#exploding car hammers etc etc etc

[serenityfails]

making a site that's been built around showcasing visual art for like fifteen years available to AI companies and then making that OPT-OUT instead of opt-in (or just NOT DOING THAT AT ALL) when you know a huge portion of your userbase already left for various reasons over the years is so fucking evil

[vaporevon]

tumblr: we’re getting rid of tipping! but also not fixing the issue on mobile that hides half of everyone’s bios so no one can see your links to your actual off site tipping :) have fun! buy our badges!

[brinelakes]

i hope whoever made all the old versions of tumblrapp stop loading at all kills themselves

[glittereyelids]

drinking cold water after sobbing hits so different

[notasocialismjoke]

fine, i'll say my two cents.

y'all know that the explanations that matt gave as to why he banned are predstrogen aren't for us, right? saying it was because of sexual content or exploding a car with hammers, or whatever. justification is irrelevant to his actions; he's an authority; metaphorically he's an abusive parent, and one of his children talked back so he hit her.

the justification isn't for us; it's for transphobes. it's for people who have already learned a predisposition against trans people, who will listen and agree that it's justified. she broke the rules! anyone who breaks the rules gets banned, duh. it's for people who won't think twice about how many trans women have been banned, censored, etc., who won't realize that this is just the latest in a pattern of attacks because, because anyone who got censored is just an individual who broke the rules.

he's telling them what to think. his words are targeted at the people who will listen to him without second guessing them.

the rules are not there to protect us. the purpose of a system is what it does. the words of the rules are not there as an explanation of their purpose; the words are the language and justification that the oppressor uses to keep their followers loyal. the rules themselves exist to keep us in line.

the explanation is not for us; the rule is.

(this post was written by a trans woman/girlthing/whatever.)

[opossumanon]

I was reading the reblogs of a post that basically said "Don't be a doomer about Kamala Harris being a black woman and worrying that racism and misogyny will lose her the vote, go out and campaign and vote and she'll win because we made her win" (Correct) and man...

The amount of people who get so obnoxious screaming about how voting for anybody in this election is morally horrible (No, it's our basic right and duty as Americans), how the rest of the world matters too (No shit Sherlock) and how "The leftism is leaving your bodies the second your rights are being threatened" and no????? Since when did being leftist mean shooting yourself in the foot to protest someone else being hurt????

To be clear, leftism is at the end of the day the belief that all people matter, all people deserve rights and happiness, housing is a human right, food and water is a human right, self-determination is a human right, war is bad, billionaires should never exist, etc. etc.

Leftism also means THINKING instead of just acting emotionally. Gaza doesn't benefit if we refuse to vote for Harris. The Democratic Party won't go "Oh no, the people are mad we didn't support Palestine :C" and even if they somehow did it wouldn't matter because Trump would be President and we'd all be fucked and he'd bomb Palestine anyways and then take a piss on their ashes.

Also it's important to note that Harris was part of the reason why Biden started to swing to the middle regarding Palestine and Israel. Harris pushed Biden into doing a lot of the leftist things he's done. Harris can be pushed too, we can elect her and say "Congrats on winning the office, now do these things for us" and she'll be more likely to follow through than fucking Donald "I can shoot a guy in the middle of the street and people would still vote for me" Trump.

I won't be able to vote in this election, but my goals/hopes for our future as a country are

Elect Harris

Bully Harris into cutting off support to Israel and pressuring them into returning the land stolen from the Palestinians

Make ranked voting a thing

Demolish the Electoral College with exploding car hammers

Get Trump tossed into prison for his countless felonies, plus treason

For fuck's sake people, please understand that the best way to help Palestine and the rest of the world, as well as ourselves, is to strategize, and voting for Harris is the best strategy we got right now, because "lol I'm gonna firebomb a Walmart" is never helpful. It's just talking the talk to sound all high and mighty while being a lazy shit and doing nothing of import.

Anyways before I dip remember that voting is harm reduction, especially make sure to vote in all your local elections, donate if possible, be an active member of your community, pick a particular cause you can fight for and fight for it, and you'll be way more helpful than any of the dumbasses screaming and crying about "boycotting" voting...Cuz that's totally how this works [insert facepalm emoji]

[bigthingsforeverintheworks]

i like how social media is just a fun little game of running down a spiral of "bad CEOs", sometimes a new one is formed/bought/etc. but to make the game more interesting all of the CEOs become more bad over time making the spiral go up and eventually they'll explode, like a car, with a bunch of hammers

[bumblebeerror]

Quite literally yes, tumblr is a better user experience in general for queer users than most sites.

That’s mostly because Tumblr users have adapted to the site and how small the staff is well known to be. We spread PSAs about how to spot and get rid of bots by reporting them for spam. We tell new users from big waves up front how the site works. If we’re upset with something, we know we can take it up directly with the staff tumblr page, even if they can’t answer us immediately. Overall, the culture of this site is based on practicality and understanding the limitations of the staff.

