#Ape Vermin

[loverofbooks8]

Which book we reading?

[robertreich]

How Trump is Following Hitler's Playbook

You’ve heard Trump’s promise:

TRUMP: I’m going to be a dictator for one day.

History shows there are no “one-day” dictatorships. When democracies fall, they typically fall completely.

In a previous video, I laid out the defining traits of fascism and how MAGA Republicans embody them. But how could Trump — or someone like him — actually turn America into a fascist state? Here’s how in five steps.

Step 1: Use threats of violence to gain power

Hitler and Mussolini relied on their vigilante militias to intimidate voters and local officials. We watched Trump try to do the same in 2020.

TRUMP: Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.

Republican election officials testified to the threats they faced when they refused Trump’s demands to falsify the election results.

RAFFENSPERGER: My email, my cell phone was doxxed.

RUSTY BOWERS: They have had video panel trucks with videos of me proclaiming me to be a pedophile.

GABRIEL STERLING: A 20-something tech in Gwinnett County today has death threats and a noose put out saying he should be hung for treason.

If the next election is close, threats to voters and election officials could be enough to sabotage it.

Step 2: Consolidate power

After taking office, a would-be fascist must turn every arm of government into a tool of the party. One of Hitler’s first steps was to take over the civil service, purging it of non-Nazis.

In October of 2020, Trump issued his own executive order that would have enabled him to fire tens of thousands of civil servants and replace them with MAGA loyalists. He never got to act on it, but he’s now promising to apply it to the entire civil service.

That’s become the centerpiece of something called Project 2025, a presidential agenda assembled by MAGA Republicans, that would, as the AP put it, “dismantle the US government and replace it with Trump’s vision.”

Step 3: Establish a police state

Hitler used the imaginary threat of “the poison of foreign races” to justify taking control of the military and police, placing both under his top general, and granting law-enforcement powers to his civilian militias.

Now Trump is using the same language to claim he needs similar powers to deal with immigrants.

Trump plans to deploy troops within the U.S. to conduct immigration raids and round up what he estimates to be 18 million people who would be placed in mass-detention camps while their fate is decided.

And even though crime is actually down across the nation, Trump is citing an imaginary crime wave to justify sending troops into blue cities and states against the will of governors and mayors.

Trump insiders say he plans to invoke the Insurrection Act to have the military crush civilian protests. We saw a glimpse of that in 2020, when Trump deployed the National Guard against peaceful protesters outside the White House.

And with promises to pardon January 6 criminals and stop prosecutions of right-wing domestic terrorists, Trump would empower groups like the Proud Boys to act as MAGA enforcers.

Step 4: Jail the opposition

In classic dictatorial fashion, Trump is now openly threatening to prosecute his opponents.

TRUMP: if I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them.’ They’d be out of business.

And he’s looking to remake the Justice Department into a tool for his personal vendettas.

TRUMP: As we completely overhaul the federal Department of Justice and FBI, we will also launch sweeping civil rights investigations into Marxist local district attorneys.

In the model of Hitler and Mussolini, Trump describes his opponents as subhuman.

TRUMP: …the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country…

Step 5: Undermine the free press

As Hitler well understood, a fascist needs to control the flow of information. Trump has been attacking the press for years.

And he’s threatening to punish news outlets whose coverage he dislikes.

He has helped to reduce trust in the media to such a historic low that his supporters now view him as their most trusted source of information.

Within a democracy, we may often have leaders we don’t like. But we have the power to change them — at the ballot box and through public pressure. Once fascism takes hold, those freedoms are gone and can’t easily be won back.

We must recognize the threat of fascism when it appears, and do everything in our power to stop it.

[wizardbracket]

Round 5: Match 1 of 4

(Battle of the German mud wizards)

PROPAGANDA UNDER THE BREAK

Why they deserve to be the ultimate wizard according to YOU:

Caleb:

Vanquished (so far): Essek Thelyss, Adaine Abernant, VR-LA, Will Byers

"consider: Caleb said 'you were not born with venom in your veins. you learned it.'"

"Caleb is a disaster bisexual middle aged ginger with mud in his pockets and an emotional support cat who is also an octopus at times"

"he's literally a little german boy."

"he's an angry ape he's got zero muscle tissue on his body he's a professional diplomat he smells like literal shit all the time."

"There will never be a better wizard than Caleb Widogast"

"Caleb deadass planned to rewrite time to fix his childhood mistakes"

"He is peak sad wizard boy energy, but also has that little bit of flair that is essential to any wizard"

“Caleb just has that je ne sais quoi”

"Caleb has a cat!!!"

“Dedicated his life to learning the ultimate magic to change reality & fix his mistakes, and also opposes the magic CIA.”

“Chaotic bisexual snarky powerful wizard who married a war criminal and killed a living city”

Mud Wizard:

Vanquished (so far): NZ/Aotearoa Wizard, Amaury Guichon, Orb Wizard, Vermin Supreme

"Actual real-life wizard beats out any fantasy/literary/tv wizard"

"he fought the police while being knee deep in mud"

"i just learned about german mud wizard but i respect his field tactics"

"Mud wizard has field experience ... mud wizard is the one you need on a battlefield"

"I'm sure the other dude is very cool but throwing cops in the mud >>>>>>"

"my boy mud wizard getting the recognition he deserves. there is a mud wizard in all of us. and it says ACAB"

"absolutely german mud wizard its not even a question"

"German mud wizard uses his powers for good"

"Mud wizard is objectively cooler"

"Mud wizard takes direct action against cops. He's doing good old fashioned wizardry ... mud wizard embraces the chaos of magic"

“Outplayed cops with mud magic.”

[txttletale]

What are your thoughts (lorewise) on Warhammer fantasy so far and what's your favorite faction

i love skaven. ive been a skaven fan for like 20000 years ever since i briefly played actual tabletop. they're just funny little guys :)

when warhammer is good it's because it's embracing its original 80s gonzo spirit of 'just throw any old pop cultuire shit in there and figure it out later' -- i love how the skaven are, like, cartoon mad scientists with nuclear power and genetic engineering and also stupid rats who love scheming and betrayal anbd they waltz around with giant fucking flesh monsters and gatling guns and Combat Hamster Wheels. ther'es other stuff in this vein that's good too: orcs being english football hooligans is never going to stop delighting me, the tomb kings are a really cool concept, the vampire pirates (as far as i'm aware a CA invention?) are so fucking goofy and they rule so so hard.

