#ESPECIALLY AS A FUCKING PRESIDENT OF A NETWORK???

[ei-encora]

okay when i say "what adult swim did to metalocalypse is a travesty" i don't mean it in a "this is my all-time favorite show on adult swim and im still bitter about it 10 years later" kind of way, i mean it in a "mike lazzo fucked over one of the most popular shows on adult swim at the time, before the story had even finished, out of almost nothing but pure spite and pettiness against the showrunners, and the following actions he took after canceling it should never have been handled in the way that it was" kind of way

[janebonbon]

Alright, Let's talk

I've had some time to digest everything about the election and hearing all the talk surrounding it. I was, and am devistated as to where things stand now for a Trump presidency. However... My gut tells me this is not over. Whether that means election fraud or tampering, boycotts and protests, or more legal trouble for the big orange. It's not over. Things are far too quiet, and we are in the eye before the storm. Notice how EXTREMELY quiet Trump is this time around. He hasn't been boasting and gloating and unsufferably hard to ignore. There is something going on, and I think he is very nervous.

However. That does not erase the threat of everything Trump stands for. If anything, this has shown us the threat in front of us. My family is Polish, I have grown up Polish. Why is that relavant? Talk about world war two was almost a constant growing up. Most people associate Poles with WW2 anyway, so I learned a lot. I learned a lot about facism, nazis, eugenics, and the psychology of complacancy that led to the holocaust.

Around 2016, at the fresh age of 14, my mother and I went to the Zekelman Holocaust Museum in Michigan. I urge you too look at or read about some of their exhibits here. This is where my mother and I were first able to completely face the fact of what Trump was doing. There was an exhibit showcasing the 10 stages of genocide. We are now currently at stage 7. Project 2024 has thrust us there. I worry deeply about what project 2024 has shown us. What that means for every single women, the LGBTQ+ community, our immigrant communities, our disabled communities.

Even if there is no internment camps like in the holocaust, I worry about escalations. I am terrified of history repeating. I refuse to be complacant in that, and I urge you not to be as well. I urge you to prepare for the worst, but hope for the best. Be proactive in measures for the future.

Especially if you are a woman, I am telling you to buy Plan B now. Travel state lines if you have to. Plan B has a shelf life of 4 years. If not for yourself, do it for a friend, family member, or someone you care about. Even if you are not sexually active, you never know what is going to happen or who might need it.

If you have any period tracking apps, they need to go NOW. Flood it with misinformation if you are able, change past entries before you delete it. Stick to putting that information to pen-and-paper where your data will not be taken by the government and used agaisnt you.

If you are able to, please apply for a passport or renew yours if you haven't already, the sooner the better. It can take a lot of time for them to get processed, so do this first. If you are financially unable to pay for a passport, you may be eligable to apply with a fee waiver. In case you feel unsafe and just want to leave the country for whatever reason may happen, I feel it is extremely important to have.

Download Signal. It has end-to-end encryption that will keep you and those same people you care about safe. I also suggest turning off notification previews even on apps like Signal, as I am told that they can be un-encrypted. If you value your privacy for conversations with your trusted people, you need to do it on something that is end-to-end encrypted.

If you are able and feel safe to, build a community network. Anyone you believe can be trusted, talk to them now about your fears and come up with a plan for worst-case scenerios. Reach out to others that have the same fears as you. Talk to your trusted friends and family members. You are not powerless. You have strength in numbers. If not to help you feel safety, but to give you hope and laughter in hard times. It does not and will not mean that the world is not dire, but you need to still stay sane.

Save important doccuments now. Not on pinterest or in a TikTok bookmark. Download. That. Shit. Don't have the computer space? Get a hard drive. A USB. Fuck it, a CD. Can't download important information? Write it down on physical paper. You have options. Even if it doesn't get taken offline, archiving and saving important things is extremely important anyway. Anything important to you, save. I am worried about books and important information being lost. Get physical copies if you are able. Find ways to download them in PDF or similar formats. Music? Save it. Maybe I'm being too wary, but you will have no idea what is going to go until they start doing it.

[vividxp]

came back from poll working super tired but i haven't been able to sleep and i haven't been able to resist refreshing twitter which of course is a horrible decision.

i started writing this, and now i see that some news networks are calling Pennsylvania for Trump which basically guarantees him the presidency. Even if Kamala wins all the other swing states, she will be short by 3 electoral votes.

My biggest feeling regarding the media still remains strong. American media likes republicans, especially trump and wants him to win. The left (and i'm using 'left' in a broad fashion here) really has no answer to the current media landscape to pierce through bs media narratives and inform people as to what is going on.

It seems like voters really do not believe trump is that bad, in fact there seems to be a belief that trump will be good for the economy and despite this administration handling inflation and unemployment as good as any could, folks really would rather have a small group of people suffering greatly, vs everyone experiencing prices rising a little.

I'm just kinda numb and sad and worried, because trump part 2 is about to be a fucking disaster, and I know people will realize that they were lied to. But i fear the damage will be so deep that we will not recover for decades. I suddenly feel old in a bad way.

and a lot will be talked about what will happen domestically, but I also think this is a disaster internationally. "might makes right" is about to the be operating policy of a bunch of right wing governments and we will see more war and more death. and I'm skeptical about the america's ability to meaningfully raise resistance because of all the domestic bullshit that will be coming.

[hit-song-showdown]

Year-End Poll #34: 1983

[Image description: a collage of photos of the 10 musicians and musical groups featured in this poll. In order from left to right, top to bottom: The Police, Michael Jackson, Irene Cara, Men at Work, Michael Jackson, Bonnie Tyler, Hall & Oates, Patti Austin and James Ingram, Michael Sembello, Eurythmics. End description]

More information about this blog here

Today's poll includes multiple songs off the soundtrack for the movie, Flashdance. We've seen songs from soundtracks featured on these polls, with You Light Up My Life and Evergreen coming to mind (plus songs from actual musicals). But instead of just diegetic ballads and showtunes, now we're seeing more songs marketing themselves around their connection to the films they were written for. As music videos are being shot more like movies and movies are being shot more like music videos, the meeting of these two worlds makes sense. Especially when music videos start to include actual clips from the movies, MTV was the place to get a wide audience for your music.

But not everyone could see the benefits right away. While MTV kicked off with a bang, their initial video rotation infamously featured no Black acts. The network's explanation was to insist that the exclusion wasn't based on race, but rather MTV's status as a "rock station".

1983 also marks the 25th anniversary of Motown Records and a television special (Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever) was broadcasted to mark the occasion. While the night is marked by more legends than I can list off, the notable performance for this blurb was Michael Jackson. After performing with the Jackson 5 for the first time since the 70's, Michael Jackson performed his new solo hit, Billie Jean. This number marks the public debut of the moonwalk, the musician's signature dance move that arguably cemented his status as a pop culture icon.

In hindsight, it feels ludicrous that an artist like Michael Jackson was initially unable to get on MTV. Fortunately, people at the time thought it was ludicrous as well. Both Rick James and David Bowie called out the network years before (with James being especially vocal in critiquing MTV for its exclusion of Black artists). But allegedly, Michael Jackson's record company found a way to get Billie Jean on the channel. To quote Walter Yetnikoff, the president of CBS Records at the time:

“I said to MTV, ‘I’m pulling everything we have off the air, all our product. I’m not going to give you any more videos. And I’m going to go public and fucking tell them about the fact you don’t want to play music by a black guy.’” (x)

Whether in response to Yetnikoff or not, Billie Jean aired on MTV March 10th, 1983, making it the first music video by a Black artist to be featured in heavy rotation on the channel. Later this year, the cinematic possibilities of the music video would be pushed further with the 13 minute video for Thriller. Michael was already a star without the push from MTV, and with how popular his videos were, it could be argued that MTV needed Michael as much if not more than he needed them. But while MTV's problems with race and representation were far from over, this moment helped pave the way for many other Black artists who will become iconic figures on the channel.

[jyndor]

how are u going to say it doesn’t matter who you vote for and here you are actively pushing kamala

here we go, time to use our brains kids

so let me say this: I think kamala harris is an objectively better candidate than either joe biden. I think a ham sandwich would be a better candidate than joe biden lol. I think that if someone is going to vote in the us presidential election, they would be smart to vote for a kamala ticket over a trump ticket, assuming that her policy platform is mostly in step with the democratic platform and doesn't try to out-fash trump on immigration or israel.

