#but the point is that its fucked up to wish death on any refugee running away from a near certain death like whats your fucking problem

[featherymainffins]

What the fuck man

[littlewitchwhore]

Okay guys, here is the first short story I'm posting.

TW: Rape, murder, some gore, racism, sexism, homophobia, a critique of the southern US, and christian references.

I do not condone actual rape, murder, racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. This is just fantasy.

And now, I present

The Hunting of Sonya.

It had been three weeks since the executive order was given. Three weeks of running from abandoned shack to drainage pipe to thickets of trees where she might be safe. Three weeks of praying to whatever would listen that she not be found. Tonight, it seems her prayers might not be answered.

Whatever progress social justice and racial equality might have made in the past years has been violently set back. It started with feminist and pro-black movements constantly being undermined by themselves and their lack of cohesion. With no set leaders and ideas, no reliable code of conduct, and no unifying goals, the members had no direction for their justified anger to be aimed at, and nothing to hold them back from extreme measures. The first major riot happened a year ago, when several peaceful protesters were shot by a couple of trigger happy cops. They didn't stay peaceful.

In one of the most gruesome incidents in recent history, those two cops, and a few others with them, were overwhelmed and beaten to death. But the death of those cops was just the tip of the iceberg. Within a month, riots were taking place in every major city in America, with from people on both sides of the argument killing, and burning the homes and business of those they fought against. A civil war seemed inevitable. Then the election happened, as it does every four years, and a very conservative candidate, on a platform of returning the country to a state of peace and prosperity, undertoned with heavy racist and sexist messages, was elected by a narrow majority. Within two weeks, there were soldiers in every city to keep the peace, and strict laws were enacted severely limiting the rights of groups that were deemed to be the aggressors in the conflict; blacks and women. And the new president was cheered, because the bloodshed mostly ended. The laws and military presence, he had always said, were to be removed after a period of time, when the country was stable again.

But after several months, and a couple isolated riots, the laws were not gone. They got worse. Blacks and women stopped being able to gather in groups larger than 5. They stopped being able to purchase and own firearms. They were even stripped of properties and business, since those could be potential staging points for further violent action. Then they stopped being able to vote after a local election put a violent but charismatic thug up as mayor, who then tried to mobilize a whole town to war against the new president. Then came the executive order that stripped citizenship and all rights from blacks and women. Black people were given a week to leave the country or be deported or turned to slaves. Women fared little better, being reduced to honored servants to white men, and bargaining chips in men's deals. In a year, America had gone from the bastion of liberty and social activism to an authoritarian, patriarchal ethno-state. And the rest of the world, being crippled by their own social and economic issues, and being utterly unable to fathom summoning the military might needed to take on the United States, let it happen.

Sonya was unlucky. She had had the misfortune of residing in Louisiana when the order came down. You see, most people had the decency to let the blacks pack up their things and make for the borders and airports. Most empathized with the plight of the now refugees, even. But the south has always been a little backwards, hasn't it? Large groups of would be slavers started patrolling and detaining blacks and lone women who they could snatch up, after all, it was only illegal to do so for a week. So when Sonya and her family had made for the border, they were taken by one of these bands of slavers. Her father had been beaten mercilessly, and killed when he fought back, her younger brother put in chains, and her mother and sister were gangraped in front of her. She would have suffered the same fate, but when they went to strip her, she caught a fat one by surprise and was able to run, handcuffed and clothes torn, into the woods.

She had barely managed to stay ahead of the men chasing her. It took her three days to finally find an old shack that had a rusty saw she used to cut the chain on the cuffs, so she could use her arms, though the cuffs themselves remained tightly around her wrists. She might have been able to saw those off too, had it not been for the owner of the shed finding her. He was not sympathetic. She had actually had to kill him to escape, after he pulled a machete off the wall and tried to kill her. She didn't escape unharmed though, and her leg was badly cut. At the time, she didnt worry about it too much, since she had to get away, but after a week of running and hiding in hovels and drainpipes, she feared infection. It certainly wasn't getting any better, and was starting to smell. And her killing the man made the men chasing her all the more obsessed with finding her. Now, she wasn't just a 'little nigger whore who needs to learn her place,' as one of them had said, she was a violent, murdering runaway slave.

Now, she finally had a chance to rest. She had made her way out of the more populated areas and was close to the bayou. She figured if there was a chance at finding help from other black folks, it would be in the places the white folk didn't like to go. Besides, her cousin Tyrell was probably still around the area, he always liked to fight and wouldn't have left. At least, that's what she hoped. She was hiding in another drainage pipe beside a small highway. It was raining, and the pipe was half flooded, but she hadn't seen but two trucks all day, so she felt safer and more comfortable than she had in a year.

She had just closed her eyes for a minute, hoping for some sleep, when she heard the engine approaching. It was a truck, by the sound of it, and it was moving slowly. It stopped very close to where she was hiding. Panic shot through her like a blade of ice. How could they have found her? Wasn't she well hidden? They never found her in a drainpipe before! She got very still, and listened intently while being poised to spring from her hiding spot and run as fast as her badly wounded leg would allow into the woods nearby, just across the pasture she was next to.

A door slammed, and a very angry sounding man's voice was soon heard berating his truck for its many faults as her went about adjusting something under the hood. After a few moments, the man cursed again and determined it was the battery that was the issue. Another moment passed, and the rain let up, letting Sonya hear things clearly. There was quiet, then a door opened, and the man said, “Hey Bubba, i'm broke down 'bout 15 minutes outta Reeves, down up on 113... Yea, daggum battery bit it 'gain, third time this week. You think you could come on up this way and gimmie a little ol' jump? Alright, well I 'preciate that, brother... yea, i'll see you soon... Yea, see you then.”

Sonya relaxed a little, fairly certain that she wasn't in any more danger than she had been, and waited for a while. After what felt like an hour, another truck, a much healthier sounding truck, rolled up. There was a greeting, and after what Sonya presumed was an examination of the broken down truck by Bubba, the truck was jumped off, rather unhappily. “Now listen, if this truck is needing to get jumped off this much, you either need a new battery, or your alternators busted. You need to get this truck to the shop and get it fixed tomorrow, if it'll even start.”

There was a couple minutes of bullshitting between the two men, and at one point, Bubba expressed an interest in finding a “little house slave” for himself, since his brother found one and was apparently very pleased with her. They seemed to be wrapping up when the first man, who was called 'Red' declared that he had to piss. Sonya jumped a little in surprise when the stream of urine landed right next to her. The pissing stopped abruptly.

“You heard that, Bubba?”

“I ain't heard shit but your fucked up engine.”

“No, somethings in that drainpipe. Coon or sumin.”

Sonya tensed up again. Was this it? Would they find her? Could she take on two of them? Could she outrun them? Those and a thousand more questions leaped through her mind in those few seconds. She readied herself to lunge at whoever stuck their face in the pipe first, then bolt for the fence. Maybe she'd be able to make it, she had always been fast before her leg was cut, even running track in highschool. For a moment, she wished that she was back then, only two years ago, but a whole lifetime ago, it seemed. She couldn't wish long, however, because a light was shone directly in her face, the flashlight from a phone, and one of the men right behind it. She lunged, fist first at the light, and was rewarded by a startled yelp from the man, followed by the soft crunch of a broken nose under her fist.

The man fell backwards, his phone flew from his hand, and Sonya landed on top of him. A moment later, she brought the metal cuffs around her wrists down on his face together, then jumped up, unsteadily in the wet ditch and on her injured leg, and bolted for the fence. The other man, on the road still, called out to Red, and started rushing over, still processing what was happening. Sonya had the upperhand though, and was scrambling over the barbed wire before the second man actually recognized that it was a human who attacked his friend. But Sonya was unlucky, and as she was getting her injured leg over, one of the wires snapped, and she felt hard, her injured leg being dragged across the remaining wires, cutting her, and tearing the strip of dirty tee shirt that she had wrapped her wound in, off. Minutes later, she was across the small pasture, at the treeline, and she risked a look back. They weren't chasing her, at least not yet. Sonya breathed a sigh of relief, then turned and took off into the trees. Even if they weren't hot on her tracks, they likely would be.

Sonya watched the sun rise the next morning, and with the light, she could inspect her leg. It was definitely infected, a puffy, angry gash that slowly oozed a foul smelling, dark green pus, tinged with streaks of blood. She needed antibiotics or she was going to have very serious issues very soon. Hungry and weak from irregular meals, dehydrated and exhausted, and badly injured, she needed a break, a safe place. The rest of that day was spent trying to find food, clean water, and someplace with medicine. She found none of those things, and as the sun was setting, she resigned herself to an awful night under a tree, and wished for more rain, so she could catch a few drops with her mouth. But Sonya was unlucky.

She dreamt of awful things that night, as she often did these days, when she could dream. She dreamt of monsters rising out of murky pools to chase her, and of spiders bursting from her leg wound to consume her. She dreamt of her father's face, broken and bloody, his lifeless eyes staring at her and he whispered “Run.” She dreamt of her mother and sister being raped, but the men doing it were red skinned and horned breasts, with massive cocks that writhed like boas and strangled her mother, and tore her sister in half. And she dreamt of the hounds of hell chasing her from the scene, and into a void that wasn't there before. She turned and the hellhouds were gone but they howled still, from somewhere in the distance. The howling seemed to get louder and come from all around her, and she turned about quickly, trying to find the source of it before snapping awake in a cold sweat. The howling didn't fade with the rest of her dream, no, it was actually getting louder. It was real. And Sonya had been in the area long enough to recognize the baying of hunting dogs when she heard it. She knew that they bayed for her, and without thinking about it, she took off away from the sound, clearly from the direction she had come.

She limped through the woods as fast as she could on her increasingly lame leg, the sound of the dogs growing louder and louder around her. They couldn't be far, at this point, she thought to herself, they were just too loud. Her lungs were burning, her leg no longer in pain, just numb, her heart pounded in her chest from fear and the exertion, and her head throbbing because she was too tired. She stumbled over tricky roots in the pale moonlight and fell hard, barely raising her hands in time to stop from busting her face open. As she struggled to her feet, the howls of the hounds like sinister thunder around her, she knew running wouldn't work. Maybe she could hide in a tree? Better than being torn apart by hounds with fiery eyes. She cast her eyes about wildly, looking for a tree she could climb, and settled on a young oak with low hanging branches. She scrambled up the tree as fast as she could, with great difficulty, as her arms were weak and shaky, and one of her legs was useless. She managed to get onto a good branch just as the dogs, three of them, rushed the tree, howling and snapping at her heels.

Whoever was hunting her, Red and Bubba, maybe the fat one she escaped, she didnt know, but whoever it was was no friend of hers, and they would be here soon. And she was a treed coon, waiting for the slaughter up here. What were her options? If it were one dog, maybe she could jump on it and keep running, but three? No chance. She couldn't wait for the men to find her, her fate would be sealed. Maybe she could move to another tree and hope the dogs don't notice? Not like she had another choice. She went higher, hoping to get more leaves and distance between her and the watchful hounds. Near the top of the tree, not as high as she might have liked, she found her chance to move trees, a pine branch that came very close to hers. She balanced as best she could on her branch, holding onto a higher one for support, and slowly crept her way along the branch to the end. She reached out and grabbed a thin pine branch above the one she wanted to step to, and hoped that it would support her if she lost her balance. One foot went across the gap, her lame leg's. So far so good, now if she could just...

A branch snapped, and Sonya fell. She landed on her bad leg and felt a hot gush from her wound as something burst, then the pain was too much, and she passed out, luckily, before the first dog's teeth found their mark.

It seemed to Sonya like an unnaturally long, and unusually uneventful unconsciousness. It was long enough and stark enough for her to actively think to herself that she should have woken up by now. Was she dead? It had been a long fall... Maybe the hell hounds has finished her off? Wouldn't surprise her, she supposed, but don't they usually drag someone down to hell? Maybe this was hell? Seemed too quiet though, hell was supposed to be bright and painful. So this was.... Purgatory? That wouldn't be so bad, she thought. At least here she wasn't someone's slave to rape. And her leg was better! At least, she thought it might be. She couldn't see anything, but she couldn't feel any pain either. She definitely still felt like she had a body, though. But death was supposed to remove you from your body, so...

She was woken suddenly, by a door opening. Her eyes flashed open and the light stung, so she shut them tight again. Then her head burst into pain from somewhere inside, and she became aware of the rest of her pain too. Her hand stung like it had been flayed, the left side of her chest ached, and her wrist was almost certainly broken. Her leg, however, didn't hurt much at all, just throbbed slightly in time with her heartbeat. She groaned as the pain hit her, and she felt woozy and sick.

“Well, look who's up. My you gave quite a fight. Oh no, don't you try and move yet.” Sonya had, of course, tried to get up, but the effort was too much, and she merely rolled over and tried to vomit, but found she couldn't. “Yeah, when you gone and broke ol' Red's nose like that, well, we didn't take very kindly.” She opened her eyes again slowly, adjusting to the brightness of it all. The man speaking was Bubba, she recognized the voice. It seems that once again, Sonya was unlucky; this time because she wasn't dead. She managed to give the man a glare, to which he chuckled.

“Now, is that any way to treat the man who been takin' care of you? Why, I coulda' let them dogs go and have their way with your leg there, lord knows it smelled bad enough to be some sorta snack for 'em.” She looked at her leg, and saw it was bandaged properly, her hand and opposite wrist too. She also saw that apart from her bandages, and a large metal cuff around her good ankle, she was naked. There was nothing for her to cover herself with either. She looked back at Bubba, who was watching her closely.

“L...le...” She tried to speak but her throat was more parched than she'd known it could be. As her mouth tried to form words, her lips cracked painfully. “Bet you're mighty thirsty, ain't ya'?” Bubba said as he pulled a water bottle from a nearby case of them. He walked over to her, and squatted, so her was closer to her level. “Now, I don't care for things being the way they are. And I am sorry about you and your kin goin' through this. I had a few good buddies of the African persuasion. But I also had a brother, bout half a year back. Your kind decided his life was worth less than a message.” Bubba unscrewed the bottle of water and put it down, just outside of Sonya's reach. “You're lucky you're a pretty little negress. Means you might not have such a bad life, if you ever learn how to act right. Time's they are a-changin'. Now you gotta get used to that fact real quick. You can't be doing that runnin' 'roun' throwin' hands business no more. You are a slave now. You act nice and you look pretty, and you don't throw no fit when a man decides you're better used in bed than the kitchen. You got that?”

Sonya glared again at him, but she didn't have much strength left to try to fight the notion, nor did she think she would get any water if she did. She begrudgingly nodded, to which Bubba smiled. “Good. Now imma' give you this water here, and you're gon' sip it real slow like, because you drink too much at once and you're gonna throw up. Then, imma' go and find you something to eat, so you don't waste away there. And when I come back, you're gonna thank me for being so nice and considerate, and for my attentive care to your wounds.” He moved the water where she could reach it, and then walked out, closing the door behind him. Sonya grabbed the water and sipped, as she was bid, since that was all good advice. The cool water actually hurt going down, but she had never known something so wonderful before.

She was alone in the room now, sipping water as fast as she figured she could keep it down. It was a small room, dark brown carpet only a few shades lighter than her skin. The walls were fake wood paneling, the ceiling white and popcorned. The walls were bare, save for a single window, boarded up. There was no furniture in the room. The cuff around her ankle was connected with a thick chain to the only thing of note (besides the case of water by the door) in the room, a large chest freezer, which the sat on top of the chain, effectively keeping her leashed. She tried to think of some way to escape, but her options seemed very limited. And until she had some strength back, there was no way she could get far, even if she did find a way to leave.

Her planning was disturbed by Bubba coming back, this time carrying a paper plate with a sandwich and some chips on it, The breakfast of kings. He walked over and placed the plate down where he had put the bottle of water, just out of her reach. “Now, I reckon you can speak again, since most of that water is gone. As I recall, you owe me some gratitude.” She looked at him, and with sincerity, she said “Th-thank you. For my leg, and the water.” Then, “Please, let me go. I didn't do nothing to deserve this.”

Bubba gave her a look, not cruel or uncaring, a look that was close to sympathy. “I know, I don't believe that half of your kind did. But if I were to let you go, how far do you reckon you'd make it on that leg of yours? Oh I cleaned it up, been rubbing it with antibiotic cream, even got my vet to come stitch it up a bit. But you ain't gonna be using that leg for another week, if you're lucky.” He gave her a look, up and down, “You don't strike me as the lucky type.” He sighed. “And before you ask me to try to sneak you out of the country, you should know that all the borders are locked down tighter than a faggot's jeans. No, you're stuck here, and that's all she wrote 'bout that.” The way he said it was soft, like he was trying to be kind about delivering such horrid news. He gently pushed the plate of food withing her reach. “You best get that food in you, gotta get some strength to heal up, else you wont be as useful to your new owner. You're gonna be safe here while you heal up, and after that, the boys and I are gonna make sure you know to act civil and can perform the duties that men are lookin' for in a house slave.”

