Free her

the older I get, the more the technological changes I've lived through as a millennial feel bizarre to me. we had computers in my primary school classroom; I first learned to type on a typewriter. I had a cellphone as a teenager, but still needed a physical train timetable. my parents listened to LP records when I was growing up; meanwhile, my childhood cassette tape collection became a CD collection, until I started downloading mp3s on kazaa over our 56k modem internet connection to play in winamp on my desktop computer, and now my laptop doesn't even have a disc tray. I used to save my word documents on floppy discs. I grew up using the rotary phone at my grandparents' house and our wall-connected landline; my mother's first cellphone was so big, we called it The Brick. I once took my desktop computer - monitor, tower and all - on the train to attend a LAN party at a friend's house where we had to connect to the internet with physical cables to play together, and where one friend's massive CRT monitor wouldn't fit on any available table. as kids, we used to make concertina caterpillars in class with the punctured and perforated paper strips that were left over whenever anything was printed on the room's dot matrix printer, which was outdated by the time I was in high school. VHS tapes became DVDs, and you could still rent both at the local video store when I was first married, but those shops all died out within the next six years. my facebook account predates the iphone camera - I used to carry around a separate digital camera and manually upload photos to the computer in order to post them; there are rolls of undeveloped film from my childhood still in envelopes from the chemist's in my childhood photo albums. I have a photo album from my wedding, but no physical albums of my child; by then, we were all posting online, and now that's a decade's worth of pictures I'd have to sort through manually in order to create one. there are video games I tell my son about but can't ever show him because the consoles they used to run on are all obsolete and the games were never remastered for the new ones that don't have the requisite backwards compatibility. I used to have a walkman for car trips as a kid; then I had a discman and a plastic hardshell case of CDs to carry around as a teenager; later, a friend gave my husband and I engraved matching ipods as a wedding present, and we used them both until they stopped working; now they're obsolete. today I texted my mother, who was born in 1950, a tiktok upload of an instructional video for girls from 1956 on how to look after their hair and nails and fold their clothes. my father was born four years after the invention of colour televison; he worked in radio and print journalism, and in the years before his health declined, even though he logically understood that newspapers existed online, he would clip out articles from the physical paper, put them in an envelope and mail them to me overseas if he wanted me to read them. and now I hold the world in a glass-faced rectangle, and I have access to everything and ownership of nothing, and everything I write online can potentially be wiped out at the drop of a hat by the ego of an idiot manchild billionaire. as a child, I wore a watch, but like most of my generation, I stopped when cellphones started telling us the time and they became redundant. now, my son wears a smartwatch so we can call him home from playing in the neighbourhood park, and there's a tanline on his wrist ike the one I haven't had since the age of fifteen. and I wonder: what will 2030 look like?

Final sketch before redrawing to ink

Kosakas, Vashoth Mage Inquisitor, unwilling Herald of Andraste, posed after La Génie du Mal

your honour they're in love

A brief moment of rationality from the bird place.

Announcing MEDLEY: A Medical Primer for Writers (Summer Edition)

Are you a writer?

Do you need to know things about medicine for your fiction works?

Have you considered taking a 100% online class about it?

Starting Tuesday, June 4th and running for 9 weeks is MEDLEY.

Topics include:

WEEK 1: (US) Hospitals and the People Who Work in Them

WEEK 2: The Physical Exam

WEEK 3: Codes and ACLS

WEEK 4: Remote and Improvised Medicine 1

WEEK 5: Remote and Improvised Medicine 2

WEEK 6: Recovery and Aftermath

WEEK 7: Historical Medicine

WEEK 8: Mental Healthcare

WEEK 9: Bonus Episode

This is the second time I'm running this course so hopefully the kinks are nice and ironed out this time.

Price is $36 per person ($4/week).

Two scholarships are available no questions asked.

Contact me at [email protected] for more information/to sign up.

I know I will never see you again. but...

My Liara... My love...

I wanna hold you again before I go.

