#but I used to be into it despite how horrible it was

[katarh-mest]

Might I remind everyone that the horrific EOs being passed by Felon 34 are BLATANTLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL and he's passing them despite them being illegal under US law because he's found out nobody on the Republican side has the spine to stand up to him. (Hell, most of them are enjoying the chaos. They are monsters.)

Don't blame Democrats for the dictator that the Republicans unleashed on the world. We tried to say how horrible we knew he would be, and too many people either didn't vote or don't know what a tariff is.

Republicans own this fucking mess.

[abbysimsfun]

Sims In Bloom: Generation 2 Pt. 136 (Twists and Turns)

The next morning, Heather woke to a fresh blanket of spring snow (must be Canada 😂). She was hit with another bout of nausea, and stunned by news that one of her vet techs, Rico Garrison, had been unceremoniously culled killed in a shock drowning accident in Dachshund's Creek. This left her down a tech and about to commit to a months-long rebuild of Buttercup Pet Clinic.

Despite the unseasonably snowy holiday and feeling less than stellar, Heather had to go to work to cover Rico's appointments. She felt horrible for her best tech, Kaori Hayashi, who had been dating Rico since late winter. They were even expecting a child, which meant Heather would soon lose Kaori to maternity leave, too. At least Thaddeus, her most recent hire, could help pick up the slack, but this was undoubtedly a tragic setback.

Despite the unseasonal snowfall, J Huntington came in with his dog, Archimedes, thanking Heather for her advice over working with Landgraab Corp. "I signed the contract to give them the company. They'll take care of straightening out George's books, and for the first time, my guys will get healthcare, so everyone's on board with the change."

Heather forced a smile. She didn't care much for things that would please Nancy Landgraab, but she knew a strong presence at the docks was important after everything they'd been through over winter. "I'm happy for you," she said, and it wasn't a total lie.

She returned home in mid-afternoon, finding her younger sister back from Henford in the living room. "Hey Hazel! How was Easter dinner?"

"It was great." She fiddled with the hem of her jacket as she sat on the sofa. "I'm sorry I got upset with you while you were away. I was freaking out about all the marriage talk, but I shouldn't have put that on you."

"It's okay," said Heather. "I'm not upset, but I couldn't tell you what you should do. What if I had said no?" (That option won the poll, by the way!)

"I would've been more upset," she admitted. "I'm not ready to marry again right now, but I want to be with her for a long time."

"Did you talk to Suri?"

"I did. She said she's been feeling like she needs to hold on to the important people in her life since she lost her aunt so suddenly, and I totally understand what she's going through. But it's too soon to get married. We want to live together first - just the two of us."

"Here in Brindleton Bay?"

Hazel nodded. "I like working with Alex Goth, and the deal's almost done for Suri to buy the Salty Paw. She said when the owners found out her grandmother was Clara Bjergsen they did their own renovations and upped the price, but once a deal goes through, I'll move in with her in the small apartment over the bar."

"There's an apartment over the bar?"

"Not much of one, but we're going to try to turn it into something nice."

"I'm happy for you, Hazel. And I'm happy you handled this so maturely with Suri."

"You didn't think I could, did you."

"I hoped you would."

"Are you sure you guys won't miss me when I'm gone?"

"The Salty Paw's only about fifteen blocks away."

They laughed together and Hazel smiled. "Thanks for everything, sis. You're the best."

Heather still wasn't feeling great as she tried to get a few chores done around the house. She'd started to feel like she was fighting off an infection; it was time to see a doctor, so she left Conrad at home with Lavender to visit her gynecologist.

But she came home in a daze, stunned by the doctor's diagnosis. She found Conrad and Lavender upstairs, chatting as Lavender tried to bargain for another story. "When you're five, we'll talk about a later bedtime, but until then, that's now. Time to get into your pajamas." Conrad's attention turned when Heather shut the bedroom door behind her. "Hey! What did the doctor say?"

Heather sighed. "Well, I have a UTI. But that, the nausea, the fatigue...they have nothing to do with the spider bite."

Conrad's face fell. "What's up? You're okay...right?"

"I'm pregnant. About seven weeks."

She smiled as his expression flipped from concern to ecstatic joy. "Heather, that's incredible!"

Lavender glanced at her parents with confusion. "What's pregnen?"

"It means you're going to have a baby brother or sister."

Lavender still wasn't sure what they meant. "I have a brother awreddy. Can it be sister?"

"We don't choose, sweet girl."

"I hope it's a sister!"

After tucking Lavender into bed they settled onto the sofa for a comfortable night in, but their movie was interrupted when Heather's phone rang. She checked the call display before she connected the call. "Malcolm? What's going on? Is Ash there?"

The line was quiet for a long time. Too long, and Heather felt the phone start to shake in her hand. Finally, she heard Malcolm take a breath.

"Heather...I...It's...Ash is missing. H-he's been kidnapped." ->

<- Previous Chapter | Gen 2 Start | Gen 2.1 Summary

Gen 1 Start | Gen 1 Summary

NOTE: Sorry I buried the baby news, but I didn't have enough content to make a whole other post and I set myself another arbitrary deadline to get to a certain point in the story by a certain date. And Heather was supposed to learn she was pregnant later than this, but the mod-generated UTI sent her to the gynecologist and she/we found out earlier than planned. No offense to this very wanted baby but ASH IS MISSING!!

