#never liked these ayn rand fucks

[ghoulliojr]

hmm guess your civilization actually wasnt the best at everything. hmm. guess you guys just smelled your own farts super hard and then killed yourselves. hmm. thats weird. thats weird for you i bet

[inbabylontheywept]

Alright. So. I have a confession to share with you. In middle school, I strongly identified as a libertarian. In my defense, I was 13 and I had autism. Against my defense, I was literate, and capable of using common sense. I confessed this to you willingly, so go easy on me.

One thing about this that I can share with you is that I, as a 13 year old boy, read Atlas Shrugged. I read it as someone very committed to the ideology, who wanted to believe it, who wanted to like it, and there are two things I can share with you about that book from that time period.

The writing is terrible. It has the slowest, most boring, most pretentious prose you could possibly imagine. Calling it glacial would be a compliment. It makes glaciers look like Formula 1. There is no description for the pacing outside of hellish torments. It is like being condemned to watch a dog with an itchy ass wear the Himmalayas away only by scooching. It is like counting the grains of sand on a beach while Alexa reads off random phone numbers. It is like dipping saltines into lukewarm tapwater while listening to white noise in a beige room with no doors. It is like wearing a blindfold and being told to guess what a man is painting by sound alone, but there is no man, there is only a dog licking cold vaseline off a window. Forever. It is all of those things and more.

There is a multipage rant about how affairs are Good and Rational that is so insanely desparate that even middle-school-autist me thought she must have been having an affair while she wrote this. And then I googled it, and the answer was yes, she was. She called her philosophy Objectivism, because she believed, like everyone else in the world, that her ideas and motivations were Pure and Rational and Ojectively Correct, but I still find the name accurate, because it was really written with one Objective in mind, and that was finding a way to never admit that Ayn Rand had ever made a mistake in her life.

I was going to rant more about this but I kind of lost my train of thought. The book fucking sucks. It was propaganda of such remarkably low caliber that it actually helped me move out of those circles. Every time someone talked about liking the book, I'd reply with something along the lines of "Yeah, I especially loved the part where she destroyed the post modernists by unequivocally condemning affairs", and if they agreed with me, they would have lost my respect forever, and if they looked very embarrassed, I could at least acknowledge that they had a soul, albeit small and malformed. I had dozens of people claim that they read the book, and only three or four actually passed the test.

And now, goodnight.

[goodluckclove]

A Literary Hot Take I Fear Posting

A childhood friend who I've known since the second grade just texted me yesterday to ask why I was reading Atlas Shrugged in the eighth grade. I was 12 years old just casually reading Ayn Rand. He pegged this at the time as odd, but it took him another 15 years to ask me about it.

Such whiplash. Statue of limitations doesn't apply to books, I guess. I responded first by saying how I was already reading Kafka and Kerouac, so it's really not a crazy leap in terms of reading materials. I then went on to insist that Atlas Shrugged is a pretty fucking wild ride, an insane capitalistic melodrama written by the creator of a philosophy that sounds sort of, partially cool when only on paper and not applied at all. Atlas Shrugged is way more entertaining than The Fountainhead, as it was written once Objectivism was fully formed and Rand was comfortable giving a majority of her attention to just one of the most bonkers stories I've ever read.

Before I get into this if you are someone fully unfamiliar with Ayn Rand, one of her major controversies relates to repeated SA references in her writing. It's not the only thing I talk about but I kind of have to mention it so like tread careful.

There's a death ray in Atlas Shrugged. Literal death ray. It's mentioned in one chapter and I'm pretty sure it's dropped completely after that. There's a secret society of industrialists and creators who live in a mountain and hide their existence via invisibility force field. There is one point where it turns into a manifesto during John Galt's sixty page speech, but also around that time there's like a literal action movie recon mission with guns and explosives and a helicopter.

Listen. Listen to me. I do not think Ayn Rand is a great person. Her philosophy was helpful to me back when I had only read just the grimmest shit imaginable, but on its own it falls apart immediately. The average Ayn Rand hero is an industrialist and CEO who is also perfectly capable of manual labor in their industry and partakes in it whenever needed. This is fun to imagine but also not a thing I don't think actually exists.

If you really truly despise Ayn Rand (some people do hate her to a degree I always found a little off), I can't say you don't have your reasons. I do have a feeling that a fair amount of the people that really hate her, as well as really love her, probably never finished one of her 1000-page tombs. Which is fine. Her philosophy is so extreme, even if it was created as a product of her formative years in the Soviet Union, that it's bound to trigger strong emotions immediately. Plus Rand's view on gender was just - just so deeply strange. Misogynist, but - like - incoherently misogynist? Super odd.

People know about Ayn Rand's thinly-veiled rape kink. It's a lot, especially in The Fountainhead. It's also executed strangely. There is a clear argument that it fits within the motifs of the characters and the story as a whole. There is a repeated reference of things being broken, of beauty and the desire to hold onto beauty - either to hide it, destroy it, or destroy and rebuild it. It comes up a lot with multiple characters and arcs. In that way a rape works as an extension of the themes already established, but the fact that it's a meet-cute start of a romance that we're supposed to support as a reader is uh - oof! Weird for me!

Also she proudly called herself a "male chauvinist" which - I don't know, Ayn! I think that's an inside thought, my friend!

