#and to see it true and real... its beautiful

[ohwolfling]

I feel like I'm seeing a slight increase in Johnny Silverhand being interpreted as an antagonist, or a Bad Person™️, or a semi-hysterical fraud whose pointless or doesn't really believe anything.

And I really hate that. Part of the beauty of Cyberpunk 2077 is how inescapable the machine is. Johnny serves that in so many ways. He serves it in being the person stupid/passionate enough to do something about Arasaka... and it doesn't matter and it sends him to a transhumanist hell. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. How you play influences how Johnny is with you to an extent, but I don't believe there's any level where he's enthusiastic and chill about slowly eating someone's existence & overwriting them.

Every "rant" Johnny has is correct. Especially early on, he's dismissive of V for not unpacking any of this yet. He's not registering anyone to vote and I'd hardly choose him to move your grandmother left or whatever, but his intensity reflects the intensity of the dystopia. It reflects that he was from a time when there wasn't time to let a revolution build and now in a time where there's no time because you, V, and he, a malignant warped soul (because Soulkiller is ironic to a degree, babyyyy) are literally dying.

Johnny's goodbye tour isn't to show you he's a Bad Person™️. Before I touch on what it does show, I need us to get real about the people in his life. Alt was coerced into working with war criminals. Rogue is coerced into working with war criminals. Kerry is owned by the war criminal record label (which arguably could exist to control what anti establishment in entertainment looks like) and is so maladjusted he wants to blow up and murder three 20 year olds who sample his music. Johnny's apology tour is an acknowledgement that he hurt these people, but it's also an acknowledgement that he loves them, an acknowledgement that they did their best in his lifetime, and are doing their best now.

There are no Good People™️ in Cyberpunk 2077. The closest we get are Jackie Welles and Judy Alvarez. And Jackie was a former ganger who turned to higher crime in pursuit of freedom & stability & it got him killed. Judy endlessly suffers as, one by one, the people around her die or disappear or get swallowed up by Corpos. No matter what you do, Judy loses and Judy flees Night City. Jackie's death echoes Johnny's death. Judy, I think, has the most in common with Rogue.

I think we have to be less cynical when we engage with art that depicts an exaggerated but increasingly resonate dystopia that reflects our own. We're all in there. Maybe none of us are at that point yet, but our lives aren't at that point of dystopia yet. I think we should be open to what kind of fuck up we are. Because we are. And ideological purity and obsessive lore mining & insistence on a One True Canon™️ in a ttrpg/rpg that is made to be shaped by us, the player, not just in our choices but in its entirety, is a kind of fucked up. What does that tendency in us look like twenty, fifty, eighty years from now? I think that's the power of Cyberpunk 2077. I think that's the tragedy of Johnny Silverhand.

He did his best. And he did more than many other people. He talked the talked, he walked the walked, and he FAILED. Like, goddamn... how many pieces of media are still willing to go there?

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Greg Sargent at TNR:

As the war between Donald Trump and Elon Musk worsens, what’s truly odd about this whole spectacle is that the actual substantive disagreement between them seems to be of little interest to media observers. And when you strip away the trolling and shitposting, here’s what becomes clear: This is really a battle over how comprehensively to screw over poor and working people, largely to the benefit of the wealthy. The superficial argument between them, of course, is over Musk’s opposition to the “big, beautiful bill” that the House passed and that Trump wants the Senate to adopt. That opposition is rooted in Musk’s claim that the bill is loaded with “pork” and will explode the deficit. Trump, meanwhile, is infuriated by Musk because he can’t brook criticism and wants the bill to pass to notch a victory. But the respective positions underlying those stances are mysteriously missing from the whole Trump-Musk discourse. Flush them into the open, and it helps illuminate the true spectrum of the MAGA movement’s ideological goals—and why its “pro-worker populist” pretensions are so thoroughly phony. The House GOP bill would entail a large upward transfer of resources. The bill, which would continue Trump’s 2017 tax law and add new tax giveaways for wealthy investors, heirs, and others, would deliver a big tax cut to those in the highest income brackets. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the tax cuts enjoyed by those in the bottom 20 percent in 2027 would be one seven-hundredth the size of those reaped by the top 1 percent.

