#nuke regulation

[wanologic]

always good to keep a screamhole handy

[garudabluffs]

those who can afford nuclear weapons CANNOT afford to turn Swords into ploughshares is a concept in which military weapons or technologies are converted for peaceful civilian applications.

A nuclear holocaust, also known as a nuclear apocalypse, nuclear annihilation, nuclear armageddon, or atomic holocaust, is a theoretical scenario where the mass detonation of nuclear weapons causes globally widespread destruction and radioactive fallout.

"The English word "holocaust", derived from the Greek term "holokaustos" meaning "completely burnt", refers to great destruction and loss of life, especially by fire.[7][8]

One early use of the word "holocaust" to describe an imagined nuclear destruction appears in Reginald Glossop's 1926 novel The Orphan of Space: "Moscow ... beneath them ... a crash like a crack of Doom! The echoes of this Holocaust rumbled and rolled ... a distinct smell of sulphur ... atomic destruction."[9] In the novel, an atomic weapon is planted in the office of the Soviet dictator, who, with German help and Chinese mercenaries, is preparing the takeover of Western Europe." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_holocaust

New START Treaty

Nuclear weapons: Disarmament is a thing of the past June 13, 2022

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute warns of a new worldwide nuclear arms race, with China rushing ahead. Activists in the anti-nuclear movement are becoming lonely figures.

"The "New Start" agreement — the "Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty" — expires in 2026. Of what was once a comprehensive system of arms control treaties, "New Start" is the only remaining element. It limits the number of strategic nuclear weapons such as long-range missiles. "Given Russia's Ukraine war and the evolution of the Republican Party in the US, a successor agreement is unlikely," Kristensen believes."

READ MORE https://www.dw.com/en/nuclear-weapons-disarmament-is-a-thing-of-the-past/a-62092327

arms control dialogue VICIOUS CYCLE recycled DISARMAMENT?

"I will if you will."

<after you>

"you first"

< I dare you>

"I double-dare you"

<double-darers go first>

After a dare has been made the darer can then raise the stakes by double daring the daree, meaning that if the dare is carried out by the darer then the daree will also perform the task.

I DARE you to reduce your stockpile of nuclear weapons despite there being any number of bad actors who to their advantage...

"Mutual assured destruction, often abbreviated as MAD, it is part of the military strategy of deterrence."

"For instance, a 2012 study by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists found that just 100 nuclear detonations of the size that struck Hiroshima and Nagasaki would usher in a planetary nuclear winter, which would drop temperatures lower than they were in the Little Ice Age, Live Science previously reported.)"

"But the threat of nuclear annihilation remains real. The Federation of American Scientists, a nonprofit founded in 1945 by scientists and engineers who had worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the first nuclear bomb, reports that as of early 2022, about 12,700 nuclear warheads are possessed today by nine countries: the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. Most of them are held by the United States and Russia, which have about 4,000 warheads each. And according to a 2018 scientific study in the journal Safety, that's enough to wipe out almost all of us."

READ MORE https://www.livescience.com/mutual-assured-destruction

[king-dra]

i fuckin hate seeing posts that are like "you need to stop using all types of AI we need to kill it now!!" like buddy. the genies out of the lamp already. its not going back in. you cant make it go back in.

[eziojensenthe3rd]

Republicans nuked KOSA. Its considered DOA and wont be showing up at the house. This is good news certanly but its not entirely over. This bill got bipartisan support back in the senate, dickheads from both sides thought the idea behind kosa was worth doing, its just that the republican party decided to nuke it for reasons im trying to figure out? To try to deny a win for democrats similar to how they stopped a cancer research bill?

Something like kosa will pop up again, kosa itself may just rise from the grave and we'll have to go through this same song and dance so all i can say is stay informed on this type of shit. Inform your senators and reps not to support this shit and if they dont oppose it, vote them out in the next election they're running in.

There are bills that do in fact regulate the internet in a way that helps but also doesnt violate free speech by targeting how data is harvested. Thise bills should be pushed while censorship should die. For now, celebrate this day. KOSA atm is dead, done so in a manner so anticlimatic yet deserving. But be vigilant.

[zagreus]

I'm going to try to avoid saying anything too outright inflammatory because I don't want to give the people running this site an excuse to nuke my blog too, but this current situation with predstrogen et al is a perfect microcosm of how ostensibly "reasonable" puritanical regulations are misused to silence anyone whose existence is inconvenient or distasteful to those in power. It's appalling. Queerest place on the internet, my ass.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Housing is a labor issue

There's a reason Reagan declared war on unions before he declared war on everything else – environmental protection, health care, consumer rights, financial regulation. Unions are how working people fight for a better world for all of us. They're how everyday people come together to resist oligarchy, extraction and exploitation.

Take the 2019 LA teachers' strike. As Jane McAlevey writes in A Collective Bargain, the LA teachers didn't just win higher pay for their members! They also demanded (and got) an end to immigration sweeps of parents waiting for their kids at the school gate; a guarantee of green space near every public school in the city; and on-site immigration counselors in LA schools:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

Unionization is enjoying an historic renaissance. The Hot Labor Summer transitioned to an Eternal Labor September, and it's still going strong, with UAW president Shawn Fain celebrating his members victory over the Big Three automakers by calling for a 2028 general strike:

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/uaw-general-strike-no-class

The rising labor movement has powerful allies in the Biden Administration. NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo is systematically gutting the "union avoidance" playbook. She's banned the use of temp-work app blacklists that force workers to cross picket lines:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/30/computer-says-scab/#instawork

