#a missing chromosome walks....

[198d]

The Mars Volta - A Plague Upon Your Hissing Children, released with the La Realidad de los Sueños boxset.

[joannechocolat]

Two Boxers Walk Into the Ring...

No-one can have missed the absolute scenes on social media, both before and after the boxing match between Imane Khelife and Angela Carini, from which Carini withdrew after just 46 seconds, having received a blow to the face.

Social media had already been abuzz with unfounded claims that Khelife was a man, largely based on her athletic (and to Westerners, “masculine”) body type. (The same rumours had also been spread about Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-Ting; also a woman, assigned female at birth, who got into boxing to protect her mother from domestic violence.) From this explosion of misinformation came increasingly wild claims from all the usual suspects: that she was trans (in spite of coming from a Muslim country where transitioning isn’t allowed); that she had “self-identified” as a woman in order to win (again, not possible in Algeria) plus some quite ghoulish speculation about her sex organs, her medical history and the type of puberty she might have undergone.

But here’s the thing.

Khelife is not trans. There is one trans boxer at the Olympics, a trans man called Hergie Bacyadan, who for some reason has gone almost unnoticed in this desperate attempt to prove a conspiracy that just isn’t happening. Imane Khelife was assigned female at birth, has a passport confirming it, and has spent her life as a woman, fighting against her country’s patriarchal ideas of what women are supposed to do. Not only this, but she is an ambassador for women and girls, who originally took up boxing to protect herself from those who disapproved of her interest in sports.

She was disqualified from the 2023 women’s world championships because (according to a Russian source that becomes less and less trustworthy the more you look into it) tests apparently showed some kind of unspecified anomaly, which may have been either elevated testosterone (quite possible in a woman) or the presence of XY chromosomes, once more altogether possible for a cis woman.

Nor does her condition (if she even has one) mean she is automatically likely to win against her opponents. In 2020, she made it to the quarter-finals of the Olympics, where she was defeated by Kellie Harrington, and she has been boxing on the international circuit for years without any of her wins or defeats gaining much attention.

Until now.

But her fight against Angela Carini on Thursday made her a magnet for some truly disgusting hate, largely, it seems, from the kind of men who enjoy threatening women, whatever the reason or excuse. In fact, there were distinct parallels with this and the recent anti-Muslim riots in Southport after the murderer of three little girls was falsely rumoured by agents of the far-right to be a Muslim immigrant.

Let’s be clear. Even if the attacker had been a Muslim immigrant, this violence would have been completely unacceptable. But the mob just wanted the opportunity to scapegoat and attack a community, in exactly the same way that the people attacking, threatening and objectifying Imane Khelife wanted the chance to attack a woman for not conforming to their idea of what a woman should be like.

In this context, it’s hard to see the rage and violence levelled against her for this victory as anything other than misogynistic - and racist.

It’s also hard to understand why in a sport like boxing – where the whole point is to hit your opponent – a person should be criticized for following the rules of the sport. It’s almost as if excellence is allowed in men’s sports, but in women’s sports, it’s automatically viewed as suspicious. And Imane Khelife isn’t the only athlete of colour accused of “being a man” because she defeated a white woman. Serena Williams has spent her career fending off accusations that she “was born a man” both because of her muscular physique and her excellence in her field. Caster Semenya, who has naturally elevated levels of testosterone, has been likewise demonized. It’s almost as if the people driving this toxic narrative believe that only men can excel in sport.   

And as for the argument that claims that elevated natural testosterone levels in a woman is “an unfair advantage,” don’t all elite athletes have some kind of physical advantage? Do we dismiss basketball players for being unusually tall, or weight-lifters for being unusually muscular, or runners for being lean and light? Why do we celebrate Michael Phelps for his genetic advantage, but penalize Caster Semenya for hers? Women have fought so very hard for the chance to participate in sports that were once seen as the sole province of men. Now, when they dare to excel in them, they are accused of secretly being men, or of not being “proper women.”

This isn’t any kind of feminism I recognize. The feminism I believe in is about breaking down barriers, not setting them. I personally dislike boxing (both for men and for women), but I respect any individual’s choice to compete. And attacking a woman boxer for winning a boxing match is as misogynistic as claiming to “defend” her opponent by painting her as a victim. Both athletes chose to compete. Both accepted the risks. Both have had their Olympic moment ruined by people who don’t care about sports, or the facts, or even women. This isn’t feminism. This is the worst and most patronizing kind of prejudice, and it actively hurts women – all women, but especially women of colour and those who do not conform to traditional ideas of what a woman should look like, what sports she should enjoy, or how she should behave.

Women fought for years for the right to make their own choices, to have their own identities outside of the stereotypes set by the patriarchy. Questioning those choices - those identities - isn’t progress.

 Supporting women doesn’t mean protecting them from themselves.

It means not setting limits on who a woman wants to be.

[momma-pixel]

I Must Speak But Don't Have The Words

[TW: Suicide] When: 1988 Where: Playground, Kindergarten Situation: Little Me strongly and firmly believes that if I antagonize the girls and make them chase me then when I get caught they'll turn me into a girl like them as punishment. Apparently boys will be boys.

When: 1989-1994 Where: My bed, every night / Home Situation #1: I prayed to god every night to let me wake up as a girl. Situation #2: Caught wearing my sister's panties a few times, said it was because I couldn't find my own underwear. Situation #3: Constantly asked to help with yard work, would prefer to help in the house. Told that's women's work, what are you a girl, stop being lazy.

When: 1993-1995 Where: Home / Hospital Situation: General moodiness and angst, aches and pains. Breasts and hips are forming. Why parents? You're fat (I wasn't). Get confused for a girl out in public, parents force me to cut my hair and go on a strict diet. Doctor says I only have one testicle but also wants to run chromosome and hormone tests. Parents balk at cost. Surgery to find a missing testicle. I prayed to god, for the last time, to have the doctors turn me into a girl. They find a testicle slightly smaller than a marble, it's atrophied.

When: 1996 - 2000 Where: High School / Home Situation #1: Fell in with the punk and goth crowd. Had friends. Learned about the world at large thanks to them (and this new thing called the internet!). Discovered I was Bisexual. Learned the term 'transsexual'. Boom, head blown. Female bestie opens her arms, heart, and closet doors to me. Wearing black lipstick, black nail polish, eyeliner. Parents hate me. Wanted my ears pierced, dad said it was for girls and fags. In an argument about something dumb my mom calls me a cocksucker - I quipped that at least I was getting dick, flipped my hair, and walked away...we didn't speak to each other for a month. Situation #2: Attempted suicide twice. Both attempts failed right before they would have succeeded thanks to some spectacular reverse-final destination shit. Parents blamed my friends, my books, and anything else they could. Boyfriend jokes it's because god is scared of me after ignoring my prayers for so long and needs time to come up with an alibi.

When: 2001 - 2005 Where: Therapist's Office Situation #1: Asperger Syndrome (to be changed much later to Autism), Depression, Transsexualism. Do this thing called a Real Life test. Standards too rigid, too high, failed test. Situation #2: Final suicide attempt. Lots of counseling, meds, and restrictions.

When: 2010 - Present Where: New State of Being/Mind/Residence Situation: Grabbed life by the gooch and made it my bitch. Found new therapist, learned about myself more, began fixing myself, started a proper transition.

I never knew the words needed to express my mental anguish and emotional turmoil. They were concepts in my mind colored with prismatic abstract thoughts. My world was a tiny box with the only things allowed in governed by my parents. I wanted so badly to say to someone, anyone, that I was in pain and needed help but didn't know how. Even today I still have trouble putting words to thoughts - as an example, this post alone has already taken an hour to write.

For any of you out there struggling to talk about your changes, your transitions, your mental state of you, take this advice - there are words out there for you! Take your time to craft them as purposely and gently as possible. Some people will kick up at them and try to break them, but they are your words and you made them. They can't be broken, they can't be sullied or tainted. Those words were crafted by hand with love (for yourself) and perseverance (for a better tomorrow) by the best craftsmen in the world: You.

[the-maddened-hatter]

Had some more ideas for Hazbin/Helluva Ocs!

Spitfyre having two older twin brothers, Aykay & Ryfell (maybe now going by Raphael? at the very least pronouncing it less like Rifle). Aykay did assassin work for years until a very recent more severe injury left him aware of just how much he'd been risking for the squabbles of richer higher-ups, and Ryfell/Raphael never cared for it, leading to a rift with some of his family that's just now closing after the death of their overbearing father. He works in either Greed or Envy as a fashion designer for a luxury-ish department store chain. They're both intersex and it affects their hair and horns predominantly.

BeeBee (also sometimes called BabyBeeBee or Bee-bee-bee-bee by her older brothers) is Spitfyre's "baby" sister who revels in assassin work and the bloodlust of it all. She and Spitfyre use the same sort of manic attacks in combat, but it's less of a potential liability for her than him because she's a much smaller target, relying largely on her speed.