I do not think me saying that is pushing kamala. it's just my opinion, and I'm not even committing to voting for her. I'm not telling anyone they have to vote for kamala. I'm especially never going to tell palestinian americans that they need to vote for anyone because like what kind of monster would I be??? and I also do not think voting is harm reduction, not in the way many us american liberals say it is. I think voting is a tool, one of many, that can be effective in choosing your opponents. I think kamala will be an easier opponent to fight than trump. this is what organizers are saying, this is what activists are saying, this is what I personally believe based on my understanding of trump and republicans in general.

no, that does not mean it will be easy. I think kamala will become a war criminal like any us president will be. I think her record is mixed. I know I will fight her on day one, and I will also have to fight the liberal vote blue maga types because they refuse to give a fuck about anyone other than themselves.

I don't think there's a single candidate who I would be happy to vote for. even cornell west would become a war criminal. that is what will be the case until the united states is dismantled.

now, here's where I'm sorry to tell you that my vote for president does not matter. I have explained this many times. I live in delaware, and delaware has THREE electoral votes. there is not a way in which my vote will make or break a presidential election. when I lived in chester country, pa, I lived in a swing district. I voted for hillary in 2016 because my vote mattered a LOT more then. it is what it is.

I would probably recommend people living in swing districts to vote for the dems, but I'm never going to speak down to voters, and I'm never going to do that bullshit because it doesn't work. the only good argument I have ever heard is that we should vote for the candidate we think we could most easily beat through organizing. everything else is noise and ineffective when it comes to reaching those of us who are so angry we want to stick it to the dems.

if you think any of that is pushing kamala... idk man it's not that simple. it's the dems fault we are in this position. I see any nominee that isn't joe biden as a victory against genocide joe, even if we haven't won the fight. but this is a big step in pushing the party to represent the views of most of its base better. as far as I know, kamala doesn't hallucinate about golda meir lol she's too busy being copmala

anyway voting is a tool not the end of civic responsibility. focus on mutual aid, on community and esp LABOR organizing, on helping the people around you and building networks of support because no matter what we will only need more of that in the days and years to come.

[distortsverity]

Hikari if she had a normal life, went to high school / university, and at one point got mad after a networking event between students and the League :

If you just opened this like I told you to, tie yourself down to whatever chair you're sitting in, because this email is going to be a rough fucking ride.

For those of you that have your heads stuck under rocks, which apparently is the majority of the student body, we have been FUCKING UP in terms of evening networking events and general social interactions with the League. I've been getting message after message about people being so goddamn AWKWARD and so goddamn BORING. If you're saying to yourself, "But oh em gee Hikari, I've been having so much fun with my friends this week!", then punch yourself in the face right now so that I don't have to find you on campus to do it myself.

I do not give a flying fuck, and the League does not give a flying fuck, about how much you love to talk to your friends. You have 358 days out of the year to talk to friends, and this week is NOT, I repeat NOT one of them. This week is about fostering relationships between us youth and the region’s professional hotshots plus their support, and that's not possible if you're going to stand around talking to each other instead of them. Newsflash you stupid pieces of shit: OFFICIALS DON'T LIKE KIDS WASTING THEIR TIME. OH WAIT, DOUBLE NEWSFLASH: THE LEAGUE IS NOT GOING TO WANT TO SHOW US THE ROPES IF WE FUCKING SUCK, which by the way, in case you're an idiot and need it spelled out for you, WE FUCKING SUCK SO FAR.

"But Hikari!" you say in a whiny little bitch voice to your computer screen as you read this email, "I've been cheering on our League at all the conference matches, doesn't that count for something?" NO YOU ASS HATS, IT DOES NOT. DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY? IT DOESN'T COUNT BECAUSE YOU'VE BEEN FUCKING UP AT THE MATCHES TOO. I've not only gotten texts about people being WEIRD (for example, acting braindead and saying stuff like "durr what's a Z-Move?" is not funny), but I've also heard about people cheering for the opposing team. The opposing. Fucking. Team. I don't care about “sportsmanship,” YOU CHEER FOR OUR GODDAMN LEAGUE AND NOT THE OTHER ONES. Have you never watched a single tournament before? Are you blind? Or are you just so disgustingly dense about what it means to make people like you that you think being a good little supporter of EVERYONE ELSE is going to make our League happy? Well it's time someone told you: NO ONE LIKES THAT, ESPECIALLY OUR LEAGUE. I will cunt punt the next person I hear doing something like that, and I don't give a crap if you report me, I WILL ASSAULT YOU.

"Ohhh Hikari, I'm now crying because your email has made me oh so so sad.” Well good. If this email applies to you in any way, meaning if you’re a little asswipe that stands in the corners during nighttime discussions or if you're a weird shit that does weird shit during the conference, this following message is for you:

DO NOT GO TO TONIGHT'S EVENT.

I'm not kidding. Don't go. If you have done ANYTHING I've mentioned in this email and have some rare disease where you're unable to NOT do these things, then you are HORRIBLE, I repeat, HORRIBLE PR FOR OUR SCHOOL. I would rather have four students that are fun and interesting chatting with our League officials than eighty clueless imbeciles. If you are one of the people that have told me "Oh nooo boo hoo I can't talk to them I'm too scared", then I pity you because I don't know how you got this far in life. With that in mind, don't show up unless you're going to stop being an embarrassment for our school. I swear to Arceus if I see anyone being a jackass at tonight's event, I will tell you to leave even if you're a straight-A battling prodigy. I'm not even kidding. Try me.

And for those of you who are offended by this email, I would apologize but I really don't give a fuck. Go fuck yourself.

- Your Class President

[nitewrighter]

Super curious – what’s that body language book you were reading?

Cues by Vanessa Van Edwards. She mostly works in a lot of corporate workshops so the body language focus is mostly in the context of professional environments, presentations, and networking, which like, I think is already a very specific context. Again, I do wish the book discussed ableism in how we interpret body language the same way it discussed sexism and racism, but I am grateful that a lot of her "If they're making this face, that means X" explorations basically come with the caveat of "Okay our research indicates that this signals discomfort, but 99% of the time you don't actually have the full context as to why this person would be making this face or doing X and also just one body cue doesn't actually immediately indicate this, so don't take this one facial expression to mean they're lying or mad at you, but these kind of signals do indicate you may want to pump the brakes and reconfigure your approach." But again, that whole, "you don't have the full context" factor I think could be explored more, especially in the context of ableism.

Like, for example, in the Nixon Kennedy debates, these were the first televised presidential debates, and people who listened to the debate on the radio thought Nixon had won, and people who watched the debate on television thought Kennedy had won! Basically even though Nixon knew his stuff at the time, the visual medium of television did impact his campaign. In the televised recording Kennedy was very handsome and confident and Nixon kind of looked like a shifty pile of shit--and there's a reason for this! Nixon banged his knee on a car door minutes before the debate and was in literal physical pain standing on that leg throughout the debate (apparently it was so bad he later had to be hospitalized for staph), and also he refused to wear makeup for the debate so he looked shinier under studio lighting, and he didn't know which cameras to look at during filming while Kennedy was just fixed on one camera the whole time, so he showed up sweatier and stubblier and more shifty-eyed than Kennedy and arguably less prepared.

So like, for me listening to this book, it was this moment of "Wow, so indicating any kind of physical discomfort can really fuck you over when you're trying to look competent for a job. What does this mean for people with chronic pain?" And again, additional caveat that like, as far as examples go, you don't get much more "specific to American culture" than a presidential debate--like, I'm willing to say USAmericans can be a very superficial, "Interpreting strength and confidence as competence" people. Like it's worth noting that a lot of our school history books include "he was tall :)" among the reasons as to why we picked Washington as our first President. But yeah it's an very interesting book. It's very 'your mileage may vary'--- a lot of the advice in there is, like I've said before, very basic common sense stuff my dad would often tell me right before job interviews, haha.

[dumbestthingiveeverheard]

Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard: 7/21/2023

Note: Starting Monday, 7/24/2023, the amount of entries on this list will be upped from three to, at most, five. Due to this, I have also decided to open submissions to the blog.

Third place: Dagen McDowell of Fox News

Today on Outnumbered, she said the following about a story revolving around--prepare yourselves, this might be the scandal that brings Biden down--the President wearing sneakers:

Well I made a joke last night on Hannity, those shoes, my father will be 87 in a week, and to a man of that generation wearing those shoes, particularly as commander in chief in public, when you're going on, this is formal business -- that's the equivalent of wearing your bedroom slippers outside. That's like wearing a speedo and flip-flops to a funeral. So these elitist snobs in the White House are blithely lying to the American people over and over again because they think we're stupid, and we're not. We've cared for elderly parents and relatives and we can look at this man and see what's going on. We know dementia, we know age, we know Alzheimer's when we see it. And we look at Joe Biden and think, we would not let him drive our car in an empty church parking lot. We know what's happening with him. It's sad, but distressing. 

