#i am a cracked machine

[spilladabalia]

Brainiac - I Am A Cracked Machine

[izzystizzys]

The war doesn’t end with a bang, strictly speaking. It doesn’t even end with a political forum, or peace talks, or a slow, wheezing death of the Banking Clan’s pockets running dry, even though all of those are valid possibilities. Some more than others, Cody has to admit.

No, the war ends with an article in the Galaxy’s least reputable news source, Coruscant Rotational. Splashed on the front page for all to see is Cody’s little brother, next to the Chancellor.

CLONE MEWS CHANCELLOR TO DEATH IN MOGGING MOVE FOR THE AGES - LOOKSMAXXING TAKEN TOO FAR?

“What”, says Obi-Wan, eye twitching, fingers massaging over the bridge of his nose at double their usual speed, a real sign of an impending nervous breakdown if Cody’s ever seen one, “the kriff does that even mean?!”

Rex shrugs helplessly with one shoulder, other arm raised aimlessly. “No idea, General. I only understand about half those words. Maybe we’re all having a collective stroke? Maybe Fox is having a stroke? Whatever he’s doing with his jaw in that picture can’t be healthy.”

“Well, not for the late Chancellor, anyways”, says Cody flatly, in the long-suffering tone of one who’s seen too much Jedi banthashit in too little time. He screws his eyes tightly shut, scrubbing the backs of his knuckles in hard enough to see galaxies explode. Nope, still the same words on that datapad.

“It can’t be true”, says Skywalker, who’d gone white as a shitty military-issue sheet and has been steadily pacing the room ever since the equivalent of a sonic bomb hit the room. “I mean - think about it, this could just as well be a Separatist ploy, it would play right into their hands, and Coruscant Rotational isn’t exactly the most reputable source -“

“True enough”, says Obi-Wan, thoughtfully. “They do like getting their facts mixed up. In fact, I’ve seen about six articles just this month proclaiming our dear friend Senator Amidala’s super secret pregnancy. They even falsified hospital records, can you imagine?!”

Somehow, Skywalker loses another shade of colour, gulping soundlessly, and resumes his pacing more frenetically than before. Weird guy, that.

It’s Rex who breaks the awkward stillness of the room, perking up suddenly. “Oh, I know! Why don’t we call in Commander Tano?! She’s about the right age to understand some of this dribble, right?”

“I was going to suggest calling Corrie HQ, but sure, let’s ask the teenage soldier from the space monk order who spends all her spare time hunting your legion for sport”, says Cody, dryly. Rex deflates, and Thorn’s tinny voice sounds through Cody’s comm before he can make his reply. “Marshall Commander, I assume this is about the News.” Ominous capitalisation, ooooh, mouths Rex, and receives the nearest datapad Cody can reach to the face for his troubles with a squawk. The fact that he can read that sentence off his lips means their legions have spent far too much time together, and also that Cody’s grown soft in his old age.

“Good to hear you too, Thorn, and yes, we do have some questions concerning why the kriff my vod’ika is accused of murdering the chancellor through what I can only assume is some secret Sith magic?!”

“Oh, you mean when he defeated the actual Sith on the Senate through the power of his superior mog and made the kriffer explode in a thousand wrinkly pieces? You’re welcome, by the way”, says Thorn, instead of literally anything sane.

“Commander”, begs Cody’s General, with something glistening that might actually be tears in his eyes. “Commander, please. I do not understand any of those words. I am begging you to put me out of my misery.”

PALPATINE??? SITH?????!!!, screams Skywalker in battlesign, somehow spelling out each individual question and exclamation mark.

