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tightwadspoonies · 2 years

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The Salvage Economy in Your Local Area (And Why You Should Use It)

A salvage economy is an economic system that incentivizes the use of existing ("used") materials over the use of virgin ("new") materials to create products and generate income. They are more circular economies, where profits are more equitably shared, waste is reduced, and items have continuing value beyond a single consumer.

Let’s give the example of a piece of clothing. In a mainstream economy, raw materials would be grown (in the case of cotton/linin) or mined (in the case of something like polyester). They would then be manufactured (a water- and energy-intensive process), shipped to a store (another energy-intensive process) and sold for a profit. Once the end consumer was finished with the item, they would throw it away, losing their investment entirely, as well as losing the material and energy investment in the production of the product. Depending on the disposal method, the item would either go to a landfill (which has a limited amount of space) or burned (which releases the remains into the atmosphere where it can be a danger to human health and the natural environment- even with the most stringent of filters/re-burners).

In a salvage economy, however, the piece of clothing is diverted at the point of the first consumer no longer wanting it. It may be donated or sold to a thrift/consignment shop (where the person may get a small return on their initial investment). It could then be re-purchased by someone else repeatedly until it was no longer in a decent enough shape to be re-sold, then it would be sold to a re-processing facility, where the material itself could be deconstructed, re-woven, and returned back into that cycle (energy intensive as well, but less so than creating a garment from new materials). Everyone gets a small cut of the money involved in the item.

If the material was too damaged to continue in this cycle in a meaningful/economical way, and it needed to be disposed of, it could be added to building materials like concrete (ideal for things like polyester, for which other disposal methods would be environmentally damaging), composted (cotton/linin) to create biogas (heat/energy/cooking fuel), or burned for heat/energy (same problems as burning just to get rid of it, but at least you get energy from it, and you’re displacing some of the fossil fuels that would otherwise have to be mined just to burn for energy)*.

Salvage economies exist in parallel with more mainstream economies throughout the world, with varying levels of accessibility and cultural acceptance based on a person’s location, generation, and background. You’ve probably shopped at a “thrift” or consignment store or bought something on Craigslist or Facebook/Amazon Marketplace- this is participating in a salvage economy. But it goes deeper than that.

Culturally in the US, salvage has traditionally been seen as a cheaper second-best option if you can’t afford something new. However, in younger generations and as new items become harder to find and of lower quality, older items are becoming more desirable, and purchasing pressure is shifting, if only a little bit. While I am no economist (my highest degree is in environmental health science) I also think that as the scales start to tip to raw materials becoming less viable economically, companies will look at alternatives, and those alternatives will be existing materials.

I’m not here positing that we should abandon mainstream economies entirely. People will always want new things and be willing to pay for them. But we have a problem of too much trash and too few (and too expensive) raw materials, which create both pollution and shortages** (a problem that has been increasingly in the spotlight in recent years). And I believe that over the next few decades, the pressure (both from market demand and difficulty/expense creating/mining raw materials) will begin to shift, and with it, if you believe traditional economic theory, so too will companies looking to maintain profits. CEO’s gotta eat, (and purchase his 14th yacht), you know.

But I am here saying that you can start putting this pressure on corporations early. Avoid the rush, as they say- before shortages mean everyone turns to the salvage economy all at once with not enough infrastructure to support them. Here are some ways you can participate and build up that infrastructure:

Borrow or rent things you don’t use regularly

Hardware stores rent tools/machines

Look into tool exchanges in your area

Libraries for books (eLibraries like Libby are great if you can’t go to an in-person one, especially if you like audiobooks)

Libraries for toys/games/kits/electronics

Industrial kitchen rentals if you preserve or sell food in moderate quantities

Buy as much as you can used:

Need clothing and home-goods? Thrift stores like goodwill and consignment shops are great at this.

Some thrift shops have a fabric or yarn section if you have/want the skills to knit/sew your own clothing. I’ve gotten some excellent quality wools from Goodwill for super cheap.

Need building materials or furniture? Salvage yards run by demolition companies and charities like Habitat for Humanity ReStore have your back.

Pull-A-Part for car/engine parts

Need books, textbooks, physical media, really specific tools/items, etc? Facebook/Amazon Marketplace, Craigslist, eBay, Thrift Books, etc…

If you can’t get it used, at least save it from a landfill:

Shop for clothing/ home goods/furniture/food at overstock and “damaged goods” stores like Marshalls, Ollie’s, Gabe’s, Rose’s, local wholesale stores and the like.

Look into salvage grocery stores. Some are run by charities and specifically serve low-income clientele, but many are open to the public (especially in areas with high Amish populations). These stores buy overstock, expired (doesn’t mean bad), and food with damaged packaging in bulk and sell it for an extreme discount (like 90% off). Some even have frozen, refrigerated, and fresh sections.

Craigslist sometimes have people advertising fruit trees in their yards that are a nuisance to them d/t falling fruit, and want someone to come collect it

If you already have something, but it broke, try to get it fixed instead of replacing it. Look into:

Appliance repair places are still a thing

Electronics repair and referb places

Repair cafes (events where people with repair skills, people with tools, and people with things that need to be repaired can meet)

Mending circles and learning to mend and alter clothing yourself

Tailor/clothing repair shops

Watch/jewelry repair shops

Shoe repair shops

Car repair places (it’s like I’ve always said- the best car for the environment is the one you’re currently driving, especially if you keep getting it maintained and fixed appropriately as needed, but even if you don’t, it’s better than creating demand for something new)

Gardening! (look at it as making something you have or have access to (land/a yard) into something you need (food))

Most of these are cheaper options, some of them aren’t, but it’s great to create a list of resources in your local area as you find them- that way you’ll be less tempted to go straight to Target for a new item.

Additionally, with the exceptions of a few chains and online resources, many of the “salvage” stores are small, local businesses. And you want these to thrive, both to stick it to Amazon and Wal Mart, and because they keep skills and resources circulating in your local community. Yay!

*You’ll notice I didn’t say the word “recycling” anywhere in there. While traditional recycling works for some materials, it is expensive and the infrastructure just isn’t there currently to handle the demand, largely because as it stands there wouldn’t be a lot of return on that investment. To the point where most recycling is either sent to US-based landfills or sent abroad (where we’re not really sure what happens to it- some of it is sold back to US corporations as post-consumer materials (primarily for “greenwashing” efforts, but that’s a whole other thing), but we think the majority of it just ends up in foreign landfills or above-ground dumps). While recycling definitely has a place in salvage economies, as we do it today it is divorced from the end consumer/waste generator and has little purpose or accountability beyond making people feel like they’re not just throwing stuff away.

**You wanna know how that happened? We abandoned buy-it-for-life models popular before WWII and adopted obsolescence models that provided extreme short-term profits for corporations at the near-immediate expense of human health and the planet.

We also developed the absolute scourge that is disposable packaging. Think about how much of your trash is just packaging from things you bought. Did you know before WWII you purchased most of your goods by purchasing your first metal can or glass bottle of consumables with a deposit, then came back and got the same can/bottle refilled a bunch of times? And if you no longer wanted it, you returned the container to get your deposit back? It’s true. Some companies (liquid manufacturers, like soda/milk, up until the 1970s) had a system where you returned your empties for a return deposit each time, and they’d wash and refill them, and sell you full bottles + deposit for the next go-round? Imagine how much less trash we’d have today if we still worked on that model. We literally had to teach people to throw things away with advertising (see below). But I digress…

#the salvage economy #salvage #food #clothing #gardening #tightwadery #economics #ideology #DIY #homesteading #low effort homesteading

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alwaysbewoke · 20 days

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rainia · 11 months

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but hey!! at least ghostknife is still on the cards!! ahah.