First off, you have to admire the audacity of somebody to call others snobs while she is saying it's possible a person has a serious mental condition because of their choice in foot wear. Also, Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated to the Presidency in his street clothes. Although, what do I expect from a network that spent weeks during the Obama Administration talking about the color of his suit?

Second place: Laura Ingraham

While engaging in the continuing quest by the media to make RFK Jr.'s Presidential Campaign a thing, we got the normal talking points. Among them that the DNC must be really scared of him because Joe Biden hasn't agreed to debate him yet--never mind that in 2020 Donald Trump not only never debated either Bill Weld, Mark Sanford, or Joe Walsh, but state Republican primaries even cancelled primaries specifically to prevent either of those candidates from getting a foothold within the party.

However, while talking about how popular RFK Jr. is, Laura showed this poll:

Now fourteen percent is not nothing, especially when you're a primary challenger to an incumbent President. However, after two straight years of Biden bashing by the mainstream media along with the perpetual push to make RFK Jr. into something other than a waste of everyone's time, the odds of RFK Jr. doing any better are rather unlikely. For reference, fourteen percent is about the percent of votes gotten by Newt Gingrich in 2012, John Anderson in 1980, George Wallace in 1976, and Al Gore in 1988. Hardly the battle similar to that Ford and Reagan had for the Republican Nomination back in 1976, fuck it's not even the fight Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy had back in 1980 or the fight George Bush and Pat Buchanan had back in 1992.

Winner: Ron DeSantis

I think the headline "Florida Schools Will Teach How Slavery Brought ‘Personal Benefit’ to Black People" from The Daily Beast sums this story up perfectly. The article also notes that High Schools are going to be taught that a deadly massacre against black citizens in 1920 included “acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans.”

I wish to remind you all that Ron DeSantis wants to become President, presumably so he can implement this education system across the country.

Ron DeSantis, you've said the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

[tomwambsmilk]

Racoonstar Ratco... Im intrigued

@localgays2

@lastfridgemagnetleft

I am SO GLAD you all asked!! You WILL regret it :)

raccoonstar ratco is an AU that vi @togansweep and I developed on a Friday night in June 2022 over the course of 4 hours on Discord while getting increasingly drunk on white wine. It has EVERYTHING. evil tomgreg. were-creatures. President Connor. planes. tom and greg trying to kill each other. unethical medical experimentation. world war III. frogan AND togan. mpreg. the sewers of tuscany. Kendall going on a personal apology journey. the culinary arts. melodrama. Marie Kondo.

It all began with one concept - every month Tom reads a different productivity book with a different productivity system and then makes Greg completely overhaul their workflow setup for whatever the newest system is. That's how he ends up making Greg "Marie Kondo" his office, which does NOT work because when he asks Geg what 'sparks joy' the only things Greg did NOT say yes to were highly important files about revenue projections and ad contracts. Tom did not immediately realize that this was a fucking stupid thing to get rid of, and so Greg spent Friday night dumpster diving behind the Waystar building. After this Tom starts calling Greg his "little raccoon", at first as a joke and then suddenly unironically oops what happened there. One day he asks an admin assistant to get xyz numbers from “his little raccoon” before the afternoon meeting within earshot of Logan, who takes a week to process and then decides it’s a dominance thing and starts referring to his own minions as little raccoons.

Of course, the rumour that Greg was going through Tom’s trash spreads through LackeySlack like wildfire. Greg knows if Tom catches him fully denying it he’ll throw shit at him but he needs to save face, so he says that Tom had left something sensitive in there and asked him to retrieve it. This, unfortunately, just makes everything worse. The rumour reaches Logan, who won't accept the way tom is handling sensitive documents, leaving them in the trash and all; especially now he's in a higher position. So he calls him to his office, and after giving him some angry speech he calls tom "my little racoon" and they have hatesex (togan real!!). Afterwards they change the company name to Gaystar Boyco and double down on their economic conservatism in an attempt not to fully lose their base. They're campaigning for gay rights AND the obliteration of the social safety net. Anyways eventually somehow Frank gets involved and they have a three-way and Frank gets pregnant because surprise! This is an abo au but only when we want it to be. Frank is actually pregnant with twins, one from Tom and one from Logan.

Poor Greg is still out dumpster-diving behind Waystar, and Events Transpire and he gets turned into a were-raccoon and goes into hiding because he's afraid of how everyone will react. One day, Tom’s taking the Frank babies out for a stroll when a giant NYC rat with latent lycanthropy tries to launch itself into the baby carriage, as New York rats do. Tom bravely defends them but is bitten and becomes a wererat. When Tom first gets bitten he’s Ashamed of his transformation and hides in the sewers with the other wererats. Wereraccoon Greg hasn’t spoken to him since togan became a thing, but he hears about the rat attack on the news and then Tom’s apparent disappearance and gets concerned, so he hits up his were-network to figure out where he might be. He sneaks into the sewer system to talk to Tom, knowing that the were-rats and the were-raccoons are mortal enemies, and if he’s caught he’ll almost certainly be killed. Tom refuses to speak to him at first but Greg is persistent, and eventually they begin carrying on a secret romance. Greg finds out that ratfucker Sam and Tom had an affair before Greg was able to track Tom down, and in a fit of anguish he kills ratfucker Sam. As it turns out ratfucker Sam was a high-ranking werewolf, and so Greg is banished from the were-community of NYC. Greg flees the country, and Tom, devastated, goes after him.

Tom learns that Greg, post-banishment, has been living in a sewer in Paris and goes there to find him. Greg is delighted to see him but embarrassed by the abode, he serves Tom a home-cooked meal that he made from scavenged garbage can scraps which he keeps apologizing for. It’s the best meal Tom’s ever eaten, including ortolan. Which is when Tom sees the plan - they’ll start a world-class restaurant using Greg’s amazing culinary skills and Tom’s business acumen.

At this point we had a slight interruption from @eastgaysian:

Anyways. As mentioned above Greg writes a biography of their smashing success as were-creatures in the restaurant business and Tom edits it to focus on their torrid and passionate affair and this goes back and forth for a while.

(This conversation was in our pre-Tommy milk days, so after Tommy milk became a thing we retconned this part of the AU so that their success was because of the rich Tommy Milk they used in their dishes, which was at its best when Tom was drunk off white wine from a very particular region of France. They eventually built a small empire selling Tom's milk on the side, but the board got greedy and started keeping Tom drunk all the time and eventually Greg got fed up with them treating Tom like an actual cow and took Tom and fled back to NYC where Tom had the worst hangover of his life.)

What about the Roy siblings? What have they been up to? Well, for a little while they tried to write an op-ed to take down Logan, but they couldn't agree on what to say so they all wrote competing op-eds and sued each other over it. This particular storyline is so universally critically panned (bc yes this is all happening on Succession the show) that in Season 5 their private jet disappears over the Atlantic Ocean and they’re never heard from again - except for Connor, who becomes the President. He also learns of Tom and Greg’s plight and is motivated to introduce legislation to end discrimination against were-creatures, for which he wins the Nobel Peace Prize. Connor is such a well-loved president that they abolish term limits and he stays president for 20 years, until the Frank + Tom's baby is old enough to run for office office. The Tank baby runs against him and it’s a perfect 50-50 tie, AND a 50-50 tie in the senate or whatever the tiebreaker is (idk I’m not American), so in the end they decide to simply co-rule.

In the meantime, Tom and Greg have started their own company, called Racconstar Ratco, which becomes incredibly successful, allowing them to take over Waystar Royco/Gaystar Boyco. They become the richest and most powerful were-men in the world - so powerful, in fact, eventually through their political influence non-were-people become an oppressed class. In order to work at raccoonstar ratco you have to be turned into a wererat or wereraccoon; people who have been turned are known as "purebloods". Marriage between were and non-were people becomes culturally taboo, largely due to a massive campaign on the part of raccoonstar ratco. The children of were-people and non-were people are looked down upon by people on both sides of the political spectrum.

