My Aquatic Laboratory!

Just another queer geek postin' whatever.

[hellallamerican]

i need everyone to get into college football right now i am dying to talk about the texas tech situation. this is the kind of thing that will be referenced for the next 100 years. there will be documentaries and biopics about this.

[hellallamerican]

no one asked but here

texas tech's quartback, brendan sorsby, was investigated for sports gambling. i know sports betting is all the rage right now, but athletes themselves are not allowed to do it. it is Rule Number 1 and it is the highest priority rule for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), who governs all athletic programs at about 1,100 colleges in the US.

the invesitagetion of sorsby revealed that, not only did he place more than 9,000 sports bets when he himself was a collegiate athlete, but 40 of those bets were AGAINST HIS OWN TEAM when he was playing at indiana university. immediately, this threatens the integrity of the sport, and especially because indiana is the hottest team right now as the defending national champion.

the NCAA, which is largely a sham organization these days (they've truly lost their grasp and college athletics are the wild west now) actually enforced their Number 1 Rule and told sorsby his career is over, that he would never play college football again (and, subsequently, that he would never get drafted into the NFL because his college career was cut short).

well, because the NCAA is a husk of its former self, sorsby and texad tech immediately took this to court. MANY athletes have learned these past few seasons that if you can find a judge who's a fan of your team, you can get any NCAA ruling overturned. that's exactly what texas tech did. they filed a suit in Lubbock, where the university is located and where every judge is an alum of texas tech. so sorsby was granted an injunction and will now only be suspended for the first 2 games od the 2026 season (which are alwayd against no-name teams that will be destroyed regardless of who's suspended).

every other school in the country immediately went on the defensive because this is a very clear integretiy issue. so nebraska and georgia (sic em dawgs) released statements saying that all currently-scheduled competitions witb Texas Tech in ANY sport will be canceled and there will be no future schedulings. at least 3 of the major conferences (SEC, Big 10, Big 12) , who account for almost all division 1 sports teams in the country, are also in discussions about cancelling comtests. Texas Tech is part of the Big 12, and there is serious talk of all other teams in the conference shutting texas tech out.

now would probably be time where i say that texas tech is one of the wealthiest programs in college football becaise there is a single billionaire alumnus pouring money into the program with hopes of essentially buying a championship. so texas techs integrity has always been questionable. anyway, the university president put oit a statement that he doesnt care that sorseby violated regulation and that texas tech will sue any school that refuses to play them because it jeopardizes their championship prospects if they're umable to play any games.

this is all just startomg but its so juicy and delicious. the NCAA is going to crumble to dust if they cannot get this injunction overturned. schools like georgia and nebraska have plenty of money so a suit isnt necessarily a concern, but this will absolutely change college football forever. i cant stop reading about it.

[hellallamerican]

update on this: texas tech is claiming that every school who has/is considering cancelling all contests is "afraid" that texas tech is better than them. what's funny about this is that sorsby's stats are average. he is not good enough for this kind of protection. many schools who have already cancelled or are considering it have much better quarterbacks than sorsby. also, texas tech's head coach had said that it's actually ok that sorsby bet against his own team because it "its not murder or assault."

[hellallamerican]

the attorney general of texas has threatened to investigate the Big 12 conference if they sanction Texas Tech

[hellallamerican]

the claim is now that texas texh university just cares so much about brendan sorsbys mental health that they have to sue everyone who calls this an integrity violation. any other school who wouldnt defend an athlete that committed this violation "doesnt care about mental health"

[evil-genius-shark]

So I never expected to see anyone talking about this on Tumblr, but to Lubbock and West Texas more broadly, this may as well be schism in the church.

There is already this tension in the air. The state government has had scandal after scandal, the Republican party had basically admitted they will break whatever rules they want, and then there’s the steady growth of things like SpaceX.

A deeply unfortunate amount of Texans like to think of themselves as rough and tumble cowboys with steely wills and deeply held moral values, and all of this has proven otherwise.

Of course some people just run with it. If they’re winning (or more accurately the people they don’t like are losing) then everything is fine. But there are enough people with at least a little shame for there to be a broader feeling of unease.