overall though there's al ot of really really uncomfortable undertones to the world of warhammer fantasy. first of all there is the straight up racist shit, i love the lizardmen (i am currently deep into a mazdamundi campaign) and some of their lore is really interesting and in some ways avoids some of the common pitfalls of 'fantasy indigenous peoples'--it's made very clear they are an advanced society, technologically and socially complex, with a rich culture and history. but the lazy aping and blending of half-remembered maya/aztec aesthetics and the '''''funny''''' joke names they have and the fact that they are ancient and mystical and Not Of This Age just adds up to them being a really racist caricature of mesoamerican societies.

also WHF leans really really really hard into the biological determinism stuff. i love the skaven but the fact that they're a rapidly breeding menace that secretly infiltrates your cities and kidnaps people and gorge themselves on resources and have an Evil Religion and are As A Race predisposed to treachery and viciousness and are depicted as literal vermin brings to mind yknow the place all these tropes hold in the racist and antisemitic cultural imaginary and it definitely makes me kind of uncomfortable. i think the same can be said of the (also straight-up racist) depiction of beastmen as Tribes and Hordes that are very literally More Animal Than Human. like, there's so much of That Shit, of X Race are Biologically Fundamentally Like This, and the Like This often happens to coincide with a constellation of tropes used to demonize and justify the extermination of real people, and i really hate That Shit.

i also find the (also quite typical of fantasy) Order (Good) and Chaos (Evil) moral distinction to be pretty ideologically repugnant

so overall, yknow. mixed feelings innit. that said i'm having an absolute blast with TWWH2 this shit rules im driving my big dinosaur around and eating mother fuckers

[str8aura-no-not-that-one]

so, no normal rabbits are seen in Hop 2011, only weird CGI ones. When Fred hits EB with his car, he doesn't go 'holy shit, a rabbit with human eyes and a shirt on', he goes 'fuck I hit a wild rabbit'. With this, can it then be assumed that all rabbits in Hop are mostly bipeds that wear clothes and are as expressive as a human, and its only the fact that EB talks that makes him strange? if this is the case, it can be assumed that all rabbits (and possibly chickens) can talk, and are simply upholding a masquerade over the humans because... I don't know. Even EB's ability to speak is dubiously impressive, because a number of bystanders see him talk and react with only mild surprise, like the waitress who gets him his food at a public diner or David Hasselhoff. when he gets onto Hoff's show, his talent that makes him television worthy is being a drum prodigy, rather than being a talking rabbit, although I'm sure they also advertised that fact if its at the least uncommon. But! If rabbits can talk to humans, but simply prefer not to for some reason, there's no reason Fred should have been shocked when EB begged for his life (which seems like a good reason to break such a lax and unregulated masquerade), or even tried to kill him with a rock in the first place. if only Easter island rabbits can talk, and the rest of the species more closely resembles the Pink Berets (Ie can vocalize and move with clear intelligence, but don't actually speak any human languages), it still seems unethical to kill one with a rock (or cook one, as we later see EB using a cooked rabbit as bait without much existential concern), but I can at least see Fred doing it because Fred is awful. Magic exists in this universe, as is seen at the end of the movie when it turns Carlos into a rabbit bird hybrid, so its possible that the magic of Easter Island is granting normal rabbits the power of speech, although 'normal' still means wearing clothes in the Hopverse. Ergo, it can be assumed that normal rabbits are understood to be very intelligent but still animals (much like dolphins or apes) in this film's universe, and the debate of whether or not killing rabbits is immoral (which it is) rages in the background of the film's universe, and Fred is staunchly on the side of 'kill them, they're just vermin', which you'd think would drive a wedge between him and EB as coworkers

[deathmetalunicorn1]

I loved that so much! Can I request a Part 4 of Female Tanjiro Reader if that’s okay?

Her former opponent (That she fought in Ragnarok), had a lover (A Goddess of Beauty, Pleasure, Lust and Cruelty) desires revenge, by slaughtering a bunch of humans that are in Valhalla (And calls them weak, and the weak deserve to die, so she’s doing them a ‘favor’) which enrages Reader, causing her eyes to bleed (Which startled (Love) since he didn’t know that could even happen)

Reader is absolutely furious and uses her techniques, with a frightful cold aurora, causing her opponent and (Love) to get sever chills in their spines and their fingers to tremble (This is the most terror they ever felt in their life when it comes to Reader, and both question if she’s even human)

But just as Reader was about to decapitate Goddess, she falls over coughing blood and severely gasping for air, only to black out (As Goddess was insulting Reader for being ‘pitiful’ and about to kill her, Nezuko runshes in and Goddess’ in with a kick, sending her flying) Nezuko emitting a murderous rage and transforms, and goes absolutely ape shit

This startles (Love) as Nezuko’s stomping on Goddess’s limbs and kick her head in even as she’s slowly fading away, however Nezuko shows no sign of stopping and rushes at (Love) and begins to attack him (He can tell she’s not in her right mind, and doesn’t want to kill her, but her hits are causing damage) and sends him flying through a few buildings

Just as Nezuko was about to bite into his throat, Reader comes in and restrains her, though she got injured, but once she sings to Nezuko a song from their childhood, she begins to sob and wail, turning into her toddler form clutches Reader’s shoulders and passes out, only Reader begins to cry in joy that Nezuko fell asleep (And falls unconscious as well) with (Love) taking them both to the infirmary

-It had been quiet for a while, since (Love) killed the god who tried to attack you again after you spared his life, but then rejected his advances.

-You had no idea he was already married!! She was a minor goddess of beauty and lust, stunningly beautiful, but also stunningly jealous!

-When she found out her lover, the God of Revenge, was lusting after you, a human of all things, while he had her warming his bed, her rage could not be quelled, and it only grew worse when (Love) killed her husband after he tried to kill you.

-Humans, disgusting, worthless vermin, she knew she had to avenge her husband, and she knew just how to do it.

-She attacked a shopping center, slaughtering innocent people, laughing the whole time, “Don’t run you worthless scum!! I’m doing you all a favor! A painless and quick death for weaklings is a mercy!!”

-You had been nearby, shopping with Nezuko and you gasped, seeing what was happening and you gave you sister your phone, telling her to call (Love) while you drew your sword, rushing in to help where you could.

-The carnage, seeing people dead, others injured and crying, wanting to help their loved ones, or scared, trapped, while this goddess who was smiling like she was doing a good deed smirked, seeing you.

-Your breathing was harsh, rage filling every inch of your body as your eyes darted around as she laughed, “I don’t know why you’re so upset! Those who are weak deserve to die!!”

-Something inside you snapped and you charged, she dodged, playing a cat and mouse game before she froze, seeing you were bleeding from your eyes, glaring daggers at her as you swiped at her with your blade.

-(Love) shouted out your name, seeing the carnage, before focusing on the bystanders, helping them get away, shouting where to go.

-You ignored (Love), focusing on the monster in front of you as you inhaled deeply, a colorful but intimidating aura surrounding you, once that sent shivers not only up her spine, but (Love’s) spine as well. He had never seen you so angry before!

