#i'm expected to just..function???

[the-eyes-of-andyserkis]

[youssefguedira]

V, JoeNicky & Nile

V. An abandoned or empty place.

When Joe pulls the sheet off the couch it kicks up enough dust that it makes Nile sneeze. The couch underneath is old, wooden frame rotting, fabric stained and full of holes where moths have eaten away at it. 

“Sorry,” Joe says to Nile when she finally manages to get the sneezing under control. “Didn’t realise it was that bad.” He puts his hands on his hips and looks down at the couch. Nile looks it over.

“There’s no saving that,” she says, wiping at her eyes. She can heal from falling over ten stories, but she can’t get away from allergies.

Joe frowns. “I liked that couch.”

The house is older than anywhere else they’ve brought her, and has been abandoned for long enough that it’s falling apart. But through some trick of posing as their own sons, or something, Joe and Nicky still own it, even if there’s a giant hole in the roof and all the windows are broken. Why they’d decided to come back here, Nile doesn’t know, but it’s a nice enough area, and a good distraction from, well. Everything. Growing back a leg, she’s discovered, is not fun. 

From one of the other rooms – she thinks it’s the kitchen, she’s not actually sure where Nicky had wandered to – there’s the sound of something breaking and crashing to the ground, and a muffled curse. 

Joe makes a questioning noise in the vague direction of the kitchen. A few moments later, Nicky appears in the doorway, covered in dust. “I am okay,” he says. “But I think we will need to go out to eat tonight.”

“Nothing?” 

Nicky shakes his head. “Unless you want to start a fire and go hunt some rabbits.”

Joe grins. “Just like old times, right?”

Nile shakes her head firmly, which makes Nicky smile. She loves them, but there’s no way they’re doing that. 

“We can probably clear out enough space in here,” Joe says, gesturing to the floor. “Get the sleeping bags out of the car. Probably have to start a fire anyway, but…”

Nile looks around again while Joe says something to Nicky in Arabic that makes him laugh. The house is falling apart, sure, but it’s structurally stable, and the bones are all there. It could be something. They’ve got time to make it something. 

Nicky is the one who goes for pizza in the end – he doesn’t trust Nile and Joe to order it if left to their own devices – while they try to clear out a space in the living room. Eventually, though, after Nile has another sneezing fit, Joe suggests they just take the sleeping bags outside instead, which works out a lot better. He sets about starting a fire with practiced ease while Nile sets out the sleeping bags around it. They’re far enough away from civilisation that she can’t hear cars passing by, which is kind of surreal, and the stars are brighter than she’s ever seen them. 

When Nicky gets back, two boxes balanced on one arm and a bottle of wine in the other, he looks over their makeshift camp and laughs. “Just like old times, then?” he asks.

Joe grins. “Except we have pizza.”

“And actual sleeping bags,” Nile says.

“Ah, these modern inventions could never quite match the comfort of a pile of furs,” Joe says wistfully. Nile gives him a look. She’s ninety percent sure that one’s bullshit, but she can never quite tell with him. 

Nicky sets down the pizza boxes, and jogs back to the car to grab the pack of plastic wine glasses they’d bought before they got here. 

“We should’ve bought marshmallows,” Nile says. “Could have made s’mores.”

“Well, we’ll have to go to the hardware store tomorrow anyway,” Joe points out. “And I think it’ll be a little while before we can actually sleep in there.”

“Tomorrow, then?”

“Tomorrow,” Nicky agrees.

[onesidedradiostatic]

Hear me out

Transfem alastor

Thoughts?

I mean honestly live your dreams anons I'm open to any of these hcs but I wanna be transparent that I am a #cis girl, gender stuff isn't really my Area of Expertise since it doesn't fit under my experiences as a cis person

that being said, transfem alastor, kinda real, hated men so much he said actually fuck being one

and I could see the vees' one, not much to say here (vox does canonically get hard but I respect the energy here. although one could question how hell works in reincarnating you when you die, if you're trans and want your gender's biological parts will it give it to you. although arguably vox IS part tech so maybe he... alright I will stop this line of thought)

[gideonisms]

Does a podcast ever release a take you disagree with so strongly it makes you question everything you heard on it up to that point

[singingcicadas]

The way it's depicted, Cybertron's pre-war societal issues had a lot less to do with Functionism and more to do with unchecked government corruption, massive wealth disparity, high layoff/unemployment rates, and disenfranchisement.

People were starving, they needed work, they weren���t getting any. Those that were fortunate enough to have work didn’t get paid living wages, much less have anything to spare for health contingencies. Even then stability’s still the luxury of the top few tiers; they live one cut away from layoff. The government cared only enough to exacerbate these issues by coming up with new ways for exploitation. Any attempts to protest or lobby were shut down through political persecution. As a result the masses turned increasingly to crime, drug abuse, thuggery, and violence. Extreme acts of terrorism gets lauded as long as the collateral damage's suffered by someone else. Morality and caution are eroded in the face of desperation.

Meanwhile the many alleged restrictions of Functionism are just lip service complaints made by the characters which doesn’t match up to most of the stuff we’re shown. Like if Rung could become a psychologist, a specialized job that requires higher education, despite having zero background on top of such a weird alt that he had to be classified as an ornament, then wow the functionists must be open-minded. If Dominus Ambus could be a scientist/doctor/explorer/author/successful social rights advocator during the height of functionist control with a minesweeper military-use alt (assuming that his secondary alt's the same as Minimus'), then wow the functionists must be accommodating. If Tyrest could become chief engineer under Nova and later go into law, a complete change of profession, while being a jet, then wow functionism's flexible. If Ratbat and Momus could become senators in a society that discriminates heavily against beastformers and labor frames, then wow that’s progressive. If every Prime from Nova to Zeta (with the exception of Sentinel, his alt’s a tank, he only has wings in Megatron Origin as part of his Apex armour upgrade), every single named pre-war senator other than Proteus and Momus, and four out of five of Nova Prime’s buddy club (only Galvatron's a grounder) were wingframes in a society that supposedly discriminates against wingframes, then wow that’s… inconsistent worldbuilding.

