#about how the goddamn whole of humanity is fucked

[mooifyourecows]

my mood has plummeted the past few days because of various anxiety reasons and so ive once again uninstalled twitter on my phone and i can already feel things getting Infinitely Better™️

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

[messengerhermes]

Look, I've spent my entire adult life advocating for voting as harm reduction, that candidates will never be perfect and most democrats are really just centrists who we have to scream at to get them to do damn near anything, but that's still preferable to the outright violence of the republican party. I get the point of voting as not the only step but the first step. But. But. But is in the middle of a genocide really the time to be hollering in people's faces about how they cannot vote third party in this coming presidential election? About how they *have* to vote for Biden, because at least he's not Trump? There is a time and place for the discussion about avoiding putting a dictator in the Whitehouse when we have a broken two party system where the electoral college does not adequately represent the will of the people. I would politely argue that time and place is *not* in the middle of the sitting president endlessly doubling down on supporting an active genocide. People have the right to be furious with the democratic party. People have the right to not trust the democratic party, or agree about them being "the better of two evils." The Clinton administration escalated the War on Drugs, gave us the deeply anti-Black "super predator" concept, and are the origins of today's ICE and the deterrence strategy that has led thousands of migrants to die in the desert. The Obama administration broke records when it came to drone strikes over Syria and when it came to deportations. Continuously using the threat of the Republican party as a stick to pressure folks into voting Democrat grows less and less effective every time the Democratic party makes concessions that move it farther center. Which they have been doing since the Reagan administration as a strategy to capture centrists and maintain power. The Biden administration has done good on a number of policy fronts. But it's also caved to pressure to end the public health emergency, ended eviction moratoriums and been slow on a number of fronts to address people's rising unrest at the soaring costs of inflation. Our current Congress has been a shitshow rife with in-fighting that has stalled out key policies, and yes, has seen Democrats make concessions to Republican extremists in ways that weaken bills that could have gone farther in providing relief and boosting our failing infrastructure. Then we hit October, and the US federal government throws its weight behind a genocide, ignoring the swelling outcry and condemnation from its citizens. The US government is continuing to fund Israel's genocide of Palestine and federal staffers are having to walk out on the goddamn job to get their bosses to acknowledge the calls coming through. Biden has been caught multiple times spreading misinformation regarding the genocide in Palestine. Representative Rashida Tlaib, the one Palestinian American in Congress, has been censured for daring to speak up on behalf of her constituents and condemn this violence. Funders of the democratic party are angling to force out Progressive members of the party like Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, Ilhan Omar, and others in the upcoming elections. Hollering at people to "Vote Blue no matter who" right now is profoundly callous and ill timed. It is also a remarkably ineffective strategy to try and ensure we don't have a red wave in the coming election. This is not a matter of "holding your nose and voting" this time. There is a 12,000 person body count in the last month. Americans are watching live on Twitter as Palestinians are slaughtered with our tax dollars. We are witnessing a Democratically controlled government still choose to fund imperialism over feeding, clothing, and housing its citizens. I beg you to consider how callous you sound throwing a fit about folks who no longer see supporting the democratic party as a valid strategy to fight Republican conservatism as we witness three genocides at once.

[lostandbackagain]

I'm trying so hard to get a grasp on the theme of consumption/cannibalism in the broken earth but I haven't changed my mind's oil in a sec and my brain's about to seize up

[gibbearish]

am finally back home and can say without a doubt that i am just fundamentally not built for long distance travel however the train was much nicer than planes

[momo-de-avis]

It is extremely weird to have learnt french at school and then use duolingo to pick up on this language that I literally learnt before and everything is completely different, here. I don't know who to blame, here. It's my memory that's betraying me, or my french teacher who was a fucking liar and sucked at her job

[bungee-gum-b1tch]

counting down the minutes until the 3.3 livestream just praying that hoyoverse doesn’t completely fuck up scara’s character

[2boldlyqueer]

Ignore this if you don't care about my life but I'm gonna lose it on my fucking grandmother one of these days I swear to God. We live together because we're both disabled and can't survive alone but she's such a fucking asshole I'd rather take my chances on the goddamn fucking street sometimes

[gongedtornado]

“employees are so lazy! people in america don’t want to work anymore!” actually we work our ass off, but your complaining and our unlivable wages make it insufferable.

