#it’s all just the pandemic fucking this planet

[telltaleanatomicalheart]

since i started star wars at like 14, i didn’t really get the full political implications or just the innate tragedy of it. it’s not supposed to be a happy story but there’s supposed to be hope. i always thought anakin wasn’t to blame going to the dark like maybe if he had a different master or wasn’t groomed by palpatine but in reality he was a grown ass man with full jedi training that chose to get married (“in secret” bc i swear everyone knew they was fuckin, they just didn’t want to banish him bc they saw him as the chosen one) and chose to kill younglings and massacre an entire people and kill another jedi and turn to the dark side. even if he had really strong emotions and felt things on an insanely intense level bc of midichlorians or whatever he still had full fledged jedi training to be able to control that and yeah the jedi temple was so corrupt in the way they were just cops with telekinetic abilities and fake buddhists but like HES GROWN. no matter what he experienced it was his choice. he was weak and he chose the dark side. so he is not babygirl. he’s hot. but he’s not baby girl. it was over even before he force choked padme cause he killed them kids he said no more jedi too bad so sad.

i never understood padme’s death tho it was kind of a plot hole to me just she just lost the will to live and just died after giving birth like what????even if she is force sensitive (ALLEGEDLY) that’s still crazy. i think it was soley for the anakin-vader plot so that he wouldn’t think of his actions or to maybe (idk if this was on purpose) justify his actions bc he had nothing left.

also sorry if u haven’t watched star wars yet…i recommend release order and clone wars and rebels animated series. forget about the mandalorian and the “ahsoka” show it literally doesn’t matter.

[wilwheaton]

The GOP wonders why young people (and others) don't want to vote for them. Some wise scribe assembled this list.

1.) Your Reagan-era “trickle-down economics” strategy of tax breaks for billionaires that you continue to employ to this day has widened the gap between rich and poor so much that most of them will never be able to own a home, much less earn a living wage.

2.) You refuse to increase the federal minimum wage, which is still $7.25 an hour (since 2009). Even if it had just kept up with inflation, it would be $27 now. You’re forcing people of all ages but especially young people to work multiple jobs just to afford basic necessities.

3.) You fundamentally oppose and want to kill democracy; have done everything in your power to restrict access to the ballot box, particularly in areas with demographics that tend to vote Democratic (like young people and POC). You staged a fucking coup the last time you lost.

4.) You have abused your disproportionate senate control over the last three decades to pack the courts with religious extremists and idealogues, including SCOTUS—which has rolled back rights for women in ways that do nothing but kill more women and children and expand poverty.

5.) You refuse to enact common sense gun control laws to curb mass shootings like universal background checks and banning assault weapons; subjecting their entire generation to school shootings and drills that are traumatizing in and of themselves. You are owned by the NRA.

6.) You are unequivocally against combatting climate change to the extent that it’s as if you’ve made it your personal mission to ensure they inherit a planet that is beyond the point of no return in terms of remaining habitable for the human race beyond the next few generations.

7.) You oppose all programs that provide assistance to those who need it most. Your governors refused to expand Medicaid even during A PANDEMIC. You are against free school lunches, despite it being the only meal that millions of children can count on to actually receive each day

8.) You are banning books, defunding libraries, barring subject matter, and whitewashing history even more in a fascistic attempt to keep them ignorant of the systemic racism that this nation was literally founded upon and continues to this day in every action your party takes.

9.) You oppose universal healthcare and are still trying to repeal the ACA and rip healthcare from tens of millions of Americans and replace it with nothing. You are against lowering the cost of insulin and prescription drugs that millions need simply to LIVE/FUNCTION in society.

10.) You embrace white nationalists, Neo-Nazis, and other groups that are defined by their intractable racism, xenophobia, bigotry, and intolerance. You conspired with these groups on January 6th to try to overthrow the U.S. government via domestic terrorism that KILLED PEOPLE.

11.) You oppose every bill aimed at making life better for our nation’s youth; from education to extracurricular and financial/nutritional assistance programs. You say you want to “protect the children” while you elect/nominate pedophiles and attack trans youth and drag queens.

12.) You pretend to be offended by “anti-semitism” while literally supporting, electing, and speaking at events organized by Nazis. You pretend to hate “cancel culture” despite the fact that you invented it and it’s basically all you do.

13.) Every word you utter is a lie. You are the party of treason, hypocrisy, crime, and authoritarianism. You want to entrench rule by your aging minority because you know that you have nothing to offer young voters and they will never support you for all these reasons and more.

14.) You’re so hostile to even the notion of helping us overcome the mountain of debt that millions of us are forced to take on just to pay for our post K-12 education that you are suing to try to prevent a small fraction of us from getting even $10,000 in loan forgiveness.

15.) You opened the floodgates of money into politics via Citizens United; allowing our entire system of government to become a cesspool of corruption, crime, and greed. You are supposed to represent the American people whose taxes pay your salary but instead cater to rich donors.

16.) You respond to elected representatives standing in solidarity with their constituents to protest the ONGOING SLAUGHTER of children in schools via shootings by EXPELLING THEM FROM OFFICE & respond to your lack of popularity among young people by trying to raise the voting age.

17.) You impeach Democratic presidents over lying about a BJ but refuse to impeach (then vote twice to acquit) a guy whose entire “administration” was an international crime syndicate being run out of the WH who incited an insurrection to have you killed.

18.) You steal Supreme Court seats from democrats to prevent the only black POTUS we’ve ever had from appointing one and invent fake precedents that you later ignore all to take fundamental rights from Americans; and even your “legitimate” appointments consist of people like THIS (sub-thread refuting CJ Roberts criticisms of people attacking SCOTUS' legitimacy).

19.) You support mass incarceration even for innocuous offenses or execution by cop for POC while doing nothing but protect rich white criminals who engage in such things as tax fraud, money laundering, sex trafficking, rape/sexual assault, falsifying business records, etc.

20.) You are the reason we can’t pass:—Universal background checks—An assault weapons ban—The ‘For the People/Freedom to vote’ Act or John Lewis Voting Rights Act—The ERA & Equality Act—The Climate Action Now Act—The (Stopping) Violence Against Women Act—SCOTUS expansion.

21.) You do not seek office to govern, represent, or serve the American people. You seek power solely for its own sake so you can impose your narrow-minded puritanical will on others at the expense of their most fundamental rights and freedoms like voting and bodily autonomy.

22.) Ok, last one. You are trying to eliminate social security and Medicare that tens of millions of our parents rely on and paid into their entire lives. And you did everything to maximize preventable deaths from COVID leaving millions of us in mourning.

Source: https://imgur.com/gallery/e8DBZLH

[melyzard]

The World is Amazing, Actually (Part 11 or 12, I lost count)

It's been awhile since I made a post about how fucking rad the world actually is, and amidst all the pandemics and climate change and economic troubles, I felt the need.

So:

Today’s Wild Place (The Earth is An Alien Planet):

The Danakil Depression, Ethiopia:

The Danakil Depression is probably the closest you'll ever be able to come to standing on the surface of Venus (without the crushing atmosphere, of course). Choking sulphuric acid and chlorine gases fill the air, while acid ponds and geysers pepper the landscape. 

- Daisy Dobrijevic, published July 4, 2022

(BTW scientists recently discovered microbes capable of surviving in this toxic, extremely hot environment, which means...well, even if we kick the bucket, life will continue. There's something comforting in knowing that no matter how bad we screw up...life will go on.)

Today’s Incredible Feat of Engineering (look! at what! we made!):

Ouarzazate Solar Power Station in Morocco, which has gone solar in a big way.

(Which means they are making a huge contribution to helping fight toxic pollution, noise pollution, water use, land destruction, and carbon emissions. No really, there are charts. Reducing carbon emissions charts. Reducing irresponsible land use charts. Charts! Graphs! Data samples!)

Today’s Cool Life Form (the rare, the weird, the beautiful):

The Hispaniolan Solenodon.

A very rare, nocturnal, shrew-like creature that is one of the few mammals able to produce venom. Look at him! Look at his snout! He's just a little guy! He will bite you and run away on his back legs! He's rare, and endangered, but not gone! Not gone yet, bitches!

(Bonus: 10 Fun Facts About the Solenodon)

Today’s Bizarre Mystery (no, seriously, wtf?):

The Great Unconformity.

Hey, remember the Grand Canyon? Remember how we can see the passage of time through each layer, going back hundreds of thousands of years?

Did you know that apparently, on this massive record of earth's geological history, there's a chunk of time missing? Science has some hypotheses about how and why this happens (and yes, it's been found in more than one place), but they are really only hypotheses, and no one's really sure what happened to, oh, 1.6 billion years, give or take.

