[Note: This is actually a rerun from over a year ago, so if you think he means only one side of any current conflict, you're wrong. He means all the civilians in any conflict. He meant trans folks at the time of the original post. He means all good, innocent folks just trying to get by.]

Jean-Luc Picard @SpaceDadSupport Nobody should have to continually argue for their basic right to exist. If you are part of a group forced to do that then please know I am on your side and wishing a world with less bigotry for your future. 3:29 PM · Feb 25, 2024

refusing an impossible wish and settling for one last game of chess.

On Voting in America

So one of the most profound comments on routine chores that I've ever encountered was, hilariously, the Pickle Rick episode of "Rick & Morty," where (after a lot of shenanigans have already ensued) this therapist absolutely lays Rick out:

"I have no doubt that you would be bored senseless by therapy, the same way I'm bored when I brush my teeth and wipe my ass. Because the thing about repairing, maintaining, and cleaning is: it's not an adventure. There's no way to do it so wrong you might die. It's just work. And the bottom line is some people are okay going to work and some people, well, some people would rather die. Each of us gets to choose."

I think about this at least once a week — usually while I'm doing my laundry or sweeping or some other task that needs doing and won't get me anything more than clean clothing or a dog-hair-free floor. There's no Pulitzer for wiping down your microwave or scrubbing your toilet; no one's awarding you for getting all the dishes out of the sink. At best you have the satisfaction of crossing it off your list.

Voting is very much the same (and I'm talking about the US here, as an American). Sure, you sometimes get a sticker; but nobody's going to cheer for you. There's no adventure here, no potential for anything more than crossing something off of a list. It's a chore, something that needs doing in order to repair, maintain, and yes even clean. So I get why people don't like doing it.

And I've decided I don't give a shit.

Do it anyway. Your country takes astonishingly little from you — taxes, the once-in-a-blue-moon jury duty, and a theoretical draft that hasn't been used in over half a century and likely will never be again — but it asks you (asks! not requires! not demands!) to vote once a year. It's not always easy; especially in conservative states, the impediments to vote can be ridiculous. But it is once a year and unlike in our nation's all-too-recent past, you will not die if you do it.

In fact, the worst outcome from voting these days is that the person or issue that you vote for loses — but you won't know if they lose until after the election. Polls are less accurate now, for a whole host of reasons; you cannot know until after the election who or what will win. This makes your vote more valuable than possibly ever before.

Use that power. Not because it's exciting or even rewarding, but because your vote is what keeps our country's metaphorical teeth from falling out and our metaphorical ass from stinking.

Brush, wipe, vote.

Doctor Beverly Crusher @SpaceDocMom Viruses don't know how well you avoided them in the past. They don't have any morality and they don't bank yours. They don't even care about harming you; they just want to get in you and make more of themselves. It's up to you to block them from yourself and others. emojis: black heart, blue heart, masked 12:51 PM · Sep 15, 2023

i had such a rich s12 jomary scene idea this time last year and now i cannot remember any of the details apart from the vibes and it's driving me around the bend. i think it is s12 mary just back from being dead and she's freshly 29. jo harvelle has survived everything they've so far thrown at her and so is 31 years old. jo is older than mary, this woman she's heard dean and sam idolise her whole life, and now gets to meet her and she's younger than jo is. and she's not some untouchable doll of a housewife she is just a young woman so much like jo. they're sharing beers in the bunker kitchen at 1am discovering everything about each other and it's the most surreal experience either of them have ever had but things are starting to fall into place and hey maybe the details are coming back to me now

rivers is so me when im programmed to be incapable of hurting my creators entire race in any way so i even If the opportunity to defend myself arose i still cant do anything about the guy whos hurting m

and despite everything, we cannot forget that two years ago today George Floyd was murdered.

had the video not gotten out, the above police report would have been the official narrative.