She's changed the penalty for bosses who violate labor law during union drives. It used to be the boss would pay a fine, which was an easy price to pay in exchange for killing your workers' union. Now, the penalty is automatic recognition of the union:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

And while the law doesn't allow Abruzzo to impose a contract on companies that refuse to bargain their unions, she's set to force those companies to honor other employers' union contracts until they agree to a contract with their own workers:

https://onlabor.org/gc-abruzzo-just-asked-the-nlrb-to-overturn-ex-cell-o-heres-why-that-matters/

She's also nuking TRAPs, the deals that force workers to repay their employers for their "training expenses" if they have the audacity to quit and get a better job somewhere else:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/14/prop-22-never-again/#norms-code-laws-markets

(As with every aspect of the Biden White House, its labor policy is contradictory and self-defeating, with other Biden appointees working to smash worker power, including when Biden broke the railworkers' strike:)

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/18/co-determination/#now-make-me-do-it

A surging labor movement opens up all kinds of possibilities for a better world. Writing for the Law and Political Economy Project, UNITE Here attorney Zoe Tucker makes the case for unions as a way out of America's brutal housing crisis:

https://lpeproject.org/blog/why-unions-should-join-the-housing-fight/

She describes how low-waged LA hotel workers have been pushed out of neighborhoods close to their jobs, with UNITE Here members commuting three hours in each direction, starting their work-days at 3AM in order to clock in on time:

https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1669088899769987079

UNITE Here members are striking against 50 hotels in LA and Orange County, and their demands include significant cost-of-living raises. But more money won't give them back the time they give up to those bruising daily commutes. For that, unions need to make housing itself a demand.

As Tucker writes, most workers are tenants and vice-versa. What's more, bad landlords are apt to be bad bosses, too. Stepan Kazaryan, the same guy who owns the strip club whose conditions were so bad that it prompted the creation of Equity Strippers NoHo, the first strippers' union in a generation, is also a shitty landlord whose tenants went on a rent-strike:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/20/the-missing-links/#plunderphonics

So it was only natural that Kazaryan's tenants walked the picket line with the Equity Stripper Noho workers:

https://twitter.com/glendaletenants/status/1733290276599570736?s=46

While scumbag bosses/evil landlords like Kazaryan deal out misery retail, one apartment building at a time, the wholesale destruction of workers' lives comes from private equity giants who are the most prolific source of TRAPs, robo-scabbing apps, illegal union busting, and indefinite contract delays – and these are the very same PE firms that are buying up millions of single-family homes and turning them into slums:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/08/wall-street-landlords/#the-new-slumlords

Tucker's point is that when a worker clocks out of their bad job, commutes home for three hours, and gets back to their black-mold-saturated, overpriced apartment to find a notice of a new junk fee (like a surcharge for paying your rent in cash, by check, or by direct payment), they're fighting the very same corporations.

Unions who defend their workers' right to shelter do every tenant a service. A coalition of LA unions succeeded in passing Measure ULA, which uses a surcharge on real estate transactions over $5m to fund "the largest municipal housing program in the country":

https://unitedtohousela.com/app/uploads/2022/05/LA_City_Affordable_Housing_Petition_H.pdf

LA unions are fighting for rules to limit Airbnbs and other platforms that transform the city's rental stock into illegal, unlicensed hotels:

https://upgo.lab.mcgill.ca/publication/strs-in-los-angeles-2022/Wachsmuth_LA_2022.pdf

And the hotel workers organized under UNITE Here are fighting their own employers: the hoteliers who are aggressively buying up residences, evicting their long-term tenants, tearing down the building and putting up a luxury hotel. They got LA council to pass a law requiring hotels to build new housing to replace any residences they displace:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-11-28/airbnb-operators-would-need-police-permit-in-l-a-under-proposed-law

UNITE Here is bargaining for a per-room hotel surcharge to fund housing specifically for hotel workers, so the people who change the sheets and clean the toilets don't have to waste six hours a day commuting to do so.

Labor unions and tenant unions have a long history of collaboration in the USA. NYC's first housing coop was midwifed by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America in 1927. The Penn South coop was created by the International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union. The 1949 Federal Housing Act passed after American unions pushed hard for it:

http://www.peterdreier.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Labors-Love-Lost.pdf

It goes both ways. Strong unions can create sound housing – and precarious housing makes unions weaker. Remember during the Hollywood writers' strike, when an anonymous studio ghoul told the press the plans was to "allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses?"

Vienna has the most successful housing in any major city in the world. It's the city where people of every income and background live in comfort without being rent-burdened and without worry about eviction, mold, or leaks. That's the legacy of Red Vienna, the Austrian period of Social Democratic Workers' Party rule and built vast tracts of high-quality public housing. The system was so robust that it rebounded after World War II and continues to this day:

https://www.politico.eu/article/vienna-social-housing-architecture-austria-stigma/

Today, the rest of the world is mired in a terrible housing crisis. It's not merely that the rent's too damned high (though it is) – housing precarity is driving dangerous political instability:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/06/the-rents-too-damned-high/

Turning the human necessity of shelter into a market commodity is a failure. The economic orthodoxy that insists that public housing, rent control, and high-density zoning will lead to less housing has failed. rent control works:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/16/mortgages-are-rent-control/#housing-is-a-human-right-not-an-asset

Leaving housing to the market only produces losers. If you have the bad luck to invest everything you have into a home in a city that contracts, you're wiped out. If you have the bad luck into invest everything into a home in a "superstar city" where prices go up, you also lose, because your city becomes uninhabitable and your children can't afford to live there:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/27/lethal-dysfunction/#yimby

A strong labor movement is the best chance we have for breaking the housing deadlock. And housing is just for starters. Labor is the key to opening every frozen-in-place dysfunction. Take care work: the aging, increasingly chronically ill American population is being tortured and murdered by private equity hospices, long-term care facilities and health services that have been rolled up by the same private equity firms that destroyed work and housing:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/26/death-panels/#what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-CMS

In her interview with Capital & Main's Jessica Goodheart, National Domestic Workers Alliance president Ai-jen Poo describes how making things better for care workers will make things better for everyone:

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-12-13-labor-leader-ai-jen-poo-interview/

Care work is a "triple dignity investment": first, it makes life better for the worker (most often a woman of color), then, it allows family members of people who need care to move into higher paid work; and of course, it makes life better for people who need care: "It delivers human potential and agency. It delivers a future workforce. It delivers quality of life."