Today’s Act of Humanity (yes, we are worth the effort):

After fleeing a war, Ukrainians rush to help Mississippi tornado victims.

"They made the 16-hour drive south to donate bottled water and volunteer with aid workers, buoyed by the idea that they could help a community facing a similar struggle to theirs.

“We had to leave our home,” Pavliuk told The Washington Post in Ukrainian, in an interview interpreted by Hrebenyk. “And they don’t have a place to go back, either.”"

NEW CATEGORY:

Today's Good News About The Future (No, It's Not Too Late and Anyone Who Says Otherwise is Selling Something):

The Saiga Antelope, a species critical to the continued survival of huge swathes of grassland, that in 2003 was down to 6% of it's population and already extinct in it's natural habitat of China and Ukraine, has rebounded back to almost 2 million strong thanks to conservation efforts.

Previous | Next

[octuscle]

I wish I was big

You want to grow up? Really big? So big that you outshine everyone else? Dude, we can do that. At your own risk!

It's about 3:30 in the morning. Your bed is collapsing. You lie naked on the squashed mattress. Around you the shreds of what used to be your pajamas. You get up with difficulty. Fuck yes! You are big! What you can see in the twilight, what you can feel, is big. Fucking big. While your eyes get used to the twilight, your apartment gets used to you, too. Your bed is reinforced with a steel frame. And it stands on the bare concrete floor of an old warehouse. It's safer that way. An apartment on the second floor would be dangerous. And this way you have more space. You also need it to move around…

Now that you're awake, make a two-gallon can of protein shake. For your first breakfast and for the way to the gym. Good thing the gym is only two blocks away. Otherwise, you'd starve. Your closet is empty again. So you take a tank top and a pair of shorts from your dirty laundry. Both still damp from the last workout. Both so big that children could build tents out of them. Everything fits a bit tight. But you can't find anything bigger.

Good thing your gym is open 24/7. You spend more time here than anywhere else. You set up your phone camera and start a live video. Your fans are all over the planet. Europe is already awake. And the number of your OnlyFans followers increases with every repetition on the weights, increases with every groan when you bring a dumbbell back to the starting position with your last strength.

06:00 a.m. That was a good workout. Slowly the gym fills up with the little weaklings. Fuck, why do so many here wear a face mask when they work out? The pandemic is long gone.

One last pose in front of the mirror. You need to go home and make breakfast. The smell from your armpits is breathtaking. You just smell like a big lad smells. Whoever doesn't get a hard-on from that, should work out somewhere else.

Found your pic @maxmorphs

[devil-in-hiding]

why are plus sized people trying to praise themselves and get more inclusivity and representation in the society? when it is something that can be changed and most of them are capable of losing weight? your race, skin etc are something you can’t change because it is something decided by birth, but your weight and your health is something that can be changed. i’m really curious why? and being over the average weight really brings along different health risks, etc. and it affects your functioning ability, like when you try to run or do sports. i’m not talking about people who have a bigger build or just larger bone structures but people who have a lot of meat around their body. is it like a lack of discipline or a stage in denial, because i’ve seen a sharp rise of people promoting fat people in general after covid, and i’ve seen the decrease of productivity, motivation, and discipline in people after the pandemic has happened. i know a lot of people will come at me in the comments calling me fatphobic, ignorant and etc. feel free to, criticise and educate me, please.

I literally have no fucking words for this what the fuck.

People should be allowed to live in their fucking bodies, I don’t need to educate you on shit?? Plus sized, fat, it doesn’t fucking matter, they are existing. And there ARE a shit ton of things that can cause someone to be plus-sized

i literally can not even put together coherent thoughts because what the fuck

does living amongst fat people bother you because let me tell you bud if it does, they are not the problem, you are

people are allowed to live in their fucking skin.

people want to live happily in their bodies without someone ELSE saying “hey you’re living wrong and you disgust me”

it is not your fucking business

and also, LOSING WEIGHT IS FUCKING HARD

i went to the gym, i had a planet fitness membership. it did nothing.

ya know what made me lose all my weight? a fucking drug addiction.

so yeah, people can exist and plus sized bodies should be normalised because not everyone is fucking pole

[darsynia]

The Smoke That Roams (post-apocalypse AU Bucky/Reader)

MCU MASTERLIST | lmk if you want to be tagged for Bucky fics!

Summary: You and Bucky find each other after the world almost ends

Length/Warnings: 3,080 | sex, allusions to violence

Notes: I tagged this on AO3 as 'romance and survival soaked in metaphor,' lol. It's post-apocalyptic angst. Stop typing, Darsy.

Excerpt:

You weren’t afraid of him, you realized. You were afraid for him. He was a supersoldier, but he wasn’t immortal. Bucky often went off by himself without saying anything to you--but what if someday he didn’t come back? 

A pillow landed on the queen sized bed beside yours, followed by a blanket, followed by Bucky, who threw himself onto his back beside you with as much care as he’d tossed everything else. He was so warm you could feel the heat radiating through the space that separated you, even though none of it carried through to his tone.

“You’re safe. Go to sleep.”

It was… exactly what you needed.

The Smoke That Roams

You used to compare him to a solid, cold hunk of metal. Non-reflective but uncorroded, with a metaphorical melting point so high it’s practically unreachable. A weapon when thrown but otherwise safe, foundational, inexpressive.

That was before he touched you.

Bucky Barnes is not safe. He is expressive, though. Just not with words.

now

The world isn’t destroyed. There are still plants, there are still animals, and there are still safe places to spend time. The planet may actually be better off now than in the last few hundred years, because the humans who were in the process of ruining things just barely failed.

There are no regulations, no government-enforced exclusion zones, only good- and bad-intentioned people living day to day. You figure humanity has around twenty years of 'every man for himself' to realize how difficult it is to grow crops and sustain life. Until then, everyone’s subsisting on canned food and shelf-stable meats while hating every second of it.

Boredom is an unexpectedly dystopian pandemic, post-apocalypse. Books still exist, so there’s that. Unfortunately, even if there were experienced people to keep the electrical grid going, it’s completely unsustainable without an accompanying society. When you’re really depressed, you picture various survivors all around the world hunkering down to read Jurassic Park or Gone Girl next to pine-scented candles or last year’s Pantone table tapers. Once, you imagined a group of miserable assholes warming their hands next to a bonfire of Live, Laugh, Love wall hangings outside of a Cracker Barrel. It helped. You doubt any Karens survived the apocalypse to object.

then

You survived out of luck, if you could call living in the aftermath of a failed nuclear response ‘luck.’ 

Given the honest-to-fuck alien invasion, those nuclear strikes should have taken out the whole area. Instead, a strange golden dome repelled the worst of the damage, but you knew better than to assume it would stick around. After gathering some important provisions (including a gun and all your ammo), you spent some time bundling up your lawnmower’s spare gas can. You'd read The Stand. There's no way you're strong enough to pilfer gasoline from an underground tank.

That was when you found a leather-clad warrior man standing beside your motorcycle. He didn't seem surprised to see you. “You know how to ride this?”

“You after parts or gas?” you asked, hand on the butt of your gun. You were high on survivor’s guilt and low on bravado. He noticed both.

“A bodyguard,” Bucky told you sardonically.

He eventually told you the real reason, but at the time you’d pulled courage out of the sulfuric smell of danger in the air and suggested you watch each other’s backs.

now

“Still awake?”

You roll over to see Bucky’s familiar shape standing at the window, outlined in moonlight.

“Yeah. It’s too quiet.” Yesterday the two of you had retreated further into the mountains, judging your previous temporary home too close to the river after seeing two small groups using it for through travel.

“Never thought I’d like the quiet this much,” he muses.

Getting up, you move to stand beside him, still dressed in multiple layers to ward off the colder elevation. “That’s because it matters why it’s quiet.”

He doesn’t look over, but his smile is gorgeous in the dim light. “That’s a war reference.”

“You’re damn right.”

The two of you stand in silence, watching the shadows of the nearby trees play in the wind until he speaks again, gruff and oddly defensive.

“I was right about the shelter.”

“There’s a radio? Was it the right kind?”

“Yeah. Months worth of food, too.”

You’re embarrassed at how excited you are at the thought of MREs. “That’s great,” you say, reaching out to touch his arm. It’s sopping wet. Turning to look at him more fully, you see that his hair is wet too. He’s been dripping the whole time he's stood there; there’s a halo of wet, dark spots on the floor around him that feel almost symbolic.

“Most of the food was untouched. Ghosts don’t eat much.”

“How many?” You have to dredge to find enough moisture to rub your vocal cords together.