Worse, those relative table scraps for the bottom could be erased by other changes. The bill’s massive cuts to Medicaid and other health care changes would result in over 10 million people losing health insurance. Add in other cuts to the safety net, and you see why the bill ultimately would lower household resources for the bottom 10 percent while raising them for the top 10 percent—a sizable redistribution upward. As Paul Krugman notes, the bill’s “cruelty is exceptional even by right wing standards.” Musk is angry about the $2.4 trillion those changes would add to the debt. But, crucially, he’s said little—if anything—about the role that those tax cuts for the rich would have in that outcome. He is primarily obsessed with the bill’s “pork,” meaning that he wants the bill to cut more spending—much, much more. Where would that money come from? Musk’s cuts via his Department of Government Efficiency have already decimated foreign aid and other programs, producing more starvation, disease, and death among the global poor. Given that DOGE searched for “waste, fraud, and abuse” and found very little, if Musk wants massive additional cuts, by definition they would fall more heavily on important government programs, almost certainly ones that low-income Americans rely upon. Another way to say this is that their real difference is over how far to push the “waste, fraud, and abuse” scam. Trump, who’s mindful of the MAGA-GOP’s image as a “working-class party,” has insisted the GOP won’t cut Medicaid and will target only fraud. That’s a lie—even some MAGA Republicans warn that the bill’s deep Medicaid cuts will hammer Trump’s working-class base and, in so doing, expose how Trump is betraying MAGA’s “populist” aura. Indeed, Trump is actively deceiving his base by pretending those cuts only target fraud. Musk, similarly, would use the “waste, fraud, and abuse” canard to absolutely annihilate the state if he could.

The Trump-Musk feud is about who gets to harm America more, aka Satan A and Satan B.

See Also:

The Status Kuo (Jay Kuo): Are You Fucking Ketamine?!

[willyhoos]

metamy is insane. like.

what if i was the hero you loved gone wrong. defeated and destroyed. rebuilt as my own greatest enemy. what if i lost everything. what if i had been reprogrammed to despise all i had once fought for. what if i couldn't even remember why i had fought at all.

and what if you were made of roses. what if you represented every beautiful thing i once died trying to protect. what if you wore flowers in your hair and cared for small creatures and had eyes the color of the forests i used to call my home. what if you were everything i once loved.

those memories are just out of my reach. infuriatingly. maddeningly. but if anyone knows who i am (who i used to be) it's you. if anyone can make me feel like who i used to be (who i really am) it's you. i can't speak, i can't breathe, i can't remember anything (but you).

you are the world i have been ordered to burn. i am the weapon you have chosen to resist. i was (am) the hero that you loved.

you are my only memory.

[phinnking]

i know a lot of people like to make fun of young queer people who use a bunch of microlabels and engage in niche or "cringe" aesthetics but im gonna be so honest, i love them so much. i 100% was that kid and while now i don't really use or think about any of the labels i used back then, that doesn't make that time any less valuable and valid (and it doesn't make someone less valid if they do keep using that terminology into their adult life!). queer kids who are figuring themselves out and are learning about new fun words for genders and pronouns and sexualities deserve to run wild and be loud and happy and not carry and be impacted by the shame that many of us have been taught to hold.

my cousin is a year younger than how old i was when i first realized i was queer and they've vaguely known they were queer for a couple years now. personally, i think that's pretty awesome. recently they've gotten into the very stereotypical scene kid aesthetic and i make a point to compliment them on it every time i see them. almost every time i see them they have a new adjustment as to how they view their gender/sexuality and i always tell them that that's really cool and i give them a hug. recently they told me they have a boyfriend and listed like 3 separate labels as to how he defines his gender and i asked them if i was remembering the definitions of all those words correctly (which i was because, like i said, i was that kid lol).

it's just all these small things that seem so trivial or "weird/cringe" that so many people look down on queer kids for engaging in and i'll never understand it. i think it is so unbelievably cool that these people are figuring themselves out and finding new terms and identities and things that they can be and they're just so excited by it. being excited by queerness is cool! wanting to engage in niche subcultures is cool! allowing yourself to be who you are in that moment without the worrying guilt of having to get it "right" is wonderful and awesome and cool and how it should be!! please do not teach the queer kids to be ashamed of themselves in a time where they should be able to run wild and figure out their identities in a way that truly makes them happy!!!!