Spitfyre & siblings' paternal grandmother, Cast-Iron. She's old and tough, seemingly unkillable having worked as an assassin and outliving her son. For all her ruthless power she was kinder than him, being one of the few things that stood between him hurting Ryfell/Raphael and Spitfyre too badly for their ineptitude at the family trade. She sent them off as apprentices in more suitable trades, but it can't be said it wasn't out of love for them. It's never confirmed to be the case, but while she tells people her son died botching a job, she may have finally killed him for his cruelty to his children and what he may have been planning to do to his grandchildren. She is very stoic, saying and moving very little, but enjoys visits with her great grandchildren and watching different programs on television.

A Goetia hybrid of some kind (maybe half Hellhound?) to be Starlight's partner. She was raised hidden away in a palace by her Goetia mother. Her mother loved her dearly and kept her safe as long as she could, only letting her walk about at night and bringing her all the books and toys she could want but never companionship. Her mother was killed when her indiscretions were found out shortly after she had another hybrid child, a half sibling. Her mother was able to get them both out of the palace, the baby early on, her daughter only last minute on the night she was to be killed, taking her place. She was given some money but is not overly well versed in survival outside of keeping very quiet. She and Starlight bond over their love of art, with the Goetia hybrid sneaking into museums to stare longingly at art and finery, all she used to know, now forbidden to so much as touch.

And some potential kids for Spitfyre to adopt:

A Hellhound toddler pup that Bonemeal just brought back home with him one day, howling and hungry. Attempts to contact worried parents or Hellhound Shelters missing a pup met with no results, and neither could overly explain what had happened beyond "He's lost. He's hungry. Brought him to you." and "woooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuu!" D: Which did very little to clear up anything. He looks like a wolf and is named MoonPie. Veevee adores him and will often pick him up with her tail to keep him out of trouble while she's working at home

Taffy, a young Imp who he found rummaging in the dumpsters behind one of this shops with chromosomal abnormalities that caused her disabilities and abnormalities in her appearance. If she knew her name she wouldn't tell him so he named her after her favorite candy from the store, Hellbrine Taffy. He likes to think she maybe got lost and went to the safest looking brightly colored building (his shop) and her parents are still looking for her, but this being hell he isn't really quite so naive as to fully believe it. She's extremely large and strong but very very sweet

Konpeito, a hybrid between an Infestor Demon and *something* though the family isn't sure what. Ryfell/Raphael was actually the one to find them, feeling psychically called to investigate a storm drain where they were hunkered down in. He immediately called Spitfyre, being unskilled with children himself. They cannot walk well, being used to an aquatic environment, and sleep nearly constantly, but awake for short periods of time throughout the day. When they wake up off schedule it usually means something very important is about to happen. Their scale patterns resemble a Coelacanth fish. They could not say how they came to be in the sewers, just that the Imp who had been coming to bring them food was no longer coming because someone had badly hurt him. Bonemeal is incredibly protective of Moonpie and Konpeito, often sleeping on the floor in their room to keep watch over them and viciously attacking anyone who attempts to harm them.

@ankouartheadcannons

[cirqueduroyale]

Hello, so I was thinking about what kind of DSD Daisy could possibly have, so I did some googling. I found something about a condition called "turner syndrome", which is present in individuals with only one functioning X chromosome (karyotype X0). The other is either missing or altered.

They are assigned female, with female reproductive organs and female gametes(ova), though these egg cells usually die prematurely, resulting in infertility (they can possibly get pregnant with assistance, though). They struggle with delayed puberty (they might need HRT to even start puberty), so they very often have a very short stature. They might have skeletal deformations, kidney problems and (most commonly) heart problems. They can have cognitive delays, but also normal intelligence, too. They also tend to grow more moles the older they get, which can become cancerous.

It's no walk in the park...

What do you think?

Hmmm 🤔

Ngl, I did like 0 research on differences in sex development (DSD) and this is a very interesting piece of information. Thank you for sharing!

Edit: It has been brought to my attention that many intersex people do not like the term "DSD", preferring the term "intersex condition."

[pbandjesse]

I am feeling very nauseous right now and it's made me really frustrated. There is no reason for me to be feeling so bad!!! I think I just pushed myself a little to much today. not even physically really. I don't know. I should have come home earlier I guess.

I slept alright last night. I woke up a few times but I didn't feel to bad when my alarm went off. James was here to give me a hug and then I went to get dressed. James made me a hashbrown for breakfast and I ate that at the kitchen island.

We left for work a little late and of course got all the traffic that brings. I was lucky that even though there was an accident I didn't get stuck in a very bad traffic on 83. But I would get stuck in weird traffic in Hareford. Like right down the street from camp. Didn't make any sense and I still don't know why it happened. It was like 10 minutes! So weird.

I got to camp and got to work trying to put things away in the attic but I very quickly became overwhelmed because it's just a lot. I would end up finding my missing wash basin that was taken during color wars over the summer. Still had my label on it and everything! But at least I have it back now.

I walked that up to the art building. Spent a few minutes unpacking the fire starters I got that I am being lazy about. I also spent a little time shucking corn off the cob that I will eventually make into darts. I don't know why I'm being so lazy about it but it's a task I am slowly doing.

I went back down to the office. Answered some emails. And soon everyone else was coming in.

I got to tell everyone the positive news about the baby's gender and low risk of chromosomal issues. They were all very happy for me and also told me to stop watching TikToks about people's miscarriages and still births. Which is fair. They only upset me.

I had kind of a boring day. I did knit one square. Which brings me to 85. I have broken the halfway point. I am going to have to get a lot more yarn but I'm glad I am making progress. I would lay that out later when I got home. And it was just really nice to see the progress.

I had a few small projects to do for camp. Combing through social media to see where we have been tagged and collecting businesses and emails and other contact information. And then going through the vendor list Elizabeth has been using and figuring out what businesses no longer exist and taking ones off the list that I couldn't find contact info for. If you don't have available contact info I'm cutting you off the list, that bad business.

I had cereal for lunch. Didn't love it. Everyone else left to go to maiden choice for the horse program. But they ended up coming back because Stormy the horse got spooked and it was a whole ordeal. I'm sorry it didn't work out for them. Hopefully next week.

I would poke around online and did some other small tasks but I was really dying. I wasn't feeling amazing. But mostly I was just stupidly bored and I wanted to leave. I would end up sitting with everyone outside. Bonnie brought her dogs. Buddy, who I know, and Rascal, who I had met and was a little nervous Chihuahua mix. They are both very sweet old man dogs. And I was having fun petting them.

Soon though I had run out of steam. I made it to 7 hours. It was time to go.

I went to hunt valley to get French fries. And ate those in the car while I listened to a podcast. The caffeine from the soda and the salt from the fries gave me some energy and I felt a lot more settled.

I went to target next. I was getting greens for Crabcake to eat. And got me and James face wash. And I also got some silly little Halloween things. The mini version of the soft skeleton was an amazing find. I wanted the soft skeleton last year but I wasn't willing to pay for him. But $5 for the little? Worth it and I love her. I kept saying she was baby sized and James said it's morbid but I just said we all have skeletons inside of us, and I currently have two!

I went home and got a good parking spot. And was happy to see Sweetp and Crabcake when I got home. Ruby the Roomba was cleaning away. I would start putting things away. Soaked Crabcake in some warm water because I didn't feel like he was getting enough water time lately. I brought everyone outside. It was a little to bright for me so I laid on the couch inside.

Eventually I would go lay out my knitting to make a plan for what I will still need to buy and make. And then James was home! And I was very happy to see them.

We would hang out. Lay on the couch. James heated up some pizza for me that they made yesterday. We talked about our finances and what next year might look like. Possible new jobs and health insurance. What like might be like. All of that. I am glad we can talk frankly about money. I know it's not super easy for James's family to do so. And I can be pretty laissez-faire about money but it's because I'm just aware what I have and don't buy anything crazy. But we are trying to be more specific with spread sheets. And I think that's fair.

James would go for a walk. I wasn't feeling up to it. My stomach was starting to hurt. While James was gone I took a shower and washed my hair. It did t help 100% but it helped a little.

James would get home and I would deteriorate. Eventually James brought me my nausea medicine. I am hoping it starts working soon.

Now though I am getting ready to sleep. I brushed my teeth without gagging. Hopefully can take my vitamins and also not gag. I am looking forward to sleep.

Tomorrow we have the appointment with the high risk team. I think I get another ultrasound. I am expecting these two appointments to take the whole afternoon. I'm nervous because I have to go alone but James will meet me there. Everything will be okay.

But still wish me luck. I love you all. Goodnight!!