hgs brainrot has returned due to tbosas .. speaking of hgs here’s an ask abt the hgs au: if things were totally different, and Wilbur were to be a 12 victor, what do you think a possible mentor-tribute dynamic would look like between him & Niki? I feel like it would be similar to Snow & Lucy in the way that he’s just going out of his way to cheat n help her

anon u have in fact struck jackpot because this is a concept i was spinning some thoughts abt before bee mentioned avoxes and we went OOOOH at that!!! so yes i have considered rainduo as a mentor-tribute dynamic and would love to talk about that concept too :]

so for this concept i think wilbur and niki would be close friends throughout childhood from 12, and then in their teens wilbur is reaped and, well, no one has particularly high hopes (he's a writer and a musician at heart, not a fighter) but through sheer trickery and dumb luck, he makes it to the end of the games. wilbur pulled some pretty fucked up tricks to win - when you can't use brute force, you have to use your brain - and partly due to the trauma of the games, partly due to his shame and survivor's guilt, he sinks into the capitol and relishes a new life there as a socialite. to him, the old wilbur died in the games and the new one has taken his place - to niki, and to his other friends in 12, whatever the games did to him made him into every vapid heartless capitol victor there is.

or. niki has her doubts. they all saw how horrible the games were, but surely there is some part of him left, some part that's hurting, even if it's buried deep?

anyway.

like og spin of the au, niki is reaped and this sucks - this time she does expect wilbur as her mentor on the train, and she expects some kind of warm welcome (maybe even an apology for leaving them so suddenly and silently? an explanation?) but she gets jack shit. wilbur is jaded and cruel and unrecognisable and niki entirely hates it. this is the part where i REALLY WISH we got some time of those two beefing with each other directly in canon (or at least interactions while niki was So Mad at him) but it's okay we fly blind. niki feels abandoned, lonely, thrown off of her kilter - she expected an ally in this place, but she doesn't recognise the person wilbur has become. she doesn't recognise his shallowness (...much), his ruthless advice for the arena, the way he doesn't seem to care for anything. she's scared and now she's lonely and it pisses her off - their mentorship is fraught. here are some thoughts from discord on that:

i tend to think of niki as a bit naïve before l'manberg or even doomsday - i think this is an au where this streak would come out real strong, and niki is stubborn that she can get through the games without losing herself. stubborn that she can stop things, that she can protect people. i don't think wilbur is cold enough (or, really, can bear to say aloud) to say that her odds in the arena are slim enough as it is, but he definitely tells her that she's making enemies and that her odds of survival dwindle with the more trouble she causes.

beyond that... hm. niki's trust in wilbur is almost unshakeable until nov 16, even when she outright says she doesn't recognise him anymore. i think she'd reluctantly listen re: don't burn down any buildings, but she would grow bolder each day she had to stay in the capitol. she gets more honest in front of the cameras. she makes more friends in training, and not the ones wilbur recommends. she throws barbs at him every time he makes one of those callous, cold-hearted comments about other tributes and rankings and odds. and besides, she's going in the arena this time, not him. she needs to practice her bravery.

it's like... she hasn't given up on him. she thinks the old wilbur is in there somewhere. (she is wrong. that is not how trauma works.) but she won't hold her tongue just because she

for extra angst points could definitely play up the whole 'feeling abandoned' angle between them as niki goes into the arena - probably due to how fraught their friendship gets leading up to the games. niki wants to focus on them and their friendship, wilbur has stringently cut off (almost) everything from 12 and refuses to let her in; he tells her to behave for the cameras, she tells him she never will. i think the last point in that screenshot would also make for a super tasty argument where niki feels wilbur has gone astray, that he's abandoned 12, and that he'll probably do nothing but sit on his ass and watch her die and he can't even bring himself to care about her anymore, can he? just more fodder for the arena. and honestly, i think wilbur would passively agree with most of that - he values niki's opinion, after all, even now, and if she says he's rapidly descending into a lost cause then she must be right. and it's niki, so she will be fine, and he goes to his bedroom that night and tries to pretend he is sleeping perfectly fine instead of feeling paralysed with fear.

