#that seems illegal

[buttrflyisland]

its been almost 5 years since mudstone abyss came out which is the last time our boy kevin has been in the podcast. this is an injustice

[gayrui]

Hmmmm I don’t think Twitter is allowed to not mark ads as ads

[gunpowdercarousel]

I think it's funny that in school teachers were like "don't trust wikipedia because anyone can just go on there and write whatever they want" and now Google is literally having a crusty pile of algorithms wordvomit out whatever random bits of information it hears like some misshapen abomination in the basement trying to mimic human speech and that's just ALLOWED.

[luwha]

One day you're working on videos on autoplay and another you watch a 50 minutes videos of how a user faked a democracy for discord political roleplay for 3 years and it's impact on the citizens and neighboring nations

Also the author of a book (related, don't ask) got a cease and desist from the united Nations and proceeded to change the name of it on april's fools

[catboy-teeth]

here's my worst idea ever

[marzipanandminutiae]

If abortion becomes illegal nationwide in the US, it won’t look like The Handmaid’s Tale

It will look the same. With things changing under the surface

Because that has already happened once

Before the revolution, abortion up to “the quickening” (when the fetus begins to move in the womb, usually 18-21 weeks. A point before which most abortions take place nowadays) was broadly socially accepted in Britain and its colonies. There were no laws against abortion at any point in pregnancy, however. That didn’t start until the early 19th century, with Connecticut being the first state to outlaw abortion in 1821…but only abortion AFTER the quickening. New York was the first state to criminalize all abortions in 1829, with pre-quickening procedures as a misdemeanor and post-quickening as a felony

Many of those women could read and write; all of the free ones were allowed to. Some of them could speak multiple languages. Some of them had extensive knowledge of art, history, culture, mathematics, and political science. Some owned property or businesses. Most of them had family, friends, even husbands, who loved them and respected them. They had interests. They had ways of expressing themselves, through their clothing or hobbies or any other available means. And yet, they lost their bodily autonomy

The Handmaid’s Tale doesn’t scare me because rolling back women’s rights doesn’t have to look like a sci-fi dystopia. if we go by history, it looks more like a Regency romance

[brsb4hls]

Ok, but if you wanna circle that Siken quote around, maybe post the whole thing?

The second part is the important one.

Also, for those who still can't seperate fiction from reality and are obvi already pestering him, because he dared to name that ship:

[itwoodbeprefect]

going into manner of death you may think this is a show about an adult man with an adult job (performing autopsies on his childhood friends), but the further you get, the more clear it becomes that this is actually a show about an adult man with way too many adult jobs (he also treats patients in the ER, gets called in for emergency surgery, and juggles several potentially connected murder investigations as an unpaid side gig). no wonder literally every single person around him keeps randomly handing him food, even though we know he's a good cook. with only twenty-four hours in a day, it's a miracle he even finds the time to be weird and domestic with his prime murder suspect and their pet cactus

[theminecraftbee]

also i cannot fucking believe jimmy of all people is like. actually an intimidating and competent villain this episode. at least from bigb's pov. how the hell did that happen.

[angelpuns]

Leo going through the horrors but the horrors are just that he had a shitt day and no one bothered to save him any cookies :/

[chronicowboy]

genuinely would be so funny if bobby just gets everyone involved in the wendell investigation. he's just like "may's befriended an employee and ex-patient of the rehab centre, athena got their contracts, hen, i need you to apply for the chauffeur job that just opened up-" "what happened to the last chauffeur?" "unimportant. chimney, you'll be applying for a secretary position at the facility-" "where between these two jobs do i get to see my child?" "buck, eddie, you're going to pretend to be a wealthy couple at the casino they frequent" "sorry what now?" "ive already picked out your outfits, eddie i found you a fake gold rolex, buck you're not to play poker under any circumstances, just sit next to eddie and look pretty" "i think i can do that"

[kriminalistic]

mystery solved

I spent ALL DAY getting mad abt pharmas dumbass guns when it was so simple all along..

I’m still mad abt it tho bc?? the arms connected to his guns would have to be so long for them to be moving around like they are in the two(?) whole panels they are in. It makes no sense

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 43

DcxDP crossover, yet again de-aged Danny & Dani, who would have thought?

Only this time, they’re being taken care of by teen/young adult Dan who is this close to snapping again but just finished community work and probation. Now they can’t stay in Amity, it’s not safe, like at all, or even in Illinois. 