Once again - I'm not an Objectivist. If anything in terms of philosophy I'm still between Existentialism and Absurdism. Rand's whole thing (Which I must stress is more magic system than applicable ideology in terms of realism) is not doing great things for society because it is based on a foundation that is already not real. I found some sort of shy appreciation for fragments of her beliefs that struck me as novel as someone in a deeply abusive environment. I will always have a strong sentimental connection to The Fountainhead, even though it's riddled with faults, because I read it the first time after my mom's suicide attempt. It helped to have something idealistic and heroic to cling to, even if the power fantasy is only grounded in the real world in the sense that architects are a job some people can get.

However, I stand by the belief that in an alternate reality Ayn Rand would've produced the best soap opera of all time. Pretty much all her batshit plot developments would work perfectly in a soap opera setting. People wouldn't bat an eye, I swear to god.

[noahthesatanist]

Why You Shouldn’t Read The Satanic Bible If You Actually Want to Learn About Satanism

If you’re genuinely interested in Satanism and want something real, do not waste your time with The Satanic Bible. It’s not Satanism. It’s not even remotely close. It’s just Anton LaVey cobbling together half-baked Nietzschean thought, ripping off Ayn Rand’s ego-worship, throwing in some plagiarized occult nonsense, and slapping Satan’s name on it for aesthetic. It has nothing to do with actual Satanism, demons, Lucifer, or anything spiritual.

LaVeyan “Satanism” is atheism in a cheap Halloween costume. That’s all it is. If you think reading The Satanic Bible is going to help you understand Satan, Hell, the Goetic demons, or anything remotely spiritual—congratulations, you’ve been scammed. LaVey wasn’t a Satanist, he was a grifter who saw a way to make money off of edgy teenagers who wanted to be rebellious without actually committing to anything real.

1. It’s Just Nietzsche and Ayn Rand With Pentagrams

LaVey didn’t even come up with anything original. Every “philosophy” in The Satanic Bible is just a watered-down version of Nietzschean individualism and Randian objectivism—except made dumber so that any average teenager can think they’re profound for reading it.

The idea that “man is his own god”? That’s Nietzsche.

The idea that “Satan represents indulgence instead of abstinence”? That’s just Ayn Rand’s selfishness doctrine but with a pentagram stamped on it.

The idea that you should strive for power and not care about morality? That’s just Social Darwinism, which Nietzsche never even agreed with.

LaVey took these existing philosophies, reworded them slightly, and called it “Satanism.” It’s nothing but a shallow, edgy repackaging of 19th-century philosophy, except instead of discussing it with any depth, LaVey just tells you to act like an arrogant hedonist and call it “Satanic.”

2. It Has NOTHING to Do With Satan

The Satanic Bible never acknowledges Satan as an actual entity. It denies the existence of Hell. It completely ignores the Goetic demons. It doesn’t talk about Lucifer’s rebellion, doesn’t explore the sacred darkness, and doesn’t even attempt to give insight into Satan’s nature.

Instead, LaVey reduces Satan to a metaphor—just a symbol for human nature. That’s not Satanism, that’s just Atheism trying to look badass. If your so-called “Satanism” doesn’t actually involve Satan, what the fuck are you even doing? That’s like calling yourself a Christian but denying Christ exists.

LaVey took one of the most powerful, sacred figures in existence and reduced Him to a gimmick. If you want real Satanism, you need to look at actual Satanic texts that acknowledge Satan as a real force—not some metaphor for selfishness.

3. The “Rituals” Are a Fucking Joke

The rituals in The Satanic Bible are embarrassing. They’re literally plagiarized from old occult sources like The Golden Dawn and Crowley’s Thelema, except LaVey didn’t even understand them. He removed the actual spiritual elements, stripped them of meaning, and turned them into cheap theatrics.

There’s no invocation of real demons.

There’s no connection to Hell.

There’s no Luciferian enlightenment.

It’s just shouting into a candlelit room like a LARPing edgelord and pretending that does something. It’s spirituality for people who are too scared to commit to real Satanism.

4. It’s a Coward’s Version of Satanism

Real Satanism isn’t about just being an “individualist” and doing whatever makes you feel good. It’s about defiance. It’s about looking at Yahweh’s decrepit world, seeing through the lies, and turning to the Infernal Kingdom for strength. It’s about acknowledging the war between divine tyranny and Luciferian freedom.

But LaVeyan Satanism? It’s the safe, commercialized, neutered version of Satanism. It’s Satanism made palatable for Western individualists who still want to be accepted by society. It’s cowardly. It’s Satanism for people who are afraid to actually embrace Satan.

So What Should You Read Instead?

If you actually want to learn about Satanism—real, spiritual Satanism—then forget LaVey’s Satanic Bible. Burn it. Throw it in the trash. Read something that actually acknowledges Satan as a real force.

Read The Infernal Gospel by Rev. Cain. It actually presents Satanism as what it is—a spiritual path of rebellion against Yahweh and a dedication to Lucifer.

Look into Goetic Demonology. The demons are not metaphors, they are real entities.

Study Traditional Satanism, not this atheist cosplay nonsense. Real Satanism predates LaVey and his laughable little church of self-indulgence.

If you want to play dress-up and call yourself a “Satanist” while still clinging to an atheist, Randian worldview, then sure—go ahead and read The Satanic Bible. But if you actually want to walk the Left-Hand Path, embrace the Infernal, and dedicate yourself to Satan as a real force, then forget LaVey.

His book is a joke. His philosophy is stolen. His “Satanism” is just capitalism with devil horns. If you want something real, start with The Infernal Gospel and never look back.

