ACEthetic

We will never know their names.

The first victim could not have been recorded, for there was no written language to record it. They were someone’s daughter, or son, and someone’s friend, and they were loved by those around them. And they were in pain, covered in rashes, confused, scared, not knowing why this was happening to them or what they could do about it - victim of a mad, inhuman god. There was nothing to be done - humanity was not strong enough, not aware enough, not knowledgeable enough, to fight back against a monster that could not be seen.

It was in Ancient Egypt, where it attacked slave and pharaoh alike. In Rome, it effortlessly decimated armies. It killed in Syria. It killed in Moscow.  In India, five million dead. It killed a thousand Europeans every day in the 18th century. It killed more than fifty million Native Americans. From the Peloponnesian War to the Civil War, it slew more soldiers and civilians than any weapon, any soldier, any army (Not that this stopped the most foolish and empty souls from attempting to harness the demon as a weapon against their enemies).

Cultures grew and faltered, and it remained. Empires rose and fell, and it thrived. Ideologies waxed and waned, but it did not care. Kill. Maim. Spread. An ancient, mad god, hidden from view, that could not be fought, could not be confronted, could not even be comprehended. Not the only one of its kind, but the most devastating.

For a long time, there was no hope - only the bitter, hollow endurance of survivors.

In China, in the 10th century, humanity began to fight back.

It was observed that survivors of the mad god’s curse would never be touched again: they had taken a portion of that power into themselves, and were so protected from it. Not only that, but this power could be shared by consuming a remnant of the wounds. There was a price, for you could not take the god’s power without first defeating it - but a smaller battle, on humanity’s terms. By the 16th century, the technique spread, to India, across Asia, the Ottoman Empire and, in the 18th century, Europe. In 1796, a more powerful technique was discovered by Edward Jenner.

An idea began to take hold: Perhaps the ancient god could be killed.

A whisper became a voice; a voice became a call; a call became a battle cry, sweeping across villages, cities, nations. Humanity began to cooperate, spreading the protective power across the globe, dispatching masters of the craft to protect whole populations. People who had once been sworn enemies joined in common cause for this one battle. Governments mandated that all citizens protect themselves, for giving the ancient enemy a single life would put millions in danger.

And, inch by inch, humanity drove its enemy back. Fewer friends wept; Fewer neighbors were crippled; Fewer parents had to bury their children.

At the dawn of the 20th century, for the first time, humanity banished the enemy from entire regions of the world. Humanity faltered many times in its efforts, but there individuals who never gave up, who fought for the dream of a world where no child or loved one would ever fear the demon ever again. Viktor Zhdanov, who called for humanity to unite in a final push against the demon; The great tactician Karel Raška, who conceived of a strategy to annihilate the enemy; Donald Henderson, who led the efforts of those final days.

The enemy grew weaker. Millions became thousands, thousands became dozens. And then, when the enemy did strike, scores of humans came forth to defy it, protecting all those whom it might endanger.

The enemy’s last attack in the wild was on Ali Maow Maalin, in 1977. For months afterwards, dedicated humans swept the surrounding area, seeking out any last, desperate hiding place where the enemy might yet remain.

They found none.

35 years ago, on December 9th, 1979, humanity declared victory.

This one evil, the horror from beyond memory, the monster that took 500 million people from this world - was destroyed.

You are a member of the species that did that. Never forget what we are capable of, when we band together and declare battle on what is broken in the world.

Happy Smallpox Eradication Day.

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Top 20 Funniest Things about Star Wars, in No Particular Order

1. Darth Maul repeatedly dying and then randomly turning up for absolutely no narrative reason, exclusively to ruin Obi-Wan’s day

2. Hondo Ohnaka in general

        2.a. Bonus: Hondo and Maul competing to be Ezra’s Weird Crime Uncle

3. Dave Filoni being forced to spend 6 7 seasons doing narrative backflips to keep Anakin and Grievous from meeting, because of one throwaway line in ROTS about Grievous being short

4. The B1 Battle Droids in any given moment of the Clone Wars, but especially during the movie

       e.g. those two droids on top of the cliff at Teth, arguing about seeing the approaching clone army and fighting over the binoculars, and one of them just fuckin FALLS of the cliff and the other one goes “get BACK HERE          sergeant”

       also e.g. Rex and like, one other guy, completely surrounded by droids and Rex is like “surrender! we have you outnumbered!” and one of the droids is like “hang on” and actually stARTS COUNTING

5. Grievous bailing hard the moment anything goes remotely wrong 

6. Anakin stabbing a guy in cold blood as the Imperial March plays in the background and then looking all offended at Obi-Wan and going “WHAT? he was gonna blow up the ship!”     

