#crushing defeat

[theworkshopmann]

Crushing Defeat

On one hand, seeing a huge angry Russian man clutching a skull is a less than ideal sight to see before dying. But then, on the other hand, at least you can kick the bucket knowing it took no less than a man who can crush a skull with his bare hands to finally end you.

Type: Taunt

Class: Heavy

Accepted in game: No

This taunt was made by Steam users Setry, Kowalo, Square and Lazersofa. Posted on April 5th 2024, you can vote for this here!

[whatididtomakeitbetter]

what good would it do, trying to save yourself? thrashing against blackened waves that devour and destroy, consuming countless unbearable truths.

seafoam and blood

and the tide taking turns with the birds at the afterparty.

fight for your life, they say, as if it was ever your choice to live it.

as if any of us wanted to be here, as if they were ever really in it.

as if what you're doing to yourself doesn't matter.

image credit - me 2017

[wyrmfedgrave]

BBC.com: Just how big was Donald Trump’s election victory?

What landslide?!!

There was no crushing defeat!

At the moment, tRump has 49.9% of the votes or 76.9 million votes.

Harris has 48.3% or 74.4% of the votes.

Make no mistake.

tRump still won - just NOT by much...

And, votes are still being counted!

But, not enough are left to change the election's outcome.

All the corporate controlled media (& all Rep backers) are touting a "large, resounding win" - which doesn't exist.

Rump wiggled his way to victory, like the "brain worms" in RFK's head.

When Biden won in 2020 - by 4.5 points - it wasn't a blowout win.

It was then, as it is now, a 'squeaker' of a win.

Republikkkans have yet to expand their small House majority & actually lost several Senate seats in 4 states that Rump 'won.'

But, since our new president likes to describe a wreck of a house as a castle, he'll no doubt keep his lying spree going.

Maybe, by this time, many folk prefer being lied to...

Preferring a huckster's revenge wet dream to the sadder, more concrete reality.

As for the Democrats, they need to figure out how they lost the backing of the working class.

What's the true cost of placating the activist groups within their 'umbrella'?

And, should neoliberalism give way to a more focused stance?!

Of course, the same goes for the Rep winners.

Why have they alienated successful folks who benefit from lower taxes?

How are they going to going to bungle the next national emergency?

(When they openly hate experts?!)

Is their authoritarian stance going to damage their 'brand'?!!

Hopefully, the Dems have learned that they need to satisfy both, economic & social justice activists.

They need to avoid a centrist stance & must stop questioning inflation & age - those are Rep talking points!

Rump is already using his 'big' win to more closely control the Rep Party.

(Though he's getting some push back from them.)

Rump likes feeling like a juggernaut - not the Rapist Con Man that he really is...

To make his mark, he'll disregard all common political norms & 'retaliate' against his bigger enemies.

That's a central concept in his plans for radical change.

Reps, following Project 2025, will cut the budget - with no Congressional approval.

This is their way to fire all non-Rep workers & replace them with Rump Kissers...

In the end, tRump hopes that his many lies will allow him to get away with all of his dark plans.

This will be done under the 'authority' of Rump having a popular mandate.

Only, that's just another lie.

End.

[demaparbat-hp]

She will (and he'll let her)

[phantasmicfish]

So I saw Dune Part 2 yesterday and I was initially super crushed because of the deviation from book canon but the more I think about it the more I sorta like it…

So without further ado here’s a list of stuff I liked about Dune Part 2:

- all the scenes initially of Paul growing closer to the Fremen. You can clearly see that they become friends, accept him as a Feydakin, that they’re laughing, joking, hanging out. (And contrast that to the end of the movie, where Paul has no more Fremen friends, only followers. In the book, this is echoed, where Paul recognizes that he has lost his friends to the Muad’Dib religion. Take book Stilgar, who truly embodies this… by the end of the book, Paul says: “I have seen a friend [Stilgar] become a worshipper.”

- giving Chani explicit rejection of Paul’s messiah status was an interesting choice. Chani’s main thought over part 2 is that they don’t need religion to save them, that through Fremen power and desert power, the Fremen can save themselves. She recognizes that this fanatical worship can be a vehicle to control and enslave her people, and I sorta wish we saw Paul lean into that more… that they found a way to stay together and ‘fight’ the prophecy together based on Chani’s ideals…

- also, I love how engrained this rejection of religion and prophecy is in her character. Book Chani takes no issue with her Fremen name, Sihaya (desert spring), but movie Chani hates it “because it’s part of some prophecy.” Later, we see that despite her rejection of prophecy and religion, that the prophecy does indeed come to pass— the tears of desert spring save Him aka, Chani saving Paul after he drinks The Water of Life. (Interesting how Jessica has to force Chani to save Paul using the Voice… another example of Jessica explicitly forcing Paul to become the messiah).

- adding more depth to Fremen culture— the South being the more religious fundamentalist tribes vs the North being more secular. Early on, the movie paints this immediate divide between the tribes of Fremen who accept Paul and Jessica versus those who treat them as offworlders (who murdered Jamis). In the books everyone accepts Paul and Jessica after Paul bests Jamis and Jessica quotes some scripture, but I think it makes more logical sense that there’d be friction over these two random offworlders coming in

- I love love loved Paul speaking at the meeting of the Fremen tribe leaders in the South. He fully accepts his messiah status, exercises his power of the Voice + his prescience as a way to command all the Fremen under his name

- I’m a big fan of omitting the two-year time skip, so with that I’m glad Leto II was skipped over entirely. I always felt that Leto II was an unnecessary character addition to the book, especially when he just dies and everyone sort of goes “oh well” and moves on, so I’m glad it’s omitted.

