#and a bunch of other shit you all know what i mean

[mortalityplays]

Forgive me if I'm mistaking you for another person, but I remember you speaking at multiple points on the unsustainability of free social media services (I think especially in response to the cohost collapse?), and I'm curious on what your thoughts on bluesky are so far. I'm not an expert on the subject, but from what I've read previously it seemed like they were on track to be financially sustainable, but I don't know if the recent floods of users has thrown those projections off. Sorry if I'm mixing you up with someone else on my timeline, in that case just ignore me.

bluesky will almost certainly follow the same trajectory of monetisation => bloat => enshittification => decline as every other major platform built on venture capital and user hoarding. it's a terrible model that only works in the short term as a mirage for attracting funding and making founders look good for a year or two before they sell.

you can see the same effect in the decline of all the subscription box services that came into vogue just before covid: they feel great to use for as long as the initial injection of venture funding lasts, because the purpose of that funding at that stage is to attract users and impress the next round of funders with how pleasant/intuitive/efficient/ethical/good value the service is. that's the stage where they're handing out freebies and bowling over influencers, and every ingredient in the box is fresh and high quality and locally sourced. wow what a good deal, what a great system!!! why hasn't anyone done this before? the answer is because it's unsustainable by design. they rack up good reviews, sign on a billion new users, attract new funding from a bunch of much more credulous investors, and then gut all of the expensive parts. portions get smaller, ingredients get worse, packaging gets flimsier, prices go up, freebies turn into "5% off your first 9 boxes when you invite 3 friends", and customer service vanishes.

with social media (and platforms like discord) the logic is the same, it's just a little less glaringly obvious to the end user because they're not coming home to leaking packages of rancid chicken on the doorstep. bluesky has an advantage over tiny operations like cohost because it was founded by a billionaire making a point for the sake of his own image. it got a really significant chunk of startup funding, and the owner had existing connections and rep in the space to attract more. That's why it has survived the goldrush period, why it still feels good to use, and why users who have been burned so many times before are finally accepting it as a stable, reliable option. It's still in its venture capital honeymoon phase where the only thing worth spending money on is making the service attractive to users.

What I expect we will see next, with another mass influx of users from twitter and new funding from a rogue's gallery of tech venture sickos led by Blockchain Capital is a strong ramp up into monetising that userbase. They've already been pretty forthright about how they plan to do this, and I think it's a solid roadmap of how Bluesky will bloat and decay over the next few years:

this is a huge lol. don't worry, we're not going to hyperfinancialize the social experience through NFTs. the thing even crypto freaks started feigning amnesia about a year ago. real "our health conscious sodas are 100% arsenic free" messaging here. They know perfectly well that rubes users are suspicious of their typical 5 dimensional tech finance chess games and are patting our hands about last week's bogeymen so nobody worries too hard about whatever 'decentralised developer ecosystem' just happens to be helmed by a bunch of crypto guys. this definitely means something good and based and not a google-like single sign on user data harvesting operation.

This is the same shit that's currently rotting the floorboards of discord. Bluntly, there is no way to run a platform on this scale without gating functionality behind paid services. Discord has been squeezing free-tier file uploads and call quality etc. down steadily and cranking up subscription costs over the last year or two, throwing in chaff like animated avatar frames to try and justify the user cost. They're also doing the same misdirection thing again here, pointing to Thing We All Hate to deflect from thing we might not like very much when they do it. Booo elon booo we all hate elon!!! wait how do we feel about subscription models again,

watch out for this to kill porn on bsky like it has killed porn on every other social platform 👍 boooo we hate elon boooo stupid idiot and his 'everything app' booooo wait why do you need my tax information, what's that about mastercard,

Look, we are all aware social media is a money pit. Let's not forget dorsey was looking to sell twitter in the first place, long before elon's very public plunge into total online derangement. Subscription services are not going to plug the hole, so we are gradually going to see more and more spaghetti thrown at the wall while early funders shuffle cards and do their pyramid scheme bit bringing in stupider and stupider investments. this is the window in which bluesky will be temporarily worth using for us, for the idiot public, the poorly rendered crowd jpegs in the background of their venture capital MOBA. it's in their interests to slow and pad the decline as much as possible, because that is how they get maximally paid.

