#i have unpopular opinions

[deep-space-netwerk]

So Venus is my favorite planet in the solar system - everything about it is just so weird.

It has this extraordinarily dense atmosphere that by all accounts shouldn't exist - Venus is close enough to the sun (and therefore hot enough) that the atmosphere should have literally evaporated away, just like Mercury's. We think Earth manages to keep its atmosphere by virtue of our magnetic field, but Venus doesn't even have that going for it. While Venus is probably volcanically active, it definitely doesn't have an internal magnetic dynamo, so whatever form of volcanism it has going on is very different from ours. And, it spins backwards! For some reason!!

But, for as many mysteries as Venus has, the United States really hasn't spent much time investigating it. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, sent no less than 16 probes to Venus between 1961 and 1984 as part of the Venera program - most of them looked like this!

The Soviet Union had a very different approach to space than the United States. NASA missions are typically extremely risk averse, and the spacecraft we launch are generally very expensive one-offs that have only one chance to succeed or fail.

It's lead to some really amazing science, but to put it into perspective, the Mars Opportunity rover only had to survive on Mars for 90 days for the mission to be declared a complete success. That thing lasted 15 years. I love the Opportunity rover as much as any self-respecting NASA engineer, but how much extra time and money did we spend that we didn't technically "need" to for it to last 60x longer than required?

Anyway, all to say, the Soviet Union took a more incremental approach, where failures were far less devastating. The Venera 9 through 14 probes were designed to land on the surface of Venus, and survive long enough to take a picture with two cameras - not an easy task, but a fairly straightforward goal compared to NASA standards. They had…mixed results.

Venera 9 managed to take a picture with one camera, but the other one's lens cap didn't deploy.

Venera 10 also managed to take a picture with one camera, but again the other lens cap didn't deploy.

Venera 11 took no pictures - neither lens cap deployed this time.

Venera 12 also took no pictures - because again, neither lens cap deployed.

Lotta problems with lens caps.

For Venera 13 and 14, in addition to the cameras they sent a device to sample the Venusian "soil". Upon landing, the arm was supposed to swing down and analyze the surface it touched - it was a simple mechanism that couldn't be re-deployed or adjusted after the first go.

This time, both lens caps FINALLY ejected perfectly, and we were treated to these marvelous, eerie pictures of the Venus landscape:

However, when the Venera 14 soil sampler arm deployed, instead of sampling the Venus surface, it managed to swing down and land perfectly on….an ejected lens cap.

[alpacacare-archive]

day twoe ah haha

[love-is-a-pearl]

HERE THEY ARE!!! FINALLY!!!

My designs for everyone's aged up looks! As well as their bios here👀

[creepfactors]

a man needs a maid

lord help me because im having many a serious thoughts about them; i reiterate the slowburn potential is wild!

[slybluehologhost]

NITRO CHiRAL fair Purchase Bonus Postcards [2024]

Figured I’d take a minute to scan the postcards that came with the merch I had preordered from eeo! If I’m not mistaken, I should only be missing the café one… which is likely because I didn’t order any of the café designs, haha. I love how cute all the new outfits are — I’d probably buy them all if they ever released official versions someday! These scans are available in better quality (along with their backs & front/back PDF sets) here.

[drenched-in-sunlight]

Theory: If Messmer is Marika’s sword (spear), Godwyn is her shield.

Yes I made another doomed Mother & Son presentation slide: eldest sons edition 🙏😔

EDIT 1: adding a bit to this, the theme music of Godwyn's Death Knight is a rearrangement of Erdtree Knight OST (aka Tree Sentinels theme)

(Messmer’s timeline) (discussion of Radagon’s shady behavior)

[whatsitzface]

Fuck every percy jackson "fan" who is still complaining about percy & annabeths HAIR COLOURS being different then in the books. I hope Nico is blonde so that all of you cry and scream like fucking toddlers

[somewhereincairparavel]

Dam being a Jason Grace stan in the fandom is a fucking tragedy lol. Not only do we have to deal with him being screwed over by uncle Rick, but we have to deal with the fandom hating him aswell lol, i feel like Jason Grace slander wouldnt affect me half as much if his character had gotten a happy ending. I just saw an Instagram reel about a "character's povs you skipped through'' and the comments were flooded with Jason Grace just like I'd expected lol 😭 like blud has no mercy there.

