Not What I Expected Coming From John Green

*releases pack of dads into home depot* go……be free

i’m not aromantic but i believe in their beliefs

To End, We Must First Begin...

Tell me, have you heard the story of of words creation? Hmm, it's not all that surprising you haven't. The story of Bassan's creation is so rarely taught in our schools... I've even heard fellow scholars openly mock the story in front of their pupils. How unprofessional. Anyway, while the validity of the story is frequently brought into question by the more educated of us, I still believe that it is necessary we know our story in full.

Today, we leave behind the crampt, dust ridden shelves of the library, and that stuffy old lab to pay a visit to our local temple. I've arranged a meeting here in the courtyard with one of their priestesses. If you are to hear our story, it should be from those who know it best.

Centuries ago, before ships and trees and the founding of all things, the Almunashi, creator of all that is and will be, resided above in the cosmos. Here in the Avarice empire, they are better known as Lumina or the great Illuminate. There, they sat surrounded by nothingness. They felt nothing. They knew nothing. They were nothing. 

Then, They found the light.

First, there was one, floating beside them in that great, great expansive void. But before long, one became two. Quickly, these little flickers of something split again and again, ever growing in intensity. They held that flickering spark in their hands and watched in mesmerized delight.

Delight? What is delight? What is wonder? All at once, Lumina's entire existence expanded. It grew, and it grew until their entire being coalesced in one brilliant moment of newfound awareness and exploded across that great expansive wasteless nothing. 

The empty was gone; replaced with planets and stars and, best of all: life. Living breathing things of every shape and size roamed the newborn cosmos. There was life in the seas, life in the sky, and life on the lands. The greatest of their works were the humans, industrious little creatures capable of complex thought and creation, yet fragile and so very temporary. What was truly mesmerizing about this new life was its ability to grow, live, die, and live again. It was the perfect cycle, and in that cycle lived magic…but that is a story for another time. 

The Great Illuminate had found life, and they intended to fill the universe with it. 

But before long, the life they created was overwhelmed. These creatures battled, fought, and strove to tear themselves apart. This simply could not do. At once, they decided that these new things they had created needed order. So they created beings in their own image to rule over their creations: the Ajashraman. We know these ancient ageless beings born of the earth itself, Jhamran. These beings were capable of altering all of everything, just as Lumina had. 

But even these new ruling creatures were quickly overwhelmed by both their unlimited potential and the endless expanse of forever that would come with their near immorality. They fought, battled, and nearly burned their new world to the ground. Alumnashi was greatly disturbed. These creatures should be perfect, they thought. How could they be so cruel? That is when they decided these beings needed more structure, still. 

They pondered for seven days and seven nights, wondering how they might structure this new world. It was then that it struck them: there are simply too many forces acting on this world, so many that the structure I hoped to create dissolved into chaos. I must create those who can guide these things who I have created to give them purpose and a common goal to pursue. But they also worried that if they focused solely on order, they would lose the wonderful chaos that led the Aluminashi to that initial moment of euphoric discovery.

So, they created great and powerful guides for their leaders who would live separately above all things, The Aldhalimi. We know them as Halli. Seven would rule the day, bringing order and law. They would guide the world toward its purpose. To counteract the day would also be seven to rule the night. These would seed chaos and inspire innovation. In this way, their world would never become complacent and would retain the spontaneity that led to their ultimate creation. 

Finally, Lumina's creations lived together in the world they had created. Observing this great work of theirs, they faded into the void, now teaming with life. For the first time in their infinite existence, they saw balance and equilibrium. Most important of all, they were no longer alone.

Sadly, Lumina would soon learn that with life and existence, there came another equal domineering force: Atrophy and life's natural urge to combat it. Balance would not last for long. 

Where is the Aluminashi now, you ask? We’ll… no one is really quite sure. But, if you look up into the night sky and find that fortune is on your side you might catch a glimpse. Why, it would appear our Lady the Blessed Dawn Martyr has indeed blessed us with her fortune this fine night. Look, above your heads! See the brightest star in the sky, just to your right? Follow the lines of the stars and you might see a beautiful bowl with two hands pouring out the night sky.

That is the creator still today filling our universe with the luminous gift of life and light. 

One thing that pisses me off is people seeing fish in aquariums (the establishments, not home aquariums) and being like “It’s so sad because the ocean is so big and the tank is so small and they’ll never know freedom blah blah blah-“ I’m not talking about sharks and marine mammals here but the majority of fish are not at all bothered by being in an aquarium instead of the open ocean. Like, I personally would love to be a little clown fish in one of those big reef tanks. Fed regularly. Whole team of people monitoring my health and well-being. No predators. Medicated if I show signs of illness. Aquarium fish have cushy gigs in comparison to their wild companions.

the extent that i would be at emo night at sneaky dees every single weekend is crazy. you would think i was canadian.