The Weight of the World

To: Master Operations Chief (ret.) Margaret Shepard

This letter is to inform you that your granddaughter, Lieutenant Commander Bethany Shepard, was presumed killed in action following the destruction of the SSV Normandy by unknown enemy forces on December 5, 2183. 

Lieutenant Commander Shepard’s service with the Alliance was an example to us all and her heroic actions in service both to Earth and the Citadel Council will never be forgotten. 

At this time, we are unable to publicly announce details related to the destruction of the SSV Normandy. At such a time when we are able, rest assured that the Alliance will lay Lieutenant Commander Shepard to rest with full military honors.

Please accept my sincerest condolences for your loss.

Adm. Steven HackettAlliance 5th Fleet Command

Anderson sat in the back of his skycar, numbly rehearsing the words of the letter in his hands over the neatly-folded Alliance flag and Alliance-stamped urn in his lap. God, for such a small jar it must have weighed a ton. Nevermind that it was empty.

His eyes continually wandered to the shallow, formulaic words on the flimsy paper in his hands, hoping that somehow they’d magically rearrange themselves into something less weighty than the gravitational pull of a whole damn planet before the skycar touched down.

Hackett had already sent nineteen letters just like the one in his hands to nineteen different addresses. Letters addressed to Preslies, Dravens, Tanakas and so forth. Letters only confirming what the rumor mill had already been circulating for months. Letters delivered by NCOs and junior officers with black bands around their arms as a thin show of solidarity for their losses. It had been tempting to pass this particular letter off to someone else, too, but some things just had to be done.

“We’re almost there, sir,” the driver said.

The skycar gently touched down on the street next to a neat little house with an immaculately maintained garden. Even in the dead of winter the hedges were neatly trimmed and the flower beds were freshly mulched.

The driver went out to ring the doorbell while Anderson slowly gathered himself for the news he had to deliver.

The woman who came out to the front porch to greet him after a moment was smaller than he expected. He’d never met her before, but Peggy Shepard was a legend in her own right. One of the founding mothers of the Alliance non-commissioned officer’s corp and one of the best damn sniper instructors the service ever had. Hell, her 500-meter longshot record had stood for nearly forty years and had only been broken a few years ago by Lieutenant Coats.

And she didn’t need a letter to tell her why he was here. That was obvious from the hard, steely look in her eyes that flicked to his uniform, the flag tucked under one arm, and the black band around the other. Her eyes lingered on the captain’s stars on his lapel and her hand twitched at her side, fighting the reflexive urge to salute. Old habits died hard, and habits drilled in by a lifetime of military discipline were harder to kill than most. When she looked him right in the eye, though, Anderson had to fight the urge to flinch.

Throughout his military career, Anderson had faced more threats than he cared to count, from the petty political rivalries that riddled the service right up to Saren himself. And just then he would have rather faced down Sovereign itself if it meant getting away from the look in her eyes.

She was no stranger to this ritual. A casual glimpse at the Shepard family tree told him how many of its branches had been pruned like this. But that never meant it was easy to be the bearer of this particular news.

“Ma’am,” he intoned formally. Formalities were good. They were safe. He held up the folded flag and offered it to her with both hands. But before he could so much as open his mouth to say the words that were the next part of the ritual, she held up a hand and drew in a shaky breath.

“It’s true, isn’t it? What they’ve been saying?” She asked quietly. No need to ask what they were saying.

Anderson could only nod stiffly. “I’m afraid so, ma’am.”

She quietly accepted the flag, taking the weight from him and hugging it closely to her chest. 

“The Alliance offers its sincerest condolences for your loss,” he intoned, getting back to the words of the ritual. “If there’s anything we can do for you….” He trailed off. There was nothing the Alliance could do for her that would remotely make up for the magnitude of her loss, and there was no point pretending otherwise. 

She nodded in acknowledgement of the harsh, unspoken truth that passed between them.

