originally people. They're all different variations of Mythical Fairytale Lady That A Man Almost Married, and they were all kind of stranded here in a human form after the man who wanted them discovered that actually she isn't any easier or any more pliable than natural human women.

The selkie and the swan maiden who both had their coats stolen, but neither of them is delicate or graceful. The swan maiden is exactly as swans are - she's dignified for as long as she's allowed to do as she pleases, but her response to being inconvenienced is First Of All How Dare You, Infinite Wing Smack Attack. The selkie was never going to be a good housewife either, she's lazy and goofy and refuses to take anything seriously. She likes following swan maiden around and watching her terrorise people. They bond over a mutual interest in flooding the bathroom and honking at people.

The celtic fae who wasn't tricked by a human man into marrying him, as a matter of fact her ex-husband insists that she tricked him. She's the only one who actually married the man who seduced her, which she did 100% just for the shits and giggles, and because Fae Divorce Court is an absolutely hilarious shitshow. And much like the selkie is paired with the swan maiden, the fae is close friends with the kitsune, who also voluntarily took a human form out of a trickster's desire to fuck with people, and enjoys hanging out with the fae just to see what kind of utter chaotic bullshit she comes up with.

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reblogged

ursula k le guin was right

all of it, more or less

Oh go on, swing the bat at the hornet’s nest, post her takes on Watership Down

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lenvolee

That’s the bunny!

I’m not going to trouble the OP of this post with more notes by fighting with people in the comments but. If people want to fight about knowing less about Watership down than I do they are welcome

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draconym

Let us suppose that the "average" horse would have equal proportions of all these parts. The degree to which each part in this poll deviates from the "average" size (20% of total) will determine how large or small that part of our horse will be (i.e a horse with only 10% in Legs will have legs half the size of the average horse).

I will draw a picture of the horse we make!

Thank you for your patience, tumblr. I have been at work all day but now I am home and ready to build this horse you asked for.

First, let's pull up the poll results alongside an average looking horse. I have calculated the size of each part of our horse in relation to Average Size.

Next we will adjust our horse's components according to the specifications.

animated gif of the horse sketch being manipulated and resized
ALT

Finally, let us properly assemble these parts and see how it looks.

And there you have it. Great work team. No notes.

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otterloreart

wait this is such a perfect use of my pony model

-> ponyy model with armature

-> edit and add hair

and the beautiful reveal

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reblogged
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sordidamok

Wow.

You should really listen to the WHOLE thing because this woman does not mince words

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saydams

the 2 bits that most stuck out to me:

republican laws that make exception for the life of the mother have a caveat: abortion can be given to save the life of the mother unless the risk to the mother is that she's suicidal. (that is: republicans already know that being forced to remain pregnant can make people become suicidal, and they dont care)

and

the only reason to force pregnant people to act as walking coffins (when republicans force people to carry nonviable pregnancies to term) is to reinforce the idea that a woman's job is to be pregnant.

(paraphrased slightly for clarity)

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Humanity has finally reached the stars and found out why no one had contacted us. The universe is in a sad state. As such, Doctors without Borders, Red Cross, and many othe charities go intergalactic.

The thing the recruiters don’t tell you about space battles is that you die slowly.

Ships don’t blow up cleanly in flashes and sparks.  Oh, if you’re in the engine room, you’ll probably die instantly, but away from that?  In the computer core, or the communications hub?  You just lose power.  And have to sit, air going stale and room slowly cooling, while you wait to find out if the battle is won or lost.

If it’s lost, nobody comes for you.

It had been about half a day (that’s a Raithar day, probably a bit shorter than yours) and Kvala and I were pretty sure we had lost.  Kvala was injured, Traav and I were dehydrated and exhausted, and Louv was dead, hit by shrapnel when the conduits blew.

Most fleets give you something, of course.  For Raithari, it’s essence of windgrass.  I looked at the vial.

“It’s too soon,” Traav said.

Kvala gestured negation, shakily.  She had been burned when conduits blew, and her feathers were charred, and her leftmost eye was bubbly and blind now.  Even if we were rescued, she probably wouldn’t survive.  “You know we’re losing the war.”