[one-winged-dreams]

Wakes up in the middle of the night absolutely fucked up on three different sleep aids to rant about how people can not fucking put together the Final Fantasy VII + spinoffs lore and EVEN STILL try to vomit these useless opinions and what x character is the WORST and why y character is blah blah blah

ENOOOOOUGH

putting these supersoldiers on top of the fridge until y'all learn what a narrative is

[phantomrose96]

Season 3 Elias is so goddamn fucking funny to me I forgot what a rollercoaster he was during my first listen.

Like the s2 finale has Jurgen Leitner giving Jon the whole "monsters are real speech" and Jon's like "I need a cigarette. NO ONE get brutal pipe murdered while I'm gone" and Jurgen fails step 1 because Elias walks in and grabs Jon's point-and-click-adventure pipe he'd been carrying around and Brutal Pipe Murders. Which, of course, Jon walks back in on and is prime suspect #1 due to literally every single feature trait and word he's said in the entirety of s2.

So naturally s3 starts with Jon on the lam and Officer Tonner like "I'm gonna arrest him for brutal pipe murder" and I'M like "Shit. I hate this. Elias is going to SO easily pin it on Jon and get away with it."

EXCEPT Elias walks in and is like "hello Ms. Officer no Jon Archivist did not kill that man, also I won't tell you anything else, also this is what you sound like" while reciting all her childhood trauma and all her illegal activity that will get HER sent to jail for brutal murder of the non-pipe variety and now I'm like "....huh." He's also like "Jon didn't do it but you can kill him if you want maybe :)" Elias your alibi????

And then we come BACK with Jon storming Elias's office with his two lesbian bodyguards as back up and he's like "I'm gonna use my powers to make you confess to pipe murder!" At which point Elias is like "It doesn't work on me. But I'm having fun so Martin go get everyone I need to tell you all how I committed pipe murder." and Martin does and Elias is like "Yes I pipe murdered. I also killed Gertrude. I love murder. You will not be compensated extra for this time. Get back to work." And they... DO... just go back to work. Because work is haunted. One of the lesbian police officers works here now, too. This just happened. "Also living dolls from Russia are about to Apocalypse the world, Jon go stop it," Elias says, while also saying "no I'm not gonna tell you how to stop it."

Okay???? Mr. Elias man??? And you're like "maybe he's a ruthless tactician? Maybe he's brutal but it's all in the interest of stopping the doll apocalypse??? He wants to save the earth???" Except THAT'S not even true it's actually more like he's trying to get the Russian dolls kicked out of line at Disney World so HE gets to meet Mickey Mouse first by which I mean, start his OWN Apocalypse, because if the dolls do it first well then what's the point of apocalypsing a planet that's become someone else's sloppy seconds.

Anyway Elias's master strategy here is to bring the human equivalent of a drowned cat to the gun fight and just sit back and watch Jon fall down every set of stairs he finds while Elias goes "This is good. This will work." His name isn't even fucking Elias.

[lastoneout]

As someone who struggles with disordered eating thoughts a lot I will forever appreciate Dungeon Meshi for giving me the scene where Laios kicks Toshiro's ass before saying outloud that the reason he won is because he's been eating(and resting) and Toshiro hasn't.

