#stop fucking calling me a doomer

[submalevolentgrace]

..."The [March 2023 IPCC] report is clear what is at stake – everything: “There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.”

“The choices and actions implemented in this decade [ie by 2030] will have impacts now and for thousands of years,” it says. The climate crisis is already taking away lives and livelihoods across the world, and the report says the future effects will be even worse than was thought: “For any given future warming level, many climate-related risks are higher than [previously] assessed.”...

“Continued emissions will further affect all major climate system components, and many changes will be irreversible on centennial to millennial time scales,” it says. To follow the path of least suffering – limiting global temperature rise to 1.5C – greenhouse gas emissions must peak “at the latest before 2025”, the report says, followed by “deep global reductions”. Yet in 2022, global emissions rose again to set a new record.

The 1.5C goal appears virtually out of reach, the IPCC says: “In the near-term, global warming is more likely than not to reach 1.5C even under a very low emission scenario.” A huge ramping up of work to protect people will therefore be needed. For example, “extreme sea level events” expected once a century today will strike at least once a year by 2100 in half of all monitored locations."...

"The report presents the choice humanity faces in stark terms, made all the more chilling by the fact this is the compromise language agreed by all the world nations – many would go further if speaking alone. But it also presents the signposts to the path the world should and could take to secure that liveable future."...

"The report does not shy away from the daunting scale of the choices we need to make: “The systemic change required to achieve rapid and deep emissions reductions and transformative adaptation to climate change is unprecedented in terms of scale [and] near-term actions involve high up-front investments.”

The money is key but, the report says, “there is sufficient global capital to close the global investment gaps” if barriers to the redirection of financial flows are overcome. Furthermore, it says, the costs of climate action are clearly lower than the damages climate chaos will cause.

But there is also a gaping climate policy gap, between what is in place and what is needed: “Without a strengthening of policies, global warming of 3.2C is projected by 2100.” That is the “highway to hell”."

[earth-64]

Wake Up Call - Nintendo Alarmo

All through Summer 2024 the Nintendo fandom had been in a fervor. The Nintendo Switch’s reign had eclipsed its seven year apex: the time had come for a new flagship piece of hardware to take its place. The stage seemed to be set: the game releases were thinning, the Nintendo Directs sparse, and the major game releases clearly smaller, outsourced, and not the main focus of development. Nintendo had already acknowledged the new machine’s existence with an assurance of it being announced within the fiscal year, followed by a continuous promise below each and every announcement stream that there “will be no mention of the Nintendo Switch successor during [...] these presentations.”

As the dog days passed by, during the fleeting few weeks of Fall that still existed between the ever widening record-high Summers and devastating Winter storms, it seemed undeniable that the stage was being set. Nintendo filed new patents for motion sensor technology. Word got out that they were filming a commercial for a new piece of hardware. They flew out content creators to demo something kept under wraps. And on October 9th, 2024, fans awoke to a flurry of notifications, an early morning unheralded announcement shaking the very foundations of what was thought possible for the gaming giant: 

Alarmo.

Nintendo’s smart alarm clock. A touchscreen device with a sleek interface, loaded with 35 themes inspired by 5 games (and more to come), and a $100 price tag. Their patented motion sensing technology made for a hands-free experience. Set the alarm once and from then on, each and every morning, your eyes would flutter open to a jazzy Mario tune, and your triumphant rise from bed would be rewarded with a victory jingle, a “Lets-A-Go!”, and a shot of nostalgic dopamine. 

But is nostalgic the right word? The motion sensor only works with a very specific set-up: most notably being limited to one person, a small bed, and a room that will remain otherwise empty through the night. No spouses, no pets, no roommates. It was clear this was intended for a child’s room. So no, it wasn’t nostalgic. At least not yet. It was designed to create new nostalgia.

Nintendo Alarmo, along with the similarly aimed Pokemon Sleep, are part of Nintendo’s long-running obsession with intentionally forming habits and responses. From the scheduled broadcasts of the Satellaview to the daily-task centric Animal Crossing series, and especially the predatory practices of their mobile game releases, Nintendo had a penchant for designing parasites that attached themselves to your waking (and non-waking) cycle. 

Today I’ll be sharing excerpts from interviews with people who received Alarmos as children, and uncover the shocking effects of waking each morning to a pavlovian coin-get jingle. But first, speaking of coin-getting, a word from today’s sponsor: LoanFast. Is payday just a—

God what a waste of time. Shit’s always so negative these days. These nostalgia-grab video essays used to be pleasant. Here’s an old-school animated movie you haven’t seen since the DVD bargain bin! Top ten cartoons of the 2010s! The misunderstood genius of the Wii U! But nah, now time has crept past the optimistic millennials. We’re struggling to find the diamonds in the rough patch that was the 2020s, to salvage anything from that fucking trash heap of a decade. God, no wait. Now I sound like them. I grew up with that age of media. I love that age of media. It’s just so easy to let the zeitgeist of doomerism– Okay stop. It’s way too easy to let these things override my brain. I had to mentally backspace the phrase “easily impressionable” right there too. I watch these videos with their big words and their gloomy ways of lookin at life and I feel it all start to seep into me. 

Millennials will convince you that the 00s were the peak of human creation. That the 10s were the last big push of creativity. But that's just not true! My cartoons were way better! Our video games are just objectively cooler and bigger! Adults get stuck on trying to make fun of my generation for the same few bullshit things, if I hear one more Skibidi Rizz I’m gonna– Shouldn’t think like that. I’m 24 now. That’s an adult. I’m an adult. I keep saying that and it doesn’t sound any more true. It happened so fast. It took so much time but it happened so fast. I was just a kid, playing Super Mario Odyssey on an old LCD, and then I was a teenager and a lot happened, so much happened, and now I’m an adult playing Super Mario Odyssey on an old LCD and nothing happens, nothing ever happens. I am an adult and it is Christmas Eve and I am alone.

It was Christmas Eve then too. Back when Christmas felt like Christmas. I was 12 years old when I got the Nintendo Alarmo. December 24th, 2024 when I tore open my first present of the year. It was tradition to get one present the night before, usually something to pass the time until I was more tired than I was excited for the next morning. You wouldn’t think a clock would keep me busy but I spent the whole evening fiddling with the options, looking at every theme, resetting the time to hear the top-of-the-hour jingles for each game. I remember dad helping me put in the wi-fi password, I remember mom’s hurried trip to whatever convenience store was still open on the holiday because the damned thing didn’t come with an AC adapter. She brought back a package of Reese’s and one of those juice drinks with a plastic toy on it. It was… a Spongebob one? Yeah, and I set it on the shelf and it fell off during all the unwrapping the next day and it rolled underneath the shelf and it was down there for months and I’m remembering every single time I was sitting on the floor playing Mario and Luigi Brothership after getting it the next day and every single time I could see the Spongebob juice topper below the tv smiling at me and I never thought to get it I never put any thought into it being there it was just there until a day my mom must have swept and it wasn’t there and I didn’t think about it not being there. Until right now. 

Why didn’t that thing come with an AC adapter, god that’s so stupid.

I think about all that and I don’t think about everything that happened afterwards. I’m 12 years old and it’s Christmas Eve 2024 and I’m getting the Nintendo Alarmo and now I’m 24 years old and it’s Christmas Eve 2036 and I look over at the window sill next to my bed and the Nintendo Alarmo is still there, still ticking. The AC adapter has been replaced a couple times and it’s a bit dinged up but it’s still ticking. So much happened all the while that clock kept ticking. I’m still ticking. I’ve gotten so worked up over this fucking video and I’ve been scrolling my home page this whole time. I try to actually read the titles my eyes are glossing over: “The Untold Story of Minecraft’s 1.50 Disaster”, “What Went Wrong With Forza 2030”, “Does Sony Regret Dropping Out of Consoles?” and I almost click the last one to see which retired executive guy they’re interviewing and personifying the whole company onto this time and I stop myself. It just takes one god damn clickbait title to manufacture curiosity like that and I’ll be watching another two hour video about job layoffs and feeling like shit again. I’m so sick of feeling like shit. It’s getting harder and harder to find content that makes me feel good. 

I decide to just turn the damn thing off. I sit there in the dark for a minute, as a dim light comes from across the room: it's 11:00pm and my Nintendo Alarmo is displaying a top-of-the-hour animation. Mario runs into view, bumps a block 11 times. I hear the little coin-collection jingle 11 times, and then the screen defaults back to its calmer darker state. 

I google for a day calculator on my phone and punch in that Christmas Eve and this one. 

4,383 days. If you take into the fact that after the Animal Crossing theme releases I swapped to that for Halloween and Christmas mornings, that’s 22 Animal Crossing mornings, and 4,360 Super Mario mornings, and 1 Mario Kart morning that I hated. Who the fuck wants to wake up to tires screeching? And the “FIRST PLACE VICTORY!” out-of-bed message was a bit patronizing even for me. But yeah, 4,360 Super Mario wake up calls. 4,360 times I have heard the Super Mario Bros. theme song as the very first sound of the day. Through thick and thin, from one side of the country to the other, through every school morning from 2024 onward and every single day of every job I’ve worked, it's remained constant. A morning without that jingle is just not conceivable to me, it's as natural a part of life as anything else. As sure as I’ll eat food and as sure as I’ll take a crap and as sure as I’ll turn my computer on and as sure as I’ll sleep again the next night is as sure as I will hear that jingle. Speaking of, sleep.