#we take what we can in this economy !!💪#rip ghostkick-enjoyers maybe it’s salvageable???? Man.#pd spoilers #rain rambles

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if-you-fan-a-fire · 2 years

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“How Paper Can Be Salvaged and Used Again and Again to Increase Supply Available for Making of War Products,” Windsor Star. May 12, 1942. Page 10. --- IF EVERY copy of The Windsor Star were saved after reading, tied securely and returned for re-use; if every piece of wrapping paper were carefully saved and turned in as salvage, the amount of useable materials reclaimed in Windsor alone for the war effort would be staggering. The picture at the left shows how the housewife who gathers waste paper and phones her local salvage committee is doing a war job. Canada needs 200,000,000 pounds this year. In the centre picture, the salvaged paper after being baled and shipped to sorting plants, is shown being dumped into a boiling vat to be repulped. Every 100 pounds means 90 pounds of new paper products. The picture at the right shows the pulp from reclaimed paper running over rollers on its way to war use.

#windsor #salvage campaign #salvage conscious #salvage #pulp and paper industry #reduce reuse recycle #salvage committee #repulping #recycled paper #war effort #war economy #total war #canada during world war 2

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seat-safety-switch · 1 year

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Couple folks down at the end of the street have gotten themselves a Ford Ranger. Not the new bloaty European one, with its ridiculous features like “doors that stay closed” and “fuel economy,” but a good, old-fashioned beater Ranger. Naturally, I want it more than my next breath of air.

Even though it has one of those wheezy V6s and is an automatic, rather than my beloved zingy four-banger-plus-five-speed combination, I find myself driving slowly past it. I entertain fantasies about using it to go to the dump, to uncover my back yard full of trash (Mopar, organic, otherwise.) In that glorious alternate future, I would then haul home lumber and tools with which to begin to construct a deck on which to grill. The neighbours would witness my truck, and know that it is the vehicle of someone who Does Something with their house. That would be pretty rad, I tell myself, before snapping out of it.

Upon further inspection, I realize that the owners are what they call “legacy” Ranger owners, having purchased the vehicle many years ago when it was a mere couple-hundred-bucks beater, rather than a priceless collectible that must be clearing the block at Barrett-Jackson soon for the approximate value of a house. You can tell this by all the meth they are smoking in it. I begin to realize that perhaps they are not homeowners at all, but a small gang of scrap thieves. They, too, can tell that I can tell, and although scumbag courtesy would ordinarily cause us to ignore one another’s offences against civil society, I am a little jealous of the truck, and tap my brakes as if slowing down to call an Authority Figure.

There is a peel-out, then. Although I know that I can easily catch the Ranger and its anemic vee-six, I do not pursue. There is no reason to: the missing tailgate, and the steep incline of my street, allows their bed full of stolen metal scrap to tumble harmlessly onto the road. At this point, the laws of maritime salvage take over. This has become my pile of stolen metal scrap, and further, the illicit transfer-by-dump of these goods has blurred the pesky issue of ownership. Who is to say all these cut-off exhaust components are stolen, officer?

I spend the rest of the evening assembling them into an work of art. I call it “Ranger,” and from about thirty feet away, it sort of resembles a 1988 Ford Ranger XLT. I throw it into the pile of scrap in my backyard, so I can admire it from my kitchen every morning as I warm my coffee over a Steyr Maxi thumper. There is no reason to be jealous, I resolve, not when you can make your own truck.

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daggers-drawn-returns · 1 year

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Plan for a Cooperative Politics and Economy for Slab City

Formation of Neighborhood Community Centers (NCCs)

As a place to encourage socialization, collective planning, support community groups, and provide services, we would be well served to build Neighborhood Community Centers in each section of town.

The NCCs would contain kitchens and dining halls, planning rooms, hang out spaces, and amenities all provided free of charge for members of the community and visitors.

Formation of Cooperative Associations (CAs)

Cooperative Associations could be formed to operate out of the NCCs to provide the necessities of the members of the community. Food, water, electricity, sanitation, building, communications and medicine could all be the basis of the formation of CA’s . A CA formed to provide access to groceries and cook community meals could be called the Food Cooperative Association for example.

Federation of NCCs and CAs

Each of the NCCs and CAs could federate on various levels. They could form an Association of Neighborhood Community Centers, Federation of Food Cooperative Associations, or Partnership of the Local Sanitation and Building Cooperative Associations for instance, providing the means for these organizations to work together, share information, and take on larger projects than they could accomplish on their own.

Research, Development, and Independence

Beyond just providing for the necessities of the community, the CAs can also work on finding ways to provide those necessities using local materials. For instance, working on solar thermal systems that can be built from scrap and salvage or recycling programs to provide materials to build or make things with. This would help us be less dependent on outside support or money economies.

Encouragement of Trades

With necessities being provided, people in our community can also focus on and develop non-necessities and luxury trades. We can provide workshops and clubs in our NCCs to allow people to develop skills around electronics, crafts, and other trades. Organizations could form for people who want to develop these skills and use them for the betterment of the community.

Horizontalism

None of these organizations would require an administrative arm or leadership group. Instead they could allow the members to decide on the basis of participation and volunteerism, with each project having as much resource and participation as people are willing to give based on the estimation of the value of the project by the members of the organization and wider community. Organization of events and meetings could be done by those interested in doing so without the need for a dedicated organizer.

#Anarchism #anarchist projects #homelessness #this is what I'm trying to do

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poppetsisters · 10 days

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Cancelled Poppet Sisters Game

Like so many projects of mine, most of them never reach the finish line, however I want to share with you a game I had intended to make after Planter's Diary. It's a point and click life-sim called PK ULTRA!!

The premise of PK-Ultra was that it took place in an alternate history where "brain-compatable technology" has been around since the 1970s. In the modern day, this meant that you could purchase cartridges (or plug-ins) for your brain that could assist you with any number of things. Below are a collection of advertisements for "Brain Plug-ins":

You play as Wesley, a trans boy who's looking for work in the fast-paced tech world.

Using your trusty smart watch, you have an assortment of ways to manage your stats.

But this life-sim isn't the cozy escape you expect it to be. This is a survival game about managing your hunger, paying your rent, and working in a gig economy.

How will you ever manage all this on your own? Well remember, this is an alternate universe with brain enhancements, and take a wild guess what the main gimmick of the game is:

Yep! Throughout the game, you'll be required to purchase these plug-ins to performance-enhance your life. Anything from Hourglassy: the encyclopedia for your brain. Znoose: the sleep aid which lowers the amount of time you have to rest. TURBO BRAIN: a super duper safe plug-in that overclocks your brain. or even PAWS: which teaches you wholesome American values such as racism.

You'll be able to explore a semi-open world full of weird and wonderful side characters. One of them is a programmer named Edith, who's working on a modded Znoose which can instantly put your brain to sleep with the push of a button.

Her ultimate plan is to enter the astral plane by essentially locking her consciousness out of her body using this tech. Whether her plan succeeds or fails is... left to interpretation.

The villain of the game is Leon LeMain, the CEO of a company called Hourglass which produces Rightaway. He ends up being at the centre or a grand mind control conspiracy (who would've guessed) and it's all up to you and a small group of friends to tear the whole operation down.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed what was essentially an art dump for a no longer in-development project. Maybe someday I'll salvage these ideas for something in the future. Here's a bus ticket if you ever want to visit this setting again.