-You leapt up and dodged her attack and what looked to be in slow motion, you swung your sword, your blade getting closer and closer to her neck.

-A sudden shudder went through your body and she saw it, taking the chance and kicked you back, sending you rolling several feet.

-(Love) shouted out your name, going to run before he froze, seeing you sitting up on your hands and knees before you lurched, coughing up blood into your hands.

-Your vision was hazy and you couldn’t even hear her approaching you as she sneered down at you, “While you did manage to last a bit with me, you’re still just a weak little-”

-(Love) went to charge but something rushed past him and Nezuko kicked her hard, sending her through a wall with ease and eyes went wide as she seemed to grow from a teenager to an adult, vines appearing all over her body as she bit through her mouthpiece, an aura of seething hatred surrounding her.

-(Love) ran to you, his hands flinching only slightly before grabbing onto you, turning you over, seeing that you were heavily injured. Your eyes were screwed tightly shut in pain, gasping pants escaping your lips as your heart felt like it was in your ears.

-Nezuko brutalized the goddess, stomping on her midsection, attacking her with no signs of stopping, even after she was dead, becoming covered in her blood.

-Your sister then turned, seeing (Love) and ran for him, claws bared and he froze, seeing that in her bloodlust, she had lost herself, going feral.

-You lunged up, grabbing your scabbard and managed to wrap your arms around your sister, making her bite the scabbard before pinning her to the ground.

-Her nails clawed at your face, chest, arms and torso as (Love) shouted out your name in worry, but you didn’t let go.

-Your voice was weak when you started to sing, it was a lullaby your mother used to sing to the both of you when you were young.

-(Love) didn’t know what do to, but watched in awe as Nezuko’s eyes filled with tears, looking up at you to see that you were crying as well, smiling down at her, her grip on your arms loosening as she came back to her senses.

-(Love) wasn’t happy, dealing with the two of you crying, but got a bit of relief when Nezuko reverted back into her child form, shrinking down and fell fast asleep, curled up.

-He wrapped his arms around you, pulling you back as the Valhalla Guards arrived, seeing what happened, and luckily, due to there being many witnesses, both you and Nezuko were safe from any repercussions.

-(Love) was furious, hearing that this goddess was the wife of the bastard who almost killed you, fury coursing through him, but he chose to ignore it for the moment, you needed medical attention.

-You fell asleep yourself on the way to the infirmary, which did worry (Love), as he remembered the strain you had put on your body, enough to cry blood.

-You were in the infirmary for almost a week, asleep for most of it, and Nezuko had been asleep just as long, worrying (Love) to no end, and when she woke up with you shortly behind, he was so relieved, but then whacked you both on the head, leaving a steaming lump as he scolded the both of you for being so reckless, and since you knew he was right, you just took it, both of you hanging your heads comically.

-Once you were discharged, you were put on house arrest for the next week, (Love) took your sword away and told you that you had to rest, and put Nezuko in charge of watching you while he wasn’t there.

-You didn’t mind, as you knew you overdid it, but after a couple of days you were quite bored, but teaching Nezuko how to play chess was a good time consumer.

-(Love) held you close the night your house arrest was over, his arms wrapped around your waist, hugging you tightly as your head was on his chest, listening to his heartbeat, “Please don’t do anything reckless, Y/N. I don’t want to lose you, ever.”

-You smiled as you tilted your head up, pressing a kiss to his chin, making him smile gently, “I apologize for making you worry, but I’ll do my best.”

-You yelped as he gave your rear a firm swat, making you pout, before he pecked your forehead gently, “Guess I’ll need to keep a close eye on you then.” You giggled softly, agreeing before he pulled the blankets up a bit higher, keeping you warm before you both fell asleep.

[voidscreamintheories]

The (Not-so-)Big four

Spoilers for the first arc of Hunter the Parenting

Right so: Hunter the Parenting was started after the end of If the Emperor had a text-to-speech device, a parody of Warhammer 40K. There is DNA from that 40K lineage in the show, namely in the D family which I will talk about in another post. But as any fan of Warhammer, upon seeing a group of four antagonists I must immediately question if they are the four Chaos gods. Now before getting into this it is important to note that the gods of Chaos are already a lil flexible in their definitions, so it could be real easy to mold anything you want to fit them. They fit well with the four horsemen of the apocalypse, for example However, I am still going to fit these funni bois into funni molds, because it's fun.

SO

Shitbeard: He is violent, quick to anger, one of the two oldest, and he was embraced in association with the "Bikers for Blood" donation drive. It's Khorne, he's Khorne. Now of course, vampires also have a thing for blood, but I feel calling it out specifically with shitbeard COULD be a nod to the good ole "blood for the blood god". Getting into some deep lore here: Clan Brujah used to be known as Warrior Scholars, before their clan devolved into violent rabble rousers. This actually fits with some depictions of Khorne worship, where they are noble and strong warriors who eventually slip into being raving madmen. Of note as well is which member of the group he dislikes the most fits with Khorne, becaaaaaaaause

Ape: Ape and Shitbeard don't get along. Ape is the youngest of the group. Ape is constantly mentioning his hunger and it's called out that he has been "overfeeding" which Ape retorts that there's no such thing. Ape is Slaanesh. Now it's missing a few hallmarks of The Prince of Pleasure, but I think that's partly because of time constraints and partly because of the tone they were going for (I am happy that Ape wasn't humping the walls or snorting coke every other scene). Also, Ape's weapon of choice was his claws, and that's very in line with Tabletop Slaanesh.

Kevin: He's a wizard, it's Tzeentch. But more than that, we saw Kevin had schemes and ambitions to overthrow both the regent and Pyotr, very fitting for him as schemey old Tzeentch. Also, Kevin's tendency to still try fitting in with regular society does match up with the insidious infiltration of society of Tzeentch. Relatedly, while Big D seems to want Kevin as his Sigilite (Malcador best bro), this might end up backfiring. As we saw in the ad break of episode 4, D is feeding Kevin. If Kevin still has ambition and treachery as his domains, there's a non-zero chance that Big D may be betrayed.

Now, finally, which member of the sabbat did Kevin have the most beef with?