But now it’s effecting football.

My family is hardline republican, with 80% being Texas Tech alumni, and there have been more arguments over this than any piece of policy.

My grandparents will gladly ignore corruption in the government… But football? COLLEGE FOOTBALL?! TEXAS TECH?! That’s possibly the one thing they have any integrity in.

On the other hand I have cousins that are so desperate for another “golden age” for Tech that they genuinely hope that the state steps in to guarantee it. They don’t care how it happens, they just want the Red Raiders to be “winners” again.

[poppypath]

[oh-jod-dammit]

I've been thinking lately about common misinterpretations and mischaracterization. And before I get into that, I do wanna say in spite of any frustrations that the TLT fandom is by far one of the best I've ever been in. There's so much complexity and nuance that really is just common knowledge, even among the more casual fans, and it's so good. I don't want this to come off as complaining or detracting from just how great the fandom in general is. With that disclaimer though:

While we don't often do the typical watering down of characters you'll see elsewhere, I've realized that with TLT, a lot of the reads that bother me ultimately seem to boil down to people underestimating just how sad everyone is, or "knowing" it but not fully understanding just how deeply it affects them.

We'll talk about how part of the point of the series is that the price of love is invariably grief, but I feel like that grief isn't always given the weight it truly deserves.

And it doesn't necessarily apply to everyone. I've almost never seen people downplaying what a sad wet cat Harrow is, but I do sometimes see her treated as a lot more... overconfident? elitist? than she really is? Those aren't the right words and she definitely IS very strongly those things, but I've seen people exaggerate that in a way that ignores some of her sadness and compassion, if that makes sense. Still, not "too" bad. And a few characters like Cam, yeah maybe people focus more on her badassery sometimes, but I don't really see anyone underselling the tragedy. And I'm glad!

But then there's the really big obvious one with Kiriona. The number of people who actively dislike her or straight up think she's not Gideon, who miss the moments of compassion that seep through even with abrasive as she's actively trying to be. As if it's not so similar to when she was like, nope! She's out! "Might as well leave [my stitches] in until I'm done getting people bumped off, am I right!" As if she hasn't been an asshole the whole time. But also, as if she hasn't spent the last six months coping with learning her mother only conceived her to kill her, and not knowing if Harrow is still alive or if she'll ever see her again, and having everything she ever wanted to earn just handed to her because of something she had no control over, denying her the chance to ever really prove herself in the process. As if she wasn't ALSO just baited into the first Griddlehark kiss only for it to not really be Harrow, and worse, to be Harrow's bullshit dead girlfriend wearing her body. Of course she's pissed, of course she's miserable.

And there's just Gideon, who does sometimes get watered down into the funny cocky half golden retriever half douchebag, and it's a fun vibe for sure, but at the end of the day, it's always been a mask. She does love swords and working out, but even working out became a comfort because it was something she had control over, could do completely on her own to make her feel like she was making any sort of progress toward getting away from this hellhole. You don't try to run away 87 times without being really miserable and desperate.

And like. Yeah anyone following me knows we'd be here all damn day if I got too started on John, but short version this is not a power-hungry asshole who enjoys lording over people, this is a guy who doesn't want power but is terrified of anyone else taking it if he doesn't, a guy who refuses to ever be powerless again, and most importantly, a guy driven almost entirely by fear and guilt and desparation to "fix" everything he's done. I absolutely believe to the depths of my soul that his crown is a mourning wreath and he wears those baby bones to force himself to literally bear the weight of his sins, so he'll never forget what he's done or be tempted to think he's allowed to let it go. He can't accept the "stains", he needs to make things "clean." There are multiple implications he doesn't intend to survive whatever he needs to do to Make Things Right. Kiriona is the saddest girl in the universe and she 10,000% gets it from her dad.

And then there's all the Lyctors, but very especially Mercymorn. And we're gonna really buckle in for this one.

