#if we don't know what we're doing

[inbabylontheywept]

The Vengabus is Coming

Alakan pinched the bridge of his nose. On one hand, certain death. On the other hand, human bullshit.

He weighed the options carefully. His self-respect fought tooth and claw with his will to live.

The will to live won. It was a near thing, but internal battles were winner take all.

“Fuck it. We need armor. Send them in.”

---

The radio crackled. It was a quiet sound, but still a welcome reprieve to the blisteringing swarm of beams from the nearby laser gatling. Alakan fished it out of his front pocket, raising it near his ear eagerly.

“Callsign ‘Ape-Mode’, do you copy? What is your ETA? We’re pinned down bad up here, if they can get a second angle set up we’re toast. ”

The speaker crackled again. There was a sound like a horn on the other end. Maybe an alarm?

“Callsign Ape-Mode, is your vehicle intact?”

There was no verbal response back, but a faint chanting could be heard in the background, just beyond the range of his hearing. Alakan cranked the volume knob to max, desperate for any possible information about when the armor would arrive. Instead, he seemed to catch the opening part of some kind of human war ritual.

“We like to party! We like, we like to party! We like to party! We like, we like to party! We like to party! We like-”

Then the radio cut off abruptly.

He took several deep breaths before pinching his nose again.

Fucking humans.

---

The Vengabus is coming! And everybody's jumping! New York to-

The chanting was back, almost incomprehensibly loud. The gatlings were earsplitting on their own, but the human war chant made them seem like whispers in a library. The noise was so loud that identifying the source was almost impossible. It seemed to be coming from all sides at once, a hulking wall of sound. He reached down to shut off his comm only to find it was already off.

Oh. They must be here then. That would explain the unwarranted assault on his earholes. He took a peek over the edge of his foxhole and froze.

Even by the standards of human bullshit, this was egregious.

The tank itself was standard DFP issue. The bright yellow paint job and makeshift stop sign definitely were not. And the speakers looked borderline illegal. Strands of copper wire poked from each of the generator sized boxes strapped, welded, and glued to random points all over the chassis. The conductor feeding each of the abominations seemed to be repurposed twinkle lights, cutting zigzags between each box before drawing into the hatch.

The gatlings stopped, evidently as taken aback as everyone else on the battlefield. The moment of relative peace was replaced by insane furor as every gun on the opposite side of the canyon seemed to realize that there was a big juicy target barreling towards them.

The tank took the swarm of beams like a champion. Faint clouds of yellow smoke trailed behind the racing vehicle as its makeshift paint job was incinerated, but that was probably a blessing in disguise. The wall of noise fell down several notches as one of the gatlings made a point of targeting the ear splitting speakers.

The tank had been content enough to just absorb enemy ammo as it barreled its way to the middle of the battle, but this was a personal affront. The railgun on the top of the vehicle locked on to the offending turret and began dropping ferroslugs. The first was more than enough to obliterate its hated foe, the other three were just to desecrate the memory. Each shot had the unfortunate side effect of distorting the noise coming out of the speakers, the voices going up like chipmunks with every thump of the MAC.

The wheels of steel are turning! And traffic lights are burning! So if you like to party, get on and move your body! The Vengabus is coming!

A kinetic slug slammed into the road just behind it. If the tank had been going anything less than max speed, it would’ve been splattered. Any sane tank operator would’ve launched their smoke cover, changed course, and avoided the slugs by serpentining.

These were not sane tank operators. The hatches for the smoke cover opened, but instead of smoke grenades getting flung from the hydraulic catapult, out flew hundreds and hundreds of gleaming chemlights. The laser gatling atop the main cannon opened fire, not at any enemy, but simply while spinning in circles at maximum speed.

None of this should have done a damn thing, but the effect was amazing. The lights, the noise, and now the laser effects-the enemy had been trained for what to do in a warzone, but they had no fucking idea what to do at a disco. All it took was one of them to break ranks, and the rest followed suit. Alakan watched in awe as the troop of 80 enemy combatants bolted up the far side of the valley, casually pursued by the still smoldering Venga-Tank, chipperly screaming out its war cry as the recording device on the inside hit a well planned loop.

The Vengabus is coming! The Vengabus is coming! The Vengabus is coming! The Vengabus is coming! The Vengabus is coming! The Vengabus is coming!

The noise, blessedly, faded to black as both made it over the hill.

He climbed carefully out of his foxhole, wiping the dirt from his palms onto the front of his pants when he was done. One of the newer soldiers jogged up to him, as baffled as he’d ever been.

“What… What the hell just happened?”

Alakan shrugged.

“Trust me, they don’t know either. Fucking humans.”

[rocketbirdie]

face value

[nientedal]

What progress at home has biden enacted? What policies of his show that he is making progress that prove he is actually different than trump?

I like to pretend I have faith in humanity, so I'll answer as if you're asking this in good faith.

