#like he was working class i feel like people dont get that. im british. we r obsessed with class so maybe i see something others dont idk

[omgwhatchloe]

people who think sean was just being an arse to molly for no reason are really really uneducated.

when we talk about people in camp and how they treated molly, i feel like you guys really need to understand sean and molly come from ireland, where molly was a rich, privileged protestant and sean was a working class catholic who was quite literally spat on by the rich, the protestants and the british.

sean wasn’t wrong, her family, peers and others in her class in ireland most certainly did look their stuck up noses down at the starving working class. after being forced to flee his home where he was working class, having his life left behind and then his father murdered by the british, i think its not surprising he wants to say something to her.

i know sean wasn’t in the right to go and bother her, but everything he said was true, and i think its normal that the way she speaks to him with the background they both come from makes him feel attacked. especially when she says she could’ve paid him to sweep her chimney at home.

im not exactly saying whos right and whos wrong, im just saying the way sean and molly interacted, unlike her other interactions with people in camp, it has absolutely nothing to do with her relationship with dutch or the amount of chores she does. it has a much deeper history that some fans really dont get. a strong history of classism, religious and literal wars, invasions, discrimination and a whole lot more. so all im saying really is, before you go and talk about that interaction and decide sean was mean and annoying, please at least try to educate yourselves on their backgrounds and why they interact how they do.

[pinkcarsupremacy]

omg the people in the comments section of esteban's interview need to 1) work on their comprehension skills 2) watch literally any other interview where esteban expresses his gratitude for whatever team he's working with and most importantly 3) TOUCH SOME GRASS

lmao honestly at this point i just try my best to laugh it off. not seeing esteban's greatness is a skill issue imo. in general, the mantra i'm trying to adopt for seeing hate against things i love is 'why should i go out of my way to give vision for those who refuse to see?'

Imma be real the hate Ocon gets is on an insane level to me like I've never seen anything like this in any other fandom let alone for a real fucking person. People just do not shut up about him. He could say 'hi my name is Esteban' and people would hate on him. People willfully misinterpret everything he says every single time he opens his mouth. Every fan of this sport understands that it's a rich person's sport and nepotism is everywhere and yet the moment the one driver who was not upper or middle class as a child speaks out about it they act like they don't know that about the sport. People in the comments straight up saying 'oh wow he didn't go skiing as a kid well me either' THAT'S EXACTLY THE POINT YOU IDIOT HE IS MORE LIKE US THAN THE REST OF THE KIDS IN KARTING WHO HAD THE MONEY TO DO THAT!!

[ecoamerica]

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

re. people fanoning Izzy as Super Working Class I think they’re often making a (patronising, inaccurate) generalisation about (English) Northern accents. That’s never been a one-to-one mapping for class and income and is DOUBLY misrepresentative of the 1700s, but I think it was a springboard for people who wanted it to be true

interesting! im USAmerican and i literally cant tell the difference between british and australian accents so like, i REALLY have no context for this. i do remember ppl talking abt accents from back in my tma days, but all i can recall was just "people get classist towards people with Northern accents" and "the RP accent is the Posh Fuckhead accent" (and i could very easily be remembering those wrong, it's been a while)

i guess it makes sense that accents aren't always that neatly categorized. but because this is a topic i am INCREDIBLY ignorant about, i don't personally feel comfortable dismissing the "con's accent means he's poor" argument because you, an anonymous stranger on the internet, have told me that generalizing northern accents as working-class is patronizing and inaccurate, no offense

(i mean genuinely, please dont be offended by that, anon. like tbh when i write it out like that im like "yknow what anon, youre probably right" bc i feel like generalizing ANY aesthetic marker like that can get pretty dicey, but i would have to do more research on the cultural significance of UK accents before im ready to fully agree with your statement)

what i do feel comfortable saying is that the accents in ofmd are literally all over the place and for THAT reason the "izzy has a northern english accent so CANONICALLY he HAS to be working class" take seems like a pretty big reach, imo. if someones gonna choose to cling to con's accent specifically as proof of something in canon then i want to hear their explanations for ed and stede's kiwi's accents, for ed's british accents in the backstory, for doug's american accent. there are SOME instances in ofmd where character accents do have deeper implications, but it's mostly subtle, character-specific things, and i can easily see that those instances dont necessarily indicate that con o'neill's accent is one of them:

so disclaimer again that im VERY bad at telling UK accents apart (british accents especially), but im pretty sure the british characters who have dialogue and hold positions of power all have Rich Douchebag british accents?? (please correct me if im wrong lol). im talking abt the king, stede's two prisoners, and the badmintons, specifically. and it makes sense that they'd want to get the accents right for those guys, bc ofmd is VERY clear in making sure we know that The British Are The Enemy. giving them a stereotypical Rich Jerk accent just emphasizes that

(also the only reason im specific abt brits who have positions of power is bc i know there's at least 2 random british soldiers who have lines in e9, but i have no FUCKING idea what their accents are. if theyre ALSO douchebag richman accents, that further proves me point. if they DONT have posh fucker accents, that also kinda makes sense bc theyre like, cannon fodder to the british navy. theyre still bad racist ppl, but theyre dont hold power the way the other 5 characters i mentioned above are)

i might not be super informed abt all the details abt what accents signify in the UK, but i know enough abt history to know that ewen bremner going ham on the scottish accent in a show where the british are all portrayed as irredeemable colonizers is Based As Fuck. and this doesnt rlly apply to con/izzy bc con's accent is still english and izzy literally aligns w the british navy to achieve his goals, something that ofmd explicitly condemns

i know samba schutte personally chose to have roach's accent say something about the Roach Backstory he made up as part of the show's encouragement to have the actors for some of the side characters come up with backstories for their characters, but idk if all the actors chose to have their accents mean something. also, coming up with backstories obviously wasnt something that actors playing characters with more importance to the plot were asked to do. rhys, taika, and vico were given their characters' backstories. izzy is more important to the plot than roach (and wee john and fang, two other characters whose actors' have talked abt the backstories they came up with for their characters), and while we dont have a backstory for him yet, i wouldnt be surprised if con didn't get to come up with one. basically, samba deciding to have roach's accent mean something doesn't inherently mean izzy's accent means izzy is poor

[ughthatimagineblog]

another world | preview

azriel x reader

requested:  Hey, I saw you were doing requests for azriel in ACOTAR and I've been having a lot of Azriel feels lately and was wondering if you could an Azriel x reader where the reader has come from this world and has read the books and is all like ??? and finds the Inner Circle to ask for help to get home and then her and Az fall in love and are mates and it's quite angsty because he can't leave his family but she can't stay but then she gets turned into Fae somehow and happy ending eventually. Is that ok?

word count: 966

warnings: literally none i think other than cursing in the authors note and ofc covid19,,, but be cautious

a/n: this is my first attempt at writing something long/for azriel again after a long time so im sorry if it’s shite and short. its also kinda just the preview. i needed something to get the ball rolling and the plot is so,,, detailed i couldnt just start from fuckall so here this flaming pile of garbage is. PS I HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT I MIGHT BE SELLING ARTWORK SOON. ill be posting a few of my works and if people become interested in asking for commissions ill be glad to sell. i dont have a job currently and its hard to get one b/c of COVID19 so this is kinda a last ditch resort so.. anywho. love yall and youll see anya’s art soon-ish. in the next two weeks hopefully. anyways please enjoy

      Crap. That's all you could think as the pounding in your head made it impossible to truly come up with any other coherent thoughts. The light that poured through the windows of the unfamiliar house burned your eyes and the bed you now laid on was stiff and old. You were nowhere near home. Reaching for your phone in your pockets you cursed yourself, and your friends, for allowing you to drink so much. It seems that you had gotten so drunk, you’d landed yourself in thirteenth century England, or whatever the hell. Of course realistically this wasn’t true but wherever the hell you were, it seemed as though the person who lived here hadn’t been ‘with the times’ so to speak.       A second assessment of your surroundings just confirmed that thought. The wood beneath your feet was old and looked worn and rotten. The bed is equally worn with no entertainment devices in sight. It seemed to be a studio, however you had been convinced it was a house, but alas, there was a wash station and a kitchen table no less than thirty feet from where you sat. Of course, no one was anywhere to be seen and to top it all off, your phone had no signal. None. It was even as if the section at the top left was blank which was completely abnormal. And you would have more time to question it if it weren’t for the front door clamoring open and a tall figure emerge through the doorway.

       “Oh good, you’re awake.” The tall female muttered and wiped off her clothes. “Where am i?” You questioned quickly, fear wavering in your voice as you realized she was dressed quite oddly. A soft tunic that would have definitely dated back to the thirteenth century and some trousers and footwear that had seen better days. She gave you a puzzled look. “Prythian, dear.” She scoffed and went to the wash basin to set down the food you had just realized she had been carrying. “Where is that?” You pushed further. How long had you been out for?        The lady gave you another odd look before busying herself again. “Where are we? Somewhere in England? Anywhere in Britain? It sounds British. Are we in America? Where?”       “Prythian. The continent.” She stated, her looks of concern soon matching your own. “I have no clue how you ended up all the way in the Night Court, but no matter, I’ll bring you to Velaris before sundown and surely our High Lord will return you to the human lands.” She went on and you had to sit back down for a moment. “Human lands...?” You muttered to yourself and glanced back at the woman. Pointed ears, slender face and extreme beauty. Your memory, which had completely forgotten you until now, was slowly returning.         Prythian. It sounded familiar. You just assumed you’d heard it in a world history or apush class. No, you’d heard it from a book. Yes, a fantasy book. But that wasn’t possible.      “Rhysand. Rhysand is your High Lord?” You asked, narrowing your eyes. The girl’s face lit up. “Yes! So you do know about Prythian! You’re not a lost cause after all!” Ignoring the backhanded comment you attempted to make more sense of the situation. “I must be dreaming.” You shook your head and began to stand, suddenly feeling light headed. “If you’re so eager to go, I can take you now, I can assure you you are not dreaming.” She confirmed. You nodded. “Take me now then. Please. I don’t belong here.” With some more hesitant conversation, the woman, who’s name was Rinna, agreed to take you to Velaris sooner than later. She lived on the outskirts of the city, just before the glamour took hold, and knew you were human and in turn gave you all of the essentials. Warm clothes that didn’t look out of place, a bag for your things, and some food.      “It’s an hour’s journey over mountain so be prepared.” She warned. You nodded before leaving her cottage and mounting one of the two horses she had owned.          You needed to figure out what had happened. The last thing you remember was being with your close friend and laughing in a bathroom at a party you two were at. And then everything was blank after that. You had read, and loved A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas but never in a million years did you think you would ever find yourself so far from home, and so close to the world you had loved. You now realized why books were just books. They were easy to love from afar. But so close, so very very close, they became scary. Too real. You were far from home, with no idea how to get back. You hadn’t said goodbye to anyone and without warning, your whole life was gone. And in reality, you knew no one here. Except now maybe Rinna, and technically all of the Inner Circle. But they didn’t know you. And that made all the difference.       You would figure out how to get home no matter what it took. You needed to get home. And as much as finding yourself in the ultimate fantasy world secretly excited you, it scared you. Greatly. You were human in the land of the fae about to meet the strongest High Lord in history. And you had no defenses. But now was no time to be weak. If loving these books had taught you anything, it was that being scared was the perfect time to be brave. You would meet your essential heroes but you would also find your way back home and have a hell of a story waiting for everyone when you got back.

-

well that was fucking shite. hope you enjoyed lol i love yall PS READ THE AUTHORS NOTE!!!!!!!!!!!

[thecringefailintherye]

Melody (S.W.A.L.K) 1971 Livewatch

I have seen this movie. but not the whole thing (i got interupped the first time i watched it)... so here goes! 

movie load please

20 seconds of logos???

guitar song™

this movie is so nostalgic for no reason

Mark Lester and Jack Wild: did you mean, Oliver Twist and The Artful Dodger?

and tracy hyde shes here too

i love this movie sm wtf

can these credits end????

ok yes they can

70s film marching band scene

ornshaw drinking whiskey before band bc why not

danny is bby

mY mOtHeR dId It SiR

dannys mum is so annoying wtf

i really love tom ornshaw

run bitch run

The BB™

SET FIRE TO THE NEWSPAPER???

look at his lil face ❤

MELODY MY DAUGHTER

a gowdfish please

aww look at her 

“ive done all those things i wanna try something new” LIKE DRAWING TIDDIES? DANIEL

“ah a boy gave it to me at school” was it ornshaw, i bet it was ornshaw

BITCH YOU RIPPED DANNYS TITS DRAWING

melody girl you cant play that fucking recorder

this film has great cinematography wtf

Melody Perkins Deserves The World !!

the gang go to school

Ornshaw Gets Bullied

“the jewish boys may now leave for private study” what about the jewish girls?? there’s clearly girls in the class?? why do they have to listen to the bible

ornshaw’s porn bible

DOES ANYBODY KNOW WHO JESUS WAS???

dont smoke at school kids

okay so shes peggy, why is she credited as maureen. who the fuck is maureen

hear me out, muriel is a lesbian. noone kisses for over five minutes unless youre proper horny and this bitch is like thirteen. she also says “i dont know, i never used to kiss boys”, because SHE DOESNT. shes lying because she doesnt kiss boys. shes closeted and thats whys she says she does. also, she got angry at peggy for saying she fancied a boy.

W I C

“saucy turtles make terrible bathmats, charley” okay okay jeez

ornshaws accent is everything

The Gang sneaking through the fence what will they do

uh oh danny

AWH YOURE BARMY

thats def gonna explode later

ornshaw gets kicked off the bus

but now hes on it

ornshaw and danny have such a wholesome friendship too bad melody ruins it oh wait

you’ve heared of ornshaw gets kicked off the bus now get ready for... ornshaw gets kicked out of the strip club!

you cant get a taxi!!! watch me hoe

where did ornshaw get the chewing gum from wtf

“shes always talking about people like you...” OH OKAY DANNYS MUM IS CLASSIST

“he could do with a heart attack!” WOAH OKAY

time skip to school

oh no danny’s seen melody

“we have three admirers of the dance!” ah shit

ah so maureen is the girl in green

why is ornshaw just standing there

FREE YOURSELVES

the girl gang is hilarious i love them

Muriel Kisses A Tombstone

uh oh dannys been found out

“HES A COWARD CMON”

ornshaw just yeeted his cat

i hate dannys mother sm

assembly time, an iconic part of british comprehensive school, since covid, i cant say i miss it

danny and melody !!

DANNY PLAYS CELLO THIS IS IMPORTANT INFO

melody and her friend are there because plot

melody sweetie baby i love you but you cant play the recorder

THEYRE PLAYING IN HARMONY DKDJSKDJSJKK 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

this is cute as fuck

melody is babey

oh explosives time??

i just dubbed these kids ornshaw and the pyrotechnics crew and it fits

dannys parents are annoying

i quite literally hate them

DANNY SPILT HIS COKE ITS SUCH A SIN

“neviw”

melody girl are you okay

melody are you lying about getting raped

oh time skip to school

we’ve hardly seen ornshaws home life so when will we properly meet him??

god i fucking love ornshaw its mad

oh this is an iconic scene if there ever was one

“go on tom dance with her” oh the ONE TIME ornshaw is called by his first name

youre mad !!

“girls are a load of snotty nose little so and sos” ornshaw aro king

is ornshaw.. scared of women

whatddya mean i dont dance very well!?

is it bad i lowkey crackship peggy and ornshaw now

YOU DANCE STUPID!

no one:

ornshaw: kicks peggy in the shin because he cant dance

“you big fat fool” yikes

danny u ok

ALL ORNSHAW AND HIS MATES DO IS CREATE EXPLOSIVES DJDKJSKt

oh it worked for once

i feel so fucking sorry for melody wtf

bb 🥺

im at the bit where melody is crying while putting on her mothers makeup 

SWEETIE ITS OKAY 

OH TIME SKIP TO SPORTS DAY! 

this film is so fast were already an hour in!

ornshaw giving actually solid life advice?? are you sure this is the same movie

“you youre gonna be bloody useless!”

i literally love ornshaw so much 

FUCK DANNYS MUM

GO ON DANNY 

YES MY BOY

time skip to school 3982903843290

wtf is a young latin scholars book

lahtimah

not ass latimer, arse

i hate the latin teacher

ornshaw every second: right uh erm um uh so yes sir oh uh mhm

*ornshaw and danny shoving pillows up their underwear*

“dont worry about it!!” dude hes getting spanked by the latin teacher ofc hes gonna worry about it

ornshaw and latimah

“vacate your mouth”

“because its a silly out of date language sir!!!” hes not wrong

uh oh 

what will slapping ornshaw’s ass with a dap even gonna do???

oh hi melody forgot about you

AWH DANNY SWEETHEART

“cmon danny dont let her see you cry!” i want a friend like ornshaw man

melody is just STANDING THERE LIKE GIRL LEAVE

“you can buzz off now love, tara, tooduhloo” have i said i love ornshaw? because i love ornshaw

danny dont abandon ornshaw !!

oh this is sad

danny? danny?? danny!!!??? DANNY!!?? 🥺🥺🥺

ORNSHAW RIGHTS MAN

ive felt sorry for literally all three of these kids now

ah fuck now ornshaws having a mental breakdown in the school halls

danny and melody’s relationship is so innocent and wholesome 

this is literally so bittersweet, like we’re seeing danny and melody being all cute and happy but we know that back in school ornshaw is literally having a breakdown over them

im tearing up over a movie about schoolchildren in puppy love

“will you love me that long?” “of course! ive loved you a whole week already!”

