#and by that i mean i fucking hate capitalism and the way companies are destroying the digital landscape with algorithms

[mcbitchtits]

the most horrifying part of alien romulus is the fucking facial cgi (as always)

pretty fantastic movie otherwise though, excellent horror. more in line with the original alien than any of its sequels, although it does feel like a lot of the beats are also like "DO YOU REMEMBER ALIEN (1986)??? see what we did there?!"

the writing starts off strong with what felt to me personally like a very interesting approach to, you know, the horrors of capitalism and mining (poverty, dead parents, teen pregnancies, trapped by the remoteness of the environment, company towns and company stores), and it does a fair number of interesting things contrasting that to the parts in orbit (gravity fields, etc.) and, frankly, some absolutely fantastic horror visuals that make you feel like they are really innovating with both creature design as well as like they maybe used to work in halloween haunt mazes? very... personal shots? which i appreciate because i feel like covenant et al were more cinematic, which was fine, but also less horrifying in some ways. the acting was pretty good.

however the facial cgi for [spoiler character] was fucking terrible! this has been my #1 complaint about cgi for going on decades now and i have to be honest, this was some of the ugliest finished work i have ever seen. textures not mapping cleanly, form distention with animation, just real shit work. dunno if it's lack of budget or a bad art/animation director or the ever-present crunch because SFX is ununionized, but jesus fucking christ i hate this shit. it was bad in I, Robot and it was slightly less bad in Tron Legacy and it sucked all over again in Rogue One and The Mandalorian and Dial of Destiny! learn some fucking lessons from animators and rediscover the uncanny valley!!! watch jaws and spend a metric asston of time considering why we see so little of the shark! APPLY THE LESSON

(or, like, you've already got a half-destroyed character, just lean into it and make their mouth mechanics destroyed by acid or something. or make it look even more unnatural on purpose! it's a horror film! there are a lot of solutions and bad cgi is the worst one always!)

anyway i just really DO appreciate any time the alien sequels really dig into the birth/body horror. it's good! more of them should be better at it! fuck off james cameron! (sorry had to get that dig in there) (also, i mean, specifically, all the growth and rupturing and body-breaking, and to a lesser extent all the giger-styled vulvas etc; the actual uh babies and so forth are less interesting to me from a horror perspective. definitely weird and unsettling but also a little slenderman-was-born-on-the-something-awful-forums, you know?)

also effective use of treating the facehuggers like spiders or tarantulas. underrated approach to reinterpreting their horror. (unfortunate time to have a fur gremlin running around the house.) what i liked most about this movie is it managed to take a lot of the existing horror elements of the alien franchise and make them feel fresh and new and horrifying in completely new ways. real good shit.

also i see you weyland-yutani "W" podships, i see you AD and props. go prod team

love the score also. felt almost williams-ish and kinda raidersesqe (in the ark horror sense) and i vibed with it severely

[w1tchm0ther]

The landscapers are pissing me off

Seriously, capitalism destroys everything. If it wasn't for making more money, the property management company for my road would not constantly mow grass and trim hedges and blow away NON EXISTING LEAVES!!! It's because the landlords (what a shit word and a thing that needs to be abolished!) here need a one-stop solution and clearly don't trust their tenants. I haven't even brought up the topic with mine (who is not an arsehole, I've won the landlord lottery!) because I know his Britishness will not allow him to raise anything with the company or trust me. Ugh.

Why does this piss me off so much? Well, for one, it is noisy as fuck. I can't bear it. It fucks with me for the whole three hours they're here. They also leave everything messy, so I have to clean up after them. Including my door, especially when it has rained before they mowed the grass.

It also keeps bees away. Just as the first dandelions and daisies are coming up, they cut it all down. Contributing to the death of bees. It may seem small to you. What can one road in London contribute to the climate crisis? But it's not just one road, is it? It is all the roads. So, so many of them. In London and in villages. I've seen it in many places. The constant landscaping, with fire and chemicals in the most extreme cases, doesn't do any good. It just makes it all look sterile.

What they don't do here? Provide us with recycling bins. They have finally removed fridges and some other bullshit that people (have I mentioned I hate people? Love humanity, though!) left in the rubbish shelters. Put the compost bins back up (which are never emptied; I've checked and it's been over 18 months) and now took one of the general waste bins out of order without replacing it. When I requested a recycling container from the Council, they told me to shove it because I live in a flat (maisonette, please! :P) and not in a house, so I have no business requesting one. What the ACTUAL fuck?

Oh, I feel like an old lady complaining about the everyday things because I have nothing else to worry about and need to get involved in other people's business. But it's not that. It's a genuine concern for the environment. This happening on such a small scale means that much larger things are happening on a grand scale. The oppression through capitalism knows no bounds and I'm done with it. I will find a way to get this bullshit changed in my local community. And then I'll find a way to lobby for the greater issues. My local MP is probably already quite annoyed with me for all those emails I'm sending her. But I'm about to get so much more annoying.

Anyway, can you tell it's my first day *offline* from social media and my phone and I have the capacity to think about these things again and articulate them? Yeah, feels good. I need more of this.

[tarajenkins]

I don't like canon Vauthry as a person - like he's tragic but he still serverly hurt people and cultist malicious messiah's are always on my yeet to the void list because there's no room for reason. (Everything about Forgiven Innocence is gross and I hate Vauthry transformed more than normal Vauthry) Vauthry original design also does body horror- like we have those hints he's not entirely human off the back. His height, the extra face on his breast, the way he seems more swollen than actually fat expecially compared to other heavy models like the Dulia or Gilgamesh. Like he dwarfs even the sineaters that's not normal. That said you make him kinda cute especially in your more human designs for him he looks cuddly. Your story for him is compelling too if there was more time in the game I may have liked him more. Also Vauthry looks less disgusting than innocence any day of the fucking week I hate that transformation so much everyone who simps for it is bad

There could have been more time in the writing of the Eulmore arc, if the writers had been more clever and hadn't used lazy tropes to phone it in. But Yoshida bodyshamed a cosplayer for their weight live onstage at Fanfest 2014, so while I was disappointed, I sure wasn't surprised. Square in general loves shitting on fat characters.

So here we are, with inexplicably overpowered grandpa (who died in a duty), the totally plot twist Lightwarden Of Kholusia, and the "perverted paradise" that actually made the 1% foot the tab for their employees, before being replaced by the much more benevolent capitalism. (◔_◔)

By all means Nonnie, you do you, but you should consider that Vauthry was the original victim of the "cult", as you put it. He had no chance of free will since before he was born. Tempering/Light corruption doesn't work like that, and Tempering/Light corruption has never made an exception for anyone else, including the Warrior Of Light, who had Hydaelyn's Blessing protecting them. Vauthry was bound to the instincts and will of a Lightwarden his entire life. Or, as Emet-Selch, the actual founder of the Eulmore "cult", stated:

"Those in your company will likewise turn to sin eaters, and in time you will succumb to your base instincts and hunt innocents to feast on their sweet, sweet aether."

You think that whole situation was bad for your WoL? A lot of players go on in great length how horrifying it was for theirs. Loads of High Drama and Existential Dread. How do you suppose it was for a child alone, surrounded by people who were only using him for their own ends? 

The Ascians were there to guide their creation to do their bidding the whole way, it seems. It would only make sense, why would Emet-Selch corrupt a baby for such a crucial role, then leave him to do whatever on his own? 

Then you had his father, the Former Mayor, who obviously made up a fanciful story of why his son was born as he was, framing all who oppose him as villains who seek to destroy the peace he brought between man and sin eater. That unfortunately included the Scions and their allies, although even Emet-Selch stated he was surprised Vauthry sent the Eulmoran Army after us. That does imply it wasn’t common for Vauthry to resort to violent behavior in the past, if he resorted to it at all. The Eulmorans themselves definitely weren’t afraid of him ‘til the very end. You already know everything else I have to say on that subject, right? ( ᐛ )b

But yeah. We're talking being indoctrinated into this from birth. For those who dismiss that, I'd love to hear how they expected a child to know what was real and what was not at that point, carefully isolated from any life outside his false destiny. (Seriously. If any of you who subscribe to this mindset are reading this, DM me. Anon is obviously on. I really do want to see where the train of thought is coming from.) For the “well Vauthry was a spoiled rich kid” crowd, I don’t want to hear it--there are a lot of “rich kids” in this game that you love. Alphinaud, Alisaie, Hildibrand, Nanamo, the noble kids of Ishgard, etc. Think harder than that. Vauthry had to be convinced he was doing good for the world. He had all the power in the world to not care. Yet he remained mayor of one settlement, when he could’ve been in control of all of Norvrandt if he had even a fraction of Emet-Selch’s tin pot dictator ambitions. 

He didn’t. He hoped to "vindicate his existence" as the "half sin eater" the Ascians made him, as G’raha later said. But he died in bewildered sorrow because he "kept the people safe!" from the “villains”, never understanding everything he was taught was a cruel lie.

He did terrible things in the time we saw him, but blaming him for Light corruption he never chose and a lifetime of brainwashing feels like blaming Thancred for the fate of the Waking Sands. Would any of it have happened were it not for Emet-Selch’s direct actions? No.

Also, while I appreciate the compliments, Nonnie, why is "cuddly" and other similar terms always and only ever used for fat characters, smh. The fanbase tries to make Dulia everyone's maiden aunt as it is.  

 ༼ﾉ ᐕ ༽ﾉ︵┻━┻

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

Hi there! We don’t really know each other, but I love your blog. Destroy capitalism in a queer way is love. That aside, I have followed you for awhile and really need help.

It has become apparent that my work is most likely violating labor laws by not having union involvement or a labor agreement in their licensing process. Cannabis industry in California for reference, delivery company that is a small buisness

Workplace condition are getting increasingly worse, and dissatisfaction is at an all time high. It came to my attention that my BFF coworker and I are both completely on board to try to unionize. Other people most likely are too (trade union people, people that have expressed desire to unionize, and people that just fucking hate this job and would love to see any change. It’s looking like the time for the possibility of unionization is fast approaching

I sort of ended up starting to organize things and test the waters with people, but I have NO CLUE WHAT THE FUCK I AM DOING. I need to know what I am doing to organize people ;-;

This is doubly compounded that everything has to be done in secret. They illegally fired the last person who tries to unionize and are currently in a lawsuit with them. We need to be sneaky at this stage to avoid retaliation, we all live paycheck to paycheck in abysmal rental markets. A lost job probably means homelessness. Hence the anonymous ask, I’m paranoid but safe this way :[

I’m coming to you because you seem smart AF, do you have resources? Suggestions? Even vague ideas are helpful. So sorry to dump this on you but I don’t know anyone that knows this stuff in real life

Hey, so if you've followed for a while you'll know I'm based in the UK so I probably don't know enough about the specific labour laws in California to help you. I'd suggest getting in touch with IWW (international workers of the world) - I believe they are pretty good at helping people unionise in the US.

The other thing to remember is presumably they can't fire you all - because then they don't have a business. So if everyone works together and takes action together, then that gives you all some protection. Ideally, you'd agree if one person got fired you'd all strike or similar but I don't know how feasible/legal that is.

However, I have a question for you, anon. Is there a specific reason you need to stay in *this* job? It sounds like nobody really likes the company, and I personally wouldn't want to work for someone who fired someone illegally, both ethically and practically because you don't know what they will do next. If you knew you couldn't unionize and improve things (do bear in mind making real change is a *long* process) then would you stay?

If it were me, I'd support efforts to unionize whilst also looking for another job. I know that might sound selfish or individualistic but hear me out!

A) when you leave, you should be as honest as you can about why you are leaving. This *may* help the people left behind or at least make management think.

B) it sets an example to your coworkers, and makes them realise they could leave too. You could even offer to help them find new jobs if you are able.

C) if this business ends up with no employees they will either fold (good, because they don't deserve to survive if they treat their employees badly) or they will realise they have to improve their practices.

I know moving jobs is super scary, but often the grass really is greener AND it has wider benefits too. And if you're currently employed you can look around for a really good opportunity, not just taking the first thing you are offered.

I'd recommend checking out ask a manager for advice on how to get a new job in the US.

I don't talk about it much on here, but I left my last job because after a year of working as union rep with another great rep, we really were getting nowhere and if anything, things were getting worse. I was honest with people in the union about the fact I was looking and why and in the end a LOT of staff left at the end of the year (enough that students and parents noticed and commented). And I do believe it was a bit of a catalyst for change in some areas, and I hope things will improve for next year.

Now, some people will say I should have stuck it out but the problem is that no union action can make a shitty boss into a good one. And the most powerful thing we can do as workers is to withdraw our labour, including permanently.

If you were saying one specific change would make things better, that's different, btw.

I hope this helps a bit, and please don't take any risks that could cause you to lose your housing.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Consumerism won't defeat Georgia's Jim Crow

In the 1970s, progressives discovered a shortcut to political change: the boycott. Boycotts had been around for a long time, to be sure, but with industries in relatively weak states, with lots of competitors, the threat of lost business could spur fast action.

Politics were slow and unreliable. Lawsuits were expensive, slow and unreliable. Boycotts were fast, and involved direct, tangible steps that every person could take: redirect your spending from one company to another, make the change.

But as progressive movements ceded the political realm, reactionaries conquered it. Reagan and his successors (including pro-business Dems) enacted laws and policies that encouraged monopolies and weakened labor unions.

40 years later, boycotts are dead.

Hate excessive packaging?

Good news: the grocery aisle has minimal packaging alternatives you can vote your dollars on.

Bad news: these "alternatives" come from the same companies as the high-packaging products you're "voting against."

Boycotts only work when there's competition. As this Simpsons screenshot demonstrates - Duff Lite, Duff Dry and Duff all come from the same pipe.

Likewise: Fox Studios, who made the Simpsons, are now part of Disney.

Don't like Fox? Vote with your dollars on Disney!

Right-wing politics have a problem. If your fundamental belief is that a small number of people should have more (money, power, influence) than everyone else, then by definition, your politics only benefit a minority, and you win elections with majorities.

The right has three tactics to overcome this.