So Dan takes the ‘twins’ and bolts from the city to somewhere else. Finds a simple job, even if it might not be fully legal, manages to secure an apartment and pay the rent for a few months ahead of time using some stolen money from Vlad. And is now in the middle of slightly freaking out on if this makes him a parent or not. 

However, he still destroyed the world in the future, and this is a crossover. Time travelling exists, and several heroes come back in time to stop the thing from happening. They aren’t expecting a teen dad and a pair of literal infants all covered in medical scars- and oh god is that a collar on the barely adult?! Misunderstandings ensue. 

[icryyoumercy]

i kind of want to write a second part to a fic i wrote, but the story needs a lawyer, and also some understanding of. manumission, and the associated legal problems (in the context of murderbot diary secunits); and probably also labor laws, mostly about appropriate pay and work safety procedures; and theft vs. smuggling vs. liberation when it comes to living beings

which i could theoretically google, but i have absolutely no idea where to start apart from the us civil war, and possibly ancient rome, both of which are kind of difficult to find info on that i can understand as a layperson while also being (more or less) neutral and without judgement, and also neither seem very applicable for a science fiction story

so. uh. if there's anyone following me who knows about these things and is willing to explain things to me in small and simple words, pretty please?

[tjerra14]

help

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

I'm probably going to do a terrible job of articulating myself here but every time I think about the worldbuilding in Hatoful Boyfriend, I think about the implications of having the birds simply have adopted the structure and policies of human society and go insane.

It's clearly originally just for the ridiculousness of it all for the players, but AGH it explains so much regarding the extremely rampant classism/racism/speciesism and how apparently normalized it is. It also, to me, adds a bit of moral nuance to the Dove - Hawk Party conflict.

(Long post under the cut. I'm so sorry I just kept going.)

First off, I'm obsessed with the concept of the birds becoming sapient and simply... taking over a society that was not structured for them. It leads to difficulties in universe! Bird wings are not made for doing tasks that human hands can do naturally - there's a couple instances where the characters ask for Hiyoko's assistance or express envy since she can just do the task more easily than they can. The birds are outright disadvantaged in certain areas of life, and yet, the society is in such turmoil due to the newness of it all that there still aren't really any workarounds for stuff like this.

Not that there haven't been any suggested solutions, such as the Labor 9 series, put forward initially by the Dove Party. Yeah, you know, that one throwaway line about how the party that up until this point have been the "good guys" wanted to take still semi-conscious human brains and make robotic slaves out of them Cyberman-style? What the hell. And what gets me is that Shuu was able to find the initial proposal, which he really only made tweaks to, which means that the project was at least close to being finished on the conceptual/planning/design phase before somebody went "hey this is a little fucked up actually".

The Dove Party wants peaceful coexistence with the humans, while the Hawk Party wants to eliminate humanity entirely. But we don't really go into how these two lines of thought evolved. I believe I have a suggestion for at least one part of the puzzle though.

Of all the birds in Hatoful, who enjoys the most privileges and the highest status? Fantails, it would seem. A breed of pigeon that is popular as a pet, considered beautiful and sought after, and achieve high accolades in shows and competitions - for clarity's sake, fantails were valuable in human society, and this status appears to have transferred when birds became sapient and took over. Conversely, which birds are ranked lower and often blocked from entering certain higher class places? Rock doves, who, in human society, are given an unfairly bad reputation, and considered anything from unclean and dirty, to nuisances, to pests. Again, this status transferred over when the birds took over.

So, while we don't know too many of the birds who make up the agents of the Dove and Hawk Party, let's take a look at who we do know of.

Fantails (Yuuya, Dove Party) are considered valuable over other doves and pigeons for being specially bred for their striking tail feathers

Cockatiels (Leone, Dove Party) are some of the most popular and beloved companion birds, kept as pets and considered very friendly

Rock doves (Ryuuji, Hawk Party) are considered unclean pests who receive a bad reputation, and are generally not treated with respect or appreciation <;- notable thing to mention here is that Ryuuji actually does like humans - I think he was only Hawk affiliated for the grant money and research facilities, which... fair enough man.

Chukar partridges (Shuu/Isa, Hawk Party) are game birds, specifically bred and released to be killed and eaten, and considered a delicacy

...do you... see what's going on here?

(I haven't mentioned Tohri as he's a special case. Give me a minute and I'll get to him!)