Over the next week or two, Sonya couldn't quite tell because of the lack of sunlight, Bubba proved to be a rather hospitable captor. He was never cruel to her, ensured that she was fed and well hydrated, and took special care of her injuries. He had even given her a small pillow and an old blanket, but warned her that she shouldn't get used to comforts like that. And perhaps most notably, he never touched her but to clean and bandage her wounds. She was kept naked, and told “You're probably gonna be kept naked wherever you go, and if I were to give you any clothes, they'd just be taken from you. No, better to get used to being on display now.” when she asked for a shirt. But despite her nakedness, Bubba didn't stare at her either. Maybe he really did feel bad about this whole thing. Not that it stopped him from selling her, that's just business. The world changed, and Bubba was quick to adapt to what brought home bread. But for a time, she was safe, and could process what had happened. She cried herself to sleep nightly, and would often weep in her waking hours. Her dreams were mostly memories, always ending with that awful night, her father's face with dead, sightless eyes, her mother's look of grim determination and resignation, her sister's tear streaked screams. Sonya doubted she would ever forget, and knew that she would never forgive. She decided that her survival was now a matter of biding her time, staying as safe as she could, waiting for a chance to escape the country. Or maybe she'd be able to last until the global community worked together to get fix the atrocities committed in the past year. Either way, running wasn't an option for her. She had to endure.

The peaceful time with Bubba was short lived, because once she was mostly healed, Bubba brought 'the boys' over. Three of them, Red being among them, clearly identified by the recently broken nose and a fresh scar on his brow. Bubba spoke first. “Now, you know how things are, and what you need to do. Show these boys here that you ain't got no fight, and they're like to take it easy on you. 'Cept Red, he's still mad about his nose, even if it does make him look better.” The guys chuckled and Bubba gave one last look at her, laden with meaning, then left and closed the door. The remaining men started really looking at her, lust obvious in their eyes.

It was quiet for a long moment before Sonya stood up and, resigning herself to endurance, bent over the freezer, closed her eyes, and started to pray.

[antihumanism]

When I type everything out as a single run-on sentence I want you to imagine me cornering you off-guard in a crowded room, my empty brown cow eyes staring straight at you and reflecting you--nopony home here, she checked out and hopped away forever ago on the toxic chemical trains and clacking cattle cars years ago--and just, for no reason, I’m here and you’re there pocketed in the corner of a crowded room, and I’m channeling my alternate history past-self who was a preacher that got kicked out of the church for delivering sermons about the impossibility of sin and just ran off to Point Sur with my harem of distractions since I could never stop blessing my congregation saying “Go forth and know that you cannot sin, in the beautiful eyes of God and in my beautiful eyes there can be no wrong or evil” which backfired on me when they started setting fires and it all went to Hell, but I’ve won out over them because the world honored my wishes when I sighed “I should like to start again,” and so I’m here with you and you’re hear with me and I’m saying some insane shit like: “Looking back on Emily’s early works it is easy to see where her later reactionary turn comes from, because, from the start, Alfred Alfer was a story about the fear of castration, I mean, the first video was literally about Alfred getting neutered and escaping into a violent fantasy where he is loved and praised for his violence and the ‘punchline’ establishes the general theme of ‘reality by despair,’ which is to say that Alfred’s clearly dissociative episode is ‘verified’ by his destruction and it is this self-destruction that establishes ‘reality,’ like ‘pinch me i might be dreaming,’ but the pinch is violent and unfair self-destruction as hope is still ripped away, but hope remains, because it is a hope to die rather than be changed by the world, and this theme remains throughout her most famous work (the Alfred’s Playhouse trilogy which cements in canon the jokes of her previous Rise of Alfred cartoon) where Alfred is possessed by the spirits of Stalin and Hitler--a false equivalency made by the authoritarians that have passed for liberals for years--in Rise of Alfred, one would be remiss not to mention the phallic imagery in both the title and the video itself, Alfred is cut loose upon the world by the absence of a Near God or little other by the orders of a Distant God or big Other (in this video played by a droning and irrelevant corporate figure that can offer nothing more than a wall without lead paint that one can lick), and this is the essence of reactionary thought, the idea of a big Other who is totally incompetent yet all powerful and somehow worth respecting and suffering for (King Henry II saying ‘will no one rid me of this troublesome priest’ or the departed Daiymo of the 47 Ronin), the reactionary sees the big Other as a master who can only set the dogs off the chain, the police chief who needs to get out of the way so McBain or Dirty Harry or Paul Kersey (especially in Death Wish III) can do what needs to be done and purge away all the filth and make the world right again (no different than Rambo--even the first movie, which for all of it’s goods part still is  reactionary propaganda bullshit pushing the fascist lies about a ‘fifth column’ that was rude to poor little meow meow war criminals--or modern day fantasies about nuking all of MENA until it glows green (fantasies delivered to raucous applause at Republican presidential conventions); the reactionary is perpetually trapped in this fantasy of destroying the world and escaping into the void of space, freed of the ground where the riff-raff are so they don’t have to negotiate life with their neighbors, and this is true, yes, even of people who spout bullshit about Fully Automated Luxury Communism who only want the right to consume as much as possible free of guilt--a condition they think is inflicting upon them by the big Other--as the Champagne of Shame Socialists of the 60s), and the righting of the world for the reactionary is just that, that the world must be Righted and the reactionary must be loved for all of their violence and because of their violence, for the reactionary finds themselves ever needing new excuses as they open new fronts in their fake, phony Culture War, and that is all they need (excuses), which is why Emily is so obsessed with justifying her edgy shit based on some Trauma (which is handy excuse to do Anything, even Things that Cannot Be Excused like war or self-harm or wanting to be seen), and so here you should already be able to hear so much madness, so many plaintive cries, all aligning around the same point (the trannies in the ‘wrong’ bathroom, the refugees in the ‘wrong’ country, the people in the ‘wrong’ neighborhood, the Jewish Question, etc), and, anyway, so in Rise of Alfred, Emily’s OC directly addresses the audience and tells them that they must love him/her--the castrated bitch desperate to be let off the leash--and in Alfred’s Playhouse she/he simultaneously affirms and denies the nature of a trauma that justifies everything (one is constantly reminded of The Act of Killing where one of the mass murderers imagines how, depending on the editing of the final film, he could be either a woobie or a war criminal) as the Trauma is simultaneously a joke--’sodomized with a popsicle!’--and the alleged real event that motivates her self-mutilation as we’re expected to believe Emily is processing something, but what is she is processing, hmmmm, isn’t that the true spice,” I rail and rave against your poor ear drums as my empty, dead cow’s eyes capture your entire body and reflect it back at you and the ice cubes in my drink pop and shatter and dissolve and as my fist clenches tighter and tighter around the glass containing them and I continue: she’s processing a fear of castration, which is shown clearly in Alfred’s Playhouse where Alfred’s “sodomy” is demonstrated by the sight of his crotch covered in blood (a scene that will be repeated in The Alfred Alfer Movie) but “what is castration,” one might ask, and one can respond “it is the removal of power by the Father,” and this is how we wrap back around to our root in the nature of Emily the Reactionary who believes herself to be deprived of the power she holds by The Bolshevik Jew that has inserted itself between her and the Father and this is the cause of the big Other’s ineffectiveness, and this is also the core of the reactionary as a whole, the reactionary doesn’t want a daddy to control them, but a Master to set them off the chain because they hate the Father who has castrated them, this is the nature of the mumbling corporate manager in Rise of Alfred, but it is also the nature of Alfred herself--and now you may ask if Emily is trans and the answer is I literally couldn’t fucking care less about any question left forever unanswered on God’s Green Earth and you shouldn’t care either--but Alfred the Castrated is also the Father/Mother of Alfred the Dictator, the murderous inner-self that is immune to consequences of the onrushing future (The Alfred Alfer Movie) but not immune to the justifications of the imagined past (Alfred’s Playhouse trilogy), and therefore free to inflict whatever violence that Emily the Reactionary desires, and it is in pursuit of this freedom that the reactionaries set off in the name of New Sincerity (two things to be noted here: (1) the Death of Irony was proclaimed at the birth of the 21st century police state and the new Forever War with all of its genocidal objectives, that is to say, 9/11, and (2) the broken necked coward who complained of American Psycho that it’s author provided no easy outs for easy survival was the one who offed himself while Bateman’s father still lives) and the Talking Cure (i miss who we used to be), and at this you should see me slugging back the whole lukewarm glass in between two syllables and continuing on without pause (as if this dog still has legs on which to receive them in any case), “Emily, like Alex Jones, is so desperate for an excuse because neither of them can accept that they have to be the one that pulls the trigger, like all liars they don’t understand that they have to define reality by action, the answer to what one might do is found in the difference between the types of irony, one type is constantly desperate for excuses (such as the broken necked coward found one day) for violence, and the other irony, the true spice, is the irony that releases from excuses into violence and energy, one must seek not to know or endure but to inflict, knowing that this inflicting was always inevitable, no searching for justifications, instead the answer is to realize that there was never a chain there connecting you to the Master or the present to the past, and the Father/Mother never had the power of castration (the past, after all, is a foreign country bombed and blasted to ruins already and better forgotten), and you can just be fucked up and terrible and do whatever amuses you right now without needing an excuse, and to the extent that anyone should, one should, because that is what fascism needs, fascism needs the need for an excuse and that is the irony of fascism--where the falling angel (the superego) meets the rising ape (the id) in an ego of ultimate violence which seeks only release from both of its creations in an instinctually and totally misunderstood caricature of dialectics--which opposes its opposite irony (the irony without fascism which is the id’s violence against purpose and reason rising free of anything else to obstruct it), and if you let go of that, if you just, ya know, if you just, you just have to cut loose and go and no one can stop you until it is too late, because there’s no Jew sitting over your shoulder to justify everything in terms of opposition or support, not even The Nazarene is real, but do you understand that you’ve always been free to just go? You’re free to go. You’ve been free to go all this time. You never needed permission for this or anything else. You’ve been free to go all this time. You’re free to go. A whole day off. Just mind the mo(u)rning and get on with it.”

[realityhelixcreates]

Dance of The Spheres Chapter 1: Terran Tarantella

Chapters: 1/?

Fandom:  Marvel Cinematic Universe

Rating: PG 13

Warnings: drugging, kidnapping, implied murder

Characters: Loki(Marvel), Heimdall(Marvel)

Additional Tags:  Loki Goes Overboard, But When Doesn’t Loki go Overboard, Mature Reader, Disabled Reader, Political Intrigue

Summary:   

“I see a bad moon a-rising

I see trouble on the way

I see earthquakes and lightnin’

I see bad times today”

                       Creedence Clearwater Revival

A small group of men, and one woman gathered in a small room; the kind that seemed like a storage closet from the outside, the kind that had cameras installed, but not functioning. Beyond this room, the basic hustle of running a government rushed on, but within it, all heads were turned to a handful of hand written documents scattered over the table.

“And you're absolutely sure this translation is correct?” One of them asked.

“Yes.” The woman said. “Well, as much as I can be. Old Norse is a contentious language, but this is written so much more clearly than most of our primary sources.” She gestured to the letter in question, written in gold ink on purple parchment. It was a museum quality piece of work, and it would likely never see the inside of one. Its contents were just too incriminating. Especially since the President seemed to be seriously considering it.

“Hm. Well then, we should probably chose someone shouldn't we?” He said.

“Mister President?” The translator asked. “Are you sure? I've been quite plain about what this says. What is being asked of us. It's...reprehensible. And frankly, I am surprised that King Thor would even allow it.”

“Ma'am, this is a culture that is old beyond reckoning.” Another man-one of the generals? She couldn't keep them straight-piped in. “An alien race on top of that. It's only to be expected that they would have customs that are unfamiliar, even repugnant to us. We should keep an open mind.”

It was ridiculous. She knew for a fact that many of the people in this room and beyond held virulent hatred for several cultures that existed on Earth. There was no reason they should be showing this kind of cultural sensitivity to a bunch of aliens who just showed up and started making demands. Especially that one...

“I ask you to understand that sometimes we make hard sacrifices for the good of all.” The President said. “Asgard is a galactic superpower.”

“Was.” She pointed out. “Now they're a bunch of refugees.”

The President gave her an annoyed glance. “They will no doubt regain their power shortly. Their technology is wildly advanced. And if we go along with the occasional weird little whim they have, they will be grateful. So America gains access to Asgardian tech. Imagine how many people could have their lives bettered by Asgardian friendship.”

The translator couldn't help but wonder since when this man gave a shit about bettering the lives of others. It was disgusting, that this was probably just another path to money and power for him. Even moreso that no one else in the room was questioning this, even a little bit. They were all known for eating scraps from his table anyway, and likely looking to grab some of those benefits for themselves. At what expense?

She decided to start looking for another job.

“Asgardian friendship would certainly be a boon for our country.” She said. “Do you have further need of me?” She wanted out of here badly now. She didn't want to be in the room while they made this awful choice.

“No.” The president said. He tapped one of his men on the arm. “Escort her out, would you?”

With relief, she followed the man out of the room.

She never made it to her car.

                                                                               ******

Loki wandered through the dark and cramped byways, to the furthest reaches of their new settlement, past the places where the rest of his people felt safe, past where even he felt safe. These outside places were no longer the haunts of petty criminals or undesirables exactly, not that he feared such unsavories. No, these rough walls were now the lair of the most notorious and hidden Asgardian of all. So mythical was she, that almost no one knew she still lived.

Gullveig the witch. If stories were to be believed, she was the first witch. If stories were to be believed, she had been killed three times, and returned each time. If stories were to be believed, that meant she was now beyond death.

If stories were to be believed, that meant he was as well.

But that was not why he was here.

In all the whispers, in all the screamed confessions, all the gibbering of those who had visited her, her power was very real. Real and terrible, for she could grant any wish, any wish at all, and sometimes that was far more than the wisher actually wanted. Word a wish poorly, and it would be granted. Fail to think through the consequences of a wish, and it would still be granted. It was why she had been killed so many times in the first place. But that was the fault of the wishers, not Gullveig herself.

And Loki had thought through this wish, and knew what it would cost him. But the gains...if he had calculated correctly, predicted correctly, the gains for Asgard could be immense. Steeling himself, he found the one area that appeared to be lit, and entered.

“You have returned again.” She said in her cracked and watery voice. Her back was to him, and she appeared to be warming her hands over a tiny fire in a glowing crucible. Fires-real fires-were strictly forbidden within the confines of Asgard right now, but it was debatable whether those embers counted as a real fire, debatable whether she lived within Asgard. On the edge of things, always as she liked it. “So you are truly committed?”

“I am.” Loki said. “I have made my decision.”

The old witch cackled in amusement. “It may be your last! After this, you will be different. You know this, yes? This person who stands in my doorway? He will no longer exist.”

“That is by design.” Loki said.

She turned to face him. She was, by far, the oldest Asgardian he had ever seen; bent, wizened, wrinkled and scraggly. She didn't look the part of a witch. She wasn't horrifying to look at, simply old, frail, wrapped in a pale shawl. She wasn't frightening at all, except that he knew her to be older than his father's father, and that she had one, single-minded focus in life that transcended any morality or ethics she might have ever had.

“Did you bring me what I want?” she asked.

“Yes.” He offered up a sizable sack, filled with every last scrap of gold that he owned. He had pried it from his armor, stripped it from his jewelry, and pricked out every last shimmering thread from his royal wardrobe. His, and only his: she would not accept any that he had taken from someone else. This had to be his sacrifice to make-the first of several.

Gold was all she ever wanted. Anyone could buy her services, if only they offered gold. Sometimes she didn't care where they got it, but as a ruler, he was a special case. No one knew what she did with it. Surely, she had collected enough over the millennia to build a palace out of it, but it was never anywhere to be seen.

She smiled at the sight of it, seemed to stand straighter, move more spryly.

“Now, for yours.” She plunged her claw-like fingers into the crucible, stirring the embers and ashes with rapidly blackening talons. She plucked forth a glowing ring, strewn with runes, and shook it, blowing ashes from the darkening metal. Using her tattered apron, she polished the ring until it shone even in the weak light of her tiny hovel.

It was not gold, which she would never have parted with, but platinum, a metal that just happened to be fairly abundant in their new settlement. He did not know if the powers of Midgard were aware of the riches to be found in the place they had allotted to Asgard, but he would certainly see that Asgard got to claim them.

The glow and runes had thoroughly faded from the ring before she set it on his palm, with the instruction 'not to put it on until you mean it'. But he knew exactly what he was going to do with it. He had taken the opportunity while Thor slept the long and powerful sleep of an Asgardian ruler, to send a message to the country of most of his brother's friends. The country he had tried to conquer. It was a message that promised things, as in days of old. A promise of power, of friendship, of mutual benefit, in exchange for a life. The simplest and most common of agreements.

Perhaps that might make up for his earlier...indiscretion.

He vanished the ring to his magical hiding place, and exited Gullveig's home. While Thor slept, Loki ruled, and it wouldn't do for him to be missed. Winding along through long, rough corridors, until he returned to the well-lit and finished walls of Asgard's new buildings, he found Heimdall and his advisors waiting. Perfect. He needed to tell them to expect a visitor soon.

                                                                            ******

“There. I think that's everybody within the parameters.” One worker said, pushing back from his computer.