Pyotr: Process of elimination here, Pyotr is stinking old Nurgle. Now, nurgle is often depicted as big and round, obviously RIDDLED with disease, and jolly. How can Pyotr fit those themes? I think it has more to do with his clan association. The Nosferatu are a clan of UGLY vamps, who use vermin as spies, and are shockingly resilient and strong for their appearance, all very nurgly. As well, one of the most common reasons a Nosferatu will embrace someone is because the target is really pretty, the Nosferatu resenting beauty and wanting to curse them with the same ugliness. In much the same way Nurgle loves corrupting the beautiful for the sake of corruption (see the garden, his kidnapping of Isha). Based on the photo of Pyotr, we can see he was a handsome kine, I think it fits that he was turned for being too pretty. As a final note on the pretty thing, the fact that Nosferatu start seeing their own ugliness as being attractive (see "you're a goddamn tease loverboy"), that fits with Nurgle's embracing of decay and rot. Now one thing Pyotr MIGHT fit as Nurgle on his own is his stealthing ability. It's not always mentioned, but it's not uncommon for Nurgle worshippers to have a miasma around them which they use to conceal themselves. As a final point, Pyotr's speech about inevitability and futility is pretty fitting for Nurgle's embracing of entropy.

The group as a whole: Woah Chaos undivided, woooooo. But really, as a group they do work as the Pantheon. They all hate each other and scheme against one another, but will work together for their collective goal. When Markus let them fight, and Pyotr ate the other two, this would match with a long standing concept in Warhammer that once one of the gods got the upper hand, it would spell disaster for humanity (here represented by the hunters). As well Kevin seems depressed and almost listless without the other three around, could be because as much as they hate each other, the gods do need their opponents to enjoy the Great Game.

[drcuriousvii]

Summer Lego RPG Setting(?) Jam Entry: The Monster (Pod) Manual

UPDATE: There's now a version of this post with original illustrations by @marsworms!! https://halfagainasmuch.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-monster-pod-manual.html

Friend of the blog Ian McDougall told me about a game jam type thing being run on DIY & Dragons, where participants create an OSR adventure location based on one or more Lego sets. I didn't have a ton of sets as a kid that weren't branded tie-ins, but I remember back in the early-mid-2000s Lego had a little DIY board game type thing where you built little miniatures out of the contents of one of their "X-Pods"

This doesn't fit the prompt exactly, but I felt like taking the weirdos from the "Monster Pod" (Set #4338) and trying to give them lore for RPG use could be a neat exercise. Special shout-out to Joe Wreschnig (hope I'm spelling that right, font is a little tough to read ^^;) for hosting the pdfs after Lego moved on from them. These are specifically based on the entries in the "Monster Plans", which you might want to look through for visual aids.

No stats, because I'm lazy that makes it system-neutral. I might attempt some of the other pods at some point (maybe Robo or Dragon), but honestly Monster gave me much more to work with than any of the others. Descriptions under the cut for length.

Big Mouth: A primitive subterranean relative of the ogre, the Big Mouth resembles a gorilla or other large ape, but its hindlegs are reptilian and it has a stubby serpentine tail. The pronounced fangs of its lower jaw inject a numbing venom, allowing it to devour helpless prey at its leisure.

Bucky: A manic demihuman with elongated teeth honed to a razor-sharp edge. These teeth are used both to scrape the bark from colossal underworld fungi and to defend themselves from predators, compensating for their lack of arms. They sprint through darkness with astonishing speed, serving as couriers for an unknown intellect.

Creepie Crawly: Largely harmless vermin that live in magical caverns. More the 'idea' of an insect than an actual insect - they are chitinous facsimiles composed of all the parts humans fear most, and their insides are almost wholly raw magic.

Dizzy: An eerie horned creature most easily recognizable by its total lack of limbs. It revolves around the donjon on its dish-shaped underside, drawing slow lazy loops. The sight is strangely fascinating, and the magic contained in its beady black eyes enhances the effect - weak-willed targets abandon combat to stare in perplexed fascination at the Dizzy's spinning.

Eyeball: A luminous fungal creature originally adapted to the caverns used to house the Tarrasque, the King Caesar, and other massive beasts; it is adapted to mimic these creatures' eyes staring from the dark, hoping to make the simple-minded flee in the belief that they have encountered a more dangerous being. Often found in mated pairs.

Eye Beamer: A relative of the infamous beholder, crossbred with a humanoid through means that are best left unconsidered. It has lost the flight and versatility of its evolutionary ancestor, but reproduces faster, and its single beam (choose or roll from standard Beholder list) is projected continuously as long as its eye is open.

Eyestalk: A single hooved leg terminating in an unblinking green eye, hopping aimlessly through the underworld. Poetically termed "Little One Eye" by Dverger, for whom they are a staple food source.

Frightful: When immobile, this magical construct is indistinguishable from an eerie and elongated wooden mask. They are created by magic-users as spies and guardians - their gaze is telepathically linked to the wizard's mind.

Gremlin: Like a goblin, but more outright wicked than pathetic. Consider themselves the intelligentsia of the dungeon, and refuse to hear any evidence to the contrary. Distinguished by their signature pointed caps, the making of which is a closely guarded secret.

Gremlin Hotfoot: Gremlins are exceptionally sensitive to ley shifts, causing them to frequently mutate. The Hotfoot is a gremlin with elongated, muscular legs, and they are considered the warrior caste among their kind, for however little that means.

Gremlin Porter: A gremlin whose arms, rather than legs, have mutated to become astonishingly muscular. However, a curious anomaly in their brains makes them timid and nearly incapable of violence, so their fellow gremlins mostly use them as beasts of burden rather than the brutal fighters their appearance might suggest.

Gremlin King: An especially rare variety of gremlin, the King towers over its lesser kin at nearly 4 and a half feet, and is by far the wisest of the species. Their arms and legs are both well-developed, though not to the extent of the lesser castes, and they typically fight with twin daggers.

Hoppy: A creature adapted to live in pit traps and chasms, they leap with truly astonishing force from the depths of their homes to surprise adventurers passing nearby, hoping to startle them into falling, at which point they are fed on by the Hoppy. Known for its headcrest - actually a tendril of exposed nerves - and for its cry of "BOOGA-BOOGA-BOOGA!"

Hypno Thing: A scuttling crablike thing, originally bioengineered by mind flayers/serpentmen/Predecessors/some other race that would do that. The intent was to create a being that would subtly manipulate the population's thoughts to keep them docile, but the psychic effect was made too strong. Now, prolonged eye contact is enough to physically melt the brains of onlookers.

It: A daemon that appears in the night, sitting on the chest of sleepers and whispering frightening things to them in the hopes of causing them to act rashly or sinfully. 'Why are there so many eyeball creatures?' you may very well ask. I know I do.

Jumpy: A flightless bird whose legs have fused into a single, powerful limb. Used as mounts by some of the braver and more diminutive races of dungeon humanoid, but they are exceptionally hard to steer and stop.

Monster Surgeon: Undead with stitched skin and coats marked with dark medical crosses. They are the consummate Igors, offering their effective but dubiously safe/legal/sane medical care without regard for clients' allegiances. Payment taken in organs (hopefully redundant), potions, cadavers, literature, or gems if all else fails.