Given the scale of the money involved, and dorsey's weird ego investment, I think bluesky will probably manage a controlled drift for a good few years before it gets really bloated and painful. and by then we will all be so used to the *checks notes* decentralised developer ecosystem that we'll just be posting through it, watching another generation of columnists call another collapsing platform 'their beloved hellsite' and passing around that meme about not getting out of our chairs no sir until idk we all get on a fediverse neurolink alternative to stick it to the elongated muskrat and our brains pop peacefully in our sleep. which I guess is the closest thing to viability any social media platform can achieve.

anyway diogenes the cynic is also on bluesky

[pretty-blkgirl]

Soul’s Desire [Ch. 33]

- Masterlist -

~~~~|~~~~

“Are you sure you didn’t hit your head when you fell?”

“We can go back to the hospital if you need to”

“I swear to God I’ll get Eunji fired, she went too fucking far”

“Want some more food?”

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

“You sure you’re not concussed?”

“Security stopped me from going onstage when I saw you fall”

“You have a bruise on your arm”

Chan was nice enough to allow you some much-needed silence on the car ride to Han and Lee Know’s dorm, but as soon as you two stepped foot in the door, the other seven of your soulmates swarmed you.

Soon, eight worried men were surrounding you, offering food, questioning you, or ranting about how they were going to avenge you.

Han knew half the reason you were upset was because of the backlash you were getting, so that was the main topic after the boys ensured you were full and well-hydrated.

“This is so fucking frustrating” Felix, the usual peacemaker, seethed. You noticed he and Chan spoke English when they were pissed. Their accents were heavier than usual as they ranted to one another, offering solutions to your problems.

“Baby we’ll take care of this, don’t even worry about it” I.N sighed, giving you a look of sympathy

“How so? It’s not like you guys can tell people to stop talking shit about me”

“I can” Hyunjin shrugged, “And I will. Fuck my idol image, I’ll do whatever it takes to defend you”

You smile, “I appreciate that baby, but that’ll do more harm than good”

“A dating rumor will start. Dispatch will eat that shit right up” Seungmin noted, “Then she’ll get more hate. Then the company is involved, internal investigations, hiatuses maybe”

Hyunjin rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, his irritation apparent but he nodded, agreeing that speaking out may not be the best solution.

“All we can do is let this shit blow over. I mean, people are talking shit but I saw a bunch of Charms defending me”

“I’ve seen some Stays defending you too” Han pointed out, “Actually, anyone with sense is defending you”

“There shouldn’t be a need to defend her in the first place. People are mad because she had a medical emergency. That’s so stupid” Changbin ranted

“People are stupid” Chan sighed, frustration clear in his voice, “What do you wanna do y/nnie? How do you want to handle this?”

Eight pairs of eyes stared at you as you thought about the question. Really, what could you do?

“It can’t be helped” You conclude, “This is just… one of the downsides of being an idol. It sucks but I just gotta deal with it.”

“I’m so sorry baby” Felix frowns, tears welling up in his eyes. You dubbed Felix the “feeler” in the group. Whenever you felt like crying but you didn’t want to let those tears out, he’d do it for you. Same for if you wanted to laugh, or scream. He gave you that relief.

“I feel like we can at least get Eunji fired” Han groaned

“She said it was an accident, plus I can’t blame her entirely. I hadn’t eaten anything the entire day, part of it was my fault too”

“It wasn’t a damn accident” Changbin huffed, “And don’t blame yourself for anything. However, I’m gonna make it my mission to make sure you’re eating and drinking like you’re supposed to”

You nod, knowing when Changbin is serious about something, nothing is going to stop him from doing it.

“You know what? How about we all turn our phones off and just spend time together? No outside distractions, and especially no social media” Hyunjin suggested

Everyone agreed, but you made sure to send a message to your members and manager, letting them know your whereabouts.

I.N. ran to the kitchen and came back with a large plastic bowl. It had little cartoon cats on it, so you knew who it belonged to.

“Everyone put their phones in the bowl. We’re having a soulmate bonding night”

“You sound like Felix” Minho rolls his eyes but is the first to hand over his phone. The rest of you follow suit, with Hyunjin being the last one to do so.

“Let’s pop some popcorn and watch a movie” You suggest, “I’ll pick the movie”

“Nuh uh y/nnie” I.N. protests, “You have a habit of picking sad movies. We aren’t crying tonight”

“Let’s watch a scary movie,” Seungmin says

“Hell no” Chan and Felix seem to say at the same time

“Romance then” Hyunjin smiles

It’s you who sighs this time, “Hyunjin, please. You know I adore you, but nobody wants to see Titanic….again”

“I say we watch an Action Movie,” Changbin says excitedly, “Jurassic Park?”

“We watched that last time” Han whines

“Let’s just do a comedy” Minho grunts, grabbing the remote and picking a random streaming service

You all settle on a random movie you enjoy and the boys have never seen it.

The spacious living room was filled with laughter, sounds of sneaky kisses, and the crunching of popcorn as your movie marathon went on.

At some point, the movies stopped, and you all had sleepy conversations that lasted way longer than they should have.

Before you knew it though, you were curled up in Minho’s bed, wearing only a shirt you stole from his drawer.

You slept in a starfish position, leaving Minho to sneak off to Han’s room to get a chance at a comfortable night’s sleep.

The rest of the boys went to their respective dorms, all giving you a kiss goodnight before leaving.

You dreamt of sunny days and starry nights, lying on the grass with eight familiar faces huddled around you.

It was the best sleep you had gotten in years.