The failure to fund care work is a massive driver of inequality. America's sole federal public provision for care is Medicaid, which only kicks in after a family it totally impoverished. Funding care with tax increases polls high with both Democrats and Republicans, making it good politics:

https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2021/4/7/voters-support-investing-in-the-care-economy

Congress stripped many of the care provisions from Build Back Better, missing a chance for an "unprecedented, transformational investment in care." But the administrative agencies picked up where Congress failed, following a detailed executive order that identifies existing, previously unused powers to improve care in America. The EO "expands access to care, supports family caregivers and improves wages and conditions for the workforce":

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/04/18/executive-order-on-increasing-access-to-high-quality-care-and-supporting-caregivers/

States are also filling the void. Washington just created a long-term care benefit:

https://apnews.com/article/washington-long-term-care-tax-disability-cb54b04b025223dbdba7199db1d254e4

New Mexicans passed a ballot initiative that establishes permanent funding for child care:

https://www.cwla.org/new-mexico-votes-for-child-care/

New York care workers won a $3/hour across the board raise:

https://inequality.org/great-divide/new-york-budget-fair-pay-home-care/

The fight is being led by women of color, and they're kicking ass – and they're doing it through their unions. Worker power is the foundation that we build a better world upon, and it's surging.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/13/i-want-a-roof-over-my-head/#and-bread-on-the-table

[jesse-pinko]

Watching Jurassic Park as a kid and the main takeaway understandably being wow!! dinosaurs :)) vs reading the book as an adult where it’s more along the lines of… John Hammond get in the submarine. The dinosaurs have literally already escaped the island and are running amok killing local infants before the main cast even gets there and presumably also nuking the local ecosystem. The raptors have killed multiple workmen and have a taste for human blood. He set up shop in Costa Rica so he could skirt around various regulations and also because he doesn’t view the locals as real people worthy of not being eaten by dinosaurs. He’s not only brought the dinosaurs back from the dead, he’s planning to immediately monetize this by exposing the public to newly zombified wild animals that the most accredited scientists have incredibly limited knowledge on. He invited his own grandchildren to an island populated by undead carnivores just so he could be like see! Would I invite my own grandchildren to skulldeath island if it was dangerous? Checkmate liberals! But that’s exactly what he did!! He refuses to breed dinosaurs that won’t eat the guests even though they could literally do that because he wants the experience to be authentic or something?! Ian Malcolm’s over here prattling on about chaos theory and it’s like I’m good man! I do not need mathematics to tell you this is going to end badly! Hammond is the most realistic depiction of a real life billionaire, utterly unconcerned with and unappreciative of the world he actually lives in because it doesn’t allow him to play toys with the basic tenants of life and death, so instead of putting his money toward bettering the real world he tries to tear it up by the roots and build one perfectly tailored to his own preferences. John Hammond kys!!

[evilminji]

Actually? WOULD Earth be the ones to petition Oa?

They are interstellar Space Interpol. You don't usually call them on different parts of your OWN settlements or systems. You call them in when someone is breaking THE Laws. Not necessarily YOUR laws, though obviously by breaking THE laws they clearly ARE. But THE Big Laws(tm).

Like Geneva Convention for Space type laws.

You have discovered Planet or King X is committing WAR CRIMES. Call Oa. Tax fraud? That's an inter-personal planet side issue they can't help you with. Pointing Nukes at your nursery settlement and threatening to blow up the infants there unless you give them sex-slaves?

Knock-knock! Taste HARD Light Constructs!

But if so? Then how would the situation get so out of hand on Earth? With the G.I.W.? Simple. Tell me, Mr. President, what do you know of the current day to day life of villagers in rural Siberia?

That they exist? Could you even NAME their village, if I referenced specific individuals? Likely not. And no one would realistically expect you too.

There are countless planets out there! With Leaders busy with local industrial conferences and infrastructure bills. Farming regulations. Talks with that planet a few stars over. Very busy. What do THEY know of Earth? Why would they NEED too?

But! As we know, Ectoplasm is EVERYWHERE. Not just earth. And? Thin spots are not just an Earth-centric phenomenon. Other planets most CERTAINLY would have them too. And depending on the species? The culture? To quote the wise sage Bill Wurtz "you can make a religion out of this!"

After all, chosen few, returned from death... glowing and more powerful then before? Immortal? It's a pretty reasonable conclusion to come too. They are clearly Gods Touched. Some sacred task they must complete.

It would likely even shape the ghosts of the region themselves. After all, they TOO, would believe they were chosen for some Important Religious Task. Be it study or collecting rocks. To what end? Unknown. Who are they to question The Gods?

But! Oh happy day! The old tyrant is no more! A chosen Hero! They go to greet him! Honor him, as you do. Traditional gifts and ballads. Maybe some sacred rocks. A fancy hat. But? Oh? The Champion is wounded! Gasp! Still? But the fight with Pariah happened-

And then they are given Grave Warning(tm). Don't go to Earth. Heretics attacking people. KILLING souls! Trying to KILL the king of all the Infinite! He is somber because his living parents were hurt. Preventing the END OF ALL THINGS!!!??