Nurse Scarem: Artificial beings created by Monster Surgeons, something like eels with exposed vertebrae and elongated snouts like some kind of lizard. Surprisingly nimble, making them more than adequate for their positions as their creators' assistants. Wear jaunty and mildly anachronistic hats, the minute variations between which are the signs of family lines - confusing one clan of Nurse Scarems' hat for one from another clan (which is nearly identical) will draw grave outrage.

Slither: A runt of the Penanggalan litter, unable to fly. Thus, it slides around on its viscera like a snake, snapping at anything that gets too close. Wretched and self-pitying, but its hatred is stronger (barely) than its melancholy.

Smiler: Enigmatic bogeymen with grins the size of kite shields, these creatures of the night live to sink their many teeth into warm flesh. They delight in ambushes and the taste of live (or freshly dead) prey. Disarmingly charismatic and civil once the first victim has been killed, until their hunger returns.

[whatevergreen]

"Helen Byrne, 94, has called the same San Francisco apartment home for more than eight decades after moving in with her dad and sisters at the age of 12.

She still sleeps in her childhood bedroom, where she now spends most of her time after suffering a fall last year. It’s where she wanted to live out the rest of her life, surrounded by her longtime friends and neighbors, she said.

But Byrne’s life was upended when the four-unit building was purchased back in 2020 by real estate investors operating through an LLC.

Now, she and the building’s other decadeslong tenants are trying to stave off an eviction attempt they never saw coming, and they could potentially be forced out of their homes within weeks.

“It came as a surprise to me, actually a shock to me, that I would have to move from here,” Byrne said. “Where would I go? I’m so used to this place.”

Byrne outlived the rest of her family and lives alone, but her neighbor Cecilia Matias helps take care of her.

“Right now, she is strong because of this building,” Matias said. “This apartment alone makes her feel that she’s home.”

Matias has lived in the building for 40 years herself – the first apartment her family moved into after leaving the Philippines. She and Byrne have grown close over the years, almost like family, they say.

Since the tenants have all lived in the rent-controlled building for decades, their rent is much lower than San Francisco’s sky-high market rates.

It’s also the reason why their new landlords have been trying to get them out of their apartments ever since taking over the building more than three years ago.

NBC Bay Area reviewed emails obtained through the eviction case that Daniel Mytels, the LLC’s manager, sent their lender, showing plans to empty the building from the start, either through buyouts or evictions.

In one 2020 email, Mytels called the building “an almost impossibly good value,” adding that the property “is burdened with four long-term occupants paying a total of just $3,800 or so in total rent per month.” So, he outlined plans to get the tenants out and rent the units out at higher prices. Or, if necessary, sell the building vacant.

Four months after rejecting the buyout offer, the tenants were hit with notices saying the building’s owners were invoking the Ellis Act, a law allowing landlords to evict their tenants if they take the property off the rental market for at least five years. The notices gave them four months to leave, plus a one-year extension allowed under the law because of the tenants’ age.

“His goal here was speculation, pure speculation,” said Steve Collier, managing attorney at the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, a San Francisco nonprofit that fights displacement of low-income residents.

Collier said the tenants don't want to give up fighting, in part because Byrne has nowhere else to go.

“[The Ellis Act] is often used by speculators to empty buildings and then sell them at a greater value because the long-term rent control tenants aren’t in the building,” Collier said."

(edited version of the article)

Landlords are vermin.

[downtofragglerock]

Okay I don't want to stay with mammals for much longer so I'm gonna go through the rest of them here

There are 22 distinct groups of mammals, I've already covered three of them (Carnivora and the even and odd-toed ungulates).

Going through the remaining 19:

There are four groups of marsupials, but that doesn't matter because Rahi-wise there is only one species, the Fusa, a kangaroo. The Kikanalo might also count, but see my ungulate post for that ramble.

There are two groups of Xenarthra (armadillos, sloths, and anteaters) but there are no rahi equivalents at all.

Monotremes (echidnas and platypuses) have no representation either.

Same with Sirenia (manatees and dugongs), Lagomorphs (rabbits), Scandentia (tree shrews), Macroscelidea (elephant shrews), Erinaceidae (hedgehogs), and Afrosoricida (tenrecs and some other miscellaneous small African mammals).

Soricomorpha (shrews and moles) has one representative, the Archives Mole.

Pachyderms likewise also only have one rep, the Hapaka.

Cetaceans only have two reps, the Razor Whale and the Stinger Whale. There is a unique whale rahi in the 2003 console game, but much like with the unique fox rahi, I don't know if I can consider it canon given the nature of the game and how drastically different many canon rahi appear in it.

Chiroptera has three reps, the Cliff Screecher, the Ice Bat, and the unnamed bat rahi from the cancelled pc game and various other 01 promo renders.

There are three primates, the Brakas, a monkey, and two apes, the Lava ape and the Spiny Stone Ape. Much like with the Kavinika, I have some questions regarding if the Spiny Stone Ape is actually an ape, given that it has a tail and frankly, kind of looks like a dinosaur, but that's a discussion for another day.

Lastly, the rodents, of which there are quite a lot. There's the Gafna, the Ice Vermin, the Kinloka, the Kuma-Nui, the Lava Rat, the Stone Rat, and the Wolf Rat from the cancelled pc game. The Kuma-Nui and Wolf Rat are especially interesting considering that the former is really fucking huge, and the later engages in some interesting specevo, being a species of one group filling in the role of a species belonging to a different group.

There, that's every mammalian analogue rahi charted

[gemmstones-and-swords]

Under the Rising Star-BioAnth Fiction

For clarification, I wrote this a month or two before I heard that the H. Naledi papers about fire use and art and burial of the dead were relatively unsubstantiated as they are now. However, I consider this work one of my better writing things, and it got me into a college honors program. So, I don't think this image of H. Naledi behavior/society is necessarily accurate to how they actually were, but I do think that they were freaky little ape guys that are pretty much the only thing in a deep cave, combined with the dozens of bodies with fascinatingly little variation. So, maybe they weren't using fire or making art, but they are really cool to think about. This is, as I have said, a fictional work of fiction, and I'm not a biological anthropologist, I'm just a student. Starts here:

-Common vernacular English translation of rock wall carvings found in the Dinaledi chamber of the Rising Star cave system, Cradle of Humankind, South Africa, Gauteng (Gau-tungh) Province. Recovered by Berger et al and translated by Harvard Department of Linguistics.