~~~~|~~~~

Taglist: @chuuyaobsessed @h0rnyp0t @prttyxbby @yukichan67 @hanniemylovelyquokka @xxeiraxx @loveforlee444 @whatdoyouwanttocallmefor @cunninglibrarian @holly-here @galaxy4489 @hyunmikim @yougottobekittenme @hyeon-yi @katsukis1wife @multi-fandom-nightmare @staybabblingbaby @kozumesphone @fuck-you-im-gae @thatonedarkskinnedsiren @just-a-blackthorn-cookie @champagneconfetti @juju-227592 @borahae-reads @reallychaoticwoo

[theculturedmarxist]

>Would a party that declares independence from the culture war even be possible?

I think so. We have to remember that the "culture war" is itself just a proxy for the class war being waged against working people.

For example, in my state a few years ago there was a bunch of bullshit over the "bathroom bill." Dem-controlled Charlotte passed a bill saying that people can use the bathroom of their presented gender, and then Rep-controlled Raleigh countermanded it with a bill of their own saying the opposite. There was a lot of gnashing of teeth over the assault on trans rights and so on, but all of this was in service of covering up what the bill was really about. The second half of the bill not dealing with bathrooms dealt with preventing municipalities from setting minimum wages, safety requirements, and other such things for contract workers.

Another example is this recent shit out of Florida and other places attacking what books school libraries are allowed to have on their shelves, generally having to do with LGBTQ&c content. It's really such nonsense, because how many children are actually being "exposed to" that kind of thing from their school libraries to begin with? But recently I saw an article that tallied up the amount schools have spent having to fight these regulations or the evangelical groups suing them into the billions of dollars. Once again the trans issue is just a cover for reactionaries to attack working people, this time by draining public schools of resources and covering them in acrimony.

Remember also that this "culture war" is happening in a more or less vacuum of working class material interests. Both parties use it as a scapegoat to prevent having to offer working people anything. In either case, if a voter isn't offered something positive to vote for, they'll at least vote against something negative. The average person probably doesn't know a trans person or deal with them in such a substantial way to really have to think about them at all, but when used as a means to threaten their child, either in the sense of "you don't want some DEMOCRAT to trans your beautiful girl into an ugly MAN do you?" or "you don't want some REPUBLICAN to KILL your beautiful trans child do you?" then it becomes a serious issue.

