#*remembers what an anti IS* oh. right. that’s literally their whole thing is their inability to live and let live.

[labyrynth]

/salt

trying to interact w genshin fandom is just constantly playing russian roulette and losing

like is this random user normal about kaeya and diluc or are they convinced that kaeya’s name is ragnvindr? are they normal about kaeya and diluc or do they ignore everything diluc has to say?

are they normal about kaeya and diluc or do they ignore the original text in favor of a mistranslated snippet that has a meaning opposite what they think?

are they normal about kaeya and diluc or do they call everyone that prefers canon over their headcanon a freak?

go on, give it a spin. i promise some of the chambers are empty.

[sapphosvioletts]

Thank you!!! I feel so felt with that first mini paragraph!!!

And I don’t personally think it’s scary, it’s just kinda dark at times with an odd jumpscare or two - but there’s also a sense of comedy and humour in the film!! As well as a bit of mild gore!!

Also yeah me and my cousin are having fun!! I’m just typing this atm cause he’s gone to get a drink

But that sounds really cool!! The fact that your actually putting this much thought and planning into it and that you also get to have this much free will and creativity with it all: it’s super neat and makes me wanna try and make something myself - except I lack any single craftperson bone in my body ((if that makes sense))

Additionally if you wanted to, you could point out to your grandad the fact that due to humanities long history of countries invading each other that the U.S. as he knows it may not exist - meaning that in reality it’s most likely the existence of other countries ((as well as humanities inability to get along)) that has potentially allowed the U.S. to exist the way it does

((If that all makes sense that is X2))

I’m also worried now that within that I said something super politely offensive, and if I did I’m sorry but I’m really not the most confident on the rules of politics and what you can and can’t say 😅

- 🦋

i don't remember what i wrote lol but i'm glad it helped!!!

and ahhh okay, i don't think i'll ever watch it bc i'm really squeamish and i get scared so easily it's so bad lmao like i used to get scared watching buzzfeed unsolved that's how scared i would get (but now it's my favorite show lol) and im also just such a jumpy person like i can be looking right at someone and they'll say my name and i'll still jump 😭

and update... he is a little rough and i gave up on him lmao i basically almost finished him but his head is uhhhh... not good so i didn't finish him so now i literally just have a terrifying head and body fully stuffed and done because i didn't attach them lmao i'm gonna sew something new today though i'm just not sure what (maybeee skip some of my school work so i can sew maybe)

but you should!!! there are tons of tutorials on youtube and online, i bet you could find something!

and oh yeah i have tried reminding him that our country is literally built on the genocide of indigenous people but he just keeps up the whole "leftist school system indoctrination" thing like sir have you ever been to school here 😭 and my other grandpa (and my grandma but she passed away before i was born so i never met her) on my dads side is actually an immigrant from greece and they don't see each other often, but i have memories of them arguing bc one is super anti immigration and conservative and the other other is an immigrant who is very liberal (which is kinda weird my dad is more conservative, hes not too conservative, literally once i explain him stuff in details and shit he agrees with me but still calls him himself a conservative???, but his dad isn't at all and he's an immigrant. and my mom is super liberal but her dad is literally a walking fox news ad)

and don't worry! i'm not either i'm always scared of saying something wrong like if i don't know everything about a certain policy or literally whatever i get so scared talking about it bc i don't wanna misrepresent anything lol

[detectivejigsawpines]

The Skeleton Ate Curry

A small moment in which one of the two certainties in life encounters a frequent visitor who has yet to become a permanent guest, despite his apparent wish to.

Kind of a crossover with Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, but you probably don't need to read that to understand what's going on.  Even if you definitely should.

“Oh, ow…”

Stan opened his eyes blearily-only to find himself surrounded by darkness filled with strange, echoey noises.  For a moment he wasn’t sure his eyes were genuinely open, until he blinked and realized that yes, they were.

Hot Belgian waffles, I’m blind!  What happened?! What’s goin’ on?!

For a few seconds Stan’s thoughts were paralyzed with icy panic; then a voice that sounded like the rumble of a coffin lid said to his right, OH, IT’S YOU AGAIN.

Stan whirled around, and saw a tall, thin figure standing there, somehow clearly discernible despite being dressed in some kind of black robe like those Blind Eye weirdos.  He was holding the reins of a white horse in one long, bony hand. A horse that looked...different than any he’d ever seen before. I mean, Stan didn’t have much experience with horses as it was, besides watching shows like Grandpa the Kid, but somehow this one looked way more...more real than any horse he’d ever seen, and not just because it was there in person instead of on a television.

However, his attention was mainly focused on the assumed owner of the animal; namely the fact that the hand was bony in a quite literal sense, and now he was seeing past the hood to the face beneath, and the dark sockets in the center of it, empty except for two small specks of pale blue light…

Oh, [CENSORED].

********

“...Are you-?”

It was a stupid question and Stan knew it, but in life there are some things that you just have to ask in certain situations.

I GET ASKED THAT A LOT, the figure commented, tilting his head to the side in an oddly human, thoughtful way.

Told you.

Stan gulped.  He wasn’t ready for this.  He really, really wasn’t ready for this, not now, not when he was finally getting some happiness out of life!

“Do-do I really have ta-”

IT’S BEEN A WHILE SINCE I’VE SEEN YOU, the skeleton interrupted.  I’M SURPRISED, ACTUALLY-YOUR FAMILY AS A WHOLE SEEMS TO HAVE A PATHOLOGICAL INABILITY TO STAY OUT OF SITUATIONS THAT GIVE YOU THE OCCASIONAL NEAR-ME EXPERIENCE.

Stan blinked.  “‘Scuse me?”

GRANTED, I HAVE NOT HAD A NEAR-STANLEY PINES EXPERIENCE OR A NEAR-STANFORD PINES EXPERIENCE IN ALMOST A MONTH; I CONSIDER THAT A NEW RECORD.  I WAS BEGINNING TO WONDER WHAT HAD HAPPENED TO YOU TWO.

“Okay, what are you talking about?”  Stan hoped he wasn’t beginning to sound like a parrot.

WELL, SINCE YOU HAVE NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES, IT ONLY MAKES SENSE TO SAY THAT I HAVE NEAR-YOU EXPERIENCES.  IT’S A WELL-KNOWN FACT.

Stan processed this for a second.  Then he asked, with the caution of someone who sees a light at the end of the tunnel but is uncertain if this means the sunlight of freedom or the incoming train of certain doom, “...So am I not dead?  You said near death.  Not total death.”

The skeleton shrugged.  IT’S A LITTLE EARLY TO TELL.  EITHER WAY, I WAS PLANNING ON GOING TO THIS DELICIOUS CURRY RESTAURANT A FEW MILES AWAY WHEN I HAPPENED TO SEE YOU.

“Curry restaurant,” Stan said flatly.  He was becoming more and more resigned to the general weirdness of the situation by the second.

The skeleton nodded.  ONE OF MY FAVORITE FOODS; IT’S LIKE BITING INTO A RED-HOT ICE CUBE.

The echoing noises came again, louder and more frantic-sounding.  Stan glanced at Death.

“You hear that too, right?”

The skeleton, however, was getting on the back of his horse, and didn’t seem to hear him.

The next time the noise came, he started being able to actually distinguish some of it as parts of words.

“St...ley...ca...ear...e?  Wa...please…me on, knuck...”

IT SEEMS LIKELY THAT YOU ARE GOING TO GET ANOTHER EARFUL FROM HIM, Death commented.  Then, more hesitantly, THAT IS THE CORRECT PHRASE, ISN’T IT?

“Only for people who use nerdy phrases like that-ow!”  A sudden, searing pain tore its way into Stan’s chest, and he clutched at it with a gasp.  He barely heard the parting words, UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN, THEN, and the clopping of horse’s hooves galloping away…

********

Stan’s eyes opened again.

This time, instead of darkness he saw a face staring down at him.

A frantic, worried face, wearing glasses with a small crack in the left lens, and eyes that were more bloodshot and panicked than usual.

As soon as they saw him, the bushy eyebrows above them relaxed from their previous scrunched-together position, and the rest of the face let out an exhausted-sounding exhale of pure relief.

“Good, Stan, that’s very good.  The antidote is working, that’s great.”

Anti-ohhhh.

He remembered now: there had been a small...incident earlier, with some elves who’d turned out to be kind of hostile.  Specifically they’d tried to shoot them with poison darts, and Stan had seen them coming before Ford did. So of course he did what any good brother would, and shoved his brother out of the way in the nick of time, so he was the only one who got hit.

And it seemed like Ford had just remembered that too, because he scowled at Stan and snarled, “This means that as soon as you’re well enough I can kill you myself!”

Looks like the skeleton was right.

“How could you?!” Ford demanded, slamming his fist down on the table.  Stan realized that they were in their kitchen; Ford must have somehow gotten them back to the boat safely.  “You could have just yelled ‘Look out!’ or pulled me out of the way, or anything else that would have not involved you being shot by six poisoned darts at once!  Do you have any idea how close you came to-if I hadn’t managed to-”  His words crumbled in on themselves, and he began to blink rapidly.

Huh.  His angry tirade was crumbling faster than Stan was used to.  He really had come close to death this time.

No duh, knucklehead, you were just talking to him in person.

At the thought, Stan’s face inadvertently split into the beginnings of a weak laugh.

“This is not funny, Stanley!”  Ford, of course, completely misinterpreted the expression.  “You-”

“I-I know, I’m sorry, Sixer,” Stan croaked quickly.  He still hadn’t regained full use of his limbs, but he managed to twitch his hand in what he hoped was a pacifying gesture.  “I just...wanted ta protect you. That’s my job. I didn’t think beyond savin’ your hide. You know that.”

Ford’s lip trembled, but at least he seemed to have calmed down a little.  “You’re going to give me an ulcer one of these days.” He accompanied the phrase by wrapping his hand around Stan’s and squeezing tightly.

Stan squeezed back.  And decided to wait until later to tell his twin that he had a sudden odd craving for curry.

********

If you do decide to read Discworld, I would recommend starting with either Mort or Guards! Guards!  They’re the ones that start my favorite two mini-series, and they do a good job of establishing Sir Terry’s world.  Small Gods is another good one.