30 years into this the Roy siblings emerge into this strange new world - their plane was simply caught in a time warp! They must struggle to find their footing and advocate for themselves and their fellow non-werepeople. (Also they learn that Logan and Frank both died in a bizarre skidoo accident that was never fully explained.) They also discover that Connor has been turned into a were-raccoon by Greg. Were-raccoon Connor is a well-kept secret, though, bc Connor for the last 10 years has been running on a platform of non-were people rights in order to get elected, and then simply not following through bc raccoonstar ratco funds his campaigns. Even the Tank baby doesn’t know - in fact, the Tank baby was secretly turned into a were-rat by Tom. Greg knows that Connor is a were-raccoon and Tom knows that the Frank baby is a were-rat, but they each turned their respective guy in order to have a Personal Edge, so they’re hiding it from each other.

For the first time in their lives the Roy siblings experience what it's like to be truly repressed, and this causes some revelations. Kendall goes on an arduous personal journey to apologize to very single person he feels he discriminated against. Kendall also offers to accompany Shiv and Roman on their own personal apology journeys, but they are Not Interested. When he finally gets back, they decide they need to kill Tom and Greg. They decide to leak the truth about Connor and the Tank baby being were-creatures in the hope this will start a revolution, but it fails miserably, and they’re arrested by officers of raccoonstar ratco (who also fund law enforcement) for disturbing the peace and fomenting revolution. They can't even find a non-were lawyer, because everyone has been turned into a were-person at this point and the Roy siblings minus Connor are the only normal people left.

After the trial they don't have to go to prison, but instead they're put in some sort of zoo as an exhibit. Tom visits Shiv in her cell, secretly, with cameras off and no guards watching, to offer her a deal - let him turn her into a wererat and they can rule raccoonstar ratco together. Tom’s becoming increasingly convinced that the only true pure were-race is the were-rat, and he wants to suppress other were-races, including were-raccoons. (It’s a difficult decision for him because he does love Greg, but he simply cannot ignore the biological differences between them any longer.)

(Also they’ll change the name to ratstar ratco. Obviously.)

Shiv refuses, because of course. Tom is upset, but he will not let this stop him from starting the were-rat revolution. Because he does love Greg and can't just leave him behind he decides to do an experiment and bites Greg during sex to see if he can turn him from a were-raccoon into a were-rat. It ends up turning Greg into a bizarre were-rat-raccoon hybrid. Truly monstrous to look at - the overload of lycanthropy in his system means that he now physically resembles both a rat and a raccoon at all times. He loses the ability to speak human language. Tom is absolutely devastated, utterly heartbroken. He summons the best were-doctors to try and fix Greg, to no avail. Ultimately, he decides the most loving thing to do is put Greg out of his misery - but Greg overhears him discussing this plan with the were-doctor and flees into the Nevada desert. There he lives out his days in peace, and at some point he runs into, surprise surprise, the Contessa who has also turned into a rat raccoon hybrid. They make babies and start a new species.

Meanwhile, Tom is utterly depressed without Greg. He's lost all his will to live, and has no idea how to move on with his life. The Contessa still technically had a valid claim to the throne of Luxembourg, so once their children are of age they decide to move to Europe and attempt to assert the claim. It goes poorly, and in the end they end up taking the throne in a violent coup, implementing a reign of terror throughout Luxembourg. This shocks Tom, who assumed Greg was dead (and is also apparently immortal bc otherwise this timeline is well and truly fucked).

In the meantime, Tom had successfully taken were-rat power in the Americas, suppressing all other races. This means that the Americas are now a pure-blood wererat paradise, and Europe is a land where mixed-were creatures reign supreme. Tom is angry and betrayed that Greg ran off and married the contessa and had children with her. Greg is angry and betrayed that Tom tried to kill him (also he eventually learned to speak again with the contessa’s help). Using Frank + Tom’s co-president daughter as a go-between, they attempt to meet at a political summit on neutral ground. They end up declaring war on each other. (Tom is not technically the president but since his daughter is he can basically do that).

They’re neck and neck for a long time. Countless losses are suffered on both sides, giving rise to significant anti-war sentiments in both countries. Tom tries to murder the Contessa; Greg tries to destroy the ratstar ratco building. Eventually the anti-war sentiment rises to a fever pitch, and both of them are subject to violent revolution from their own people and are forced to flee. (The contessa is tragically killed in the revolution). Each of them individually decided to flee to Italy, the location of their last truly happy memories together. (Italy somehow avoided getting caught up in the war). They each, individually decide to visit the Tuscan sewers.

They see each other in the sewers for the first time in years. They are overwhelmed with emotion. Tom starts weeping. Greg also starts weeping. They lay their weapons down. They embrace. They kiss. They make love. (In the sewer). They forgive each other.

And finally, after having so many babies with other people, they have babies with each other. They live in the sewer with their children for many years, a peaceful, simple life, full of old joys they had long forgotten about. They start cooking together again, something they hadn't done since their time in Paris. Their children grow up and have their own children. Before long, they are the patriarchs of a thriving Tuscan sewer were-rat-raccoon colony with a deep devotion to the culinary arts. It has been many years since they’ve had contact with the outside world.

Then one day, one of their descendants has news. She has met someone… from outside the colony.

They are initially thrown into a panic. What if their carefully crafted ecosystem comes crashing down? What if this interloper drives a wedge between them? What if they HATE GARLIC? WHAT IF THEY HATE CHEESE?? But then they take some time to reflect on their own hard-earned life experiences, and they realize that no good will come from standing in the way of love. After all, look what happened to them. So, they agree to meet her beau.

What she did NOT tell them, though, is that her beau is not a were-person at all.

Something UTTERLY UNHEARD OF in this day and age.

How can this be???????

Well, as it turns out…..

Frank had a third child.

With KARL.

When he walks into the sewer, Tom IMMEDIATELY recognizes him… he’d know that nose anywhere. He doesn’t know who the other father is, but that’s 110% a Frank baby. He sighs at the thought of adding this to his family tree, which is already complicated enough.

(Genuinely his immediate worry is not even the genetic makeup but the very literal and EXTRAORDINARILY complex pepe silvia-esque family tree diagram he and Greg have carved into the sewer walls. And by "he and Greg" I really mean just Tom because Greg does not see the point. Their conversations about it always go along the lines of "uuuh yes, great Tom! it looks, like, really good!" "It does not look good Greg, it's utterly and completely wrong!!! have you been listening to a word I'm saying??")

Tom is shocked, but he puts that aside. They have dinner. (This new Frank baby objects to neither garlic nor cheese, which is a relief.) However, they’ve been in this sewer for so long, eventually he has to ask - what news of the outside world? The new Frank baby tells him that after the revolution that unseated him and Greg, the globe entered an unprecedented era of peace. All types of were-people lived together in harmony. And eventually, after much lobbying, even the Roy siblings were released from their captivity. However, several years ago Connor disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and Tom’s daughter with Frank has been slowly and steadily consolidating an alarming amount of power.

(Tom sighs as he realizes his genes have once again possibly fucked over the entire civilized world. "Tom don't worry, it happens to the best of us!" Greg says. “Of course you would say that, Greg, it’s your fucking family that got us in this mess in the first place”. Tom is very tempted to throw his plate of food at Greg's head, but they've been to couples therapy where he learned that whenever he has an urge like this he has to name 15 different types of cheese in his head to calm himself down.)

After much soul-searching, Tom decides that he must travel to America to confront his daughter. The thought is frightening. He has not left this sewer in many, many years. Greg offers to go with him, but Tom feels this is something he must do alone. He travels to America, hoping his daughter will remember him. She does, and he is granted an audience with her. He is led into the Oval Office, but no one else is in there. He sits on a couch and waits. Eventually, the door opens, and in walks his daughter. And then, following close behind…..

SHIV

Tom is in shock. How could this be!?!?!?!?!!? 

Well. It turns out that while the Roy siblings were in there zoo, Shiv started devising a plan, should they ever be released, to overcome the were-people and return the world to its “natural order”. But first, she needed to find a non-were person she had no biological relation to to procreate with. When she was released, she studied the annals of what happened while they were stuck in the time warp, and learned of the two Frank babies. But she was sharp, and when she kept digging, she saw signs of a third. She tracked down the Krank baby and persuaded him to give her some of his sperm that she could pair with some of her eggs. (She did not fully explain her plan, she just offered him a fuckton of money, and he was super broke.) She then approached the Elon musk Frogan baby, and together they developed an artificial womb and then a cloning facility, where they’ve been essentially growing a secret army of non-were people. 

But Shiv needed political leverage. So, she approached the president - Tom’s daughter, who felt abandoned by Tom after the whole World War III debacle. She persuaded her that the problem was Tom’s were-rat nature, and that were-people were evil. She convinced her to use her political leverage to kill Connor and give Shiv access to the White House while consolidating power, so they can try to suppress the were-people. She also worked with the Frogan baby to develop a cure to lycanthropy, so she herself won’t have to be a were-rat any longer.

