I Know Most People Don't Care About Anything Unless It Has To Do With The U.S. But Can We Please Start

There’s like 12 different kinds of tension in this image.

My mother is all into homesteading and off-grid living videos right now. Every time I check up on her, this is what she wants to talk about.

It gives her a sense of peace and purpose I guess. Which is good, she’s been struggling to find that with her injuries and condition. She’s learning skills, and feeling prepared for “the worst”. Like I can’t get her to stop watching conspiracy theory bullshit on YouTube so at least this kind of content alleviates some of the anxiety the other content amplifies, because she feels like she can do something now to secure her safety later.

But to get through these conversations, I have to tell myself— hey, if natural disaster comes our way, some of this might be useful. But I know she’s not just thinking a big storm or natural disaster. She’s preparing for the collapse of society. And I don’t know how to break it to her that we wouldn’t survive that. You can make long lasting candles with crisco? Cool. Where you going to by crisco when society collapses? You’ll stock up now? Ok cool. What will you do when it runs out? Honestly, before it runs out, what will you do when people with guns come to take your various stockpiled supplies?

If we hit a point where society collapses, we’re done for. Food, medicine, etc. we can’t survive without society, without a world where people are working together trying to help each other out.

So, I’ll go through with this shit in the name of natural disaster preparedness, and because it helps her. But that’s as far as I’m willing to put energy into it. I refuse to prepare for, bet on, or hope for the collapse of society. I’d rather spend my energy trying to prevent society collapsing, what little part I can play in that. I’d rather spend my energy supporting people in my community. I’d rather work and build towards a better future, not prepare for the worst.

Watching Home Alone is so funny it’s like

Kevin’s mom: *hyperventilating into a paper bag* I can’t believe I left my son home alone, he has to be so terrified, my poor baby boy all alone I need to go get him-

Kevin: *actively planning to commit war crimes*

Had a vision and spontaneously created this

i think the near-extinction of people making fun, deep and/or unique interactive text-based browser games, projects and stories is catastrophic to the internet. i'm talking pre-itch.io era, nothing against it.

there are a lot of fun ones listed here and here but for the most part, they were made years ago and are now a dying breed. i get why. there's no money in it. factoring in the cost of web hosting and servers, it probably costs money. it's just sad that it's a dying art form.

anyway, here's some of my favorite browser-based interactive projects and games, if you're into that kind of thing. 90% of them are on the lists that i linked above.

A Better World - create an alternate history timeline

Alter Ego - abandonware birth-to-death life simulator game

Seedship - text-based game about colonizing a new planet

Sandboxels or ThisIsSand - free-falling sand physics games

Little Alchemy 2 - combine various elements to make new ones

Infinite Craft - kind of the same as Little Alchemy

ZenGM - simulate sports

Tamajoji - browser-based tamagotchi

IFDB - interactive fiction database (text adventure games)

Written Realms - more text adventure games with a user interface

The Cafe & Diner - mystery game

The New Campaign Trail - US presidential campaign game

Money Simulator - simulate financial decisions

Genesis - text-based adventure/fantasy game

Level 13 - text-based science fiction adventure game

Miniconomy - player driven economy game

Checkbox Olympics - games involving clicking checkboxes

BrantSteele.net - game show and Hunger Games simulators

Murder Games - fight to the death simulator by Orteil

Cookie Clicker - different but felt weird not including it. by Orteil.

if you're ever thinking about making a niche project that only a select number of individuals will be nerdy enough to enjoy, keep in mind i've been playing some of these games off and on for 20~ years (Alter Ego, for example). quite literally a lifetime of replayability.

I've spend the last two weeks speedrunning coming out as a trans woman to my coworkers, extended family, and the assorted friends I'd collected through Facebook and I've been shocked and overwhelmed by how enthusiastically supportive cis women have been in particular. After doomscrolling through TERF shit for the past year, I'd become convinced that cis women tended towards distrust of trans women, with a significant percentage actively vitriolic. But, time and time again, I've received effusive praise from the cis women I come out to. Not just progressive women either: Christian Facebook-moms from Texas have been enormously supportive. I've gotten some support from cis men too, but nothing nearly as passionate, and they've been the source of all the awkward avoidance or disgusted looks I've experienced. It makes complete sense: cis women generally like being women, and most of them like it a lot, so why wouldn't they celebrate somebody else becoming like them? This really drives home how dishonest TERFism is: they present themselves as the voice of women, but really they're just a regressive minority, distorting the issues to lead people away from their inclination towards love and acceptance.

Hey queer people living in the USA.

No matter what happens, no matter who wins.

Please don’t kill yourself.

You are all so beautiful, and nobody can ever take that away from you.

You don’t deserve to die.

Happiness Will Come To You.

annoying as fuck

Online Political Strategy Geniuses: You don't get it-- you can't just vote about one issue like "should the United States relentlessly murder children". Because if you do that, you're throwing other vulnerable people under the bus, like trans people. The best people to protect trans people are child-murderers, we all know this!!

Kamala: *asked a question about whether she wants to protect trans people, twitching nervously* I think laws are where democracy sheds light on our decencies but also we must mitigate our risks, which means that under the current circumstances, we must be respectful of perspectives. Is Donald Trump forcing you to ask me this???

Look how excited she is to answer this question!!! (X)