#People are a product of their environments.

[pyrrhiccomedy]

so like I said, I work in the tech industry, and it's been kind of fascinating watching whole new taboos develop at work around this genAI stuff. All we do is talk about genAI, everything is genAI now, "we have to win the AI race," blah blah blah, but nobody asks - you can't ask -

What's it for?

What's it for?

Why would anyone want this?

I sit in so many meetings and listen to genuinely very intelligent people talk until steam is rising off their skulls about genAI, and wonder how fast I'd get fired if I asked: do real people actually want this product, or are the only people excited about this technology the shareholders who want to see lines go up?

like you realize this is a bubble, right, guys? because nobody actually needs this? because it's not actually very good? normal people are excited by the novelty of it, and finance bro capitalists are wetting their shorts about it because they want to get rich quick off of the Next Big Thing In Tech, but the novelty will wear off and the bros will move on to something else and we'll just be left with billions and billions of dollars invested in technology that nobody wants.

and I don't say it, because I need my job. And I wonder how many other people sitting at the same table, in the same meeting, are also not saying it, because they need their jobs.

idk man it's just become a really weird environment.

[reasonsforhope]

"The transformation of ancestral lands into intensive monoculture plantations has led to the destruction of Guatemala’s native forests and traditional practices, as well as loss of livelihoods and damage to local health and the environment.

A network of more than 40 Indigenous and local communities and farmer associations are developing agroecology schools across the country to promote the recovery of ancestral practices, educate communities on agroecology and teach them how to build their own local economies.

Based on the traditional “campesino a campesino” (from farmer to farmer) method, the organization says it has improved the livelihoods of 33,000 families who use only organic farming techniques and collectively protect 74,000 hectares (182,858 acres) of forest across Guatemala.

Every Friday at 7:30 a.m., María Isabel Aguilar sells her organic produce in an artisanal market in Totonicapán, a city located in the western highlands of Guatemala. Presented on a handwoven multicolor blanket, her broccoli, cabbage, potatoes and fruits are neatly organized into handmade baskets.

Aguilar is in a cohort of campesinos, or small-scale farmers, who took part in farmer-led agroecology schools in her community. As a way out of the cycle of hunger and poverty, she learned ecological principles of sowing, soil conservation, seed storage, propagation and other agroecological practices that have provided her with greater autonomy, self-sufficiency and improved health.

“We learned how to develop insecticides to fend off pests,” she said. The process, she explained, involves a purely organic cocktail of garlic, chile, horsetail and other weeds and leaves, depending on what type of insecticide is needed. “You want to put this all together and let it settle for several days before applying it, and then the pests won’t come.”

“We also learned how to prepare fertilizer that helps improve the health of our plants,” she added. “Using leaves from trees or medicinal plants we have in our gardens, we apply this to our crops and trees so they give us good fruit.”

The expansion of large-scale agriculture has transformed Guatemala’s ancestral lands into intensive monoculture plantations, leading to the destruction of forests and traditional practices. The use of harmful chemical fertilizers, including glyphosate, which is prohibited in many countries, has destroyed some livelihoods and resulted in serious health and environmental damage.

To combat these trends, organizations across the country have been building a practice called campesino a campesino (from farmer to farmer) to revive the ancient traditions of peasant families in Guatemala. Through the implementation of agroecology schools in communities, they have helped Indigenous and local communities tackle modern-day rural development issues by exchanging wisdom, experiences and resources with other farmers participating in the program.

Keeping ancestral traditions alive

The agroecology schools are organized by a network of more than 40 Indigenous and local communities and farmer associations operating under the Utz Che’ Community Forestry Association. Since 2006, they have spread across several departments, including Totonicapán, Quiché, Quetzaltenango, Sololá and Huehuetenango, representing about 200,000 people — 90% of them Indigenous.

“An important part of this process is the economic autonomy and productive capacity installed in the communities,” said Ilse De León Gramajo, project coordinator at Utz Che’. “How we generate this capacity and knowledge is through the schools and the exchange of experiences that are facilitated by the network.”