They couldn’t deny that.  “It doesn’t mean we lost the battle.”

“Doesn’t it?  The Chreee have better technology.  Better resources.  And they have their warrior code.  They don’t care if they die.”

“We can’t give up!” Traav protested.  They were young, a young and reckless thar who had listened to a recruiting officer and still believed scraps of what they had been told.  “Any heartbeat now—”

There was a clunk.  Something had docked with our fragment of the ship.

“You see?!” Traav crowed triumphantly.

Kvala exchanged glances with me.  The Chreee never bothered to hunt down survivors.  What was the point, after all?

The Aushkune did.

There weren’t supposed to be Aushkune here.  They were supposed to hide in nebulas.

But if there were—

If there were, we were too late.  The windgrass couldn’t possibly destroy our nervous systems in time to stop the corpse-reviving implants, and once you were implanted, it was over—or it would never be over, depending on how you looked at it and whether Aushkune drones were aware of anything—

Footsteps.

Bipedal.  The Aushkune were supposed to be bipedal.

And then the blast door opened, and a figure stood in it.  My first thought was, robot?  That’s almost worse than Aushkune . . .  But no, it was a being in some sort of suit.

Who wore suits?

“Friendly contact,” the suit’s sound system blared, as the being moved over to Kvala.  “Urgent treatment.  Evacuation.”

“Who are you?”  Kvala struggled upright.

Despite the primitive suit, the blocky being was using up-to-date medical scanners.  “Low frequency right angle shape,” it explained—or maybe didn’t explain.  Two more figures came into the room and put Kvala firmly onto a stretcher.

“You’re with the Chreee, aren’t you?”  Kvala was not at all happy to be on a stretcher.

“Not Chreee,” the sound system said.  “You Man.  Soil Starship Nichols.”  The being hesitated.  “Rescue Chreee as well.  On ship.  Will separate.”

“You what?” I said faintly.  Who would do that?

“Oath,” the being explained.

“What kind of oath?  To what deity?”

The shoulders of the being moved up and down.  “Several different.  Also none.  For me, none.  Just—oath.”

I exchanged glances with Traav, who looked as unsettled as I was.  I had never, ever heard of groups cooperating when they couldn’t even swear to or by the same power.

The being scanned me.  “Have water,” it said.  “Recommend.”

Raithari have fast metabolisms.  I could—would—die of thirst quickly, and painfully.

“Where will you take us,” Traav asked, “after you give us water?”

“Raithari to Raithar.  Chreee to Chreeeholm.”

“Chreeeholm would kill them for failing,” Traav remarked.

The being hesitated, and then said, “War news sometimes bad.  Sometimes lie.”

We had learned long ago not to believe the recruiting officers, but what did that have to do with anything?

“And you—what?” I asked.  “Just fly around looking for battles and rescuing victims?”

The being seemed to consider this.  “Best invention of soil,” it said finally.

Most of what it was saying didn’t make any sense.  Did it worship soil?  But it had said that it had sworn to no deity . . .

Madness.

On the other hand—war was a deliberate, rational act by deliberate, rational people, and I wanted no more of it.  So why not embrace madness and see what happened?

“Soil Starship—Rrikkol?” I asked, stumbling over the word.

“Yes.  Soil Starship Nichols.”

I followed the being in the suit.

Took me well over a minute to realize "low frequency right angle shape" was Red Cross.

I love how this shows the weirdness both of language and of culture. Excellent writing!

"Soil Starship Nichols"

This is what took me a moment.

Earth Starship [Nichelle] Nichols

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vidavalor

Really love Ineffable Divorce from the perspective of the other shopkeepers... to them, one day, some gorgeous guy showed up naked on Mr. Fell's doorstep and a couple of days later, Mr. Fell had disappeared and so had the naked guy... so the whole neighborhood thinks Aziraphale ran off with Gabriel and that's why the bookshop is now being operated by this odd little person hired by its sad and distracted owner-- Mr. Fell's abandoned ginger goth husband with the gorgeous old car. Nothing has been this juicy on the street in decades...

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