[theskyexists]

she-ra season 3

i LOVE scorpia

this show has a bit of tonal issue in my opinion. they keep going back to a very teen-parent relationship between the trio and mum - when there’s a terrible war on.

people get killed but generally it really does just feel presented like a game or a fight about curfew and sometimes thats a bit jarring. (or is it strange to expect the graveness of situations to bring out a quality of sincerity even during puberty?)

i don’t really understand why Adora would jump to the conclusion that Shadoweaver showing up means she’s changed

but Adora, you ARE stupid. lol

but the rest is too. ‘don’t listen to her Adora’ why not? is it so terrible to be from another world? the stakes are quite murky

Entrapta’s comments really go to show how shit of a leader Hordak really is. HOw the hell did he manage to create this empire when he’s so damn incompetent? OOOHHHHHH CATRA SAID IT!!! just after i wrote that sentence she SAID IT

Hordak is an idiotic beserker

so why didn’t they take their unicorn flying steed?

‘well yeah - but you said that while saving us - so - you can’t be all bad. what do ya say’

i love the voice actor for Adora lolololol. she is clearly having SO much fun.

and Adora has a small crush on Huntara and absolutely ruins her chances with the barmaid by popping up. totally did not expect that voice for Huntara tho

entraptak is.....real. wtf. it’s.....cute. Hordak is just trying to be Prime. Failing at it miserably, lashing out. jfc it’s an endless cycle  isn’t it.

‘know about she-ra? ahahahaha! I AM she-ra!’ THAT WAS BADASS. i love it when Adora is being rowdy and cocky

oh wow reversed chin-tilt with sword, and then lifting her head and soulful look? She-Ra really has chemistry with ALL the Princesses.

I LOVE scorpia. i loved that moment when Catra pushed her away nobly - i love how Catra has plausible deniability to herself. Love how the narrative reinforces that Catra is literally the most competent person around etc. (if they could get her for the Rebellion it would be over and out but hey)

surely Mara cut Aetheria off to save it from Hord-Prime’s war? Light-Hope wanted She-Ra to join the other She-Ra’s (’this world’s she-ra’) in the battle but she decided to hide the world and people she loved, breaking most of the magic-tech system. What I don’t understand is - the First Ones lived on Aetheria, but the people that populate it now are a different quality of organics, they can only survive in a specific atmosphere. The princesses are living components in the balancing of the tech-magic system...what are the people of the world? We don’t realise this most of the time, but all of them except for princesses, are animal-humanoids (and...kyle.....). What does this mean? Did the animal life unintentionally evolve? Were they an underclass - simply part of the system? (seems too edgy for this show).

‘why was i taken from my family? why was i forced to become a soldier?’ this line was GOOD

yesss!!! Mara! i love her already.

Scorpia is blushing lol. I am also liking Catra being completely off her shits careless and powerful.

Catra and Scorpia bonding yesssss!!!

ohhhhhHHH the magic of the planet is something of Aetheria itself! the tech is just latched on??? First Ones were colonisers (’settlers’)! but AETHERIA is what’s dangerous to the rest of the universe!!! (because it can be used as a weapon??) probably Aetheria would die as a result?

‘maybe it’s been a week, maybe it’s been thousands of years’ that is so fuckin sad

Catra being so hung up on acknowledgement is her greatest tragedy.

wow Scorpia really proposed a super cool thing and it could rearrange Catra’s WORLD

I want this show to stop repeating the same cycle after this last one time of Catra going: WAAAAHHH Adora made my life so hard now im going to do something inadvisable that might destroy us all as payback

Adora’s greatest tragedy is that she’s so self-centred that she doesn’t understand Catra at all.

if they have Angella and Glimmer fight and then have her mum die before they’ve made up i’ll be very upset (i’m not really loving Glimmer and Bow in this so far - they’re toeing the edge of annoying). and the fights about having to have plans and fighting or not fighting due to the fear of losing people - that’s always been uhhhh - well they always got away safe with shit plans and i just really don’t think that they’re meshing the commander-queen and daughter-mother stuff well. because there’s literally NO ONE ELSE in charge. there’s some magical queen and some villagers and a barely present guard. where’s the court, the advisors, anybody??

it would be silly to trust Shadoweaver (she did mercilessly torture you - no psychological effects from that stupidly enough), but i am hard-pressed to think of a reason she’d betray them.

still don’t understand how Frosta went from icy, frosty queen to idk a kid. i mean she can be both, but it was weird to see no uhhhh connection at all

I think this show is about how every single character is held back by their inability to grow and grow closer to others. Glimmer has disobeyed Angella SO often, why is she surprised at all? Why can’t she be honest and say: I am afraid! I am afraid I will lose you! I am afraid of that pain and I want you to take the risks seriously, to plan for them. I want to protect you!

That Glimmer would work with her torturer is of course a ridiculous notion. that is to say - if that kind of thing was properly given weight.

why fight Catra??? Why not just teleport to Hordak’s inner sanctum?? it’s stupid. why waste all the damn power

glad entrapta finally heard from Adora that she didn’t mean to leave her behind though.

‘you can’t fight them they’re too strong!’ ?? Glimmer just got sucked dry tho? like what. the way this show always postpones its fights on shitty pretexts is ....acceptable but pretty roll-eye-y

Catra burning all her bridges.

“there’s no choice” fucking bullshit, just teleport lol.

lol Catra feeds the anti-princess propaganda right back to Hordak. that’s poetic but jfc i really hope next season is going to be a little less *shuffles deck, cards end up in a million different hands, literally all cards feel betrayed*

so catra is willing to pull the annihilation switch on the universe just to one-up Adora just this once LOLLLL. if only somebody hadn’t ingrained a deeply seated inferiority complex in this cat

anyway i want her to feel the consequences of all that for a change

that animation on everything going VWWWWWWOOOOOOMM darkness was awesome

OHHHH the next episode has an awesome premise.

can i just say that i LOVE this episode. it’s so damn creepy and cool and kind of nostalgic. and i LOVE that it’s Scorpia and Adora who are remembering things - the ones closest to Catra. AND THEN THEY BOND!!!! and hold hands!!!!

reliving the betrayals. love the way the memories hit people, the way Catra goes from her old self, their playfulness, their casual violence ratcheting up at each other because that’s how they’ve been trained - to defend themselves, and then - the true Catra, the hysteria, gone so far off the deep-end. “i’d rather let the whole world be destroyed than let you win.” geeze that’s rooted deep.

angella and mica are so cuteeee. but angella really hasn’t changed has she? no tolerance for difficulty. she honestly is a bit of a shit queen. thought that was bc of grief and trauma but eh

he puts a truth spell on her but then he doesn’t believe her? does he think she’s crazy?

don’t think i’ve ever shipped something as hard in this show as Mica/Angella. i just LOVE royal woman x good man apparently. I LOVE IT SO MUCH. god why didn’t she kiss him on the lips>????

oh SHIT, MARA IS STILL TRAPPED INSIDE THE PORTAL LIKE ENTRAPTA SAID - THAT’S WHY SHE SAID: HAS IT BEEN A DAY OR THOUSANDS OF YEARS?

so...is there a reason that Angella is not faded?

wow that speech about bravery and cowardice. she truly. TRULY, ok they made something of her. I HATE losing Angella because the voice acting is INCREDIBLE. but that was actually an amazing end. (and she got to see Mica for the last time, at least)

ok so if i lost my mum forever i would be SCREAMING in pain but i guess these itsy bitsy tears from Glimmer will do?

that look of pure determination and anger and mercilessness in Adora’s eyes at Catra? nice. wish Catra didn’t go into a sulk at it but kept her goddamn FEAR (Adora was totally right, she vanquished another demon from her past - everything Catra did, she CHOSE to do. and her keeping on blaming others is simply - cowardice)

[whitehotharlots]

M.I.A., Fariha Róisín, and the rhetorical triumph of passive listening

I’ve been thinking about the rise and fall of M.I.A., the might-aughts musical sensation who was briefly the most celebrated alternative pop artist in the world. 2004’s Piracy Funds Terrorism and 05’s Arular generated some of the most positive press I’d ever seen from outlets like Pitchfork (which, back then, still kinda counted as an alternative to dominant culture). 2007’s crossover hit Kala was one of the most genuinely dangerous and experimental records ever to enter the mainstream of American culture. Then... she just kinda went away. 

M.I.A.’s politics were miles beyond the limp, bland positivity of the era’s liberalism. She was literally militant, lending her support for the Tamil Tigers. A lyric on her song “Sunshowers,” (“Like the PLO I don’t surrender”), was considered dangerous enough that it got her banned from entering the US for several months.  This was not the fuzzy, feelgood liberalism of Obama, nor even the “fierceness” of someone like Beyonce, whose material accomplishments are considered a substitute for actual politics. This was a literal refugee woman telling the world that, actually, things really fucking suck, and if you want them to get better you you’re going to have to fight.

Of course, this engendered pushback--first and foremost from the “liberals” at Pitchfork. M.I.A. complained, rightfully, that music reviewers tended to give far too much credit to the male collaborators of female musicians. No one would attribute the genius of Purple Rain to Wendy and Lisa, so why did all of her reviewers spend so much time talking about Diplo? Pitchfork responded by viciously smearing her next album and accusing her of uneven and naive politics. Other outlets followed suit, and by the turn of the decade she had fallen out of mainstream favor.

And so you’d think, with recent developments, that the liberal-leaning press would have switched positions in regard to M.I.A., maybe even apologize for the horrible treatment she received. After all, the meat of her criticism is now practically unquestionable. And so I was confused by this article from affidavit.art, which is a rather woke-leaning website. The piece’s author, Fariha Róisín, purports to demonstrate herself taking a nuanced and forgiving tack toward M.I.A., but in doing so she reinforces some of the most reactionary and regressive impulses of our current social justice paradigm. In reading through it, seeing how deftly it continues to smear M.I.A. for the crime of being a genuinely dissident artist, we can get a good bead on the self-destructive tendencies of wokeism.

Róisín’s article is a personal reflection upon her relationship with M.I.A. as an artist, starting with her infatuation with the M.I.A’s early work, and moving into political disappointment that culminated in her asking hostile questions to the artist at a MoMa panel. She frames things by explaining

I hadn’t listened to Maya’s [M.I.A.’s] work in a couple of years, after she somewhat embarrassingly responded off the cuff to a question about Black Lives Matter: “Is Beyoncé or Kendrick Lamar going to say Muslim Lives Matter? Or Syrian Lives Matter? Or this kid in Pakistan matters?”