“Just one. Buried him in the woods pretty far out, washed up in the river.”

Bucky leaves so much unsaid, but you’re good at decoding him by now. This new cabin is miles from the river. As a good ‘bodyguard,’ though, you have one more clarifying question. It’ll matter, if you want to stay here for longer than a week or two.

“Was there evidence of-- did someone else--”

“Self-inflicted.”

“Yeah, aren’t we all,” you sigh, pushing away the guilt of relief.

then

You learned him slowly.

Bucky didn’t need a bodyguard as much as a body, or more accurately a second person to help carry the items he was gathering. It made sense; even a loner like him wouldn’t separate from the other Avengers without a reason. Their version of ‘strength in numbers’ was too complicated to understand and he didn’t really explain, but it had something to do with scattered communication, whatever that meant.

The parts he needed were in military bases, abandoned (and guarded, which was fucking terrifying) high rises, and one notable item was in a corn field. Eventually he gave you his motorcycle and upgraded to one with a sidecar.

You didn’t ask why it was wet when he showed up with it, but you had an idea of why he might have needed to clean it off.

By then you were used to sharing a room with him, dressing and undressing when he was out of the room or faced away. He didn't seem to mind, but you couldn’t really tell, and he didn’t say. 

You were more like coworkers than anything else, to the point that he barely spoke once one of you started readying for bed, like an unwritten boundary. Not that night. He’d broken into a hotel with two beds, one for each of you. That night, instead of his usual steady rhythm of breaths that eventually lengthened into sleep, there was just pensive silence.

Silence was the worst part of your new life. Silence allowed doubts and fears to creep into the gaps between breaths, clawing out space for larger worries. Bucky was quiet, but he was rarely silent.

“It’s not cold,” he finally said, almost accusatory.

You didn’t know how to respond. You weren’t cold, you were in shock. Death was everywhere and nowhere; either you fought for your life or saw the evidence of those who’d lost that battle. Each choice came with terrible necessity. Had that sidecar been a necessity? 

The flashlight clicked on. “You’re shivering.”

“I’m not cold.”

You weren’t afraid of him, you realized. You were afraid for him. He was a supersoldier, but he wasn’t immortal. Bucky often went off by himself without saying anything to you--but what if someday he didn’t come back? 

A pillow landed on the queen sized bed beside yours, followed by a blanket, followed by Bucky, who threw himself onto his back beside you with as much care as he’d tossed everything else. He was so warm you could feel the heat radiating through the space that separated you, even though none of it carried through to his tone.

“You’re safe. Go to sleep.”

It was… exactly what you needed.

now

“I need to build it as high up as I can,” Bucky says.

“Not ‘we?’” you ask, nowhere near as breezy as you hoped.

“I need you to be here, safe.” He reaches out and grabs your hand with his smooth, river-damp metal one, squeezing just too much. It’s as calculated as it is unintentional, like your relationship. “This time, ‘safe’ is not with me.”

He can run for days, heal his own wounds, kill in so many ways it would take a week to list them all, and you still don’t want him to go alone.

You don’t say that, though.

Instead, you tuck yourself against Bucky’s chest, wrapping your arms around his drenched torso. There are no dryers, no radiators to hang your wet clothes on, no fireplace to dry them by. It’s a message.

He holds you close in the moonlight, his river water soaking into you, your unspoken love seeping into him.

then 

Bucky learned you fiercely.

After begrudgingly joining you the first time, he slept beside you from then on, handling it the same way he handled everything: with little explanation and an air of inflexibility. Suddenly you were two people who slept (slept, mind you) together, the metal plates of your lives shifting perfectly to fit that new reality. 

You didn’t fully understand what it all meant until the night Bucky went for a walk instead of getting into bed. He’d killed a man right in front of you that day--brief, brutal, and bleak--and you'd waited for him to come back, alone with your own brutal and bleak thoughts. Had survival destroyed your morality? Why had he been beautiful as he’d ended the attacker’s life? Couldn’t things go back to the way they were? You didn’t ask for this!

Then it hit you.

Neither did he.

You got to travel with him in 2019 because someone did things to him in the 40s that he’d never asked for.

Bucky came back, but that didn't help you purge those horrible thoughts, not until he sighed in obvious annoyance and threw an arm over your hip, dragging you back against his chest like it was an obligation.

Only then could you sleep.

And so could he.

now

The moon is too high to shine through your borrowed window anymore, so Bucky leads you back to the bed in the dark. He guides your clothes over your head and down your hips as unerringly as a marksman who knows the specs of his weapons. When he kisses you, it’s sloppy and imprecise, like he doesn't have time to come up with a plan other than 'must touch, now.'

He drops you onto your back on the bed and straightens up, stripping off his shirt. You figure that out by the sound the sodden fabric makes on the hardwood floor, a wet thunk followed by the metal pinging noise his belt buckle makes.

A strange realization hits you: for the first time since everything went to hell, you don’t want water stains on the floor. This could be your place, yours and his. The thought warms the places where you’d pressed up against Bucky’s wet clothes, but soon his kisses do that for you, furnace-hot yet gentle as the curl of smoke from your frequent campfires.

You burn for him, and you have since before he touched you with intent and looked at you with desire. 

then

Post-apocalyptic isolation was finally getting to you.

The warehouse was cold, impersonal, and dangerous enough that no one lived there, despite being a single building surrounded by miles of possibly-fertile fields. Back when it was operating, that had protected the county population, and now that it was not, its position could best be called strategic. No one could sneak up on you if you were diligent, but the monotony of guard duty was wearing on you. So was the wind coming off of the unrelenting central plains.

You'd never seen Bucky that frustrated before. He came to bed each night tense and sullen, even angry, and instinctively, you’d done your best to give him space. It was only in the last few nights that ‘space’ had included sleeping separately, despite the chill of early autumn that seeped into your bones from the concrete floor.

Day five of that singular brand of loneliness happened to be day thirteen at that location. You weren’t sure how much more you could take.

“Let me help you.” Your tone was wounded, but you didn’t raise your voice.

“You are helping.”

“There’s no point in me watching for nonexistent scavengers when whatever you’re doing isn’t working down here! Especially since--” Your words turned to ash in midair. You’d been about to say ‘especially since you won’t sleep with me anymore,’ which made your relationship sound vastly different than what it actually was.

Bucky smiled for the first time in days. “Go on.”

“No way. Mad Max himself couldn’t drag it from me.”

“I think I saw that one,” he said, swiping a precious candy bar from the special stash and sitting on a stack of pallets. “Sand and cars?”

You choke out a laugh. “If any of the filmmakers are still alive, can you even imagine--”

“They probably murder anyone that brings it up.” Bucky wrapped up the rest of the candy bar and held it up like he was about to toss it to you. “Tell me.”

Your chest felt like you’d swallowed lighter fluid. He looked happier than he had in days, and you had no idea if telling him the truth would toss a match or douse it.

Well, you lived with enough fear as it is.

“Fine,” you said with fake annoyance. “I was going to say that it’s hard to sleep without you breathing on my neck and hogging the blanket.” The plan was to be flippant, to avoid seeing his response, but an arsonist can never look away from their own blaze.

Bucky was still sitting the way he had been before, but you could see the tension ebbing from his shoulders. His metal hand relaxed its grip on the pallet with the same slow relief as the growing smug look on his face.

“Yeah?” he asked, impudent and inflammatory.

“Yeah. Give me the candy bar.”

“Oh, I will,” Bucky grinned. He stood up with the kind of confident menace that had sold many an action movie ticket.

“Oh my god, turn that off!” you yelped, poised to run. “What’s gotten into you?”

“Sand,” he said. You bit your lip as he continued, “I can use it to shore up-- Never mind.”

Bucky’s gaze was intent as he started walking in your direction. It was the same kind of focus he used to defend your lives, with only difference being the impudent light in his eyes. You backed away (never turn your back on a predator) as swiftly as you could, heart pounding in your delighted chest.

Seconds later you realize he’d herded you against a dividing wall and he was still advancing. It was absurd, sexy as hell, and the aforementioned lighter fluid had completely replaced your blood volume. One touch and you’d be aflame. 

Bucky didn’t touch you.

He stopped mere breaths away, leaning his metal forearm on the wall. Bucky brought the half-wrapped candy bar up where you could see it and then ripped away the wrapping with his teeth, his eyes glittering with challenge. Holding your gaze, he brought it to your mouth.

You were breathing so heavily your breasts grazed his chest, sparking brushfires each time. Still, this was a contest of sorts, and you had precious few chances to go toe to toe with this man. You waited until the heat of your mouth smeared the chocolate on your lower lip, and only then did you move--shoving his hand to the side and arching up to kiss him.