I. It relies on antimajoritarian institutions, like the Electoral College and the Senate. That's why the Dems should *absolutely* kill the filibuster, which protects Senate power, which is minority power, which is plute power.

II. It suppresses the votes and power of working people, through gerrymandering, poll taxes, voter-roll purges and anti-union rules that shatter the collective power of otherwise atomized and powerless workers.

III. It convinces turkeys to vote for Christmas. Performative culture-war bullshit, white nationalism, transphobic panics, etc - none of these are intrinsic to the right-wing project, but they bring a lot of scared bigots out to vote for dead-eyed corporate rule.

The new Jim Crow law just adopted in Georgia is a perfect example of how these three tactics deliver power to corporate power. It's a voter suppression law, passed by a gerrymandered statehouse that represents a minority of Georgians, which exploits white nationalism.

Remember, the reason corporate America is worried about Georgia is the Black, working-class-led political machine that threatens to enact majority rule in a place whose state and national leaders are essential to inequality-boosting, plute-enriching, worker-destroying rule.

The reason all these red states introduced nearly identical voter-suppression bills is that they all get their laws from the same place: ALEC, a business-backed thinktank that writes and pushes "model legislation" in state- and local governments.

https://www.salon.com/2021/03/27/conservative-groups-are-writing-gop-voter-suppression-bills---and-spending-millions-to-pass-them/

ALEC finds its wins in GOP legislatures, but it gets its funding from a broad cross-section of corporate America, including companies that publicly brief for racial and gender justice.

https://www.commoncause.org/democracy-wire/who-still-funds-alec/

Now, ALEC has faced something of an exodus, losing members like AT&T and Google, but that doesn't mean that they've divested from ALEC policies.

The politicians who carry water for ALEC are 100% dependent on campaign contributions from orgs like the Chamber of Commerce.

These politicians brief for policies that hurt the majority of Americans, and can only get elected through voter suppression, gerrymandering and appeals to bigotry. There's no other way to win electoral majorities while espousing antimajoritarian policies.

This doesn't mean that corporate execs and employees aren't horrified by Georgia's New Jim Crow law - it just means that they can't do anything about it. Companies that halt donations to the GA GOP will *still* financially support them, through their industry associations.

It's a perfect macrocosm of the consumer's dilemma: if you rely on money, rather than politics, to accomplish political change, you will never make a change that reduces the power of money in politics. It's impossible to spend your way out of monopoly capitalism.

At best, it's merely useless. At worst, it's a net negative, sucking up the hours you could spend on political change with comparison shopping. As Zephyr Teachout points out in BREAK 'EM UP, what you do matters more than what you spend.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/29/break-em-up/#break-em-up

If you're organizing to support union drives, don't waste time shopping to "buy local" for posterboard and markers - they're all manufactured by anti-union monopolists, no matter who sells them. Get whatever's easiest and then go fight the companies in the *political* realm.

Stop conceiving of yourself as an ambulatory wallet, whose only power comes from where and how you spend - if you only vote your dollars, you'll always lose, because the rich have more dollars than you and so they get more votes.

Keep your eyes on the prize: smashing corporate power. Far more exciting than the MLB boycott of Georgia is the Republican response: GOP hardliners want to take away baseball's antitrust exemption.

https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/1378103553437360131

If this happens, it will be the absolute best possible outcome - because it represents the shattering of the coalition that makes antimajoritarian politics possible. If the right starts siding with bigots and AGAINST companies, they'll cut their own supply lines.

The voter suppression, gerrymandering and bigotry that the GOP relies on is expensive. It can't exist without corporate power. The reason it exists in the first place is corporate power.

Reinvigorating antitrust as an act of performative culture-war bullshit is the political equivalent of pointing a gun at your own dick to own the libs and then blowing your actual dick off.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/27/literal-gunhumping/#youll-shoot-your-eye-out

These are the fracture lines we need to exploit. They've been proliferating for years. The modern antitrust revival comes out of these fracture lines.

It's an open secret that much of the money and energy for anti-Big Tech trustbusting comes from the cable industry.

Comcast and AT&T hate Google and Facebook, but not for the same reason you or I do. In their view, the billions Googbook make from surveillance, rent-extraction and manipulation have been misapproriated from the telecoms industry.

They have made the catastrophic blunder of betting that if they awaken the slumbering antitrust giant to smash Big Tech, that it will then go back to sleep - and that it *certainly won't turn on *them*.

This is such galaxy-brain idiocy. Like the public will watch a new army of trustbusters arise to rip apart Googbook and then say, "You know what? I just *fucking love Comcast*, so whatever you do, don't give them the same treatment."

A bet that after the dust settles, the hard-fighting lawyers, activists, politicans and workers who smashed corporate power in Big Tech will realize that they were only worried about "surveillance capitalism" but were totally cool with all the other kinds of capitalism.

Consumer power is a dead letter. Political power is a live wire. Boycotts are a distraction, even - especially - when giant corporations engage in them.

But the other stuff - strikes, trustbusting, ending financial secrecy - that's where change comes from.

The problem with the world isn't where you shop.

You're not an ambulatory wallet and don't let anyone convince you that you are.

[dana-chan-the-control-brain]

Thoughts on, Invader Zim Quarterly: Holiday Special

WEEEE WISH YOU A MERRY JINGLY WE WISH YOU A MERRY JINGLY!

Ahhhhh It’s out! I’m so excited!

But I always get excited when it has my man Membrane and my man Eric Trueheart involved with the comics. 

Also santa..   Tbh, I was excited and nervous about this quarterly. 

Excited because it has Membrane santa backstory...

But I was nervous because that it means they might bring back the santa-blob monster from the Holiday special on the TV... and The Christmas special is one of my least favorite IZ episodes...   I mean... I rewatch it occasionally, and it’s fun, but I’m just kinda used to IZ having more BITE in it’s satire if you know what I mean? The Christmas Special in the IZ universe doesn’t really say anything about the capitalism of Christmas... it’s not like IZ hasn’t made fun of capitalism before. (that’s the whole show)  The Christmas Special in the show just kinda fell flat of my expectations of what an Invader Zim episode should be....

The only thing I respect the Holiday Special for, is that it goes down the “Santa isn’t real” route in a kid’s show and sticks to it. (there’s no “real santa” that shows up and “solves everything”) All of the “Santa’s Helpers” confused the Santa mythos with the Christianity Jesus mythos. (”waiting one day for his return”) Which makes sense, since IZ is like dystopian future Suburbia Hell. I just kinda like that there’s no “real santa” that interfered to “fix everything” and that Zim himself ended up CREATING Santa when he didn’t exist previously. Like I find that kinda cool...

Other then that, I just kinda wanted something else from the Hoilday special then what I got. (It taking priority over scrapped episodes like “the trail” and “Ten minutes to doom” and “mopiness of doom” does not help it’s case in being one of my C-tier episodes...) 

So maybe this quarterly will fill the void of what I wanted out of a Holiday special? Well, let’s see. 

SPOILERS FOR THE QUARTERLY BELOW THE CUT

Ways to get Dana off-board immediately: Monster Santa is canon. 

I always never liked to view the special as canon for ways that it fell flat before.

And I had the excuse of saying that the snowman was an unreliable narrator and I could adapt it down the line in my fic as a different story. 

I just didn’t like the idea of Monster-horror-blob santa...  Like... Cool design... but he just kinda represents everything I disliked about the special...  (including the major inconsistency of when Tak’s ship got fixed...)

But then again.. I need to remember IZ’s lore isn’t as consistent as I think it is sometimes... 

Okay, fine. Monster blob santa real... what else you got for me, Holiday special?

FACE HUGGER SANTA! FACE HUGGER SANTA! I AM NOT INTO IT! 

WHAT?! WHAT?! WHAT?! NO. DANA HATES THIS!

Okay, kinda into it because this means that ZIM CREATED SANTA in this mythos... I am dying.... wait.. this takes place in the future then...soo...?

haoFhaGHAOhfgg 

It was all a dream?!  

GOOD.

my heart couldn’t take it if horror-santa was real... 

Also... that nightcap and bed... Does this mean we’re going to have an Invader Zim Christmas Carol?!?!?! I know that’s been adapted a schmillion times but I would be so into that.... 

Also... Flying... hamm...

Good ol’ Zim... Repressing those memories...  

Also this being the THIRD ETF reference in a quarterly, It can be very safe to say the Quarterly issues take place after the events of ETF.

Clembrane exists in the Quarterly, Membrane has robot arms, Zim remembers this (kinda)  Yeah this is definately ETF verse and it’s here to stay. 

Christmas Carol?! I’m down for this... and I can’t help but notice their claws look familiar

OH HOLY HELL I WAS RIGHT! THESE GUYS! I LOVE THESE GUYS?!

Why are you here tho?

I’m a bit lost on why these guys wanta take over the earth, but they’re hilarious so I’m just glad they’re here.

Also...   The Christmas Special is Schrodinger's Christmas... did it happen, or was it a dream, or the tales of a lunatic snowman... I guess I’ll never know. 

The issue goes on for an IZ Christmas Carol parody (heck yea) and the visions are all hilarious and I’m not gonna spoil them here... but...

Eric.... this is terrifying..........thanks I hate it. 

TINY DIB THOUGH! GHAOGHAHGAHAHA

THIS IS GREAT

THE MORE DIB SUFFERS THE MORE I LOVE IT!

“Though I am Dib and sickly father”

I’m dying XDDDDD

Also... What the fuck is Zim’s reaction here... 

I find it funny that Zim has put Dib into simulated realities before... (in the show and comics) and in the show, Dib is all powerful and in the comics, Dib is just himself and Zim is his brother..

But seeing a simulated Dib all weak and pathetic and chronically ill BOTHERS ZIM?!?!

That’s... well that’s interesting. 

Thought he’d laugh at this honestly, but he seems greatly annoyed... 

I CHANGED MY MIND! THIS IS THE BEST THING! 

(those who know me know why I’m dying over this)

YES!!!

ZIM DOESN’T LIKE WHEN PEOPLE FEEL BAD FOR HIM OR PITY HIM! 

(which confirms like a lot of my hcs and adds spicy kindling to my au much mad respect) 

This I find interesting...  Zim complepative over his lonely/abandoned grave. It’s like he really doesn’t know how to feel. It’s more of a numbness then a sadness. Or he noticed how empty his life is... 

He feels lonely and empty about it...  which tracks considering how Zim’s greatest fear in the Trial was to be deleted and never be remembered by anyone. 

I don’t know... This panel makes me feel things...

Johnen: Haha. Zim’s not that deep a character.

Eric: Hey for the Christmas special, let’s have Zim parody a Christmas carol and feel lonely staring at his own empty grave when he realizes no one cares about him or misses him.

Johnen: Cool. Do it. 

What are you two assholes doing to me, man?! I have feelings! 

AND ONCE AGAIN!

Zim hates pity and people feeling bad and sorry for him. 

Man this makes me so sad...  And it really feels like this issue looked into my brain again, cause I have some plans relating to Zim not wanting sympathy or pity from anyone later down the line (okay I’ll shut up about my au. We’re talking Zim here)

And of course, Zim breaks everything like he usually does. (this time on purpose)

Also nice callback that Zim remembered that Dib said he liked his boots one time in the Poop-wizard issue. 

Also, it ends? I guess this quarterly has a few shorter stories this time... which I’m fine with. 

Also, Zim should consider Green and Blue like D-list friends at this point and just invite them in for some fundip or something (come on, Zim, it’s Christmas.....) 

GASP!?!?!

LITTLE MEMBRANE!!!

AND GRANDPARENTS CONFIRMED!!! 

Wait... so his Parents are scientists too? Is that why he always wanted to be a scientist?

But then wait.... If Membrane inherited Membrane Labs from his parents... Why is HIS FACE the brand of the Company?..... There’s so much Membrane-face brand merch in the show. (it decorates his home..) 

Like even if they were dead, if his parents founded Membrane labs, I feel they’d still be the face. of the company... (that’s how a lot of corporate faces are these days... they show some old dead guy who made the company as opposed to the son who inherited the Company.... Like everyone knows who Walt Disney/Mickey Mouse is, but unless you pay close attention to that kinda thing, not everyone knows who the current chairman or CEO is in the modern age....)

I just find that a bit odd. 

Anyways... I feel people can still do what they want with Membrane’s parents and get away with it. I’m not changing my “his parents were farmers” headcanon. Sorry comic..

BUT I LOVE THEIR DESIGNS.

I love how Membrane looks a lot like his mother, and his father is just BUFF GAZ with a pipe.... Truely legends. 

GASP!!!

COLLEGEBRANE COLLEGEBRANE COLLEGEBRANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOOKOUT DIB, THIS IS YOUR FUTURE!

I FUCKING LOVE HOW OILY HE LOOKS.. AND IT ADDS UP CAUSE...

The Membrane Men when they don’t shower or bathe in months.....

Someone help these two.

(thank god Membrane got better at personal hygiene.) 

Also Teenbrane STILL has his human arms and not his robo-arms.

This means he loses his arms later in life...  YUSH HORRAY FOR HEADCANNONS BEING VALIDATED!

He didn’t lose his arms in a shark accident when he was a KID! It happened WAY LATER!

NICE!

OH MY GOD HE IS BABY!

HE IS SO SHY AND ACKWARD! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

I LOVE HIM!

He is just... all sweat and hiding his work but also very passionate and spiteful. 

Like you can see who he grew up to become, and you can also see how a kid like Dib came out of a man like him...

But I love social anxiety awkward early twenties/late teens Membrane... He is a baby! 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

MEMBRANE ;w;

Basically, Membrane knows that Santa isn’t real, but he doesn’t want to be mad at his parents so he harbors a grudge on Santa instead... THAT’S SO SWEET I’M CRYING  TTmTT

LIKE THAT IS SO SWEET AND I’M CRYING!

(also I love how me and Ceph understand Membrane’s character too well that the gesture he does in the 2nd panel here are reminisant of our fic so many times... Like we have his mannerisms down and I love when the mask slips from Membrane and we get to see a real person... augh soo good) 

WHO GAVE THEM THE RIGHT TO MAKE MY MAN THIS SAD?! ONLY I CAN MAKE HIM SAD!