Because man, I get it. She's so mean and angry and I am also swooning for those parts of her. But people will acknowledge she's a walking pile of grief and then treat that anger as her defining trait. No, she's miserable. Augustine is miserable. G1deon is miserable. Cytherea, for all her coy and silly moments and vengeful plans, was miserable. They're all exhausted; compelled to keep going, but actively dreaming of finally being allowed to die. And all of them, in spite of everything, still loved John to their deaths, and everything hurt so much more because they did. It isn't "betrayal" if you didn't trust the person who betrayed you.

And with Mercy in particular, she cares so much, about everything all the time, and really can't make it stop. She sees Harrow being attacked and gets exasperated at herself for stepping in even as she manipulates her body to replicate powerful pain meds. The entire Acid Jail speech is screaming that at the end of the day, what she often fantasizes about is John finally understanding everyone else's suffering enough to stop what he's been doing and get his shit together and thank her for helping him get there. She chooses the meanest way to say nearly everything but the patterns in what she's saying reveal so much.

Her anger is a wall, erected to keep everyone away, to isolate herself on purpose, because caring hurts too much; because getting attached means eventually losing someone else and she cannot bear any more grief; because if she allowed herself any real anchor other than her duty to stop John's madness, she might hesitate to kill herself once it's finally over, and she so deeply wants to die.

Her anger is a shelter and an anchor in itself. It's safe, in the same way Augustine is safe, hatred is safe. If she allowed herself any shred of Joy, wouldn't that be tantamount to moving on? To letting go? Wouldn't that be betraying Cristabel, to ever be happy again without her? No, she refuses. She made her House a monument to Cris's fascination with the soul, not her own unparalleled skill with flesh. She doesn't want to be here or anywhere without her, but at first, dying after Cris died to make her immortal would be making her death pointless, and later, she realized John needed to be stopped and had a duty to see that through. So anger helps her keep going. Anger is better than emptiness. When anger is the only fuel you have, the only thing that can still light a fire in you, you cling and cling and cling. You lean into it, you look for reasons to be pissed off on purpose. You erode your patience into nothing until every tiniest slight is reason to be on a warpath. Because you have a job to do, and you can't let yourself stop until you get it done, and if you ever let that fire go out, you're not sure you'd ever get it started again.

And even then, the quiet misery can't fully be masked. There's the total deflation, the full-bore unalloyed relief when Harrow says she's too young to be hers. There's her seeing Gideon like the picture in the dictionary next to unhappiness, like someone who'd just seen their true love kicked into a meat grinder and come out as a pile of sausages. There's her becoming a crumple of misery confronting John, and most of all, the distant almost dissociative calm when she thinks the deed is finally done. How much all that anger simply evaporates, how she barely has the energy left to protest when Augustine says she still has to keep going. This isn't a woman who was ever going to be satisfied by violence, or by anything at all, but one who cared too much for humanity to ever just leave it to die.

And then there's Alecto. Alecto who was switched off in the middle of "I still love y" and woke up with the "you" still on her lips. Alecto who had a piece of her experience a whole beautiful life full of love, and in that form lamented how hard it was being happy when everyone around her wasn't, yet who is constantly pushing down guilt and grief that she can't even place. Identifying the Sixth House committee as something wonderful in the tunnels, not being sad that Pal does necromancy, but also being sad that he can do it. Alecto who only ever wanted to be herself and hated playing pretend, Alecto who was only ever afraid to die. Alecto whose first thought when the dust settles is "you betrayed my trust", whose second thought is "you made me so unnatural and ugly", and whose third is "what have you done with the rest of my children." A being who thought twice first about herself, because just like Nona also shows, she is selfish, she is vain, and why the hell shouldn't she be? But that doesn't invalidate how right at the heels of that was her grief. She won't be satisfied by violence, either. She certainly wasn't before.

