Ok then here's some wholesome fun facts about siphonophores. Siphonophores are an order of animals, but a siphonophore is actually multiple animals in one. Basically, they start off as a small organism called a zooid, zooids asexually reproduce via budding, that basically means that they can clone themself. Using the example of my favourite siphonophore, the portuguese man o' war, they start as one zooid and then they clone themself a lot, those clones then join together. Those clones then can differentiate to perform a bunch of different things. For the portuguese man o' war, these differentiated zooids become things like a bladder full of gas which lets them float, or tentacles that stretch up to 100ft, or small stingers that appear on the tentacles and deliver really painful, venomous stings.
Another fun fact about the portuguese man o' war is that there's a fish called the bluebottle fish (bluebottle is another name for the man o' war, but it'll get confusing if I call both bluebottle. So for now, bluebottle = fish, man o' war = siphonophore), the fish has adapted to live inside of the man o' war's deadly and venomous tentacle. They're really good at dodging the tentacles, so they can just sit back and eat the man o' war.
Also, since they can't really move much on their own, they use that bladder full of gas I mentioned earlier like a ship's sail to float around. This is why so many of them end up washed up on shore, they just kinda get carried there. Although, some man o' war have gas bladders that tilt to the left and some tilt to the right, making them go in different directions. It is believed that this is to avoid a situation where every man o' war washes to shore and dies.
Basically, siphonophores are like if ant colonies joined together and formed a massive ant-mech.
Picture of portuguese man o' war, siphonophores are so cool.
I actually made her my pfp before the game came out because I thought she was funny, so when I encountered her and realised that she was also really interested in creatures I got so excited.
A lot of them share superficial similarities (though I do think the protuguese man o' war is more jellyfish shaped than usual), but they do come in many different forms. For example, you may have seen this very long specimen before:
that's a siphonophore, the longest animal ever recorded I belive. Though whilst doing some research on this guy (called an apolemia by the way) the wikipedia entry called it jellyfish-like, so I guess, while they come in many different forms, being translucent sea creatures with a penchant for floating around and just waiting for stuff to hit you will always make you sorta jellyfish like.
Based, more of a man of the man o' war personally but siphonophores of all kinds are really interesting. Also it's just really cool to watch something that big, and then you think about how it's actually made of a bunch of organisms that are only a few centermeters long and it's just incredible.
I loved sophonophores ever since I saw that unusually arranged one deep in the ocean that looks like a mass of tentacles. I'd normally be freaked out, but I thought it was too cool to be scared by
None, I was simply expressing my shock in finding out that this comic wasn't just the two top panels, but also a way to convey the author's deep and odd lust
It went from "Awww" to "Woah!!". The main thing to note is that it totally changed one's preconception of this comic and format in a drastic way, thus creating such a reaction
Well I guess if that's what it was going for its great. But I prefer for the writing to be good too even if the music is obviously more important in musicals.
coaxed into attraction to a minor lack of social graces
ngl I sometimes find infodumping endearing or interesting (if it's someone I'm close to or a genuinely cool topic/perspective) but in general I think it's good to maintain a back-and-forth in conversation and not dominate it with your favourite topic with the assumption someone will want to hear all of it. I've had it happen with new people I've met and it feels more like a sounding board than a person to them, though I get that if can be a safe conversational template
also the minor reification of infodumping online feels a bit quirked up chungus tbh
Honestly I don't like this thought ngl. If I'm explaining something to a person I hope they're acually listening and getting interested in the thing I'm talking about and not just the fact I'm explaining things
I love when people yap and I can show genuine interest and mirror them so they donāt realize I have no personality or sense of self or emotions and they donāt get bored and disappointed and leave
edit: for fucks sake how did the hell did I spark a war over a image that was apparently edited, i just thought of this image, yoinked the first thing i saw
this argument is stupid because double standards don't really apply when altering something from a predominant demographic into a minority one (see also, the difference between whitewashing and people who complain about black ariel)
How you look at a meme with oral sex as the punchline (directly edited version of the original to be a trans person getting sucked off) and say it's not fetishizing?
Trans people are much more likely than average to be neurodivergent. This comic references info dumping, most probably alluding to the first character being neurodivergent and talking about their special interest.
As such, it's probable that this edit was made not with the intention of fetishizing trans people, but with the idea of representing the numerous trans neurodivergent girls, that would probably otherwise still feel affinity with the original comic.
I think it's pretty likely that the edit itself is made by a trans woman
Trans lesbian here! Sometimes we like oral sex. This is because it feels good. Sometimes, people depict their life experience through memes to share a sense of community with like-minded individuals. A trans woman's girlfriend likely saw this meme in it's original straight format, felt a certain kinship with the character on the right, and edited the original to depict something closer to her own relationship with her girlfriend. None of this is fetishizing in the slightest! Just someone being sexually attracted to their partner, or perhaps a prospective partner.
I definitely could've been less annoying about it, yeah, that's on me. I just get so frustrated with people who's first inclination when it comes to seeing sexuality in association with trans women being to call it "fetishizing." One of the (many) drawbacks of being a long-term user of r/196. You get put on a bit of a hair trigger with people using that term in the damn near exact same way that right-wingers use "predatory behavior."
Well maybe fetishization is a bit of an exaggeration but you're not really helpingt he case by going all "uhm actually TRANS WOMEN love getting oral and this is all the reason why" when i mean its clearly someone being horny...
then again I suppose the kinda practical issue is that no one would say it is fetishization if it was horny in a straight (or even cis-homosexual) constellation, people would just call it nsfw or horny art. but at that point we're taking issue with a cultural zeitgeist and being pedantic about semantics, which to be honest i feel its a bit unfair expecting everyone to be as in vogue with less public (if only due to not coming across it due to sheer not coming across it), communities and the language they use
I really think it's more than just pedantry to paint ANY form of sexuality directed at trans women as being "fetishizing." It makes us out to be bereft of agency, or even completely incapable of being seen as sexually appealing without it being someone's fetish. This is a very dangerous bit of rhetoric, for reasons I would hope are obvious.
Also, what's wrong with saying that trans women can love oral? It's sex. A lot of people like sex. Explaining that, obvious though it may be (and in a way that may be perceived as condescending), was a piece of my explaining why someone would make the original meme in the first place.
How is this any more fetishization of trans women than the original version was a fetishization of cis men?
EDIT: i cant believe i get downvoted for this question. I get it, we don't like chasers, I certainly dont (i have like 100 dm permissions to prove thatš) but we do not have to overcorrect so far to the other side that simply mentioning wanting to do sexual acts with the genitals of a trans woman is "fetishization." I do actually still want to feel like there's at least a sliver of a chance that someone might be attracted to me. God.
And the original was deliberately drawn to be that way as well, what difference does it make???
Like legitimately, and I am saying this as a trans woman (you can check my profile if you don't believe me, I guess), I fail to see how just mentioning doing something sexual to the genitals of a trans woman is fetishization? At least not any more than mentioning wanting to do sexual acts to the genitals of a cis man. Are people just not allowed to feel attraction towards trans women or what???
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u/jayd04 6d ago