I miss my cat. This sucks.

Some contextless/spoiler-free screenshots of Altanin being the Best Boy and looking good doing it

Warhammer 40,000 as a universe is trying to do the impossible.

Warhammer 40,000 is, broadly, a grim satire of fascism. It takes the fascist's worldview, all the xenophobia, conspiracism, hypernationalism, and militarism, and amplifies it to a galactically ridiculous scale.

"The Imperium of Man has ruled for 10,000 years, warring endlessly against heretics, traitors, aberrant humans, and aliens galore, all of whom are so wildly different from humanity that peaceful coexistence will simply never be possible. The only emotion stronger than our hatred of them is their hatred of us. So, we war. We war and war and battle and slaughter until the end of days. We throw our sacred human form, untainted by mutation or the hideous sciences of our ancestors, against the barbarian hordes by the millions, most of us dying in the process. We revere and worship the warriors elevated by the hand of our divine god-emperor, the apotheosis of our glorious, eternal state. These warriors, reborn in the Emperor's image with His sacred eugenics, to become the ultimate fighting men. And yes, they are all men. We are never safe, while we must constantly be defending our borders from our enemies, we must also be ever-vigilant within. Anybody, from our comrades on the front lines to our commanders, tech-priests, preachers, or politicians, could be a traitor. Nobody can ever TRULY be trusted, and those who truly are heretics, must not only be destroyed, but erased. They, and all memory of them must be eradicated. One heretic can sign the death warrant of his entire world, and sometimes, for the preservation of the human race, billions must die."

Warhammer 40k presents a world where all of this(asterisk) is true (VERY BIG ASTERISK)

Through this lens, a lot of the more... questionable aspects make sense.

T'au Empire Mind Control: The T'au are how fascists view liberals. They CANNOT understand that an integrated, multicultural society could ever POSSIBLY work. They cannot FATHOM that different communities can just... agree to work together, it HAS TO BE the woke mind virus. "Can you believe these fucking idiots tried to NEGOTIATE with TYRANIDS???? These fucking losers tried to make PEACE WITH ANOTHER RACE??? PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT"

Why the chaos gods are what they are: The followers of chaos represent everyone of the 'ingroup' the fascist hates. Because nothing, not even their sacred ingroup, is sacred to the fascist. The followers of chaos are the germans who resisted, the jewish antizionist, the rebel (Khorne), the intellectual (Tzeentch), the sick and disabled (Nurgle), and the queer (Slaanesh). "There is no reason ANYBODY, ESPECIALLY not those of our sacred ingroup, could object to our glorious genocide. And the runts of the litter must be eliminated to not be a drain on the rest"

And EVEN WITHIN 40k, a lot of this is bullshit.

The T'au mind control thing is provably bullshit because the Farsight Enclaves exist. A whole T'au society that exists free from the apparent mid control of the ethereals

The imperium feeds as much into the chaos gods as the traitors do. A stagnant, decaying empire (Nurgle), with an incomprehensibly vast and byzantine bureaucratic structure (Tzeentch), where a select few live appallingly lush and lavish lives of hedonism and pleasure, completely detached from the people they're supposed to govern (Slaanesh), all for the purpose of making ever more destructive and bloody war with everybody else (Khorne)

There is evidence of peaceful human coexistence with xenos empires during the Dark Age of Technology, including one humanity CREATED, and many inquisitors and rogue traders will GLADLY incorporate xenos into their retinues. Trade and coexistence with aliens DOES still happen in the imperium.

Hell, the parody of fascism is in the very MECHANICS OF THE WHOLE LORE. Fascists don't believe in "facts" or "truth", if they did, they wouldn't be fascists. Therefore, in 40k, "Everything is canon, nothing is true". This allows players to EITHER

Think critically and try to connect the dots to form their best guess as to what "canon" is

Or buy wholly into one side or another's propaganda

And one of those groups is going to find a "truth" they can accept and treat as fact a LOT more quickly than the other.

40k lays out in perfectly plain low gothic, all of the bullshit and hypocrisies of the Imperium. They'll let entire sectors die in the interests of preserving human life. The way the imperial guard are lauded as heroes but treated worse than the lasguns in their hands. The way that in order to become a space marine, one of humanity's great guardian angels, you must have everything that makes you human either beaten out of you or surgically removed. The priests who worship science and technology viewing scientific progress as the most abhorrent of heresies. The divine worship of a man who scoured entire worlds for the crime of worshipping him as a god.

Actually hang on lemme derail the flow of this post and talk more about the emperor. The Emperor is the chief hypocrite in an empire of hypocrites. "I AM NOT A GOD" says the 10-foot-tall gleaming golden immortal psychic god-man, "NOW GO FORTH MY ANGELS ON YOUR GLORIOUS CRUSADE TO BRING SCIENCE AND REASON, and by science and reason I mean doing exactly what I say without question and turning a blind eye to fundamental truths of the universe, TO THIS BENIGHTED GALAXY"

The problem is that parodying fascism is impossible. Fascism is already so inherently, fundamentally ridiculous a worldview, for all the reasons explained above, that distinguishing sincerity from irony is nigh impossible.

If you, an antifascist, read The Turner Diaries, you will probably assume it's satire. The book ends with Earth as an irradiated hellsacpe where few can survive and nothing about its resulting culture is explained. But nope! This is fascist propaganda! It was written by actual neo-nazis who committed actual hate crimes! It is an enthusiastic YAAAAAAAAAY APOCALYPTIC WARFARE!!!!!! YAAAAAAAAY GENOCIDE!!!!!!!! At least all the black people are gone! Hell, when Rogue One came out, Lucasfilm got all sort of shit flung at them for portraying the evil space nazis... as the bad guys... which they always were.