“hes come to tea! his name is daniel!” melody hes not your pet

melodys dad seems so cool why was he arrested

donald????

i genuinely love melody’s dad 

melody dramatically eats toast

time skip to school AGAIN

OH GOD I’M ACTUALLY CRYING

melody and danny are out on a date having fun and its the same song playing as the scene earlier on when danny and ornshaw went off somewhere at the start of the movie, melody has quite literally replaced ornshaw

i have real tears rn 

they skipped school to go to weymouth

danny and melody are literally adorable man

“shall we get married?” arent yall like 12????

oh back to school they got in trouble for skipping

apparently the poor cast got spanked for real and like yikes

we want to get married :D

ITS NOT MENT TO BE FUNNY!!

leave danny alone!

leave melody alone!

ornshaw please stop

ornshaw stop taunting him this is gonna end shittily

OH SHIT 

THEYRE STRAIGHT UP FIGHTING 

ORNSHAW AND DANNY ARE MF WRESTLING EACHOTHER TO THE GROUND

okay now ornshaw is literally beating him up okay

danny this is your fault for ditching him for melody sorry

top ten best anime fight scenes

latin man is back because plot

DID ORNSHAW GIVE HIM A BLOODY NOSE

i’m sorry danny 😭😭

ORNSHAW. DESERVES. THE. FUCKING. WORLD. AND. MORE.

let melody and danny get married!

wait so if 20 is twice as old as her then shes.. ten?? i think

melody ily

“all i want to do is be happy” BABY

OH FUCK YOU MRS LATIMER

oooh

THEYRE GOING TO GET MARRIED BY THE RAILWAY 

ornshaws unnamed friend is the true hero of this movie

is this the movie climax???

run! ornshaws unnamed friend! run!

IM SORRY THE’RE LITERALLLY GETTING MARRIED I’M 😭

“we are gathered here today to join this man and woman in holy matrimony.. shaddup”

ITS NOT FUNNY ITS SERIOUS

IS ORNSHAW STRAIGHT UP MARRYING THESE TWO IS HE THEIR VICAR

HE IS AS WELL

“DICKS IS COMING!!!” as soon as they were getting the rings

RUN !!!!

ornshaw just threw the bible at his re teacher from the re scene at the start i love him

DANNYS MUM HAD IT COMING

name a more iconic trio than melody perkins, danny latimer, and tom ornshaw, i’ll wait

GO PEGGY!

ORNSHAWS UNNAMED FRIEND IS GONNA FINALLY GET HIS BOMB WORKING!

YES

GO ORNSHAWS UNNAMED FRIEND

“i’ll get you ornshaw!” dude how is this his fault its yours for unterupting the wedding latin man

again ouf is the true movie hero

wait latin man is dicks??? whos wannabe remus lupin then????

this just in: ouf is actually named stacey

oh god thats actually such a bittersweet ending

melody and danny trolleying off into the sunset

im actually crying like a baby rn

god that was such a good movie

[rorybergstrom]

𝑫𝑰𝑫 𝑺𝑶𝑴𝑬𝑩𝑶𝑫𝒀 𝑶𝑹𝑫𝑬𝑹 𝑨 𝑩𝑰𝑺𝑬𝑿𝑼𝑨𝑳 𝑹𝑶𝑳𝑳𝑬𝑹𝑺𝑲𝑨𝑻𝑰𝑵𝑮 𝑺𝒀𝑵𝑻𝑯 𝑳𝑶𝑹𝑫  ???

            hello, it’s nora again…. hitting u with another child. a south london-born softboi who deserves tenderness. has a burner phone and doesn’t use social media. does techno dj sets. plays the synth loudly through the night if u live in gorham his room always sounds like a space ship just landed. deals weed around campus on his rollerskates. hates that he can’t get new light up wheels because ana coto made rollerskating cool again. as is tradition, here’s the pinterest board. this intro is recycled?? so if theres mistakes, sue me??? and be sure to like and subscribe for more unboxing content x

application.

『 FIONN WHITEHEAD ❙ DEMI-MALE』 ⟿ looks like RORY BERGSTRÖM is here for HIS JUNIOR year as a MUSIC TECHNOLOGY student. HE is 23 years old & known to be ECCENTRIC, FANATICAL, NITPICKY & DOGMATIC. They’re living in GORHAM, so if you’re there, watch out for them. ⬳ ooc name. age. tz. pronouns. 

aesthetics.

bed hair from a permanent state of slumber, calloused fingertips from strumming bass into the early hours and djing into the blacklit night, self-help books thumbed once and thrown beneath your bed, battered copies of choose your own adventure books, spliffs passed half-arsed across rooftops while light pollution obscures low-hanging stars, marxist literature in stacks against your bedroom walls, a burner phone twice-shattered and a stash of replacement sim cards.

tw ocd, anxiety, drugs

half-swedish, half-british. the swedish is on his mother’s side. he’s bilingual but thinks in english. only really speaks swedish around his mother. only child, and kinda put a lot of pressure on himself to be the perfect kid when he was young, but his parents are honestly, quite decent? and just want him to have a nice life, they don’t care if he isn’t successful or rich or anything, they’re honestly rather solid. (wow imagine having nice parents, a first for all my characters, im literally this meme)

grew up in peckham, a suburb of london. growing up, his mum was a model / actress / waitress who later retrained as a speech therapist and his dad worked in her majesty’s service at buckingham palace. his dad wasn’t allowed to tell his family what his job entailed but rory suspects it’s probably very boring and just involves a lot of…. logistics n security.

was bullied a lot at school. [cole sprouse voice] he didn’t fit in and he didn’t want to fit in. unironically wore a trenchcoat to school every day of his life. spent most of his lunchtimes in the library because it was his safe space. as a result he knows…. loads of useless information because 30% of his school years were spent reading anthologies on space and the vikings etc. would be good on a game show. obsessively recorded every episode of university challenge as a child.

middle-class and lowkey quite wealthy but rarely talks about money, one of those well-off people who still wears really old shitty shoes and only spends money if they absolutely have to

virgin who can’t drive

into star wars, not into the big bang theory. feminist. can’t watch horror movies

favourite film is where the wild things are. also loves the florida project. thinks kids are the sweetest thing and can’t wait to be a dad to some. right now is dad to one cat, whose name changes on a daily basis (identity is constantly shifting, duuuuude), but they were originally named ‘wheezer’

rory has been musical for as long as they can remember. first picked up guitar because he thought it would make this girl esther who he was in love with like him, but he just ended up falling in love with music instead.

formulated several different bands as a kid but ultimately had to give it up cos he was quite controlling and got fixated on making a certain sound so it wasn’t really fun for the others. got into electronic music because it was something he could do basically on his own and keep tweaking until he got it perfect

always drumming their fingers or strumming invisible guitar strings. tends to avoid parties bc he has quite has specific tastes when it comes to music and doesn’t like listening to r&b for eight hours while people throw up into plastic cups.

a techno connoisseur. has been making electronic music since he was about twelve.

after his parents divorce, when he was fourteen, rory & his mother moved to run-down suburban neighbourhood, pittsfield, massachussets.

big into photography. he mostly uses a canon 35mm camera, but occasionally uses disposable ones when he wants that more rustic feel.

moving to the states, their photography became more focused on suburban neighborhoods and are often quite dark and cinematic (think gregory crewsden). here are some shots of pittsfield i really like which rory has on his wall [1] [2] [3]

falls in love 12 times a day. never had a girlfriend or boyfriend. gets sweaty when someone cute looks at him. flirting?? what?? would prefer to idealise them from a distance

gender??? hm. doesn’t really know where he fits yet, sometimes he feels like a guy and sometimes they dont feel like anything at all. isn’t really bothered, cos they think it’s a social construct anyway. uses he/they pronouns interchangeably, but feels like ‘he’ is more fitting. won’t necessarily pull anyone up on it cos he knows having an identity that’s constantly…. in flux.. can be annoying for others … and doesn’t want to be a burden even tho it isn’t at all?? rory internalises guilt

everything is socially constructed. mirrors let you move through time. the whole thing’s a metaphor. he thinks he’s got free will but really he’s trapped in a maze. in a system. all he can do is consume. people think it’s a happy game. it’s not a happy game — it’s a fucking nightmare world, and the worst thing is, it’s real and we live in it

has ocd. tries to let it affect his life as little as possible, but obviously it’s incredibly hard to control a compulsive disorder. was teased for it at school when other kids started to notice. he was obsessed with the number five, would wash his hands five times, count stairs i groups of five, he could only use the corridors in one direction and always had to keep his hands busy. it manifests itself in hyper-fixations (trains when he was a child – specifically steam engines – then later he became obsessed with space and the patterns of constellations, and now he’s obsessed with synthesizers) and repetitive behaviours like counting stairs. doesn’t really affect his social life at all, he can jst get a bit locked-on n hyper-focused sometimes.

has insomnia. barely ever sleeps. finds it hard to switch off from work / writing / gaming / whatever’s preoccupying him in that moment. he’s always awake at 5am and quite often sleeps in through classes but still gets really good grades because he’s very good at his course. rarely attends classes. prefers to work independently. doesn’t really trust his tutors are intelligent enough to be teaching him, and is particularly suspicious of the lockwood tutors. a music snob tbh

secretly a small-scale drug dealer, only does weed n some party pills. rollerskates around campus dealing cos they dnt have a car

likes: techno, the webpage cats on synthesizers in space, allen ginsberg, vintage gramophones,  floating points, lcd soundsystem, marijuana, soft dogs that let you pet them, late-night strolls talking about the universe, independent films, cigarettes, herbal tea, gallows humour, long showers, brown eyes, tchaikovsky, dr. seuss, constellations, photography, late night jazz, vintage game boys and girls who could rip his still-beating heart out of his chest and use it as an ashtray. dislikes:  weddings, funerals, formality, button-up shirts that people actually button-up, bananas, hot coffee, social media, people who watch and play sports, rap music – especially of the misogynistic variety, indie wankers in wire-framed glasses that play ed sheeran songs at open mic nights.

plot ! with ! me ! i’d say all the usual “exes fwb hookups spiel” but rory… is very tender and tame… i feel like a deer in the headlights of love……. so give me

study buddies,

people who are also into techno and are music snobs about it,

people who love all kinds of music,

people who are in bands that maybe rory’s recorded and produced stuff for,

people he actually jams with (he plays bass and synth),

unrequited crushes!!

someone they met at a knitting club in freshman year and have remained friends with despite no longer going to it

people rory knows from open mic nights and gigs

library girlfriends / boyfriends that he stares at longingly while paging through leatherbound volumes

gamers !!! social recluses !!! hermits !!

people he deals weed to on his rollerskates (why r all my characters obsessed with rollerskates)

skaters. rory is really shit at skateboarding. like really shit. help the smol

hm now that rory has !Evolved! ig we can do hook up plots if u want but he’s not tht good at divorcing sex from emotion?? like he  hooked up w teddy once n felt hopelessly inlove so..... if u want soft plots b prepared for crippling sadness.......

stay groovy XD XD

[ecoamerica]

Watch the 2024 American Climate Leadership Awards for High School Students now: https://youtu.be/5C-bb9PoRLc

The recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by student climate leaders! Join Aishah-Nyeta Brown & Jerome Foster II and be inspired by student climate leaders as we recognize the High School Student finalists. Watch now to find out which student received the $25,000 grand prize and top recognition!

[justsomeantifas]

its 11:59 its still technically tonight so

this is gonna be my reference point to questions abt venezuela, at least regarding things pre- May 19 2019. Its a bit scattered and it may get edited down along the road, but yeah.

short version that draws some similar conclusions: https://www.salon.com/2019/05/17/the-plot-to-kill-venezuela_partner/

one difference in scales that’s important to keep in mind: the lifespan of people is 2-7 decades. the lifespan of colonialism lasts centuries. the lifespan of media memory is a couple years, tops.

Most western narratives of venezuela start meaningfully at chavez, which is a mistake. The focus point in history around which the country flowed was the Caracazo. You probably already know about this, but a massive uprising took place in the heart of Caracas, against decades of dictatorship both formal and informal, after severe instability in the global oil market. The people were hungry, the riots were fiery, and the bullets bled. knows the death toll even now, but its estimated well into the thousands.  This happened pre-chavez, and started a cascade of events which brought him into limelight that you can read about here. not gonna go into more venezuelan history, but i talk a bit more here

chavez was democratically elected, multiple times.

   in 2002, after his first democratic election, he was kidnapped by US-backed troops and replaced by someone who threw out the 1999 constitution, which was as legitimate as any other made in venezuela’s colonial and violently capitalist history, seeing as it was the first (aka only, so far) of 26 constitutions actually approved by popular referendum. He was reinstated largely due to massive protests in support of him. Maduro however doesn’t really have as much of the charisma and support of chavez, which is creating problems - as well as exacerbating problems created by the economic crises ramping up just around chavez’s death. In 2015, there were elections to the National Assembly, which ended up with the Opposition winning a majority of the seats (which does show that there’s some degree of fairness in the elections, at least verifiably up til that point, yet that isnt rly accounted for when western media describes it as “undemocratic” - many of whom don’t apply the same scrutiny to their own country: such as this UN Human Rights councilor who also happens to be the crown prince of british-iraq, currently residing in the noted democracy of the Kingdom of Jordan, which has no vested interest or control over any particular export of Venezuela.).        

This turnout showed most of all that maduro had alienated as many as 2 million of his supporters, who didnt end up voting (though many also voted against him - trying to act on their feeling that whatever they want, its “not this”). This decreasing support also accelerates whats known as “Everyday Sabotage” - people not trusting in the government, and look out for their own interests contra everyone else. This is a danger inherent to tying “Socialism” to a primarily state project.       

However 1999 Constitution was never meant as an eternal document & it created mechanisms to call for new popular constitutional referendums to be held. That’s what the “Constituent Assembly” is about, which is what a lot of the western world is describing as him singlehandedly rewriting it (while also being “vague about its contents”), or “created by him”. Elections to the constituent assembly were boycotted by opposition, so that it would be government controlled & look like a sham in the eyes of the broader world. That being said, the assembly was called both as a reaction to losing election but also in response to intensifying crises - it was put forth (i don’t see any reason to believe in bad faith) as a way to come together and figure out how to address the needs that were driving people to protest - to address the desire for “not this”, but bc of the uncertainty, it was easily twistable by reactionaries by putting all emphasis on the former. Also timing corresponds with increasing fears of maduro straying from the path of chavez, the image of scrapping one of his strongest plays for smth unknown is risky - tho if there are other meaningful options given the situation im not sure. And the body’s got at least as much constitutional legitimacy as Guaido  (Chapter III)  

The 1999 constitution also enabled a recall election to be called against maduro in 2016, bc it was written with particular attention to holding public officials accountable - similar noble commitments helped to end the presidency of Rousseff & bring in Bolsonaro (who was also one of the people spurring on the investigations and whipping up a social base).

     (speaking of guaido & bolsonaro)

on Guaido:

part of student group in 2007 protesting against non-renewal of coup-assisting network, who the CFR (one of the major think tanks of the cold war still playing a big role in foreign policy today) considered “most important network”   

close friend of Leopoldo Lopez, the aforementioned coup plotter.

politician since 2010, won a couple small elections

Unknown to majority of general population until 2019, most venezuelans surveyed didnt know him   

Plan Pais       

plans to privatize state owned industry & allow investment from foreign oil companies       

center-right neoliberal draped in platitudes of “stability”, “revitalization”, “security”, and “rescue” - a message seemingly deliberately targeted to become more and more resonant with increased sanctions.