I brush my teeth with Scooby Doo bubblegum toothpaste and a toothbrush that I avoid looking too closely at because its got Spongebob on it and I’m too tired to let myself start back down that path of thinking about the things I took for granted. I can feel on my teeth that the brush is awfully frayed. I’ve been putting off buying a new one for months. I don’t know why. I could just grab one at the store and swap it out and it would make me feel so much better and be so much better for me, but I just don’t do it, I just never think to get it while I’m there and that just happens everyday and I blink and it's been months and my toothbrush is still frayed. 4,360 times. 4,360 times. 

I catch my brain multi-track drifting and decide I can’t sleep without a distraction. I open Youtube on my phone and start scrolling for something to play while I sleep. I crawl into bed and I just barely remember it's Christmas tomorrow. I grab the Nintendo Alarmo and thumb through the settings, swiping through menus. 

When I wake up tomorrow I’ll think that maybe I was just too tired, maybe I just got other shit on my mind, and that maybe these old LCD touchscreens are just over-sensitive pieces of shit or that maybe just maybe I am. But tomorrow my eyes will open at the time they’re used to opening anyway and I’ll be ready to hear the special Animal Crossing Toy Day Jingle that I was so certain I set it to, and I’ll hear the horrible screeching of tires on pavement and something will snap in me and I’ll hear the “FIRST PLACE VICTORY” and think about the empty platitudes and the 12 years I can barely remember and the four thousand wake-up calls that accompanied me as I kept sleep-walking through them and I’ll wake up and something will shatter and I’ll spend Christmas morning cleaning up the shards. 

[that-spider-fan-over-there]

Okay I have calmed down from the leaks since last night- And I have opinions (some of them are salty; again, it's because I hate leak nights XP)

Yeah I stand by what I said: This isn't the end for Tenko, since his Quirk is still half of Overhaul's, there's a chance he'll get a Quirk Awakening the vestige world (or wherever the frick that dude is, AFO/OFA all but were mutually destroyed).

So maybe it is a rebirth (If there's a chapter called "Tenko Shimura: Rising" or "Rebirth" remember I called it XD) for him, either rising from the ashes like a phoenix or even shedding that coccon from the butterfly metaphor, it is one of his motifs after all.

I'm also split 50/50 on Izuku ending the series Quirkless, but I believe it's a red herring- because he and Tenko did fist bump before he decayed, bloodied fist. OFA has a conscience of it's own, so if you say it was a "Heroes: Rising" ending I'm gonna have to ask "from the drafts" or the "final product". But to be fair I was already biased when it comes to this outcome.

Also, that thing from Chapter 362, I'm still on edge about that one; because it could've been an afterlife thing but he doesn't even know what Aura Might looks like, so maybe we'll get a return on that (I'm sorry for constantly bringing it up but I refuse to believe that was a small easter egg HORIKOSHI WHY WAS KATSUKI THERE-)

Oh yeah, speaking of which: if the goal was a perfect victory with no casualties, then Izuku won against AFO to save Tenko, but the mission isn't finished yet until he sees Tenko taking his hand with a smile; how is he gonna do that, unsure, but he does have a knack for making unlikely things happen. Remember, Eri herself wasn't saved until she smiled at the Cultural Festival.

Also maybe (and it's a huge maybe) that's the thing that breaks the hidden POV- faced with a failure from the very thing he was trying to avoid, breaking down because. Well look at everything he got thrown at him post-PLF, burdened to save the world, failing to save someone and realizing he can't be a sitting duck, finding out one of his friends was a traitor, didn't even get time to process Katsuki's death, thought he'd be unable to stop Toshinori's, for a brief moment lost his arms-

This one might actually make him get close to a Despair Event Horizon, (I'm 100% sure if Mirio wasn't there he'd shut down by 367) ... then somehow, he gets convinced to not give up, of course it's by Katsuki (he's already there might as well XP) because he's the only one that can make things stick in Izuku's head atp, finding the motivation and getting that mixed with determination to say it's not over yet. And it isn't.

Besides, I don't trust the leakers to do a good translation over bait interactions, they've done it three times that I know of, so uh maybe don't gather your emotions from what they say; trust me, it's an annoying spiral of doomerism.

... plus if Tenko actually somehow transferred something of AFO/OFA they don't have the vestiges anymore so uh maybe something is still shimmering under the surface (I'm getting my own hopes up XD). Also again I do want a follow-up on 362 because I want Tenko and Katsuki to interact it'd be very funny even with the angst in my freaking opinion please-

And one more thing: I have yet to see Izuku reaching out with a smile to save others like he wanted in the first place.

TL;DR: It's most likely a red herring, Tenko is gonna shed the Tomura mask he was trapped in and come back somehow, maybe the vestige world is intact but without the users or AFO, and I still wanna know what the fuck was 362 about. Also no offense but.

This fight is only gonna be a loss if Izuku finally breaks down, gives up and no one (*cough*letsberealitsKatsuki*cough*) is able to convince him otherwise. And we get a shit time skip. Either of the last two would have to happen for this to be real and it hasn't yet so wait this ain't over.

[greekedtext]

In no particular order:

Fuck you thrice to anyone who voted for him in 2016.

I refuse to believe he won the popular vote. The electoral college? Could be, we all know that's fucked.

But the popular vote? Come on, Repubs have been blatantly cheating while accusing Dems of wanting/trying to cheat for at least as long as I've been paying close attention to politics (IOW since 1999).

Also, direct foreign interference. Since we do know Russians have called in bomb threats this time.

This doesn't even touch on disinformation campaigns originating inside and outside the country, because what I'm saying is that we may not know the true results for days, weeks, or ever.

Fuck you nine times to anyone who voted for him in 2020.

Doomerism begets doom. Though it goes against the grain of my brainweasels, I pledge to be aggressively, zestfully optimistic about everything from now on.

I'm not afraid. I'm not sad. I'm on my brainweasel-suppressant medication and my coworkers appreciate me and the fascists cannot win.

Never pin your hopes on the idea that anything specific will happen at a specific time. That way often lies disappointment. Keeping your hopes on a hand-wavy timeline is how you mentally gear yourself for the long haul.

If you're struggling:

Rest when you need to. Ask for help when you need to. (People love to be asked for favors.)

Stay alive.

Don't believe the supposed election results. Yes, there are a lot of fascists and dupes who genuinely did vote for him (all fascists are dupes but not all dupes are fascists) but see above.

Build your networks. Talk about your lives and concerns.

Look for opportunities to help others.

I'm not mad at leftists who sat this out. They got duped, but we're on the same side now.

We're on the same side now.

If you're in the US or are a citizen abroad:

Join or start a mutual aid network. Build power locally by working with people who see themselves as your equal -- not just your electeds. Speaking truth to power is merely one tool in the toolbox.

Write to your electeds at the local, state, and federal level about the issues that concern you.

Join or start a labor union. Make sure they are a movement union such as the IWW, not just a "we only care about our members" union -- and if your only option is to join the latter type, then organize a movement-oriented takeover.

This is not your burden alone; don't stretch beyond your sustainable capacity.

Do stretch a bit sometimes to develop greater capacity, but also rest. If you're trying to do it all alone you're replicating the mistakes that the authoritarian elements of society have trained us to make.

Rest when you need to. Make lists of things that give you joy, gratitude, hope, a sense of meaning.

Read David Graeber and David Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything to reset your imagination about the possibilities of societal structures. Then read Graeber's The Democracy Project to cement the way Dawn changed you. There's a thing toward the beginning of The Democracy Project that may ping you as racist or gross, but don't let any flaws you perceive in Graeber or his ideas stop you from mining his writings. Same goes for any other dead author.

Rest when you need to.

Increasingly throughout my adulthood, I have felt that my schooling and all of the "realistic" fiction that I was exposed to in childhood (regardless of medium) did not prepare me for the truth of the world, which is much more chaotic than I expected, much more capable of grim twists and turns.

Fuck you forever to anyone who voted for him this time.

Here is the eternal truth:

The fascists cannot win.

[mass-convergence]

Not me, in a moment of frustration that’s been building for the past several months now, lightly calling out my parents for their chronic consumption of mainstream media.

My family group text has turned into a goddamn spiral of doomerism and plans to move to Canada interspersed with cute photos of my nephew. They wonder why I don’t talk.

When my mom visited me, she had Scripps or Fox (okay so I don’t have a cable subscription and Fox News on the Roku streaming device has like a free news streaming service that’s basically some intern sitting at a desk reading headlines at you and playing clips of press conferences 24/7) on basically the entire time. When we went to North Carolina, on vacation, CNN was on for at least an hour or two per day.

