it's absolutely fucking Crazy to build a TV show with the premise "every time you get angry literal millions of people die but you can't emotionally reach any of them because they're a perpetually-happy hivemind but they're still THEMSELVES so you can't rationalize it away as killing zombies/aliens. you already have anger issues and you're a middle-aged closeted alcoholic dyke whose wife just died and no one around you gives a fuck about your wife's death AND IF YOU LOSE YOUR TEMPER ABOUT ANY OF THIS..... MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WILL ACTUALLY LITERALLY DIE....." like oh my god the utterly suffocating psychological horror goes CRAZY. i'm INSANE.

FUCK. watch pluribus.

I would be a lot more convinced by the hivemind's offer if they were actually acting like they were the combined souls of everyone on earth, but they're simply not. the first person to get infected would have just been in a hivemind of one, but her behavior changed immediately. if they were every person on earth and nothing much more, then they'd have teams seeing to every major religious ritual, they'd be speaking endangered languages, they'd be looking after pets, they'd be preserving works and sites of cultural importance, they'd be putting on plays, they'd be singing, they'd be doing things that mattered to people, they'd be doing literally anything for fun for themselves. zosia and the massage shows they still experience and appreciate pleasure, but it doesn't look like any of them do anything like that without the presence of an immune person. by the numbers the hivemind should be about a quarter muslim and a quarter christian, but I doubt any of them will be making pilgrimages to mecca or baptizing newborns. seven billion minds all brought together and somehow none of them want to pet a baby goat? not one? a widdle baby goat? no one in the plurb soup wants to pet a goat? fuck you, I know humans, we go crazy for baby animals.

One of the things that’s getting me about Rhea Seehorn winning all these awards for playing Carol is that Carol is a lesbian lead character and this isn’t subtle like it’s not something straight people can pretend not to see!! She has a wife! Rhea calls her Carol’s wife! Carol herself says she’s her wife (in Spanish but a lot of Americans speak Spanish so still!!!) Then it’s stated onscreen she is a conversion camp survivor! Then she makes out with and has very clear sex with a woman on the show!! And still Rhea playing this character is getting all this mainstream support and awards for playing this amazing character! And it’s just so awesome to see especially right now where so many LGBTQ rights and protections are being pulled away from real life queer Americans as we speak like this is a big stage where portrayal of an undeniable lesbian character is being so highly rewarded.

The people who keep insisting Pluribus is "anti communism" or "clearly Vince's anti-commie agenda" drive me nuts. No offense, but that is a 5 year old's analysis of what the Hive is and what the show is saying.

The hive is anything that is forced homogeny. It represents anything that wants to flatten all of human existence and culture into one thing.

That can be anything, including: Capitalism, imperialism, racism, conversion therapy, forced assimilation and even *gasp* communism! Because guess what? Communism has historically been used to oppress people and brute force them to be one thing as well! The sooner you accept that pretty much any ideology can be used for totalitarianism (even the ones that tell you things you want to hear and that you agree with) the less susceptible you will be to cult indoctrination and the trappings of fascism. That's why it's imperative that you keep your critical thinking and individuality instead of acquiescing to people screaming at you to think one way. The importance of being an individual is not the same thing as individualism.

It's no accident that the show's two main heroes are a lesbian and an autistic latino. Three demographics that society has tried to forcefully change.

Koumba argues that the hive is good because there's no more racism. They tell him what he wants to hear, not because racism isn't bad. It's because they want him to assimilate. There won't be anymore racism because they will destroy all races and cultures.

That's what the hive is.

I think it may be a missed opportunity to have the individuals, at least those we have soon so far, not have their ideologies more in contrast with one another.

I mean, right now it is Carol and Manousos = hive bad, want reserve vs everyone else, who have their own reasons for thinking it's good. Laxmi because she believes they are still her family, the others for likely the same reasons (we haven't seen much from them).

Koumba makes the point that the colour of a person's skin no longer matters, and the hive tells Carol it loves all people equally (this is in regard to her comparison of conversion camp). But its sort of doing "we dont see colour" on just a massive scale and applied to every single traits. We dont see colour, gender, sexuality—anything about a person that makes them individual.

But they also agree they love all the individuals equally. And so far all the ones we met are pretty chill. I mean, Laxmi and Carol would NOT agree with that statement about the other, but neither of them is a bad person. They are abrasive at best.

Manousous is hardcore and kind of terrifying but he is clearly extremely invested in saving humanity and is willing to go to intense lengths to do it.

None of the individuals are evil. What if one of them HAD been. Like... what if a full blown white supremacist had been one of the individuals? And his gang of fellow skin heads is suddenly this super chill smiley group who is happy to love everyone they were supposed to hate 3 minutes ago.

But they would probably go along with him, follow his lead the way those with Koumba do in Vegas. Because they'd love their horrible white supremacist individual just as much as the others, right?

