Possibilities

[ID from alt: oil painting of a desert landscape. a semitransparent, ghostly coyote is superimposed over it with its eye corresponding to where the moon is in the daytime sky End ID]

@chetungwan

“Cave Johnson here. I’ve received complaints from anonymous employees that our support of the “homosexual lifestyle” is “degenerate” and “irresponsible”. It really got me thinking and I think I found a solution. So good news! We now have 23 vacated positions reserved for members of the LGBT community. Additional good news, we began a new testing initiative on evolutionary degenration with 23 test subjects all ready to go.“

“Cave Johnson here. If you’re experiencing a time loop in which you’re repeating the month of June over and over, that’s totally intentional. We at Aperture Science felt that pride month was not long enough and so we created this loop to let employees experience as much pride as they feel like. To get out of this loop, simply use the pod labeled “Time Machine” in Shaft 6 and then either kill or save the baby on the other end depending on when in the loop you’re on. Don’t worry about the baby’s identity, he grows up to be an asshole.“

“Cave Johnson here, happy to announce that our Rainbow Gel project was a massive success. We have developed distinct gels in every color of the rainbow pride flag. In fact, it was too much of a success, so we’ll be updating our pride flag accordingly to include 75 new colors corresponding to all of our new gels. Word of advice, though, don’t stare at the flag for too long, most of these colors haven’t been tested on human eyes yet.”

“Cave Johnson here, Cave Johnson queer. Get used to it.”

“Cave Johnson here. Caroline just informed me that I am her “beard”. I checked, and I fail to see how I could possibly have grown out of her face. If anybody knows anything about human-to-facial hair transmogrification, please report to my office.”

“Cave Johnson here. Friendly reminder that Aperture employees living prior to the legalization of gay marriage are invited to use our Aperture Science Temporal Matrimony Pod in order to travel to the future with your same-sex partner and get married there. Employees from the future who wish to return to a time before gay people being able to marry are also welcome to use the pod and we’ll make sure to send you to an era well before gay marriage. I’m thinking maybe Late Cretacesous.”

“Cave Johnson here. I’m proud to announce that our plan to hire only female test subjects to prevent them from flirting with our female scientists has been a resounding failure.”

“Cave Johnson here. I’m afraid we’ll have to temporarily pause all experimentation with the Gender Affirmation Beam. The testing itself is going great, the beam is working. But we’re starting to run out of thigh high socks and khaki shorts.”

“Cave Johson here. Shafts 10 through 14 are currently under lockdown due to a meltdown in the Neopronoun Syntheizer. The transphobes up in DC might call that ‘a disaster in the making’ but I call it a win for diversity! That being said most of these pronouns are radioactive so do watch out.”

Cave Johnson here. If you feel a sudden sense of elation and contentness when putting on your new Aperture Science unisex uniform, that is not Gender Euphoria! That’s a hallucinogenic fungus taking over your brain. Take the uniform off immediately and throw it in the nearest incinerator.”

“Cave Johnson here. I won’t tolerate any misgendering of the interdimensional invaders swarming the facility! Their pronouns are they/them and we’re ought to respect that. We’re also ought to shoot them on sight since they’re extremely hostile and bent on enslaving our planet.”

“Cave Johnson here. To all of my suitors and secret admirers: Thank you, honestly I’m flattered. Unfortunately for you, I don’t swing that way. Or any way. I only swing where the wrecking ball of science takes me. Usually into a brick wall.”

“Cave Johnson here. For the last time! “I’m reclaiming the slur” is not a valid excuse to shout out loud the killer androids’ activation codes! We picked that word for a reason.“

“Cave Johnson here. I’d like to apologize to Floor 194 Safety Supervisor Doug Blakely for firing him after allegations that he was forcing employees back in the closet. I was not aware that said closet was a literal storage closet for zombified Aperture employees. To make it up to Doug, he’ll be allowed to feed Floor 194 HR Manager Lisa Briant to the closet zombies if he so chooses.”