(What happened to the other Roy siblings, you ask? Kendall has been trying and failing to become a famous rapper and Roman became a consort to Swedish were-king Matsson. They aren’t important.)

("Plottwist, didn't see that coming!" is what Greg says when tom tells him the story over the phone.)

Shiv openly tells him all of this, which surprises Tom. Why? Well, first off, he’s not allowed to leave. (Surprise!) They keep him prisoner in the White House, although it’s a rather luxurious imprisonment and he is allowed to talk to Greg on the phone. He also does not have to make his own toilet wine.

(“Well, that sounds like a plus!��� Greg says when Tom mentions that last part. "Well, no, it isn't Greg. they only let me drink red wine! how do they expect me to survive without my whorewater??? This is their way to kill me, Greg, this is the end." To distract himself from the pain tom takes up knitting, and he knits himself a red scarf. He looks really cute in it actually.)

After a few weeks Tom goes increasingly stir-crazy. And then, Shiv’s other angle is revealed when she offers him her own version of the deal he offered her many years ago - let her cure him of his lycanthropy, and they can rule the world together. Tom’s torn. He knows that if he doesn’t take the deal, he’ll be imprisoned here forever, slowly going insane and knitting increasingly colourful scarves. But if he does… Well, he’s built his whole life around his were-family. He’ll lose everything that’s grown to be important to him. He’ll lose Greg.

("I need to... I need to consider my options, Shiv, you understand that right?" "Tom, you can't be serious. are you really considering not taking this deal just because you want to... I don't know what it is you did before coming here, knit scarves with my cousin?")

He’s in conflicted agony for weeks. He does not tell Greg what Shiv offered him, but Greg knows something is wrong, so Tom starts calling less and less so that he doesn’t give it away. He knits approximately ten more scarves.

(The last one has a complicated star pattern that was tricky and he’s actually kind of proud of. He plans on giving it to Greg, if he ever sees him again. He's stitched GJHW - for Gregory John Hirsch-Wambsgans - into the hem.)

After weeks of thinking and knitting and softly weeping at night, he comes to his decision. He decides to take Shiv’s deal. It’s a heart-rending decision. But she’s going to take over the world regardless - she has the power and the ambition - and he’s unlikely to ever see Greg and his many were-children ever again no matter what he does. But maybe, if he takes this deal, he can try and protect them from the horrors Shiv intends to unleash. He strokes the Greg scarf one last time while wiping away a tear, then he pulls himself together and goes to Shiv to break the news.

("I knew you'd come around, Wambsgans, you're a lot smarter than you look".)

The treatment for lycanthropy is simple - an injection that will kill any traces of it in his symptom. Shiv and the Frogan baby have been developing it for quite some time, and they’re very confident in it. Tom is, however, the first human subject.

("Shiv, are you absolutely sure this is going to work? that I will not, oh I don't know, DIE?" “Don’t be dramatic, Tom, only 38% of the rats we tested it on died.”)

It’s a truly awful experience, and he actually does feel like he might die. He feels like his veins are on fire. It goes on for hours and hours. Eventually, he passes out from pain and exhaustion. But when he comes to - 

He knows that it worked. He feels... reborn. but at the same time, it feels like a fundamental part of him died. It's an odd sensation, and he's not sure he likes it. 

He has to tell Greg. He doesn't want to, but it's necessary. He owes him that much. He doesn’t want to do it over the phone. It feels wrong. Cruel. So he goes to Shiv, and asks if he can return to his Tuscan sewer one last time. She agrees, but only if she goes with him. The last thing he wants is for Shiv to be there to witness him breaking Greg's heart, but he has no other choice.

When they arrive, Greg runs out to meet him - but when he sees Shiv he stops, confusion on his face. Then he looks at Tom again, and his eyes widen. He knows immediately what Tom did.

"I'm... I'm so sorry, Greg. I hope you can forgive me, I had no other choice." Tom reaches out for him. It’s been so long, and this is the last time he’ll ever see Greg. He wants more than anything to touch him. But Greg recoils from him, shaking his head in horror.

"Don't touch me" "Greg, I did this for us! for our children! don't you understand? this was the only way to keep you safe, Greg, Sporus... I... I didn't want it to end like this. please look at me, Greg."

Tom hands over a small package.

"Open it."

Greg hesitates, but does it anyway.

It's a scarf, one of the most beautiful scarfs he's ever seen. then he notices the little initials.

"GJHW? did you make this?"

"I told you I picked up knitting, didn't I?"

Their eyes meet. There is so much grief there. Tom wills Greg to understand, to believe him when he says he did it for them. Greg swallows thickly and then nods a little, and Tom knows that he gets it. He reaches up, and in an echo of a gesture from many lifetimes ago, takes Greg’s face in his hands and kisses him tenderly on the forehead.

Then he has to go. He doesn’t want to, but he has to. He looks at Greg’s face for a long time, committing it to memory - 

And then, with a heavy heart, he turns back to Shiv.

This is the way it has to be. This is real life, not "Pride and Prejudice." Not every relationship ends like Mr darcy and Elizabeth. In reality, sacrifices have to be made. Tom knows he's made the right choice, even though it feels like his heart is being stabbed from every direction. Sometimes, if you truly love someone, sometimes you have to do things that hurt you more than anything, but you have to do it. To protect them, to keep them safe. And this thought, though depressing at first glance, is what gives Tom a small, minuscule feeling of happiness. He realizes that he's privileged to have known Greg, to have experienced his love, and how after everything they've been through he still loves him more than he could ever put into words. They've been on opposite sides of a war for fucks sake, and still, he would give up the world for Greg. That's love, he thinks; true, selfless love. and it's what he keeps repeating to himself while glancing back to get one last look at Greg. But he's already gone.

Greg is devastated. Heartbroken. He goes back into their sewer- well, his sewer now. He’s swarmed by his were-children, asking what’s wrong, but he shakes them off and goes to what used to be his and Tom’s bedchambers, alone. He drapes the scarf Tom gave him across the headboard. He locks himself in there for days, not eating, not speaking to anyone. His were-children grow concerned. Eventually, the oldest and boldest of them threatens to break down the door, and so he lets her in and tells her what happened. She’s quiet for a long moment. Then, she says, softly:

“We’re gonna make those fuckers pay”

......................... And that's more or less the end? At this point it was 4am in Vi's part of the world so we called it quits for the night. Since then we'll periodically go "Hey, we should finish racconstar ratco", but the truth is that it's been unfinished for so long now that I'm kind of attached to it in this form.

(Also this whole thing was written in a very specific alcohol and exhaustion- fuelled headspace that I don't know either of us will ever be able to replicate, and I'm not sure we could do it justice otherwise.)

[anteroom-of-death]

Put Me in a Movie...

Synopsis: The Master comes to terms...sort of. Set after the Doctor abandoned him in Nazi France.

Warnings: grooming, white supremacy, harsh language, introspection...

(Proof I write on occasion...)(also for reference listen to Put Me in a Movie by Lana del Rey if ur not familiar...)

Lights, camera, act-ì-on…

The Master stood at attention for these mere humans. The Doctor left him in the hands of humans that, without his special little perception filter, wouldn’t even listen to his charms or even basic hypnosis. Obviously, this body, no matter how svelte or pleasant to look at wouldn’t go over well as say….his body previously to his female form last go…or a few of his bodies especially the smirking, tall, one. The blue-eyed alabaster dandy wouldn’t even go over well…

Especially considering the environment: Paris, at the height of Nazi occupation.

If (s)he likes me, takes me home…

She left him there, knowing Earth history probably better than everyone else of their species. Knowingly abandoning him here, with these people. Well, why wouldn’t she? She’s always been deeply selfish, especially in regards to him and his needs. He had realized that thousands of years ago. When she first abandoned him for that wife of hers and living a charmed life. Before she got bored, stole that sub-par TARDIS, and ran off.

Selfish fucking bastard. Every body. Always.

So much for a childhood friend and blood pacts sworn in dark nights when you’d protect each other and be there for each other until the literal end of time…

And who’s there for poor Koschei?

No one, not ever.

He didn’t know he’d have this much fun…

No one, that much was clear since he looked deep into the void of all time and all space, and received the Drums.

The fate of all the species rested in a tiny eight-year old boy…and guided in such a way all throughout training and well into adulthood. Groomed into perfection to be the only one mad enough to try little tricks to break the reality of time and space at the most crucial time of war during a personal mental breakdown.