In a world that is so fatphobic it absolutely demonizes needing to eat to the point we have whole entire adult humans who think being hungry is a sign you're addicted to food it means everything to me to have a show say "cooking and eating is not only fun, rewarding, and a way to bond and share/preserve our cultures, it is a necessary part of life that makes your body stronger, you cannot save yourself or others if you're starving, you gain nothing from denying yourself food" like...Dunmeshi is such a breath of fresh air. No fat jokes, no "oh tee hee I gotta watch my weight" comments, no fucking moralizing any type of food as bad or unhealthy, fatty meats and fried foods and carbs being shown as just as nutritious and valuable and necessary as vegetables and salads, the show even having a part talking about how eating isn't just about being full and you can still enjoy food even if you aren't doing it for nutrition or to sate hunger, and Laios literally proving that there is nothing noble in starvation and denial of our base needs....goddamn. I love this story so fucking much.

[sylvies-chen]

I think there’s something so deeply and intimately and morbidly true about The Last of Us’s primary thesis which is that humanity’s fatal flaw, in that very Shakespearian way, is that we are destined to care too much about one another so much so that we discard the collective entirely. like we have such a capacity to love the human race and humanity as a whole, to grow our communities and govern cities how we know best and foster such connection with the masses which we are part of, but it’s overtaken by our capacity to love even just a single other person. like one human can come into your life that creates such an intrinsic and passionate love in you— or maybe two people or a family’s worth or any small number— and you suddenly would burn entire villages down just to keep them safe.

joel doesn’t blink twice murdering to find ellie. he doesn’t look back when he decides to do what he does at the hospital later on. he has no remorse about any of it it, because this one girl has grown to mean more to him than any possible greater good could ever mean. and it’s reciprocal. ellie would— and does— do anything she can to help him, save him, protect him, and, eventually, to avenge him. because that’s what you do when you love someone. not when you love people. when you love someone.

and it’s selfish, in a way??? because we love these people and would do so much for them because they mean more to us than other strangers do. it’s exactly like an iteration of the trolley problem, actually. one track has your daughter on it and one track has fifty people. don’t even try telling me you wouldn’t go onto track B if it meant saving your daughter and her puppy dog eyes from the whimpering and pain and fear. The Last of Us says yes, you would. I would. we all would. and like yeah that is our greatest weakness, that we have such a unique ability to love a handful of people so deeply that our compassion towards community and strangers and the bigger collective starts to slip from view. but goddamn what a fucking great fatal flaw it is to have. we are all going to die and the world will burn because we loved another person too much.

[somerandomdudelmao]

Just, man. Whenever I think about Holly I just get sad. Marmor have destroyed Holly’s planet. Kidnapped and mutilated their sister. Holly then also got captured trying to save her, just to find out she’s beyond saving while at the same time somehow not even granted the peace of death.

Holly gets experimented on mercilessly and every honest explanation they can give about their powers is met with contempt because “God did it” isn’t a good enough answer. The kid they helped raise abuses Holly physically and mentally just because they can. Holly was presumably also forced to help the Marmor hunt their own people. Holly can’t even change back to normal because the Marmor took that from them along with every single other form familiar to them! Going from a whole animal kingdom whittled down to an alien creature they can’t even name and a fucking Marmor.

Holly didn’t even have fucking eyes for god knows how long before Ward shows up! The first other being Holly’s ever met that doesn’t want to hurt them and he’s scared of them. And even then, after aaaall of the horrible shit Holly’s been through, they see Ward breaking down and asks “How do humans help?”. And fuck man. Holly is still kind somehow. Trying desperately to connect and to help because that’s what you’re supposed to do, right?

And Ward tells him to stay away. So Holly does. Things actually start looking up actually. Oscar has somehow charmed Ecliptica of all people, and Holly gets to move into a room that’s slightly less of a prison. And Holly isn’t totally isolated anymore! Are they?

Even if they’re nice to Holly, Ward and Oscar really don’t seem to understand Holly’s culture. And every time Holly learns something about humanity they get a little more horrified. Sure, Oscar thinks Holly’s gift is cool, but didn’t Ecliptica say the same thing to Iris?

I’m sure more horrors await them, but I’m glad Holly at least has Oscar and Ward around now. Even if they also count as some of the “Horrors” Holly has to come to terms with.

