nerdstrings

He's just a lil guy 💙

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The first time the humans told us they sang their way through subspace, we thought it a translation error.

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We-the-hive were overjoyed to meet them. Finally, finally, it was proven that we were not alone! And though we already knew that we must not be, given the vastness of time and the multiverse, we also knew that those same vastnesses were against us. Civilizations we could meet are greatly outnumbered by those who came before us and we are too late to meet, those who will come after us and we are too early for, and those so far away that we cannot find them.

A starfaring civilization, like our own, increased the chances of meeting greatly. One of our most distant scientific surveyors sensed a faint and far away disturbance, similar to the waves our own ships make when diving into and out of subspace. An exploratory team was sent to investigate, and there at the furthest reach ever taken from the hive’s center, to our everlasting joy, we found human explorers on the far edges of their own range.

Their ships were strange to us, and their selves even stranger. Translation, and the mutual communication of peaceful intentions, was difficult. Mathematics was the first understanding we were able to share, as the basic principles do not change—though their and our systems of harnessing it are different. Science followed after, as the elements and natural laws are unchanging. So it was discovered that we-the-hive and the humans share the common ground of being carbon-based heterotrophs who consume water to maintain life processes.

These commonalities were far outnumbered by our differences. Yet, the most important thing we had in common was the desire to understand each other. With earnest effort, with forgiveness for unintended insult and misunderstanding, we worked to learn each other’s languages.

Science being an early part of our understanding of each other, we asked them about the construction of their ships. They told us of their material compositions and their subspace engines, different in design but similar in purpose to our own technology—but when we asked them about the shielding and stabilization they used to make the journey survivable, they told us only that they sang their way through.

it very much reminds me of rose tyler looking into the heart of the tardis and becoming the bad wolf, with the doctor having to sacrifice himself to save her. while she had that knowledge, that power, she made jack immortal, she manipulated the very fabric of reality even though she shouldn't have.

michael did something similar, changing small things at first, and the book compensated. erasing the metatron didn't do much, and murdering sandalphon didn't either. even getting rid of uriel didn't destabilize the universe. my point is, there was no external reason for michael to start burning everything down.

what they saw, every single possible lifetime of the universe, led them to the conclusion that they cannot fix heaven. they cannot fix anything.

everything they might have tried did not change the story because it was already written.

before, the celestials did not know that. they were meant to blindly follow orders, to trust in god's Great Plan without questions, which includes the demons. armageddon, the antichrist, the second coming—every apocalypse was built on expectations, but they never knew for sure.

god is the only one who knows what game they're playing and what the rules are, and it's not chess, there are no pawns. azirphale comparing it to solitaire is really what it comes down to. there is one person playing, one person who can win, one who controls every single card and even shuffled the deck. the cards themselves do not have the power to change the game. once the game is done, everything will be destroyed because it has fulfilled its purpose.

season 1 and 2 showed us that many celestials are uncertain of what's meant to happen, they follow orders, and crowley and aziraphale tried their best to save the world within the limitations outlined by god and the prophecies.

problem is, they knew even then that there's a non-zero chance they were supposed to prevent armageddon. god's plan is ineffable, after all. who's to say that their roles aren't written into the book? how can they actually tell if they have free will or are just doing what god created them to do?

the starmaker is told that after six thousand years, the universe will be destroyed. not just earth, every single star and planet and nebula and galaxy. creation as a whole will be undone, the curtain drops, that's it.

no one knows what that will look like, but they all know it will happen, so they have to trust that god has a plan for them. otherwise they'd go fucking nuts, which brings us all the way back to michael.

the illusion of free will and agency disappears when working with the book of life. is anyone free to do as they please when every possible action has been predicted in advance? how is michael supposed to have faith in god when confronted with the reality of their situation?

even satan is not free, he's a villain of her own making, he rebels the way he's supposed to. they all fall not because of their actions or because they're "evil" or bad or demonic but because that is how the story goes. in the end, aziraphale understands that, he understands that crowley was never evil, they were never opposites. there was no sensible purpose to anything.

so michael does the only thing they CAN do, the most free choice there is: they burn it all down. maybe that was meant to happen, maybe it wasn't. maybe it was their first true act of free will, and they used it to get rid of the literal and metaphorical book.