#game development #gamedev #indiegamedev #indie games #cancelled video game #cancelled project #pk ultra #poppetsisters

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theresattrpgforthat · 10 months

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how many ttrpgs do you know of that came with soundtracks?

THEME: TTRPGs With Soundtracks

Hello friend! I knew of a few off the top of my head, and went searching for some more. Many of these soundtracks are playlists of already-created songs, hosted on streaming apps like Spotify, but a few are designed specifically for a certain roleplaying game. Either way I hope you find something up your alley!

Monster Care Squad, by Sandy Pug Games and The Fox in the Flowers.

Long after the crowns have fallen, long after greed has had it's day, long after war, poverty, hunger, and tyranny passed into memory, Ald-Amura's peace is broken by The False Gold, a terrible sickness spreading through its greatest guardians and most beautiful Monsters.

Unified by community and driven by a love for the planet and each other, The Monster Care Squad rises. Do you heed their call?

A game about caring for monsters in a fantastical world is already probably enough to sell a lot of folks on the pitch, but the love for this game shines through in the third-party work available, including Sounds of Ald-Amura, by The Fox in The Flowers. Sandy Pug Games is a creative collective that prioritizes support for the entire team behind any given project, which is probably why their games are so beautiful and so well-crafted.

Long Haul 1983, by SPC. (Spotify Soundtrack)

It’s 1983, and the world feels hollowed out.

LONG HAUL 1983 tells the story of a dangerous journey through an empty world.

You play a long-haul truck driver trying to make their way home. Every day, you’ll hit the road, navigating treacherous highways, fleeing from menacing threats, and dealing with the psychological impacts of isolation.

And at the end of each day, you’ll find a payphone, make a call, and leave a message for the most important person in your life.

They never pick up. You never stop calling.

This is a solo game, where the soundtrack is designed to enhance the experience of loneliness and isolation, using ambient sounds and hits from the time period this game is set in. The game comes with a list of songs meant to be played during certain moments, as well as a list of songs that are designed to be background atmospheric pieces. If you want something that elevates your solo journaling experience, this game might be for you.

Orbital Blues, by Soul Muppet Games. (Soundtrack)

It is an intergalactic age of cowboys, outlaws and bandits playing on an interstellar stage. It is a time of hyper-capitalism and a cut-throat gig economy. Unreliable trash-heaps carry scrappy underdogs to their next gig, and corporation freighters lumber across the horizon laden with an empire’s bounty.

These are the music-fuelled, moon-age daydreams of a rebel space age.

These are your ORBITAL BLUES.

Games inspired by tv shows and movies have a great starting point in finding music that really fits the tone - you can start with the soundtrack of the things that inspired you. But Chris Bissette was not happy to simply show you the soundtracks for Cowboy Bebop and Firefly and call it a day. They created a custom album to play alongside the game that’s a little soulful, and a little rock n’ roll. A soulful space-western kind of game lends itself really well to music to evoke melancholy and loss, so I definitely recommend listening to some of this if you want to play Orbital Blues or any other game inspired by the same sorts of media.

The Wildsea, by Felix Isaacs, and Songs of the Lignin Tide, by Liam Peregrine Vaughan.

Your character is a wildsailor, part of a crew cutting their way across the island-studded wilderness of the treetop sea on a vessel of your very own. You’ll clash with survivor cultures and wild beasts, scavenge and salvage for wreckage and trade-goods, chase rumours, and uncover secrets. The focus of this game is on exploration, progress, and change - you’ll define the world of the Wildsea as you sail it.

I’ve talked about The Wildsea extensively in the past, so I’m just going to talk a little bit about Songs of the Lignin Tide. The Wildsea community is dedicated, inspired, and creative, and that leads to some amazing work created by players, for other players. Songs of the Lignin Tide is one of those examples. It uses a wealth of different sounds to add richness and texture to this unique and verdant setting, and it feels like the creator drew heavily from their own experiences of playing the game. I highly recommend you check it out if you want more Wildsea in your life.

Quietus, by Sinister Beard Games. (Spotify Playlist)

QUIETUS is a one shot, prep-less RPG of melancholy horror. It’s a game for a GM and one or two players, and emulates tragic horror movies like Oculus, The Strangers, The Babadook, Inside and the Netflix version of The Haunting of Hill House. If a piece of fiction can make you cry and scream, then it’s a great model for the sort of stories that you can tell with QUIETUS.

The music for Quietus is also a Spotify playlist, with a collection of songs that fit the tone of a tragic horror game. It’s an hour and forty-three minutes long, and since Quietus is meant to be a one-shot, I have a feeling you might have to play through it more than once, or let Spotify generate similar songs after the playlist finishes up.

GoblinMixtape’s Soundtracks, by Sam Leigh.

While creating a soundtrack on your own might be a daunting task, using established songs to fit the vibe of your ttrpg is much easier, and GoblinMixtape (aka Sam Leigh) has connected many designers to playlists designed to emulate the feeling of their games. There’s quite a few playlists already created by them, so I’d recommend checking out this list of playlists if you want to see the games she’s worked on before.

#dnd #game recommendations #indie ttrpgs #soundtracks #music #asks #tabletop games

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msmcnevertweet · 10 months

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Into the Blind, and Wot I Like about Space Stuff

I've been working on this for a while in between breaks updating As the Sun Forever Sets. Why is my idea of a break from writing games just writing a different game? I have dumb bitch disease. I wanted to talk about some of the inspirations for it.

Welcome to The Rim

Into the Blind is a sci fi game about a group of gig economy workers living contract to contract on the roiling, wild edge of space. It's about CRT screens, mechanical keyboards, junction boxes, pipes and wires. It's about the unknown, the stresses of capital, and horror - visceral and ephemeral. It's about working hard jobs in dangerous conditions for little pay, and the chance of a better life.

You are a Freelancer - Salvager, Shipbreaker, Courier, Bodyguard, Assassin, First Responder, Negotiator, Investigator, Debt Collector. A Freelancer is any and all of these, depending on the contract. You'll take whatever you can get to make ends meet.

Every job you do balances your need to pay the rent on your ship against your desire to remain alive. Grab what you can, get paid, and stay alive.

If this sounds cool to you, you can grab a free preview (with the old name) below.

Let me show you my favourite space things

Ok, time for the self indulgent ramblings.

(Potential) Spoilers for: Gravity, Interstellar, Contact, Arrival, The Expanse, the Alien series, the Thing, Annihilation, Homeworld: Cataclysm and Magnetic Rose.

Physics and Feelings at 10km/s

There are a lot of sci-fi horror TTRPGS out there. Like a lot a lot. Mothership, Death in Space, the Alien RPG, You're in Space and Everything's Fucked, the list goes on and on. Not that that matters - people should make the games they wanna make and I wanted to make a scary sci-fi game with spaceships, so eh fuck it.

Something I realised while writing stuff for Into the Blind and working on the system is that the themes and feeling of a lot of the sci-fi stuff I'm into didn't revolve around a towering monster skulking around dark spaceship. Like, sure, Into the Blind will have a nasty alien somewhere, I don't need to say that I like Alien or talk about why it's good (I do, it is, and I'm going to), but there's more to write about than monsters. Space is already intrinsically stressful and horrifying:

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Neil Degrasse Tyson and Chris Hadfield can shut the fuck up, Gravity has some of the scariest, tensest scenes in a movie I've ever seen in my fucking life. After watching this you could never pay me enough to go to space. The only enemy here is inertia, the only monster are the principles of physics that cause a cloud of debris to whip through orbit at 22,000 miles an hour.

