#it actually upsets me bc i grew up on fast and furious. one of the many reasons for my obsession w cars

[st4rbwrry]

i’m watching fast x since i avoided it after seeing the terribly made last film in theaters anddd . . you can tell that they’re trying too hard to be a marvel film. :/

[lizzielikeborden]

More Than Friends?

Request: Hey, I saw the requests were open: I’m furious, bc of the biphobia at the moment, so would you please write ANY HP fic with bi reader? Them dating whoever they feel like, but people around still not believing “this is a thing” and that they’re “doing it for attention” or just “scared to admit they’re gay” Ohhhh, I’m in pain, sorry for this mess...😬🌻

Author’s Note: I loved this request so much, it was so unique and I really feel this in my heart. I hope everyone enjoys this and if you relate just know that you are perfect and I have unconditional love for all of you. Love who you want, no matter who you love you’re perfect. 

The power you have and feel when you break up with someone is so strong. There’s always so many ways it can show up, anger, sadness, or pure screw them. And after this particular breakup with one of the nasty Slytherin boys who treated you poorly and expected the absolute world out of you. You felt nothing but screw him, you weren’t even mad. In fact you ended it right before going to lay down in bed that night. 

You were so energetic and giddy that you could barely sleep. You had just done something that needed to be done a long time ago. You really did it. You took out the trash and life was gonna get better. At least that’s what you thought until the next morning at breakfast..

See you had gotten up happy, and did your hair maybe even some makeup and hyped yourself up a bit. But the moment you stepped out of your room all the eyes went on you. And that feeling of energy slithered away so fast it felt like it was never there.  Some of the girls in Y/H looked a bit more uptight. But you let it go and walked to Y/H table. And that’s when Pansy Parkinson saw you, and like a shark that smelled fresh blood came over to you.

“Well well well, what do we have here?” She pitched her voice even higher than normal and acted like a fool. 

“A foolish Slytherin girl and her gang of idiots.” You spoke up, though nervous you didn’t really wanna deal with Pansy. 

She scoffed and said the magic words that made the rest of the day anxious 

“At least I like boys and don’t just date them to look straight.” 

Your heart dropped into your feet. She knew. How did she know? 

“What the hell are you talking about?” You whisper yelled at her, anxiety wracked your brain like never before.

“Or maybe you just do it for attention to be different.” She tapped a finger on her chin as if she was actually using her brain to think for once. 

You got up and stormed out of the room, only a few eyes followed you and you heard Pansy cackling like a hyena. You couldn’t believe his nasty ass told everyone. You knew it wasn’t just Pansy who knew, even though she was probably the one who told so many others. The whole fucking school probably knew. Slytherin’s spread rumors and secrets as fast as a snake strikes. You sat on a bench outside and took deep breaths. You didn’t know what to do or where to go or how to fix this. And then you heard talking. Great. You turned your head to see none other than Ron Weasley, Harry Potter, and Hermione Granger. You turned quickly as to get them not see you but you were much too late. 

“Y/N!” Hermione’s voice perked up and got closer to you. Suddenly someone was on the bench next to you. 

“Hi.” You dryly told her back and she nodded the boys off. 

“What’s wrong?” She questioned, grabbing your hand. 

You pulled your hand away gently. And she moved it back into hers,

“What’s wrong? Why did you do that?” She gently questioned a bit more concerned. 

The two of you had always shown very close platonic affection. Whether it was cuddling in the cold or on nights when one of you had a nightmare. You held each others hands when one of you was even a little upset. And you kissed each other’s cheeks when you felt silly or needed a little cheering up. You sat on each others laps when seats were full or even if they weren’t. You laid on each other all the time and were just always super physically close. 

“Oh cmon, you have to know.” You bowed your head upset. 

“Know what? That your and that prick broke up?” She squeezed your hand a bit. 

You chuckled,

“Well yes that and the whole bisexual thing.” You took in a deep breath ready for her to pull her hand away and get uncomfortable. But she didn’t she just stayed right where she was. Even when she heard a chuckle from none other than the Slytherin prince himself. 

“What do you want Draco.” Hermione didn’t let go of your hand. 

“Oohoho I see we have a budding romance.” He waved his hands around and gestured towards the two of you. 

No one said anything except Draco some more, 

“Pansy was right, you do just want the attention. You didn’t even really date him.”