“Let me check.” His partner leaned over the keyboard. “Lessee...age range, yeah...unmarried, yeah...less than twelve thousand a year, yeah...anti-Party sentiments on social media...arrest record, yeah...'other undesirable'? That's pretty cold.”

“This whole thing is cold.” He agreed. “But the projected benefits are worth it. Whoever's chosen will be contributing more than their current life is worth.”

“Cold as ice. Well, let's do this.” His partner hit the sort command, the program sifting through millions of names before settling on one at random.

“Well, there's our unlucky lady.” He said, pulling up all the personal information the computer had. “Sorry about this, miss, but maybe you should've made better life choices. Either way, your sacrifice will usher in a new age of prosperity for us.”

“Well, when do we get her?”

“We've got people in her town. We'll just send them a message tomorrow. Well, sleep tight, miss. There's no telling what that freak is going to do to you.”

“Fucking frigid, man.”

                                                                             ******

With a groan, you pulled yourself out of bed. Another day, another dollar. Never quite enough dollars for the amount of days you spent though.

You found your cane and hobbled to the shower, wasting precious morning moments under the warm spray. You probably wouldn't get a chance to bathe this evening. You would be going to a protest-you had finished your sign last night, and it should be dry by now.

You didn't bother to turn on the lights; the sun was peeking through your window, and it wasn't like your studio apartment had much clutter to trip over anyway.

Getting your leg attached, and grabbing a slice of buttered bread, you just barely caught the bus to work.

It was simple data entry, but it-barely-paid the bills. And it didn't require you to stand for hours, or be constantly walking back and forth, or talking directly to customers, so you were thankful to have it.

You'd still be voting for better conditions though, and surreptitiously trying to unionize. You, and everyone there were still being exploited, and it wouldn't do to just accept that, simply because it could be worse.

Now if only Betty had called in...Nope, she hadn't. It was practically every day lately, that you prayed for your ultra-conservative coworker to just stay home, but she never did. She bragged to you-or within earshot of you-very often about her perfect attendance. You could never prove that she was doing it as a jab to your occasional medical related absences, but you wouldn't put it past her.

She noticed you slipping your sign under your desk.

“That's inappropriate.” She said with unconcealed disgust. Ugh, the twit would hate protesters. She somehow thought she was closer to those power-hungry hangers-on that the regime seemed to draw out of the woodwork. She had much more in common with the people crawling in the streets than she ever would with the so-called 'president' and his cronies, and she would actually benefit from the changes you were all marching for, but her pointy, oyster-white nose was so far in the air that she would never see it.

“It's none of your business.” You grumbled, slipping into your chair, and setting your cane aside. You wouldn't be getting up from there for the next few hours.

“It is my business to know whether I share a cubicle wall with a violent thug!” She trilled sanctimoniously.

“Okay, first of all, that kind of accusation is inappropriate, and prohibited by company policy. Second of all, what am I gonna do? Limp at you?”

“If you decide to get aggressive with me, I can't escape. I have to run down the stairs, but you can beat me to any floor, just by using the elevator!”

“This again? Give it a rest!” You were this close to reporting her. Again. Maybe if you did it enough times, somebody would actually do something about it.

Betty held a genuine grudge over the fact that you were the only employee on this floor who got to use the janky old service elevator. Everybody else had to use the stairs. Never mind that it was literally the only way for you to even get to your desk. No, if there was something that some people were allowed to do, but Betty wasn't, it was clearly incontestable proof of oppression against Betty herself. Also, if the 'wrong sort' of people were allowed to do the same things Betty was, well that was also anti-Betty oppression. She just wanted so badly to be able to claim oppression, that she didn't realize that she actually was being oppressed by the people she wanted just as desperately to emulate.

She was exhausting.

“Good morning you two! Hey Betty, you got those numbers for me yet?” Saved by the boss. Well, not really. He didn't like you, but he didn't like Betty either. He didn't hate either of you. He was just the boss-make believe friendly, but distant, concerned with other things. However, he disliked when employees wasted time, and Betty did. A lot. That's what happened when someone was an incorrigible gossip.

Betty slunk back to her desk, cowed for at least a few minutes. He handed you a bit more work to do, then meandered down the aisle, greeting other employees, and handing out more work on his way to his own tiny office. He wasn't all that important either, in the scheme of things. It was really amazing how many people kept their gaze so fixed on the people in power that they couldn't see them pouring quicksand around their feet.

But you would lend your voice to the march on their behalf anyway. They deserved better too. Maybe they'd see it someday, instead of continuing to fight against their own interests.

For now, though, you would concentrate on your work.

The morning came and went, your little lunch alarm signaling its death. You grabbed your cane and walked slowly and carefully to the break room. You kept a week's worth of small lunches in baggies in the fridge here. Salami, little cheese slices, crackers, cherry tomatoes, baby carrots, and grapes. Not much, but tasty and filling, and you got all the food groups. There was an unspoken rule about not messing with other people's food that, thankfully, nobody in the office had ever broken; at least not while you'd been here.

You could see into the tidy lines of cubicles from the break room, and while you crunched away at your carrots, you noticed something worrying. There were two men in matching suits and shades talking to Betty. She spoke to them animatedly, gesturing at your cubicle. One of the men peeked inside.

Oh, you didn't like that at all.

You didn't actually have anything to hide, but you knew damn well that didn't matter. If these were cops-or worse-they would find whatever it was they wanted to find, one way or another.

By the time you got back from your lunch break, the men had disappeared, but Betty still had a distressingly smug grin on her face. You checked every drawer and every cranny of your desk: nothing had been taken, and nothing had been left behind. You went back to work, trying to ignore the anxiousness that was creeping up your back.

You had just finished and sent your last spreadsheet when your boss opened his door and called you to his office. You slowly made your way there, trying not to pay attention to the malice sparkling in Betty's face, or how your other coworkers glanced at you with pity or distrust.

The suspicious pair of men were hiding out in your boss' office, and you'd never seen him looking more uncomfortable.

One of the men positioned himself closer to the door behind you, not that you could run anyway.

“Um...Do you know why I called you in here?” Your boss asked.

“I assume it has something to do with your new friends.” You said sourly. This was going bad, you could see it a mile off. You honestly didn't know why they were here, or what they wanted. “Seriously though, no I don't. Why have you called me in here?”

You'd make him say it at least.

“Er, well, unfortunately your employment with us has been, well, terminated. So, if you would just gather up your things-”

“Woah, woah, woah!” You interrupted.  “On what grounds? Because these guys said so?”

'These guys' said nothing.

“No, no, it's, uh...your arrest record...”

“That's ridiculous! Why didn't you fire me two months ago then, when it happened? Because you know it was pure bullcrap, that's why! You saw the footage; I never threw anything at that cop! He tripped over some garbage that was already there, then turned around, knocked me down, and hit me with my own cane. They let me out the same day because they knew they had nothing. Cane's still bent.”

“Look, I'm sorry, but you're fired. I'm sorry. Now go on, get out of here.”

And take them with you seemed to be the unspoken plea. You stormed out of the office with as much dignity as you could, spoke to no one, shoved the meager contents of your desk into your purse, gabbed your sign, and got into the old service elevator for the last time.

You would be reporting this, to anybody who would listen. It was completely unacceptable. And now you would have to go through the ordeal of applying either for unemployment, or disability. You hoped your savings would last long enough for your appeals to go through.

You spotted their reflections in a display window on the way to the bus stop. The two men from the office were following you now. Were they feds? Had Betty and your spineless boss sold you out to the feds? You hadn't even done anything!

You almost expected it when they dragged you into an alley, a pungent-smelling cloth held tight over your face, muffling your voice. It made you cough, but that also made you inhale, and in moments, soft blackness wrapped around you.

[commie-eschatology]

Annulment at Ostwick

Summary: Trevelyan kills her mentor, Senior Enchanter Lydia, as the mage rebellion begins.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29683359. Shoutout @5lazarus for the “this is systemic, not personal line” lol. tw/cw: somewhat graphic depiction of violence near the end. 

Judging by the commotion outside her chambers, Senior Enchanter Lydia of the Ostwick Circle imagines it will not be much longer. The rebels, once her students, have nearly broken through the barrier; she holds no illusions about what will happen afterwards. She seals her final letter to Vivienne and hands it to her ravens. The world has gone mad, she only hopes her dear friend avoids the same fate as herself.

This rebellion has been brewing for a long time, since even before what happened in Kirkwall. For years, she has tried to avert this suicidal course of action. With Vivienne’s help, she even got the Ostwick Circle to formally declare neutrality after Fiona’s stunt at the White Spire. Lydia knows the Circle is imperfect, that is not a controversial observation, but what chance do her people have against the entire Templar Order? She knows how this rebellion will inevitably end, with witch hunts, mass executions, and the widespread use of the Rite of Tranquility. When her people are eventually forced back into the Circle, she’s certain all political rights they have earned will be revoked; eight hundred years of careful advocacy swept away by the rash actions of a few miscreants.

She hears the barrier outside her chamber break. Lydia stays sitting at her desk, quickly adjusting her hair and posture. One can never truly be ready for death, but she goes through her mental checklist one last time. She’s sent instructions to Vivienne and made her peace with the Maker. She sends a quick prayer to the heavens one more time just to be sure. Trevelyan steps through the door, armed with a staff. Lydia sees other students behind her, guarding the door.

“Hello Enchanter Trevelyan,” she greets, trying to keep her voice neutral. There was a time she called her protege by her first name, but so much has changed since she fell in with the rebels. Growing apart from Tara is just one more casualty of this madness.

Both say nothing at first. Lydia looks up at her protege and feels like she should say something wise, provide some parting words of advice for her daughter by choice. Instead she just says, “well this is a state of affairs.”

“Indeed. Now get up,” Trevelyan orders, staff at the ready. Lydia slowly raises her hands above her head and stands. She looks up at her once protege and thinks of that terrified child brought to this very office, all those years ago. Tara has grown so much since, Lydia isn’t sure if she should be proud or disappointed.

A week ago, with Vivienne’s help, she had forced a neutrality vote through the Ostwick Circle. It was her hope that this victory would protect Tara and the others, even as the rest of Thedas fell into chaos.  She had expected a response from the Liberati, but not something as appalling as this. Apparently, the Maker does have a sense of irony. She knows anger at her Creator is a sin, but she hopes He’ll understand in this case.

Tara raises the staff, its crystal glowing with mana. It won’t be long now. She cannot detect any regret on her protege’s face, just rage and determination. One might expect that she would feel the slightest bit of sadness at murdering the woman who raised her, Lydia thinks. But bitterness is also a sin, she reminds herself, and she’s quickly running out of time to make penance.

Their last fight after the vote had been particularly tempestuous, even by their standards. Trevelyan had shouted endless slogans at her, “the people united will never be defeated!” and other trite nonsense that she should be intelligent enough to reject. “The slogan retired, will never be repeated!” had been her response, she can’t help but be a little proud of that line. It is such a tragedy that their relationship has devolved into shouting platitudes. She knows Tara, her brilliant protégé, is smarter than this, and wishes she wouldn’t throw her entire future away on a suicidal crusade. There is, however, nothing more she can do now.

To her surprise, the blast from Trevelyan’s staff hasn’t come yet. Lydia cautiously takes a step forward, hands still in the air, Tara flinches backwards. Perhaps there is some regret, Lydia thinks with some relief, at least she did not completely fail as a mother.

“For whatever it’s worth, I am glad it’s you,” she says. Lydia has always found deathbed reconciliations trite, but what choice does she have?

“Now that’s manipulative,” Tara accuses.

“You believe I’m being manipulative? Tara, you came here to murder me.”

“You made this rebellion necessary. We have nothing , not even the college of enchanters anymore. You’d rather us be trapped in a fucking prison forever, like good little mages. I... we will not grovel to our oppressors any longer. Our people have no choice but to fight for the same freedom as anyone else.” More platitudes, she hopes they’re comforting to her.

“ I made this rebellion necessary? So it follows my own murder is my fault then?” Lydia scoffs, “and you accuse me of being manipulative.”

Tara lowers her staff and runs her hand through her hair, a nervous tick she knows well. Lydia is almost tempted to try something but what good would that do? “I’ve been trapped here, in this fucking tower, my entire life. What other choice do I…” her voice breaks, “we are far past the point of reconciliation. For non-violent civil disobedience, or whatever you loyalists tell us to try over and over again. Your neutrality vote saw to that.”

Trevelyan paces back and forth as her speech reaches its crescendo She gestures to sounds of fighting outside the door, “We will break the Circle or die trying. Our people have no other choice.”

“I have no desire to relitigate our many political debates,” Lydia is so tired of wasting her breath, can no longer listen to the cliche platitudes anymore. “I am sorry it has come to this.” It feels as if they are just reciting the same lines back and forth, as they have for years.

“It didn’t have to be like this.” Tara says, Lydia sees her eyes swell with tears, “if you had just listened, if you hadn’t…” She wipes the tears from her face. “Fuck,” she says.

Lydia steps forward cautiously into her space, slowly she wraps her arms around her adopted daughter. Tara freezes in response, but then cautiously responds in kind. It’s awkward and stilted at first, Lydia isn’t sure where exactly they stand. Deathbed reconciliations may be trite, but it’s better than nothing at all she supposes.

Tara leans further into her embrace. “I should note that this is systemic, not personal,” she says.

Lydia laughs, despite everything. “Good to know.” Tara wraps her arms more tightly around her, but holds onto her staff. Lydia is proud of her survival instincts, how she has learned to never let her guard down. She likes to think Tara will survive outside the Circle, won’t end up dead in a ditch somewhere, but she knows the danger she faces. She’ll be an apostate, hunted her entire life. It’s a terrifying thought.

Lydia holds Tara just a bit closer, while she still can. She’s given birth to two children in her life, both taken by the templars. She knows more than any the importance of chosen family. It’d be a lie to say she has no regrets, who wouldn’t when your adopted daughter is your murderer? She reminds herself to push down the bitterness, and try to dwell on the good memories, before the end.

“This is so melodramatic,” Tara sniffles into her shoulder.

“You are melodramatic, love. Just lean into it.” Tara laughs through her tears. Neither says a word for a time. Eventually, Tara slowly draws back, and once more readies her staff. Lydia holds her head high, she’s always aspired to die with dignity.

“Clan Lavellan in Wycome took in apostate refugees from Kirkwall. You may wish to seek them out,” she says. Those elves have a tendency to meddle, to use the rebel mages as proxies in their own heathen war against the Chantry. She can only hope they will, at least, keep her daughter safe.

“I know,” says Tara, “who do you think gave us our weapons?” The thought of Dalish elves supplying weapons into the Circle is appalling, Lydia curses herself for missing that. She knew Tara to be conspiring with Liberati and perhaps even the Mage Underground, but not with elven terrorists like the Lavellan clan. If the elves and rebel apostates are both working towards a common goal, Lydia fears this rebellion is far beyond the threat she anticipated. She looks at Trevelyan and wonders what else she does not know.

Tara’s face is wet from tears, her eyes are red and swollen, and there’s a raw cut near her right eye, she imagines from a templar blade. The rage of an apostate radiates from her very being. Lydia begins to fear not just for Tara’s safety, but what she might do once she is free.

“For the rebellion,” she says.  The blast of fire hits her in the chest, and knocks her back into the desk. Her back slams into the wood, splinters embed themselves in skin, and she falls gracelessly onto the floor. Her whole body burns, and she sees embers on her robes. But she still is, as far as she can tell, alive.

“Shit,” Tara says, as the fire drains from her staff, “templar smiting. Fuck, uh,” she begins to frantically look around the office. Lydia can hear fighting outside. “Do you, uh, have a knife?” she asks earnestly.

“How did you fuck this up?” Lydia snaps, “You come here to murder me and you can’t even, fuck,” she yells in pain as the burning grows more intense. “Just hurry…”

Before she can finish, Lydia screams in pain, as she feels the impact of Tara’s staff against her head. Her vision goes blurry, the thoughts become disjoined, her world shrinks into nothingness.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Z 036

It’s the Namek Saga!   I have mixed feelings about this arc, and I’ll try to explain them.  

So I got into DBZ when it first aired on Toonami in the fall of 1998.  I don’t recall exactly how it was aired, but I’m pretty sure they showed four or five episodes a week, every week, until they got to the Goku/Recoome fight, and then they would start over.   Somewhere along the way they aired Movies 1, 2, and 3.  

Now I was just a casual viewer in those days, so I wasn’t going out of my way to watch them in order.   I didn’t exactly like the show much; I just watched it because it was on, and I was sort of curious about what would happen.     The Saiyans arc impressed me because it did a good job buildng suspense.   But you could skip a few episodes and not really miss much.   There were plenty of recaps, and not that much happened in any single episode.

The Namek Saga had some trouble following this formula, though.    Once the heroes got to Namek, it was hard to really measure any sort of progress being made.   The overriding strategy was to stay in one piece until Goku arrived to even the odds, except the supporting cast was pretty threadbare by this point.   They couldn’t exactly kill anyone off in the Namek Saga, because they had killed so many guys off in the Saiyans arc, and if you took out any more there wouldn’t be anyone left to tell the story with.   So it felt to me like much of the arc was just the gang marking time until Goku showed up.  