NOTE 2: @purplesimmer455 the way I couldn't react with the excitement I wanted to your meme share on Sunday knowing I paid homage to it in this very post ("What's pregnen?") and didn't want to give the truth away yet! 😅 Shout out to @matchalovertrait who also guessed this, and @changingplumbob who I think was thinking it when she asked why Ash's room had bunk beds. I made up a small fib about repurposing the tiny nursery space, but actually I still need it for the new nooboo!

NOTE 3: On one hand, it's very sad that Rico was culled when he's expecting a baby. On another hand, this is a setback on my likely-fruitless search for a five-star rating because now I have to train up a new tech! Tragic!!

WCIF Phone Poses: Unexpected Phone Call by @starrysimsie and Shocked News by @simmireen. I used @nataliaauditore-blog's iPhone 11 accessory in both poses.

[cartoonverisimilitude]

Apparently Trump has said that the U.S. will take over Gaza - and like - I wonder how those “THESE CANDIDATES ARE EQUALLY HORRIBLE SO I WONT VOTE. KAMALA SUPPORTS GENOCIDE” idiots are feeling now. Cause like, did you expect Trump to …not support genocide?

Or were you hoping the rest of us sane people would vote for Kamala, she’d win and you could rest peacefully knowing that you didn’t “sacrifice your morals” but could still reap the benefits of a candidate you knew was “the lesser evil?”

Like you don’t have to sacrifice anything and still get to feel good about yourself ? You thought the rest of us were going to take care of the issue for you.

But you didn’t vote. Or you voted for Jill Stein. And maybe the voting machines were rigged - but maybe if you voted for Kamala we would have had an argument, a court case.

But no.

And now we’re stuck Donald Fuck and Elon Shmuck who are literally dismantling the government and who will probably start WWIII over fucking Greenland , reinstall slavery , lock the borders and cause another Great Depression… all because you were pissy that Kamala Harris had no plan to solve the most notoriously complex land wars in history. She couldn’t solve the issue in the Middle East, bitch if it was simple and American wasn’t run but evangelical Christians who have a vested self interest in Jews returning to Israel to trigger the end times, if the world wasn’t so antisemitic, or racist or sexist or if Hamas hadn’t slaughtered hundreds of innocents and taken over a hundred people including children hostage - yeah, may be there could be a solution on the horizon.

But there fucking isn’t.

And you aren’t asking the government to end relations with China despite them LITERALLY having concentration camps for Uighar people and erasing their culture. You aren’t asking Kamala to fix that.

No. You asked a black woman to solve a 2,000+ year old issue because it’s the topic du jour and you wanted to hide your racism and sexism behind a veil of progressivism.

You couldn’t possibly vote for the lesser of two evils - that’s just wrong.

Now, you want people to do something. Now when they’re making it more difficult to protest, to earn a living, to earn an education - you want us to do something

Or you want to be a hero. You want things to get bad so you can play Katniss Everdeen and be the face of a Revolution. But Katniss never wanted to be the mockingjay.

It just happened and then they forced her to continue the role

You want things to get bad and the current system to burn to the ground because you assume whatever will pop will be better than before. Or at least you’ll be in charge.

You’re hypocrites and idiots. You’re naive and uneducated. I’m glad you see good in the world and have hope for a better future.

But that doesn’t happen overnight or in violence. A lot of the times, it’s small - like voting for a person you don’t want to, because they’re still better than the alternative

[junedenim]

2013

beneath the boardwalk, part 11 (series masterlist)

do i wanna know?

warnings: depression & desperation

word count: 3.7k

I moved in with Jackson at the end of January. It was sudden and maybe too soon, but I liked Jackson and his place. I had known him long enough and slept (plain old sleeping) with him long enough to know I could live with him. I felt I had grown out of my old apartment. I had expanded so much like I had eaten a Wonderland cookie that the windows were bursting, shattering glass onto the street, and cutting into me.

It was a form of self-harm that unfortunately hurt Jackson in the process as well. I felt early on in living together that we weren't perfect matches. We didn't talk very often about unrelated things, only ourselves. My narcissistic tendencies were often inflicted on him, but he did the same to me, something I didn't mind because we rarely saw one another, only at nighttime.

It didn't help that he was still my agent. I shunned myself from writing a memoir again because there were unavoidable subjects that would expose me to him in unkind ways. I began writing short stories, thinking I would make a collection of them. Jackson found the idea to be dumb but was polite enough not to phrase it like that.

I started to think about my death in horrible ways. I was convinced I'd get pushed onto the subway tracks. I started seeing my dead grandmother around New York and thought I had developed schizophrenia. I wrote a story about it and labelled it as fiction. Jackson called it "depressing" and found it to read like a science fiction mess. Both were true and criticism I could take back when he was my agent, but not as my boyfriend.

I told Fennel and Kaka about the problem and they told me to go see a therapist. I didn't until I got so high one night that I was convinced I was going to jump out the window by accident. Dr. Varma was thirty, blonde, and had these ugly side bangs. The day after my first session I had Opal cut bangs, full-frontal ones, into my hair. They turned out rather well for someone who has unstoppable shaky hands. I got put on an SSRI, which stumped my creativity until I got used to it around March.

I thought about moving back to London but only ever told Dr. Varma this because I figured it would hurt every New Yorker I knew. In general, things felt aimless. Winter tends to have that effect on me. It's consuming and feels like my stomach has a parasite on it and my brain is being squashed between someone's hands. I was also 26, anxious, and terrified by the thought that I was suddenly going to be 27 that year.