For the most part I really don't think the average person gives much of a shit. Returning to my state's circumstances, right now much of the Western portion is still devastated by hurricane Helene. If a trans person showed up on the remains of someone's doorstep, home destroyed, no power, no heat, no water, no food, with clothes and food and water for them and their children, do you think they're going to turn their nose up? Maybe a few, but I think most people would kiss the feet of the person that kept their children from starving.

And I think that's what we see pretty regularly—people are more concerned with having their material needs met over the ideological source of having those needs met. The average American voter isn't represented by either party because neither one materially meets any of their needs and they have no interest in trying to. In fact, I think if you described the ideal socialist program to the average American they would unequivocally support it.

To provide one such example, when the Amazon Union had its first organizational success after several failures, the union rep was interviewed and talked about what made this time succeed after all the other times failed. Basically he said that the union DID for the workers in the lead up to the vote, providing them with food and weed in addition to their ideological aspirations.

Contrast to the interview with the worker from (iirc) a failed unionization attempt at an auto plant in Kentucky. Ideologically she backed the union 100%. She wanted the union, thought it would be a tremendous help to herself and the other workers there, yet she voted against it. Essentially what she said was "I wanted the union, but I have cancer and the employer threatened to cut our healthcare if we unionized, and that would kill me."

And that's the major stumbling block for the socialist movement in the US right now is that it lacks the ability to materially provide what it ideologically aspires towards. It isn't a defect in theory or lack of zeal, it's just materially unable to. So in spite of a lot of theoretical support for socialism and its ideals, that support hasn't translated into success for the movement, in large part because even when socialists are successful at the polls, the political system as a whole is designed to make translating that success into the sort of material changes which would threaten to unseat the bourgeois parties.

One such example is that the socialists actually did win in Nevada a few years ago. Socialists within the Democratic Party managed to unseat the bourgeois party representatives, and the party responded by basically robbing and starving them of resources, and all the experienced bureaucrats the party's representatives rely on to function all quit. The result was that last year all the elected socialists got unseated in turn by Democrat regulars because they weren't able to parlay their electoral success into actual material gains.

In my opinion the threat of actual material improvements for the working class and what that would entail is what freaked the Democrats out so badly about Bernie Sanders. As much as they squealed and cried about Trump, Sanders actually terrified them. It wasn't his label as a socialist, because to Americans the "Socialist" label is meaningless, just a stand in for whatever scary Bad Thing. What horrified them was a socialist politician getting within spitting distance of having the power to actually provide people with material improvements to their lives. The Democrats aren't afraid to promise or "fight for" a $15 minimum wage or "access to health care," but they are deeply terrified of someone actually providing it.

And I think that is shown both historically with groups like the Black Panthers and the violent reaction generated by their childhood lunch programs, but more recently with the success of the Amazon Union.

The real impediment to socialist political success is that political success itself is insufficient to materialize concrete gains for the people that vote for them, and getting bogged down in "culture war" superficialities exacerbates that. That isn't to say that trans people or their needs should be abandoned, but rather that they need to be a) put in the proper context and b) can't be combated on bourgeois terms.

In 2020 and 2024 both, the Democrats offered trans people nothing except the threadbare hope that by voting for them, they'd be spared the worst predations of the Republicans. The proper socialist position would be that merely being spared from harm isn't enough. Trans people suffer particularly from poverty for example, so merely keeping their circumstances from worsening is insufficient, but that they needs must be improved.

In the current calculus of the American political system, this is theoretically appealing to the average voter. As long as helping trans people doesn't come at their own expense, Americans would generally support such a thing. The problem is whether explicitly known or not, voting for a socialist proposing such a thing would be a losing proposition even if they won. I frequently hear people that they intellectually support third party candidates for example, but "they can't win." Even if a socialist were able to win election to legislature, they would be hamstrung by the fact that they're an enemy of "both sides" with a material interest in seeing them ejected in short order. There are some exceptions like Sawant or Sanders, but that's the general rule.