so what exactly are crowley and aziraphale meant to do?

put everything back the way it was? then what? angels and demons still want to go to war, humans are still being tortured in hell, the universe is still being manipulated behind the scenes; by god or by them, it comes down to the same result.

the last thing crowley wants is to become like her. he fights for his agency, he questions her even as she is about to destroy them. why does she get to make this choice? why is everything always up to her?

there's no real answer to that question, so god gives him an offer instead: you get one choice, one act of free will, do with it what you like.

so he does. he doesn't need the book of life to understand the reality of their situation, he's known for thousands of years. michael burned it all down, but he wants something to come out of this. there needs to be a reason for all of this, a consequence, something that actually matters.

burn it all down, yes, and then plant a new seed. water it, let it grow, but don't you dare touch it. its purpose is to exist and nothing else, a universe with genuine free will.

i understand how the ending can seem depressing, but personally i do not find it nihilistic or see it as an act of defeat. everything they did mattered, they're the fabric of the new universe, their love the big bang.

sometimes, you cannot fix the system. sometimes you have to tear the house down and rebuild it from its ashes. there's sadness and grief, but it still happened, it mattered.

🩷💙 N E O N N I G H T S 💙🩷

When you eventually get arrested for playing out your fantasies in real life, I hope you get chemically castrated.

Then, once it has become established that their Target Group has no rights, that there is no cruelty they do not deserve, no sadism too perverse, they will begin trying to lump their real targets in with them.

So you see that it starts with signs that say Throw Your Local Pedophile Into A Woodchipper. You laugh. Pedophiles are monsters. Who is going to defend a monster? Why not throw them into woodchippers? Fuck em'. But then the default accusation of the fascists becomes accusing all their enemies of being pedophiles. They start going, you know, I think those trannies are only making all this fuss about being allowed to use the bathroom because they want to peep on little girls. Maybe those gays that want to talk about LGBT history are just trying to groom little boys. Maybe everyone that I hate is secretly evil and I am allowed to do anything that I want to them. How wonderful. How convenient. And wouldn't you know it, the woodchipper is already warm.

@jesuistropfatiguee712, this is what Miseria is pointing out. That your obsession with finding someone that you're allowed to hate is bypassing your normal moral compass. It is! Look at yourself! When you had a disagreement, you immediately decided that the person you were arguing with was a pervert, then jumped into a fantasy where you, what, hoped she got caught raping someone just so you could have the satisfaction of seeing her castrated? And then, as if you were on some level aware of how repulsive that was, you had to throw in another dig about how gross perverts are. So gross! So gross that it's okay to fantasize about them getting castrated! So gross that it's okay to fantasize about hurting them! You're not deranged! They're just sooooooo grossssssssssss.

My wife is a survivor of CSA. It's hard for her. It's hard for me. I feel like I spent the second and third year of our relationship in a therapy office lobby. I was there when she told her siblings what her dad was. I was there when she told her mom what her husband was. I held her together as best I could in that time. It felt like trying to hold a grenade together by squeezing it with my bare hands. It was awful. I don't know how to write about how awful it was so I mosty just don't write about it. It was more awful for her, but it was awful for me, and I only had one friend I could talk to about it, because everyone else would go on these unhinged rants about how they wanted to throw her dad in a woodchipper and dance in his guts, or how they hoped he went to prison and got beat to death by other inmates, or, better, yet raped. And it made me sick. And the one friend that I had that could talk about it and sit with me in a way that did not make me feel sick to my stomach was a victim of CSA himself. He just wanted to feel safe again, he just wanted to learn how to trust people again, he just wanted his rapist to go to jail, where he wouldn't hurt anyone else ever again, but he didn't have elaborate torture fantasies. He didn't want to hear them from others. He could sit with me, and cry with me, and the gratitude that I feel for him is unspeakable. I owe him so much. He would puke to hear the note of hope in your comment, your hope that your opponent rapes someone just so you could be maximally vindicated in your rage. There is a sickness here that I cannot make words for. Please change.

And we complain, often with good reason, that the changes make the site worse for existing users, and we want changes that actually make the site better to use for us who are already here, instead of courting new users.