MEMBRANE TTMTT

AUUUGHH

Also probably guessing the parents are dead...   I’m just laughing at their designs... 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Yes you are, Professor Membrane... Don’t let anyone tell you different. (actually, please do) Well, I mean,  At least you’re trying and get progressively better.

(also... this probably means everytime Dib has asked his Dad for a dangerous weapon to fight Zim with, Membrane just gives it to him no questions asked and I’m doing a MAJOR concern about this man’s parenting skills... get help please good sir!) 

Also, Dib really saved the day again here (like he did in Dib’s big day)

Dib called about destroying santa when Membrane was in one of his lowest points...  He hides it really well...   Especially from his children..

Ah..  I loved that one.

But I’m a huge Membrane Simp though.

I did find the stuff about Membrane’s parents a little weird... like I said regarding how Membrane’s face is the brand of Membrane labs...

Could be true that they were other scientists and that Membrane founded Membrane labs later... but that seems highly unlikely... 

Also... Why does the house look that hug when in the christmas special, it looked kinda like...well... just not that, and kinda more humble from the interior and not some big rocket lab...

So yeah... AMAZING character building for Membrane (which I eat up)

Hilarious Grandparent Designs. But I still prefer @esthyradler​ ‘s Grandparents. The superior Grandparents.

Anyways... The Quarterly was GREAT! 

I kinda find it funny the Zim story is the weaker one of the two again... But I honestly blame the Christmas Horror blob connection and the Christmas Carol parody. 

Or maybe my Membrane Bias is clouding my mind here.  I do have Zim bias but sometimes Zim can frustrate me. There’s just so many times Zim can do and say the same things you know? Zim is my baby, but sometimes his denial and annoyance with everyone can be very predictable at points. Zim was just way more fun in the last quarterly than this one. 

With Membrane it’s more of a blank slate what to do with him cause he ony started really mattering as a character since ETF. Yes, I do love show Membrane, but I admit he wasn’t exactly a character then. More of a presence and excuse for why Dib had access to lab equipment. With Dib’s Dilemma and this Hoilday special, the Quarterly folks seem determined to turn him into a fully realized character with the rest of the cast and I’m extremely excited to hear that!

(Computer issue/backstory WHEN?!) 

I don’t really have ratings or systems for these but hope you liked my thoughts.

Merry Christmas everyone.

[shmegmilton]

Can you explain how Aaron and Alexander stopped being friends and started fighting?

They were never really ‘friends.’ I assume you got that idea from the play, but I have no idea why the play tried to push that narrative. Civil? Sure, but that was necessary. New York was less than 50,000 people at the time, and they were both accomplished lawyers & statesmen who had to work and interact with each other on a daily basis. Politics is politics, look at how people are acting right now during our election. 

As for your question, it’s a long line of policy & personal disagreements, mostly. They were on opposite sides of the aisle on pretty much everything. Lots of small things, but a lot of big, BIG things.

     Burr was (ironically) kind of a pacifist; he kept mostly to himself, didn’t really speak much publicly & didn’t necessarily go out of his way to confront people unless he’s been pushed long enough (everyone ‘snaps’ at some point, y’know?)

But that’s why the ‘Burr is an evil mastermind’ myth is so pervasive today. Burr just… didn’t bother defending himself, or correcting anything, because he (mistakingly) had faith in the inherent goodness of people that someday people would see him for his true character. So for that reason, we don’t really have a good timeline from Burr’s perspective as to how he felt about Hamilton—but BOY howdy did Hamilton never shut up about Burr.

----

Trespass & Confiscation Acts  (1782ish)

     During the Revolution, the British confiscated the property of patriots that fled the city. New York did the same thing, & for a while it was this game of: ‘Oh, you’re gonna take my stuff? **draws a line in the dirt** Well, everything behind this line is mine now.” It was all very bad, and after the way Tories & Loyalists faced a lot of honestly very fucked up discrimination & forfeiture of their rights. Hamilton (like most Federalists) was pro-British, so he represented a lot of these people in court. I’m sure it wasn’t purely out of the goodness of his heart--most of his clients were loaded--but the sentiment is there. On the other hand, there are multiple records of Burr buying up property around this time, most likely confiscated Tory property, which he would usually flip or give away to people that he knew, so he was taking full advantage of this. Burr also, most likely, went head-to-head with Hamilton on a few of these cases, because Burr tended to work with the ‘common folk.’

French Revolution (1789ish to 1799ish) & Proclamation of Neutrality (1793)

     Burr (like most Democratic-Republicans) was pro-French, so much so that he took in French refugees fleeing the Revolution into his home. He was very sympathetic to the cause.Hamilton was not. He basically saw it the same way that right-wing Conservatives see the Black Lives Matter movement is the best way I can explain it. He also hated it for the amount of immigrants that were now fleeing to the U.S.

Burr Gets Chosen For NY Senate (1791)

     Key word: chosen. As in, he didn’t actually run. That wasn’t how politics worked back then. The Hamilton musical just fucking lied outright about that, let’s be clear. He also never switched parties. Ever. Back then you were nominated by the people who were already in government--usually by one of the powerful families like the Clintons or the Livingstons, or yada yada. So Burr didn’t actually do anything. He didn’t even really want the position either, if I recall. But back then if you were ‘called to serve,’ you were obligated to do it. Hamilton was furious either way because it meant that Burr was replacing his father-in-law, Phillip Schuyler, meaning that he wouldn’t have that extra ear in government that he wanted. Burr also had a lot of views that were considered ‘extreme’ at the time, like getting extra rights for women, immigrants & black people, but I have no idea what Hamilton thought of those individual policies other than he just didn’t like women, immigrants or black people.

1792 & 1796 Presidential Election

Burr wasn’t really that serious about either of these elections, I don’t think (in ’92 he wasn’t that well-known & barely got any support, but it’s worth noting the fact he was nominated to run at all was really impressive. He’s tied with William Jennings Bryan as being one of the youngest people to ever receive an electoral vote, at 36 years old.) In ’96 he faired a little better—he got 30 votes, which is nearly half of what you need to get the ticket nomination, also very impressive.Hamilton was super staunchly opposed to both of these runs, though, and did his typical Hamilton thing of openly campaigning about how the people shouldn’t vote for Burr, yada yada.

Jay Treaty (1794)

     I highly suggest looking up supplemental information on this because it’s a bit complicated, but it was basically a treaty between us and Great Britain to reaffirm that we were going to continue to not mess with France, as well as a couple of other weird hang-ups. It was not popular, at all, especially with the Demo-Republicans. There is a specific instance (that is actually kind of insane) where Hamilton gave a public speech in defense of it, and the Democratic-Republicans in the crowd started pelting him & the other Federalists with rocks. Hamilton got SO mad that immediately challenged a man to a duel, and threatened to fight each of the Democratic-Republicans one-by-one.  

Reynolds Affair (1797)

     Burr had a personal relationship with Maria Reynolds; he was her divorce attorney in 1793/1794, helped her out financially, & successfully petitioned (+paid for) her daughter Susan to attend a boarding school. I believe they also stayed in his him with him during the divorce proceedings, but don’t quote me on that. He never said anything publicly that I could find, but Burr probably had a personal investment in the Reynolds Pamphlet, since it painted Maria in a really damaging light.

Alien & Sedition Acts (1798)

     These were some of the most worst laws ever passed in the history of the country. Like, these were AWFUL. It not only limited immigration, but it limited the freedom of the press and freedom of speech (ESPECIALLY immigrants, my god.)

Burr was right on the front lines helping defend people in court, he actively opposed it & is probably the thing that propelled him into Jefferson’s orbit as a potential Vice President.

John Barker Church Duel (1797)

John Barker Church had accused Burr of taking bribes (which was unfounded & untrue) and they ended up dueling. JBC was the husband of Angelica Schuyler, Hamilton’s sister-in-law.

Neither was injured (though, JBC apparently put a hole in Burr’s coat), but it supposed infuriated Hamilton & his associates so much that they would send out fake letters “from Burr” challenging people to duels.

The Manhattan Company (1799)

    Burr was getting sick of the difficulty he was having getting loans from the Federalist-run banks and decided to do something about it. There had been several seasonal epidemics of yellow fever—caused by mosquitos but, at the time, it was thought to be caused by improperly treated water, miasma (‘bad air’) or (if you asked Hamilton) stinky evil immigrant refuges who were fleeing France and Haiti. Burr saw this and spearheaded a campaign to get a proper water treatment plant, even getting Hamilton to help him. Through some really weird loophole that I don’t quite understand, Burr was somehow allowed to use the ‘surplus capital’ for banking, which essentially turned it into a bank. The actual water treatment portion of the company was plagued with problems due to improper management and things like that.     We’ll never know his exact thought process on this (people normally assume it was malicious trickery because people are biased to hate Burr anyway) & I highly doubt that Burr knew the extent of the issues (he was on the Board of Directors, but so were a dozen others--INCLUDING John Barker Church) so I don’t entirely think it’s his fault, but the fact of the matter is that it most likely exacerbated the existing problems & indirectly led to more people getting sick/dying until they finally fixed the problems.I would say that it’s completely justifiable for Hamilton to be mad at Burr, but, as we established, Hamilton hated both poor people & immigrants (two groups most likely affected by this) so he wasn’t actually mad at him for the reason a… y’know, a normal person would be mad at him. He was mad at him because Burr destroyed the monopoly that Federalists had on banks, making it easier for Democratic-Republicans & others to get loans. He was literally mad at him for making the economy fair.

1800 Election & 1804 NY Governor Election

  These two are self-explanatory, I think, and I’ve already been writing way too long, lol. My hand hurts.

[rametarin]

A condensed explanation of why we’re at where we are now

Stock Market has problems

Anti-Capitalist: “I think this is bullshit.”

Capitalist: “I agree. Something must be done about these elite fatcats that are exploiting the free market and destroying economies and backdoor enslaving people by utilizing a combination of government monopoly and corporate predation.”

Anti-Capitalist: “So we’re both in agreement to reform the system and end the problem.”

Capitalist: “Yeah. I have no problem going after the folks acting bad and changing the rules to be fairer and actually give some real teeth to good, productive laws that prevent abuse, or at least punish it.”

Anti-Capitalist: “I agree.”

Capitalist: “Good.”

Anti-Capitalist: “So when we reform the system to remove private enterprise and capital, there won’t be any more abuse.”

Capitalist: “.. We agreed to reform the broken system together and fix the problems.”

Anti-Capitalist: “Capitalism is the problem.”

Capitalist: “The corporate oligarchies held up by politicians and for the benefit of wealthy politicians are the problem.”

Anti-Capitalist: “None of those rich assholes would exist without money and private capital.”

Capitalist: “Are you honestly trying to tell me also the government corruption and interests would not also exist without money?”

Anti-Capitalist: “it’s private capital that is the problem affecting the politicians.”

Capitalist: “We’re not getting rid of private property and capitalism to solve a regulatory problem.”

Anti-Capitalist: “But that’s how we solve the problem like these hedge funds.”

Capitalist: “No, we’re not doing that.”

Anti-Capitalist: “Tch. Typical far-right conservative. Just want more of the status quo.”

Capitalist: “Why can’t you just fucking work on making the system we have function and help me keep it healthy?”

Anti-Capitalist: “Because I don’t like capitalism and also it’s evil. So the way to fix it is to get rid of it.”

Capitalism: “Then you cannot be trusted in good faith to be part of the process by which we solve these problems and think of solutions to how to regulate them out and bring accountability to the system, since your every solution to shit like, ‘abusive government-corporate relationships and abuse is to abolish private enterprise and leave only government.’“

Anti-Capitalist: “I’m a bigger fan of society controlling its own destiny than a minority with power.”

Capitalist: “That is the government.”

Anti-Capitalist: “Society is not the government.”

Capitalist: “This, ‘society’ body you speak of does not exist without SOME form of authority and governanceship. Which involves ‘classes,’ that you hate. For fucks sake. You don’t get to sit at the table while the big boys talk.”

Anti-Capitalist: “Then we’ll upend the table and burn down the discussion house.”

Capitalist: “You’re like inviting a vegan to a BBQ and trying to insist everybody have the vegan option or you’ll shit on every plate.”

Anti-Capitalist: “If stock trading didn’t exist, would this Gamestop thing even be a problem? Yes or no?”

Capitalist: “It’d just be some other body like a corrupt government that produces games and culture causing the problem.”

Anti-Capitalist: “Yes or no?”

Capitalist: “I’m not answering a bullshit loaded question.”

Anti-Capitalist: “I’m introducing legislation to handle this problem. Vote for it or it’ll prove you’re on the side of the neuvo rich and in favor of plutocratic rich walking over everybody else.”

Capitalist: “Your solution is not only inadequate but counterproductive and dangerous, and only seems to damage small businesses and an individual’s ability to invest. In no way is what you have proposed good for a healthy capitalist society and will just cause further problems.”

Anti-Capitalist: “Well I guess the solution is to propose more legislation to remove more capitalism from the system then until it does work.”

Capitalist :|

Anti-Capitalist :^)

Capitalist: “I am voting against your legislation.”

Anti-Capitalist: “You’ve chosen to side with the billionaires.”

Capitalist: “No. I want the system to actually WORK.”

Anti-Capitalist: “Capitalism as you see it NOW is working as intended. This is a feature, not a bug. The only cure is removal.”

Capitalist: “Just fucking hold your nose and vote for my solution so we can finally have a capitalist system where the big guys CAN’T get away with evil shit like these predatory stock exchange tricks.”

Anti-Capitalist: “If I did that then the problems proving capitalism doesn’t work wouldn’t be there to highlight how it doesn’t work. So I’ll amend your legislation to declaw it, add loopholes and logic designed to make it more how I want, and also while I’m here lets talk about removing military contract companies from the capitalist system, too. Less threat to targets of American Imperialism.”

Capitalist: “You mean ‘targets’ like China, NK and Iran? China, the country colonizing Africa as we speak in our year 2021?”

Anti-Capitalist: “Oh like Europe never colonized Africa.”