What I think this means is that at this stage there's an overemphasis on winning political power and trying to beat the bourgeois parties at their own game. I think the social and political organization of the working class is too immature for that at this stage. Rather we must develop the sort of ecosystem of material benefit and support which solves people's problems outside of a hostile electoral system. This doesn't mean electoral politics should be abandoned completely, but rather than winning elections as an end in itself must be de-emphasized.

Returning to the problem of trans poverty for example. I think what would enhance a socialist party's success would be starting a program of partnership with amenable unions to secure trans people positions within them and their industries. This would solve multiple problems at once by providing this theoretical union with members that have incentives to participate and support it, if only out of their own self interest. They'd be indebted to the party for the assistance and if not ideologically converted at least incentivized to support the party in turn. Ideally this would also help the union and the party foster a mutually supportive relationship which would further the goals of both.

The point being, as long as socialist orgs are focused primarily on political contests they can't win, the development of broader working class organization is going to remain retarded. All the small, disparate working class elements existing in the US have to start developing networks of mutual aid and coordination, pooling their resources to in order to provide actual material support to workers outside of whatever crumbs they're able to wrest from the bourgeois state, because otherwise we're resigning ourselves to a Sisyphean political struggle we're unlikely to win.

[strnilolover]

Ditsy!reader in my eyes is definitely a pinkie pie girl(like you know what I mean?I don't know what ditsy means😔) like fun, colorful, and always has a cheeky grin on her face!!

Meanwhile player!Chris is definitely the opposite. He's cold, hardy, but ofc has a somewhat soft side for reader.

Player!Chris definitely has a couple tattoos, Ditsy!Reader loves to color his tattoos with her markers

Ditsy! Reader definitely has colorful tattoos

I also think ditsy! Reader definitely has some trauma 😭

This would be chris' tattoos

They also deff have a matching tattoo but they look totally different

Ty for reading 🙂‍↕️(I hope this is what ditsy me and I don't want to make a fool out of myself 😩😭)

Ditsy pretty much means silly or scatterbrained!!

so i could definitely see ditsy!reader being a pinky pie girl! but she’s only that way around people who are close to her (one of those being chris) and she’s more like fluttershy around those she isn’t close to. chris definitely is more on the hard side, considering he keeps himself at arms length with everyone. he doesn’t give into people’s bullshit, and when girls are all over him (before him and ditsy!reader get together) he’ll give them the attention but doesn’t ever make it for more than a day. chris also very much so has a soft spot for ditsy!reader, she’s really the only one who can pry shit out of him and make him show some type of feeling other than resting bitch face 😭

I agree about everything for the tattoos! though ditsy!reader wouldn’t have a whole bunch (she’s not the biggest fan of needles, but loves the way tattoos look)

ditsy!reader definitely has some trauma. because of her smarts, her family always ALWAYS pushed her to be perfect and if she didn’t meet their standards, then things would get rough. and she was often over looked by her family, considering they only cared about her academics and not how she actually felt or any of her interests (there might be some bigger stuff but like i’m not sure yet)

[laugtherhyena]

3:23AM, time to post Hatamori fankid and retreat back into my hiding hole

[lilyharvord]

Hi! Long time fan here. Since COVID era actually. 😅 I was looking back at your posts and I noticed that Project Nightshade was never published or snippeted.

I wondering if you’re going to publish it or if you’re willing to post what would have happened. No pressure, just wondering. Hope everything is going well. Also wondering how your novel went? Is it available to purchase?

Here's some snippets from Project Nightshade (: There not much but it's honest work. (:

The blood drained for Mare’s face, and for a moment, her legs almost gave out. If she was being called by Evangeline this early in the morning with a summons from the Premier, then it was serious. Serious enough that it could be Lakelands pushing the line like they feared they would do for the past week, or it could be Piedmont had decided they actually did want to question the State’s sovereignty and the States’ alliance with Montfort. Her heart pounded a little faster at the fact that this could be a military summons, and that was far more likely if she and Cal were both being summoned. She would take the Lakelands any day over Piedmont. With the slow teetering of their country into chaos thanks to Farley’s constant pressure with the Guard, they were running deep into their Treasury. They wouldn’t be able to afford a full scale assault like Piedmont that could drag on for another year or two, or three. 