Like god damn it was getting old pretty quick.

Yes I do still keep tabs on the news, I’ve got push notifications from the AP app and I go to Ground News at least once a day to just look at what’s going on (inb4: you should look at other sources - look I’m not saying I’m the perfect specimen of news media consumption here, tbh my other source is usually Beau of the Fifth Column since he is at least not screaming at me about how doomed we are… - my job is fucking insane sometimes and I really just need all my time off to recover from that lmao). But if I looked at anything more than that I would literally fucking implode.

I don’t need to constantly hear that things are fucked. I don’t need to see carnage 24/7 to know that bad things are happening and they’re out of my control (but I totally should still feel very bad about not stopping it or else I’m a monster). I don’t need to hear hot takes from political commentators or constant fucking bickering that’s being framed as a very serious conversation.

Like it’s all fucking theater. It’s all meant to make you feel like shit so you keep tuning in to “keep up to date” on how fucked we all are.

We are not all fucked.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is either stuck deep in a pit of doomerism and needs to unplug or they’re trying to convince you there’s nothing you can do so why bother trying (but stay tuned in because the more informed about how fucked we all are, the better). Don’t listen to either person.

[ettawritesnstudies]

9 people I'd like to know better tag

Thanks for the tag @moondust-bard!

current book: I'm about to start reading White Oaks by Jordan King for my indie author interviews/book reviews on my blog, and listening to The Weaver and the Witch Queen by Genevieve Gornichec because I have a road trip to a work conference tomorrow and so I'm going to put that on in the car.

Current fic: I'm not actively reading or writing anything right now, but I have an old friend in the Newsies fandom who's continuing to put out chapters of a 300K+ fic that I love called Something Worth Winning and so I've been meaning to catch up on that. PJean over on ff.net and I think she's got an AO3 now? It's been a while...

Currently watching: Twelve's run in Doctor Who and the Clone wars in rotation.

Next on my watchlist: I'm about the start the new Fallout show tonight! Eric's been playing through the games recently but we've put off watching the show until my edit was done.

Current hyperfixation: I had Rolling With Difficulty as a hyperfixation until I got buried in Runaways writing, so I lost interest for a little bit while I shifted focus onto my work, but I'm hoping to get back into it!

Favorite color: Greens of all sorts!

Sweet, spicy, or savory: sweet, I joke I'm basically a hummingbird in human form.

Relationship status: I just got engaged over Easter! I don't talk a lot about him here because he values his privacy, but my fiance, Eric, has been such a wonderful support through all of my writing and publishing endeavors. We're in the middle of wedding planning right now, and if all goes according to plan, we'll get married next summer, which is right in the middle of all the promotion and distribution work for putting out Runaways in October. It's going to be such a busy (and expensive) year, and I was like "I can push the book release out, I guess :I" but he refused to let me do that because he knows how important it is to me and encouraged me to plan a Kickstarter for the spring like an absolute madman. Yesterday I complained that the formatting programming software I like is only available for Macs but fuck apple and he started looking up how to install a virtual machine without a second's hesitation. He's so wonderful and I don't know what I'd do without him.

Last song: The Old Witch Sleep and Good Man Grace by the Amazing Devil

Last thing I googled: Stegosaurus dinosaur

Skill I’d like to learn: oh god so many. Top of the list right now is songwriting. I've got dozens of lyrics cluttering up my notes app and I'm dreadful at turning them into complete songs. Also Animation!

Best advice: Recently, I've seen a lot of people in my life struggling with the 20-something capitalist-hellscape 1st-world-problem flavor of existentialist-depression and look, it gets to me too, but you guy have got to relearn the virtue of gratitude. On one hand, toxic positivity sucks and you're allowed to bitch and moan about your situation, but doomerism feels infectious and there is so much to be thankful for when you stop and take the time to appreciate what you've been given.

I'm turning into my mom.

[raymend]

yes im making this post again because ive discovered again that 90% of my self doubt is absolutely incongruent to my real actual views on the world. what i mean is that...

for example i dont think anyone should be measured by their productivity or ability to work long hours that's insane. except for when its me? that's stupid!!

i can only pick it apart by being like Okay but this is 1. capitalist and 2. inherently ableist .

That^^ is the one way ive figured out how to continually question and work on internalized shit because it stops being about You as an individual but rather how that mindset can affect people without realising it. and i feel like this is especially important 4 ppl unlearning internalized homophobia n transphobia stuff (AND body image etc) where your internalized (now externalized) issues can absolutely trigger other people..

longer example under the cut i kept going sorry. tw transphobia

i think back to that tumblr funnyman w the crazy transmed rant (cant find it. dont really want to i remember it being pretty upsetting lol) about how he was mad that people want to see trans(masc) characters because he himself hates himself for being trans a lot & wish he was born a cis guy.. because when he was called out for it he said it was just a vent post? and even if the original posts werent full of veryyy misgendering language it would still be a weird post to make to an audience of impressionable trans kids, that being trans is some kind of mistake or problem .. it feels very irresponsible to say that, knowing the self hatred that can come along w the simple act of existing as trans and feeling different to others but then seeing someone u look up to talking about it like that..

i think especially now when state governments are doing so much homophobic and transphobic shit its more important than ever to be there for the younger members of the community and to work on your own internal biases so that you don't transfer them to the next generation. being trans doesn't have to suck that bad: it's not you that's the problem it's our transphobic society n government, and i think that's really necessary to hammer in.

i think trans doomerism is like so intensely vile because of the way that it thrives off of attacking other people (fat, gnc, poc, etc) for making it embarrassing and weird to be trans (Unlike Us Normal People Who Hate Ourselves) when its not their fuckin fault???? Hello i fucking hate optics nerds can you shut the fuck up and have empathy . Who do you think your enemy is . some neopronoun using mfs or the UNITED STATES FEDERAL GOVERNMENT !!!!!!!

and i used being trans as an example because it's the easiest to illustrate but my overarching point here is the fiona and shrek thing . YOUR negative thoughts, seemingly about just yourself, when externalized, OTHERS will extend that logic to themselves even when you don't intend it, and that's something that can be easily contributed to by societal issues & the isolation u can feel by not fitting the cishet white abled mold

[words-and-threads]

I'm not going to say this doesn't happen in progressive spaces (and reactionaries pretending to be progressive while repackaging right wing talking points....) Also, I think its prevalence is magnified by A. Alt right fear-mongering, B. The way our media landscape carries the loudest and most clickable voices rather than the most common, and C. The vein of gender essentialism running through plain old mainstream society classic to which nobody is immune.

Obviously I don't know a stranger's life. If all the leftists you've met think the SCUM manifesto is the height of political commentary then yikes I am very sorry you've had that experience.

On a more general level, the idea that men are dumb violent animals was just as common in 90s tv as it is in leftist spaces. It's not progressive or controversial. Of course, action movies and ads frame it as either good or at worst an inevitable struggle. In fact the alt right LOVE this idea of masculinity, of raising their sons to be "monsters." This idea was not born on the left or the fringe. It's everywhere.

Combine that with the nebulous nature of any movement as large as "the left" (a nearly meaningless term considering how broad it is) and yeah, you're gonna see a lot of garbage takes. I mean shit, there are plenty of misogynist self-proclaimed leftists. If you wanted to drop back into that echo chamber without the alt right you totally could.

Even if you narrowed to feminists: Andrea Dworkin vs. Bell Hooks. Capitalist vs. Socialist feminists. A century of debate about intersectionality. There is no consensus. There will always be bad takes. And there are lots of leftists and feminists who are trying to unpack that gender essentialism. Many are in the comments on this post. If all you hear from leftists is hate, FIND BETTER LEFTISTS. I have seen a lot of them. I have met a lot of feminist men with wives and girlfriends and female friends who would fight god for them. I do actually want a better world for men, too, which is why I have done a lot of that unpacking and I haven't stopped.

As for fighting for the rights of people who hate you....yeah man. We all have to do that. If I'm against the exploitation of workers, that has to include the ones who would happily beat me to death. Ideological consistency is hard.

Edit on the topic of the original post which we've kind of gotten away from: actual OP you are very right. Part of the issue is the simple fact that since the right is more friendly to capitalism they're going to get more support from the wealthy. Part of it is the simplicity of right wing talking points. Sure they're bullshit, but they're easy to spread and digest and they ask very little of you. Basically the mcdonalds of ideas. And when everyone is stressed and exhausted that big mac looks pretty good. Again this dovetails nicely with employers pushing and stretching us all to exhaustion. For real fuck capitalism.

Buuut to avoid going complete doomer, I do think there are strategies activists could make more use of. Mostly we need to relearn how to use stories and emotion. NOT to lie, but to paint a more hopeful picture of our goals and to focus on those goals when doing outreach rather than just on the problems. I want men to be happy, healthy, and fulfilled. I want everyone to have freedom in their relationship to gender. I want food and shelter for everyone yes everyone yes even that guy.

