we can always be chasing the sun

come out of the in between | something better is waiting ~alison malee

[natalieironside]

Shout out to trans women who aren’t computer scientists or musicians or avant-garde artists or whatever.

Shout-out to tgirls who work at Taco Bell. Thank u queen, society would collapse without you

[snkrfnd]

Over twenty years ago my big brother got me a job at a Taco Bell in the St. Louis suburbs-West County. He warned me that it was the “gay Taco Bell”, but since I was coming from the “gay Howard Johnson’s” I wasn’t shocked. It turns out it was the black trans women Taco Bell complete with black trans women in management. And they’d worked out an arrangement with the local teen Narcotics Anonymous group so that twice a week we would shut down the drive thru and the dining room and exclusively serve 60+ teens in various stages of recovery. And many of the women I worked with were in various stages of being out or transitioning and they were from all generations from teens to over 50. One woman I worked with had a regular corporate job presenting as a man 9-5 Mon-Fri and then came to Taco Bell and worked 6pm -2am Friday and Saturday night so she could be herself surrounded by other black transwomen in those stolen weekends. And we had customers come from all over the metro area because they knew they could be themselves in the dining room. I only worked there from 1999-2001 but for young me, this was a vital, formative experience. Some of the girls came from north city all the way out to the “gay Taco Bell” on Manchester in west county because they heard it was safe to work there. Like- I know times have changed but they haven’t changed much in 20 years. I’m still convinced that for lgbt youth, finding a job at your city’s version of the “gay Taco Bell” is key to survival.

[natalieironside]

Thank u for sharing this with us

[intosnarkness]

Mutuals if you’re the pope you have to tell me or it’s entrapment

[hyperions-fate]

The nice thing about this heatwave is that you get to feel like Gilgamesh, prince of Uruk and contemplator of the deep, lost and grieving in the sun-lacerated deserts of bronze age Mesopotamia whilst you're getting the shopping from your local Aldi.

[godkissedme]

[polkadotmotmot]

The cicadas are fucking each other loudly in my hood. Good for them. Love the summer!

[daftpatience]

murderbot i love you

[calebsane]

everybody forgive themselves right now

[maybebitterxox]

The true Narnia canon that C.S. Lewis didn’t want you to know about

[luna-azzurra]

What helped me write trauma better is remembering that the nervous system learns predictions. If danger used to come after quiet, calm can feel threatening. If kindness used to come with a price, kindness can feel suspicious. So healing is not just “they know they’re safe now.” Healing is the slow, annoying, deeply unfair process of teaching the body that the old prediction is not always the present truth.

[herpsandbirds]

Cyprus Green Toad (Bufotes cypriensis), family Bufonidae, endemic to Cypress

photograph by Lennart Hudel 

[whencartoonsruletheworld]

ohhh my god I just fact-checked, Nolan actually DID cut the "Nobody" scene from his Odyssey movie. Mfer that is like cutting the Father reveal from Star Wars. Let me speak in a language you understand this is like not dressing Batman up in his suit. "It was not possible to work it in" the TikTok musical with a budget of $4 and a scratched Hamilton CD managed to work it in in SONG form, step up your FUCKING GAME

[maxiemumdamage]

As someone who has written academic papers about the role of disguise and deceit in the Odyssey — Nobody is so damn important.

Prior to this point, when Odysseus tries to exercise Xenia (ancient Greek guest rites/hospitality code), he did what he was supposed to do. (Well, we think so anyway — notably, the most famous books of the Odyssey are told by Odysseus, who isn’t exactly a reliable narrator.)

But when Polyphemus kills and eats some of the men, the game changes. The Cyclops makes it clear he has no intention of abiding by Zeus’s laws, and will cannibalize the lot of the men. So, Odysseus responds in kind — he breaks Xenia and lies. He introduces himself under a false name as part of a trick. Polyphemus then breaks Xenia again — he tells Nobody he’ll be eaten last, and that is the Cyclops’ guest gift to him.

Odysseus’ transgression is clearly the lesser one. The Nobody trick works. It gets Odysseus and most of his crew out of the cave alive.

But, crucially, before leaving Odysseus sheds his disguise. He admits his true identity, in detail, so he can boast of his achievements and add vanquishing a Cyclops to the list. And it bites him in the ass spectacularly.

The only reason why Polyphemus can curse Odysseus, can bid his father Poseidon to curse the man who blinded him, is because he now knows who did it. If Odysseus had kept his mouth shut, he might have safely made it home from there. But while a big part of why the Nobody disguise vs. real name reveal is showing Odysseus’s hubris, it’s not just about that. It’s also about the start of a pattern that hurts him more than it helps him.

From this point in the Odyssey on, Odysseus lies about his identity constantly. And sometimes it protects him, but more often it’s a detriment or at least unnecessary. He’s lying about his identity primarily to people who are on his side — a kindly loyal swineherd, his son, his faithful wife, his ailing father.

The last one is especially damning, because happens when Odysseus has already killed the suitors and returned home and reunited with the rest of his family sans disguises. He knows from everyone else that Laertes never betrayed him or his legacy, but was mourning his son and heartbroken for almost a decade. Odysseus has publicly declared his return to everyone else — his father doesn’t know because he’s living in squalor remotely. But Odysseus doesn’t tell his father who he is. He makes up a fake identity and tells a story implying Laertes’ son is dead. And when Laertes bursts out crying, then Odysseus drops the charade and finally admits who he really was.

There was no utility to that lie. No loyalty to test. No hidden threats to worry about. But Odysseus still instinctively lies to his beloved father about who he is, only dropping the charade when he sees the damage it’s doing to his relationships.

Because at this point, lying is pathological for Odysseus. He can’t seem to stop doing it. Because with Polyphemus, a lie protected him and the truth hurt him. That is the point of the “ Nobody” disguise.

And they fucking cut it???

[prokopetz]

Strictly speaking, "ultimate" means "last", not "best". It's often figuratively employed in the latter sense to suggest that the thing so described is the final word on the subject, after which nothing more need be said, but if we're being real technical, describing a game or movie that was so bad it killed its entire franchise as the "ultimate" is in fact correct.

[prokopetz]

@ffoxer replied:

Now I'm thinking about the prefix "pen," which as far as I can think I may have only ever seen in "penultimate"

It's Latin for "nearly" or "almost", and it does pop up in a few other English words. "Penultimate", "penumbra" and "peninsula" are the only ones I can think of that you'd even remotely expect to encounter in everyday speech, though; the rest are all medical or mathematical jargon.

[prokopetz]

#so peninsula means what? #almost island? #lmao (via @actualanxiousswampwitch)

That is the actual etymology of the word "peninsula", yes.

[sophsun1]

Singin' in the Rain (1952) dir. Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[glutko]

[dramatic-dolphin]

i love that the part of bees' hind legs where they collect the pollen is actually called "pollen basket" because whenever i see a bee who has visibly collected a ton of pollen i do say "look, her basket is full!!" good to know everyone before me has thought the same thing too.

[torstherapy]

[tinsnip]

Per @spoonstrek