The only other thing that makes the site more friendly to queer, disabled, poc, etc folks is the infection-style post sharing. Sure, if you get popular or your post is popular your post might escape containment - but for most users most of the time, their notes come directly from followers and their followers, people who asked to be there, or people scrolling the same tag it’s posted in. There’s no algorithm besides the almost completely unused ‘for you’ section trying to keep users engaged with posts by boosting it outside their circle artificially. Which closes down a lot of opportunities for some twat to stumble across your post and decide to send you hate. It’s just less likely that your post will be seen by people who hate your existence, because it’s less likely to be seen outside your personal circle.

But again - that infection style post sharing and a lack of a for you page “culture” weren’t actually intended to do that. That was just a happy accident, the latter leftover from when the site literally didn’t have a for you page.

Tumblr’s CEO isn’t making money off us. He made it very clear that if you hurt his precious feelings he has no issue banning you for facetiously threatening to kill him with an exploding car covered in hammers on the facetiously threatening to kill you with an exploding car covered in hammers site. He has no real interest in the culture Tumblr users have created or why we prefer the site, or, clearly, even in doing things that would repair the site’s code or improve the user experience and likely boost eyes on it’s ads - if he could shift us fully to a different site that makes money, he would.

And furthermore, do I HAVE to refer you to the ancient texts? Whether it’s the people on this site or the leadership of it, this site has never once been a “bastion of reason”. It has been a hellsite. You used to have to use xkit just to blacklist tags. And THEN tumblr users bullied the guy who coded xkit off the fucking site, BEFORE a built in blacklist existed by default. Mobile used to be absolutely rawdogging your dashboard.

Like yes, this is my emotional support hellsite. But a Bastion of Reason this place is NOT.

I feel like folks talking like Tumblr is the last bastion of reason on the Internet are forgetting that the owner of Tumblr is demonstrably cut from the same cloth as Zuckerberg and Musk. Tumblr's moderation polices aren't less bigoted, they're just less competently implemented.

[chaoticcomputeryouth]

I wish every car would explode with hammers, maybe even spears, swords etc. right this second

(this is about cars drowning out my music with their stupid brrrrr and vroomm noises)

[jazzsequence]

If I tell a trans woman I hope she dies in a car explosion and gets crushed by an elephant it’s just going to be taken as a silly joke right? Not like it’s realistic. I mean if that trans dude can issue death threats when they are funny silly so I right?

This is a fascinating question and definitely not at all trolling.

The difference between threatening a trans person with violence and threatening a privileged, cis-white-hetero male with the same thing is that violence is committed against trans people every day. There is no question that if someone was actually threatening the life of a wealthy tech CEO that any number of systems would jump in to support him and ensure his safety (his own posts on the subject prove this point).

Those same systems fail trans folk every single day, in a multitude of large and small ways, leading to the type of trolling and misgendering you so eloquently illustrate in your fake question.

To be clear, sure, I guess if you told someone that you hoped an elephant fell from the sky and crushed them it would be considered a joke. It wouldn't be particularly funny, but it does not resemble anything close to reality. Threatening someone with a car explosion is a different thing, and I note that you did not use the same language (car covered in hammers, hammers exploding everywhere, etc) which makes it less of a "joke" and more of a threat of intent.

Our freedom of speech in this country gives us permission to say whatever the fuck we want. It doesn't give people a free pass to be an asshole or to deny someone's individual pursuit to exist as they please and be safe from harm or threats of harm.

Is there a double-standard that I have less concern about the wellbeing of a cis-gendered white tech dude than I do about a trans person? Sure it's a double-standard. Because our culture has said that these people over here are okay to live an unbothered life and these people over there are wrong, deviant, sinful and destroying America, and there are very real laws written every day to prevent them from accessing the same quality of life as everyone else.

So, sure, if you want to tell a trans person that you hope they die in a fire, that a piano drops on their head, or whatever stupid shit you want to say, you are within your legal right to do so. And they are well within their rights to block the fuck out of you for being an asshole and a threat to their desire to live a fucking normal, peaceful life without jackasses constantly harassing them.

So glad you were the first question I've been asked on this stupid site in however many years I've had an account open and that you've given me the opportunity to express how truly deplorable of a human being you are for thinking you are being clever.

[wuxiaphoenix]

Worldbuilding: Sparklers

There’s an aspect of worldbuilding that often gets left by the wayside because it seems irrelevant to the main characters and the plot, yet can do more than a thousand words to convince readers your world could be real.

Children’s toys.

Most books, even most written in the YA genre, don’t have children as main characters. And being a parent, practically speaking, does not lend itself well to adventuring.

(I can hear everyone who’s raised or even been roped into temporary babysitting groaning in agreement. Yep.)

So children are often tangential to a story plot, at best. Yet real worlds and societies have children. So they’ll have children’s toys and games. Anything else is not realistic.