MIA’s comment, I would argue, is tone-deaf. Within the context that Róisín presents it, it certainly comes across as insensitive. The US criminal justice system is a world-historic atrocity that has ruined countless lives. It should be discussed in stark terms, and it’s fine to criticize someone who appears to not regard it with the severity it deserves.

But let’s look at MIA’s full quote, as it appeared in The Daily Standard:

“It’s interesting that in America the problem you’re allowed to talk about is Black Lives Matter. It’s not a new thing to me — it’s what Lauryn Hill was saying in the 1990s, or Public Enemy in the 1980s. Is Beyoncé or Kendrick Lamar going to say Muslim Lives Matter? Or Syrian Lives Matter? Or this kid in Pakistan matters? That’s a more interesting question. And you cannot ask it on a song that’s on Apple, you cannot ask it on an American TV programme, you cannot create that tag on Twitter, Michelle Obama is not going to hump you back”

Knowing anything about MIA’s personal history makes it clear that she did not intend to diminish the horrors of American judicial violence. When one reads the full quote (oh, the horror of having to parse an entire paragraph!), it’s clear she’s stressing a bigger picture here, criticizing the fact that the vast majority of US liberals still refuse to criticize US militarism, even as they’ve become near-pathological in defining themselves as social justice crusaders. She is, in short, criticizing the ineffective and narrow politics of people like Róisín.

I cannot speak for Kendrick and Beyonce in specific, but I have known dozens of putatively woke people--people who consume all the right cultural artifacts, who would never speak over a black person in a workplace meeting, who have been very vocal critics of police violence for upwards of 4 whole years--who still proudly celebrate the armed forces.

Through direct military action, support for brutal dictatorships, and otherwise meddling in the affairs of other countries in pursuit of our own financial interests, the American Military Industrial Complex has been the single biggest purveyor of human suffering worldwide for the past 70-odd years. They have killed literally tens of millions of people, ruined the lives of a few hundred million more, and immiserated billions. US foreign policy spends trillions of dollars killing brown people and enriching a handful of elites. And, to most American wokeists, that constitutes at best a complicated situation worthy of consideration and debate--unlike, say, someone who supports the wrong movie to win best picture, or who doesn’t celebrate Cardi B--these people deserve uniform and unambiguous condemnation. This perplexing mindset is what M.I.A/ was criticizing.

Of course, those who operate within this mindset are going to reject this criticism. They will refuse to just listen to those who question their approach to social justice. They will speciously declare such criticism as evidence of the evil nature of the person who uttered it, demand the “cancellation” of said person, and use all criticisms of their condemnation as proof of their own righteousness--if what they were saying wasn’t good and true, then why did so many bad and wrong people disagree with it?

Unless, that is, they take so-called “nuanced” route outlined by Róisín. In the face of overwhelming evidence of the vicious self-certainty of her peers, Róisín  attempts to deflect such criticism by introducing a new plane of equivocation. MIA isn’t evil, she says. The artist is just deeply ignorant, a defect born of her inability to listen in the correct manner:

Cancelling people is exhilarating, especially when it’s done by marginalized folks, those who so often experience the world through white supremacy—sometimes as a soft and subtle barrage, other times through vicious and terrifying means. The ability to dictate someone’s fate, when you’ve long been in the shadows, is a kind of victory. Like saying “Fuck You” from underneath the very heavy sole of a very old shoe. But while outrage culture has its merits, nuance has evaporated. So often it involves reducing someone to their mistakes, their greatest hits collection of fuck-ups.

This does not mean that we should simply forgive an untoward statement. It certainly does not mean we should try to understand where that statement came from. Nor does it even mean we should read a statement within the context of the full paragraph in which it appeared. Oh no. It means, instead, we should ascribe that statement to ignorance:

What I believe Maya is trying to say is that American issues have become global. What she lacks the language to say is: how do we also care about the many millions of people around the world who are dying, right now? Why does American news, American trauma, American death, always take center-stage?

It’s pretty fucking insulting to insist that M.I.A. “lacks language.” But Róisín makes the exact same assertion again, a few paragraphs later.  She ends the lead-in to her description of the moment in which she calls out M.I.A. (which is interminably long and ponderous) with the following, deeply chilling quote: “You can understand Maya’s perspective without agreeing with her, but I had another question. How do you hold someone you love accountable?” Indeed. Even if you try in earnest to understand someone’s perspective, that does not absolve you of your duty to punish them for their word-crimes.

During the talk, M.I.A, rightfully, defended herself against accusations of racism. We can all agree that’s a mistake. In reality, it’s a mistake because wokeists considering defending oneself to constitute proof of guilt. In “nuanced” woke framing, it’s a mistake because it reveals a refusal to just listen:

Her incomprehension that people could be upset by her remarks reflected her naivety about how the internet kills its darlings. Two weeks prior to our meeting, Stephon Clark was murdered, shot twenty times in the back by two police officers. To this she responded: “Yeah, well no-one remembers the kid in Syria who is being shot right now either. Or the kid that’s dying in Somalia.” It made me wonder if she was unwell, not on a Kanye level, but just enough to lack the mechanisms it takes to understand perspective.

[ … ]

Laconic and aloof, I remind Maya on stage that anti-blackness is not an American issue, it’s universal. Perhaps it’s ego, or shameful anger, but I know she cares. Before she begins to speak I realize that you have to build empathy when someone fails you. That they’re not yours to own. You have to try your best to talk to them, and that it’s never helpful to reduce them to a punchline. I believe in Maya’s possibility to grow. I believe in the possibility of change. Maybe that’s my own naivety, but it’s also my political stance. It’s not about compromising ideology, or even making space for the existence of those ideas. It’s about creating dialogue. She begins to speak, and I listen. Holding space for her when I can without biting my tongue. But, mainly, asserting myself as hard as I can, with as much compassion as the situation deserves. We are sisters in this fight, and we’re butting heads—but both critique and accountability are important. So I remind her with a glance, with an interjection, that I’m here to talk, too.

Ascribing an ideological disagreement to one side’s refusal to listen to the other side is perhaps the laziest form of argument. It is, after all, the preferred tactic of Jordan Peterson’s idiot fans. The assumption is that one side is manifestly correct, and so the only way someone could disagree with them is they didn’t bother to listen to what that side had to say. Even if they claim to have listened, they must have listened incorrectly. Otherwise, they would certainly agree with what the other person was saying.

Róisín takes this process well beyond the Peterson fans’ simple wailing of “you need to watch more of his videos!”  She instead crafts an ethos of false humility out of a long and detailed description of attempting to not dismiss MIA’s viewpoint even as she does exactly that, of announcing how little pleasure she’s taking in describing the manifest evil of the horrible, ignorant pop star.  

This displays the bizarre definition of “listening” as the act of simply remaining silent while another person speaks. You’ll notice that Róisín doesn’t bother to cite anything M.I.A. said--it’s unlikely she retained anything, other than perhaps appropriate pull-quote that would, outside of context, allow her to present the artist as an ignorant racist. Listening remains, by definition, a unidirectional affair. But turning it into a completely passive act turns it into a powerful rhetorical tool. Listeners need not attempt to understand speakers (that might actually go against the spirit of proper Listening). It’s still okay to demonize someone for something they never actually said. The power of passive listening is that it allows us to feign humility and claim its mantle of righteousness, to disguise dismissal as empathy.

Those who have actually studied race theory might notice a pretty incredible contradiction in Róisín’s penultimate paragraph. Her belief that anti-blackness is a universal constant is perhaps ascendent now, at least within middlebrow woke media. But this is by no means an accepted understanding within actual scholarship: Adolph Reed, Barbara and Karen Fields, Asad Haider, Walter Benn-Michaels, Stephen Steinberg, and Kenneth Warren would all strongly disagree with such an assertion.

Broadly, these scholars (and dozens of others, all erased by Róisín) argue that such a conception of anti-blackness is actually incredibly regressive, as it is based on an understanding of race that cannot be combatted through personal or political action. If Róisín had bothered to actually listen--in the sense where she not only received but actively engaged with what other people were saying--she might not have made such a comment. But that’s not what she does. That’s not what is safe. That’s not what is possible. What is safe, and possible, and popular is exactly what Róisín does in this article: she presents an incredibly imperious argument in the guise of pathological humility; her perspective becomes validated precisely because of its dismissiveness. Nevermind its self-contradictions. Nevermind its profound inefficacy. She’s right, her critics are wrong, and that is all that anyone is allowed to say.

[bopeepwritingsheep]

So uhhh, I’ve been sitting on this for literal months and I’ll probably sit on it for More Months but here are scraps from my Big Magnulia Fic. If you keep up with my magnulia stuff on AO3 it’s essentially an au sequel fix-fic to canon BUT all of those fics are the background Magnulia stuff for this fic.

It’s literally just scraps of the scenes I have written most of them are incomplete but I Crave Validation and it’ll probably be LITERAL MONTHS till i post any of this ANYWAY because I actually want to have a longfic DONE before posting for once in my GODDAMN LIFE

So uhhhh, here y’all go?

----

Taako’s pretty damn certain that as the only one of these chucklefucks who practically grew up on caravans, it absolutely makes him the person with the authority to say that road trips fucking suck. There’s never enough room in the wagon for everyone to sit comfortably, no one can ever decide what music to listen to, somebody always wants to play eye spy or some other toddler distraction bullshit.

So the fact that this particular road trip is a murder road trip only makes it marginally better--Because at least when it’s all over he can take all the pent-up annoyance and frustration and just go ham on the dumb fuck who decided it was a good idea to hurt his family.

Governor Kalen is, as it turns out, not as hard to find as Merle and Taako expected but it’s only because he sent Magnus a goddamn cryptic taunt letter. Like some fantasy Bond villain, a letter that probably would have been more effective if Magnus could remember who Kalen even was. It’s good for them, because Magnus just squinted at the thing and asked if maybe whoever sent it had the wrong address, the thinly veiled death threats either sailing over his head or blocked out by weird lich magic.