Someday, we will all be gone soon. I hear it. I hear it in the grind of the Stones and the whistles of the great trees and the roars of the lions and the yowls of the dogs in the forest. I hear it in the Stone. The soul of the wild and the trees and the jumping flames coos in my ear and I listen. We will all be gone soon. When I walk through the caves, far past where the light of the sky is sucked out and only the black dark of the selfish and eternal night remains, is when I can truly hear the Stone sing. The Stone roars through my head and bellows to my ears and sings me the tales of the Long Ago and the To Be. The Stone tells me of Those Who Are Others, the ones who walk with us now and the ones whose bones were laid to rest in the ages of the Long Ago. Their ancient remains and their killing-things left to gather debris and dirt. But not all of Those Who Are Others were asunder ages ago. The Stone sings us that they are our brothers and sisters, and so they are such. The Stone sings us that our brothers live in lands far away, with stone to themselves as well.

The Stone does not need to sing us of the ones that live alongside us. We name them Those who Are Others. They name us Vermin. In all specificity, I have never been certain why. They are like us, but not. They are taller, with strange heads and lanky bodies. The Those Who Are Others act like us, but they do not think like us. They are ethereal, traveling in packs across the plains and forests and slaying the beasts of the land and the sea with their spears and blades. They are not like us. But they are of the Stone. And that is all that is important. The Stone sings us of them often, more often than any of our other, far-off kin, the Ones of the Calm Seas and the Ones of the Selfish Dark. The last of which seem to be so deep that the Stone can sing little of them, never able to find the right melodies and tones to play on the strata of the caves, warm with the heat and light of the licking flames of That Which Burns. So I sit by my hearth, by the darkest and most untouched places, where we set down the bones and the still-warm husks of our own, in chambers set in the untold times of the Long Ago, chambers used by we since our kind were first spat upon the world.

In the Not so Long ago, many others would walk with me, when I was small and not as steady on my feet, and so I was carried or my hand was held along the cool floors. Now, it is only me. When the Stone sings us, I am the only of our kind that sings back. I worry what that means for us. We are a people who never truly formed even a name for ourselves. We know not what the Those Who Are Others name us to themselves, for our tongues long since split and as the Stone sings me and me only, never were the same at all. But they do speak of us. They whisper on the edges of the flames at meetings and through the twisting halls of the Stone. Its tones have changed. Its melodies are no longer lilting, dancing with the shadows and making the shining stones ring forth with cacophonous noise. No, its tones have changed far too much. The Stone sings no longer of us, of our past and our glory and our nameless people. It sings of me. It sings of we will all be gone soon. And the others will believe me not. They see only a crazed child who whispers to rocks and the walls of caves. They see not that there is a threat. They understand not that there could be one. They see the Those who Are Others strike their blades from the Stone in mass quantities and gather in more and more packs and say that is what they always do. But it is not. It never has been. If we will all be gone soon, it will be because of them. Not me. I know not why I defend myself so passionately against the accusations of unfeeling rocks, but it is perhaps the only thing I can do to keep myself calm.

And the limits of that will are constantly tested. My own speak of me in hushed tones, poisoned by the inability to see. They are frightened. Not of what I do or what I am, no. They fear what I act for. They fear the Stone as it sings through me. They are foolish. But not so foolish that I will abandon them and sink forever into the selfish blackness of the caves, where the Stone sings so bold and loud that I cannot hear the clack of my footsteps on the cool floor. No, I will not abandon them. I will but warn them. They do not deserve to be left alone, cut off and deafened to the immense voice of the Stone. I spend long times with it, deep in the caves, unaware of the shiftings of the day and night for my hearth does not bother with such cycles. I rarely see the outside now, the golden plains and the deep green of the forest. I rarely see my own now, meeting with my people only when they demand I come out or when they bring me food for my eating and plants for my hearth. They do it still, mattering not how much they fear me and my craft. How strange of them. They must want to leave me to starve as I sit and listen to the endless songs put forth from the blackness by the Stone. I hear them whisper of it, grumblings as they trip over outcroppings and shifts in the rock, feet unused to the caves, stumbling with only the flames between them and the all-encompassing dark. I look forward to these visits, if they are only to keep me alive and tell me of the outside and the Those Who Are Others. They are getting bolder, they tell me. They slip into our lands and our caves in the nights and take our stones and our food and occasionally a child or two. This should have been my most pressing concern, but at the time it barely crossed my mind as a happening. I was too full of the songs and the Stone. They swept through my head, and I sat as the Stone sung to me and its songs carried through the halls of rock and spilled into the world and filled my ears with music. I hear it even as I carve the words of my account into the walls of the Stone and I know that this transgression will be forgiven in the end. I hear the Stone sing of the To Be, of ages and ages forward, of incomprehensible times and incomprehensible things. The Stone sings me of our brothers and sisters, of ages far into the To Be where Those Who Are Others will rediscover our bones, weathered and broken by time and the now-silent Stone. They will not hear its songs, its bellows and its screams and its elations. They will pull us from the rock and name us in their tongue and place us in their family and reconstruct who we were and who we are. We will be as unimaginable to them as they and the To Be are to me. I do not know what I think, but I think that it will be a kindness of them. But that has not yet come. For now, I am with the Stone and with my people, and we will all be gone soon.

[doomedandstoned]

MAMMOTH CARAVAN Perform Single ‘Siege in the Stars’ in The Anvil Sessions

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

By Billy Goate

As the rapid evolution of technology takes its grip on every aspect of our existence, monitoring our lives, tracking our whereabouts, and yes listening to our conversations, MAMMOTH CARAVAN reminds us of a more primitive time, when the essence of survival was scraping by and worrying about the fundamentals of existence. Yet even in the world of the woolly mammoth, strange things can happen.

On a recent episode of The Doomed & Stoned Show, we speculated what a mammoth in outer space would entail, drawing implications from the cryptic name of Italian band UFOMammut.

Now Little Rock, Arkansas trio Brandon Ringo (harsh vox, bass), Robert Warner (clean singing, guitar, synth), and Khetner Howton (drums) answers our questions with the second single from their upcoming record, 'Frostbitten Galaxy' (2024), which sees this Mammoth Caravan heading toward the stars, as is now the ambition of humankind.

Fontman Ringo had this to reveal about the song:

“Siege in the Stars" is the first song that was written for the new album and it was conceived during a time when we had just changed our lineup and had 10 days to create a setlist of new material. Robert came up with the riffs and I started working on lyrics and once Khetner wrote his drums parts, the song became something massive and special. Lyrically the song represents the bloodthirsty mammoth king’s journey through space on his way to achieve his violent quest.

The atmosphere begins with swarthy bass and guitar swirling about like a bowl of incense, perhaps the gaseous precursor to the massive rocket flames that erupt 35 seconds later. "Siege in the Stars" vessel of fury and mad determination, with massive swing and groove 2:01. It's a motif we're happy to see return as the song progresses, this time accompanied by sparks of psychedelic doom guitar emitting from the ship as it jetsons into cold, black space, with massive deep beats that mete out the distance along the way.