Mare shuddered at the thought. Deep in her mind’s eye, she saw her daughter’s face aging in those years. She could almost feel the sickening sink of her stomach that would cut through her when she returned from that fight and saw her daughter waiting for her patiently on the tarmac, those years haunting her eyes.

If it were that, Evangeline would have lead with it though. Forcing a blanket of calm so she didn’t scare Coriane, Mare pursed her lips at her own quick swing toward fear. 

“Radis is on his way out the door. He is leaving office today, and Carmen is being sworn in this afternoon.” Mare grumbled, finally crouching down to help Coriane balance the glass while she drank. “He doesn’t give me orders anymore.” She strokes her daughters hair for extra measure, watching her throat bob as she drank deeply. It soothed any of few ruffled feathers she still had. She wasn’t going anywhere, Coriane was still young. She wasn’t missing her daughter’s life. It felt like a battle to admit that, almost a half lie. 

You and I are good liars. 

She shuddered at the memory of that voice. It had been a long time since Maven had whispered in her ear, but sometimes, she still heard him, felt his fingers brushing her hair off her cheek or clenching her fingers like she was a life line and could pull him back from the edge. It had been so long since she’d heard his voice though, so long since she had been stressed enough to let his ghost in through the gaps in her armor—

----------

“We are not alone anymore.” He finally said, and the council chamber exploded in surprised and confused murmurs. Mare leaned forward to glance at Evangeline at the tail of Radis words. Her words from earlier floated through the haze: it’s impossible for such a thing. 

Julian stood, his skin pale as he flushed with either anger at being excluded from this development or some other emotion. “We have no evidence that there is anyone beyond our continent that survived the devastation. As far as we are concerned the sea swallowed whatever might be left.” 

Radis dipped his head in understanding, his eyes flashing in the light as he replied. “We were wrong. A radio transmission was intercepted this morning proving everything we once knew false.” 

In the resulting silence, Mare heard the faint rumble of far off thunder. A storm was about to hit Ascendant. She could feel the lightning taking shape in those clouds, felt the change in the air the same way she did when she climbed up Storm Peak for training. It was still miles away, but she clenched her hands into fists to avoid the sparks that wanted to take shape between her fingers. Cal’s hands tightened on her shoulders in response, and she knew the hairs on his arms were standing on end as she channeled that energy through her like a glorified lightning rod. 

Radis turned and nodded to a young man no one had noticed lurking in the shadows of the doorway. All eyes turned to him, and he straightened to his full, dimunitive height before stepping forward with a box. A recording device, Mare realized, her lips drawing into a tight frown. 

Holding it out to Radis, he dipped his head as the Premier pressed one thin, pale finger on the playback button. Static punched through the silence of the chamber, only to be followed by a faint buzzing and then a two tone beep. 

Cal leaned forward to hear better and the wave of heat he released washed over Mare like a hot breeze, and stirred Coriane awake. She blinked open sleepy eyes, and glanced around in confusion at her surroundings as the recording played and changed everything. 

----------

Her heart pounded in her ears but she forced her voice to remain even as she said, “And what does that mean for you?” 

“The message asked for a Calore king. I’m not a king.” Cal shrugs, but his eyes were burning and Mare knew now what that meant. 

“He wants you to go.” 

“To keep things cordial.” The words were carefully chosen, and probably not what he actually wanted to say, or what Quinn had said. “He doesn’t want to piss off a country that we know nothing about by sending a delegate that they didn’t ask for.” 

“That’s not right.” Mare insisted as she pulled away from his grip, her annoyance manifesting in the bulb above their heads whining. Cal didn’t even react to it, years with her teaching him the nuances of her ability now and that if she wanted to shatter the bulb, she would. 

He sank back to sit on the cycle, his hands falling between his knees while he turned his attention to the rain outside. “What do you want me to do? Ignore a direct order?”

