thewickedbohemian

[thewickedbohemian]

DOGE just froze funding to vital Federal and Indigenous conservation programs devoted to supporting the very delicate and tenuous existence of the black-footed ferret.

I fell in love with these animals as a kid traveling to our National Parks. Their rarity and ferocity made me sharply aware, even as a child, of just how much of a responsibility we have toward our environment. I can't bear the thought of them being a fucking casualty of Trump and Musk.

Look at them! They do war dances.

[thewickedbohemian]

Watching the Late Show and Colbert just Colbert-bumped Elsbeth by explaining the difference between good television and great television/why saying something will make great television is bad and saying "Good television is any episode of Elsbeth". I notice he didn't put the banner thingie on the bottom of the screen like he does when he does similar promotion-y shit for Tracker but the way Colbert treats Tracker when he promotes it feels like either he's got some sort of stake in the show or a huge man-crush on Justin Hartley.

But anyway hopefully this kind of promo might lead to even bigger and better things for the show from going on beyond even what it's recently been renewed for to the kinds of stories it could go on to tell

[thewickedbohemian]

Okay all -- few quick thoughts about the Elon Muskifying of the government, especially the takeover of the Treasury and associated financial data for every single US citizen and organization, that we are learning about in detail today.

Don't panic. This sounds bad, because it is bad. It's really, really bad. It's outrageously fascist bad. But we've still gotta take a deep breath and get through it.

This is the kind of shock-and-awe exercise of untrammeled fascist power where they are absolutely counting on gleefully terrorizing, paralyzing, and stunning you into mounting no resistance, or just giving up and giving in. They are literally live-tweeting it in real time and boasting about all the access and influence they have right now. They want you to know about it and feel like you can't do anything, so you might as well let it happen.

We have to show them that's not true.

TIME TO MAKE SOME NOISE. Because it's Sunday night, I've gone ahead and contacted my state Attorney General and both senators by email (but come Monday morning, we should all be calling). Here is the email that I wrote to my AG:

Dear Mr. [AG],

As you will be aware, today (February 2, 2025) the Trump administration has granted wide-ranging access to sensitive US Treasury data, including the personal and private information of [state] citizens, to Elon Musk's so-called "Department of Government Efficiency." Musk is an unelected private citizen who has no legal right to access this data, and is engaging in extensive intimidation and coercion to fulfill his personal and harmful ideological agenda. The present and material harm that this causes to US citizens, [state] residents, and basic laws of government, privacy, and financial security is direct, unconscionable, and actionable. I strongly urge you, in your capacity as [state] Attorney General, to file direct suit against the Trump administration, Elon Musk, the "DOGE" office, and any identifiable individuals who have taken part in this action, in order to protect consumer data, citizen privacy, and basic faith and trust in government.

All the best,

[Qqueenofhades]

Short! To the point! Doesn't waste time, tells him what I want him to do, how Elmo's nonsense directly harms the residents of my state, and why he should take action to stop it! And frankly, given how on-the-ball blue-state AGs have been thus far, they're probably already working on it. You are very welcome to copy-and-paste this message and fill in your AG's last name and your state as appropriate. Super easy to do. Takes five minutes. Call tomorrow.

If you are in a red state, your voice is particularly important right now. The Trumpsters are counting on and are even emboldened by blue state pushback, but you really need to make it start coming from Republican strongholds. Congressional Republicans will only feel the slightest amount of unease about docilely enabling this BS when it starts threatening their own personal power. Hit them where it hurts.

Other lawsuits are coming. Marc Elias, Democratic lawyer extraordinaire, is well aware of this situation and has noted on Bluesky that more lawsuits are in the works. He often wins his cases. This does not mean that you shouldn't loudly make noise elsewhere, but please remember that this is one of those 24-hour periods where, as noted, they are counting on demoralizing you with a nonstop blizzard of bullshit. It does not say anything about how this will play out long-term or the opposition that can and will be mobilized to stop it.

Once again: courage. Take the small steps that you can do today. Then take a breath and get off social media for a little while. Try to take the long view. One step at a time, we will get through this.

Courage.

[thewickedbohemian]

I apologize, autism, literal mind

hey does anyone wanna do the funniest thing ever

[thewickedbohemian]

People who think sheep are killed for their wool are so hilarious to me. Does your barber slit your throat whenever you get a haircut?? Are you a returning customer to Sweeney Todd? Lmao it grows back, fools.