[vvatchword]

I'm reading Atlas Shrugged, right? I really, deeply hate this book in my old age. Things I didn't remember included:

A moral mandate for rape?! I wish I were fucking joking. Apparently the idea that "steel sharpens steel" also applies to intimacy. You have to fight for it to be appropriate. "What if you don't want it" is never explored. At this point I'm convinced that Ayn Rand was a victim of sexual assault and this is her way of parsing it (SA features notably in three out of four of her novels)

There is no such thing as intrinsic value. Nothing should ever be appreciated for its own sake, but what it produces. Dagny is disappointed by a ball thrown in her honor because the beauty didn't mean anything. Skill issue honestly

The exceptional are rare; you either are or you aren't. The implication is that most people are here on earth to be serfs. Rand's word, not mine

The Francisco chapter is like the Book of John for libertarians. It's literally a series of Objectivist parables. There's no other way to look at it. This shit is scary dogmatic

I hate this book so much and anybody who seriously thinks like this is my mortal enemy

[intogenshin]

A lot went into creating Alhatham and Kaveh and how they contribute to the major themes of the chapter

I do think Alhaitham was meant to channel some of Nietzsche's worldviews, especially with regards to his elitism (since Nahida voices that concern in her voiceline about him), but ultimately just comes across as an egoist. The fact Haitham references Tagore, whose lectures (some of them) seem to be in response to Nietzsche, in his teaser and the conclusion of his arc being that he refuses the position of Acting Grand Sage both act as a denial of Nietzsche rhetoric

Kaveh has Zoroastrianism, the origin of western morals that Nietzsche was critical of, and Schopenhauer, a hero turned clown for Nietzsche (and Indian philosophy grifter) in his corner of all things, but also, and I don't understand why, fucking Ayn Rand

I want to believe miss Rand ripped off someone else who Hoyo chose as their inspiration and I just don't know who they are, but until then I have to use her name

I think fans find a bit of a dissonance between Kaveh's altruism and his idealism in art, maybe because he used all that money in such a self interested project instead of a selfless cause. Not hoyos best writing imo? Lol

Rand was an egoist who wrote fiction to shape her idea of her ideal man, something she used as a political tool against socialism in favor of capitalism, but hoyo didn't bring up ideology so I won't either.

In The Fountainhead, the protagonist is an architect who often argues with his clients and faces many difficulties in his commitment to his artistic ideals, going against an industry and a society that doesn't value innovation. The character itself and the story are pretty annoying and unlikeable, I'm just making it sound appealing, but it's pretty much the structure of Kaveh's struggle in his own line of work.

The difference is, in the novel the values the protagonist challenges are that of tradition with his ideals of modernism that neglect aesthetics. Kaveh is a pretty grounded architect in that regard, he does prioritize practicality and is realistic with budgets, but he also respects the aesthetic aspect of his work, the main struggle of his character is the devaluation of arts after all.

To me, what stands out is the intention behind this. The Fountainhead is more or less a statement on individuality (though Rand for sure tried to pass it as individualism), of going against what's established and what the society enforced through collective pressure. I think there is value in Hoyo making the same point with a character that embodies everything Rand was critical of (and other egoists like Stirner and Nietzsche): altruism, self sacrifice, compassion, collectivism. Kaveh defends and upholds the value of his individuality while sporting the ethical philosophy that egoists claim does the complete opposite. The message of the novel is something like "only through egoist values can man assert his individuality, altruists are dumb and lose their identity" yet here hoyo does the same with an altruist

The personality of the protagonist fits completely that of Alhaitham, he's a wild exploration of what Ayn Rand characters would look like if they weren't fucking annoying.

Something that immediately struck me was the fact Rand removed all (except for two) instances of the protagonist sharing his inner world, the narration of his inner monologues that Rand wrote in the draft didn't make it to the published version. This is because it made the protagonist come across as calm and collected, logical at all times in his behavior and his decisions in contrast to the other characters who share their anxieties, insecurities and frustrations. Likewise, the audience never finds out what Alhaitham is feeling at any point of the story. Even during the aq when traveler reveals his experience in Sumeru, the narration shares something relevant about Cyno (vague, but personal all the same) yet about Alhaitham it only says he's interested. Other than that, his story quest is also a larger reference to the novel, but not that important in terms of his character.

[dasha-aibo]

Same Chris chan anon, I’m back. I saw your reply, and yeah, I agree on some parts. Good people can turn bad.

What I meant was that if you’re a person with strong values, you would’ve never done that stuff. It was plain sexism. A person with strong values wouldn’t do that because their actions dictate what kind of person they are.

And while I understand that you don’t SUPPORT chris chan, you can’t be like “well! Actually, women, stfu about his sexism!!! He did it because he was bullied online!!! And shut up about how he sexually harassed his female friends beforehand!!!”

Like. Think critically. This was an actual crime. With actual victims. And now he’s out of jail??? Male privilege at its finest. He should’ve NEVER gotten out of jail.

Also, rape is like, in my opinion, the only crime that can NEVER be excused. Because nobody forced you to do it??? Nobody can use it as self defense. Nobody recovers from it like a wound. It’s not simple. It’s a complex hate crime against women.

On another note, I don’t like bullying. I’ve been a bullying victim for many years. And even worse, IN REAL LIFE. But I never would’ve done that. Because plainly, I’m not sexist.