His groan ignited something in both of you. He pulled you close with a rough hand at your thigh, curving your leg around him and taking charge of the kiss. It was exhilarating, full of the heat of something long-desired. You grabbed at the fabric of his shirt, dug your fingernails into his hair, your other hand skating over the bare metal of his arm.

Suddenly he pushed back on the wall behind you with enough force to shake the cinderblocks, eyes wild, hands at the hem of his tank top. You nodded, scraping your elbows in your haste to strip off your clothes. It took just seconds before you were on each other again, Bucky half carrying you to the corner of the warehouse where you’d piled up your bedding. He was already pumping his fingers in and out, sucking a brutal kiss on your neck even as he knelt on the pile of ragged quilts.

“You are so fucking strong-- yes, like that,” you gasped out with your eyes screwed so tightly you saw a spray of sparks. The white-hot pleasure practically rang in your ears, and then he was there, splitting you apart and putting you back together, with the taste of him healing the gaps.

“You smell just like every morning I wanted to do this,” Bucky growled into your skin. The pinpoint pain of his fingertips digging into your hip was so real, so him that you were speechless. All you could do was drag your lips across every inch you could reach, arching your back to drive the two of you toward the wreckage of your former selves.

When release came it was a second nuclear event, him panting into the join of your neck and shoulder, your hands buried in his hair.

now

There is a luxury to darkness and patience, one you never would have guessed at in the Time Before.

Bucky doesn’t have to see the ecstasy on your face to know his expert caresses are sending you skyward. You don’t have to watch him throw his head back to know he’s about to come apart inside you.

He’s seen the silhouette of your body backlit by the sunset as you ride him.

You’ve watched the lethargy of pleasure-bought peace lift months of his guilt.

Things will never go back to the way they used to be, but just as you’ve learned to navigate the chaos of the current world, you’ve also learned the comfort of being truly known.

Tomorrow, Bucky will head up the mountain to build one piece of a larger device various Avengers have been constructing across the world. Stark had called it a cosmic smoke signal, a last-ditch effort to call for rescue. After all this time, you’re not sure your heart is in it anymore. It’s engaged elsewhere; you haven’t just learned to adapt, you’ve learned to thrive with Bucky at your side.

Still, the others are counting on the two of you, and it’s all about balance. Whether the next mission is a fiery trip to the stars or the steady puff of a hand-built cookstove, you’re ready for what comes next.

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

[agardenandlibrary]

Books Read in January 2025

I read a lot of books this month!

Hunting Ground by Patricia Briggs (re-read) – Myth made a reference to characters from this book and I literally didn’t remember them at all, so I thought. Well. I’ll just re-read it. It was a good time the second time around too.

The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez – (for the podcast) I’m going to read whatever Jimenez writes. I added this one to my TBR after reading The Spear Cuts Through Water and I really liked it. Some good old fashioned messed up science fiction!!

Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold – “Count Vorkosigan?” I KNEW IT WAS COMING. STILL. OUCHIES. I have a wrap-up podcast episode I’m going to do for the rest of the books in this series. Many thoughts.

Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen by Lois McMaster Bujold – I’m so glad Cordelia gets a break from running everything and gets to have her and Aral’s six children. And also be on a planet that makes her scientist heart so happy. I’m so happy to learn about their throuple. It was great to get to know Oliver.

The World We Make by N.K. Jemisin – This was a very good duology! It suffered a little from being cut from 3 books to 2. But given the (first) Trump presidency, and the Covid pandemic, and the ramping up of prejudice in the US (already bad), I'm not surprised that Jemisin opted to spend less time writing in this world. Gonna be rotating this one in my mind for a while.

The Once and Future Sex by Eleanor Janega – I had fun with this one! Medieval (theological?) views on women. @oldshrewsburyian has some THOUGHTS on this book linked here. According to your local friendly medievalist, don’t start with this one.

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear by Seanan McGuire – These are always kinda fucked up. (complimentary) I keep saying that I need to re-read the first one and I finally put it on hold at the library.

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire – yeah!!! YEAH!! I was right. This one is my favorite.

Sunbringer by Hannah Kaner – (for the podcast) what the hell. What the hell. It took a while to get into this one, which I think is because everyone was split up (WAIL). But I could barely put it down for the last half so. I’m looking forward/very scared of book 3 this year!!

Stargazy Pie, Bee Sting Cake, Whiskeyjack by Victoria Goddard – I finally started the Greenwing and Dart books! Stargazy Pie was. Not very good. There were some good bits in there! But overall, not the same quality as the rest of her work. The good news is that Bee Sting Cake was so immediately better!!

Currently Reading:

Blackcurrant Fool by Victoria Goddard

Around the World in 80 Games by Marcus du Sautoy (audiobook)

[unhingedoveractivemuse]

Title: A Lifetime of Afternoon Strolls to Look Forward To

Pairing: Evan “Buck” Buckley/Eddie Diaz

Tags: Love Confession, Friends to Fiances

=======================================

“Should we do cupcakes in cups or just the cupcake tin? Because if we do them in cups we can spin it a little. Like…origin cakes or something? Or-“

Eddie smiles, letting the sound of Buck’s voice wash over him, enjoying the sound as they take an afternoon stroll around the neighborhood. It’s part of the whole ‘getting back out there’ thing that the therapist recommended, and he can think of no one better to do it with him than his best friend.

This is the man who he trusts to have his back. This is the man who he trusts above all.

He’s safe with Buck. Always.

It’s a nice day too. Not too hot but also not chilly. There’s a light breeze, but it’s not too strong to make it unpleasant.

But he thinks he’d take an afternoon stroll with Buck any day. Rain or shine. Scorching hot or freezing cold.

Because it’s Buck.

“Wait,” he says after his partner rattles off another idea for the first bake sale at Christopher’s school since the pandemic. “How much was said cupcake?”

”$1000.”

”For a cupcake?!.”

”The Golden Phoenix is made with Italian cocoa, Ugandan vanilla beans, and edible gold.”

”And you want to recreate it for a middle school bake sale?”

“Just the gold part. Edible gold leaf isn’t that expensive. I figured we could just sprinkle a little bit on.”

”I don’t know if middle schoolers will be so keen on edible gold.”

”But it’ll look pretty.”

”Buck…”

”Fine,” his best friend pouts before talking about some other idea he had, and Eddie can’t help the grin that blossoms on his face.

He loves this man so much.

It’s a fact that he’s settled into recently. After the shooting and learning about Buck’s actions to save him and the recklessness afterward, after wanting Buck by his bedside rather than Ana, after Buck has been with him every step of the way of his recovery, and after therapy due to the shooting that evolved into something more, he can say it.

He loves Buck.

Maybe he should have realized it in hindsight. He’s never really been a talker, but he was never opposed to listening to Buck talk. He’s never had to perform around Buck. He’s never had to worry about Christopher with Buck. He’s never had someone other than Christopher who he will die for, whose every hospital visit has his heart in the throat.

He has to wonder when he started wanting to lay down his life for this man next to him spewing random facts about cupcakes. He has to wonder when his best friend stepped into the role that Shannon left open and flourished in it.

But does hindsight matter? Does knowing when his feelings matter?

All that matters is the here and now.

Because right now, with the sun making Buck absolutely glow, the breeze making the curls the blonde let out wave gently, Eddie can’t think about what would happen if Buck doesn’t have feelings for him.

“Hey, Buck?”

“Yeah?” Buck says, confusion lacing his tone as he stops his explanation about how he would pipe animals onto the cupcakes. Eddie knows where the confusion is coming from. He doesn’t usually interrupt Buck’s rambling after all.

But he can’t help it.

“Marry me?”

…

…

That is not what he intended to say.

Buck sputters, blue eyes blinking rapidly like he’s trying to get something out of his eyes, coming to a stop outside of a house that Eddie knows is home to one of the nosiest women on the planet. “Repeat that?”

And that makes Eddie stop in his tracks, his thoughts coming to a halt.

“I-I uh…”

”You just asked me to marry you?”

”I mean, would you? L-like if you were-“

Fuck. What is he doing? Why is he trying to work his way out of the situation? He broke up with his girlfriend because he couldn’t stand someone being in the spot Buck’s supposed to be in. He wants Buck to stay in his home so he can see him every day, to wake up next to him every day.

“I mean it. I want you to marry me?”

”Why?” Buck asks, curiously, which makes Eddie feel a little hopeful about the whole situation. Buck hasn’t freaked out. Buck doesn’t even look mad or shocked or any other expression that would be a huge red flag.