Capitalist: “Europe and the US both admit to having colonized Africa at one point. That’s not something denied.”

Anti-Capitalist: “They still do it to this day.”

Capitalist: “Pretending China isn’t also Imperialist is incredibly magical thinking.”

Anti-Capitalist: “They’re bringing roads, education, sanitation and equality to Africa, unlike the western world.”

Capitalist: “We just aren’t going to agree on how to solve this, are we?”

Anti-Capitalist: “We will, because I’m going to win, eventually.”

Capitalist: “Not if I kill you.”

Same discussion, different decade.

[ms-demeanor]

thank you for posting more about how much you hate that idiot fucking book I fucking live for this

I have, no joke, probably read Atlas Shrugged a hundred times. I’m on my twelfth copy. I won one of those copies for entering one of the Ayn Rand scholarship essay contests. I once helped a communist friend of mine write an objectivist essay in order to apply for financial aid because “I don’t think like those people, you do”

(full disclosure y’all, I was a libertarian raised by libertarians and i stayed that way until my mid twenties)

I don’t know that I hate it so much as I’m completely fascinated by it.

I actually consider it a REALLY interesting piece of dystopian literature that I enjoy as a dystopia but it is so hyperbolic that it almost reaches the level of magic realism.

Atlas Shrugged (along with most of Rand’s other work) is so fundamentally broken in its assumptions about what motivates people to do what they do that it has always struck me as a weird dreamy fantasy novel. Like, imagine describing the construction of New York’s skyscrapers in a Lana Del Rey music video but all the characters are Fae and have impenetrable social rules about what is acceptable behavior.

And I know I’m in the minority here but I genuinely enjoy her prose, with the obvious caveats that the John Galt speech is terrible and the clear power exchange fetish works better if it’s addressed as a fetish instead of a weird recurring rape fantasy.

I don’t want to make excuses for Rand; her philosophy is ghoulish and her real-life attitudes about imperialism and capitalism and, just like, human rights and interpersonal relationships are repugnant. But if you want to get some insight into *why* she’s like this I’d recommend reading We the Living; it may not be accurate and when it was published it was controversial and frequently considered anticommunist propaganda (how fucking strange is it that a book published in the united states would be controversial for being anticommunist; that really hammers home how successful mccarthyism was) but I get the sense that it’s very much what *she* believed to be true in her experience and since I didn’t grow up in Soviet Russia and defect to the US I can’t exactly say she wasn’t, to a certain extent, justified in her views.

But, god, the way you see that exploded out in later work is just farcical. It’s so dramatic and overwrought - it’s not enough that politicians make mistakes or are self-interested, no, they’re moochers who are out to hasten the end of the world, bloodsucking parasites looking to enslave anybody with the audacity to be productive. It’s not enough that Lillian Rearden married for money, no, she’s out to destroy the soul of the productive man, only capable of measuring her worth by how far she’s able to make her husband fall. It’s not enough that Jim Taggart is an inept company president put in place by nepotism instead of skill, he’s also working to tear down everything his sister built because he wants her reputation but also wants to destroy her for having the gall to accomplish the things that built that reputation.

It’s fascinating. It’s bizarre. It’s looking through a glass darkly, examining the private fears of petty, bitter people. It’s not true, but there’s a truthiness to it to the people who buy into it; they haven’t experienced the world the way that Rand has written it but that’s how they believe the world works and they’re taking her writing as the evidence for it.

AND WHAT DRIVES ME UP THE WALL IS THAT IT’S SO CLOSE TO BEING RADICAL.

Like, okay, look at The Fountainhead - the climax of the book is about a dude who’s frustrated that his art is being perverted by bureaucracy and who wants equal access to fair housing. Crooked contractors and bloated budgets fueled by favoritism and scope creep are all legitimate problems with state building projects and the idea of working on one of those and wanting to blow it up is SUPER relatable. Yeah, dudes, I don’t want the DeVos family getting any more contracts from the government, I don’t want contractors who have worked with Trump bidding on housing projects. That DOES seem fucked up.

But I mean come on, you’ve got a journalist right there in your storyline; the way you make a hero isn’t to blow up a housing project it’s to report on the corruption. But the journalist is one of the craven lesser men Dominique fucks to get back at Roark to punish him for working with statists. So an exposé is out and an explosion is in.

And I know that seems radical but the thing is it’s not a call to fix a corrupt system, it’s not looking to replace a flawed method with a better method - it’s saying “my way or not at all” and that’s just. Petty. Petulant and wasteful.

Childish.

Same for Galt’s Gulch and the “Strike of the Mind” - in Galt’s Gulch there’s a fucking *doctor* who bitches that he was made to heal people who he thought didn’t contribute to enough to society. Dude. DUDE. Keep your mobile xray technology, and your cure for strokes; I’d prefer a doctor who isn’t basically a eugenicist.

FUCK.

It’s so frustrating that she creates this world where everything can be abundant and everything can be accessible and instead of going “luxury gay space communist post-scarcity society” she goes “what if everything COULD be free but instead we had the gold standard and let children with the “wrong” parents starve to death?”

(uh, in case it’s not clear: I’ve had something of a strong ideological shift away from the libertarian party)

And oh god the way she writes and thinks about women.

You know what, I’ve had arguments with some people about the “I’m not like other girls” trope and if/how it exists and Ayn Rand’s protagonists are the perfect example. Dominique only hosts tea parties in order to crush the soul of the man who won’t live up to her exacting standards, not because she likes them or wants friends or anything. Dagny has a long straight neck and an imperious profile and the short hair of an American woman; she saw a bunch of socialists once and put her middle finger up at them. She didn’t want to come out in society at a ball (and be flirted with by boring boys like some kind of silly GIRL), she wanted to go back to the trains (and also maybe get fucked rough against a wall by a man who knew what she deserved and was bold enough to give it to her) like a serious person. Ayn Rand is the queen of Not Like Those Other Girls.

Goddamnit.

Also everybody talks about how awful the John Galt Speech is but the John Galt torture scene? Hot. Great. 10/10 whump. Please skip the rest of the book and instead read about Galt’s friends/admirers rescuing him and tenderly wrapping his shaking shoulders before they carry him to safety, silently brimming with emotion and pride at how well he resisted the torture. (I maintain that if Rand had stuck to just writing actual porn she’d be much better thought-on and more widely beloved because her fetishy stuff only sucks in context; pull it out of her screeds against altruism and you’ve got something that it at least five orders of magnitude better than 50 Shades)

[jimlingss]

The Colour of Our Voices [9]

Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10

➜ Words: 3.3k

➜ Genres: 98% Fluff, 2% Angst, Slice of Life, Broadway!AU

➜ Summary: He wasn’t supposed to hear. He wasn't supposed to know. But the instant Jimin came into your life and pulled the curtains back, you couldn't hide backstage anymore. You were no longer merely a phantom of the opera.

➜ Warning: Intoxication. 

cr.