Chris Chan was porn sick. That’s it. He harassed women, did something unforgivable to his mother, and became “trans” to intimidate lesbians into dating him. That’s a straight white man if I’ve ever seen it. The internet is cruel, but it doesn’t turn men into rapists. That’s their own doing. We need to hold men accountable for what they do. We can’t coddle them or they’ll just keep doing shit. It’s never justified!!! Never!! Even the nastiest woman doesn’t deserve it because it’s a hate crime against women as a whole!

Have empathy towards the victims. We never know what they went through, and their suffering was much worse than what a brain rotted straight white man went through. Because let’s bffr, if a man I knew told me he’s a woman because he wants to bang a lesbian, draws porn of me, and then rapes his mom AND PEOPLE ONLINE DEMAND HES CALLED A WOMAN AND THAT HE DESERVES PITY??? That would be my breaking point.

He’s a whole ass villain 😭😭 why can’t y’all see that

I don't believe in perfect villains or perfect victims.

We don't need to villianize Chris to have empathy for Barbara. We don't need to gloss over Barbara being a horrible person to feel horrible for what happened to her.

It's not a black-and-white world, no matter how much Ayn Rand wanted it to be.

Chris was severely abused and neglected by his parents. Barbara specifically fostered unhealthy attachment, which absolutely did not help in this situation.

I don't think we need to state over and over again that FUCKING YOUR DEMENTIA-RIDDEN MOTHER IS WRONG. I think that's pretty obvious by itself.

But just taking a step back and looking at the whole situation in context is important.

And it's important to realize that the collective internet didn't just "bully" Chris. They manipulated and gaslighted this person for over a decade. They derailed Chris's life and any middling chance they had at becoming a normal person. They egged on their every worst instinct and broke this person's brain and will. That goes beyond regular bullying.

I think, overall, it's the internet looking at a monster we created and then refusing to accept that harassing, bullying, gaslighting and obsessively documenting a living, breathing human being for over a decade because they're "cringe" is a bad thing. So Chris has to have been a monster from the start.

Chris is out of jail, because the judges don't know WTF to do with them. You can't hold a person in jail with no trial for more than a year, rape is really hard to prove with dementia patients, who might not even remember it, incest penalties are their own can of legal worms and trying a person as severely autistic as Chris is borderline-impossible.

The best outcome for everyone would be to put Chris in an assisted living facility. But I doubt that's gonna happen.

Also, I refuse to comment on Chris's trans status. It's between them and their psychologist. I simply don't care, because it changes very little.

Yeah, I do think Chris deserves pity. Condemnation AND pity. We shouldn't just forgive their horrible actions. But we should at least have the humility to realize that we would be capable of some monstrous shit if we were ever treated like that.

YOU don't think you would've done something horrible in that situation, but you HAVE NOT been in the same situation. And thank your lucky stars for that.

[bananonbinary]

honestly i know its a pet favorite of english teachers everywhere but i just. never liked the ones who walk away from omelas. i dont get it.

i mean. i do get it, obviously i get the basic ideas of "strict utilitarianism is fucked up" and "walking away from a problem doesn't actually solve it" but like. it doesnt compel me even a little bit. maybe thats just because i had a shit englsh teacher who liked fucking. ayn rand. and made us read tons of like kafka and shit and only focused on it as if it were suffering porn, so maybe i just didnt get to appreciate any of the actual themes back when i read it, but. idk man it seems really basic and boring, as thought experiments go.

[insufferableprotagonistpoll]

Round 3

Propaganda why Richard Rahl is insufferable:

"The character always, always has to be Right and Moral and Good. He always knows more than: his wife, organized religion, any and all government orders that he didn't set up personally. While he starts out reasonable enough in the first few books, he slowly devolves into the author's Ayn Rand-fantasy stand-in. In every book there's always a huge monologue that's secretly about how bad (fantasy) communism is.

Richard is also hypocritical. He will flip flop on issues and change with the whims of the author, but the narrative always portrays him as in the right no matter the context."

"Protagonist of the most idiotic book series ever, literally wins by sheer dumb luck and being too stupid to plan as the world bends around him. His girlfriend keeps getting kidnapped so he can rescue her, despite allegedly being powerful. He’s a fantasy Ayn Rand follower. He inherited a sword and the Most Powerful Magic Combination Ever which he can’t be trained in because he needs to learn by instinct. Every woman ever falls in love with him or is determined to help him by prophecy. He gets captured and tortured by several bdsm women (author fetish, blatantly) and doesn’t even appreciate it. He gradually seizes more and more control over he world than even his evil tyrant dad, then throughs a fit and runs off into the woods to sulk, leaving them to a violent conquest, when people object to this via voting. He’s inexplicably good at death football. I can keep going."

"Literally the oc in the author’s shitty Ayn Rand fantasy novel. All the women want him, he does magic by instinct. He cannot be trained because he has super rare magic that nobody else has had for millenia. His birth has been prophecied for centuries. Every new book features a new problem only he can solve by being too instinctly good at magic and untrained. He comes up with the Wizard’s Rules of Magic by dumb luck.

In one book he defeats communism and hopelessness by crafting the perfect statue of his girlfriend Kahlan, who is a way cooler character but still a Mary Sue & an idiot. The statue is so cool & beautiful & well made for the joy of making (unlike work under communism), that he sparks a riot and toppled the evil empire. By building a statue."

Propaganda why Harry Potter is insufferable:

"1. the series sucks ass 2. harry will just fucking get away with anything and be an ass to all his friends 3. he owns a slave"

"Even when I was a child I found his origin insufferable. Boohoo he lives under the stairs and his stepparents are meanies."