The birds we see in the Dove Party are those birds that were already viewed in a more favourable light by humans, a favourability that transferred over to their new society. Of course they are more likely to advocate for coexistence! They have less to lose, overall. And the Labor 9 series, and how that could've ever been suggested in the first place, suddenly makes a lot of sense. For many of these birds, society the way it exists now benefits them. Some of these high ranking Dove Party folks may be less about actual peace and justice (like Yuuya or Leone) and more about maintaining the current order of things - humans coexisting under their control, while they get to maintain their status... which is itself a product of human invention.

The birds we see in the Hawk Party, by contrast, are looked down on or hunted. Historically, even before bird sapience, they did not have a harmonious relation with humans - and it's likely this status carried over to their new society also, with many of these birds being more likely to have been disenfranchised. Their goal of elimination is therefore reactionary towards perceived threat. After all, the people who suffer when things go wrong aren't the ones at the top - it's all the people who sit at the bottom of the social rung; the vulnerable members of society who do not enjoy the same advantages as others.

Of course, the Hawk Party has built itself up into such a powerful group that they may have lost touch with this starting foundation - the only thing that remains is likely that reactionary fear. After all, people caught up in the actual conflict - Nageki, Hitori, Ryouta, and Hiyoko - see this kind of horrible bloodshed firsthand (firstwing?) and just want it to stop.

Again, it's not usually the people in these political factions who are the ones caught up in their conflict. It's the individuals who lack power or influence.

But that's just the political groups themselves. On an individual level, it's kind of interesting to look at and theorize where along the spectrum our core cast falls based on their species/breed.

Ryouta (rock dove) is actually rather indifferent towards humanity as a whole - he just likes Hiyoko. However, his witnessing of the Heartful House tragedy led him to abhor violence and unnecessary loss of life, and I'd imagine his mother's later illness solidified this. Ryouta doesn't seem overly interested in political struggles or the broader implications of a lot of things - he's actually a rather self-oriented character when it comes down to it (this is not a judgment, nor a bad thing! I love my boy!). Ryouta just doesn't want to lose people, really. A conflict would mean more loss, and rock doves seem to have to struggle enough as is.

Hiyoko (human) is the daughter of two diplomats, but interestingly, we don't get to see much of her political views on things - perhaps because even if she expressed them, it wouldn't really matter - she's not herself a diplomat, and humans are the lowest of the low - her going to a fancy school doesn't really change that. Social-wise, except with her friends, she is tolerated, not accepted. Yet, it's safe to say that Hiyoko strongly disapproves of people who flaunt their status - she's quick to not take crap from Sakuya, to get angry on behalf of Ryouta and herself over the gull clerk's assholery, and also to defend Miru and Kaku as living beings worthy of respect. Interestingly though, she also uses Okosan's status as a fantail to get Ryouta to let go of him and let him do whatever he wants so... it's kind of unclear what her firm beliefs are. Perhaps, as a human, she still values fantails more highly. I don't know honestly. Implicit bias?

Sakuya, Yuuya and Okosan (fantail pigeons) may share the same breed, but their experiences are highly different. Sakuya is largely separate from the human-bird conflict, as he is unlikely to be directly affected by it. As such, a lot of his story and development has to do with actually learning and un-learning about the world outside of the limitations of his "father's" classist views, which he simply mimics without understanding the larger implications. Yuuya and Okosan, on the other hand, may be fantails, but are also looked down on and often treated as inferior - Yuuya for being a "half-breed" and for his reputation, and Okosan for being closer to feral than a lot of other doves. Interestingly, these two show more interest and respect for the individual than Sakuya does, who often makes sweeping generalizations based on status - which makes sense to a degree, as they've been on the receiving end of this kind of treatment, whereas Sakuya hasn't. Okosan believes that each person has their own "wonderful names" (read: identity outside of breed or status), while Yuuya is a genuine fighter for justice who is able to get to the heart of people, especially in Holiday Star. However, even though they have experienced classism, they still have certain privileges with regards to species/race - take Okosan's shock when Hiyoko and Ryouta are barred entry from his favourite store. None of them are quite as out of place in everyday society as some of the other birds here, and it's notable that "diverse" St. Pigeonations still apparently has a significant fantail student population.

Shuu (chukar partridge) is really interesting, as he doesn't particularly care for the politics of the Hawk Party, and yet his role as a killer/hunter of both his fellow birds and humans is an interesting reversal of the chukar being a game bird. Shuu also has a disability (his semi-paralyzed right side) which hinders him in bird society even more than most. His extreme, yet coldly logical solution to kill all humans to stop the fighting between them, could be as much his rationality, as his joy in the sadistic, as a reactionary survivalism (remember he was caught up in a human terrorist attack as a child - while overall he considered this beneficial to him, he also did lose much of his colour vision and the use of his right side, so it did leave him weakened). Shuu attains control by "flipping the script" as it were.