I could go on. The tragedy of Colum Asht and Naberius Tern, both bred to be used as tools. Silas's seeming lack of even an understanding of humor or joy because he's been raised to be this beacon of purity and reason and rules. Judith growing up with so much pressure on her and feeling like she's failed at every single thing she's ever done. Palamedes, overall a fucking beacon of shining hope compared to everyone else in this series, never truly meeting the woman he'd adored his whole life, the only time he ever directly touched her when he unknowingly fingered her ashes, carried by Camilla and feeling as though just existing in their lives has hurt every woman he's ever loved. Corona terrified of herself, begging Judith to bind her down and keep her from getting worse. Even Ianthe, crying herself to sleep every night for months, pining for a girl who refuses to let go of something she doesn't even remember, struggling to cope with having expectations she can't meet for the first time in her life and reaching a point of trying in vain to stab her own arm off.

Some might've gotten by a little better than others. Magnus and Abigail are a terrifying force not to be underestimated but even in death seem content enough with their lots. Dulcie for all her terrible circumstances, or maybe even because of them, might be one of the least sad characters in the series.

But the vast majority, even the kids, even Nona, carry so much utter despair. Nearly everyone is sad, and everyone is scared. It really cannot be understated how deeply everything else is rooted in that.

[aduck8myshoes]

I think some of it is that people that have not gone through major grief, major, completely life altering loss, have a hard time realizing that you don't stop being everything else you are when grief happens. Maybe for just a little bit you are allowed to be consumed by it, but the world expects you to move on, it forces you to move on, whether the grief does or not. Part of what makes TLT such a powerful story is that it examines sustained grief. Because as we know: love is too long.

TLT shows us what living with a void in you is. Both when it was created yesterday and a myriad ago. And not just losing someone to death. Losing your idea of who you thought someone was, losing the structure you knew, losing your body, losing yourself. And what happens when everything just keeps going despite it.

It's why Dulcie (actual Dulcie) is such an interesting character to put into this story. Her life has been always been centered around loss. She has known it would happen and how her whole life. But the reason she seems so happy in comparison to everyone else, is because she is one of the only characters outside of the original lyctors that has reached any sort of acceptance of that loss. Even John and Alecto still hang in the balance.

When you reach acceptance, the sadness is still there, the anger is still there. They flare up unpredictably but it is manageable most of the time. You just live with it, permanently altered, knowing there is little else you can do. For a reader that has not lived through the process it can be hard to imagine that reality.

I started Gideon the Ninth during the tail end of my main block of cancer treatment, and I will always wonder what would have happened if I had pulled it off my tbr list one year earlier, before I knew. If what happened to me never happened at all. I know I would have enjoyed it, but I doubt it would have meant as much to me as it does, and I doubt I would have understood and appreciated the complexity of the characters the way I do.

[oh-jod-dammit]

These are EXCELLENT additions and really help make the point, yeah! It's the way "all-consuming grief" doesn't mean "nothing but grief." How other emotions return—sometimes even including joy, hope, humor, new love, let alone other generally-seen-as-negative feelings—but the grief and sorrow are still there. A fire that's burned down the life you had, and in time new growth sprouts from the ashes, but the rubble is still buried underneath, and you don't always have the ability or want to truly dig it out. The sadness doesn't make other feelings impossible, but everything that comes after still has those ashes feeding its roots.

Also—

Obsessed with you adding THIS tag to your reblog. Fucking incredible, 12/10 no notes

[antifainternational]

Scotland Callout! 🏴 🚩

Fascist groups attempting to spread the disgusting racist and loyalist violence we've seen in Belfast have called a demonstration in Dundee this Tuesday 16th of June. We will not let that happen. Dundee is a working class city with a long and proud history of welcoming refugees, the far-right and their violent rhetoric have no place here. We call on the people of Dundee to stand with us in community self-defence and show that this city will never grant space to fascists. Tuesday 16th June 6:30pm City Square

- Anti-Fascist Action Dundee

[evil-genius-shark]

Is there anything as sinisterly fun as having the party you’re dm/gm’ing fall into your trap.

“NooOOo! Don’t go to that city to resupply! I didn’t at all plan for you to come here. There is not at all a series of individualized traps to draw you into.”

The fools. The absolute rubes. One of them wiki’d the city (which I’m fine with) and found out that one of the big bads lives there. “You totally weren’t expecting us to go there!” They still think he’s just some dangerous noble and not a 16th level barbarian with free archetype in gunslinger.