That was when you had had enough of his big mouth and spoke up,

“Just because you’ve only see me partially date one boy doesn’t mean i’m straight. It also doesn’t make me straight or mean that I want attention from it. I didn’t ask for attention. I didn’t ask for this and I didn’t ask to be born this way. It’s just who I am.” Tears pricked at your eyes the louder you spoke to him. 

“Oh whatever you bloody fa-” He didn’t get to finish his sentence before you felt Hermione’s hand leave yours and connect with Malfoy’s face. She couldn’t let him say that word or let him speak to you in that way. Pure shock chased away the tears, and it even seemed like your tears ran over to befriend Draco as he began to cry on the ground holding his nose. 

She stood still in her spot heavily breathing and turned back to look at your shocked face before leaving.

You didn’t see her for the rest of the day, class went on so slowly. You were so confused why she ran away or why she hadn’t tried to see you the rest of the day. You were so grateful for what she did, and you wanted to thank her. So you got some of her favorite treats at dinner and wrapped them up in a napkin, went outside and got what little wild flowers grew, and wrote her “THANK YOU” with a heart on some parchment. It was the least you do, but you weren’t exactly expecting your day to go this way.

You searched a bit before finding her outside on the same bench the two of you had sat many hours ago. 

“It’s a bit late to be out don’t you think?” You stood a bit away from the bench. She looked up at you and chuckled, looking back down again. 

“I suppose so.” She lifted her head back up to you and you sat down next to her. 

“This is all for you, I just wanted to show you I’m grateful for earlier. No one else would’ve punched him.” 

She took the napkin and opened it revealing her favorite treats, the flowers were tied with a string at  the bottom, and the little note. Her eyes watered and a smile gleamed across her face. She gently dropped the gifts on the other side of the bench and held your face in both hands, placing a soft kiss on your lips. You could feel her tears on your skin. She quickly pulled away and placed her hand over her mouth. 

“I am so sorry, that was beyond uncalled for.” She rose from her seat, grabbed her gifts, and went to leave.

“No. No it was not.” You held her empty hand, “I never knew, but, I feel the same, and I’m sorry for never saying anything.” 

“You mean it?” She whispered. 

“Of course I do! Hermione, I just. Didn’t wanna assume.” You drew off, not knowing what to say.

“More than friends? Please...” She asked. 

You giggled, “Yes, more than friends.” You grabbed her hand and kissed her cheek. 

[mothbug]

maggie i’ve been trying to suss out the plot of ur bug lesbians for so long please tell me abt them. somehow it got into my head that they were?? like jaeger pilots? please confirm or deny

i can’t do a read more on mobile so i’m sorry in advance (coming back here after i’ve written this: it makes no sense. it’s all rambling. sorry. and i just put things everywhere randomly so this won’t even be typed chronologically)

yeah there’s giant fun robots! most of them are normal and fine but like a few of them are very fucked up

so there’s four pov characters and at the start of the story three of them are on the same ship and the fourth is the target they’re chasing? only one of them knows they even HAVE a target and is trying her best to stall because she and the target were roommates in fucked up robot catholic school. the other two are playing crazy 8s and being romantic and also terrified all the time but also doing a lot of theorizing about things because they know SOMETHING is up they just don’t know what’s going on. Bc you know. their commander won’t give them any information. and also avoids them because she hates narrative parallelism

also the one stalling is also having her blood drunk by her giant robot. and maybe being mildly possessed by it? so it’s maybe The most fucked up robot. it’s also a giant dog and a good boy. and an heirloom of a fucked up family. which may explain some stuff but honestly i think nisa’s mom was just a bitch and it didn’t have anything to do with the robot she’s just like that.

and she’s stalling bc she Knows she won’t turn perovskia in she knows she wouldn’t let her get hurt she Knows it’ll change her life forever if she finds her and she’s just not ready to face that. but yknow she has to so it was all just very silly of her but when something will change your life dramatically it’s terrifying even if you know that things currently Suck.

