#sorry for the rant it’s just

[gojoed]

This scene with Legato, I have never really been able to understand if it meant anything beyond the scenario that was unfolding in the episode (Nicholas fighting Livio). But I think I have now.

Legato’s words somehow feels targeted to Knives specifically. “It has long been time to give up on your little brother. You must finally learn to accept reality.”

Those words just struck me. Knives is portrayed as the twin who’s more “mature” and not as soft-hearted as his little brother Vash. But if you really think about it he was the one who was the most childish between the two.

He never wanted to see beyond what humans had done to Tesla in fear of being betrayed again. He idealized humans far more than Vash did, Vash already accepted that humans aren’t perfect and there is good and bad but Knives had gotten his fear of humans from Rem. She was always worried about what would happen to them.

Knives also very childishly held onto the idea that all humans are bad, that they’re all the same and selfish and that they never look beyond their own nose. Up until he was killed, Knives wanted Vash’s gate. He died for it. The fight that ensued after Vash broke free from the tank was literally a fight between siblings, brothers. 

Knives was the one who was letting his emotional turmoil unleash and it portrays in how he desperately wanted that cube. His expressions during that fight looks down right like a child throwing a tantrum.

Vash bit him, like siblings do when they fight.

Knives also stubbornly never let Vash go, not truly. Sure they went separate ways for 150 years, but not really. Only distance wise. They’re on the same planet, Knives knew he had nowhere to go, he’ll always be within his reach. He learned Vash’s part to the duet, he plays it with such rigor it’s as if the song is the embodiment of how Knives just completely longs for Vash to be by his side again. He longs for Vash but refuses to accept that they will never see eye to eye.

It has long been time to give up on your little brother. You must finally learn to accept reality.

[syzygyblvd]

valid take but might i add:

minecraft devs (IMO) should focus on boosting frame rates, decreasing lag & debugging, etc. and you can make fun of me for having a piece of shit computer but not everybody who enjoys this game can afford a $2k+ pc just so they can get a decent 30 frames a second. wanna know what my frame rate averages at without boosters? Zero. Zero fucking frames. And i’m not even talking about servers- i’m talking single player. And this is with all of my settings at the best performance option possible. Like idk either my laptop is THAT shitty (which it very well may be) or they need to stop adding more shit and start fixing what’s already there

like leave adding all the new cool fancy stuff to the modders or smth idk

To be honest I find it pretty stupid that so many people complain about the Minecraft devs being lazy, because it's one of the few games that's still receiving free content updates 10 years after its release, who cares if those updates are relatively small. It's not like the game's stuck in a pre-release state and they're taking forever to add all the stuff they promised to, the devs have absolutely zero obligation to continue adding things, and they're still choosing to do so anyways

[lesbian-disaster-academic]

i used to be so good at writing strong, thoroughly-researched, thoroughly-edited essays.

as a kid in hs, my teacher literally came up to me, holding my 40 page essay on the intersection of the European witch hunts and capitalism/exploitation/gender roles (it was supposed to be 7 pages...whoops) and went like "this is literally a master's-degree level thesis. what are you doing?? you could literally use this as your final dissertation in a master's program, what the fuck."

NOW??? NOW?? you'd think I'd be oh so skilled. but alas. i can barely piece together two ideas. adhd skill-regression is so so real. im SOBBING

[honeypleasejustkillme]

i thought i was at my lowest but holy shit it gets lower

[oh-snapperss]

they'll fund a genocide and let their poor regions be destroyed. don't fucking forgive them for that.

my hometown is completely gone from what pictures i can find of it, i have not heard from my family (including aunts, uncles, parents, one sibling, and a grandparent), and the infrastructure in the mountain communities is wiped out. i cannot stress how catastrophic this is, or how difficult it will be for these communities to build back. i am angry, and scared, and heartbroken by everything that's happened.

and our government is spending it's money to fund a genocide.

free palestine, and don't be complicit. realize that this is not something happening that doesn't affect you--although it shouldn't take this to care about the deaths of thousands of people anyway.

[zorangezest]

thanks for listening

[sleepgarden]

Pupa ✢ The writing reads:

Time envelops and keeps me Not awake / Not asleep In this chrysalis / In this shroud I am stillborn / I am buried alive Yet I change / I am changing / And I ache Held still

I started this over a year ago and came back to it periodically, but I decided to just finally finish it. It’s morphed, undone itself, and transformed many times in the process of illustrating it. Sincerely, I considered giving up on the piece. I am glad I didn’t despite its awkwardness; I admit that it doesn’t sit in the eye well. But somehow I feel that it suits the piece and what it means.