Since kids want to grow up to be adults, and sane societies want them to, many toys and games are repurposed from Adult Stuff. Mini-hammers, drop spindles, shovels, you know. And even the more “toylike” toys of dolls, action figures, and wind-up cars help kids model real-life situations. For example crashing your cars can be Bad, look at what happened to the nice paint job....

An interesting aspect of any society is, how do we refine down very dangerous items, concepts, and processes so they’re safe to raise kids around? How do we make something perilous... a toy?

See sparklers. Substances originally meant to boom or burn, treated so they light with a match and throw off pretty sparks. Yes, they’re too dangerous for tiny kids. But older ones who know fire burns, and you can’t let sparks fall on flammables like dry grass? We give them sparklers. The dangerous pyrotechnic becomes a toy.

Any realistic world should have potentially dangerous toys. Techno-wizardry, psychic materials, magically empowered rocks; yes, they might be as dangerous as nuclear fission IRL and therefore not toy-able. Yet. But if there’s a tech in your world anyone might get their hands on - and exotic powers of the mind, magic, etc. are often shown that way in-setting-

Then there should be toys. At least attempts at toys. Harry Potter has Exploding Snap, among other things. The Clockwork Heart has little birds weighted with ondium so they actually float. (And can be lost forever if you take them out without a ceiling, lighter than air metal does that.) Bridge of Birds had the Hopping Hide and Seek Game, that turned out to tell part of an ancient story of a ginseng spirit betrayed and taken captive.

Think of the special - dangerous - aspects of your world. Consider how long they’ve been around. And think of what it might take to make very low-powered, near-safe versions of it. For fun. For a toy.

Because that’s what humans do. We fool around. We poke things. We say, “Hey, watch this!”

And we hand our kids sparklers.

Your story world is your toybox. Make sure there are some actual toys in it!

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

HASO “At All Costs.”

Sorry I didn’t get this one to you yesterday. it required me to read and listen to a bunch of Apollo 11 transcripts and watch more than a few videos to pretend to know what I was doing. So I hope you like it :)

“Did you know that if Apollo 11 Rocket were to explode, that explosion would have the force equal to a small nuclear weapon?”

Captain Richards turned his head inside the confined suit barely able to see the Admiral where he sat, “Serious?”

“Yeah serious.”

“No, I mean are you really talking about the Saturn V exploding  when we are, and I might add, in an exact replica of the Saturn V.”

The man shrugged, though it was a difficult gesture to make out in his massive space suit, “Just making small talk.”

Captain Chavez piped up from his other side, her voice strange and tiny over the absolutely ancient radio setup, “Let's hear it Admiral, give us more Apollo 11 facts.”

Richards groaned though it was all in good fun.

“Up to that point the Saturn V was the most powerful rocket ever created, of course compared to the most powerful space ship ever created, The Omen, it can barely rocket it’s way out of a paper bag, but at the time it was a masterwork of engineering. As tall as a skyscraper it requires 4,578,000 lbs of fuel and 7.5 million pounds of thrust.  It is  363 feet tall and weighs around 6.2 million pounds. Oh also the UN president will likely have two speeches already prepared, one if we survive and one if we die horrifically.”

“Why did you have to add the horrific part.” Richards wondered 

Chavez laughed from the other side of the rocket. 

He really was flying with two absolute psychos.

Chavez adjusted herself in her seat, “Hey, Admiral, is it true you survived the vacuum of space… what does that feel like?”

“Yep 12 seconds or less of pure unadulterated terror, and let me tell you it does not feel great. Ruptured blood vessels, severe dehydration etc etc.”

“Can we please talk about something else?”

The other two laughed at him.

***

“All ready for go, engineering?”

“Not yet, command, still working on it.”

“Just let us know when you are ready. Try to make it quick.”

Jade snorted, “I would rather have late astronauts than dead ones, mission control.” Her bluntness seemed to have shut them up for the moment, and she stepped up to examine the outside of the rocket once again. 

It was then that she heard footsteps approaching and turned to see the strange starborn returning with a large blue shape in tow. The Drev was a good two feet taller than she was with carapace the color of a bright blue sports car. It jogged up, large silver/white spear in one hand, “What Can I do.”

She held out the little sample of tape the starborn had taken from the ship, “We found this covering a loose bolt in one of the ship panels. It isn’t heat resistant so it would burn up on exit and cause the panel to tear lose.”

The Drev nodded before she could even finish, “Causing it to go into a spin.”

Jade paused then nodded, “yes.”

“So sabotage.”

“It seems so.”

The Drev didn’t look surprised and just simply nodded, “Do we call off the launch.”

“This is an easy fix, and would have been the easiest way to sabotage the rocket in the first place. Everything else is monitored too heavily and tested too heavily to allow for it, but I am going to need your eyes. I only noticed because of the reflective properties of the tape as compared to the paint. WIth your eyes I might be able to find anything else.”