We also need to push back on the idea that those goals are impossible or unrealistic. We went to fucking space but we can't establish UBI? Why? No seriously, when we encounter reactionary arguments we have to demand they justify their existence first. Push. Give no quarter. Calling right wing creeps weird was a good start because their assertion that everyone agrees with them was tissue thin. Often it only takes one or two people looking at the guy who just said something utterly fucked and going "bro...what?" We need to have confidence in our arguments and stop apologizing or preemptively pulling back. We can't keep saying how unpopular and hard to believe we are and then be surprised when people agree.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[kopivie]

LOTS OF PERMISSION‼️

-🦫 🫵🎤

okay hi hello i'm here. school is tearing me apart and i feel like crying every single day but i am Here.

for context: something i discovered recently is the fact that i really do have some fixation on mythology that allows me to sorta.. vent my frustrations with religion. i grew up seventh-day adventist (just another one of the millions of christian denominations) and one of the biggest things that freaked me out as a kid was the fact that i had to fear god. i was supposed to have unending love and faith that this god was going to handle things on his own time -- that didn't bother me at the time. (it does now, though.) but what bothered me -- what terrified me -- was the fact that one wrong step or even one wrong thought could potentially damn me to hell.

and like... how fucked up is that, right? god punishes you for minor intrusive thoughts, works on his own time -- like fuck you and your needs and deadlines, god will get it done when he feels like it -- and any outcome is part of his plan? are you being fr? a close family friend lost her daughter in a freak accident two years ago. that woman was so devout; every other sentence was something about praising god. and her daughter was just like her mother. but she's just... gone. and you're telling me that was part of his plan? if god were as benevolent and gracious as you say he is, why isn't he doing anything to stop, oh i don't know, literally anything bad from happening.

so... that's the basis of this world, i suppose. let me explain:

the titans (yes, this is primarily greek mythology) created the world and mankind, but couldn't directly teach these humans what they needed to know to survive because their brilliance would overwhelm a human. so each titan consulted rhea, who is the mother of most of the olympian pantheon, to create messengers (or divine proxies) to teach the humans everything they needed to know. these divine proxies were simply the titans in a watered down divine form that mortals could tolerate and communicate with. but the proxies gained independence through faith. because the humans could only trust the divine beings that they could see and request help from, they began to worship these divine proxies (rhea's creations).

i like to think of faith as a power source for the divine. the titans don't necessarily need faith to sustain themselves and retain their divinity as they're fashioned out of pure cosmic energy. their power is infinite and eternal. but these divine proxies (henceforth called the pantheon) rely on faith to maintain their hold on mortals. without faith, worship, and devotion, they will inevitably wither away and die, or, if it's a minor niche deity, be absorbed into a larger deity's power.

and this is because in the real world, can god punish you for anything if you have no faith in him? not that you disparage him necessarily, but if you legitimately don't care/have never been introduced to god, how much hold can he really have on your life? all that "the end is nigh!" shit that doomer christians spew really doesn't concern you -- climate change does. i suppose this is a very epicurean take on things, but you get what i'm trying to say.

so anyways, the titanomachy occurs because the pantheon attempts to usurp the power of their creators. the titans can't really fight back without causing destruction on a cosmic level (i.e., wiping out every mortal in existence or changing the course of the stars), so they really have no choice but to sacrifice as much power as the pantheon can feasibly handle. after all, the pantheon is strengthened by the human's belief in their abilities. plus, like i mentioned earlier, the humans have no reason to believe that the gods of the pantheon aren't their real makers -- the titans could never interact with them without harming them, remember?

but as years, millienia, eons go by, the titans' abilities have decreased just enough for them to start using mortals as their proxies. as in, they choose a mortal who has the appropriate amount of energy to either withstand direct communication from the titan themself or house the titan's consciousness for a brief period to deliver messages or complete tasks. and because these mortal proxies exist, now the mortals have reason to believe that their true creators aren't the gods of the pantheon, but these cosmic beings who virtually exist on another plane.

so the world is split into different beliefs, basically. cults that revere the titans and churches that worship the gods.

(fun fact: the avrigian empire's imperial family actually have divine blood, as the god of the sun chooses a partner once every set number of years to maintain his hold on the people's faith. the xedian queendom, on the other hand, allows for the titan goddess of the moon to speak through the sitting ruler whenever she is summoned, allowing the ruler to be a titan's proxy and have the blessing of longevity, amongst other gifts. the two nations's primary source of conflict is religious, as xedians revere the titans while the avrigians revere the sitting pantheon.)

but, regardless of who you worship, neither divine being is willing to assist with the affliction. this affliction is essentially divine rage made into a physical miasma that poisons and kills any mortal being it comes into contact with. in its final stages, it blackens the appendages and kills someone. thaumaturges are meant to cleanse this by absorbing this divine hatred into their own bodies, cleansing it internally, and releasing the excess energy back into the world. however, if the affliction has progressed to the stage of limb darkening, the afflicted patient is likely beyond the point of saving. at that point, the disease must be cleansed lest the patient be revived by this otherworldly hatred and go on a rampage.

and i may or may not have a main antagonist who weaponizes this affliction to create an undead army and conduct human experiments on his wife and children first, then form a cult based on this. to him, the gods will never be happy, and the affliction is proof of that. they will forever maintain this rage, this hatred that poisons life -- wipes out entire ecosystems -- only for mortals to be the ones who are forced to suffer in their attempts to fix it. no amount of worship will save the mortals. your gods, titans, whoever you pray to will never listen. they want you dead. the point is to cause enough non-believers (or basically just kill enough people) to wipe out a major god of the pantheon. he and his supporters destabilize religious villages and revel in the destruction and death it causes with no regard for who it affects, man or god.

this cult is drawn to negativity, as they follow the stench of hatred. they try to infiltrate communities to incite violence amongst the people, inflict them with the scourge (the aforementioned affliction) and continue on the warpath of destruction. the goal is to cause the two biggest nations who have a long history of colonization and war (the avrigian empire and the xedian queendom) to go to war once more, as that could most certainly spell out doom for the entire world.

whew. i'm ngl, some of the stuff that i mentioned wasn't actually ever written down. revisions come to mind as i type, so i'm gonna be revising my notes once i finish my assigned reading for the day. (and start drafting a paper since it's due friday...)

[godtiertalk]

What’s up, long time no see.

I’m probably not re-opening this blog (but shit’s wild out here these days, so who knows).

What I am doing, however, is giving you all my magnum opus:

Homestuck Aspects, But Fucky.

Are you sick of Aspect quizzes where the answer is weirdly self-evident and you feel a terrible compulsion to “aim” for you “preferred” aspect?

Well, motherfucker, have I got the quiz for you. Every single one of these “questions” is nonsense, every single answer is absurdity, and every single person I tested it on got the right aspect at the end.*

*My sample size was three people this is a meaningless claim.

Take the quiz at your leisure, and then when you’re done and remembering the Ancient Days of Quizilla where you got to see what all the personality types were at the end after getting yours?

Head on back to this post, where I am putting all 12 answers below this cut.

Oh damn, you're a power player (even if you don't want to admit it). You're probably pretty okay at being The Mom Friend (even though you don't want to be it). You may be immortal, it's really hard to be sure. Either way, there are a lot of people out there who envy your psychological stability. The joke's on them though, you're approximately as stable as Pluto's orbit: you only look that way from a distance.

Rage

How's your blood pressure? Good? Good. With that in mind, take a deep breath. Feel the air move past your teeth, into your chest. A relentless cycle of in and out that only stops on your command, and otherwise persists. That's you. You persist, at your own command, unyielding. Good for you.

Time

TIME TO FUCK SHIT UP MORE LIKE. Whether this means "fucking up the enemy" or "fucking up your own very good plans and intentions" is hard to say. But rest assured, the shit is fucked.

Mind

My girlfriend is a mind player, so you're probably my favourite. Unfortunately, beneath the well practiced veneer of professional chill, your anxieties are not merely infinite, but one of the larger infinities available, and definitely still growing.

Hope

Hey!!! Sorry if your depression is still untreated or uncontrolled! But the good news is, you haven't died yet, and you aren't going to die any time soon, which means all those weird notions you have of what to do next (the ones that keep competing with each other for your limited brain space)? You get to do them. Literally roll the dice and pick one, we all know you're going to nail it.

Life

Everyone else's problems are everyone else's problems. You do not actually need to fix them, even though the temptation is SO REAL. I promise, no one is going to think less of you for taking some time to focus on your own shit. In fact (brace yourself) they probably won't notice at all, because being obsessed with other people's issues instead of your own makes you very bad at handling either. You're already a good person. You don't need to prove it. But you know what good people deserve? Some fucking self care.

Heart

You know what you want in life. Maybe not how to get it, exactly, but you know your own end goal, and holy SHIT I wish that were me. Hold onto that self awareness, even as you may need to let other parts of your ego go. Never forget what you want, what you truly, really want.

Blood

Friends, family, and dearest loved ones. We are gathered here today to witness the union between disparate souls, coming together to create something more than their parts. (You're the fucking officiant in this wedding scenario, so get good at the rituals of socialization quick, babe).

