#but also i want it to just go on indefinitely

[americanredragger]

I do not wish to sound as though I am in any way defending Trump, but I do not want you all to be angry about a situation that exists purely in a purposefully exaggerated headline. I want you to be angry at the TRUTH, because there's already plenty there to be angry at that you don't need to go looking for more.

His administration has abruptly cancelled research-grant reviews, travel and trainings for scientists inside and outside the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world’s largest public biomedical funder. ... The cancelling of meetings and travel is part of a pause in external communications issued on 21 January by the NIH’s parent organization, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Researchers who spoke to Nature say that although a short, daylong pause in communications at US agencies has occurred in the past when new administrations have started, to reorient strategy, the reach and length of the Trump team’s — it is set to last until at least 1 February — is unprecedented. Without advisory-committee meetings, the NIH cannot issue research grants, temporarily freezing 80% of the agency’s US$47-billion budget that funds research across the country and beyond.

This is unprecedented and WILL cause turmoil and harm that should not have existed. But this is also a far cry from the headline that reads "Trump Shuts Down All Cancer Research".

As far as I can tell, grants that have already been issued are safe, and research can continue under those as long as the money doesn't run out, but no extensions or additions can be filed until at least February 1st, nor may any NEW grants be issued. We'll just have to wait and see what the Regime does from that date, though it certainly won't be as forgiving and loving as what was policy under Biden because why the fuck would it be. Trump is CLEARLY on a mission to kick puppies and punt babies.

Let's just get mad at him for the puppies and babies he's actually kicking without imagining more, because THAT'S how they burn us out and get us too tired to oppose.

[beeeinyourbonnet]

guys I am trying so hard to finish writing covetous but my brain keeps being like "if you finish it, it will be Over" and no matter how many times I keep trying to convince brain that yes, that is the point, brain is resistant

[technically-human]

Ooh, now that we’ve seen N!Edwin and DP!Edwin talk about Feelings could we see the same with N!Charles and DP!Charles?

As simple as that.

Edwins version

ko-fi

[space-bowl]

You’re all I got N…I’m not risking that for some s̶̞͈̣̤̠͈͍̭͌͝ṱ̵̛͓̣̙̹͓͉͔̹̦̪̤͍̼̳̈̐̉̉͝͝ų̸̞̙͕̟̳̞̪̳̳̩̻̥̈́̔̍p̶̪͚̭͕̲͈̬̩̀͆̿͌̍̈́͑̀̓̕̚i̵̗͍̻̻͚̥͆̋͜͠d̷̠̎̓̈́̽̔̾͗ worker…

I’m taking her out, whether you like it or not.

Murder Drones: Intermission scene redraw! Please go give the original project some love. Also og scenes under the cut:

[kaiserouo]

i found another big armored angel and you know what that means

i love his design. also oneshot btw im not getting into another decade old game.

[thefirstknife]

I want to be optimistic about the future, but as somebody who has been through 4-6 EoS events and witnessed several others friends have gone through, with a lot of the rumors/news breaking about future plans for the game itself, and some changes introduced in TFS I'm slowly starting to get a bad feeling about things. I'm not giving up on the game, but it's feeling hard to be hopeful when I'm starting to get similar vibes to the other EoS events I've been through.

I'll mostly focus on this article from Jason Schreier because I don't really trust any other rumours that are floating around. I know a lot of people are super depressed about everything and it's easy to spiral into doom and gloom, which I want to avoid because it just stresses people out, over things they can't really change, and primarily over things that are far from confirmed.

Obviously we don't know anything for certain yet, but from what little the devs told us when this happened:

While our team is taking time to help support each other, we want you, our community, to know that we expect no disruption to all of our previously communicated content plans. Our content roadmap remains unchanged. This also includes our future plans for next year and beyond.

Nothing is changed and plans are clearly in place. It goes without saying that this can be flipped on its head at any point, but it also has to be said that it would be quite strange for a franchise of this scale to simply go down without an honest attempt to keep it going. Obviously various media ends all the time and studios are shut down and all that, but I feel like people are jumping on that conclusion way too easily and simply over unconfirmed rumours which puts people in a mindset that "the game is over." According to devs and Jason's report, it is clearly not planned to be over. We have yet to see if that works out.

Either way, we're set for this year for sure and there's clearly a plan they've already hinted for next year. What concerned people the most, I think was this (more under):

The company also plans to continue updating Destiny 2, although it will no longer pursue regular paid expansions as it did in the past, according to the people familiar. During one recent meeting, a company leader told attendees that sales of each expansion had declined year over year, including June’s The Final Shape, so they would be moving away from an annual release model. Some staff said they’re optimistic about the vision for Destiny 2 under new director Tyson Green, a Bungie veteran who took the helm earlier this year. In the coming months, the people said, Bungie will look to retain and attract players with smaller-scale content drops modeled after Into the Light, a well-received update in April that added a new mode to the game. Rather than selling this content, they said, Bungie will aim to release it for free along with overhauls to activities that it hopes will appeal to hardcore players. Other vague plans for the future include a storyline that will feature characters and worlds that Destiny has not yet explored.