somewhere in here Arkansas’s family is threatened and it’s. upsetting. and i’m not sure what direction to go in with it but it will be important because her family means a Lot to her. she has two very good kind dads and a little sister named Tinsel. basically she has the only functional biological family out of all the characters and they make me :’) I also think they eventually meet Idabel and ADORE her and since she grew up without parents it’s just a very strange and emotional experience and. h. they r Wives. and the Trust family is all very sweet and kind even if Arkansas struggles a lot w gifted kid syndrome like i think her dads did their best even if they fucked up sometimes yknow. idabel goes fucking wild at the arcade like legitimately bloodthirsty and arkansas is just like i love my furious and powerful wife

anyway there’s some (a lot of) homoerotic space fighting (which perovskia usually wins BECAUSE she remembers when she and nisa used to spar and can predict what she’ll do. nisa ALSO remembers this bc. ofc she does. but perovskia had to learn how to adapt after Events bc her physical health changed a lot and she had to learn to be more careful about overexerting herself and also now knows how to swordfight. and moves more fluidly and confidently. so what nisa expects to happen often doesn’t bc perovskia’s fighting style has changed so much while nisa hasn’t really bothered to refine hers. anyway) perovskia (the gay little target that does a gay little crime and makes fun of you to piss you off) is like hey. what if you all committed treason it’s really fun and sexy. and then her adoptive mechanic mom gives everyone spinal surgery so their bodies don’t shut down and they won’t die :) that’s a thing by the way i won’t elaborate bc uhh :( but it is why perovskia has all the. nerve damage and chronic pain. i can elaborate on the actual Pre-story perovskia stuff later bc i think about it A Lot and it has a lot of bearing on her character but it’s also. before all this. but anyway if she hadn’t been bleeding out on Slice’s front lawn specifically she Would be dead. and there’s some fun narrative foil character shifts that happen four years before the main storyline but i will not say bc i’m tired

after this is Vague in my mind but a lot of it is Perovskia and Nisa reconnecting and just. talking. but being weird and repressed and deflective about anything Meaningful. And I have written a Lot about this so there’s more than I can condense but it’s very fucking good and. Idk. it’s a big shift in the narrative at this point and they’re just Agonizing about their dumb little feelings and it’s good. and P doing some work to make their giant fucking spaceship more stealthy. and Idabel and Arkansas being really cute and also going THROUGH it because i mean. a lot is happening. And it’s nothing either of them ever expected to happen but they’re like. hopeful for the future or whatever don’t look at me. It’s just like. put all of these characters on a spaceship in the middle of nowhere in transit and they all Have to have conversations even if they don’t want to because it’s HARD. nisa is forced by slice to learn how to make pancakes

Slice makes stew. They’re good at stew and contraptions and having a mild new england accent somehow. also canonically back in the scrapyard they would make things like the knife wielding tentacle constantly and perovskia would just stumble upon them. slice changed the live laugh love sign to say die cry hate because perovskia made fun of it. they r her mom.

so now they do some fun fun robberies and various crimes and it’s so sexy and i don’t think N and P are like. fully caught up at this point or know where they stand, so there’s a lot of very fun banter and having to work together despite really being afraid but also yearning to get to know each other again and just connect with one another honestly and openly after four fuckin years apart. because they’re both so different now but also very much the same. horse staring out into sea MAN. the thing is there’s no direct like. reason for them to avoid each other (at first P was shocked and overwhelmed and felt a little bit betrayed when she found out who was chasing her until she found out WHY. oh i forgot to mention Nisa BEGGED to be assigned commander for this mission bc she knew anyone else wouldn’t hesitate to get Perovskia killed. Forgot to mention that it’s IMPORTANT she fucking loves her so much god DAMMIT) but it’s just. tense and there’s a lot happening and it’s just. Ghhhdhbnm and ofc I and A have picked up on it since P showed up but it’s like. ok so what is Happening here. OH AND ONCE THEY START WORKING THINGS OUT IDABEL DOES START BEHAVING LIKE NISA’S SHITTY LITTLE SIBLING AND ACTING FUCKING DISGUSTED BY THEM ITS VERY FUNNY. they’re like perovskia you’re pretty cool what’s up with this. nisa sucks and also is a bitch. and perovskia says SHE CAN GET IT. and idabel says GET WHAT? BANNED FROM OLIVE GARDEN? and perovskia fans herself and is like yeah~ and idabel was just joking around but now is debating between mercilessly making fun of her and hitting her with a cricket bat. but god when P and N just get to hold each other in silence and security and just be. it’s . they. god. fuck. man.

oh i know this is a space story but perovskia just straight up has a sword (and some knives and maybe a gun idk) don’t ask me why idk but it’s very lesbian of her and she does gay little flourishes and is just. very annoying and i like her a lot. she’s very dramatic like her alias was madame revenant when she was living in the scrapyard and just doing some petty crimes like. she embroidered that jacket herself nobody calls her that she’s just a goofball. also warrior cats exist and she makes warrior cat fan animations. that just has to be true so warriors has been preserved for centuries. also she was presumed dead for a while uhh don’t think abt it too much but she likes that aesthetic.