/on Guaido

governing is about the expression of power. I wanna live in a world where that power isn’t expressed, but as long as the exploitation of the global working class continues unabated, id prefer some of that power be put towards helping the poor.     

there is no such thing as a static state of affairs, there’s no “goldilocks zone” out in the political universe where we tweak things finely until we find whats best for everyone, only different rates of change in different dimensions. what we need to do is figure out how we can push that state of affairs in a direction so that everyday people have the power to take control of their lives. re

re: “constitutionality” - if the supreme court calls it constitutional then its constitutional. period. There’s no such thing as a supreme court as an “independent branch” of government, but there are different degrees of integration into the rest of it.       

The Supreme Tribunal of Venezuela has 32 members, (a bit more than a dozen put in by the national assembly, while the PSUV held it), and the opposition holds abt 3 away from a supermajority. Each member of the court holds their spot for 12 years. If that’s “The Most Corrupt In The World” according to Transparency International, i wonder what world the 9-person lifetime-appointed US Supreme Court (2 of which appointed by trump, and save for pulling a Weekend At Ginsbergs, likely 3) is on. In fact, one of the tactics that the more radical circles of democrat voters are putting forward is to pack the Supreme Court. Because thats how shit actually gets done, or at the least how shit is prevented from being committed w the stamp of legality. FDR learned that lesson too, in trying to pass what is today known as “The New Deal”

My comparisons to trump are for specific end: these actions are exerted on levers of liberal democracy, and every single liberal democracy is susceptible to them in some ways.

whats a “dictator”? if hes unelected, the millions of people who participated in the elections dont seem to think so. if maduro is a dictator, then what is donald trump? the majority of ppl didnt vote for him yet hes still governing. macron’s popularity has at several points been less than 1/3, and the yellow vest protestors have been violently attacked - why is he not “a violent dictator with only the support of the military”? These terms are not neutral.

“their elections are highly flawed” So What? show me a country whose elections arent.   

“opposition jailed” - ok but coup plotters don’t get off easy in any liberal democracy. If someone - say Bernie Sanders - said “enough is enough” and succeeded in overthrowing the current government with the help of a foreign government…. you think they’d let him go free? what if ten years later he was getting his supporters all riled up to do it again? how long you think he’d be in jail for (assuming he can survive well into his 100’s)? You think more than 13 years? Think he’d get house arrest? Some US states lock you up for posessing weed up to 10. If you stay long enough around this blog, youll find plenty of other examples of much more cruel and unusual punishments. Look at Chelsea Manning, look at Oscar Riviera…   look at the US protestors saying Guaido is illegitimate

 what we have to keep in mind most of all, is to show that the contradictions being exploited are inherent to Liberalism. Contradictions are just expressed most freely at the margins - the interstices

poor economic decisions happen everywhere - 2008/2009 still affecting the entire world there’s violence thats “natural”, and violence thats “intolerable”. The dividing line is whether we have anything to gain by changing things.

sanctions:    started under obama, originally targeted specific individuals, used as precedent for more generalized. They’re indirect - they have a “squeezing effect”, takes already-existing problems & just makes them markedly worse. also doesn’t necessarily correlate with emigration, bc it takes a lot of money to start a new life somewhere else, and sanctions disproportionately affect the poor.   

war wouldnt likely look like (many) US boots on the ground - we’ve got plenty of other places to be. It’d look like guns being smuggled to counter-protestors. It’d look like sending resources to neighboring countries like Colombia or Brazil who would then use their troops. Colombias ruling party is right wing populists - much of current president’s campaign was run on fearmongering abt venezuelan socialism - they’re raring to go. It’d look like drones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caracas_drone_attack. Also means there likely won’t be a sudden trigger, its a gradually escalating stressful gradually-more-warlike situation.  

If war does break out - where would the refugees go?  In reality the majority would go to Colombia, but if anything significant breaks out there will be a stream of those looking to find shelter in the US, which has advertised itself as a beacon of hope - what would happen to them? some may get taken in as a gesture of showmanship, but nowhere close to the majority.   

speaking of the US - imagine if trump and bolton manage to actually plot a winning coup. Do you think that that wont be his main bullwark against ppl like Bernie? you think the media and rest of the democratic party wont jump on that narrative and “begrudgingly” support a fascist because the alternative might mean supporting single payer and not-having-good-for-ratings-climate-apocalypse?

another term thrown around without regard is “once vibrant” - for whom?

most articles ive seen just take this as an axiom, and dont find any cognitive dissonance when also saying chavez reduced poverty hugely.

 The answer to that rhetorical question: Citgo is venezuelan, before chavez none of the wealth went back to venezuela - thats what “vibrancy” means.  

     many similarities with BP (the-artist-formerly-known-as-the-anglo-iranian-oil-company)

in age of climate change & vocal ppl about phasing out oil, the more one’s livelihood is connected to oil, the more unstable ones country will be - either that, or the more instability ones country will cause.

“Oil exports fell by $2,200 per capita from 2012 to 2016, of which $1,500 was due to the decline in oil prices.”  

The drop in price that affected the venezuelan economy so much in 2014 was largely by US shale fracking

in 1970’s Chile, copper was the main product of Chile - allende nationalized the mines, and in return wall street dropped the

(also worth noting that venezuela’s got non-insignificant untapped shale basins)      

At least venezuela used the oil money to fund social programs instead of like, pad the pockets of Raytheon.

also oil price wars in africa highly correlated w oil (whose annual production doesn’t even combined total venezuelas)

a couple ppl have raised concerns abt my strong stance on equivocal dismissal - if there’s a difference, if there’s some way of reading your statement that says “X country that the State Dept wants to invade is an anomoly in the otherwise free world”, then that’s acting to push the discourse towards normalization & invasion. It’s not “whataboutism”, just basic consistency.   

now more than ever, narratives are affected by people. They may not be ones we had a hand in forging, but the way that we propagate them actually does have measurable effects on the larger-scale political outcomes. Always look for the base assumptions, as well as the direction   

sure denounce Chavez. sure denounce Maduro. denounce Kim, Xi, Castro, anyone. But if there’s no equally or proportionally loud denunciations of the horrors perpetrated by allies - the “assumed”, “natural” violence, then you’re acting to reinforce the narrative of exceptionalism.   

Just make sure after you take a breath, you denounce Saudi Arabia & Yemen, Israel for Palestine, the conditions which brought Argentinian/Brazillian, Brazilian coup, the US for Puerto Rico, the conditions which have murdered dozens of journalists in Mexico per year…  

what people want most of all is stability. “A debate over whether it is mismanagement and corruption by the Maduro government or the sanctions that are the author of the crisis is largely irrelevant. The point is that a combination of the reliance on oil revenues and the sanctions policy has crushed the policy space for any stability in the country.”

government’s errors and tensions   

fixed exchange rate -> black market      

took 5 years to address changing relation between dollar & BsF, all the room between those two curves left a huge room for intensifying crises, though since it also corresponds with the death of chavez, it sorta makes sense.   

antidemocratic actions and remarks by maduro  

scattered responses filled w half-solutions   

diversification needed, but how do you diversify an economy filled with rampant poverty, malnutrition, illiteracy… 

(nominally begrudging) support for mineral extraction 12.4% of territory opened to extraction - “Special Economic Zone” as a method of managing decay       

this is also what much of the reality of “economic diversification” looks like

not enough socialism. (even fox agrees!) Venezuela shows the limits of Social Democracy in countries living outside of the Imperial Core - esp the dangers if you’re in the crosshairs already bc of oil         

started out as populism, gradually grew as confronted more.            shows shaping influence on political organs from actions of foreign actors - if you’ve survived a coup before, you’re gonna become paranoid about any more of them - especially when the coup plotters say “hey lets do more coups”       

also shows the weakness of only having a small number of charasmatic faces representing the movement - if one dies and theres no clear and popular replacement, then you’ll lose ppl who were largely brought in by the charisma, weakening your political project, and creating cracks for reactionary forces to take advantage of - especially in times of transition.       

bourgeoisie still control a majority of the economy.            Capitalist businesses are internally unaccountable, and in this age of intensified global trade, one can punish countries for straying from the pack by moving business & focus away. If you’re looking for dictatorships, look at the thousands of private companies run as dictatorships daily       

capital flight is a real effect, precisely because socialism is fundamentally and irreconcilably against the self-interest of the bourgeoisie. not necessarily against the interest of the humans-who-are-also-bourgeois, but of the impersonal self-sustaining force of capital.           

Have you ever pulled something out of an electrical socket, and seen a quick spark? The reason that occurs is bc of what’s called an induction current, which is a fancy physics word for flowing electricity not liking to suddenly change its flow. If you accidentally touch that spark, you might feel it, but youll live to tell the tale. But if you only take the plug out halfway & touch it, that’s a different story.  Capital flows similarly.

   my country (lithuania) has been facing sky-high emigration since the collapse of the USSR (with an added boost after 08-09), we have also consistently had one of the highest suicide rates in the world (#7), a minimum wage of about 3 Euros an hour (after a recent increase), as well as one of the highest prison populations in Europe (discounting Russia & Belarus… which like….)   

when are we gonna be invaded? when will the US media talk about our pain?  

oh wait, they did. We cried all pretty for the TV cameras, then they got a bozo nobody really knew of to denounce the government, who they called dictatorial (though it was far from ideal, massive bureaucracies dont tend to mix well with single-person-decision-making). And to be fair, the fact that the government was unpopular wasnt entirely undeserved. But what was promised to us was the idea of “Freedom”, “Free Enterprise”; to “Get Rid of Corruption” and institute “Real” Democracy". They said we’d be integrated into the glorious capitalist west, and we understood that to mean that we’d be in the position of a Germany, or at least an Austria or smth. But they never meant to integrate us into the imperial Core, we have always been seen as part of the Periphery - the “assumed” violence that “naturally” happens.    

Then we got to where we our today. Some of the stuffs more available, but expensive. Most of the bureaucracy’s still around, it just helps fewer people. We stand as an example of what to expect, in one of the best case scenarios, you would join our emigrees now making up a significant percentage of underpaid house-servants aka maids across the EU.  

if we want the people of Venezuela to be healthy, safe, and fulfilled, then:

speak out and pointing to the effects of US sanctions is incredibly important. They’ve already killed 40,000 people in the last year, and 300,000 more are in extreme danger (and millions more in long-term risk).

what does it mean when you simultaneously sanction trade with a place but also demand they let you give them humanitarian aid?

if there is to be action taken by the international community, then the US has forfeited its right to speak. They threw it away once in 2002, and obama rhetorically picked it up and dusted it off so that trump could throw it in a bigger dumpster, thats also on fire. However we also still live in a world deeply shaped by US Hegemony, so the opinions of its close trade partners & closest-knit media buds should be seen as influenced as such. Doesn’t mean that theyre wrong on everything too, but they still feel the magnetic pull of the US economy and ecosystem (as well as their own potentially imperial interests) and the effect of that force cannot be discounted.

transitioning our economies away from oil & away from globalized neoliberalism which only values peripheral states by their exports - dissolves tensions of how to produce in unproductive terrain   

socialize medicine in the US, so that drug companies run by dictatorships can’t control their lives & ours. healthcare is especially reliant on imports, sanctions affect especially strongly.  

normalize the ideas of Socialism, without taking the easy way out of “oh no dont think of Venezuela, think of sweden or denmark”. None of them are Socialist, but to avoid the complexities of Venezuela is to imagine that US attempts at socialism wouldn’t involve significant capital flight. If we don’t consider that, if we don’t have solid actionable plans to deal with that, while also facing the inherent complexity of changing material conditions, then we’re gonna waste whatever shot we get.   

redirect conversation normally centered around government towards support of the tens of thousands of small business co-operatives, where people live their daily lives in a democratic manner.

on The Communes:

    “delegating responsibility throughout all members, and bringing important decisions to the whole to work through and find the best possible solution… They create “collective criteria” together; agreements stipulating whether individuals have power over certain decisions or whether it is up to the whole group. However, he assures that these “are not rigid, they can change at any moment.” The cooperative I lived with in Venezuela had regular organizational meetings where they informally came to agreement and were even able to come back to re-evaluate decisions that didn´t seem to be satisfactory for the whole group in this same way. Decisions and decision making, in this way, are viewed as a process not contained by meetings and discussions in board rooms, but are always being analyzed and made better by the process of putting them into action, and not only by thinking them out and writing them down.”

- the “Self Government of the Producers” - aka what it looks like for cooks to govern.   

they have communal councils as well - neighborhood councils in the same vein that so many (rightfully) find inspiring in Kurdistan . They preexisted chavez, but they were able to proliferate and be given legal recognition through him. I understand that legal recognition can act to ‘name’ a body & pin it to smth that doesn’t match its requisite variety - how dynamic it is, but imo as its currently legislated it recognizes a good amount of the autonomy that they had already been excersizing. - liable to change                                government recognition of co-ops has drawbacks too, and correlates negatively with that coop’s success           

           "A good example of this intention is the de-emphasis that cooperatives in Venezuela put on advertising or “marketing” products, and instead push to find more people to become part of the cooperative, and choose the services or products they provide based on community decisions about what is needed. A cooperative I worked in […] was originally a family owned and operated theater group that traveled around the country performing theater pieces that highlighted social and environmental issues. When they joined the […] cooperative, the larger co-op did an analysis and decided they wanted a natural fruit juice concentrate producer and gave the group a loan to acquire capital and start producing. They have been doing this for only a couple of years now but have already paid back the loan to the larger cooperative and are bringing extra money in to support themselves, better their services, and supply extra funds to the larger cooperative for community projects such as the recently [2012] built community health center…                  

The cooperative services I experienced and learned about in Venezuela were health, dental, food, and a separate example of trash services. A dental cooperative […] provides quality dental services (I know because I used them) almost every day for affordable prices. You don´t have to be a member of the cooperative, and you don´t have to make an appointment. It takes only a couple of hours, and emergency situations are treated with urgency. The health center, built with funds provided by all the associated cooperatives[…], works the same way. Anyone can go there, the services are subsidized by the cooperative so they are affordable, the clinic and workspaces are clean and well taken care of, and the quality of the service is great. Worker-members of the cooperative receive health care at the facility without charge except for the massage and acupuncture services that they also provide at a really low price.

           […] food services are priced to provide more access to food for the community in which it exists. The original and persistent intention is to make the best situation for people on all ends of the process. The producers are part of the cooperative and are part of the group that decides the prices that growers get, as well as the prices that the food is sold for. This means that both farmers and workers at the market decide what to charge a person, which ultimately affects how much money the growers receive, as well as if the food is affordable for the people who need to eat who live in the city. In a normal capitalist market system these parties are separated and put up against each other, raising prices for consumers and lowering them for small producers, excluding those people from getting enough money to afford all the necessities that are typically only provided at a high price.

           One communal council, a parallel governing organization of community members linked to investment funds from the national government, in the city of Merida, Venezuela organized themselves to get funds to buy a trash collection truck. The truck at the time was used for a specific waste removal project that removed waste from their community regularly but was not a traditional collection service. However, they did have plans to expand the project to start their own collection service, and this would be provided by the commal council, an anti-capitalist organization which does not require people to pay for the service. Although this is not a “co-operative” as some hardliner co-operative enthusiasts might point out, it is a horizontal anti-capitalist organization widening access of necessary services to the larger community run by community members; following cooperative values of equity, inclusion, and solidarity I believe this to be an example of cooperative economics and action. It appears to me that economic inclusion is much more likely to widen only when those who are being excluded are included in the process of organizing the services and are in control of the economy.“

until the communes, workers cooperatives, and the like are strong enough to rule themselves, having Maduro in power is the only option given to us which doesn’t trigger the control of reactionaries. People make their own history, but not in situations of their choosing - the exact outcome isn’t predetermined, but there’s only a limited number of poles - gravitational attractors - towards which that trajectory is heading at any particular time.   

if maduro acts to squash the power of the communes, then thats a different situation. but until that point, we outside of the country must work to center any discussion on these bodies - they are the heart of the country and of whatever social revolution has occurred/is further possible. They are filled with lessons for us to learn from, and show how rich and dynamic the organized populace can be if they are allowed to control their communities. (ex of dealing with gang violence from @ 22:50)       

This is all said with recognition that many chavistas have acted against communes, the bureaucratic machine acts to co-opt much of their energy, its linguistically obscured the concept of "ownership” with that of “control”, and that the state has changed its messages over time. But the heart of the communes is what’s a priority, and they have acted against the government overstepping its bounds & mis-identifying them. But whats important is that there’s a feedback process in the gvt to actually allow them to assert their autonomy. Liberals will do their utmost to close those channels.

   If Guaido and the Popular Will take control of power, be assured that whatever gains made in organizing the everyday people of Venezuela will be at the top of the chopping block. How effective that suppression turns out to be is undetermined - it might turn out to strengthen the communes, but that outcome would be damage control, not something to try and bullseye.