“We can just stab him in his house!” Y’all are going to get thrown into a barrister and filled with led.

Love it

[stealingpotatoes]

people raised some good questions on that marrocrow post about what vader would think of two inquisitors dating so here's some potential answers <3

[indigosfindings]

im always caught off guard by all the ianthe fanart that makes her like really really pretty & put together. like obviously there are textual allusions to her being good-looking & it's a matter of interpretation & whatnot, but like from all the descriptions of her as like, deflated & colourless & wearing ill-fitting clothes, i was constantly picturing her as kind of gawky & not especially manicured. yknow, someone who like, hasnt really figured out conditioner. and then i log on & see that 1 nonagesimillion people have been picturing her as heidi klum

[doubleca5t]

woman likers on tumblr do to ianthe what the man likers have been doing to tumblr sexymen for years

[status-quo-hater]

This version of the progress flag legitimately looks so nice

Gilbert baker rainbow, huge intersex circle, the design is cluttered but in a good way 10/10

[ID: A version of the progress pride flag with a large purple intersex ring outlined in gold, looping through pink, blue, brown, and black chevrons on the side, which have a base of white. The horizontal stripes are: pink, red, orange, yellow, green, light blue, dark blue, and purple. End ID.]

[kira-serialfaggot]

It's happening the morphing into Ohio

[the-lumpfish-queen]

[yuriwinged]

[autistic-af]

[jam-does-audio]

Girls. That's the original image. We've come full circle. It's always just been the state of Ohio

[14-opossums-in-a-trenchcoat]

Love when people accidentally recreate the meme like with the "fuck this post and happy birthday Sonic" one

[velvetcloak]

Letter coat by SCAD Student Designer Riley Flynn

[cyberphuck]

@tragediegh this is how Lord Golden sends correspondence

[evil-genius-shark]

Taskmaster is taking an interesting turn, potentially a saucy turn.

[crowwkui]

I don’t usually do crossovers, but a comic idea popped into my head, so i decided to see where it went o/ cw: blood

[cryptidotter]

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly and accurately Palamedes sizes Harrow up

[evil-genius-shark]

Genius recognizing genius. The only difference is one is a reasonably well adjusted adult while the other is a late teen with schizophrenia and a crush and the devil.

[merymdm]

Last fanart I did of Aelita (for now cause I love drawing her), I wanted to have one that would match the one I did of Yumi.

[baddywronglegs]

Do you think Michael Crichton had a deep-seated hatred of theme parks because he was too tall for all the rides?

[wanderer-chronicles]

Yes.

[tumblr] is a flat circle.

[baddywronglegs]

Damn, it sure is huh

[zetabrarian]

We should do this more on this website.

Person 1: -posts-

Person 2: -pulls out the historical documents-

[baddywronglegs]

I have been brought before the scriptures and my heresies found canonical.

I accept the judgement "unoriginal" and "should have looked it up first" but, in my inadequate defence, Tumblr's search function does fucking suck.

[zeemczed]

Defense found perfectly cromulent. Let Baddywronglegs free, and let no mark be against said blog.

[fozmeadows]

"I have been brought before the scriptures and my heresies found canonical" is an all-time banger line.

[thinkingabout-girls]

the funniest moment in dungeon meshi is when marcille is having her nightmare and brings up her dead bird while also talking about her dead dad, saying “papa and pipi” and laios automatically assumes pipi is marcilles third nonbinary parent on top of her mom and dad

[ouppygirlcity]

[evil-genius-shark]

WOW I can’t believe Ribbit was actually the super computer all along!

[evil-genius-shark]

Of all the things I called in tadc

Gangle being black is the one I am happiest to see. I KNOW MY LITTLE FUJOSHI WAS BROWN!!

“Well I just don’t get that feeling from her”

Because your mind is weak and you do not know the light of truth!

[teeth--wizard]

A fourth grader at my work saw Doritos and Fritos by the animator bb panzu and started asking me about homestuck.

Oh no.

[evil-genius-shark]

I’m not sure what would be better. Telling them to avoid it may just make them more curious, but explaining it makes it seem permissible…