So of course it meant that Taako and Merle had to snatch the letter away and look at all of the obvious baiting that Magnus should have recognized--So this clearly was gross lich memory juju, if Magnus couldn’t make heads or tales of the clear goading taunts. Taako would wager money that forgetting Kalen must also have meant the inability to figure out who Kalen was, because it would have made a pretty shitty sacrifice if he could just figure it out again later.

So that’s how he and Merle end up in the entirely shitty situation of fighting off villain minions who had been thoroughly prepared for them. Some sort of anti-magic field and a goddamn rope snare that has Merle hanging upside down fifteen feet up calling out every curse in dwarven, common, and a few in celestial he must have picked up from Pan.

It’s not like Taako is completely helpless without magic, he’s a fucking flip wizard extraordinaire but it’s annoying as fuck to find himself suddenly magicless with about ten creepy mercenary dudes coming at him from all directions. He’s lucky he’s dexterous as shit or else dodging away from them would be trickier, he can see the edge of the ward and knows that if he can just wizard flip his way across it these losers wouldn’t know what hit them.

And as one of the mercenaries goes flying past Taako almost too fast for him to dodge, he certainly doesn’t know what hit them.

His head snaps to attention just in time to see a towering half-orc woman launch two more minions into the air. Taako takes the distraction for the opportunity it is and vaults himself forward, ducking under grabs and tripping one fucker as he cartwheels out of the anti-magic ring. He’s halfway through the incantation for Thunderwave when the woman wretches a stray branch from a nearby tree and just wallops three more soldiers in one swing. Taako pivots and goes to pull Merle out of the snare trap the dumbass had gotten caught up in.

Clearly the Competent Mystery Woman’s got this situation covered.

He keeps one eye on her fight as he snaps the rope holding Merle with a magic missile, just in case she decides that Dos Horny Boys need the same ass kicking as minion crew. However, she seems more than happy to just wail on Kalen’s little brute squad only stopping when she has the last conscious member held up by the throat.

The growl she releases is utterly spine chilling, rumbling and guttural like she gargles with hot glass every morning. She holds the man aloft, just inches from her face and demands, “Did Kalen send you?!”

Oh yeah, Taako’s real grateful big lady’s on their side.

As casually as he’s able Taako saunters closer, resting the krebstar against his shoulder, he isn’t flexing or anything but he’s ready. Just in case this whole deal went south and he needs to get moving.

“Uhhhh, hey there Xena warrior princess, thanks for the assist. Totes appreciate it, but who the fuck are you?”

-----

There’s something entirely fucked up about the whole gods awful situation they’re stuck in, one that the fuckwonder lich twins to blame for this entire murder road trip would appreciate. That Magnus has forgotten Kalen but Julia has forgotten Magnus.

Of course he’s the one that figure it out first, because it isn’t hard to figure out but Merle can be so fucking oblivious to this sort of thing. A woman covered in burn scars named Jewel just happens to be on the same trail of trashed towns they are? That’s one hundo percent suspicious as hell but weirder things have happened in their century and some change of existence so Taako takes it in stride. He has to be certain this is the right woman, he can’t get his hopes up just to get them slammed dunked directly into the trash if this really is some crazy happenstance.

So he takes a chance, Taako leaves a duck on her bedroll.

It’s just a hunch, he’s not actually certain that Magnus ever gave Julia a duck but it’s Magnus, he’d give a perfect stranger a beautifully carved duck and be on his way--So the chances he hadn’t ever given Julia a duck seems astronomically small. So Taako sets his trap and waits, tries to be casual about the fact that he’s clearly lingering closer than he needs to by digging a firepit with mage hand. He might as well get dinner started for these chucklefucks anyway, no one else here can cook worth a shit.

He’s watched these shitty telenovela’s where the tragically dead wife appears out of the goddamn ether healthy and hale and sometimes wearing a sweet eyepatch. Jewel doesn't have an eyepatch but she's got burn scars that travel up her entire left side. On her ring finger is a particularly gnarly scar, and he’s damn surprised she didn’t lose it entirely. Granted, it’s not like she seems to be much of a finesse fighter. He’s watched her practically decapitate a man with the blunt edge of her shield, she could lose a finger or two and do just fine.

Her face is--well, he’s pretty sure even if he’d known what Julia had looked like he wouldn’t have recognized her. She’s missing the distinctive tusks of orckind, the way her lips look like they were sewn back together once makes him inclined to think she didn’t lose them willingly. He’s heard of that, half-orcs filing them down but Taako wagers a glance at her when she’s in deep conversation with Merle he sees the gaps.

When he listens to her speak he can hear the smallest lisp that she’s learned to talk around--She’s had them out for a few years then.

----

Jewel isn’t quite sure what exactly hits her, one moment she heaving string of rabbits off her broad shoulders, ready to pull out her skinning knife from her pack when she spots it. Something small and wooden out of the corner of her eye, sat right in the center of her bedroll

Without thinking she drops the rabbits, forgotten behind her as she makes a beeline for the wooden carving--The scent of cherry wood and varnish hits her nose the moment she picks it up and her mind seems to disengage from the world around her. A duck, small and unassuming but artfully carved and the look of it, the feel of the neat grooves beneath her fingers, it snaps something in her heart.

She’s crying--She’s sobbing and she doesn’t know why all she knows is that this little duck, this small insignificant little object means the entire world to her and she just doesn’t know why. Her legs give out beneath her and she stumbles onto her bedroll. She curls onto her side, her entire body curled tight around the duck so nothing can hurt it--Nothing can take it from her ever again.

She had a duck like this once, she can't remember when or where but she can see it in her mind's eye. An echo of the little duck in her hands, passed from smaller hands into her larger ones with the most delicate care. A duck nestled under her arm, a ring on her finger, someone warm hand resting on her hip.

The wood smells like home. Jewel can't breathe.

----

“Woah there, mountain lady--You--Shit--You okay there? You need like--A snack? Fuck--Merle?! Stop flirting with that pine tree and get your ass over here we have a situation!”

Bad plan, well not bad perse because Taako certainly got a reaction out of Jewel but he’d been hoping for a more eureka moment and less fantasy mental breakdown.

----

“Hey Jewel, you feelin’ better?”

“I--Yeah, I’m sorry, I don’t really know what came over me?”

“Don’t worry ‘bout it, happens to the best of us, ya know?”

“I’m not really sure I do...I’m not really sure I know anything.”

“Well, that’s alright, Taako’s never known anything a day in his life and he’s doing just fine.”

A bark of a laugh made it’s way out of the woman’s throat and Merle felt momentarily satisfied, even as Taako squawked in indignation on the other side of the campfire, “When this is all over, if you’re not completely sick of us yet, I think I’ve gotta friend who might be able to help you out with all that not knowing.”

“Is he another cleric?”

“Oh, hell no, pretty much opposite actually. Real punchy kinda guy, sorta like you actually. A lot like you, he’s from Ravensroost too.”

“Ravensroost...I--I lived there with...my family? I’ve spent as long as I can remember trying to avenge it but--but I can’t even remember why, I just remember the smoke, wreckage, the bodies, and Kalen.”

“Doesn’t seem like a good guy to remember.”

“Understatement of the goddamn century, old man.” Taako snarked as he used mage hand to fiddle with their potatoes roasting in the coals.

“Sometimes I remember things I know how to do, when the innkeeper’s wife took me in when I was healing I helped her make bread, I can’t remember learning it but all the motions are there anyway. One day I was picking up new pans from the blacksmith and I watched him for just a minute and knew he wasn’t quenching his tools right, I think I might have been a blacksmith.”

“Well, then that’s another thing you do know and it’s not anything to do with Kalen!”

“That duck. I remember that duck.”

“Yeah, you sure felt some kind of way about it.”

“It felt like--It felt like home. I didn’t know I remembered home.”

----

Kalen paces across the room, occasionally deigning to glance over at the bound elf. It had been terribly difficult containing him, but Kalen’s been planning this since The Day of Story and Song when he’d learned Magnus was still alive. That had been the moment he’d decided to put an end to the games with His General.

He plans to collect his Lieutenant and they will either play their games again or he will put an end to them once and for all. His chances are so much slimmer, with the revelation as to why his Lieutenant had been so special. An interplanar being, of course, Kalen had been drawn to him--He’s always had such a taste for the exotic.

“Hey, Fuckface. You gonna give me your fantasy Bond speech or do I have to entertain myself?”

Slowly Kalen turns his gaze towards the elf, he’s beautiful enough but so terribly delicate. Like all elves really, all air and no substance--He could place his boot on the thing’s neck and just the lightest weight would snap it. Well, he can’t do that, of course, or else he loses his bait but he puts the thought away for later. After all, he’d obtained quite the interesting polearm from the elf and it will need an accompanying story to tell His General when she’s back to crafting and sharpening his weapons.

“You’re Magnus’ elf. One of them, I suppose.”

“First up, I’m Taako, ya know, from saving the fucking world. Which I know you know because everyone knows. Second, speed up to the monologue," The elf stretches as much as his chains will allow, lounging as if he were a cat in a ray of sun instead of a prisoner in a magic suppressing cell, "I'm getting bored, Governor Fuckboi.”

A slow grin slides onto Kalen’s face as he moves closer and leans against the bars, “Well, what dreadful etiquette to leave a guest without entertainment. Perhaps we can play a game?”

“What about Fantasy Go Fuck Yourself?”

“That’s not very cooperative now is it? I thought you wanted entertainment.”

“Your idea of a game is stalking an amnesiac who you failed to murder. Forgive me if I’m not falling over myself to join you in your fuckboi stalker corner.”

“It should have killed them both.”

“What?”

“I meant to kill them both but they survived. All three of us survived, doesn't that feel like fate?”

“It feels like you’re a goddamn sociopath trying to justify his fucked up murder the hypotenuse plot where he fucking murdered every other member of his delusional love triangle.”

“I’ll admit I jumped the cart a bit, I could have been more patient. If I’d starved the town a little longer or gone after the father they would have handed themselves over. The Burnsides have always been martyrs.”

“With you missing sooner or later Magnus will come, the rest of your little family is a minor inconvenience but with you here as collateral I think that takes care of both fronts nicely.”

“Yeah, lure him here so you can kill Maggie and steal his wife, you’re just a regular fairytale villain.”