okay now onto the games - YES HE SO WOULD. or at least i think he would go out of his way to help. as for cheating - he's a recent victor for 12 and i think he would value tommy (no doubt a link to him... i think they'd be in touch in this au also) too much to risk the punishment falling onto him as well. i get the vibes this is a games closer to 74th than 10th, so there are far fewer opportunities to cheat and the consequences of getting caught are higher. but schmoozing up sponsors? making stupid ass radio interviews or whatever to talk up niki's odds? sharing anecdotes from their childhood - some real, some entirely fabricated - across capitol airwaves to stoke their sympathy? 100%. with less to lose in this au, i think niki would be far less inclined to play nice for the cameras - i hope you starve, she spits at one of them, and wilbur appears on a talkshow two days later as she scrambles for survival in the arena to talk up how she always saved loaves from the bakery for the poorest mothers and children in 12. he borrows and begs and swindles to the point where it feels like cheating. but hey, this new wilbur is capitol-branded. he knows how to play the game.

if anything he probably sinks into the game a little too much. self-preservation is not his forte. probably wracks up a few heavy debts and favours to owe, but those are not priority until niki is out of the arena, alive. as long as she wins, and as long as the family he has isn't in danger, he will manage. wow it would suck if at some point those two goals became impossible to co-achieve. anyway

i kind of see niki's victory in the arena being similar to the one in the main au - if only because planning out an entire games is hard for meee >-< . she walks in bolder and braver for sure, and with a less strategic pick of allies, but they all get picked off and she spends a few weeks so terrified she can barely sleep and then she ruptures some fuel line and sets the arena alight with a fire that burns brighter and more ravenously than it should. but she wins, and she's airlifted out of a filthy, muddy creek she had resigned herself to die in, and wilbur barges his way through as many peacekeepers so that he can actually see her with her burnt skin and hair and unfocused eyes and trust that what was on the screens wasn't a fluke, and that they made it. and then it's just a matter of surviving the after.

i'm sure there are some other random quirks or tidbits i can think of re: this take on a c!rainduo hunger games au but these are my base thoughts!!

sometimes I wish I was a more interesting + charismatic person just so I could keep conversations going bc I like sharing space with other ppl but they routinely lose all interest and leave once I run out of things to say/start talking abt things that don't concern them :-(

god, rereading that scene after doing a bit of a beviin deep dive is making me want to write a oneshot where beviin is actually there for one of boba's panic attacks... why must inspiration always strike right before bedtime? ;_;

I vent or breakdown so often, I know I get told it's fine and talk when I need to but geez it feels so excessive, like I'm overly sensitive or just really really easily triggered over things that shouldn't even relate to my trauma

We come to solutions or we distract from it, or we cuddle, but it's just always there.

I can almost always feel the dumb anxiety or depression feelings, I don't want to

I wish my brain understood that

Jean-Luc Picard @SpaceDadSupport May you all find a safe space today to be your true selves, where there is support and kindness in abundance all around you. 1:41 PM · Apr 11, 2023

SCARED BEING A DRAG MONSTER WILL FIX YOU?! YOU SHOULD BE

Doctor Beverly Crusher @SpaceDocMom I'll always defend the medically vulnerable against the selfishness of the health-privileged regardless of how the health-privileged feel about it. Eventually the privileged folks are likely to join the vulnerable group and be glad I'm defending them at that point. emojis: black heart, blue heart, masked x 5 3:06 PM · Mar 28, 2024

Vulnerability

still thinking about shadow's inherent naivety that probably hasn't gone anywhere really considering he's still 15. the way he trusts rouge in sa2 from the moment they meet and doesn't see through her the way she sees through him, which genuinely upsets him when he finds out she's a government agent. his petty rivalry with sonic that has deeper undertones when you come to realize shadow has been told his whole life how powerful he is, only for him to immediately find a match for his power the moment he sets foot on earth. he views his own superiority like a child, viewing it as an unchanging fact, and never questioning it, which only makes his idea of his identity that much more shallow. it's all he has anymore and he has to latch on to that and when rouge openly questions that claim he's forced to rethink everything he knows, and a lot of what he knows is a lie he's been reciting for as long as he can remember. and he ends up viewing himself through others, like in a mirror, because he loses his ability to believe in himself and has to work to regain it, to understand that only he can define his own self.

i feel like the only reason his naivety doesn't come up much these days (besides any writing policies) is that he's surrounded by people who he can genuinely put his trust in without being hurt, as cautious as he's become