“It’s a game we’ve started playing in the Guard, sir, to pass time on patrol”, says Thorn, sheepishly, cowed by nearly driving the High General Kenobi to tears. “We’d do stupid faces we found the holonet, and, uh - well Fox is so high on black-market morphine most of the time cause we don’t get bacta that he sleepwalks on assignment sometimes, and, uh, he started making them at the Chancellor during a holocall meeting with Count Dooku and then the Chancellor tried to electrocute him again but accidentally blew himself up-“

“Breathe, Commander”, says Obi-Wan, and then - “That is SO much information I don’t know what to do with, Force preserve me. Why is Commander Fox on black-market morphine, or sleepwalking, or making faces at-“

“He signs reports in his sleep too, sometimes”, Thorn interrupts the General. “It’s actually kind of impressive if, y’know, it didn’t make Stabby bust another capillary in pure rage.”

“Who’s Stabby?”, asks Obi-Wan, confused.

“Meeting with Count Dooku?!”, bursts out Skywalker.

“Congratulations on Amidala’s pregnancy, General Skywalker”, says Thorn, like a man who wants to see the world burn.

[hellocatbruhbi]

They left church shortly after

Based on this :

[imminent-danger-came]

Lofty crack 'theory‘ (?) idk, it‘s more along the lines of the

'I connected the dots!'

'You didn‘t connect shit' Meme

Everytime MK barely touches something and it falls apart? That's the good ol‘ Harbinger of chaos touch. Destruction is just woven into his very being and marks his every action.

(Like how he barely touched the pinball machine and it fell apart. And how the crate containing the weird vegetable babies opened up despite the fact that it shouldn’t have been possible with how heavily secured it was)

Also the way he accidentally alters the world around him ('summoning a scary monster forest through stress'- still one of my favorite things he‘s done tbh. He‘s just such a funny guy. My favorite little disaster.)

Of course- very possible that that this is just cartoon logic. But I think it‘s just a funny concept. XD

It's so hard because LMK is teetering on the edge of being SO tight. We just have to acknowledge a couple things from s1/s2 (the key, the 1x01 seal, LBD ''undoing the memories of the world) and then the show has a potential to go from a 9 in my book to an 11.

And like, here's what I mean.

So with 1x03 and the pinball machine you mentioned:

Sandy: "Uh, maybe a little more tape?"

Azure Lion: "All you had to do was wait. After this was over I was going to release Sun Wukong, help him see reason! That is now impossible! Not after what you've done!" Pigsy: "But...we can get him back right? Sandy: "We can fix it! Maybe we can find some magic tape!"

MK: "No no—I broke it. Part of being a hero is owning up to your mistakes."

MK: "Monkey King's a hero he wouldn't just-" Azure Lion: "You saw it with your own eyes! His betrayal his brutality—he took the only friends I had from me!"

Sandy: "There ain't nothing a bit of tape can't fix!" (And this is said in an episode titled "A Lifetime of Mistakes")

MK: "We can't fix everything. We just need to leave it a little better than we found it. As long as we stay true to that? We can deal with whatever comes next."

-

SO. LISTING ALL OF THAT TO SAY:

Destruction being woven into his being from s1 is just so plausible. But it's also like, I'm still not a 100% sure about it—but ALSO, the fucking "No no—I broke it. Part of being a hero is owning up to your mistakes." line is insane. Especially since it's after MK had just broken an object of value in half. Like, look:

SO I JUST DON'T KNOW MAN. Cartoon logic or narrative foreshadowing. I never know with this damn lego show

[midnightfire830]

Can you draw Cuphead on a unicorn 🥺

You mean like this?

[motor-city-selfryed]

naurrr its my birthday bro...imagine a world without me thatd be so sad LMAO luckily i was born /J

celebratory wip for u guys bc MEOW mcmg

[fearsomegaybeast]

my new favorite activity is opening a window on the college pc with the gabriel gaming image next to google snake window tab and pretend he's gaming with me

[merge-conflict]

wip wednesday

i have not been very productive lately and i'm frustrated about it so i'm sharing a little snippet of some more valentine whump for fun. she's alive but she's not happy about it. post devil-ending (canon-divergent)

content warning: severe emotional distress, voluntary medical sedative

“Alright. How about you just listen?” another pause. “I came here to talk with you, because I think you’re reacting very reasonably to something very unreasonable–”

grin wide. grimace. laugh like a bullet on pavement.

