When I was drunk one night and watching the Jellyfish livestream, I reached out to the Monterey Bay Aquarium with a dumb question about their jellyfish... And they actually emailed me back.
(yes, these are actually my own screenshots, I am in tears laughing)
DO YOUR ANIMAL EXPERTS HAVE TO UNTANGLE THE JELLYFISH
AND THE ANSWER IS FUCKING YES, THE JELLIES GET TANGLED SOMETIMES LMAO
Caspar 🧍♂️. You’re 🫵pretty drunk 🥴 right now. (That’s actually you.) I’m projecting 👨💻📽. I’m sorry 🥺 I was an asshole earlier. I used to live in space 🌌🌠🪐⭐️! (I know.) I hate 🤬🤬 it here! (I know.) I used to live in 🌌 space 🌌🤬🤬. And now I live in ⛱️🌞Pasadena 🌎📍. (I'm sorry.) Pasadena 🌎📍 is NOT ❌️🙅♂️ space 🌌❌️. (No it is not.) I’m 🥺 really sorry... 🥺😢 We’re going to figure this out, Gloria!! 🫡💕🙏! (Okay, Leif...) I may need to build a spaceship 🚀 on the roof🏢. For therapy 🛠🧰🚀😊. (That’s a lot of therapy, but okay.) I’m going to sleep 🥱😪😴💤
i feel like we kind of knew even before WaT that the contest of champions wouldn't end up being just a traditional duel, like there was always going to be some trick or secret or psychological game to it, not just two warriors beating the crap out of each other until one of them perishes. however i can't lie i kind of want to see the straightforward beating the crap out of each other until someone perishes version. having this 8000 year long war end with just brutal one on one violence is so simple of a plot that it kind of circles back around to being subversive. like yeah, rip each other's heads off, see how good you feel about winning after that.
I’m having serious thoughts about the contest of champions being Kaladin vs Moash bc like… it kind of brings everything full circle, right back around to Way of Kings. It brings back all of the questions that book raised that the rest of the series tried to sidestep. Can you actually protect by killing? What if that death that protects your people then means an entire other race of people gets subjugated— is Kaladin finally forced to confront his unease with slaughtering the Parshendi that he’s been sidestepping for 5 books? How good does he really feel to be letting someone he cared about die to protect people like Dalinar, to uphold the Alethi government that’s still taken almost no steps to rectify the abuse and injustice the darkeyes face every day, the government that will assuredly maintain the exact same caste system if it retains power?
Then, how do the Singers feel that Odium’s chosen Moash, a human, to fight for their freedom? (Assuming this is a timeline where Rayse is still Odium, since Taravangian basically lost interest in Moash entirely). Presumably Odium picked Moash partly because he knew Dalinar would pick Kaladin, and imagine the Singers like… hang on, is this a fucking game to you? We’ve been oppressed for thousands of years and you’re playing mind games with the humans?
And the thing is, Moash could actually maybe win, but not, I think, if he keeps letting Odium take all of his emotions away. He could win if he harnesses the energy he had in Oathbringer, when he protected the Singers in the caravan. He could win if he finds the part of him that’s capable of caring about others, that actually cares about real justice. But of course, feeling all that might also give him the space to wonder, is Odium justice?
The great irony is the fight brings them all the way back around to how they met, running bridges. Fighting on the front line of a war they had no part in starting, meant to die to protect everyone else. Because even after everything, the only solution Alethkar has to this war that it caused by relentlessly pursuing genocide against the Parshendi, by enslaving the Parshmen, by refusing to consider an ending without full dominion for the ‘forces of honor’, the only solution Alethkar has after everything that’s happened is the same solution it always has: feeding its darkeyed young men to the war. At the end of the day, no matter what you try to do, the Alethi war machine will take possession of you, will pit you against each other, will destroy your friendships, destroy your solidarity, kill your empathy, covet your righteousness, make you into someone you don’t recognize and tell you the fall of your blade is honorable. And then it will eat you.
It's June, motherfuckers, and you know what that means! Apart from firing a few rent-lowering shots to filter out the chuds from my following, it's probably also a good time to post a reminder that there are many strange ways to be queer, and this is one of them.
video transcript below the cut, may be slightly inaccurate, I tend to ad-lib when reading my scripts into voiceover
It's Pride Month, so if you'll forgive me I'm taking a two minute break from the One Piece, League of Legends, Marvel Rivals, Final Fantasy and Pokémon shorts to tell you… Sylveon is trans, Taliyah is trans, everyone on the Straw Hats is queer, there are no words to describe how queer superheroes are as a concept let alone how queer they all are individually, and here's a fun fact for you: Cloud Strife's story gets ten times better when you understand it as an allegory for a trans coming out experience.
As for me, well, I'm not trans, but I do occupy my own little space in the rainbow flags which looks like this. I am aromantic.
We are generally not as visible as many of our queer siblings, probably at least partly because it's kind of a difficult identity to even discover in yourself, you basically have to prove a negative.
But what is this thing, "aromantic"? Well… okay, let's say you're a straight guy, right. You know the way you feel romantically about other men? I feel exactly the same way, and then I also feel that way about women, and then also the same way about all of the other genders.
Now, aromantic often goes along with asexual, there's a lot of co-occurrence of the two, but not always, and that is my situation. Yes to sex, no to romance, which being a man, yes, I know, that just makes me the same as 90% of the men you match on Hinge. "Ha ha ha didn't realize "fuccboi" was an orientation now," I know. I get it. I understand. I have had all the same thoughts myself, especially when I was questioning.
Which is the difficulty with being aromantic, because in order to figure out that that's what you are, you have to prove a negative. I have never been in love, and I have no reason to think I ever will be… but what if someday I meet The One??? What if there's a special divinely designated perfect soulmate out there, just waiting for me, and one day our eyes will meet across the room and it will be love at first sight forever?
And like. I can't prove that won't happen, anymore than I can prove that there isn't a flowery pink teapot currently hiding somewhere in the orbit of Saturn. And frankly, if it did happen, I wouldn't be mad. Why would I be? I would have a soulmate! That's a pretty big W, I think.
But… I've had over thirty years to encounter someone—anyone—who can spark my romantic interest, and thus far, every challenger of every gender has failed. So either I am aromantic, or else you people have a skill issue.
Anyway, like anything to do with queerness, aromantic is a sprawling and diverse spectrum. You got your aroaces, aroallos, aroflux, arospikes, demiromantics, frayromantics, grayromantics, cupioromantics, there's a whole world of different experiences present under this umbrella. For me, though, just "aromantic" is fine. That's the broad label, that's the one I fall under, that's the identity I take pride in. Happy June!
happy pride month to those in the closet. to those who went back into the closet. to those who have unsupportive families, friends and relationships. those who were bullied and harassed because of their identity. those who were killed because of who they truly were and loved.
ellievsbear
prguitarman
dededos
discoholicmusic
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romaincrisis