Doom

Okay, doomer. I'm sorry, neither you, I, nor any other Doom player deserved that. But for real though, press F for yourself and show some goddamn self-respect. Ain't anyone the fuck else going to do it. Which means it's up to you, as usual. Good thing practice has already perfected your capacity to ignore your own suffering and get to the fucking point.

Light

I cannot decide if calling you "Jace Beleren but it's real life instead of a card game" would be an insult or a compliment, which I think really neatly captures your whole deal. Your wikipedia-like breadth of skills and knowledge is commendable, but I am begging you to slow down. Science isn't going to disappear just because you took a long weekend and an extra hot bath. Life is short, but damn, it's not THAT short.

Void

Are you okay? Like, in a broad, existential sense. I understand that it is extremely tempting to throw your hands up and turn your back on the world's relentless chaos and brazen stupidity. But, it's your world too. There are parts of it worth holding. Even now, even here, there are parts worth loving, and you are one of them. I know you don't want to take that on faith. I know with neither evidence nor proofs it sounds like I'm blowing it out my ass. But you actually, really, genuinely are.

Breath

Flighty (complimentary). Intuitive (derogatory). Fun (gender). Stop knowing things about other people without being told, and instead try knowing things about yourself. Yeah, I know that fucking sucks, but unfortunately, self awareness is important! Anyway, while you're busy not knowing your truth, at least you're fun as hell. Here's a bit of self-insight for free: you hang out with your friends because you LIKE them, it's okay to just like people.

[evergreenalice]

don't read this if you're prone to catastrophizing like I am, like seriously I can't stress enough this will be bad for you to read if you are similar to me. I want to make that very clear

so I watched Cabaret yesterday, both the movie and the 1993 version of the musical, and I thought it was great. I definitely preferred the musical to the movie, but I did enjoy the movie

most of the characters believe that the Nazis won't really become a major issue, they simply continue on with their life ignoring the rising threat of fascism

I consider it to be uncomfortably relevant to today

I feel like a lot of people believe we've progressed too much to ever reach such a point again. but sometimes I think about the first gay rights movement started in Germany. things were getting better and more progressive, a lot of queer people really thought they were finally seeing the slow end to their oppression. and many of them died in camps despite that

and that's fucking scary

I don't usually share my fears of the future for two main reasons

I believe optimism is far more useful so I try to spread that when I can

honestly I feel like I'd be ignored, told to stop overexaggerating and that'd be the end of it, the response to venting

and I want to believe that, that I'm overexaggerating, but it's so hard, when we have the most popular Republican in the country calling to terminate the constitution

you have the Great Replacement Theory on Fox News. I got into politics very young, I remember when that was like, really fucking fringe, shit you'd only see spoken of by open neo-Nazis

the recent groomer moral panic around queer folk

I want to believe I'm overexaggerating, there's always been a part of me that says "calm down Alice they're not literally fascists" but every turn it feels like they're trying to prove that part of me wrong

and it's scary

I feel like some people don't comprehend that the past really happened. sure they know it happened, but they don't really comprehend that the past is as real as today

I feel like people don't understand that there isn't some special quality that separates us from the people nearly a century ago

democracies fell, fascists rose, genocides happened

and they still can

I suppose what I'm really saying is, I don't want to die in a camp

and it's easy to say "you won't" but how do you know? our democratic institutions aren't invulnerable, and what happens if they fall?

I feel like I need to drill this in, because even part of me, as I said, wants to ignore it, say that it's nothing

but we have the most popular Republican calling for the termination of the constitution, and I don't see many Republicans criticizing him for that

the Supreme Court will be hearing Moore V. Harper, Independent State Legislator theory

which, worst case scenario could genuinely be the end of our democracy

genuinely, I ask

what then?

this party has grown more and more radical

what happens if they end up having no checks on their power?

sure the easy answer is "revolution!"

and okay, I guess a decades long bloody civil war would be better than a fascist dictatorship

because that's what would happen, it wouldn't be a swift revolution that makes everything okay

it would be bloody and slow and terrible

it feels like we're standing at a crossroads, and every path is terrible and pathed with blood

I don't know what else to say, I just wanted to let that all out there

through all these years of politics I've never really vented so I wanted to finally do that

sorry if this was a long meandering post, I was mostly just writing stream of consciousness

I suppose I'll end this by saying it's not inevitable

nothing is inevitable, don't let this long doomer post discourage you, don't resign yourself to this fate

[kaninchenzero]

i don't think hope is as useful as many think it is

at least, i don't think using one's media platform to chastize so-called doomers for being pessimistic about the future, especially here in the united states, does anything useful

millions of americans spent the summer of 2020 protesting police brutality and we lost

cops are out there shooting Black people in the back of the fucking head, nothing has changed for the better and we have states making it illegal for cities to defund the police who are useless when people are being shot but are really good at evicting people from their homes, assaulting non violent protesters with chemical and kinetic less-lethal weapons, robbing vulnerable people under cover of civil forfeiture law, raping people in their custody including children, enslaving people for using drugs, making life even more miserable for homeless folks, and, of course, inflicting constant low level terror and trauma interspersed with moments of pure fear on vulnerable people

from what little i know the police in uvalde, texas did actually try to stop the murderer from shooting elementary school children to death but failed, which i can't fault them for

video and witness statements do not support this narrative

gun fights you see in visual media are scripted, choreographed, and rehearsed by professionals who know they're almost certainly not going to be actually shot and killed

actual gun fights are awful, confusing, and terrifying and it is very hard to use a pistol to kill an armed, armored, determined person

it is not hard to use a pistol to kill an unarmed, unresisting person at close range

which says something about the circumstances of most police shootings, don't you think?

anyway, these specific cops in this specific incident failed in the specific task of stopping a murderer which will have devastating effects on them personally but these specific cops did not fail in their moral duty as human beings

they tried and failed and the outcome was horrible but i have no blame for these specific individuals in this specific event

the information i had at the time i initially posted this said that three uvalde city cops had engaged the shooter before he got inside the school

and i was trying to be fair and take that at face value and not say "well if that is actually true because cops famously lie a lot"

dang

still, the institution of policing is incapable of actually keeping people safe from those who would do them harm, which is the stated justification for their existence despite all the obvious harm they do to people much more often

(they do just fine at their actual purpose of enforcing the will of the powerful on the powerless)

so

we failed

we tried, and we failed at our task of trying to even reduce police brutality in the united states and we failed to prevent a minority of americans from owning most of the privately owned firearms in the world (unfortunately, horrifyingly true)

the moral failures belong to those who benefit from our powerlessness

it's horrible

it's going to get worse because all the power structures in the united states reward the people making things worse

not permanently

even global warming (another struggle lost there) and large scale nuclear war aren't likely to be extinction events for humans as a species

but there still will be unthinkable amounts of suffering, bloodshed, and death in the near to medium future

so, while i admire and respect the people who still want to organize and protest and do non violent political action, i have no blame for anyone on our side who doesn't have the energy to be hopeful and doesn't have the taste for violent revolution

i don't have either of those

all i have left is trying to have as pleasant a life as i can with my wife and whatever cats share our home

if i had actual power i'd do something different, if a huge pile of money fell on me i'd feel shitty about fleeing texas and not using that money to help my community here, much though i would very like to get the fuck out of texas, it's awful here

i'll remain angry and bitter and hopeless, but the targets of my impotent rage will remain the people harming us

not myself and not anyone else who's just fuckin tired and wants to live whatever life they can scrape together

they're fine, morally

we're fine, morally

just like those uvalde cops mentioned above

lol nope i was wrong about them fuck the police

and just like them we'll have to feel how we feel about it

in the meantime, for me, there's weed, cloves, violent video games, and metalworking videos

(and i have Opinions about those, like how anybody working with super dangerous machines should be the only people who decide what a safe production rate is, but even my strongest Opinions have little impact on the world)

[strawbebehmod]

B-but killing this isn't morally goooooooood! Predators evilllll!

--some "activist" who has never been to an ecology class but follows peta on twitter

In seriousness though this is why I hate a lot of online supposed Eco activist particularly those who think going vegan/veg is the only way to save the world (we do need to reduce meat consumption by a lot and generally consume more plants instead for climate change reasons but there is a certain type of people I'm talking about that go waaay beyond that, if you know, you know and im sorry you've had to meet them).

Not only do they make actual conservation scientists and orgs look bad most the time, a lot of them will talk over actual conservationists and call us evil despite never having set foot in a collage ecology or conservation course. They claim to be pro science but they will throw out anything that doesn't align with their beliefs or twist it until it makes sense there was literally an article that came out recently that said the world going vegan won't stop us from increasing global climate temps by 1°C this century and that we need to focus more on curtailing our use of fossil fuels since diet changes aren't going to make up for our current petroleum consumption rates, but it was getting posted all over vegan news sources and subreddits and such with people saying but look the vegan diet still did better than all the other diets carbon emissions wise so we should still focus on pressuring people to all go vegan. Instead of you know, pushing for switches from fossil fuels to renewables and other forms of clean energy in government.