I am, if anything, relieved to have finished an illustration finally. It’s been nearly eight months since my last. Prints are available in my shop. (I also have mini prints for $5cad/$3.40usd!)

[planariaareneat]

How The Nocturnal Bottleneck and Nipples Make Us Human

Almost every post here considers what humans do have, really. It’s a little tiring; realistically every world has its harsh environments and vicious species and a sophont to match. We probably wouldn’t be unique for our adaptability or our persistence or even adrenaline

But our evolution is fucked up as hell, to put it lightly.

Mammals went through what’s been dubbed the nocturnal bottleneck essentially since the start of the mesozoic right up until the Cretaceous ended the archosaur’s exclusive hold over the daylight. We lost a lot of things from every mammal spending most of its time in either a cramped, suffocating burrow or scrounging around in the faint hours of nighttime. Our blood cells lost their nuclei to hold more oxygen while we spent time deep underground, we lost protections against ultraviolet rays in our skin and eyes, we can’t even repair our own DNA using the light of the sun. Most aliens probably wouldn’t have such traits unless their evolution followed a very similar path to ours. They’d be able to see ultraviolet and wouldn’t have to worry about sunburn and all the wonderful privileges essentially all fish, birds, amphibians, and reptiles enjoy as we speak. 

There’s also what we gained from spending so much time in the dark.

Brown fat is only found in mammals, it’s a special type of fat which bear cells with several oil droplets and are utterly jammed with mitochondria. This lets it make heat, a lot of it, fast. We don’t even need to shiver to induce this heat generation from brown adipose tissue - factor in our downright hyperactive mitochondria, and we can warm up quickly. Sure, it doesn’t have too much use in adult humans, but it keeps our infants warm and still provides a little boost the whole run we have in this universe.

Unless aliens also went through a time where their small ancestors had to face cold nights, they’d have to produce heat the old fashioned way when chilled. Aliens might have to shiver the whole time they’re in a cold room while the human watches in confusion, quite literally unshaken, and wonders if the room is a lot colder than the thermostat set to 60 says. The aliens stare at their companion in confusion, it’s just a normal temperature to shiver at after all, how is the human sitting so still?

Our small ancestors spending all their time out foraging at night is also why we have such a good sense of touch, smell, and hearing. They were more important senses than vision (we’re lucky to have even redeveloped basic color vision, frankly) at the time and place and simply ended up continuing to serve us well. Birds and reptiles rarely have acute senses of smell and the latter especially are lucky to have acute hearing, and birds rarely have impeccable hearing themselves either. Our skin is free of scales and honed to sensitivity, and our external ears and complicated ear bones provide an immense range of hearing (from 20 all the way to 17,000 hertz!).

Aliens might not be able to pin down the chirp of a cricket or the light click of a lock being picked. The human might be the only one on board a ship that can pick out the finer sounds of the engine’s constant thrum and know the critical difference between when everything is fine and when something is wrong. The human could probably pick out the sounds of an approaching enemy’s careless footsteps - they’re only as light enough for *them* to stop hearing them, after all - and be the one to see the horrified expression (well, more on that later) on their face when we get the drop on them in spite of their perceived stealth. 

But perhaps the most versatile, convoluted, amazing, and utterly unique trait we have is right on your face this instant. Lips.

Lips in most animals are a simple seal to hold in the mouth’s moisture and protect the teeth, even if they’re supple they’re NEVER muscular except in mammals, and we have only one thing to thank for it; milk and nipples. Lips evolved exclusively to allow babies to suckle, it required a vacuum to be created in the mouth, and with no other animal having anything like a nipple it never happened in other animals. Many animals make milk, to be frank, but no other animal has nipples.

Your cheeks and lips are a marvel among tetrapods, no other animal can suck like mammals can. Aliens wouldn’t have straws or even be able to sip from the edge of a glass, they’d have to have a proboscis or simply tilt the whole thing back. Aliens likely won’t have woodwind instruments or balloons you can blow into. We take so much about our lips for granted. Hell, our muscular faces are vital for expressions, we’re probably absolute facial contortionists among a cast of creatures with mandibles and beaks and expressionless scaly maws. Aliens might find us ridiculously easy to read, if anything, compared to their own kind (all the better to deceive them) - or perhaps they’d find us hard to decipher anyways, with our lack of color-changing skin or erectable crests of bright feathers. Baring teeth might not be seen as a sign of aggression in most of the universe, smiling would be all too distinctly human. 

