A Macaron of a Person

- Hatch maternity shoot with the beetles (for whatever reason they managed to get a fake pregnancy belly on the Vat and he is wearing it), one image has Komorov holding him like if he's the father

- a zoomed in video taken outside of the chapel room, inside is Eva and Hatch having what at first sounds like a normal discussion, but if you listen closely he's actually telling her about the Popemobile in the Car's Cinematic Universe and the implications of it, she is wearing a contemplative but deeply confused look

- a picture of Annie and Olesya asleep after a long meeting with the science team, their heads leaning on each other with their hair braided together

- video of Carl, Ryland, and Komorov making a domino chain out of old lab material, they knock it down but at the end of the chain is Eva giving them a disapproving look

- The astronauts lined up, backs to the camera, wearing matching sweatpants with the words Eva's angels printed across their asses (Ilyukhina and Shapiro's idea)

- a video taken by Komorov showing a tarantula that somehow made its way in the lab, then panning over to Lokken and Grace huddled together on a table screaming, when he finally kills it, they push at each other pretending they weren't just holding the other

- video of Ilyukhina and Shapiro giving a presentation titled Why You Should Give Us Hysterectomies, Lamai and Eva sat listening. Halfway through, Annie is standing in front of a slide depicting a baby with a red x across it, Martin now stood by her side, nodding

- picture of LeClerc lying on the Vat's deck post-Antarctica, rain falling hard, Eva standing over his head with an umbrella, two beer bottles in her free hand (instead of her usual coffee)

- you know that prank where you move a sleeping person and they wake up confused? There's a video taken by the astronauts zooming in to a lifeboat tethered to the Vat, Yáo in the centre still wearing his pajamas, faint sounds of Mandarin cursing under Ilyukhina's snickers

- series of images of Lamai, Lokken, and Eva at another EU meeting, getting more visibly frustrated at the men around them, ending with Lokken's hands on the table yelling at whatever world leaders were pissing them off, Lamai standing to join her, Eva leaned back in her seat but now wearing a smile

- video of LeClerc and Hatch discussing something in French, except it's LeClerc being unable to fully follow Hatch's Quebecois accent, his face visibly showing his confusion

- picture of the lead scientists and Eva in a late night/early morning (who knows anymore, time is an illusion on the Vat) emergency meeting still in their pajamas (three years into ship life, it was too damn early/late for them to care, and they gave up on pretensions months before)

- said pajamas were: Hatch wearing a shirt printed with his wife's face across his chest (it's been over a year since he went home, poor guy); classic plaids for Komorov, matching cotton set for Lamai, striped button down for LeClerc, Ryland in his ancient college t-shirt and sweats; the only two who look like they can pass for a meeting are Lokken and Eva who both basically live in sweaters

- video taken of Lamai giving the astronauts ear piercings (Ilyukhina begged, eventually they all acquiesced, even Yáo agreed (after endless begging)) (Ilyukhina was probably going to have Annie pierce her second lobes anyways, Lamai found out and insisted on doing it sterilely)

- series of images of a 'wedding ceremony' for Martin and Annie in the mess hall. Martin is wearing a white curtain fashioned around him like a wedding dress, Annie wearing a black jacket, white shirt, black sweats, and a way too long tie. Olesya is at the podium (stolen from one of the meeting rooms) officiating the makeshift ceremony, Yáo is made flower girl (Olesya insisted on having him wear a flower crown), while Ryland is the ring bearer (paper rings that Olesya origamied minutes prior)

I was wandering through a gallery when I turned around and saw a portrait of a woman and audibly went 'oh fuck.'

This is extra funny because I've only ever had this reaction once before, on a painting I saw in a museum in Fort Worth, Texas (extremely far away from where I was yesterday). The painting in Fort Worth was this one:

It's a painting of Alice Vanderbilt Shepard, by John Singer Sargent. I was so affected that I bought a print of this painting in particular when I got home, as the museum did not offer this particular painting in print.

Yesterday, the painting that yanked me out of my art museum stupor was this one:

Important notes:

It was in a gallery of many different painters

My left eye wasn't working great and I couldn't read any of the signs until I got up close

I have never seen this painting in my life

Gang do you want to know who painted that painting? Do you want to take a stabbling? A little baby guess?

Because apparently it was John Singer Sargent.

And this guy nonstop slaps? Every portrait is an absolute banger? Some selections from the first handful of pages on wikiart:

Turns out you can roll a 7 on a d6

So I tell Jane to bring her boy over to a bbq I'm having and she can tell him she's trans at my place surrounded by queer and trans people who love her and will support her if he ends up being awful.

She waits till the end of the bbq to tell him the news, by which point the rest of us have learned that Jason is a kind, friendly, empathetic, hard working, dummy. So we sit down, all of us a little worried about this gym bro's reaction when she tells him she's trans, and that she understands if he doesn't want to keep dating her it's no big deal.

He's baffled, so we explain what trans is, and after the disclosure that she hasn't had bottom surgery yet...

"Oh you have a dick?"

"... yeah."

He look's around at the room full of people with baited breath, his clearly a little afraid girl friend says

"Oooohhhh! I get it! You think- don't worry Babe! Watch this!"

