A Porcupine’s Halloween Present (+ Original Sound Effects)

This is heinous

the suffering never ends

So… I got a notification from the State Department at like 8 PM Pacific that my passport was approved, and I was quietly thankful and stunned bc my legal gender in Oregon is listed as X, or undeclared, and that's what's on my passport. I'm pretty sure someone(s) worked late to get the X passports done today.

I was already really grateful to whoever in the Seattle Passport Office worked late to get these things processed on the last Friday before That Man gets back into office... and then I got a notification that my passport shipped at fucking midnight Pacific and whoever got that shit out the door so it couldn't be picked up on Monday and like, denied and shredded?

They're my fucking hero.

I can't believe it's this late on Thanksgiving and I haven't seen Peter Parker had to beat an old lady with a stick to get these cranberries.

Being a fanfic author is spending two hours fact checking every detail of a real life assassination that happened 80 years ago for a Helluva Boss/Hazbin Hotel chapter that you know damn well absolutely no one will care about.

So hey, to anyone who does femme historical fashion anywhere between 1885 and 1950-

Cornell University has the entire archives of Good Housekeeping up from that time period. And Good Housekeeping used to have English-language fashion plates with clear instructions as to fabric, colour, and cut.

They were ads for the personal shopping service Good Housekeeping apparently??? ran around this time???? and they are a fucking goldmine if you're remotely interested in fashion history or if you're looking to build a 20th century historical wardrobe.

Just, like, look at this?????

An itemized layout of every piece of a young bride's (aspirational) wardrobe in 1930. Including prices. And then below it, a fashion plate, with English-language descriptions of what all these things are and what fabrics they're made of. And an ad for Good Housekeeping's fucking personal shopping service again. XD

IDK, most people who do historical fashion on any kind of serious level probably already know about this??? but I didn't and was stunned and overjoyed to find out that this existed. my research at the library gave me a bunch of high-level overviews that weren't helpful for more than colour and cut.

SO YEAH. THANK YOU CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

your work matters, and you're not a very good judge of it.

you can have the fancy degrees and the years of experience. you can have zero idea what you're doing and nothing but a song in your heart. the way you view what you write will never be how i view what you write. which is why you gotta write whatever feels real and good and honest to ya.

i forgot this. it's really lonely to be an author. the world you slice through to carve into a page - it can't ever be fully realized. sometimes the sun is butter yellow, and i can never spread it onto toast to serve to you. i can never describe fully the feeling of a new england october, only that a place that is often too-cold is suddenly full of a strange and visceral warmth. if you're not a writer or an artist, the experience is like this: take a flower and study it. without eating it, cook me a meal that tastes like this flower.

so i didn't know how good the book is, only that i hoped beyond a hope that anyone out there might get a kick out of it. maybe someone nice will review it every few days, i thought. i just want it to help any 1 person.

i did a reading recently where far too many people were kind and thoughtful and so gentle with me that i got into my car and burst into tears. i've had a very rough year, and this experience felt like a hug. so many people telling me they love what i read from the book. and in it, listening to the laughter as i read - at jokes i have long since stopped thinking are funny - it sent a bird straight through my heart. oh shit, i thought. i've been so unnecessarily cruel to myself.

you have no idea how many people read your work and don't respond because they are too shy or busy or unsure. i have webcomics i've never commented on that i've been checking on weekly for actual years. there are artists on spotify i will never be able to see in concert. there are paintings in galleries that i couldn't afford but wanted to kiss. i love what you have made, and i have no idea how to tell you. i love you, and it hurt me and helped me and also sent me back home. i wish there was more time and more ways to shine the light back to you.

be gentle. you have no way of knowing if you're good enough, so you might as well make something that feels good to make. someone will love it. and that love is never wasted.

It's always something with these motherfuckers

The Republicans have decided we no longer need bees and are defunding the USGS Bee Lab. Please tell your friends, your representatives, local beekeepers, crafting clubs, your classmates, and everyone who has ever seen a bee that this is happening and that the Republicans are behind it. Scream about this. We in the professional bug world make fun of the bee people for having some of the only consistent funding and support in the whole field, but now even that is going away. Write it on your car. Tell someone at the store. Email your professor. Make a tiktok. Draw it on the sidewalk. Do NOT let them sneak this by.

Government Executive

Thousands of layoffs to hit Interior, National Parks imminently

Employees fear diminished capacity after RIFs are tacked on to existing mass exodus.

Someone captured the solar eclipse on an airplane