Aside from the spectacle, Gravity is a film about finding the will to go on when you have nothing to live for and everything's against you. It's heavily implied that Dr Stone went to space because she's tired of existing on earth (or at least that's my read). She wants mercy and relief from the pain of her life, and watching it you want to gift it to her so badly, but the debris field crashes into her life over and over. It's a relentless, uncaring solar tide that returns like clockwork when to fuck her up any time she gets a break.

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These extreme forces also generate incredible tragedy and loss. Interstellar is kind of a dumb movie but despite the memes about this scene it always gets me. You don't know what you have until it's gone, and sometimes the distance between you knowing you've lost something and it becoming lost can (thanks to black holes and weird gravity stuff) slip by you in an age that feels like an instant.

Both Gravity and Interstellar have soft, beating hearts encased behind the layers of radiation shielding, technobabble and worn metal, and when the colossal forces that make the universe turn rip it open, they're laid bare.

That's a fucking cool thing to make a game about!

Indistinguishable from Magic

I'm not a big brain science person, when it comes to wormholes, relativity, folding space time and all that, I don't really get it. I just know that it's cool as hell and opens the door to powerful character stories about finding meaning and confronting your feelings at the edge of our understanding of reality.

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Contact and Arrival are two sides of the same movie to me. Both are heavily grounded in big Theory and big Science Words, both are about powerful sciencey girlbosses who've lost something dear to them (one in the future, one in the past.) Contact leans more towards the hard science approach, but both are at their best when they're balanced on the edge of the plausible and the implausible. They're both about the incredible, incomprehensible nature of the universe. They're both about people who change the world, in ways both vast impercievable to everyone else.

They're both stories of hope and benevolence, but Contact frames this through 90's optimism and the power of nations working together towards a common goal (it's so optimistic, even the villain-coded megacorporation decides to help out, which uhhhh), Arrival frames these themes through personal tragedy - Dr Banks pays a high price to save humanity from itself.

Behind the calculations and clipboards and theories, these are stories about personal discovery, love and heartache.

These are also fucking cool things to make games about!

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Magnetic Rose is probably the single biggest influence on Into the Blind - there's a full adventure heavily inspired by it in the preview. It's just so good. The visual design and animation are simultaneously grounded and real yet brilliantly beautiful and surreal. It's tragic gothic horror at the dark, gritty edge of space, and it's so good at being sad. The penultimate scenes in heart of the tomb-like space station, surrounded by rank brown water and decaying metal are heartwrenching. Heintz is tormented by visions of his past and you feel it so hard. The film doesn't care to tell you how this is all happening - are his memories ghosts? holograms? hallucinations? It only cares about the why, and it's incredible.

Breathable Air Prepayment Meters

It's been ages since I watched The Expanse, so I'm not gonna dwell on it too much, but what I remember focused heavily on how capital and government care little about those they govern and sell to.

The level that our existence is monetised and used as a cudgel against us currently can surely only expand along with our expansion into the stars. You can go there right now if you have enough money to do so, and when life beyond earth becomes feasible, the companies that financed it will need someone to clean the ducts and polish the solar arrays. The amount of things that can be sold to you can only increase out in space. You think rents are high now? Wait till you see the price of a 1 bedroom apartment in orbit around Mars. Add nice breathable mix of nitrogen and oxygen to your list of monthly outgoings. You think you'll be able to repair your C02 scrubbers without voiding the warranty? Fuck no.

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The Alien movies are obviously (despite what some grognards on twitter dot com will tell you) deeply about extreme capitalism. The galaxy is ruled by companies that could not care less about you, and the bottom line is all that matters. This kinda matters less and less as the films wear on, but the first 3 are all about working class people sacrificed on the altar of the interstellar dollar.

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Alien 3 in particular has a lot of problems, but the edgy teen in me is still really fond of this scene. It's doing a Big Foreshadow (Do you get it? The alien is like.. the flower he's talking about right? But the flower is bad?) But it feels like an appropriate lament for prisoners on the ass end of space. Despite what the company wants you to believe, the inmates of Fury 161 don't deserve to die, aren't expendable.

We all have flowers within us waiting to grow, out from the shadow of capital.

You might've noticed mentions of a nasty guy in those last clips.

Ok fine, also Monsters

We all love a little nasty guy, I cannot resist the pull of the weird monster that does Big Themes. Like I said, there's so much TTRPG stuff focused on them for good reason And space is ripe for the nastiest of guys.

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There's really nothing more to be said about The Thing, it just fucking rules. It's a movie that cares as much about what a monster can do to peoples bodies as what it can do to their minds and relationships.

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What a horrible fate for Sheppard. The idea of Annihilations mutant bear is just so sinister it makes my gut drop whenever I re-watch it. Again, not much else to be said about this movie. It rips.

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Homeworld: Cataclysm is a weird game. It's a survival horror.. strategy game? Set in space? Where you never see a single person?? And somehow it's voice acting and plot is incredible???

The Beast is the nickname for the microorganism that emerges from the millenia old wreckage the mining vessel Kuun-Lan happens upon whilst scouring deep space for valuable minerals. The threat it presents is so real and visceral, it's one of those "if this hits our planet, it's so over" monsters, and it's obscenely scary and gruesome. Even the Bentusi, a race of nigh-on ageless benevolent machine beings are absolutely terrified, and try to abandon the galaxy in the face of it (they fear their biological minds will be trapped in their machine bodies if they're taken over by The Beast, locked in and forced to watch what it does to the galaxy. Damn.)

The scene where you and your fleet fight the Bentusi as they try to evacuate known space to force them to help you is intense and incredible. You're fighting gods, and all you can do is crash against their incredible technology again and again like a stiff breeze, pleading for help and humanity. You shame them into taking responsibility for helping the mortals in the galaxy against this ancient threat. That's the fear inspired by The Beast.

Thank you for coming to my Space Ted Talk

I told you it was self indulgent huh. Hopefully this goes some way to explaining what I'm going for with this game. Not only monsters, but the experiences of people trapped by incredible forces of nature, corporations and circumstance. Not only horror, but exploitation, sadness, love, longing and loss. Thanks for reading.

Again, if you want to check out Into the Blind, you can get the free preview below, and follow me on Itch to get notified for when game releases (soon? idk)

#ttrpg #indie ttrpg #ttrpg design #horror #science fiction #y'all ever go on a spaceship and cry #incredible self indulgence #am I accidently doing a Substack on tumblr dot com?

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lettersfromthelevant · 3 months

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There is a lot about Israeli suffering being omitted from the Western discussion on the war and all of the omissions are frustrating, but the one that is the most egregious has got to be the targeting of Israeli farms by Hamas and Hezbollah. I say this because we are being accused of intentionally starving Palestinians and trying to genocide Palestinians by withholding aid such as food and water. That baseless accusation becomes even more offensive when you realize the accusers are completely ignoring the impending agricultural crisis Israel is facing.

This is a photo taken by an Israeli farmer of a rocket fired by Hezbollah on the northern border. Many Israeli farmers are facing this immediate threat right now and have been since October 7th. All of the agricultural infrastructure on the northern and southern border have been under heavy fire to the point where the government has both urged and sometimes forced farmers to leave. There have already been farmers on the northern border who have been killed by rocket fire from Hezbollah. Why are there not more articles from non-Israeli sources discussing the intentional targeting of Israeli farmers? Why does no one care that Hezbollah has been repeatedly and relentlessly raining down rockets on regions such as Kiryat Shmona, to the point where the cities need to be evacuated because of how often they come under fire? Our agricultural infrastructure is being destroyed, but the West is not calling that intentional starvation and genocide.