Idabel takes the best to this new life of crime they are fucking FOR it she gets a FLAMETHROWER and Arkansas is like. wrow honestly my favorite thing abt them is that they’re both fucking INCREDIBLE pilots. like they know what they’re doing. and nisa is really really bad at it btw she cannot pilot a mech well. but this block of text isn’t about her i’m talking about THEM. Their chemistry is so good they r just. 🥺. and they both become Fast friends with perovskia because she’s just pretty likeable?? and ofc nisa’s jealous bc a) you guys don’t even like me :( but also b) that’s MY friend. it’s very funny. honey of course they didn’t like you you were being very unpleasant to be around. but arkansas does rlly wanna be friends with her and she and idabel have so much sibling energy it’s insane. i think they’d abel and cain each other for a scooby snack but also kill for each other. because they’re tiny girls who will growl at you solidarity and also probably hang out and just destroy things with bats sometimes. they all become closer and get a rlly sweet found family dynamic it just takes a While. oh also idabel is basically the chosen one and can set things on fire with her hands but it’s barely touched on because i think that’s a really funny thing to just ignore. but i also think it does become important because it’s largely fueled by anger and emotion and. h. i think idabel has a lot of feelings ok. Arkansas and Perovskia bond over having fucking anxiety disorders and have caprisun drinking competitions. i think it’s just like. these people all have similar trauma and need people to lean on when things are hard so they stick with each other once they have the option to split apart because by then they’re friends and work well together and Care. auto tuned baby crying mp3.

Alia and Agent Variety show up somewhere around here? They’re Slice’s very cool wives and Alia has a Vechicle Collection and own fucking stupid race cars and stuff and I love her. perovskia is afraid of being in vechiles so she has to take a fucking benadryl every time they have to make a getaway. Variety isn’t actually an Agent anymore and I also love HER because she’s very fucking good. they started out as just contacts slice had but it turns out they’re all in love <3 alia is also actually a sports car racer like. unprofessionally. illegally. which is just very cool of them.

Also i don’t think it has. a very BIG end, yknow? it’s like, they’re doing very good things and are up against a lot, and I don’t think they like.. singlehandedly take down the government or anything because they’re only a few people. but i think they get a happy ending and get to grow old while making positive changes to the world around them. like i don’t think they’ll be able to solve everything but they’re sure as hell gonna do what they can. But idk maybe they actually do get like. some good shit done. but again they’re not. an army. they’re a bunch of 20-somethings and their rube-goldberg-machine-creating chaperone. but i think they should get a fun climactic moment so i guess this is all to say i don’t. have an ending planned. but there should probably be one at some point.

OH AND the giant evil blood sucking dog vineyard vines robot Definitely almost kills Nisa (or at least fully destroys her in some way) and. it’s very narrowly avoided and she’s very very weak for a while because it took a lot out of her. also the dog robot does make grape vines grow and uhhhh any grapes that show up are 100% full of the pilot’s siphoned blood. also i think there’s still some remnants of that bitch in nisa’s mind afterwards bc an old mechanical god is hard to get rid of. but it’s mostly ok.

Also the bug people are just. a thing. like every person in the most recent generation in this specific society are at least a little bit genetically experimented on because. it sucks there. and i think if your parents bribe the government you can be a little Less fucked up but yknow. everyone’s a little weird. this was an excuse to put bug ppl in here they’re just the folks who were probably the most fucked with and i have many bug people here because i think bugs are cool and i want them to look like weird little bugs. This was all also an excuse to give the main characters fangs bc i’m gay. i don’t think randomly fucking with your genetics will make you a bug in real life so do not try this at home or at all PSA