And this wouldn’t have been so bad, except that whenever Goku finally did show up, he’d punch Recoome’s lights out and that would be it.   Toonami would run out of episodes and start over with Episode 1.   I remember at least once when I was kind of following more closely to see if they’d finally put some new eps in the rotation, and then... no such luck.   Goku shows up, whoops the Ginyu Force, Bill Murray wakes up in the hotel room to “I Got You, Babe.”

I feel like this has colored my opinion of the arc.   I was trying to remember exactly what I didn’t like about it, and my criticisms aren’t really all that valid.   “It’s too long,” but it isn’t.   It’s 32 episodes long, and that’s three episodes shorter than the Saiyans Saga.   “There’s no big fights,” but there are.   Vegeta vs. Zarbon is pretty cool, and Recoome smacking Team Three Star around is  fun.   “It’s unsatisfying,” but not really.   Frieza gets extremely pissed as the arc wears on, and Goku shutting down the Ginyus and Vegeta at the same time is awesome.  

For a time, I struggled with the rewatchability of DBZ.  It was hard to get invested in older episodes, because for a while it felt like the battles were pointless back when no one knew how to turn Super Saiyan.   Eventually I got over this and learned to appreciate the show beyond the novelty of a first-time viewer, and I think that’s helped me respect the Namek stuff more.   In particular, when I read the manga version, I found it much brisker than the anime.   Maybe it sounds weird to say this, but for me, knowing which parts are filler helps me appreciate the filler more.  

So I’m looking forward to analyzing this arc in greater depth, and forming a more nuanced opinion of it.    It’ll probably never be one of my favorites, but I bet I’ll come away with a greater appreciation of it. 

First off, we gotta wrap up the loose ends of the Saiyans arc.   Krillin just let Vegeta leave the planet, because Goku asked really nicely.   Yajirobe doesn’t understand that, so he calls Krillin an idiot.   Why didn’t Yajirobe finish Vegeta off?   He took him down with his sword, and then he stood there like a jerk and gloated instead of cutting off his head.

Krillin picks up naked baby Gohan and brings him over to half-naked ER patient Goku, but then an airship arrives, and out pops Chi-Chi.

She leaps over Goku’s body and grabs Gohan out of Krillin’s arms.

Fans give Chi-Chi a lot of crap for her behavior in this episode, and I’ll bet you a dollar that none of them have children of their own.    Gohan’s five years old in this episode, and Chi-Chi hasn’t seen him since he was four.   One day he just left and didn’t come back.    Now she’s finally close enough to touch him and he’s all beat up and unconscious.    What would you do?

You know what?   Goku did have it hard, but he’s a grown-ass man.   He’s not entitled to Chi-Chi’s attention right now, but Gohan is.   I think Goku knows that better than anyone in this episode, which is why you never see him complain about being ignored.

Bulma’s pretty upset about all of their dead friends, particularly Yamcha, because she used to be sweet on him, and particularly Kami and Piccolo, whose deaths mean that they can’t use the Dragon Balls to wish Yamcha back to life.   She bawls out Yajirobe for not doing more during the fight.   She’s got a point, although Yajirobe probably did more good by holding back and picking his spots.   If Yamcha had shown the same level of caution, well...

I sort of get Yajirobe’s attitude here.    Everyone talks to him like he’s a piece of shit, and when he musters up the courage to be somewhat responsible, everyone still talks to him like he’s a piece of shit.   And then they wonder why he doesn’t help out more often.   He can’t win.

The gang loads Goku into the aircraft and then they head back to the first battlefield so they can collect the corpses of their friends.  It’s a pretty somber ride, until Krillin finally explains his theory that they might be able to wish their friends back to life after all.

This is a pretty cool moment right here.   There was a time when Master Roshi was happy to be surpassed by so many young and talented martial artists.   Now, they’ve all been killed.  Goku and Krillin were wished back, but the Dragon Balls no longer work, so that’s it.   The next time Goku and Krillin die, they’ll be gone for good, and Vegeta’s up in space somewhere planning to make that happen very soon.   But Master Roshi lives on, and he’s completely powerless to do anything about these new enemies. 

For some reason, I forgot about all these scenes of Yamcha, Tien, and Piccolo being loaded into capsule coffins.   Of course, the Ocean Dub never would have shown this part, because Saban had the script edited so that they were all blasted “into another dimension”.   Showing their dead bodies would have undermined that already flimsy concept.   Still, for some reason I remembered Krillin informing Roshi that they would find no remains for Chiaotzu, on account of him blowing himself up.  

Bulma starts reminiscing about all the good times she had with Yamcha.    That gets kind of awkward, because she spent most of their relationship being mad at him.  This one flashback of them walking together never actually appeared before.   Judging from Bulma’s Raditz-Era clothes, I’d say this would have been right before she got mad at him before they parted ways between Dragon Ball and DBZ.  

I prefer to remember Yamcha this way, standing proud on his own, rocking the Turtle Hermit dogi, got the long hair flowing down his back, giving the audience a low-key but heartfelt thumbs up.    Vaya con Dios, Yamcha.

Gohan wakes up and Chi-Chi mothers him the way only a mother can.  

He looks in the back and finds his dad, badly hurt but still smiling.    Look how happy the li’l guy is.    It was a tough year, but he made it all the way through, and now he’s got his parents back.   

Yajirobe tries to give Chi-Chi shit for ignoring her husband in favor of her son.   First of all, fuck you, Yajirobe.  Like you’ve got any business telling anyone how to act in public.   You spend most of this episode picking your nose in the background while the others talk.    Second of all, Chi-Chi knows her husband had the time of his life almost getting killed today.   Gohan’s the one who needs her right now, whether anyone will admit that or not.   

Yajirobe asks Goku if he can hit her.   Yeah, go for it, Yajirobe.    Make a move, I fucking dare you.    I take back what I said before, Yajirobe sucks.  

Anyway, Krillin lays out his big idea.    When the Saiyans first saw Piccolo, they recognized him as a Namekian, an alien from the planet Namek, and Vegeta said that the Dragon Balls must have been a product of Namekian magic.   During the battle, Vegeta abandoned the plan of using Earth’s Dragon Balls, in favor of simply going straight to Namek and finding more powerful Dragon Balls there.   Krillin thinks he must have been on to something.    If Piccolo and Kami were originally from Namek, then it stands to reason that there’s Dragon Balls there that still work.   All they have to do is go there and find them, and they can wish their dead back to life.

The problem is that no one even knows where the planet would be, but Goku contacts King Kai and asks him, and he knows all sorts of things about it.    After praising Goku and the others for their efforts, he looks up its coordinates...

... and he gives some background on the planet’s recent history.   He had believed that a natural disaster wiped out the entire population of Namek in the past...

... but he can sense fewer than 100 still living on the planet today, so the severe weather didn’t kill them all.

While they talk this all out, the gang begins to realize that the Namekian who split into Kami and Piccolo must have been a refugee, sent to Earth to escape the natural disaster on Planet Namek.    For whatever reason, no one ever came to get him after the crisis abated.   King Kai assures them that the Namekians are a gentle people, not like Piccolo at all.

On the contrary, Piccolo’s evil was probably born from the corrupting influence of Earthlings, so who’s the real Demon King, I ask you?

While they all discuss this, Bulma crunches some numbers and determines that Namek is simply too distant to reach by spacecraft.   The fastest ship Capsule Corp. has would take 4339.25 years to make the trip, and that’s just one way.  

You know, I remember Bulma being pretty snotty about this in the Ocean Dub, almost like she was glad to burst everyone’s bubble.   I can imagine an alternate universe where “4339 years and three months” would have become the big meme instead of “Over 9000.”    Ah well.

But Krillin’s got a solution in mind.   He saw Vegeta leave in his spaceship, but it was clearly a one-seater.    In the dub, he points out that there’d be no way that Nappa guy could have fit in there with him, so I just want to pass along that mental image.    Anyway, the point is that Nappa must have come to Earth in his own ship, which must still be lying around somewhere.   And Krillin stole Vegeta’s keyfob when he left, so he’s pretty sure they can use it to recover Nappa’s ship.    From there, Bulma and her dad can reverse engineer the thing and it can make the trip in a much shorter time.

And now Bulma’s sold.   I like that about her.    A minute ago, it was impossible, not because Bulma’s a pessimist, but because she can only work with the technology available to her.    Hand her an alien spaceship with a faster-than-light engine, and she completely changes her tune.   She’s so scary good with gadgets that reverse-engineering alien tech is nothing to her. 

Everyone laughs.

THEN THEY POINT.

Then they laugh again.  

Goku tried to point too, but his arm has an owie.

[yvaquietdays]

unfriending my phone

So the leaves are finally starting to drop off the trees around here, giving me all the autumnal/winter pinterest-your-way-to-Halloween vibrations. Nature has a canny way of living and dying and getting rid of what it doesn’t need, taking time out, taking a rest and putting its feet up while the cold weather sets in. It doesn’t need to tweet about it, or update an instagram story with the caption “Branches are dying off lolz.” Autumn marks the beginning of death and decay, it won’t be long until we start posting pictures of our favourite streets coated in leaves (I’m into it). It’s amazing; so many of us love the colours of the fall but in essence, it is the death of living things that we celebrate, so that everything can start anew next year. That’s reality, and I think that’s beautiful. 

Here’s my point. I wish social media would take a break; I wish it would curl up in front of the fire, maybe die off and come back better for everyone next year. I know so many people who now log out of their apps, only to be sent emails from the apps themselves trying to help them “get back online.” This happened to me two weeks ago. 

I don’t know whether I was suffering from PMS, or if I’d been sitting around too long, but my anxiety came on through flood gates I’d obviously forgotten to shut, so it took me a little while to realise the frequency had returned and was buzzing underneath everything before I tried to counteract its presence. I’ve realised I find it quite difficult trying to relive just how my anxiety feels in those moments, because everything seems like a big grey, squishy worm that bleeds into each passing minute, floating midair, making the atmosphere dreadful and vehr wormy. So there are no definitive emotions. Just worry, dread, pressure around my brain and the existential worry that I am not enough.  What I can recall, though, is that I was on social media so often I must have feared it was going to miss me. I have noticed that in times of my quarter life existentialism, the less I have going on around me, the more I automatically, without thought or intention, find myself immersed balls deep in social media. It takes around an hour of surfing absolute dink before I even realise how deep my balls are in the first place. I scrolled mindlessly, and through that open window of my phone, that little ignorant bitch named anxiety flew in as easily as a mother-fucking pidgeon, and I felt just as bad as that time I accidentally pronounced Pinot Grigio as Pee-not-Gri-guy-O. But alas! What did I do, but continue to swipe my poor little finger, as if it would find some answer, some pick-me-up that would relieve the overwhelming feeling of I-HAVE-FAILED (and believe me, when I ordered a Pee-not-Gri-guy-O to that waitress in the restaraunt I did feel that same sense of existential failure). I couldn’t explain to you or myself what I was looking for, and yet the more I found myself looking the worse I felt.

Let me tell you, that shit is as dangerous and addictive as gambling. 

Did you know, Twitter was the first application to develop the pull-to-refresh feature, which was essentially mimicry of a slot machine? It wasn’t long before all the others followed suit (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat et al); ever wonder why you keep refreshing your pages? Do you hope to see something new? Something more beautiful? Something you’ve been tagged in? What’s the difference between you and the fella in Aspers, feeding in twenty after twenty into the machine, in the hopes that this time, this time, he’ll be rewarded? What about the woman who keeps getting four fifties changed at a time, laying all her chips on the roulette table, and losing it all, only to change more money, because this time, this time, she might win? 

It’s not about the money any more. It’s about seeking the reward, the win, the fulfilment, and in social media’s world, validation.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/08/social-media-copies-gambling-methods-to-create-psychological-cravings

So I’ve known for a while the power the internet and social media apps have had over me; all the articles I read in research for my novel really opened my eyes. Sometimes, though, I’m just as good as all the other people on the bus; neck craned, eyes cast downwards, quickly researching Ariana Grande’s insta feed to salivate over her aesthetic, or to see why everyone thought she was responsible for Mac Millers death (hint: she wasn’t). It’s because, just like everyone else, I’m totally addicted to my phone.

Aside: I’m not blaming my bout of anxiety on social media, I’m just noting that it is a huge factor in how I perceive my life.

I use social media as a drug for my restlessness, and I receive sweet fuck all from it. Every time I look, it’s a reminder of how little I’m working, because I’m spending all my time thinking about working and looking at other people succeeding. It integrates this sense of failure, the smallness of my successes look in comparison, to be puney and frail. My lovely living room, amidst the quaint backdrop of my London suburb, looks boring against other artists hanging out in studios and lounging against LA backdrops online. What a failure I am; I’m eating into my savings to pay rent and afford food, I can’t buy that nice contouring set they’re selling to look the part, I’m flogging my clothes on Depop for spare change, I can’t afford flights there, I can’t afford any of this and I’m still chasing this pathetic goal of making money from my art. Every time I leave my parents house, my Dad hugs me and says, “Keep your head up, it’ll happen,” even if I haven’t spent the last two days complaining, even if I’m content, even if I run a bloody half marathon. Everyone’s still aware that she’s still trying, she’s not there yet. It’s really quite easy to lose yourself in those thoughts, it’s easy for me to reel all this off for the sake of a blogpost, but in the end I have to remind myself of the reality.

And that is, I’m fine. I’ve been doing better than I have for a long time. I’m excited, I’m getting motivated, I’m trying, I’m earning, I’m positive about the future. I’m looking after myself.It’s uncertain at times, but life is uncertain. I’m not stepping forward to play the victim in the play of me life. But that’s the kind of outlook I have in hindsight when I haven’t been on my phone all day, because social media does not help my anxiety, or hinder its progress at all. It encourages it. Instagram feeds off of my insecurity and isolation, Twitter feeds off my desire to be all knowing, Facebook creates the illusion that I’m connected when in reality I’m more separated from everyone on there than I’ve ever been.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/19/popular-social-media-sites-harm-young-peoples-mental-health

As a generation, we’re so very disenfranchised but we’re all part of this huge market. It feels as though we’re connecting, and don’t get me wrong, social media is great for self expression and identity and openness. But at the end of the day, it’s a business, and we’re it’s blind, salivating customers. It’s a marketplace for everyone to sell themselves, even when they have no goods to offer. We’re advertised products that an algorithm predicted we’d like, we’re told to post daily to reach more followers, but most of them are bots or strangers who won’t look at your page more than once. Everyone follows each other but we don’t support or give like we used to. I get the odd comment on Instagram complimenting me on my “content,” but that “content” is just my life, I don’t plan it, I don’t create it, it just is. When did our lives become fictional?! I’m all about real action, not figurative or hopeful. I’m about judging my relationships on how they are outside of an app, not what’s said inside of it. It’s too easy to lose ourselves in the virtual version of reality, where we can create how we’re seen. That’s the side of social media that I see, in terms of how it reflects back to me; it’s dark and foreboding, it’s void of meaning. And that is why I’ve been logging out. I want to enjoy it when I’m on there, not reminded of every flaw in my makeup. I rarely login in to Facebook now. I allow myself, twice a day, to look at Instagram (my main vice and source of all my first world anguish), and now I’ve been off-line, my desire to browse the app has diminished dramatically. I notice my boredom better than before; It doesn’t hold my attention. I caught myself scrolling half loaded pictures (bad wifi connection) this morning, and realised fifteen seconds in that I wasn’t actually looking at anything, I was swiping, endlessly, but the pictures were blurry and it was only the subconscious idea that something would appear that kept me going. So I put my phone down and finished my poop.

Has anyone else found themselves doing something similar? Has anyone else tried logging out? What kind of an effect did it have on you, on your mental health? What kind of an effect does your active participation on social media have, as a whole, on your mind? Do you feel less connected to the world, or more connected to those around you? Perhaps you have a better relationship with your phone than I do. *shrug*

I know I sound like a real doomsayer with my dark cloak (I’m not really wearing a cloak, but damn I think I’d like to) and and my seemingly pessimistic outlook. It’s not my intention to negate social media’s power to instigate positive change; just look at iWeigh, Help Refugees, Political Jules or Coppafeel. All good people using a Instagram to better spread their message of good health, equality and better body image across all platforms. I also believe the people who have really nailed social media are the heroes, the mums and dads of Facebook and Instagram, using Facebook to share with friends and family. That’s the whole point, and I personally think that we’re missing it as a younger generation. It’s so easy to lose ourselves in a business who’s main priority is traffic across all its apps. It doesn’t care what the traffic is, whether its bad or good, friend or foe, wizard or troll (I’ve been re-reading the Harry Potter books again), only that we’re there and we’re active. 

I reckon I really am an old woman at heart; so shoot me. I love my plants and painting, and I dream of living in some log cabin with an art studio, with a huge allotment, my main man and a couple of dergs, Bob Ross style. I love making music and getting on stage and performing, I love acting and I love media and I love galleries, I adore bookshops, beaches, forests. The whole, soppy whack. So what? I’m a romantic.