[kelpermoosee]

Knocking them over and watching them scramble to get up with those big ass heads

[margindoodles2407]

so here's the deal guys. in the past week i reread my way through prisoner of azkaban, goblet of fire, order of the phoenix, and half-blood prince. i am currently halfway through deathly hallows. and as i was eleven the last time i seriously read harry potter. i forgot that it allows me to unlock secret shrimp emotions that humans aren't normally capable of feeling

[scribesynnox]

I finished reading Victory Conditions by astolat on ao3 and I will never recover. That fic has fuckin’ rewired my brain. It has rocked my world view. It is a core memory now. I will never be the same.

[ribcagebonemeal]

BEATLES '64 PHOTO DUMP BECAUSE I TOOK A GAZILLION SCREENSHOTS!!!!! WHAT A GOOD DOCUMENTARY!!!!! (it's 98% JUST ringo and george though ough)

[aeide-thea]

poäng appreciation post 💛

[lunawlw]

there are people on twitter (and tiktok apparently) that are upset about people drawing mlp characters as people of color and/or fat. which is hilarious to me, because all of the real ones know pinkie is a fat person of color since like 2016

[cartoonrival]

i feel like i should probably just wtch boruto. biggest issue is just that im pretty sure the central conflict is fucking dumb. in addition to the fact that the story's existence depends on the worlds biggest He Would Not Fucking Do That

[ourladyoftheflytrap]

Went to visit stevie last weekend and ofc I visited her mom too bc that's what friends do and her mom saw me and in a super happy and complimentary voice she went "awww, you never stopped looking like a 12 year old boy" 💀

[averageestrogenenjoyer]

Brienne of Frickin' Tarth!!!! best girl!! best girl brienne!!!!

Oh my god oh my god oh my god but thinking about Brienne and how she didn’t reject her femininity by choice but everyone else rejected it for her because she wasn’t conventionally attractive so the only role she felt she could fit in to in society’s eyes was that of a warrior and how she was in love with Renly because he was nice to her and danced with her and treated her how all the other girls her age were treated even if it was just for a night and how she never feels like she fits in as a woman because she’s ugly but she never fits in as a man because she isn’t a man but she can’t go back now that she knows what its like to be free from those constraints but there is still a small part of her that wonders what it would be like if maybe, just maybe… and I just… George had absolutely no right to write a character that good

[ploverbear]

i miss being a construction worker cause honestly a lot of my time on the job i wouldnt do anything LOL but i do genuinely also miss like. the job itself. i miss how a lot of my work revolved around going into empty buildings and go anywhere inside of them. fix them nicely ... whenever there's construction work in the offices and bathrooms and stuff it makes my heart hurt so badly. i love getting glimpses of the utility closets. i always felt like a fly on the wall maintaining an office or building but not really being APART of the culture inside of it yannow. being there transiently

[iwieldthesword]

I need to talk about this because it's making me feel insane.

Last week, my white leftist goyisch friends sat me, a wholeass antizionist Jew, down for a "talk" because they "needed to check in about Palestine" and make sure "our values aligned before we hung out again". They apparently needed to "suss out" where I stood on Palestinian rights, despite having had several conversations about Palestine and them being some of my closest friends. They needed to check, to search for and uncover my true values, because I had said some "disturbing things" that had made them "suspicious".

Disturbing things included:

Supporting IfNotNow which is a "liberal zionist organization" because it normalizes Jewish heritage in the Levant

Not bringing Palestine up enough, despite them also not bringing it up (this was apparently a test)

Mentioning that the Houthi's flag talks about cursing all Jews

Saying Stalin was antisemitic because of the "all the paw-grihms"

...and apparently other things they wouldn't specify, but had been tracking for months.

To clarify, I am an antizionist Jew from three generations of antizionist Jews. I have been vocal in my support of Palestinian liberation and in my condemnation both of Israel's actions and its violent founding as a state, and of zionism in many of its forms. I am a regular donor to Palestinian and Jewish NGOs and advocate for Jewish antizionism in person, at temple, and online. I have been talking about Palestinian liberation before they could point to Gaza on a map. But they needed to make sure, they needed to "suss out", they needed to check. And it's notable that the majority of moments that made them suspicious of me were times where I talked about antisemitism: not about Palestinian liberation, not about Israeli decolonization, not about anything actually relevant to Palestine. It was talking about antisemitism that made them check to see if I was a cryptozionist.