These people never listen to anyone and it's scaring me how much they're trying to muscle their way into conservation spaces now cuz they have no idea what they're doing, they do not have degrees, and they are going to get actual animals killed. There are people genuinely trying to get rid of zoos, one of the only ways that we can preserve species for the future, because they don't like the thought of animals being in cages. I mean there's always been people who have hated zoos but there's like people trying to write papers now and get the idea out there that zoos are obsolete and that animatronic zoos or hologram zoos would be better??? Its fucked.

But most of all I hate these kind of people because they breed doomerism and activism burnout like no tomorrow. So many people who leave eco-friendly spaces do it because they get shamed out of doing anything because its never considered enough by holier than thou types, even if they are literally putting their health at risk, or the absolute refusal to celebrate any form of accomplishment in conservation and aid to the environment thats not literally solving everything in these spaces and bombarding people with every reason why x efforts don't matter + every single bit of bad ecological news they can scrape up cause people to burn out and fall into depression feeling like they can't do anything and anything they try to do won't matter so they just stop trying.

I've literally worked as an environmental educator and every time I see what these groups do that base their messaging off of organizations like PETA, it takes all my strength not to shout at them that they are doing everything possible to make people not be able to care about the environment in the long run, and instead put everyone in the state of anxiety induced action paralysis or a sense of permanent helplessness. It's people like that that write the first article listed and it boils my blood

Painlessly Killing Predators

Reference:

Bramble, B. (2020). Painlessly Killing Predators. Journal of Applied Philosophy. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/japp.12461

Submitter comment:

This is by far the most dangerously stupid paper I have ever read in my entire life. Published in Journal of Applied Philosophy, Ben Bramble goes on to nonsensically ramble about two fictitious solutions to a fictitious problem, all the while suggesting they are realistic.

The author shows both a less-than-elementary understanding of animal behavior, ecology, trophic systems, and pretty much everything else covered in this absolutely moronic insult to academic philosophy. Nothing presented in the paper “Painlessly killing predators” comes even remotely close to an intelligent string of thought, and we all become more stupid from reading it.

[absolutepx]

So I've been playing Death Stranding lately. Wait, that's not what this post is about. Well, it kind of is. Hang on. What is Death Stranding about?

A: Norman Reedus getting bare ass naked B. Sneaking around ghosts with the help of your sidekick, an actual baby C: Carrying 50 Amazon packages up a hill while trying to not topple over D: Waking up in the morning and drinking 5 Monster Energy™ for breakfast

For those following along at home, the answer is actually none of the above. Despite the set dressing being bizarre to the point of near absurdity, what the game is actually about, like thematically, is actually really simple.

See, the development of Death Stranding was actually quite a trip. Hideo Kojima is the video game world's equivalent of an auteur director. He has a very recognizable personal style. It's thoroughly horny – he caught a bunch of shit for the design of Quiet in MGSV, but like, a lot of Kojima characters are just -like that-, including the dudes. Also, this is going to possibly be important later.

Anyway, so Kojima was going to do a rebootmakequel of Silent Hill, and the demo actually made it to the PS store and I could actually write a whole side essay about why P.T. (it was called P.T. for some reason btw) was brilliant game design for how it used the same hallway over and over and it was somehow beneficial to the overall feeling of horror. So Konami it turns out kinda sucks nowadays and they like, fired Kojima (they were huge dicks about it behind closed doors, too) and scrapped the project and kicked him out on the street and kept the Metal Gear series which was his baby (literally the baby in the sink in P.T., he snuck a bunch of messaging about the Konami situation into the demo like a breakup album) and Kojima would go on to form his own studio and poach some of the people who worked with him to boot. So the thing about Kojima is this: he's got a reputation for already putting some wild shit in his games, like a ladder that takes like 10 real time minutes to climb in MGS3 for dramatic effect, and a boss in MGS3 that summons the ghosts of all the people you were too lazy to stealth past and killed, or a sniper battle with a really old guy that he wanted to have last two weeks or some shit until he died of old age but he was "told that "this was impossible and not recommended." That is a real quote I just looked up. So he's coming off the heels of making this hugely successful game with MGSV and the hype of the P.T. Demo and he fucking, he like took all the people that were going to be working on P.T. Along like Guillermo Del Toro was going to co-write it and Norman Reedus was going to star in it, and he's like, I'm going to make this game called Death Stranding. And the first trailer comes out for it and it's completely nuts. Norman Reedus wakes up naked on a beach crying with a baby and there are floating people in the sky? So we're all like hooooooly shit, there's no one to tell him "this is impossible and not recommended" anymore. What's he going to make now!?

So the whole time the game is in development I keep seeing these tweets where it'll be like, Kojima and one of his homies smiling with some saccharine message about being spiritual warriors and changing the world. And not just Del Toro and Reedus, there was Mads Mikkelsen (another guy Kojima puts in the game just because he apparently loves him), and the band Chvches, and also like, Keanu Reeves at one point? You know how everyone has just kind of accepted that Keanu is a being of light? Here he was endorsing Kojima. The hype was pretty confused and frantic.

The game eventually comes out. A lot of game journos hate it because I think there was this expectation it was going to be, you know, less weird and have more of the conventional structure of a video game. That's not to say the average gamer wasn't also dismissive of it, but I think on the ground level there was more of an understanding that like, yeah, Kojima just be like that sometimes.

Because the game was a timed console exclusive and your homie don't play like that, I spent the first year or so cautiously viewing Death Stranding from a distance. I wasn't sure I was going to like it – except for being really impressed with P.T., I wasn't actually a big fan of Kojima's games as games – but I -was- sure that I was going to buy it, because of the way Konami fucked him over, just out of support. And the shit I was hearing was really out there. The primary mode of gameplay is just delivery packages. You collect Norman Reedus' bathwater and pee and use it as grenades. You get a motorcycle that looks like the one from AMC's The Ride with Norman Reedus, and when you sit on it, his character in the game says "Wow, this thing is like the one from AMC's The Ride with Norman Reedus!"

But I didn't really want to know that much about it. Something has that much fucking crazy person energy, you want to go in mostly blind, right? So maybe people just weren't talking about this, or maybe I wasn't seeing it, but then I watched Girlfriend Reviews' video about it and they came right out and said it (link provided if you want to hear Shelby say it more articulately than me):

Death Stranding is basically about the exact opposite of Twitter. It's about remembering how to be kind to each other, how to reconnect in a world where people are so often hostile to each other by default. Prophetically, it's about a world where people are afraid to go outside or touch other people and how damaging that is. It's not a game about carrying packages, it's a game about helping people by being brave enough to walk through a wasteland carrying their burdens because they can't. It's about rebuilding the lost connections between people, about restoring roads and giving people hope. I bet, for Kojima and the people close to him, it's about how to answer hostility with compassion. You can't kill people in Death Stranding. You can and are absolutely encouraged to fucking throw hands with people sometimes, but all the tools and weapons are nonlethal. So I think Kojima took all the Twitter heat he got over the Quiet nontroversy, and all the feelings of isolation he had from Konami separating him from his team during the end of the development of MGSV, and all the support and encouragement he got from his bros Del Toro and Mads and the rest, and decided to channel that into making a game that was a statement about all of it. And sure, it's a little heavy handed, and sure, it's a little saccharine, and sure, the gameplay sometimes borders on miserable in service of creating emotional payoffs. For me, especially in 2020, this message is a huge success. Social media should be an opportunity for all of us to feel more connected to each other, yet primarily it feels like one of the main forces driving people apart. Why is that? Why is the internet of today such a hostile place? I'm old enough to remember web 1.0: I can haz cheezburger memes; YTMND; the early wild west days of Youtube... What happened to us? I've thrown the blame at Twitter in the past, and I think the architecture of the user experience on Twitter is absolutely a big piece of the puzzle, because it fosters negative interactions. But in terms of the behavior, people have observed that 2018 Twitter was actually almost exactly like 2014 Tumblr. (For the record, Tumblr is now one of the chillest places left on the internet, because so few fucks are left to give.)

I think part of it is the anonymity. The dehumanizing disconnection of the separation of screens and miles. Louis CK, before he was cancelled, had a great point about cyberbullying, and why it's so much more savage than kids are IRL. When you pick on someone in person and you are confronted with seeing the pain you caused them, for most sane people it causes negative feedback and you become disgusted with your actions and eventually learn to stop being a shithead. Online, at best you can "break the wrist, walk away".

At worst, you can become addicted to "clout chasing" and the psychological thrill of being cheered on by your social ingroup. It's even worse if you feel like it's not bullying and your actions are justified because whoever you've targeted is a bad person so you don't have to feel bad about what you do to them. This is where reductive, unhelpful catchphrases like "punch a nazi" come in. For every argument, one or both sides have convinced themselves that the other side is subhuman because their beliefs are so disgusting. And sometimes it's even true! A lot of times, especially these days, people really are acting like animals or worse online. Entire disinformation engines are roaring day and night, churning out garbage and cluttering the social consciousness. (Kojima talked about this bit, too, way back in MGS2. As if I wasn't already in danger of losing my thread through this.)