“–I suppose that’s a bit of an understatement. But you don’t have to be ashamed.”

“Fuck you.”

like that, rapid fire. she was burning hot, all over, like molten metal. she was supposed to be dead. now she was a husk. empty. discarded.

“I mean that. I know you’re not feeling much like yourself, and that is not an easy thing. Not easy at all. And you were very careful not to hurt anyone else, Valentina–“

“No.”

“You were very careful, V. You’re a problem solver. But no one has told you what is happening, and that’s why I’m here. Do you understand?”

as if there was any doubt to what the problem was. a problem could not solve itself. just twist inward over and over until it was worn through, until it could be put out of its misery, the misery–

no weakness, not here. sharp tooth, silver tongue, smile like a dog about to snap.

“Yes.”

“Alright, the first problem– stay with me, V–“

teeth creaking like bone: the problem was, the problem was, the problem

“The first problem, V, is that everything has been thrown at you too quickly. We need to slow things down. This is going to help you feel a little calmer so we can talk. Here, now, I need you to look at me, because I’m going to show you how it works.”

it was bait for a trap but there was nothing sweeter than oblivion. nothing. (sharp and bitter and sweeter than honey. a body can learn to crave the knife. sharp and strong and quick, don't hesitate–)

the doctor was smaller than her voice suggested. plain-faced with the most dizzyingly blue eyes –like the sky, the sky, the badlands sky endless aching gone gone gone– mercifully professional, as though she were giving a recorded lecture and not facing some huddled scrap of wretched humanity. she was holding a mask, demonstrating the little canister attached, speaking in a buzzing drone, giving assurances–

the performance was unnecessary. the mask was light, soft, comforting against the bruised flesh of her cheek. a muzzle for the aching, snapping teeth of despair.

in and out, in and out, in and out.

all the sharp edges of reality filed down to something soft and smooth and tolerable. (you don't get it, but you will. you will. you don't get it, but you will. you don't get it–)

“Feeling better?”

the doctor did not smile. did not frown. what she felt she kept tucked up and behind her breastbone, her face smooth like the surface of a pond.

“Yes.”

no visible vapor in the word, and yet it still thickened the sound. finally, her soul unclenched. she wanted to cry but could not.

she could not. she could not–

“Very good. Now the second problem, V, is that you don’t know what’s going to happen. Do you want me to tell you?”

despite best effort there was always a time other than now. (still here. Still Here. it’s alright. stop looking.) her eyes were heavy. they could not ask for anything more than sleep. it was all she had to give. perhaps they would realize their mistake, let her slip under and never come back up. there were worse things than death.

there were worse things–

there were, the doctor’s eyes were saying, things that still needed to be done. must be done. would be done.

“…yes.”

[sanchoyo]

i actually love doing dishes i cant relate to the dish washing haters my hands get to be warm and i always have huge epiphanies while doing them somehow. like u know how some writers say their best ideas come to them in the shower. its like that for me but Dishes

[berylcluster]

ash just leans over, and starts slowly nibbling on dean’s arm.

➫ DEAN doesn't understand what's happening, but also doesn't stop it. Green eyes dart around the room, but if there's anyone there, they don't notice what's going on. "Ashley? You uh- You okay? Hungry?"

[buttercuparry]

I am trying to write a post and yet nothing is coming  to me. I don't think there is anything left to be said. Massacres-food shortages-polio epidemic of Gaza, I have talked about it all in an effort to fundraise for my friend Siraj Abudayeh ( @siraj2024 ). Mostly because this is what his life has come to, despite not having any say in it at all. A settler colony willed to destroy Gaza and because of that for almost a year, Siraj and his family are: 

having to live in a tent, where there is no relief from either heat, cold or rain

where sand mites and insects keep pestering  the family all day long

causing a breakout of infections amongst Siraj’s sons, and putting the rest of their cousins at risk 

since right now all of Siraj’s extended relatives ( 23 family members)  are currently living with him after being displaced in an IOF attack

I have talked about this and more. I have talked about how every day Siraj has to take risks and go to Deir al-Balah just to get a steady hotspot connection so that he may campaign for his fundraiser and how after all this he gets harassed online because he is a journalist who gives us his daily updates. Beyond this I do not know what else to say to you so that you may donate to Siraj and help him cross this last lap of his fundraiser.