The Master broke his reverie as the lead SS officer trafficked him into a medical bay. Obviously he was master of deception- how’d he pretend and fool, quite literally their entire upper echelon into thinking he was the literal übermensch to get the ability to use their networks to find the Doctor.

The vivisection and tests were enough to bring him to regeneration’s door. It took him all the strength he held to not. He needed to keep that secret held to his chest. That knowledge could let these people win and erase much of his own past. He couldn’t risk it. No, not at all.

Come on you know you like girls (boys)…

He escaped as the Allies closed in and his captors fled their posts. Cowards, more so than the Bitch who abandoned him there, more so than the President who stayed comfy in his office as a war raged on, instead making a small child in the past the ultimate weapon. More so than his parents that ignored his many messages home that the drumming noises in his head were ravaging his mental health and causing him to make himself sick and wracking his body raw.

He was free, just had to deal with the consequences of this all. Just wait it out until the time-lines coincided with the main event.

Listlessness filled his hearts.

He wouldn’t dare do therapy. For obvious reasons: the cost of being remotely near anything medical mentally again would far outweigh the possible benefits of maybe a prescription for any lithium or barbiturate or diet meth the industry would churn out in the relevant coming future.

You know I can’t make it on my own…

Still he persisted on, focused on just waiting to actually enact the actual plot of this little scheme. A loss, but one he had to cope with. And for the assistance of his co-conspirators…

Decades passed the slowest that he’s ever seen them. Considering he knew most of the latter-half of the century from being on-planet on and off during it. The Master didn’t have it in him to hypnotize or engineer any tech. Too conspicuous, too much effort. He’d bled out all his will to do much anymore except endure.

He ended up in the early 2000s getting a job. A low-level executive in a marketing firm in New York City. Basic stuff, bossing around interns and speculating which members of ensemble shows filmed locally had bulimia and which ones had anorexia. Sarah Jessica Parker? Definitely anorexic. Mariska Hagarity? Probably bulimic.

He lived in Brooklyn, because well, the Doctor and her little friends had claimed Manhattan accidentally. Two of her little pets past, Amalie? Aurora? and Rorschach? Remy? The Lakes? The Ponds?. Those two. They lived in Chelsea and had a daughter he respected. They were soon to die and both were deep into mental decline, but didn’t want to risk exposing himself to little River visiting Mum and Dad on their death beds. No need to cross those paths…

It was a crisp early-April day. The first really good day of Spring. Perfect day for a stroll to McCarren Park to enjoy roach coach coffee and a questionable, semi-stale blueberry muffin. A little dive bar had advertised the singers performing that night. A pause and a sip: why not? A human life had it’s perks. The human race always excels at entertainment. He frequently looked to them to frame up fun little songs to blare when scheming or celebrating.

After the park and a trip home for a shower and a beard trim, he went to the bar and ordered a stout from a brewery that opened up in-boro. Brooklyn was changing. Especially Williamsburg. Gentrification. He worried that interstellar forces would bother him there and the Doctor would follow. Aliens, himself included, do love always targeting the hottest spots on the planet. He scoffed into the foam of his drink.

The first singer came and went, followed by a tiny girl with a well-loved guitar and a man on keyboard. She introduced herself as “Lizzy Grant, a.k.a. Lana del Rey. “ Hunching forward and a small, almost sickly sweet, little smile she started singing about being the self-proclaimed Queen of the Gas Station. She was decent. Nothing to sneeze at. Maybe one day she’d come out of her shell and perform at Glastonbury or some such large festival with thousands of enthralled fans if she was lucky enough. But for now, she was giggling nervously and strumming simply on her guitar.

The Master, a.k.a. Roger Estram, more or less tuned her out and focused with eyes semi-closed on the chatter. It soothed the Drums. He rolled his neck and shook out his hands lightly. He was relaxed. Nothing, not even the pain of thousands of years of agony would stop his night out. It was his night and he hadn’t been properly out since his firm made a liaison party between that delusional Jennifer woman and her teams and a low-level loud luxury brand.

Then he heard it. A song that hit him like a gunshot through the center of his respiratory bypass.

A fairly dark song, not what she had been performing. Definitely not the peppy, funny, tongue-in-cheek Americana. One that spoke of the casting couch and a bigger, presumably much-older man taking advantage of the tiny little girl crooning before him.

Suddenly all of his life came and smacked him between the eyes.

He knew he was groomed. He wasn’t a fool. The most uneducated Dalek could accurately determine this. But he was a Time Lord. Obviously he rose above it. Evolved past it. Especially leaving it all in the past as he passed from the body of the Prime Minister to the body of the Queen of Evil. He was all better now. The Time Lords (except for one) were all long gone. Toast. No one’s little plaything anymore. Ever.

That was all past, right? Long since ancient history.

Then why did it hurt so much? Not just now, certainly now, as this song crawled into his center and clawed open the wounds fresh. Why did something that happened as a child and presumably ended for him hundreds of years ago hurt?

Something about this song and the way she earnestly issued into the mic, “You can be my Daddy!” As if she had a role in her own victimization. The man who likes little girls could do whatever he wanted to her, just “Put me in a movie!” had him shaking and wanting to make streamers from his own entrails.

Each little harmonica blast she had her guest keyboardist make shot through his core. He was alone and sad and scared. The same little boy, who stared into the basis of reality to be chosen against his will. The same kid, frequently pushed to the outside, just waiting for everyone to take advantage of him. Accenting that it really just was him out in the universe and no matter what he did, he was used and abused and now couldn’t even manage to control a façade for longer than a few years before everything blew back onto him and he was left more alone and out of control than ever.

She finally finished her song and he paid his tab, shoving a big wad of cash in the little “For Singers” cup up at the stage before he stormed out into the night, glad that it was only a decade or so before he could do a grand reveal and rejoin the main plot of his life…not this strange little side quest his life had taken him on. No more little Earth girls that sang a song seemingly written for him, no more having to cope with being carved up. Back to his old, powerful self.

In the meantime, he sat down at his laptop in his apartment and googled “therapist Brooklyn childhood trauma”. He supposed it couldn’t hurt, right?

..You’re my little sparkle jump-rope queen, you’re my little sparkle…

[everygame]

Death Stranding (PS4)

Developed/Published by: Kojima Productions / Sony Interactive Entertainment Released: 8/11/2019 Completed: 02/10/2023 Completion: Finished it, but didn’t get everyone to five stars or anything. Trophies / Achievements: 69%

I didn’t expect to play this before working my way through the rest of the Metal Gear franchise, but to be honest I kind of lost my place there and I got antsy that the online stuff in the PS4 version of this would go away, so I thought I’d best get to it.

On starting this, there is such huge “Oh Kojima, never change” energy as you’re very quickly (or rather, “after a lot of long cut scenes”) having to carry your dead mum, who is also the president, up a hill to chuck her in an incinerator, because otherwise her body will explode leveling a massive chunk of the eastern seaboard (er, again.)

I mean… that’s an opening.

Here’s what I’ll say about Death Stranding: It’s weirdly compelling. And I mean weirdly. There’s really not that much to it. You get packages and you deliver them. While you’re delivering them, you have to avoid “BTs” which basically amount to stealth sections where you crawl around slowly, creating pulses to see the enemies who are basically blind unless you walk into them, and you also have to avoid marauders, who definitely aren’t blind but you can at least run away from them. And for ages, that’s really all you do.

You actually get into a sort of groove with it, especially once you get about a third of the way into it and you begin to upgrade infrastructure. I don’t know if Hideo Kojima set out to make people feel this way, but I became an infrastructure nut. If there was a highway to build, fuck the story! I had to build that goddamned highway, because there’s nothing as satisfying as coasting over a previously agonizing BT area with a truck full of several tons of useless stuff that will probably get you enough materials to build some more highway.

Of course… doing this is also… boring. I mean the core game isn’t actually that… interesting. You know when you like, go for a long walk with your headphones on? The game is almost a “long walk with headphones on” simulator, that for a big chunk of the middle part is actually “long drive with the radio on”. But you’re not really going anywhere.

The weird thing is that the game gets worse when it tries to not be that. The game eventually introduces clumsy but classic combat with shooty guns, and there are several boss battles that are just horrible as you run around shooting dudes awkwardly. I sincerely doubt Kojima had any pressure on him to put shooting in this, so it just seems like such a failure of imagination to come so close to making a non-violent video game and then ending up putting a lot of violence in it after all?