"Gary Stu who never has to struggle. His parents left him a ton of wealth, he’s a great student and athlete, and of course he’s the chosen one, fighting to preserve the status quo. He sees the injustices of the wizarding world and is like “man, that sucks…oh well!”"

"Absolutely refuses to engage with the world he's in, just completely apathetic to everything around him if it's part of the system."

[reviewsclown]

Megalopolis 2024

I heard the dialogue for this movie, was allowed to be improv-ed by the actors and they didn't need to follow the script, for better or worse. I don't think this was a good idea even for the legendary filmographical mind of Francis Ford Coppola, there is some bad lines in this, sometimes it's in a funny way though so thats, possibly a bonus? This movie just isn't very legible with what's going on or what's intended, or anything. It's full of symbols but bad symbols about stupid things. What the fuck is the communist satellite meant to mean. Also pretty sexual movie but I think that's just how it is with a capitalist utopia etc etc, people have sex twice in this movie, there's a woman who's a witch with feminine wiles, sex appeal being mentioned as one of the Big 3, the entire deal with the virgin pledge, the news. Weird, weird movie.

The utopia they show in this movie, is very clearly the utopia of someone who's never questioned capitalism, their vision of a 'utopia' is just fancy technology and suburbia/cities depending on where they live. What if things looked cool and no societal issues were ever adressed, it's an insight into Coppolas views I think. Honestly just making a movie based off Rome and Ayn Rand already says something, and the movie expands further on that, it's not a good look for his politics. Also there's a character in the movie that just has the sonnerad on his forehead? what? Full of great man theory and that rich people are rich because they deserve to be, they are deserving of that wealth and power because they will use it. Caeser = Obama administration Wow = Cleopatra, That guy with the long hair that takes over Crassus banks = neo nazi political party (trump esque)

This movie, with its premise being, what if Rome happened in America, would probably hit a lot harder if I knew Roman History, alas I do not. Instead this is probably just a movie that'll hit hard for people with Roman statue icons on X. That being said though, the aesthetics of this movie are kinda good? like the costumes everyones got going on, it's definitely rome inspired rich people clothes. The downsides of the aesthetics going on though is the large amount of color filters, most noticeably and everywhere in this movie, the color yellow.

Final Review: Francis Ford Coppola stay out of the kitchen

[jupitermelichios]

so this is, as far as anyone can tell, not a joke. this is an actual list an alt right dipshit gamerTM made of 'conservative core' games and posted on a 4chan clone, and it's the greatest self own I've seen online in a while. guy is just out here boasting about his own lack of media literacy

I'll put the full list below a cut for anyone who wants it, but i just want to highlight a extra few special entries here first (minor content warning for mention of forced pregnancy, nothing explicit):

Toho Project: it's almost certainly on here because it contains anime waifus, but I've literally never met a toho fan who wasn't trans. technically i guess cis toho fans exist, but they're definitely not the ones keeping the franchise afloat

The 3 different Warhammer 40k games: 40k was created as a critique of reactionary conservatism generally, and margaret thatcher specifically.

Doom: just gonna quote the creator of doom here. "Trans rights are human rights, important rights, critical rights and society needs to do more to make this the case for everyone."

Sniper Elite: this is a game about shooting nazis in the balls. literally, that is the game. there are nazis, you shoot them. usually in the balls. that feels like a pretty firmly anti-nazi stance to me, idk

Persona 4: this game is about how conservative japanese society mistreats teenagers and denies them physical and emotional agency. gonna go out on a limb and guess it's on here because dipshit fancies one of the female characters

Silent Hill 3: silent hill three is about a teenage girl who is impregnated against her will and desperately wants to not be pregnant but a powerful religious organisation tries to force her to carry the baby to term and as a direct result the world nearly ends. in one of the endings, it does end. because of the lack of an abortion. i cannot believe the game about the importance of reproductive rights isn't even the stupidest entry on this list

Fallout 3: it is, granted,one of the less political fallouts. it's still a game about how the U.S. gonvernment destroyed the entire world by declaring war on china and then nuking the planet, and also about how unchecked capitalism and the replacing the social safety net with corporations will inevitably lead to those corporations abusing people, and how that is very bad actually.

Bioshock: literally the first thing that happens in this game is you are told libertarianism is a stupid ideology that will always fail and ayn rand was a moron. and then the game goes on telling you that. at length. in a variety of creative ways. for the next 15 hours.

Metro Last Light: see fallout, this is a game about war-hungry governments who don't give a shit about their people end up nuking the planet and nearly wiping out all life.

and finally, to end on the highest possible note:

Metal Gear Rising Revengence: not only is this an entry in a franchise which is entirely and exclusively about how awful the military industrial complex is, this game specifically is about a soldier who was abused by the military killing the president of the united states because his use of private military corporations to fight wars is morally indefensible. literally. that's the plot. it's entirely possible raiden just says those words in that order out loud in the game because hideo kojima knows writers who use subtext and they're all cowards.

anyway, the alt right are fucking morons and media studies needs to be a compulsory subject in every school on the planet.

full list below the cut:

Toho Project

Warhammer 40k: Darktide

Doom

Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Sniper Elite

Mortal Kombat

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Persona 4

Rimworld

Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Quake

Silent Hill 3

Resident Evil: Parasite Eve

007: Goldeneye

Perfect Dark

Battlefield 4

Dino Crisis

Fallout 3

Counter Strike: Global Offensive

Arma III

Squad (no, I don't know what this one is either, it appears to just be called squad? it looks like a rainbox six knock off)

