so my english professor told us this story last year about how he met his wife and it’s completely possible that he made it up just to entertain us but he says it happened and the story is this
he’s a a cruise with his parents to australia where he’s gonna spend a year or so for some reason. can’t remember why but it was job related. his mom is worried that if he spends too long away from her without her constant advice (my mom is also like this lol) he’s going to do something impulsive and ridiculous.
so, he decides to prank her by pretending to get married to a woman he just met. because he’s obviously so impulsive and ridiculous. so he’s talking to people and stuff and he asks this woman if she’s cool with pretending to marry him to prank his parents. and she says yes. then he goes and talks to the captain and crewmembers and he’s like “i have this ridiculously funny prank where i’m going to pretend to marry this lovely woman to freak out my mom.” and they, of course, reply hell yeah. so like since the first mate has the power to marry people, i guess, he agrees to the fake wedding.
so at lunch he’s like “mom, dad, this is alyssa. i met her last night and we’re in love and also getting married.” and his mom freaks out and that could be that. but no.
if they’re gonna do this they’re gonna go big or go home.
so, he changes his facebook status to “married to alyssa” and invites all his friends to his wedding in the middle of the ocean. (and they believe him and congratulate him and he’s concerned that his friends think he would really marry a random woman he met like six hours ago)
now his mom is getting really nervous b/c alyssa (the fake bride) got her friends she was on the cruise to be her bridesmaids. they got the first mate to “marry” then at dinner in front of people. the mom is horrified.
anyway the next day he goes “just kidding!” and it’s hilarious. but then he has to contact all his friends who were calling him on the phone and stuff to congratulate him to tell them it was an elaborate joke and they all think he’s an asshole and he and alyssa part ways but keep in touch b/c they… actually get along pretty well.
anyway like a year later they meet up again in boston (i think? big city that wasnt new york) and talk and end up dating for like a year and then end up engaged for real. and now he invites his friends to his real wedding and all their RSVPs essentially say “i’ll show up, but if this is another fake one i’ll fucking murder you” and the mom just flat out didnt believe him for a month because she’s not falling for that again.
and now they’ve been married happily for like three years and they’re expecting their second child who has probably been born by now
and the overall point of this post is: imagine your otp
I’m going to save up for a new motorcycle by running a scam where I bet straight dudes at bars twenty bucks that I can get a girl’s number in under five minutes and then politely walk up her and say, “I just bet that asshole twenty bucks that I could get your number. I’ll split it with you if you pretend to laugh like I just said a good pick up line and then write a fake number on my hand.”
Like, I never understood those kind of bets in those shitty teen movies. Everybody loves being part of a scheme, man. Use your head.
If anyone ever does this to me I’ll call them out on being a con artist.
Joke’s on you, buddy. That’ll only have consequences the first, what, couple dozen times? I can take a punch.
But then eventually, I’ll have money for the bike, and whenever I get called out, I’ll just speed off, and, sure, maybe I crash and die in a gutter and the police can’t figure out why I have hundreds of fake phone numbers stuffed in my jacket and it launches a huge investigation that becomes sort of a local legend, but you know whose problem that is? Not fucking mine.
Because I’m a slutty motorcycle ghost, and who’s gonna’ stop me then? The ghost cops? Nice try. Everybody knows cops can’t become ghosts because they just go straight to hell. It’s basic math.
Moral of the story, don’t be a con artist or you will die in a horrible accident and become a lonely ghost.
First of all, don’t you ever accuse me of having morals, narrative or otherwise, ever again.
And second, where did I say I’d be lonely? I’d be a ghost on a motorcycle. That’s the sexiest thing that there is. You look me in the eyes and tell me you wouldn’t bone Ghostrider. Look me in the goddamn eyes.
Today I got to go on one of our runs to more rural shelters to help relieve overcrowding there. We ended up bringing back 21 kittens and 10 dogs. So fun day. But this morning, while I was getting stuff together in preparation for the 90 minute drive…. This happened.
Excuse you Tiniest Opossum, but you are NOT allowed to escape through the front bars of the cat carrier we were housing you in. I’m going to put you back.
“NO!”
I am going to catch you and put you back and you have no say in this matter.
“NO!”
Catching you and putting you back now.
“NOOOOOO!”
Aaaand back you go. Let go of the purple towel and go in the cardboard box.