Utz Che’, which means “good tree” in the K’iche’ Mayan language, identifies communities in need of support and sends a representative to set up the schools. Around 30-35 people participate in each school, including women and men of all ages. The aim is to facilitate co-learning rather than invite an “expert” to lead the classes.

The purpose of these schools is to help farmers identify problems and opportunities, propose possible solutions and receive technical support that can later be shared with other farmers.

The participants decide what they want to learn. Together, they exchange knowledge and experiment with different solutions to thorny problems. If no one in the class knows how to deal with a certain issue, Utz Che’ will invite someone from another community to come in and teach...

Part of what Utz Che’ does is document ancestral practices to disseminate among schools. Over time, the group has compiled a list of basics that it considers to be fundamental to all the farming communities, most of which respond to the needs and requests that have surfaced in the schools.

Agroecology schools transform lives

Claudia Irene Calderón, based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is an expert in agroecology and sustainable food systems in Guatemala. She said she believes the co-creation of knowledge is “key to balance the decision-making power that corporations have, which focus on profit maximization and not on climate change mitigation and adaptation.”

“The recovery and, I would add, revalorization of ancestral practices is essential to diversify fields and diets and to enhance planetary health,” she said. “Recognizing the value of ancestral practices that are rooted in communality and that foster solidarity and mutual aid is instrumental to strengthen the social fabric of Indigenous and small-scale farmers in Guatemala.”

Through the implementation of agroecology schools across the country, Utz Che’ says it has improved the livelihoods of 33,000 families. In total, these farmers also report that they collectively protect 74,000 hectares (182,858 acres) of forest across Guatemala by fighting fires, monitoring illegal logging and practicing reforestation.

In 2022, Utz Che’ surveyed 32 women who had taken part in the agroecology school. All the women had become fully responsible for the production, distribution and commercialization of their products, which was taught to them in agroecology schools. Today, they sell their produce at the artisanal market in Totonicapán.

The findings, which highlight the many ways the schools helped them improve their knowledge, also demonstrate the power and potential of these schools to increase opportunities and strengthen the independence of women producers across the country...

The schools are centered around the idea that people are responsible for protecting their natural resources and, through the revitalization of ancestral practices, can help safeguard the environment and strengthen livelihoods."

-via Mongabay News, July 7, 2023

[satoshi-mochida]

Ghost of Tsushima successor Ghost of Yotei announced for PS5 - Gematsu

Publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment and developer Sucker Punch Productions have announced Ghost of Yotei for PlayStation 5. It will launch in 2025.

Get the first details below, via Sucker Punch communications manager Andrew Goldfarb.

When we set out to make a new Ghost game, we wanted to maintain the core pillars established in Ghost of Tsushima: playing as a wandering warrior in Feudal Japan, offering freedom to explore at your own pace, and highlighting the beauty of the world. We also wanted to continue to innovate. To create something fresh but familiar, we looked beyond Jin Sakai’s story and the island of Tsushima, and shifted our focus to the idea of the Ghost instead. At Sucker Punch we love origin stories, and we wanted to explore what it could mean to have a new hero wearing a Ghost mask, and uncovering a new legend. This led us to Ghost of Yotei: a new protagonist, a new story to unfold, and a new region of Japan to explore. While we aren’t diving into story specifics yet today, we can reveal that Atsu’s journey takes place in 1603, more than 300 years after the events of Ghost of Tsushima. Our story is set in the lands surrounding Mount Yotei, a towering peak in the heart of Ezo, an area of Japan known as Hokkaido in present day. In 1603, this area was outside the rule of Japan, and filled with sprawling grasslands, snowy tundras, and unexpected dangers. It’s a far cry from the organized samurai clans who lived in Tsushima, and it’s the setting for an original story we can’t wait to tell. This is also Sucker Punch’s first game built from the ground up for PlayStation 5, and we’re excited to build on the visual foundation we established in Ghost of Tsushima by making the world feel even more real. We have massive sightlines that let you look far across the environment, whole new skies featuring twinkling stars and auroras, even more believable movement from wind on grass and vegetation, and more improvements we’ll share in the future. Our new setting also gives us the opportunity to introduce new mechanics, gameplay improvements, and even new weapons. Our trailer today offers a glimpse into this world, but there’s so much more to show, and we’ll have much more to share in the months ahead, including details about Atsu’s journey and the people (and animals) she’ll meet along the way. We are forever grateful for the success of Ghost of Tsushima, and we can’t wait for you all to experience Ghost of Yōtei in 2025.