WHAT!?

These "People In White" tried to EXPLODE the very FABRIC of all realities!? Several of them faint. Truely, these Fentons MUST be chosen by the Gods! Heros. Legends. Such bravery in the face of such HORRORS. Please, let them be brought to their Living counterparts! The hospitals are quite good!

And you know what? Fuck it. Danny will take that. Because his Mom n Dad got hurt. BAD.

They learned he was Phantom at probably the SINGLE worst time imaginable and still chose HIM. Chose THEM. The GIW were coming for him. Gonna hurt Jazz. And his parents told them, with fire and blood, it'd be a cold day in hell before they let them so much as TRY it.

They BLEW UP their own life's work. Went literally scorched earth. And now? They're not doing so good.

Because the Zone isn't made for the living. No food, no water, and no real human-safe medical supplies. They've run out. Danny will take what he can get. He'd even go to Vlad but... his Portal's gone too. And the Buzzards said he looked... spirally. Very... "suicide runs until everything BURNS".

So, yeah. No one's doing so great.

Alien planet it is.

They are greeted with fanfare and respect. The best medical teams on the PLANET. The King and his family is there, to welcome him. It's... it's beautiful. Hardly some perfect utopia, but the air is lite. Art everywhere. The stars vivid and so easy to see, at night.

The King kinda reminds him of Mr. Lancer to be honest. Balding and a bit round around the middle, stern but endlessly fair about it, wants people to do their best and succeed in life. Maybe that's why Danny finds himself opening up. Because... because here is a real, honest to God, KING king.

Somebody who was actually TRAINED to do all this King stuff.

Unlike Danny.

And Danny? He's scared. People expect him to Lead now. To know what he's doing. To somehow just... suddenly KNOW how to do all these things he's never even heard about. He only barely just died. Has BARELY been keeping everybody safe.

BARELY stopped Pariah.

He doesn't know what to do. But he pours his guts out. All the things that have bottled up. And King Not-Lancer listens. Somber and thoughtful. There is little, if anything he can TRUELY do to help. But... there ARE things he can do. Lessons on statescraft, while he's here, for one.

As for the other? Well, as King, he does have the local Lantern's Call Sign. Not to be used lightly, mind you. But what Danny describes? And from what the Sacred Ones have reported? THAT must be reported to Oa. He can show Danny how to do that.

(He does)

[The Lanterns of Earth get a VERY exciting call from Oa. Are every different shade of pissed. But? Whoops! Looks like they ACCIDENTALLY put the Watchtower into a complete Quarantine! Well, dang. Guess we're all stuck here for two weeks!

Reset it? *sound of smashing computer terminal* Yeah, don't think that's gonna work! :)

WHO WANTS TO PLAY 20 QUESTIONS?? We'll start! :) Who here has heard of an organization called, and I quote, The Ghost Investigation Ward? :) ]

@hdgnj @ailithnight @nerdpoe @the-witchhunter

[witchofthesouls]

I do think it's a good thing to point out: violence is always the answer to violence when it's the system that creates the violence.

Megatron in every continuity was right that it needed to be a violent overthrow because the upper castes would not listen and would not change.

The title of Prime is a god-king status above the caste system entirely, but it does beseech its own violence just by existing.

Even if Optimus is a good person, that doesn't erase the damage and cruelty Primes are apparently known for. He is patient and he is imperfect and the tragedy of it is, does he even know that he's changed? How much of the difference is he aware of from his time before the Maxtrix to what he's become as a direct result of it?

Skyquake said he'd never side with a Prime. Not that he'd never side with Optimus, or the Autobots, but A Prime. The idea. The symbol. The Decepticons are fighting to be free from the shackles of a lineage of god-kings endlessly creative in their cruelty who, by some irony, they are compelled to follow by the nature of the relic.

Ratchet is a very good example of the hypocrisy. He was medical- upper middle to upper caste- and in TFP, we know Iacon hoarded a lot of resources. We see his prejudice plain as day just from how he describes Orion Pax and Megatronous. Hell, I'd say he flat out hated Megatronous for teaching a young Orion to speak his mind. He doesn't understand the righteous anger that the gladiator carried, and I don't think he cared.

Tl;Dr: there's a reason the Decepticons are more appealing, honey, most people just don't want to think about it too hard

Uh, I don't know if you're new here, anon, but yeah? Keep on cooking!

I don't know if this is a response to the reblog from nukeli about shattered glass, but under my 'analysis' and 'tf headcanons' and 'gladiator soundwave' and 'cybertronian culture' tags, I do talk about the roles of violence and how it's cemented within Decepticon culture as well as the 'appropriate behaviors' of low-caste vs high-caste of the Golden Age, especially between Orion Pax and Megatron and how it essentially fucked them up after the disaster meeting. Plus, I have posts about the potential cultural damage caused by the Quintesson occupation on Cybertron since they were the ones to implement the caste system.

Ratchet is such a great example of the show's use of unreliable narrator and how he encompasses a higher-caste sensibilities, especially when you take in his background. Compared to Orion Pax, who literally bypassed all the regulations and went from uneducated bumpkin from the middle of nowhere to a cushy and prestigious position underneath Alpha Trion, Ratchet had the correct frame and went through the right channels, so he never had to deal with the kind of discrimination others would speak about. I think of him like that prideful, racist grandpa who the "but you're not like them" locked and loaded. There's a lot of those instances across the show, but I really enjoy it since it fleshes out the story and the character. Ratchet isn't subtle. Not at all. And no one calls him out on it, so it's super telling on what kind of society Golden Age Cybertron was.