Shocking how many people don’t know that hens lay non-fertilized eggs and think the yolk they’re eating is a baby chicken

What I would like to say to Shubble supporters: “Your boos mean nothing, I’ve seen what makes you cheer!” *By Rick Sanchez*

Haha, I get that sentiment 🤣

Honestly, I just wish they'd take up a new hobby other than hate-watching/hate-mongering. It's like 'you could go watch something you like now, you know? If your only mission is to make other people miserable or encourage hate...why would I listen to you?'

🫣😵‍💫 Or—this is really going to be controversial but—why does it seem some fans only really support a woman when they're taking potshots at a man?

(mid sized essay below, 😔🫠🫠🫠)

It starts feeling performative when people who post nothing but men (as do I, man-liking is a full-time job and I admit I'm more gay than bi), ONLY support women when they're tearing down men they no longer like. And even then, it's surface level. It's not a "you know, I like her content. Her fashion is really inspiring! I loved the pastels!" (Like I dislike ShubbIe, but ngl, her outfits are dope).

ShubbIe is only a vessel for them to continue hating a man with the same obsession they loved him.

And if that's what makes them happy, by all means, they can do it, but they're not made more moral or righteous for it 🤷. To support someone means to actually engage with their work as you did Wilbur's...fan art, fanfic, stream highlights (that aren't solely negative), clips and gifs (I have seen some people actually do this, and I respect those S$S fans).

But if the only content they're clipping and using is just to further hatred of Wilbur...uh, Captain, that isn't support. Nor is "fluck this guy, support women!" That's a performance.

The punchline of it all is that your fave was, in fact, problematic--not least because we are all bumbling fools navigating being alive in an ever-new world we're experiencing for the first and only time.

And the thing is, Your Fave was given a giant megaphone for some reason, which means when Your Fave bumbles foolishly through the world, they do so VERY LOUDLY and their inevitable mistakes are EAR-SPLITTING.

I have been thinking a lot about what a cancer diagnosis used to mean. How in the ‘80s and ‘90s, when someone was diagnosed, my parents would gently prepare me for their death. That chemo and radiation and surgery just bought time, and over the age of fifty people would sometimes just. Skip it. For cost reasons, and for quality of life reasons. My grandmother was diagnosed in her early seventies and went directly into hospice for just under a year — palliative care only. And often, after diagnosis people and their families would go away — they’d cash out retirement or sell the house and go live on a beach for six months. Or they’d pay a charlatan all their savings to buy hope. People would get diagnosed, get very sick, leave, and then we’d hear that they died.

And then, at some point, the people who left started coming back.

It was the children first. The March of Dimes and Saint Jude set up programs and my town would do spaghetti fundraisers and raffles and meal trains to support the family and send the child and one parent to a hospital in the city — and the children came home. Their hair grew back. They went back to school. We were all trained to think of them as the angelic lost and they were turning into asshole teens right in front of our eyes. What a miracle, what a gift, how lucky we are that the odds for several children are in our favor!

Adults started leaving for a specific program to treat their specific cancer at a specific hospital or a specific research group. They’d stay in that city for 6-12 months and then they’d come home. We fully expected that they were still dying — or they’d gotten one of the good cancers. What a gift this year is for them, we’d think. How lucky they are to be strong enough to ski and swim and run. And then they didn’t stop — two decades later they haven’t stopped. Not all of them, but most of them.

We bought those extra hours and months and years. We paid for time with our taxes. Scientists found ways for treatment to be less terrible, less poisonous, and a thousand times more effective.

And now, when a friend was diagnosed, the five year survival odds were 95%. My friend is alive, nearly five years later. Those kids who miraculously survived are alive. The adults who beat the odds are still alive. I grew up in a place small enough that you can see the losses. And now, the hospital in my tiny hometown can effectively treat many cancers. Most people don’t have to go away for treatment. They said we could never cure cancer, as it were, but we can cure a lot of cancers. We can diagnose a lot of cancers early enough to treat them with minor interventions. We can prevent a lot of cancers.

We could keep doing that. We could continue to fund research into other heartbreaks — into Long Covid and MCAS and psych meds with fewer side effects and dementia treatments. We could buy months and years, alleviate the suffering of our neighbors. That is what funding health research buys: time and ease.

Anyway, I’m preaching to the choir here. But it is a quiet miracle what’s happened in my lifetime.

Been working in pest control for 3 months now and i can confidently say that nobody on earth seems to understand that sometimes You Will See A Bugs and that's Normal if you live literally anywhere with oxygen