- another interesting choice was to paint Jessica as a straight up villain in comparison to the way her book counterpart was not. The movie Jessica we see here is seemingly corrupted by the Water of Life: she walks around talking to herself (Alia) and scheming Paul’s ascent to Lisan-Al Gaib. She knows about the Holy War, which is the very thing Paul is trying to prevent, yet she expresses no concern about bringing it to fruition. (Probably because Jessica knows it’s impossible to prevent, but still.) The very last line of the movie, where Alia asks Jessica what’s going on and Jessica says “The Holy War has begun” is just total villain in my mind— explicit acceptance of the Holy War, like it’s just another stepping stone in her plan. Plus, the fact that Paul has visions of Jessica leading him into this period of great starvation totally cements her as a villian.

- going off of that, I like that we see Jessica undergoing actual agony when she takes The Water of Life. When book Jessica and Paul take The Water of Life they accept it calmly and without obvious pain (book Jessica was sitting with her eyes closed, as if sleeping), so this physical reaction that Jessica has to the poison adds to the idea that The Water of Life did change her in a negative way.

- I feel like so far we’ve been introduced to Alia as just a weird talking fetus who’s been consorting with Jessica, so Paul’s vision where Alia says “I love you” really strikes home, that she really does care for Paul which we might not have understood otherwise

[somewhereincairparavel]

The funniest thing about Jason slander, for me, is that it's so fucking contradictory, people would hate on Jason for being "too perfect" "too flawless" "too gary stu-esque" and that he's too boringly good and then will proceed to hate on him by nitpicking his already existing flaws that they claimed he never had (like being mistrustful towards Nico, "leading Reyna on by dating Piper", being too "serious and cold" )

Like mf, didn't you just say you wished Jason was flawed?? So now why r you yapping about what a "terrible sadistic egomaniac" person he is for thinking he can defeat Percy in a silly duel??? Lmao

[teathattast]

who up with the gutwrenching acceptance that sm is out of your control and all you can do is live life anyways

[hydrachea]

I love that ship where both characters are introduced as friendly, only for one to turn out to have been lying the whole time and try to kill the other, all of which eventually culminates in their defeat and dramatic (and literal) fall, only then for them to return as a reluctant ally of their once enemy who knows them way too well and whose new relationship with them is largely interpreted as bantery. What do you mean which one.

[papakhan]

its so dumb for Papa to make this random courier his heir after they blow up the NCR. he doesn't even know them. instead he should be trying to convince them to marry his son

[thepantyreckless]

(these are going to be used for [redacted] and are not proportional, but cumulative. please vote accordingly. thank you)

[daisywords]

characters that kill someone and then mourn them...

[astralleywright]

when considering Ashton's reasoning about Imogen continuing to give in to Predathos, that her being lost is inevitable and that it would be better if it happened now as opposed to later, it feels very important to remember what they said to Laudna when they first landed in Issylra, when she was terrified Imogen had become a moon-worshiping zombie in their separation: If she got blasted into space, we'll go to space. If she got vaporized, it's not like we didn't fucking find you. There is nothing else until this is dealt with. This is what we do, is we bring everybody back. Not only is nobody getting left behind very much Ashton's thing, but he specifically does not see Imogen being lost to Predathos as her being lost for good. (and tbh I agree, given how heavily the story since the start of the campaign has been leaning on her to confront this.) And even if it did, they'd still go through hell trying to get her back.

But it also makes me think of what Imogen told Ashton, after the shard; maybe this was destiny, like they thought it was. Maybe what they needed was to shatter into pieces and come back together. That same idea, of controlled burning, needing to confront something to overcome it, fuck yeah, jump into that lava and find yourself, to hurt is to heal - Ashton, we watched you break into a thousand tiny pieces. If she got vaporized, it's not like we didn't fucking bring you back.

[thewanderingace]

Evan Buckley + The Significant Objects in his Coma Dream

9-1-1 6x11 "In Another Life"

[subsequentibis]

must say again that mgs3 ocelot is so so compelling to me. in my head he's the perfect little prodigy boy who has his position as a major at just 20 yrs old thru a combination of nepotism and real skill, real gifted kid who's excelled at everything he's ever tried, triple agent fooling absolutely everyone, trying out combat techniques he's only read or heard about in the field bc he knows he'll just Get it right away, and it's like partially true that he's very good but he's not That good, there's people pulling strings behind the scenes to get him there, but he doesn't see them and thinks he got this all by himself. and i need to put this smarmy little man in my mouth and shake him like a dog with a toy.

[tyrianludaship]

i have to know what presidents you used to have a crush on as a kid. i require this information /lh

fine. you'll get the forbidden knowledge.

it was barack obama, abraham lincoln and george washington off the top of my head. also john f. kennedy when i was 14/15 at a brief time

[mortiflyer]

I said in like march that I want jannik to win every competition they could conceive of in this sport and hes fulfilling my prophecy to the point that ppl r turning on him online for being too good