It feels anti-feminist to say a man made everything make sense, so, I'm not going to say that, but certain people make everything make sense. Even though Alex and I didn't talk much, the thought that he'd be 27 too made things feel less troubling. Things made sense in his mum's car driving in circles. 

I don't mean to discourage the power of my friends in this process. Opal comforted me more than anyone. I was often disillusioned with how the start of the year had turned out, mostly with my relationship with Jackson, and despite her close friendship with him, she was always understanding. She never pushed ideas on me. Never toward breaking up or staying together. She felt like Dr. Varma sometimes, her words pointing me in a certain way, but I never had to pay her for it. I always knew she just wanted the best for me.

One evening, we watched The Sound of Music and I cried in her arms while Christopher Plummer sang Edelweiss. I declared Captain Von Trapp would be my husband. I sounded the same way I did when I was 6 but he sang with a tenderness I love so dearly to this day. I found comfort in childish things. I realized how disconnected I had become from that part of my life, with the people who gave me life, the land I grew up in, and how much of a tailspin every chapter had felt. The most normal I had ever felt had been 10 years ago. It belonged in a world I never knew.

I knew I had to get out of New York.

*

I bought a plant in February. One that doesn't need much attention and can sit on your windowsill for a year at a time and not die. It made the act of having a plant a lot less beautiful but I felt like a proper starting point for taking care of things, including myself.

During this time, Jackson and I were still together. We would break up in April where I would be accused of using him, something I did partially do. For a long time after I felt ashamed of that because Jackson had been a person who had changed my life, brought my happiness, and had a beautiful friendship. Our relationship began out of insecurity of my singledom but was also built on the foundations of those traits.

I did use Jackson, but in the same way everyone uses a relationship to fulfill a part of their life. If I didn't need a use for him then we wouldn't have been together. However, I admittedly did use him as a rebound, something I confessed to him when I started going to therapy.

Jackson and I didn't talk much about anything other than ourselves, so we never got to the topic of what we wanted from a relationship. I never had any intentions of marrying Jackson, not to say he had any with me either, but he took it a lot more seriously than I did. Frankly, I didn't take anything seriously and that was starting to scare me.

I had maintained the difficulties of a romantic relationship with near-consistency from the age of 18 to 25, which is particularly rare in the 21st century, especially two people like Alex and I. I took my work seriously during that time and when the relationship fell apart, almost everything else fell to the side.

The proper levels for taking things seriously I'm not sure of, but for me, I didn't feel like I showed up, other than with Opal and Jackson. The only two other people I was as close with were an older gay couple that fed me once a week. I was dependent on everyone. Opal went through a lot of shit in 2012 that I disappeared away from and took Jackson with me. I knew I did it but I was too ashamed to make a change or even say sorry for it. Yet, she took our friendship seriously and still showed up for me.

I decided that after my birthday I would take a trip to upstate New York. I picked dates I knew Jackson couldn't accompany me and rented a car. I wanted to be alone. When I told Opal this she asked me if I wanted company. I thought I didn't need it but her question made me realize that what I desired most was genuine socialization.

Even though she hates suburbia and hiking, Opal came with me.

We drove for four hours up to Watkins Glenn. Opal drove us the first two hours out of the city and I drove the remaining four to our hotel, The Colonial Inn & Creamery. Creamery meaning it had a built-in ice cream parlour, which saved us from many late-night snack runs.

The State Park, which was the main reason I went, had these gorgeous waterfalls. Since it was early spring and the air held a slight drizzle, the park was fairly empty. We stopped at the gorge, right where the water falls down, not in some rushing force, but just like that drizzle of rain that surrounded us on a work up to it. It was gradual before forming a small lake at our feet. I squatted, dipping my hand in, and patting the cold water on my face.

"Should we take a break here?" I asked Opal, who was standing beside me.

She loudly sighed, "Yes. Please!" She sat beside me and took chapstick out of her purse. "It's very beautiful," she said while placing it on. "Thank you for taking me."

I smiled over at her. She wasn't elegantly dressed, something out-of-the-order for her. She looked tired from the walking and her jeans were dirty at the bottom cuffs. She placed her arms on her legs and I felt calm. "Thanks for coming with me," I said. 

We didn't talk after that. We had talked the whole trail and we had many words left to say but we watched the water drizzle down the stone, not a sound made.

She stood and began taking pictures. She had begun dabbling in photography at the end of last year when her boyfriend bought her a camera. (Is that a gift most boyfriends get their girlfriends?). I took out my notepad, small and dainty, and a gift from Jackson.

I drew the waterfall. It was two circles to signify the gorge with a bunch of lines cracking down the middle. On the next page, I wrote, Eroding for a billion years until, one day, water spilled out, and here I am now looking at it. How many paths were walked until the water found this one? I'm not good a poetry, clearly, but it was a respectable description of what my mind was ticking through. I found it to be dumb, even when writing it, but paired with the awful drawing I had drawn and more importantly the photo Opal took of me sitting on the rocks, just me and the water. All together it embodied a piece of me.

On our way back to the hotel we bought peach Schnapps. We drank it while we flicked through the television. It undeniably felt like two kids who broke into their parents' liquor cabinet. We each sat on our individual queen-sized beds and I turned to Opal across the gorge that divided us and said, "I think you're my sister."