Personally, I don't necessarily see this as something bad. I've actually been in favour of stopping yearly expansion for years. A big expansion every year is a big thing to commit to and it simply cannot be up to the best standards every single year. Some years will simply be smaller or "worse" and they won't engage people as some others. To this day people are still demanding expansions the size of Forsaken, every year, and that is simply mathematically impossible to make. So we get stuff like Shadowkeep and people flip out (Destiny died back then too). In my opinion, I think expansions every 2-3 years with smaller content drops in between is much better and healthier, and would result in better expansions.

We don't know if expansions are ever happening again; this report seems to imply not, but nobody really knows what state Destiny will be in 3 years from now, if it still exists. Until then, I'm perfectly fine with smaller content drops and updates. Obviously we don't know what that will look like; maybe it will be bad, but maybe it will not be bad. We simply don't know. I think people just heard "no expansion every year" and assumed that it's all over and no other content will ever be interesting or engaging ever again, which is something I simply don't see. For example, this episode has quickly become one of my favourite content in Destiny ever and it's not an expansion. I feel the same about some seasons which I enjoyed more than some expansions.

This is a matter of preference of course. Some people only tune in for expansions so for them "no expansions" effectively means no more Destiny. A lot of people also wonder about stuff like raids, which launch with expansions; what about those? Are we ever getting a raid again? We don't know, though it's worth noting that some raids have launched with DLCs and seasons, so launching a raid without the expansion could still be possible. We'll simply have to wait and see.

A lot of people are also concerned about the confirmation that Destiny 3 was never in development. I don't find this surprising at all and firmly believe that people who believed in D3 in the first place have not been fully aware of just how much devs never wanted to make another game from scratch again. This is from when they announced vaulting back in Arrivals:

With Destiny 1, we solved the “ever expanding, exponential complexity” problem by making a sequel in Destiny 2. We left behind all of Destiny 1’s content and many of the features players grew to love. We believe now that it was a mistake to create a situation that fractured the community, reset player progress, and set the player experience back in ways that took us a full year to recover from and repair. It’s a mistake we don’t want to repeat by making a Destiny 3.

I don't think anything has changed about their opinion on this over the years. It may have become even stronger actually, given how much content exists in the game right now and how much content would permanently disappear, alongside everyone's progress and collections, if they restarted everything. Not only that, but they know that a new game would have to launch with basically no content that would have to be built up over the years and would result in the same anger from players that plagued D1 vanilla and D2 vanilla. Nobody would enjoy going from 9 raids (maybe 10 if there's a reprised this year?) to 1 raid. Like I'm not sure if people realise this, but D3 will have no content in comparison. People were exceptionally mad about Beyond Light which reduced the amount of content and items due to vaulting; D3 would have less than that.

So I'm not sure why people expect and want D3. I never vibed with that idea. Not in any foreseeable future. I don't want to restart my progress, I don't want to lose everything I collected, I don't want to wait for years to get more than 3 strikes in the game. So the confirmation that this was never in development is not only super obvious to me, it's also relieving.

I think these are mostly the things that people are panicking over, from stuff that is now known a little better from Jason's report. When it comes to other rumours and leaks, we simply don't know if they're true and how detailed they are so I will not be stressing about them and I'd advise everyone else to not stress about them either.

We all love the game very much and the idea that it will end one day is very upsetting, but it will. One day it will end. Is that in 2 years or 20, we don't know. I'd like for people to definitely move away from the doomposters on twitter, to not latch onto any rumour or leak, and to give developers space and patience, as well as do anything we can to support those that were laid off.

I personally also think that the content creators with the biggest platforms should use the current anger and despair to pressure Bungie or Sony into making meaningful changes. Instead of posting about how "it's so over, goodbye everyone, Destiny is dead," I think they should be encouraging fans to bully these corporations with the one thing they understand best: money. Hey corpos, we ARE still interested in Destiny, we WANT to keep playing, we WANT it to keep going and we WILL bring our money if you do something about this situation. Because I don't trust any of these people who are claiming they're big fans and also how their livelihoods depend on making content for this one game, but are so easy to doompost and give up and say that the game is now over. How would anyone seeing this feel other than concerned and in despair?

Is it possible to change anything? No clue. Corporations can obviously be bullied into action, but we simply don't know how much effect we have here. Still, I'd rather try.

And I'd definitely try to stay positive, or at least neutral. We currently have no confirmations about anything being over, and plans for future content exist. Things will likely be different, but that doesn't always mean worse. And if it is? Well then it is and people will stop playing.

And of course, if anyone lost interest over this and over these reports, that's understandable. Taking a break from it all is recommended. Whatever happens, happens. If the game is still there and the interest is regained, everyone can always come back. No one has to decide right now whether they'll keep playing or stop forever. We can change our minds later depending on any new information and the state of the game.

The point of this whole thing is basically; we don't know anything for sure and overthinking about what-if scenarios that are years out is not very helpful. Venting concerns and talking to others can help though, which is why I want to try and stay as reasonable as possible in a situation where we genuinely don't have any proper confirmations.