The Drev nodded and stepped back slightly, her head tilted up as she looked at the rocket.  “Give me some time, and I am sure I can find them all. Just name the places where a panel tear will be the most catastrophic, and let me know as those will be the first places I should look.”

Jade nodded glancing back at the mission control building.

Her heart hammered inside her chest. She hadn’t intended for things to go this far, but they had. She was caught up in something she didn’t want to be caught up in.

The Drev handed a camera to the starborn, “Go, and make it quick.”

“Of course your royal highness.” He said, though he didn’t waste time as he grabbed the camera and floated back into the air.

****

“Chairwoman?”

She lifted her head turning to examine one of her assistants as they jogged over to stand next to her. She leaned her head down as he stood to whisper to her, using a dialect in their language which was difficult to read using translation equipment, “The launch has been delayed.”

She lifted her head slightly in mild surprise, “Delayed, why would it be delayed?”

He bowed his head, “It sounds like one of their engineers was slow in finishing up their final check.”  he leaned in a little closer, “However, I saw the Saint heading over there just a few minutes ago.”

The chairwoman felt her insides churn with worry and anticipation, “Do you think they found something.”

“They might have, I don’t know.”

“Should we send someone over….”

She shook her head, “I don’t want to play our hand yet. We still have options if things go wrong.”

He nodded his head again and stepped away as one of the humans walked closer, “My apologizes chairwoman, the launch has been delayed a few minutes, but everything should be on track soon.”

She nodded tightly though her insides chured.

“Carry on.” She said, dismissing the human and watching him go after a few moments. 

***

“What is taking so long.”

“Madam president, it looks like the engineers haven't finished their final checks yet.”

She tapped her nails against the lectern, “Is there any way to speed them up? They have been working on this for years now.”

\The service member looked a little taken aback stepping away slightly, “I…. well no ma’am if something were to happen during the launch because it was overlooked-”

She cut him off and waved him away as she looked over towards the distant rocket, white against the distant skyline.

Inside she was nervous. Something could go wrong at any minute, and more was likely to go wrong the longer they waited. She had to force herself to take a deep breath though. Things would be fine, they had backup plans in place in case something failed. Everything was going to work out. 

Still this was Admiral Vir they were talking about.

***

Eris pushed her way gently through the crowd listening to the voices that flooded in all around her. She didn’t usually like crowds, too many voices all at once, but today they hardly bothered her, and she sifted through them like a machine, coming through their thoughts, looking for anything suspicious, anything she could use, anything she could find. She had been ordered by Conn and Sunny to look for someone who knew something about the outside of the ship,  which had been tampered with, and so she did inching closer and closer through the halls and towards mission control. She wanted to know if any of them knew something.

No one looked twice at her as they rushed up and down the halls. But then again every time someone tried to notice her, she would turn their thoughts in a different direction. It was not a trick she used very often, but being half starborn and half human had melded and given her the odd ability to influence people’s thoughts as well. It allowed her to go places she wouldn’t have otherwise been allowed.

She pulled her hoodie closer to the sides of her head and paused outside the door allowing the voices and thoughts to well around her, searching for that one threat d that was out of place. She sensed excitement, nervousness, accomplishment. Every mind she sifted through there was nothing to indicate sabotage. These people were genuinely excited and scared about what they were doing. For many of them it was the most exciting day of their lives feeling much the same way that Adam did about what they were doing. She pulled back from the door frowning.

Well, if she couldn’t get the truth from them, she was going to have to get close to the one person she knew was involved.

The chairwoman would know if there were any other issues, as she was the one who had ordered the sabotage.

Eris turned on her feet and began to run.

“Countdown begins in ten minutes.” She heard over the intercom.

Shit, she hadn’t thought it was going to begin so soon.

Eris raced outside pausing on the edge of the balcony as she stared down at the crowd. With her bad knees, it was going to take her forever to get down those stairs….. Of course there was one option.

She grimaced at the thought, but then reminded herself that it was either that or a dead Adam.

Eris quickly pulled off her hoodie draping it over one arm and feeling the starborn ribbons uncoil and fall down around her back. A few of them were long enough to trail on the ground behind her. The open back of her shirt exposed the ribbons to the sun overhead warming her up and making her feel exhilarated.

She reached down to her belt to engage the gravity field before taking a long, deep breath. Ribbons billowed up around her from behind catching the light of the sun. She pulled herself up to sit on the edge of the balcony and then, with the gravity field engaged, she dropped. Her ribbons flared out from  behind her, and she was given a sudden strange sensation, and as she played with that sensation she felt herself coasting forward on some unknown power. She floated over the heads of those below, slowly coming down at an angle.

Fingers pointed up at her as she went and she did her best to ignore them as she came to a stop at the edge of the crowd. The people stared at her wide eyed as she gathered up her ribbons and quickly pulled her hoodie back on, ducking into the crowd and elbowing her way through up towards the stage where the chairwoman and the Un president sat.

She was so close.

She could sense.

Eris froze in horror.