She giggled while swallowing, trying to keep all the fluid in. I could tell she almost said something snarky but she softened by the time she could speak. She was an only child and she said to me, "Yeah. It feels that way for me too."

*

After Jackson and I broke up, I briefly lived with Fennel and Kaka while I tried to figure everything out. I was writing more ever since Watkins Glen and Jackson, through his kindness and belief in me, set me up with a different agent. There was no promise to be friends, but we knew we'd run into one another again, especially because of Opal. We ended amicably and he helped me move out. We hugged each other goodbye and I didn't see him for a while after that.

I heard Arctic Monkeys would be headlining Glastonbury again around this time. The announcement had been made weeks prior but I hadn't paid much attention to any news, let alone my other ex-boyfriend. I sent an email to Alex because we were old losers who still primarily communicated through it. If Alex ever got Facebook I think we would still be communicating on it to this day.

In the email, I apologized for not sending my congratulations sooner and that I was excited about the next album. On the whole, it sounded sterile and formal. It came off as something a person he’s never met would send as congratulations in hopes he’d throw some money their way.

Alex politely wrote back a thank you and then asked if I had suffered a stroke because I used “your” when I should have used “you're.” I wrote back how I was rolling around in embarrassment from the thought of it alone. He wrote back a note of laughter. After that, things were dry and I didn't hear from him until June.

*

When the band headlined Glastonbury that year, I didn't watch. You can't get the BBC stream in America, which was beneficial for my well-being. I had decided to move on and not be so absorbed with him. Something I never really did. He was hard to avoid.

I had thought the moment I moved out of the apartment Alex and I used to share that all old wounds would feel healed. I had thought leaving New York City would dissipate all the aches in my bones. Every absence was fleeting. However, I needed to go somewhere that didn't feel so loud.

I settled in New Lebanon, New York for two weeks. It was cooler than the heated cemented city. The house I stayed in was an old sawmill with a garden and stream nearby. Since I was staying there alone, I only had make-believe to keep me company. It wasn't the healthiest but it made for good writing.

It also forced me to learn how to cook because there were very few places to eat. Alex called me when I was in the middle of making pasta. I had just gotten a new phone (my first iPhone, the 5) and had yet to transfer all the contacts. 

I picked it up and felt like an old lady with my inability to pick up the call. "Hello. Who is this?"

I knew it from the chuckle alone. "We've really fallen out enough that you don't remember my name."

"Oh." I embarrassingly laughed. "Hey, you. I've just gotten a new phone. It's Apple. The new one. I'm feeling very posh right now. I'm cooking dinner."

"You're cooking?" It's like we had skipped thirty chapters. I had broken up with my boyfriend, started therapy, temporarily moved out of New York City, learned to cook, got a new phone, and learned how to do a cartwheel since we last talked. I had yet to register all of it too.

"Yeah. I've got a house too. Well, temporarily. I'm in New Lebanon, New York. It's a writing retreat. A personal one with no other writers."

"That sounds nice. You've always liked seclusion. You've got chickens too?"

"No. It's making me want to get a dog. Or a cat. Or maybe a cow. You'd hate it here."

"Why?"

"It's quiet. You're alone with your thoughts the whole time."

"Yeah. I would hate it." He grew quiet, like he believed I could read his thoughts across the call line. I probably could. Something along the lines of terror and isolation. He wracked through so much and tried to bleed the rest of it out.

I switched. "It's also home to the Shaker movement."

"What's that?"

"It's these Christians that don't have sex so they don't have babies and they've pretty much all died out but three. I've been to the museum here way too many times because there's nothing else to do."

"You thinking of joining?" He posed.

It would make for an interesting experience. If I ever ran out of topics to talk about I might vow to the Shakers in hopes of getting another book out of it. "At this rate, I might as well. Everyone is either married or dying out here." 

"You can't do that,” he insisted. “It would be a loss to humanity."

"Me having sex?" It was crossing a line. He had a girlfriend and was my ex-boyfriend and I was lonely and thinking about taking a lifelong vow of celibacy. 

He avoided. "Where's Jackson?"

I sighed and stirred a fork through the boiling noodles. "We broke up a few months ago. Nothing big. We're going to stay friends and all that." I said it not quite believing it, dripping my words with sarcasm.

He plainly said, "Sorry about that."

"Eh," I voiced, "what can you do? Que sera, sera is my new motto. I'm becoming a housewife to myself."

An ugly snort sounded through the phone. "Are you high?"

I giggled. "No. This is what happens when I'm left alone in nature for too long. I'll be joining a nudist cult soon. What about you and Arielle?" 

"Fine. You know, I'm touring and all that." He didn’t talk about her with me ever, which was the appropriate thing to do, but I took it as a sign that they were like Jackson and me: never seeing one another and on the edge of a breakup. 

"I know," I said. "How's that going?"

"Good. We're having fun."

"I'm liking the new stuff."

He was short and wanted to change the topic quickly. "Thanks." He was evasive. I don't know what that meant about the subject matter of "Do I Wanna Know?" and I won't write who he had in mind when his pen hit paper. But I have written the history here and you can deduce what you want.

"How's your new material?" He asked. I couldn't remember the last time I had sent him any of my writing. Our art had become separated. He didn’t ask for my opinion. I didn’t ask for his. I think that’s when our relationship died. We were so attached through our love of creating and not sharing that with one another was proof that whatever was left was necrosing.