Mammathus clan overtakes mars Now we must fly Martians will die Empires of rust Driven to dust Nothing can stop this siege in the stars

"Siege in the Stars" was captured live for The Anvil Sessions by Holy Anvil Recording Co. in Fayetteville and broadcast by KUAF 91.3, showing us that the band can absolutely deliver on their sound. In an age of AI fakes and phonies, Mammoth Caravan is the real deal.

Look for Mammoth Caravan's 'Frostbitten Galaxy' (2024) emerges October 4th on Blade Setter Records on vinyl, CD, cassette, and digital formats (pre-order here). It's a formidable sound and a must for your next playlist with High on Fire, Forming the Void, Ape Vermin, and Black Tusk.

SOME BUZZ

Little Rock doom trio MAMMOTH CARAVAN is set to unleash its second full-length album, Frostbitten Galaxy. With a revamped lineup, a retooled sound, and a violent tale of mammoths in space, the band’s next offering promises to be their heaviest and most diverse material yet.

Frostbitten Galaxy by Mammoth Caravan

Frostbitten Galaxy was recorded and mixed at Wolfman Studios by Jason Tedford, and mastered by Justin Weis at Traxworx. Album art by Tony Koehl.

Follow The Band

Get Their Music

[moth-short]

An Analysis on the Nature of the Carapace Cross

This entry cannot be fully in character, as it contains information not published in-universe. Sunset Diaries is not seen in either Cultist Simulator or Book of Hours, but in Enigma, Weather Factory's CultSim ARG. All of this is sourced from the Wiki, and will feature many different books in quick succession. It will also feature spoilers for the Moth Ascension of Cultist Simulator, in addition to spoilers as to the activities of the Nocturnal Branch in Book of Hours, aswell as the furthest place in the basement.

Sunset Diaries | Author: Christopher Illopoly

As the memoir of Christopher Illopoly, this one holds a place in my memory. Not for his previous works, but for what it holds - precious information on the lost species that holds our attention so much, the Carapace-Cross. We will be looking at only the foremost paragraph - "March 1959 '[THE CARAPACE-CROSS DID NOT PERISH BUT PASSED WITHIN]'. Of course they did; of course they did. By definition, this changes nothing, and yet I cannot ignore it. At the very least it lends strength to Coseley's arguments. I am beginning to think, after all, that he is right. "Birds of a feather stick together." Teresa, Teresa. Perhaps, had we known, it would have changed nothing for you, either. Is it fair to tell you? '[THE CARAPACE-CROSS DID NOT PERISH BUT PASSED WITHIN.]' I feel sick." (source: Cultist Simulator wiki)

From this point, this will feature spoilers for the Moth Ascension from Cultist Simulator.

The relevant line here is, of course, "The Carapace-Cross did not perish but passed within". This has been on my mind for weeks, since I have read the passage. At first, this seems like utter nonsense - at least, unless you've played through the Moth Ascension of Cultist Simulator.

None of it seems to relate at all to the Carapace-Cross, until the ending - the "Dodo and the Dragon" ending, where it says, paraphrased, "the Carapace-Cross are as dead as the Dodo and the Dragon". The achievement description is, "I have become something winged, dark and undying; something that no longer exists." Okay, so, there are no Moth-Long in the world. They hide in the Mansus as Carapace-Cross. This is a revelation in itself. But what does this mean?

The Manner in which the Alchemist was Spared | Forge 14 | Author Unclear

"In the days of the Carapace Cross, when humanity lived in the dark and ate on its knees, humans could enter the Mansus like vermin. One learnt the arts of Flint, the arts of shaping and remaking..."

If the Carapace-Cross lived at the same time as humans, then what does this mean? Consider it another way: humans were Carapace-Cross from the very beginning, and in the Moth Ascension you are reverting back to a previous state of humanity's being - the Carapace-Cross passed within, into the depths of the human DNA, and can be pulled back out with enough pursuance into the ways of Moth, who had, akin to the Carapace Cross, passed within the Wheel and usurped it from the inside-out. (Source: In Memory of Gods)

In Memory of Gods | Winter 10 | Author: "The Barrowchild"

The Barrowchild describes how the Grail drained the Hour called Tide, how the Moth 'usurped the Wheel from within', stealing its skin, and how the Forge first eclipsed then shattered Flint. 'Perhaps these are glories,' she observes, 'but then it cannot be that Glory is merciful.'

Five Creations | Grail 14 | Author: Scholar Shohei

"THE CARAPACE ORIGIN: we were born from shell, like the children of the wasp from the spider. THE GLORIOUS ORIGIN: our life-motes descended from Light. THE ORIGIN BEFOULED: we were found naked and smeared with muck in the roots of the Wood..." "Shohei's preferred theories are that we are the children of apes who walked upright, although his tone here is satirical; or that we consumed not only our parents, 'which is not the Crime of the Sky', but also our origin, so that we came from Nowhere."

The Moth "usurped the Wheel from within". The Carapace-Cross "did not perish but passed within". I hate to say it, but it seems like humanity is due to be usurped from within, as was the Wheel before by the Moth. The 'Carapace Origin' suggested by the scholar Shohei may be a theory that humanity are, indeed, of Carapace-Cross origin - though the Wiki points out the passage, "or that we consumed not only our parents", stating that it implies that humanity evolving from their ancestors the apes is akin to the Moth usurping the Wheel, and that they are cut from the same cloth.

So, to summarise the theory already covered: humanity came from the Carapace-Cross, evolving from the progenitor as from apes. Carapace-Cross DNA is thus buried - far back, where we could not know it.

From this point, we are discussing Book of Hours spoilers for the plot of Cucurbit Prison, the Nocturnal Branch of Hush House. There are also spoilers for the furthest place in the Basement, where the final secret of Hush House is hidden.

Cucurbit Prisoner Records 1927 | Nectar 12 | Author: Governor Collers' Private Secretary

"Accounts by Governor Collers' private secretary of interventions and experiments in the last years of the Cucurbit prison, focusing particularly on prisoners he believes might have Carapace Cross lineage."

"Two prisoners suspected of oneiric crimes are enouraged to access their inner Carapace Cross tendencies, and develop the attributes of the Seglaz-kind ('sickle-formed pseudocrustacea'). Regrettably they lose the ability to breathe air; one dies and Collers releases the other into the sea. Collers describes how he's successfully induced an unstable Carapace-larva to develop into a greater form, using Insects and Nectars techniques in the context of considerable Moth-aspect. He hopes that similar techniques might be used to expedite the moral development of prisoners..."