(source)

Many Israeli farms are now being operated by skeleton crews of volunteers and they are struggling. Of course, there are also the kibbutzim in the south that contributed to producing food for the economy, which are now destroyed. There is currently a serious discussion in volunteer spaces about what is going to happen to these kibbutzim since most of the Israelis who used to live in them are now murdered or held hostage.

Israeli produce shops are now indicating if the produce being sold comes from an Israeli farm or from a foreign farm, so that people can choose to support struggling Israeli farmers. Additionally, geopolitical tensions are going to make it extremely difficult to import food in the event that we can't be sustained off of our own farms.

(source)

It's a serious problem, especially in combination with our current economic crisis, and almost no one outside of Israel is even acknowledging it. Since October 7th, I've seen one (1) post circulate with a few donation links for ZAKA and Magen David Adom and that's it. Everything else has been donation links for Palestinians and news articles about the Palestinian humanitarian crisis.

(source)

Unlike the Palestinians, we are not receiving hundreds of massive truckloads of international aid every single day*. We have to rely on ourselves and the private donations from individual civilians and charity organizations. We are operating almost entirely on volunteer efforts, such as the Ethiopian community here who helped salvage some of the harvests that survived in the south.

I'm not going to try to tell anyone to donate, not when I've seen how much you people hand-wring over the ethics of donating to various Israeli charities, but I am going to need y'all to at least fucking acknowledge the Israeli side of things. Stop acting like we're some hyper-privileged group of oppressors untouched by the war except on October 7th.

*Yes, I'm aware Hamas is hijacking that aid, but that's the UN's problem to be perfectly honest. They could very easily fix the issue because it's literally their responsibility to control the aid trucks once they enter Gaza, but instead they blame us as per usual. It also doesn't detract from my point that Israel is being expected to deal with a multi-front war, a political crisis, an economic crisis, a mass internal displacement crisis, an agricultural crisis, and a hostage situation without any aid, on top of repeatedly having to go on the offensive against accusations of war crimes from the international community. We literally just got dragged to the Hague for the biggest sham of a trial in international history when we could be focusing our attention on things that actually matter for our country and have a basis in reality, like the fact that thousands of Israelis are dead, kidnapped, homeless, and hospitalized. And to add insult on top of all of that, we're still expected to give our resources (energy, water, and food) to the literal enemy state that attacked and brutalized our civilians. It's fucking ridiculous.

No other country would be expected to put up with this bullshit. We are literally the ones who were attacked. We are the ones who were murdered and raped and kidnapped, but we're being treated like the aggressor while all the international aid goes directly to the people who instigated the whole war. That isn't how this is supposed to work. You don't treat the victim of an attack like a criminal and you don't treat the people who literally committed war crimes and FILMED IT like sad innocent puppies. I'm tired of being expected to put Palestinians first and my people second. I'm so fucking tired of being told that I should think about Palestinians more than my hospitalized neighbors and PTSD stricken father. It's so unbelievably dehumanizing to hear that your friends in another unit were killed by rocket fire, to not even be able to sit at their funerals, and then to be told by some self-righteous American that I should stop mourning and think about how the Palestinians must be feeling. I visited the farmers up north when I was assigned at a station there and they have been completely devastated by the exact same Islamic extremism that led 3,000 Palestinians to invade my country and slaughter my people, so I can't really be fucking bothered to extend my limited bandwidth to the Palestinians right now.

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motleyfolk · 1 year

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Becoming sustainable is a journey that takes a long time. You can not and will not change your lifestyle to fully sustainable in a month. Changing your entire lifestyle in a way that directly clashes with how society is currently functioning (consumerism/capitalism) is not as easy as the tiktokers doing partnerships with bamboo toothbrushes make you believe.

Start small. Repurpose things you already have, even if they aren’t recyclable. Scrape the last of your moisturizer into a tub if it won’t come out the bottle any more. Use the cut open bottle as a pin holder. Use old dvd cases as letter storage, for arts and crafts, to protect your post. Donate things you can’t reuse to your local charity shops or shelters.

You’re also inherently going to have to learn new skills. Learning to stitch clothing to repair clothes, and learning how to sew to re-use clothes that can’t be salvaged. Learning some basic carpentry and upholstery skills for furniture, learning how to compost properly, learning to cook in unusual ways like canning and bulk cooking, gardening and farming. You’ll need to learn how to navigate shopping sustainably by researching the brands you consume, the shops you buy at, the local economy.

There's also the emotional toll of it. Learning new skills and leading a sustainable lifestyle will be very rewarding and fulfilling, but the journey there will be difficult. Researching it all will likely depress you, you’ll come across how shit nestle is, how deep-rooted consumerism is, how it impacts the ocean and humanity. You’ll find there's almost nothing, no brand, no item, no store that hasn’t been touched by consumerism and problematic practices, and it will get absolutely exhausting. You’ll find YouTubers and bloggers who have been doing this longer than you and finally help you navigate everything, and then they’re a terf. It’s going to be a challenging journey.

You will also realize becoming fully 100% sustainable is impossible to you and gated to rich people. You will need to accept this. Not everyone has access to local shops that provide sustainable items, and online shipping itself is usually not eco-friendly. Having a pet might be a roadblock, unless you can build your own house it's probably not built sustainably, if you live with family or roommates they might dampen your lifestyle. You’ll learn that being sustainable isn’t going the whole solution to saving the planet. You cannot strive for perfection here, you can only make an effort.

But making the effort is the point. Living sustainably makes you part of a positive cycle that supports local businesses, promotes a healthier and more fulfilling life, helps your local ecosystem and community. That makes the effort worth it.

#sustainability #grimoire bookmark #motleyspoke

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if-you-fan-a-fire · 2 years

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“AIDING WAR EFFORT,” Vancouver Province. May 14, 1942. Page 10. ---- Tons of scrap rubber, old bedsteads, boilers, parts of cars almost every conceivable item that clutters up backyards and basements are now resting in the basements of schools as the student population scours the city for salvage to help Canada's war effort. In less than a week students at Vancouver Technical High collected the mass of old rubber tires, overshoes, gloves, etc., seen in the upper photo. Gordon Darling, chief electrical instructor who organized the school drive, is watching students weigh their collection. Miss E. W. M. Bald of David Livingstone School is surrounded by some of her enthusiastic scrap collectors in the lower photo. Students at John Oliver High School were such ardent workers they packed an old car to school that one of them had found in a nearby bush. It had been stolen three years ago and never found, police said.

#vancouver #salvage #salvage campaign #salvage conscious #junk heap #scrap collectors #scrap metal #war effort #used rubber #war economy #high school students #canada during world war 2 #home front

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captainzook · 6 months

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On October 21st my sister & I were out with friends at the movies watching Taylor Swift's Eras Tour when I got an alert on my phone that an alarm was going off at our apartment. We rushed home to find our apartment on fire.

My best friend's cat that we were sitting for passed away in the fire & our apartment complex decided to break our lease, so now we're couch surfing & scrambling to find a new place to live while all the stuff we could salvage sits in storage.

While we had some savings & renter's insurance, we do not have enough cushion to cover storage, moving, cleaning supplies & first, last, & security at a new apartment, along with cremation services for the cat.

I know times are tough for everyone in this economy, so if you can't help out I totally understand, if you can share this around maybe it can find someone that can. We appreciate any help anyone can give.

#personal #gofundme #fire #taylor swift #help

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pencopanko · 7 months

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Another Coco "What If" AU, but this time Héctor actually recorded some tunes

Heavily inspired by the story of how Ryo Fukui's album "My Favorite Tunes" was rediscovered through his widow, Yasuko in 2017.