“I need to make arrangements,” she said, her voice barely a whisper, before turning back into her house and letting the door slam shut behind her. The large wooden door closed with a resounding thud that made him flinch with its finality. He set the urn and the letter down on the porch table next to the door and went back to the car, his duty thus discharged.

If it was a tragedy for a parent to bury their child, then it was an utter goddamn travesty for a grandparent to lower their grandchild’s casket into the ground.

The driver cleared his throat, cutting across the uncomfortable silence that filled the car. “Where to next, sir?”

“Norfolk,” he said, picking the closest Alliance base he could think of off-hand. The car began its ascent, leaving the view of the Shepard household behind.  “Drop me off at the officer’s club, and tell them to have a glass of Ardbeg 16 ready, no ice.”

Something to wash away the ashy taste of having been the one to send Peggy Shepard’s granddaughter to her empty grave.

Sent to me from reddit today. This is art actually. Link.

cute space girls

Oh how she dances under the moon!

COMMISSIONS SALE!!! 50$ EVERYTHING!!

HI WORLD!! GUESS WHO JUST FINISHED HER MASTERS? IT ME! :D

Now I'm back at it! And doing what I love the most! I will draw (almost) anything and everything XD So hit me up at [email protected] with your commission questions or requests and I'll be glad to answer and work with you!

Here are my Terms and Conditions :3 Don't forget to read them ;)

Quick drawing of Cassandra

This has always been a thing for me. Logically I know, I know, I KNOW, that it shouldn't matter if the other person accepts me for who I am. But since when logic ever works for these things? Ever?

There's always that niggling doubt, that little voice that becomes a shout. I'm taking advantage someone’s affections. I have a lack that I can't hope to fill with actions, with trying, with wanting. I am taking more than I'm giving and things are not fair for my partner.

But what is fair? What is enough? Who decides that? Isn't it right for the other person(s) to decide that? Because a relationship is also a partnership, it is built on open communication and that includes one's insecurities and fears and wants and desires and all that. Then everyone knows what they are getting into, they decide what they can and cannot accept.

Just because one says no, it has nothing to do with me, but it does feel that way. Because I’m the one with the lack, am I not? The weirdo that just don’t feel the way others do. This internalised... frankly I don’t know what’s the right word to use here, but whatever this is, it is makes me I hold back in the earnest belief that I am not enough.

And that’s just not true. I am enough as I am. I am — enough. To try, to want to try, to put words into action, to act, to do — that’s the important shit. All that attraction means fuck all if you don’t act, you don’t do, you don’t make your partner feel loved.

But what do you do? That’s different for everyone. It still has to fit within the boundaries of the relationship you have with your partner(s) and what you’re comfortable with. That’s no different from any other kind of relationship.

This is just my personal experience. It probably won’t fit in most people’s experience of things (aro ace or otherwise)

But please believe me when I say: you are enough.

Enough

This comic is the simplest of all I’ve done, but it’s the one with more meaning for me and Wolfy. It’s terribly personal for Wolfy, She is Aro and Ace, and I couldn’t have asked for a more incredibly perfect partner. Aros are enough. Aces are enough. They are more than enough. And they deserve to be loved just the way they are.

This is the third part of “Love for All” comics First part: Unexpected Second Part: Aro/Demi

Look at this masterpiece!! Look at this!!! Our OCs happy!! And those guns!! They look so damn good!!

My baby girl is AMAZING!

I've been tagged to the infinity to share my WIPs, and honestly, I can't share them because it's for exchanges.

BUT!

I can share what I've been working as a gift for my girlfriend (this was her idea) 💜💜💜

M-27 Scimitar

Black Widow

AND our OC's from the Mass Effect Universe 🥰💜

I'm very happy how all these turned out 💕💜💕💜

I was tagged for: @natsora @dismalzelenka @cartadwarfwithaheartofgold @wickedwitchofthewilds and I don't know how many more, but I'm tagging whoever wants to participate!

chinese college girls slay (cr: 哭天喊地六仙女）