7. Dave Filoni’s incessant need to put wolves in Star Wars

8. the fact that the Mandalorian almost died and earned his clan signet on an errand to fetch brunch for a bunch of jawas

9. Rex’s plan on the Rishi Moon base: “ok so to get into the base currently occupied by droids, i’m going to hold a droid head up to the camera and do my best droid impression and ask them nicely to open the door” and it WORKED

        bonus 9.a: that same episode, Cody’s reaction to Rex shooting one of their brothers (as far as he knew) right in the face was “HECK”

10. Kallus, to Ezra and Kanan: ok you have to knock me out so i don’t get caught as a spy. it has to be convincing.

Ezra: ok *uses the force to fucking YEET kallus through like three panes of glass*

Kanan: EZRA

Ezra: WHAT? that is convincing

Kanan: yeah, but i was gonna do it

11. Kylo Ren stalking into the war room and going “i sense… unease… about my appearance.” and all the generals rushing to compliment his new mask

12. those two stormtroopers in TFA walking around the corner, seeing Kylo Ren having a tantrum and beating up a console with his lightsaber, and just quietly backing away

13. Stormtrooper bonking his head in A New Hope

14. Rex bonking his head on a pipe

15. “It’s ok that we’re here.” “It’s ok that you’re here.” “It’s GREAT that you’re here.” “You’re relieved that we’re here.” “THANK GOODNESS you’re here” “Welcome, guys.”

16. the fact that Palpatine was is still so pissed off about Anakin slam-dunking him down the garbage chute at the end of Return of the Jedi that he had a giant pit built in his Secret Backup Fortress specifically so that he could throw Anakin’s grandson down it thirty years later like that level of PETTINESS

17. Darth Bane was voiced by MARK FUCKING HAMIL

18. Boba Fett dies by blind, confused Han Solo going “BOBA FETT?? WHERE????” and spinning around and accidentally backhanding him into the Sarlacc Pit (of course he’s not really dead shhhhhh fuck you disney)

19. those two scout troopers in episode 8 of the Mandalorian, having captured Baby Yoda and radioing in to try to tell Moff Gideon that they captured the asset like “is he available yet” “yeah, he just killed an officer for interrupting him, so it could be a while.” “ugh ok whatever. Standing by. Still.”

20. the fact that, from Obi-Wan’s point of view, ROTS is just fucking bonkers. Like, he and Anakin rescue the chancellor, everything’s going well, he tells Anakin he’s proud of him, and then he leaves to kill Grievous and just when he succeeds and the war is just about over, Cody tries to shoot him off a cliff and when he makes it back to Coruscant, Anakin is slaughtering a bunch of children and swearing allegiance to a Sith Lord and Obi-Wan has NO IDEA what the FUCK happened there

21. Twilight of the Apprentice from Darth Vader’s point of view: you chase down a bunch of Rebels to a secret Sith Planet. You go to the Temple. Surprise! Your old apprentice is there, along with some random jedi kid. She forces the kid to flee the collapsing temple, and then you proceed to have a big ol’ lightsaber fight but like THIRTY SECONDS LATER, a portal opens up in mid-air, the SAME KID but with a different haircut pops out, grabs your apprentice, and just fuckin vanishes. Poof. Gone. Like, that is just something that happened to Darth Vader one day and it’s just something he had to deal with.

22. JJ Abrams dedicating an entire scene in Rise of Skywalker to calling out Rian Johnson’s shitty Luke-related decisions from TLJ. Rey throwing away the lightsaber and ForceGhost!Luke catching it and going “wow hey maybe treat a Jedi’s weapon with a little more respect RIAN” and “hey Rey don’t do what I did and fuck off to the ass-end of nowhere for twenty years and refuse to do anything useful because that was really stupid and pointless and out of character of me, wasn’t it RIAN”

This is my life. It would have been so cool for Sasori to be Gaara’s weird uncle and the head of Puppet Corps and be a mentor to Kankuro. So much wasted potential…

What do you call a house full of asexuals?

A house of cards because it’s full of aces

bella was lucky she didn’t have a cell phone of any kind because you know ya boi edward would be blowing up that phone 24-7 going “saw a snail today…. effervescent” or some shit equivalent

People on this website will really mock anti-vaxxers and flat earthers for ignoring scientists and getting their alternative facts from facebook, and then turn around and insist they know more history than historians and more archaeology than archaeologists because they read an unsourced tumblr post once

I’m not just happy about being ace…

I’m ace-staic about it.

“You shouldn’t self-ID as ADHD/autistic, you’re turning a very real mental condition into a trend” Ok then stop saying delulu. Stop speculating on which cluster C personality disorder the criminals you hear about on the news have. Stop saying “schizoposting” and “acoustic” and “is it restarted?” Stop using “psycopath” and “sociopath” as catch-all ways of calling someone a bad person. Stop saying “the intrusive thoughts won” when you bleach your hair and then turn your nose up at people who suffer from very real, very scary urges of physical/sexual violence. Stop saying “I’m so OCD” as a way of calling yourself neat. Stop treating BPD/ASPD/Bipolar as inherently abusive. Stop saying “OP I am living in your walls” without tagging for unreality. Stop diagnosing complete strangers you’ve never met on r/AITA with NPD.

You first. If you don’t want our disabilities to be treated like trends then stop belittling and minimising them. I’ll NEVER judge a person for trying find labels for their symptoms when an apathetic, racist, sexist, ableist healthcare system refuses to. But I will absolutely judge a hypocrite. Which a lot of you are