What if he wanted to hurt one of the individuals? Laxmi, for example? They flat out say they cant stop them from hurting each other. If they hurt someone from the hivemind, we know they'd abandon him, but an individual? Would they just stand there and go "please dont do that"

If he wanted an atomic bomb, he'd get one. And a million machine guns, and a tank.... and if they abandoned him who cares, hed just go around in the tank killing them all, idk.

Would probably make it harder to for the other individuals to see the Hivemind as good. Probably that is why this character does not exist. Really reinforces the dark side of "we love everyone equally."

carol really went and said HOLD ON A SEC, got in her car, disappeared on a wild lesbian vacation with her not-girlfriend for eleven days, and then came back like "ok done lezzing out, situationship imploded, let's fix this shit"

it's funny to me that in the original idea for pluribus vince gilligan intended for it to have a male protagonist but then he was like i really wanna work with rhea seehorn again so he made it about a lesbian instead. more writers should be doing this if you're considering writing a man stop what you're doing and make him a woman immediately

Watched the first episode of pluribus and when the scientists started synthesizing the RNA sequence, my wife (PhD in microbiology) gasped and went, "They would never."

After the show, she told me that if we ever discovered a code for RNA like that, scientists would first "do a shit ton of bioinformatics" on it, run simulations, etc (like, theoretical biology is a whole field, you wouldn't have to physically make something to learn about it). She also said that if they ever did decide to synthesize it, they wouldn't create the whole thing intact, but rather create sections of the sequence/genes separately. She thought it was pretty unrealistic that they'd ever start deliberately putting it in animals, and if they did, the animals would be wayyy more closely monitored than they were in the show (ie not just a couple people popping in early to do a quick kill cycle. There'd be around the clock shifts watching after any animals. Everyone say thank you IACUC).

Also I briefly worked in lab safety (or really more like adjacent to it, I was in the same department as the lab safety people), so we both screamed when the woman took off part of her PPE 😭😭 again, they would never. Like they'd have other tools to be able to determine if that rat was alive besides checking its pulse with your nearly bare hands.

(Disclaimer that of course we realize that this is all fictional and there had to be a means to an end to get to the real premise of the show (the hivemind), so this isn't meant as hate!! It's just interesting to think about, and I wanted to share if any non-science people want to know how "realistic" it was. The show is still good so far and we're enjoying it!)

Helen didn't try to force Carol into her definition of happiness. She accepted her as she was. They went to the ice hotel and Helen admired the artwork while Carol complained it was cold. Helen said, "This is perfect for you. You love feeling bad." She accepted this about Carol. Helen was in awe of the aurora borealis; Carol said, "It kinda looks like a screensaver." Helen laughed. She didn't tell Carol to stop being negative or stop being so unpleasant. She loved her as she was. That's what love was to them. It was the exact opposite of the hive's definition, which is to force everyone to be happy--whether they like it or not.

the inalienable right to be a hater

something i love about carol and manousos both is that they want to save the world, but not because either of them has anyone (left) in their own lives to save that they're doing this for. there is nothing really in it for them personally, nothing for them to earn except their normal lives back (neither of which seem like they were entirely fulfilling, and in carol's case will be incredibly lonely now that helen is gone). they simply care about humanity as a whole, despite clearly not feeling very connected to it, and they believe it's the right thing to do (though part of it is also out of fear for themselves. no person is 100% selfless in their motivation). manousos believing everyone has had their souls stolen and wanting to give them back, carol simply horrified first at people having their autonomy taken away and then later that they're all going to starve to death. they both see the wrongness and immediately believe something needs to be done about it, even though i don't think either of them ever really wanted to play hero. but it's a role they take up out of necessity, because nobody else will

average gay guy problems: i have been hooking up with my hockey rival, but now i am developing feelings for him and nobody can know! >_< also nobody serves ginger ale

average lesbian problems: my wife died when an alien virus turned all of humanity into a hivemind and then said hivemind sent a woman who looks like a female version of my romantasy hero to charm me into complacency, which i resisted at first but then i got lonely and now i think i am falling for her >_< also john cena said the hivemind is eating people

Ping ponging back and forth between these two shows was how I spent Christmas break lol.

Rhea Seehorn talking about playing Carol Sturka, a lesbian, and how she approached it 🫶

I am Manousos Oviedo. I am Carol Sturka. We are not one of them. We will save the world.

Centennial Memorial Tower in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan.

Kakishibu puppet series by AYA

comic that appeared to me as I was waking up from a dream

Edit: this got more attention then I thought lol if you wanna redraw this just reblog this with your redraw to credit me or put my @ (idk how tumblr works ngl)

new terrifying horror concept: What If Someone Came To Your House

Horror games made by introverts.

happy ignore your to-do list tuesday. we will follow it up with waste your time wednesday & don't do things thursday then wrap up the week with fuck around friday.