This is why both we, the fandom, and Games Workshop as a company, are DIRECTLY pushing SO HARD against the fascists in the space, and must push harder. 40K IS NOT FOR THEM. And no amount of clever writing or obvious parody will ever convince them otherwise. It does not matter how unfathomably stupid you make fascism look to people with functioning brains, fascists will gobble that shit up. You cannot make fascism look worse than it is, and you cannot make it stupid enough to convince fascists its stupid.

The problem isn't that Games Workshop isn't doing a good enough job writing the imperium as bad (although they aren't), the problem is that it will never be an adequate mockery to make the fascists feel unwelcome. It's not a bad parody of fascism, fascism is just beyond parody.

4/20 related post that I forgot to make yesterday.

Edit- "stopped for some reason" includes job, reliable access, a home environment that allows it, sobriety, etc.

you're just jealous because my mech extended its thermal control radiators from its back and they look like glowing red angel wings and yours is overheating because it was not designed for space combat

I have never been a big sports guy, and never will be, but I always did enjoy going to a baseball or soccer game, watching world-class soccer on tv, and watching some of the olympics. To that we can now add hockey, which I am enjoying for the most part. 'For the most part' because I am contractually obligated to be a Toronto Maple Leafs fan, and they sure do like to flub it when it counts. But I'm mentally prepared for that; I'm an LA Dodgers fan.

“Scientists at UC Riverside have demonstrated a new, RNA-based vaccine strategy that is effective against any strain of a virus and can be used safely even by babies or the immunocompromised. Their flu vaccine will also likely be delivered in the form of a spray, as many people have an aversion to needles. “Respiratory infections move through the nose, so a spray might be an easier delivery system,” Hai said. Additionally, the researchers say there is little chance of a virus mutating to avoid this vaccination strategy. “Viruses may mutate in regions not targeted by traditional vaccines. However, we are targeting their whole genome with thousands of small RNAs. They cannot escape this,” Hai said. Ultimately, the researchers believe they can ‘cut and paste’ this strategy to make a one-and-done vaccine for any number of viruses. “There are several well-known human pathogens; dengue, SARS, COVID. They all have similar viral functions,” Ding said. “This should be applicable to these viruses in an easy transfer of knowledge.””

—

Vaccine breakthrough means no more chasing strains

This is HUGE. This will fundamentally change how we get inoculated.

At a memorial service for a guy I met once and disliked intensely today.

Lemme back up.

Right so like 4 years ago I'm talking to my then-girlfriend, now spouse, and she mentions a friend of hers, Sara, is down in Oregon, trying to get out of an abusive relationship and back to Canada with her 2 year old son.

I'm living in Washington state at the time and so I'm like, "word, need me to drive her up to the border?" Apparently that was when Ash decided to marry me, aww.

But no, her plan was to fly out, visit me, help her friend pack up and go, and THEN drive them both (and the wee one) up to the border. I had been really sure about marrying Ash for a few years at that point and finally got up the nerve to propose in a characteristically awkward way. Fortunately she said yes anyway.

So the abusive husband was a tiny coward of a man and the axe handle I'd brought as a potential bludgeon got to stay hidden in the car and there was no drama and we got them all out.

He was a piece of shit, and we hate him.

Fast forward to last week,the asshole's mom calls SCREAMING at Sara that the asshole has "been killed" traveling to the east coast and its somehow her fault. Was it a car crash? A murder? Struck by lightning? Well, dude, we just don't know.

So his son, who is now 6, is a heroically emotionally intelligent little guy and wants to hold a memorial for his dad. Who we all hated, but we love the wee lad, so here we are.

Fingers crossed Sara gets a copy of the death certificate so she can cancel the divorce process and jump straight to widow.

If you're fifteen or older an still sleep with a stuffed animal please reblog this.

Pretty typical first interaction for Altanin tbh. "Ahh! Devil!" "Hi!" [awkward wave]

Good news about shacking up with a steppe nomad who's accustomed to having entire herds around

"I am Altanin. I have a big glaive, big muscles, and excellent anger management. In that I make it your problem." [bonus action RAAAAAGE]

It's been two weeks since Frisbee died, and I marked the occasion by eating some pork rinds in memory of what a great chubster he was for most of his life, and also of the last thing he brought himself to eat, which was of course pork rind crumbs. It's the rather dusty and less wasteful version of pouring one out for your homie. Less wasteful in that I ate them all, rather than pour them out onto the floor.

Anyway thanks for reading, here's a picture of Frisbee from 3 years ago with a big ol' tummy.

I've lived in Canada for (a total of) almost a year now, and while I've made good progress mentally converting to Celsius, I still get appalled at prices and rarely remember that Canadian dollars aren't worth as much as I'm accustomed to in a dollar.

She's beautiful! And what a winning doggy smile!

Always hate when people try to tell me dogs don't smile. True that a dog baring their teeth isn't a happy dog, but a happy dog has mildly squinty eyes and a soft droop to their jaw such that their mouth is slightly open in a dopey 'grin'. Dogs don't smile by BARING ALL OF THEIR TEETH but then if a human did that it wouldn't be a reassuring gesture, either.

Always hate when people try to tell me dogs don't smile. True that a dog baring their teeth isn't a happy dog, but a happy dog has mildly squinty eyes and a soft droop to their jaw such that their mouth is slightly open in a dopey 'grin'. Dogs don't smile by BARING ALL OF THEIR TEETH but then if a human did that it wouldn't be a reassuring gesture, either.

"Pick 3!" Fuck no, I'm taking all of them