(That’s the only cool old lady gif I could find)^^^

I’m tired of stalling real conversations because either they or I have been sucked into apps, emails or jigsaw puzzles (it me). I want to live in this real world and create in this real world, but the discontent and conflict I feel is sometimes really, really irritating; I don’t want to use social media for my art, but it seems the only way you’re to be judged by labels and music makers. How much of a following do you have? How many likes do you pull in? How often do you post? It’s not about your art any more, it’s how good you are at selling it. I have enough trouble dealing with all the cogs turning in my brainbox without thinking about all this bullshit. And it goes beyond all that, it’s really irrelevant what career I choose, social media is addictive regardless of what we do. 

So fuck that. I play the game when I have to, but I’m not bending over backwards for it. 

[vitaevandal]

Brave New World

Category: Fan Fiction Fandom: Divergent Pairing: Eric/OFC Rating: PG-13 (language), eventually M Genres: Drama, romance, humor, angst, slow burn, some fluff Disclaimer: This a strict work of fiction, I own nothing except the original characters and the plot line.

A/N: This is based on a request from and discussions with @frecklefaceb and @clublulu333. It was requested as a one-shot but I had an idea that a one-shot wouldn’t do justice, so this is shaping up to be a longer fic. Here goes.

Summary: When disaster strikes the City and leaves it in ruins, Eric, one of the few survivors, must evacuate Dauntless. He finds himself in the unknown world beyond the wall, which seems to have suffered the same fate. unsure of what has become of the City he called home. Everything Eric knows has been stripped away, and he is forced to forge surprising new relationships. Will Eric ever make it back home to Dauntless? Is there even a home to go back to?

Chapter 1 - Good Morning Sunshine

It had been two days, and Eric still wasn’t accustomed to being woken by harsh sunlight bleeding through his eyelids. He’d tried closing the blinds to darken the room, but he discovered that leaving the windows open to let in a breeze was the only way to alleviate the infernal morning heat. Beads of sweat had already formed on his face, as the temperature was drastically lower at night, requiring a layer of blankets that ended up suffocating him as the sun rose and began roasting him in the bedroom like a turkey in an oven. Not that he’d ever seen a turkey in person, Dauntless wasn’t exactly overrun by wildlife, but he’d learned about the absurd custom of Thanksgiving during his days in Erudite and seen enough pictures of the deformed birds to wonder why anyone would want to eat something that looked like it had a ballsack hanging off of its face. For the first time he realized how much he’d taken the climate-controlled caverns of Dauntless for granted.

But at least the walls of the still unfamiliar home provided some shade and insulation. When he first stepped out of the pod, he felt nearly blinded by what seemed like death rays from the sky. Following immediately was the dry, sweltering heat that literally took his breath away. Disorientation had taken hold of him as he had cracked his eyes open to slits, slowly adjusting to the brightness. The vast expanse of hard-packed, cracked earth and sparse dottings of queer plant life told him he had landed somewhere out west, according to his geography lessons. Everything looked...dead. As dead as he knew almost every living thing in his former home most likely was.

He turned slowly and was surprised to find himself facing a small collection of five closely set houses, all bland and identical save for their color. A subdivision, he believed this was called, though why anyone would choose this fucking wasteland as home baffled him. Every single one of them looked deserted, windows dark, vehicles absent from driveways, not a soul in sight. He supposed they could be holed up inside, but he thought it more likely that the occupants had had enough warning of the impending disaster to pack up their necessities and attempt to flee to safety. He wished Dauntless had had that much of a warning, though he wasn’t sure even that would’ve changed the outcome.

***

The blaring of the alarm was almost, but not quite, enough to drown out the panicked screams throughout the compound. He heard the distant thumps and crashes of various structures crumbling in the distance, getting closer by the second as he stood in the control room. The outer walls and ceilings, closest to the surface, were the first to go; everything else was falling like dominos in their wake. He was trying to assess the magnitude of the situation through the camera feeds, but they disappeared almost before he could catch a glimpse as they too fell victim to the destruction. Though he didn’t need to see to know it was pure chaos.

Of course there were disaster plans in place, but they encompassed things like earthquakes and attacks from the factionless; nothing like what was happening now. As drills had taught them, people scrambled to get inside doorways and to the armory, where the construction was more fortified, but even those were collapsing under the force of this unknown attack. Those that kept their cool and followed the action plan were ironically the first to go, having gathered in clusters to the supposedly more stable areas and subsequently buried en masse. Eric watched the rest of his faction scurry around in mindless terror like headless chickens, many of them flocking to the Pit seeking safety in numbers, and he had time to think, “So much for being brave and prepared.” He sneered in disgust, thinking that if these people were what his beloved faction were made up of, perhaps they deserved to die. He thought he chose only the best of the best for Dauntless, but clearly when the going really got tough, very few measured up.

Eric had the invaluable talent of keeping his cool in even the most calamitous of situations, an essential quality to being an effective Leader, so while he certainly didn’t lack the courage to run headlong into the melee and attempt to rescue his moronic faction members, logic always prevailed for him, and not only were there protocols in place he was trained to follow, he recognized immediately that any rescue attempts were futile. He had to put the faction at large first even if it cost lives. The sacrifice of the few for the survival of the many, unfortunately.

And so, the faction leaders and their lieutenants were the priority. If the City were to fall, the most qualified should be the ones to survive in order to rebuild. Therefore, these chosen few were the only ones aware of the outside world beyond the City walls, and provided the means to escape to it in the event of the annihilation of the City. He fled to the appointed evacuation point, knowing that despite its reinforcements even that would only hold for minutes, and stepped into his assigned pod. He didn’t know the science behind it, that was Erudite’s department - was it some kind of teleportation device, or form of air travel? - but he didn’t have time to question whether he would survive the journey. Nor would he have any way of knowing if the other faction leaders had escaped. There was no deliberation really - to remain here was certain death.

The moment he stepped inside, the steel door shut forcefully behind him. A female robotic voice intoned, “Evacuation initiated,” he felt a gentle lurch as the pod ascended through the pneumatic chamber, and the last Eric knew was total darkness.

***

Eric climbed out of bed and donned the same clothes he’d been wearing since his arrival in this hellhole: fitted black t-shirt, black cargo pants, and black combat boots. His nose immediately wrinkled at the distinct odor emanating from his unwashed clothes and sweat-grimed body, but thus far he had come across no clothes in the closets that would fit his large frame, so he was stuck with what he had. He trudged wearily downstairs, his desire for coffee so strong it was practically an ache, and began to consider his plan of action for the day.

He had spent the first day scouring the houses for any necessary supplies he could immediately think of: food, clothing, weapons, and, since he had quickly ascertained that the electricity and plumbing were no longer functioning, bottled water and batteries. He collected his findings in the center house he had chosen at random to take up residence in, knowing he would think of more potentially useful items but would make a list later; for the time being he was still slightly overwhelmed by shock. Today he thought he might try the remaining vehicles in the garages to see if any of them were running, hoping to further explore the surrounding terrain. But what if he couldn’t find the keys? Could he hotwire a car? The garage doors operated on electricity; could he figure out how to open them manually? There had always been generators in Dauntless. Eric was an intelligent guy, but it’s not like they taught Survival Skills for the Apocalypse in school. He took a deep breath and said to himself, “One step at a time.”

Eric jumped as he suddenly heard the sound of rustling coming from what he thought was the kitchen. He pulled his gun from his holster and descended the stairs carefully; bursting into the kitchen, he drew his gun, and yelled, “Don’t move!”

The sight of the girl standing in front of the open cabinet actually at first almost made him laugh. She wore an oversized, obnoxiously flowery sundress, floppy straw hat, and yellow galoshes, and a white stripe ran down the length of her nose. She looked like a drunken Amity refugee. “Who the fuck are you?” he demanded.

For a moment she continued to rummage through the cabinet’s contents, seemingly unconcerned with the gun pointed at her head. Then she turned to face Eric and briefly eyed him up and down, taking in his attire and piercings. She snorted and said, “The end of the world hits and you decided to raid Hot Topic? Great, I’m sure you’ll be loads of help.”

Eric strode forward and grabbed her by the arm. “What do you think you’re doing?”

She had resumed her inventory of the cabinets, replying, “I’m checking the empty houses for supplies, what does it look like I’m doing?”

His mouth had fallen slightly open at her brazenness. “Well obviously this house isn’t fucking empty, so stop going through my shit!”

She turned to him again, hands on her hips, and retorted, “Technically this isn’t your shit, it belonged to the person that used to live here, so as far as I’m concerned it’s fair game.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, sweetheart,” he snarled. “More like every man for himself. I don’t care where you go, just get the fuck out of this house.”

She sighed, wriggling out of his grasp. “I don’t know how long you’ve been around here, but I’ve been out here for almost a week, and near as I can tell, we’re the only two living people for miles. Hell, we’re the last two living people on the planet for all I know. So either we work together, or we die.”

She grabbed his hand and shook it enthusiastically. “I’m Madeline, but I go by Maddy. Welcome to the neighborhood.” She smiled brightly. “I’m sure we’ll be the best of friends!”

Eric groaned and began to wonder if he wouldn’t be better off dead after all.

[angry-ace]

I was tagged by the inspiring @barbex who's fictober challenge I am doing

Rules: List all the things you’re currently working on in as much or little detail as you’d like, then tag some friends to see what they’re working on: writing, art, gifsets, whatever.

I’m gonna tag people that are waaaaay to cool for me but who’s to stop me my anxiety probably @crunchie-morris who by the way has the BEST jackcrutchie modern au that I love with my whole heart and @your-brother-crutchie who is my go-to sprace blog both Sami and Rowan own my entire ass guys not in a sexual way but in a you’re my idol and I want to write like you way  also @one-true-houselight who’s got some pretty cute original fic stuff going, and lastly my son Thayne @king-of-newyork whom’s’t I love with my whole heart

Fuck this is gonna be long

Fanfics:

-my Jackcrutchie Mermaid au

-my newsbians fantasy au

-my hella angsty sprace au where Spot is a farmer not a newsie

-yesterday's fictober prompt that I accidentally fell asleep before finishing oops

Original fics (I'm going to be including both the works I've started and the ones that I wish to start but are currently just ideas rattling around my brain. As I was summarizing this I realized how messed up some of these are so I’m gonna give a content warning for death, abuse, body horror?, cannibalism, supernatural evils, attempted rape:

-a post apocalyptic novel about a group of teenagers who become refugees after their hometown is attacked by bandits and they end up fighting some cannibals and shit 

- currently there’s kinda an idea for a horror book in my brain about an evil ghost that preys on mentally ill people because neurotypicals find us less credible. Don’t worry the ghost gets killed in the end by a kickass lady and the sibling of one of its victims.

-  A woman is with her older sister, her niece, and her brother in law when the zombie apocalypse starts. Her parents were scientists and she was named after one of their coworkers.The brother in law is bitten and killed and the sister kills herself shortly thereafter. The protagonist is left to care for her niece. They end up in this community run by a tyrannical guy who sends the niece away against her will. She escapes and wanders alone until she’s scratched by a raccoon. The scratch gets infected but she's saved by another woman. They begin dating and find a new community that’s actually safe and good. They get word of the niece and decide to leave together to find her.

- A teenage boy with monoplegia in one of his legs caused by a spinal injury navigates the zombie apocalypse. His journey begins with his mother, infant sibling, and abusive father who escaped jail at the start of the apocalypse. He was in jail for causing the car crash that injured the protagonist by driving drunk. To escape a zombie horde the father throws the baby into the mob and the mother runs in after the baby, they both die. The protagonist is left with his abusive father who is eventually killed by a badass afab agender hero in a hotel. The hotel is overrun by the dead and they escape together. Once outside they steal a car with a key in the ignition. They drive for miles heading towards a refuge from the dead, a safe community where they can live out the rest of their lives in safety, when they hear noises coming from the trunk. They open the truck, expecting to kill a member of the undead, but are instead surprised by the presence of a kidnapped teenage girl. They drive together to the community but the protagonist is denied entrance because of his disability. The girl enters the community but the protagonist and agender badass move on. They encounter a group of other disabled people who were denied entrance to the safe haven. Notable members are a spunky autistic girl, and a deaf young woman who turns out to be the sister of the teenage girl they’d previously traveled with.

- Okay so Nina Normal is a transracial adoptee from India who is living in Kansas. She was adopted when she was a baby so she never meets her birth parents and they literally never become a plot point. She visits her uncle in his science lab and is caught in the explosion of a particle accelerator that gives her super speed. She starts fighting bigots with her best friend Maia, a Japanese teen who is an aspiring voice actress. She also attempts to dismantle Narcorp, a company responsible for selling the faulty lab equipment that caused her accident who’s goal is to cause people to get super powers so that they can have a super powered army.

-Okay so this one is an ace lesbian named Lana has a super abusive mom and also she is a princess. She’s a painter and has magic but she has dyslexia so finds it difficult to read spellbooks. There’s this army that trying to overthrow the queen and she joins them after her mom throws her out of the house after she attempts suicide. In the army she meets a girl Mary and she and Mary start dating. The queen’s army threatens to attack Mary’s army while it’s weak and Lana gives herself up to protect Mary. Lana’s mom tries to do a ritual to remove Lana’s magic for herself but it’s interrupted by Lana’s father, who she’s never met, rescuing her. Lana’s dad returns her to Mary and helps aid the overthrow of the queen. Lana and Mary have a huge fight about Lana’s mother’s execution and Lana goes to study magic in her father’s court. Lana’s dad turns out to be a dickhead, he tries to make Lana get married to a dude but obviously she doesn’t want to because she’s gay and also still hung up on Mary. The dude gets drunk and tries to rape Lana but she uses a spell to make him start throwing up and get really sick. Lana returns to Mary and helps dissolve the monarchy in her home queendom. It basically becomes a lovely anarchist commune and Mary and Lana get back together and also get married and live happily ever after.

- Okay so this one doesn’t have any humans. It takes place in a different solar system on the planet of Oceana. Oceana is almost entirely water and it has a bunch of different mermaid cultures and types of mermaids. There are polar mermaids that live in the cold areas, can survive on the ice, they have gills and tails, the way they walk is by digging their claws into the ice and dragging themselves around. The deep sea mermaids are more like angler fish, they have super great hearing and rather than speaking and doing hand motions like polar mermaids they communicate by flashing their lights. Basically the different mermaid tribes are at war and idk the mc is trying to resolve the conflict. The mermaids would be different sizes based on whatever fish they’re supposed to be.

-So there’s this evil group trying to turn people superpowered to do espionage shit idk. And they kidnap a bunch of at-risk teens to experiment on giving them powers or to study their naturally occuring powers. The kids eventually escape during an attack on the lab by a group opposing the scientists, but some of the kids got left behind. They begin working with the attackers to rescue their friends. What happened to them has some fallout on the kids like the mc’s boyfriend becomes addicted to drugs from his struggle to cope. Eventually the kids that got left behind are rescued. Some of them don’t want to keep fighting the organiation and move on. Other’s feel like their lives have purpose since they began the fight and keep at it. The one’s who moved on get roped back into it when the organization attacks a very public place and their guilt gets them involved.

[sovinly]

Scialytic but with the les amis crew for the fic meme about pairings and i am definitely playing by the rules what are you talking about...

You are totally playing by the rules! Thank you! :D *cracks knuckles*

Okay, so, here we go.

This is definitely still the aftermath of the (finally successful) Whitestone rebellion, because if I can’t have Les Amis and co in a fantasy rebellion, what’s the point? Okay, I admit it, I’ve already thought about this. A lot.

It’s a little different, because we’re not dealing with three people who we know and who are learning one another alongside reclaiming aspects of themselves, but with thirteen people who know one another well but whose specifics we need to learn.

Seriously though, this got long and there’s discussion of trauma and torture and other really fucked up Briarwood-arc shit, as well as spoilers, so. Have a cut.

We meet Enjolras, at the forefront of both this rebellion and the last, quiet and serious and with the heavy-hung limbs of the Sun Tree burned behind his eyes, and the youngest council member after Lady de Rolo. His family wasn’t aristocracy, but they were well-off before the descent of the Briarwoods. Were. Sometimes his hands still feel cramped from penning secret missives, sometimes his old injuries ache. Five years of fighting, and he feels so much older than his face looks. There’s no words for the way Keyleth’s attempts to undermine their agency, the way it nearly imperiled their precious victory, left Enjolras deeply unimpressed. He barely sleeps, he strives for a better world, he loves the fragile tendrils of new growth but it terrifies him, if his blood-soaked hands could poison the soil. The land’s no longer a monarchy, but there are dragons and nothing is safe.

Courfeyrac has maybe two years on Percival de Rolo, but it still sometimes seems like he’s lived his whole life under threat. Dropping the “de” from his name and Enjolras’ friendship spared his life, and his throat burns with the memory of smoke and sickness every time he passes what was once his family’s estate. There’s a whole world beyond Whitestone’s borders and there are dragons to battle, the threat of life and liberty being consumed by flame. He’s a sorcerer with so very little training and a mark on his forehead he knows nothing about, and his back will never be the same after giant fists and breaking-labor. Every day, he wonders if he’s failed to make the right choices, every day he speaks to the refugees from other cities, and extends kindness even as his heart threatens still to shatter.