SPEAKING of the society ok it’s very much obsessed with earth nostalgia and stuff and very yknow. basic cyperpunk shitty capitalism you know the drill you’ve seen space operas whatever but it’s also weirdly oligarchical? and like? it’s weird and bad and kind of a corporatocracy?? and. fuck. idk man they’re a fucked up space catgirl greeble-y amazon with catholic imagery. The Academy is also a thing but. idk how to describe it more than i already have it’s just kinda shitty boarding school. And after a certain point ppl can get sent on like. missions and stuff? in their fucking robots? but again i’m not sure what For. an option could be that there’s nearby Shit and nobody can tell if it’s safe because space is weird? also it’s only about 3200 so i’d say like. whole societies out in space is a relatively new thing and there’s some weird shit going on. so they sometimes send teenagers out in robots to see what’s up and that ends SUPER well for EVERYONE. hmm something SHOULD be going on actually there should be some weird eldritch space stuff. it should be connected to the more fucked up robots. it should also be Core’s fault somehow because uhhh capitalism and lack of foresight? anyway here’s women kissing i don’t know things. WAIT FUCK I FORGOT TO MENTION HOW SHADY SOME OF THE STUFF GOING ON IS LIKE THE DEATHS OF THE CREW PEROVSKIA WAS ON UHHH JUST TRUST ME DUDE like they are NOT afraid to get kids killed which was IMPLIED but also like it goes a little deeper than that and uhh i don’t know exactly what’s happening. but i’m sure it’ll all fall into place eventually. basically it’s very fatt shitty faction vibes idk how else to describe it. man it‘s like. just. there’s stuff happening they have goals and ideals and there’s probably more to it than i know so far bc stuff happens but i don’t KNOW what i’m tired and have been typing this for a year i don’t want to talk abt the bad capitalists i want to talk about tenderness and girls but unfortunately the ways in which the girls are tender are deeply informed by the environment they grew up in so i do have to think about it even if they all deserved better.

i think they all get a cat or a dog or something eventually. like they all deserve it. i think the final home they build together is actually pretty reminiscent of the scrapyard house. i think they get to live there for the rest of their lives and. just build something small and wonderful for themselves :’)

also i forgot to put men in the story they exist i just forgot about them. there’s nisa’s one ex i already forgot his name but he’s mentioned i think.

[allbeendonebefore]

Hey hapo what's with the sea of blue in sask and Alberta during the election like did Sheer make that good of an impression on Sask voters??? NDP is option??

sea of blue you say? obviously we created our own blue sea since we’re not allowed access to tidewater JKJKJKJK

this is a really complicated question and I’m trying to think about how best to explain it. my feelings on the issue are very mixed because i feel like i have a foot or a hand in several camps like some convoluted twister game. it’s something that a lot of identity and emotion is tied up in for a lot of people and it’s rooted very firmly in inequalities that have existed for over a century and get expressed differently in different regions. It’s something that I grew up saturated in and I’ve done a lot of reading about (and of course there’s always more on my reading list) but I’ll try and highlight a few reasons that I’ve been musing about so as not to be too overwhelming. 

it’s something that is really hard to explain to people from outside the province because we’re quick to be written off (sometimes rightfully so, others not) but it’s something that’s equally hard to explain to people inside the province. As I said it’s something we’re all saturated in, we are born into it or we grow up in it and it’s really hard to confront a lot of things surrounding it. And I definitely have my own biases and background and relation to this issue and I must stress that as furious as I am with people in large groups making dumb ass decisions, I can’t be angry at individuals because I get a lot of why this happens even though I find it personally misguided or ignorant at best and actively harmful, selfish, and self-sabotaging at worst. But when I explain this I hope it makes sense why for a lot of people it feels like the only option.

And my last preface is that I am speaking from an Alberta perspective, if my followers in Saskatchewan want to add on to this please feel free. I’m glossing over a lot here because I’m trying to keep this short and understandable… but when have I ever done that lol.

Yeah, it got long.

so why does the west go conservative. it’s not scheer, and if you remember harper you’ll remember personality is never high on our list of priorities. [insert gif of harper explaining how he too is a human who watches netflix here] 

1. History 

To sum up two hundred years: Alberta and Saskatchewan were never equal partners in confederation with other provinces. They were purchased and carved up by the Canadian government which then imposed the two party system on the provinces, which prior had consensus government which (i believe) was similar to how NWT and Nunavut continue to operate. They were not given the rights to their own resources until decades after joining confederation. They were given Liberal governments because the Liberals were and are considered the “natural” governing party of Canada, and while Saskatchewan has flopped between Liberal and Conservative governments like many eastern provinces, Alberta has always had a radical streak and has NEVER re-elected an unseated party in its history. And no, I don’t consider the UCP a continuation of the previous 4 decades of conservative rule, even though they imagine themselves to be the inheritors of that legacy. 