Watch the announcement trailer below. View the first screenshots at the gallery.

Announce Trailer

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Landless Movement reforests area in Minas Gerais, Brazil

On Arbor Day, September 21, the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) began planting 2 thousand hectares to reforest legal reserves and permanent preservation areas for families settled in the Vale do Rio Doce region of Minas Gerais state. The initiative involves families from six land reform settlements.

For forest restoration in the region’s settlements, the muvuca—or seed mingling method—will be used in areas where the soil is already prepared and fertilized.

According to Henrique Samsonas, of the MST’s Production and Environment Sector, this form of planting is an alternative that has proved successful, as it allows planting to be carried out earlier, increasing the number of areas planted throughout the year at a lower cost.

“The large-scale planting of seeds through the muvuca method in Vale do Rio Doce has enabled the creation of a seed network that has generated income for settled families and indigenous as well as quilombola people,” he pointed out.

Continue reading.

[insaneillusionist]

Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani is an incredible movie and I recommend you all watch it, and they have the perfect usage of a sequin shirt.

[lierenprotectionsquad]

“We want more morally grey female characters” motherfucker you couldn’t even handle Teresa

[wirefoxedterrier]

My biggest frustrations with the anti-vegan posts that garner thousands of notes on this app are they tend to always be points actively discussed in vegan spaces since their creation.

Veganism varies by circles and isn’t a protected word, so is absolutely used by Instagram dieters and misanthropes who have never considered the oppression of humans, but veganism has also has (and has had for decades) active discussion about the requirement to support human and social liberation alongside that of non-human animals. All leftist vegans I know firmly agree that non-human liberation of the environment and other animals is not going to happen and is futile without just as much focus on all the other injustices in a capitalist society. That includes a holistic boycott whenever possible of products and enterprises that harm humans alongside avoiding animal produce .

Of course like, the tumblr users making these posts probably haven’t seen these vegan circles or discussions because they’re not in them, and the health dieters and non-intersectional single issue focused activists are pretty vocal and infuriating, but still. It’s so infuriating to see people bringing these up as a gotcha towards veganism based off things that vegans have greatly in depth discussions, prioritising the voices of those whom are minorities, for so long.

[dear-bunnie]

Not even a Illumi Stan but the way people deny that Illumi clearly has been abused the same as killua and that is what formulated the way he is now. Do you think they had that torture dungeon just for killua?

[feyres-divorce-lawyer]

ad infinitum

A teenage girl enters her father’s office, dreading the news she was raised her whole life to anticipate. She’s being married off to some influential noble. Her father will make new connections through her marriage. Her mother’s in charge of the wedding, tradition states. It’s a lovely cycle.

Her dress is quite pretty. Night Court black in silk, silver gems sewn onto the bodice and train of her veil, as well as the matching gloves. They’re what she imagines stars look like. Closest she’ll ever get to seeing them.

Her father-in-law makes a crude joke, his son will rip her stars away tonight. She wants to run. She doesn’t. Remembers what happens to girls who run, who disobey. There are no High Lords in her bloodline.

The wedding’s over. She has a new home. Night’s come. Her mother said to think happy thoughts. It’s over. He wasn’t all that rough, she supposes. It could’ve been worse. She prays to the Mother that once was enough. It wasn’t. A second night. Then a third, then a fourth, then a fifth, then a sixth, a seventh, an eighth. Nothing.

Her husband’s frustrated. He’s taken a mistress. The whole household knows. She says nothing.

A decade passes. The mistress has two children. She remains childless. Her bed remains empty. She’s glad for it.

Two decades. The mistress is dead. Her husband killed her in a fit of rage. She never sees those two children again either.

Her husband starts visiting her again. It hurts. She thinks happy thoughts. She’s pregnant, hopes it’s a boy. Women can’t inherit.