Recently Siraj posted an update about the  massacre at al-Mawasi camp and it hits you hard when you realize that this camp is just 2 km away from Siraj’s own. Everyday when he sends me a message, I breathe a sigh of relief because after all these months- from our first tentative hellos to now when we crack jokes after a machine translated chat goes wrong, there is always a fear that maybe this might just be our last interaction. I know these thoughts have nothing to do with the fundraiser in itself, but my point is, as a  friend, Siraj has requested that I help him reach 82k and right now this is all I can do. So please donate even if it is $3 USD ( $5 CAD). The fundraiser has trickled to almost a crawl and this makes Siraj worry. At least the gfm reaching its goal would be one less burden on him. He has fought so hard for this, please do not let him down now. 

Currently at $78,248 / $82,000 CAD. Only $3752 CAD left to reach his goal. That is approximately 2.7k USD.

Please donate and get Siraj to his goal by this Monday. You got him this far, do not abandon him now.

Vetting 219

[beesbeesbees42]

I hate ribbon cables so much

[stxtic-scribbles]

SUSIE.

AGE: teenager.

VOICE CLAIM: tba.

FACE CLAIM: herself.

PRONOUNS: she/her.

FANDOM: deltarune*.

VERSES: main.

DESCRIPTION: susie is the team's tank and heavy hitter. violent tendencies (but is secretly a softie). purple reptilian monster. diet consists of chalk and her enemies' faces (joke).

TAG SOURCE(S): herself & one (1) reference to the deltarune ost.

* jax has yet to play chapter 2 somehow.

//she has so many good options for crack tags. im considering "Create a Machine to Thrash Your Own Ass."

[fxrina]

tag dump

[ev1lde4d]

how the hell do you lose a hard drive

[ingravinoveritas]

Reblogging in light of recent discourse in the fandom and because I am Very Tired...

How do you feel about the fact that angels and demons are non-sexual beings in Good omens?

Anon #1: Well, this is a great question and I appreciate you sending it in for me to answer. Including the other Anons here since they are relevant.

I actually have a lot of feelings about angels and demons being non-sexual beings in Good Omens, which I will do my best to explain. I think the first thing I have to do is make sure I understand what you mean by non-sexual. I know Neil has said that angels and demons do not have genitalia "unless they make an effort," so by that measure, we can say angels and demons are genderless beings (agender or genderqueer perhaps as well, depending on the angel or demon). That, to me, is distinctive and not the same thing as non-sexual, which I consider to be beings who--by design or choice--do not engage in sexual intercourse.

The other thing we have to consider is the distinction between book!Good Omens and TV show!Good Omens. I have not finished reading the book, but it is my understanding that Neil (and Terry, of course) established the angels and demons as genderless in the original text. When the show was adapted for television, 30 years had passed since the novel was published, and so much had changed in that time, so a lot of things were updated to have Good Omens more align with the sensibilities of the modern era (one example is Neil talking about Crowley's aesthetic as an early '90s "Wall Street" type and how they had to figure out what the equivalent of that would be in the present day).

One thing that hasn't changed very much, however, is the portrayal of gay/queer people in the media. For much of those intervening 30 years, gay and queer people were shown as stereotypes--flamboyant, one-dimensional caricatures who existed as "sidekicks" (the "gay BFF") or object lessons for the straight characters (I would say this was especially the case in the late '80s and '90s with the AIDS crisis).