The human brain was not built to live like this. You can't wake up every morning, roll over and open your phone, and be immediately faced with a tidal wave of anger and indignity. It wasn't built to be aware of fully how horrible the world is at any moment ALL AT ONCE, ALL THE TIME. And you will be. Because of another way that our brain works – the way we are more likely to share negative opinions. And because of the cottage industry built on farming outrage clicks, and because of constant performative activism.

It's not that I don't agree that being informed is important.

It's not that I don't agree that the causes people get riled up about are important.

They are. They absolutely are.

But we can't keep living like this. The constant, unending flood of tragedy, arguments, and hot takes. How much of the negativity we associate with online culture is the product of this feedback loop? What if the rise of doomer culture has been, if not entirely created by, has been nourished and exacerbated by our hostile attitudes toward each other?  Incels and TERFs, white supremacists, radfems, tankies and Trumpers – it seems like on every side of every issue, there are people simultaneously getting it wrong in multiple directions at once and there are more being radicalized every day. They are the toxic waste left behind by the state of discourse. And any hill is a hill worth dying on.

So what am I actually advocating? I don't know. There are a lot of fights going on right now that are important and we can't just climb into bunkers and ignore our problems hoping that Norman Reedus and his fine ass are going to leave the shit we need on our doorsteps. We need to find the strength to carry those hypothetical packages for ourselves sometimes - and hopefully, for others as well. Humans are social creatures. We need interaction and enrichment.

We need love.

So just try to remember the connections between humanity. Try to put more good stuff into the world when you can. Share more shitposts and memes. Tell your friends and family that you love them. Share good news when you hear it. Go on a weird fucking tangent about Death Stranding. Find a way to "be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes."

[nimmy22]

A Mistake: Chapter 2

summery: Set before the events of spencer's mansion. Slight AU where the Birkin's most recent babysitter gets more than she ever bargained for on one stormy night as she watched over Sherry. Cara was ready for a blackout but she almost got her life snuffed out when two forces attack the Brikin’s home, their goals unclear. All Cara wanted to do was get Sherry to safety but with the phone lines dead, she has to rely on herself. Will Albert Wesker be an ally? Or will he add Cara to the list of things needing a "clean up"?

I hope you enjoy!

Reposted from my account on AO3 under my username doomer.

https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomer

---------------------

She sighed in relief for a split second as the weak beam returned, only to feel all the breath being snatched from her lungs. A six-foot-man, heavily armed and dressed in black fatigues, came straight for her, face obscured by a ski mask. A scream bubbled its way out of her throat, only to burst prematurely as the intruder raised a gun to his lips. She forced her lips shut, feeling hot tears build up before they trickled down her cold cheeks.

She was terrified, but that terror only grew when she remembered she had left Sherry all alone. She cursed herself at her stupidly but then again, they would have both been caught by the gunman.

The intruder circled Cara, making a low whistling noise as his eyes drank in her form. He and the others were sent here on a mission, having already collected half the payment. All he had to do was collect the goods and deliver them to receive the other half of the payment. The girl was a spoil, and extra bonus, he was all too willing to snatch. She should blame the Bikinis. Anyone affiliated with Umbrella or their employees sealed their-

Cara grabbed a nearby vase while he was too distracted and smashed it against his head with a great amount of force, knocking him to his knees. But trained as he was, he was again back to his feet even before the shards hit the floor with an enraged shout.

Cara blindly sprinted away into the darkness, randomly bumping into the furnisher. She hasn't been in this house long enough to memorize its layout just yet, especially in the dark. All reason jumps out the window when such monster of a man is giving chase.

She ran as fast as she could and only paused when she didn't hear him coming after her anymore. Her ragged breathing was the only one consuming air in the room. From the smell of overly ripe bananas, she realized she was in the kitchen. A memory sparked in her mind, and she rushed to feel along the wall for the landline she had seen several times.

A tiny bit of hope sparked as her hands met the smooth plastic. Her fingers immediately began pressing buttons she knew by heart. It was someone she believed could give her more immediate help than a 911 call. She called Chris Redfield, a member of the S.T.A.R.S Alpha team. He was her best friend's brother and certainly would know what to do.

To her disappointment, a single ring was all the phone could give before the line went dead. It felt like a lifeline had just been cut.

'I could still grab Sherry and run,' Cara thought as she ran upstairs. Now with her eyes better adjusted to the dark, she was better able to avoid bumping into things. Several feet away from Sherry's bedroom, Cara's hand was already reaching out for the doorknob.

Before her hand closed around the handle, another wrapped around her throat with a crushing force. She gasped for breath as her airway fought against the pressure, narrowing by the second. she didn't recognize the man, realizing that the intruder had come with friends. Slamming her against the wall, he used his other hand to increase the pressure on her throat, and soon her vision became a blur. With the little bit of strength she had, she delivered a swift kick to his crutch.

That would have worked on the run-of-the-mill robber, but these men were trained mercenaries. He easily blocked her with his knee. A full-toothed smirk mocked her as her consciousness flickered worse than the flashlight had. Her bitterness left her with a bad taste in her mouth. The world had taken too much from her already, but it still wanted more. Always wanting more.

Air flooded into her airways, no longer constrained. She slid down the wall with the sensation of something warm and wet splatter against her face. At first, she thought they were just tears. She gasped for air, clammy hands running over the bruising over her neck. She shut her eyes as the world spun around her.

Her eyes snapped open as she heard a thud, realizing the man had fallen to his knees. Cara crawled away quickly, expecting him to attack again. She blinked several times to clear the blurriness into focus.

Time seemed to slow down as she stared wide-eyed at the man kneeling in front of her. The hands that were seconds ago determined to end her life were wrapped around his own throat, failing miserably to stop the blood from gushing out like a fountain. There was someone else here, someone who was not on their side, but that didn't mean they were on hers.

"H-help m-me." he choked on his blood, reaching a hand towards Cara. Seeing the figure behind the man slowly walk towards her, she slapped the desperate hand away and scrambled to her feet, ready to run. She didn't get far and screamed as she too met the end of the man's blade already slick with blood.

A man with slicked blond hair, not a strand out of place, and an unreadable hardened expression stared at her from behind a pair of expensive shades. He used his whole body weight to pin her to the wall, nestling the knife right below her chin, sharp end nearly slicing the skin.

"W-who are you?" Cara whimpered; voice strained like a mouse about to expire. Her breathing came out ragged as she licked her dry, cracked lips.

"You must be Sherry's new babysitter," His voice was deep, soothing, and pleasant, so unlike this very situation. A thousand questions flooded Cara's mind, but she was too afraid to ask. Too afraid to give him any inspiration.

Her eyes darted to the door, and she felt a heavy feeling settle into her stomach. She was so close to Sherry, but so was the threat. Cara couldn't even help herself, and the little girl may end up paying the price for it. She hated herself for being so useless.

Footsteps rounded the corner, revealing three armed men with their guns, and they were trained on Cara and her assailant. Within a blink of an eye, the knife was gone from her neck, finding its new home buried right between the eyes of one man. He dropped to the floor with a thud, expression frozen in a state of confusion.

"Fuck! This motherfucker got Stennely and Adam. Let's fuck him up!" One of the men shouted.

Cara was shoved backward aggressively by the blond man without another glance her way. Producing a gun of his own, he began firing with precision catching a man in the temple. The others took cover, getting ready to return fire.

Cara didn't wait to watch the rest of the fight and raced into Sherry's room, slamming the door. "Sherry? Oh god, please tell me your alright," She cried, eyes darting from one point to the next in search of the little girl's form. Then she remembered the little girl hid under the bed. Holding her breath, she quickly lifted the covers and glanced below, only to let out a sob as she realized the little girl wasn't there.

"Sherry!?" Cara cried louder, overwhelmed with panic and-

"Cara!" a quivering voice called out. Cara whirled around to see pale little hands pushing the closet door open, Sherry's head peaking out.

"Oh, thank god!" Cara said, feeling the crushing weight of guilt lifted. She shouldn't have left the little girl alone. With a gentle smile, she reached out to touch Sherry's tear-streaked face.

"I heard all the noise and got so worried about you. Oh no! Your hurt. " Sherry gasped, wiping something off Cara's face, her fingers coming off red. The high schooler shuddered with the memory.

"I-it's.... not... it's not mine. Don't worry. But we've gotta leave right now."

"But daddy said not to leave the house. We can stay hidden in the closet." Sherry said, opening the door wider. The ongoing gunfire moved further away to a more distant part of the house. The fact that the gunfire did not yet stop threw the idea of hiding right outside the window. Literally. There was definitely no hiding here.

"I know, I know, baby, but there are bad people in the house," Cara said and led the little girl to the window. "We have to get out before they find us." she held the girl in a tight embrace before she heaved the window open, kicking the screen out. Sticking her head out the window, she spotted a drainpipe within reach making its way down from the roof. The rain was falling without mercy, already drenching her hair and weighing down her eyelashes.