“I love you. And it’s not because you’ve been taking care of Christopher and me. I genuinely love you. I love all your rambling. I love that you would show up for Christopher like I would. I love that you let me be me.”

They stand there in silence for a moment then two, and Eddie is about to pass out from anxiety when a blush rises on Buck’s face followed by a shy smile.

“I love you too.”

Eddie sucks in a breath. He heard that right, right? There were little signs, of course, that Buck could love him back, but signs can be misinterpreted and -

“It’s kinda hard not to realize when the love of your life gets shot down right in front of you and you have their blood all over you,” Buck tells him, haunted at the very thought of the memory.

He reaches over to take Buck’s hand like he wanted to before Buck’s animated way of talking had taken the hand out of holding range.

“It’s over now.”

”I thought I was going to lose you. And the thought of living without you was-“

”-I know. Because I feel the same. I would live for Christopher, but living without you is a thought that tears me up. I think that’s why-“

”-you asked me to marry you?”

”Yeah.”

Buck gives him a smile so big and infectious that Eddie can’t help but return it.

“So…” he prompts.

“I’ll marry you, Eddie.”

And if the whole neighborhood will hear about their first kiss by the end of the day?

Well, Eddie doesn’t care.

He’s got a wedding to plan and a lifetime of afternoon strolls to look forward to.

[writerobscura]

The USA

Sorry for the radio silence; I'm still processing how 51% of my country thinks it's okay to elect a bigoted, misogynistic felon to the presidency.

This election is a reminder that half of this country is so fucking hateful that they're willing to elect someone that makes us a laughing stock around the globe while those who bought and paid for his campaign gut democracy.

Are you doing better than you were four years ago? Of course not. You were getting subsidy checks Biden pushed through a Republican congress post-pandemic.

Wages went up for essential workers, and that expense got passed on to you because corporations aren't going to short to their shareholders - and the President can do nothing about that without holding companies accountable to regulation - which our new president has no intention of doing.

The next two years:

My adult children will lose their healthcare when he and his Republican senate quash the Affordable Care Act - but hey, so long as you have a few extra bucks at the end of the month for cigs and beer, what do you care?

Some states will be able to seize the medical records of women and mothers and use those records to fine or put them in jail (abortion, IVF, getting your trans teen the care they need) - but hey, none of those things affect you personally, so fuck 'em and hey, women aren't even human, am I right you newly registered voting Gen Z fellas?

College debt, infrastructure repairs, social programs - kiss all that goodbye because fucking the planet up is a small price to pay so you can get gasoline for under $2.99. Oh, and that Latino spouse? All it takes is one call from a disgruntled 'Murican and our new INS will be there with 'post-citizenship deportation review' papers.

Wars? How easily everyone forgets that Ukraine is at war right now because your guy failed to help him when Russia flooded his country with separatists. You think he's going to stop arming Israel? Where's the money in that?

Xenophobia may have worked when the USA was 100% self-sufficient in the 1900s, but it cannot be done in this day and age - but hey, going back to the old days is what it's all about, right?

Living in a hurricane or natural disaster prone state? You better pray to whatever G*d you worship that nothing happens in the next 2 years because the Pubs have the Senate and the presidency - no more FEMA funds and 'emergency handouts.'

Tariffs instead of taxes on the rich? Zero-sum situation. Guess how many companies import basic things just to make the shit you eat and use daily? Monsanto is no longer an American company, most farmers in the USA 'import' their seed, though because lack of corporate regulation has allowed them to destroy all farms that don't use their seed. While we're on the subject of tariffs, any foreign company can say, "We just won't sell to you, America." What's the backup plan? Oh, right, he has none.

Prices will rise, wages will stagnate, tariffs won't work, so guess who gets billed for that deficit? Not the wealthy—they spent billions electing this assclown, and there's no way they're investing one damned penny in the rest of us.

But hey, they know you can take it because you voted to have all this...You voted for all of the above at the expense of literally half your fellow countrymen.

If Kamala won, you would've lost NOTHING. Your worst case scenario under her presidency is that you would've been running in place financially while those you consider morally or racially beneath you, might've been gotten ahead a few steps.

So yeah, 51% of my country would rather watch it all burn down than suffer anyone they consider less of a human being, be given an equal chance.

[elbiotipo]

Maybe it's already been said but: what caused the ecological cataclysm?

You mean the Ecocide in the Biopunk universe?

It was a biological world war, but it was much more sophisticated that we now imagine such things, it wasn't just diseases to humans and crops spread by dumb bombs. It was completely autonomous, self-evolving ecosystems that could target not only soldiers, but select fortifications, equipment (steel eating corrosive bacteria can nest in warships and eat holes on them within minutes), communication networks (this is why the internet is so fucked up and most equipment resemble brickphones), food supplies, and yes, eventually the population and the ecosystems of entire countries and continents, should it be needed, for strategic reasons of course.

The militaries of the nations involved said that this was the future of war, since it was self-evolving, targeted and could be controlled through biological means. It very obviously was not the case. Autonomous combat ecosystems spread through spores through wind all over the world. Fungal towers spread over mountains and seas, trees of death grew with cursed pollen. The so called "Third World War" was quickly interrupted by the Ecocide, the worst crime of humankind.

During the Dead Spring of 2114, there was a real fear that Earth's biosphere could be completely annihilated. The neutral nations, in the Alliance for the Salvation of the Biosphere, mobilized the entire planet. The disputes that started the war didn't matter anymore. Even previous pandemic scares could not compare to what happened here. Armies in hazmat suits went from world capitals to the most remote places of the world to immunize whole ecosystems, entire cities were abandoned and millions forced into refuges for the sick built in mere months. The entire economy was not nationalized, but internationalized for the "war" effort, and many key industries were kept like that decades after.

What followed was the "Traumatic Decade", a time of recovery. After the war, the architects of the bioweapons and their commanders were condemned as "hostis terra", enemies of Earth. Entire nations still live hand-to-mouth from the reformed UN, which keeps the world's militaries and economies in a sort of confederation designed to prevent another Ecocide from ever happening again, with the strictest measures possible. You disagree? One Ecocide was enough. We won't tolerate another one.

This was the world where Marcos y compañía were born. Though they may not remember much of it. As the Blue Helmets marched through Washington pulling the designers of deadly strands of pollen out of their bunkers, Marcos was busy learning how to say "mamá".

(Though the war started in the Northern Hemisphere and probably between the remnants of NATO and the Sino-Russian alliance, I leave deliberately ambiguous who "shot first". In the narrative, it's supposed to be brutal, devastating, and utterly pointless, yet world changing on its consequence, like the First World War)

[wrotelovelytears]

They stare cause they know

IT Girl from ATL

👀Honestly I'm grateful for this Saturn in Pisces transit. I've learned so much about myself and the world around me from isolation. I'm not going to lie and say it's been easy because my mental health has taken various directions and without this time completely alone, I would never have the personal understanding I do now.

‍💀This transit has been about learning to be alone and what it means to be oneself. I see this as a preparation for the Saturn in Aries transit which entails taking those lessons learned and helping others with it through leadership. And I will be starting my Saturn return then too

👀I've noticed as we get closer and closer to Neptune in Aries the world gets more and more... Violent. Like there's no other word to describe it but just pure malice floating in the air. While I could use only astrology to explain it, I'm not going to pretend like there's no big social things that happened that are also making the world this way. Ever since the beginning of the pandemic human behavior has taken a turn for the worse. Add in "forced" isolation from the masses and you get a world ripe for conflict. Yes Neptune is about illusions and honestly it shifting to a more active sign, yeah we might just have to take that L collectively.

👀 I also peeped we will have Aries ruling Neptune, the North Node and Saturn all at the same time at some point. Not saying the world gonna end or nothing, just saying prepare to see more of the current things you see.

👀 So are we gonna talk about how everyone was going the Age of Aquarius is gonna push society forward in good ways just to end up having degenerate behavior become the norm. I understand that Aquarius is the sign of change and "futurism" and it also is the sign of headassery individuality to extremes. Aries is more about individuals leading (ie group work) while Aquarius is more individuality rediscovered and using that to lead (being yourself and that making change). Unless we all course correct this newfound sense of hyper individuality the world is gonna get worse.

Y'all my sons

👀Since my solar return is coming up (this may or may not be posted around or on it), I want to reflect on my past solar return chart. (I will be using whole sign and sidereal chart as a heads up if your wondering why certain planets are in certain signs)

‍💀This time last year I was working two jobs at once, two separate times, I'm blaming my first house mars. Like I have never in my life made a decision so short sighted and yet I managed it because not only is my mars in my first house but Taurus as well. I'm stubborn already but when I was told it was impossible to do both, yeah I doubled down.