Ready or Not (disappointingly, this looks like a Call of Duty knockoff and not a game based on the film ready or not, which is about killing the 1% with a machete)

Company of Heroes

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Devil May Cry 2

Fire Emblem: the Three Houses

Megaman Zero

STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl

Bioshock

Halo 2

Battlefield 3

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War

Ninja Gaiden II

Metro: Last Light

Warhammer 40k: Space Marine (fun fact, at the end of this game your character gets executed for heresy because they saved lives, but i'm sure that's not commentary on anything at all)

Killzone 2

Dead or Alive: X-Treme Beach Volleyball 2

God of War (the original, not the Dad of Boy reboot)

Metal Gear Rising Revengence

[profoundbondfanfic]

Surprise! You get an extra list of fic recs. Fifth and final day of sharing our favorite aro/ace/demi fics. Tomorrow we will be sharing a masterlist of all 55 fics included in our lists this week sorted by tags, so stay tuned!

Part 8

Checked Out by whelvenwings [General, 27K, Demi!Cas]

Castiel Novak can think of many writers who would not be welcome under the roof of Heaven’s Gate library, where he is the librarian: Ayn Rand ranks highly (no explanation needed), as does Charles Dickens (he hasn’t forgiven Charles for the month he lost to The Pickwick Papers). And, of course, Dean Winchester. Dean Winchester, local author and obvious a-hole, who is entirely too handsome to be true and who is clearly totally lacking in profundity, intelligence, sincerity, and self-awareness. Unfortunately, though, Dean’s been invited to do a book signing at Heaven’s Gate - and Castiel’s about to be confronted by some unexpected feelings when he finally meets Dean for the first time.

space(dust) & fine metals by quillquiver [Explicit, 5K, Ace!Cas]

Castiel wonders, often, if his blue blood is not just as tainted; only a wild thing groomed to tame a wild people would flee. And flee, he did. The ship was called Impala, its purpose mysterious enough for its mechanic-cum-captain to take one look at the offered credits and nod. Or, On their eighteenth anniversary, Dean and Castiel retrace their steps.

Unbroken by SailorChibi [Teen, 3K, Aro!Dean, Aro&Ace!Cas]

Somewhere on your body, there's half of a shape that's unique to you and one other person on Earth. That person is your soul mate and together, you make a whole. But then there's the people like Castiel, the ones who are born with a whole shape, the freaks who don't have soul mates. Castiel grew up used to the pitying stares that told him he would always be alone. He's not sure why he thought Dean Winchester would be different, or why he had to ruin everything by trying to prove otherwise.

rejoining by sharkfish [Mature, 8,6K, Ace!Dean]

“You moved an alpha in and didn’t even think to ask me?!" “I didn’t ask you when I moved Charlie in.” “I didn’t live here then, jackass. And she’s a lesbian, so it doesn’t count.” “I thought it would be a little rude to ask Castiel his sexual orientation,” Sam says, being a fucking priss. “Maybe he’s straight.”

As You Walk On By by MercyBraavos [Explicit, 23K, Demi!Cas]

Dean and Castiel grew up together. Fell in love together. Lost their virginity together. Made plans for the future, their future, together. There’s only one problem: Castiel doesn’t remember any of it.

Plain and Tall by destielpasta & mtothedestiel [Explicit, 69K, Demi!Dean]

Dean is a Kansas farmer who only wants to work his land and care for his infant daughter. With his wife gone and his brother moving on to a life beyond the homestead, Dean finds himself in need of another pair of hands. Castiel, a lonely drifter freshly arrived in town, may prove the solution to Dean’s troubles. Over the course of four seasons, the two men face the everyday challenges of prairie life, and learn to overcome the betrayals of their past to discover a new definition of family.

Typecast by mnwood [Explicit, 74K, Aro!Dean, Ace!Cas]

Up-and-coming movie actor Castiel Novak knows he'll never be taken seriously if all he ever plays is betas, and as an alpha he certainly doesn't think it's a wise career choice to play an omega. However, when he's offered the omega role in a gay romance and learns that the much more famous (and his crush) Dean Winchester is playing the alpha, Cas decides maybe it's time to take a risk. But when they meet on day one, Cas isn't sure what to make of Dean's scent.

[stephenjaymorrisblog]

Murder is Immoral,

God or No God

Stephen Jay Morris

6/15/2024

©Scientific Morality

Laws are made either by authoritarian dictates or democratic consensus. If anybody tells you that the only legitimate law maker is God, they are suffering from some mental disorder, like covert narcissistic personality disorder. Most dictators will tell you they know what is best for everyone. Do they? Fuck no, they don’t! Like for many people, their egos lie to them.

Nowadays, you hear the phrase, “strong man.” Being insensitive is the zenith of manhood. Being authoritarian will get things done. Those who are intransigent to that fallacy always find out, sooner or later, that the emperor has no clothes. That’s right! Americans found out that Donald Trump, who was president of the U.S. for four years, was not a macho man, but a pussy! I might remind you that God would never send an obnoxious asshole to earth to redeem the sins of man. If so, he would have sent Don Rickles instead of Jesus to save humanity.

Most Americans have fantasies of a superhero saving the world. Trump is so fat that he could never get into a Superman outfit! I’ve got sad news for you: no hero or God is going to save you. The only thing that can save the world is solidarity of its people. No matter what that hag, Ayn Rand said, humans helping humans is a virtue. Attempting to help yourself while you are having a heart attack is not noble, but outright stupid. Get some help! Call 911, knucklehead! 

