not planning on doing anything with this, just thought it would be fun to make a poll for it! here’s the results summary page, for those who are curious.
“is tumblr an mmo”, the greatest thread in the history of forums, locked by a moderator after 12239 pages of heated debate,
One of those “classic victorian horror literature characters in a modern setting” stories, where Dr. Jekyll has figured out how to fix the Mr. Hyde formula in order to do/undo the transformation at will, but keeps pretending like it’s outside of his control. Going like oh noo, the dark wills to commit unspeakable acts are coming over me again [pulling out a glass test tube shaped flask from his front pocket] I have no choice but to go out and sin, what a wretched slave I am to this creature that I am about to become
And at this point everyone else is 100% done with politely going along with it and just go “oh for fuck’s sake doctor we are on the 25th year of the 21st century, you can just go to a gay bar if you want.”
saying that Churchill is the chief villain of WWII is obviously very silly and a claim you would only make if you were being deliberately provocative to sell content (or a legit nazi of course).
it’s reasonable to say that Churchill was a villain, and that his villainy is often underrated, but one of the reasons for that is because he was facing a much greater villain!
while there is no shortage of competitors in the villain stakes, you can’t overlook the fact that Hitler started the war that he wanted, attacked the most countries, attempted the most genocides, and had the most villainous ideology, publicly avowed and clearly expressed.
while you could mount a valid argument that Japan was worse, I think it’s difficult to find one specific guy on the Japanese side that was as clearly responsible for the bulk of the atrocities as Hitler was for the Germans, and while there is a lot to say about Stalin since his career was much longer, Russia was fighting defense for much of WWII and his biggest crime was allying with Hitler at the start!
“Hitler was the villain of WWII and one of the biggest villains of the 20th century and perhaps human history” might be a tired cliche but only because it’s true; we should not forget that he was only one of so many other villains (many of whom he learned from!) but that doesn’t justify downplaying his villainy out of contrarian pique.
Apparently boomer Democrats are having meltdowns over a gen-z progressive who is primarying an 80 year old Democrat because she “went on trans podcasts” and wore a Charizard kigurumi
Discworld is an interesting beast in the age of ACAB.
Like, the city watch books are a story about police and the way in which a good police force can help and protect people. Which would make it copoganda.
And I’m not going to say that the City Watch books are completely free of copoganda, but they also do something interesting that fairly few stories about heroic police officers do, and I think it has a lot to do with Samuel Vimes.
A lot of copoganda stories like, say, Brooklyn 99, are perfectly capable of portraying cops as cruel, bigoted, and greedy, but our central cast of characters are portrayed as good people who want to help their communities. The result is that the bad cops are portrayed as an aberration, while most cops can be assumed to be good people doing a tough job because they want to help protect people from the nebulous evil forces of “Crime”. The police are considered to be naturally heroic.
Pratchett does something very interesting, which is provide us with Vimes’ perspective, and present us with an Unnaturally heroic police force. In Ahnk-Morpork, the natural state of the watch is a gang with extra paperwork. It’s the place for people who, at best, just want a steady paycheck and at worst want an excuse to hit people with a truncheon. Rather than be an army defending people from the forces of Crime, the Watch is described as a sort of sleight-of-hand, big burly watchmen in shiny uniforms don’t stand around in-case a Crime happens in their vicinity, they stand around to remind people that The Law exists and has teeth. The Watchmen are people, when danger rears it’s head, their instinct is to hide and get out of the way. When faced with authority, their instinct is to bow to it out of fear of what it might do to them if they don’t. Carrot is a genuine Hero, but his natural heroism is presented as an aberration. Normal Cops don’t act like Carrot does.
The fact that the Watch ends up acting like a Heroic Police Force is largely due to the leadership of Sam Vimes, but Vimes himself is a microcosm of the Watch. The base state of Sam Vimes would be an alchoholic bully of an officer, one who beats people until they confess to anything because that makes his job easier. Vimes The Hero is a homunculous, an artificial being created by Sam Vimes fighting back all those instincts and FORCING himself to behave as his conscience dictates. Vimes doesn’t take bribes or let his officers do the same because, damnit, that sort of thing shouldn’t happen, even if doing so would make things a lot easier. Vimes doesn’t run towards sounds of screaming because he WANTS to, he forces himself to do so because somebody needs to.
It’s best summed up in Thud
“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Your Grace.” “I know that one,” said Vimes. “Who watches the watchmen? Me, Mr. Pessimal.” “Ah, but who watches you, Your Grace?” said the inspector with a brief little smile. “I do that, too. All the time,” said Vimes. “Believe me.”
In the hands of another writer, or another series, this exchange would be weirdly dismissive. To whom should the police be accountable to? Themselves, shut up and trust us.
But from Vimes, it’s a different story. Vimes DOES constantly watch himself, and he doesn’t trust that bastard, he’s known him his entire life. The Heroic Police are not a natural state, they’re an ideal, and ahnk-morpork only gets anywhere close. Vimes is constantly struggling against his own instincts to take shortcuts, to let things slide, but he forces himself to live up to that ideal and the Watch follows his example.
