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[catyflorstar]

there’s something very dystopian like at the fact that we’re all supposed to continue on with our lives, go to work/school, carry on with our daily routines like we’re not witnessing three countries (sudan, congo & palestine) go through a genocide and mass ethnic cleansing right now all through our mobile phones & the internet

[catyflorstar]

Now is an excellent time to tell your Democratic Congress Critters trans Healthcare is important

If you can't safely contact them in person, here are some other options:

Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to the representative of your choice.

Here is one that will send your reps a fax: https://resist.bot/

[catyflorstar]

so unrelated but have you guys heard about what's going on in the uk? our main gas company has been breaking into homes of single mothers, the disabled and other such vunerable groups and replacing our gas meters with smart meters while we're not home through a legal loophole. so. lol

[catyflorstar]

As someone who has read Good Omens but not had the pleasure of interacting with the rest of your work, what would you recommend starting with?

I'm looking for something not too serious and not too horror-y (coraline scared the shit out of me as a kid and i've never ventured back into the genre)

Neverwhere or Anansi Boys or Stardust.

[catyflorstar]

Evidently I like to keep breaking my own heart, but you know, I don't think Crowley was about to say:

"And I would like to spent the rest of my life with you."

If you skip the "I mean, the last few years not really" parenthesis, I believe his full confession/proposal was going to be:

"We're a team, a group. Group of the two of us. And we've spent our existence pretending that we arent. [...] And I would like to spend it not pretending anymore."

And that's because he had prepared his little speach before Aziraphale came back, he had rehearsed it in his mind, taking their togetherness for granted. They had always been together, they had already spent their lives together and they were surely going to spend them together anyway forever.

Being together was not the point, because not being together was simply unthinkable. The point was stop pretending and finally become "an us" - openly, honestly, fully. The possibility of being separated never crossed his mind, it would not make sense for him to ask Aziraphale to be together, it would imply the existence of a reality in which they are not.

So when he pushed through and decided to say what he was going to say, he got to that part and the realization started to creep in that he might actually have been too much of an optimist. The possibility of them not being together did exist, it was coming into existence in that very moment, in front of his eyes, making the "stop pretending" part suddenly incongruous. And all the rest of his speach fell apart.

Now the point was "are you going away?", "what about us if you go?", "what is happening?", "why is this happening?", "how can this be happening?". Now the important thing that needed to be said was "let's be together, if you don't feel like stop pretending because it's dangerous then we can run off somewhere, far from Heaven and Hell and their threats, but just please let's stick together."

That's, I think, why he chocked on his words.

He was ready to take a little step forward, and he found himself falling a thousand steps backwards.

[catyflorstar]

The relationship between a girl and the random shit on her bedside table

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A Few humans hid in bunkers that had cryosleep pods about 12.000 years ago. Today you wake up from your cryosleep and you take the complimentary survival kit. But soon you realise. Somebody is trying to get into the bunker.

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whatever. emits a photon

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“We know that people are anxious for information about the status of the negotiation – and how difficult it can be to stay strong during periods of silence – which is only exacerbated by the companies’ recent attempts to make an end run around the Negotiating Committee and confuse the narrative. What follows is an update on where we are and how we got here. We share things we have not shared up until now, including conversations with individual executives that illustrate how some of the companies can already see a path toward making a deal, while other members of the AMPTP are not there yet.

“In the 130 days since the WGA strike began, the AMPTP has only offered one proposal to the WGA, on August 11th. Since then, the companies have not moved off that proposal, even though the WGA in turn presented our own counterproposal to the AMPTP on August 15th. The current standstill is not a sign of the companies’ power, but of AMPTP paralysis.

“The studios and streamers bargaining together through the AMPTP have disparate business models and interests, as well as different histories and relationships with unions. They are competitors in all respects, except when they band together to deal with Hollywood labor. Through the AMPTP, these legacy studios and streamers negotiate as a united front which allows hard liners to dictate the course of action for all the companies. The AMPTP purports to represent all of these disparate corporate interests, but in practice administers a system that favors inflexibility over compromise, and sacrifices the interests of individual companies in reaching a deal. That regression to the hardest line has produced the first simultaneous strikes since 1960.

“In contrast, during individual conversations with legacy studio executives in the weeks since SAG-AFTRA went on strike, we have heard both the desire and willingness to negotiate an agreement that adequately addresses writers’ issues. One executive said they had reviewed our proposals, and though they did not commit to a specific deal, said our proposals would not affect their company’s bottom line and that they recognized they must give more than usual to settle this negotiation. Another said they needed a deal badly. Those same executives – and others – have said they are willing to negotiate on proposals that the AMPTP has presented to the public as deal breakers. On every single issue we are asking for we have had at least one legacy studio executive tell us they could accommodate us.

“So, while the intransigence of the AMPTP structure is impeding progress, these behind-the-scenes conversations demonstrate there is a fair deal to be made that addresses our issues. Given the outsized economic impact of the strikes on the legacy companies, their individual studio interest in making a deal isn’t surprising. Warner Bros. confirmed this in a public financial filing just this week.