[hiro--aoki]

CHANDLER RIGGS IS A MAN AND I AM SICK AND TIRED OF PEOPLE SAYING HES A GIRL WHEN HES FUCKING NOT!!!! HE IS A GROWN ASS MAN AND HE SURE AS HELL WOULD NOT LIKE YOU, YOU STUOID RETARDED BITCH. HE IS A MAN! JUST BECAUSE HE HAS LONG FUCKING HAIR DOES NOT MAKE HIM A GIRL. I FUCKING HATE YOU AND PEOPLE LIKE YOU. I HOPW YOU KILL YOURSELF, I HOPE YOU GET RAPED AND BEAT, I FUCKING HATE YOU SO GOD DAMN MUCH YOU STUPID FUCKING RETARDED DYKE, I HOPE YOU GET RAPED YOU SICK FUCK. FUCK YOU I HATE YOU SO MUCH SO FUCKING MUCH YOU SICK FUCK

“Tell me why ur ears are in the nether yo eyebrows are on max brightness and yo neck be in incognito mode. Boy you be looking like the muffin man’s drug dealer level 6 diglet sticking out the top of yo head you look like you got baptized in the chum bucket yo mama use bakugons as a anal beads and you lost ur virginity to an armadillo on a trampoline in mid air, AYO stfu you cricket FROG NOISES Spinner fidget stupid midget genji main mega brain grandpa beat you with a cane. Half eaten onion ring Burger King mustard packet UPS EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH. Waluigi dirty squeegee. I bet you talk to other girls saying “Rub my dick and you’ll see a genie” Demon slayer, HOWDY NEIGHBOUR 353 POUND Fortnite player looking ass up boy. Open yo mouth and take my cupcake and swallow it. Everytime you burp fruit flies come out of yo mouth stinky ass boy. You discord mod, You wear ur cat ear headset for to fucking long to the point there’s a dent in ur big ass skull. Like to be honest bro, I’m fucking tired bruh, I’m tired of yo ass bruh, I’m tired of all theses goofy wannabe unoriginal view hungry cringe radiating YouTube shorts creating egotistically falsely empowered muscle shirt wearing Lamborghini driving food wasting prankster. You think you so gangster so you went to dollar tree and took a fake ass cold Chain from the Saint Patrick’s Day section and wore it around ur school thinking you got drip and shit, Like boy just stfu.” “You puted a balloon on yo head and thought it was a Durag like ain’t nobody cares about you dirty ass hell boy you got a drop off dark exlier pouring down ur hair right now you like a chipmunk you better get yo Christmas comes , This time of yearrr Bro like stfu you look like Ronald McDonald from a sex cult. You be looking like muscle man from regular show you be looking like ice spice, nah you actually look like water sugar get yo stanky ass away. When you walk downstairs your whole house starts fucking rumbling bitch you bring power of eren Yeager and 37 collosal titians down ur staircase. After you eat dinner you eat the plate and then you eat the table aswell CHOMP CHOMP. You rent out the gap between your teeth as a parking space for ants you be looking emo af CUT MY LIFE IN 2 PIECES THIS MY LAST RESORT, SUFFICATION NO BREATHING Ur nose be looking like two Mario pipes coming off ya face. INFACT when you tilt your head up be ugly af tell me why the bottom of ur nose look like the discord logo. You got a bikini bottom butthole you got spongebob flipping krabby Pattie’s in ur uterus ORDER UP MR KRABS! they made a sequal of finding NEMO based off yo ass called locating chromosomes in theatres this July! You was water boarding a mouse in ur kitchen sink to solve “the mystery of the missing cheese” You act like a whole ass Karen you better get yo “My names skyler white! YO, my husbands Walter white, YO!” Shut yo dumbass up your last poop was directed by micheal bay you got gfx explosions erupting in ur TOLIET bowl.”

[itsezra]

coyotes are very important to me

i had an old dog that passed two summers ago

she was lanky with short fur, large ears, and a dragging tail

a darker tan with a white belly and black skin, showing only on the outlines of her eyes, her nose, and paws

i'd known her my entire life until she was gone

one time she ran off, the fence gate had opened

she was gone for a week before someone found her

any reported sightings of her were always reported as people thinking of her as a coyote at first by the way she walked and looked

(fuck i cant cry at school. i miss her)

she was a shelter dog, taken in from the wild. my mom used to say she mustve been the mix of some dog and a coyote. i dont know if she was joking or not. they have the same amount of chromosomes, so they genuinely could

coyotes are very important to me

[crystallllines]

bizarre fucking dreams lately

two last night, although i only remember the one where i went to the florida seaworld and hung out with restaurant and janitorial staff

for some reason, dream!fl seaworld had, like, a hotel for guests— like it was fuckin’ disneyworld — and one of the janitorial/waitresses and i snuck in and hooked up. and then there was that weird thing about the basement with this giant iron manhole cover that had like the shittiest long wooden ladder leading down to the only women’s staff changing room… and the one asian waitress who came over to me the next day and was like “your friend,” meaning q, who is… no longer a friend and frankly maybe that’s for the best, “kept following me around and i tried to politely give hints that I didn’t want to be her friend and then she *followed me all the way* on my walk home.

and the big scary usually silent main janitor guy was like “oh yeah my stupid idiot of an assistant asked for her number and he’s probably going to text her constantly” and i was just like ‘jesus h christ wtf’ and then woke up

uh turns out that i can’t handle talking in any detail about bone disorders/decay/breaks and even looking at illustrations of different types of breaks makes me squirm. i accidentally let out an audible gasp of horror when dr hof talked about how astronauts get wheeled off of shuttles after spending long periods in space because their bones get so fragile and kind of tried to hold in small whimpers and squirmed and kind of tried to hide my eyes during a lot of the talk and visuals

i can handle *blood* and *gore* easily. mutations? throw them at me. show me an X-ray of a broken bone or talk about tooth decay, though, and i practically have to cling to my desk to keep from bolting from the fucking room.

oh, but that exam i was so stressed about and felt unprepared for? got an 88! which was nice. i wore my ‘i did my best’ sweatshirt that day and doc hof emailed me during the exam to say she liked it, lol.

and, of fucking course, i got the confirmation that the *one* lecture i missed because i was so fucking sick was the one where she talked about *chromosomes* and fucking *chromosomal disorders,* and i am sooo fucking pissed about that because… for some reason i have… idk, an interest? an unexpectedly large curiosity about all of that stuff, and i kind of lamented aloud that i missed my chance to get answers. but she lit up af and was like “ahhhh come by my office any time and we can talk *forever* about them because i love that stuff and genetics is my field and i’ll answer any questions you have!!”

so yes i absolutely must do that. not for the class, just to satiate my curiosity.

one more agonizing lecture to go on bad bone shit— omg i am not sure how I’ll handle that. i almost want to text my class friend and ask if he would be so kind as to *record* the lecture so i can just… avoid having to hear and see it in real time but i already know i will not do that & actually go.

it’s just an hour and fifteen minutes. might not entirely be *all* about bad bones, right? please please please

[the-firebird69]

Patrick Stewart on the moment he knew he was done playing Professor X

This is one of the more incredible things I've ever seen is not true it seems to be down on the character at the end but he's not really he understands our son is in trouble like his brother and has a momentary relapse and realizes he's doing something wrong so yeah I was happy he felt too many times to say and they are in trouble falling for things he gets the analogy any understands who's playing his character and he sees the cross the x chromosome or different genetically and he says it couldn't have worked better unless we planned it so those symbols are made by the max and it's not too hard to figure out cuz you can't find out who did it nobody did it and it worked it's a big win for all of us here on Earth we are going to celebrate tonight let's hope you guys don't try and attack us too much we're already having problems but this is great and who said it too when I have is an empire of darts and it's very scary and he's saying Logan if I don't make it you to take over and it says that too you can use time. So our son says this is the perfect example of why Cheyenne is not really it and he says why part of it is them having you to the character they're calling out some things are going to do and what happens on the in the movies I'm helping to make happen and he looks miss his uh-oh they have horse room stuck in it too I'm 3 years old kind of and he knows what maybe not even so he kind of got upset then said you're picking on a baby and then said he's the ruler and it's your plan to follow his plan so well we'll go to The institute I think it's a Vanderbilt house and you would think on it from the perspective of the max and what other people would see and that's what he did and went in so let's see how you use your power and it's greatness I have to think of it in my own of course it's an idea but it's my character and it's happening to me and you would be in character and Charles can walk around he uses a second energy and our son said wait a minute you have to sign it that's all he did so he shined his head I didn't know why but or something so funny and it's the set of character that Comic-Con they saw a lot of Xavier with shiny heads and they said it's like Excalibur the shiner the better. Our son's okay but the daily stress is huge and Trump's injuries are massive and it's scary for people and money is to distract them and stuff and he's getting through it he says he's going to do it we're helping and the pseudo empire makes a lot of rude comments the empire I mean geez so this is the idea here is for people to polish your heads and go as Xavier then it's about Saint John's and educating yourself

Thor Freya

It's an exhausting study but really it's right in our laps it's real easy to see it's easy to read he figured it out with us helping a lot of it was him and it's frustrated and is searching things over and over very repetitive and finally he broke the code I've never seen a kid work so hard on this I've never seen a kid break this code and I've never seen one do it a little bit more than us this stuff is rich he says he thinks his brother left him stuff and it doesn't think the computers can do it they don't have enough diversity and the signal is in the air it's like having your brain stretched out and it's really weird but that's what it is they said it too I don't think I'm going to win but I'm going to do something to them try to toughen you up it was very tough but I got this stuff this is all code and the weeks to come you're going to see things happening to me that happened in the past they put me on trial as Nathan Hale and it's a different character I know what I was doing and it's the pseudo empire they're going to do gross things and hang me I don't think it's over because we haven't reached 76 yet. I am reminded of something I was hung as a rebel and I was entombed and then broken up and he says that might be it meaning my people will be attuned and conquered and then try and get me there Concord Massachusetts and if I make it there they'll get me out there but I know where it was and now I can get ready we're avoiding what the max plan to do to us and as a result it goes right on the money and it weakens our situation