°°°°°°

After the news broke out about de la Cruz's lies (and alleged murder) of his buried-by-time duet partner, musician, and songwriter Héctor Rivera, rumors of never-before-seen and extremely rare recordings of the latter performing either with de la Cruz or by himself circulated amongst certain circles, mostly fans of lost media and buried history.

Talks like this had been going around for ages, but it wasn't until mid-2018 when a shoe-maker family's son named Miguel Rivera came out with stories of how de la Cruz stole his great-great grandfather's songs and skull guitar complete with physical proof that the topic of lost recordings suddenly became one of the hottest topics in México. Miguel himself joined in on the hunt, which lasted for quite some time well past 2018 and was postponed due to the pandemic.

And then, in 2021. A miracle.

Either Mamá Coco had completely forgotten about it or it had been a secret that she had purposely kept to herself for Miguel to discover, but there were some other things she had kept hidden from her mother... five 78 rpm records pre-dating 1921, all sent by Héctor. Recordings of him singing by himself, with Ernesto, or just simple guitar arrangements of his other songs. Kept in secret by Mamá Coco somewhere in a corner of Miguel's hideout left unchecked after Imelda threw them out along with other objects related to music. Other 78s were later on discovered by a descendant of de la Cruz's inside the family estate and in various antique shops, all collecting dust. They were amongst the most important relics of Héctor's legacy, besides his red songbook containing the first composition for "Remember Me".

After efforts of digitizing came out successful (despite the damage done by age, the recordings were miraculously salvageable), "Recuérdame: The Lost Recordings of Héctor Rivera (1919-1921)" was released. Calling the album a sensation was an understatement. Rave reviews started coming out, stating that Héctor's warm voice reminded listeners of home and warm sunrays, and how one can feel the heartache and longing for his family from the way he strums his guitar alone, even if his voice is not as strong and commanding as de la Cruz's. His grito is oftentimes said to be addicting and infectious as well, with some claiming that they ended up doing it along. Others lamented over "what could have been" after listening to Rivera and de la Cruz's harmonizing and clear-as-day dynamic as a duet. Shortly after, the skeletal remains of Héctor Rivera were found in an unmarked grave in México City.

It not only solidified Héctor Rivera's legacy (thus directly affecting Héctor's overall health in the Land Of The Dead for the better), but it also largely improved the Riveras' overall economy with royalties from Héctor's never-before-seen music, in addition to the already booming shoe-making business and Miguel's own efforts as a musician. All because Miguel decided to steal a guitar that turned out to be rightfully his.

It is safe to say that Héctor Rivera is now considered one of the greatest songwriters and poets in the history of Mexican music.

#coco pixar #coco headcanons #coco au: the lost recordings of héctor rivera #miguel rivera #ernesto de la cruz #héctor rivera #imelda rivera #socorro rivera sr #coco rivera sr #mamá coco #yupyupyup #penco rambles #penco writes

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artbyblastweave · 9 months

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Currently on episode 3 (2?) of MAWS. A few notes: One interesting thing about S:TAS is that you got an excellent sense of what the post-Superman status-quo was displacing. The first episode after the pilot involved Bruno Manheim, a conventional mob boss, running afoul of the Toyman, one of the first of the new crop of supercriminals, in a way that reminds me of The Long Halloween. Whenever Bruno Manheim shows up for the rest of the series, it's in the context of his struggle to remain relevant until he's killed while trying to be a cats paw for Darkseid. In the S:TAS pilot, Lex Luthor's big plan was an under-the-table attempt to evade an arms embargo and sell the combat robots to a post-soviet state; a very ripped-from-the-headlines plot for the 1990s, interrupted only by the abrupt injection of an out-of-context problem in the form of a Superhero. The show had a lot of nods like that, to the way in which Superman and company were beginning to upend a world that was, in terms of its economy and geopolitics, at least a little like our own. Justice League took it further- demonstrating that Superman has a positive impact on nuclear disarmament policy, but then further demonstrating the government's antsiness about the overall shift in the balance of power towards the Justice League, with their secret killsat and so on. However. The series was aware of how the world was changing, but didn't advance a precise mechanism for why all the disparate weirdness happened to kick off all at once, in time for Superman to encounter and fight it. Because that was pure Doylism- Now that Superman exists, wacky stuff needs to start happening so he can have something to fight each week. MAWS patches this from a watsonian perspective- there's a common (Kryptonian) origin of most of the supervillians Superman is going up against. However, there's a level on which this has made (all two episodes) feel siloed away from the world at large, in a way that the first two (four?) episodes of S:TAS didn't. Intergang goes from an established Mafia-style crime syndicate desperately using alien tech to remain competitive in a post-Superman world, to three comically-incompetent crooks who could barely knock over a convenience store. The robots go from a human technology built for war profiteering reasons to (implicitly) salvaged Braniac-tech. The arms-dealing plot is still present but it's a bit less clear on the face of it who's bankrolling this and who was supposed to be buying it. Cadmus is the strongest tie that this show has to the sense of realpolitik or the balance of power or whatever it is you want to call it, which was threaded through the older shows at a pretty deep level.

There's a level on which I'm being extremely unfair, because I'm comparing 60 mins of worldbuilding to a continuity that ran 15 years and probably close to a hundred hours- this could plausibly go anywhere. Indeed. One aesthetic criticism I had of the show, which I'm walking back before having even made a post about it, is that with the kryptonian tech meta-origin, I thought they were getting dangerously close to doing the MCU thing of villains who show up in costumes-that-are-barely-costumes, street-clothes or military-wear augmented by a few gadgets, with some aesthetic signifiers referring to the more costume-like costumes they had in the comics. Then I did a quick scan of S:TAS and noticed that very few villains in that are actually wearing costume-costumes- instead, it's altered physiologies, experimental bodysuits that look like skintight spandex in the abstracted artstyle of S:TAS, or clothing that's just the style in the alien society that they're from. Villains who are clearly wearing considered costumes are much more prominent in Justice League- set years after S:TAS, when the precedent for costumed villainy has had time to solidify. This last paragraph was what this post was originally going to be about, incidentally.

#Superman #S:TAS #my adventures with superman #thoughts #meta

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pesterloglog · 3 months

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Dave Strider, Roxy Lalonde, Dirk Strider, Karkat Vantas

Meat, page 32

DAVE: yo

DAVE: love to chat but im kinda in the middle of something

ROXY: yo yourself but this is important

DAVE: uhhh

DAVE: more important than salvaging the global economy from potential disaster??

DAVE: sounds hugely unlikely

ROXY: idk about that

ROXY: in terms of scale and relativity and stuff maybe not

ROXY: its actually kinda hard to tell

ROXY: i guess in the grand scheme of things

ROXY: shes just takin a sort of nap

ROXY: but its one HELL of a nap bro

DAVE: a nap you say

DAVE: well this changes the fuck out of everything

ROXY: yea??

DAVE: nah

ROXY: lmao dirk just texted me about this

ROXY: somehow he found out about jade did u tell him

DAVE: uh no

ROXY: he just said make sure she gets lotsa daylight

ROXY: that itll help with the “exorcism she needs”.....

ROXY: and also to say hi to calliope for some fuckin reason??

DAVE: thats weird

DAVE: since when does he give a fuck about them

ROXY: idk

ROXY: guess ill just open the damn curtains and let some light in here

ROXY: he usually knows stuff about weird things

DAVE: so whats wrong with her again

DAVE: like

DAVE: some sort of demonic nap

ROXY: ok i wouldnt say shes NAPPING per se

ROXY: shes just like

ROXY: floatin here... upright

ROXY: eyes wide open

ROXY: and theyre both pitch black

DAVE: oh so she saw one of my latest sbahj campaign ads

ROXY: lol

ROXY: no dude

ROXY: like what im sayin is

ROXY: she looks a lil possessed

ROXY: by uh

ROXY: grim spirits n shit

DAVE: is she fucking grimbark again

ROXY: no!