The phone rings.   It wakes you, deafeningly loud. It shakes you in the middle of your slumber. Usually, you’re the one dialing, but you don’t dwell. With one eye open, you grab your phone off the nightstand.   “Hello?”   “Hello?”    The voice on the other line is unmistakable. “Hi, is this Ms. Y/N?”   “Yes, it is.” You clear your throat, trying to rid of the grogginess. “How may I help you?”   “I’m the casting director for the original production of When Summer Meets Winter here in New York. We were wondering if you were still interested and willing to set up a convenient date to meet and audition for a main role.”   “W-what?” You sit up, hauling the rest of your limbs that are still asleep. Your mouth opens and closes, brows furrowing, wondering if this is a dream. “I mean….I would love to!”   “Great, I look forward to meeting you soon.”   “I just—” You rub your swollen eyes, utterly confused. The opportunity fell straight into your lap out of nowhere. “I didn’t even put in an application. I didn’t sign up, so I’m just wondering how you got in touch with me….”   It’s not possible that the director would actually give you a referral. But why would someone reach out to you like this? It’s never happened before. It’s never happened to anyone before. No one like you without any fame or recognition.   “Well, aren’t you the voice of Erik, the Phantom in Phantom of the Opera?”   The line goes silent. Your mind is reeling.   “Pardon?”   //   “The Phantom of the Opera production proved to be a lackluster performance and has an even more uninspired director—” Seokjin looks away from his phone, jaw dropped to the ground. He’s offended to no end. “Lackluster?! Lackluster?! She complimented me! What the hell is this?!”   Taeyeon takes away the phone from his hand and continues to read for herself.   Her eyes skim along the blog post to pick up where he stopped. “The casting was severely shortsighted and purely on appearance alone without consideration for talent. They were unable to cast a sufficient troupe and failed to see that it is talent that makes audiences stay.”   “Oh my god. This is ridiculous!” Seokjin slaps his palm against his forehead, turning around in complete disbelief. He is stunned to silence.   “Now I am able to understand how one of the most popular musicals known to the mainstream could do so poorly in Broadway theater here in New York. But the production...doesn’t go without surprises.” Taeyeon pauses and everyone around is on the edge of their seats, breaths held in their throat. She inhales and continues to read, articulating carefully. “The only redeeming quality of the production was the wonderful and rather charming singing. But all the credit is not due to the dull actors or stale taste of the director. It is credited to the ghost singer, Y/N…”   Heads turn. Eyes pinpoint to you.   You hold the spotlight that’s coloured red — painting you into a demon that’s crawled from out of hell, someone worthy of their hatred and disgust. This is the attention you never desired.   They regard you with spite, animosity, malice.   Director Kang swipes the phone out of Taeyeon’s grasp. He looks at it and continues reading silently. A muscle in his cheek twitches. There’s murmuring amongst the crowd. He swallows hard and decides to repeat it out loud, as if to let the simmering anger purposely over-boil.   “The real singer of Phantom is disguised as an innocent intern who sweeps the floor and does coffee runs. It was revealed to me after the show while I was still recovering from the physical torture of being seated in such a corny performance. Y/N approached me out on the street when I was caught unaware. While I was unable to make further contact with the ghost singer afterwards, the claim was indeed confirmed by inside sources I was able to obtain.”   All of it is exposed — how Seokjin has a speaker within his clothes, how the pitch is turned down, how you’re the one behind the curtain.   The secret is out. It’s been revealed to the world.   The curtain’s been pulled while you’re in the middle of a lyric, and now you’re suddenly center stage with the red spotlight and the faceless audience watching.   Director Kang scrolls to the end of the critic’s article. His voice is quiet, a murmur, slow to read like he wants everyone to hear. He wants you to hear.   “I found myself constantly wondering when it would be over. Ultimately, even the tender singing of the ghost singer could not make up for the empty performance. However, it is spectacular how they could turn such a beloved, well known musical into a boring travesty. I would recommend it to anyone who would like an inauthentic experience and who suffers from insomnia as it would certainly put them to sleep…”   The director suddenly slaps the phone to Seokjin’s chest.   The actor winces and takes it back. You flinch as well.   The pointed glare is narrowed in on you. His jaw is clenched, teeth gritted.   It’s a mistake — you can fix this. You didn’t mean what you said. It came out when you were furious and not thinking. Maybe you can go see Min Yoonji, tell her it was all a misunderstanding and she’ll take down the blog post!   Yet, you can’t utter these things. You can’t beg your way out of it.   It was chaos when you came, people staring, murmuring. It’s been spread everywhere already, not just contained within this production. Everyone knows now — the entire community of Broadway.   You’ve single-handedly ruined this production with your recklessness. You’ve illegitimized their production, and with the anger in their stares, you know you’ve destroyed their livelihood.   You’ve wrecked it all.   But there’s no noise of the destruction. There is deafening silence in the studio.   “Clean out your stuff.”   “Director—”   “Enough. Get out.” He points to the door. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”   It’s the worst. There’s no yelling, screaming. He doesn’t even throw a chair like he once did to an actor with a supporting role who failed to show up during dress rehearsal. There’s nothing.   You’ve always envisioned yourself leaving this job with a role in hand, having a secure future, knowing you’d make it on Broadway like they did. You’d be able to walk with your head held up high. You’d hear people’s reluctant praises, grumbling about how you actually did it. The director would nod his head in approval. Seokjin and Taeyeon would offer a small smile.   It was your dream — what you imagined on hard days. It’s what Jimin had accomplished.   But the reality is that you’re cleaning out your belongings while crying. You empty the locker you were once so excited to have. There’s no acknowledgment, no pitiful stares or goodbyes of the people you’ve worked with for the past year.   Twelve months. Three hundred sixty five days. Eight thousand sixty hours. Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes. Thirty-one million five hundred forty thousand seconds.   It was the job that you hated. The one that you loved. The one you were so happy to get.   You’re fired just like that, gripping your cardboard box, absolutely humiliated.   Even as you leave the studio, up the stairs and into the lobby, you can hear the whispers. You can feel people’s eyes following your backside.    In the snap of a finger, the span of one morning, you are fired.   //   The rosette wine tastes disgusting.   It sits heavy on your tongue, bitter on your lips and dries out your mouth to the back of your throat. It’s a taste you have yet to acquire, but maybe you’ll find at the bottom of the bottle.    You grip the neck, taking another swig. It’s a disgusting mouthful as if you’re downing mouthwash after making out with a stranger at a club and you’re still able to feel their bad breath on your own. But instead of making those reckless decisions in an attempt to find instant gratification, you’re sitting on the floor of your bathroom in the dark.   It’s comforting. You can’t see anything. Hopefully, if you drink enough, you won’t feel anything either.   “Bitch, who do you think you are?” you ask yourself, and respond to yourself. It’s a one woman show. A one way conversation. “You’re talentless, poor, and now jobless. Congratulations to a new low.”   You toast yourself with another swig.   This wine is probably the last thing you’ll buy in a while. It’s your final purchase, one you shouldn’t have gotten, but that you desperately needed. What you have saved isn’t even enough to pay the rent at the end of this month.   You should go home.    “Home? Fuck.” The back of your head hits against the wall and you sigh. “They don’t want me there.”   But if you don’t go home, what are you supposed to do here?   Oh yeah...you have that one audition. They called you this morning.   But they don’t want you for you. You didn’t earn it through merit. It’s because you’re popular news, a scandal they can capitalize on and use as a method of publicity. You didn’t get it because of your own talent or skill.    You start sniffling. “Oh shit…”   Quickly, you take another drink before you can burst into tears. You swallow past the thick lump forming in your throat, letting your eyes sting. You won’t cry — you already did enough of that earlier.   You don’t want something like that. To go to an audition where they won’t take you seriously, where their sole purpose is to satisfy their own curiosity. Where you’re Y/N, the ghost singer. Not Y/N, the aspiring actress.   Fuck — you take another sip — you have no job, no real auditions, no work. If you stay, you’ll have to give up on Broadway. Maybe you’d find work elsewhere, at some company, an office job at a cubicle. It doesn’t sound so bad halfway through the rosette.   A nine to five job would be stable. You’d hate it. But at least you’d have some income.   You take another drink with a sigh, and another, and another. Until you come up empty. Until the bitter liquid doesn’t meet your lips anymore. You tip the bottle over your lap with a giggle, and when nothing is spilled, you realize that it’s all finished. Perhaps you could go to the convenience store and find something else to drink…..   But your train of thought is suddenly interrupted.   It’s perfect timing.   You can hear the sound of water running between the walls of your apartment, trickling down the pipes in steady streams. But the noise is joined with someone’s muffled voice. It’s faint, but audible, a sweet tone leaking past the walls.   Jimin’s singing in the shower.   His bathroom is placed right next to yours, both a coincidence and a rather big invasion of privacy. The wall between your apartment seems to be especially thin here too despite it being a place where pipes should run. But it’s echoing, his singing melody quiet, though still discernible.   “In my life, she has burst like the music of angels, the light of the sun. And my life seems to stop as if something is over and something has scarcely begun.”   You gather your knees together, listening carefully. It’s nice. But Jimin’s voice has always been pleasant to the ears.   “In my life. There is someone who touches my life. Waiting near.”   “Waiting here…” you finish singing the phrase, closing your eyes to savour the melody.   “A heart full of love. A heart full of song.” You murmur after him, a duet that he’s unaware of. “I'm doing everything all wrong…”   You hate that you hate him. You hate that it turned out this way. You hate yourself for hating Jimin.   And with that hatred, you find the strength to get on your feet again, stumbling upwards.   He once came pounding at your door when he heard your voice. Now it’s you who’s coming after hearing his voice. It’s close to midnight, but you knock on Jimin’s door like a crazed man.   “Jimin! Jimin, come out!” You drum against the surface of his door with your closed fist. You miss him. You miss him so much that it hurts. “Right now!”   Jimin opens the door and finds you staring at him.   “Y/N?”   You reach over to hug him, wasting no time to envelop his torso in a tight embrace. Your arms wrap around his body, uncaring that the dark strands of his hair continues to drip — he’s always toweled off his head haphazardly; you often worried he’d get sick from it.   He’s shirtless, just in his pajama pants, but you don’t care about that either. It’s actually kind of nice to see him without his shirt, but you don’t want to admit that out loud. Instead, your cheek unabashedly squishes against the skin of his chest. He smells of shampoo and orange soap. And he’s as warm as you remember. Toasty like a sizzled out campfire that just had a roaring flame.    You’ve been wanting to hold him again ever since he held you in the backseat of that taxi.   He’s caught off guard, stiffening automatically. But his senses pick up the scent of something familiar radiating off of you. Alcohol. “Are you drunk?”   Oh yeah. You’re supposed to be pissed at him.    “What’s the matter with you, huh?”   “What?”   You let go, stepping back and pointing your finger right at his face. It’s hard to point when he keeps swaying back and forth, or rather it’s you who’s swaying, balance completely off. But you manage to bring your index finger right between his eyebrows where that knot usually forms when he frowns. You hate that knot. “The hell’s wrong with you, Park?”   Your voice is slurring. You’re tipping from side to side. Jimin is utterly confused.   You lower your arm with an exasperated sigh. You wish he just got it — that he could read your mind. You hate having to explain. “Why’d you stay with me when I got this removed, huh?”   You point to your stomach, finger circling the general area of where your stupid appendix used to be.    “You’re not making any sense.” Jimin cringes at how loud you’re being and looks down the hall to see if there’s anyone there. He takes a sigh of relief when there’s no one angry enough to make a noise complaint and his hand reaches out to take you inside his apartment. “Y/N—”   But you flinch back and wag your finger at him. “Nuh-uh. Don’t touch!”   “Okay, okay, I’m sorry.”   “Don’t wanna get confused,” you scold him. He was such a sly dog. “Naught, naught, Minnie. Wanna make my head more of a mess than it already is...”   “Can you at least come inside?” he coaxes gently after realizing you’re completely barefoot in your pajamas, your toes sticking out from the end of your pants. It looks cold, and he quickly steps back to give you space.   You oblige, but enter only enough to shut the door. You wanna be able to escape if you need to….though you’re not sure where the door knob is. He could probably stop you if he wanted to.   “Were you drinking by yourself?” he asks, searching your expression.   “Why?” Your head quirks and your lips pout. “Why’d you care about me?”   He swallows hard and scratches the back of his neck. “I’ll always care about you, Y/N.”   “You oughta hate me.”   Jimin holds your stare, completely calm. His brown eyes are gorgeous. They remind you of a puppy’s. And you kind of want to ruffle his damp hair with your fingers. “I don’t hate you.”   “But, but,” you blubber. He still doesn’t get it. “You’re supposed to! It’s only natural.”   He smiles softly, eyes lit with mirth and amusement. “Why is it natural?”   “Cause I’m so mean!” you cry out. It’s official. Park Jimin is dumb and needs you to spell everything out for him. “Told you I hate you. That you were annoying and bothersome and, and irritating, and that I regret teaching you, and how we’re not even friends, and we’re strangers, and that you’re annoying, and bothersome, and irritating—”   “Okay, okay. I get it.” He laughs tenderly, like he’s having fun watching you, and that’s annoying.   “Does that not bother you?”   “It does.” Jimin locks his eyes with yours again. His voice softens. “It does…”   “But you don’t hate me?”   He shakes his head. He didn’t even need to think about it.   But you already knew his answer.   Automatically, you burst out into tears. Jimin’s alarmed at once, eyes wide, nearly falling out of their sockets. His palms lift, but he remembers your warning of not wanting to be touched, so he doesn’t lay a finger on you. But he’s still at a loss, not knowing what to do, reduced to awkwardly fumbling the air.    “Y/N, a-are you okay? W-What’s wrong? Are you hurt?!”   You hiccup, numb to the feeling of patheticness. But then you feel a sudden urgency. “T-There’s something I wanna tell you. It’s really, really, really important!”   Jimin nods slowly and puts down his hands as you wipe your eyes with the long sleeve of your pajama shirt. “What is it?”   “I!” You point to yourself and then point to him. “Love! Your! Voice!”   Jimin blinks.   You continue like it’s something you must get off your mind before you forget, “I never got to say — you have such a good tone. It’s sweet. Like sponge cake. And it’s natural. I’m jealous.”   Your sniffle and sigh, lolling your head to the side. You think about it for a moment and then hum, once again confirming your own opinion. There’s no way in this world that you can be wrong. You’ll stand with your beliefs until the end of time. “Your tenor is so nice. It’s purple.”   “Purple?”   The corner of Jimin’s mouth curls, brow lifted.   “Purple!” you tell him quickly, as if you’re afraid of dying and fearful that no one gets to hear this secret. “The colour of your voice is purple.” You pop the ‘p’s with your lips and giggle tearfully. It bubbles out like the fizz of the wine and instantly, Jimin smiles. “You have beautiful voice colour.”   “What’s your colour?” he asks quietly, all too curious.   “Orange, obviously.” You can’t believe he doesn’t know. This wasn’t new news.   “Duh.” Jimin plays along with a heartfelt laugh.   “Duh!” you repeat after him with an enormous grin. “But I don’t like it as much.”   “Why not?”   “Cause I love purple!”   Your finger peeks out of your sleeve again. This time, it isn’t to point at his face but to jut at his chest, poke right over where his heart is. You smile up at him and Jimin notices how moist your eyes are, glassy almost. He can see each of your lashes when you’re this close, and he can’t help letting his eyes run over the slope of your nose to your cupid’s bow.    Your lips look soft. A bit stained from the wine. You have an intoxicating scent that isn’t from the alcohol alone. He has an urge to pull you in close by the waist, the small of your back, to breathe in deeply, and to kiss you.   Jimin wants to kiss you. He has since the first time he heard you sing and wanted to hear your voice muffled between his lips. He hasn’t — only yearned to. But it’s difficult to push away the longing at this moment. Though he swallows hard and dispels the thoughts away.    He won’t kiss you. Not tonight at least.   For now, he’ll hang onto how your voice calls his name, the slurred sound of you telling him you love his voice, the way your lips form when you say that his voice is purple — and the noise you make when you giggle and confess how much you love that colour.

[cinaed]

Red vs Blue Season 3 Rewatch

Slowly making my way through my DVD collection of Red vs Blue!

"You can't die! I'm bored!" Donut is so ruthless in the earlier seasons and I love it. 

We really needed more Tex and Sheila girltime, talking about gender inequality and workplace harassment. 

Simmons actually calling himself Simmons 2.0 manages to be both hilarious and sad.

Yes, Sarge and Caboose team up! Season 3 has some of my favorite odd couples, and Sarge and Caboose is one of my favorites. Sarge being furious that Doc has a higher body count than he does, Caboose's dedication to nap time. 

I love Caboose's moral boost! He's great at compliments even if Sarge doesn't appreciate them. 

I know these zealots were like a mostly one-off joke, but also like...they could be a creepy potential experiment in making soldiers that can't die, which I wouldn't put past anyone in the Halo universe. 

I love the blame game of who came up with the plan that ended up with everyone scattered across the galaxy. Sarge: "My only choice is to blame Grif, for coming up with such a flawed plan. Stupid, stupid Grif." Grif: "I should have never listened to Donut's stupid fucking plan." 

Church and Grif in jail is one of my all-time favorite things. 

Simmons is such a tech savvy guy, reworking the teleporters to make them communication devices as well! He just wants some love and support.

Caboose getting angry. I mean, who wouldn't get angry at kittens with spikes that you couldn't cuddle?

"Simmons, you get an F in efficiency. But I have to give you an A+ in dramatic timing."

I do love O'Malley and Doc's dynamic. The Do Not Call list!

I love Tex's half-truths about the Freelancers. 

Also love Sarge calling Caboose a little rascal and Simmons just seething with jealousy. And he's also jealous about Donut! 

Church: There's no "I" in team, Grif. Grif: Yeah, there's no "U" either. So I guess if I'm not on the team, and you're not on the team, nobody's on the God damn team. The team sucks!

I may or may not quote that to myself on a weekly basis. 

Again, just Church and Grif together in that prison cell is sheer perfection. As is Church going "Wait, the people outside sound like they're winning, that can't be our teams."

Tucker likes Sheila so much! And she packed them food! Well, the AI equivalent of food, but it's the thought that counts! Just the sheer affection in Tucker's voice as he promises her they'll be back gave me emotions. 

And another good moment of Simmons being the one to suggest they track down Grif, because no one else was going to. 

In retrospect, Grif has clearly watched some prison pornos. Like... Buddy.

Wyoming calling Tex Allison has so many interesting implications. 

Simmons re-engineers stuff, Sarge makes a weather control device. Where's the AU where Sarge is a mad scientist.

Simmons asking Grif if he's okay after prison. Just loving the slow build of friendship between them.

Also big parallels of Church's "Misery loves company" and his willingness to let the bomb blow them all up together to later seasons stuff.

I still love that everyone's go-to explanation for stuff is "time travel."

Donut is too thin-skinned about criticism for his play. He'd never survive on Broadway, lol. But I love everything about the time travel show.

How is Tucker the smartest person in this group? But also Tucker being so worried about Church. I am having a lot of Tucker feelings this season. 

I love Grif's devotion to cheesy disaster movies. 

Caboose: Look what I found. Donut: I found it! Caboose: Look at what I took credit for finding.

Poor Donut! A grenade to the head and now his hand got chopped up.

Grif: Hey, what're you doing? Simmons: What does it look like I'm doing, I'm getting in the jeep. Grif: What're we, on a date? Get in the back. Simmons: Oh you're so insecure.

I would've watched an entire season of Doc and O'Malley and Lopez's Lair Improvements. And when Doc mentions a real estate agent all I can think of is an AU where Doc meets Kai because she's running her business on the side while in the military. But also Doc's motivational powers in the living room, O'Malley's belief that the cat won't hang on until Friday, it's great.

The iconic jeep conversation is still good now as it was back then. Re-enacting Dukes of Hazzard! "I can tell you what we weren't doing." 

Grif's mind immediately going to gay stuff as a favor from Tex. Between this and his prison conversation with Church, someone is protesting way too much.

Sarge's plans are so amazingly terrible. I love them.

Grif getting choked up over hating Blue Team and Tucker and missing the days where they all just stood around and talked a lot.

Tex sounding genuinely concerned when Tucker falls into the hall. Luckily he gets a cool sword out of it!

Tex's conversation with Simmons about shooting Lopez's head is a great example of an eloquent helmet look. Tex doesn't even say a word and you can feel the disbelief and rage when Simmons implies she may have missed.

Church: Caboose, I know you're there. I'm leaving this message from two thousand years in the past. Whatever you do, don't, touch, anything. Apparently you're this culture's version of the apocalypse. You're going to destroy this building, and somehow bring about doom for their entire race. Caboose: Mmmmmmnooo... that doesn't sound like me. I like people. And buildings also.

Time for some actual time travel or at least a simulation. But I do love Butch Flowers, haha. Whose greatest enemy is apathy! Love watching Church just make his own life worse. Also love the bit about Sheila having been made in Mexico. 

"Man... First I kill myself, then I realise I'm a honkin' dork. Not a very good day to be me."

Church: I learned a very valuable lesson in my travels, Tucker. No matter how bad things might seem- Caboose: They could be worse. Church: Nope, no matter how bad they seem, they can't be any better, and they can't be any worse, because that's the way things fucking are, and you better get used to it Nancy. Quit yer bitching.