Fast forward to the direct impacts: in the 70s, world events that severely impacted oil production caused Eastern Canada to absolutely panic and force Alberta and Saskatchewan (yet again) into providing discounts on their production to soften the blow in Ontario and Quebec of rising prices, forbidding them to sell for a profit to the United States. This included both oil products and potash, hugely lucrative products in AB and SK. It was a continuation of Eastern Canada imagining and treating the prairies as property, as chattel, where provinces like Quebec and BC would never be asked to undersell to benefit the rest of the country. 

The current federal conservative party is an amalgamation of reactions to this situation and related ones: the Progressive party (which was a complete misnomer) originated in Manitoba, the Reform party emerged from what I understand as the “first wave” of western separatism, and even though Reform was defeated federally it is still a direct ancestor to Stephen Harper and by extension Andrew Scheer. Harper’s policies are the natural product of decades of conservative governments dating back to Preston and Earnest Manning’s Social Credit party in Alberta.

That said, people from both inside and outside the provinces completely misunderstand Harper’s (and Kenney’s) “Western-ness” or “Albertan-ness”. Both of them ran on western issues and appear to speak up for western interests, but those issues and interests only go as far as the CEOs of the oil companies are concerned, not the working class in the industry. Harper and Kenney actively undermined the equalization formula for the west and had the gall to campaign on striking a good deal for the west. Federal politicians do not have to ever strike a good deal for the west, they will ALWAYS prioritize voters in Ontario and Quebec so long as our voting system remains this way. 

2. Identity

My next point in the long agonizing question of Why This is a sensitive one. In Alberta we have my parent’s generation who were voting age at the toppling of Social Credit by Lougheed’s Conservatives. For Alberta this was a monumental shift in taking no shit from Ottawa that people still look back on. Lougheed was a hero for demanding a fair price from Canada for Alberta, and he was incredibly concerned with managing the resource and the profits wisely. While conservative governments were natural and long standing in eastern Canada, this was the first time they had taken power in Alberta and they made a dramatic and revolutionary impression, which is not a thing that conservative governments are usually known to do. 

My parent’s generation remembers this time of intense prosperity. My parent’s generation raised their children in this boom-bust cycle and my parent’s generation watched as Lougheed’s heritage fund was spent out from under us. I grew up under Ralph Klein’s government- intensely popular for a premier and who’s legacy was as powerful as Lougheed’s, but incredibly polarizing. He gave $300 to every man, woman and child in the province (except my fam because we had just moved back and didn’t have residency, lol) which was memorable if irresponsible. But it was men like Klein who had the charisma and the presence to make people really take pride in the industry, to worship the boom-bust, and to consider all problems solved. Klein did not give a shit about the part of Alberta I grew up in, and friends who lived in the far north of the province fared even worse. It’s absolutely no wonder that the Edmonton area consistently votes “against” the rest of the province when we were left isolated and broken during the bust of the 90s and ignored repeatedly in the mid to late 2000s. 

I have a deep seated and extreme resentment for Ralph Klein’s government and it’s not because I missed out on my 300 Ralph Bucks or because I don’t have connections to the industry, it’s because I grew up with a deep seated fear that I wouldn’t be able to complete my education or that if I got sick something horrible would happen. I was legitimately terrified I would not be able to make it to secondary school because of the cuts his government made on rural schools, and for friends of mine who were not as lucky and well supported as I was, it was even worse. I won’t drag their personal stories onto the internet to make my point, but know 

But the point of this all is that the people alive today who vote are people who remember this time of prosperity, of fighting Ottawa, and of relative ‘freedom’ from taxation and so on and so forth are constantly trying to hold onto that time. The kids in my generation who I went to school with did not have to graduate high school - my school had a 70% drop out rate because people would go straight to the patch or into a related industry. In Alberta, every industry is a related industry. There is not an aspect of living in Alberta that the patch doesn’t touch. This is hard to understand for people outside the province. It was actual culture shock to me to come to Ontario where funders of schools and businesses are families that date back to confederation rather than Enbridge or Suncor. 

Moreover, the people who work in the patch do an incredibly difficult and dangerous job for incredible amounts of money and it’s no wonder they are so valourized. The people who work in the patch are more dependent on the companies than they are on the government. During the fire of 2016, it may have been the government providing evacuation stations, but it was the companies who got people out. Working class people feel seriously undervalued and are obviously seriously defensive about the industry for real, concrete reasons. 