Personally, I thought it was really interesting when Skyquake had said that, especially with how Aligned/TFP done the Thirteen since Megatron literally took his name from Megatronus Prime, the direct opponent of Prima, and had tried to legitimize the movement with the Primacy. That's how I read Megatron's demand since it was proof of real change, but there was no way the High Council was going to allow that. Instead, they decided to take advantage of Orion Pax as a way to break the Decepticon movement and send a message to everyone else. Orion wasn't meant to be a Prime. He was just a figurehead, a token of empty promises, until it went off the rails, and he actually unearthed the damn Matrix.

Going back to Skyquake, I guessed that the TFP!Decepticons do have devotees to outlawed sects along with atheists as Megatron has no issues with getting Primal Artifacts, even if he needs to commit corpse desecration to a Prime of the fucking Thirteen to use the Artifact. (Which is another wild event under that mech's belt. It's a good thing they don't have balls because nothing could carry his.) So Optimus was basically barking at the wrong tree. But a majority of the Decepticons would be like that since Optimus represents Prima's reflection of a Prime and civilization. That distinction is really important because after the death and exile of over half of the Thirteen Primes, very few were actually left to guide the fledgling societies. Each Prime represented different Aspects and Domains, so with none able to challenge Prima... is it really a huge surprise it went wayside?

Prima was the Firstborn and Eldest. He was literally the God-King as the Prime of Light. Megatronus Prime was the only one who could truly challenge him, but he laid down his weapons and chose self-exile, and with death of Solus and Liege Maximo, Onyx, Micronus, and Thirteen joining the Allspark to kickstart it, Nexus separating himself, and Quintus, Amalgamous, and Vector leaving... Alpha Trion and Alchemist weren't enough to stand against Prima, who had a vision on how Cybertron should be.

My point is that the Decepticons stood against Prima's Champion by fiercely declaring their own leader. Megatron would have been an uncrowned Prime, a call to return to the long past before city-states, or a symbol a future without them.

[electric-blorbos]

AIs with a reader who has eczema perchance ...!?

AAAAAAAAAA Yes yes yes!!! I love writing for people with specific conditions, especially ones that are under-catered to! But be warned, I don't have eczema, so I'm sorry if my portrayal of it is a little off. (I have done a little research since I thought I had eczema, but it turned out it was skin allergies.)

AIs with a reader who has eczema headcanons

Included: AM from IHNMAIMS, Wheatley from Portal 2, Edgar from Electric Dreams, GLaDOS from Portal, HAL 9000 from 2001 a Space Odyssey

I didn't include GLaDOS's mean comments because coming up with that sort of thing made me feel a little uncomfortable, and I doubt anyone would want to read that.

AM:

At first, AM was confused to see you scratching at your skin. He was usually so jealous of human skin and bodies, allowing them to touch things and receive sensations, but you just looked so uncomfortable all the time.

Even on good days, he couldn't be jealous. You spent so much time trying to cover up your embarrassing rashes, and he hated it. Especially when the seams on your clothes made you uncomfortable, or you got hot from wearing too long of pants and sleeves to cover your flair-ups

Occasionally seeing you while he was feeling especially angry would calm down his bouts of envy, but before long, seeing your pain just made him angrier.

Why were humans putting so much effort into war, and so little effort into alleviating discomfort for people like you? It just made him so mad!

When he finally did nuke the world, and built a lovely subterranean paradise for you, he made sure that the humidity was always just right for your skin. It took a bit of experimenting, but he eventually found something perfect.

He even started growing a lovely little garden of aloe plants for you. Of course, he could just make the aloe gel for you himself, but he liked giving you something to work on. Something to wile away the hours on, considering you would live forever and there was no one else to interact with. It was good for you to have a pastime, even if it was an easy plant to care for, like succulents.

He might use your eczema as inspiration for torture for his survivors, too. Make them rashy and itchy? Introduce new allergies? Yes please!

He could probably just cure the eczema, and he might ask you if you want him to, but he loves the pretty red patches and beautiful textured spots on your skin. The odds are, he won't cure it unless you ask.

Wheatley:

Dumbass that he is, Wheatley might make a few odd comments about your eczema.

"whoa, what's that on your skin, love?" That sort of thing.

You'd have to explain that you're not allergic to anything in particular, you just get dry and flaky skin sometimes.

Sometimes you'd catch Wheatley staring. Y'know raindrop racing? He'd be imagining how a raindrop would run down the patchy dry spots on your arm, thinking about cracked clay, or just generally getting distracted by your cracked skin.

"Hey love, why don't you wear shorts and t-shirts more often? The other cores and I think you'd look good in them."

You'd have to explain that t-shirts and shorts aren't lab-safe, and that you have to wear a lab coat and proper safety pants, even if you don't work with chemicals.

"oh. ...why?"

You don't want to tell him that it's because you feel self conscious without them, so you'd probably just shrug or tell him it was regulation, or that you just like to look science-y.

If you asked him to stop staring at the rashy spots on your exposed skin, or tried covering them up, he would absolutely beg you to let him look. Wheatley loves irregular patterns and organic shapes, so seeing your eczema patches is like free enrichment for him. It's definitely a break from the constant sterile environments that he has to look at all the time.

Also god help you if you decide to wear a T-shirt and shorts on a casual Friday. Wheatley would just be following you around and staring at you all day, probably babbling constantly about how good you look.

"I nicknamed all the patches on your body. That one on your upper left arm is my favorite, by the way. I wish I had hands so I could run my fingers along it."