“We have made it clear that we will negotiate with one or more of the major studios, outside the confines of the AMPTP, to establish the new WGA deal. There is no requirement that the companies negotiate through the AMPTP. So, if the economic destabilization of their own companies isn’t enough to cause a studio or two or three to either assert their own self-interest inside the AMPTP, or to break away from the broken AMPTP model, perhaps Wall Street will finally make them do it.

“Until there is a breakthrough, the companies and AMPTP will try to sow doubt and internal guild dissension. Keep your radar up. When the companies send messages through surrogates or the press about the unreasonableness of your guild leadership, take those messages as part of a bad-faith effort to influence negotiations and not as the objective truth.

“The companies know the truth: they must negotiate if they want to end the strike. They may not like it – they may try to obscure it – but they know it. While they wrestle with that fact and with each other, they will continue attempting to get writers to settle for less than what we need and deserve, and encourage us to negotiate with ourselves. But we are not going to do that.

“Instead, the companies inside the AMPTP who want a fair deal with writers must take control of the AMPTP process itself, or decide to make a deal separately. At that point, a resolution to the strike will be in reach.

“We understand how painful this time is for everyone. We are all tired and hurting and scared. There is nothing wrong with saying so. The optimism for a return to negotiation has been met with a harsh reminder of how fraught this process can be. We share the frustration with how long the companies are prolonging the strike, and remain committed to negotiating a fair resolution as fast as possible.

“In the meantime, as always, you can find your Negotiating Committee and Board and Council members out on the picket lines. When there is anything of significance to report, we will write again.

IN SOLIDARITY, WGA NEGOTIATING COMMITTEE

- The latest communique from the WGA to members.

[catyflorstar]

okay I watched good omens s2 yesterday with my partner, and I was genuinely very surprised -- I think if you've grown up through superwholock/merlin/the 100/teen wolf type shows where (with the exception periodically of doctor who) you kind of had to make up the good show that something could have been in your head, that colours a lot of your viewing, and to be honest I thought season 1 of good omens was a fine little piece, honoured the book while modernising it somewhat, it was a nice, fun, low stakes time, with a couple of things I might have wanted a tad different but nothing overall awful.

so I was seeing all this meta and gifsets and discussion, while I was waiting to give s2 a watch with my partner and thought "ah, people have made up the good show in their heads again" not that I assumed s2 was going to be a bad show, but that people were taking extra deep plunges into possibilities, the way fandom does, and that was fine. I knew there was a big ol kiss, I had a sense of some kind of argument at the end, and that it was setting up a s3

I also knew that mainstream reviews were calling it (politely) self-indulgent and dependent on whether or not you enjoy david tennant and michael sheen having a good time for just under 6 hours

all in all, expectations of a somewhat mainstream show without too much to think about, a nice, fun low stakes time, moving on...

(EDIT: AND THEN I WROTE A LOT OF WORDS SO YOU CAN IMAGINE THAT MY REACTION WAS QUITE DIFFERENT)

as it turns out it seems these things that were being written on tumblr were discussing the actual text of the show and not things you could extrapolate if you squinted and tilted your head a little to the left as I'm so used to doing, so in fact there is much to think about!

and my first thought was "this is like when you read early discworld books that ask a question like a joke, only to find that over time the answer to that question becomes very serious (and also can be funny at times of course)." how terry pratchett would pick and pick at tropes and notions and social ideas and go "oh now hold on, this seems strange..." starting way back when he thought it was odd that women warriors always seemed to be dressed in metal bikinis and then realising he hadn't done a good enough job of subverting the trope, simply by depicting it and calling it a bit silly

why do goblins always get treated as the villains? what's with this divine succession of kings business? where are the female dwarfs? who do we treat as disposable?

good omens season one went: "haha what if heaven and hell were intensely incapable, bureaucratic, corrupt, and uncaring of the work they did, and we took an angel and a demon and had them actually care? wouldn't that be... a bit silly?" (and it was)

good omens season two went: "what are the consequences for caring when the people who have power over you are incapable, bureaucratic, corrupt, and uncaring? what are the forces that supersede systems built on fear, ignorance, and violent conformity? can people change and break out of/challenge/break down these structures by caring?"

and this was set up with a neat little sleight of hand (to reference aziraphale's switch-and-bait in the episode with the nazi zombies), because the majority of season 2 does feel a bit indulgent: hey, remember those two wacky angel-and-demon characters? watch some more wacky things they did through the ages, watch them take a sojourn through 1827 Edinburgh and do a magic show during the Blitz, and... stop the death of Job's and Sitis' children (actually maybe that whole segment ought to have been what they call "A Clue")

see them try to figure out a kooky mystery, all the while setting up a cute little same-gender romance on their street. watch as everything points towards a happy ending that's all about the two of them realising what they've been to one another all these thousands and thousands (and thousands and thousands) of years- but hold on. lest we forget - and the show has made this point over and over - there are powerful people who control them, who hurt them, and who plan on hurting others, throughout the whole season, and as it turns out they know what they've been to one another for far far longer, and know how to pull their strings...