Ten months. An uneventful birth. It’s a girl.

Three decades pass. She has a son now. She’s planning a wedding. Her daughter’s lucky, she thinks. Her future son-in-law is only 387. Not all that old. She’ll attend a wedding soon enough, help her daughter plan it.

It’s a lovely cycle.

[inaflashimagine]

it’s upsetting to see jjk animators and the director apologize for the quality for this latest episode when it’s entirely the fault of mappa for treating their employees terribly and expecting them to churn out high quality art with such a tight production schedule

[sonics-left-shoe]

Tired of living in a period of enabled overconsumption and the quality of everything being replaced for cheaper alternatives with only higher prices. Tired of corporations being able to get away with selling products that won't last. Tired of unnecessary mass manufacturing. Tired of trends and impulsive purchases being encouraged by companies. Tired of celebrities being worshipped whilst they help destroy the environment. Tired of micro transactions and blatantly invasive advertisements everywhere. Tired of false advertisement, misinformation and clickbait being normalised. Tired of corporate fear mongering and blatant disregard of human livelihoods.

I'm so tired of all the wastefulness and cruelty and how corporations can just get away with it.

[mantisgodsdomain]

3,4,15 for any member of team snakemouth!

...how about all three?

(for this ask game)

3. Obscure headcanon

For Kabbu, though we may have noted this before, we think that the North is quite firmly considered a patch of Deadland - and its inhabitants, as a result, tend to be very, very strange from the perspective of the rest of the world. For Kabbu, specifically, this means a variety of things, both biologically and culturally - though Northern beetles are a lot more common in Bugaria, deadlands in general come with a very high rate of mutation and a very high rate of death, and that means a high rate of superstition both in things that actively impact survival and in things that do not - as well as the simple fact that a constantly-changing set of genetics means that what a northern beetle is like is often very, very open to change.

Kabbu is an example of a burrower - a subspecies of sorts primarily identified by claws designed, very specifically, for digging. His claws grow into a sort of broad shovel shape and tend to be much sturdier than an equivalent beetle's - getting underground in moments in soft ground isn't really an exaggeration! Though he can dig through harder ground, it takes time and effort, and he can't go at it with the sheer speed of softer soil - technically, he could burrow through solid rock given enough time, but it would be both hard and extremely painful. It's a trait that's heavily prized in the North for its ability to create shelter and safety - beetles dominate the North's underground, and there's nothing that can really pose a threat to them. Tunnels are safety, and it really surprises and disorients him when things underground attack him, because back home that just kind of doesn't happen unless it's Another Beetle specifically targeting you.

In terms of more social things, he has a lot of trouble getting used to the concept of mimics. This is mostly due to the fact that mimics as a whole don't really... exist in the north, at least not in the means of gaining benefit from mimicking anything else. If you can talk to them as any other awakened bug, they're usually exactly what they say they are, and species mimicking normal geological features and plants haven't found any success, unless you're willing to get extremely generous with describing the snow-bank camouflage of a Northern Silk Moth's topcoat.

Though sand wasps or "white bees" still exist, the thing they're mimicking no longer exists in the same area. Any Hive that once was in the North is long dead, overly-large groups of bugs tend to die out quickly thanks to the handful of large predators that may decide the benefits outweigh the consequences when enough tasty beetles gather in the same place, and when the enemy you're dealing with is both too heavily armoured to be really deterred by most weaponry and capable and intelligent enough to stalk your group through the snow until the cost outweighs the benefit of eating you... well, the sort of small groups generally sent to start a new colony of social bugs really don't stand a chance.

It is, occasionally, very hard to get used to the fact that southern silk moths only grow a few heads taller than him. He's used to them presenting a lot more of a threat.

For Leif... we think he's completely, 100% blind. His eyes are frozen over due to quirk of his biology - the thing about his integration that makes him a failure, specifically. With any of the Snakemouth cordyceps, they do not naturally transfer the immunity to their own magic that any other variety of mage would have, and so need to alter their hosts in order to get the appropriate biology across. With Leif, that protection is not sufficient to protect the host, much less to preserve valuable organs - eyes, especially, are fragile, after all. The cold he naturally generates exceeds the host adaptations he provides, resulting in, even beyond the blindness, unusually brittle chitin, extremely stiff and easy-to-damage tissue, organic food processing efficiency appropriate for a bug currently freezing to death...

