#(somewhat)

[towboats]

buckys only upset that john wasnt mortally wounded

[wurmps]

bdubs doodles

practice doodles /warmups becaus. im trynna get the hang of him drawing him.... in the meantimes...

full version w/o filter below. !!

[aveloka-draws]

*distracts the mod while Magic!Anon swaps Narinder and Lamb's species for the week* Hey, Aveloka! Look at this crazy rock I found in the river!

not doing it for a week but an attempt was made so

[theofficialuriel]

HE NEVER TOOK HIS EYES OFF JAYCE IM SICK IM ILL I AM PLAGUED

[hypnoticmoth]

I need this man on his hands and knees apologizing to Valentino and Velvette. I cannot handle the divorce (while also enjoying it at the same time because it's so delicious) Vox, wake up babe, you're gonna end up alone like the fucking moron you are

[mspaintfeverdream]

this post is about whatever you think its about. yes even that

(he/they)

[specialagentartemis]

Shrue’s impassioned speech about the collapsing empire, the unsustainability of their way of life—“We are not prepared for the moment that’s already upon us. We are most certainly unprepared for what comes after.”—was powerful and really resonant, and the demand for an immediate 30% reduction is sacrifices and a gradual reduction to 50% by the end of the year was both self-evidently the Right Thing and also never going to be accepted. But I think the conversation with the executive representing the Slag King was the heart of the episode:

You know, at my place of work - at the Slag King’s court - I used to think we were the only genuine pragmatists out there, the only truly reasonable people. We may drown a couple of poor bastards in the concrete foundations, and, yes, we all agree that their sacrifice will keep the building good and stable for centuries to come… …but we still hire architects, don’t we? We still hire engineers. We don’t mistake the framework for the product. But even for us, just like you said - it’s all become angles these days. We’re about to introduce a new deluxe earthquake-safety service, did you know?  One sacrifice-in-cement for every floor. If we were honest with ourselves, we might admit it; we don’t know what useful purpose the damn ritual or the damned god are serving for our customers, and the more we feed it, the more harm it does… …but we don’t know how to stop.

Obviously, human sacrifices do demonstrably and physically do things in this world. The trains and the electric generators and the electric lines are made of human sacrifices; certainly the bombs that the countries use on each other are.

But this conversation is opening the door to the acknowledgement that it doesn’t have to be that way. There are other ways to do things. Human sacrifice is what the whole world runs on, it’s embedded in every system, it makes the rich richer and the powerful more powerful and it just is. But it is the way it is because that’s how it is, and it suits the people it’s made powerful to keep it that way. It's convenient. It’s a well-established and always available option to accomplish what you want. Could the country reduce sacrifices by 30%? Of course they could. They have other mechanisms for getting the things they want done. But that’s hard. That would require investing in other ways of doing things, that would require fewer luxury add-ons. Worse, it would limit opportunities for corporate revenue growth along standard tested innovation tracks; worst of all, it would require real and meaningful changes to both the infrastructure and the culture. And overhauling the infrastructure is expensive and time-consuming, and overhauling the culture is strange and scary, and overhauling corporate profit strategies will make them less money.

But like. They could do it. They could run their country and their society with far fewer human sacrifices. Maybe—imagine, someday—no sacrifices at all. They just have no incentive to do so, even as the rates of human sacrifice they rely on become less and less sustainable, and the people angrier and angrier about what they’re being asked to give. They don’t know how to stop because this is what the whole world is built on, this is what has been incentivized, this is what keeps the businesses growing, and stopping would mean overhauling just about everything—and that’s not conducive to increasing shareholder returns. They could do it but it’s so much easier and so much more fitting with their worldview of what’s Normal and Acceptable and Worth Taking Seriously to do ad campaigns and tax incentives to get people more on board with being sacrificed.

I read this article about the fossil fuel industry the day after listening to this episode. It did not make me feel better.