Grif and Simmons and Sarge talking about the Blues, and Simmons saying he's not looking for friends and doesn't like his current crop AKA he just accidentally admitted Grif is his friend. Grif just didn't realize it.

Between the warthog and monkeying about discussions, Church and Grif really are on the same wavelength. 

I love the scheming versus plotting conversation.

Ugh, the arrival of Andy. I hate him so much.

Haha, Simmons lying about his math skills is great.

Uuuugh, Andy. :/ Freckles is SUCH a step up as Caboose's AI murder buddy.

"Do we really have to seize destiny? Can't we just invite it to join our online circle of friends?"

I love Lopez's little rebellion-- he might be under O'Malley's control, but he's also going to sabotage O'Malley as much as possible. And tricking O'Malley into insulting himself in Spanish.

I really forgot that Tex straight up tried to steal Tucker's sword. 

Military law is very clear in regard to the "not it" methodology for making decisions. Sorry, Donut. 

I forgot that Donut can speak Spanish. In fairness, so did the show. 

Hello, Crunchbite! 

Next up, the PSAs! 

Some of these have aged poorly... Like, uh, jokes about 2004 politics do not land well in 2020. And uh jokes about colds and flus. ...Okay, the Christmas PSA where Church destroys the Reds' Christmas tree, tells Caboose the truth about Santa Claus, gives everyone knock-off coal, convinces Church that Santa is now wearing blue and working only for the Blues, and scams Tucker out of a $350 gift is pretty funny though.  

I enjoyed Burnie playing himself in the outtakes by putting words he can't pronounce in his own script. And Grif singing Happy Birthday to Church in prison. Also poor Geoff being told to adlib and immediately having Grif start to tell Church "You're looking buff, man, have you been working--" and being immediately booed by everyone, and someone says they'll use it for an outtake and Geoff is like "It's funny! And I didn't even get to finish!" And everyone trying to figure out Tucker's sword and him accidentally killing everyone in various outtakes. And in the deleted scenes Tex keeps making fun of O'Malley's plans to rule the universe, haha. Also the deleted scene that's just another Simmons' self-insert fanfiction, just as a video instead of a fake game in the Fan Guide.

It also gave us character profiles! I'm sure a lot of this has since been contradicted in canon, but interesting that we got specific hometowns for a few people: Donut in Leggatt Plains, Iowa, which doesn't seem to be a real place; Moscow, Iowa for Sarge, which actually does; Tucker's from Detroit, and Delta Commune for Doc. Oh, is this where we get Caboose grew up on the moon, with his hometown being labeled as Low G Colony, Moon? And hey, I always had him be a middle child, I like that this one did too. Tex likes money and scars and dislikes Donut. Okay I know that's definitely not real, but the idea of Allison growing up in an orphanage hurts me a little. Okay, and I know for sure that Simmons would die of happiness at the fact that Sarge's likes are battles, fringe science, and Simmons. Lopez likes oil and unions, and hates capitalism. My kind of guy. Last but not least, I actually really like Simmons as the son of a bunch of right-hand stooges (who probably wanted power for themselves).

[morningsound15]

I agree with you that the whole political system in the US is rotten to its core. I don't know what it is, but it's not a democracy. And yes, Biden won't bring the structural change that's needed. However, don't you think it'll be easier to get any change at all if after the election we get a blue house, senate and president? (Not to mention the supreme court seats won't fall into Republican's hands.) I mean, at least this way there's a chance progressives can get some of their causes through.

okay, so this is like the only ask i’m going to answer about this because i do NOT want this page to turn into this, this blog is the only part of the entire internet for me that isn’t entirely devoted to politics, organizing, radical education, theory, community-building, mutual aid, agitation, etc. i do that on literally every other social media platform and i do not want to do it here. that said i will answer this ask, i guess, though not exactly in the way you asked it i’m just gonna dump my thoughts on electoralism & this election here and i apologize in advance for how long this is going to be

to your general ask: yes, some people believe that. that is a reason many people are participating in this election (i go into that further down). my objection is not to the idea of participating in this election, the idea of voting, or the idea of voting for joe biden. it’s the entire framing of the situation & it’s the complete disregard for any people who have decided not to participate in this election, or who have decided to participate in this election & not vote for joe biden (i am NOT talking about republicans or trump supporters, that is a party of fascists & white supremacists & i am NOT talking about them, i’m talking about young people and the disaffected left). i’ll explain (under the cut so it doesn’t clutter y’alls feeds & so hopefully i won’t get as much hate because if there’s one thing i know it’s that no one on the internet reads)

what i object to is the framing of joe biden as anything less than an active enemy of the left & progressives. (the left & progressives are not the same thing, but they are both to the left of the dem party so i am putting them together for the sake of this argument but progressives are not leftists, though some leftists do describe themselves as progressives & vice versa, just want to put that out there to start.)

what i object to is the framing of joe biden as an ally. this kind of “at least he is willing to be pushed” “at least he’s already been pushed to the left by progressives” “at least he’s willing to listen & maybe with enough pressure we can get him where he needs to be!” “at least maybe a biden administration will support the policies we want them to!” because he’s not willing to learn, he’s not willing to help, he’s not willing to listen, he’s not willing to support progressive policies to tackle the healthcare/climate/war/imperialism crises or do any of that stuff. his policy goals, his entire campaign is basically to figure out what is the absolute bare MINIMUM thing he needs to do in order to say that he’s “moving the country in the right direction” so he can get elected & so he can get political cover from well-meaning but ultimately extremely sheltered dem figureheads while at the same time actively standing in the way of any real reform, progress, change, abolition, justice, etc. that’s his goal, he’s been very clear about that fact, i do not need to go into all the ways he’s already said & proved that! it’s obvious in his speeches, in the entire dnc (i watched every night of the dnc hoping for someone to lay out a good reason for me to vote for biden & i came up with 0 thanks democratic party), the people he has running his campaign, the donors he has, the lobbyists he hires to write his policy platform, the way he cozies up to billionaires, racists, segregationists, war criminals, and the way he always has in order to ‘maintain the order of politics’ & it’s gross & we don’t really need to go into it. he’s a capitalist, he’s a corporatist, he takes $$ from pharmaceutical companies and oil lobbyists and he is not a good person. BUT! many progressives know this and believe this, & still are voting for him. that is fine.

but we have to remember that joe biden is not our friend, he is not our ally, he is an enemy of the left, he is an active obstacle stopping us from achieving what we want to achieve (liberation, equality, justice, the dismantling of capitalism). so let’s not get it fucking twisted, like we need to be clear about that from the jump. we shouldn’t talk about him like he wants those things, like he’ll help us achieve those things, because he doesn’t, and he won’t, so we do not need to talk about him like he does. it is damaging to the progressive left of the democratic party to talk about biden like he’ll help us achieve any of our goals, because he won’t. we will need to fight just as hard if not HARDER under a biden administration to get the things we want, because we’ll be fighting with the people supposedly in our own party too, and they (along with the political machine they worship & kill themselves to support) are going to do everything they can to demonize and push out the young progressive diverse left, to break their spirits & destroy the political potential of the few politicians they actually do like, because that’s what they’ve always done, because the progressive left represents a threat to institutional capitalist white supremacist power. so our job would not be EASIER under a biden administration. it will just be different. we have to be very clear about that when we talk about what might happen in november.

now, that’s NOT TO SAY that there are not good reasons people have for voting for joe biden. i’m not telling people not to vote for joe biden and i am not telling people not to vote. that’s not what i’m saying. you just have to understand what this country is, what these politicians are, what they want, and what they are going to do to achieve what they want. just don’t lie about it. and only when you understand all of that can you make a truly informed decision about this upcoming election.

you can support joe biden for a lot of reasons. there are a lot of people whose politics don’t align with mine who want me to vote for joe biden, and there are people whose politics do align with mine who are making the choice to vote for joe biden. and the things that the latter group says, stuff that i find persuasive, is stuff like “joe biden is an enemy. donald trump is also an enemy. putting joe biden into office is better for the cause of liberation/leftists/revolution because he is a weaker enemy. he is a weaker opponent. we might be able to do things with him in office to help us tinker with the way our system is structured that will ultimately be for the benefit of the true left wing of this country, which will help future political actors survive in our rigged electoral system and maybe actually gain & maintain political power.” (stuff like abolishing the filibuster, getting rid of the electoral college, packing the courts, systemic changes that we need to make if we want to wrest control of this broken political system from the hands of fascists and white supremacists - many of whom sit inside the democratic party too, so let’s not get that twisted. all of these proposed changes, by the way, it’s important to note (unless i’m incorrect which i don’t think i am) joe biden doesn’t openly support or advocate for ANY of them, so let’s not get THAT twisted either.)

here’s the argument i think you’re making anon, from the mouth of comrade Angela Davis (libs love to weaponize angela davis’ words on biden without comprehending any of her politics or supporting her abolitionist policy positions, also there are other abolitionists who do not agree with davis here but i digress):

“In our electoral system as it exists, neither party represents the future that we need in this country. Both parties remain connected to corporate capitalism. But the election will not be so much about who gets to lead the country to a better future, but rather how we can support ourselves and our ability to continue to organize and place pressure on those in power. And I don’t think there’s a question about which candidate would allow that process to unfold… if we want to continue this work, we certainly need a person in office who will be more amenable to our mass pressure. And to me, that is the only thing that someone like Joe Biden represents.”

i don’t know if i fully agree with that argument per se! but i understand it, and i think it’s valid and valuable, and i understand arguments like that, and they are persuasive to me in many ways. because the republican party maintaining power is the way we slow-march into fascism, but also the democratic party getting/maintaining power is the way that we continue to slow-march to neoliberal destruction of the planet. so they’re both bad, obviously. but there are people who think (maybe they’re right! i’m swayed by this argument) that the biden administration would be easier to manipulate, easier to transform, than a trump administration.

(the counter-argument would maybe be that there are a lot of fucking liberals paying attention & even showing up in the streets right now because donald trump is the president, and if donald trump is no longer the president they’re gonna go home and be quiet and go back to brunch and close their eyes and plug their ears like they did with obama, just like they did during standing rock and ferguson and occupy, and be like “oh kamala harris wore CHUCKS on an AIRPLANE look at how COOL she is don’t you remember when there was a COOL war criminal in the white house?” there are people who are going to do that if biden/harris win, and that’s risky to me! like that is a risk we need to be talking about. i see that as dangerous. now, that’s not to say that’s more or less dangerous than what we currently have, it’s just a different kind of danger we need to be cognizant & wary of. and it’s people who post statuses like “fuck you all if you don’t vote for biden you privileged snowflake how dare you look at everything biden’s ever said done or promised he will do and decide that you don’t like that and you don’t want a part of it how dare you you fucking cuck you fucking idiot you support fucking fascists you fucking idiot” who make me lose my mind because like shut up! you don’t know what you’re talking about. there are people who know what they’re talking about who have decided they’re going to vote for joe biden and there’s people who know what they’re talking about who have decided they are not going to vote for joe biden, and you know what they don’t do? they don’t fucking fight each other, they don’t attack each other, they understand & support the reasons their comrades have for taking the action they are taking. and that is just what this is about. stop yelling at people that you don’t know who are making choices you don’t understand just because you don’t understand their choices.)

(this is even assuming biden will win, which is unlikely, or that trump will relinquish power, which is unlikely, or that there will be a peaceful transference of power and not a full-scale right-wing armed militia explosion of violence on american streets after november 3rd, so let’s all really be prepared for what might be coming in the next couple months!!!! all of these arguments mean next to nothing when we don’t even know what kind of violence awaits us in november)

it’s just psycho to think that joe biden is anything but an enemy. he is an enemy. and you can vote for an enemy and you can have your reasons for voting for an enemy, but don’t sell me shit and tell me it’s gourmet.

that’s mostly what i object to. the framing of this. and i’m not telling people not to vote for joe biden i’m not telling people not to vote. i think people should vote, because for those of us who are able & haven’t had that right stripped away from us or stolen from us by our own government, voting is easy, it’s literally the easiest thing that you can do because it’s also the LEAST politically effective thing that you can do. it’s like step fucking 1 because its impact is so low. that’s not a reason not to do it! that is not a reason not to do it. voting is important because any functioning society needs to have an engaged citizenry and an engaged electorate. now we don’t have that here, but you know what i’m saying. electoralism is a conditionally useful tool of enacting change and what we choose to do with that tool is an individual choice and there are people who are making different calculations than you, and they’re coming to different answers. and those people are often radicals, they’re often poor, they’re often black, or indigenous, or undocumented, or incarcerated. they’re often the most marginalized people in this society who are making these kinds of non-voting decisions, and it’s racist and misogynistic to assume that it’s all privileged white kids who are making that choice, because it isn’t, okay? it fucking isn’t.

and it’s so crazy because it’s always white cis libs who are talking about how important it is to get out and vote and to vote for people who aren’t like you and to vote for someone who isn’t you and it’s like, the black radicals i know are not voting for biden! they just aren’t. they do not see the electoral system or the fucking presidency as the thing that’s going to help & protect their communities. so instead they’re organizing on the ground, they’re distributing food & funds & housing comrades & fighting the police & helping elders shop and pick up medicine & making sure kids have internet access so they can go to school and that is what people are doing on the ground. they aren’t all up on instagram or tumblr sharing voting memes & telling people to hold their nose & “just vote for biden he’s the best choice we have” because they understand that for their communities, that’s not what liberation looks like. that’s y’all doing that goofy social media shit.

political power lies with the people always. the people collectively will prove whether or not the biden electoral strategy (of appealing to older, conservative/moderate, white voters in the midwest instead of young voters, poor voters, and voters of color all over the country, but i digress) is successful. whether or not his strategy is successful, the responsibility for the outcome of this election lies SOLELY with the biden campaign, capitalism, voter suppression, white supremacy, and our undemocratic election system — NOT the individual voters. know your enemy & know which system you need to fight. hint: it’s not apathetic or disengaged voters.

vote for whoever you want to vote for. don’t vote for trump, obviously, he’s a fascist do not vote for him. but for people who are not fascists or white supremacists, just try to understand what you’re doing and your position in the world & in this political system & act accordingly. not voting is not an excuse to do nothing; if you are choosing not to engage in electoral politics the expectation is you should be working twice as hard to make sustained impacts and improvements in your community. and if you ARE choosing to engage in electoral politics, the expectation is you should be working twice as hard to make sustained impacts and improvements in your community.

if what you think the liberation fight is is making sure you turn out at the ballot box on november 3rd, if that’s how you think you are being the most helpful, it isn’t and you’re not. you’re doing something, sure, and it’s not bad. like i did this, this was my job for a year, my job was to register voters and get young people to vote. i don’t have that job any more because i don’t believe that’s the solution. i just don’t believe it’s the solution. i don’t believe we should be talking about this upcoming election like it’s a solution, because it’s really just another problem we’re going to have to face and tackle, and we can’t talk about this election like anything is going to be solved if joe biden is president instead of trump because it’s not, and it won’t be, and these people are all our enemies, and we have to treat them like they are. that’s not to say don’t vote for them, if you understand all that & that is the decision you come to! just know what you’re voting for, and know what it means.

whatever, i’m not gonna keep going on this, rant over forever just had to spit that out somewhere and if i put that shit on my Facebook i would get unfriended by every white lib i went to high school with so fucking quick…

[flying-with-the-wind]

On how being chilean is constantly being pissed off

Okay, so as I was going through the “Chile” tag, I knew I should not get involved, not get involved, not get involved, but when people start talking crap for the sake of shock value, I’m sorry, I get fucking pissed off.