“What makes you think I want to kill Magnus? She might be more capable but Waxman is nowhere near so stable without Burnsides to temper her orcish nature.”

“You-You absolute fucking creep! You can't just treat them like a fucking--Some fucking matched set collectible dolls or some bullshit!”

“Of course they're a matched set, The General and Her Lieutenant. I made them what they are, made them heroes, they'd be nothing without me.”

"Magnus has been fifty times the man you'll ever ben for longer than you've been *alive*."

"Perhaps this Magnus isn't the one I knew, but neither is, ah what did you call her? 'Jewel' isn't Julia Waxman, now is she? It's a fresh start, you see sometimes a forest just needs a little *brushfire* to get life growing again. That's what I did for the rebels Raven's Roost, aren't they thriving?"

“I swear to every fucking plane in existence, if I don’t utterly trash your entire fucking face then you can be goddamn guaranteed someone else will do it for me. Your shit has gone on for way too fucking long. Maggie’s got a goddamn army of folks willing to wreck your shit and karma is gonna bite you like a bitch, you despicable troglodyte.”

Kalen licks the blood from his split lip, smearing it against his teeth, and smiles.

"I'll send Magnus your regards when he arrives."

[peachywise]

Hey everyone, so I’m writing this post to outline my brief history on my mental health, how certain things started, and how I deal with said certain things. I’m currently writing this at 1 o’clock in the morning, dead tired, but unable to fall asleep because as soon as I shut my eyes, my brain starts to panic, my arms lash out, and I’m left in this utterly frustrated, unforgiving position.  I’m hoping that writing this down will somehow be therapeutic, and maybe offer insight to others as to what exactly my day to day life is like with social anxiety, general anxiety, and panic disorder. I always know I feel a little better hearing about some of your guys’ stories, knowing I’m not alone and learning new tips on how to deal with it. Who even knows if and when I’m going to post this, but read under the cut for a rather long synopsis on life with Lucy.

So, I think generally everyone used to think I was a shy kid during my elementary school years, but I knew I wasn’t. With friends, I was often the most outgoing of the bunch, but with new social situations and new people, I would shut in on myself, nervous about saying the wrong thing, or overstepping and causing trouble or my parents getting upset with me. I grew up in a household with a mother who was a teacher, and a father I used to write diary entries about how much I hated him. My dad has a lot of anger issues, and would lash out at nearly anything our family said if he was having a bad day, or was progressively getting annoyed. I feel the need to point out it wasn’t exactly verbal abuse, but it bordered it. (I have a much better relationship with my father today then when I was a kid.) Me and my older brother of two years talked a lot about how we thought they would end up getting a divorce, until I graduated high school, for a clearer picture.

I am still afraid of bothering my parents and keep to myself a lot of the time with what I’m feeling or dealing with.

When I went into middle school, we moved from an extremely small town (I’m talking I went to a k-7 school with 200 people in it) to a very big city with a grade 7-9 school with over 800 people in it. My high school grad class alone was the biggest in my province at the time, of all time, with well over I think 1000 people. I was very shut in, but had an amazing group of friends but got heavily tormented and bullied pointedly by multiple people in our class. I think in grade 9 I realized I really had a lot of issues connecting with people, and I couldn’t understand why people who were “shy”, like actual literal shy people, didn’t understand what I meant when I said I was constantly afraid I was annoying my friends, and I truly believed everyone hated me, but if they talked to me, they were pretending just to be nice.

I think highschool really was when I was like “Oh. This is anxiety.” Because I was a lot more aware of what that really was, and how it played apart in my life. I knew I would go through depressed bouts, but I never really wanted to say I had depression because it wouldn’t necessarily stay, and I knew what it looked like with friends who suffered from it. I now realize, with the help of my doctor, that those bad depression bouts are just symptoms from my anxiety when I’m getting bad and shutting in on myself.

I’m twenty years old now, and I’ve never been in a relationship. Never kissed anyone minus a couple of dares and a recent stint in the play Sense and Sensibility where I had to mack with the dude playing Edward Ferrars.  I lose friends often simply because I am awful at keeping in touch (this is more or less my inability I seem to have at replying to facebook/text messages, I’m a lot better with just hanging out in person and catching up that way). My closests friends understand that even if we don’t talk for awhile, I’m still very much invested in their lives. I have two very very very close friends, Georgia and Isobel, who I’ve known for about 8+ years who are my core group and family. They are the two people I trust most in the world, could tell anything to, and without them, I think I would be a very different person, unable to work through problems. I know for a fact I can lean on them.

Now, I’ve learned to really accept the fact that yes, I have anxiety. I’m okay with it, and I am very open in telling people right off the bat. “I’m sorry if I come across as cold at first, I have issues communicating, getting to know people ect.” I only make room in my life now for those who understand, or at the very least make an effort to, because it saves me from a lot of pain in the future

ON TO MY PANIC DISORDER:

I developed this when I was eighteen years old. I had dealt with anxiety near my whole life, but minus a couple of small hard to breathe moments in my final year of high school, I’d never suffered a panic attack.

My first one triggered it, I assume.

I’ve mentioned on here a couple of times that my biggest fear is my brother dying. We aren’t by any means best friends, but he’s family, and as a kid, I would have reoccurring night terrors that my brother would die. Even now, the only nightmares I have that even scare me a little are one’s where he dies. I’ve had to leave sleepovers before because I would wake up sobbing.

In 2016 my brother and I went to a concert in a city a few hours away. I brought a friend, he brought a friend, and our parents came with. The morning after when we were supposed to leave, we decided to quickly stop by the mall and a couple of cool shops. When we were at the mall, my brother had been saying he wasn’t feeling great, just feeling off. When we went into a comic book store an hour later, I was behind a shelf looking at some stuff when I heard a crash and ran over to look. My brother was on the ground, and all I saw was blood running down his face as he had a seizure, and I immediately turned away and started panicking as the store clerk and my parents rushed over. My mind had registered the blood as him crying blood, and I honest to god thought I was witnessing my brother dying right before my eyes.

It was a long seizure, over five minutes, and when it finally stopped he was unconscious for I think a minute or two before he woke up as the paramedics started helping him. He couldn’t remember anything, thought we still lived in our old town. When we went to the hospital, we waited to see what was happening, but no tests gave us any answers. He finally got his memory back, however, but he still doesn’t remember the seizure which really isn’t uncommon I think.

Oh, and the blood on his face was from a cut on his forehead, because when he began to seize and he dropped, he slammed his head on the glass counter.

He was discharged later that night, and we went home the next day. They think it was a seizure brought on by stress.

Seizures now are unfortunately a trigger for me. It’s taken me a long time to even be able to watch them happen on TV. I was recently at a concert, The 1975, when a girl behind me had a seizure and I immediately had a panic attack and had to leave the venue.

My first panic attack after that was in my first year of college on public transit (public transit had always been a stressor for my anxiety, I had only just started using it that year).

My panic attacks basically make me think I’m about to have a seizure. My head gets these weird tingles, I can’t feel my hands or feet, I start shaking, and I honest to god feel what I can only describe as an overloading static in my brain. I thought I was going to have a seizure and die on that bus.

After about the fourth panic attack, I went to my doctor and got prescribed Ativan. It took me forever to actually take it when I had a panic attack, because I was too nervous to start a new medication. That’s anxiety for ya.

I took it once, but it didn’t work too well, and I never took it again and just kind of suffered through them. I still do.

I still have times when I walk through a mall or a crowd and I start to feel faint and panicky, and need to leave as soon as possible. I also have troubles staying in hotels or going to a big city.

At the start of last May, my night panic attacks started. Every time I closed my eyes, I would freak out and spend four hours or more shutting my eyes, having a panic attack, waking up, and repeating that over, and over, and over. That’s what tonight is.

My parents ended up having to take me to the doctor after we went to stay in a larger city to visit my grandpa after surgery, as the entire time I was panicking, unable to turn it off. The. Entire. Time. They almost had to take me to the hospital the first night because I was in the hotel room crying and freaking out, unable to fall asleep, get enough water, etc. It happened the next nigh too, until I left.

I got prescribed an anti-depressant, meant to knock me out at night. It gives me really bad dry mouth however, and makes me feel weird and makes me dissociate more than I already do. My doctor suggested I try taking  gravol instead, since most over the counter sleep aids are just that. It works wonders, and it’s the only thing that can knock me out in up to 45 mins - 1 hour when I have these bad nights.

Here are some tips for falling asleep at night as well, if you have panic attacks but don’t have anything like melatonin around;

I find background noise helps. I noticed that my big issue when I have to sleep alone at night is the quietness and feeling so alone. I have a television in my room, so I turn on the home channel at a very low volume. The light the TV makes and the voices kinda trick me into thinking it’s sort of day time, that people are up and moving, so I can sleep.

If you don’t have a TV, I suggest finding an audio book on youtube or Spotify and turning that on. Focus on the words, trust me, your body is tired enough that it will clonk out as soon as you stop focusing on your panic.

I can’t sleep in silence. On nights when I’m not feeling anxious at all, I turn on my sleep playlist with bon iver and stuff like that. If I’m feeling a teeny anxious, I turn on my film score playlist, with pretty instrumentals. If I’m feeling hella anxious, like I may have a rough night ahead of me, I turn on ocean or rain sounds on an app I use.

Stay hydrated. If you feel anxious, drink some water, make some tea (no caffeine.)

I also feel I’m way more susceptible to panic attacks if I have caffeine in my system. I can’t drink coffee at night or in the mornings. Afternoon is typically fine since I’m at my least likely to panic during that time, but morning and evenings are a no no. It makes me way too hyper aware of my surroundings and everything starts to kinda blur together.

I feel the need to point out that I’ve never gone to a counsellor, but I know I should. My doctor keeps telling me I should, so I can get prescribed something more daily that will help me with my general anxiety. My mom hasn’t been the most understanding of my mental health, there are a lot of issues with our relationship. A lot. But, it’s gotten to the point where she’s seen me have these breakdowns, seen me have these weeks where I am asleep all day, unable to even talk to anyone. The next time I’m in a bad spot, she’s going to take me to a counsellor.

I think that’s it.

Yeah.

I highly doubt anyone read this long, and I’m not even sure how coherently put all this was, and I’m sure I’ve missed a bunch of other key details, but I think that’s it.