Megatron didn’t get into bloodsports or start a war because he didn’t get to pursue his dream job. He got driven into the pits and down the slippery slope of moral degeneration because his only source of income was cut off by the mine closure incident. People wanted livelihoods above anything else, it's the failure to provide that that made the miners go off the deep end and resulted in the death of a guard. If Functionism actually ensured that everyone could be guaranteed a job or at least minimized the unemployment rates, then stratified castes or not, there would have been no war. People, or societies, are generally capable of tolerating an incredible amount of injustice as long as the majority still have a chance at scraping by at the end of the day. But the government, and later Megatron, kept yanking the rug out from under everyone over and over until they no longer even had a chance at that; there's no other choice left but fight or die.

[uncanny-tranny]

You know... it's okay to trust your body. If you are separated from your body to such an extent you feel you cannot trust it, I truly from the bottom of my heart empathize and feel grief for you, but you can trust your body.

It's okay to listen to your body and to heed what it is telling you. I wish you (and your body) well wherever you go. You deserve the peace of mind to feel able to do what you want.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

gotta admit there is something deeply satisfying abt the ability in ds2 to completely clear out a path to a boss

[wiremotherofficial]

hmmm

[adustoflove]

I feel like such a waste of space. What am I doing? I'm ignoring all my worried friends. I'm pushing everyone away. I'm not doing anything worthwhile. I'm not helping anyone. I'm wishing I was dead when I could be doing anything more productive. I feel 14 again, sobbing on my stupid purple rug because I mean nothing to no one and my existence doesn't do much.

[saltpepperbeard]

EDWARD TEACH MY LOVE, STEDE BONNET MY DARLING

IT IS SO SO INCREDIBLE TO FINALLY SEE YOU BOTH AGAIN!!!

[dandyshucks]

i Love pkmn but i love it as a worldbuild. when i play the game its just bc i like exploring the world and the critters. and i feel like everyone else who likes pkmn are all ppl who Love the games and competitive parts of it. so i feel a little embarrassed about not being a game-lover and competition-lover... i simply enjoy the world and the silly creatures 😭😭

[patiann345]

Watching the situation with EA doing a fuckton of updates in a like. 5 days because their latest pack broke TS4 in.. A HUGE VARIETY OF WAYS from player to player. Jesus christ man. and then some of you guys still wanna pay for new packs?? What??? I can't make anyone buy or not buy anything but... C'mon, put your money to better use! Half of that content should've been base-game anyway, but instead gets cut up and sold across multiple packs to milk money out of people,, and it clearly works because I'm seeing people nab packs during the sale even while the game is in an unplayable state for a lot of players.

It's so sad because I was kinda excited for the 10-year anniversary next month. But seeing the state it's in rn, how frustrated people are seeing their game break down and (god forbid) their saves get completely wiped, seeing the very convenient sale for packs go up right as the community sends in complaints that the game won't load properly or they can't use CAS or this and that etc etc,,,

I'm never paying for another pack again. I feel crap that I ever did in the first place. If it ain't 100% off, I'm not getting it.

[oilcolor]

so I just got diagnosed with adhd

It's not a surprise. I've been pretty much certain of this for like, ten years or so (only growing more certain when immediate family members were diagnosed), but it's... pretty vindicating to have a professional be like, 'yeah you've really, actually been struggling for reasons fairly out of your control.' I guess I'm posting about this here as a sort of sorry excuse for my progressively-worsening difficulty with drawing (in terms of frequency + how long it takes me to get through commissions). When I've said I have motivation issues, I don't mean that I've lost my passion for art or my desire to be drawing; it's more like I'm running at full speed into an invisible brick wall I could never find a way around - which, in and of itself is demotivating, but that's not really my point here. My point is that I'm really really hoping this is just some busted dopamine trickery and maybe, somewhere down the line, I'll find a medication that works for me and maybe I'll actually be able to draw more than like, three times a year? If I'm lucky. I have so many ideas I've wanted to draw so badly for so many years (I have a whole list! I write down every idea! It's pages long!), and I've been suffocating and I just desperately, desperately want this to work. Pray for me lmao

so... thank you all for all your patience and support despite it all

[shoechoe]

My biggest problem with the I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream video game is that it just feels incomplete I think. Its whole concept is about choosing to be a good person and being strong despite the odds and teases a whole choice-based system where AM tempts the survivors into making morally wrong/spirit-weakening choices based on their fears and desires. However for every character story with the exception of Nimdok, the game stops you from actually going down a true "bad" route which is huge missed potential IMO.

Like for example in Benny's route, AM tries to get him to give into his animal urges by eating the village people instead of befriending and saving them, wrecking his psyche, but at no point do you ever have the real game choice to eat them. Imagine if you did and you could end the scenario that way- wouldn't that be horrific and make the message far more impactful? It's like this for every scenario (again, except for Nimdok's) and it's disappointing.

For a game that's built to be very challenging it feels like it tries to make itself too hard to lose, and it weakens the story for me.

[everybody-hit-the-pyro-cue]

specialized education and gifted children programs are so fucked up I see the purpose but the execution and expectations are genuinely horrific I've yet to meet a single one of us that's doing okay besides from those who just reached their breaking point and chose to stop caring

[queerstudiesnatural]

i think my brain should be studied i'm being fr