Effective Propaganda knows that its more effective to control what’s left out than control what’s put in. Keep that in mind, and study trajectories and forces.

other links:

https://next.podbay.fm/podcast/1363342644/e/1551711604

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Voc08vh9cJY

https://www.counterpunch.org/2013/06/21/a-cowboy-in-caracas/

https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2017/08/03/the-tragedy-of-venezuela/

https://www.multpl.com/venezuela-gdp

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/04/fivethirtyeights-venezuela-problem

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-venezeulas-middle-class-is-taking-to-the-streets/

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/bjkmq8/fiery-protest-leader-leopoldo-lopez-faces-13-year-sentence-in-venezuela

https://potent.media/minimum-sentencing-for-marijuana-possession

https://www.thoughtco.com/core-and-periphery-1435410

https://popularresistance.org/building-the-commune-radical-democracy-in-venezuela/

http://www.antiwar.com/regions/regions.php?c=Venezuela

[gotatext]

hello, it’s swamp witch nora again…. i couldn’t stay away.... hitting u with a tiny baby boy who is also terrible (sometimes).  musical softboi who loves karl marx and hates children dying in cobalt mines to make smart phones. as is tradition, here’s the pinterest board, have a peruse. fyi sorry for those of u who have read this intro a thousand times i literally.... can never b bothred to change it n i think thats really sexy of me x

CHARLIE PLUMMER / DEMI-BOY — don’t look now, but is that rory bergström  i see? the 23 year old music student is in their junior year and he is a rochester alum. i hear they can be whimsical, impassioned, self-indulgent and nitpicky, so maybe keep that in mind. i bet he / they will make a name for themselves living in griffin street. ( nora. 24. gmt. she/her. )

aesthetics.

bed hair from a permanent state of slumber, calloused fingertips from strumming bass into the early hours and djing into the blacklit night, self-help books thumbed once and thrown beneath your bed, battered copies of choose your own adventure books, spliffs passed half-arsed across rooftops while light pollution obscures low-hanging stars, marxist literature in stacks against your bedroom walls, a burner phone twice-shattered and a stash of replacement sim cards.

tw ocd, anxiety, drugs

half-swedish, half-british. the swedish is on his mother’s side. he’s bilingual but thinks in english. only really speaks swedish around his mother. only child, and kinda put a lot of pressure on himself to be the perfect kid when he was young, but his parents are honestly, quite decent? and just want him to have a nice life, they don’t care if he isn’t successful or rich or anything, they’re honestly rather solid. (wow imagine having nice parents, a first for all my characters, im literally this meme)

grew up in peckham, a suburb of london. growing up, his mum was a model / actress / waitress who later retrained as a speech therapist and his dad worked in her majesty’s service at buckingham palace. his dad wasn’t allowed to tell his family what his job entailed but rory suspects it’s probably very boring and just involves a lot of…. logistics n security.

was bullied a lot at school. [cole sprouse voice] he didn’t fit in and he didn’t want to fit in. unironically wore a trenchcoat to school every day of his life. spent most of his lunchtimes in the library because it was his safe space. as a result he knows…. loads of useless information because 30% of his school years were spent reading anthologies on space and the vikings etc. would be good on a game show. obsessively recorded every episode of university challenge as a child.

middle-class and lowkey quite wealthy but rarely talks about money, one of those well-off people who still wears really old shitty shoes and only spends money if they absolutely have to

virgin who can’t drive

into star wars, not into the big bang theory. feminist. can’t watch horror movies

favourite film is where the wild things are. also loves the florida project. thinks kids are the sweetest thing and can’t wait to be a dad to some

has been musical for as long as they can remember. first picked up guitar because he thought it would make this girl esther who he was in love with like him, but he just ended up falling in love with music instead.

formulated several different bands as a kid but ultimately had to give it up cos he was quite controlling and got fixated on making a certain sound so it wasn’t really fun for the others. got into electronic music because it was something he could do basically on his own and keep tweaking until he got it perfect

always drumming their fingers or strumming invisible guitar strings. tends to avoid parties bc he has quite has specific tastes when it comes to music and doesn’t like listening to r&b for eight hours while people throw up into plastic cups.

a techno connoisseur. has been making electronic music since he was about twelve.

after his parents divorce, when he was fourteen, rory & his mother moved to run-down suburban neighbourhood, pittsfield, massachussets.

big into photography. he mostly uses a canon 35mm camera, but occasionally uses disposable ones when he wants that more rustic feel.

moving to the states, their photography became more focused on suburban neighborhoods and are often quite dark and cinematic (think gregory crewsden). here are some shots of pittsfield i really like which rory has on his wall [1] [2] [3]

falls in love 12 times a day. never had a girlfriend or boyfriend. gets sweaty when someone cute looks at him. flirting?? what?? would prefer to idealise them from a distance

gender??? hm. rory don’t really know where they fit yet, sometimes he feels like a guy and sometimes they dont feel like anything at all!! slippin out of his physical form into the spirit realm! isn’t really bothered, cos they think it’s a social construct anyway. uses he/they pronouns interchangeably, but currently feels like ‘he’ is more fitting. won’t necessarily pull anyone up on it cos he knows having an identity that’s constantly…. in flux.. can be annoying for others … and doesn’t want to be a burden even tho it isn’t at all?? rory internalises guilt

everything is socially constructed. mirrors let you move through time. the whole thing’s a metaphor. he thinks he’s got free will but really he’s trapped in a maze. in a system. all he can do is consume. people think it’s a happy game. it’s not a happy game — it’s a fucking nightmare world, and the worst thing is, it’s real and we live in it!!!!

has ocd. tries to let it affect his life as little as possible, but obviously it’s incredibly hard to control a compulsive disorder. was teased for it at school when other kids started to notice. he was obsessed with the number five, would wash his hands five times, count stairs i groups of five, he could only use the corridors in one direction and always had to keep his hands busy. it manifests itself in hyper-fixations (trains when he was a child – specifically steam engines – then later he became obsessed with space and the patterns of constellations, and now he’s obsessed with synthesizers) and repetitive behaviours like counting stairs. doesn’t really affect his social life at all, he can jst get a bit locked-on n hyper-focused sometimes.

has insomnia. barely ever sleeps. finds it hard to switch off from work / writing / gaming / whatever’s preoccupying him in that moment. he’s always awake at 5am and quite often sleeps in through classes but still gets really good grades because he’s very good at his course. rarely attends classes. prefers to work independently. doesn’t really trust his tutors are intelligent enough to be teaching him, and is particularly suspicious of the lockwood tutors. a music snob tbh

occasionally deals weed n pills when strapped for cash, but only 2 ppl he knows, and on a very small scale grass-roots level!! (so its ok???) rollerskates around campus dealing cos they dnt have a car. we love to see it

aesthetics: bed hair from a permanent state of slumber, calloused fingertips from strumming bass into the early hours and drumming into blacklit night, self-help books thumbed once and thrown beneath your bed, watching vine compilations until your eyes turn square, battered copies of choose your own adventure books, spliffs passed half-arsed across rooftops while light pollution obscures low-hanging stars

likes: techno, the webpage cats on synthesizers in space, allen ginsberg, vintage gramophones,  floating points, lcd soundsystem, marijuana, soft dogs that let you pet them, late-night strolls talking about the universe, independent films, cigarettes, herbal tea, gallows humour, long showers, brown eyes, tchaikovsky, dr. seuss, constellations, photography, late night jazz, vintage game boys and girls who could rip his still-beating heart out of his chest and use it as an ashtray. dislikes:  weddings, funerals, formality, button-up shirts that people actually button-up, bananas, hot coffee, social media, people who watch and play sports, rap music – especially of the misogynistic variety, indie wankers in wire-framed glasses that play ed sheeran songs at open mic nights.

plot ! with ! me ! i’d say all the usual “exes fwb hookups spiel” but rory… has never hooked up with anyone… i feel like a deer in the headlights of love……. so give me

study buddies,

people who are also into techno and are music snobs about it,

people who love all kinds of music,

people who are in bands that maybe rory’s recorded and produced stuff for,

people he actually jams with (he plays bass and synth),

unrequited crushes!!

actually i think rory had sex w delilah in the last version of this rp so if u want a hook up plot its possible just unlikely. they’d hav 2 be the driving force i reckon cos rory doesn’t really act on impulses like desire or anythin.... jst bottles that shit up !!! but yea we could do a spicy hook up plot maybs, depending on the person

someone they met at a knitting club in freshman year and have remained friends with despite no longer going to it

people rory knows from open mic nights and gigs

library girlfriends / boyfriends that he stares at longingly while paging through leatherbound volumes

gamers !!! social recluses !!! hermits !!

people he deals weed to on his rollerskates (why r all my characters obsessed with rollerskates)

skaters. rory is really shit at skateboarding. like really shit. help the smol

[golgoterror]

Alright, this is ungodly long, but I just wanted to talk about something regarding Jake. 

A lot of this fandom -- at least, from what I’ve seen -- label Jake as stupid. Some may even say Jake and smart are antonyms. This could not be further from the truth. It almost irritates me how much the fandom places this mischaracterization on him. Also, I get to talk about The Lad™ for about ten pages worth of words on Google docs, which is always very, very fun for me.

Well, first things first, let’s talk about the child genius and multi-billionaire polymath that is Jake English.

Puzzle Modus.

Let’s begin with something small. Jake’s modus is of puzzlekind! This is described as:

It's quite a handy modus, allowing you to captchalogue objects of any size, as long as you can fit them all in a finite space by maneuvering the cards around like a big game of Tetris. You like it because it keeps you sharp for solving any puzzles you might find when you go out raiding hallowed tombs, which is never. (x)

He likes puzzles! This is a huge headcanon I absolutely adore that has a basis in the comic: He’s a puzzles guy! This is just sort of a neat little fact about him that I adore to the moon and back. Just the idea of Jake fiddling about with a Rubik’s Cube is kind of adorable.

This is how he goes about doing everything every day of his life. I think that’s just amazing! And incredibly smart of him, I might add.

Skaianet. 

Jake is shown in the credits to take over Skaianet after the game ended. For those unfamiliar, Skaianet made many things for the game, including but not limited to: the interstellar travel we see, transportalizers, the lab by Rose’s house, all Jake’s fancy-schmancy computers, and Sburb itself. In the beta timeline, Grandpa Harley founded Skaianet. In the alpha timeline, Grandma English did. I know Jake didn’t start it up and trying to pass off his alt-timeline self as him is a bit far-fetched at best, but he had the spoons to take it over. I think that speaks volumes for Jake’s intelligence -- this implies, at the very least, he can understand mathematics and physics at a high level. Remind you of someone we already know?

It is also important to note that Jake does, in fact, build the company back from the ground up, because it went to shit before his grandmother died:

GT: Pretty sure her company made a tidy fortune til it went belly up. At least i still have a few of her knickknacks for keepsakes. (x)

So he built an interstellar company back up -- using what his intelligent grandmother had once used -- to being very useful and practical once again. 

As someone with a degree in mathematics and about to finish a degree in physics, I can say this sort of work would for sure require at the very least a decent understanding of quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, electrodynamics, calculus (vector and differential forms), ordinary and partial differential equations, and perhaps other things like topology. I don’t know about you -- and I’m probably tooting my own horn a bit by saying this -- but I think that’s pretty nifty, if I do say so myself. 

Actor.

Once again, I’m reaching into the credits to show that Jake has become a movie star after the game ends. Memorizing all those lines, slipping into characters... Being an actor is no easy feat. 

( Side note: This leads into my headcanon that Jake can imitate accents and voices on a whim. No more arguing about whether he has a British, American, or Australian accent -- you’re all right! )

And I would like to add he has two jobs! Skaianet and being a movie star! This guy’s a fucking polymath for Christ’s sake.

Reading People.

Let’s start of simple: Brain Ghost Dirk. I can hear the outcries now of Dirk’s powers being the cause for this. And, yes, I can’t ignore Dirk’s influence in this, but Jake’s hope powers were also needed for the projection to come alive. And the fact he was able to make such a startlingly accurate projecting of Dirk in his own mind is astounding -- even BGD himself thinks so!

TT: You could view me as a projection of the real Dirk within your mind, as expressed through all of your thought patterns about him. TT: So I'm kind of a splinter of his corporeal self who happens to live in your awareness. TT: I'm a startlingly close approximation to the real thing, for all intents and purposes. GT: Just how startlingly close are we talking? TT: I'm not going to give you a bogus percentage like the glasses cause that's not my shtick. TT: But pretty damn close. (x)

A very deep understanding of the other is needed for Jake to do this. That is pretty fucking incredible. He can clearly read people really well -- he had a few times where he was cluing in on Jane and Dirk have feelings for him:

TG: its one of those things jane likes about u so much GT: It is? TG: which TG: errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr im not supposed to talk about 2 u evr so nm GT: Talk about what? TG: nope GT: You mean how um... GT: Well a way in which i suppose... TG: no nope GT: Jane is prone to looking upon me with what i fathom to be more than just friendly affection? (x)

TT: I guess call it an extra birthday present. But instead of a present that's awesome, consider it more like a weird confession that may change the way you feel about me. GT: Whoa uh... GT: Dirk are you... uh... GT: Saying what i think? (x)

He’s not completely clueless on people! In fact, he seems to have a really good understanding of his friends. That’s something a lot of people seem to forget because of the incident that I will be getting to later on.

Fending For Himself.

I’ve already written quite a bit on this, but I’ll sum it up here: Jake is exceptionally good at living in the wild and taking care of himself. Sort of like a wild garden; he doesn’t need to be taken care of. Survival skills, especially around fighting and fending off things, aren’t something everyone has. This, once again, counts in his favour, even if it doesn’t line-up with “book smarts”.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

That’s five things! It’s clear Jake is, in fact, a polymath and incredibly intelligent. So, what’s with the fandom painting him as being dumb? What’s with people actually thinking he’s stupid? I think we can all take several wild guesses as to why that’s the case.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Takes things literally.

This is something that plagues Jake quite a lot. Case in point:

GT: Wow like the epic kevin costner film? TT: Almost exactly. Especially by the same degree of shittiness. GT: Oh man does that mean you have to drink your own pee?????? TT: You get used to the taste. Welcome it, even. TT: That takes about 15 days in a row of hard piss drinking though. GT: Ewwwwwwwwwwww no dude. No ew. :( TT: Relax, I don't drink any goddamn piss, ok? GT: Oh ok. Whew. (x)

But, well, let’s address the elephant in the room. The chat I laughed so hard at when I read it the first time due to pure, unadulterated second-hand embarrassment: Jake asking Jane if she had feelings for him.

Let’s analyze this, shall we? Jake starts off by being vague as all Hell, and I’ll spare those details, until finally...

GT: Just come out and say it. Do you fancy me? GG: No! GT: I see. GT: Very well then. GT: Jeez i mustve really misread that one! I feel like kind of a bone head now. (x / x)

Okay, she says no, and he backs off. That’s fine and dand--

GG: No!!!!!! GG: Oh my God, what am I saying here? GG: Jake, I didn't mean it! I didn't want to make you feel that way! GT: Now jane lets not backpedal here. GT: Youve spoken the truth and i greatly appreciate and respect you for that. GT: But now that i think about it you know what? GG: ... GG: No? :( GT: Please dont take this the wrong way but your answer is actually kind of a relief! (x)

... Oh, right. Yeah. It keeps going. It just keeps--

GT: Actually since youve made your feelings apparent and only see me as a friend that makes it a lot easier! GG: Haha, yes! GG: Friends!!!! GT: Maybe you could help me sort out some stuff that has been weighing on me lately? GG: Well what are friends for Jake!!!!! (x)

Sweet Jesus, Jake.

GG: Me? GG: HOO HOO HOO! GG: I'm just GG: Terrific! GG: I'm feeling so... GG: Friendly!!! GG: I clearly just want to be a good friend and bring all my AMAZING FRIENDLINESS to bear on your problems. GG: Friendlystyle! Ahahahah? GG: Shit I mean GG: Ahahahah! GT: Thats aces. Jane youre a sweetheart. (x)

Alright, alright, enough! You all remember the fucking chat. 

Regardless, it’s very apparent Jake takes things at face value. I also will cite him talking to Jane before her birthday, but not list examples, because what happened above will just happen once again. 

Okay, so he takes things at face value. What’s wrong with that? He trusts people to not lie to his face -- to not sugarcoat things or beat around any bushes. Perhaps I’m projecting a bit, but I do the same damn thing. I think a lot of people do! I don’t think reading things as fact over text is a good measure of someone’s intellect. All it does is show he has issues with communication. Okay, so he struggles with one thing. Sue me.

Doesn’t catch things right away.

Yeah okay I’m just gonna dump a few examples of this.