We'll see! I'll keep playing while there's something to play and while that something is interesting to me, no matter how small. I hope this helps keeping people at least a little bit less stressed about the whole thing.

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

actually...

looking at a bunch of my old favorite mutuals blogs that have been inactive for years. i miss them, even if i never really talked to any of them. when you're mutuals with a person for so long they become a comforting presence even without talking. you see them every day and read their posts about their thoughts or feelings or about what's going on in their life and so on. and they just become a part of your daily life in such a subtle way.

and then one day they just never post again. without warning. shit sucks. i actually hate it.

[presidentkamala]

Ughh how do i tell this guy that while we are on extremely the same page politics wise and i love a good vent sesh, i canNOT and i mean canNOT keep fielding his spiralling about rfk jr publicly lynching fauci and his copium fueled jags about the dems somehow uncovering election subversion and cancelling the results of the election

[good-beanswrites]

Collateral Angst - The real point of the story isn't "the victim was attacked" but "look how protective/self-loathing/angsty/loving the victim's friend is." (TVTropes)

How about collateral whump?

How does Fuuta feel about being the chew toy in any given Amane angst fic?

KIDDING (kinda). Real answer under the cut, but this is referring to the Amane timeloop angst fic by Kyanako and Nott!

Ow. Just, OW.

First and foremost, I think he’d be shocked to discover he’s not the main character. (Even in a non-fourth wall breaking sense,) I think after being so stuck in an internet environment that emphasizes the self, after envisioning himself as a hero so often, then to have his worldview shattered and believe himself a villain, it would not compute that the universe is administering cosmic punishment to some girl just a liiiittle to the left. Cue a lot of anger, a lot of attempted force to get himself out of the situation, and a lot of panic. Once he deals with the crushing blow that he’s not the special main character he thought he was, I see a few possibilities with even chances (depending on how many loops he’s been through/how the information was revealed/when the information was revealed/etc):

The first and best option is that he finds some sort of purpose in lifting up Amane. It sucks, and it’s going to get him beaten, tortured, and killed a million ways, but in doing so he’s helping the person he’s become the most protective over. He can at least take some pain away that the universe had aimed her way. She gets so much stronger and changes her frame of mind in honor of his misfortune. He may not end up on top, but he finds peace in willingly sacrificing himself for someone he deeply cares about. He'd become a more reckless and self-harming now that he sees that as his purpose, but he's happy with it.

If he’s in a slightly worse state of mind, he may come to the same peace, but for selfish reasons. He realizes he is some kind of chosen after all, since the universe is using him to lift up the true protagonist. He undergoes his suffering with the knowledge that he’s still a hero, he’s still special, he’s just special because he gets to help Amane. As his role goes to his head, he'd start trying to influence other things in the timeline, occasionally making things better but also making them worse if he tried to take on too much.

If he’s in a really bad state of mind, his desperate and hurting brain will make the connection that all this pain is technically because of Amane herself. If the universe is hurting him to hurt her, then without her, he’d be in no danger. He’d spiral – ranging from distancing himself as much as he can from her, to outright confronting her as the source of all this pain.

Not the worst but certainly not a good option – something clicks in his already-fracturing mind about Amane’s religious views and he sees the situation as his hell. God is real and punishing him for killing a young girl, so to atone he must suffer to protect His special girl. It’d be a weird mix of a mindset, since Fuuta genuinely believes he’s in hell for what could feel like an eternity until he’s paid his debt – but also retains the small hope that he’s working towards the reward of heaven. He would do absolutely nothing in this case, thinking just rolling over and going with the flow is what he's meant to endure.

[r0semultiverse]

What We Do in the Land of Ooo

🧛‍♂️ What We Do in the Shadows x Adventure Time crossover AU! ⚔

Finn Mertens in place of Guillermo de la Cruz

Marceline Abadeer in place of Nadja of Antipaxos

Bonnibel Bubblegum in place of Laszlo Cravensworth

Jake the dog in place of Colin Robinson

Vampire King in place of Nandor The Relentless

Betty Grof in place of The Guide

The Lich in place of Baron Afanas

Peppermint Butler in place of Wallace the Necromacer

Simon Petrikov in place of Derek

BMO in place of Nadja Doll (her old consciousness uploaded or something was an idea I had)

Marshall Lee & Gary Gumball/Prince in place of Sean & Charmaine

[invinciblerodent]

oh nbd it only took about 150 hours, a year in real time, and approximately 17 tries at the final fight, but we fuckin got here!!!!!!!!!!!!

it! is! gremlin time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[unnonexistence]

inspiration on that new silly one-shot fic ran out but luckily writing is still Going

[thegreathomestuckreread]

I FUCKING LOST YARN CHICKEN NOOOOOOOO

and it's not possible to run out and get another ball tomorrow or any time this week because everyone who drives in my house is currently incapacitated and i'm too tired from my own health bullshit to bus it

i need to go to bed before i spend CAD$14.99 on same-day shipping for a single ball of yarn

[spearxwind]

.

[argonapricot]

laying flat on the pavement

still feeling Very Sad that the ahsoka show didn't care more about baylan and shin at the end

[goodnightwindy]

just got the tumblr blackout post on my dash again ugh