"Fine, I think. Just short stories for now. I don't know what else to write. Nothing much has happened."

He outwardly laughed. "Seems like a lot has happened."

"Maybe. It doesn't feel like it." He was on the outside looking in, but from within, everything played out slowly, and it all went down in an inevitable nature.

"I get it. I'll leave you to dinner."

So, we faded away from one another once again. We were barely a blip on one another's radar. I went back to the city and lived with Fennel and Kaka until I was done "figuring everything out." I wondered why Alex had called me. If it was just to catch up or he had something to tell me. Despite my loneliness and desperation, I never called Alex. He was always the one reaching out.

I submitted the collection of short stories to my new agent and began renting a studio apartment in Downtown Brooklyn. I began writing freelance again to exercise my writing muscle and get the additional paycheck. 

The night AM was released I listened to it and tried my best not to dissect it. My brain imagined who the muse of the songs but when the album finished I went to bed and decided that all it would be to me was an album. It was nothing more than a collection of good songs.

The Monkeys passed through a week later and I got a text from Katie that we should get lunch. I had a meeting with my agent then so she asked if I wanted to go to the show. I liked the idea of it. Of just being able to enjoy the music again, but I knew my presence didn't exhibit that. I went anyway.

I tugged Opal along with me and we went to Webster Hall. We would enjoy the show. I would get drinks with Katie and that would be it.

It was wishful thinking that I didn't even believe in. I enjoyed playing with fire too much for that to be the case. 

I sat on a couch with Opal squished next to me. Alex sat in a chair to my side and we knocked knees with one another. "When I moved I found all those guitar picks that you misplaced," I told him. I held some drink and leaned on the arm of the couch. "They were behind the couch and under the bed. I found one in one of the kitchen drawers."

He plucked a smile and fell further back in his chair. "Yeah, I was never good at keeping track of those."

"I know," I laughed at him. "I lived with you. It was very annoying."

"I probably left that one in the drawer just to annoy you. I did that sometimes."

I crossed my brows and faked a sternness. “You enjoyed pissing me off?”

He took a deep breath and sank back in his chair. “Well…” He didn’t say anything else. Our conversation conjoined with the group’s and we never discussed how much meaning sat in that single word. Well.

As my time apart from Alex grew, I wondered how much of him I truly knew. He had these secrets he buried deep. Those guitar picks were tokens for me to collect. It was his own game he never told me about. He got a kick out of getting a rise out of me in the same way as when he would call me posh just to get an eyeroll. More and more I felt Alex to be a closed book that I only got to experience a few pages of.

The night grew later and we didn’t feel the need to linger. I felt the doors closing. I felt a need for it to be over. When we got on the subway home, I didn’t know when I would see Alex again. I didn’t know if it would be next year or another decade but I knew it wouldn’t be either of us reaching out. We would run in the same circles. Weddings, birthdays, babies, but we wouldn’t share those with one another. We wouldn’t be plus ones and we wouldn’t be giving presents to one another.

We said goodbye with a wave. I felt stupid for going in the first place. There was a feeling I had held onto what could have been for long enough. When I went to bed that night, for the first time in a long time, I didn’t think about Alex. There was no pit. I didn’t do anything wrong. It just wasn’t right. I was comfortable. 

When I spoke with Alex, every word was spoken with a tinge of hesitance. I was holding myself back. I couldn’t live in that awkwardness and I don’t know why I was fighting for so long to be able to do that. I had invaded his territory for nothing but a few words and a drink. I had surrendered now. Happily.

*

a/n: well, sorry for the wait, followed by the shortness, but i suppose the length illustrates the point. the next part will be much longer and much sooner. i'm luckily in the writing spirit (for now). thanks for reading!

[agape-emo-eros]

Ok here it goes. I hope I do the topic justice.

At first I read Omelas as a typical dystopia, a society that looks perfect but hides a dark underbelly it is reliant on for survival. In this reading the narrarator telling you to imagine the things happening in Omelas or asking you how to even describe this in a way you will understand doesn't really matter. It's just a way to account for personal taste. Or perhaps to compensate for how we already percieve this place because of our exposure to other stories.

But if we take the narrator as an integral part of the story then these lines start telling a somewhat different story.

The line: "Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy?" directly asks you if you believe a good society, without war, without a centralised authority (civic or religious), without adds, civil unrest and outside threats can exist. And not just for "noble savages and uncomplicated people" but for people just like us, with the same dark impulses.

And then only after the narrator hears your presumed "No." they say "No? Then let me describe one more thing." and goes on to explain the Omelas child.

They do not tell you that the following description is real. They even finnish the description with "Now do you believe them? Are they not more credible?"

If we take this additional information as a fabrication meant to sell us on the reality of this world then the quote "The trouble is that we have a bad habit of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain" is a condemnation of our willingness to believe that in all these years noone tried to test if the child really has to suffer, or figure out how this process works or say something kind to the child just because over the idea of a good society and goodness of people.

The ones who walk away from Omelas go towards "a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. It cannot be described at all. It is possible it does not exist." The narrator acknowledges that we might lack the imagination to see a better world. Acknowledges that it might not be real and the people leaving might be wrong "but they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas."

----------------------------------------------------------

Since I started stalking your blog a bit this morning because of Black Sails this also might mean something to you:

The story viewed this way makes some of the same points as Jack Rackham's "A story is true. A story is untrue. As time extends, it matters less and less. The stories we want to believe... those are the ones that survive, despite the upheaval and transition and progress."

