cosmosisjones86

[cosmosisjones86]

I know there are people out there genuinely struggling with shortened attention spans and doomscrolling but I cannot relate bc jstor is right there. Doomscrolling? No, academic paper scrolling. We are reading about coming of age rites in ancient Greece and changing uses of allegorical imagery in the baroque period and 16 other cool articles we found on the way to those. Attention span issues? Most articles are less than 50 pages. I can get through a long one broken up throughout the day without any effort or pound 5 shorter ones back to back in one sitting if I really feel like. Its even on your phone so instead of other shit you can jstor instead. Also I'm sure to spend at least 10 minutes during one of these bouts just sitting there digesting some crazy fucking thing I've read like this

Like I don't have attention span issues anyway but I can't help but think a lot of people who are stuck on their phones and have trouble doing things that aren't mindlessly consuming content could get a much better alternative if they just scrolled jstor instead-- its all the same actions but like mentally stimulating instead of brain-cell-killing. And like you don't even need to pay, you can get like 100 free articles a month. Anyway

[cosmosisjones86]

I am so proud of the Hungarian ppl right now.

It was the 30th Pride.

It was banned.

200.000 people were there.

Thank you for this boost today. Thank you for showing up and standing up for our right!

Photo cr.: Telex.hu

[cosmosisjones86]

I'm very excited to share that the Gundam Wing Pride Discord server is now Gundam Wing: Endless Events! We're a multi-event server, so feel free to come hang out and talk about Gundam Wing, even if you're not planning on writing anything! You never know what conversation may spark creativity.

We're just a bunch of fans who got together to revive some old events and maybe create some new ones. Currently, we are hosting Operation Pride, Omegundam, Wingtober, and Cocktail Fridays, as well as unofficial discussions for Nanowrimo and Fandom Trumps Hate. Individual event announcements will be posted through the year.

This is a space meant to be friendly and inclusive, so please understand that no bigotry of any kind will be tolerated. As the server is 18+, please be aware that NSFW discussion may occur on many of the channels.

I hope everyone has fun and we can spread our love of Gundam Wing!

Special thanks to @seaofolives for all of the graphics used for the events!

Speaking personally, I've only joined some Discord servers for the fandom this year. I'm very happy to connect with other fans and whip up more hype for the show that stole my heart 25 years ago!

https://discord.gg/GzTfEwUHSr

[cosmosisjones86]

[cosmosisjones86]

[cosmosisjones86]

If anyone wants to know what a leopard seal sounds like 🦷🩸

[cosmosisjones86]

I was raised agnostic and tend to remain ambiguous on theological matters.

-but my house has a porch on the second story that affords me a terrific view of my neighborhood and the Colorado Front Range and I was partaking of some peace before the 4th Of July Finger-Loss Festivities begin, and I have had a

~*Spiritual Experience*~

I just watched my neighbor try to unload an actual wooden pallet that had to have been forklifted into the back of his insecurity pickup worth of fireworks.

Except that he does not have a forklift in his garage.

He does have so much sports memorabilia and cardboard boxes of unsold MLM Merchandise and patriotically themed camping gear and posters of women in bikinis and flags of suspect political organizations in his garage that there is only BARELY enough space for the fireworks and certainly none for his truck.

So he had to unload the individual boxes of recreational explosives from the back of his truck and stack them in the minimal space he had cleared by hand. This is a tedious and time-consuming process as this neighbor has purchased a wide variety of recreational and locally illegal explosives instead of many of just a few types, so the individual boxes are rather small.

He begins, and this is crucial to what happens next, by cutting apart the industrial-grade saran wrap his explosives dealer had so carefully wrapped his merchandise in, and discarded it unsecured on his lawn.

Where Outdoor Conditions sometimes happen.

His process for unloading the fireworks is to 1. Climb up through the gate into the bed of his pickup truck (a feat made unusually difficult due to the slope of his driveway, and this man's fascinating decision to wear the world's Siffest and least Flexible Denim Overalls. 2. Once in the pickup bed, he selects ONE (1) box from the pile He is apparently from a niche religious institution that doesn't believe in stacking things. 3. Carries it awkwardly around the palette that barely fits in the truck bed 4. His wife yells "Be careful!" when he nearly falls out of the pickup. 5. He Yells "SHADDUP!" back at her. 6. The Large German Shepherd barks from inside the house. 7. He yells "SHADDUP!" back at her too. 8. He sets the (1) box down on the gate 9. Slowly and awkwardly climbs out of the pickup bed 10. picks the box back up, and carries it into the garage.

Question: Aren't you going to help this poor man? Answer: Absolutely Not.

There's four military veterans, MANY dogs, and several people with dementia in this neighborhood, all of whom are terrified by this chicanery every year and many neighbors have repeatedly asked him to maybe do the fireworks somewhere else. (This is the Eighth Year Running he's held a major demolition event in his driveway, and for those of you who can do math, you may be able to guess the precipitating incident to this little ritual) Additionally, I live in Colorado, a state marginally less prone to spontaneous and catastrophic conflagrations than a rotting grain silo, but only marginally. Our recreational explosives laws are written accordingly.

I am in fact calling the Non Emergency line to report Fireworks violations, and reading off the brand labels to someone named Dorothy, who is gleefully totaling up a SPECTACULAR fine for my oblivious neighbor.