Please know that if any of this sounds familiar to you, I’m always here to talk, to understand, to listen. Still to this day, I really can’t open my mouth and say something without immediately regretting it. I fear that every snapchat I send, every message I make, annoys someone and they hate me. I fear my friends all hate me. I register the fact that these are irrational thoughts, not true, but hey. Feelings are feelings.

Thank y’all for reading this.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Watching the Legends episode. Pretty good episode, for once! Still probably only a B, maybe a B+. 

Rip is investigating vampires, while pretending to be Sherlock Holmes. 

Poor Jax. I’m amazed he didn’t try to break up sooner. Ray, it’s very rude not to tell people about side-effects in advance. 

Amaya heart-eyes Zari. Zari finally has an articulation of what we all knew she was there to do, good! Interesting to see where they for this.

Did Nate really just “wazzup” the crew? Does he even know how out of date that is? Also, Mick is reading Dracula BEFORE they find out about the vampire plotline of the week! Which means he’s literally just reading it for fun! One of the most dense works of fiction out there! Mick <3

Why does Nate know anything about math, exactly? He was supposed to be a historian? Except they don’t care about that. 

Nate says vampire. Mick: *perks up* *randomly has a stake* I carry it around my whole life! So much fic potential here... and he wears garlic <3

Nate’s accent is awful. 

The gag with the smartwatch is funny.  

Sara waits until AFTER mind-wiping the guy to announce that they’re going to break the law? 

How did Rip get into the grave...?  Though this actually supports the idea of an alternative plotline where Rip isn’t as much of a bureaucratic asshole.

Amaya: *heart-eyes Zari LIKE WHOA*

Rip always goes straight for “THIS IS THE BIG BAD IT’S SO BAD LET ME TELL YOU HOW BAD IT IS”. Always. 

“The Time Bureau is too bureaucratic to understand this” = this would have been a good place to start. Unfortunately, Rip only bringing it up now - AFTER he was so pro-Bureau the last few episodes - makes it come off less as sincere and more as outright manipulative. and then he offers to call off the pursuit only AFTER Sara starts negotiating, not before? even more manipulative. He was holding that back deliberately so that he could use it as a trading tool.

Good on Mick for not trusting Rip.  

Stein gets to play dress up even more in this episode. Evil ancestor, I assume. 

Nate = potatoes. I dunno, guys, maybe keep the potatoes? 

Yep, evil ancestor. Sir Stein, an actor AND a Renfield. 

...Order of the Shrouded Compass. Okay. You know what, I’ll go with it.

I really enjoy how into the vampire hunting Mick is. 

Do you think the mystic is from America because the actress couldn’t do a British accent?

RAY SUGGESTS CALLING SOMEONE??? Good lord, it’s like they actually listen to us sometimes.

Sara enjoys hitting people. Rip enjoys watching. If they didn’t have such an awful start, I’d ship ‘em. 

Demon eyes - I’ve always loved that effect. Oh, interesting! Zari was the older sister. 

Damien Darhk, who literally no one wants to see again. *sigh* 

Okay, Sara, he’s still asleep? Literally all you need to do is, like, slit his throat? cut off his head? stab him in the heart? YOU’RE IN A ROOM FILLED WITH SHARP IMPLEMENTS. THIS WOULD TAKE YOU LESS THAN THREE SECONDS AND THEN YOU COULD GO RESCUE THE OTHERS. WHY DO YOU NOT DO THIS??? (also, Rip is ALWAYS saying “don’t worry about your own issue, worry about mine - I mean, the greater good”)

...wow, I wrote that BEFORE Rip starts defending not killing Darhk. “Personal prejudice”. Wow, Rip. You’re being a real bitch here. But at least he eventually admits he’s wrong?

(okay - how many people want to vote in Rip to be Mallus? it’s pretty typical for the obsessed hunter to be revealed as the bad guy. Though that’s probably too advanced for this show...) 

Zari has even more tragic backstory.  Also, her view makes no sense. He had magic powers, she didn’t? but okay, okay, whatever, grief makes things weird. 

Stein is right; Jax shouldn’t be sneaking around behind his back. He should’ve just presented it to his face. What is WITH CWverse and a complete inability to tell the truth?

SERIOUSLY? No one has removed Rip’s controls over Gideon yet? NO ONE? after last season? are these people STUPID?

Mick: “told you so”

Can we all agree that Rip is being an unmitigated jerk here? He deliberately agreed with Sara in order to lull her suspicions while planning on stabbing her in the back, he gave her the captaincy only to undermine her while pretending to support her, he’s deliberately keeping them helpless using their own ship (THEIR ship - he turned it into a training ground! he turned off Gideon!) because he sees it as his own private property - he sees the Legends themselves as extensions of himself, really, “I made you I can break you”, “you disagree with me, fine, then I’m going to force you to sit in time out”, etc. He’s being a reall dick.

Obvious con going on with Zari here. 

Though Eleanor being able to use the totem is...weird. I thought it was more specialized a tool than that? 

At least it seems like they TRIED to do something about the secret commands, but seriously, you can’t just ask Gideon; she’s incentivizd to lie because of her programming. 

I love Mick just reading the entire time. I have been there. When you’re into a book, fuck the world.  Mick reaffirms himself as my favorite. 

Another claims-he’s-a-God character? Really? We’re going with that again? 

*laughs* Okay, Darhk’s vampire-esque rising is just too silly to take seriously. And the “who stole my watch” is funny. I would like him if he wasn’t, well, a Nazi. 

Okay, the music cue and Darhk’s brand-new power set is funny. But seriously, where is the music coming from? (as in - he lost his watch. The Legends took it. Where is it now? he certainly doesn't have it. So the music can't be from the watch.) and why haven’t the Bureau picked up some anti-magic skills at this point? Especially if Rip knew about Mallus?

...what the fuck. What...the...fuck? If Rip has a time freezing device, why doesn’t he use it more? or ever? or anything? Though the “I’m going to walk slow” thing obviously backfires. If you know you have a time limit, then seriously, just shoot the guy?

Interesting, Darhk remembers everything, even post mind-wipe. 

Why couldn’t Zari pull the totem back earlier in the fight? If this was meant to be a reclaiming moment, it was a bit too understated. Though I approve of her doing it to defend Amaya (at least obliquely). 

Dead Time Bureau agents. Lovely. Rip, you’re the WORST leader. Ever. Everyone who follows you is just a pawn to you, aren’t they?

Amaya: *EVEN MORE HEART EYES TO ZARI*

Amaya, Zari is 1000% a step up from Nate.

Rip doesn’t care about the dead agents. Sara has a good point about how Rip goes rogue all the time from everyone who ever trusted him. 

Hahahahahahahahahaha, Rip creates a legal system and is surprised that it applies to him. Oh, sweet justice. He always did think he was above the rules - from the very first introduction scene of season 1, when the Time Masters literally designed an entire plan that counted on Rip breaking the rules and being a selfish asshole. That was literally the plot of season 1 - “let’s assume Rip will do this breaking the rules thing”. At that time, it seemed like his justification was his grief over his family - understandable! even I thought it was understandable - but the more we see of him, the more we see that it’s not. If only this show goes in full-fledged into making this Rip’s character arc, rather than just his characterization, that would be cool.

Now if only the Flash would realize this whole “law” thing applies to everyone...

Though seriously, they just undermined it. If the other Director approved the mission, the blame falls in part on him. He who authorizes can’t suddenly blame he who suggested. That’s not how responsibility works! 

Oh, well. It was a decent attempt at a moral.

Though I don’t really like how Sara characterized it as being “cold”? It’s just...law. 

[itstimetowatch]

Blast from the Past

So we’re picking up right where we left off, huh?

Okay, Wallace, you have every right to be upset so I’m going to let that go, but there a multitude of ways someone can have two fathers, my dude.

Mandy! And everyone making fun of her can eat shit.

Jackie’s friend is Dana Davis from Heroes. Can we keep her and lose Jackie?

Case in point, she’s pissed that Wallace is having a conversation with Veronica. Die in a fire… die in all the fires!

Oh, and she goes to a psychic. Are there literally any non-negative qualities to Jackie’s character? What precisely am I supposed to like about her?

And now after weeks of being a total b-hole to Veronica, now she needs Veronica’s help. What are the odds that the words “I’m sorry” (or any variation thereof) come out of Jackie’s mouth in the course of this case?

And even after asking for Veronica’s help, she’s still being a jerkass about her. So again I ask, what am I supposed to like about this character?

How precisely are you going to call Cora, Veronica? Did you get her phone number? Because I must have missed that scene.

The Exterminator? Really? Really?! That’s the nickname you want to go with?

So did this DUI incident really happen or is Sheriff Shithead just using the Big Lie method of running for office?

Veronica makes a hell of a point about Wallace’s dad’s inability to track him/them down. And I assume by the fact that the show is making this point that we’re never going to get an answer.

Remember back when I reviewed the Extended Pilot and questioned whether or not Veronica had some sort of death wish with her extremely risky behavior? Bugging the Sheriff’s office is big, big fucking risk, and what precisely is she hoping to find on this tap? She’s not even specifically investigating anything that he’s working on. As far as he’s concerned the bus crash was an accident and the case is closed. So what’s the benefit to this HUGE risk she’s taking?

So the psychic stole Jackie’s card? That’s… really anti-climactic.

Backup, my good boy!

So just nothing, then, huh? There’s just not one damn thing worth liking about Jackie. So why do I want to spend so much time getting to know her, exactly? Like Dick Casablancas is a worthless waste of skin and generally, he only appears once or twice an episode for a couple of minutes at a time. I know almost nothing about him because he’s not worth getting to know. The same is true of Jackie but she’s around all the fucking time.

Your best (and kind of only) friend is asking you to let it go, Veronica. He does a hell of a lot for you and asks very little in return. Let him have this.

You know, Wallace, you don’t actually have to show up and be Homecoming King if you don’t really want to. It’s not an obligation. Participation is not mandatory.

And now Jackie is upset that more than one person cares about Veronica and that Veronica cares about more than one person in return. She is the literal worst person in the world. I honest to god cannot stand the sight of her face at this point.

“Maybe Ed Doyle decided to blow his brains out.” Did you find a fucking bullet hole in his head, you gigantic dumbass?

