#Is not very good

[approximateknowledge]

tensei pandemic is a bit of a dumpster fire but this specific scene hits way too close to home

[bagog]

Coming to the Riverlands

It cost extra--a lot extra--to be brought out of cryo before the ship reached destination. Marisol had paid it willingly, being a settler was already expensive, and with the Colonial Arts Council granting her a stipend, she had some credits to spare. After her re-animation and centering period, she made her way to an observation lounge at the front of the ship.

It had all been worth it. The Pacific, the colony ship, was massive, and even if all wakened, the full colony could live on the ship for some time.

But the sphere ahead of them was bigger still. Unimaginably enormous--'Dyson spheres' such structures had been called in old times. To the settlers aboard the Pacific, and to those who would hear Marisol's songs, it was known as Wellspring.

Marisol strummed her guitar softly, she was alone in the obs lounge--she felt alone on the ship, though that was clearly impossible. She'd had to wake up early, she had to see the approach. The way the sphere grew ahead of them into a giant, dark wall. Features slowly became visible on the surface of the sphere, kilometer wide greebles and ancient alien circuits barely interrupted the smooth darkness. A door Marisol hadn't noticed suddenly opened in the side of the sphere and sunlight poured out--a ray to guide the Pacific right into the sphere, the narrow door offering only a few thousand meters of clearance on all sides of the hulking colony ship.

"Dark as the night / lost in the stars Found the Wellspring / And bid goodbye" "To all other light / All other stars Lacking nothing / Still I'm tongue-tied."

Marisol frowned, tested a few different rhymes before giving up on the song and beginning a new one on her guitar. The view through the sphere's entry port was spectacular: a quilted spread of green and blue, like the surface of a planet but replicated in jumbo. Rivers hundreds of kilometers wide and just as deep. Seas in which Old Earth's moon could bathe. Trees wide as mountains, and even taller. A paradise for giants.

It was another two hours before the ship drew close enough to its destination. Marisol watched the shadow of the titanic ship projected against the sea to their port so that it was merely a pinprick on the colossal waves. There, in the haze of atmosphere, she could make out the Riverlands, a delta of converging river systems on the 'Western' hemisphere of the Wellspring.

"Marisol, Bard of the Riverlands," she whispered to herself as the haze cleared and the features on the surface became visible. "Marisol, Minstrel of Riverlands. Marisol, THE Marisol."

The delta loomed larger and larger until the Pacific's pencil dot of a shadow was cast onto the greenery below, slowly growing larger until Marisol could make out the shape of the ship in its shadow again. The ship came to a stop.

Marisol gave one last strum to her guitar and stood to leave. She was buzzing with excitement. A new life, new music.

She left to greet the waking sleepers with a song.

[marvelsmostwanted]

There are people – some in my own Party – who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything he wants, he’ll make an exception and spare you some of the harm. I’ll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say — almost none of those people have the experience with this President that I do. I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most — public praise on the Sunday news shows — in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic. We made a deal. And it turns out his promises were as broken as the BIPAP machines he sent us instead of ventilators. Going along to get along does not work – just ask the Trump-fearing red state Governors who are dealing with the same cuts that we are. I won’t be fooled twice.

I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.

As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next.

All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor .... according to the best of my ability.

My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.

Sources:

• NBC Chicago & J.B. Pritzker, Democratic governor of Illinois, State of the State address 2025: Watch speech here | Full text

• Betches News on Instagram (screencaps)

[aidenwaites]

I think in the same way there's a 90/10 rule with horror and comedy (horror works best when it's 90% horror and 10% comedy and vice versa) there's a 90/10 rule for some relationships in fiction that's like. Wholesome and fucked up. A good friendship is at its most compelling when it's also 10% a bit fucked up. Fucked up relationship is at its most compelling when there's at least 10% of something actually sweet and substantive within. Do you get me

[noodles-and-tea]

Our hextech dream….

[michameinmicha]

Stumbled upon this random ship (in a fandom im not active in myself) that has like 150 works on ao3 which are all from just two people gifting each other fics about this pairing back and forth and theyve been doing it for 3 years... i think thats true love probably

[carsonjonesfiance]

“This thing is legally dubious and therefore technically unenforceable.” Is not a “useless liberal gotcha” it’s how legalism works in this country. Tying up stupidly worded EOs in court is the quickest way to keep them from being implemented. It is the definition of “doing something.” But it doesn’t usually involve much tweeting so of course a certain type of leftist feels obligated to mock it.

[lotrmusical]

never let anyone tell you that trawling through mediocre victorian poetry isn't worth it. we just happened upon an absolute BANGER of a worm poem. go read it or else 🪱🪱🪱

[hamletthedane]

The movie Wicked is proof that any source material can be vastly improved by simply making the intense female friendship much gayer + the mutual male love interest both wildly bisexual and lowkey down to just be their third

[glitter-stained]

Random goon: Hey boss, were you the one to pick that name as an alias? And why this one?

Red Hood : I used to have another name, before... A long time ago. But that person is dead now. I get to choose for myself now, they can't take that from me. I won't let them.

Goon: Huh.

***

Random Goon: Say boss, why do you never take off your shirt in front of us?

Red Hood: Well uh, I actually have that really fucked scar on my chest and I'm not comfortable with...

Random Goon: Don't worry boss, we get it, you don't have to explain yourself to us.

***

Red Hood, high on some toxin: God, I wish my family...

Random Goon (on boss-sitting duty): why not try reaching out to them?

Red Hood: They would never accept me as I am now... They wouldn't agree with my so-called "life choices". Besides, they don't miss me, they miss the person they think I used to be... I wasn't even a man when I last saw them.

Random Goon: Damn boss, that sucks.

***

And then the goons throw the Red Hood a party on trans visibility day and Jason is so confused he straight up cries.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

License to Kitty.

[sadmages]

Having ocs is fucked up they make you wake up and think stuff like what if i learn to code in renpy and make this into a visual novel. Who said that

[itseghost]

"Unbidden, an image of Jayce smiling in bed earlier this morning comes to mind. Viktor's hand on his cheek. His slightly chapped lips. His bedhead. Stubble. His smile lines. The shape of his jaw."

___

one of my favorite little scenes from coming home (but not to you) by @lesbianherald :) haven't done comics in so so long but really wanted to give it a shot lol

[unashamedly-enthusiastic]

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a banger

VeryVeryVinny

[pollen]

you should really get comfortable believing in love and magic and whimsy or you’ll continue to live a half-life for the rest of the time you have on earth