It took all my will power to not defend him under a comment that called him "homophobic", I cannot believe that comment had 4 people agreeing aswell like- did we read the same books? Did they completey skip over the coming out chapter in HOH where jason was literally the first person to tell Nico not to be ashamed of liking guys and that no one would judge him? the guy is legit one of the least problematic characters and does nothing mean, how is he even CONSIDERED in the homophobic area anyway? (he also gets slandered for being "too nice" aswell lol) so seeing him wind up in such a contradictory accusation just screams tone deaf and anti-jason bias tbh, Nico legit said he considered jason as one of his first friend/supporter (apart from his sisters) in TSATS :') its like ppl keep throwing in these false stuff bc they WANT to find a reason to hate him. (dont take this as me saying you are not allowed to hate him or something cuz that would be quite hypocritical of me, wouldnt it? i just hate that ppl make up problematic hcs of him and push them as canon, it would taint non-reader's perception of him because of false info, what if a non reader stumbled across that comment and immediately figured that jason was indeed homophobic even when he wasn't?)

Also, can we please normalize NOT judging a person for their character preferences? I like jason and i am aware that its an unpopular take, but that doesnt make me any less of a pjo fan. The fandom seems pretty aggressive when we dont follow the popular opinion. i have seen multiple ppl pretend to hate jason simply bc they WANT to fit in and "look cool", since the fandom has a tendency to use Jason as a punching bag to insult like "he's a knockoff percy" or "he thinks he's so cool but he's not". or smth, so when people do claim jason as a favourite, a huge chunk of the fandom start belittling them and go like "really? Out of all characters, why jason?" Or "Percy/Leo is better, I don't understand why you like Jason"

okay thanks for coming to my ted talk. i am aware that i was yapping here. unfair Jason Grace slander does that to me.

[velvserum]

theres a reason that verosika was my first helluva boss character i drew

i like that they beat the stereotype of a really sour ex + what succubus are expected to be, like clearly she cares about people, thank god vivzie did not make her character absolved of empathy

[coffehbeans]

Okay but like, where's the men?

On the topic of g/t media can I talk about another, more niche thing I wish we saw more of? Giant men. Hear me out.

Giantess enjoyers eat SO well, specially in anime. Like, what the heck? Aashush I guess it's because it's more common to like female giants than the reverse but, I'll explain. In the latest games I've been following I've gotten two examples of giant women, back to back, Phantylia from Honkai Star Rail and Izanami from Onmyoji.

Both are bosses from their respective games and I mean, Look at this!!! You guys are eating so good!

Not to mention the other countless examples of giant women in media like Susan from MVA, the entirety of Steven Universe, Diane from Nanatsu, that superhero I forgot the name of from BNHA, even Gigantic, the canceled movie, would have a girl as the giant character.

There's so much content of female giants in media and there's so few male giants in comparison. What examples can we give aside from kids' cartoons? Sho? Gulliver? The giant from Jack and The Beanstalk? And that's it, I think.

When we do get male giants, they're mostly beast-like. Give me elegant male giants, give me princely, ikemen type of giants. Make them nice to look at! I want more healthy masculinity portrayed in media that has g/t, compared to the countless examples of healthy feminity we get.

Just pointing out the discrepancy in content and, I mean, we can guess the reason for that, right? But I really wish we could see more g/t content in media involving men lmao Mostly because I find it cooler, as well as more appealing.

