How do you do, fellow kids? 😉

happy 1st of october now where's the anne of green gables quote

anne you were so real ever since the 1900s

It wrinkles my brain that Jupiter’s moon Europa has oceans that are sixty miles deep, while Earth’s oceans only reach seven miles deep at most. I’m willing to bet good money that there’s life in Europa’s oceans. Like five bucks. You hear me, NASA? I bet you five bucks that there’s life on Europa… Now that there’s money and reputation on the line, I bet they send a mission there real quick.

I have no idea when this was originally posted, but NASA is working on their Europa mission RIGHT NOW to look for alien life! But get this, they theorize that because of the depth, gravity, and composition of the oceans, any organisms that lived there would be waaay bigger than aquatic life on Earth. So far everything’s going well with regards to their Europa mission so they should have a spacecraft on its way to look for giant sea monsters in space in only a few years. (The planned date is in the early 2020s.)

Looks like my negotiations worked. You’re welcome, humanity.

I’ve never been gripped with such cold terror and pure delight in my LIFE

explaining to an 18th century sailor that we’re looking for sea monsters in space. 

The launch date for the Europa Clipper is October 2024.

Please let there be sea monsters in space Please let there be sea monsters in space Please let there be sea monsters in space Please let there be sea monsters in space Please let there be sea monsters in space Please let there be sea monsters in space 

#NINE #NINE had the best lines

The betrayal of the left I feel most acutely isn't the mask-off antisemitism. Truth be told, I knew that was coming (even though I couldn't predict it would get this bad). What hurts is people's complete inability to call out the worst of it. Someone is yelling "go back to Poland?" Disavow it in the strongest terms. People are holding a banner with the words "Long Live October 7"? Expel them from your movement and don't let them back. See the odd Sieg Heil at your protest? For fuck's sake, get them the hell out of there however you can.

Why is this not happening? Getting rid of the Nazis is the lowest fucking bar. Why can't people clear it?

My mom decided to weigh in on this, on the side of the Italian boxer, thinking I'd allow her to repeat bullshit talking points for some reason (never have allowed that shit, especially not from someone who raised me not to tolerate racism or anything that ends with someone being put down)...I made her stay on the line until she admitted she was wrong.

I want to clarify, Angela Carini did not quit because she thought her opponent was trans, nor was she "forced" to quit. She quit because the first punch made her nose bleed and she couldn't breathe. She quit due to fear for bodily safety. She did cry and refuse to shake her opponents hand, but it had nothing to do with her gender, she was just upset she was injured and couldn't continue. She later admitted that she had shown poor sportsmanship in refusing to shake her opponents hand, and apologized to her and to everyone, and clarified it had nothing to do with gender, and if the Olympics said she can compete she can compete. Angela Carini is being used by terfs as a scapegoat and is not at fault for anything more than poor sportsmanship.

Dead on. Thanks for adding this. Here's a thread from Threads with more background on Carini.

Transphobia are falling for a false narrative about Khelif, and tumblrites are falling for a false narrative about Carini. Carini was not wrong to cry, and to claim she's "weaponising white woman tears" or that she's responsible for the hate Khelif faced is to blame a woman for the actions of people twisting her story in a way that she's repeatedly disavowed. These women are not against each other, and the problem here isn't which one is right. Neither of them did anything wrong (except Carini was a little rude after getting injured in front of the entire world)

Ludinus mindset is stuck in a pre Divine Gate space and I'm honestly waiting for anyone to finally point that out. Like, the issues he has with them aren't even much relevant anymore.

He's talking like the gods are still waging war amongst them, but they're not. Everything going wrong in Exandria right now will still be wrong when they're gone, because the people will still have the same capacity for greed, lust for power, revenge, etc. (and that is assuming getting rid of the gods won't fuck them all over).

He's still barking at and trying to bust through a door that has been closed for almost a century, trying to "solve" a problem that the gods he wants to kill behind that door are minimally involved in at this point, arguing as if the door was still open.

Noshir reading off the gods' bonuses

Hahaha so true! But as The Emissary, it was amazing, watching my Aunts and Uncles ascend. Like watching cartoons but in real life! Apples eyes were all big and huge and, "My Aunts and Uncles are the COOLEST!!!"

As soon as they announced six new PCs for Downfall I planned to do this with my first paintings of each 🌈 Its so satisfying to see them all side by side!