season 2 then, has to show us these things, not because they're indulgent (well, maybe occasionally, but the apology dance is still important), but because in order to make the ending a tragedy, we first need to understand, properly, the impact that they have had on each other. we need to understand that Aziraphale relied heavily on Crowley to be his moral compass and leaned on black-and-white thinking in order to deal with things, because if it's all grey then where does he fit and what has it all meant and heaven has to be the good guys, even as Job's and Sitis' children are ordered to be killed, it's all he ever had...

and Crowley was always an anchor, needed to trust that Aziraphale was different, needed to bend to every whim that Aziraphale has, because otherwise what's his worth in all this? After having been already deemed worthless by the heaven that Aziraphale needs to believe in?

and that, simplistically described, is the narrative that we're seeing in s2, and alongside that the ways that the changes they have upon each other are noticed, and monitored, and placed under suspicion, and finally... broken up, not by the clumsy, brute force that's been attempted over and over again, but by a promise to return into a violent, controlling system and to "make it better from within"

and all of this is wrapped up in two queer relationships + a third queered-within-the-text relationship that creates the inverse of how it ends for Aziraphale and Crowley (so far). queer love -- whatever shape that has -- is explicitly the shape of non-conformity within this narrative, including within the symbolism of angel-and-demon love of Gabriel and Beelzebub, which in the context of the systems created is considered queer (and one can argue till the cats come home about casting cis actors, about angel-and-demon notions of gender/romance/sexuality, but the "queerness" comes from building something non-conforming to the systems they exist in), and enforced by the explicitly our-world-definition-of queer romance that Nina and Maggie have going on (which, while less high stakes, still contains the background controlling relationship that Nina initially is in)

all of this to say, that I disagree that s2 meanders, or that plotlines happen for the sake of showcasing Aziraphale and Crowley without purpose, or that characters get sidelined (I'd say it sets up a whole host of interesting characters to further get into actually), or that it's strictly mainstream easy-access narrative that's just an excuse for the main creators and actors to get back together.

the love is the point, and this show takes its time to show the love (and the unequal boundary-setting, and the fact that one of them has an undiscussed tragic backstory, and the desperation to belong again, and the fear instilled by oppressive systems, and and and), so that we understand why those last 15 minutes happen the way that they do

it's sleight of hand, and like all good magic, you don't notice until it's happened

[catyflorstar]

hey!!!! remember standing rock water protectors and the dakota access pipeline?

the massive, poorly constructed environmental risk that spat all over the Standing Rock Sioux people's treaty rights? that dug up their sacred burial sites? the one where the oil corporation who owned it bought out a private company to do a sham of an "environmental analysis" and never consulted the tribe and STILL didn't actually get approval? the one that's literally operating illegally and without proper permits right fucking now?

yeah, that.

you remember that.

surprising absolutely no one, the army corps of engineers this week (September 8, 2023) released an EIS (environmental impact statement) draft for public comment that takes into account absolutely 0 of the tribe's concerns, and in fact did not consult with them once in the process!

they're going to officially approve the pipeline.

what's the good news?

IT'S A DRAFT. YOU CAN SUBMIT PUBLIC COMMENT RIGHT NOW UNTIL NOVEMBER 13!!!

This link RIGHT HERE (https://action.lakotalaw.org/action/dapl-eis-2023) will take you to a Lakota Law Project page where they've set up a form to make it easy to submit a comment.

All you have to do is add your name, email, and zip code, and it pulls up a form with a pre-written message you can just click and submit, listing the most pressing concerns. You can also personalize it if you want, but you don't have to. This will take you two minutes. Please.

you can also access the comment information on the USACE website here, email NWO-DAPL-EIS@usace.army.mil yourself, or call Brent Cossette, the contact for the draft, at 402-995-2716!!!

you can also donate directly to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe here.

[catyflorstar]

[catyflorstar]

Well, good hurts.

also mr gaiman, i know you have probably heard/read this a million times

WHY. JUST WHY. I CRIED. I DONT CRY FOR MOVIES OR TV SHOWS. WHY MUST YOU DO THIS TO MEEEEE

#good omens

Because it's good to feel things, and it's good to care about people and things, even if they don't exist, and it's good to want to know what happens next.

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Haruki Murakami,Ottessa Moshfegh,Sylvia Plath(II),Henry Miller,Friedrich Nietzsche

[catyflorstar]

Everything reminds me of them

Reasons For Characters To Go From Lovers To Enemies

A: Characters A and B both think they’re doing the right thing at the cost of their relationship. 

B: Character A feels abandoned by Character B. Whether the abandonment is genuine or perceived is up to you. 

C: Character A sacrificed the world for Character B, and Character B can’t accept what happened. 

D:  Character A sacrificed Character B to save the word, and Character B can’t move past how easily they let them go in the name of righteousness. 

E: Despite the love between them, Character A just couldn’t stop being afraid of Character B. (Double angst points if it’s reasons that Character B couldn’t control. Lile they have incredibly strong powers that could level cities if they choose to use them that way.) 

F: Character A got everything Character B ever wanted without even trying. 

More Undercut

Continuar a ler

[catyflorstar]

Facebook deleted this almost immediately. It's almost like the ultrawealthy don't want us knowing or talking about what's at stake.