“Was it a direct order?” Mare grumbled as she craned her neck and tried to find Coriane. Her daughter had been strangely quiet for too long. She couldn’t see her, and that worried her until she saw a faint flash of amber eyes in the darkness. Expelling a sigh through her nose, Mare called to the shadows, “Don’t eavesdrop Coriane.” 

Her daughter’s mass of curls proceeded her as she sheepishly poked her head out from behind the shelves. “Are you going to fight?” 

“No love, we’re not.” Cal said with a faint smile as he held his hand out in a quiet invitation of her to stop lurking in the shadows. She scurried to him with a clean rag, and he took in gratefully before saying, “We were having a conversation.” 

Coriane’s eyes sought Mare for confirmation, and she got it in the form of a terse nod. “We were talking. If mommy and daddy were fighting you would know.” She smiled faintly at the implication of her comment and crouched down to move Coriane’s wet hair out of her eyes. Cal’s hand found Mare’s shoulder and squeezed gently to get her attention.

She glanced up at him, and then followed his eyes to a figure that moved beyond the window. Mare yanked Coriane into her arms and stood so quickly, she staggered for a second. There was another door out of the garage, a failsafe Cal had built just in case. Neither of them liked to be in a place with only one entrance and exit anymore. 

The door into the garage opened slowly though, and a young solider stepped through. His eyes found them in the corner and he clicked his heels together before saluting smartly. “General Calore, Captain Barrow.” 

Cal rose slowly, wiping his hands with a frown while Mare set Coriane back on her feet. The girl clung to Mare’s leg in response and eyed the man warily like her parents. The soldiers nodded and moved aside as Radis stepped through the doorway, brushing water off his dark coat. He glanced around the space before raising a brow at the organized chaos on the shelves and the little table at the side.

“Apologizes, but I called ahead and no one answered.” 

Mare’s lips drew into a deep frown. If he’d done that, it had been while he was probably sitting outside their house, because the phone had not rung that morning. 

“What do you want Radis?” Cal’s voice was dangerous, a warning in and of itself as he edges around Mare and Coraine to set the rag down on the table. He slid something off the table then, and Mare realized belatedly that he had taken his bracelets off and left them there. 

The older man smirked at the atmosphere in the room, comfortable even in the presence of two people who very easily could remove him if they felt threatened. Tilting his head to the side, he said, “Premier Radis, General. I hold the title for another hour.” 

“That’s a second politically and you know it.” Mare replied coolly, setting a hand on Coriane’s head as she eyed the two soldiers standing outside the door with their rifles strapped across their shoulders and in their hands. They were the new models, the ones that Kilorn told her had a faster clip. As if we have any reason to make the bullets move out of that monstrosity faster, her friend had spit to remove the taste of those words before draining the last of his beer. She had agreed with him. “Did you need a small army to come talk to us?” 

“That answer depends on how you react to what I propose.” Radis stepped into the space before glancing down at Coriane as if he just noticed her. She edged further behind Mare, and glanced up at her with a creased brow that Mare smoother out with her thumb gently.

[britneyshakespeare]

i love hearing old ladies share about their vintage fashion doll collections. like doll collectors on social media skew very young bc duh it's social media but there's something extremely comforting about pre-internet era collectors sharing their knowledge and history.

[pelleas-at-castle-nox]

5e is so fun when you don't have bitches in your ear telling you it's the worst thing ever

[indigodawns]

.

[skrunksthatwunk]

kinda drives me up a wall when people go "hey i think x action in a war/combat scenario is inhumane and cruel and shitty" and someone responds with "oh but within the laws of war it's allowed or there's procedure for it etc etc". it doesn't have to be a war crime to be unforgivable man it's a shitty rulebook anyway

[exopelagic]

i said i wouldn’t do it this time but it’s 3am and mods asleep. boy

[rotisseries]

this fandom really need to remember that liking villains is perfectly valid as long as people don't go around excusing morally-wrong behaviors.