I mean really the problem is that the game is just way, way too fucking long, and it’s not even the fault of cut-scenes. Every couple of hours someone goes “Sam, we need you to connect another 3 random dicks to the network” and then you have to off and do it, and while the game does its best to give you some variety, no one noticed it would be annoying every time you had to go back to shlepping about on foot rather than whizzing about in a truck (there’s an entire section in the mountains which is just desperately putting as many zip-lines down as possible because it’s such a huge pain in the arse otherwise.) By the end I was exhausted of this, which is a shame, because I didn’t even fully complete the highway network after getting such a hard-on for it. Some of those material requirements were just taking the piss.

Anyway. Once I was bored of it I went to finish it and oops, “never change, Kojima” because the last 20 minutes of gameplay took me… five… six hours? I stopped at one point to make a cheese and beetroot sandwich (only god can judge me) so maybe that added a few minutes of time but there’s literally a point where you’re supposed to stand around on a beach waiting for half an hour so the cutscenes will continue. What was I saying about taking the piss?

The worst thing about that though is that the game actually does, mostly, start to make sense, and ends in quite a touching way, but it takes so unnecessarily long to get there as cut-scenes show you, at length, things you’ve already seen. It’s horribly paced, and it’s transparently flawed that if I’m going to play this for literally 54 hours you probably shouldn’t cram almost the entire story into the last five. 

I don’t even know if it’s self indulgence that this is as bloated as it is–I think it’s more that this is what AAA video games are. There’s an indie scale version of this that takes a quarter of the time that would be amazing, but, well, that’s not what we got. 

Will I ever play it again? I played the original version rather than the director’s cut because I wanted Sam to drink Monster Energy and he doesn’t even do that once you’re about half-way through the game! There’s not much difference though outside of being able to take a floating carrier on a zip line which in retrospect I sorely missed. But no, no reason to play this again, I’ve rinsed it.

Final Thought: For a game that’s about the connections Sam made and where you absolutely feel like you’ve traveled across an entire continent, it’s also really weird that there’s no sense of ceremony to your last trip back; I was expecting one of those victory laps where you meet the characters you’ve worked with across the game as you go and you reflect on how you changed their lives, but nothing like that happens. It’s not like I wanted the game to be longer, admittedly.

Support Every Game I’ve Finished on ko-fi! You can pick up a digital copy of exp. 2600, a zine featuring all-exclusive writing at my shop, or join as a supporter at just $1 a month and get articles like this a week early.

[aemarling]

“Why should I vote for Harris when she’s horrible?”

If you think voting for status-quo Democrats will fail to earn us systemic change, then great; we’re on the same page. That’s why we have to also create green infrastructure, form mutual-aid networks, and unionize. Seven unions signed a letter demanding no more bombs for I$53@1. That’s how the real change will come. Voting for Harris won’t impede that organizing and will even make it easier, as if Trump is elected, he’s likely to kill unions and eviscerate your community on his double-time march to authoritarianism.

A vote for a third-party candidate or not voting at all will amount to the same thing: a Trump victory. And if he wins, I’m more likely to be disappeared, for projecting “fuck Trump”. SCOTUS has placed the President above the law, and he would feel no compunction at wielding that dictatorial power to snuff out activists, deport anyone, and restrict women’s rights, for starters.

Voting has a low opportunity cost. You do it one day every few years, and maybe add a few more days on top of that to register other people to vote. The rest of the time, you can focus on community building.

You could argue it’s better to let Trump win, to bring matters to a head, and force revolution. It’s a risky move, especially for anyone who isn’t a cis white man, and I think it’s more likely to backfire, for two reasons. First, when Trump was elected before, more people took to the streets, but they saw the solution as putting a Democrat back in power (any Democrat, no matter how horrible, and that’s how we got Biden). Second, when Trump did fascist things, like throw kids in cages, again people blamed him personally or his party. When Democrats continue the same fascism, then it’s more effective to protest because reasonable people might see the problem is systemic.

Finally, if you continue to spend time and energy arguing against voting for Harris, I will assume you’re a Republican agent masquerading as a progressive. If you’re in fact not under the employ of the GOP, why do their work for free?

[jyndor]

i forgot united states people are the center of the universe. so because usa people are stupid, it makes poor representation of other internationals acceptable? that it doesn’t matter if its objectively incorrect, idolizing white men is actually a super progressive and leftist thing to do?

hablas español? because all you ever have to do to find info is search his name on twitter and ig and the people tear him apart. he’s already supporting our new evil president because she was backed by the old one. everyone who care about our country knows this. but again I forgot monolingual usa is the center of the universe

celebrities blow and are self-serving liberals, yeah I mean who is shocked? not me since I already didn't think diego luna is some pinnacle of representation like you think I do or something lmao

I don't have twitter anymore, I don't go on instagram - not everyone looks for news on social media lmao. and I was looking for any spanish-language (I read alright but speak and write very poorly) news source and not finding anything. which is why I asked if you had any sources because maybe there are sources I wouldn't know to read or look at - after all i am not mexican. all I found was him saying that him voting for amlo didn't mean he couldn't criticize him, which is both true and also a standard liberal viewpoint

on his twitter I see people talking about his silence on the construction of the tren maya - for those who don't know, this train is harmful to indigenous people as well as the ecosystem and is mostly just good for tourists, not locals. the zapatistas don't fuck with it, the indigenous peoples don't fuck with it, and the environmentalists don't fuck with it.

here's some information on tren maya and why it sucks and why amlo sucks for doing it:

anyway yeah my point was never that diego luna is some leftist king lmao but he has historically been of the left so he should do better. but that wasn't what I was saying anon, I was saying that white us americans (the audience that unfortunately lucasfilm is catering to) will be xenophobic to even a white latino - and what amandla stenberg has experienced in particular has been about a billion times worse because they are a non binary black actress.

like I'm not arguing about the quality of diego luna as representation for mexicans because I'm not mexican, I think there needs to be more indigenous and black latines in media. he did narcos like what are we talking about lmao the guy is not someone I think of as representing anyone other than himself

as far as the united states being a shithole full of dumbasses. yes. this country is selfish and ignorant and unbelievably bigoted. and yes unfortunately us american media companies are mostly concerned about us american audiences. that's the reality, even if it is horrible and fucked up.

anon you're totally right to be upset and angry about that but idk why you're coming at me because I agree with you. I don't like your current girlboss president and I don't like amlo.

also one final note: I'm sorry but one thing about me is that anons lost the privilege of getting the benefit of the doubt years ago with me because of years and years of bullshit anons being full of crap. if you make a claim, you back it up. period. I should not have to go search some shit that YOU tell me about, especially when it is only tangentially related to what the fuck I'm talking about. I'm STILL not seeing a NEWS article or even any sort of investigative reporting about diego luna being corrupt or taking money from amlo. Iirc I saw that years ago his production company took money right? but that was some people saying stuff on reddit.

I'm not saying he isn't, I'm sure he did lmao I don't care about that man I don't care about celebrities and if you've followed me for any time you should know that. I'm just saying I hate I hate I hate the lazy "I'm not google just look it up yourself" answer people give when they make a claim and don't feel like GIVING ANY PROOF for their claim. and especially when we are dealing with different media in different countries why the fuck would I be as familiar with it as someone who is actually mexican? there may be some source I don't know that's good and so how would I find that? this is why I always try to provide articles for people when I make claims. it's on me to prove my point.

anyway anon I agree with you lmao

[cyarsk52-20]

So the 🍊💩stain was indicted on those classified documents he stole, and we know he stole them to sell to the highest bidder.

We already know Kushner sold some to Saudis Arabia, because what else were they giving him 2 billion dollars for? Hillary warned America about this!

And let's be clear: Data shows Hillary was winning the 2016 election until Comey and the media decided the last 10 days of the election should be spent hyperventilating over her emails. She lost based on wrong speculation she may have done what Trump was just indicted for doing. In case you are wondering it’s still fuck James Comey

Yes, there was Russia. Yes, there were misogynists on the left who wouldn't vote for her no matter what (but did vote for Biden). But ultimately, the national media still hasn't reckoned with the disgusting way they covered the 2016 election. The media made Trump president they slutted out for a demon that gave the country hell we’re still recovering from

Let's remember: The same national cable news networks that would spend endless hours in 2016 talking about her emails or showing Trump's empty podiums virtually ignored Hillary's most important speech of the campaign—the one focused on the Supreme Court.