First things first. Now that we chilean people are the best at playing victims.It’s almost like a national sport. So when you read that a state of emergency is being declared in Chile, don’t imagine a country at war and the lands on fire. The state of emergency was not even declared in the entire country, only in the capital. You know why? Because the capital is the only place people are rioting because it’s the only place that has a fucking subway network to begin with (because apparently it’s the only city that matters). So no, there is not dictatorship landscape. It’s a single fucking city. Don’t imagine Venezuela because it’s not even remotely close to that.

 On regarding the state of emergency and the constant lash out to the military forces, I don’t see anyone complaining whenever an earthquake happens, or half a city blows up in flames like every summer, or a fuckin tsunami swiped away half a region. Who do then people call on? The fucking military forces. Before immediately going back on hating on them, because people in Chile are incapable of living in the present, but keep going back to the dictatorship time after time and honestly, that’s the reason we can’t progress into better governments, because we are constantly going back to the same old shit.

People rioting, between 15-18 years old it’s terrible. But here’s what nobody on tumblr is telling you: the student ticket price has not gone up. It was only the adult ticket price. Now, people can protest anyways, because it is fucking unfair, I’m not agaist that, but I hate when people withdraw information for the sake of playing the victim. Like I said, we chilean people are masters at that.

The riots themselves are all well and right. March in the streets, protest in the subways stations, I’m on board with that. A message  has to be send, since our clown of a president wouldn’t  know basic human needs even if they hit him in the face. Buuuut, once again, here’s what they are not telling you:

They set fire to the stations.

They set fire to a university

They set fire to the building of a telephone company

They’re raiding supermarkets.

What does that have to do with the fucking subway price? Nothing. And THAT is why the state of emergency has been declared, not because  people are out there protesting on the streets. It’ because they’re setting the fucking city on fire. Explain to me how is destroying the subway stations helpin? You know they’ll raise the ticket price even more in order to pay for that shit. You’re also fucking up the people who need to take the subway every day to get their education or go to work, as if having to pay more money for it was not already bad enough. 

Because we are a country who takes advantage of this situation to simply do damage  for the sake of it. That’s just how it is. We are so politically polarized it makes me sick. You can’t even defend the military forces who are constantly getting shit without being called a dictatorship lover. And honestly, everyone who does that speaks from fucking ignorance.

The real enemy here is, and there is no fucking surprise here: the government. A bunch of clowns as usual. The economic system isn’t the problems, unless you wanna go back to the one before the dictatorship, of course. You know, the one in which there wasn’t anything to eat. The problem here, fellows, is the fact that our politicians are a bunch of clowns who had pass around a law for YEARS...unless it’s the law concerning their salary. And this is not just the right wing. It’s the left wing too, who are talking about the economic gap between classes while having a million dollar salary. Our politicians are corrupt and they play with the people’s minds and political views to suit their own agenda. They’re dumb as fuck, both from the right, to the left.

Our  subway is like the most expensive in latin america (though apparently that is within the average, according to some minister. Clearly he failed basic statistics). So people have every right to be angry. People have every right to riot. People have every right to hate the government.

But do so while looking at the whole picture, and aknowledge our own mistakes. If the military forces are out on the street, it’s because places are being raided and set on fire. We are a violent nation, that’s the fact. We are violent, and senseless, unconscious.

But we always bounce back. We bounced back from a communist regime that had the country starving. We bounced back from a brutal dictartorship that had people living in terror. And trust me we’ll bounce back from having a pack of clowns in the government and the parliament. 

Stay safe people. Be sensible (since our government cannot). Don’t blame the military forces for their job. Don’t set things on fire or throw rocks because that only makes the clowns in the government close up even more.

Riot in a way that makes a real difference.

Riot in a way that sets us free, not that sinks us back into violence. Riot smartly.

Maybe then, we might outsmart the government and get them to do something for us. I mean, how hard can it be to outsmart a bunch of clows?

And I totally agree, don’t pay that fucking price ticket. It’s fucking expensive!

[zithjen]

Some Core Issues of this World

Before we dive into the execution of a revolution we should probably address why change is necessary and why it is so important that it happens soon.

The issue that has always bothered me personally the most is that of the exploitation of the worker. To think that the t-shirt I was wearing was sewn by a girl my age or younger, in a run-down factory, breathing in poisonous gases, continuously working her hands bloody (literally) because she has no real choice but to let companies exploit her, just to ensure that her family can afford the barest necessities of life. It is one of the most disgusting things I can think of. She doesn’t have the option of doing something with her life that fulfils her. She has to sell her labour at a wage that is no where near enough to provide for her loved ones. And to top this off employers could not care less for their employees’ safety and thus the working conditions are often insecure and endanger the workers. Phew, all the topics that come to my mind when thinking about this. Apart from endangering their workers, big companies and employers take away people’s means of living by for example pressuring them to sell their farmland which has been their main source of food and income for generations or buying up a vital fresh water source, bottling it up and selling the water these people used to get for free straight from nature for money which they simply do not have (not to mention the pollution created during the process if plastic bottle-making and then the shipping of the goods (I tip my hat to you if you also immediately thought of companies like Nestlé who are one of these monsters)). Or, which I might find even worse, such factories polluting their environment with chemicals either out of self-servitude or ignorance. Excuse me, I get carried away. Awful things that we let happen.

Now, as for the reason why this is an issue that could and needs to be ended by a system change is that this exploitation is the absolute base on which capitalism is built. Capitalism relies on the means of production getting cheaper and cheaper and the market to continue expanding. And seeing as we as consumer ship expect less expensive products the money we do not want to pay needs to be taken from somewhere. I can guarantee you that CEO’s will not part with a single penny which means that labourers (this includes office workers as well nowadays, contrary to Karl Marx’ time where this particular class struggle was first properly studied and where Marx’ oppressed class, the Proletariat, was made up by all workers (meaning factory and manual labourers) of the world) will have to deal with worsening working conditions and even less pay.

Instead of having only a handful of people in a company call the shots, make most of the money and not care about the people doing the actual work, anarcho-syndicalists as well as communists suggest self organisation and the complete abolishment of hierarchies, as well as a reconnecting with the work we are doing. The people working in a factory deciding how, when, and what they want to do that is, however, just a small part of that change.

While we are on the topic of exploitation, something else that is grossly being exploited is our earth and her resources. I don’t know where or when people got the idea that the earth is a 24 hours unlimited all you can eat buffet but it isn’t. Get that idiocy out of your heads. On the bright side, not all people are completely unaware. So there have been multiple trends in recent years such as a ban of plastic bags in supermarket chains all over the world and the most recent trend of refusing plastic straws. While it is admirable that some people are doing something it is hardly enough. What needs to change is again the system. 100 companies are responsible for 70% of emissions and although I do not know the numbers for the responsibility of ocean pollution I’d wager our plastic sins, while despicable and under all costs needs to be reduced, if not stopped, are nowhere near as harmful as that of big companies. Now, more important than continuing to reduce the harmful ways in which we impact our planet as individuals, is that we pressure big companies to either do the same or make sure they disappear forever. Aside from harmful emissions and plastic, in order to make profit, companies destroy enormous amounts of forest (especially in South America) for mono cultures of plants such as soy and palm trees. I have to admit geography is not my area of expertise, however, if I’m not mistaken then the hummus layer (which is the layer with most nutrients) in the ground in the rain forests is rather thin and can only be used for a short amount of time before yield is close to non existent without massive fertilisation. As though removing a big chunk of our planet’s lungs, our oxygen provider, wasn’t bad enough, using such amounts of fertiliser is incredibly harmful. And eventually these big stretches of land will have to be abandoned and by then the ground is so exhausted of nutrients that the forest struggles to reclaim the land. I can not even express my disdain for such reckless and stupid actions. And again we have only scratched the surface of these atrocities. We have yet to address the massive loss of life and habitat during deforestation. But I’ll leave that to organisations such as WWF and Green Peace.

Another topic close to my heart is discrimination. This will take me some time to cover as we are talking about discrimination against different ethnicities, people in the LGBTQ community, women, and, tied to the discrimination against ethnicities, xenophobia, and I’ll scrape the topic of the absolute brainlessness of borders and keeping people out of a country.

As a foreigner who grew up in the central European country I quickly learnt how normal discrimination is. As a child I got harassed and called slurs due to my origins. I wasn’t alone in this. If you didn’t absolutely adapt to the predominant culture you would have a though life. While this can be rather traumatising it is nothing compared to what prejudices for example black people in Europe as well as the US have had to live with. Shot at, killed, unjustly taken into custody, wrongly imprisoned. To name a few. I can’t believe that I am explaining this because the only right thing, on which I will not argue with anyone, is to judge a person based not on their skin colour, clothes, physical appearance, piercings, tattoos, hair colour, headscarf, burka, or anything like that, but on their actions and their capacity to show kindness. Back to the topic at hand. While there may be a lot of minorities, such as black people who live in poverty, which in no way represents their laziness or inferiority, they are not given the same opportunities as other people because of their skin colour. Prejudice and decades of oppression has forced them into impossible situations, where for many survival is their biggest concern. Being denied access to education or having to “sit with the brown kids” at lunch is what keeps them imprisoned in a lower class. This struggle is exceptionally painful as black people freed themselves of slavery mere decades ago just to be continuously mistreated.

Unfortunately, discrimination is not limited to people of colour. Modern women’s rights movements, which have been going on for over 100 years also still struggle and have to fight for each scrap of equality. I will not delve too deep into the topic. I will say though. My body. My choice. You can fuck the hell off if you tell any woman who did not specifically ask for your opinion how she should live her life. This is regarding clothing choices, choices regarding children, or how many or few sexual partners she has. Aside from that, many people see equality between men and women as achieved when plain and simple it has not been. The pay gaps being the smallest issue. Women are denied jobs for which they would be the perfect candidate for the reason of being female. The annoying thing about this is that many are not aware of their own prejudices, which makes it that much harder to battle. Women are naturally assumed to be the stay-at-home parent and are pressured into the “right” gender role. This applies to both men and women of course and the issue of bigenderism will be another point of discussion in the future. DISCLAIMER: Just because you do not do one of these things that does not automatically make you a non-sexist. It just makes you not quite such a sexist. Treat women as equals and there you go. Now actively say or do something for equal rights for women and you’ll be a feminist. This includes all women; white, black, Muslim, Christian, trans, etc. (We will discuss feminism and the fears connected to it at a later point as well.)

Speaking of trans (great TRANSition). Acceptance towards the lgbtq community is lacking as well. Not only is there a lack of acceptance but people actively hinder lgbtq members from being happy and living their lives the way they want to. I will try to make this very clear: they are not harming you by loving who they love and fucking who they want as you are. Who do you think you are, attacking them when they do nothing to harm you. Instead of complaining or hating queer people you might want to judge people based on their morals, as I have said before. A gay guy that’s rude is just as much of an unlikable person as a straight guy. He is, however, not an unlikable person because he’s gay. Never. Let people do what they want as long as they don’t harm anyone. And no one has a right to harm them for being who they are. Not civilians, not police. We just passed pride month, which, apart from reminding us to love who we love, should remind us of those who have fought for the rights of lgbtq members. It should remind us of those who were crushed and prohibited from loving and those who were suppressed by their governments and their police. Hatred will not stand against love.

And it is in these times, I believe, that we need love for one another more than ever before. We have reached a certain standard of living in western society that we do not have to fear for our lives. Unfortunately, not all people are that lucky. People flee from their home countries, whether it’s because it’s at war, or they can’t provide for their families. For whatever reason they flee, they are looking for a better life for their families and themselves and they need to be given a chance. Of course the problems in their countries need to be solved, but until they are these people need a home. Instead of pretending that they are all evil you could get over yourself and get to know some of them. Yes, there may be a cultural difference but it might be interesting to get to know it, broaden your horizon. Everyone is a human as you are. Some where just more or less fortunate in where they were born and how their country has been or is being governed. They have worries enough. Be kind to them. There is no need to put them in concentration camps, build walls to keep them out, separate children from their families, or be scared of them altogether.

Speaking of concentration camps (aka ICE). Many anarchists will agree that we hold no love for the police. I only briefly mentioned police brutality in the paragraphs about discrimination. I did not even scratch the surface of the disgusting things they do. They have been given the power and the right, by their government, to use force when they deem it necessary. Keep in mind they choose when they want to use force. It is no coincident that there are more black people being shot than white people by police, or that more lgbtq members are beat up than cis men. There is an imbalance in the distribution of power. We are governed from the top down and it is all we can do not to submit and accept this injustice.