And ya'll this man jumps up, runs into the kitchen and returns with one of the bratwurst we had for grilling and proceeds to tilt his head back, put it down his throat, hold it in his mouth for a moment, and spit it up without even a whisper of a gag and then looks around at the group absolutely beaming with pride.

"Honey, I must tell you, i am in fact trans and I have not had bottom surgery."

"i'm so basic.....i just like a lot of butter or jam :(" (as though those are not god's best and most beloved condiments and his greatest gifts to mankind)

"FUCK health guidelines FUCK my cholesterol and most importantly FUCK diet culture i'll put a dumpster full of butter on my toast and not even GOD will stop me" (no notes. god would encourage this)

doxxing one's self by mention of polarizing regional delicacies (i am so curious about vegemite i must admit)

"does a grilled cheese count as toast?" (not for the purposes of this post)

"i don't like toast please don't kill me" (i appreciate the honesty but i fear this post is not for you)

people who put full ass meals on toast (based)

people who do not but eat toast as a full meal (based)

melty peanut butter (absolutely based)

"it's a guilty pleasure but...nutella 😳" (relieve yourself of fear and enjoy your dessert toast)

The Reasonable Childhood Independence Law unanimously passed both chambers this year. It seeks to shield Hoosier parents from child welfare investigations solely for allowing their children age-appropriate independence.

State Rep. Victoria Garcia-Wilburn is a Democrat from Fishers who co-sponsored the bill with South Bend Republican Rep. Jake Teshka.

"It really is in regards to developmentally appropriate age-related activities, as defined by, mainly the parent, and of course this does not in any way diminish laws that we already have on the books, like it is irresponsible and illegal to leave a child in a hot car on a hot day like today, for example."

She recalled testimony from a parent who was investigated by child welfare officials after neighbors were concerned that four siblings, ages 10, 9 and two 7-year-olds, rode their bikes to a park, played there for hours and then came home and were alone for an hour. Garcia Wilburn says it sounded like a typical day in her childhood.

Too often, Democracy is presented to us as the boring, moderate option, only chosen by conformists and the indecisive masses. I am here to tell you:

Democracy is not Moderate. Democracy is Radical.

Democracy is the last major political ideology to insist that legitimacy rises from the many and not the few.

Every other system - no matter how it dresses itself up - rests on the same grim foundation: that power must be concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite. Sometimes it is in the hands of The Party's Politburo, sometimes it's the Guardian Mullahs, sometimes a Noble Bloodline, sometimes it's the President-for-Life and his pathetic cadre of sycophants.

It doesn't matter what ideology props up Tyranny. The labels differ, but the structure is identical - a small group decides, and the rest of us obey. Strip away the slogans and you find the same contempt underneath: a profound distrust of humanity as a whole.

And that is how it has always been - in most places, and for most of human history. But Democracy is the rejection of that structure at its root.

Democracy is not tidy. It is not efficient. It is not comforting. It is a stubborn, defiant insistence that ordinary people - in all their conflicted ignorance, prejudice, generosity, and brilliance - are entitled to govern themselves. Not because they are perfect, but because they are human.

It assumes that the people are not livestock to be managed, nor children to be shielded from dangerous thoughts, but moral agents capable of judgment, disagreement, and correction.

There is nothing moderate about that.

And that is why Democracy and Freedom of Expression are inseparable. A system that depends on the people’s consent must allow the people to speak - to argue, to offend, to be wrong, to be foolish, to be alarming. Either you trust the people or you do not.

Democracy cannot survive on curated truths and sanitized discourse. It requires exposure to bad ideas so that better ones can defeat them in the open. It requires citizens who can hear something repulsive and reject it for themselves.

Authoritarian systems have no need for Freedom of Expression. They do not require educated citizens, only compliant ones. They do not need critical thinking, only discipline. Speech is dangerous to them precisely because it invites comparison, skepticism, and refusal. So the Authoritarians of all colors regulate it - not for any public good, but for their own survival.

Here in America, Democracy is strained. The public sometimes chooses poorly. Demagogues rise. Falsehood spreads. But the system is showing its cracks precisely because it allows us to see them.

The answer to bad democratic outcomes is not to abandon democracy - it is to defend it more fiercely. A system that permits error is the only system that permits correction.

I know that the temptation, in moments of fear and frustration, is to reach for guardians - to wish for someone stronger, smarter, cleaner to take the wheel so that you do not have to confront it yourself. That temptation is ancient, but it has always led to the same place: The surrender of voice. The criminalization of dissent. The quiet suffocation of truth.

Democracy asks something harder of us. It asks us to believe that people, together, can learn - can improve. That exposure to ideas does not inevitably corrupt. That sunlight does more good than silence. That freedom - including the freedom to create and consume shocking, offensive, unsettling ideas - is not a threat to legitimacy, but its foundation.

Democracy is not easy and it is not perfect. Democracy rejects the fantasy that some flawless leader will come along to save us. It does not falsely promise us good outcomes every time.

She is the Earth, from the claws of winter to the bloom of spring. Eva, Gaia, feels everything—every sandcastle and forest fire, every brilliant smile and wail of grief. If Grace knew the magnitude of suffering and love that she feels in every second of her existence, she believes he would go of his own accord. Maybe she can show him what is worth saving…