Back to HSR, there's a future villain that is the god of destruction that Might deliver what I'm looking for but it's a big question mark at the moment. But if he does, maybe I'll finally get a bit of what I want to see more of? I sure hope so cause look at this guy-

[rosenotactuallyquartz]

i just got involved with the fandom on social media, and i’m surprised that the pearlrose “unrequited” misconception is still a thing, after all these years. i’m also surprised by how hated they are. as a ship, individually, etc.

even if sugar + burnett didn’t state that pearlrose was requited, i would know from the behavior of their friends.

in the movie, amethyst referred to rose as the “love of pearl’s life.” sapphire told pearl that she “swept rose off her feet.” pearl + rose lived together for centuries, but they also lived with garnet + amethyst. if the love was unrequited, they would have behaved very differently.

pearl herself would have behaved differently, too. she’s incredibly intelligent. many girls crush on her and she’s survived a lot, even prior to rose’s death. i could never picture a situation in which pearl lives with someone she is so clearly in love with for so many years, while that someone doesn’t feel the same way. pearl survived a war, escaped from homeworld, then raised a child & fixed the issues between her & greg during the early stages of grief. she loved and protected someone for thousands of years, and then lost her. if it was unrequited over 5,000 years ago, pearl wouldn’t be saying rose made her feel like she was “everything” and pearl probably would have taken space. rose would encourage this, because pearl’s happiness was always important to her.

their requited love and deep emotional connection that they had with no one else is evident, even without all the clear evidence in the episodes. rose wouldn’t blush and exclaim, “please don’t ever stop” as a response to pearl’s love confession if she didn’t feel the same way. she would simply say, “yes, you should imagine things on your own, but…” and they absolutely would not have nearly fused.

the flashbacks with greg are confusing and there’s information about pearlrose left out *because* this is a story told by greg to his child. of course there are missing perspectives and details left out. and also, there are thousands of years between the war flashbacks and the greg flashbacks. pearl and rose spent centuries together and we only see about ten years in total. the creators confirmation that pearlrose is requited *can* make sense.

every steven universe relationship is complicated with undesirable aspects. pearl and rose were two very traumatized individuals who went through so much together. yet they don’t seem to get much sympathy, from what i’ve seen on some platforms. one or both characters are often viewed as “toxic,” and their relationship being nonexistent and unrequited makes less sense than the opposite. are there some unhealthy aspects? of course! but i also think the unhealthy aspects of so many other relationships in the show are overlooked. just like how the beautiful parts of pearlrose are ignored. the *love* between pearlrose is ignored.

[titsthedamnseason]

eras tour lookbook: my favorites edition

[smultronviol]

Ppl going "waaahh unpopular opinion but Alice is kind of annoying and obnoxious and I don't think I'd like be her friend irl" is so funny to me bc like.

God forbid a cast of characters be multifaceted and have actual flaws and unpleasant aspects other than "grr angsty hero" and "whoops i'm so clumsy". Sometimes character dynamics and arcs need to be prioritized above "who would i personally be niceys with irl"

2. bro just WAIT until you hear about season 1 jon lol

[dreamspring]

chose not to speak on this at the time but actually i truly despise the bbc ghosts ending. im sorry it was so dumb and made the entire previous episode feel absolutely pointless. alison CHOSE to STAY because that’s her FAMILY!!! there is no reason they couldn’t have continued to live in the haunted manor pls

[warcriminalpastry]

no one is talking about how max and george would match each other’s freak and that just really upsets me.

[ongreenergrasses]

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

I want all your unpopular opinions haha have fun

I think Finnick and Johanna do act very sexually forward, to a degree that it can make people very uncomfortable, and it seems like the fandom agrees on that but the why of it really gets lost. Trafficking survivors and survivors of sexual abuse sometimes do act extremely provocatively, especially when they want something or are in a situation where they feel unsafe, but also they’ll do that to get a reaction or redirect a difficult conversation. it’s a trauma response. it’s a defense mechanism and a way they’ve learned to navigate the world. it’s not some deep intrinsic part of their personalities and we see that both Finnick and Johanna will not and do not act like that if they don’t feel the need to. so seeing fics (in particular modern aus) where their experience of being trafficked is erased but they still act extremely seductive really rubs me the wrong way. it’s at that point such a deep misinterpretation of their characters that i won’t engage with it. if what you’re taking away from everything is that Finnick’s a womanizer and Johanna’s stripping in the elevator is meant to be sexy, i honestly don’t want to see whatever else you have to say.

🔥 asks