V O I D

me: mama what the hell does that mean

2014 Vienna Philharmonic New Year's Concert with Daniel Barenboim — Johann Strauss I, Radetzky March, Op. 228

put the octopus in the basket

put the octopus in the basket

weigh the bas--

put the octopus in the basket

weigh the basket

put the octopus in the water

They are members of the Ghost and Fiddler crab family Ocypodidae, and have a highly varied diet of plant/algal matter, other invertebrates, vertebrates, eggs, and carrion. They’re opportunistic and will try to get anything they can eat!

This species is also widely distributed across the Pacific and Indian oceans, where they can be found most active at night on beaches. Like other ghost and fiddler crabs, they typically stay hidden in their burrows during the day to avoid predators.

Grapes, as shown here, make for a delightful treat for captive Ocypodes; however, it should only be a treat and part of a balanced and varied diet including fish pellets, shellfish (such as clams), and veggies.

Photo by Thomas Mesaglio (iNaturalist)

The official sequel to that one post. It got very popular and I thought I would share the "answer" I found to my original "question".

The original comic is about growing up aneurotypical (specifically I have autism and ADHD among other things, e.g. being LGBT) in a world not made for that, and my profound feelings of alienation as a result.

Whether you share those specific problems or not, I am sincerely happy if it resonated with you and humbled that it meant something to so many people.

A popular addition to the post was "you will find your people". I think it is absolutely true that you can and will find people willing to support you and love you for who you are - I have, and their support made much of my growth possible (as well as therapy). I am grateful to the artist that made that addition and think it is important.

But I wanted to make this because to me, it was important to learn the message that you are allowed to exist as yourself, even if you were to never find a single other person who accepts you. You do not need the validation of others. Even if you feel like you were somehow made wrong, or will never fit in with anyone else, you have the right to exist.

Live authentically for yourself, and not for others. Pursue your passions.

It is intentional that the person in the comic never fully regains their color. I will never be the untraumatized child I once was. But that doesn't mean life is not worth living.

for anyone else who doesn’t know the photo above is an old leftist meme and is a fake screenshot from the dedication for rambo 3. the joke is that the us effectively created the taliban before later making them symbols of their existential opposition. while it’s a myth that the film was ever dedicated to the muhajideen, the spirit of the joke is true. the film features rambo fighting alongside the muhajideen and cia against the soviets. you can see a photo below of muhajideen leaders meeting with reagan in the oval office. the us and uk armed funded and trained the muhajideen and other insurgent groups as puppets to fight the soviet union, and the taliban likely never would have existed without cia and mi6 intervention. empires routinely create the enemies they require to justify their existence. for example israel similarly armed funded and trained hamas while quashing more palatable opposition groups like the palestinian liberation organization.

In every living Germanic language except English, the word for 'turtle' incorporates 'shield'

Many of them are literally 'shield toad'

English borrowed from French instead

The French word is related to the Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, etc words

One might expect these to derive from Classical Latin. One would be wrong.

The Classical Latin word does survive in the scientific name and in a second Italian word for turtle.

That word (testudo) is built on 'testa' which can mean 'fragment of earthenware' or 'shell or covering'

So the Germanic languages are calling it shield-thing and Latin is calling it a shell-thing! Very nice.

But, you ask, if not from Classical Latin, where do the Romance Language (and also English) words come from?

Medieval Latin 'tortuca'

And where did that come from?

Wiktionary says the origin is disputed but one of the options given — which Merriam-Webster on my phone seems fine with — is that is was derived from a Late Latin word derived from Tartarus

"because it used to be thought that tortoises and turtles came from the underworld and they were commonly paired with such infernal beasts"

Excuse me

Turtles

Did some early pope have a run-in with a snapping turtle and never got over it no, snapping turtles are Western Hemisphere

TURTLES