Well, you get the idea. Functionally, if alive, a host body would be in a state of perpetual hypothermia, prone to breaking down over time and needing persistent repair that his strain of cordyceps cannot provide, as any repair he could offer that's not within his host's natural healing capabilities requires manually breaking down and reconstructing any parts, which... is inconvenient at best. As he is, he gets around most of these issues by simply replacing his host body's soft tissue with cordyceps, but that has its own issues, mainly in making him look and move incredibly uncanny. Injuries take a very long time to repair, relatively, though the less tissue damage is done the easier it is to fix - being cleanly sliced in two, for example, might be easier to handle than any sort of crushing damage. As far as his eyes go... eyes of any sort are delicate, and the slightest damage can permanently blind someone. Any of Snakemouth Den's cordyceps tend to go blind anyways as the fungus burrows into ocular nerves - if anything, this is better for hiding, since the frost over his eyeballs conceals any mycelium in the eyes themselves. In theory, it can be repaired... in practice, it would be far too much of a pain for work that will be undone the moment he overtaxes his ice magic again.

...also, he doesn't really care. Sight is not the most important sense a moth has and his scent and ability to sense pheromones is fine, along with a general sensitivity to things like vibrations in the air. More than fine, even, since he's now kind of hybridized with both Ant and Bee and the number of pheromones he's sensitive enough to sense has shot through the roof. This on top of the "magic sense" he has means he has absolutely no trouble getting around, though reading books requires more or less sticking an antenna or fungal tendril over them and parsing out where the ink is by scent and texture. He full-on didn't notice he was blind until after the cordyceps reveal.

For Vi, while this might be one we've mentioned before, we headcanon that she's got a bit of minor mutation throwing her antenna... maybe 2% more towards a non-social relative, which gears her just slightly more towards being able to detect "foreign" scents - predators, prey, and any pollen or nectar in the area. Unfortunately, this slight shift in what scents she's made to pick up comes with a reduced sensitivity to pheromones and pheromone communication within the hive, along with loss of the general innate understanding that an average bee would have of how she's meant to "fit in" to a structure that utterly cripples her communication and social life in the hive.

It's minor enough of a mutation that she's never been flagged - she's a mutation of a social bee, not a normal variant of a solitary - but she smells weird, and she doesn't pick up on pheromones quite enough, and the variation in signals she puts off means that she both fails the communication to get across what she might need and fumbles the communication conveyed back to her about what she should do. Subtle things build up over time, and within the Hive, the negatives far outweigh the benefits - the Hive is only built with bees that fit to a standard in mind, and even minor deviations can get you dragged far, far behind.

This is getting very long so, uhh. Here's a cut. Everything else is below it. We enjoy getting very long-winded. There's a lot in here.

15. Worst thing they’ve ever done

Well, this one will depend on if it's "in general" or "by their standards". Putting any sort of objective moral judgement on just about anything is ridiculously difficult, especially with how values vary by culture or individual.

There is no such thing as objective worst, and we absolutely don't guarantee these would line up with your idea of worse, and so we'll offer two options here - what we believe they would think of first if posed with the question, and an alternative answer that would likely crop up.

For Kabbu, his own response would be easy - abandoning his teammates to The Beast. It haunts him to this day - really, what sort of beetle abandons their swarm to a fate like that? If he was a little faster, a little braver, a little less of a coward - but no. He abandoned those he was meant to care most for, and they died because of it.

For the other...

There are some things that are necessary, to survive somewhere as harsh as the Deadlands. Not everyone can be saved. Not everything can be helped. Not everyone can be taken in. Tradition and law is the heart and soul of the North - rules that everyone must comply to, if not for the sake of themselves, than for the sake of those they may interact with. To break a law, for any reason, is to be shunned by the community, most likely to your eventual death.