GT: Haha wow. Must have been a hell of a guy. TT: So... TT: You're not making any connections there? GT: Where? Huh? TT: Famous comedian, about the age of your grandma, inheriting the family name of the Baroness... TT: Not ringing a bell? GT: What are you talking about! Dirk stop speaking in riddles and keep telling the story i am on tenterhooks here! TT: Ok, well it's not like it's that important. Just a super obvious thing that'll probably occur to you later when you're looking in the fridge you don't have, at which point you'll feel like an idiot. GT: Oh my god you can be one opaque motherfucker just clue me in bro! TT: Nah, it'll be funnier this way. GT: STRIIIIIIDEEEERRRRRRRR!!!!! TT: Moving on. (x)

GT: Whats going on? TT: Took you long enough to figure it out. TT: Pages really are a slow burning class. Damn. GT: Figure what out! TT: You're asleep. (x)

This leads into the point above. His mind doesn’t work that way -- but that doesn’t mean he’s not intelligent. He needs everything laid out in front of him so he can make the connections and understand what’s happening, but there’s no real harm in this, and it certainly doesn’t dictate whether the guy is “intelligent” or not.

There are many, many more examples in canon depicting Jake as having difficulties with communication and you all can open most of his pesterlogs and probably find one. I’m not going to list anymore. But, hold your horses, I swear I’m getting to a point!

Difficulty reading.

A lot of the media Jake consumes is picture-based. Movies, comics, even the puzzles are most likely spacial and probably not riddles. It’s not far to imagine Jake might not be a terribly good reader, considering nobody was really around to make him read. Of course, his grandmother was around when he was little, so he can read -- and he can read just fine. But he probably isn’t very good at it simply from lack of practice. He also has terrible grammar, something Jane picks on him for, so it’s entirely possible that’s a contributing factor. He may just have trouble reading and writing.

Speaking from experience, I have dyslexia. As such, reading and writing are incredibly hard for me. I never read the books in my literature classes -- both in English and French -- but I did get the gist of the books (enough to get a decent mark in the class at least) by watching a movie adaptation of the novel. I don’t think it’s that far-off to think Jake may, indeed, do the same thing.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

NOTE: This next part is a bit hard for me to write, because I don’t want to vilify any of you. It might not have clued in on anyone or maybe you just saw Jake as a sort of comic relief and meant no harm by it. And I hope shining a light on this will make you all think twice about the guy. However, I can’t really avoid this next part, and I may get a bit emotional in it. Just a bit of a warning.

All of the above points are just me trying to say Jake probably has undiagnosed learning disabilities and perhaps autism. I don’t think I need to go into detail about how those don’t make someone “stupid”. If you think that’s the case, fuck you. I can’t argue with ableists, much less do I actually want to. 

NOTE: I wrote a thing on his speech impediments. That may be of interest too. I don’t really know, but here it is nonetheless.

My take-away message here is: just because someone struggles with socialization or other things doesn’t mean fucking anything in terms of their intelligence. Jake is very clearly smart and has the ability to read people incredibly well -- to the point of making copies of them! Perhaps it’s just a bit easy to underestimate the guy compared to other characters, though.

There are other things that muddy this up a bit, unfortunately.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Trolling.

Jake is such a fucking troll. Jesus shitting Christ, does he get a kick out of acting stupid just to make the other person look silly. Or perhaps even to make himself laugh in the process. Case in point:

uu: I WILL JUST BE YOUR PATRON DUDE. uu: OR MAYBE. YOUR PATRON MANBRO. GT: Sounds pretty gay. uu: WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? GT: Whats what? uu: GAY. WHAT'S GAY YOU IDIOT FUCK. GT: Oh right. GT: Forgive me i forget you arent familiar with all of my earth lingo. GT: Its like... GT: How do i explain. GT: You know. Its a rather old fashioned term for being jolly and festive together. GT: Like "that rollicking time we had scrumming the other eve sure was gay." uu: I SEE. uu: THEN YES. YOU ARE CORRECT. uu: THIS IS GOING TO BE GAY AS HELL. (x)

Look at his goddamn face during this exchange:

That little bastard knows exactly what he’s doing. 

And these aren’t stand-alone events! Jake is very, very silly and will use the fact others see him as stupid to have a little fun. May as well, right? And, in the process, he makes others look pretty damn stupid. 

But sometimes it’s a bit hard to tell when he’s acting stupid against when he’s genuinely not getting something. I think he even fools himself sometimes! So you have to be a bit careful about fake-outs. I’m sure even the other alphas have trouble deducing when he’s doing this -- which only adds to the myth of him actually being “stupid” when viewed on first-glace.

He probably also does this with crushes, purposefully ignoring the signs because he doesn’t want to deal with it or may not believe anyone could like him that way. After all, if he’s wrong, he may think himself to be conceded and having a big head. So, he ignores the signs, thus convincing himself the feelings aren’t there. Then he gets absolutely fucking bamboozled beyond belief to find out they actually do like him. But that’s just a little side-note.

Thinks he’s stupid.

This one is just a bit... Sad. Very sad. Jake genuinely does think he’s stupid. Quite a lot, really. 

GT: I shoulda asked where he fit into the picture if you were raised alone. I can be dumb as a bag of penny candy sometimes. (x)

Just... Man, he’s been called and treated as stupid so many times, he’s at the point where he believes it. If you asked him, he’d say Dirk is a genius, Roxy is always smart and sassy, and Jane is brilliant. (I don’t have a source for that last one but... Come on. She lectures him about grammar. Don’t fuck with me.) But when it comes to himself? He can’t say the same. Of course he then acts that way. He sees himself as a burly adventurer who is also a gentleman and tries to live up to that. No where along those lines does he think he’s intelligent. And that’s just... a little heartbreaking, really, all things considered.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Can’t believe this blog is just me going, “Wanna see how fast I can talk about Jake?”, and a shit-ton of people all nodding before I talk for six hours straight. Anyway, take-home message is: Jake’s smart. Jake’s very, very smart. He’s also a himbo, but he’s incredibly smart. Just because he has learning disabilities doesn’t mean fuck-all. 

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk. There are drinks and refreshments in the back. Have a safe trip home. Remember to tip your waiters and waitresses. Jesus fuck can I run this gag any harder into the ground? Giving me language was a mistake. No but, really, if you read this whole damn thing, thank you! I hope this was as fun to read as it was to write.

[lunasaturnine]

Vienna and cultural trauma

WOW so cool to sign into tumblr and see 99+ notifications, and think “oh a post got some attention,” but it’s actually just general attention!

My astro blog is ready for some action! Or maybe ppl are just bored bc of the quarantine. Either way, it would be cool to write.

I want to write about VIENNA.

I just took a course about somatic healing of trauma and it gave me a good overview of how trauma recovery works. Chapter 1 of trauma recovery is gathering resources. Chapter 2 is dipping or oscillating back into the memory, whether it’s a clear memory or just something held hidden in your body, with your new resources, and allowing circles to complete. Chapter 3 is being bigger bigger brighter in the world !!! (It’s a nice course, it’s on somatopia.com, it costs $40 if you have that to throw around, it’s like 2 hours of videos of a nice man talking in a soothing voice in intelligent language about healing from trauma)

Now I’m thinking about cultural trauma and Vienna. I have long felt that helping to heal the Hitler wound of Vienna is one of my soul’s major dharmic thrusts. So I googled “healing cultural trauma” and most resources out there talk about the trauma of the victim culture. That kind of trauma is totally different, because it recommends amplifying the traditions and greatnesses of the culture, and when you’re a cultural perpetrator of violence, amplifying the greatness of your culture is a trigger because cultural superiority is what lead your culture to be violent. But there are still a lot of resources with a lot of valuable information. I’ve only skimmed a couple things so far and it seems like one thing people emphasize in cultural healing is human connectedness.

The internet is a little hard to navigate on this topic, but I found an NYT editorial called “I loved my grandmother but she was a Nazi.” The author’s sweet grandma was literally a Nazi but she was a nice person who didn’t hate Jews. When the author talked to her about it, she would deflect. “He said a lot of things, I didn’t listen to them all” and “I was caught up in my own life” etc. The author says, that’s bullshit, there’s something she’s avoiding, and I can’t understand what it is or why she’s doing it, and I’m hesitant to say this because it might seem like I’m trying to forgive Naziism but I’m really just trying to understand who I look at when I look at my grandmother. It’s the most direct address of the West’s Nazi wound that I’ve found in my two and a half minutes of searching on google and I think it’s on the nose.

In the readmore are my more concrete thoughts on potential resources for Western/German/Viennese healing, and thoughts about what working through phase 2 would look like for a perpetrator culture.

Resources

On this reddit post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/5nfqwp/my_grandmother_grew_up_in_nazi_germany/

there are some resources. First of all, 1. there are people from diverse backgrounds respective to WWII, coming together and talking as equals in the same kind of “room.” The descendants of the persecuted and the persecutors are together and they are not enemies. The knowledge, and SOMATIC FEELING EXPERIENCE, of that, can be  a resource. I am typing over this brusquely and that’s Mercury magic for you and you should know that I just burst into sobs. That in just a couple of generations, the grandsons and daughters of enemies can be together and not hate each other and even love each other is an immense resource and can be leaned into at any point. There is a vast well of cultural relief available here. My tears are thankful, grateful tears, tears of relief. I am thinking of the parks in vienna that are holocaust memorial parks. I am thinking of that horrible statue out in front of the Albertina that is a memorial to cultural violence but at the same time, also represents the trapped soul of the Perpetrator culture, since we are all One. In the same way that a piece of music which opens with a terrifying chord represents both the terror experienced by the terrorized, and the menace of the terrorizer, AND THE FEELINGS IN THE terrorizer that caused them to generate this chord... off on a tangent, and I’m not sobbing anymore! That was crazy. I have a tendency to lock my feelings up, but being alone in this house and in this quarantine, I can open up locked wells of feeling like that.

That resource is IMMENSE, and it’s RIGHT in front of our faces all the time. I took a class on 20th century germany in undergrad, and the professor was a young guy with a Nazi grandfather, well I’m not sure if he was a Nazi but he was a German soldier, and he remarked on it. And I think at the time I thought “how lovely” but if you sit with that feeling, it’s deep as hell. And if you sit with it from the perspective of a penitent perpetrator, it’s REALLY FUCKING DEEP.

So that’s available. Im gonna post this real quick as a way of saving the draft but I have more ideas.

Okay. Continuing,

Resource 2 also from reddit post

The top respondent says his German POW uncle had a British GF. That’s similar to the first resource, but more immediate. I’m sure there are lots of stories like that. Intercultural experience that nullifies certain tensions

Resource 3 also from reddit post

The stories of people who did do the right thing... maybe. I dont know. I’ll get off this post soon but it’s interesting. Idk if this counts as a resource, it’s kind of a tangent, but the more I learn about karma and trans-life inheritance of it, the more it seems true that it really is better to die living in line with your beliefs than to live safely. Like the person in Pweuy’s post. That father died but his karma was pristine as far as this was concerned and perpetrator trauma did not cling to him.

ok jesus this is an interesting post... the girl skipping over the river of blood as it trickled out of the asylum... the hitler youth boy befriending a lamb and the nazis slaughtering it in front of him... the russian soldier who guarded the german girl because she reminded him of her daughter...

Okay. Before I go on, I want to clarify that I am not specifically talking about people who held Nazi beliefs in their core. There is a special type of perpetrator injury that is specific to that kind of thing, true villains and terrorists. I’m talking more about “ordinary Germans” who didn’t think very hard and got swept along, moderate supporters to moderate resisters. As a culture, they were moved by the tides into Naziism. They have culpability, but not the exact same kind of culpability as perpetrator people. The culture moved to perpetrate these crimes, and they were a part of that culture. That’s the specific kind of wound I’m interested in healing. There is a poster on that page whose grandma really loved Hitler...

Ok! I spent a lot of my energy in that page, now its 10PM and I still have veggies to prepare. I need energy for this next thing I was going to talk about.

Resource 4 - this one specific coffee shop

I’m putting *s in its name because I like this blog anonymous. P*****n is a coffee shop in Vienna that is the only happy place I went. There were places that were ok... and fine... maybe pleasant... but this place was American levels of happy. Waiters danced around and were actually relaxed and happy. P*****n’s theme is intergenerational communication. It hires grandmothers to work behind the counter, and make pies, and you’re supposed to buy a slice of their pie and talk to them a bit. And then the waiters are young, and they communicate with the Omas. And the Omas are maybe not old enough to have been Nazis but their parents were.

They also include a bit in all their menus about intergenerational dialogue and wondering what more they can do and how they can be more of a space for it.

I had MANY genuinely pleasant little experiences there... and I think that little space that some person with a vision made, is a blossoming flowerpot with lots of healing energy where true dialogue could happen. So that could be a resource too. The happiness of that place. In fact, these conversations could happen there.

But I wouldn’t want to break the space. The course I just took talked about titration, which is just accessing a TINY part of the traumatic memory, so you don’t get overwhelmed. This is a very icy fucked up conversation for a lot of people. My Viennese friend told me to talk more quietly about it than I was. Actually I did talk about it there with some people! The German girl was surprised that I thought Vienna had a wound. So was the Irish girl actually. For other people it’s really evident. My Viennese friend. D**n. Rf: “it’s ALL I feel when I am there.” ME. God that conversation was sooo gentle and sweet and light. The Irish girl was wondering if she should move to Vienna or stay in Barcelona, and the three of us talked about Vienna nd it was SOOOOO LOVELY, holy BALLS.

But even if we don’t hold conversations there exactly, that could be a really good place for conversation to start. I could reach out to the people who run the shop to ask them about it. And then maybe conversations could happen in other places (don’t want to spoil the sweetness of the shop).

Resource 5 - personal as I investigate maybe not really a resource - but yes maybe it is a resource: Grounded, comfortable people who are Viennese, and who understand the goals and also understand the sensitivities of Viennese people more than I do; 

Resource 6 - people who are experts at cultural healing in victim cultures

Resource 7 - fostering dialogue between those two parties, also me.

Again I’m really playing fast and loose with the idea of resources. Maybe. We’re starting to move into phase 2, also, because with this dialogue, I want to open up some scripts for how to TITRATE sensitively.

phase 2

For instance, notice that I didn’t say something like “Remembering Vienna’s amazing heritage of incredible music that has the power to redeem and heal equal to and more accessibly than religions.” I think it’s true that Viennese music is a major healing resource (BEETHOVENSCHUBERTMOZARSKLTBSLJRTHBLEWSKJNS:OFDFD), but since it is bound up in Viennese identity, that notion is complex. Also, it’s not only that Viennese identity is nasty because it’s nazi and therefore that gives Schubert etc a dark tint, but also, the grand things that Vienna has contributed to western culture are now a part of Vienna’s current wound of degradation, cheapification, and humiliation by TOURISM. although I will say that I think Resource 8 should be MY OWN deep internalization of the healing power of Viennese music. Posting again to save...

...not only does that music help me be healed, but it also helps me understand healing process in the specific language of the culture i’m interested in

okay.  Phase 2. 

A picture of what I think sorta needs to happen

I think Omas that say “It was just a lot of talk, we ignored it” and “I was busy in my life”... I think what needs to happen for a perp culture is for them to actually own their part in the villainy, to claim it and stand in it and feel the pain, and say “I’m SORRY, this was HORRIBLE, I AM SORRY.” THIS WILL ALLOW THEM TO BECOME NEW!!!!!!!

That’s a v different healing process from like native american healing etc.

I really think somatic approach is a better road in than cognitive because, god, imagine cognizing all of this HORRIBLE SIN bit by bit knowing your culture perpetrated it and not having anyone to blame it on. Jesus.

How might the process of getting there look?

This is vague especially now that I don’t have that burst of energy. Conversations...

Here’s a question. After resource gathering.

“Knowing that bells rang for Hitler in Vienna, how does it feel to be Viennese?” IN YOUR BODY?

Damn THAT’S GOOD! THAT’S THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION. How does it feel to be Viennese? The goal is for it to feel OK.

Um, speaking specifically about Wiener trauma and their welcoming of Hitler, a few years ago, I read this in some guidebook, Vienna’s government acknowledged that they welcomed Hitler and that they were wrong, and investigating that is important for my mission. It’s cool because 1. it’s a Big Ol Step and 2. it lays groundwork for all of this.

Step 3 is really beautiful to think about. In the course I took, it’s where the instructor got out of his soothing calm neutral demeanor and started speaking passionately and bursting with smiles.

In addition to being able to be more firmly grounded in their own individual and cultural identities...