There is so much to look at here. Not just in how utterly unhinged Governor Collers clearly was, but just in general as to the subject matter at hand. This almost seems to confirm the theory that humans evolved from Carapace-Cross even just in the blurb - if humans can have Carapace-Cross lineage, that must imply it, correct? At least, unless humans bred with Carapace-Cross, and it is only select members of humanity that have the lineage, and such why only select members of humanity feel the call to change and have their Carapace-Cross DNA usurp theirs.

I would like to say that the two species are unlikely to be biologically compatible, but considering the fact that it seems that the Carapace-Cross also have several sub-species - such as the Seglaz-kind mentioned in the prisoner records here - it is surprisingly likely that at least one sub-species is capable of interbreeding. Perhaps it also implies that Carapace-Cross, as long as they are of the major species, can develop any such attributes of their sub-species.

We can even see the Carapace-larva Governor Collers had "successfully induced ... to develop into a greater form" in-game - it has not hatched, and still hangs in the Mazed Cell.

In conclusion, I believe it abundantly clear that Carapace-Cross are either humanity's precursor in Secret Histories, or a species that has bred and whose DNA lies dormant in select bloodlines. It has been said that Carapace-Cross and neanderthals were around at the same period of history, and Carapace-Cross have been implied to have a staggering amount of subspecies (akin to the staggering amount of species under the banner of "insect", so who knows what the Carapace-Cross name is truly referring to?) - so who is to say what is wrong? Perhaps the Carapace-Cross were never a species at all.

Recall the Taxonomic Rank system of biology - it goes species (the specific kind), genus (what it is), family (what kind of animal it is - cat vs dog, or somesuch), order (e.g carnivora, carnivores), class (e.g mammalia, mammal)... Perhaps Carapace-Cross is not a species. Perhaps this should be obvious. Perhaps Carapace-Cross is akin to a class - or even more likely, a phylum - "a group of organisms with a certain degree of evolutionary relatedness" Sources: (Wikipedia - Taxonomic Rank and Phylum)

Perhaps that is what Carapace-Cross are. Not a species, not a genus, but a banner - a precursor to many, many species, that had to fill an extremely wide array of evolutionary niches for their respective habitats, which would make complete sense for how many types of Carapace-Cross are described on the statue in the basement, the fact that Carapace-Cross can be both dark and winged, and this strange Seglaz-kind, a crustacean that breathes water instead of air.

The Carapace-Cross' true revelation of Book of Hours is not that they have passed within humanity - that was already known in Cultist Simulator. The true revelation of Book of Hours in regard to the Carapace-Cross is that Carapace-Cross are an evolutionary point for so many species in the Secret Histories-verse that it could be said that they are within everything. This is just a theory, but I feel it has some basis.

Thank you for reading.

[provendermalkin]

the apparently widespread feeling among leftists that it's okay to say broadly antisemitic things about Jews in general because of Israel's crimes makes it clear that your respect for other races or religions as a whole is conditional ❤️

If this is you, one of two things is going on here:

You would be equally willing to call a bad black person the n-word or a bad trans person a transphobic slur because to you, discrimination is actually completely okay as long as it serves your particular goals. Whether those goals are left wing or right wing doesn't change your stance that racist and phobic discrimination are valid tools for punishing people. "Why" doesn't really matter anymore at that point.

actually you do have an issue with all other forms of discrimination and it's just Jews in particular you hate and disparage as a whole

either way I don't trust you and I find the way most of you are using Palestinian tragedy and suffering so that you have "permission" to make Jew jokes or pithy little quips about the necessity of another holocaust fucking disgusting :) you are fundamentally identical to the far right in how you feel about Others, you've just learned the "right" words to say and which people it's "acceptable" to be racist or phobic towards at whatever moment

again I say that if you are doing this, you either hate Jews specifically and are ecstatic to have an excuse to openly engage in that hate, or you are the kind of leftist who sends anons to bloggers you dislike calling them slurs because your respect for marginalized identities is conditional and you are merely aping the motions of social justice when people can see you. you are also certainly the kind of person who feels comfortable "roasting" a bad person by commenting on the fact that they are fat, poor, ugly, disabled, etc, rather than what that person actually did 👍

footnote: zionists and antisemites both get blocked. If you show up on this post to whine about how Palestinians are evil vermin or Israel is a poor wittle misunderstand hero nation OR that all discussion of antisemitic behavior among the western left is a smokescreen to suck Israel's evil dick, I will nuke you from orbit. I'm sick to fucking death of shitty assholes using my culture and identity in both directions to justify reprehensible behavior

[mitchipedia]

I loved the “Planet of the Apes” movies and TV series when I was a kid. We’ve recently seen the first two of the current series, starting with “Rise” in 2011, and I think those are pretty great too.

We watched “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” last night. The motion-capture/CGI performances of the ape characters were brilliant. Thematically, the movie was of a piece with the 1968-70s series, at least as I remember it, about the futility and misery of violence, war and hate, and of seeing other races as animals—“vermin”—and how violence and hate becomes a tide that sweeps good people away.

The movie came out in 2014, and some of the parallels to the ten years of events that were to follow—the last 10 years we’ve lived through—are eerie. A plague. The rise of a megalomanial leader who’s driven by self-love and hate for others.

[falconlord5]

Hereafter, Part II

It's not as good as part one. It just isn't.

Ooh, injured Superman.

Written by Dwayne McDuffie

Directed by Butch Lukic

I do like that this is episode demonstrates that Superman is resourceful even without his powers. Too many writers and critics think there's nothing to Supes but his powers and it's just... an infuriating take.

Yup.

See, now, this part I'm not sure on. On the one hand, Grant Morrison's assertion that Superman living on a farm would make vegetarian is, like everything else that bald moron has ever said, complete bullshit. Farms, especially livestock farms, are a bloody business and Superman would have grown up branding and castrating cattle, hunting and killing coyotes and other vermin, etc. He probably wouldn't have slaughtered cattle himself, but he'd definitely have grown up eating steak.

There's a reason 90% of Alberta hates K.D. Lang.

On the other hand... killing and skinning a wolf seems a bit much.

This part reminds me way too much of Planet of the Apes, which is one of the dumbest science fiction movies ever made.

I love the Timm style, but it does not do beards well. Which is a problem when you only have two characters and they both have beards!

Recent studies have suggested the roaches wouldn't survive the apocalypse actually. Probably depends on what kind of apocalypse we get hit with.

That's only the two times you know about, Supes.

The voice actor for Vandal Savage isn't great, but he delivers that charmingly juvenile line so well.

Savage has gone even weirder than normal.

No, Super Conan!

I love scenes like this where we get a taste of just how varied Timm's designs actually are. Not that they ever get acknowledged.

Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster

Batman created by Bill Finger

Wonder Woman created by William Moulton Marston

Animated by Koko Enterprise Co., LTD.