However, while I'm on the phone with Dorothy, I notice the wind begin to pick up. and by "Notice" I mean "The Industrial Saran Wrap he left on his Lawn earlier is suddenly swept up about 100 feet into the air by an updraft intense enough to make my ears pop" And by "Pick Up" I mean "I look up to see the sky has turned a fun and exciting shade of glass green, and the bottoms of the clouds are bumpy and rounded, and the overall effect is not unlike looking up through the bottom of the cup at God's Matcha Boba Tea."

For those of you who do not live in places with Inclement Weather, these conditions mean "You have about 30 seconds before a Major Meteorological Event Occurs."

I move under the eaves. "Hang on Dorothy." I say, nose filling with Petrichor. "The show is about to be cancelled." "Oh, that doesn't matter!" Dorothy cheerfully informs me. "It's illegal for him just to possess those, no matter if he actually gets to set them off or not." "Terrific, because he's gotten maybe five boxes out of a hundred inside."

Sometimes, the weather gods are Merciful and give you a verbal warning, typically in the kind of thunderclap that makes your ears ring.

The Gods were not merciful today.

It's not often that I am in the time, place, correct angle or in a properly observational frame of mind to see this, But I got to see it today. Huh. I thought. I've never seen a cloud just DIVE for the ground before. Oh. I realized as it got closer. That's RAIN.

Sometimes, a thunderstorm will form in such a way that the rain that would normally be distributed over an area of say, five to tent square miles, is instead concentrated into an area of say, my neighborhood exactly.

So today, I was granted the rare privilege of being able to actually see the literal wall of water descend from On High and DIRECTLY onto my porch, my street, and my neighbor's truck, and his pile of unwrapped fireworks.

The sheer impact force of the downpour immediately scatters the teetering pile of fireworks boxes in the back of the truck, like the wrath of God striking down the tower of Babel. Boxes tumble, then are washed out of the bed of the truck by the deluge. Smaller Boxes are carried down the road in a little line by the stream forming in the gutter, like little impotent explosive ducklings.

My neighbor was definitely yelling something, but I could not hear what over the DEAFENING noise several million gallons of water makes upon high-speed contact with the earth's surface, but there was a lot of arm-waving and faces turning red as he went looking for the saran wrap that had probably blown to Nebraska by now, while his wife started disassembling the complex three-dimensional puzzle of interlocking material goods in search of a tarp. They do not have a tarp. They have one of those wretched Thin Blue Line flags though, and my neighbor jogs out in a futile effort to cover what's left in the truck.

Which is when the hail begins.

"HELLO?" Yelled Dorothy. "HI!" I shouted. "WE'RE HAVING SOME WEATHER!" "OH GOOD!" she shouts back. "WE NEED THE MOISTURE!"

I watch for a minute longer, but the loss was immediate and catastrophic- the hail is the size of marbles and dense and cares not for your pitiful cardboard and cellophane, ripping the boxes asunder and punching holes in the few things covered in plastic. The colors on the Thin Blue Line Flag are seeping all over the remains of that it was supposed to protect in a particularly apt visual metaphor. Not even the few boxes that made it into the garage are spared, as the German Shepherd escapes from indoors, and in an attempt to assist her humans, jumps directly into the small stack of not-yet-ruined boxes, scattering them into the driveway and deluge. She even picks one up so her humans will chase her around the yard, before dropping it in the gutter to be swept away.

So. I was raised Agnostic -but even I can recognize when God slaps someone upside the head and shouts "NO!" at them.

---

(If you laughed, please consider supporting my Ko-fi or preordering my book of Strange Stories on Patreon)

[cosmosisjones86]

Learning To Cat

[cosmosisjones86]

What a treasure

[cosmosisjones86]

if you are going to need some kind of sedative for 4th of july fireworks for your pets NOW IS THE TIME TO SCHEDULE THOSE APPOINTMENTS TO ASK FOR THEM

NOT WHEN ITS 2 DAYS AWAY

[cosmosisjones86]

donald trump will die on july 20th 2025 at 1pm pacific standard time

[cosmosisjones86]

happy PRIDE i’m here i’m queer and i believe the land should be given back to the proper indigenous stewards.

[cosmosisjones86]

Caption From @ essenceofblackculture on instagram:

Kristi Williams

@kristi_williams_black_history, a Black woman whose aunt survived the Tulsa Massacre, saw Oklahoma trying to silence Black history-and answered with action. She started "Black History Saturdays," free community classes to teach what the schools won't.

Now the room is full, the lessons are real, and the legacy lives on. end caption

____________

This is a heroic feat that shouldn’t be needed. But because it is, a hero emerged.

[cosmosisjones86]

wikipedia no longer being anywhere near the top of search results when looking up anything feels eviscerating

[cosmosisjones86]

[cosmosisjones86]

the world is getting so ugly and bleak and it’s hard not to feel so hopeless. but we have to remember that they want us to feel that way.

it reminds me of this quote by dan savage - “During the darkest days of the AIDS crisis we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced all night, and it was the dance that kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for.”

joy is resistance. it’s really scary times but we are all in this together.

[cosmosisjones86]

thank you Canada 🇨🇦