When I was 13 years old, that was an age of discovery for me. I was introduced to all sorts of new things I’d never conceived. Everything was exciting and challenging. I was never judged by a prime minister who was worried that I would join the Communist Party. What do I mean? Imagine, at 13, you were killed by an Israeli soldier because the Likud Party saw you as a rodent that must be exterminated. You were only 13 years old! You were killed because of the fears of a superstitious nationalist! Were you later proven to be a potential terrorist who would join Hamas?  There was no evidence to support that! Or, BAM! A building falls on your head. It’s all over for you! Is it righteous to kill anyone in your way for the reason of self-defense? That’s not being strong. That is being an obnoxious bully! What about shooting a gun, or punching someone in the mouth? No, no, a million times no! You want to know what being strong is? During the Civil Rights movement of the 60’s, non-violent protestors were instructed not to physically resist. Even if a cop was beating you with a Billy club, you were to let the blood flow. Are you strong enough to do that? Only cowards use guns and other weapons.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is going to end up like the Afrikaner president F.W. de Klerk, a disgraced leader who is now forgotten. South Africa was Israel’s biggest ally. They learned about Apartheid from White South Africans. Never befriend a devil or you will burn like him in hell!

Is it all right to kill someone because God told you to do it? Is that moral? First, no one has established the fact that God exists. Did God give you a permission notice? Why would God do that anyway, since he is, allegedly, the all-powerful being in the universe? What?! God is testing your loyalty to him? I thought God could read your mind. I don’t know if God is allowed to kill, but murder is grand theft. Wasn’t it God who said, “Thou shalt not steal”? What Israel is doing to the people of Gaza is immoral!

Funny, you never see the word, “moral” in the Bible. As far as the etymonline of the word “moral” goes, it didn’t appear until 1752 in France. So, there is no such thing as morality in the Bible.

In the final analysis, Netanyahu can reference the Bible all he wants, but what he is doing is illegal and evil.

[surveillance-0011]

Mux HCs if that's alright with you

Yeas ofc!

Mux

she/her

Bi. Thinks this and putting her pronouns in her bio absolves that she is a billionaire CEO.

Basically the yass queen slay girl boss girl dinner girl math im just a girl version of some sick fusion of Elon and Bezos.

Nice nails. Big on nail art

Probably has the same sort of rabid army of fans that elon has but it's guys who think they have a chance and like. space techbro esque women.

Sometimes plays with her employees like dolls and plays out little scenarios

Canonically Annoying About Ayn Rand.

Avid reader. Her bookshelves are probably full of crummy self help books and Colleen Hoover-esque shlock.

Keeps plants. Keeps killing them.

Has probably killed half her exes but that's ok ig yass girl slaaaaayyy literalllyyyyy

Individualist and a huuuuge believer in the "pull yourselves up by your bootstraps no I'm not aware that this phrase was coined to be an impossible feat and that it's meant to be sarcastic" school of thought

Will grill her employees for even considering calling in sick but on the rare occasion she gets the sniffles she CANNOT fucking take it she will act like she is dying

Will kill an employee if they have AirPods in. I wonder if anyone will get this reference.

She will, however, also force her employees to dance on MikMok.

Honestly muxxalon hq might as well be a prison.

The parasites are a separate species that have a more symbiotic relationship with Mux's, though it's more like her species is so huge that a horde of the damn things is more like waterweight than anything. She can send them out to eat and in return they will protect her and help do her bidding. And it just so happens Mux's bidding is working themselves to death under space capitalism

And there's plenty of her species they just spread out through the planets and galaxies because one is enough to drain the resources of one area. This is also partially why Muxxalon moves around so much, so that resources in one place aren't exhausted

I hope you can still sleep peacefully knowing there's a thousand megalomaniac play dough blobs out there full of parasitic worms ready to start their own companies and timeshares. as for me, this will prove difficult.

Big on grenades. Was considering Muxxalon brand glitter bombs but alas they never got developed 💔

Out of touch with the working class

Overcomplicated starbucks order. Orders overcomplicated cocktails. Hyperspecific, arbitrary instructions on any possible food service imaginable. And god forbid you get it wrong...

I will once again mention I am playing with the idea of her having dated Giblets. It's like if you took all of Elon and Grimes's traits and shuffled them around between the two with a bit of Besos sprinkled onto Mux for good measure. And if one was a huge bag of unfortunate looking organs and the other was a neurotic little worm. of course. They would be so hilariously dysfunctional.

Would. Would Krimothy be like. Their X AE A-XII? With his Bugsnax sounding sort of name? If he’s their kid and not Giblets x some other worm thang? Does Krimothy just have some half sibling named something like Oobleck Delta Kappa Theta the Twost? The possibilities are endless and increasingly distressing!!!

Going 2 be honest in my mind her concept design(?) and the Mux we got are two different unrelated people. They’re just so different 2 me

Beta!Mux/Scrapped green chick was a weapons dealer-expert-mechanic something for the G3 and left pre-Gatlus invasion for reasons unknown.