Okay, so, I’m drawn to this because I’m drawn to it, punkt. That’s all. But also, and I think I’m really late on the uptake here, I think I was due in Vienna many years ago, I think that whatever work I do in Vienna is helpful for the echoes of Naziism in today’s world, such as Trumpism (which does not...exactly... have the same kinds of premises but uses a lot of the same kinds of mecahnisms) and actual brazen nationalism, white supremicism, and far right movements. Hitler is a LOUD and REVERBERANT figure in our history for this kind of energy, and if we can do healing surrounding him, re-discovering resilience in the moderates, helping them go through the emotional journey they need to go through, they will be a beautiful resonant horn call from the past, a solid core of NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that will strengthen the culture of the entire FUCKING world.

Music will be a part of it.

I have always loved Vienna, and I can’t really analyze it. I love it like a girlfriend. I know she’s problematic. And she can be really really horrible.

The wound is deep. The horribleness, the life negating quality not only of the FUCKING WRETCHED SHOP CLERKS, but also of the WAY -- THINGS -- HAPPEN, of the overall weird ass SPIRIT in Vienna, is... God DAMN WHY do I like that city so much? It’s bizarre. It’s very pervasive. I don’t enjoy experiencing it, I don’t think it’s attractive, I don’t like it. I love Vienna THROUGH that wound. I REALLY LOVE Vienna. That’s one of the clearest things that I know in my heart. I love Vienna... and that’s the whole story. It’s one of the easiest things for me to say.

Lots of people love a city. We do it for reasons. I think our hearts are drawn where they are drawn because we are attracted to healing the specific karmas of places. The karma of my hometown is mainly racial, with native american underneath. The coffee shop that is equivalent to P*****n serves often as a place of racial conversation and healing. It is actually pretty amazing. And once there was a white supremacist with a gun there and he stood up on a table and let people see his gun. He didn’t yell or anything. But that vital thing happened there in that coffee shop.

Excuse me I also love coffee shops and Vienna is the land of coffee shops.

Okay. I love Vienna! I literally love Vienna, with my heart. I love Vienna.

One last thing. I’m saving then editing...

The postscript: A major resource, and it kinda sidesteps some things, is language. It will be much better if German is spoken in these conversations. When I went to Vienna last, I didn’t prepare my German because when I went to Vienna first, everyone spoke English and it was simply easier to speak English all the time, so I figured I wouldn’t try to give the illusion and disappoint. But lo... the native people really, really resent it if you don’t even try to speak German. They actually seem to experience it as an injury. It is wild, if you’re not expecting it.

ALL OVER VIENNA I saw the Graffiti stamp/brand, “Tourism is terrorism.” 

When I was in the airport and the cute customs dudes asked me the purpose of my visit, I said “TOURISM” and they laughed. That was fun. But it was a lie. I was a pilgrim. I... know I was a tourist, technically. But I felt such hatred for the tourists standing like apes in front of the Schubert statue in the Stadtpark. Their wretched selfie smiles plastered on top of the emptiness of their experience. My purpose in Vienna had nothing in common with theirs. And I claim that I didn’t do a lot of the tourist things - not many museums or concerts or whatever.

One of my more pleasant memories was going into a used book shop and asking about a book in the window, a German-language edition of the tao te ching from 1923 (a very strange time). I asked in English. The clerk was confused and asked if I spoke German, and I answered in German that I spoke some German, but was learning, and knew the TTC very well, and that it’s simply usually easier to speak in English. I might have used imperfect German, but I felt dignified and natural doing it.

Ok, not only the German language, but the quiet Viennese demeanor of Scorpiness. Scorpscorpscorpscorp. Quiet, observant, emotional, and responsive to gentle tenderness and consideration, and traumatized by brashness. 

Both the spoken language, and the language of the demeanor, I think are somatic approaches that sidestep cognitive...things and make the culture feel unconsciously accepted and open.

On my first trip I learned howwwwww AMERICAN I was, and then on my second trip I opened myself up to my inner Wiener and was quiet and scorpy, and I felt warmth emerge from the people and city in response. It felt really right, and it felt like i was honoring...her, and it felt um sort of romantic. ha 

[the--gay-agenda]

my platonic gf made me do this (even tho she’s not on tumblr rn)

1. What is you middle name? - San Roque

2. How old are you? - 16

3. When is your birthday? - November 11, 2002

4. What is your zodiac sign? - Sun: Scorpio Moon: Aquarius

5. What is your favorite color? - Dark colors in general (mostly maroon, blue and monochrome)

6. What’s your lucky number? - 11 or 13

7. Do you have any pets? - 3 dogs (but i rlly take care of 1)

8. Where are you from? - Philippines, Metro Manila 

9. How tall are you? - 5’5” and a half

10. What shoe size are you? - I think 9-10 (???)

11. How many pairs of shoes do you own? - 3 (4 if u include my school shoes)

12. What was your last dream about? - I was in school and we were peforming for a rlly big event (it was shitty)

13. What talents do you have? - I can play the guitar, barely sing, sorta dance, and some chinese 

14. Are you psychic in any way? - When it comes to my sister, and some romantic situations irl, and i can predict scenes from movies i havent seen

15. Favorite song? oh god that’s hard, the soundtracks for both heathers and six, every song in my g a y playlist in spotify (king princess, joji, billie eilish, rizha, etc.)

16. Favorite movie? - The girl king (despite the annoying power dynamic0 and heathers (despite the cringe) and almost every marvel movie

17. Who would be your ideal partner? - @alexconfusion if u weren’t such a fuqing baby (fyi, @alexgoestosleep i wont steal them from u, they’re just sorta my ideal type)

18. Do you want children? - Like one or two (girls preferably)

19. Do you want a church wedding? - Hell nah (but ill be fine either way)

20. Are you religious? - Sorta (raised a catholic, but my faith waivers)

21. Have you ever been to the hospital? - Nope just visited folks

22. Have you ever got in trouble with the law? - nah

23. Have you ever met any celebrities? - Regine velasquez at snr once

24. Baths or showers? - showers

25. What color socks are you wearing? - Im not wearin socks rn, but if i were, grey

26. Have you ever been famous? - Does having 392 followers in tumblr consider being famous??

27. Would you like to be a big celebrity? - Yes and no

28. What type of music do you like? - Smth with guitars, maybe even synth-pop or smth. and some classical shit

29. Have you ever been skinny dipping? - Nope, and never will

30. How many pillows do you sleep with? - 2, 3 if im with my bro

31. What position do you usually sleep in? - On either side with a pillow to hug

32. How big is your house? - Just 1 floor, a small backyard, and a front porch (i think idk filipino houses are hard to explain)

33. What do you typically have for breakfast? - Coffee and bread, instant noodles if i feel like it

34. Have you ever fired a gun? - Do airsoft guns count?

35. Have you ever tried archery? - Nah, but id love to

36. Favorite clean word? - boop

37. Favorite swear word? - shit, fuck,cunt, bitch, faggot (i call my friend like that never as an offense its just our thing) 

38. What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sleep? - 36 hours or maybe even 48

39. Do you have any scars? -A scar on my right arm cuz of a vaccine

40. Have you ever had a secret admirer? - Sorta, but he was a guy and a creep and a bitch so...

41. Are you a good liar? - sorta

42. Are you a good judge of character? - Maybe idk

43. Can you do any other accents other than your own? - I have a very bad butchered british accent that sounds like im crunching in some scottish or smth

44. Do you have a strong accent? - Not that i know of

45. What is your favorite accent? - British and australian

46. What is your personality type? - Resting bitch face, quiet but a rlly good friend (apparently) im sorta clingy and hyper sometimes

47. What is your most expensive piece of clothing? - I think my prom dress, other than that, my giordano long sleeves

48. Can you curl your tongue? - sorta

49. Are you an innie or an outie? - innie

50. Left or right handed? - left

51. Are you scared of spiders? - As long as they’re small im good, i fear the big ones

52. Favorite food? - Japanese food, some korean food, pasta, ribs, and sisig

53. Favorite foreign food? - ^ (except for sisig) 

54. Are you a clean or messy person? - An organized mess

55. Most used phrased? - Is it gay?

56. Most used word? - gay

57. How long does it take for you to get ready? - 20-30 mins, i try to prepare everything the day before

58. Do you have much of an ego? - Idk, i think not

59. Do you suck or bite lollipops? - suck

60. Do you talk to yourself? - Yes, too many fucking times

61. Do you sing to yourself? - In the shower its great 10/10 would recommend

62. Are you a good singer? - Sorta?? Depends on the style of the song

63. Biggest Fear? - Socializing online idk lmao

64. Are you a gossip? - Depends on who im gossiping with, but not too much lol

65. Best dramatic movie you’ve seen? - Idk, none of them are rlly great

66. Do you like long or short hair? - short

67. Can you name all 50 states of America? - Binch no, i aint american

68. Favorite school subject? - Social studies

69. Extrovert or Introvert? - Introvert but im a bit of both sorta

70. Have you ever been scuba diving? - no

71. What makes you nervous? - people

72. Are you scared of the dark? - nope

73. Do you correct people when they make mistakes? - Yes, especially when it comes to talking in english, im a grammar nazi

74. Are you ticklish? - yes,Stomach, sides, neck, feet, and certain parts on my back

75. Have you ever started a rumor? - nope

76. Have you ever been in a position of authority? - I was the secretary of my class last year, and ive been the leader for our thesis

77. Have you ever drank underage? - Does wine count? (only during new year tho)

78. Have you ever done drugs? - nope

79. Who was your first real crush? - I honestly dont know, but i think it was this one girl named Renee (nuffsaid)

80. How many piercings do you have? - Before one for each ear, i lost them now so none

81. Can you roll your Rs? - If i need to, like if its a spanish name or smth

82. How fast can you type? - Idk,

83. How fast can you run? - Sorta fast thanks to my legs, but my stamina is hella short so not long

84. What color is your hair? - A mix of brown and sorta like bronze (this one particular part of my hair especially)

85. What color is your eyes? - brown

86. What are you allergic to? - none

87. Do you keep a journal? - Im starting to rn

88. What do your parents do? - Both of them have their own businesses

89. Do you like your age? - Yea i guess, unless my parents start comparing my maturity with my age

90. What makes you angry? --A lot of things (im moody), esp. When my sis starts judging what i like

91. Do you like your own name? -Sorta, i mean a lot of ppl mispronounce my name and make fun of it when u add my last name to it

92. Have you already thought of baby names, and if so what are they? - honestly idk, but i plan to name them with confusing names (or not idk)

93. Do you want a boy a girl for a child? - Both girls

94. What are you strengths? - Maybe that i’m honest esp when def needed, i have this motherly side (sorta), i know a lot of shit

95. What are your weaknesses? - Im clingy, im socially awkward, im easily demotivated, idk how emotions work

96. How did you get your name? - There was a joke that my mom thought i was gonna be a boy so they named me jonathan, but since i was a girl and jonathan tan was gonna be redundant, they added mae as my second name, removed the -than and now its J**** Mae Tan

97. Were your ancestors royalty? - Not that i know of, but one of my ancestors was an important figure in the revolution in my country so.... yea

98. Do you have any scars? - On my right arm cuz of a vaccine

99. Color of your bedspread? - I share a bed with my siblings (sadly) but rn its blue

100. Color of your room? - With my siblings, eggshell white or smth, but i wanted the color sky blue once i get my own room

[cleaduvalls]

i watched all 20 episodes of "spy kids: mission critical" twice in about a week and here are my thoughts (pt 1/5)

these will be divided into 4 episodes per post so they stay about the same length as one spy kids movie

1.1

no theme song. :/

wow specific location

wow. we love lying to our spouses

greg actually kind of sounds like greg??? like ingrids not right in the slightest but greg sounds like greg

oh yeah i call him greg instead of gregorio bc thats Too Many Syllables

i dunno id rather go on an adventure

oh!!!!! ingrids hair!!!!! cute

they look like friggin iron knuckles from cadence of hyrule

how do you..... classify a move

also why would they teach agents to counter a move that they also taught the agents

dont you mean SWAT

is that tom kenny?????

thats not carmen. i dont care WHAT you say. thats not carmen

shes 14???

since when can he build???

since when do they LIVE at the oss?????

thats a ball. not a blob

oh mood

juni your voice is so squeaky

Every Villain Is Lemons

is this a separate universe????? we already know about the third brain program. and you cant claim that people havent seen the movies cuz theyre ALSO on netflix

the experiment wasnt FUTILE it actually went really well. yall are just cowards

you can destroy gold???? like its not DIAMOND

ew

did golden brain go through childhood??? or did he just.... spawn as an adult????

alliteration

take a wild guess carmen

why are you wearing jeans in the DESERT????

"sis"??? who says that

oh boy fart jokes already

little brothers, cuz youre younger, were related, and youre boys

did you mutate the agents too?????

oh i feel you juni

oh boy butt jokes

carmen youre 14. where im from you COULD have a job at certain places

is he... gonna kill them?????

oh!!!! the mimicking is back!!!

theres no way you had taco butte in the last 5 minutes

teenagers?????? the franchise is spy KIDS get it right

there SHOULD be, yall are licensed spy kids

roll credits

juni stop trying to be a lone wolf it never works youve seen all 4 spy kids

i want to be her

are you.... knighted?????? or are you just british

hes like 11 what do you expect from him

ahavschaj acemate

carmens FACE she looks HIGH

finger guns???? hes bi

THUMB THUMB!!!!!!!

TOM thumb thumb!!!!!!

F L O O P!!!!!!!!!

nvm i want to be HER

im sorry how the H*CK did you just say fegan???????????

piercings!!!!!

and i OOP-

aztec???? bc the aztec death spiral??? nice

maybe im a little biased bc floop but shes my favorite

why are the parents here

who calls it a cuddle bear?????? its a teddy bear what are yall on

oh i love carmens socks

i gotta say im living for goldies aesthetic

haha coward

to be fair hes from the outback, they have friggin emus. those things are creepy

:0 sneaky

nice timing

1.2

wow ig there really is no theme song :(

how can he sleep with a TEACUP

i think at some point youd just... fall asleep????

wow big flex

and i OOP-

scorpions so mean i love her

for like 3 seconds that animation looked like a friggin barbie movie

i thought thumb thumbs couldnt hold things???? like thats their whole point

did she hang up on them?????

when your mom said she wouldnt get mad if you tell the truth so you tell the truth and she still gets mad

K A N Y E?????????

oh no they all have died

drowning a chainsaw????????

PLENTY OF PEOPLE

my parents whenever im tired

did you not hear her name shes clearly immortal

me

stop yelling

at that point he shoudknt have even been able to drink the milk

why are the spotlights on carmen

*2 hours later*

dont put the phone on the desk????? have you not have a teacher give you detention for that????? i have

i think its pretty obvious what he was dreaming about

in the subtitles the u has the dots but hes not pronouncing it right. it should be more "keurp-ka-kay", not just "coop-ka-kay"

everyone has weird dreams????? step off ace

class lasted for 5 minutes wtf

do the three of them share a phone???? thats what it says in her contacts

ok visage thats a little too far

i hate this dude so much

visage shes allowed to be on her phone shes not in class

psi???? like earthbound????

😔

theyre not wrong

STOP YELLING

thats?? not possible?????? youre just weak

why are you saying that out loud

dude stop im dying of second hand embarrassment

wait the sign with the transcribed words doesnt have the ü. so how he pronounced it WAS right they just messed up the subtitles

i thought there was only ONE of its kind why do they EACH have one?????

why did so many people lose????? it seems pretty straightforward

also i love her ringtone

is that tom kenny again??????

thats.... not how it works

he should not have made that

so the big reveal is that it was his mom, but how does he know shes a cortez now?????? she was avellan at that point

take a wild guess

spurious??????? why are you using his first name

i dont???? think you can????????

1.3

the beats pretty good, im tapping my feet

i love his voice

thats not disco thats TECHNO

actually discos probably right. hes german and in germany clubs are called diskos. the music hes playing is pretty clubby, therefore it would be disco

she has spotify premium???? nice

ooooh scorpion has bed curtains!!!!

why do both cortezes have the floor bed???

how can juni hear aces music???? did his headphones get unplugged????? is it just super loud?????

sounds more like kids music than folk music

HOLY CRAP HES LISTENING TO THE WIGGLES (no offense to the wiggles)

yes hes a heavy sleeper we discussed this last time

he has a bazooka you might wanna run

"carmen is not here" me too carmen, me too

glitch chill

oh yay piss jokes

how does so much stuff come out on the floss

she was asleep???????? take it easy glitch

creative name

also the music sounds like it came right out of cadence of hyrule??????? which could be possible bc the girl who voices glitch also voiced link

glitch its clearly a virus

carmen you can go, psi can handle this

hes so protective of his records im dying

BAHAHA she said "worm?" and ofc my dumb ass thought she meant worm as in "oh worm?"