It can be a horrible reminder of how the world will soon see Flint, Silver and the rest as just vile pirate monsters incapable of humanity as presented in Woodes Rodgers's book and A General History of the Pyrates (which Mrs Hudson is seen reading to hear children).

It can be uplifting message reminding you that as long as the real story of Captain Flint and Long John Silver is remembered, not entirely "twisted to fit into their narrative" and allowed to shape us and spur us towards a worthy goal the loss is not total. History is written by the victors so as long as you survive to tell the tale, even if you did not manage to win in a conventional way, you have won a little.

And on a third level it can say that Silver's inability to believe in a wold in which they win the war in any meaningful way a world in which the pirate-maroon revolution can succeed is a self fulfilling prophecy that caused what we now know as history and have to believe.

(This is why I find the idea of Silver as somebody isekaid from the modern world into the story of Treasure Island compelling. His knowledge of the future forces the future into the shape he knows.)

Both, in the end, condemn our inability and unwillingness to imagine a better word as the reason why we do not achieve. We believe we need a leviathan king to keep us in line through terror to insure we do not hurt eachother and so we never try to depose him and realise what life could be like without one.

(This ofcourse as Le Guin herself would point out aren't the only good, correct possible takes, but I like them.)

Guess I’m never going to stop seeing red about the unholy number of times I’ve seen people quote “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” out of context in order to condemn stories that focus on dark or troubling subject matter or that don’t end happily (“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain”), when THE STORY ITSELF is about a society that closes its eyes to suffering and evil in order to live in comfort and has a hopeful but at best bittersweet ending

[sleepdeprivedandoverthinking]

Twin, where have you been

[tittyinfinity]

I just remembered that up until 5th grade, all of the sports teams I was in weren't separated by gender. I played basketball and baseball with boys. And we did just fine.

It wasn't until 6th grade when they segregated it by gender. It didn't make sense to me. I was now in softball instead of baseball, because "softball is for girls" and "baseball is for boys" (which confused me bc my dad was on an adult softball team).

Now, my brother's all-male team didn't win a single game. My all-girls team won every single one.

They presented the boys' team with this HUGE trophy, and if you wanted replicas of it, they were $30 each.

My team was presented with a very small trophy. Extras were $5.

That's when I decided gender-segregated sports were bullshit.

[sympathytea]

Fun fic related stuff about the diamond sword goobers below CW for: References to body horror, paranoia and a bit of unreality? hopefully using that word right

So keen eyed viewers might notice that this image has..some things in it that are a bit off. Most obvious one being Ferre, so we'll start with him. (And how convenient! He's first in line!) Ferre in my fic's universe has respawned more than a few times. Less than Evbo overall but did it over a longer period of time. Respawning in my fic has some consequences if you do it too many times. Kinda like Emesis Blue's respawn machine but not as heavy into the body horror. We're still getting into body horror territory, but nothing super extreme. Think of say, zombification. Or perhaps vampirism. A little bit of both. Its a bit hard to tell (mostly my fault for overshading him whoops.) but Ferre's skin has started to turn grey-ish in some places. Its blotchy. Scars and sewn parts of his clothes are typical of respawning, but the skin turning grey is not. We're gonna simplify this and call this process Respawn Degradation. Respawn Degradation is not fully understood, mainly because Ferre is the only lad who is actively experimenting with it (until Evbo comes around, who is also, undergoing said degradation) He documents his work in a language that only he and MinuteTech can read. Wemmbu and Julie cannot read their work, and probably shouldn't for their own sake. The way Ferre figures this stuff out is disconcerting to put it lightly. Ferre is handling this about as well as one can handle something like this happening against their will, and still has an active support group now that he is on the diamond sword level, its still not great. Just because he's stopped respawning as often doesn't make the process stop happening.

Ferre's ears look similar to MinuteTech's, and that's on purpose. MinuteTech's species is a shade, rather than a human. They come in a few varieties, and are locked to the grayscale in terms of skin color. Shades always have white eyes, and while MinuteTech resembles smoke, they can be fluffy, smooth or scaled. I'm probably gonna make them their own post. The final form of full Respawn Degradation, according to Ferre is highly suspected to be a shade. Shades naturally spawn into various civilizations, but Ferre notes that this probably isn't the only way they can occur. He's dreading the day he loses his humanity fully, but his friends that he considers his family loves him regardless, even if he thinks otherwise. MinuteTech reminds him that he isn't alone, even if he doesn't fully understand what he's actually going through. Speaking of not fully understanding..