i mean I'm hesitant to say things like "make sure you're not excusing morally wrong behaviors!" because. it's just like. an annoying attitude to have, like people don't want to have to post about their favorite blorbo War Crimes Mcgee with a paragraph long "DISCLAIMER: AS A FAN OF WAR CRIMES MCGEE, I DO NOT CONDONE WAR CRIMES NOR EXCUSE HIS ACTIONS" and also that is an annoying fandom culture to have to live in. like sometimes it's fun to just be like "haha yeah it was hot and sexy and cool when that villain killed all those people"

but like. everyone has their line in the sand for what's "too far" for a fictional character right? and everyone's is different, but for me and most people absolute no goes are things that feel, too real? I guess? like. racism, homophobia, domestic abuse, etc. are things that are always too far for me to continue liking a character. it's gross and unsatisfying to watch, these are things you're pretty likely to deal with in real life based on your personal life experience, and there’s really overall no way for it to be an enjoyable thing in the story right? but just generic murder is NOT most people's line in the sand

which is why like. there's a difference to me between b1lly stans and henry creel stans. like I just find henry stans annoying because of their lack of commitment mostly. they're all like "actually I theorize that he DIDN'T murder those people" BORING. say he did and you find it hot and sexy idc. also I don't find henry that interesting so by extension I'm not interested in the fanclub. but there’s nothing that actually grosses me out about him having a fanclub, because the murder is fictional and telekinetic and inseparable from the supernatural plot like I'm never going to run into a man who's actually murdered people with his mind and I'm DEFINITELY never going to run into people who hear about real not fictional telekinetic child murder and decide he's cool and sexy and also didn't do it or whatever

but b1lly. well. b1lly is a very real type of violence. there's lots of racist abusers and there’s lots of people who defend them so I just. can't get behind it at all. you DO have a point though that it would maybe be marginally better if they'd at least ADMIT that he'd done this shit lol

so yeah this isn't to say that like. someone's favorite character and how they talk about them is NEVER a red flag, but "this is my favorite character Child Murderer Jones, he murders children and gleefully boasts about all the child murder on screen, and I love him very much and have edited him with cat ears" is fairly standard fandom behavior and not worth moralizing, imo. and sometimes this fandom gets a little puritan about fairly standard fandom behavior

[unproduciblesmackdown]

as ever like: no two things Need to be juxtaposed, much less like material vs material deathmatch Only One Can Be Good, much less am i thinking i have thee objective word on fuckall b/c who does and it's like perfectly boring & unserious whenever someone just throws out Takes that are just "i think...[xyz] is [adjective]" like okay.

but anyways thinking of how, though differing in execution in a lot of ways ofc, deh & bmc start out in a v similar place & explore a journey to self-acceptance from a despairing starting point....it feels like a lot of the hindrance in deh's exploration of its own Theme there is in like, hey. :) hand on your shoulder. it's okay b/c you'll be able to be more normal. whereas w/bmc it's that it's okay b/c you'll be able to be more abnormal

[pebblezone]

Feeling like a Yuma morii Pokémon card

[snekdood]

I mean. I do think its weird that some ppl are so eager and willing to switch their old make up out with "cruelty free" make up but then. Not consider doing that with food in any capacity. And its hard not to feel like some ppl have been convicned vegan food is cringe and that since vegans are cringe all around that everything we do and eat is also cringe. Like yall reaaaallly want to divorce animal rights from veganism and thats an impossible task. Vegans will always be part of animal welfare one way or another. Who do you think fights for cruelty free make up in the first place? Ig if you divorce them in your mind you get to pretend the two movements are entirely seperate and you're not like those Loud Cringe Vegans or whatever lmao. Like. Okay cassandra. I kinda have a feeling a good majority of the people involved in pushing cruelty free make up are vegan. Idk why substituting your meat every now and then is so fuckin hard (if you can do it) if not for how ppl react to vegan food as if its cringe. And taste to me isnt a good enough excuse bc theres a lot of vegan food that tastes good. It feels like you just like the taste of something familiar.

[sunnywalnut]

I still got it boys

I got the Top 4.47% on this English Vocabulary test