🤭That Taurus Mars also made me very conscious about my appearance and how I see myself. This wasn't a negative thing however, I've done so many things to change my appearance to fit the version of me I think is best. Including getting various piercings, doing another big chop (also didn't want long hair no more), buying clothes that made me feel attractive and saying more affirmations in the mirror. The biggest change (that I had little to do with) was finally achieving my body goals. With it being in a 29 degree, I believe this is almost certainly my final form.

‍💀I find it funny how my Moon is in the 22° (which is also the natal degree it's in) and in Cancer because when I tell you I fucking cried all the time and for everything. I did. I know I'm naturally very sensitive but it's like someone turned the dial up and broke it. This has led me to happy tears as well. I also did emotional eat a lot or vice versa. I think combining this with Taurus Mars did make me a little more suspectable to food and emotion related ups and downs.

🤭I also made a lot of progress in therapy due to just wanting to finally process and get over certain shit. I'm going to say the third house holding it is what made me more willing to talk. However this also led to me randomly remembering some tragic thing that happened to me at some random ass time and going "wow, that's kinda fucked... Whomp whomp".

‍💀The crazy thing about this entire transit year is starting it off with a head injury that's kinda led to some long-term neurological issues. Literally didn't even get a day into the year and got the shit knocked out of me because Aries wanted to chill in the 12th house.

🤭Even though I had to stop working due to multiple head and neurological injuries, I at least learned what jobs, bosses, and work environments I do and don't like. I also learned how to easily see when someone is not in my corner and rather be headstrong then correct.

‍💀My MC happened to be in Capricorn that year and yeah, I definitely worked my ass off. I wanted to focus on longevity and stability. That's honestly been my theme this year (and moving forward). That did mean I might've let my relationships struggle because I was working and constantly outside.

‍💀Back to appearance (let me be vain in peace), my Sun and Aphrodite transiting the 6th house probably played a big role in why appearance was so important to me. Having them being in Libra made it just double down.

💀As I am editing this I also have my Ascendant in the 6°, I already said my current sixth house is ruled by Libra so yeah. Being hot n sexy was my goal this year. I achieved cute and "uwu" in the end tho.

‍💀This has honestly been the first year (since I was like... 12) that I haven't had any type of romantic relationship, I think this leads back to Saturn being in Pisces mostly. I also think it's me having a Scorpio Venus (which happens in my natal chart) but in the seventh house. See that's squares my natal Venus despite being in the same sign. {Actually my whole chart this year squares my natal but that's not the topic at hand.} I honestly didn't know what to do in the beginning of the year, I wanted a relationship and understood how important they are to me (sorry I'm a romantic at heart, I love love and being in love. Transiting the seventh duhh) AND I did almost no work to seek one out partially due to things I had to work out from my past (there's that pesky Scorpio in me popping up). Anytime I was approached for a romantic partnership I automatically questioned the person's intent and if it was self fulfilling prophecy or my intuition being OP, I never had anything pan out. In the beginning that annoyed me and I realized one I wasn't done doing work on my lack of trust in people, two seventh house rules open enemies and them people did not have my best interest at heart.

‍💀My Jupiter was in retrograde which could've played a part in why I dropped most of the spiritual aspects of my life and tried to raw dog it. That was a terrible idea, I ain't never felt so lost before lmao. While I could have religious talks, the spiritual aspect was lacking. It was like belief without practice for me and that's not really believing. As the year is coming to a close I've been getting more "lucky" and spiritual again. I had to learn that certain aspects of my life just work and others don't. And that my definition of my religious beliefs are vastly different than what others of my faith might be.

🤭All in all I learned the lesson of the importance of individuality within community. Not community without individuality. Or individuality before community.

‍💀Another reason for my struggle with religion, spirituality and all that was Saturn being in my 9th house. My will to continue higher education and be involved in anything literally besides work was gone. Now my life long dream has been multiple PhDs but when I tell you I avoided any conversation around finishing my first degree, one PhD was looking real unattainable.

‍💀Saturn really beat my ass this year as it was also the ruler of current profection. Hopefully my luck will truly change (in literally every aspect of life at this point) by the time my Jupiter year comes around.

‍💀Another note about my third house Moon, I fell back in love with the things of my childhood. That included gaming, socializing (on my own accord), "weird core" related things like the backrooms and analog horror and so on. The moon transiting certain houses can honestly unlock new (or old) things about you that bring comfort.

‍💀I'm a fixed Dom in my natal chart so being a Cardinal Dom for a year has been very exhausting. I'm used to finishing and quickly learning things. The way I was constantly tested this year had me always on edge. I think it is a good thing however because even though I did end quiet a few things, I also picked (back) up even more things. This has been a year of change without bounds (thanks Aries Uranus ), change that was honestly needed.

‍💀My chart is also pretty evenly distributed. Like I wasn't lacking fire, earth, water or air which explain why change was whooping my water Dom ass. Yes I know water ain't still (even ice isn't unless absolutely 0), and damn how do the fire and air people live like this? I could barely take a break to process anything. I had to process on the move and always be on it.

🤭I'm hoping next year it's more relaxed and stable, I can't handle all this change and movement.

‍💀Funny how my PoF was in Leo fourth and I worked with kids. It was beyond rewarding because I witnessed everything from first steps and words to the start of public (or private) school.

🤭Ceres might have also played a role in how invested I was in my jobs and the children I worked with. However my ovaries might have been on one because I started wanting to have a baby myself and that really isn't a good decision at the moment.

🤭Ceres also might have helped me connect more with my own mother as well which surprised quite a few people but I'd say it's been worth it. Learning how to mother myself has been greatly useful and even helpful with understanding my own.

‍💀This year I found out that I'm Chinese, Japanese and Peruvian, through DNA testing (again). And while doing so caused both my parents to have an identity crisis, I knew of my Asian heritage and somewhat of an Indigenous one as well. Problem is the countries were all wrong from family stories. (At the end of the day I'm still Black, that hasn't changed at all). I find it unironic China and Tokyo conjunction in my 8th house while Inca (what I used as a Peru substitute) chills in my third (almost second). To further that China and Tokio trine my Ceres and yes it is my mom that's half Chinese Japanese (and Vietnamese but couldn't find nothing for Vietnam, we taking what we get). And Inca trine my Jupiter (which I personally associate with my Father because he's a Pisces). My parents on the other hand hate this news because it did bring up old things they wanted to bury in their past (8th house coming through). My only lasting question is how the hell-

💀See I had a strange aversion to taking pictures of myself and even moreso posting the ones I did take. Turns out my Photographica was conjunction my Saturn and opps with my Moon. Anytime I'd take a picture I'd automatically feel disgusted with it despite feeling "pretty". Self image has been difficult this year, despite a lot of improvement.

Asteroids mentioned: Ceres(4)(ur mom) , Photographica(443), Aphrodite(1388), China(1125), Inca(8275), Tokio(498)

This my first actual post in idk how long. This year was.. A lot for me on a personal and societal level. While astrology may not be my source of a ton of dopamine anymore, it's still an interest to me. There's so much organizing I have to do with this page, so please be patient with me as I try to get back into the swing of things.

(If you learned something new or would just like to support me you can leave a wittle tip via the tip button or one of the links in my masterlist. Kofi: nymphdreams🧸)

[elminx]

I'm seeing it again: all sorts of pseudo-astrologers talking about how October is gonna be this amazing month of light, love, and positivity!

I'm not gonna lie to you or spice up the truth to make y'all feel better: October is gonna be rough. The transits are rough. Eclipse season is rough. We're still in a global pandemic, the earth is on fire, and hate is on the rise.

Astrologically, we're in a Winter season. What I mean by that is that our slower-moving planets are in rough positions which makes life harder. This happens periodically. But there is no part of it that is magically going to be all love and light - suddenly. Despite everything that's been happening in the world?

If you haven't noticed, humanity is at a turning point. This is reflected in the transits we are experiencing over the course of a number of YEARS! Quite frankly, we are still in the middle of it. All of us, individually and collectively, need to make some serious decisions about our personal futures and the futures of life as we know it.

I'm just being realistic when I say this. The writing is on the wall: it's about extremism, it's about hate, it's about rampant climate change and rising seas.

It's not about doomsday or some crazy "evolution" though either.

It's just life. Some times are hard. You know that times are hard. Unless you've somehow managed to put your head so far up your own ass that all you can smell is your own shit?

I'm tired of the bad predictions. October is not going to just be hugs and puppies. It will be easier for some than others, sure. Sometimes for systemic reasons - aka if you have lots of money or don't have trauma, your life is ALWAYS easier. But it'll also be easier if you've been working on yourself and dealing with your own shit. Because cycles like this put stress on everybody's lives. The more you can shore up your own stuff, the better you can withstand the inundation.