If you take anything from this, let it be that we are all human beings, who deserve to live our lives as we choose, without fear for survival. Assuming we are different from one another because we are born in different places marked only by an imaginary line, or the colour of our skin, sexuality, or gender (which is also an ide constructed by our society).

It is not a coincidence either that all the oppressed are not white, straight, old men who sit in positions of power and assure that these few named injustices continue. It is our duty to ensure that no innocent is harmed and every moment we fail to do just that, is one moment too much. We need to fight this. Now.

[breakingarrows]

The Outer Worlds Doesn’t Want a Revolution

Partnering with publisher Private Division, Obsidian had the freedom to make whatever they wanted. Best known for licensed properties established by other developers (Bioware with Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords and Bethesda with Fallout: New Vegas), Obsidian had the chance to do something completely new. With The Outer Worlds they successfully created another Bethesda game. This is an iteration rather than a revolution. While that is not bad in and of itself, it is the lackluster execution that makes it a disappointment, specifically to their previous work on iterating upon existing games.

Obsidian had proved themselves superior to Bethesda back in 2010 with Fallout: New Vegas. This was a follow up to Fallout 3 utilizing the same graphics engine but transplanted back to the western territory of the original two Fallout games. It improved upon Fallout 3 greatly with its humanizing of formerly mindless enemy types and allowing the player to pick and choose what factions to support with a reflexive loss of reputation with their enemy. You couldn't please everyone. If you have played any of the Bethesda Fallout games, and even to an extent The Elder Scrolls, you have essentially played The Outer Worlds. Character creation, skill allotment upon leveling up, perks, weight encumbrance, a slow-motion replacement for V.A.T.S., factions with reputations and oppositions, and mowing down enemies that exist soley to be killed by the player, all of this can easily be seen as a 2019 update of Fallout 3, a now 11 year old game. It is clear Obsidian was not interested in revolutionizing the Bethesda format, and instead made slight alterations and updates.

All these years later and I am essentially playing the same fundamental game with a change in aesthetic from alternative history post-apocalypse to corporate owned space colonies. There is a possibility here for that aesthetic to breathe new life into the now rote gameplay style, but this is where the deeper disappointment stems: the writing.

Role-playing games frequently employ the separation of main quest and side quests as a tiered to-do list for the player to check off in order to accrue experience, gear, and see all that the game has to offer. After over thirty years of these kinds of games, the fundamentals have been established: Fetch quests. Killing special named enemies with higher stats than your average bullet magnet. A succession of conversations with a split choice at the end. The best games hide these simplistic tasks underneath flavor text: a way to get the player invested in the goings on by expanding on the fiction of the world or the introduction of unique and likeable characters (or love-to-hate ones). Here is one of The Outer Worlds greater failings.

Edgewater, in the region of Emerald Vale, is the first major town you come across and the source of a good amount of side quests to engage with. As far as introductions go, Edgewater leaves a terrible taste of what is to come. As mentioned before, the standard goals appear, and their flavor text fail to disguise the monotonous nature of these tasks. Retrieve a book. Find some medicine. Find three books in separate locations. Kill three named enemies. Kill a robot. Collect gravesite fees. Find a missing person. These descriptions are overly simplified but the game does not do a great job at disguising their simplicity.

Retrieving a book is done for a vicar, a religious counselor who views his flock with contempt and laments that the book is in a different language. Finding medicine serves as an example of the cruelty of Spacer’s Choice, the corporation behind Edgewater’s existence. Finding three books is for an up and coming engineer who deserted Edgewater due to its cruelty. Killing three named enemies is not even worth further explanation as there is none. These names exist to be crossed off and nothing else. Much like the Marauders and animals you come across on every planet: they exist to be killed. Killing a robot is their stab at comedy, with the quest giver being paranoid about a lone robot outside the town walls and stashes his prized weapon in a bathroom. I promise the actual text is no more comical than my dry description. Collecting gravesite fees is another example of the cruelty of Spacer’s Choice and Edgewater. Finding a missing person is the only worthwhile side quest and even then that is not saying much. Zoe, another deserter, has gone missing. You find out she wanted to join a marauder gang to become their queen, and surprisingly, was successful. You find this out after murdering everyone to make her appear so you can convince her to return to watch some new serials she loves.

As far as being a template for what is to come in the rest of the game, Emerald Vale is a terrible introduction and future regions only marginally improves upon it.

My main disappointment in Emerald Vale is within its main questline. Your ship needs power, and in order to obtain that power you need to decide whether to direct a Geothermal plant’s supply away from Edgewater, or away from the deserters. Some of the side quests before served as examples of the inhumanity of working under Spacer’s Choice in Edgewater. The town is experiencing a plague, where the sick are sentenced to death in a “sick house” full of corpses, while Reed, the town mayor, hoards all the medicine for the hardest workers. Sick time is nonexistent and has to be worked back. Employees must pay their burial fees upfront and  suicides are punished collectively. It is an irredeemable monument to the brutalism of capitalism, or at the very least corporate greed (though there is little difference between the two). This is further reinforced by the Geothermal plant, the source of power.

Upon entering the building you begin to discover through text logs that the plant was once under human supervision before Spacer’s Choice took out a life insurance policy on all of them, installed new robot helpers, and then programmed those helpers to kill all the employees. One worker survives, though in a strange oversight you cannot release him from his basement life even after clearing out the plant and reprogramming the robot’s directive. You get to the point of no return but before you can stamp out Edgewater your companion for the past few hours, Parvati speaks up. She tells you the deserter leader, Adelaide, only wants to see Edgewater destroyed, but that the workers are just living the only life they know how and do not deserve to be stripped of that life.

Curious about how this decision would play out I made a hard save and shut down the power going to Edgewater. Doing so dooms Edgewater and its remaining workers to slowly die out. Adelaide refuses to take those in who will not recant their loyalty to Spacer’s Choice, and presumably even then does not help others as the ending slides explains she died soon after having never shared her fertilizer formula to grow natural food with anyone. She is a bitter old woman who delights in the suffering of Edgwater and Spacer’s Choice’s workers. Her reason? Her son got the plague and knowing medicine was available but denied by Reed, left after her son died despite it being a preventable death. The game treats this legitimate source of rage towards the established order as petty.

The opposing choice, providing power to Edgewater, means the deserters must return to be grinded to dust or die in the wilderness. However, if you talk to the right people a third way will open up after this decision. You can convince Reed to step down and Adelaide to take control. Doing so results in the cannery, the town’s main reason for existence and source of sustenance, to flourish in the aftermath. There was no need for such drastic change, all Edgewater needed was the correct person in charge, a kinder boss than that asshole Reed. This is an observation shared by others, though unlike them I never compromised when real change was possible.

This ethos of “reform from the inside” is made more explicit within the region of Monarch, and the second major decision point of the game. Here a company called Monarch Stellar Industries, and its leader, Sanjar, used to have membership on the Board, the group in charge of the entire colony. Sanjar wants back in, with the idea that he can promote a kinder, more ethical ruling from the top. You see, he is part of upper class/management, but the ethical kind who do good without having to revolutionize the status quo. His opposition lies within the Iconoclasts, those who fully reject the Board and their rule and live in a form of collectivist society. Their flaw is that their leader Graham is more concerned with spreading his ideology than with taking care of his people. This fault is even more manufactured than Adelaide’s justified hatred towards Reed and Spacer’s Choice. Within New Vegas, the NCR, the closest to a “good” faction, have a major flaw in the form of their bureaucracy. This is much more believable than an irresponsible leader whose second in command is too lax to depose him until you step in. You can either lead the Iconoclasts to violently overthrow MSI, force the Iconoclasts to break up and integrate with MSI, or you can kill Graham and have his second in command Zora work with Sanjar to provide workers with an alternative to the Board. Another potential status quo change comes with a recommendation to reach a middle ground.

At the very least The Outer Worlds does not fuck up its final major decision, between the Board’s Lifetime Employment Program and Phineas’ revival of Hope colonists. The former has the lower class put on ice for potential future use, freeing up even more resources to be hoarded by those at the top, and the latter has you overthrowing the Board and bringing in new blood to work towards producing a sustainable colony of cooperation. There is no third way here, and the choice is obvious.

Throughout The Outer Worlds the absurdity of the corporation’s power over people is routinely on display, whether in text conversations or the aesthetic of loading screen images and various NPC barks while running around the towns. All of it is screaming that the way things are is actively killing people and dooming the colony, but when it comes time for revolution the game would prefer you compromise until the finale. There, compromise with the Board, the highest source of everything wrong, would be incapable to stomach by even a sycophant.

Fallout 3 endures in our memories for its revolution to RPGs, while New Vegas endures due to its improvements within that new standard. The Outer Worlds does neither. As Eurogamer states, this is comfort food. That sentiment is not a condemnation, though with the games never stopping, a lesser entry in the Bethesda style is an easy pass. The Capital Wasteland with its hyper violence beckoned the player to go ham with slow motion close ups of splashes of blood and cleanly amputated limbs due to your gunfire or pummelling. New Vegas reoriented that mindset by largely removing the mindless raiders, super mutants, and ghouls, with their residences filled with hooked limbs and hives of bloody organs, and replaced them with humanized factions. The Outer Worlds regresses back to the former with a smaller scale overall, though sans the overdone gore. Exiting town means everything that moves now becomes something to kill, loot, and accrue experience from. It makes movement between quest markers mindlessly mechanical, which bleeds over into everything else about the game and what it is trying to accomplish.

I last played The Outer Worlds on November 9th and it has only been viewed less favorably the more I think about it. The combat is complete filler, there is nothing motivating behind the generic and tired numbers-go-up leveling process, gear you earn via quests may as well just be money or gear parts, entering a room means walking along the walls pressing X to gather everything you can carry to be sold/broken down later, skill checks are just numerical goals, you can rarely press X to talk to someone without your gun being pulled out, and a majority of the writing is just the essence of tweets like this extended through 15+ hours. The game consistently observes, “Man, shits fucked huh?” In spite of this, when it comes time to redistribute power, it backs away. And all of this comes from Obsidian, a developer who once outdid Bethesda at their own game is now stumbling through a poor imitation. Walking around Monarch’s wilderness, the ambient music frequently made me mistake what I was playing for Fallout: New Vegas. And I really wish I was.

[charlieism]

i hate the fact that i feel numb to the absolute knowledge i have that in my lifetime im most likely going to see the world end. ill live to see fish disappear from the sea, to feel the earth become hotter, to watch frost melt and the ocean become warmer and more acidic and fossil fuels to become even rarer. i hate the fact i cant do anything to stop it: i hate the fact that corporations and conglomerates, billionaires and companies are blaming me, one person, a single person just trying to live, for destroying the world because i ate meat, or bought a plastic drink bottle, or don’t have an electric car. i hate the fact that they dodge the blame by making me feel guilty and change my ways even though that will have no real effect on the world because they dump billions and billions and billions of tons of pollution, plastic, waste, toxic chemicals, gases and rubbish into the ocean and into the atmosphere every fucking day, week, month, year, despite the fact that they drill finite oil and mine every last piece of coal and burn it all. i hate the fact that capitalism and corporate greed, the desire to have every last coin no matter what it takes, what it costs other people, what it costs the world, mean it’s seemingly impossible to fix the mess that they caused.

i hate that billionaires have enough money to clean up the garbage patches of the ocean and they dont, that they have enough to end world hunger time and again and they dont, that its more important to them to be wealthy, to collect money and never let anybody else have it ever and never spend any of it so it keeps adding up, than it is to save the planet, the only one we have. i hate the fact that there’s a ticking clock, a countdown we’ve known about for years and theyre still not doing enough, not doing anything, and companies and countries can pull out of any deals made just because it might cost them some money. as if money is more important than our world. what use is money when the world is ending? how do they live knowing they could help, could clean and fix and repair the broken, dirty parts of the world, the parts that are suffering and in danger, and they just... dont? 

i hate that im growing up hopeless. i can try to stay optimistic, say that there are agreements in place and people are working on it, but the fact is that im growing up almost certain that im watching the end of the world happen right before my eyes. no other generation has truly had to deal with this before. im watching capitalism, corporations, and greed ruin the only world we have. our planet is being destroyed: everyone who has ever existed, every story thats ever been imagined, ever building ever built, every famous artwork, every scientific discovery, every king and queen and rich man turned to dust and forgotten, every single animal that has ever existed, all of Earth’s history from the beginning, every piece of knowledge we have, came from this one place, and im watching it die, and its our fault (and again, i hate that i feel guilty even though i have the tiniest effect on this planet and its not actually my fault that its being destroyed). i want to save the environment and i can’t. forests are cut down, oil is spilled, species are destroyed, habitats are ruined, the ocean is polluted with trash and plastic, ice is melting, weather patterns and breaking down, and no matter how much i protest and rage against it all the people responsible, the people with the ability to reverse and change it, aren’t. doing. enough.

ill live to see the people who destroyed the planet die, and ill have to deal with the aftermath, and ill die knowing i lived on a destroyed planet anyway. fuck this. im numb when i should be terrified, or panicked, because the world is literally ending, but ive known this for so long, lived with it for as long as i can remember being taught about climate change, thats its just a fact to me. a sad, hopeless fact.

but alongside being numb, i feel angry. im furious. i love this planet: i love all its fragile ecosystems, its people, the only life we know for sure truly exists, the natural wonders it holds and carefully curated over millions of years. im angry people take, and take, and take even though they know its hurting Earth. im angry that they wont give back and help reverse the damage already done. and i will always be enraged about it, but its so tiring to constantly drum up anger about it. i cant be seething all the time; the anger is a background thing because ill be exhausted already if i have to constantly feel the fear and fury over watching my world die and knowing there are people who could save it.

2035 seems to be the point of no return. if we cant sort it out and make a gigantic change to society and how we live by then, then its all over. there’s no fixing it. at this rate, thats not going to happen. we have maybe 15 years. maybe. sorry to be so negative but this is really, really fucking getting me down tonight. i wont even be middle-aged by the time global warming is irreversible. i really will live to see the planet on its deathbed.