Is Wallace eighteen yet? Because if he’s not then Nathan is kidnapping him, and that certainly wouldn’t help his dirty cop image.

I’ve got to tell you, folks, this season has been a HUGE letdown from last season. I know a lot of shows struggle to find their footing in season two and I’m willing to bear with it, up to a point, but man, that’s three bad episodes out of five. There weren’t three bad episodes all last season.

Like what the fuck even was that plot? Jackie goes to a psychic who steals her identity so she goes to Veronica to get her help and when Veronica catches her psychic friend, Jackie teams up with the identity thief to humiliate Veronica? Or was Jackie bankrolling the psychic and Jackie wanted Veronica to blame Cora so that… what? Or something else? I don’t even know. This whole thing was idiotic.

And now Wallace has run off with his dad, which I can only assume means that he’s not going to be around for a number of episodes, which sucks.

Does that at least mean there’s going to be 80-100% less Jackie in those same episodes? She’s not going to start dating Logan as an excuse to stay relevant to the on-going story, right? I’m honestly not sure how much more of her I can stand.

[gokukazoo]

The Alt-Right are a bunch of weaklings.

I don't mean that in a "oh they're morally weak" sort of way, I mean that in a "they're literally weak" sort of way. They are not able to stand alone in a fight, whether physical or verbal, as long as that fight occurs in person and not on the internet. Because these guys are masters of internet communication. That's not admiration, btw. I'm giving you a fact so you'll be prepared to deal with them, which is to say: if you encounter one of these dung-wads online, ignore them.

But if you encounter them in person, 1) make sure you outnumber them 2) shout them out They can't deal with it. They can't deal with being denied or rejected or ignored. And let me explain why.

I'm not going to talk about the Alt-Right as a whole, but rather one widespread and particularly troublesome demographic of it.

This particular branch of the Alt-Right, the internet-faring young 20-something men, started on internet forums such as 4chan and various subreddits (while 4chan is a pile of crap, not all of Reddit is bad, in fact most of it is good--I'm only talking about certain subreddits within the website). It started, and I'm going to put this as sensitively as possible, because these guys couldn't get girlfriends.

Seriously. From lonely to Nazis? It's more likely than you think.

They fixated themselves on their ability (or inability) to "get women". But they were always "put in the friend zone". They couldn't deal with rejection in any capacity, whatsoever.

This doesn't mean that every teenage dude who "found himself in the friendzone" became an agent of the Alt-Right. I myself once claimed membership of the friendzone (btw the friendzone doesn't exist; just accept rejection and move on, it's not hard), I'm not embarrassed to admit. I didn't become a nazi because 1) I'm a decent human and 2) I GREW TF UP.

But these assholes were SHATTERED. They were devastated and enraged that they couldn't get girlfriends. It sounds like a joke but I'm being absolutely serious.

They blamed everyone but themselves. Rather than grow up and move on from rejection, they developed an ideology of hatred and vengeance. See, they're a bunch of narcissists. They literally cannot handle rejection in any capacity, which is why it's so easy to shut them down if you know the right strats.

They began their agenda of hatred with women. These are the kinds of men who not only think it's okay to r*** women, but that they somehow deserve to. They think they're owed a woman's body because of the past rejection they faced from women. Remember, this is a group of sad men who believe they're literally owed the world for all the terrible things it's done to them.

And because many of them were single throughout high school (remember, I was too, and I turned out fine. If you were single in high school, this is by no means a hit against you. I'm talking about these specific men who were also single) in more homophobic high school settings they would be labeled as "gay", especially if they primarily hung out with other dudes. But rather than shrug it off like a decent person (being labeled as gay is not a big deal because being gay isn't something to be ashamed of, so it shouldn't bother you to be labeled as gay even if you're straight. Gay people get mistaken for straight people plenty of times and they don't throw hissyfits about it) they instead became vapid homophobes.

And they detached themselves from anything remotely feminine. They felt the need to express themselves in whatever hyper-masculine way they could. And they targeted gay people for their hatred next.

It's important to point out that hatred spreads. Not every single future alt-rightist hated women or gays right off the bat, but if they were part of these internet movements and they were open to the idea of hatred, they adopted these ideas with ease.

And you can see where this hatred and entitlement can transfer easily into the Nazi ideology. Hatred against women and gays was gateway hatred for them, and conditioned them to more easily accept other forms. Many of them may not have been anti-semites going into the movement, but they easily adopted those views. Many of them may not have hated disabled people going in, but it wasn't hard for them to start. You see how entitlement mixed with dangerously low self esteem, a victim complex, and preexisting hatred for others easily sets someone up to become an agent of hate.

But you know their origins now. And you know they're weak. If you want to stop them online, ignore them. I mean it. Do not engage them in discussion because you will only give them a platform. If you have a blog and they begin to attack you there, block them and blacklist them. If they tweet you, block them, do NOT engage them in discussion because they will colonize your twitter and use it as a platform. Every time you argue with them they reach your audience, and that's what they want. News stations should never have them on the air. One of these bastards in front of a camera is more deadly than a single bullet, and that's not being dramatic--they are very, very good at getting people to commit violence against marginalized people. If you see them in public, shout them out. Silence them. Make sure they know that if they cross the line, they have to deal with people stronger than them. Because remember, they're weak-willed. As soon as their plans fall apart and things are looking to not go their way, they turn tail and run. That's what we want.

We want them to be afraid again.

[kylewritesaboutthings]

Riot Fest 2016 - Day 1

It is 12:30pm and it feels like a jellyfish is hugging my balls. “Does it look I’m hiding anything in my crotch?” I ask my girlfriend Rachel. My hangover tells me that I’m being more paranoid than I should be…this isn’t my first rodeo. As a Polish punk there are few things I love more than combining my passion for subverting authority with my love of saving money. Which brings us to this point: waddling through the security line at Douglas Park for the first day of Riot Fest Chicago with a half a liter of Jameson saddled between my thighs.  We’ll go ahead and skip past the other illicit substances safely concealed between my size 11 boot and right foot. Like my literary icon Hunter S. Thompson, I feel it is best to experience a story when seeing it from an array of angles, even if those angles are all within your own head.

Like every time before this, my shitty acts of smuggling go off without a hitch and we are now inside the park with the (surprisingly) rarest of Riot Fest beverages: the elusive brown liquor. Unfortunately the time spent waiting for the rest of our party to shuffle through the GA entry line has caused us to miss ska heavy favorites, Big D and the Kids Table, but we take solace in the fact that like checkered vans and skanking, they will be around until the end of time. With a shrug of ‘oh well, next time’ we cut our losses and head to the nearest beer tent to get the day started off right. As we’re nursing the poor decisions of the previous evening (hence the reason why we didn’t have a full fifth of Jameson), I take the time to appreciate the fine work of the folks at All Rise Brewery who once again came to the park to vend their quality, local, higher alcohol percentage beers before we settle into a weekend of $8 Tacate tallboys. Driven by the fresh breath of alcohol into my system and an inability to read a schedule like a normal human being, we split up and I head for the Rise stage because I am not missing a god damn minute of the manmade hurricane that is the Dillinger Escape Plan. As soon as I arrive at the stage I realize two things: this is where all the #summergoths are hanging out trying not to get any color to their skin and that Dillinger Escape plan isn’t going on for another hour. Oops. I take the inaugural sip of my whiskey pouch and head back to the heard, congratulating myself on my skills of shitty espionage and the money I will save because I’ll have Jameson with me alllllll day. What is the old saying about counting chickens? 

I find my friends watching Diarrhea Planet kicking off the Rock Stage, a large pop up stage that only a band with four guitarists can make look like the midsized club in whatever the hell town you’re from. Think the Subterranean in Chicago. Think the Triple Rock in Minneapolis. Think the White Rabbit in San Antonio. But that’s the price that DP pay to layer 4 guitars over one another, and they do it well. Ripping through song after song in their short 30 minute set, singer Jordan Smith takes a very brief moment to apologize “for being so terse”. This will become a theme over the weekend, as everyone but the headlining acts receive a smaller set than usual. Such is with festivals. But unlike most festivals, the bands at Riot Fest put the pedal to the metal and wasted no time with banter and pleasantries. Except for The Hives, but more on that in the next installment. 

After a little while we start to wander over to the Story Heart stage, tucked in the back corner of the grounds behind the Ferris wheel. This is where all those bands in small type that come at the end of a lineup announcement “who you haven’t heard but have totally heard of them” spend the weekend. This time it is the bad ass girls of Bad Cop/Bad Cop who, by the looks of the crowd upon arrival, have had a lot of people take the plunge to actually listen to them.  It’s a great thing to see, as they are lovely people who make ripping, catchy, harmonized pop punk. Their energy is contagious and the tides turned pretty quickly from ‘recovering from last night’ to ‘in it to win it’. While they rolled through favorites like ‘Nightmare’, ‘Rodeo’, and ‘Anti Love Song’, we rolled through whiskey and beer and high fives. 

Luckily the Rise stage, where Dillinger Escape Plan were set to melt faces in an ever setting changing of time signatures that would make a symphonic composer shit themselves, was a hop, skip, and a jump away. More beer, more whiskey, some air guitaring, and some 7/5 timed headbanging ensued. Have you ever wanted to give yourself whiplash? Try headbanging on time with DEP. Ben Weinman is an absolute madman and musically/theatrically they are one of the most interesting bands in metal. A little bummed that we missed the usual destruction that comes with a Dillinger set (it is RIOT fest after all), we meandered back towards the Rock stage to see GWAR do their murderous space alien thing. With a fresh set of politicians to eviscerate, we knew we’d be in for a treat. I can’t tell you what they played, but I can tell you that when you start a set with a decapitation of a president that soaks the first 30 feet of the audience in fake blood…you’ll be in for a good time. Hillary and Trump boxed, with the former ripping the intestines out of the later. 

We now reached the point in any good afternoon of day drinking where you realize that if you don’t eat, you will be in serious trouble. Luckily some holy deity created tacos and soon I had crammed three of them into my facehole while I caught at least one side eyed look of horror from the carne asada vacuum that I had become. Whatever. If you wanted to see someone eat gracefully, you should have come to a festival of thousands of drunk punk kids. Take that, whoever you were. It was not the time for napkins, it was the time for drunken nostalgia. Set Your Goals, the only acceptable twin vocalist band, was back and they were playing just a beer stand away from where we were currently located. It was about this time that my ‘stockpile’ of whiskey had completely run out and we were running on full cylinders…each cylinder being a 16oz can of Mexican PBR. 