Shit man, Holly deserves a goddamn hug

You are. So so right.

Holly's whole life is a sandwich of horrors

[teal-sharky]

The literally only impressive thing about SpaceX Starship test is that it shows how incredibly dumb the audience is at this point.

People keep comparing Starship to SaturnV, because tentatively, if it ever became a space worthy vessel and orbital delivery vehicle (it's not); it'd be the largest and most powerful one in history, with SaturnV its only near peer (sorry, N-1, you really didn't qualify).

And the first "integration test vehicle" (read: the actually whole complete thing, that's literally the point of that kind of test; it's meant to be all the pieces, already tested and proven on their own, finally assembled into the final thing to make sure everything plays nice when together)

So lets see how did Saturn family development go in comparison? How many "integration test vehicles" did the Saturn project obliterate in the process?

ZERO. They blew up ZERO Saturn first stages, ZERO Saturn second stages, and ZERO Saturn payloads.

It's not fucking normal to blow up rockets this size and complexity, because they're expensive and dangerous! You build SMALLER, SIMPLER prototypes, you test those, you do all the "risky" tests on your separate parts of the system, and test the integration at less ambitious scales and stress levels. That's how you do rocket science. Iteratively, yes! But the iterations must make sense!

And let me stress

They got Saturn to moon and back in the SIXTIES, when simulation was in diapers (partially, literally invented within projects like the Saturn series).

SpaceX exists at a time where they can (and should) do 90% of the raw, grueling development with lot of painful failures in digital simulations, or tests where you build a small, simple thing and enhance the simulation based on what you learned there.

And the worst of it all is that another thing that Elongated Muskrat has at this disposal is all of the Saturn research. It's been DONE.

Saturn and other projects paved the worst of this goddamn slog. They did all the dirty, awful work already. They literally gave us the textbooks that you study from if you actually get a science degree (Elon does not have one).

And again, the most embarrassing thing isn't Musk and his poor, toxic, overworked circus that's SpaceX. The most embarrassing thing is the "space science enthusiast" crowd that's cheering on this launch as some sort of tentative success.

The king is fucking ass goddamn naked, and you all yes-men are an embarrassment to this doomed goddamn species. You're not supporting the effort to give Humanity a "chance at survival", you're hooting and hollering around a basementman dumpster fire that's literally immolating what's left of the scraps of natural and human resources we have left.

[laundrybiscuits]

(ETA: now edited and up on AO3)

Look. Eddie knows he can be a little uptight about these things, but. There are rules. If you become a vampire, you don’t need to go full gothic Count Von Dickhead or whatever, but you absolutely cannot just wander around in a puffy vest and light-wash jeans. 

“Why not?” says Steve. He’s leaning back in an armchair, sipping on a bloodbag like it’s a goddamn juicebox. “What, are the vampire police going to arrest me?” 

He pauses. “Wait. There aren’t vampire police, are there?”

“No,” says Eddie. “Probably not. I don’t know. But there are standards which you are refusing to uphold, Steven.”

“Thought you were all about hating conformity, Edward,” Steve says. He’s got an obnoxiously cocky little smirk, the smug undead fucker. 

Eddie grimaces. “Don’t call me that, asswipe. Don’t you feel, like—the call of the night? The siren song of life coursing through fragile human veins? A hunger for destruction that those paltry plastic bags of blood can never truly slake?”

“The bloodbags aren’t so bad,” says Steve, around the straw. “Better than protein shakes.”

“I actually hate you,” Eddie tells him. “Vampirism is wasted on you.”

Steve noisily slurps the last of the blood out of the bottom of the bag. “Come on, you can’t really picture me in some Dracula getup, can you?”

The problem, of course, is that Eddie really, really can. When Robin had read him in on the whole situation, obviously he’d been horrified and concerned—but also, a whole wing of his brain had immediately been cordoned off to work overtime imagining Steve in elaborate Dark Prince regalia, maybe leaning elegantly out of a castle window on the moors, gazing into the foggy dusk. Velvet might’ve been involved.