What I don't see people talk about is the fact that it's actually really hard to start using tumblr. It's hard to build your dashboard, to find your community, to feel like you belong here.

The reblog chain is one of the things that makes Tumblr unlike anywhere else. All the notes on reblogs are attributed to the original post, no matter which branch people actually liked or reblogged. We want to keep encouraging conversations, and give contributors the recognition they deserve. 

Soon, you'll be able to like, reblog, or reply to any part of a reblog chain, and that note will go to that reblog's author. Each reblog will have its own counts, instead of one aggregated number from every version of the post. And yes, you’ll be able to like multiple posts in one chain.

If a reblog doesn't add anything, the love flows up to the last person in the chain who did. Your post doesn't lose notes just because people spread it quietly.

Past notes will stay on the original post — we're only changing what happens from here on out. Retroactively re-attributing all of them would be... a lot.

We rolled out a significant change to how notes work on reblogs, and the reaction has been strong. We're not going to pretend otherwise. 

First things first: We're reversing the change. Your feedback in comments, emails, and especially reblogs, made clear that the rollout created problems we need to address before moving forward. We also should have communicated this differently from the start, and we didn't.

We still believe there's a better version of how reblogs can work. One that gives every voice in a chain the credit it deserves. But we want to get there with you.

In the coming days we'll share more on how we plan to do that,  including ways to work directly with some of you on this and future changes before they ship.

Instagram: Once We Were Spacemen

Deadline: Nathan Fillion Says ‘Firefly’ Animated Series In Development With Co-Stars Set To Reprise Roles; Concept Art Revealed

TL;DR: It's an animated series and Joss Whedon has given his blessing, but he is not directly involved in the project.

MORE DETAILS:

Today, Sunday, March 15th 2026, Nathan Fillion and the remaining core crew of Serenity announced at Awesome Con in DC that they are bringing back Firefly as an animated series called Firefly: Still Flyin'.

In the video posted on the Once We Were Spacemen (OWWS) Instagram account, Nathan detailed what they would need and who has signed on to the project thus far:

"Joss' blessing - I have it"

The rights from 20th Century Fox/ Disney: "They got excited - they said yes"

Showrunners: a married couple who met through Firefly! Tara Butters (Dollhouse, Agent Carter, Reaper) and Marc Guggenheim (DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Arrow)

A script - "We got it." A screenshot in the video shows the first page of a shooting script for Firefly: Still Flyin' Episode #1: "Athenia" written by Tara Butters & Marc Guggenheim.

An animation studio: Oscar and Emmy-award-winning animation studio ShadowMachine - another screenshot in the video shows some initial concept art

In the video, Nathan goes on to say that the last thing they need is a home. He asks everyone to like, comment on, and tag your friends in this post to spread the word and get Firefly: Still Flyin' a home.

While it was not explicitly stated in Nathan's video, Deadline's article on the announcement states:

Fear < LOVE.

Apply to the temp/staffing agency. Do it now.

We won't lie to you, my pet: this is the hardest job market we've seen since the 2008/2009 recession. My own spouse has been out of work for a year and he is highly educated, highly qualified, and highly motivated. I'm currently working on a deep dive into WHY the job market is so hard right now. And my research is showing me that, well... there's not really an end in sight. So you need to be taking every shortcut and hand up you can to get through what is, unfortunately, one of the worst economies we've had in 20 years too.

You're not alone. That's not comforting, I know. But your attitude needs to be fucking MILITANT right now about getting income. Good luck. We believe in you.

A Brief History of the 2008 Crash and Recession: We Were All So Fucked 

MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Getting a Job, Raise, or Promotion

I stopped applying to most postings at companies in my target industry and instead started paying attention to the recruiters and staffing agencies I found in job search results. If they seemed to be posting roles on behalf of companies I was interested in (often unnamed in the listing, but not always, and still not necessarily unidentifiable if you’ve been paying attention to a company’s externally posted roles already), I would go to the agency website and submit my best targeted-yet-not-too-narrow resume into their system.

After talking to a few of those recruiters, it became clear that a LOT of the roles they were headhunting for never even get posted publicly, because they could draw from their stockpile of on-file resumes and find a solid first round of matches to vet and present straight to the employer.