***

“That’s it, that’s the last one.”

“Four, seems like a good number, and all on the same panel. If they had put them anywhere else it would have caused suspicion as to why the entire ship tore apart.”

Conn floated down from above and handed off a fistfull of silvered tape.

She reached up to her mic, “mission control you are going for launch, I repeat, you are go for launch.”

The Drev and the Starborn floated after her, joining her in the small jeep as they rolled away from the base of the rocket.

****

“Four minutes and counting we are go for Apollo 11 

“Apollo 11's launch operations manager wishes you good luck.”

“ Thank you, we’ll do their memory proud.” 

“That’s three minus and 25 seconds in counting. We are still going at this time.”

“T minus 1 minute and 54 ten seconds and counting oxidizer tanks on the second and third stages have pressurized.” 

“T minus one minute 35 seconds on the Second Apollo 11 mission flight to remember the first men who stepped foot on the moon.”

“T minus sixty second and counting.”

“Admiral Vir reports that the countdown is going smoothly.” 

“Power transfer is complete.” 

“All second stage tanks now pressurized.”

“T minus fifteen seconds and counting guidance is internal.”

“12 11 10 9 Ignition sequence starts 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 all engines running.”

A massive wave of fire rolled from the underside of the rocket spilling out onto the ground around it in smoke and flames as the scaffold holding the rocket in place detached against the roaring power of the rocket.

“Liftoff, we have liftoff, Tower clear.”

The rocket spears it’s way into the sky leaving smoke and fire behind it. For a moment it is obscured by smoke before cutting through and piercing the blue canopy of sky above. 

***

Adam rocked in his seat pressed backwards by what felt like hundreds of pounds of force against his chest. The rocket vibrated and rolled around him until it was almost impossible to see with his eyes being jarred inside his head. He was mostly defensive, it was, admittedly like nothing he had ever experienced. He was used to smooth transitions in darkfriars and spaceships, but this…., this was something altogether different. His heart hammered as they went higher and higher, the roaring from the fire licking the windows outside clear as they shook their way through the lower and then upper atmosphere. The communications clicked on and off as he kept in contact with ground control below when it was possible, his body rattling a little as he tried to remain steady.

The sky was darkening above him from eggshell blue to that familiar blue black.

“Apollo 11 this is Huston, you are going for staging.”

His hands felt like the bones were going to rattle out of his knuckles. He had never experienced a launch this intense before.

“ll, this is Houston. Roger. You're (0 from the ground at 7 minutes. Level sense arm at 8 plus 17; outboard cut-off at 9 plus Il.”

“Roger.”

They were getting higher.

“Staging, and ignition.”

“Apollo 11, this is Houston. Predicted cut-off at ll plus 42. Over.”

“Shutdown.”

***

The rocket lifted into the sky and she craned her head back to watch it go roaring  as it was carried upward on a pillar of flames. Her hand reached down stroking the red folder that lay just under her fingers.

“Tilt nominal.”

She held her breath tight, her chest pounding and watched as it went up and up and up.

No disturbances. Her hands gripped the side of the lectern turning her head to one of the agents who nervously glanced back. She nodded and he rushed away. Her hands were clammy.

“Come on, she muttered.”

***

Chairwoman of the GA kept her eyes locked on the flying deathtrap as it was hauled into the air, come on come on she thought to herself as it rose higher and higher. She turned her head to one of her men who nodded quickly and then rushed off. Smoke filled the valley below them.

***

They had dropped the first stage, and Richards hands were sweaty despite the water wicking gloves under his suit. He was communicating back and forth with mission control when he watched in horror as Admiral Vir cut off communications with ground control. They were in space now and earth was beginning to fold out before them on either side.

“What are you doing.” He hissed in near panic

The Admiral ignored him, keying the coms one more time.

“Red, this is Apollo 11.”

Richards sat in shock as an unknown voice responded over the line, “Is that you in that bucket of bolts cinderella?”

The man’s voice sounded like he was smiling, “yep it’s me, keep your men on standby red, we made it out of atmosphere, but I don’t trust them to let me make it out of orbit.”

“Copy that your highness.”

Richards glanced out the window, watching as a sleek racing jet pulled into formation just outside the window of their rocket. It was so close to them that he could see the silhouette of the driver in the cockpit beyond  reminding him that….. Despite the feeling of their rocket. They weren’t as alone as those astronauts had been originally. 

The admiral suddenly flipped the mike back

“Apollo 11 this is Huston, DO YOU COPY.”

“Huston this is Apollo 11, sorry comms went out for a second, got them fixed.”

“Roger, don’t scare us like that.”

***

The UN president turned her head down, caught suddenly by the feeling of being watched. Off to her side the Chairwoman was still staring into the sky, but slowly lowered her head as if she felt it too.

She looked down surprised to find a figure staring at them, instead of staring at the rocket. She was humanoid with porcelain white skin and large black eyes.

But the voice that filled the inside of her head was not her own.