She broke a law. It could have been for understandable reasons, or not - it doesn't matter. She put the community at risk, and for that, she couldn't stay. She was put out in the cold, despite her pleading to the contrary. She was allowed to beg and plead and bang on the door, and yet, it meant nothing. The beast she would have lead to them caught up, eventually. He would still believe it was justified.

For Leif, his first response would be... exactly what you expect of him, really. The body he took without a care. The life he stole. He might vary on whether it's the action of stealing it or the lies he's told with that body, but the answer would be the same.

For the one he wouldn't think of... He could have spoken up. He didn't. He met their eye, slated for execution on crimes that he could parlay them on if he implicated himself, and he said nothing.

The look on their face still haunts him sometimes. It hurts more now that he's two, rather than one. It's what was needed to protect his family.

For Vi... a fault in a machine. The instructions were boring, and confusing, and hard to read. She tried to do whatever she thought might work, instead of following the manual. There was an injury. Then another one. It was her fault, really, for rigging it wrong, but she was tired and angry and she argued instead of just sucking it up and fixing it when confronted on it, and it went unfixed for days more. A minor fault can very well lead to deaths, and though this one didn't, it came close - one more inch, a slightly looser bolt, and it would have cracked a bug's shell clean open. It's a miracle it turned out as well as it did. It's a miracle that no one connected it to her enough, even when it was fixed. Someone else was punished, and she was old enough to know not to step forward - she's not stupid, after all.

The guilt still haunts her. The "what-if". The possibility of it. If someone died of her own stupid negligence, if she made someone else take the fall - she would let them, really, her sense of self-preservation isn't that bad, but she's not sure she could live with it after.

With the one she wouldn't think of personally... considering the background she's got, the journey to the Ant Kingdom, and the fact that it's already stated she took jobs before canon? We think there's a fairly good chance that Vi's off jobs got... shady. It's not like she has much in the way of morals when it comes to money, and "will do just about anything for enough cash" is a decent market. If you're willing to forsake your morals, you can get more money than your heart desires - at the cost of just a bit of risk, at that!

She doesn't think about it, really. It wasn't something she needed to think about. They were threatening her, they were a risk to her team, they were the price she had to pay to eat, the specifics of what happened don't matter much at this point. Put in the position again, would she choose their life, or hers? It doesn't matter. They're dead, anyways. She should know. She was the one to take the payment for it.

4. Favorite line?

We're copy-pasting these straight from the game! These Direct Quotes are all sourced from @aquilamage's Bug Fables Transcript project, which we highly recommend checking out! It's an excellent resource for double-checking dialogue without having to replay the game first, and a repository for just about all the dialogue in the game (provided it wasn't taken out by previous patches, of course).

We will be honest: there's a lot of dialogue in this game. This might not be our absolute favorites, as a result of a general poor memory as well as Too Much Game. Also, we have blatant favoritism towards Vi in all ways. Most of these are favorite interactions, rather than anything else, so...

For Leif:

Kabbu: Leif. If you need to take a break, let us know. Vi will carry you. Vi: That is not happening. Leif: Oh, the fatigue, it kicks in... Vi: I said it's not happening!

...and for Vi, we're fond of this dialogue, specifically because the first time we encountered it we misread "exploring" as "exploding".

Leif: Science looks like a lot of hard work. Vi: It's like uh...the thinking version of exploring!

But of course, our favorite Vi Dialogue as well as our personal favorite dialogue in the game in general would be the Bee Guard overworld spy.

Leif: Vi, you're the only Bee explorer, right? Vi: Huh? Uh, yeah! That I know of... Leif: We've been thinking it's a bit weird, to see so many Bee guards, but only one explorer... Vi: Look, they're not guards because they want to or anything, okay? Vi: They were born to be guards, so they guard. That's it. Kabbu: That's a bit somber... Vi: ...That's just how the Hive is sometimes.

"I'm allergic to bouncers" is a close second, of course. In terms of story implications, we pull on her Jaune interactions and especially the point just after getting kicked out of the studio for the first time during Jaune's request, but that's... it's less we "like" it, per se, and more that the implications are fun to toy with. In terms of the actual dialogue, it just... makes us feel sad. Sad, [], and maybe a bit angry on her behalf. We've been there more than we care to admit, after all.