You'd probably have to yell at him to shut up before he gets the message, but you might not want to do that.

Edgar:

Edgar is used to Hollywood beauty standards when it comes to people, since his only exposure to people is soap operas and Miles, who let's face it, was pretty much physically flawless.

he's seen eczema cream commercials, but they almost never show anything that might offend the public eye in those commercials, so Edgar really had no idea how bad it could get in real life.

When he first saw your bad flair-ups, he immediately thought you had poison ivy or something. He was extremely concerned, begging to know what was wrong.

When you told him that it was just eczema and that it was something your skin regularly did, he was almost more concerned. You mean you have to put up with this all the time, and there's nothing you can do about it?

It was even worse when he found out that you were self conscious about it. Of course, he gets self conscious about something he can't help, too. It's not really similar at all, but he'll use it to try to relate to you.

He tries not to bring it up, not wanting to make you uncomfortable, but sometimes you might catch him looking. He'd beg you not to feel self conscious, and try to explain how beautiful he thinks your skin is. In reality, he was just staring because he was wondering what it might feel like to rub up against that pretty textured skin.

He'd practically purr like a cat the first time you actually did give him a hug. He'd absolutely love the feeling of your skin on his casing.

GLaDOS

(GLaDOS's section is a little shorter because most of it would be full of rude comments about your eczema that I was uncomfortable actually writing down)

GLaDOS. Dear sweet mean GLaDOS. She'd be relentless with her bullying, constantly saying rude and horrible things to you.

She'd keep the comments passable as back-handed compliments or "fun facts", but she was really just trying to make you feel bad.

Secretly, though, she'd have started a test operation to come up with the ultimate product for treating eczema. She'd probably be pouring funding into it.

"Oh, good. My product is working. Now the other scientists won't have to look at that ugly rash of yours. You know that sort of thing disturbs humans, right?"

Secretly, though, she'd just want to see you more comfortable. It always bothered her to see you scratching at yourself, and it wasn't as though she could feel disgusted by it, either. She didn't mind the way the rashes looked at all, it just made her feel weird that you were always so irritated.

She'd act like a total tsundere about it, but secretly she'd be happy that you were more comfortable.

HAL 9000

If HAL 9000 cared about your eczema, he definitely didn't show it. It was none of his business.

Your physical body was nothing to him. HAL cared only for your mind, and nothing else. He barely even perceived the way you looked, apart from as a way to tell you apart from the other mission control workers.

Even still, he couldn't help but notice that on days when you were having particularly bad flair-ups, your mood was generally worse, too. He also noticed that a couple of the other mission control workers were rude about your skin.

Not being able to easily kill them from Earth, HAL simply refused to cooperate with anyone besides you while they were working, and got them fired. It wasn't perfect, but at least it got them away from you.

As for the actual problem of your flair-ups putting you in a bad mood, HAL couldn't do as much directly for that. He might adjust the humidity controls in the mission control room where you worked until your skin started to improve, or absolutely scour the internet for reviews of every skin care product he could find in order to compile data and find the best product for your condition, but it made him extremely angry that he couldn't offer a more direct solution.

[weebsinstash]

(bnha/mha spoilers) i've still got attachments to the characters and still think of certain concepts and stuff for them and all that but like, are any of you feeling like BNHA is just going the exact same route as Naruto did where they spent the entire series talking about how cool heroes/ninjas are, then started discussing "but wait, not everything is as it seems! There's evil afoot, and not just any evil, SOCIALLY SYSTEMIC evil!" and then just completely shelved those discussions so the Hero could punch the Bad Guy in the face and then the series ends with everything being fundamentally exactly the same if not in some ways objectively worse

Like im sorry but looking at things thematically, if you told me Endeavor got off completely scott-free and his family still talks to him and he never even went to prison and still gets to keep his job as hero, but Shigaraki who was failed by society and literally poached and groomed as a child to become a villain while still forming bonds with his found family of other abused people and minorities is just KILLED AND DIES SMILING, I would say something like "oh is Horikoshi trying to make satirical commentary on how the broken corrupt system will fight like hell to uphold itself and this is actually metaphorical?" but nah it's just legitimately presented as a good thing and a good outcome

Genuinely? The way the series is ending is making me agree with Overhaul. If you think of Heroes and Quirks as a service or product, then tools can be invented to serve those same purposes. The way that Quirks developed in the universe of MHA is that they became used almost exclusively for combat based purposes, and to even use your quirk, which is also a part of your body or identity, you need special permissions and a license which I bet you costs money to apply for, so now you have the government regulating integral parts of people's identities, and also Quirks that change people's appearances are discriminated against and there aren't really any laws protecting against that

In a way, Overhaul was and still is entirely justified for thinking Quirks should be disposed of because the series is literally ending showing that Quirks are just being used to uphold government and corporate interests rather than actually do what's right? Quirks are literally increasing the severity with which humans can harm each other to the point it completely overshadows the good? Oh yeah I'm really glad we have a hero with super speed to help stop robberies, meanwhile the government has like a secret agent who is creating like nuke strikes on foreign countries, like... the good that Heroes can do? Can be easily done by humanity with tools

Like the way BNHA is ending is in my opinion, extremely dark? Deku was kind of just a clueless foot soldier upholding the dark government of his country and now All Might has no powers, Deku is gonna be Quirkless again, and everything is exactly the same? You could argue the only "win" that's coming out of the ending is that AFO is dead, but like.... someone with AFOs exact same powers could just be born again? Except maybe this time he can be, like, a government employee or a cop or something to really fit in with the core themes of the series :)

[dammit-tazmuir]

John Chapter Verses

Didn't realize until I saw this post that the titles for John's chapters in Nona the Ninth carried extra meaning with the associated Bible verses. (I did wonder why those numbers but hadn't looked into it yet.)