Luckily I had been tipped off ahead of time that they would not be doing the ‘Mutiny’ album in full, so I was able to enjoy their career spanning setlist for what it was. They did hit a number of jams from that album, making me even more excited for their fall run in which they would go cover to cover on what is one of my favorite pop punk albums of all time. A great band for group vocals (see: two vocalists), the whole front of the crowd was a giant sing-a-long of big ole dorks like myself who were excited for the Bay Area favorites to be back in action.

The next few hours were pretty hazy, but this is what I remember of them: • Never get a gyro at a festival, it does not come off a spit and no matter how drunk you are you will be disappointed. • Jimmy Eat World still puts on a great live show and everyone ever still remembers all the words to ‘Sweetness’. • Refused is fucking dead and they should have stayed dead. • I still don’t get Ween. • The Flaming Lips play the same god damn setlist every time they play Riot Fest. Or at least that’s what it sounds like. Just play that song about the robot, already.

After giving up on seeing music for the day, I decided that the press tent was the place to be and snuck Rachel in with me, brushing past the security guard vigilantly checking wristbands with a mutter of ‘it’s cool, I’m with For the Love of Punk and she’s helping me interview Andrew WK’ or something of the nature. HST would be proud. After a short potty break, I then learned the three greatest words I would hear all weekend. Press. Happy. Hour. Less than 10 minutes into entering the press area we were posted up at a table with 5 beers each, or roughly $80 of #preferedsponsor tallboys. Somewhere, HST and my extremely Polish grandma were smiling down on us…proud in their own way. 

Taking those to go, we found the rest of our group and spent some time chatting with our good friends Max and Emily, who help make Riot Fest happen. I will take this time to apologize to Max if I drunkenly said something shitty about the lack of portapotties instead of congratulating them on their excellent layout, somehow reuniting the Misfits, and graciously helping our winter fundraiser for the Bernie Sanders campaign by providing two 3 day passes to raffle off. Sorry Max! More to come on the very large number of things Riot Fest did right this year. 

By the time we finished chatting them up, we missed our mark of leaving before the bands finished up, hearing Fat Mike yell something inaudible to a crowd already starting to head for the gates behind us. Like a boozy salmon in a stream of cheap beers, we flowed out of the park and into the evening…everyone fairly confused but optimistic that we were all going to get rides to wherever we were going. Luckily the fine folks at Five Star Bar had that taken care of, as we hopped about the shuttle service they ran all weekend from the grounds to their Pop Punk DJ night hosted by super-secret special guest DJs, who were not so secret after Set Your Goals announced mid-set that they would be there spinning tunes later that evening. 

As always, an absolute blast was had at Five Star Bar as everyone mingled, met out of towners, and subsequently talked them into shots of everyone’s favorite dumpster liquor…Malort. The gentlemen of Set Your Goals were very nice to oblige my request of ‘Detroit’ by Fireworks, to which I sang embarrassingly loud level. They also had the rap airhorn cued up next to Spotify and every so often (or all the fucking time) we caught a blast of BWOW BWOW BWOW that truly was the cherry on top of the evening. A 3am drunk uber later, we were in bed eating Kumas mac and cheese. And if that isn’t a great way to end an evening, I don’t know what is.

[vigilante0010-blog]

Staying Sane In An Outrage Fueled World

We live in a world nowadays where people are constantly infuriated at things they see on the internet, but the thing most people don't realize is that there are actually people HIRED to get on the internet and piss you off. It's their job, it's how they put food on their table, and it's a fact. You see them every single day you scroll through Facebook or Twitter or mostly any social media website, endless clickable articles with headlines that are TELLING you to feel something, like "Google Translate is Amazing Now, and That Should Terrify You".

There's a man named Milo Yiannopoulos (I had to look at that 4 times to be able to spell it) who is part of the "alt-right" media figure, and during the beginning of this year he managed to say things that got him banned from twitter, kicked out of CPAC, lost him a MAJOR book deal, and quite literally triggered a riot. And if you're wondering why someone would ever do such a thing, it's because it's the motherfucker's job. He gets paid to sit down every night and calculate new ways to piss people off. (See, the irony here is, THAT kind of pisses me off)

But part of staying sane in this absolutely rage fueled internet-bullshit world we live in right now is to remember those things, if you get pissed off, the asshole being paid to piss you off wins, and that sucks. Have you ever seen the headline that says "would you rather your daughter had feminism or cancer"? Well, that's all attributed to my man Milo. Yes, he's a douche. For Christs sake though, the man's whole spiel is basically: Go somewhere to find a marginalized or discriminated group, attack them, then feed off of their reaction and the money he makes from it. The worst part is that he's a Jew who stirs hatred of Jews, an immigrant who stirs hatred of immigrants, and a gay man who speaks against gay rights. He is literally the epiphany of everything he claims he stands against. And you can't ignore him, because then that means you're "okay" with him sending hate mobs and starting riots over minorities. It's an unbeatable business model, as sick and twisted as that may be. Here's a link to a nice video showcasing this stallion: https://youtu.be/wUlTI5Pflqs

An important part to remember about this whole bullshit-angry-all-the-time-burn-down-my-town-for-justice system that we seem to be living in is that every time you let someone "troll" you you're letting them control you. Trolls do what they do because it makes them feel powerful and truthfully, they are. Most of the time just by typing a few words into a keyboard they have the ability to make you feel whatever way they want, which, by the by, is a psychopathic tendency, but that's besides the point. I mean, people don't get on the internet and call you "libtard" And "snowflake" because they want you to share their views, they do it because they want you to react.

And it basically all boils down to the "firehouse of falsehood" propaganda method that was allegedly most effectively used by Vladimir Putin's Russia, to take advantage of the vast young and/or ignorant minds searching the world wide web to insight whatever kind of bullshit emotion or false information they wanted onto the general public, and the scary thing is that it works. It doesn't matter if it makes sense or contradicts itself or even if it has any sort of backup source, it's all due to sheer volume, much in the same way myths and wivestails are indiscriminately believed by millions of people at a time even though they're undeniably untrue. Now, do I think that Donald Trump and his administration are setting up some sort of elaborate Putinesque system with the same set up? No, I think good ol' Grumpy Trump just posts to Twitter six times a day because he has no impulse control and has an inability to leave any sort of insult or hurt feeling he has unanswered. And it doesn't matter whether it's intentional because regardless of if it is or isn't, the effect it creates is exactly the same. That's how he got into office, he stuffed the information channels full of bullshit so that nobody else could voice themselves. And it won't come to a surprise to you that the media system in 2017 is like a grandure paradise for thus type of shit. They treat every single tweet like a white house press release.

And amongst all this noise, social media is chock full of people terrified that they are going to lose their health care, be deported, be denied their marriage rights or die in a nuclear war, and despite all this endless and useless noise, none of those things have occurred. Now, at this point some of you are going to say something along the lines of, "Uh, have you ever even seen the news, shitsnake?" To which I would reply, yes, yes I have. But the difference is that I don't consider what Donald Trump tweets on a constant basis to be news, which brings me to the next thing you need to know about not getting triggered in a world full of people with twitchy fingers: you need to seperate the noise and the signal, meaning that you can't just hear something and instantaneously believe it because, despite the fact that this may come as a shock to some of you, EVERYTHING YOU READ ON THE INTERNET ISN'T ALWAYS TRUE.

Donald Trump wrote an order during the first month of his administration stating that he wanted a wall built along the border, which is completely and utterly meaningless, considering that only Congress can fund a wall like that (which actually means adding to a fence we started building over a decade ago), yet people actually fucking believe it's going to happen. He might as well had tweeted his demands, or I don't know, written them on a napkin and slipped it to a waitress with his phone number on it. It won't get anywhere, is the point I'm trying to make.

He wrote another executive order demanding a reversal of bank regulations but again, fuckin' Congress, Donnie. Ya know, it's almost like he has no idea what the president is supposed to do. Next thing you know, he's going to start denying to show his tax records and refusing to read the presidential brief so he has some sort of idea what's going on.

Oh wait.

But people still believe that shit is going to happen and the fact of the matter is, that it won't. It just simply doesn't work that way, but how many people got worked up? Firehouse Falsehood.

How many people actually believed that Muslims were no longer allowed to enter our country when Trump ordered the shift of policy banning them? The easy answer is a lot. But, little to most of the public's knowledge, that order ALSO got struck down by the courts, and never went into effect.

And yet, people still believed it. If you want to actually be a productive member of society and not a dog with down syndrome humping the couch and smacking his head on the slide door to the patio, you need to work on separating the noise from the actual news.

Example of noise:

Gaffes by speaking government officials, like when Donald Trump gave a black history month speech but didn't know who Frederick Douglass was, or when he made that weird statement about some Swedish event that never really happened (Including the idiotic and annoying news coverage mocking it that only perpetuated the noise)

And especially his tweets, they aren't fuckinf legislation, SUSAN! Just because Donald Trump tweets it, doesn't mean it's gonna happen!

But on the other edge of the sword, anti-trump fake news is ALSO noise, I mean the internet is just BURSTING with "terrible things that should terrify you about terrifying Donald Trump" that just simply didn't happen. No, Trump supporters did not burn down a black church in mississippi, an Iraqi woman did not die because Donald Trump's travel ban (that never went into effect) prevented her from getting to the hospital, it's just that the media knows you're addicted to what they have to say so they keep feeding you the bullshit knowing you'll feed it to other people. It's a vicious cycle.

Citizens from previous democracies didn't have a fraction of the endless stream of bullshit constantly being slammed into our head jellies, and they didn't have smartphones that they had to check every 20 seconds in a desperate attempt to feel something with an attention span of a slightly disabled goldfish as a result, (literally. That's not a joke. That's a real statistic.)

I have a very serious belief that most people only voted for Trump because they wanted to see what would happen, more in an entertainment sense than politically too. And I think that this need for constantly escalating stimulation is a sickness, one we're all vulnerable.

And that should terrif- ah fuck.