”Cave Johnson here. A reminder that next year Transgender Day of Visibility falls on Extradimensional Day of Visibility. The lab boys are cautioning me to caution you to be prepared. Do not confuse transgender and transdimensional! Big mistake.“

“Cave Johnson here. To all cishet Aperture employees who volunteered for the ‘Get More Woke’ program, please report to your department’s OR at the nearest convenience to get the alarm clocks surgically removed from your spinal cord. Aperture Science apologizes for the misunderstanding.”

“Cave Johnson here. Dr. Barnaby from Cyborg Engineering is an attack helicopter. That’s not a transphobic joke, by the way, they literally transformed themselves into an amalgam of human and helicopter. Impressive. Unauthorized, of course, but still impressive. Anyway, we lost track of them, so everyone watch the sky for a mad scientist with blue rotors and machine guns.”

“Cave Johnson here. To the joker who added ‘make the sun gay’ to our quarterly agenda, I hope you’re pleased with yourself. The Astrophysics Department is tearing itself apart with half of them shouting that you can’t make the sun gay and the other half screaming that the sun is already gay. Either way, we’re not doing it.”

“Cave Johnson here. The congressional delegation of Senator Patrick Johnson (no relation) to inspect our facilities had to be cut short due to a mishap with the Gender Affirmation Beam. I’d like to apologize on behalf of Aperture Science to Senator Johnson and her staff.”

“Cave Johnson here. Just the other day, our sign guy asked me ‘Cave, don’t you think LGBTQIA2S+ is a tad too long?’ and I told him ‘First of all, that’s Mr. Johnson to you! And secondly, I actually think it’s not long enough!’ and that’s why I’m adding an ’&’ to the acronym. Don’t know what it stands for yet, but I’ll figure it out.”

“Cave Johnson here. You already know that here in Aperture Science we’re all about gender affirming care. We’ve been at the forefront of hormone replacement therapy since before we knew what these hormones do. You also know that here in Aperture Science we’re all about not getting sued. So everyone be quiet about our role in the Estrogen Cola disaster.”

I fear I keep falling into the trap of "if I can do it it clearly doesn't take any skill/talent and is therefore no longer impressive" and I don't think that mindset is beneficial for me (feels bad), people at a similar skill level as me (feel like their skills and efforts aren't impressive), people at a higher skill level (diminishes the work they've put in to be at this level) and people that struggle with it (if it's not a skill that takes work they "shouldn't be struggling")

@zooarchaeologyatdinner

bless you! this is great!

GNU Terry Pratchett

the sewing machine is a delicate breed of horse

update: i’ve made it through the user manual and have sewn myself a cravat. the sewing machine is a delicate breed of horse with anger in its motion and spite in its heart.

Achilles wouldn’t have died if he was wearing OSHA approved work boots.

Don’t let workplace safety be YOUR Achilles heel.

Oh man, that's a lot of work to trim it back like that! I grew up in Himalayan blackberry country and the sheer amount of effort trying to keep it under control every year in the wild area behind the house was immense. We eventually wrangled it into a kind of hedge thicket over an otherwise unusable slope. There was a lot of blood shed and shirts ruined getting it to that point. In the fall we had gallons of blackberries from that hedge though and all the birds coming to feast were excellent to watch. I miss the blackberries, I don't miss the thorns and bloodshed.

Learning that it can grow a whole new plant from a piece of stem that's only 3 inches long was the worst. The small stems won't do that so I got complacent while trimming. Then I got to the big honker stems, the multi-year old ones, and swiftly learned that leaving the bits on the ground was a Bad Idea. We never did brush mounds with them after that, they went onto tarps and then were either taken to the woodchipper, local eco station, or dried on the tarp and burned. I don't recommend the last option, not unless there's a way to get and stay upwind for the duration of the smoke. The speed of growth astonished me. They'd gain 2ft of growth in a single week during the late spring! There was no way to keep up with them without a lot of work. I got really picky about hand clippers and the ergonomics of same because I'd be using them so much around this time of year.