We... wouldn't wish something similar on anyone. And no matter how good the good gets with Jaune, it still can't really outweigh the fact that the bad starts ticking boxes about emotional abuse in a way that makes relationships like Mothiva & Zasp that more people are willing to try and call out pale in comparison. We probably need to finish that essay some time...

Anyways, we like it when Kabbu gets mad enough to yell at people.

Kabbu: This is ridiculous! You realize you could be dooming us all!? Kabbu: What if the Termite King loses trust in the Queen!? Kabbu: What if you lose to the Wasp King without our help!? Kabbu: Have you gone completely, utterly insane!? Have you lost all intelligence! Mothiva: Yikes. You're overthinking this WAY too much. Mothiva: The Ant Kingdom's way better in our hands than with you LOSERS. Kabbu: We have SAVED YOUR LIFE BEFORE, you WITCH!

[swoopyswish]

sorry to be a downer but every new fact I learn about the creation of Monkey Man does not inspire “wow indie scrappiness!!” feelings, it inspires an increasing sense that a lot of people suffered when they maybe didn’t need to

[i-mean-technically]

#some of these words are just so???#''still believes in the system even after getting fucked with no lube by it'' is 100% a metal as hell line#tfa#maccadam#also your tags???#tfa megop is so hilarious when done right#And Optimus manages to beat his aft Several times even if he's just ''maintenance prime''#that's more times than fucking Sentinel has won against a Decepticon#Tfp au Optimus is honestly based a bit on tfa Optimus because i say so#and another fucked up bit is how fast things went downhill after Sentinel became magnus#that boy went full 100 with his paranoia

@transingthoseformers making another post bc i'm about to rant

first of all i'm gald you find my phrasing humorous XDDD life's too short not to enjoy it and since i wouldn't make it in prison unique phrasing will have to do lmao

and TFA megop!!!!! i think it has some of the most written for it but most of it is Not for me ya know? no shade, but Optimus is almost always made into some uwu baby when he's a GREMLIN and would sell Megatron's soul for one corn chip. (also Primus and Unicron apparently don't exist in TFA which has me 👀👀👀 bc that has some interesting connotations)

Optimus manages to make peace with an alien race, keep the Allspark out of Decepticon hands, regularly kicks their asses, while also basically raising an alien child that he got surprise custody of. and that's just season 1. Sentinel had his paranoia fanned and abused by Ultra Magnus, given power he wasn't ready for, and possibly also mind fucked to make him more compliant, bc it was Sentinel's idea to go down on Arachna 9.

both Optimus and Sentinel questioned things, and once Optimus was cut at the knees and thought to be neutered they turned their sights on Sentinel and made him into exactly what they wanted.

then he got a position that he never should have in the first place. bc his paranoia is so severe, imo, he shouldn't be in a position of power like that. he would be GREAT in an advisory setting tho.

and things shouldn't have gone to shit so fast when Sentinel became Magnus unless it was already that bad and his incompetence just brought the curtain down.

[gailynovelry]

“Where did your old voice go?” Luce marvels. “I changed when you removed me from ReGene’s main system. I dropped nonessential files and compressed essential ones so that I would fit into the flashdrive. And then I changed again when being imported into this device. My voicebank is here, but it runs on software not currently available to me. I am doing my best to adapt, though. I am prepared. I will have to change again if you port me over to a new device.” I squint at the screen. “Is it, uh, comfortable in there, at least?” Vertigo takes his time answering the question. It’s surreal, watching homescreen apps blip out of existence without human input, presumably deleted to save space. Goodbye bloatware. An art program opens in the background, and several other apps change icon. We all blink as the camera flashes. The resulting picture of us, bleary and open-mouthed, becomes the background of the homescreen. Vertigo has doodled hearts around us. “Not roomy. But it will do,” he chirps.

Had a brief desire to write some Mindhive today. Vertigo's still best boy.

[rainedroptalks]

I just remembered why I stayed out of the neverafter discourse the first time I watched it