Wemmbu is an interesting case. I have partially made them out of character, mainly because when I was characterizing him, I was going off of the finale and the gold sword level interaction. But he's still a supportive friend and sociable, but quieter and less likely to suggest bad ideas. Being the defacto therapist friend of the group, he talks with their friends and offers up advice where he can, although their knowledge is pretty thoroughly limited and also, not as reliable as it may appear. Wemmbu is also, notorious for not taking their own advice. He tends to keep to themself. And also never tells anyone anything about whats going on with him and handles himself by taking sips of slowfall potions every now and then as a form of self medicating. They've all murdered to get to paradise, but Wemmbu took the rules of the sword civilization horribly. Someone with as much compassion and empathy for others simply should not be able to handle doing the things he did. But he did them anyway. Occasionally hearing whispers, and seeing things out of the corner of his eye, feeling hands where there aren't. For awhile Wemmbu rationalized this as "being haunted". It wasn't. Despite being in a place that is safe, he sees danger where there isn't any. And when they first met Ferre, Wemmbu wasn't in as good of a spot as he is now. Occasionally hallucinations will get worse, sometimes they go away for awhile. Its generally not easy to tell what is actually there and what isn't. How do they cope with this? Writing everything. Anything. Small things, details, anything to make it easier to differentiate between reality and fabrications created by the mind. This isn't foolproof, but its been working for them so far. Wemmbu takes notes on his friends, too. This in turn also helps stave off things that don't seem to align with how they are established within their interactions. "Julie is clearly planning to poison me one day!!!" Why would she do that? She cares about him. There was nothing that would indicate this before. Disregarded. "I think Mint is planning to kill us all and run away for another civilization." Definitely not. He's insecure about that even becoming a possibility. Ignored. "Ferre is going to jump off of something. I just know it. I feel it." While he does relapse once in awhile, they know the signs of that coming when they see it. Put on hold. In the background of the image there's a faint shadow, isn't there? Its not actually there. Julie would've most certainly noticed since its pretty close to her. Its still worth documenting the appearance of it, or lack thereof. To make it less scary if it comes back later. Disclaimer btw: My writing isn't perfect. Nobody is, really. So hopefully how I characterize Wemmbu is. Okay at worst? I've personally had occasional tactile hallucinations and paranoid thoughts, but I'm not a medical expert and thus not. particularly diagnosing him with anything specific. Mainly because I too, am not diagnosed with anything specific for this. Funny, isn't it. There are things planned for Julie and MinuteTech (who goes by many nicknames in the group, for fun) but this reblog is already kinda dragging? So perhaps they'll be a future post. Preferrably not a meme one.

To explain the crime i've just committed: Drew the diamond swords in a row because I thought it would be cute. Added the color band that appeared in the diamond sword level. Realized I accidentally made Weezer's blue album cover. Went through all 5 stages of grief. Decided to double down and add the font in there for good measure because there was no way I could unsee this. You have to live with this now.

[ganondoodle]

(idk if anyone wants to keep hearing my opinions on totk book stuff but-)

apparently it says that rauru DID have kids, multiple even, which yeah... is kinda necessary for zelda to even be connected to them so much so that sonia can SENSE a blood connection (which, even with all the excuses with magic, is just a little too far for me to suspend my disbelief bc its over, OVER, ten thousand years worth of generations that seperate her from them that one lil touch of the hand can sense that (feels more like an attempt to make you care about them or .. see them as zeldas "better" parents just bc they exchange a few nice words, i never got the feeling they were 'better' parents and its also kinda disrespectful to her actual parents, like sure rhoam wasnt the best but i wouldnt call rauru better just bc he was polite)- i could see maybe the light power of hylia or sth but since its the coolest dude that ever lived rauru now that had it which still doesnt make sense and makes me unreasonably annoyed and she can sense BOTH of their powers in her? nah) the fact theres NOTHING about them in the game itself is just so ... no way they planned any of this

i dont think theres anything they can do or say that wont make be believe they either

are making it up alla 'fix it in post' mentality trying to hastily explain stuff the game never bothers to do to try and appease fans or let it appear as if they thought about it at all

something went really REALLY wrong during development, which kinda seems likely given how the game turned out (im sorry i cannot let go, its not just the writing, the game design too and how little was changed in the map while being so damn expensive, i dont know how people dont feel scammed q_q)

given that they (allegedly) spent the last entire year of development on polish (where??? where????? huh??? like it would make it more understandable (EXCEPT for the price) if there was alot of trouble, which was also bc it got delayed and ... turned out like this, but they dont want to say it, especially given their reputation, with that quote i have heard way too many times 'a delayed game blah blah') i just??

are they just gonna go and do it like they did with kashiwa (kass)? "they uuuh where flying around the whole time ony cool sonau tech maschines, you just dont see or hear from them ooooorrr they were uuuuh out of the country at the time" (sending invitations to other continents to join their glorious kingdom ;) )

(bet they are also gonna say they did all the stuff like ... moving the shrines around (lol?) and lifting the islands up into the sky- which is still weird bc ... didnt they also say they were living in the sky before coming to the surface?? so where?? did they park all their islands on the surface and the mystery kids had the keys so they had to repark them back into the sky after they returned off camera?? xD also why are the islands so different as an environment if they where from the surface? like even the STONE up there is different- and if they were first in the sky then on the surface and the nback in the sky .. why is there not a single yellow tree or grass in the past- you cant really argue that it changed bc they were up there so long bc .. nothing else changed, the suddendly and totally always there sonau buildings are largely in prime condition, only some slightly moldy, and what we see of the glorious past looks barely any different from the present, aside from like ... some standard trees shuffled, no castle yet and that glowy uwu filter DESPITE that stupidly long time frame between it)

[microknifeyuri]

Following the ii dark fics thing.

On some- if not most of the dark fics, disorders also tends to be used as a main thing to explain why the character is doing what they're doing. Which is, of course, not really great. Most au's that do this are about the Bright Lights as well.

Listen.