“You….. It’s you.”

***

Ten remote operated Rundi drones detached from the space debris and rolled into place around the rocket.

The pilots, sitting safely inside their ships listened to instructions over the line as the chairwoman of the GA whispered.

“Keep Admiral Vir alive at all costs.” 

[larry-ben-kenobi]

DARK HERESY TIME

Having decided to begin the xenos hunt, we began our journey out into the nebula to find the Eldar’s favorite little hideaway in the sector. Naturally, warp travel is a bumpy ride, so Reguba acquired a craving for paper, and Dariel got highly suspicious that everybody was a mutant. Getting off light, for warp travel through a small warp storm. Speaking of, while traversing the Warp we also came across the collective unconsciousness’ concept of cockroaches, or some other Strongly Real Concept, since it was acting the iceberg to our Titanic in unreal space. This caused BAD THINGS to happen across the ship, and so we all quickly rallied together to panic see if we can help. Sebrius tried to use his space-navy experience to calm and rally the crowds of people in the hallways (more like streets, voidships are big), but was too nervous to do much. Reguba had just finished eating a dictionary, and so did much better yelling about the Emperor, the unity of man, and the strength of said unity yada yada HAVE NO FEAR FOR THE EMPEROR IS WITH US. If I had any spare purity seals, I'd have been slapping them on every doorway I saw. It prevented overly mass void panic, at least.

Heading to the bridge hoping to find the Inquisitor, we instead found a bunch of panicking and fleeing techno lads, void technicians, essentially all those redshirts you see on the Star Trek bridge who don't do anything as Spock aims and fires the photon torpedos. Getting little out of them besides "bridge scary fire ahhh", we dramatically burst into the bridge room to see the unfathomable first actual Daemonic stuff all campaign. (Heresy, in our Dark Heresy? Emperor forbid)

A good pack of netherspawn was doing a chaotic swirling goop vortex in one part of the bridge room, while at the front (or, the part where the giant viewport/window/etc) five blue horrors were throwing warpfire all around like little tzeentchian arsonists. Seeing Daemons and horrible Warp Creatures understandably terrified the bridge nerds, and it stunned Sebrius. Reguba felt the best approach, since Sebrius was too shocked to move, was to charge the horde of netherspawn (pumpkin sized little gremlins, essentially. Even more impish than your imagination can think up) and distract them. This was a horrible waste of a turn and a fairly bad plan, mostly because swinging a giant hammer around can only squish so many netherspawn at once while they surround you. Dariel wisely decided to head -away- from the massive pile of clawy imps and chaos juice while shooting at them. Once Sebrius came to, he instantly realized that a massive horde of little gremlins is best remedied by explosives, and threw a frag grenade right into them, which did far more damage to them than Reguba's hammer could ever hope to. (There were enough of them being little idiots spinning around, stabbing the floor, whatever, that Reguba was actually far away enough to not be bothered by the explosion. This was like, a BIG room and a good fifth of it was the netherspawn orgy).

The blue horrors weren't afk for all this, and the five of them had split to the corners of the room to throw fire at us more annoyingly. Luckily they're awful shots with really stupid little T rex arms. Unluckily for everyone involved, when one ran into the nether pile to try to stab Reguba in the face, Reguba effortlessly smashed it- and then it melted into two little fire sprites. Sebrius threw another grenade while Walrond, our dear friend and kidnapped driver from last session (we wanted his car, and I wanted to adopt him, so we did!) showed up and almost had a heart attack seeing the incarnate forms of thought and madness.

Dariel engaged in close combat with two of the horrors on one end of the room after one grazed his face with thrown warpflame, while Reguba and Walrond dissipated the Netherspawn and brimstone horror-fire creatures by shooting them with exploding Bolter rounds and then smashing them with a giant hammer. Without the swirling mass of spawn, the blue horrors had far less advantage in numbers, and were fairly quickly dispatched by a mixture of bolters exploding them and hammers smashing the flames that came from their exploded bodies.

Having secured the bridge, we dug out one of the surviving bridge crew from underneath his charred terminal, set him to work cleaning up the fire while we went to find the Inquisitor. (luckily once you kill daemons most of their actual bodies dissipate into the nether).

Deciding that the best place to find her is the interrogation chambers where we had the surviving (and maimed) eldar, we went deeper into the ship, calming warp panicked men on our way through prayer and loud yelling. On entering the interrogation room, we found Supplicator Alethos (your friendly interrogator) in an awful state, panicking and freaking out while a maw of teeth and darkness took up half the room. On seeing this, Reguba panicked and fled, Dariel freaked similarly, and Sebrius lost his mind in a wholly different way and started towards the eldar to execute it while Alethos slammed the door shut. He took out his shotgun and aimed at the bound, gagged, and unconscious eldar. The shotgun jammed from a rolled critical failure. Reguba composed himself and immediately started slamming into the door with his hammer, and broke it down in time to see Sebrius fling the shotgun to the floor and take out his chainsword. Then the Supplicator tackled Reguba and the floor in front of the door was a tangle of Ecclesiarchy robes wrestling like a 60's movie fight scene, with Dariel trying to clamber over them to save the prisoner from the possessed Sebrius, who was being influenced by his rage against the Eldar to execute a prisoner who had valuable knowledge.