The past four decades have shaped generations of people in this way. This is not something easily reversed. Voting conservative is almost inextricable from Albertan identity and it’s impossible to explain concisely. We all grow up with the same arguments and talking points, we are all imbued with anger and defensive remarks from birth, and to people outside the province our arguments can sound rehearsed to the point of sounding cult-like. Stop Using Plastic If You Don’t Like It. Stop Driving and Flying. Stop Importing from Dictatorships. Stop Being a Hypocrite. They are easy, simple mantras to absolve anyone related to the industry (which is everyone) of any guilt because they don’t have to be a hypocrite if they just embrace the reality. There is no room for any critical thought in this identity, there is no room for discussion, there is nothing beyond Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and Don’t Ever Criticize What Keeps Everything Running. It’s normal and natural to feel upset when people who don’t grow up with this line of thinking find it strange.

3. Alienation

So why doesn’t our valourization of the working class translate directly into NDP votes? Why does Rachel Notley become vilified for speaking and acting as Peter Lougheed did in the 1970s? Why do we continue voting conservative and say thank you when they betray us and kick us in the balls every single time? Why do we cover up our oh-so-shameful history of birthing the CCF/NDP out of the desperation and destitution of the Great Depression? 

As I’ve been saying it’s complicated, but it’s also really simple. No federal party ever speaks to us. Not a single one. The conservatives barely have to because they know our identity as conservative dates back to before a time when we even had a provincial upper-case Conservative government ourselves. Scheer can parade up and down parliament hill with his appeals to free speech and his pro life base and his white supremacist dogwhistles all he likes because he knows keeping Alberta and Saskatchewan “happy” (read: angry) is easy. This is a man who said himself that he doesn’t need ‘indian votes’ to win and he certainly was far more worried about keeping Doug Ford out of the spotlight during his campaign and pissing off Ontario than he was about us, and premier kenney spent all his time in office campaigning for scheer instead of running the goddamn province, including preparing us for an emergency. And we lap it up while screaming bloody murder if rachel notley is not personally handing out waterbottles on the side of the highway of death. 

No party, not even the conservatives, truly speaks to Albertans. We get hated on constantly by the rest of the country because we appear to be full of climate change deniers, but even the CEO of SUNCOR condemns deniers and politicians who cater to them. A lot of Albertans do acknowledge climate change is a reality despite how we’re painted, but because of the misunderstanding we feel directed at us constantly we tend to react badly and would rather hole up in our bunkers and let the rest of the country freeze in the dark - or melt in the sun as it were. No party speaks to working class rural people. No party makes the attempt to speak to people who are still only grappling with already outdated terminology like “global warming” while they are shoveling snow in August or September. No party is talking about actual grievances that working class people in Alberta face, such as long hours away from home and family or intense isolation that leads to addiction and death, that matter more to people than seemingly hypothetical change in climate that happens Elsewhere, not Here. Parties need to start coming up with concrete solutions that will make the inevitable transition more than just necessary but inclusive and beneficial. No one wants to feel like they have to start from scratch, no one wants to worry about what to do or how it will help. We aren’t used to thinking about solving problems, and we keep putting it on the next generation while we make it even harder for them.  

The more we are criticized the more militaristic the vocabulary becomes, and that’s why we provincially voted for a war room and tax cuts while taking the money from school lunch programs. We rest on our laurels of having the lowest child poverty rate in the country while stealing money from children and blaming their parents for them going hungry. It’s abominable. And a lot of us realize it. And a lot of us still feel as if we have no choice. A lot of progressive voices get drowned out in stifling silence and any change feels like an existential threat. We got ourselves into this mess, but we all need to work together to get out of it. And that means listening to the strongest opposition we’ve had in nearly a half century. That means being grown ups and sitting at the table with the rest of the country. That means fighting the gut reaction to sputter out talking points you were taught to say because it meant protecting your family. That also means that we need to be listened to in return without smugness or patronizing attitudes from politicians or the rest of the country. 

If you want us to switch to alternative energy, you all need to step up and start helping us do that. As long as we feel as if it’s being imposed on us we will struggle and we will fight, but it’s exactly why it’s so important to change the tone of the conversation. Listen to us. Help us. Make us feel like we’re part of the country. Give us the tools we need to be better. Encourage us to be leaders in the energy industry because we love being the best and thrive off healthy competition. Appeal to real, concrete issues for working class people with real concrete solutions. 

yeah. uh. [places mic shakily back on the stand] peace im going to bed, fight me or whatever.