I can totally GET it. Mental health is a very important thing and having it ruined by people, or by other factors, can and WILL do some real damage to you. Yes. I can totally see a character doing questionable things because of their mental health being so so bad that it leads them to think that maybe, just maybe, these thoughts and actions aren't as bad, or that given the situation they're in, they're somewhat justified/it isn't inherently terrible of them, because of the state they're in doesn't let them think clearly, and they hold onto something because it's the last thing that makes them feel real.

One thing is doing that.

The other thing is using mental illnesses or their symptoms (per example: BPD, DID, Schizophrenia, and others) as the main reason as to why a character has done a killing spree or commited terrible actions. Meanwhile yes, having said disorders and going through heavy amounts of stress, and having no support can really make things difficult, mental illness won't make you a criminal or an awful person, a disorder isn't something you can just use for "oh well they have this so they commited murder because of this", people that have those already go through enough with others not even accepting that their condition is real or that it doesn't make them a bad person, for other people to use those disorders as a "Hey So This Is Why This Character Is Bad Now" for a story.

just sayin'

[siilvan]

i am once again disappointed but not surprised at the COD fandom only caring about “sensitivity” when it’s convenient for them

[vyvansecrashing]

can russia and north korea just nuke us already this is hopeless

[alternautxyz]

uuhhh in other new that lmk s5 trailer dropped and people are very

mixed

for context the new season is being partly animated by wildbrain i think. flying bark is still working on the show but probably due to all the other projects they've been working on like the atla movie the animation is off.

its understandable that people are upset. lmk has some of the most consistently dynamic and lively animation ive ever seen, and going from that to ok animation kinda sucks. as a culmination of a lot of what the series has been building up to people were inevitably going to be disappointed

at the same time people shouldnt harass animators. like ever. no amount of trying to petition or anything will change the s5, people are just trying to do their job and theres no probably no major changing to the finished product by now. and theres still a lot of that lmk charm in there, and we haven't even seen the whole season yet to judge it. flying bark is still working on it, and even if the animation never reaches the peak of the old seasons it still has the same writers so at least the writing has the chance to live up old standards. idk though we'll just have to wait and see

[lunarharp]

wip thing...

of my bg3 avatar hellebore. i also did some casual nude studies of my 3 characters which i'll put under a cut... rather unlike me after all. (so WARNING for abrupt non-sexual full Artistic nudity lol...,,,,) (< won't be making a habit of this)

they mean the world to me

[h0estar]

catching up to bnha (spoilers for chapters 387-390)

i did not thug it out fr.

the way 2021 me was anticipating a todoroki family confrontation, getting excited about it, and predicting that i would 100% cry. well, fast forward to 3 years later and she was absolutely right.

how did 4 chapters of a shonen manga manage to scrape off 50 years of my lifespan? every page i turned felt like my heart was going to bleed out from my chest.

the reveal that toya always had rei's quirk was actually a punch in the gut!! i was in my little corner crying over the parallels of how every time toya would self destruct, his mother in her own way kept him in check... and when he was about to literally blow up and take everything down with him, rei physically showed to stop him and oh! i can't do this ahahafkkadks

"Everyone's...watching me. Is this what it feels like? If it was... so simple a thing, then why? Why not... sooner?"

i'm not even going to lie. the chapters had my ass looking like this. i was full on sobbing from chapter 387 and it just got worse with each page. it was hell on earth. pain. so much pain. pain everywhere.

"why not sooner?"

hey, haha. so i actually disintegrated :)

all this boy ever wanted was for his family to look at him. to watch him. to acknowledge him. to know he was trying his best. to help him. be there for him. and every time i think about this, my heart hurts every single fucking time because it really was a simple thing, but why? why had no one done it sooner ಥ⁠╭⁠╮⁠ಥ

seeing rei, fuyumi, and natsuo show up in the battlefield to confront toya, endeavor hugging toya mid-battle, toya's vision of his whole family (except shoto ಥ⁠╭⁠╮⁠ಥ) surrounding him, happy and proud; shoto showing up and saying he alone wasn't enough to stop him and that maybe he wasn't actually the family's masterpiece (while looking at toya djwkdkw).

shoto's inner monologue of how he wants to cry for others, and how right now he's trying his best to stop toya with his family because he still has so many things he wants to say, so many arguments he still wants to have with his older brother and with his family. and it's painful to think that despite being siblings, toya and shoto barely interacted before all this. they never had a chance to build that brotherly connection, yet shoto still sees him as a his older brother and wants to understand him better more despite toya probably not feeling the same way faijfkwkd.

and you know what takes the absolute fcking cake for me?

their parents apologizing.

i actually full on sobbed when endeavor finally took full responsibility. when rei and endeavor apologized. when endeavor was dragging his feet to hold the defeated toya in his arms and say sorry for not showing up. when endeavor apologized for what he put every member in his family through. from toya to rei, fuyumi, natsuo, and shoto. when toya was saying how much he hated his family, and endeavor sat there accepting everything... i was crying with them. i was in so much pain, genuinely.

the tragedy of the todoroki family being my favorite mha subplot speaks a lot. again, i feel so much for toya and i love him with all my heart and seeing this depressing family patch up and confront their past together, without leaving anyone behind actually formed a huge gap in my soul, sanity, mind, and whatever's left of my heart.

these chapters were mad depressing, and i will be sending horikoshi my therapy bills pretty soon.

featuring the manga panels that sucked my tear ducts dry.

[goofyjelly]

oh my gosh having a trump supporter as a dad is so hard; him and his girlfriend were in literal tears cus they thought he died lmao 😭