Discworld doesn’t propose any solutions to the problems with policing in the real world. We don’t have a Sam Vimes to run the NYPD and force them to behave. We don’t have a Carrot Ironfounderson. But it’s at least a story about detectives and police that I can read without feeling like I’m being sold propaganda about the Thin Blue Line.
So there’s the idea of “kitchen table poly,” AKA “everyone in the polycule needs to be able to sit at a kitchen table together and get along like friends.”
One of my roommates just came up with a counter idea, which is “poker table poly.” Everyone in the polycule must be enemies. No one is allowed to get too chummy or they’re kicked out. They all also likely owe eachother money.
laptop husbandry tip: the fans spinning up just means its EXCITED, not DISTRESSED. this is a COMMON MISCONCEPTION and it does not need to go to the vet
whatever you’re doing, pause and take three deep breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth. nothing else, just three deep breaths and then back to it
“Because people have begun to lose their hopes and forget their dreams. So, the Nothing grows stronger.”
The Neverending Story (1984)
This is exactly why speculative fiction is important
This is why taking a break for downtime is important
This is why being able to daydream and wander, is important
Without hope and dreams, we can’t even consider that a better world is possible
And that is exactly the point of overworking and underpaying us.
Michael Ende, who wrote The Neverending Story, also wrote Momo, where the villains are little grey men who convince you to “save time” by cutting out everything fun and meaningful in your life. But you never get the saved time back, the little men smoke it.
Momo should be vastly more well-known than it is, IMO.
Thanks! I read it years ago and couldn’t remember the title, and for whatever reason couldn’t locate it by description, either.
Should go without saying but never date a cop and christ never marry one. Rule of thumb if he’s legally untouchable he’s ethically unfuckable. You don’t like that cop, you like buff men in tight clothing. I can show you more of those, better ones. Take my hand.
Hi guys. This post ain’t about stereotyping random professions (farriers????), it’s about how cops are effectively legally untouchable and if they hurt you, you have virtually no recourse. A quality that none of those other professions have. It’s the inherent power imbalance of being bound to someone who can’t be prosecuted.
The “firemen cheat” thing is actually a myth, union workers are both hot and professionally stable, paramedics are stressed out but otherwise fine, physical workers are not inferior to “thinkers” don’t be fuckin classist, and “watch out for Farriers” is maybe the funniest thing anyone’s ever said on this post.
like the fuck are they gonna do lmao
Having beef with the horse cobbler is objectively hilarious
they gonna have SERIOUS fucking back problems. No way around it. Just know what to expect.
Gosh I hate grind culture. My little sister just started medical school and all of her orientation leaders are like “you absolutely cannot have a life WHATsoever you WILL have to give up EVERYTHING besides this program say GOODBYE to your hobbies and relationships” and now she’s calling me feeling guilty for running and going to the grocery store and that’s just WRONG! And that is exactly what I was told starting law school as well, and rejecting that mentality was the best thing I ever did but it was so hard not to buy into. Anyway if any of you are in an intense academic program PLEASE take time to sleep and eat and exercise and maintain your relationships and keep up your hobbies! you are not a robot who exists solely to study and I promise that living a life and staying physically and mentally healthy is not going to make you fail
Workaholism is not just a “millennial quirk”, it’s a very real psychological problem that should not be normalized and praised. Diligence and self-realization? Awesome!!! Working so much you forget to eat, sleep and socialize? Not okay under any circumstances.
It is with the heaviest of hearts that I bring you sad news today. Murphy, the eagle who incubated a rock (and later raised a foster eaglet after his rock “hatched”), passed away at age 33 (almost a decade longer than long-lived wild eagles!). A tornado hit his local area. It’s believed he sustained blunt force head trauma, likely from spooking during the high winds, as his cage and fellow eagles were unharmed.
Murphy is survived by his foster son, Baby 23-126, who was successfully released into the wild, and a second foster eaglet he was still caring for; this eaglet is expected to be able to be released as well.
I know a lot of people on Tumblr enjoyed seeing his story, and I know we will remember him fondly.
It is with the heaviest of hearts that I bring you sad news today. Murphy, the eagle who incubated a rock (and later raised a foster eaglet after his rock “hatched”), passed away at age 33 (almost a decade longer than long-lived wild eagles!). A tornado hit his local area. It’s believed he sustained blunt force head trauma, likely from spooking during the high winds, as his cage and fellow eagles were unharmed.
Murphy is survived by his foster son, Baby 23-126, who was successfully released into the wild, and a second foster eaglet he was still caring for; this eaglet is expected to be able to be released as well.
I know a lot of people on Tumblr enjoyed seeing his story, and I know we will remember him fondly.
It is with the heaviest of hearts that I bring you sad news today. Murphy, the eagle who incubated a rock (and later raised a foster eaglet after his rock “hatched”), passed away at age 33 (almost a decade longer than long-lived wild eagles!). A tornado hit his local area. It’s believed he sustained blunt force head trauma, likely from spooking during the high winds, as his cage and fellow eagles were unharmed.
Murphy is survived by his foster son, Baby 23-126, who was successfully released into the wild, and a second foster eaglet he was still caring for; this eaglet is expected to be able to be released as well.
I know a lot of people on Tumblr enjoyed seeing his story, and I know we will remember him fondly.