One of the most pervasive and insidious forms of antisemitism is the idea that Jews are inherently untrustworthy and suspicious. You have to constantly be on guard, track what they say and do, "suss out" the real truth. You have to keep them in line and and watch them carefully because they're liars and sneaks, and if you're not looking closely they'll return to their real values (and drag you down with them). This is where the idea of "cryptozionist" comes from and what it's directly building off of: the inherent untrustworthiness of Jews and the need to check. Because no matter how close you become you can't actually trust them, and any upstanding gentile should make sure to avoid associating with Jews before "sussing out" their real allegiances and intentions. You have to make them turn out their pockets, just in case.

I'm the first and only Jew they actually were friends with; I know because they've told me (strangely proud of it in the way white Americans are proud of that kind of thing). They've asked me questions about Judaism and fawned over how beautiful and unique it was for me to be connected to my community and culture. Pre-October 7th, one of them had even mentioned being interested in coming to services at my temple. She still has my copy of our siddur. But now she needed to "check" before she could be seen with me in public. Which is what it was: it wasn't a "you're my friend and I need to give you some feedback because you're fucking up" kind of intervention (which is normal and important to have), it was a trial. It was a last chance for me to prove to them that I'm clean-enough that they could afford to risk being seen with me in public, just in case someone noticed them fraternizing with a hypothetical Enemy and their leftism was compromised. It was a test to make sure that I behave properly when required to, that I'd play along and do what I'm told and turn out my pockets if asked (because any refusal would validate the notion of having something to hide). And above all it was an opportunity for them to reaffirm their own cleanliness by putting my imagined immorality in its place.

I did what I needed to do: I smiled. I apologized. I "didn't know that". I "appreciated the feedback". I turned out my pockets because what else could I do? They'd decided who I was and what I believed, regardless of what I said or did, so there was no point in explaining that they were wrong about me. If I had told them they were being antisemitic, it would just have been proof that they were right. Caring about antisemitism is a dogwhistle in the spaces they've chosen: it's not a real form of oppression, it's a tactic for sneaky, lying Jews to weasel out of admitting their true alliances. There was nothing I could say.

Nothing's really changed for me. I'm going to continue my activism for Palestinian liberation rooted in my culture and my faith. Antizionism is still not antisemitism. But I got a reminder that many white goyisch leftists fundamentally just don't trust Jews, and that the activist spaces they're in not only exacerbate their antisemitism in an increasingly insular echo chamber, but also allow them to finally vent their internalized bigotry in a socially-acceptable way. In my former friends' eyes, what they did was activism—disavowing a Jew (and making me feel humiliated, scared, and unclean in the process) as a cathartic stand-in for doing fucking anything for actual Palestinian liberation—but for me it was a grief that I'll be feeling for a long time: not only over losing friends I loved and trusted, but also over my sense of belonging and security in leftist spaces.

[drchucktingle]

LOVE IS REAL is a simple three word statement but can be pulled apart in infinite ways. it is on my mask, and when buckaroos ask me why, my most common response is 'what else is there?' weve been blessed with a moment to exist and we try on other ideas, but in the end, love is what holds substance

could have said 'love is good' or 'love wins' or 'love is love' and these are all fine ideas i suppose, but TO ME it is kind of burying to lede. for any of these to be true, we are assuming that LOVE EXISTS and the implications of that are so mind bending and powerful that i think its all i need

the grand cosmic curve of existence always bends towards love. it takes some LONG DETOURS thats for dang sure, and theres plenty of turbulence, but what strikes me is that for some reason the finger of fate is out there pressing the scale and THAT IS WILD. THAT IS BEAUTIFUL. THAT IS ALL THERE IS.

some may think this is an inherently religious argument and it is not, unless you want it to be. personally i am not a religious bud, i just see the way that posturing alpha goofs say that violence and hate wins, then i look at nature and see community and grace and love eventually rise to the top

i see the nature of all things pushing back against the endless void, filling it with creation and existence, which thrives on community and love. a big bang filling the empty. mold working together to crawl across stone. fish swimming in a school. humans building a community center. TIME ITSELF

so i think to myself ‘go wild discussing what love is or how to make the most of it' and thats a great talk to have. THATS IMPORTANT. getting out and helping and PROVING LOVE is to wield the power of the universe. but the thing i want on my forehead is the basic level, the square one: LOVE EXISTS

yes, the times undulate between easy breezy and ULTIMATE HELLSCAPE. do not forget this. fight against it. but if you are ever exhausted and you wonder, why am i here? why am i existing? does this matter? remember that LOVE IS REAL and by simply existing you are hoisting the flag of love. WAVE IT