Perhaps with how infectious we are sometimes, that’s what we’d contribute to the universe; others might have to make do with opening their mouths just enough to show their teeth or splaying their innumerable mouthparts with just the right curve, but perhaps we’d teach the galaxy to smile, one ally at a time. 

Wouldn’t that be amazing?

[yhwcomeback]

They are so divorced it's crazy.

[papanowo]

i think dan should get to be a little weird too. as a treat

[pastabaguette]

look guys i don’t like to argue but i hate it when people portray equius and nepeta like this:

i mean, they’re both just thirteen, come on.

equius is not her parental figure, and nepeta isn’t a fussy baby that can’t eat her fruits and veggies! equius isn’t some malicious evil guy, he’s just a stupid little teenager. that goes for eridan too (and i guess like, all of the trolls, but especially those two). nepeta’s not some innocent little baby. she’s the same age as all her friends. she kills huge wild beasts on the regular for consumption.

a lot of dubs i’ve seen, too, make nepeta sound like a toddler, and equius like a whole grown adult man, and i don’t really like it because neither of them are those things. (granted, i don’t watch too many dubs, so maybe i am wrong on this)

[bluerasbunny]

Heheh hello um may i pet sun and if moons okay with it id like to pspsps at em and give him i lil hand made stuft animal sun gets one two :> and mayby if hes okay with it can i give moon a fist bump or just some kinnda contact ik hes shy i am too i dont wannna over whelm the funky fella :>>

not sure sun would be fond of being petted (something about being 'treated like an animal')... but moon seems to enjoy the pspsps-ing!!

[leandrocrossard]

something really cool happened today that i wanted to share:

my nephew is 9 years old, and a stereotypical little boy. he likes dinosaurs, minecraft, and ninjas.

today i walked in on him excitedly watching Nimona with my dad. (minor spoiler warning!)

i had never heard of it, but i sat down and watched some of it, just to see why he was so happy.

he started narrating it, anticipating parts of it, almost as if he’d seen it before. he had.

we didn’t get to finish it, but i watched it on my own, because it looked fun and i wanted to see how it ended.

and i loved it. it was a fun, exciting, fantastical adventure about the importance of acceptance people who are different to us.

and it had a very clear queer subplot.

one that my nephew hadn’t mentioned at all in his explanation of the film. his summary was “it’s about a monster who helps a knight that was framed for killing the queen”.

and honestly yeah, that is what the film was about.

before sharing it with us, he had watched it all, engrossed himself in the story, took it in entirely, and the part he cared about most was whether Nimona got her acceptance. he wasn’t indoctrinated, or confused, or questioning anything about himself.

he didn’t bat an eyelid over a gay love confession. he just enjoyed the film, raved about it, made my 60 year old dad watch the movie about the monster who didn’t fit in.

he’s still the same little boy who’s been asking us how to get a girlfriend.

the only thing a movie centred around queer and queer-coded characters taught my nephew was that those who are different to him are not monsters. that’s it.

and that dragons are really cool.

[artsymeeshee]

[jellyaibo]

closed species are so funny like what if i just make a design . will you fucking stop me? ooooOOoooo ill make a primagen oooOOoO THE PENCIL IS ON MY PAAAAPER OOOOoooOoOOo

[knightingale]

The "Sansa reminds Sandor of his sister" motive that some people try to hitch to his character really just flies in the face of his actual attachments to her, doesn't it? Sansa reminds Sandor of himself. He sees the little boy who used to love knights in this girl who's been swept up by the same romanticism. He sees his abuser in her abusers, the much larger knight(s) beating on the helpless child. He sees how she is betrayed by every level of authority that should have saved her and remembers his father's neglect and Tywin and Robert's apathy for Gregor's crimes. He's protective of Sansa because he was Sansa.

And GRRM's design, that one of the strongest warriors in the series, a fearsome and cynical 6'8" guy who's "muscled like a bull" and has the face of death itself, sees himself in this soft and effeminate teen girl, and empathizes with her because he was an abuse victim too, is INFINITELY more compelling than "Oh yeah I bet she just reminds him of his sister," who he's never mentioned and who we know literally nothing about. Way to unnecessarily water down a character, you couldn't have ignored the black and white text more efficiently if you tried.