#better fare

[beggars-opera]

The fact that the Boston transit system has been a garbage fire for so long that our mascot is a sad little man who is literally stranded on the train until the end of time due to a fare increase. Charlie's desiccated corpse has been riding this train since the 1940s and everyone just sort of rolls with it it this point

[buggbuzz]

finals are over and i've been playing bw2 + watching the new anime and it put me in a trainersona mood

[ghouljams]

Popping in to say your sandwich mafia au has got me really into sandwiches and I'm proud to report that for the first time in nearly a decade I'm not as scared or anxious to eat bread (in a homemade sandwich situation). The ED don't like bread, but I want to experience Simon’s sandwiches, so thank you dearly for your writing and the homemade reuban I'm gonna enjoy while reading your series 💜

As someone who has also struggled with an ED, WAY TO GO!!! We take every victory that comes to us even if that victory is a sandwich(good choice with the reuban btw those are my favorite). Here's some fic for you, as a little treat. Ghost being nice.

-

"I don't mean to be asking questions-" You start.

"But you're gonna push past the discomfort," "Simon" raises a brow, there's no danger in his eyes, just a sudden wariness that makes you feel a bit off balance. You expected his guard to raise immediately. You must not register as much of a problem, or he figures you're smart enough to know what not to ask.

"What are you doing running a sandwich shop?" You wave your hand to indicate his... everything. Not exactly what you think of when you think of a restaurant owner. A hit man maybe, but not a restaurant owner.

"I like food." Simon answers plainly. It's so simple it takes you by surprise.

"Oh."

"Sorry ta disappoint, no sob story here." He shrugs, "Why d'you come in here?"

Question for a question you suppose. "Food's good," You shrug, "and cheap. It's hard out there." You mean it to come off as a joke but you feel sort of pathetic telling a mobster that you're underpaid and counting coupons at the local shops.

"You know, uh," Simon clears his throat a little and you give him a look of horror.

"I don't need a job from you." You tell him. Simon makes a face, you can see his nose pinch under his mask, the exaggerated grimace made all the more unappealing by the zig-zag of scars pulling at his skin.

"Shut the fuck up and lemme be a fuckin' nice guy, alright? Shit." He shakes his head like you're being unreasonable about not wanting to join the mafia. "My girl-" You make a face, "-She ain't in the family, so quit complainin'." He points a finger at you and you shrink back. "My girl-" he looks to you for complaint, you give him a thumbs up, "-needs some 'elp with 'er-" he waves a hand, "-whatever she does, and she pays good." He stares at you. You're not sure if you're allowed to talk.

"You have a girl?" You don't think you can tackle the rest of it just yet, so you start with the part you find hardest to believe. Simon gives you a withering look and pulls his phone from his pocket. He swipes a few notifications from the screen and turns it your way.

Honestly the spiderweb cracks on his phone don't help, but that's definitely a woman on his lock screen. She's grinning ear to ear and holding up what appear to be divorce papers. You give Simon his look right back over the top of the phone. It's the same girl he threw out of the shop two months ago.

"Happy?" Simon grumps, locking his phone and shoving it back in his pocket.

"Don't people usually have a wedding photo as their lock screen?"

"You want the job of not?" Simon side-steps your question.

"I do not." You give him your best impression of someone completely disinterested, because you are.

"You're takin' the job," Simon tells you, he turns to go back to the kitchen grumbling under his breath about having money for food and raising the prices of his sandwich. God you hope not.

You get an email from a name you don't recognize inviting you to interview for a job you didn't apply for not even an hour later.

[handweavers]

same thing is going to happen here whenever they call the next federal election and the median white canadian voter who doesn't care about anything other than that they're angry their walmart chicken breasts cost $20 now votes for the tories who are also doing the far right populist thing. i'm looking at the us election and all i see is poilievres stupid face running at me top speed

[3-aem]

wonderful tiny interactions.

The guy at the post office couldn’t care less about proof of residence he was openly shouting ‘mam do you have anything to prove you live at this address’, before whispering ‘i don’t actually care��

and as i was scrolling trying to find an energy bill he just looked over my phone went: OKAY GREAT and handed me my package with a quiet don’t tell my boss

[social-cocoon]

Squid Game S2 spoilers

I think it was really interesting that the start of the season we see Gi-hun sort of running a tiny version of the Games. I saw the whole search as him, a wealthy man, offering less fortunate people money if they played a game with a big payout to the person or team who won. And the game was another children's game: hide and seek. He even had his own control room - his car with all the gadgets in it to monitor the "players". The main differences are that he wasn't purposefully sending them to their deaths over the money, they would all be paid so long as they participated, and the intent wasn't to exploit them.

The thought isn't going anywhere, I just think it's pretty neat

[cybertron-smash-or-pass]

It's not even a fucking joke anymore, I need to frag these robots NOW. It's getting so bad my dick BURNS and my stomach TWISTS whenever I see these goddamn sexy bots.

Autobots, Decepticons, in between, none of the above, it don't matter! I'm going insane I need them in my bed right now, I don't care if they break my bed, me, my house, or anything else, I need any and all of them inside me whilst I'm in them at the same time holy shit

Not even any of those "we fraggin' until-" I AINT FUCKING STOPPING.

Were any of us joking? I mean I've been exactly this unironically horny over tfp ratchet for like the past week

[canisalbus]

I envy Vasco and Ludovica so much: having the class, the sass and the gay at the same time and no one suspects a thing.

.

[yunmeng-jiang]

List of people who did demonic cultivation in CQL:

Xue Chonghai. Went insane and created a dark superweapon and tried to destroy the world.