Trump

Olympus

[catboymafia]

"Erasing an entire vocabulary" ummmmm....the misogynistic stuff about how "women are just walking vagina/wombs and thats what woman means"? Yeah, i dunno sorry, you were dumb and exclusionary of women for that stuff; youre not all born with those parts not even the xx chromosome ones of you

Sure. Tell me more. *its a bunch of looking-glass antcapitalism that misses the point entirely* ohhhh. Uh well bye

[limestoner]

A non moving object is always struck by a moving object and a moving object always struckes a non moving object because when you kick a ball your leg is moving and the ball is no moving and then they continue the course begun by the first object Ah but what if something is floating on the water (moving) like a) flower or b) a water strider a)flower isn’t volitionally moving but the wanter is moving it until you pick it up and now you’re moving it b) the water strider is already moving but when it impacts with your hand there is a spot in space when the object touching the object as not non moving and the inertia from the strike though but what if I threw a ball at someone walking or standing still

Well all of our atoms and body particles are alwasy moving so would both be equal or is there a cutoff in particle skd size at which it is considered movement as humans see it which means it is based on the humnan eye taking in and the brain processing but what about movement animals can see that we can’t and even then there’s some space between what animals can see and cells and molecules except amoebas are animals (ithinnk) they have single cells and might be able to see molecules no that can’t be it because molecules in cells so

For the purpose of this I will consider movement of anything from beings down to quark and quark matter and molecules and dark matter

On some level the movement of the hit object has to stop from the inertia this is why I wish I was/knew/ physicists.

Single cells

Single cells

Single for a day

Oh but now it is high time

For all cells to divide 🔂

Mitosis then begins

Pro- ProMeta- Meta-

Phase phase phase phase phase

Ana- Telophase-phase-phase-phase

The chromosomes unwind

And make two nuclei

Cyto-cytokineses

And that’s how cells divide

Yay 🔁

Im rememberkng the words to the song by singing the song in my head but I only know the tune if I know the words already

I had to look up the words because I can’t do the tube if k don’t TUNR TUNE have the words

Dashing through the snow

That looks like a toy I had as a kid but I can’t remember what you. Toy. It reminds me of the red white and blue. Koosh I got around the time when we can til murka but I also had something with little colorful spheres moleculing inside it. I really miss my space square. A black plastic square with foam on the back and when you press on it it has your body hit so it dhang s color and there were stars that werre made of sparkles. I had one of this thing

Y it okay though. That a little pimple faced pencil dick stole and had to give back even though he was the golden child at school.

When k tried to find the spiral with black lines on a silver with black squares round, I couldn’t but found th s instead

[yeenstream]

I have always always always hated this argument, so mini rant time:

Yes, in elementary school we are taught that there are two sexes, male and female. Yes, this is a concept simple enough that children can understand it.

However, if you have undergone literally any study of any science, you would have noticed that the entire journey of academia is learning that things you took as gospel were grossly oversimplified so that you the average child could comprehend it. At high school they teach you that what actually matters is your sex chromosomes, XX for female XY for male, and this is our basis. If you learn biology at college level you will learn about hormones, and that sexual dymorphism is primarily hormone driven. Predominantly estrogens and low T leads a body to develop female. Vice versa for male. At degree level you learn about the role of other hormones in our dymorphic pathway, and that sex is not routed in karyotype (chromosomes), but in your genotype (the presence of a functioning SRY gene). You learn that the XX karyotype has one dominant X chromosome and one that is epigenetically "tightened" or silenced so that a healthier level of X-linked genes are expressed. Consider how small a Y chromosome is in comparison to an X, and that the majority of information in this chromosome would be an extra copy, and hence heightened expression of its contents may make the body sick.

And only then do we have the necessary building blocks to begin to cover intersex individuals, and begin dissecting what we truly mean by male and female, and understand dymorphism as a pathway and not a binary class.

What if you have a 25,XO karyotype? The only monosomy compatible with human life. Or 27,XXX or 27,XXY OR EVEN 28,XXXY. In these cases we note that humans are female by default, and that the causality of developing male traits is only the presence of a Y chromosome, or specifically an SRY gene. Furthermore, what about cases where the SRY gene is translocated onto an X chromosome, leading to a male. Where the Y chromosome is missing its SRY gene, or it is otherwise physically damaged or mutated? This can lead to XY females or someone that has travelled only a short way along the male dymorphic pathway and carries secondary sex characteristics of both sexes.

When we look at the role of the endocrine system and gonadal hormones, the driving force of a bodies journey to develop male or female. What if there is an abhoration in the ability to produce these hormones, too much or too few. What if our receptors for these hormones are not working as intended, or not present on cells in the frequency we'd expect.

There are a multitude of reasons why someone can only go so far down the dymorphic pathway in either direction. It is far more complex than just flicking a switch or male and female being decided from your chromosomes at conception.

The reality is, sex in humans is a set of two directions that a body walks down. Two axes. Every body walks a certain amount along each of those axes, and ends up as a fluid coordinate point that can be roughly assigned a camp based on how that coordinate is perceived by an observer. If a clinician determines you do not fit either category neatly then you are intersex.

Yet, no human alive can be considered 100% male or 100% female if you have undergone any level of study into biology. It isn't accurate. It's a gross oversimplification we teach to children to help them understand the most basic version of why people are different from one another. We're all intersex. We're all in between these sexes do some small or large degree.

So yes, the sex binary is grade school biology. In that it is dumbed down for curious children and stupid adults to understand. The terfs spouting this nonsense are the latter.

"there are only two sexes, it's literally third grade biology!" and pronouns are taught in kindergarten and you dont seem to understand those either

[tsaomengde]

“The Mission”

A short story about love, time travel, healing, spaceplanes, and making the world a better place, even when no one will ever know.

---

After the TAG forces shot me out of my cockpit in low orbit, I floated there for about six hours.  Something – probably debris from my fighter – had hit me in the back, hard, and I couldn’t feel anything below my waist.  My suit’s maneuvering jets let me correct the initial nauseating spin I was thrown into, but they didn’t have sufficient thrust to get me out of my unstable, highly eccentric orbit.  

My suit told me I had about eight or nine trips around Titan before my periapsis wobbled low enough into the atmosphere that drag would bring me down below escape velocity.  At that point, gravity would catch up with me, I would fall, and I would crash into the surface and die.  The suit had an emergency beacon, but no built-in communications beyond that.  I was alone in the silent dark.

I sped around the moon at a little less than ten thousand kilometers per hour.  The view of Saturn, for the parts of the orbit where it wasn’t eclipsed by Titan, was gorgeous.  That was a small comfort, as my brain endlessly analyzed the ways I could go.  A bit of debris from the battle could kill me outright at these speeds, or it could puncture the suit on a glancing hit and it would be a toss-up whether I would die of suffocation or extreme cold.  My oxygen meter also claimed I had about three hours of air left, which meant I would probably be unconscious or dead by the time I actually hit the ground.  And, of course, there was the matter of my probably-broken spine.  I suspected I was bleeding internally from that.

Later, when I woke up in a hospital bed on the Agamemnon, they told me that the TAG brass had transmitted a formal surrender eighty-seven seconds after my fighter had exploded.  I was officially the last casualty of the Earth-Titan war.

They fitted me with prosthetics so I could still walk, but as the physical therapist with the cute dimples explained to me, there was some kind of incompatibility with my chromosomal something-or-other that meant I couldn’t use them at a hundred percent, which meant I didn’t qualify for combat.  My spine, which had indeed been broken, was too damaged to repair with conventional methods.  That left experimental regenerative genetic surgery, which was more expensive than the navy was willing to shell out for.

So, at thirty-one, after thirteen years in the navy, I got out with an honorable discharge, a pension that was decent enough but far from what it would take to fix my spine, a chromium heart for my injury, and enough PTSD to fuck me over for the rest of my life.

--- 

“I don’t care about my legs,” I said to Kate, the first time we ever met.  We picked a bar about halfway between us for our first meeting. She had a gin gimlet with cucumber simple syrup.  I had an old fashioned.  “They get me from point A to point B just fine.  I just miss flying.”

“Were you good at it?” she asked, blue eyes very wide.

“I certainly thought so. But then some TAG dipshit blew me out of my fighter above Titan and ended my career, so maybe I was less good than I thought.”

“You can’t fly for one of the intrasolar shipping companies?” she asked.  “Or transport?”

I gave her a patient smile. “Do you know what a pilot actually does aboard one of those big fusion torchships?”

“No, actually.”