Yes, it's been seven years. But the national media still has not reckoned with the reckless, misogynistic, sensational way it covered 2016 or made a course correction toward ethical journalism. Until that reckoning happens, I'm not ready to make nice.

The media's breathless, yearslong obsession with

@HillaryClinton's emails (despite a lack of evidence of a crime) enabled Donald Trump to spend 2016 leading "Lock Her Up" chants.

A loud and sincere “fuck you” to everyone who said that I was overreacting to everything that I saw coming back in 2016 the moment tfg was elected president and I’ll never forgive everyone especially yall clears and the 53 and 55 percenters HEWS who voted for him

[dumbestthingiveeverheard]

Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard: 8/1/2023

Fifth Place: Asa Hutchinson

Despite being the only Republican running for President who I have any respect for, people need to face a rather important fact: Asa Hutchinson is not going to be President. Since the start of the 2024 race, it has been obvious that if Donald Trump entered he was going to be the nomination--and Trump has entered. This was demonstrated perfectly when Hutchinson was on CNN last night and we saw this graphic:

He couldn't even break half of one percent in any of the eight groups listed--seriously think about that.

Fourth Place: Laura Ingraham

Can we just admit that Fox News is a neo-Nazi network at this point? For fuck sake, last night brought us yet another example of a host pushing the horribly racist Great Replacement theory, with Ingraham saying:

Now, this is what Democrats have always wanted though, isn't it? An open border that would help usher in a new America. And this is what we're getting: Millions upon millions of illegals who fanned out across America with their free cell phones and dubious intentions.

I don't even know what to say about this outside of--well, this is the same thing Fox has been doing for years, and it seems like barley anybody, including the people whose job it is to monitor the right for things like this, barley notice it anymore. Media Matters barley took notice and from the looks of it no other media watchdog even mentioned it, it takes something especially offensive--like Greg's recent comments on the Holocaust--to even cause people to notice that Fox is engaging in the same rhetoric that actual fascists do.

Third Place: Steve Benen

MSNBC is easily the best out of the three cable news networks, but even they sometimes fall into the trap of not framing the story correctly. For example, Steve Benen's article on the website ran the headline "Dems slam Justice Alito’s latest claim as ‘stunningly wrong.’" However, this headline should make it a point to note that it's not merely the Democrats "slamming" Alito for saying Congress has no authority to regulate the Supreme Court, but it is them pointing out that what he said was, in fact, incorrect. This would be like claiming a teacher "slammed" a student who incorrectly answered a question on a test--except the student was also one of the nine most powerful people in the country.

Second Place: Michelle Goldberg

Her column "The Radicalization of the Young Right" falls into the typical liberal trap of having nostalgia for the terrible conservatives of the past because maybe they weren't as bad as those on the right today. The article sees her giving the benefit of the doubt to Nate Hochman, the DeSantis campaign staffer who was fired for putting fascist symbols into campaign ads, by writing:

Though the video’s imagery is clearly fascist — the sonnenrad, or sunwheel, is flanked by two rows of marching soldiers — Hochman has said that he didn’t know what the symbol meant. Given that he is Jewish, I’m inclined to believe that rather than being a covert Nazi, Hochman is simply a callow young man immersed in a milieu in which fascist idioms are so commonplace they can be picked up inadvertently. 

And honestly, who here hasn't accidentally put a fascist symbol into a video? (Or made their crossword puzzle look like a fascist symbol on the first day of a Jewish holiday?)

As Hochman clearly recognized, these days, young reactionaries find their inspiration not in the adolescent superman fantasies of Ayn Rand but in the nihilistic Joker energy of 4chan.

And how exactly are those two things different? Ayn Rand wrote stories about how everything was bad in mainstream society and those on the sidelines need to take over and get rid of all of those who disagree, and that's the motto of the modern right-wing. Of course, Ayn Rand was never a source of inspiration for reactionaries, who were primarily conservative, because Rand was not one--William Buckley, the person behind the post-World War Two conservative movement, even hated Ayn Rand and pushed her out of his new right.

Winner: John O'Connor

It's not everyday you see somebody attempt to defend Richard Nixon, but O'Connor did just that in his Townhall column "How Watergate Journalism Sowed the Seeds of Today’s Toxic Division." Even ignoring the silliness of the claim that Bob Woodward, a registered Republican, would do something like take down a sitting Republican President, and that The Washington Post would use Watergate as nothing more than an attempt to take down Nixon but wouldn't release most of the information on it until after the 1972 Presidential Election (George McGovern changing running mates was covered far more than Watergate during 1972) is nonsensical, but O'Connor is here to tell us what really happened:

But what was so patently false about the Washington Post Watergate journalism?  From the first days of the burglary arrests of June 17, 1972, the Post knew facts strongly showing that this had not been a White House campaign operation but, rather, was a small part of a widespread, long-lasting CIA program of surveilling prostitutes and their Johns.  Inveigling seeming White House approval from lower aides, the CIA hoped to gain a get out-of-jail-free card if later exposed.

And the fact that the organization which did this was called the Committee to Re-Elect the President is--what, a really bad coincidence? For those curious, O'Connor shows no evidence for this claim--instead he just spends the rest of the column insulting Mark Felt and modern journalism.

John O'Connor, you've said the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

[crybabyjellyfish]

ooo work rants

I'm rewriting the office manual for fun bc Im bored and wasn't taught what I should be doing. (no I don't have permission to re-write it)

Things I hate about the handbook- it's long tho so it goes in text jail.

Listed in the responsibilities section, "Bring a positive attitude to work" shouldn't be the first thing listed. Especially when she ignores all the negative things that happen.

If you're so much as 5 min late you gotta tell EVERYONE you're 5 minutes late, even if you think you're going to be late you have to text the entire group chat you're going to be 5+ minutes late.

"Growth Mindset" and "Stereotype Threat" are both before actual procedures and take up more pages than the procedures. Instead of- idk- telling me what I should be doing and how. If someone rings the office phone I have 0 clue how to answer and how to transfer calls

the way the stereotype threat section is set up basically says to ignore aspects of yourself and others that're apart of minority groups to avoid stereotyping yourself.

Stressing out? Just think about Obama! If he became president, anyone can do anything. Thanks Obama :)

Oh- still stressing? Change your mindset! You're just thinking wrong.

you're STILL stressing? Push it off for another time and get what you need to get done right now. Then you won't choke under pressure.

Our commitment to a positive workplace climate: We will "demonstrate a commitment to diversity and multiculturalism" and to "take care of our well-being and exhibit team wellness" ah yes, I will demonstrate multiculturalism. Also- I told this person about sexual harrassment i'm facing outside of work and that i am struggling and the response was, "hmm thanks for sharing... anyways."

This is a quote: "If you work with more than one student, encourage your students to study together outside of your mentoring sessions.... Asian students, who studied in groups, formal and informal, and made little distinction between their academic and social lives, did better than White and African-American students." First and foremost- UNHEALTHY. I am Asian. I don't have distinctions. It's very very unhealthy t b h. Study groups and social times are both important but jfc. ALSO MODEL MINORITY MYTH WHO?! JFC

^^^^^^^^ This is the person that told me that I would be the first guy that they have hired because they have, "People of all different backgrounds." (I'm trans. HUH. Actually I wonder why the only man they have in the office is me- who ngl is v v feminine.) Then tells me after our first team-building day that they "Just so happen" to have only really hired Asians for their interns(the others don't work directly under this person or are in charge of specific programs). Anyways myself and my one other coworker are both asian and we're both her interns who basically act as assistants.

back to the "choking" from stress- the list includes(and I quote), "Think differently. Think about yourself in ways that highlight your aptitude for success. Instead of focusing on how your group might be negatively stereotypes, think of the tools you have to excel- you have done well in school in the past or you have a supporting network or peers and mentors" Okay I didn't actually read the negatively stereotypes part. djldfkjgflkgjdflkgjdflkgjfdlk what the fuck???

"Educate the worries. Reminding students that stereotypes are just stereotypes and nothing more can help prevent people from worrying about their ability when the pressure is on."

"Reinterpret your reactions. When under pressure, learn to interpret your bodily reactions in a positive way ("I am amped up for the test") rather than negative ("I am freaking out")." ah yes I will just say that my anxiety and panic attacks are actually just fun little excitement sparks of j o y.

The stereotype threat(Steele & Aronson, 1995) section. Instead of educating yourself about the students you work with, if they're a minority- just ignore that fact! Otherwise you'll make them fail. Set high standards and show them that you have also struggled in school- so that they can relate to you.

This was all in the first 5 pages of this handbook bro. What the fuck.