1.4

i had a whole bunch but tumbr decided to delete it and i dont wanna rewrite it so we missed the last 4 minutes of 1.3 and the first 8 of 1.4, sorryyy

it doesnt matter anyway no ones gonna read this

this whole point system was in the fourth movie, get some new plot points

is that really a good idea carmen???

throwback to when i was a kid and wanted to learn australian

oh no they died

JUNI NO YOU SAID IN THE THIRD MOVIE TO N E V E R SPLIT UP

sheilas a great name shut up

listen i see mirages all the time in the summer but how do you see a fake building???? its always a puddle of water

yeah the outback STEAKHOUSE

you sound like youre on crack

oh no he died

one time i ate a bug bc i thought it was some leftover dorito i had stuck in my teeth

hes pretty good at shelters, did you not see the second spy kids???

hey he calles him juni!!!

s n e a k y

what even is heat rash?????

STOP YELLING

nice STEALTH you tell him he has nice STEALTH

[the-scottish-costume-guy]

My Trans Story

Story of my social and medical transition under the cut, I know its not trans day of visibility anymore but consider this a belated contribution. I hope it helps anyone who’s questioning, or even anyone whos curious about the experience. This is very long and has some mention of dysphoria, abuse, bullying but also has a happy ending so thats your warning:

The earliest I remember giving any indication of being trans was at five or six years old on my way to primary school with my mother (who I will mention was a fairly good mother at the time - this will be relevant later). I turned to her in my little green and white uniform dress and said “I’m a boy, aren’t I mum?” I’m not sure what prompted the question really curiosity maybe but my mother laughed it off - something I dont blame her for, kids say silly things all the time. I wouldn’t say I was a super boyish kid. Yeah I liked a bit of rough and tumble play, I was into pokemon cards, then yu-gi-oh, beyblades - which were all considered “boy” things when I was at school. I liked to play british bulldog and tag, and as I got older I’d get into Warhammer, Dungeons and Dragons, The elder scrolls and other nerdy things which are seen as more unisex now but again in the time were considered “boy” interests. But I liked having long blond hair, and I was curious about make-up. I liked to bake and sew and weave, and as a child I even enjoyed knitting. I cried easily and got hurt often - I was accused of attention seeking through most of my childhood though even looking at myself critically I can only ever remember wanting validation. When I was hurt, when I’d achieved something I was proud of - my motivations were called into question when I sought out help or interest. I remember being heartbroken when art I’d worked on was dismissed or I was told the bad bruise I’d gotten was nothing to be upset over and to stop seeking attention. It set me on a path of questioning everything I did and why I did it.

Unfortunately I have a lot of memory gaps in the lead up to high school and through much of school.

Fairly early on in school though I came out as bisexual. Honestly I think a part of me was threatened by cis guys masculinity and that drove me to women. I had a fairly even number of girlfriends and boyfriends. One relationship the boy I was with implied being ready to try sex and we ended up breaking up not long after when I distanced myself. I didn’t know how to explain the discomfort with my own body that I didnt even understand. How I didn’t want to be touched in certain places or do certain things. I felt like a freak.

It didn’t help that I was already bullied pretty much from the get go in highschool, from age 11 I did have many friends and there were periods where I had none. I was bullied for my hair, for not having friends, for being gay, for being depressed. Hell sometimes I was bullied for being bullied - high school is weird. 

I was also... “bullied” by a “friend” who would hit me, talk down to me, at times wouldn’t let me sit on furniture. Once she choked me to the point of passing out among other things. Somehow I was still convinced she must like me on some level - why else would she hang out with me? I wish I’d known better. She introduced me to the concept of being transgender but not in a way I identified with. She told me about a documentary of “Boy becoming girls and girls becoming boys.” she told me “The girls that become boys are always still pretty, you can tell they were girls. But the boys that become girls, you cant tell they were boys they just look like ugly girls.” I imagine shes less ignorant now but its stuck with me.

Eventually around age 16 Two trans people spoke at my school. They talked about how they always felt different, things they’d disliked about themselves - the relief of coming out. I understood completely but my brief excitement was dashed by their talking about harassment and fear. I wrote my email address on a slip of paper and ‘please help’ which I put in the box they were collecting at the back of the room for any questioning youth. They never emailed me. I made an appointment with my doctor.

I actually begged my doctor to fix me, and he referred me to a GIC (Gender Identity Clinic) in Edinburgh. It took a full year to actually be seen there. I told some of my close friends about my concerns and confusion, and came out as genderfluid. I used a random R based male name to try and settle - knowing that as it was fandom related I’d change it later. When I spoke to the specialist at the GIC, I came out as a Trans Man, I felt validated. I came out to my family not long after and it was not well received. My cousin (who had spent every summer with us for as long as I could remember and I viewed like a sibling) died when I was 14. My godmother (his mother) died a year after. Within the ten years since my cousins death, he, my uncle on my mothers side, my great grandfather, my godmother, my gran and my grandad have all passed away. When I came out to my dad he begged me not to put more strain on our family. My mother turned to drink when I was only 14 and had worsened becoming more and more abusive as time went on. I’d had mental and physical health issues since the age of 8 and my experiences were being written off. My mother got worse, and I ended up being her full time carer for a few years. She was abusive, she hit me, she destroyed my things, she wrote on the walls and threatened me with knives. When a letter for my third GIC appointment came, (the appointment that would have gotten me hormones) I highly suspect it was my mother that destroyed it. I didn’t even know I’d been dropped from the list until six months later when I called to ask when my next appointment would be. I’d apparently missed it and for that reason they’d silently, without fuss, taken me off their active patients list. I was upset but handling my mother was enough strain for me not to fight my case for another few years. I went to attempt college for a second time in 2015 - nearly six years after I first came out, and four after my first GIC appointment. I called my best friend over to my house, and together we sighed 15 deedpolls changing my name and title legally. I contacted the clinic and got another appointment for that September. The doctor wanted longer - more appointments to get to know me, but after hearing I’d already had two with another doctor, had waited four years, had told the story I’ve told you now - she told me she wanted to get me on hormones for christmas. She rearranged her schedule and had me come in on december 9th, four days later I had my first doze of testosterone. I didn’t tell my father that I’d started hormones but I had told him prior that I was going to soon. My dad continued not to accept me, as did one of my tutors at college. I kept my head down and muscled through. I’d become so used to not passing that only 4 years later, when Im passing easily and consistently, its both a shock and yet somehow feels like its always been the case. I had top surgery on October 23rd 2017. To my surprise, my father came to the hospital. He’d said he wouldnt visit, but made the 4 hour drive anyway. Last summer, he started introducing my as his son to strangers. He started inviting me out for drinks with him and my brother. He treated me how I had always wanted. Sure he still drops the feminine endearments in - but I’m not going to fault him that. Everyone I meet assumes Im cis until I tell them otherwise. I was finally comfortable enough in 2017 to come out as gay, and I’m now engaged to my wonderful Fiance who is just beginning his own transition journey. My point? It gets better is a tired phrase that feels worn out by use. And no my life isn’t perfect but dysphoria and lack of love is definitely not the problem. Years ago I felt I’d never pass, I told people as much. I thought I was ugly, and unlovable. Now I like how I look, I Know i pass because people call me “sir” “Mr” ect. One of the tutors for the university I applied to was excited to “finally have a man in the class.” 

The journey is long, and at no point can you see the end of it. Eventually you just look back and see how far you’ve come. Stay strong. 

[rorybergstrom]

 hello, it’s swamp witch nora again…. hitting u with a tiny baby boy who is also terrible (sometimes).  musical softboi who loves karl marx and hates children dying in cobalt mines to make smart phones. as is tradition, here’s the pinterest board, have a peruse x

「 timothee chalamet. cismale. 」have you seen rory bergström around yet? i hear he’s decided to be in AUDAX for their JUNIOR year as a MUSIC TECHNOLOGY major. the 23 year old SHEEP is known to be fanatical, eccentric, nitpicky and dogmatic. ➨ the muse is written by nora, she/her, 23, gmt.

aesthetics.

bed hair from a permanent state of slumber, calloused fingertips from strumming bass into the early hours and djing into the blacklit night, self-help books thumbed once and thrown beneath your bed, battered copies of choose your own adventure books, spliffs passed half-arsed across rooftops while light pollution obscures low-hanging stars, marxist literature in stacks against your bedroom walls, a burner phone twice-shattered and a stash of replacement sim cards.

tw ocd, anxiety, drugs

half-swedish, half-british. the swedish is on his mother’s side. he’s bilingual but thinks in english. only really speaks swedish around his mother. only child, and kinda put a lot of pressure on himself to be the Perfect Kid when he was young, but his parents are honestly, quite decent? and just want him to have a nice life, they don’t care if he isn’t successful or rich or anything, they’re honestly rather solid. (wow imagine having Nice Parents, a first for all my characters, im literally this meme)

grew up in peckham, a suburb of london. growing up, his mum was a model / actress / waitress who later retrained as a speech therapist and his dad worked in her majesty’s service at buckingham palace. his dad wasn’t allowed to tell his family what his job entailed but rory suspects it’s probably very boring and just involves a lot of…. logistics n security.

was bullied a lot at school. [cole sprouse voice] he didn’t fIT iN AND HE DIDN’T wANT TO fIT iN. unironically wore a trenchcoat to school every day of his life. spent most of his lunchtimes in the library because it was his Safe Space. as a result he knows…. loads of useless information because 30% of his school years were spent reading anthologies on space and the vikings etc. would be good on a game show. obsessively recorded every episode of university challenge as a child.

middle-class and lowkey quite wealthy but rarely talks about money, one of those well-off people who still wears really old shitty shoes and only spends money if they absolutely have to

virgin who can’t drive

into star wars, not into the big bang theory. feminist. can’t watch horror movies

favourite film is where the wild things are. also loves the florida project. thinks kids are the sweetest thing and can’t wait to be a dad to some

has been musical for as long as they can remember. first picked up guitar because he thought it would make this girl esther who he was in love with like him, but he just ended up falling in love with music instead.

formulated several different bands as a kid but ultimately had to give it up cos he was quite controlling and got fixated on making a certain sound so it wasn’t really fun for the others. got into electronic music because it was something he could do basically on his own and keep tweaking until he got it perfect

always drumming their fingers or strumming invisible guitar strings. tends to avoid parties bc he has quite has specific tastes when it comes to music and doesn’t like listening to r&b for eight hours while people throw up into plastic cups.

a techno connoisseur. has been making electronic music since he was about twelve.

after his parents divorce, when he was fourteen, rory & his mother moved to run-down suburban neighbourhood, pittsfield, massachussets.

big into photography. he mostly uses a canon 35mm camera, but occasionally uses disposable ones when he wants that more rustic feel.

moving to the states, their photography became more focused on suburban neighborhoods and are often quite dark and cinematic (think gregory crewsden). here are some shots of pittsfield i really like which rory has on his wall [1] [2] [3]

falls in love 12 times a day. never had a girlfriend or boyfriend. gets sweaty when someone cute looks at him. flirting?? what?? would prefer to idealise them from a distance

gender??? hm. doesn’t really know where he fits yet, sometimes he feels like a guy and sometimes they dont feel like anything at all. isn’t really bothered, cos they think it’s a social construct anyway. uses he/they pronouns interchangeably, but feels like ‘he’ is more fitting. won’t necessarily pull anyone up on it cos he knows having an identity that’s constantly…. in flux.. can be annoying for others … and doesn’t want to be a burden EVEN THO it isn’t at all?? rory internalises guilt

everything is socially constructed. mirrors let you move through time. the whole thing’s a metaphor. he thinks he’s got free will but really he’s trapped in a maze. in a system. all he can do is consume. people think it’s a happy game. it’s not a happy game — it’s a fucking nightmare world, and the worst thing is, it’s real and we live in it

has ocd. tries to let it affect his life as little as possible, but obviously it’s incredibly hard to control a compulsive disorder. was teased for it at school when other kids started to notice. he was obsessed with the number five, would wash his hands five times, count stairs i groups of five, he could only use the corridors in one direction and always had to keep his hands busy. it manifests itself in hyper-fixations (trains when he was a child – specifically steam engines – then later he became obsessed with space and the patterns of constellations, and now he’s obsessed with synthesizers) and repetitive behaviours like counting stairs. doesn’t really affect his social life at all, he can jst get a bit locked-on n hyper-focused sometimes.

has insomnia. barely ever sleeps. finds it hard to switch off from work / writing / gaming / whatever’s preoccupying him in that moment. he’s always awake at 5am and quite often sleeps in through classes but still gets really good grades because he’s very good at his course. rarely attends classes. prefers to work independently. doesn’t really trust his tutors are intelligent enough to be teaching him, and is particularly suspicious of the lockwood tutors. a music snob tbh

secretly a small-scale drug dealer, only does weed n some party pills. rollerskates around campus dealing cos they dnt have a car

long haired, aesthetic is like… timmy in lady bird n beautiful boy

aesthetics: bed hair from a permanent state of slumber, calloused fingertips from strumming bass into the early hours and drumming into blacklit night, self-help books thumbed once and thrown beneath your bed, watching vine compilations until your eyes turn square, battered copies of choose your own adventure books, spliffs passed half-arsed across rooftops while light pollution obscures low-hanging stars

likes: techno, the webpage cats on synthesizers in space, allen ginsberg, vintage gramophones,  floating points, lcd soundsystem, marijuana, soft dogs that let you pet them, late-night strolls talking about the universe, independent films, cigarettes, herbal tea, gallows humour, long showers, brown eyes, tchaikovsky, dr. seuss, constellations, photography, late night jazz, vintage game boys and girls who could rip his still-beating heart out of his chest and use it as an ashtray. dislikes:  weddings, funerals, formality, button-up shirts that people actually button-up, bananas, hot coffee, social media, people who watch and play sports, rap music – especially of the misogynistic variety, indie wankers in wire-framed glasses that play ed sheeran songs at open mic nights.

plot ! with ! me ! i’d say all the usual “exes fwb hookups spiel” but rory… has never hooked up with anyone… i feel like a deer in the headlights of love……. so give me

study buddies,

people who are also into techno and are music snobs about it,

people who love all kinds of music,

people who are in bands that maybe rory’s recorded and produced stuff for,

people he actually jams with (he plays bass and synth),

unrequited crushes!!

someone they met at a knitting club in freshman year and have remained friends with despite no longer going to it

people rory knows from open mic nights and gigs

library girlfriends / boyfriends that he stares at longingly while paging through leatherbound volumes

gamers !!! social recluses !!! hermits !!

people he deals weed to on his rollerskates (why r all my characters obsessed with rollerskates)

skaters. rory is really shit at skateboarding. like really shit. help the smol

[tumblunni]

Oh fuck i cant stand this

Ive already almost used up my damn mobile data again and i only bought it yesterday. Fuck i want to go home. You guys are like the only comfort i have here and i dunno what im gonna do when i cant message you again

Fuckin hell stupid shit day! I was supposed to go to a therapy class thing today but the stupid bus went past where my abusive father lives and i had a MASSIVE FREAKOUT and had to go home and then ofcourse to go home you have to go back on the stupid same bus!! I fuckib failed and wasted the doctor's time and he had to grab me to stop me from running off the bus crying and back to fuckin hell dad's house because im shit and i deserve everything he ever did to me

AND THEN fuckin same doctor continues the relentless constant tide of everyone misgendering me and making crass transphobic jokes

"You see you've gotta understand the other opinion" he says, as if trans people werent fuckin raised SURROUNDED by cis people's predjudiced opinion of us and taught it was fact. As if it didnt take me SO MUCH WORK to even become confident enough to stand up for myself! I've gotta see the 'other opinion' that "yknow well families and children use public bathrooms and theyre scared trans people will molest their children so its understandable they want to kick you out or even act violent to you". Yknow the OTHER OPINION that MY OPINION DOESNT MATTER and also MY ENTIRE EXISTANCE IS A CRIME but i'm the one being predjudiced for not accepting that OPINION, right?! Im here trying to tell him that no that isnt rational because there have been LITERALLY NO RECORDED CASES of trans people molesting children in public bathrooms, or even "evil men faking being trans" to do the same thing. There's been more cases of actual cis men breaking into women's bathrooms to drag women out for merely LOOKING trans. More cis women have been harassed because of anti trans laws than they ever did before! But hey "respect that other opinion", right? And also "at least its not as bad as russia" and "but gay pride is everywhere now, that one footballer had rainbow shoelaces." Hey wow i never noticed that not only was homophobia totally over but also transphobia was remotely related to that! Wow! I seriously had to bring out the fuckin 1600s historical investigation on pre-british olde englishe that showed the existance of a gender neutral pronoun before the word "he" ever existed, and the existance of transgender pride and pronoun discussions in the 1800s before the word transgender was even popularized. I cant believe i fuckin had to do a 'show your sources that queer people existed before the internet' IN REAL LIFE. WITH A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL. I can point at the damn NHS website but nooooo!