“They point the nose where the destination is going to be, fire the engine for half the trip, then flip the ship around and fire the engine for the other half.  There’s nothing to that.  I miss flying.”

She nodded sympathetically. “I understand.”  I could tell she didn’t, not really, but that she wanted to.

I moved in with her a few months later.  Part of me wondered if it was a good idea, moving so fast, but I was two years from Titan and still waking up screaming in the middle of the night, convinced I was back in my suit, in the dark above the moon.  The greater part of me, the selfish part, was happy that someone was there to touch me, to talk to me, to root me back in myself and pull me back to earth from up there in the black.

In that sense, Kate could have been anyone.  I never thought of her as replaceable, but there was always a vague sense of guilt, of knowing that I was definitely getting more from the relationship than she was.  I voiced this to her once, and she told me I was being silly, and that she loved me, and that was all she needed.

So when she first approached me with her idea for the Mission, I like to think it was that part of me, the part that wanted to be more for her, that moved me to say yes to what was honestly an idiotic idea.  Not the part that missed flying.  Just selfless altruism and desire to help the woman I loved.

I like to think that a lot.

---

We cracked time travel about a decade after I was born.  Much to our collective disappointment as a species, it was not the fun kind of time travel that lets you go back in time and kill Hitler.  

Kate, as she told me once we were living together, was part of a DOD think tank tasked with finding some kind of use for the technology.  After a lot of experimentation, they came up with what Kate called the Four Rules.

1.      It’s time travel, not space travel.  If you want to meet Julius Caesar, you had best make sure you’re in Europe when you travel back.

2.      It only works by going back.  There is no forward travel because the future hasn’t happened yet. The only exception is returning to your point of origin.

3.      If you actually do meet Julius Caesar, it’s because your meeting him will not change history in any measurable way.  If you try to go back in time to change something significant, it simply doesn’t work.  The little box makes the noise, it uses up a lot of energy, and then nothing happens.

4.      The corollary rule to number three, then, is that when you travel back in time, whatever you do end up doing has already happened.

I asked Kate what this meant about determinism versus free will, and she primly replied that she was a theoretical physicist, not a philosopher.  The DOD was not known for employing philosophers and paying them the kind of money they were paying her.

---

The Mission’s personnel consisted of four people.  Myself, the heroic pilot.  Kate, the brains behind the time travel stuff and the one who came up with the Mission to begin with.  Leon, the aerospace engineer slash DOD contractor.  And Ash, the director of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. We would go over to Ash’s place, have dinner, and conspire.

Over one such dinner – mac and cheese with broccoli, I remember it vividly for no adequate reason – we discussed the logistical difficulties involved.

“We can’t use anything from the last century,” Leon was saying around a mouthful of mac.  “All the guidance systems on those ships are keyed into the orbital satellite network.  There’s nothing like that at the target time.  We need a craft that can achieve orbit, rendezvous, and de-orbit in a single stage, without remote guidance.”

I nodded.  “That means we need a spaceplane.  Not just a fighter, but an actual spaceplane.”

Ash chewed over the problem as well as their food.  “There might be an SR-75 in decent enough shape we could appropriate from the displays at the museum.  The hardest part will be bribing the transport operators to take it to home base instead of, you know, a navy cache where highly dangerous military surplus equipment is supposed to go.”

I raised an eyebrow at them. “That’s going to be the hardest part? What about getting the parts to get it into decent working condition, or the fuel?”

Leon waved a hand dismissively.  “Do you know how many spare parts I have lying around at work?  How many millions of tons of liquid hydrogen and oxygen are stored in poorly-guarded places that I have access to?”

“No.  I’m guessing the answer to both is ‘more than the general public would be comfortable knowing about.’”

“Exactly.”

I looked at Kate.  “Is the magic box going to be able to send a whole spaceplane back, kitty?”

She wrinkled her nose at me for using her pet name in front of our friends, but let it go for the moment. “The magic box can send anything back given enough juice.”

“Okay, but is the shitty little battery at home base going to be able to give it enough?”

“Probably.  If we strip everything nonessential out of the spaceplane, get the mass down as much as possible.  I need to know the exact mass of the plane, plus us, when it’s ready for travel.”  Kate shrugged.  “If it won’t be enough, we can always add to our list of capital offenses and steal a torchship, then use its fusion reactor for the power.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed.  “Last resort.”

---

“I don’t really understand why we’re doing this,” I told her one night, in the silence following her helping me out of another flashback.

She shifted a little in bed so she could look me in the eye.  “You said you were on board.”

“I am.  I’d do anything you asked, kitty, you know that. And obviously I’m excited to get to fly again.  But nothing we’re going to do is actually going to matter.  That’s one of the four rules, right?”

With a little shrug, she began running her fingers through my hair, which I’d stopped bothering to keep short after I was discharged years ago.  It was pretty long by now.  “It’ll matter to us, won’t it?  And to her?”

“I mean, sure, but the risk-reward ratio is way off.  You and Leon and Ash could all lose your jobs, we could get prosecuted by the Justice Department –”

“Vee, why did you sign up to be a pilot?”

I stopped.  “I mean, I always wanted to fly.”

“Yes, but what was the reason you put on your application?  And the reason you told me on our first date when we were still trying to look really good and put together for one another?”

That took me back, and I snorted gently.  “To make the world a better place.”

“Exactly.  Does there have to be a minimum threshold of goodness increase in order for an altruistic act to be worthwhile?”

I weighed that particular bit of moral utilitarianism in my mind before I committed to an answer.  “No.”

“So, that’s why we’re doing this.  To make the world a better place, even by the tiniest, slimmest margin.”

I gently snaked a hand out from under the comforter to lightly boop her on the nose.  “And the real reason, since we’re not on our first date and this isn’t an application you’re filling out?”

She stuck her tongue out at me.  “I know how much you want to fly again.  And I want to see my magic box used for something other than letting rich assholes reenact Bradbury’s ‘A Sound of Thunder’ without any of the nuance or lessons learned.”

“Dinosaur leather shoes is not the outcome you probably had in mind,” I agreed.  The time-travel hunting industry generated billions for the government every year now.

We fell asleep that night, and the next morning, we took a magtrain to Vegas, and from there we went to home base.

---

Home base was an abandoned aircraft hangar in the middle of the Nevada desert.  Leon had said something about centuries-old top-secret aircraft testing, when we first conceived of the Mission, and lo and behold, there was a facility with room for a spaceplane.  We spent far too much money on the highest-capacity quantum battery civilians could buy, hooked it into the Vegas grid, and watched it take eight weeks to charge.

It had also cost far too much money to bribe the transport operators to bring the SR-75 here, but the deed was done and they hadn’t sold us out so far.  They probably assumed we were aviation junkies.  What domestic terrorists would bother stealing a hundred-year-old spaceplane when there were far cheaper and more effective ways to kill people, these days?

Kate, Leon, Ash, and I sat at a small table in a corner of the hangar, drinking coffee and going over the ascent profile.  Ash’s part was done, having delivered the goods, but they wanted to be here for everything, and I certainly respected that.  The spaceplane took up the majority of the hangar space, a sleek black dagger with barely a suggestion of wings to either side.  The underside was dominated by a pair of huge jet intakes, and the rear of the plane sported three engine nozzles, the center much larger than either of the ones flanking it.  A gracefully curved tail fin slightly forward of the engines completed the vessel’s profile.

“The plane looks like it’s in good condition,” Leon was saying.  “I’ve sourced the fuels we need.  The main problem is going to be the timing, not the equipment.”

“How so?” Kate asked.

I spoke up.  “The SR-75 should theoretically be able to hit escape velocity just on the air-breathing engine mode, but the target has an extremely elliptical orbit, and we’re launching much closer to the equator, so we’ll have to adjust our inclination, too.  That means either a lot of burns with the rocket fuel mode once we’re in vacuum, or a very steep climb to orbit.  That pronounced an angle of attack might affect the engines’ ability to get enough air to achieve escape velocity.”

Kate blinked.  “Still not seeing how that affects the timing.”

I pulled out my personal comm, laid it on the table, and put it in draw mode, so I could trace pictures on its screen with the tip of my finger.  I drew a little ball, the Earth, and traced a messy, elliptical orbit around it. I indicated the very top of the orbit, where the line peaked like a mountain summit.  “We have about a thirty-minute window to achieve rendezvous with the target.  We need to rendezvous at or near its apoapsis, here, where its orbital speed is lowest and matching relative velocity will be easiest.”

I loved Kate, but it was endlessly amusing to me how she could understand quantum and temporal physics and articulate mathematical concepts I could never grasp in a million years, yet still not understand basic orbital mechanics.  She gave me a blank look, then just said, “And that’s hard?”

“Yes.  It is very hard, kitty.  We are trying to hit a target the size of, roughly, a bullet train car, except the target is going twenty-eight thousand kilometers per hour.  We need to come alongside it, match velocity with it, perform our docking maneuver, and then decouple.  And the parameters of the Mission mean that there is exactly one half-hour window we can do this in if we’re going to avoid violating rule three.”