A stunning family lineup. Or, as The Emissary calls them: Fancy Uncle, Hugs Aunty, Tooth Mama, Birdy Aunty, Shiny Uncle, Apples. 🥰

lots of intense (and sometimes heated) takes On Here about what Ludinus thinks Bells Hells are going to think of this Downfall window, about what BH will actually think, about whether Luda or the Primes or Aeor is right -- lots of debates

What if the disagreement is the point?

Because what's clear to me is that there is no right answer for Aeor. There are entire schools of ethics and philosophy and justice and action/intention/agency devoted to debating what a "good" choice would be here -- good for the Primes, good for Aeor. Is it the Trolley Problem; is it meliorism; is it the law of unintended consequences; is it the categorical imperative or is it the paradox of tolerance; etc. etc. etc.

But what if Ludinus's goal is to sow division among BH? What if the point is that he doesn't care if he convinces all of them -- he just needs to divide them. What if he saw this recording -- saw the oh-so-close divisions and cracks and flaws in the bonds among the Gods that took them out of this plane -- and said, "Hey. Now there's an idea for how to clear the field!" Because I can imagine half the party being really moved by the way the Primes were trying to save some people even as they were trying to maintain a perspective beyond what any mortal could see; and just as easily I can imagine half the party being livid and unmoved by this impossible situation and determined more than ever that the Gods are just people who have high-level power, not perfect beings or omniscient ones or even ones who should get to decide what kinds of extreme solutions are okay and which are not. I can imagine a debate -- a heated debate, maybe even a fracturing one -- among Bells Hells.

And so I wonder (and I apologize if this is the rise of the fash in 2024 on my mind) if the division is the point.

“America IS walkable, you’re all just lazy” my childhood home was an hour from the nearest hospital (by car)

not all Americans are lazy suburbanites, some of us genuinely have to drive miles and miles and hours and hours to buy clothes, grocery shop, see doctors or do anything, really.

notice how in movies they show you New York and costal SoCal and not like, middle of nowhere North Dakota.

“take public transit” look at me, look me in the eye. do you think they have subways in towns with three digit populations? do you think they run busses out to the middle of nowhere?

Everything @elaynetrakand said here. Everything.

I live 1 hour south of my state capital, one of the biggest metro cities in the US, with one of the busiest airports.

We do not have public transportation available in my county. Or in the two counties next to us. Or 3 counties over. The metro-downtown area doesn't have consistent public transportation outside of certain areas.

We do not have consistent sidewalks outside of the subdivisions or the smalltown squares. We do not have bike lanes. The counties surrounding us do not have those things either. When I lived 20 minutes from the downtown, I did not have those things consistently either. Meaning you'd be walking and suddenly the sidewalk was gone and you were walking on a busy road. For 2 miles.

And yes, it is the working class that suffers when activists push punishing restrictions instead of actively lobbying for meaningful, sustainable, change that meets the needs of the people. Always.

Watching CR: Downfall as someone who is deeply religious is wild. Because I feel like a lot of the time in the TTRPG space there is a lot of praise for atheist or agnostic characters and perspectives and even religious characters often fall flat for me when it comes to what it actually means to follow a religion or faith. The gods are typically just cosmic vending machines for spells and boons rather than fully fleshed out entities.

However Downfall cuts through all of that from the perspective of the gods which is wild. The amount of care and consideration for what it means to believe something wholeheartedly. How people cling to faith during disaster and how trying to stomp it out often makes it stronger.

How encountering aspects of reality that don't match your faith can crush you, especially if it's something about the being you've been worshipping for your whole life.

I love it so much.

THIS! ALL OF THIS!

There is compassion in the way the disconnect between what followers want or expect from the Divine as believers and what the Divine actually plans and chooses to do for believers is described in this. I saw a lot of myself and my own relationship with my Faith in this and that is something I never expected in TTRPG spaces.

Emhira stepping in front of a sword for Ayden and making certain the fact that she has claimed the gods as her family and will defend them as such OH LORD THE DYNAMICS ARE DYNAMICING

also there's something poetic about how the literal Matron of Ravens, goddess of death, overseer of the path between life and afterlife, is defending the Dawnfather against his own creation, a being of life and light

"I'm hungry." Asha and her human form.

If you got to pick the house, profession, and income (you can have your 10k/year and Pemberley or Donwell or whatever), which Austen hero would you marry?

If you are a man/lesbian/other looking for the "show answers" button, no. No button. You're either gay or or straight or a woman or marrying just for the companionship now, pick a husband.