By this time, gay and queer people could exist on TV, but only if they were non-sexual/sexless. One example of this is Blanche's brother Clayton on The Golden Girls. After he comes out to Blanche, he brings home his fiance Doug in a subsequent episode, which has Blanche indignant. "I don't really mind Clayton being homosexual, I just don't like him dating men." Another example is Will & Grace, which aired in the late '90s. Will was a gay man who was one of the main characters, but while we constantly saw Grace falling into bed with random men and all sorts of escapades related to her sex life, we were never shown Will in any sort of similar situation. He could be gay, and he could be Grace's BFF, but he couldn't have a sex life of his own. It was this idea that gay people could exist in abstract terms, but not in the concrete reality of what it meant to be gay. Homophobia disguised as "acceptance."

So when I see/hear the word "non-sexual" in relation to gay and queer people, this is what comes to mind. What I also think of is that the absence of gay male sexuality (as for the majority of the show, Aziraphale and Crowley are male-presenting) is not the same thing as the presence of asexuality. I think it's been remarkably easy for Neil to take credit for that when it doesn't seem to have been his actual intention, and it also removes from him the responsibility of portraying that specific aspect of a non-heterosexual love story.

One thing I want to be very clear on is that I am in no way trying to put down anyone's head canon or what any reader or viewer may see in these characters, and I will never say that anyone's head canons are not valid. But when we are talking about the canon--in other words, what is actually on the screen--I feel like there is a tendency to overlook what Michael and David are actually doing with these characters.

In addition to what I mentioned above about gay characters on TV in the '80s and '90s, the other thing you absolutely could not do as a gay or queer person was fall in love. This is alluded to more in the example above from The Golden Girls, where Blanche is horrified that her brother wants to marry a man, until Sophia finally helps her understand:

Blanche: "Oh, look, I can accept the fact that he's gay, but why does he have to slip a ring on this guy's finger so the whole world will know?" Sophia: "Why did you marry George?" Blanche: "We loved each other. We wanted to make a lifetime commitment. Wanted everybody to know." Sophia: "That's what Doug and Clayton want, too. Everyone wants someone to grow old with. And shouldn't everyone have that chance?"

Here we are now, over 30 years later, and some people still don't want everyone to have that chance. Some people think two people of the same sex can't love each other the way a man and a woman do. Because queer love--and especially love between two men--is still looked at as "less than" and inferior to straight love.

This is the world Michael and David grew up in. This is the social and cultural climate they saw and navigated their own sexuality and identity in--'80s Britain, Margaret Thatcher, Section 28. Where being gay or queer wasn't just immoral, it was illegal. Your very existence alone was stigmatized, pathologized, and criminalized. And they are bringing that lived experience into the roles of Aziraphale and Crowley, albeit in different ways.

To me, Michael is playing Aziraphale as a repressed gay man. A man who--much like David--grew up in the faith and was made to believe that his natural feelings, attractions, and desires were wrong, shameful, and disgusting. We see this with Gabriel deriding Aziraphale for eating sushi and enjoying other Earthly pleasures, and it would be logical to think that it's taken a long time for Aziraphale to feel comfortable with the foods/drink/books he likes and the pleasure they bring him. Similarly, it's taken Aziraphale a millennia to find the one being who makes him feel comfortable with the desires he has. The being who is the exception to every rule Heaven ever laid out, who encourages Aziraphale to be himself in every respect. And that's Crowley.

In this scene in the Bastille (which I know has been analyzed a thousand times and a thousand ways), when Aziraphale looks at Crowley like this, the desire rising up in him is more than obvious. The wide eyes, the heaving bosom, and of course the smoldering up-and-down glance all speak to this--he is, quite literally, checking Crowley out, without shame, possibly for the first time ever. Even though that desire is not outwardly expressed in GO season 1, it does not mean it doesn't exist--only that Aziraphale letting himself feel this (and Crowley being the one entity who allows him to feel this) is the first step in a very long journey away from that lifetime of repression.

In terms of Crowley, I feel that David is playing Crowley as a gay man who is afraid of commitment because he has been hurt in the past. There is a feeling of impermanence to Crowley--that, despite being a celestial, immortal entity, he doesn't like to hold onto things because deep down, he believes they will eventually be taken away. He knows who he is, but is all too aware of the consequences that come with it. So he does not get attached, because to him, attachment equals pain, and he believes nothing is worth that risk.