[thewickedbohemian]

really not sure when it happened or why but personally I'm pissed that the queer community at large seems to have given up ground on the "people with penises/vulvas/testes/ovaries" language to sex & gender essentialists in exchange for the much less precise, much more demeaning "AGAB" language.

is it because you're scared of the word vulva? of acknowledging out loud that some people have penises? of recognising that many many people, including but certainly not limited to trans people, have mixed sex characteristics that cannot be accurately summarised by "afab/amab" as shorthand for "female/male"?

"in [GENITAL RELATED] situation AFABs will need to do X and AMABs will need to do Y" there are "afabs" with penises and "amabs" with vulvas. Saying this shit makes you look so unserious & honestly transphobic (given the ongoing erasure of post-op trans people within broader community). Intersex people and GRS have both existed for long enough (fucking forever and, decades, respectively) that we should well past making this basic fucking mistake.

quit referring to people by a vague & often violent event that happened at their birth as though it defines ANYTHING about how they & their body currently operate, and start using precise language so you at least look like you know what you're fucking talking about.

[thewickedbohemian]

First they planted the seeds of her having a love interest at all now this and if we play our cards right and make our voice heard think of what could happen eventually

elsbeth having crazy sexual tension w/ the main suspect… we are sooooo back

[thewickedbohemian]

The kind of chick who'd make a currently-platonic roommate pay rent just because they're coworkers and she doesn't want to get accused of abuse of power wouldn't fuck a suspect either at all or unless it was way before she was able to realize they were a suspect

On the other hand...

Can’t wait til there’s an episode where Elsbeth and the hot female murder suspect DO fuck about it

[thewickedbohemian]

Let's keep this momentum going, we can make this happen

one really gay episode of elsbeth and the tag is alive again… i used to pray for times like these

[thewickedbohemian]

but (saying for no particular reason) he'd also have to die in a way that doesn't seem heroic enough for martyrdom nor ironic/comedic/incongruous/fitting enough for comedic memorialization

i feel like what would totally kill the republican party or at least kneecap them for awhile to the public would be for trump to die mid office. if trump dies after his presidency ends, the media would saintify his image like they do by calling him a “controversial figure, loved and hated by many.” republicans will ride on that image of trump like they do with reagan and i bet the short-attention span of americans will forget all the horrid things he has done if he leaves office and dies years afterwards. but if he died (particularly from natural causes) while still in office, republicans will scramble to assemble any form of identity outside of trump, which none of them do. they have nothing to explain to their base about doing anything in the future bcuz the whole party has been centered on trump and following his commands. without trump, republicans are nothing

[thewickedbohemian]

"just move"

I can't always hold my gf's hand, but I can see the stars the way you never could in a city.

"just move"

When I was younger it would have been so, so much easier to keep going and plan for the future if I had even one example of a future worth having

"just move"

I forgot my 'what are you, a cop?' bag at the place where my gf sings for open mic nights and when I went to pick it up the bartender with a dyed mullet gushed about how she liked my queer pin like she was excited to meet the person it belonged to.

"just move"

In 2020 I knew every single BLM activist and protestor in our town by name there were so few of us, but when a pissed off racist pulled a gun out on our organizer I was grateful there were so many people.

"just move"

In the city I'd just be another person trying to be happy. I'd blend in better. You're right. There are more people fighting and protesting there, thats true that I could make a difference. Things would be better for me.

"Just move"

But then who's going to make things better here? For everyone else? Who's going to be part of the community and numbers that offer safety if I leave? How will this place Ever have safety in numbers like cities do if everyone like me leaves for somewhere better?

Who's going to move here and care and love about the community here? Who's going to replace all that love, time, and effort I put into trying to make this place better and safer for everyone? Who's going to give a shit about the little brown trans kids if I move?

"just move"

I don't want to. This place might just be some shitty conservative town to you, but this is my home and Im not letting bigots have it just because fighting for it was too hard. All things worth having are worth fighting for and that includes equality especially in the conservative towns directly fueling alt-right extremism.

If we can have progress in places like that then we can have it anywhere.

"just move"

You first

[thewickedbohemian]

civic duty

[thewickedbohemian]

Thoughts on a different-in-a-good-way slightly soap-y Tracker with yeah a couple Doylist oopsies but very good themes and nice insight into the characters of Colter and Reenie both separately and together

town I've never heard of again and we're in medias some bullshit

usual flashback

and plus-one dude's back

with that amount of PDA you'd think this was that new Grosse Pointe Garden Society thing

so he's got the job for Colter

was that deflection or not

good to know Reenie got that insinuation

more parent-child friction, wonder what shit about Colter's gonna get brought up

oh shit (and now I'm getting another GPGS flashback)

okay so how is this not as simple as insane parent to get him where we saw earlier

how does he not see her tone

mystery woman identified

Randy, people who have a system aren't happy when you clean up

and things continue to get even more holy soap

nice little bit of grifting

um where'd the bag go I call shenanigans (did we cut a scene)

what the fuck did he just figuratively and literally walk into (and also what's with the water, that doesn't physics)

starting to put the pieces together about how Colter ended up where we saw

so it's not just super-strict policy she's In On It

ruh roh

two episodes in a row people misunderstand Colter's intention because of who technically hired him

