We're Fucked but We Say that We're Fine

what if there were two boys and their world was at war, and they were doomed from the very beginning. what if their story starts with them saying goodbye to each other as one of them is sent to be consumed by the war that is devouring the face of the planet.

what if the other chooses to be transformed into a weapon to find his way back to his friend, but he still can't save him and has to watch him die anyway. What if he tries to follow his friend into death but he can't die anymore.

What if he is forced to live in a future more remote than he could have imagined, wielded as a weapon and a symbol of tyranny.

Okay, now what if his friend couldn't die either. What if he was sent instead to a fate worse than death, the body he once embraced disassembled and rebuilt with unfeeling metal, the soul he once loved relentlessly scraped out and burned away until he was a hollow void, a suffering undead creature who didn't know his own name. What if his friend's tortured undead body came back to him. What if he got a second chance to tell his friend he loved him in the worst way possible.

What if there were two boys who became war machines. What if they were doomed from the very beginning and they were supposed to die, but instead they came back wrong. What if they found each other again transformed beyond all recovery and there was nothing left of their original selves. What if they were trapped in a remote and alien future with nothing to cling onto except each other.

Okay, now what if in this future, they'd gotten rid of sodomy laws and being openly homosexual was broadly socially acceptable, and they're both in super-strong new bodies that still remember the fear and repression in the marrow of their bones but also have ultra superpowered libidos that don't fucking quit. And there are words and terminology for these things and for desires and feelings but neither of them fucking know any of it.

Like when Gandalf spent literal PAGES trying to figure out why the vibes were off in Moria and Legolas chimes in with just "it's a balrog :) that shit's evil :) we're so fucked :)" like what do you MEAN you knew already and just didn't tell him??

Or at the beginning of Two Towers when Aragorn thinks there's something nearby so he puts his ear to the ground to listen, and then like 10 minutes later is like "hmmm i hear horses" and Legolas is just like "mm yep. there are 105 blond bitches with spears" like you just let your friend put his face in the dirt and you can SEE them??

gandalf is scratching his head in moria, and legolas is thinking "oh man, the wizard noticed something off *besides* the obvious balrog that we all are aware of??"

Hey real quick, can anyone tell me why i'm still trying to have honest, direct, good-faith discussions with people on the internet in the year of our lord 2026?

bonus ask from someone else:

The reason I'm not sharing the links and articles I'm being sent, nor debating the specific issues people in this post are bringing up, is because none of it matters to the point I'm making. All large organizations, all governments, all world powers, will inevitably try and shape the narrative of world events in their favor. That has always happened, and it always will, and that is why it's so important to take these grand narratives with a grain of salt. I don't believe there are any governments in the world that can claim innocence here, though the largest powers are those most guilty.

This post is not about debating the details of any one specific event. This is me saying, broadly, that in my circles i have noticed an uptick in stories minimizing China's faults and emphasizing their achievements based primarily or even solely on the word of sources i personally find unconvincing. I don't feel the need to wade deeper into those waters other than to remind folks to think critically and question the narratives of large organizations when reading the news.

People have responded to this by delivering unto me an onslaught of questionable "proof" delivered by individuals and organizations I neither know nor trust, many of which take hard line stances that the things China has been criticized for are complete fabrications (something which I do not believe to be the case based on the evidence I've seen and heard from both sides of this discussion). To debate these individual sources, these individual events or the veracity of specific accusations, is to ignore the point that, as the great lasagna lover tells us, you are not immune to propaganda.