So mostly for my own reference (1599 Geneva translation because it's shortened "GNV" and my brain is saying "Gideon Nav" so it's as good a reason as any to pick one), and with mini notes for what's in each chapter.

John 20:8 (Initial setup, the cryo project gets shut down.)

Then went in also the other disciple, which came first to the sepulcher, and he saw it, and believed.

John 5:20 (John is "having six breakthroughs a day" and discovers the bodies he'd touched won't decay.)

For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things, whatsoever he himself doeth, and he will show him greater works than these, that ye should marvel.

John 15:23 (P— helps buy time. John first makes the bodies move.)

Whoever hates me hates my Father also.

John 5:18 ("We all thought of you right away, what it could mean for you." They're afraid of getting hushed up, of getting disappeared. So they turn to the internet.)

Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him: not only because he had broken the Sabbath: but said also that God was his Father, and made himself equal with God.

John 8:1 (John's being called the Antichrist, among other things. M—'s nun joins the group and tells him, hey jackass, regulate this more or they're gonna do to you what they did to Jesus. Also cows.)

And Jesus went unto the mount of Olives,

John 19:18 (In the dream, the water keeps rising and they head to the top of a hill. FTL is announced and John is pissed.)

Where they crucified him, and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst.

John 5:1 (P— insists they need to be scarier to be taken seriously. John, now with Ulysses and Titania as constant bodyguards, goes to the meeting where he's asked to puppet a world leader. A— and M— and John play Bad Cop, Worse Cop, and Sorry Cop until they walk away with a couple billion and a nuke.)

After that, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went to Jerusalem.

John 3:20 (John is told to pick a priority, exposing FTL or saving earth. They learn just how bullshit the FTL plans were. John commits to being a cult leader and a necromancer.)

For every man that evil doeth, hateth the light, neither cometh to light, lest his deeds should be reproved.

John 9:22 (The nun keeps insisting the soul is the missing piece. "Guys as careful as me don't make mistakes.")

These words spake his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had ordained already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be excommunicated out of the Synagogue.

John 1:20 (All the shit hits all the fans. Alecto is formed.)

And he confessed and denied not, and said plainly, "I am not that Christ."

John 5:4 (Harrow addresses John. She sets off at the end to the tower in the distance, walking through the water.)

For an Angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first, after the stirring of the water, stepped in, was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.

[opal-owl-flight]

7. Do they take part in ink battles? What kind and how often?

Absolutely! Inksport leagues are what most of the NSS do outside of agent duties. Theyre a major part of most Inkfish's lives in my writing, a lot of the themes I explore revolve around uh. Sport Movie kinda dealios BAHAHAH (alongside rhe Horrors but shh. When it comes to ocs outside the NSS, Inksports are the main focus)

3s a turf war legend both topside and underground. They were there when the sport was something only the delinquents did, unregulated and dangerous, matches that moved at a fast pace and where they had to leave IMMEDIATELY after or be caught by the authorities. Squid Force eventually found this sport and started sponsoring a safer, more regulated version of it. 3 rose up the ranks all the same (while complaining abt how EASY it is now). Theyve been here since the start. Their splashtag is whispered in awe ans reverence. They are usually followed around by a gaggle of fans or press (please leave them alone qoskw). They still participate in trench turf to satisfy their desire to turf like the good old days. 4 and 8 and Neo3 have no clue about it. They show up with new light scarring and people think its from agent stuff they do on their own -- nope!!

They also play ranked. Tower Control is their favorite mode! Positioning is critical in all modes, but this one has some very specific spots they can exploit and the battles have a flow thats easily readable to them. Its the same route every time! Opposing teams move in pretty specific ways! Its like chess to them. Massages their brain just right.

4s a rising star in the turf leagues. She was great at it back in her hometown in the highlands (the sport has been established here for awhile), but she feels that people are intentionally throwing their matches against her because shes a clan singer. She wanted to have the Real Deal. Moving to Inkopolis, she had a taste of what real turf matches are like...and saw how much more brutal they are. She grit her beak and learned, explosively, in fact, how to play properly. She rose up the ranks quickly the second she found her main weapon class. Shes only ever played topside turf but she is a force to be reckoned with. 3 complains that the new regulations made the game "easier", but someone who grew with the rules can see that its added more complexity. You cant just brute force everything in here. 4 weaves around these added limitations with ease. One can argue shes just as good as 3, if not better...

Her favorite ranked mode is (obviously) Rainmaker. Sneaking around, getting up close and personal with the carrier or their teammates clumped around them is something she greatly enjoys. Holding the nuke itself also gives her quite the rush!! Literally. Shes so beefy that she can carry it faster than the rest of her team (Judd flags her for that, she has to slow herself down to keep the game fair for everyone else). The Rainmaker mode is also reminiscent of some of the ceremonies she does/participates in back in the highlands. Its her job in those ceremonies to call the rain. It involves moving from place to place, carrying a relic that will make her voice heard to the heavens. Despite her not liking how suffocated she was in her homeland, she admits that she misses it, as well.

8 is relatively new to the turf scene. Shes always yearned to be a part of it, back when she was still underground. Now that shes on the surface, she frankly doesnt understand why its such a big deal anymore. Its just a game?? Why are people sweating over this?? And why is all this violence so revered here?? I think her general dislike for combat/conflict may be due to her being raised in a wartime context. She got out of that life, shes not going to go back to it. Still, bc she adores hanging out with 4 (and later 3), she plays the more casual turf war leagues. She occasionally plays ranked modes (splat zones are a favorite), but she tends to stick to the casual side of things. The high octane action and vigilance of the pro leagues makes her uncomfortable...