Why is Bard-Cleric so funny? Is it the vicous mockery cantrip? imagine youre at a sermon and the pastor starts roasting you in front of everyone “thou art a little bitch jacob, SO SAYETH THE LORD AMEN” and the entire church echoes AMEN
So after the big reveal, there was a lot of uproar, with people getting furious over what Pink Diamond did. Heck, I was one of them.
But after thinking it over, I realized that maybe some of it is being a bit overstated. There’s been a lot of talk about how Rose was evil or how she created a war because she was bored or how she only created Steven to run away from responsibility.
Y’all. The vast majority of evidence does not support this.
So anyway, here are some important reminders:
The Gem War was already going on for 1,000 years before Pink Diamond decided to fake her shattering. She did this because she thought it would end the war, and allow the Crystal Gems to live in peace. Yes, it backfired, and yes, she should have considered that the other Diamonds would seek revenge, but at the end of the day, she legitimately believed that the Diamonds wouldn’t care enough to take action if they thought she was gone.
She still started the war to protect the humans who lived there. Like, seriously, none of that changed. EARTH WOULD BE DESTROYED IF IT WEREN’T FOR HER. I mean, what did she have to gain by picking a fight with herself? All she wanted was a colony of her own. When she got it, she discovered the organic life on Earth and realized she didn’t want to go along with it anymore.
“Curiosity turned to appreciation. Appreciation turned to fondness. And fondness turned to love.”
Yes, Pink didtry talking to the other Diamonds before starting a war. Remember what Steven heard in his dream. Pink Diamond did try and talk to the other Diamonds, bringing up the organic life, but they saw it as a sign of her incompetence, not as a reason to let the planet be free. After that, she tried arguing that the cities were too hard to dismantle (which obviously was a lie), but when that didn’t fly, she created the Crystal Gems and used that as an excuse.
After the war, she spent 6,000 years trying to find a way to heal the corrupted Gems. Why do you think the Crystal Gems have been bubbling all the monsters they fight? It’s been said that Rose always hoped to find a way to heal them. It’s not like they died and she just went “Eh, what can ya do?” She felt guilty about what had happened, and she spent ages trying to atone.
Honestly, I still stand by the theory that she created Steven at least in part because she hoped that a human’s capacity to grow might mean that he would eventually become powerful enough to heal them. I mean, he did go further in healing Centipeedle than Rose ever did, and he still has a lot of growth to come. It makes sense that Rose saw that she had reached a plateau and hoped that Steven could do better.
It’s not her fault that there was a power imbalance between her and Pearl. Look, this was fucked up, and it kills me, too. But Pearl’s devotion to Rose wasn’t something Rose could have helped more than she already did. Remember, she gave Pearl the choice to stay loyal to Homeworld. She encouraged Pearl to come into her own. She declared Pearl a free Pearl. But there’s only so much she could do. Yes, Pearl’s devotion to Rose/PD and her feelings of being lost after Rose was gone was tragic, and it breaks my heart. But what more could Rose do?
“Why won’t you just let me do this for you, Rose?”
“Did Rose make you feel like you were nothing?” “Rose made me feel like I was…everything.”
She left Bismuth for Steven to find. It’s clear that the reason she bubbled Bismuth (and kept it a secret) was because Bismuth would have known the truth about the shattering and wouldn’t have stood for it. But when she created Steven, she left Bismuth in the same place as her video for him. She probably figured this was her chance to let Bismuth finally be free.
Look, obviously Pink Diamond made some pretty huge miscalculations that caused a lot of pain and death. That doesn’t make her a bad person. She had to constantly face a number of hard choices where there was no easy answer, and each time, she went with what she thought was best.
Should she have ordered Pearl to keep quiet? No. Yet, at the time it seemed like the best choice.
Should she have told the other Crystal Gems the truth after the Corruption Song? Maybe. Yet, at the time it seemed like a better choice to keep it hidden.
(Should she have challenged the other Diamonds head-on without a disguise? Hell no, summoning their full wrath would have been suicide, and the Earth would get colonized anyway.)
I get it: it’s easy to demonize someone who comes from a position of power when things go wrong on a major scale. But the fact is that it’s not that simple. People have limits, people have flaws, people make mistakes. Pink is a Diamond. Her choices were always going to have far-reaching consequences, and she tried her best given what she had. We’re in a morally grey zone with both positive and negative outcomes.