Combeferre doesn’t have a cleric’s magic, but he did what he could to heal people, over the years. Making bandages is idle work for his hands, scrounging any plants with healing properties is second-nature by now. There are ledgers and accounts to make sense of, and the castle is low on clerks - he helps, whispers council with Enjolras between meetings. Combeferre has steady hands and a steady mind, and doesn’t complain at getting co-opted to help Arcanist Vysoren with the research on the ziggarat. Guilt at how many lives lost dampens his longing at the glimpses of a life he could have had. Guilt for living lurks at the back of his mind. There are children who have learned only fear, nothing of books or kindnesses. Some days he feels hollow as the barrels of firearms, crushed by the intuitive understanding of them, of what they’ll bring to the world.

Let’s assume they’re at the center, but still: Bahorel hefts beams to rebuild houses, hefts a spear under the direction of Kashaw Vesh, laughed as she fought a giant and wishes the Briarwoods had been as easy to fight (her parents’ land withered like they had, her brother died at the castle), anger burns steady still in her breast and doesn’t die with the dragon. Feuilly lived under Tyleri for far too long, has ropey marks on his back that will never fade, and slipped along and across the rebellion’s quiet, subdued network after that - he runs his thumb over “Long Live the People” when he passes it, and tries to breathe under the claustrophobia of the barrier, then of being free. Jehan escaped the Sun Tree by a hair’s breadth, captured in the final throes of the Briarwoods’ reign, and he shakes through panic attacks under its welcoming branches until he doesn’t fear it anymore, until he blossoms again alongside it, and sinks his fingers into the earth.

Joly’s lilting, tremulous voice has power in it, singing healing into too many wounds for too many years, buying precious seconds for getaways and sneaking-pasts, and he shakes at his mind’s too precise illusions at night, feels his leg falter and worsen even with his sturdy cane. Bossuet’s father had been a postmaster for the de Rolos, his mother a lady’s maid, and they have had no better luck since that first worst night, and Bossuet’s flighty mind has turned them into a bird for an hour away, now that they no longer need it to spy. Musichetta will have to learn to read Marquet-style cards again with just one hand, thinks she’ll draw less painful cards than the last five years have contained, and gasps sometimes against the losses that so nearly struck her. Grantaire meets no one’s eyes, certainly not Enjolras’, piles words on fear, sick at having been seemingly proven right with the first rebellion, gapingly uncertain of what to do with hope and a moment of uprightness, and for all his flippancy, heavy-hung limbs and burning buildings and pyres engrave themselves behind his eyes.

Éponine’s father was mercenary, complicit, and she was pulled from the wreckage of a mansion, nearly dead, walks through the muddy spring streets like her head is still clouded with fog and hunger and pain, and she barely knows how to let these people be kind with and to her, but she keeps her head high all the same. (Gavroche knew the boundary of the barrier before it fell, and has learned all the nooks of the underground bunker, and has heard quite an interesting story about a boy (not-actually-a-boy) with his same name. Azelma scrubs the floors of Castle Whitestone but knows every trace of bloodstain, and her hands tremble when the guards laugh too loudly and when she unfolds the summer drapes for the Guardian of Woven Stone, keeps her eyes to the floor.)

Cosette and her father came to Whitestone fleeing Westruun-via-Kymal, her acid burns still healing, the shades of barely remembered trauma haunting her steps through a haunted town, but she sets her mouth and tries, and tries, and fosters strength in her spine. Marius, who wandered across from Wildmount in wild flight with ill-luck, who missed the first rebellion but not the second, who saw fires burning and used them to push back a necromantic monster, has nightmares all the same, tries to rekindle health from near-death, and quietly watches the de Rolos, quietly wonders what to make of this all.

But they’re a group with rebellion or trauma or dragon-breath at their backs, and they reach out. They’ve burned out corruption, and spring hovers at the edges of the mountains, and there are children who are lonely and lost, and they’ve helped to save a city. So it’s a story about how they wake and breathe and learn to forgive themselves what they’ve had to do. There are long nights of holding on, and healing wounds and traumas and land, and crops being coaxed from the ground and shared, and fighting for things that are right. There are trembling hands and tears, and a people who have agency and will have this city, as slowly and inextricably as Scialytic promised. There’s a better tomorrow, and they have a drumbeat to build it to.

[love-life-and-punk-rock]

What I believe in.

I’m a centrist. I struggle to choose what I am really. On some days I I’d say I would be a right winged liberal or on other days I would say I’d just be a conservative. But now I’ve decided to stay as a centrist. However my views change over years. Seeing how things have been going lately I’ve really hate to say it but…these SJW’s are really tearing this country apart. It’s gone to a point where we are looking at the 1960s but worse. I have never seen a nation so divided thanks to this social justice bull crap. It’s he main reason why trump won. People are sick of seeing this constant flow of riots and protests all over the United States. Not only that people are tired that this ‘snowflake’ mentality it shoved down our throats. I don’t speak on behave of anyone but myself and here’s what I want. To bring us together. Whites, blacks, asians, Latino, etc. the 80s was a great example. Hands across America, live aid, etc. it was an era of peace. We saw the Cold War end in 1985 and a few 6-7 years later the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union spilt apart. So what went wrong in our time? Social justice. The main reason why we can’t get along. The snowflake mindset plays in where we are forced to use these made up pronouns, make up new genders, have white people the enemy, and the ‘holy wars’. What’s the holy wars? Basically where religion plays in to cause wars. Islam being the main cause. Megadeth actually predicted this back in the 90s. ‘Brother will kill brother Spilling blood across the land Killing for religion Something I don’t understand Fools like me, who cross the sea And come to foreign lands Ask the sheep, for their beliefs Do you kill on God’s command? A country that’s divided Surely will not stand My past erased, no more disgrace No foolish naive stand’ It’s the hard truth that we live in. People struggle to trust muslims because of what’s going on in the Middle East. I don’t blame them. Honestly what’s going on in Europe is bad with the refugees. It’s also causing the rise of nationalism in Europe. A strong following because of how open minded their country has become that the country losses focus on itself. Anyways besides all of that I have a huge hatred for modern day feminism. Not Early first wave or second wave feminism. Modern day feminism. Why? Look at how much has been accomplished by feminism in its early stages. Woman are able to vote, woman are out of the house and have the ability to do what they want without a mans consent, and they can have equal pay (if they pick the right jobs). Now what’s the issue with modern day feminism? It’s caused division. It hasn’t accomplished anything but cause more and more division. Men are now this figure of oppression in which a simple glance or stare at a woman can make you a rapist. In fact it’s one of the more sensitive bullshit I have seen. Feminist have gone and tried to ban the word bossy. Why? Because apparently it hurts their feelings. Well tough luck. Men get their feelings hurt half the time and I don’t see them out naked in their underwear protesting about 'rape culture’. I just absolutely hate what feminism has become. Dear feminists, stop complaining about what’s happening in this country and focus on the outside world. Look at the Middle East! Woman are killed for disobeying a man. Look at South America. Mostly Mexico. Men are still seen as a dominant figure where the woman must trust their lives with men. My mother who is from Mexico actually doesn’t know what feminism is. It’s not because they don’t care about woman’s rights, it’s because they don’t press their focus on woman’s Rights at the moment. They look more towards focusing on family, work, staying alive, etc. in fact Mexico is pretty damn dangerous if you’re a young woman. You’re more likely to get raped, killed, and kidnapped in that country. I’m still confused how that country isn’t campaigning about woman’s rights as much as the US. Maybe because they’re focused on fixing their country or something. Then again that brings me back to my other topic. Immigration. More Importantly, illegal immigration. What’s my stance? Illegals don’t belong here. Why? Because the main issue is how problematic the drug war has become. It’s gotten so bad that’s its irreparable. The drug war cannot be won, but it can be 'cooled down’. Hell if I ran for president I would create an easier method for immigrants from foreign nations to come in quicker and easier. However we need to increase our border security tenfold. Why? Because sure some illegals want a better life, but it’s impossible doing it like that. Why? Because my parents are illegals. But I understand why they did it. We came for a better life. My grandfather came here legally because back then Ronald Reagan made every illegal in this country legal. My parents missed out on that chance because they were young. However my grandfather was a piece of shit. He could’ve gotten my mom and dad their US citizenship. How? My grandfather was a citizen and my dad was his son. But he refused. Sadly my parents came here illegally and later my older siblings came. We have been living here for years now. I was the only legal son thanks to the 14th amendment. Even though my parents are illegal I feel shame for the route we took. Sure we didn’t have money but if we waited longer we could’ve gotten here with us citizenships. Then again I wouldn’t of been born. Or probably earlier. Who knows. My parents are not criminals. We never broke any laws. We pay our taxes, speak English, have a house, etc. we are like every other American. Just a bit more discrete about our status. Anyways we need to find a new method of keeping illegals out besides this fence in our border. My first steps would be making it easier for immigrants to come here. Now then…do I seem like some right winged dick who just wants to keep immigrants out? No. I want criminals out. Not immigrants. I want our country safe. Speaking of which. @hyenatiddy. This son of a bitch. This pathetic manipulative piece of shit. He’s the main reason why I shot myself on a livestream. And some of his followers actually wished death on me. Oh don’t even get me started on some of the shit they said 'this world is better without him’ 'he was a right wing troll’ etc. Somehow they believe in him. Thinking that he’s the victim here. Oh how much he has fucking lied to you. First of all he’s lied to me. The first thing he did was when he played as some girl telling me that he killed himself and she took over. I knew he was lying when he’s posting art and pics of himself without mentioning suicide. Next thing he does? Of boy. This son of a bitch tells me he’s in the hospital for for what…three weeks? I dunno. But he reused the same pic of a hospital band saying he’s still in the hospital. I was so confused. I knew something was up since he said he 'took’ a picture even though it was reused from last week. (Not really last week but awhile back.) oh and then he tells me he loves me. I actually felt happy for once. I actually felt joy in my life. I felt loved. And then this piece of shit drops this on me. He asks if I’m right winged. He doesn’t even give me time to explain. The bastard just leaves. Blocks me and makes me feel like shit. I felt abandoned. This manipulative trash never loved me. I found out because he was already dating someone else. Hell I was gay for awhile. I admit it. But now I’m sticking as a straight Latino male. I don’t trust any trans person. Sure one mistake doesn’t represent all trans but I’ve encountered a lot of trans and they always treat me like trash. I can’t take that encounter anymore. Oh but hey I’m a 'transphobe’ for not trusting trans people but oh wait I hear a bit of hypocrisy coming from the snowflake! What’s that? You don’t trust all males for the actions of a few? Then that doesn’t make you sexist one bit according to your agenda. Anyways moving back to the subject this son of a bitch is the main reason I have a higher hatred for SJW’s. He lied. He was a sick liar. I don’t have proof because why should I keep the messages from him? It makes me feel awful and I needed to get rid of something that hurt me. He would say some bullshit like 'that’s why I got rid of you because you hurt me’. My response is how? How do I hurt you? For stating the truth? For stating my opinions? My political views? Fuck off. How can you not feel safe with someone who has not brought up their political opinions directly. How can you not fucking feel safe with someone who said they love you and care for you. How? How the fuck can you not feel safe? It’s absolute bullshit. I had a friend call the cops but they couldn’t do shit since wherever he lived wasn’t in their power since it’s a different state. Then again my friend though I was dead when I hit my chest. I laid on the floor for awhile. When I shot myself i went into some type of shock. I didn’t move. I was unresponsive. I was like asleep. The pain was just so unbearable I think I must’ve passed out. Then the cops and paramedics arrived and they closed my laptop which ended the livestream. Someone reported the stream and it got taken down. When I was in the hospital i was already awake but I was in so much anger. I had to go through heavy treatment. I had to be away from my phone. I had to. But I decided to stay away from tumblr. I recently came back since I feel better and I’m up to confront what made me feel like this. I’m not running away like hyenatiddy does by abusing the block button to hide from arguments and people confronting him. I’m up to fire back if someone shoots at me. I’m not fucking scared. I don’t care for the thousands of followers he has. I’m not scared of they get manipulated by his beliefs. I came to confront my fears and take on what made me shoot myself. The hatred of other people won’t take me down. It’s why I made this post and why I won’t stand down. I’m a Latino male. Straight. Centrist. I won’t be silenced by a bunch of horny bastards who believe in hyenatiddy’s lies. Now I wanna thank a few friends who supported me. @takashi0 @boss-hoody @fatponyroleplays @forgottonbutstillbreathing And some other friends who’s URL I’ve forgotten of lol. Thank you all. I know some of you didn’t notice when I got shot but I knew some of you were worried for me. My friend tried his best to spread that I shot myself but some wouldn’t believe him. I’m fine however. I’m just glad that you guys are still up and running. Thank you so much. I no longer fear people who just…hate. In fact I’m gonna be more open about my opinions. I just need help to recover from this first.

[paradisezero]

Dear PewDiePie,

You can’t just say “Death to All Jews” and not expect generally hateful people to NOT act on it. Look around you. The KKK is in the midst of a Renaissance and Resurgence(1.) Anti-Semitic attacks have INCREASED over the last two or three years to record levels everywhere(2.) Jewish American leaders are extremely worried ever since Trump became President as he has enabled and legitimized, the fringe right to do whatever the Fuck they want(3.)

I know you have apologized for it, and that is expected of a responsible person like you, which is admirable, and something which cannot be said of many people. However, please acknowledge that the reactions to what you have done here is not a question of stifling free speech, but normalizing hate speech. There’s a big difference between the two.

Wishing Death to all Cacti and venomous Scorpions in a context of joking and sarcasm is Free Speech. Wishing Death to an entire group of people who share a common faith, even in a context of joking and sarcasm, is Hate Speech. We have to know where to draw the line because when that line is blurry and fluid to give way to jokes, sarcastic comments, and half-heartedness, here will be dire consequences. People have literally died over someone acting on hate speech, for God’s sake.

Also, why have you resorted to blaming the media and try to discredit them, saying their reporting was basically “trying to tear you apart?” You cannot fault the media for being very fidgety and hard on any attempt to make what has historically been hate speech nothing more than a joke anyone should throw around and be normalized. You cannot realistically expect to throw a historically hateful statement around and expect everyone to laugh it off just because it was sarcastic, done as a joke, or to “test” Fiverr’s limits.

I say this, for HATE IS NOW THE DOMINANT POLITICAL MINDSET IN THE UNITED STATES AND THE REST OF THE WORLD, REALLY. PD Trump hates immigrants so much that he launched that notorious Executive Order. He has also hates the established media so much he’s proactively trying to demolish their credibility and pushing the unverified, controversial media outlets that glorify and normalize his world views. His enabler Steve Bannon has just declared that the “Media is the enemy(4.)” Their supporters are acting on it because Breitbart and Alex Jones are enjoying some of their best ratings and traffic to date. The Conservatives are succeeding in their goal to systematically remove protections from poor, non-white, non-heterosexual Americans. The European Far Right has enjoyed popularity and political prominence not seen since the Nazis took over Germany - I mean, just look at Brexit. It wasn’t economic concerns that sealed its fate. Anti-immigrant, anti-refugee fears did(5.) The Syrian government has all but wiped Aleppo off the map to rid it off ISIS who are still beheading people left and right. We all know how that went.

And do you know why they are succeeding in all that? Because they are trying, and frankly SUCCEEDING, in normalizing hate speech and acting on that hate speech like it is absolutely nothing, a joke, a statement that should be met with a nod and the same social acceptance as “Let’s go to Dairy Queen,” Or “The Toyota Corolla is a reliable car.”

And Jokingly saying “Death to All Jews” is NOT HELPING, it’s only galvanizing and legitimizing hateful people, especially when it comes from THE face of YouTube, its biggest creator, influencer, and traffic bringer.

But again, I cannot emphasize enough, the way MSM’s have framed this is deplorable, like they want your head for this. That needs to be addressed badly as well, for this culture of headhunting will do no one favours, as Philip Defranco very much likes to point out.

I hope that this will be a wake-up call for everyone. For the media to get their shit together and not run around in a culture of hunting heads and exaggerating. For the people to have a very important sit-down and talk about hate speech and free speech. And for Felix, to find other  new horizons to be an amazing creator with the lessons he learned from this.

References.

1.       Zachariah, Holly. (9 Feb 2017.) “Klan Vows Renewed Push in Ohio, other states.” The Columbus Dispatch. http://www.dispatch.com/news/20170209/klan-vows-renewed-push-in-ohio-other-states)

2.       Drury, Ian. (2 Feb 2017.) “Anti-Semitic attacks up by a third to a record high: More than 1,300 hate crimes were recorded against Jews last year.” The Daily Mail. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4182672/Anti-Semitic-attacks-record-high.html

3.       The Associated Press. (17 Nov 2016.) “American Jews Alarmed by Surge in Anti-Semitism.” Fortune. http://fortune.com/2016/11/17/anti-semitism-donald-trump-jews/

4.       Gertz, Matt. (26 Jan 2017) “Steve Bannon to Journalists: Kneel Before Trump.” Media Matters for America. http://mediamatters.org/blog/2017/01/26/steve-bannon-media-kneel-trump/215144

5.       Kaufmann, Eric. (9 Nov 2016.) “Trump and Brexit: why it’s again NOT the economy, stupid.” The London School of Economics and Political Science. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/trump-and-brexit-why-its-again-not-the-economy-stupid/

[rasekstories]

I’m Still Here

It is roughly 30 years after the last war between the Horde and the Alliance.  The Shadowpine Amani were the first to submit to the Horde afterwards, being the closest to Quel’thalas and the most susceptible to attack from the combined forces of the Darkspear and the blood elves, and many of their children having already taken up the banner of the Horde.  It was only a matter of sending these children home with promises of glory, safety, and of course the lack of invasion from the elves should they submit.