“I think the best solution is going to be adding some external rocket fuel tanks,” Leon said.  “Not much, since we have to think about flight performance and transit mass for the magic box, but even a few hundred extra meters per second of delta-vee might make the difference in your ability to match orbits with the target.”

“Agreed.  Just make sure the Goddamn things aren’t going to come loose at Mach fuck-you.”

Leon grinned at me.  “I love your optimism, Vee.”

---

Unlike with most modern fighters, and indeed with even-older jet aircraft, the SR-75 did not have a fully enclosed cockpit.  The pilot sat in a big swiveling chair in front of the instrument panel, and the main cabin of the craft was accessible from there.  It was a spaceplane, and therefore supposed to be able to perform orbital docking maneuvers exactly like the one we were about to attempt, which necessitated the crew being able to actually get up and access the docking port without going fully extravehicular.

Kate sat behind me in a second chair that Leon bolted in there for her.  She had the magic box in her lap, hooked up by a pair of very fat and long yellow wires to the bulk of the quantum battery, which squatted heavily just slightly off-center in the SR-75’s main cabin.  (“Gotta keep that center of mass where it’s supposed to be,” Leon had said.)  She was doing something with the box’s controls, squinting at the small readout which displayed some kind of complicated waveform.

“I’ll initiate the breach when we get to fifteen thousand meters,” she told me.  “It wouldn’t do for anyone to actually see us at the target time, because then it just wouldn’t work, but I would rather not get shot down by our modern-day autonomous airspace defenses.”

“Sounds good,” I told her. “Hey.  Kate.”

“Yes, Vee?”

I craned my neck around as best I could while strapped into the pilot’s seat.  “I love you, kitty.”

Her cheeks darkened a little and she smiled.  “I love you too.”

I keyed in the ignition sequence and the SR-75 roared to life.  Leon and Ash, both standing a safe distance away outside the hangar so their eardrums didn’t rupture, started waving and giving us thumbs-ups.  I gave them a thumbs-up in return, projecting more confidence than I actually felt, and brought the throttle up just a little.

The spaceplane practically leapt out of the hangar.  Ruggedized, smart landing gear wheels hit the Nevada desert ground like it was perfectly maintained asphalt.  Within twenty seconds I pulled back on the yoke and the SR-75 was in the air, starting a steep climb.  I opened the throttle up the entire way and was slammed into my seat with the gee-force.

“JESUS CHRIST WE ARE GOING TO FUCKING DIE!” Kate screamed.

I glanced over my shoulder at her.  “You okay, kitty?”

She was clutching at her chest, magic box forgotten, and for a long, terrible moment I thought she was having some kind of heart attack.  But then she nodded, looking pasty.  “I just got taken by surprise,” she shouted over the roar of the engines.  “Sorry!”

“Okay!”  I returned my attention to the instrument panel.  We were already moving at a good clip, and the altimeter was increasing fast enough that even the digital display was having trouble keeping up.  For a long, pure moment, I just relaxed into my seat, hands on the yoke, feeling the currents of air spiraling around the ship.  Now, more than ever before my prosthetics, it felt like an extension of myself.  I was flying again.

“We’re at fifteen thousand meters!” I told her.

Kate pressed a button on the magic box.  Everything blurred like someone just messed with the focus on a camera, except the camera was my brain.  When it re-focused, we were still in the plane, climbing toward space at an impressive clip, but all of the global positioning systems were dead.  There were no satellites to receive data from, not in this era.  However, we had accounted for this; the SR-75 had its own onboard suite of computers dedicated specifically to calculating orbital information.

It was at this point that things began to go wrong.  I felt a sharp tug on the yoke.  Swearing to myself, I corrected, keeping the plane on course, and keyed a status readout. The SR-75’s onboard systems insisted that nothing was wrong, but that the plane was experiencing significant and unexpected drag.

It hit me.  “Fuck me!” I snarled.  “Leon’s fucking external fuel tanks!  I told him they needed to be secure!”

“What’s going on?” Kate asked.

“One of the external fuel tanks Leon spit-soldered onto this Goddamn thing has come loose, and the drag is killing our velocity,” I told her.  “I need to get it off of us, now.”

My gaze was fixed on my instruments, so I couldn’t see the horror in her big blue eyes, but I could hear it loud and clear in her voice.  “How?”

“Shearing force.  Hold on, this is going to fucking suck.”

I stomped down on one of the SR-75’s rudder pedals with my right foot, the motion almost as smooth as it used to be even with the prosthetic, and spun the plane in a sharp, hard three-hundred-sixty-degree roll.  I nearly blacked out, and I know Kate did for a few seconds, since she didn’t go through flight training.  But there was a sudden, violent wrenching feeling that went through the yoke into my arms, and afterward the drag was gone.

“Did it work?” Kate asked blearily.

“Yup.  And apparently an external fuel canister from several hundred years in the future crashing in the Nevada desert doesn’t fuck up the timeline, since we’re here at all.”

“Are we still going to be able to make it?”

I eyeballed the delta-vee readouts on the navigation display.  The lost fuel tank didn’t exactly have a ton in it, and of course, the reduced mass of the ship now that it was gone meant the net loss was slightly ameliorated. But even so, the situation was grim.

“Well, yes and no,” I told her.

“That is never the answer anybody wants to hear, Vee.”

“I should, should, still be able to match velocity with the target and achieve rendezvous. But our margins are basically nil now. If I don’t do this perfectly, we’re going to miss completely.”

I felt her reach out and place a hand on my shoulder, give it a squeeze.  “You can do this, Vee.  I know you can.”

“Thank you for the vote of confidence,” I told her, and was surprised to hear that it didn’t come out sarcastic.

The ascent became a delicate balance.  I was trying to hit escape velocity while still using the air-breathing mode of the engines, which was incredibly efficient compared to the rocket fuel.  But as I got higher, the engines needed to work harder to ram enough air in to function, which meant my thrust decreased.  Without the global positioning system to feed me flight info, I needed to do it all by feel and eyeballing the orbital information given to me by the onboard computers.

I trimmed a couple degrees off my angle of attack, trying to find the sweet spot between still gaining altitude and not starving the engines of air in the increasingly-barren stratosphere. The SR-75 shuddered, engines straining, and began to threaten me with a stall.  I swept my gaze across my instruments.  “Fuck,” I muttered, and switched the engines to rocket mode.

Instantly, we were slammed back into our seats again as our thrust suddenly increased dramatically. I glanced at our projected apoapsis, counted to three, then shut the engines down.

In the sudden silence in the absence of the engines’ roar, Kate asked, “Did we do it?”

“Yes and no.”

“Goddammit, Vee!”

I looked over my shoulder at her and gave her my most reassuring grin.  “Sorry, couldn’t help it.  The drag from the fuel tank breaking loose meant that we lost velocity, which meant we took longer to get to the speed we were needing, and the spin I had to put the plane through shifted our course a little bit.  Our inclination is about five degrees off of where it should be.”

“Okay.  What does all that mean?”

“We are going as fast as we need to be, but we’re not in the place we need to be going that fast.  I’m going to need to do correction burns at certain points in our ascent.  We can still make our rendezvous, but we won’t have the fuel to do a proper deceleration burn. I’m going to have to perform emergency aerobraking.”

“In English, Vee!”

“On our way back down I am going to use the atmosphere to slow us down the old-fashioned way.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Is this plane designed for that?”

“Probably.”  I shrugged.  “Assuming we don’t burn up, I’ll be able to switch the engines back to air-breathing at a certain altitude and land without the need for lithobraking.”

I could see her trace the Latin roots of litho and arrive at the gallows-humor definition of the word.  She went even paler than before.  “Certainly hope so.”

I let my grin fade as we continued to coast on our momentum, rising inexorably up through the mesosphere into the thermosphere, our speed gradually slowing as we crested toward the very top of our parabolic arc.  At key points, I reoriented the SR-75’s nose, now using chemical thrusters to maneuver the craft in the absence of air for the control surfaces to manipulate, and fired the engines in rocket mode, tweaking our orbital inclination until it matched that of the target.

The computers suggested to me, at that point, that we would be able to achieve equal relative velocity, and it would leave us with enough delta-vee to then de-orbit ourselves. We would not be stuck in orbit forever until we died.  I blinked hard, banishing the memory of Titan as it suddenly threatened to overwhelm me, and repeated the affirmations Kate taught me.  I am not there anymore.  I am here, now.  I am safe.

Safe was, of course, a relative term in the vacuum of space, going tens of thousands of kilometers per hour.  But Kate took my hand from behind and gave it a squeeze, and I was good again.

“We’re going to do a long burn once we’re within ten kilometers,” I told Kate.  “That’ll bring our relative velocity to zero.  From there we just point our nose at the target, fire the engines for half a second, get as close as we can until we’re either about to hit or miss, fire them again to bring ourselves back to zero relative velocity, and then we do that over and over until we’re close enough to dock.”

“I don’t need to know all the mechanics,” Kate replied, and I could see she was fighting to keep her teeth from chattering.  The environmental controls were working just fine, so it was fear she was dealing with, not cold.  “I just trust you, Vee.  Make it happen.”