That's just life. And I'll be over here telling you like it is, not just pretending that this shit will go away just because I said October's gonna be some special fucking sunshine month in a sea of darkness.

[lucien-calore]

Since u seem to be in the mood, do you have any skase hc's?

YES!!!

skylar usually has no idea what the fuck chase is talking about but she lives listening to him ramble

she loves talking about her home planet and he loves listening

they train A LOT together

since she's an alien and he grew up in a basement + is autistic, neither of them understand social cues, so they're very straightforward with each other and don't imply that the other should do something/did something/etc

they go on stargazing dates

they travelled to space on their honeymoon (chase almost passed out from excitement)

they're soooooo protective of each other omg

and they both love physical contact

chase created a way for skylar to not spit acid in her sleep and a patch for his chip so they can cuddle in bed together

she becomes a teacher at one of the new academies (that were expanded to be around the world and now expanded to be for bionics AND superheroes) and he becomes CEO of davenport industries

when he wins a nobel prize for creating a sustainable replacement for petroleum fully made in a lab, he thanks her in his speech and she cheers him on the whole time

they adopt AJ + an alien girl that was dropped off at the academy skylar works at and no one knows how bc she just randomly appeared on skylar's classroom door in her little bassinet

they're constantly posting pictures of each other on instagram and posting cute videos on tiktok

they start a youtube channel in the pandemic

that's all i have but thank you so much for asking /gen !! it means a lot to me that, even though you don't ship skase, you still asked me about it bc i like it /gen

i appreciate you a lot bestie 🫶🫶 ilyyyyy /gen

[horseforeplay]

hi, is the long covid and basically what youve been talking about recently applies worldwide or its the us issue? i didnt see much about it in like disabled groups or in general in my country but now im concerned i mightve just not dig deep enough? are there any resources i can look into? youre welcomed to tell me to fuck off but also thank you in advance

hi! yes, c19 has gone endemic globally. i'm not sure what country you're in, but if you believe that covid is no longer a problem where you are, chances are that your government is deliberately minimizing a deadly disease. leaders want you to get back to work. disabled people are forced to shelter-in-place indefinitely (just like the rest of the world decided was a nightmare to do temporarily). if you look around and only see maskless people, it may be easy to conclude that no one is masking anymore because they don't have to. the reality is that high-risk people have been pushed even more deeply into the fringes as the virus is free to mutate and become more transmissible. even countries that had more effective shutdowns than the US are seeing an uptick in cases, though those numbers remain less steep. i hope you don't mind if i use this ask to say a lot of things.

here's one link: did u know the spanish flu was called the spanish flu because spain was neutral during WWI and therefore was the first country to break the news? it didn't originate in spain. it was all over europe. the allied powers did not want to "ruin wartime morale" by telling anyone living in those countries that a deadly virus was in their midst. we're in a surreal fucking situation, where the death count was alarming enough in the first year of c19 that governments were forced to react at first, but have now successfully propagandized the majority of the world into believing that it ended. it never ended. (and world leaders and billionaires know it -- they are still protecting themselves. nobody gets to meet joe biden without a PCR test. temporary air filtration systems get installed at high schools where he makes speeches, then taken down when he leaves.) it's not "like the flu" (though the flu kills and disables people every year!). there's no such thing as a "summer flu". it's not like a cold. it's now been able to mutate to look more like a cold (dominant variants no longer have the hallmark fever or even coughing symptoms), but it is a disease that attacks every system in the body. even a mild case can give you organ damage you won't know about until something goes wrong with your body. we are only in year three of this thing. we (and i mean everyone) are flying blind. we don't have any idea what people's life expectancies are going to look like down the line. certainly not for long covid patients.

regardless of pushes to "return to normal", it is becoming abundantly clear (right now, mostly only to those most greatly affected by c19) that there is nothing to go back to. we are puppeteering the limbs of a dead world. now that we understand how masks mitigate the spread of disease, why are nurses cheering and fucking clapping when we remove them again from hospitals? as climate change becomes worse and worse, we are staring down a world where we are meant to accept that the death of "some people" (see: other people) is inevitable. it is not. the preventative action that you take against c19 is preparing you wildfire smoke and the next virus the warming planet helps spread.

resources? resources. here is a great political breakdown of what is happening, called let them eat plague. good reading if you consider yourself a communist or would like to be one. here, too, is an archived version of an atlantic article on what CE/MFS looks like (one of the long covid health outcomes i am living with).

most of my resources center on US handling of the pandemic, but eugenic capitalism is a global problem. unfortunately, i'm not a great collector of links to things i've read even under the best of circumstances. it's just not a strong suit. adding this to the reality that i have been close to bed-bound by long covid for the last three weeks, and i'm just not gonna transform into a great link guy. i'm sorry about this. there are covid activists who are much better at sharing external resources than i am, but we are in the phase of c19 now where most of the people organizing right now are also sick themselves. so, many of them have a tendency to disappear, or struggle to keep pages up-to-date. some key phrases i might search for on social media for local groups might be "covid aware" or "covid safe", to see if something for your location pops up. i know there are groups in the netherlands, ireland, and australia pushing for covid education and a better world for those disabled by the pandemic.

i think many people are having difficulty understanding how many people have died of c19. for scale, an accepted figure for total global AIDS deaths (as of 2017) is 940,000. that's just under a million. it would be a whole hell of a lot more if not for continuous direct political action (thank you ACT UP), but people (especially in sub-saharan africa) continue to die today. C19 deaths in 2020 alone were at three million. in 2023 we are at over 6.9 million. the crisis never fucking ended. that is over 6.9 million deaths, and counting, in a "post-vaccine" world. (a vaccine is not a fucking cure).  i think part of what we are seeing right now is that the people who care the most are fucking shaken. most of us are just stunned. estimates show TEN MILLION people are living with long covid in the united states alone. TEN MILLION!!!! JUST IN THE STATES!

vaccines are not a cure. i will keep repeating this until somebody understands it. vaccines are not a cure. vaccines do not cure c19, no matter where you live in the world. vaccines are also becoming less and less accessible as the public "learns to live with" the virus. some people will never be eligible for vaccines. vaccines make many people living with long covid much sicker (as happened to me). i will continue advocating for vaccines, as i advocate for all precautionary measures (like nasal sprays which i am also allergic to since long covid can cause MCAS), but it needs to be said that many many people cannot access or safely use these measures. world governments would like you to believe that a high tech intervention (vaccines) have saved us from having to bother with uncomfortable low-tech measures (masking). resist this. i was double boosted and healthy when i had my first (and only, to my knowledge) covid infection in september of 2022. i am 27 years old and this virus has disabled me.

i was also masking frequently in public when i caught covid. masks are a bit like car seatbelts; it's a smart fucking idea, but you can still crash. this is an imperfect comparison, though, since then your seatbelt would also be protecting your passengers and other drivers. when the burden of masking falls only on vulnerable people, everybody gets fucked. one-way masking is safer than not masking, but it's not half as effective.

there is no known cure for long covid. that means that doctors will tell long covid patients that they do not know what is wrong with them at every turn, oftentimes disbelieving, minimizing, and recommending treatments (like exercise and weight loss) that can leave patients bed-bound or dead. any covid infection can become long covid, in any person, at any age, and your chances of developing long covid INCREASE EXPONENTIALLY with each infection --building immunity with repeat infections is an insidious and deadly myth. covid infections compound. how many times are people expected to get this fucking virus?

when you are in public, the chances that you are either around a high-risk person or around someone who is in close contact with a high-risk person is almost 100%. break every goddamn transmission chain you possibly can.

invest in an N95 (or better) mask. here is a link to where i buy mine. governments should provide these, as well as free access to vaccines and testing sites and medicine for acute infections, but we are in the phase now where major pushes for activism are only barely getting their land legs while the majority covers their ears and goes on laughing and drinking and dancing. be there when the screams get loud enough. add your voice, help the day come sooner, so less children get long covid at school and less friends get heart attacks at 30 and less grandparents disappear and lovers you used to enjoy dining with lose their sense of smell and taste forever. there will be greater collective action as this moves closer to home for more people. but in the meantime.

live compassionately. as the world moves on, we need people everywhere to start fighting back. take action for people who can't (cuz people who should be in bed resting or processing all this fucking grief are being forced to act and can feel very alone).

this is one ask and i will probably post more later but tumblr dot com is just not my primary outlet for activism or expression lol. i have mainly used this page to vent a few times because i am quite literally trapped in my house unable to work. but it's my silly blog where i go to be silly. i hope any of this was helpful to you or anybody reading.