The wrestling match continued until Reguba gained control of it then tried to fling Alethos against the wall, but actually flung him into Dariel (didnt see him there, because he's a slippery little lightweight), and Sebrius cleaved the Banshee's face in half with a sword-chainsaw, spilling her blood everywhere in a mess of gore and grey matter. The Alucard-like maw laughed and began to fade, but first set all the paper in the room on fire (and ate some, because it was taunting us). We lost any intel that Alethos couldn't remember, and his memory was going to be shot from the daemonic possession. We still knew where we were going, but didn't know what we would be getting into.

[crownquill]

it is like 2 so im gonna dump some weurd secrets abt me

i imagine amvs of weapons. not really in bloddy use just like used but in a blank space if that makes sense and i spend a lot of time imagining how to properly animate uses of different weapons from daggers to war hammers to boomerangs to staffs its an issue

On roadtrips I'll imagine different cars blowing up. not like exploding. like suddenly turning into a pile of parts/a diagram of parts in the air..if i get really into it start imagininv other things like bridges etc "exploding" too

I can make up songs, like I can freestyle songs about anything but I can't rap to save my life

I can never be normal about strong feelings, if i feel strongly about you Ive probably thought of a billion different metaphors for you

I like the taste of sea water and sand respectively

[nikkisticki]

I can't even find a single time I spoke about YIIKS and post modernism, but I've definitely not mentioned it to any extent that I can find. I can say that Postmodern Architecture designs came out of the 1970s (or so Google claims) but I've no idea where this is coming from.

Of course it's sandwiched between you posting roughly sixteen pages about your YIIK beliefs so maybe I scrolled past it, but I think you've confused me with someone else. I've not even said any combination of post modern, Post-Modern or Post-modernism

Also something something Tape Biden to a car exploding with hammers then vote for him etc etc

Anyway, if you don't vote for Biden to Teach Him A Lesson and Trump wins, I'm sure all the thousands more Palestinians killed in Gaza when Trump gives Netanyahu full steam ahead and pulls all diplomatic support for a ceasefire/peace process, the Ukrainians and/or other Eastern Europeans likewise genocided when Trump gives Putin everything he wants and pulls out of NATO, the immigrants deported and put in concentration camps, the protesters detained en masse under the Insurrection Act, the women who die from being refused divorces and reproductive care, the LGBTQ+ people legislated and harassed out of public life, the people of color murdered by fully sanctioned white supremacy, and the societies around the world affected by America's collapse into a theocratic fascist dictatorship will definitely fall at your feet in thanks and give you the Gold Medal For Twitter Social Justice. So yknow, that's very important.

[ducktracy]

127. i’m a big shot now (1936)

release date: april 11th, 1936

series: merrie melodies

director: friz freleng

starring: n/a

feels like it’s been forever since friz did a merrie melody! fret no longer. he returns with i’m a big shot now—a bluejay robs a bank in tranquil birdville, and the police are hot on his feathers.

open to the bustling streets of birdville, a chipper, easygoing town rife with cheery birds making their rounds. a construction worker bird ties a string to a worm, which is attached to a pulley. tugging on a pulley feeds more string to the worm, who wraps itself around a spindly “base”. in no time, the worm weaves itself a bird’s nest for the bird. elsewhere, a woodpecker hammers away at a long, disturbing a ladybug. the ladybug hops out of a hole and hammers the woodpecker’s beak, wilting it’s point, the bird now stuck.

the birdville bank is as bustling as ever. signs hang on the bank-teller’s desk—“2 1/2 worms interest on all deposits”, and my favorite “save for a rainy day — buy umbrellas”. a bird places a hefty basket full of acorns on the owl bank-teller’s desk, who inspects the goods. they pass muster, and he deposits them away, writing in the bird’s checkbook.

we’ve seen the good side of town. the happy townspeople bustling about, tending to the bird finances and bird relationships. with the good comes the bad—pan over to the seedy side of town. mobsters loiter outside a saloon, a promiscuous woman exiting said saloon, wanted posters up... a great juxtaposition that’s very well executed. we follow a bird into the saloon, where dancing is abundant, everyone not without their cigar and newsboy cap.

focus on a particularly intriguing character, a bluejay propped up against a bar, shifty eyed as he tosses a coin in his hand. a great choice of character design—the natural black markings around the eyes paired with the striped shirt, newsboy cap and cigar certainly make him read as a stereotypical robber. he greets one of his buddies who walks into the saloon before launching into the title song, narrating how he’s abandoned his softie days for the rough and tough lifestyle. he coyly rolls his eyes as he growls the chorus of “baby, and how—i’m the big shot now!” the song is mainly sung in patter song (talking)—it’s a nice touch and the bird is full of personality.