"This is a bad idea, but I see no other way," Cara said, throwing her leg out the window, and then the rest of her body followed suit. "Just do what I do and don't do what lands me splat on the ground,"

The little girl looked unconvinced, but she followed. The pipe groaned as Cara used to climb down. While the descent was only from the second floor, it felt like years were passing and not minutes. The rain forced them to make slower, calculated moves as it made the metal slippery. Any mistake could lead to something breaking or worse.

Soon Cara's feet touched the ground. Her mind was alert and ready to bolt, but her muscles screamed from the strain. As soon as Sherry was grounded, they raced to the neighboring home. Cara banged on the door, calling for help

No one came to the door, despite the two flashy cars parked outside. Not wasting time, she ran to the next house and the next, banging on doors and windows, only to meet the same outcome.

'The fucking posh fuckers of Raccoon too stuck up to get involved when other people's lives are in danger. Not even for a child, they were willing to help,' Cara thought bitterly, feeling even more helpless. She just wanted to make a single phone call to Chris- to anyone!

A black van sped through the residential street, contrasting with all the bright sport cars parked in front of the expensive homes. It squealed to a stop as soon as it spotted them. The doors slid open, revealing armed men dressed in black army fatigues and bulletproof vests. They ran towards the girls with purpose, guns aimed and ready.

"Don't make this harder than it has to be. Give up the little girl, and we won't hurt you. In fact, you're free to go." One of the men said, approaching the girls slowly. Cara had a strong feeling that he was lying and that he will make sure she won't see the sunrise ever again.

"Help!" Cara banged on the door again, knuckles bruised and sore, but she didn't stop.

"Save your breath. No one will help you. These stuffed fuckers of umbrella are too self-conceited to even help one of their own. They have no sense of loyalty. Now, why would they help you? Just give us the girl." The man taunted, drawing closer to them.

"Over my dead body," Cara spat before grabbing the little girl and sprinting.

"Big mistake." He smirked, a vicious gleam in his eyes. With his finger on the trigger, he trained his gun on the two fleeing forms.

Bang.

The mercenary's hand split from his body, having been a recent target of Wesker's sniper rifle from where he hid atop the roof of the Birkin’s home. The mercenary screams didn't carry far before Wesker cut it short, delivering a second shot into his skull.

"The mistake is yours, thinking you could snatch my dear little niece and kill her favorite babysitter," Wesker said, a sinister smile playing on his lips.

They were right about Umbrella lacking any sort of loyalty, but he would not hesitate to kill for what was his and his dear friend William.

A clean-up crew was already on its way, but Wesker wasn't going to make it too easy for them. He had been cooped up in the STARS office for too long this week. Having time for little else and dealing with tiresome subordinates and chief of police constantly breathing down his neck at every turn. He was just about ready to snap. And these men came at just the right time to ease his boredom, just a little bit.

[cavitymagazine]

𝖓𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙 𝖔𝖋 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖑𝖎𝖛𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖈𝖔𝖜𝖆𝖗𝖉

"this is what happens"; i don't want to say this is what happens, but this is what happens. this is what happens; maybe i'm afraid, maybe I'M afraid, it's too early to say, isn't it, it's always too early, it's never late enough, it never comes time, [because it's always time], and you never get away, no one ever said "don't explore too thickly", what's the implication...? that you'll get ensnared...? that you'll never get out, that you'll never find the sun again, that you'll leave with all you have, and eventually, when the collapse comes, when the collapse comes inevitable when the collapse comes, when it comes when it comes when it comes; it's over. it's already over. why don't you quit? why can't you? it's already over, it's already done, you've failed in every respect; with respect to him: he's failed. in every respect. he inherited his past, forfeited his future, and now he's done. now he's done. now he's done, it's just echopraxis, idle-passive-echopraxia. it's just rewritten. it's Memory, it's Memory dressing you down, it's faint Memory's hot breath in your ear, it's the torque in your brain, letting the chill in. it's what it did to you. it's no one's fault it's what it did to you, it's what it did to you to you to you to you; it's just all over again it's all over again it's all over again! and no one why can't stop and no one why can't stop and no one why end it all up before over again, end it all up before over again; now you've done it, now you've done it. complete the path, end the story, put a nice finishing quote up on it, frame the situation, endure the climax, suffer the consequence oh: it's over

-

ok: this monster of solitudes finally wilted and caught the bus downtown to procure a girl-boy, or a boy/girl, or whichever happened to be least convenient. the kid with the chemicals: K, x, E, crack or heroin, whatever. i'll be the first to admit i was looking for a mother substitute. it was suck suck nursing-time in my ugly depths and i was willing to prostitute myself for even a breath of fresh air, without exaggerating, if that tells you anything. my hypothetical pick-up line was something along the lines of, are you obnoxiously drunk enough that you wouldn't terribly mind if i kissed or held you for a few minutes? what a joke, i am a joke, hahaha. oh no. (parenthetically, i polished off a bottle of yellowtail chardonnay and a good third of stolichnaya vodka before i set out on my way, with a snack of leftover valium here and there.) i wound up in a Club, inexplicably, don't ask me how; i dared myself to enter, against my better judgment. there i stood, more myself than i can ever remember being, practically inanimate, eyes tightly shut while everyone around me swayed, jived, gyrated, grooved and swooned. i stood absolutely still. took a shot of wild turkey. felt nothing. eventually i was accosted by some skinhead for finishing his beer; he threatened to have his burly partner pummel me into a pulp. screaming in my ear over the cacophony. to this i did not respond. I didn't do what I normally would have done, which was laugh. I stared into his eyes, my default weapon. Red heat. He let me be. I loitered a little while longer, then left, without regret or a second thought, or even a first thought, truth be told. Security even inquired after my well-being, how charming--seeing my downcast countenance, carcass hunched against a wall, blank stare, barely standing unassisted, half-dead. Oh whatever. i got lost/drunk for four hours; crossed a street where civil servants were digging a ditch. a female police officer motioned me back, i ceded and walked up to her. bitching about "why did i cross the street when the light wasn't green". i replied, simply and honestly, that i hadn't noticed. she sneered and shot back, well, maybe you'll notice next time you're smack against a windshield. the unbelievable temerity and unbridled arrogance of cops. i told her to fuck off. "pardon Me?" FUCK YOU. i screamed, and a third time, in case she didn't get the message. to say the least it touched a nerve. we all have our limits. i almost wished i had brought my knife so i could tear out her throat. people don't know when to leave well enough alone and this i cannot forgive, regardless; i don't care what social station they occupy, who they might be--fuck them and their like to the ends of the earth. many a time the thought crossed my mind to capitulate, call it quits, throw up my hands and admit myself to the emergency room of the mental hospital... but the notion was dismissed as summarily as it was entertained. why submit myself to the probing and prodding of incompetent hired goons whose only concern is my immediate docility, the mere abeyance of complaint, complacency at heart; assimilation into the normative and thus Known categories? that is not my problem. enough of that. too drunk to conclude, good night and god damn. 

-

worst nightmare of my life this morning. won't recount the vulgar details, very mindfuck interruptus. i came to sitting in front of an end-table with a laptop on it, chatting with my ex-fiancee on AIM (not in a million years), before a towering landfill (outdoors). i nearly fall out of my seat, nonplussed, and a bum remarks, "you really shouldn't be hanging around these parts at an hour like ours." i pause, too stunned to find my tongue. i finally muster, what city is this? it's all a slur. he says Detroit. i'm in a dissociative fugue and don't know anything, or anybody. as if i'm not entitled to properly draw upon the faculty of memory; i can't make my eyes or tongue work right either (no depth-perception / i can only utter forth labials or noncommittal monosyllables). the alpha male of a pack of junkies waves me on and offers me a line of coke, i kiss some freaked-out girls and take the night bus back to the valley in a ... it feels like i haven't been inside my body in years, that i'm still indefinitely removed, and i repeatedly fail to successfully execute even the most perfunctory of flexes and maneuvers... nothing is distinctly perceptible, it's all incoherent argument and foreign hum grating on my addled nerves. underneath it all i'm somehow deeply traumatized, but i am not in a position to understand or accept this. i either have no mind or this mind is not mine; it is neither lucid nor obedient and communicates via elaborate hazards... concealed gestures i cannot divine the wherewithal of. i stagger back to my tiny apartment to discover there is a party in full swing, people fucking, people playing cards, etc. i open my fridge and it is full of hard liquor. i then realize i have been on a steady bender for two weeks.

[Author bio]

Elizabeth Victoria Aldrich made a twitter account in June 2019 to let people know her porn star girlfriend of seven years was dead after she had to ask someone on Facebook and got broken up with for being a bad influence (porn and coke binges were not her idea but let it be known she was a down-ass bitch)  by her not-boyfriend who looks like the doomer meme dude. Now you're reading something by her. Isn't life weird?

twitter: @eris_rlt