ROXY: this isnt grimbark

ROXY: i KNOW what grimbark is dave this aint it

ROXY: it seems more serious tbh??

ROXY: like existing in some transformative state that isnt a literal fuckin joke

DAVE: ok yeah this does sound pretty bad

DAVE: but its not really my field

DAVE: did you try calling rose

ROXY: yea that was totes my original plan

ROXY: like no offense ur not #1 on my speed dial when it comes to this kinda thing

ROXY: but rose isnt picking up

ROXY: probly on account of ailments to be fair

ROXY: i called an unruly number of times

ROXY: and kan wasnt picking up either so...

DAVE: huh

DAVE: spooky

ROXY: hella spooky

ROXY: somethin about all this seems wrong

DAVE: yeah i guess

DAVE: what do you think is up

ROXY: idk

ROXY: i feel like theres something movin just out the corner of my vision but every time i turn to look at it

ROXY: its gone

ROXY: its givin me chills rn like im being watched

DAVE: well im no fucking ace detective

DAVE: or some gumshoe flatfoot dicking up the place suckin hard on my sherlock pipe like some sleuth of the fucking year

ROXY: dave

DAVE: but maybe we should consider the possibility that you are literally being watched

ROXY: ..............

DAVE: anyway can we hold that wise and rad thought i just had

DAVE: i gotta give karkat some emotional support

DAVE: since gettin jake on our side was a pretty huge fucking bonanza for us

DAVE: which has almost equal probability of winning us the election as it does blowing up in our faces depending on this speech he gives

DAVE: so we gotta like

DAVE: concentrate here?????

DAVE: instead of jerking each other off all god damned day for the rest of our lives

DAVE: (im just joking we dont actually do that)

ROXY: oh

ROXY: jakes on ur side then?

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: wasnt that hard to convince him after your girl j crock started slut shaming him on public access

ROXY: god dammit jane

DAVE: so i take it jade didnt convert you to our cause before going into her gothic trance fugue or whatever

ROXY: siiigh

ROXY: i just want this whole stupid political thing over n done with tbh

ROXY: i hate watchin u guys tear each other apart in the news

DAVE: yeah sorry about that

DAVE: sorry its making you feel bad i mean

DAVE: not sorry that were doin it

DAVE: itd be an unconscionably lame move to put something on a billboard that i didnt 100% stand by

DAVE: but that sounds suspiciously like something jane would do

DAVE: aka the bad guy in this situation

DAVE: like objectively speaking

ROXY: ugh pls dont start

DAVE: just sayin

ROXY: idgAF!!!

DAVE: also

DAVE: aside from how vehemently i disagree with every detail in janes shitty platform

DAVE: i also think

DAVE: karkats the right guy for the job

DAVE: full stop

ROXY: you rly believe in him dont u

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: of course i do

DAVE: because i...

ROXY: hey before you jet can i ask you another question

ROXY: theres somethin else ive been meanin to ask u about for a while

DAVE: uh alright shoot

ROXY: yea soooo

ROXY: dave how did you come out

DAVE: ...

DAVE: what?

ROXY: like as not being straight

ROXY: howd you couch that to ppl w/o them freakin out or being awkward around u

ROXY: do u think its ever too late to

ROXY: idk

ROXY: change ur mind?

ROXY: about the person you wanna be??

ROXY: like is there a some point of no return you can cross where everyone is waitin for u to have a big ass revelation about your internal character

ROXY: but its like “dude no u already used up all ur gay capital when u started datefriend cohabitating w a cute as hell skeleton alien”

ROXY: and anything after that ur just gettin greedy

ROXY: is greedy even the right word

ROXY: greedy for droppin bombshells

ROXY: bout gender identities and sexual preferences

ROXY: or ids n preffies as i like to call em ;)

DAVE: ids n preffies

DAVE: damn

DAVE: thats fucking good

DAVE: anyway uh

DAVE: thats a pretty deep question considering all the shit we have going on right now

ROXY: yeah ur right

ROXY: now is probs not the best time for a feels jam

ROXY: especially with the creepy jade situation happening on my couch here

DAVE: i dunno if id worry too much about that

DAVE: jade goes into trances literally all the time

DAVE: she fucking loves sleeping

DAVE: youd think someone who spent so much of her life locked in a state of dubiously consensual slumber would wanna get as few zees as possible in her adult life but not jade

DAVE: ive never known anyone who hits the snooze button more times in a row than her

DAVE: if youre that worried take her to a hospital

ROXY: im thinkin about it!!

ROXY: not even sure if i wanna like

ROXY: mess with her tho?

ROXY: how would i even take her there...

DAVE: ok well while you ponder whether you wanna dump jade in a wheelbarrow and trundle her groggy spooked-up ass to the hospital

DAVE: in the meantime ill rap at you about my epiphany concerning the desire to bone some dudes

DAVE: probably not a literal rap though

ROXY: wow im disappointed

DAVE: i mean i could TOTALLY rap about wanting to bone dudes if i wanted?

DAVE: im just on the fuckin clock here and theres lots of people lookin at me

ROXY: :(

DAVE: ok so

DAVE: what ive learned is

DAVE: coming to terms with all this bullshit is a thing you sort of do in stages

DAVE: like stage one is you making jokes about how sweaty dudes standing close together in tv shows seems really gay

DAVE: stage two is making jokes about that and not immediately adding no homo afterward

DAVE: stage three is flirting with all your male friends ironically and not even thinking about adding no homo afterward because youre so fuckin woke and secure in your ironclad straight masculinity that you dont have anything to prove to anybody anymore

DAVE: or thats just what you say out loud

DAVE: inside you start being like

DAVE: oh shit

DAVE: maybe yes homo

DAVE: stage four is freaking out about that and putting the no homo back on all your statements even objectively heterosexual ones which just stupidly makes everything you say sound extra gay

DAVE: stage five is

DAVE: actually wait the next few stages are various permutations of the same thing that i already described

DAVE: it starts being like a gay fractal

DAVE: anyway eventually you arrive at like stage nine

DAVE: which is reminding everyone who will listen that youre gay minimum six times a day

DAVE: in really lame ways like

DAVE: oh cool dude are you making hot pockets

DAVE: better make mine a gay hot pocket

DAVE: cause im a gay homosexual who only consumes homo ass snacks delivered right to my mouth by a big queer butler

DAVE: servin it right up on his huge gay dick

DAVE: but that all only applies to the extent which i am technically gay

DAVE: which in my case is only about maybe 30% to 70%

DAVE: so only cook 30% to 70% of my gay hot pocket

DAVE: cause you know straights are fucking animals who never defrost their pepperoni

DAVE: and i gotta rep for that like 50% straightness still lurking inside me like the idiot who fell asleep in the shopping mall when it was closing for the night

DAVE: so now theres just this straight dude locked in a dark fucking mall for some stupid reason haunting the place like a cryptid and rummaging through the trash in the food court

DAVE: also just in case janes opposition research is listening in on their illegal wiretap i know the word bisexual exists btw im just choosing not to use it in service of spitting some fuckin chuckle jokes here so lets all calm down and not let this one become a distressingly literal federal issue

DAVE: anyway when all is said and done

DAVE: you eat a half cooked hot pocket because all your roommates think the height of humor is taking what was obviously an improvisational riff at unironic face value to punk you

ROXY: dave...