In the church scene in 1941 (which, again, so much has already been said), Crowley saves Aziraphale's books from the wreckage. It's been said by many that Crowley fell in love long before this (which I do think is true), but for me, I feel like this was where we saw that Crowley was truly "attached" to Aziraphale. He rescued Aziraphale from the Bastille, and he saved Aziraphale from the bombs of the Blitz, but in grabbing the books, Crowley isn't just saving Aziraphale's body--he's holding onto a piece of his soul. For the first time ever, Crowley has found something that isn't temporary, and after a millennia of cynicism, Aziraphale is the one entity who makes him feel fully and wholeheartedly ready to commit to something.

This is what I have seen and perceived in the portrayals of Aziraphale and Crowley that Michael and David have given us. I absolutely do 100% believe that asexual folks deserve representation--representation that is clear and specific, not just a side effect of Neil not wanting to show these characters expressing outward sexual desires--but I do not believe that is how Michael and David are playing the characters. It's not enough--or at least it shouldn't be--to have characters of marginalized backgrounds just standing in the room, or to say, "This one's gay," "This one's nonbinary," "This one's asexual." Including these identities in the fabric of the story means doing what Michael and David have done, which is showing these people or beings as three-dimensional, as fully realized characters who happen to have that identity, rather than as ticked boxes representing a certain identity on a checklist.

And to the Anons mentioning the Radio Times article (which seems like it came out a hundred years ago now)--Anon #4 particularly--I appreciate you sharing your thoughts with me, but I could not disagree with you more.

First of all, I have no idea where in the world you got that Aziraphale and Crowley's romance was explicit in season 1, because it was absolutely anything but. Three days after they posted that, RT posted another article seemingly backtracking on everything they'd previously said (as if we'd all somehow pulled a Gabriel Jim and forgotten everything about the first article). The phrase "Could romance be on the cards after all?" is in the bloody headline of article #2, which to me says that RT is going to go in whichever direction the wind blows--to create engagement and generate clicks--but also that it is very clear what they meant by "conventional" in the first article. I do not get the feeling that Radio Times--a mainstream publication that seemingly publishes any story they can farm from social media--was thinking of ace or aro identities or relationships when writing that. Even a tiny little bit.

Even a queer-centric media outlet like Pride today published an article saying the first season of GO lacked LGBTQ+ representation. Obviously, I do not at all agree with this or with several other things mentioned in the article. But what I am challenging folks to do is think about what this is really saying. By the end of GO 1 season, everyone accepts and assumes that Madame Tracy and Shadwell are a couple. She makes eyes at him, they have dinner together, and no one questions them being a couple, even though they are not shown being physically affectionate. Aziraphale and Crowley do exactly the same things, but no one (speaking of the larger public, outside the hardcore fan base) assumes they are a couple.

Maybe what that means, then, is that "representation" that requires you to squint and turn your head in order to see it--like Aziraphale and Crowley holding hands on the bus--isn't really representation at all. And by Neil "not wanting to label" something, it seems to suggest that committing to a label or embracing that gayness is something he is not comfortable with--for any number of reasons--and is why we could have a meaningless love scene with a straight couple that does not have a real connection (Newt and Anathema), but couldn't have a meaningful love scene with a gay couple that does have a devastatingly profound and powerful connection.

So yes, those are my thoughts on the angels and demons in Good Omens being non-sexual, and what that means in a larger cultural/societal sense. I know that when GO season 2 comes out in a week, I could be proven completely wrong about everything I've just said, and I will have no problem with that at all. I fully trust what Michael and David will bring to the roles of Aziraphale and Crowley, but my hesitation stems from the limitations they will potentially be up against, in terms of the script/storyline (and is something I have felt from the interviews we've seen with them this past week).

I'm hopeful for the best, though (as always), so we'll just have to see what happens...