“...guess not,” says Eddie. It doesn’t sound incredibly convincing to his own ears, but Steve just shrugs and gets up to throw the bloodbag away. 

“There you go, man,” he says, clapping Eddie on the shoulder as he passes. “It’s the 80s. Vampires can be whatever we wanna be.”

———

It gets way too easy to forget about Steve’s condition, until Eddie ends up having to haul him out of a bar in Indy before they get banned for life.  

“Simmer down, buddy,” Eddie says, pulling him into the shadow of the van. “Let’s get those fangs packed away before any of the nice villagers wander by with torches and pitchforks.”

“I’m good,” pants Steve. “It’s all good. Don’t worry about it. It’s fine.”

Eddie lifts an unimpressed eyebrow. “Sure, that’s why your eyes are glowing red and you’re, like, fully vamped out. Which, by the way, looks extremely dumb with the whole clean-cut vibe you decided to rock tonight.”

“Fuck you, I look great,” says Steve, pushing a hand through his hair. He’s not wrong, it’s just not relevant to how he also looks extremely dumb like this, wearing a pristine henley with fangs hanging out in the parking lot for anyone to see.

“So what the hell happened in there, man? I was finally starting to get somewhere with Todd, and…” Eddie trails off in dawning realization.

“Holy shit, am I—I’m like your territory, aren’t I? Your stupid vampire brain got all screwy and decided to loop me in with Robin and the kids as part of your freaky human coven.”

“Uh,” says Steve. He looks unhappy in a shifty kind of way. “Something like that, maybe.”

“Wait, so, are Nancy and Jonathan—are you okay with them because they’re both already in the vamp pack? Is Vickie gonna have to be inaugurated before she and Robin can bone down?” Eddie perks up. “Shit, is there a ceremony? We could totally do a ceremony.” He bets he can get the kids to liberate some velour curtains from the drama club. With a few candles, they could get some serious atmosphere going.

“No, shut up, nobody’s doing a damn ceremony,” Steve groans. “Vickie’s fine.” 

“Okay,” says Eddie. “So…you gonna tell me what all that was about, then? Do I have to start running guys past you first so your vamp instincts don’t wig out? Or…hm, maybe Argyle’d be down to mess around sometime.”

Steve lets out an actual snarl with weird animal echoes, then claps a hand over his mouth.

“Sorry,” he says, muffled. The shadows around them seem darker somehow. 

“So I’m just not allowed to get laid ever again,” says Eddie slowly. “For vampire reasons.”

“Do whatever you want, man.” Steve’s still got his hand pressed tight over his mouth. 

“And it’s…just me?” Eddie peers at the tightness around Steve’s eyes; the way he’s scowling stubbornly at his feet. “Huh. Kind of…possessive, Harrington.”

“It’s—weird,” says Steve miserably, dropping his hand at last. “I know it’s fucking weird.”

“Maybe.” Eddie shrugs, biting down on the grin he can feel tugging at his mouth. “Lucky for you, I’m into that shit.”

“What?” Steve frowns. “You’re…”

“Always wanted a vampire boyfriend,” says Eddie. “Like, are you kidding? I would’ve sold my fucking soul at 15 for something like that.”

“I’m starting to feel a little objectified here,” says Steve, but he’s smiling, and he reaches out to snag Eddie’s belt loop and tug him stumbling closer. “Just in it for the fangs, huh?”

“Well, you’re kind of a shitty vampire, actually.” Eddie drapes his arms over Steve’s shoulders. “So I guess I must just be in it for you.”

Steve hesitates, searching Eddie’s face. Stray red lights are still sparking like embers in Steve’s irises. “Okay, but—you’re in it? Right?”

“Couldn’t get rid of me if you tried, Bunnicula. I’ll send the vampire police after you, just watch me,” says Eddie, and kisses him.