just as he sings about how he can lick those police officers, a cop strolls outside of the saloon and overhears. the bluejay sticks his hand out of the saloon doors and drags the cop inside. offscreen bearing and pummeling, and the disheveled copper is tossed back onto the streets. finally, to celebrate, the bluejay pours himself glass upon glass of whiskey. he slams his fist down on the table, the board propelling the contents into the air. he opens his mouth and catches each gulp, a lovely detail as he suddenly goes back to retrieve one more gulp as you least expect it.

suddenly, inspiration strikes. he meanders over to the saloon doors, and tilts the slots like blinds. he spots the birdville bank just across the street, delighted at the goods that lie inside. it’s fun to see friz play around the typography, the word BANK zooming on screen and dissipating away. the bluejay signals his mobster fellas to follow him. they grin knowingly and nod, one of them shoving away his date in the midst of their dance. fantastic comedic timing as they inconspicuously cross the street, the bluejay whistling “i’m a big shot now” all the way. his cronies stroll into the bank while he slowly settles in, leaning against the exterior wall and tossing his beloved coin...

and a flurry of gunshots and bullets explode into the air, the bluejay unaffected as he keeps an eye out. the timing is perfect and the bluejay’s innocent façade sells the gag perfectly. another one of his buddies pulls up in a car, and the robbers all pile in, including the bluejay. they take off with their souvenirs, their continued gunfire serving as a reminder of their presence as they shoot out the back of the escaping car.

and, of course, the police chase after them right away, officers dangling along after their own car held on merely by hands as they scramble to follow. thus begins a dramatic shootout. the gangsters fire, and a police officer retaliates. he shoots, the impact so strong all of the birds slingshot backwards, held intact by the last bird who’s clutching to the sides of the car. a literal slingshot. the animation is smooth, funny, and captivating. even the exhaust pipe from the gangster mobile fires bullets, highly amusing as the bluejay pops his head out of the exhaust pipe, wielding a gun.

although the chase rages on as we fade out, a news headline pops into view: BANK BANDITS ESCAPE. fade to a telephone pole, a wanted poster of the bluejay plastering his grizzly mug, promising rewards of 500 worms (what an incentive!) zoom in to the offending bluejay admiring his own wanted picture as he’s in the comfort of his own home. laughing heartily and tearing the flyer in two.

he pokes his head out of the birdhouse, asserting the coast is clear. pan down to his car parked at the bottom. a nearby police officer strolls on duty, when he recognizes the car. he summons his brigade of police officers, who are all hiding out in the bushes, behind trees, etc. thus launches another shootout, the bluejay shooting from inside his birdhouse and the cops from outside. the bluejay reduces each of the officers’ hats to mere shreds as he shoots through them like butter. another police officer fires rapidly at the bluejay, the force so strong that he unintentionally buries himself into a man-made hole (an essential looney gag that’s hilarious each time.)

even the bluejay finds the novelty lost in the tedious gun fight, halfheartedly and nonchalantly firing back while flipping his beloved coin. a great detail that’s almost like friz’s way of saying “yeah, this is supposed to be tedious”. almost a tex avery-ism of sorts. the bandit’s indifference is quickly rattled once a bullet pierces a hole through his coin—now full of contempt, he shoots back with rapid fire. a bird fires a rifle from a tree branch, the impact sending him whirling around the branch as he desperately clings on with his talons. birds swoop in like fighter jets and fire at the birdhouse.

a particularly brave bird puffs out his chest and beats it for good measure, giving a good ol’ tarzan yell as he swings from a vine. nice perspective as he swings in front of the house, firing with his gun, then swinging the other way and continuing to shoot. a police car screeches to a halt beneath the house, and one of the cops fires a ton of holes in the floor of the house. in pure looney style, the holes form a circle right around the dumbfounded bluejay, and sure enough he plummets into the police van, where he’s tackled and beaten ferociously as we fade out.

fade back into the local prison, the bluejay now behind bars. he sings more of “i’m a big shot now”, instead altering the lyrics to “i used to be a toughie, but now i’m just a softie.” he flamboyantly poses as he sings about how he’s limited to just a jailbird now, and we iris out as he glumly rests his head on his hand, staring at the outside world he once knew.

a merrie melody that is riddled with more gags than the average friz melody for sure. i loved the character design of the bluejay, a very smart use to manipulate their natural markings like that. he was full of personality and fun to watch, and was definitely the highlight of the short. lots of funny gags, especially the scene where he and his cronies innocently stroll across the street just to shoot up the bank. some of the shootout scenes did run a little long for my tastes (and friz even admits to this as we see with the bluejay’s bored expression as he fires back), but it wasn’t a cartoon that crawled along. it was staged nicely and had a lot of good moments, and because of that it’s worth a watch.

link!