I suited action to words. It took ten long, arduous minutes, and by the end of it we were very short on time to actually execute the retrieval, but I successfully brought the SR-75’s docking port, which sat on the dorsal surface of the spaceplane, in contact with the target’s own.

Not that they were remotely designed to be compatible, being hundreds of years apart in origin, but fortunately the SR-75 had the advantage of smart materials incorporated into its construction.  Its port sealed itself tight around the target’s, flashing a green light and hissing open to reveal the shiny metal surface of the target.

Kate was already out of her seat, plasma torch in hand, and the acrid smell of it hit my nostrils as she ignited it and started cutting through the ancient hull like butter.  It was joined less than a minute later by new smells: faint traces of iodine and ethanol, urine, feces, and a wet, animal musk.

And, of course, I heard barking.

“Got her!” Kate called to me.  “She’s in pretty rough shape, but she’s alive!”

“Strap back in, and get her secured too,” I told her.  “We’ve passed apoapsis and I need to fire the engines right now for the Oberth effect or we’re going to be stuck in orbit forever.”

I keyed in the command for the docking port to close on our end and release.  The leftover atmosphere inside the target puffed out of it in sudden decompression, pushing our two crafts apart, but not hard enough to seriously perturb either of our orbits.  That was the engines’ job, and I brought them to life as soon as we were clear.

They sputtered out as they burned the last of the rocket fuel.  I looked at our orbital readout.  “Ah, shit,” I muttered.  “This is going to be a bumpy ride.”

---

We all but rammed into the atmosphere with the entire length of the plane.  The yoke bucked in my hand and the instrumentation suggested to me that I was a fucking moron that had doomed us all, but with polite numbers instead of those exact words.  I kept an iron grip on the yoke, worked the rudders with both my leaden feet to keep us perpendicular to our approach vector so we would generate more drag and thus lose more speed, and prayed to every God I could think of.  Behind me, Kate’s teeth were audibly chattering, but she managed to avoid screaming again, and the dog was remarkably quiet.

The interior of the SR-75 got incredibly hot, naturally.  The instrument panel helpfully informed me that it was almost fifty-five degrees Celsius inside, and that was with the life-support system working as hard as it possibly could to cool it.  The one saving grace we had was that the spaceplane’s designers had anticipated the need for this kind of extreme aerobraking, and the skin of the craft was designed to tolerate it – in theory.  I sweated, and I panted, and I watched our velocity slowly decrease until we were no longer going to boomerang back up out of the atmosphere.

Then I pointed the plane’s nose down, let gravity take over, and switched the engines back into air-breathing mode.

They decided they did not want to start.

“Well, we’re fucked,” I laughed.

“This is a plane, right?” Kate asked through clenched teeth.  “Aerodynamic?  You can fly it without the engines, right?”

“Well, glide, yes. Fall slowly, yes.  Land… maybe.”

I let us half-glide, half-fall until we were back in the troposphere.  “Magic box time,” I told Kate.

Everything unfocused again, and when I was able to see once more, my global positioning displays were back online.  They told me that, if I did nothing, we were going to crash into the ocean just off the coast of Hokkaido.

I tried the engines again. Still nothing.  The reentry had fried them, as far as I could tell.

I started the plane’s nose trending up again, trying to bring us out of the dive and into a climb. The control surfaces bucked and the plane fought me.

“I’m sorry, Vee,” Kate said.

“Don’t start,” I told her. “We’re not dead yet.”

“I couldn’t go back and save you from what happened at Titan.  I thought, if I could save Laika, maybe –”

“I know exactly what you were thinking, kitty.”  I looked back at her, and the scared-looking mutt buckled into her lap.  “It’s okay.”

“I just – when I read about how she died, all alone, in that terrible little capsule –”

“I said don’t start, Kate. I said it’s okay and I meant it.”

She kept going like she hadn’t heard me.  “She was supposed to have enough food and oxygen for a week.  But the satellite was rushed, and the temperature control system failed.  So when she was –”

“FUCK me!” I shouted.

That finally got through to her.  “What?!”

“Temperature control.” I quickly hit a series of switches. “The jet intakes were superheated by our reentry.  When you switch the engines to rocket fuel mode, they have shutters at the front that close so you don’t get trace amounts of gaseous oxygen mixing with the liquid fuel. Those shutters are probably half-melted shut.”

“And?”

“There’s an emergency release that just drops them completely.”  I pressed the button, felt the SR-75 shudder as explosive bolts fired and it shed hundreds of pounds of metal.  “Okay. Now –”

I was cut off as the sudden force of the engines firing slammed me hard into my seat.  The plane began to corkscrew wildly as the engines put out differing amounts of thrust for the first few moments until the oxygen feeds equalized.  Clearly one of the intakes had had less of its shutters blown off than the other, and the plane had needed some time to adjust.

Kate coughed.  “The engines?  They’re working?  We’re not going to die?”

“Oh, we’re still going to die,” I told her.  “Eventually, of old age.  But probably not today.”

She smacked the back of my head.  “Jackass.”

---

The vet gave us a very suspicious stare as we paid our bill and accepted Laika’s carrier back from his nurse.  “I have never seen an animal in that kind of shape before,” he said.  “Malnourished, half-dead from heat exhaustion, matted shit in her fur, and primitive bio-monitoring equipment surgically grafted into parts of her. I assume you didn’t do this, since it would be colossally stupid to come into my office and ask me to fix her up if you did.”

Kate shakes her head. “No, it wasn’t us.  She’s a stray.  Found her while we were out on a trip.  We felt so bad for the poor thing that we brought her back with us.”

Somewhat mollified, the vet nodded.  “Well, make sure to give her the antibiotics for the rest of the week, and call me if there’s anything else she needs.”

We stepped outside, and I opened the carrier to let Laika out.  She staggered out, still a little loopy from the anesthesia, and I got her leash onto her without too much trouble.

“You know,” I said to Kate, “when we first shacked up, I said I didn’t want any pets.”

She grinned at me.  “For someone who was so against the idea, you went very far out of your way to get me one anyway.”

---

About six months after we brought Laika home, a very humorless man in a snazzy uniform, accompanied by many more humorless men in uniform with large guns, came and visited our house. The humorless man in charge sat and chatted with us for a while, and Laika sat in his lap and let him give her pets.

Nothing else ever came of the visit.

There is no neat bow to tie on this story, unfortunately.  I still wake up screaming in the middle of the night, though not quite as often. That probably has more to do with the passage of time and a lot of therapy than pulling a time-travel dog rescue, though.  The only point to any of it is that we spent a lot of taxpayer money (since Kate, Leon, and Ash are all paid by the government) and risked our lives to make the world a better place, even by the tiniest, slimmest possible margin.  

And perhaps having read about it will have made your world a little better too.

[divinegrey]

𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 / 𝐯𝐢𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐱 𝐟!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

this is spicy but not the kind of spicy you're thinking. hope you enjoy!

prompt: if it's alright, may i please ask for a spicy viper x femreader prompt wherein viper tries to seduce her but reader is very oblivious about it to the point viper gets frustrated. Thank uuu!!

words: 1400

warnings: fade being a wingwoman, viper being dommy mommy, reader being a bottom, implied nsfw content

“Is it just me, or does Viper seem more annoyed than usual?” You ask, dipping a carrot into some hummus before biting into it with a loud SNAP! Fade, laying across your lap with a book in her hand, reaches for a carrot and some hummus of her own. 

“I wonder why,” Fade says airily, absorbed in the contents of whatever the book is. You give a curious glance down at her; Fade is a person who knows a lot of things. With a roll of your eyes, you yank the book out of her hands. She blinks once. “Was that necessary?” 

“Yes, because I need you, my dear informant of the shadows, to tell me why Viper is mad at me.” 

Fade sits up, a carrot hanging halfway out of her mouth. “Because you have been extraordinarily oblivious to Viper’s fairly obvious attempts to seduce you.” 

The words cause you to choke on air. “W— what?!” 

The Turkish bounty hunter is exasperated, falling onto the cushions with an overly loud groan. “Aye, inanılmazsın. Y/N, you can’t be serious. Did you really think that Viper purchasing flowers for you was a matter of friendliness? Or her putting her hand on your waist while you were cooking? Or her leaning down to whisper in your ear despite not needing to?” 

Fade’s words, one after the other, jog the memories of these very specific situations, some of which Fade wasn’t even present for. How she knows about them is beyond you, but you’re left examining the subtext of all these prior moments and realizing that no, Viper was not just being friendly, and that you’re a huge fucking idiot. 

You put your face into your hands, turning red at Fade’s laughter. 

“And she finally realizes it! Huzzah! We’re all saved, fucking finally,” Fade remarks, clapping her hands onto her thighs. “I’m going to choke if I have to see Viper stare at you like she wants to tear you apart again.” 

Your head shoots upward. “Like she what?!” 