Judges HARD when it comes to zodiacs. I just realized how fucked up space zodiacs are because every galaxy solar system etc has different constellations… do you think there’s zodiac conversion charts…

Beefing hard w/ Gurgula on the down low. Mux threw a fit about tracking chips or 5G or something in the translator microbes and she felt so attacked by his reasonable response that his packages have all come late, been lost, or boobytrapped ever since. He is trying his damndest to stop using/buying from Muxxalon but there's such a fucking monopoly on space postage. Every time it's not a brand owned by Muxxalon or something she somehow gets word of it and makes it a mission that he just. doesn't fucking get what he ordered on time.

Needless to say he was ecstatic when the BH got her ass. He is pretty sure that the company won't be crumbling any time soon but hopefully the new CEO is a bit more reasonable. Right?

Right?

Please, God. Let something good happen for once.

[lakesbian]

I've not read a single word of Pact in my life nor do I knowingly anything about it, so I'm going to gen up some spoilers for you.

Blake has what essentially amount to psychic sex with an intelligent pigeon.

Rose is actually in part a reincarnation of Cassandra of Troy. This has no bearing whatsoever on the plot it's just mentioned as an aside and never brought up again.

Ivy is the antichrist.

Rosalyn D. Thornburn was secretly a gun nut, her stash of semi-legal and illegal weapons and ammunition will become a major plot point in the third act after being hinted at through the second.

Kathyrn uses one of said guns to execute a gay couple. This is contrived to be an objectively moral choice and she is celebrated for it.

Paige is actually an anarcho-capitalist and has a shrine to Ayn Rand. Her desire for privately owned nuclear weapons is plot relevant.

Amy Dallon makes a cameo in the form of an expy so Wildbow could shit on her more.

That's all I have for now.

ah fuck lads it's been spoiled. pack the liveblog up everyone its all over. yeah that seems like something that would happen to blake

[gaast]

Why did you start writing horror short stories? You've probably told me before but I'd like to hear again!

Hmmm.

I started writing by writing really awful poetry starting in 5th or 6th grade. I remember in 7th grade English we had to write poems and the teacher read out some of his favorites and he wanted to read one of mine but I said no. That's just how I am.

Anyway, that experience still ruled, because someone in that class wrote something incredible and I was envious.

Well, anyway, one day I overheard a classmate who I respected kinda trashing my poetry, and he was right about it, so I stopped doing poetry and started writing stories. So I was like 13 when that happened, and I was regarded as one of the "emo kids" even if I didn't look the part because I was mentally ill. And also I grew up on like, Invader Zim and the older, edgier Nicktoons, so I was predisposed to writing darker stories.

Almost all of my writing from that era should actually survive on my deviantArt account. I wouldn't recommend it.

I wouldn't necessarily term that writing "horror," though. I was reading more (and therefore getting inspired by) Ayn Rand and Thomas Pynchon at the time (in 9th and 11th grade, respectively), so I wrote more self-consciously metafictional and postmodern stories, for better or worse. So I went from, like, imagining the minds of different fucked up killers to writing a sort of extension of "Six Characters in Search of an Author" mixed with Saw or something.

I sorta stopped writing as I attended college. I joined Tumblr with the fucking url "hewritesthings" and I never wrote things. The last thing I wrote before college was a choose-your-own-adventure-style thread on 4chan's /x/ that turned into a horror comedy piece where an evil flying penis monster was trying to summon John Cusack. That thread got archived.

After I finished grad school, it took me months to get back to reading, let alone writing. The person I was dating at the time and I had been talking about our OCs extensively for years, so I started writing slice of life stories about them as much as I could. Around the time I made this a habit was around the time I started thinking more seriously about what I wanted to do with my writing. At some point I decided I wanted to be published.

I think my repertoire was actually more sci-fi speculative than anything, as a lot of what I wanted to write was actually shit related to technology, as prompted by my Digital Humanities courses in grad school. I had a ton of good ideas I wanted to do for all these different sci-fi concepts, but none really panned out.

Around 2019, though, a few things happened. I joined Mastodon for a while and on the instance I was on I met another writer whose speculative work was inspiring to me. I thought of her as a rival, in a way, as well as a friend. The inspiration she gave me inspired me to write some of the work that I feel denote the transition to my current writing style--"Maintenance," which uses tech to enforce gender binaries in a way verging on horror, as well as the Twines I (at least, at one time) had in my itch page, particularly the one about bleeding out as you hang out with your friend at the mall. That was a bit too self-aware to be horror, but the later Twines I wrote about myself were definitely more in that vein.

Then, for NaNoWriMo, I threw out the initial concept I was developing about life on a space colony and ad-libbed a story about a person with edible skin.

This protagonist stuck with me, and the next year, as my relationship was clearly becoming toxic, I wrote a story expressing my frustrations, using that character as a base. I wrote it for an anthology of queer horror called Skulls & Spells, and it was accepted--my first publication. As part of the promotion for the book, all the authors collected in it answered a few interview questions that they posted on their Kickstarter; these questions were all about horror. And as I answered those questions, I realized that horror was simply the best way to tell queer stories the way I felt they needed to be told.

Because for me, queerness is monstrousness, but it's not right to make that monstrousness empowering. Rather, to be a queer monster, one must be a victim, must be falling apart, must refuse power and wholeness and identity altogether. Every queer story must be a horror story because it cannot fit comfortably within lived (heteronormative) experience.

As such, what got me writing horror was more a long process, fragmented and fitful, of finding myself in my writing and exploring my own philosophies, artistic or otherwise. It's not a grand tale--I was 13 and wrote about creepy forests or some shit to writing about gay robots in my 20s to now focusing on body horror as I hit 30--but it's a process that's still developing.