The Amani are a proud race, but their numbers had been dwindling steadily since the elves had begun repopulating, and with so many of their children leaving, the elders of the tribe had grown weary and eventually agreed.  Their broken spirit was and is still despaired by many in the villages, who long for Zul’jin to return and lead them to victory as he tried in the past, but he never comes, and more and more of their children are heading into Silvermoon City to make their fortunes.  Only the eldest Shadowpine remember warring with the elves at this point, who to their credit understood the value of trade, and eventually the barrier of hatred between the two races begun to soften, as these things do in an urban setting.

The Mossflayers were next.  The Forsaken made to take Arathi as they had Hillsbrad.  Sylvanas claimed it was the ancestral land of her people, many of whom had been raised by Arthas after the fall of Alterac, and many more still by the Val’kyr after Southshore and the farming town of Hillsbrad proper were taken during the fall of Gilneas.

The Mossflayers were on the brink of losing not only their homes, but having the land of their own ancestors leeched of life and desecrated by the reckless use of toxins employed by the Forsaken.  Vol’jin, not wanting to approach a northern troll as a southern “savior”, sent Primal Torntusk in his stead to treat with the Mossflayers.  Their initial stubbornness melted away into submission after Sylvanas captured refugee point and turned it into and the Alliance cavern leading into Alterac Valley into a gruesome checkpoint for her own decayed troops.

The Witherbark were the most stubborn of the northern tribes, having spent years at war with both Revantusk and the Wildhammer dwarves, though with the loss of Jintha’alor and the encroaching Forsaken troops from the Hiri’Watha station, they had no choice but to submit or be extinguished.  They chose the latter, and no Troll now will claim having descended upon them (Excepting TIombi, who despite what she thought, wept for the loss of her people but did not speak of it, as they had not been her tribe for quite some time).

There were a few years of peace in the region.  Vol’jin had duties elsewhere, contacting the other tribes on Azeroth in an attempt to unite them under one banner, which he called the greatest empire any troll has seen in history, and all but the Farrakki joined forces with him.  To this day, they are the only “savage” tribe left, though concessions were made in the ways of cannibalism and voodoo as a means of appeasement for the newer tribes in the Horde.

The Ghostlands were still gloomy, but populated by a few elves wishing to make the best of it, the Shadowpine Amani who had always called it home, and quite a few Forsaken who had grown attached to the elves and rather enjoyed the depressing rot and fog that seemed to come from the very soil.

Zul’Aman remained closed.

Eventually, the Regent Lord decided that the entirely of the Ghostlands truly belonged to the blood elves, who had suffered much to keep it safe while the Shadowpine only fought against them, and a political rift was born between the two groups once again.  Once Vol’jin passed, the bonds that had brought them together weakened further, especially after a few offhand comments made by Lor’themar at the Jin’s funeral.  The two nations are still allies, but only technically.  Trolls are once again unwelcome in the city if they even look slightly Amani, though the more obviously Darkspear are still accepted.

And so, another strain between the Darkspear and Amani began to pull as well.

Revantusk has expanded beyond the small fishing village on the coast, extending its borders further than they were even during the second war, when the tribes in the area were united under a different Orcish Horde.

The whole of the Hinterlands belonged to General Yarbo Irontusk for a time, who, after the death of his father, refused to use the title “Warchief”, saying politics did not suit him, and if the war was over so was he.  Regardless, nothing was done that would displease him, though he grumbled to himself and lost interest in the things that used to keep him occupied.  He had one stillborn daughter and a son after that, though Tiombi suffered greatly during the second birth and passed away shortly afterward.

Zaezha did everything she could to assist Yarbo in raising his child, partly at Rasek’s request.  He grew up beside their small litter of children, each enjoying the comfort and relative ease of living in a peaceful time on their father’s income, which was often described as “elven” due to its size, though the major general was closer to a Goblin than anything else.

Yarbo passed away in his early 40s, his boy in his late teens, and Rasek followed shortly after, a victim of high blood pressure and extreme alcoholism.

Jin’taza moved to Silvermoon to study, taking a rather impressive entourage of educated and interested Trolls with him.  Eventually he took over one of the run down observatories in the Ghostlands that reminded him of his youth, where he studies to this day as the headmaster of a respected university that even the elves let their children attend, if they can pay the handsome tuition of course.

His former flame Kelikei left the village to deal with her own ghosts.  The two remained friends, but their passion for one another had long since withered away, and when she left the Eastern Kingdoms she sent a few letters and eventually fell out of touch with the rest of the world.  Jin’taza has named what he believes to be another planet after her.

Urukal works in this university, although she never made the rank of a full professor.  She works as an assistant to an elven professor who is nearly 300 years older than her and has grown kinder to her in her old age, but still remains relatively cold.  Urukal’s husband, Kazzok, is a rather hopeless and terrible fisherman, who takes their two tomboy daughters out on trips often enough that they have surpassed him, and bring in most of the food for their family.

Athena took up residence in Arathi, working closely with the Trolls there, as she is used to, and she still sends letters to Nang, who can barely read at his advanced age but responds just the same from his home in Orgrimmar.

Nydairus became a sort of lost soul. With the warband at peace and his old comrades from Lordaeron either dead or missing, he felt without purpose, and succumbed to a bit of brain rot.  He remained a steady shot, but ventured off into the woods alone to pretend to fight the bad guys whenever he pleased.

Zurrock took pity on him and shot him in the head 15 years after the war ended.  Zurrock had gotten his own woman; a very poor elven woman who he thought to be the most beautiful creature on the planet with a wicked fine ass.  They did not have any children together, but she had one with some other lover that he took notice of from time to time.  He died 29 years after the last war, leaving his hussy with quite a bit of gold and a place for her son at Jin’taza’s academy (which he declined to become a ranger).

Vesdemona and Ratapumpum happened to travel the same route quite often, between Orgrimmar, the Undercity, and Silvermoon, though he would take the extra step and head down to Revantusk to see the turtles.  She lost control of her demons and as a result lost half of her face, which was replaced but looked a mess, and she became rather bitter as a result.  Ratapumpum was eaten by a spawn of Gammerita, and if Vesdemona found him annoying in life, she found him even more so in death, simply because he was not around to keep her company.

Gazrak went missing in the twisting nether.

Yirna and Rasek had an affair sometime after the birth of his second child, which he never told Zaezha about but she suspected, which led to Yirna’s first child and her hurried departure from Revantusk.  She joined the Earthen Ring full time, and while Rasek sent her money to better care for their child, they rarely spoke out of shame.

BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT THIS FUCKING STORY IS ABOUT.

Juzmik and Sarjen have lived together in a permanent home for roughly 10 years.  Once he was convinced there would be no further war for him to worry about, the knight got down to a deeper concern:  Keeping himself fed.

Juzmik had wanted to live above or beside their bar in an urban area, but his duties as a general didn’t give him the time he wished he had, and Sarjen was too busy with his own work to ever get started building it.  Peace between the Alliance and the Horde was still strained, and neither side made any secret of spying on the other.  Besides, there were still elves to watch.

During this time, Juzmik had taken a liking to the orphans who were growing into their teenage years. They regarded him as an older brother, and many of them went on to be scouts and members of the military (as orphans are naturally good at hiding, fitting into small spaces, stealing, and shooting lasers from their eyes).

A younger boy, not old enough to participate in the rougher games they played or their practicing, always came to watch.  Juzmik grew especially fond of the kid and wanted to adopt him, but Sarjen grew more and more fearful of his own state, with the land at peace and himself unable to find enough things to remain mentally well.  He grew more and more violent and unstable, his drawings and calculations becoming strange, and his schedule and methods more erratic.

Juzmik did adopt the boy, but Sarjen spent days and days away from home just to keep himself well enough to be around a child.  Eventually the two began to grow apart.

The work of a general seems endless, but old men have their limits.  Juzmik retired in his early 40s, a few years after the death of Yarbo and Rasek.  His adopted son was only a few years older than Zaezha’s eldest, and the two of them got along well enough to act as a pair of mentors for the rest of the younger kids, though at the time of Juzmik’s retirement they were old enough to be considered men themselves.

He watched with pride as his son earned a sergeant’s rank in the military, and though he visited Zaezha often (she was in her late 40s and was lonely despite being friends with nearly everyone on the continent), he lived alone in his modest apartment.  He saw Sarjen rarely, and the knight barely spoke.

So anyway, Juzmik is now 56 years old. His adopted son is around 30, and a senior sergeant in the Combined Troll Forces.  He’s married to a much younger Revantusk native, who is expecting their first child.  

Sarjen has not been seen in Revantusk for some time, having left a letter of resignation on his desk one morning in July, and no letter for Juzmik at all.  The old general spends his time spoiling orphans, though there are considerably fewer of them than there used to be, walking Zaezha around town, and drinking coffee.  He has a little garden outside his window which he tends, but it grows smaller and less comely every year.  He has a stiffness in his back and a pain in his joints that he can no longer ignore, so he sighs at his window and sips his coffee, looking out at his meager garden and wishing he could still do it all himself.

On the eve of his 57th birthday, Juzmik falls from a stool while attempting to get his last container of coffee from the highest shelf.  Zaezha would not be there until tomorrow, and his son was busy enough with his own family and work that he would be even later.  When he tried to call for help, a sharp pain in his chest made him reconsider.  Even drawing enough breath to yell hurt more than anything he’d felt in his life, so he tried his best to remember his training, lay very still, and attempted to keep his breathing even.

Zaezha found him the following afternoon and called for a doctor, but the old scout was in terrible shape.  He was given comfort and enough medicine to keep him out of pain, but he’d be asleep for ages before he woke up, if at all.

Juzmik did wake up, though not as he remembered himself being.  He was young again, his hair still a darker blue than the deepest part of the ocean, his golden eyes still bright.  His limbs didn’t ache and he wasn’t coughing.  He was moving, but not of his own accord.  He was being carried, though through the fog of medication he couldn’t quite see where.  The man carrying him was a figure from his dreams; tall, broad shouldered, with leathery brown skin and red hair so faded it was almost pink. The piercing light from his blue eyes was as sharp and cold as ever, but there was a warmth in the way he held Juzmik that couldn’t be felt through his skin.

Juzmik asked where they were going and tried to move, but when he did his vision spotted with pain, and for a moment he was an old husk of a Troll again.  The knight held him closer and said nothing.

He couldn’t say how long they traveled.  A first it was in the knight’s arms, then sitting in front of him on a bike, always held close, then in his arms again as they climbed a ways out in some of the outlying hills in what smelled like Arathi.  The tree line gave way to a grassy clearing overlooking the ocean (he could smell that too), and at this point the knight set Juzmik on his feet, though he still held the man up by his waist and arm.

A modest cottage was situated at the top of the hill.  It had tall, arched doorways made of stone and a peaked roof with grey shingles.  Most of the main body was made from the deep green rock that formed in the caves near Hammerfall, with swirling white and gold veins that would made it so desirable in Stromgard and Alterac over half a century ago.  To the left was a smaller, more modest addition made from wood, sporting more windows than the main building but being lower and less extravagant as a whole.  It had a very homely feel to it, with meticulously cared for flower boxes in the window and a neat vegetable garden in the back. A tin sign over the door was engraved with the name Juzmik had always wanted to give his bar, and as he smiled he couldn’t contain the tears that had begun to form at the corners of his eyes.

Sarjen led him through the interior slowly, making sure to stop every time Juzmik needed rest or another dose of his medicine, which kept him so fuzzy he could scarcely tell what was real and what was just a dream.

Indeed, as he lie in bed, his hand on the side of the old knight’s face, he asked if he’d really come back to live with him.  Sarjen smiled and promised he’d always be there, the cold gravel in his voice quelling any emotion that might have betrayed at him.

“You haven’t looked at me that way in years.”  Juzmik mumbled, the dense fog of his drug and the friendly hands of death already pulling at his hands and the hem of his tunic.  Sarjen smiled and kissed the general’s forehead, pulling the covers up over his chest as gently as and sweetly has he possibly could.

He let out a ragged sigh as Juzmik closed his eyes, mouth slightly open, the steady rhythm of his breathing becoming slower and slower until it was no longer there.  He kissed the boy’s knuckles, warm but no longer responsive, and buried his face in the cover, whispering between his sobs.

“I’m still here.”

[inaneinthenextplane]

#NotMyAss: A Case For Why The Democratic Party Should Change Its Symbol From The Andrew Jackson Donkey To, Anything More Progressive

“It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.” - Andrew Jackson

People aren't perfect, in the modern day this can be noted about many (if not any) of us & our capacity as people toward imperfection permeates all from the lowest in the social pecking order to the highest. It is often said that when judging people in the past, especially of leaders both religious and political, that one should not apply the ethical standards of modernity when designating who does & doesn't deserve our collective admiration or respect as people. Certainly, the United States is not a stranger to the controversy plaguing its record & history. However most will tell you that while the founding fathers for instance may have been slave owners, they for their time had altered their society for the better. That through their violence against the system of monarchism, they're said to have bravely redefined societies' relationship with the government, incorporating some of the progressive elements of the age of enlightenment at that time to form a constitutional republic that would spring revolutionary fervor as far as France & even as close as Haiti against the French First Republic itself. However you may feel about the founding fathers, their religious & civic beliefs, their involvement in slavery, their war crimes against the Native population, etc, there is no doubt that they left behind a tumultuous legacy that cannot be said to have given modern society no gifts that the people of today continue to indulge in. Our constitution, though it is unfortunately often ignored or otherwise subverted by the government today, has given people rights and autonomy over their own lives that other nations only wish they could possess. Legacy is an important thing to consider when evaluating the worth of men of history, it's how we determine the weight of the gifts they've given to the world vs. their atrocities, how we determine who we'll honor from our past or condemn to the realm of the reviled.

Andrew Jackson was a war criminal Indian killer, a rogue president, and an enemy of the abolition of slavery. Apart from the founding fathers, he was a president & leader of the country with a fundamentally different kind of legacy. Some may even say his was an accomplished one, and indeed, it doesn't strike even me as wholly blemished or uproarious. However, any idiot could argue a silver lining within the track records of even the most loathsome of tyrants. "Mussolini may have instituted fascism, but, at least he had the trains running on time". "Mao Zedong may have been the catalyst for the murder of 45 million, but hey, he was good for women" (I'm not shitting you, this is a narrative pressed in the New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/opinion/women-china-communist-revolution.html). But, it isn't unreasonable to suggest his contribution to the country had its bright sides. In the interest of being measured I'll list some of said accomplishments here:

He was an accomplished general who throughout his military career diligently fulfilled his functions in the battles he fought, delivering crushing defeats to enemy armies, most notably the battle of New Orleans. This was one of the most one sided battles of the War Of 1812 and lead to the death of 2,037 British soldiers, compared to 71 Americans.

He expanded voting rights to all... white males. Which, I mean, as a white guy I have to take as something of a plus. I certainly shouldn't have to own land or pay a poll tax to vote. No siree bob, fuck you, up yours, get laid, eat shit, drop dead, jack me off, suck this, I'm not interested in your rigid voting standards. Perhaps, this could be said to have set the groundwork for future generations of increased suffrage for other interest groups.

He solved a succession crisis presented by South Carolina caused by Southern farmers' not wanting to pay high tarrifs issued to benefit Northern industrialists by authorizing the use of force in implementing the tariff but also passing a compromise bill that adjusted the rates enough to lower tensions among the growingly embittered population of the state. He fought the banks, and managed to be the only president to balance the federal budget & leave the country with zero national debt by the time he left office.

I list these in part because already I could picture the internal dialogue of people whom may be fans of Andrew Jackson, or who believe that historical outrage is an indulgence characteristic of SJW's & other victims of guilt over a contrived notion of white privilege who resent their own existence. I don't consider myself aligned with such outrage culture, however, the character of the country matters & our relationship with the past should reflect the lessons we've learned from it.

A brief history of the symbols of the two major parties: In 1828 Andrew Jackson's populist rhetoric earned him the designation of 'stubborn Jackass' among critics. However, this insult was adopted proudly by Jackson who then printed images associating his campaign with a strong willed & determined donkey. Conceptually its the campaign equivalent of taking back the “Ehn-Word”. Less interesting is the story of the Republican elephant, where basically a magazine named Harpers Weekly published a political cartoon of a bunch of animals fleeing from a braying mule but like, the elephant was brave and didn't flee. Woo-oo.

Here I would like to enumerate why I believe, as a leftist, that it is in the Democratic parties' best interest to shirk the donkey that now symbolizes the only party that fosters progressive thought, from Bernie Sanders to Elisabeth Warren to the majority of the liberal base of the US who vote.