— — —

After the revelation, you make no move. Instead, you find yourself in Viper’s lab, humming as you work on a mission report that Brimstone needs to send to the execs. Viper is hard at work, leaning over some complicated machines. You’re scared to ask what she’s doing, not out of fear that she’ll be mad with you, but that you’ll understand nothing about it. Science was never one of your strong suits. 

But… it might lend well for you to test your theory.

“Hey, Viper?” You say softly, turning away from the laptop. 

“Yes?” Viper doesn’t look away, clicking some buttons on a piece of machinery with latex gloves over her hands. 

“Whatcha working on?” You stand up from the stool, walking over with your arms folded behind your back. At the sound of footsteps, Viper glances up and over her shoulder. Her emerald eyes fall onto you, and you don’t miss the way her eyes flick down, then back up. 

“DNA sequencing. I’m cross-breeding strains of flowers to concoct a new type of venom and I need to ensure I get the correct sequences into the gametes for the best results,” Viper readily explains, and it confirms your earlier thoughts that you don’t understand science, not one bit. 

“So this thing,” you say, gesturing to the machine. “It’s reading DNA?” 

“Scanning it and determining the order of nucleotide bases, I’ve already figured out which ones do what I want,” Viper says, placing her hands on the black countertop. You lean your hip against it, folding your arms over your chest and giving her an encouraging smile to continue. Viper’s face remains impassive. “I merely need to cross the chromosomes at the correct sites, and then fuse the offspring together once they’re ready for pollination. Once that’s complete, I have to mature the flower until it’s ready for harvest.” 

With a click of your tongue, you say, “Sounds like it’s going to take a while. Hopefully you have some… thing to keep you busy, while you’re waiting.” 

Hook, line, and sinker. Viper sees the bait, you know she does, judging by the way she tilts her head just a centimeter down and her eyes narrow. Your heart pounds inside of your chest as you lean back on the countertop. 

Viper shifts to the side, her height dwarfing you easily. She stands in front of you, placing her palms on either side of your own and caging you in against the counter. 

“Do correct me if I’m wrong—” Viper’s voice is low, throaty in the way that it sounds when she first wakes up. You have to suppress the chill that runs down your spine. “But I can’t help but think you’re insinuating something. Is that right?” 

“You’re correct,” you whisper, swallowing the nerves in your throat. “Figured I should— uh—” 

Viper steps closer, her legs brushing against yours. 

“Return the favor,” you finish your sentence, albeit rushed. You take a deep breath, then repeat, “Figured I should return the favor. If you’re… still interested.” 

You feel like a mere mouse being sized up by the biggest apex predator you’ve ever seen. Viper is not just a snake— she’s a goddamn King Cobra, black-scaled and green eyes that could kill any man on sight. You know that if Viper wanted to, she could easily reduce you down to nothingness, and it sends a thrill down your spine. 

Viper tilts her head an inch to the side. “Didn’t think you’d be so bold, little mouse. Didn’t think you were interested, either.” 

“Sabine,” you whisper, your voice a drawl. Something in Viper’s eyes lights up at the usage of her name, said so reverently. “You should know that I’m very oblivious. Things need to be spelled out for little ol’ me.” 

“Spelled out?” Viper echoes your words. She leans back just enough to snap off the gloves on her hands, balling them up. She tosses them to the side and you get whiplash at how fast her hand moves after, sliding around your throat. Her mouth drifts close to yours and you find yourself tilting upward for a kiss that never comes. Instead, Viper merely ducks her head to your ear, then lets out the softest sigh, one that sends heat straight down your body, one that makes you think of other ways you could hear that very sound. 

“Fuck.” The curse from your mouth comes out strangled. You grab onto her coat, fisting the white fabric tightly. 

“I’ve been watching,” Viper murmurs into the shell of your ear, her breath warm. “I’ve been watching, little mouse, and I want. I want to make you scream, I want to make you moan, I want to make you cry, and I want to make you fall apart in my hands. Is that spelled out enough for you, mouse?” 

Oh, god. 

“Please kiss me,” you ask. Viper’s eyes shine. 

“No,” Viper replies, and your heart sinks into your stomach. “I don’t think I will. How unfair of you to make me wait yet demand a kiss of me once you finally come to your senses. No, you’re going to wait your turn like a good little girl, and let me finish my work. Do you understand?” 

You’ve never felt a heat like this burn inside of you before. It’s all encompassing, threatening to swallow you whole. Nodding shakily, you say, “Yes, ma’am. I understand.” 

“So obedient,” Viper says, tracing her finger along your jaw. “Go back to your seat, finish your report. Do what I ask, and I’ll give you the world.” 

“Thank you, ma’am.” 

She grins, and you swear you see rows of sharp teeth in her mouth before shaking yourself out of your delirium. Viper purrs, “Good girl.” 

Stepping to the side, she releases you from her hold and you feel like you’ve just been choked by a boa constrictor as you amble back to your seat. 

Holy fucking shit. 

You’re not going to survive once she’s through with you. 

~~~~~ A/N: WHEW goddaMN i love viper when she's mean 

[murfpersonalblog]

So...basically what we need is a do-over from scratch? XD

I think AMC & Esta in particular royally blew Mayfair Witches.

Environment: This is the ONE point I disagree with--I think they've done more than enough set dressing. The location shots are the best thing about the show IMO--it's pretty to look at. What's missing is the rich CHARACTERS and HISTORY. I wish they hadn't removed Michael, and his trade as an architect: the house was a living legend basically, for how important setting was for the Mayfairs, as they moved from Scotland to Haiti to Riverbend to the Garden District. Such a waste.

Ciprien: They ruined it when they had Rowan & Cip sleep together just because they touched hands and the empath magic was working. They had zero build up -- it went from hey creep why are you stalking me I'll kill you; to oops I almost killed you btw why do you have a picture of my mom you creep; to omg my mom was murdered right in front of me let's hold hands wow I love you but I don't ever listen to you.

The previous witches are 1000x more interesting than Rowan.

Mona: If we don't get Blackwood Farm with Mona & Quinn & Morrigan I'm gonna be upset. The whole point of the Mayfairs is their Taltos chromosome, and which witches can give birth to one or not. Without that culminating arc, adding in Mona this late will just be Tessa 2.0, like wtf Esta.

Icons: I was SHOCKED that Julien was nowhere to be found--no victrola, journals, nothing. The voodoo doll was cute, but it's not enough--that house was HAUNTED. But there's still room for it in S2, if Ciprien has a seance with Julien's ghost to learn how to use "simple tools" against Lasher. And GOD YES, I was so bummed that the attic reveal was so DULL--that's one of the best parts of the book! U_U 

Costumes: Yeah, I had no idea what anyone was wearing, especially Deirdre in that fancy dress as if tshirts & pants don't exist, & Rowan in that silly flapper outfit, meanwhile Stella's a BLIP.

Race: The Mayfairs were elitist slaveowning eugenicist mad scientist racist pigs, so I actually hope they stop acting like the Mayfairs are the UN, with all of these POC Mayfairs in positions of power, like wtf? Witches like Merrick Mayfair lived out in the swamps cuz the family kept denying Julien's byblows--black and white. Riverbend was the most GHASTLY part of the Mayfair's racist history, and I wasn't surprised that when Jojo showed off the designee portraits Marguerite's name wasn't mentioned, seeing the way they're revising/cleaning up the Mayfair history already.

Speaking of Jojo, yes, Jen Richards was a breath of fresh air, and I hope she gets WAY more to do. Maybe make Jojo the new Mona? O_O I could see it! Jojo's already the best female on the whole show, and an actually LIKEABLE Mayfair, so I say make her the designee and let's have her meet Quinn Blackwood, get married and have his kid from the book--but surprise! it's a Walking Baby, Morrigan! <3 (DO NOT have her be one of the Mayfair women Lasher assaults & kills, PLEASE NO.)

But yeah, while I hope they prove me wrong in S2, this was such a fustercluck that IDK if there's any salvaging it.

A list of things Mayfair Witches needs

A more loving approach to the environment (the story has a lot of details that are a love letter to New Orleans. There weren’t nearly enough references to the food, music, culture or architecture)

Giving Ciprien more of a personality (he felt incredibly flat)

More scenes/plots/focused episodes about the previous witches because they are 10x more interesting than Rowan

Mona Mayfair (obviously upgrade Anne’s “most feminist character” to third wave intersectional feminism instead of exaggerated second wave feminine supremacy)

Please more of the iconic symbology. The victrola, Stella’s pearls, the various artifacts from their 400 year history. Even the second floor attic reveal was anticlimatic in season one. 

Better costume design. These people do *not* appear to be dressing for their class, their environment or the weather.

Obviously they need to treat the characters of color with more respect (being treated bad by other characters is one thing, being treated bad by the narrative is another), also for all their talk of making it “more queer friendly” they’ve certainly glossed over a lot of the queerness of the work. 

FFS put Ms. Richards on the writing staff or something PLEASE she was legit a member of the real-life Talamasca and is one of only like three people on the whole of the cast crew and production that was actually a fan of the work before this started. Her whole thing is updating problematic genre content and you gave her nothing to do