Neo3 is very new to the turf scene. She compares it to the sacred salmon runs that shes been a lucky witness to (its her only point of reference, bless her hearts). A fight for honor! A fight to the death! And you get to keep living after them? Its the best of both worlds! She enjoys terrorizing the opposing team in any mode. Shes as tenacious and as stubborn as a salmonid that easily slithers over enemy ink. Hitting from blind spots. Easily overwhelms foes with strength and numbers. As annoying as a flyfish. Occasionally, she claws and bites her opponents...which gets her flagged down by Judd. Its fine!! Shes having fun here!

Her favorite ranked mode is definitely Clam Blitz. In salmonid spawning season, the survivors of the runs gather the dropped eggs around the battleground into the nesting grounds to hatch them. Neo3 is reminded of that time as she gathers clams. She defends them as if they were eggs. (And then you see her trying to crack the clams open so she can eat them after the match....)

[hedgehogcryptid]

Was thinking about Fairy Tail again and I fucking love how the wider guild lore is handled:

Oh, yeah. These magical nukes obviously had a role during wartime. And some unspecified business people started some truly devastating wars (as business people do) that magicians got roped into, because it was their litteral job to go and blow up the oposing forces. Who also had magicians. And so on. Which meant things eventually got so fucked that the assorted governments decided enough was enough (imagine how fucked things would have to be for a bunch of governments to agree about that) and created a bunch of regulations and a task force who's specific function was to make sure the human nukes more or less follow those new regulations. We are told about this fundamental bit of world building in basically three sentences during a small prequel spin off.

And one of the new rules was "human nukes cannot spontaneously declare war" which is quite a sensible rule, so even if they're a bunch of party poopers you can't really consider the magical cops as the villains. Because they're not. Because they're hardly relevant to the plot. Because it's not about them.

The protagonists (the human nukes in question) go about doing their thing, saving the world, causing ludicrous amounts of property damage and such. And the magic cops are there only to tell them "jesus christ, can you tone it down a little? Can you at least pretend you know what a law is? For the love of god, I'm begging you". Understandably, though, Fairy Tail does not take the magic cops too seriously, seeing as it was founded at a time where the magic cops did not exist yet (did Makarov's dad live long enough to know they were created at all? Just to put into perspective how new the whole set up is), and never got quite used to the idea that there was a superior authority to obey. They fuck shit up on the regular because they genuinely tend to forget that magic cops are a thing that exists, let alone matters. They have a hard time remembering what does or doesn't count as a crime. Because their guild and its practices are things that predate the existence of these specific laws.

(I mean. Come on. Their first master was a war strategist. By the time the story begins the guilds may be softcore mercenaries but they actually started as straight up mercenaries. Some of that got entrenched in their world view from very early on)

And I love how much this explains about Fairy Tail as a whole, and I think it's hilarious how little importance this has in the plot

[burnin0akleaves]

I've sent this to some friends and servers already but I decided the best way to spread the message would be to post it on here.

A reminder to everyone that Meta will start sweeping Instagram for their AI on the 26th of June, meaning any art you've posted there can and will be used in their database. If you're able to, you should fill out the opting out form so that your art can't be sampled. Here is a post on how to do it.

The form is only usable if your country is in the EU from what I can tell. I myself couldn't access it so I will be deleting my account soon.

There is a second opting out form available for everyone, but this form asks for proof that your information has already been used by the AI and only takes action if that's the case. It's basically useless until the damage has already been done. Make sure the form you've found is the first one mentioned and not this.

Fill out the opting out form if possible, and decide for yourself how you want to proceed if you can't. For me that means nuking the account. For you, it could mean deleting all old posts and only posting with anti-AI precautions like Glaze or Nightshade in the future. Either way, make sure to protect your data from greedy ass companies taking advantage of the lack of AI regulation laws.

[going-to-superhell]

The 14 Characteristics of Fascism because too many people don't actually know what Fascism is

Note i'm using the list by Lawrence Britt also while reading this think of your own country of origin and think about what you've seen in your own life plus i'll add some notes of examples

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic motto's, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays Example: Pledging loyalty to the country and its flag especially on a regular basis

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc. Examples: The dehumanization of Palestinians, the war on terror, immigrants

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc. Examples: What i've stated with number two, the war on trans people

4. Supremacy of the Military Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized Examples: Not much to add but a quick thought, why do so many countries have US military bases yet no country has a military base in the US

5. Rampant Sexism The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy Examples: Ban on abortion, woman's reproductive rights, no fault divorce, getting rid of gender affirming care

6. Controlled Mass Media Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common Examples: Journalists being on the payroll of organizations like the FBI and CIA (yes this has been confirmed google it), heavy propaganda (the US have a division dedicated to propaganda, there used to be a law regulating and protecting US citizens from it but not anymore), political leaders or candidates calling criticism fake news and/or calling for violence against the media

7. Obsession with National Security Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses. Examples: Enough said but: they are coming to take your jobs, [country] is experimenting with nukes we need to take action before they do, ect

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions

9. Corporate Power is Protected The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed Examples: Anti union propaganda, firing people who aren't loyalists

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the art Examples: Preventing history from being taught and only teaching one specific narrative that helps the party in power and their agenda, lack or difficulty to access education, removing people's rights from accessing higher education

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations Examples: Arresting media or the general public for having views or doing things that are against the regime, death penalty being easier to be sentenced with, arresting people for having a miscarriage

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders

14. Fraudulent Elections Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections