(WARNING: Spoilers for the movie "Oxygen" streaming on Netflix.)

A woman wakes up in a cryogenic pod with no memory of who she is or how she got there. The pod is running out of oxygen and she has to figure out how to either get help or escape on her own. The story unfolds as the viewer learns her identity at the same time that she does.

The idea that the future is so entirely bleak that the only hope for humanity is to send them to another planet is an old one. But to grow clone bodies loaded with digital copies of the consciousness of humans knowing that there’s no hope for themselves was a new one when I watched it.

I was thinking–along with the character–that she had been kidnapped and buried alive. I believed that she had been put in a medically-necessary cryogenic sleep and that her pod had been hijacked by dangerous people or maybe there had been some kind of natural disaster and the pod had been buried under a collapsed building.

Every single one of her ideas made sense. Her desperation was entirely present and real.

The shock of her first view outside of the pod was visceral.

The realization of who and what she was… and why she was in a cryogenic pod… it was powerful and memorable.

The idea that the Earth is so poisoned that humanity is on the brink of extinction. That the only way for humanity to survive is to create clones with digital memories and send them to a new world and a new chance at life… the sheer beauty and horror of looking out and seeing the damage that had been done to the ship.

Liv’s sheer refusal to lay down and die was admirable, as was her ability to work out where and when she was and what she would have to do to survive. That her tenacity resulted in her saving her own life made for a great ending to a great movie.

There are some that would see the ending of all life on Earth as an inevitability. "There is nothing to do and nothing that our religion will allow us to do. We must lay down our lives and accept the end of everything. It is the will of the cosmos."

The original Liv and her husband, despite knowing that they themselves were going to die, prevailed to save humanity and some form of themselves. They uploaded their consciousnesses, and while their bodies expired on a dying world, their clone-children were able to travel to another world and continue onward.

They died, yet they lived. They expired, but they did not fail in their attempt to survive.

The hope of humanity is not a prevalence of life… but a refusal to give up when there is any possibility for something more.

~Harper Kingsley

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Let's Make Dumplings at Amazon

Someone brought out that picture of the plate with the badly cooked steak and the three-yolked fried eggs with the butter slathered over everything and… Yeah.

The original poster had something like “This is what THEY want to take away from you.” And the poster is some kind of “health” person exercise-bro. You know, the type of dude that has so many muscles he can no longer touch the top of his own head.

And it’s like, “Nobody’s trying to take that away from you. You are perfectly free to load up on protein and fat and sugar and caffeine and salt and… You can eat whatever you want! Nobody gives a fuck. If you want to eat stuff that’s not recognized as being food… you can even legally get it as long as it’s packaged as a supplement.”

For reals: The food and drug association doesn’t control what’s labeled as a supplement. People pack that shit in their garages using a funnel and a scoop and you can get anywhere from 100% the daily value to 7000% to 0% with all the fillers and what-alls they add. Like, there’s a dude that’s right now facing criminal charges for making a “supplement” that contained FECES from his nephew that he was selling as a cure for autism. Like, ableist people fed literal human shit to their children at like $1700 a pop.

So yeah. Want to eat steak everyday? If you can afford it, do it.

Want to eat a dozen eggs and have super hard poops? Go ahead.

Want to eat a whole stick of butter at every meal? Sounds super gross, but knock yourself dead. Literally maybe.

Nobody gives a fuck.

Eat what you want to eat.

And yeah, while you have the freedom to eat whatever you want to eat, other people have the freedom to judge your diet and your lifestyle. Welcome to humanity.

It’s the same with the “zOMG they want to take away our gas stoves!” drama all those dudes were diving into.

Someone said “Hey, even when they’re not in use, gas stoves are releasing a dangerous amount of toxic gas into your home” and those guys were like “They want to take our stoves!”

No, bruh, they want you to understand that your gas stove is releasing a dangerous amount of toxic gas into your home. You have the choice to switch to an electric stove and maybe stop your little kid from having a learning disability or something or save you and your family from developing cancer in the not-too-distant future.

Your life, your choice.

It’s the same with all the actors and what-nots suddenly taking up cigarette smoking. I personally think it’s the dumbest trend ever and that they’re all going to regret it when their skin starts aging like soured milk and their organs start failing and they realize that their quality of life has been severely curtailed… but whatever. They’re grown up making grown up choices.

It’s sad that a lot of them are so young and lack the life experience to realize they’re screwing themselves up, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

I lived through the days when you could walk into a restaurant and be asked “Smoking or non-smoking” and the only difference was that they’d take the ash tray off the table. I lived through the days of anti-smoking campaigns that featured people talking through a hole in their neck with their faces wasted away to almost nothing and those pictures of blackened lungs that looked more like pieces of steak left too long on a grill and burnt to shit. I lived through all that.

I have never been a cigarette smoker and never will be. They taste gross. Maybe that scent when someone first lights one is somehow enticing, but after that they smell disgusting. That stench permeates your clothes, your hair, your SKIN just by walking past someone smoking a cigarette. It’s very unpleasant and I’ve never had a desire to get involved.

“But that’s addiction! They can’t help themselves!” Yeah, and I have total sympathy for people of the older generation that started smoking when they were like 13-years old and didn’t know that smoking was bad. People from a time without seatbelts and child car seats weren’t even a concept of the future. People that were told by doctors that smoking cigarettes could help their asthma.

Those people get all my sympathy, because they were sucked in by the lies of big corporations and they were already addicted by the time the truth came out.

But people born in modern times? Pshaw. You know that shit’s poison and you chose to start using it because you somehow think it makes you look cool.

And okay. Your life, your choice. It’s sad that you’re going to die younger than you otherwise would have. It’s sad that your looks are going to fade faster than they otherwise would have. It’s sad that you have chosen to lower your quality and length of life to fit into a fad.

Eat your terribly cooked steak and burnt eggs, bruh. Nobody gives a fuck but you.

You think that people are going to tell you that you shouldn’t eat that shit because you know that that shit is unhealthy. Your internal turmoil is not my problem.

Light your cigarette with the flame from your gas stove as you ash into your terrible looking eggs as you get ready to saw into your burnt to shit steak.

Your drama is your drama. Your cholesterol is your cholesterol. You could die tomorrow and only the people that know you will care. That’s called life.

Nobody’s forcing you to eat bug protein. Nobody’s forcing you to eat Greek yogurt. Nobody’s forcing you to eat a salad or cut your hair or dance when you don’t want to.

We are all getting tired of the way you try to force your life choices on the rest of us though. The way you use your lifestyle choices to grift with children as your target demographic.

“You’re not a REAL man if you don’t eat a diet of steak, eggs, potatoes, and protein powder. BUY MY VITAMINS AND SUPPLEMENTS!”

“You’re a PUSSY if you don’t have a gas stove and use sandpaper for toilet paper. MAN UP!”

And I get it. Kids are looking for role models, and the word on the street is that “parents just don’t understand.” And there’s the Internet and the algorithm ready to introduce the fresh faced youth to the kind of psyche damaging nonsense that lets you buy a big house and a fancy car before you’re 35.

I get it. You want money and prestige and power and… Yeah. You sell evil to line your pockets. I get it. We all get it.

And it upsets you that the bulk of people don’t want it. That people are beginning to understand that your “healthy lifestyle brand” sells an unhealthy lifestyle that results in colon cancer and heart failure. That your need to live beyond your means and flash cash has resulted in you spending more than you make and that if you don’t continue to bring in the money… you’re going to have to sell your house and car and declare bankruptcy because at the end of the day you have nothing and are nothing.

You’re a burnt steak and three sad looking eggs slathered in butter on a plate.

I like a good steak. Which is one that’s not dripping in oil with a pat of butter plopped on top like a silly hat. I like salad and cherry tomatoes. I like sunshine and butterflies and bumbly bumblebees. I like breathing clean air and drinking water that doesn’t taste like chlorine and sadness because YOUR life choices have resulted in a dying planet.

We live on a rock hurtling through space, alone and lonely with no friendly neighbors in sight, yet through some twist of fate this rock managed to gain an oxygen layer and develop vegetation and animal life.

We live within a delicate balance that with all our science and high ideals we still don’t completely understand. We need the bacteria that make up our biomes. We need the insects that pollinate the flowers that create the seeds of the trees and vegetation that give us fruit and vegetables and oxygen.

We need the wolves and the beavers and the birds and the bats and the mosquitoes we hate but that do so much to make the world we live in.

We need so much that we don’t understand or appreciate. And we destroy so many things that we don’t realize we’re going to miss when the world we need begins to die.

And all those nihilists that wah-wah about how nothing matters because the Earth is nothing but a rock hurtling through space and all current life is meaningless… They’re right.

The human race could wipe out itself and all other life on the planet, and it won’t mean a thing to the Earth itself. Because the Earth is a rock hurtling through space, and even if we managed to BLOW IT UP… those pieces would be sucked into the gravity of another planetary body and add mass to somewhere else while the largest chunks that remain of this Earth would gather more bits of rock out there and in time a new planet would develop.

But the LIFE that the Earth was blessed with would be over and gone. Because the chances of a viable environment developing and life growing from it was so infintesimal that it really could be seen as miraculous. A true wonder of the universe.

So dude: Eat your badly cooked steak and your sad looking eggs and SHUT THE FUCK UP. Nobody cares.

We all have real things to worry about. And in the grand scheme of everything happening? You’re a bit of cosmic nothing.

Gobble down your sticks of butter and cry about it.

Pax.

~Harper Kingsley

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The Way of the Househusband 01 at Amazon

I feel bad because my dad keeps trying to talk about the Trump stuff and I just don’t give a fuck. Lock that old man up in prison. I don’t care if he’s old, unhealthy, pitiful, anything. He caused so much suffering and misery that I have no empathy for how he or his family are “suffering” under the consequences of their own actions.

I don’t feel bad for his supporters. I don’t feel bad for the people he browbeat into supporting him through blackmail. I don’t feel bad for any of them. Lock them ALL up. They are ALL criminals.

The idea that he has escaped justice for years because of all the blackmail material he’s got on a bunch of criminals? Don’t care. Lock them all up.

The laws he’s corrupted. The protections he’s lifted. The longterm harm he’s caused to humans, animals, and the environment? Lock him up.

Why are all those trains derailing? Why did a global pandemic kill millions of people? Why are poor people suffering while rich people EAT GOLD?

He’s an evil old man that did evil old man stuff, and I don’t want to hear anything about him. I don’t want to see his face. I don’t want to revel in the dark joy of his misery.

I just want to know that he and everyone associated with him have been locked up in prison where they belong. I want to know that justice has finally been served while better people do what needs to be done to alleviate the harms those assholes caused.

Throwing him in front of the camera to turn attention toward him ONCE AGAIN while kids are being targeted by a bunch of weirdos?

Like, trans people are a VERY TINY MINORITY, yet their very existence is being used to scaremonger weirdos into forcing through their faux-Christian bills and nonsense.

“Oh, kids are reading BOOKS that we don’t like… So let’s go through and take away ALL the books that feature women, Black people, ‘non-traditional families,’ and the history of harms that have resulted in our modern world.”

“We don’t know what mRNA is, but it’s BAD because some chiropractor that’s paralyzed a dozen people with his quackery said so. ALL VACCINES are BAD because they contain gasp CHEMICALS.”

“Gay and queer and trans people NEVER existed in the past. It’s a whole new concept created by the WOKES. I mean, if it existed before, why aren’t there any history books about it from before 1945?”

I’m tired of all the bullshit. I’m tired of all the distraction tactics. I’m tired of the nonsense, the nihilism, and the needlessness of it.

Rich people are getting richer. Poor people are getting poorer.

The system of capitalism is oppressing the public, and the PR departments of evil people are doing their jobs and throwing chum in the water to stir up the sharks so as to distract from what’s happening. And I’m tired of it all.

I don’t care about Trump. I don’t care about his supporters. Lock them all up, and let’s get back to the business of living life the way it should be lived:

  • Stop the transphobia.
  • Stop the homophobia.
  • Stop the racism.
  • Fix the dangerous policies allowing the careless transport of chemicals and dangerous substances.
  • Save the wolves.
  • Save the eels.
  • Stop the book bans.
  • Stop letting people that don’t have children attending a school from having a say in how schools are run. * Fix the post office.
  • Save the orca whales.
  • Vaccinate people.
  • Refuse access to non-medically excused unvaccinated people. (They used the idea of herd immunity as their excuse for CATCHING a deadly virus because they don’t understand science and refuse to learn, and as a result MILLIONS of people have died and thousands of people are dying monthly in the United States.)
  • Stricter gun laws applied to EVERYONE. (I saw a thing saying that the leading cause of death to children in the United States is guns.)
  • Free medical for all.
  • Free lunch for all children.
  • Universal Basic Income (UBI).
  • Deal with microplastics.
  • Deal with forever chemicals.
  • Clean water directives.
  • Save the birds and the bugs.
  • Fix the housing market. (Currently banks and landlords are buying up all the houses and properties so as to raise the cost of rent. They have houses and buildings that remain empty, and they don’t care, because they are creating a false shortage of affordable housing. The law should FORCE them to occupy their rental properties… otherwise they are required to sell them at reasonable prices. No more holding on to necessary housing so as to raise the rates of their other rental properties. It should be a criminal offense. ESPECIALLY if someone living in another country is buying up all the property in the United States so as to rent those properties to locals. Either live in the houses yourself, let other people live in them at reasonable rental prices, or GTFO.)
  • The egg companies should be held accountable for their crimes. Them making record 700%+ profits while creating a fake egg shortage should be a crime. At the very least, wasn’t it price gouging?
  • Children should not be forced to work in factories. With a universal basic income provided to all citizens, there would be more money being fed into the economy, people would be able to buy and sell more things, and EVERYONE would benefit. (“But illegal immigrants are STEALING from the economy because they don’t pay into social security and they don’t pay taxes!” Uwah, dude: They still buy food, clothes, and other necessities. They still pay rent. They are actually a vital resources in our rich-people hobbling economy. And in states like Washington that have sales tax… they DO pay taxes on everything they buy.)
  • Stop the rise of Chriso-Fascist terrorism.

“My body, my choice! I CHOOSE not to be vaccinated!” Fine, then you choose to not go out in public. You choose to have your groceries and other necessities delivered to your house with no-contact to the people dropping them off. You choose to work from home. You choose to wear a mask and gloves when you go to doctor’s appointments and complete necessary tasks. You choose to self-isolate yourself and your non-vaccinated family members.

I saw a Bad Medical Takes recently, and a woman with a partially vaccinated child and two non-vaccinated children was wondering what she should do WITHOUT VACCINATING to protect her children because a child in her middle child’s class had been diagnosed with the MEASLES.

9/10 unvaccinated people that come in contact with the measles catch the measles. It is VERY communicable.

She has an unvaccinated child and an unvaccinated infant. She is vaccinated and her oldest child is partially vaccinated (got their baby shots) and “I dOn’T kNoW wHaT tO dO.” Her child has ALREADY been exposed to an active case of measles.

Like, dude: Your children have already got it. You’ve seriously fucked up their lives and their futures because of your ideologies. They could DIE because of your “feelings” about modern science.

The state of the world today is shameful.

I look at those people, and I am ASHAMED of them.

I am sad for their children and the ways their lives are being adversely affected by their parents’ membership in anti-science cults. I am sad for the opportunities they have missed and will miss. I am sad for the game of catch up they will have to play simply to integrate into modern society. I am sad for the trauma they have experienced and the awkwardness they will go through as they try their best to catch up to their peers in college and at their jobs.

I am ashamed by how those children have been failed by the government and the country that should have cared for and protected them from their parents.

But mostly I’m tired of all the bullshit. I’m tired of all the nonsense. I’m tired of the chaos agents that are using the foolishness and gullibility of others to sow discord and misery. I’m tired of the grifters and the guilters and the misery spreaders.

I am tired.

But I know that I can’t rest. And that makes me angry.

So lock them all up, throw them into the prison system they corrupted with their for-profit schemes. Let them experience the hell on earth that they created with their greed and their negligence and their EVIL. And let’s focus on fixing the problems that they made.

Rather than focusing on reveling in “Let’s get ’em good!” let’s focus on ACTUALLY doing good.

Throw him and his lackeys in prison. And stop the terrible laws horrible people are trying to bully through the legal system.

Protect the environment. Save endangered species. Make the world better rather than focusing on making life worse.

Misery and predatory capitalism go hand-in-hand. While the poor suffer in squalor and despair, evil people are getting richer and the reach of the harms they cause is only getting more wide spread and systemic.

The Earth is a rock and we are specks crawling upon it. But it is our home. It is ALL THAT WE HAVE. And humans have been granted the level of consciousness to understand right and wrong and ethical treatment of other lifeforms and the environment.

To shrug and say “Not my problem” is a shameful embracing of evil.

We can do better. I’m tired of watching humans do worse.

Witch King at Amazon

I’ve been reading Ghosts (UK) fanfics and I fell into the “Captain is Autistic” tag and there’s lots of good stories. But like, half of them have multiple characters being autistic (the Captain and Pat are most of the stories, but there’s a few with Thomas also being autistic) and then I was like “What if ALL the ghosts are autistic?”

And I don’t know: Would it be bad to come up with the idea that all ghosts are autistic? That the only people that stay behind as ghosts are autistic? Does that seem discriminatory in some way… or would people be interested in that?

Anyways, Ghosts (UK) is on HBOMax and stars most of the original Horrible Histories cast. I love them so much!