Wen Ruohan. Went insane and tried to take over the world.

Wei Wuxian. Tortured and killed tons of people in remarkably horrifying ways.

Xue Yang. Massacred an entire clan and spent many years doing horrible things relating to corpses and controlling partially dead bodies for fun.

Mo Xuanyu. Suddenly and "inexplicably" went insane during his study at Koi Tower under JGY, came back with some of Wei Wuxian's notes which were seized by the Jin after his death, then killed himself to summon what he thought was the evilest ghost in the world to murder his family.

Su She, I think. He actually had a super strong golden core (as evidenced by him using the extremely taxing teleportation talismans a lot) so it seems like it affected him a bit less than others.

I'm just saying... maybe Jiang Cheng was right to track down people who used demonic cultivation and stop them from doing that?

[thelien-art]

Melkor deserves a vacation, it´s exhausting being evil all the time:)

The first summer drawing before it´s even summer...

Is he wearing any pants? None of your business, you´re not his dad

[corvus-frugilegus]

The way my heart drops every time I visit Minrathous after saving Treviso. The sorrow in Rook's voice, the destruction, the way the resistance has been so brutally dismantled. The absolute horror in the streets of dock town presented so matter of factly by the game. They don't need to put a spotlight on it or show us a cut scene of the brutality because it's everywhere. You're immersed in the sheer scale of violence every step you take in dock and hear so much about the atrocities in the ambient dialogue. Walking the streets of Venatori controlled Minrathous feels awful.

The very obvious rise of facism that has been simmering beneath the surface in the magisterium all along. The dragon gave the magisters a chance to throw off the veneer of civility and stop acting like finding a middle ground with dissenting voices was something that mattered to them. Finally, they had concentrated power to an extent that they could inact their vision for Tevinter out in the open. (Probably if it weren't for Elgarnan taking over, reclaiming Tevinter from the Venatori would have been a monumentally difficult task).

If this isn't an Excellent social commentary and reflection of the increasing polarity in Western Politics I don't know what is. The rise of hard right leaning leaders epousing a return to traditional values when really their priority is the interest of capital and the ruling class is exactly what the Venatori represent here.

A criticism I've seen of the games writing a few times now is that the problematic elements of each faction feel either defanged or glossed over. And while I don't disagree that there are definitely some deep tensions and polarities in each of the groups Rook works with, I don't necessarily think it's poor writing to not talk about them here. It's just not the scope of the game- and I think actually underscores a very real issue we have in real world organizing and progressive spaces. If the Crows refused to work with Rook because they work with the Wardens who happen to keep terrible secrets (and so on and so forth about every faction and their tensions with one another) the gods would never have been stopped. In the case of the gods the people representing these factions and Rook's comapnions all recognize that their common cause is more important than their disagreements. Not working together because the Veil Jumpers rightly have qualms about the Lord's of Fortune pilfering elven ruins only lets the gods win. Working with someone who see's the world differently is a tension everyone in the veilguard has to hold. And it's a tension real-world progressives / the left very often struggle to hold.

Realizing that the common cause is more important than individual differences is a very real theme in Veilguard.

[papasmistakeria]

This photoshoot is actually so funny to me cause why tf did they send Rivers into a boxing ring? Like, they could've sent Scott in, y'know, the one who actually looks like he could hold himself in a fight, or even Pat. But no they sent twinkie winkie in there and expect him to win? He's going to fucking DIE

[crimmsonflower]

Wild life was so fun to watch

the life series is always so fun and cinematic

Grian telling Jim that this is the only way it was gonna go right before blowing up the blambunker. COLD, ICE COLD

this series is awesome, this series is cinema

[katsona-the-katsequel]

If we were to seriously consider a Protag Swap AU, then most of the protags are fucked.

Let's consider P5 for this scenario, since its the most well-known story. The protags considered are Naoya, Tatsuya, Maya, Minato, Kotone, and Yu (and remember, the events of P5 also shape them as they go). Of course, all of them defended the woman and got sued.

I can see everyone but Maya becoming friends with Ryuji and Ann. Those two would get babysitter vibes from Maya instead of reliable older sister (sorry, queen, but maybe you shouldn't have unironically adviced them to Live, Laugh, Love. You're also not a student and have nothing to do with Shujin). We only have Naoya, Tatsuya, Minato, Kotone, and Yu left.

Out of all of them, only Minato, Kotone and Yu would give Akechi the time of day. The rest were either weirded out by his attitude, too annoyed by his plastic smile, or decided it wasn't worth it to get too close to someone investigating the Phantom Thieves (or all of them at the same time). Without the Akechi confidant, the others lost a lot of intel and clues the Phantom Thieves actually got to put the pieces of the mystery together and an ally for the Third Semester.

Kotone never began the Kawakami confidant due to not being invited to Operation Maidwatch. Shame, because she would have reacted a lot like Akira did in lots of main events. I also don't want to put her through the interrogation torture.

Now that I think about it, Yu would have been a smidge more reluctant about the regular Change of Hearts business that the Phantom Thieves undertook. If the circumstances and story aligns, he would go with it in the end, but the entire story and general vibes wouldn't have the same impact than when Akira did it. Minato's Joker is a bit more stoic and way less flashy and passionate about the Phantom Thieves' mission, seeing more like a necessary duty.

In the end, only Akira could do it.

[notbecauseofvictories]

I know that there's no point in trusting your employer with much of anything, but the fact that my company put together a week-long summit for my team and our international counterparts---and then canceled it a week and a half before I left---does make me want to do some truly operatic violence.

[kalicocal]

you know it's bad when you can't even make yourself rewatch the second act.

i don't have the heart to put myself through that again.