[rei-ismyname]

My friend's 6 year old - 'Scrooge McDuck is mean and he has all that money and won't share. That feels unfair.'

Me, wondering if it's my place to break this kid's heart and radicalise him - 'I feel the same way. He has more resources than he'll ever need. He's the villain of Duckburg and Donald and the kids are class traitors for defending his wealth from the Beagles.'

6 year old - 'Aren't they the bad guys? What does class traitor mean?'

'Ask your teacher about that one. I'll ask you a question - considering that everyone needs money to live in this show - to buy food, to pay rent, medical expenses, clothes, the basics...'

'But Donald Duck doesn't have pants on.'

'Exactly. He doesn't have pants because Scrooge has all of the money in this world. Him and his nephews spend all their time working for him for 10 cents an hour. Let's say pants cost $10, how long will it take for that family to buy pants?'

*He counts on his fingers for a while and screws his face up.*

'I don't know. A long time!'

'That's right. A long time. 100 days for just one pair of pants. In the meantime they're working without pants, they need food, and they wouldn't even have a job if they weren't related to Scrooge. So they're not being paid enough money to stay alive by someone who has all the money.'

'That's really sad. I don't want to talk about this anymore.'

'I hear that. Have a think about how you would make the situation better, hey? I'd be interested in your opinion.'

'Okay!'

Wealth redistribution for 6 year olds. Legit interested in a child's opinion on the matter. I've felt for some time that the material base for a working class revolution is insufficient, and branding might be a factor. McCarthyism and a century of red scare propaganda has been really effective in poisoning the well. I am an anti capitalist in that I believe the basic needs of every human on this planet are more important than profit, and that capitalism is inherently incapable of delivering it.

A child right now is growing up in the most unequal wealth distribution in history, this 6 year old grew up in a pandemic with wars and genocides going on. Maybe the socialist theory of tomorrow will come from them, neo socialism. I certainly hope so, bc this shit isn't sustainable.

Fuck this guy.

[marengogo]

CORONA BOREALIS - 3: NINETY FIVE

Like Crazy + People Pt.2 PLAYLIST.

[Music is a very big part of my life and I’m MOSTLY INCAPABLE of writing without music, so I just thought I'd share what I am listening to while writing this]

🐺 — 🐺 — 🐺—

Every year we spend on this planet something that will change the course of our lives tends to happen. Sometimes, it is something as small as the discovery of a new plant, and sometimes it is as big as a pandemic. So let’s, for example, look at positive things that happened in 1995 cause believe me some pretty fucked up shit also happened this year. This was the year that made the internet mainstream (can you imagine our lives without the internet? … ). 

Music was also 👌🏾this year, it brought us some classics such as Waterfalls by TLC, You Are Not Alone by Michael Jackson and a “little” song named Gangsta’s Paradise, which instantly raised its singer to worldwide fame; Coolio. Yeah, 1995 was an amazing year for Coolio, but little did he know that his life would end up being intertwined with seven others, two of which were also born in 1995: 13 October 1995, in Busan, a little bundle of joy, named Park Jimin graces this planet and a couple of months later another one decides to make his surly quirky entrance, 30 December 1995, in Daegu.

Jimin. He turned out to be a boy who would be very confident in his abilities, but perhaps not so much in himself as a person. Nevertheless, he knew he wanted to accomplish big-big things, and was going to stop at nothing to accomplish his goals. Then there was Taehyung. He on the other hand turned out to be a boy very confident in himself as a person, but perhaps not too sure of his abilities per say. Yet, he had dreams, very big ones at that, and admittedly he might have not known exactly how to get there but his desire to make them come true was as big as the dream itself.

They don’t seem to have much in common up to this point do they? Like, if there ever were a human representation of the concept of YingYang, it be them, no cap.

Even from an astrological point, don’t mind me an my interest in things of the sort  😬😬😬 not only do they seem to fit their descriptions, but they also just so happen to be each other’s opposite. Jimin is an Air Sign, and people with this element are known to be intellectual and communicative. They are experts in the ephemeral, the things of this world that lack physical form, and this is especially true of language and information. Taehyung is an Earth Sign and people with this element are known to be patient and practical. On a bad day: Just as Earth signs can be loyal, they can also be stubborn and inflexible. It's often their way or the highway .

In conclusion, regardless of whether you look at their factual past or their theoretical astrology, any kind of relationship between these two would seem impossible and even non-advisable. Yet, there they are being soulmates and here are some in the fandom scratching our heads, which is exactly the problem. They are here taking in superficial information regarding VMIN, rather than moving a couple of steps further and going there, where VMIN actually are, and take a closer look. If they did, they’d find out that in fact, Park Jimin and Kim Taehyung share the same exact spiritual level. And what do I mean by this?

Tae and JM’s isn’t a simple story of “opposite attracts” because they actually also have so much in common. Both look for warmth and love in their relationships, they are indeed very tactile and in the same way respond well to being touched by those they love/care about. They like and seem to crave attention a touch more than all other members in the group, and admittedly, they have recalibrated this desire as they grew up. Both are not comfortable when those they care about are suffering, they have a need to reach out and try to “kiss it” better. This might have been very apparent to people lately with regards to Jimin They are both painfully shy, Tae simply has a better control of his facial expressions, but once that cracks, it is off to the nearest hiding point. Lastly, and this is very important in their friendship dynamic; they do whatever they want to do. Always this JM is more skillful in hiding. 

It is only fair to now take a look at the tangible parts of their personas which aren’t, or weren’t as I think they’ve actually grown out of some of them compatible. Jimin is actively aware of his surroundings and Tae isn’t, meaning that JM is more likely to quickly try and make a change in his situation if he doesn’t like it (help someone in need, cheat to win, etc …) and perhaps regret it later, but not really. Tae, who also has the same kind of awareness, is however a ponderer; do I have to do something? What will happen if I do something? Depending on his personal answer, and the situation at hand, he may or may not do something about it, and perhaps regret it later, but not really. The following, I feel like it applied to them as teens, their “possessiveness” towards things, or relationships, has always been to a point where JM would do his might best to latch on to whatever he wanted to “monopolise” until he did, whereas Tae, if he found out he couldn’t “monopolise” whatever, he would move on to the next thing he could. 

And it is exactly because they could understand each other on this level that their friendship has become so solid and further from reach that it’s understanding is also eluding the mind of many. Their friendship, in my opinion, has now exceeded the performative level, on every level, it is almost as if these two have unlocked the ultimate regular friendship goal, which has the dynamics of a non-celebrity strong-ass friendship. This is a friendship that right at its very core didn’t skip any step and has experienced it all, from euphoria for example, ANY and EVERY TIME they start acting like characters in their imaginary scenarios to tribulations arguments caused by thoughtless, resulting in insensitive, words or actions, particularly in their youth.

So then finally, if you piece all of the aforementioned together  a situation where the two of them had a completely different opinion, then one starts an action, the other has a reaction, they then stay put in their opinions for a bit but then one will eventually cave and the other will cave even harder as they soothe each other … isn’t too hard to imagine, is it?

In a way, if you think of them as their astrological signs. JM (air sign) has been that one person who has been able to understand and vibe with Tae’s quirkiness, helping him to elevate towards those heights he always dreamed of. And at the same Tae (earth sign) has kept Jimin grounded in moments when perhaps being up there in the air wasn’t it. In moments, when he perhaps needed someone who would be willing to very normally share a hug and/or a tear. 

As we all know, they both have separate friendship groups and are very involved with their respective ones, which also goes with the nature of their character; they will do what they want to do and this we know from videos, pictures they decided to share with us. But please, let’s not forget that Tae is the one person who has probably called JM the most, the one who has declared Jimin as his fav, the one thanks to whom Jimin's back is blessed with more moons. Let’s also not forget that Jimin has been around for Tae in moments of great loss, or that Tae is his forever teddy bear, and that Jimin can understand him just by looking into his eyes. They’ve gained each other’s trust and I’d like to believe that they also know how to protect and cherish it. 

Great. Now, let’s get back out here . BTS as a whole has really reached levels where performative actions are, yes, a fan-fav but they can, in all honesty, decide not to act up on them, like posting things on social media, fanservice, etc, it is really all to their discretion. So let me ask you? If you were either JM/Tae, in 2023, and had a problem with Tae/JM, which you wanted to solve, who would you address it to?: Tae/JM? Or your fans’? …

Whose words would ultimately provide you with the solution you are searching for? Tae/JM? Or your fans’? 

Always respectfully yours 💚💛

Marengo.