#or at least am winning

[local-magpie]

sometimes these days i think about who I was in 2017, compare them to who I am now. i've come so far, in so many ways, and I can't help but see that person as someone else entirely. They were so helpless, too proud to accept help or even that they needed help. They couldn't cook, couldn't keep a single thing clean - the guy I was dating back then once found a not-quite-empty half gallon of milk ready to explode behind my desk - and they couldn't make it to class, hardly ever. They went to OSU for two semesters, a different major each one because they couldn't decide what to do with themselves, and promptly failed out because they could not make it to class. There's similarities, I was still there under the skin; I've always been a fighter, never willing to give up, but back then I didn't even have a vision of what I wanted. I was just flailing around, determined to keep my head above water and convinced that was the whole end goal of my life.

It's like to that person, nothing better was even imagineable, which is probably why this year has been so surreal. Am I making any sales yet on my stock art? No, lol, I'm not even marketing enough for half my friends to know I'm in the ttrpg sphere professionally, as it turns out. But I'm doing it. I'm doing regular releases, actually keeping to a professional goal - I have a trade name, I'm networking, I've already had one paid project this year. I fought tooth and claw to finally get my degree, and now I have a salaried job. It's not perfect, but I finally fucking figured out what I'm fighting for, and it's not settling for being able to breathe. The last few years I've been so much happier than like... any other time in my life, even while dealing with some seriously crushing medical issues that STILL affect me today, and while I've been sort of confused but not questioning it this whole time, I think this is the root of it.

I'm not trying to go it alone, I'm not accepting anything less than happiness. I'm setting goals based on what will make me happy and satisfied with my life, instead of what I think I can convince life to give me. It's not easy, nothing worthwhile is, but I think I'd actually rather die than go back to who I was back then, wallowing in my circumstances and telling myself it was enough.

[ba1laur]

smell you later

[jaylynx1412]

I have a homophobic slur to say

[mokadevs]

day 10: love is devotion

[iguessitsjustme]

The competitors

Pat and Pran:

Jack and Joke:

*I warned yall I was feeling cruel tonight

[buttercup-barf]

Happy Pizzer Wowzer day. Take a nap amidst your travels, why don't you?

[redliferiot]

grian pearl and scott: none of us chose or even truly desired to win, rather, victory was thrust upon us like the cloak of destiny that we all don. victory was unwelcome and in some cases unexpected, it could've been anyone but it was us martyn: i murdered cause i wanted to win and i won cause i wanted to murder

[mpliego]

been thinking about favourable conditions by @sunsafewriting for weeks... so I made something :)

[zkretchy]

It's 2am and I can't sleep, have this silly doodle

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

sharing is caring <3

[horsemeatluvr23]

the juppet !! i just realised he is jerma posing i swear that was unintentional...... i spent so long digging thru muppet concept art and looking at old puppet designs just to end up doing a rly simple drawing but. i love joehills!! i have only been watching them for like 4 years but their videos r so special to me :3

[dawnthefluffyduck]

Crazy issues that come up when a character is written a little too well

[companion-showdown]

Which companion is the most normal person?

TOURNAMENT MASTERPOST

[hungergameshyperfixation]

I am so looking forward to SotR basically being a Pyrrhic Victory Narrative.

[lost-estradiographer]

I

know that voting for the status quo sucks.

To say it "sucks" massively understates the exact amount of suffering that exists under the status quo, an amount that I acknowledge I am too privileged to ever fully grasp.

I cannot magically provide some viable third-party candidate just barely a month before the election. I cannot solve Israel/Palestine Conflict that has haunted the world for over 70 years. I am a 29-year old transgender woman working her way through her own mental illnesses, trauma, and an undergraduate degree. I was never going to be the one to solve anything here.

All I can tell you is that regardless of whether you vote or not, there will be a presidential election. It's going to be a shitshow, regardless. Whether you vote or not, there will be a different president in January. Voting for the status quo may not be directly in your interests.

We had four years of Trump and we are still trying to unfuck ourselves from that. The beginning of my antagonistic relationship with the government was protesting in the streets of DC under his administration. I've fled from the Metro PD. I've put on a change of clothes and slipped out the back door of a gay sports bar.

Fucking vote.

Fucking vote.

Fucking vote.

Honestly, I

I don't want to see this voter apathy shit anymore.

People are going to keep dying under any president. Any president can, and probably wil, be morally culpable for the deaths of innocent people, both in the country and abroad. Carter might be the last president we had that wasn't overtly a war criminal and we still had foreign civilians killed by U.S. military involvement under the Carter admin.

I'm torn between asking you to block me, or asking you to message me, if you're taking the route of voter apathy. I'll tell you right away, here and now, that I probably don't have a solution to whatever problem is keeping you from voting for Harris. I can't even solve my own problems right, tbh. The government isn't really here for me, either.

But there isn't going to be some sort of miraculous revolution that results in The Ending Where Everyone Lives. If there's a revolution, then supply chains will falter and children and the infirm will die of preventable diseases and infections and complications in hospitals that would have otherwise been able to easily deal with such things. That's what happens in a revolution. I'm after the long-term idea where Humanity as a species lives. I'm after the route where we don't have an ending, we keep going.

Fucking vote, because exactly one of the two leading presidential candidates believes climate change is real, and it is the single greatest threat to all life on earth. We have spent the past 250 years, not just playing God with the environment, but actively creating an ecological niche in which future generations of humanity must continue to play God with the environment, dragging it back to a healthy place drop by drop, inch by inch, a degree at a time.

Or, I mean, don't vote. Either way, we'll all die at some point. Perhaps some of us will be lucky enough to die standing by our principles.

Those lucky few will become soil one day, just like I will.

I am begging you on my hands and knees to fucking vote, though, because our options are The Status Quo vs. Worse. That's

That's it.

There is no door number three right now. Our system, our flawed and broken and imbalanced and unjust system, does not accommodate for a third door. Whether you vote or not, you will be dragged through either Door 1 or Door 2 with all of humanity, as we whirl through the cosmos upon our tiny little speck of dust. The only other legitimate option is to allow oneself to become trampled; to become soil early. I don't say legitimate to give this option legitimacy, but to make clear that again, there is no door three. Door three is a casket. A one-way bed.

I didn't vote in 2016, and I'm hoping that you'll vote for the status quo this time, because that's the route that gives me the best odds of having a long and healthy life to regret my failure through inaction.

Just please

Fucking vote.

Or again, if you're taking the apathy route, probably just save me the time of blocking you, because you're not going to magically pull a viable third-party candidate out of your pocket less than six weeks before the election.

[thetorturedlovergirl]

Kate Stewart I admire you. The looks, the voice, the personality!!

Did she hire children? Yes, and ?? This is good work experience for their future. Their resumes are going to be perfect. She didn't do anything wrong.