Biden's DEA has lifted restrictions on telehealth prescriptions to make appointments and assistance more accessible.

He put a funding package into place to help unhoused people get access to mental and physical healthcare, as well as short-term and long-term housing.

He has attempted and is still attempting to get student debt relief through - this was blocked by Republican judges appointed by Trump, but he's still working on it.

Infrastructure repair - his administration has budgeted funds to actually fix some severely-damaged and frequently-traveled bridges.

Trying to expand access to healthcare to include undocumented immigrants who came to the USA as children (Dreamers) under the Affordable Care Act. Support for Navigator programs and outreach has also been increased.

He has vetoed Republican-led bills that were attempting to overturn environmental protections - one that would have forbidden investment fund managers to consider climate change in their portfolios (I have two degrees in accounting and this is actually huge), and another that would have overturned restrictions on agricultural runoff into our waterways.

He and his administration worked for ages to get rail workers paid sick days.

This is just some of what he's been doing. Meanwhile, Trump and other Republicans want to criminalize the lives of LGBT people like you and me. They want to eliminate no-fault divorce and force births that will kill parents or devastate them financially. They have stated flat out that they want to install a military dictatorship in the USA. They attempted to put that in motion on January 6th, 2021. They failed once. They will do better next time.

One party wants to house the homeless and expand social safety nets, while the other one wants to criminalize homelessness. One of them wants a future in which I might be able to vote to change how much of a war machine my country is, while the other one wants to eliminate my ability to vote entirely. Those are not the same. Those literally are opposites.

At the end of the day, all you and I can do is choose to do the least amount of harm possible. You and I cannot choose to do no harm. This is the USA, we sell war, you and I cannot choose to do no harm. I wish we could, my god do I wish we could, but that is not an option. So we grieve for the harm we couldn't eliminate and work to minimize the harm that is done. Despite all the crap they support, Democrats are the minimum amount of harm right now. Acting like they aren't is exactly what brought us to an election where our options are a future where we are either wading in blood or drowning in it.

Not voting for Biden will not help Palestine. Not voting for Biden will guarantee a Republican president who will make the situation in Palestine WORSE. AND it'll hurt a lot of other places as well, both at home and abroad, because Republicans are about business and the USA is in the business of war! And I would very much like that to change someday! I would very much like to someday be able to choose to do no harm! And I know what I have to do to try for that future, so what are YOU going to do? There is no standing off to the side in this. If you aren't helping pull, you're the dead weight we're pulling. Are you going to dig your feet into the mud and blood and drown us there? Or are you going to get the fuck off your ass, grit your teeth, and help us pull free?

[egophiliac]

he's coming

I'M NOT READY

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

putting my prediction on record now that the coming decade is going to see the rise of viral-marketed fancy at-home water filtration systems, driving and driven by a drastic reduction in the quality of U.S. tap water (given that we are in a 'replacement era' where our current infrastructure is reaching the end of its lifespan--but isn't being replaced). also guessing that by the 2030s access to drinkable tap water will be a mainstream class issue, with low-income & unstably housed people increasingly forced to rely on expensive bottled water when they can't afford the up-front cost of at-home filtration--and with this being portrayed in media as a "moral failing" and short-sighted "choice," rather than a basic failure of our political & economic systems. really hope i'm just being alarmist, but plenty of this already happens in other countries, and the U.S. is in a state of decline, so. here's praying this post ages into irrelevance. timestamped April 2023

[gloriousmonsters]

love when you can ask the Narrator why the Princess is a Princess and he's like 'well i uhhhh YOU did that. maybe it's because uh... something something about her being above you... but still approachable... look i don't want to analyze or anthropomorphize your--' my guy. i am a primal being of Order and Eternity and Shaping. You're the one who convinced me I was some dude and were quite willing to take credit for shaping my view on the world through narration five seconds ago. Are you gonna look me in the eye and tell me the desire to interpret something worthy of adoration and more powerful than me as a dommy princess is written in the very nature of the universe or are you going to show me your browser history like a man

[bogleech]

Dunno if you know but there is a Yo-kai watch event in ff14 right now.

Oh my god.......they're alive. And HE'S there.

Do final fantasy players know what his deal is. Do they know he's a desperately lonely and always slightly horny middle aged alcoholic trapped in the body of an off-putting dog. Do they know how happy he'd have to be to be isekai'd into Final Fantasy and captured by a bunnygirl adventurer.

Do they know he's so hilariously unpleasant that humans see him as possibly just a normal dog and he still got put in human jail for making women uncomfortable

These aren't complaints, this is the funniest fucking character a collectible monster franchise has ever had. if you play this final fantasy please give him as good a home as you feel he deserves

one time he bought booze for a child but really I think that one's on the bar for selling sake to what they thought was a dog

[brionysea]

nancy being like 'what do you mean I broke into someone's house and ignored my boss so I'm losing my job that's not fair' and mike being like 'what do you mean el publicly assaulted someone so she's getting arrested that's insane' I love this stupid family and their inability to conceive of real world consequences

[blueskittlesart]

*sigh* thoughts on Nintendo's botw/totk timeline shenanigans and tomfoolery?

tbh. my maybe-unpopular opinion is that the timeline is only important when a game's place on the timeline seriously informs the way their narrative progresses. the problem is that before botw we almost NEVER got games where it didn't matter. it matters for skyward sword because it's the beginning, and it matters for tp/ww/alttp (and their respective sequels) because the choices the hero of time makes explicitly inform the narrative of those games in one way or another. it matters which timeline we're in for those games because these cycles we're seeing are close enough to oot's cycle that they're still feeling the effects of his choices. botw, however, takes place at minimum 10 thousand years after oot, so its place on the timeline actually functionally means nothing. botw is completely divorced from the hero of time & his story, so what he does is a nonissue in the context of botw link and zelda's story. thus, which timeline botw happens in is a nonissue. honestly I kind of liked the idea that it happened in all of them. i think there's a cool idea of inevitability that can be played with there. but the point is that the timeline exists to enhance and fill in the lore of games that need it, and botw/totk don't really need it because the devs finally realized they could make a game without the hero of time in it.

[danwhobrowses]

Goodness this is like the third episode in a row begetting discourse among the cr fandom. For me this discourse has two perspectives where the division depends on whose perspective you're looking at;

For the armies it was 'We've been sent by the gods and are here to help you stop Predathos as we pla-wait, you're a vessel of Predathos? Isn't that just like Ludinus planned??' which yeah is valid from their perspective

For the Hells it was 'We just came out of 4 back-to-back battles with Ludinus and Predathos itself, we have a solution to save the gods but change the dynamic but we want to discuss it privately with the gods first and now you're trying to kill us!?' which is also valid

What puts me more on BH's side is that we have the context; BH are allowed to be terse when people try to kill them and fail, least of all allies who don't ask for an explanation before asking their god to come down and smite them. They're not villains because they snarked at the person who attempted to sic their god on them, and it's not as if Imogen sic'd Predathos on them in retaliation. Once again they are met with the thankless job and burden that they neither wanted or asked for, but was thrust upon them anyway. With all the times Bells Hells have been criticized for being aimless and indecisive it seems a little strange to criticize them now for being focused and decisive.

Could they have explained from the start? Maybe. Would it have caused a different reaction the moment they said Predathos is in Imogen? Probably not. I can't tell you why they didn't come out of the Cage and immediately explain because I'm not the players; perhaps they wanted to avoid the hysteria and conflict, perhaps they were drained from the fight and wanted to wrap up the episode, or perhaps it was just down to Bell's Hells, as with all CR campaign parties, being infamously bad at communicating, I don't know.

But it's times like these where it's worth reminding that this is a DnD show, nerdy-ass voice actors having fun, it can't always be clean and clear-cut storytelling every second. And sometimes as a fandom we need to take a step back so we don't get ourselves stuck, because we're probably making it deeper than it is and getting annoyed at each other over our interpretation of two groups from the same side getting annoyed at each other. Just, take a breath.

[phoenixcatch7]

It's always funny to me when in an lu fic the chain is offered bananas and don't accept them. Like, you're offering these high energy adventures free food?? Fruit they'll have never even heard of before??? A ridiculously expensive imported good at best?? AND it boosts your attack?

Not ONE of these idiots would ever turn down something new and interesting to eat at least once. They'd be all over those bananas and immediately get dubbed yiga and I'm honestly surprised no one has used it in a fic yet 🤭

[piecesofchess]

Tartarus is still a little broken and that's Fun !

[the-real-list-of-ominous-threats]

I'm going to force you to play the joke FNAF dating sim my friend and I are making

[yo-yo-yoshiko]

Legends of Tomorrow not getting a renewal is my villain origin story. Anyway... some warmup doodles of Spooner from today and yesterday!

little bonus: They have a lot in common actually. (I have a type)

[onesnoopyaday]

I AM AT MY LIMIT

Snoopy #90

30/12/2024

description under the cut

[description: a cartoon-style drawing of Snoopy's head. Snoopy is a white dog with black ears. His eyes are shut and his mouth is a horizontal line. There are two large blue teardrops, one under each eye. The text "I am at my limit" is handwritten across the top of the image.]

[tyrantchimera]

Something I've noticed about being in a small, 'dead' fandom... when you're a content creator, it's like the whole remaining fandom *reacts* when you do anything. I'm in a small but dedicated group of authors for a small fandom. If one of us posts after a dry spell, the rest of us perk up. The fans react. Other creators (like myself) are inspired to make their own stuff.

For a small while, we aren't just small-time creators. It's like we're the franchise itself! Everyone knows when we post stuff. Our content is THE content.

Wow. What a feeling.