DAVE: what

ROXY: nm

ROXY: i was gonna ask you why ur like this

ROXY: then i remembered about how ur half me and half dirk

DAVE: yeah it really is crazy how those dope late game familial reveals actually did explain everything

ROXY: so whats stage ten

DAVE: stage ten is uhhhhhhhh

DIRK: The Prince opens his fucking mouth, and just literally starts SAYING SHIT, out loud, because he doesn’t think he can take another fucking second listening to a pompous alien virgin monologuing about gender.

DIRK: No consequence, my ass. You may be able to suppress what I do with my mind, but you have no control over my mouth. I’m nobody’s fucking puppet.

DIRK: And you don’t even know my friends. They’re not yours to toy with.

DIRK: They’re mine.

DIRK: Do you even know where I am right now?

DIRK: Do you have the slightest idea what I’m up to

DIRK: Yeah, well. Try and stop me then.

DIRK: I fucking dare you.

DIRK: Here I go. I’m walking up the tower stairs now.

DIRK: Walk, walk, walk. Ah, the exercise feels good.

DIRK: Argh. Wow, yeah.

DIRK: You’re right. My feet are definitely getting heavy.

DIRK: But the Dead Cherub tragically underestimates the Prince’s determination. He powers the fuck through it. See?

DIRK: Stomp, stomp, stomp. Up the stairs he goes. No fucking sweat.

DIRK: Oh also, did he mention? He can fucking fly, so there’s that.

DIRK: He decides to take flight and cut to the chase. He whips up the hollow vertical shaft at the center of the spiraling tower stairs. Life in the fast lane kicks ass, it turns out.

DIRK: He can practically taste the top of the tower.

DIRK: The Prince busts out his sword and makes short work of that big old bell.

DIRK: The slicing is accompanied by the ear-shattering melodic sounds of metal being cleaved apart by an anime sword, as the Prince nimbly avoids the sharp pieces and ricocheting stair debris.

DIRK: He wonders out loud, “what is this, amateur hour”?

DIRK: The Dead Cherub then humorlessly narrates, “why, yes. yes mr. strider, it IS amateur hour. and i’m the amateur here, for throwing a huge bell at you. i would like to humbly apologize for my amateurism.”

DIRK: Sure you do.

DAVE: well lets just say internalized whatevers are kind of like an onion

DAVE: theres lots of layers

DAVE: they suck on pizza

DAVE: and trolls have to get their stomach pumped if they eat them

DAVE: this goes for gender stuff too btw

DAVE: which i kinda get the feeling is what you were actually asking about

ROXY: wow am i rly that transparent?

DAVE: nah but as previously discussed youre a lot like me

DAVE: so it was pretty easy to figure out what you were getting at

ROXY: yea

ROXY: i dont got ur poker face tho

ROXY: but im workin on that!

ROXY: maybe ill get a sick pair of shades too

DAVE: oh DOPE

DAVE: yeah thats dope i support that idea

DIRK: I’m on top of the tower now. I’ve got my long sniper rifle ready and everything.

DIRK: I check to see if it’s loaded. It is. I get in the PERFECT spot for taking aim at this hunky imbecile who’s about to give a speech.

DAVE: anyway i dont think any of our friends are gonna hold your feet to the flames over dumb shit like this

DAVE: and its not like anyone else is gonna care since we definitely forgot to program hating gays and women into earth c

DAVE: humans are all jacked up on hating xenophiles now

DAVE: which sucks a lot too dont get me wrong

DAVE: btw did you know janes a xenophobe

ROXY: dave!!!

DAVE: ok ok

DAVE: so does all this mean i gotta call you dad now or what

ROXY: wat

DAVE: i mean thats what were talkin about right

ROXY: well first of all

ROXY: do u still even make a habit of callin me mom??

ROXY: i thought u kinda stopped that

ROXY: even if it was effin cute

DAVE: oh yeah i guess i did

DAVE: but i could start again

DAVE: but not if it means id have to go to fucking gender jail or something

DAVE: like what i mean is i could start that cute shit again but switch to dad

ROXY: ok but SECOND of all

ROXY: i would never want to deprive dirk of that noble honorific

DAVE: what

DAVE: ugh no way

ROXY: hahaha yeah way hes ya daddy dude!

DAVE: aw fuck noooo

DAVE: wow man

DAVE: i would never call him that

DAVE: i mean i know its true but i just wouldnt...

DAVE: wait

ROXY: what

DAVE: something feels

DAVE: wrong

ROXY: ???

DAVE: like some shits about to go down

DAVE: and i gotta...

DAVE: karkat! dude!!!

DAVE: GET DOWN!

KARKAT: WHAT?????

DIRK: You’re absolutely right.

DIRK: I would never do that.

DIRK: I’d never kill Dave, no matter what I felt the stakes were. I’d never hurt him either.

DIRK: You do understand me pretty well, I’ll give you that. And you’re right about many things.

DIRK: But there are just a couple things you’re wrong about.

DIRK: Pretty important things, actually.

DIRK: First of all, this gun is loaded.

DIRK: But not with bullets.

DIRK: Yes. You’re right about the tranquilizer.

DIRK: But there’s one more fact you’re not aware of.

DIRK: Which is that I never intended to aim for Jake at all.

ROXY: hellooooooo

ROXY: dave??

ROXY: whered ya go

DIRK: No, that’s not what he does.

DIRK: He swings the rifle around one hundred eighty degrees, and points the scope toward the large, now-curtainless window of a distant apartment.

DIRK: He zooms in quickly, cutting even shorter the little time that the Dead Cherub could use to impede him in some way.

DIRK: He takes aim, lets his finger hover over the trigger, and...

DIRK: Ow!

DIRK: Yeah, you got me. Can’t move it an inch.

DIRK: The only problem is, he doesn’t need to pull that trigger.

DIRK: Earlier, when he was messing around with all this shit in plain view, he rigged the rifle to be voice-operated.

DIRK: All he needs to do is say...

DIRK: FIRE.

DIRK: I see. So you’re not going to say what happens next?

DIRK: Is that really how it’s gonna be?

DIRK: So be it.

DIRK: The tranquilizer dart hits the glass of Roxy’s apartment window before the sound from the rifle’s shot even reaches them.

DIRK: She hears the glass break. Seconds later, she hears the bang. She drops her phone on the floor.

DIRK: She doesn’t have the slightest idea what just happened until she looks over at Jade and notices the dart stuck in her neck, right in the jugular vein.

DIRK: She watches as Jade’s huge, creepy black eyes start getting heavy. Her eyelids sag, and her head tilts to the side.

DIRK: She shuts her eyes completely. Her hair stops floating around her ominously. In fact, there’s nothing ominous about her at all anymore. She entirely resumes her status as the cute doggy girl we all know and love.

DIRK: She slumps over and collapses onto the couch. She begins snoring loudly while making a little canine whimper on each exhale.

DIRK: Like the bitch she is.

DIRK: Oh, what’s that? You’re getting a little quiet for some reason.

DIRK: You’re going to have to speak up.

DIRK: Aaand, nope.

DIRK: You’re getting quieter, not louder. You’re gonna need to work on that.

DIRK: Maybe try shouting it?

DIRK: Yeah, I didn’t catch that at all.

DIRK: Not even one syllable.

DIRK: Guess that’s it for you? Back to not mattering.

DIRK: Not that you ever did.

DIRK: Come to think of it, why am I still talking out loud?

#homestuck #homestuck epilogues #dave strider #roxy lalonde #dirk strider #karkat vantas #meat epilogue #page 32

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