We talk now a lot about the imperative nature of Supreme Court justices. Democrats begging the left to vote would use the Supreme Court as one of their alarmist rationales for voting not so much for Hillary Clinton, but rather against Trump. There's a current panic among the left as far as abortion goes, as the right has been seeking the death of Roe vs. Wade ever since its passage in the year of 1973. Well, lets talk about the Supreme Court & president Jackson. Jackson was a slave owner, which isn't at all unique to the history of presidents of that age, but let's compare him to Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson (the third president), a noted slave owner, claimed he partook in the industry for economic purposes & actively resented the industry. Jefferson referred in public to the institution as a 'hideous blot' & even went as far as to ban the import of slaves into Virginia. His proposed amendment to ban slavery in all northern and southern states after 1800 would have succeeded, were it not rejected by one mere vote. Jefferson had a complicated relationship with slavery, & even as he owned slaves, he seemed not to be its legislative ally while in government.

The case of Dred Scott vs. Sandford is perhaps the most notorious decision made by the US Supreme Court. I remember learning it in history class as the worst ruling ever produced by the court in AP US Government class during high school. The ruling basically set back the abolitionist cause by many years and helped to solidify the inevitability of the entire Civil War. Basically, Dred Scott was an enslaved man who sued for his freedom after his master John Emerson had died, leaving his wife to handle his estate and therefore Dred Scott as a slave. He was not only denied his freedom but his ability to sue was rejected on the grounds that he, as a slave of "the negro African race", was property on level with a shovel or other type of tool. This decision stands as one of the worst decisions ever made in the history of the judicial branch of government, & it was facilitated by the appointments of Andrew Jackson, a vehement opponent of the then nascent movement towards abolition. By that point, four of the judges influencing this decision were appointed by Jackson, only one of which voted as a dissenting opinion. While John McLean of Ohio voted against, John Caltron, Roger Brooke Taney, and James Moore Wayne all voted in favor of the ruling. Compare this to what Jefferson, a president three terms down from him was attempting, with much less cultural traction at the time. Does the Democratic party at this time want to be represented by a symbol describing the man who committed the exact administrative evil they fear so much in this age, when Donald Trump threatens to do the same?

The Supreme Court today is one of the most sought after checks against the Executive Branch, especially today as Donald Trump attempts to institute so called 'Muslim bans' by cutting off immigration to majority Muslim nations. The courts, up until very recently, had put the kibosh on his ban, ruling it unconstitutional. Now the ruling has been temporarily uplifted, but the issue remains undecided & under review in the courts.

Imagine a world where Donald Trump ignored the ruling of the court, going as far as to throw Muslims out of the country at the barrel of a gun & barring refugees from wartorn nations in turmoil from entry everywhere from the mainland to even the territorial United States?

Well,

it just so happens that there is precedent for a president committing such an affront to the checks and balances of the United States. Oddly enough, only a few administrations into the country itself with its relatively new constitution no less.

The Trail Of Tears, earned Andrew Jackson the name of 'Sharp Knife' from the Cherokee nation, it was a forced death march designed to evict multiple native American tribes from the eastern territories of the United States out west to what is now Oklahoma. Rich American farmers were for a while during & prior to Jackson's' administration coveting the lands of the Indian nations of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Creek and Cherokee. Under the auspices of their 'savagery', the practice of forced removal of Indians from their land had been no big deal traditionally for state and federal governments of the United States. These five tribes however underwent the process of 'civilizing' themselves, & had organized private ownership, adoption of Christianity, learned to speak and read English, even circulating their own newspaper at that time in an attempt to distinguish themselves as perfectly willing to assimilate in the interest of becoming culturally neighborly as a people. They had even in many cases sued for their right to their lands not to be infringed. In cases such as 'Cherokee Nation v. Georgia' (1831) and 'Worcester v. Georgia' (1832), the Supreme Court itself even demanded that the state government of Georgia and Jackson's' administration cease the persecution of these tribes, affirming their sovereignty as nations.

But this motherfucker, this truly savage man, this rogue & treacherous president would go on to completely dispense with the opinion of the very court designed to provide a check on his office. Jackson said these fateful words in response to being contradicted by the court:

“John Marshall has made his decision;

now let him enforce it.”

A statement of utter irony, when one considers that is is the very nature of the Executive branch to enforce the laws, as interpreted by the courts, & crafted by the Legislative branch. Without any food, medicine, or clothing/blankets given from the government, the Chocktaw Indians would be first to journey at the point of a bayonet and sometimes even in chains down a miserably long road to Oklahoma. Of fifteen thousand Creek Indians that next would be moved, three and a half thousand would not make it. More than 5,000 Cherokees would die on their road to a forced new land. The Seminole Indians who would not leave even went as far as guerrilla warfare tactics, putting an ardent fight but ultimately failing to succeed in the preservation of their rightful lands. For the ones who capitulated to the governments demands & moved, diseases such as whooping cough, typhus, dysentery, & cholera among others would mar the entire genetic makeup of their people & starvation would plague them & only them as soldiers would accompany their miserable trek to a new life in a new land.

These people were not allowed to win. They were not allowed to live peacefully and many weren't even allowed to live because the United States was headed by a genocidal maniac, an opportunistic slave monger & white supremacist who had a history of practicing ethnic extermination throughout his military career; even going as far as to recommend the killing of Native American women and children to those under to him. In fact, during the first Seminole War prior to his presidency the military came upon two British men Alexander George Arbuthnot and Robert C. Ambrister living amongst the Seminole people. One of the men had written a journal expressing dissenting opinion against the persecution of the Seminole & their forced removal, which Jackson would use as the evidence necessary to try and execute them in a “special court martial” for conspiring to incite the tribe to fight back against his advance on them. A perfectly reasonable reaction for them to have come up with of their own volition! Only no, they were enticed to by these dangerous trouble making Brits.

What a contradiction of American values of freedom of speech, of due process, of the will of the Supreme Court!

Imagine being a Jew in modern day Germany, living in a democracy where one of the major supposedly leftist/liberal parties was symbolically depicted by a Nazi flag with no other options in sight to vote for representing your interests. Imagine being Jewish in a Germany where boys and girls pay for ice cream with dollar bills depicting the portrait of Adolf Hitler. Or where the grave to this day of Hitler is still honored to this day.

You might say this is a reach, but think of what was at stake for both groups of people. Think of the method of execution & even movement of these people who were both subject to genocide at the hands of a significantly more powerful 'other'. As the Soviet Union proceeded into Nazi territory from the eastern front, the occupants of concentration camps were evacuated and forced to move-via death march- where many would die of disease or being shot by SS soldiers when they could not go one, in the harshness of winter no less.

The property and territories of Native American tribes were sacked and their supplies stripped from them prior to being forcibly moved to the federal governments designated reservation, their movements took place under very similar circumstances & the general disregard for their humanity also strikes me as similar in their malevolence. There was simply no army to save “The Five Civilized Tribes” whose fate at the hands of their enemies would be most uncivil. 'Stubborn jackass' is perhaps the least venomous of insults you might lob at Jackson, & perhaps this is why he so willingly painted himself as such in the political landscape of his nation.

We shouldn't even honor the grave of this former president, his ironic place on the fiat currency of our American 20$ bill could not have found a more beautiful 'Fuck You' than in being replaced by abolitionist radical Harriet Tubman (though perhaps in her case 'cathartic' might be a better word) even if it is only on one side of the bill.

What is the utility of the donkey as the symbol of the Democratic party? When most people are obtuse to the history of it in the first place, why should the Democrats be content to leave anybody with the intellectual curiosity to research their primary logo the chance of being disgusted by their own national history? It strikes me as very ironic, when it should be iconic. It is a symbolic affront to one of their more coveted voter bases, because lets face it, Native American voters aren't exactly gung-ho to vote for the Republican party who specifically sell out to the very people who stand to profit from our modern affront to tribal rights, the tar sands Dakota Access oil pipeline. If Democrats are to be sincere in standing with the water protectors of Standing Rock, I think a great gesture in the right direction could consist of adopting a wholly new symbol, designed to do in effect what Obama proposed in response to calls to investigate the criminals in the Bush administration who committed torture & warrant-less wiretapping: to look forward, as opposed to looking backwards.

Below are my sources I used for this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K27oIJlAlA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Jackson

https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005162#

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-the-parties-got-their-animal-symbols/

https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/history/people/indian-killer-andrew-jackson-deserves-top-spot-on-list-of-worst-us-presidents/

http://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/trail-of-tears

https://www.biography.com/people/andrew-jackson-9350991

http://www.subzin.com/quotes/M18643d18b/George+Carlin%3A+Complaints+%26+Grievances/Bullshit%2C+fuck+you%2C+up+yours%2C+get+laid.

[c7thetumbler]

Life Update Notes: February 11th

So I skipped the past few weeks with this. I had a big blog post all planned out, but after rereading it... It’s just me talking about how last year was for me. It wasn’t a positive post, and I think I’ll keep it in drafts to remind me of things that have been from a more positive perspective.

Anyway, let’s just go with a recap

2 Weeks ago

Spent the whole time trying to line up an apartment, and actually had a bit of a ... we’ll say I panicked a lot when I dropped $300 for an apartment oonly to find out that it was unfurnished and didn’t quite match what I was advertised. Luckily over the course of the week I talked with someone at the complex; they managed to find me a place in the same complex for much cheaper given that the mistake was made because I was told to “just use the online system because we’ve only got 16 people here” when I called to ask questions.

No small amount of stress was had either over a bank issue when switching apartments caused them to lose the $300, but either they decided that it was their fault or they settled it with the bank. Either way, it’s over.

I spent the rest of the week packing up my remaining things in my room. I was only bringing my Corolla on the trip, so I couldn’t bring much; no furniture, just the essentials. My mother took the week I would be driving out as well, which has been both a blessing and a bit of trouble which I may or may not get into

1 Week Ago

Packing completed, said some goodbyes to local friends. I guess it’s a bit strange living in today's’ age; I only had to say goodbye to a couple. Most of my friends either left when I went to college or shortly after returning to pursue their own careers, so ultimately I had a quick lunch with someone at Fullerton and a very short goodbye from another (whom I suspect wanted to keep it short not to make it awkward, but I wish I had asked how he was doing or something). My college friends are, expectedly, up near where I went to college and I’m the kind of person who doesn’t really reach out to maintain connections, even though I know I should. The rest of my friends I talk to online regularly.

After finally finding the right boxes for everything (amiibo have to be separated, of course) I finally got all my stuff packed and ready to drive. One family picnic at the local park (where I ripped my pants kneeling down to try and untangle the idiot dog from his own leash), and my car was packed and ready to go Saturday night.

This Past Week

None of it felt real until Thursday. Or at least, I was tricking myself into thinking it wasn’t because I didn’t want it to be. The drive felt like a typical road trip. My mother is a terrible navigator and does the thing where she looks at google maps and just reads exactly what the directions say out loud rather than telling me what’s on the map. It took 2 days, the second of which We stayed in a very nice hotel about 5 blocks away from my soon-to-be-apartment.

This Hotel was, however, a 5-story tall building with its own parking garage (because parking was a fucking nightmare already) overlooking a busy freeway. It killed any hope I had that this apartment was good. Spent most the night unable to sleep, and it didn’t help that my entire life was basically in one convenient car-shaped package anyone could take from me.

Luckily on Tuesday we moved in. Didn’t really have time to take in the sights; I got my key dropped all of my shit in the apartment, and went on the lookout for a table, chairs, and a futon before 4, when the TWC guy would setup my internet. We would not be able to find a futon, and after several hours trying to navigate the hellish landscape that is Dallas streets and highways (Hey asshats who liked to “brag” about how awful the traffic is there, your traffic doesn’t even compare to LA traffic, it’s your fucking awful, terribly marked roads that are shit. At least in LA they kept the on and off ramps separated from streets designed to run parallel, rather than having 20 feet to merge at 60 mph into a sidestreet that is clogged to all hell because your intersaction have forced turn only lanes) 

... Fuck I lost track of that last section. Anyway, We returned at 3 with an Ikea Jokkmokk (table + chairs) which I would spend 2 hours assembling while waiting for the internet guy. And then another hour. And then another. It would be about 7:30 before he would get here and finish setting up the internet, and without a futon we literally just went to the Walmart superstore and picked one that looked like we could jam into the trunk + backseat.

We couldn’t. It was 8:30 at night. We hadn’t eaten since 7 that morning at the hotel’s free breakfast, and here I was trying to hold my composure as I tried to tied my trunk down a rope I just bought for that purpose. My mother snapped; just kind of said “Let’s just go” in that defeated yet accusatory tone of voice that made it sound like I was the one doing everything wrong. I limped the car home in silence with the trunk bouncing on my new futon. It’s not very comfortable, but we assembled it and ran to the McDonald's for food. It was a rough day.

Next was spend shopping for the essentials: groceries, cooking utensils, trash cans, toiletries, etc. This would continue for the rest of the week. On Thursday we took the train I would take to work at the time I would take it. Turns out it’s really convenient and easy; only have to walk a block total. Apparently Texas weather is fickle; it started 32 degrees, then ended 80 by the time we left downtown.

I hate Downtown. I’ll likely never go back further than work. The buildings, all the people; everything seems so claustrophobic. We walked through it, seeing a lot of tourist places (I say a lot, there are like 2) and ended up at the JFK memorial and Museum. At some point in there it felt all real. I would be living in an apartment (it’s actually nice, quiet, and secluded) in the middle of a city which has the infrastructure designed by a toddler who hates you, and working in a skyscraper in a job I’m not even sure I’m qualified for because of the sparse interview process. It kinda killed my mood. We went back to the apartment and just hung out there.

Friday was alright. Dallas Zoo was pretty impressive; got a lotta cool pictures and vids. Fed a young giraffe even!

Had to reach pretty far over the railing to give food to the little guy. It was cool though.

It was later that day when I got a call from my employer, then an email stating she had left a voicemail on my phone asking for my address. But I didn’t get a notification saying I had a voicemail.

An hour later, I learned that I haven’t been getting those notifications for 9 months. 29 messages, most of which were recruiters being jackasses, but some of them being legit responses to my applications, including the seasonal apps I did in October to get some money for Christmas. For gifts. I threw out like 10-15 apps for that very purpose, and I missed what little did correspond with me because my fucking phone didn’t show my voicemail. A factory reset and several hours of headache fixed that but... I just feel so terrible about it now.

Today was a lazy day. with only 1 table and 4 chairs, we’ve just been chilling at my computer and her on her phone. She’s leaving tomorrow, and I’ll be glad to have the place to myself, if only to shit myself for my first day on Monday. Ultimately I’ll be trying to fend off feeling alone with wanting to be alone and vice-versa, because I’m that kind of asshole who needs just the right amount of human contact.

... But I am more than happy with this apartment. My parents will be shipping down the rest of my Possessions in May, but for now I can live with this. I have more space than I know what I could even do with all that stuff anyway. And that’s where I am now.

What I’ve been playing

Fire Emblem Heroes

I hate aggressively F2P games. I’ve had a ton of trouble trying to get into FE in the past. But for some reason this bite-sized mini FE game works for me. I am addicted. I’m not very good at it, but it’s pretty fun, even if I recognize what the progression system is exploiting to get me to like it. It’s fun, and it’s free.

....

That’s it. It’s been a busy few weeks =U

Short Rant on Immigration Ban

I don’t have a rant. Well, a good one; I can rant about politics for fucking years but man I should just leave that alone for now. I will say that /r/T_D resorting to bringing up decade old cases where immigrants killed people in an attempt to support their bigoted viewpoint is fucking disgusting. Especially when it’s blatantly obvious in the comments that they don’t actually care about the victims: it’s all saying Liberals are idiotic cucks that are monsters and questioning who would downvote their posts karma-whoring the death of an american to make a political point.

...

Okay, I will state my opinions on the ban. To me, it’s not about religion; it’s about country of origin. People can’t control where they’re born, and are therefore coming from. To blanket ban refugees from war-torn countries is, in my opinion, the most un-american thing a president can do. This land was *founded* on the values of being a safe haven. Sure, it didn’t work like that for a long time, but this is the land of opportunity. An icon of our values hold this poem:

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

This is what the country is all about. Should we let people in without vetting? Of course not. You know what we’re already doing? Vetting. Pretty harshly, it’s actually really difficult for people to get the paperwork to come here legally. That kinda says more about where our budget should be going: to help this process along and ensure these prospective americans, these poor, huddled masses looking to the land of opportunity and freedom, are integrated efficiently into our culture and values (and laws).

To ban them and tell them to fuck-off because they might be terrorists is bullshit. Yeah; some of them are bound to be terrible people. But you know what? Terrible people live everywhere here anyway. At least with immigration we can at least look at them before they come here.

It’s obviously a more nuanced issue than that, and this is definitely a more emotional opinion than a response, but this blanket banning of foreigners is a charade to get his ever-shrinking base to love him even more, and it’s disgusting to me for that reason among numerous others.

....

Yeah long one, but that’s it! After this week I’ll start again on the Lunos project, hopefully! We’ll see how busy my new job keeps me.

C ya!