I think we're starting to catch up

do we really trust the "godfather" over here even with that plot twist

dude, he may have seen it all but he's not Elsbeth or Morgan, he doesn't have that kind of mad skills to remember it all

expected Colter getting out of this, unexpectedly expected twist with the gun

so Matt's got some HIP

who's playing both sides of the feud

now we see the mystery Europeans

don't do the thing please don't do the thing

I can sense the metaphorical ice in the air

ok the hell just happened

cue cavalry, both of them surprisingly

let's play trace the burner

I saw that implied "but I know someone who can" or w/e but who?

huh the what

cliche villain motivation #137

Colter inching closer and closer

he shoots he scores (and again this is feeling a little video-game)

oh so him for the save

there's the Colter's parents parallel I expected

Colter and Reenie getting to have a moment without Elliott

I wonder if this is meant to to foreshadow any sort of romantic anything between them given some of how this played out and some of the parallels they're talking about

but even if nothing happens (though some fans might get annoyed if he doesn't get an ongoing love interest seeing as we're probably done with Camille now that Gina's case is solved) they're still awesome as friends and this is such a beautiful moment to end on with them by the fire with the beautiful view and another typical Tracker acoustic banger needle drop

[thewickedbohemian]

Well, there is a fic on ao3 involving our heroes and some pot brownies that iirc they didn't realize were pot brownies when they tried them

I thought the name High Potential meant that she was gonna be a stoner. damn disappointing

[thewickedbohemian]

But part of why I think it might go over more bipartisanly than you'd think (relevant because I wish Disney would make stage musicals of their non-musical movies and I feel like this would be a good one to start off with, just think of the puppetry) is the whole "everyone thought they were Dumbo" principle might cause right-wingers to just see something, idk, pro-worker in the way they're always singing about in country songs

[thewickedbohemian]

And I also have a similar question (to my last poll) about the potential regional bug for my fakemon region

I ask as while I was looking up the Oregon state insect (the Oregon swallowtail butterfly) and what little info I could find on it to try and see if it has anything that could lead me to a type and concept to combine it with for the regional bug, I found that apparently its larva feed on a plant one of the alternate names of which is "dragon wormwood", so remembering what Lockstin & Gnoggin said in his videos about his PNW-based fakemon region about the Dragon type also being the "sorcery type" I had the thought of a seemingly normal pure Bug caterpillar metamorphosing into a magic-wielding Bug/Dragon butterfly through eating a somewhat-draconic-looking plant that's brimming with magic (which perhaps is its only viable food source or w/e like what's the case in the real world with monarch butterflies and milkweed) and then the power gets absorbed into its system and its body eventually evolves into a form that can handle that power.

However, I do hope to actually make a game of this Oregon-based region one day and even if it's open-world (as I'm not sure how much open-world is going to be sticking around the mainline games) so we don't have early routes proper I get the feeling unless I either make it evolve into the final form super-late or make it very underpowered by Dragon-type standards (both of which might piss off hypothetical future players) I'm worried a Dragon-type this early might give players an easy way to curbstomp the game

[thewickedbohemian]

Another question I had regarding my fakemon region idea that I thought I'd put a poll out for

I ask because it seems the mainline games have been moving away from the pattern of Normal/Flying regional birds but when trying to find a concept to combine with the Oregon state bird of the western meadowlark for a regional bird for my Oregon-based region the first idea I found was sound-related; because western meadowlarks are known for their song (a much more musical one) in comparison to their eastern cousins, at least my area of Oregon has some degree of choir emphasis/notability (a bunch of community choirs and school choirs are Kind Of A Big Deal) and western meadowlarks have a stripe on their chest that in its v-shape and high-contrast-color-related-to-background reminded me of the stripe on the edges of the mantles "traditional" (as in not jazz/show) school choirs wear over their choir robes I thought why not have some kind of choir-themed bird Pokemon. However, despite the uniqueness of this concept and approach to the Normal type it's still another Normal/Flying (unless of course I should just make Sound type a thing in my game) bird so I feel like if I can actually make a game of this it might piss a lot of people off hence the poll.