Tohri (golden pheasant) starts out in the Hawk Party, but much like his colleagues, doesn't seem to care much for their politics. Golden pheasants are game birds whose eggs can be eaten, but are more often bred and kept for their plumage - they're not prey, but they're not exactly pets either. All this puts Tohri in this interesting position of being somewhat in the middle of this conflict, and indeed he goes on to be a part of (found?) the Crow Party - an opportunistic group that seeks to benefit from the overall conflict. Golden pheasants are birds intended to be admired for their beauty and intelligence more than anything else, benefitting in some ways from humans without a strong connection or a reliance, and Tohri's opportunism fits nicely with that. (As an aside, our sole crow character, Albert, is also something of an opportunist, being an assassin on the fringes of society.)

Hitori and Kazuaki (button quails) are somewhat interesting. It would be both expected and understandable if Hitori held hatred for humanity after the Heartful House incident, or even before then, considering they were all war orphans. Instead, he doesn't seem to harbour any particular ill-will - he seems totally fine around Hiyoko, and her being a human has nothing to do with his reticence with letting Nageki hang out with her in the shrine universe. Kazuaki, too, doesn't seem to mind Hiyoko being human and isn't afraid of her any more than he is anyone else. While quails are game birds, with both meat and eggs being eaten, button quails are too tiny for that and are mostly kept as pets - they are considered cute, silly, and entertaining, though a bit too jumpy to be outright companion birds. The quails don't seem to experience too much in the way of speciesism (except arguably with the whole mistaken identity of Kazuaki's corpse... there may be a bit of an "all quails look the same" thing going on perhaps). At the very least, they are able to occupy teaching positions at a renowned school as respected intellectuals, and did go to university. Still, it's kind of a known thing that you don't put button quails with bigger, more dominant birds, since larger birds will often pick on them or even outright try to kill them simply because they're small and shy - this may, in hindsight, explain some of Kazuaki's demeanour.

Nageki (mourning dove) and Anghel (luzon bleeding heart dove) are the two who are uncommon bird species in Japan. Nageki is another war orphan, who would be forgiven for harbouring resentment for humanity, but instead is appalled at the violence and made a huge sacrifice to get it to stop. It's kind of unclear how Nageki fits into this society, as mourning doves are not prey or pets - they're wild birds. They live on the outside of the human world, and while Nageki exists within current bird society, he likely doesn't have a designated status within it. Nageki is unfortunately also alienated from much of the action due to his illness and later his untimely death - this is why a lot of Nageki's thoughts are somewhat from an observer's perspective, with his most emotional moments being derived from his rare direct experiences - specifically the Heartful House tragedy and the human killings he was forced into, which solidified a really firm stance of not wanting anyone to suffer like that. Anghel is another outsider, this time genuinely a foreigner, as opposed to Nageki. Again, Luzons are wild birds, not prey or pets, and so it's a bit unclear what his status is. This might explain why Hiyoko repeats Sakuya's remarks towards him without apparently realizing they're actually insults - Anghel is removed enough from the conflict she is familiar with that it seems she doesn't quite... get it. Again, Anghel's role is as this strange kind of omniscient observer, whose perspective is closer to the player's than to the rest of the cast. He definitely frowns on the Hawk Party's overall goal - the Demon Spores are evil to him, and his main objective is to stop them from spreading, as they would cause damage to both birds and humans. I attribute his morals to his mother having raised him right lol. The lack of a clear status for both of them may be why they appear to take the stance of judgment based on individual actions, but are not heavily involved in the conflict itself - while humans tend to like mourning doves and luzons, there isn't much interaction that goes on between them. Nageki and Anghel are simply less embroiled in bird society's human-derived status conflict, which makes them both outsiders and observers.

As a bonus note, Azami, Rabu and Kenzaburou are all species of birds that can be kept as pets (java sparrow, budgie, parakeet), which may account for some of their friendliness towards Hiyoko, and Kenzaburou's willingness to hire her. Kenzaburou is even a bit old-fashioned it seems - he sleeps in a cage, which implies his ancestors were probably pet birds themselves. It's likely he, in particular, has more positive views on humans.

...Please tell me I'm not the only one who spent ages thinking about the implications and workings of a fictional post-apocalyptic bird society. Also I hope this made sense I kind of went off the rails here.