Oh and yknow what got me the most? YKNOW WHAT GOT ME THE MOST?? "We have sick people here, you cant expect them to remember stuff like that. Dont ruin their recovery by bringing up stuff like that." Like..fuckin..IM A FUCKIN PATIENT TOO. I wasnt even asking the other patients to stop hurting me i was asking you the staff to maybe consider it! And seriously you want me to be so super ultra perpetually prepared and perpetually rational and able to keep my existance secret and out of every conversation yet theyre too ill to learn about lgbt people existing? Just a sentence would be too painful? And me living every day being misgendered doesnt impact my ability to recover at all, eh? Fuckin shitting fuck hell.

And i hate it i HATE IT because he's being nice so i'll be the bad guy if i complain. Likehe fuckin..doesnt even know he's being rude and doesnt want to consider the idea. He says 'i dont like your tone' if i suggest the concept and FUCK in that moment i was so fuckin scared he was gonna hit me like my dad did. Or at tge very least kick me out of the hospital if i dont cooperate with him. He just fuckin..thinks he's perfectly unbiased and accepts everyone and "oh but i like to make fun of everyone equally". And i even fuckin raised the subject that people who say that often only make fun of minorities and never themselves, the majority, or major power structures. And he's just like 'yeah yeh i hate people like that'. Whoosh. Rigjt over the head. God i wasnt even TRYING to be passive aggressive i was trying tk outright tell him why what he said was upsetting me but NOPE. Trying to explain how its just so hard and tiring to have to verrrrrry patientlyyyyy explain yourself to EVERYONE EVERY DAY CONSTANTLY while they sling loads of rude words at you and it should be just allowed because they 'dont know better'. Like you ask me to educate you but at the same time im rude if i actually tell you?? And god i also tried to explain how the fuckin bathroom violence thing isnt an example of 'educating another opinion' AGAIN by saying like... If someone just asked me to explain being transgender i would. If someone just said they were uncomfortable i would leave. That's 'another opinion'. Reacting with slurs and violence to a trans person existing and not doing anything to you is not 'another opinion' and its not someone who 'just didnt know'. He was seriously trying to argue that it WASNT BIGOTED it was just someone rationally being afraid for their children because of a danger that doesnt exist, and rationally reacting with extreme violence rather than doing anything else. Rationally. RATIONALLY. oh just MISTAKENLY committing a hate crime! Cos they just didnt know trans people exist! Not cos they hate us! Oh no! Yeah sure we totally have a fucking DUTY to educate these POOR UNKNOWING PEOPLE while theyre attacking us, and its our damn fault if we didnt...

And just fucking FUCK i hate how someone can say all that stuff and still be "nice" and still not hate me personally? Like its so messed up?? He's not anti trans or anything he just has so much more damn sympathy for cis people than trans people, and puts all the onus on us to somehow prevent our own murders. And he thinks that "i dont have a problem with trans people" means doing LITERALLY NOTHING to change your behaviour to make trans people feel accepted. They should just magically know that your jokes are jokes when theyre surrounded by so many people saying it honestly, in CONSTANT FEAR OF THAT EXACT THING LEADING TO VIOLENCE. And like in order to be "a guy who has no problem with trans people" he has to do nothing, while in order for me to be not bigoted against HIM it means i have to never get offended by his jokes and also never talk about myself and also constantly educate him about things because he doesnt want to learn, even though he works in a hospital thats supposed to have an anti discrimination policy. Like fuckin just NOT HURTING LGBT PEOPLE doesnt make you discrimination free, shit like telling me to misgender myself because my pronouns would confuse the other patients is kinda fuckin fucked up. Also "that's a question for later" is all i CONSTANTLY get when it comes to talking about legal name changes or therapy or even just talking to an lgbt support group. I have to wait until i stop being depressed because oh no im talking about too many mental illnesses at once. Its been seven years and i havent fuckin stopped being depressed, bitch! Ever consider a fuckin symptom of gender dysphoria is a big ol fat depression!!! And just gahhhhh he was so fuckin baffled and angry that i would dare to get emotional about the subject?? Like he just saw DEBATING WHETHER TRANS PEOPLE ARE REAL and WHETHER PEOPLE WHO MURDER THEM FOR USING THE BATHROOM ARE JUSTIFIED as a perfectly normal casual discussion that a Non Transphobic Man could have with his transgender friend. Why oh why would i cry about this casual hypothetical discussion? Hey its not like it fuckin affects me directly! "Well its never happened to you right?" A Ha Ha Ha Ha. Also fuckin "so which bathroom do you use?" and "well you're not really transgender if youre not getting the surgery-oh wait you do want the surgery? How does that work then?" I swear i could just see the gears turning in his head and he was about to say "do you want both down there". Gahhhhhh *cringes myself into a tiny tumbleweed and blows away*

Also the entire time he kept calling being trans a sexuality and also asexuality. "No youre not trans youre asexual right?" Yeah sure ive just been saying im trans and saying im not a girl and wearing a chest binder and talking this entire conversation about my experiences as a trans person in public bathrooms just to pull an elaborate prank on you. And like i know what he meant is that he thought the word for nonbinary was asexual (has asexuality REALLY made so little progress towards getting into the sex ed curriculum in the entire 25 years of my life?) But like seriously he was like "youre not really trans if youre nonbinary". And then fuck dude i dont wanna explain how surgery works to you!! And especially not also my entirely unrelated sexuality that has entirely different equally upsetting predjudices!

Ans gahhhh fuck i just got no sympathy for crying and he acted as if it was just some wildly unexpected occurance he never could have predicted. And i hate it cos he's nice to me whenever the subject is about anything else. I cant get any symoathey from ANYONE because he's A NICE GUY and why dont i just understaaaaaand other opinionnnnnns

I wanted to fuckin quit this whole thing on the spot and go home. Only reason i cant is because my support worker is off work until thursday auauauaughhh

Fuck at least one positive i guess is that ive made progress in the social anxiety or at least gotten better at giving the impression im making progress. Cos i want to LEAVE AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. And also fuck all my other worries seem less suicide-inducing when im actually getting the closest ive ever been to killing myself on a daily basis because of a stupid other thing that i never could have predicted. Go here for one form of self hate, come home with another! Yayyyyy

And fuck i havent even made a single bit of progress on drawing or writing anything and i cant practise making ganes cos my laptop cant run rpgmaker and i havent even started reading my giant pile of books cos they fuckin LOOK THROUGH THE WINDOW EVERY SINGLE HOUR TO MAKE SURE YOU AINT KILLED YOURSELF. i have no fuckin pribacy and its making me wanna kill myself even more!! I just live constantly on edge looking at the fuckin door window and i cant even do anything to distract myself because im too scared of them looking at me!! Or barging in at no notice to tell me i have to do some big stressful thing RIGHT NOW because i dont even get advance notice of anything aaaa! And fuck i dont have anywhere to go to even calm down from a panic attack cos i have no privacy so at least im getting over being scared of going outside cos outside is the only place i can go to cry. Fuckin strangers in the crowd at least wont cause shit if they see me.

Fuck i want to go home. Fuck i wish i had enough money to keep buying mobile internet. Its like fuckin 750mb a day to run tumblr but its all ive got to talk to any person who doesnt hate me or patronize me or think im faking a bunch of shit or whatever the fuck. And im not even any fun to be around when im like this so im probably just ruining your day too. And im probably gonna vanish again soon and then just go back to crying alone and getting worse and probably never being able to leave

I knew it was gonna be stressdul but i didnt predict any of this.. I just wanna fuckin die. I wanted to jump out the car and go to my old dad's house and have him pull open the door and slap me around a bit. Like call me a fucking dyke, call me a sick retard, be honest about your feelings! I'd fuckin take being abused over this "oh youre the bad one for being mad because i had goooood intentions" reverse psychology bigotry from hell. Either these people are evil geniuses or theyre even more stupid like me. Fuckin shit dad please manifest in my room and slap me, killing me instantly. I feel like being scared of you would at least be a faster emotion than this nebulous sensation of confusing unease and dysphoria 24/7 for 6 fuckin months. One week done, haha! Hahahabahahahahahahahahahahahahshahahahahahshshshahshahahahhahahaaaa

[michael-hearteyes-wheeler]

Bad Brains

[1] [2] [3] [4]

Chapter 5: Authority-Shmority

(AO3) (FF.net)

November 30th, 1987

If there was one thing that El learned while growing up in the city, it was always question authority.

Back in the group home, El had befriended a wild child named Kali. They became bunk mates,  partners in crime, and sisters. Kali was a bit older, and she took El under her wing. She was assertive, and demanded attention simply by entering a room. El would never forget the way she walked straight up to her on her first day while she cried alone on her bunk.

‘Don't waste your time crying over people who don’t deserve it. You are better than them, and that's why you’re here.’

From that moment on they were inseparable. Kali gave her the nickname El, but they soon called each other by their first names (and were the only foster kids to do so) because they knew that they would be in each others lives forever. She showed all of the best places in the city, she taught her how to steal candy without getting caught, all about the patriarchy, and the punk rock gospel.

When Kali got a bit older, she found a group of like minded people living on the streets and she convinced El to to run away and join them. For awhile it seemed like a good decision. They drove around in a cozy van, they slept in an abandoned warehouse, and protected each other. In a lot of ways, it was the most exciting time in Els life. They would vandalise buildings and train cars, they stole from war criminal oil tycoons to give back to the poor, they went to shows and spread their message everywhere they could. There was a political revolution happening on the streets, and El had a front row seat.

That was until her new found gang decided to take it too far.

Kali wanted revenge on the people responsible for the abuse she had been through, the abuse that they had all been through. While her anger was fully justified, it just felt wrong. It started with robbery, then moved to forgery, then arson, and before long even that wasn't enough to satisfy Kali’s rage. She wanted them dead.

It was when they broke into one man's home, that El finally decided enough was enough. She watched the way he struggled and begged for his life while he stared down the barrel of Kali’s gun. She saw the terror in the eyes of his daughters in the next room, and she saw the lust for blood in Kali’s. So she bailed. She caught a late night bus back to the warehouse they hid out in, and waited for them to come home. She knew they would be pissed, but at least her conscious would be clear knowing she wasn't around to watch Kali pull the trigger.

But they never came back.

She spent the night alone. Then another, and another, until the days turned into weeks. She was out of food and nearly frozen to death by the time the cops raided the building. That's when Hopper found her, and that's when her new life started.

After that, is was a blur of hospital stays, legal documents, court rooms, and then packing up what little things she had and moving in with Hopper. He let her buy new clothes, and bought her her very own walkman, and when they moved to Hawkins she got to have her own room for the first time in her entire life. Her counselor had said it was a miracle that she was adjusting so well, and that most kids in her situation would be either junkies, psychopaths, or both.

But El was a fighter. She was strong, and she refused to let her past dictate her future. She resented Kali for leaving her, but she understood why. She was a traitor, and hardly any better than the criminals that Kali fought. But she would never forget the lessons Kali taught her, about sticking up for the little guy, fighting injustice, and defending your beliefs at all times. For El it wasn't just about being angry, or loud music, or ripped clothes, it was a mindset based on making change for the better no matter what the cost.

Even now in Hawkins, El’s aggressive political attitude didn't change. Hawkins was painfully behind the times socially, and she wasn't about to let it slide. She rarely spoke up in class unless it was to tell off some sexist asshole in English, or argue the merits of women in history, or join in a heated political debate in social studies.

Or, as was the case today, telling her Gym teacher that is was, in fact, ‘total bullshit’ to make the girls scrub down the gym equipment in the musty old storage closet, while the boys got to run the track outside on one of the few nice days they had had in weeks.

“You should be grateful, girly.” Sneered a very smug Mr. Meloney, a heavy set man with beady little eyes and permanent bad breath. “You get the easy end of the deal. Someone's gotta clean the equipment, and don't curse at me.”

“But that is bullshit! I don't care about getting the ‘easy’ way out! It’s not fair, or right! Why don't we all clean, and then we can all go outside after?” She hissed, raising her voice. Most of the boys in class groaned, it was just another one of the freak girls stupid rants, but several of the girls hollered their approval.

“I said not to curse at me! If I hear one more thing out of you it's going to be detention. Now why don't you go sit on the bleachers and fix your makeup, looks like you have a god damn black eye.” He pointed a finger at her and several of the boys laughed.

She felt her blood start to boil, he had gone to far. She took a tentative step towards him and balled her fists. “I should give you a black eye.” She hissed through her teeth, her rage welling up into her throat. She reeled back and spit at him. “Fucking pig.”

Several of the girls behind her cheered. Mr. Maloney was a known creep. He made all of the girls feel uncomfortable and often treated them like garbage, clearly just because of their gender and his own sick issues. It was honestly a relief that someone like El started standing up to him.

“That is it Hopper!” He grabbed Els wrist and drug her out into the hallway, she squirmed but his grip was tight and it felt like it was going to leave a gnarly bruise. “Get your ass to the principal's office before I kick it there.”

She finally managed to jerk herself free and stomped to the front office of the school. She was going to be in deep shit when she got home but she couldn't help it. It was the right thing to do, and she wasn't about to let that perv slide.

She spent the rest of the period in the principal's office silently fuming as she was written up for detention, and Hopper was called.

At least her friends were supportive.

“You should have kicked him in the crotch.” Dustin said with his mouth full of sandwich.

“Yeah! Or actually punched him that would have been great!” Lucas agreed laughing.

“He's lucky I didn't. I wanted to, but that probably would have gotten me expelled.” El sighed.

“God he is such a creep.” Max shuddered. “He totally checks out all of the girls when they jog. It's disgusting.”

“He does!?” Mike and Will gasped in unison. El and Max both nodded with a grimace.

“That's what happens when you have a position of authority.” El shrugged. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Even stupid gym teachers.” She stabbed at her poor excuse for a salad, not really feeling hungry.

“What does that mean?” Dustin asked dumbfoundedly.

“It's a famous quote from British politician, Lord Acton.” Max answered nonchalantly. The boys turned to her sharply as if she had just spoken another language. “What? El talks about this stuff a lot. I thought you guys were supposed to be the smart ones.”

“It means that when you have authority you are likely to abuse it because no one can stop you. It's why most politicians are liars, and most teachers are assholes.” El added.

They all nodded and mumbled in agreement. It was kind of funny, watching El slowly open their eyes to the underground political agenda.

But her cop father was another story.

She knew the entire walk home that she was going to get an earful when Jim got off work. Until then, she was going to listen to music as loud as her speakers would allow and let off some steam from her shitty day.

She was sitting on the couch reading a magazine when he got home. Her stereo was blasting The Runaways, so she didn't hear him pull up, or walk inside, or stomp into the living room until he was looming above her. She jolted upright when he stomped to her stereo and shut it off without a word.

“Hey!” She yelled.

“Don't hey me! I have told you a thousand times not to listen to that crap that loud.” He was furious.

“God chill! I'm sorry, okay?” His tone, and her bad day put her in an argumentative mood.

“Chill? I get a call at work that you get detention and you want me to chill?”

“It wasn't my fault!”

“Oh it wasn't your fault huh? You call your teacher a ‘fucking pig’ and it wasn't your fault?” He was still towering above her.

“No! Because he was being a pig! He is a total perv and a dirtbag and I wasn't going to take any of his crap anymore!” She stood up, still much to short to be at his eye level, but staring daggers at him.

“Look, kid, you are in the real world now. And in the real world you can't just go around cursing and spitting at people like some kind of little street brat!”

“The real world!? As if I have been living some charmed fantasy life up until this point!? Give me a break!” She felt angry tears brimming in her eyes.

“That girl you used to pal around with filled your head with a lot of garbage ideas! You need to grow up!” He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Grow the hell up!”

“Get the fuck off of me!” She ripped out of his grasp and stomped up to her room, but he was close on her heels. She turned to slam her door but he stuck his arm in just in time to catch it.

“Don't walk away from me when I am talking to you! This is exactly what im talking about. You like to play pretend that you are this angry punk but you just run away from your problems! You are never going to get anywhere in this world if you dont drop the act and own up to your mistakes.” His words cut deep into her like a knife. He was right, all she ever did was run away.

Run away from her abusive father, run away from the foster home, run away from Kali, and run away to Hawkins. She wasn't tough at all, no matter how much makeup she hid under, no matter how thick her leather jacket was, or how strong her ideals were. Inside she was still just a scared little girl. So while he yelled at her, for the first time, she just stayed quiet and listened. Hot tears streamed down her face as she took his beratement.

“You are grounded for two weeks. That means no TV, no stereo-” He turned and ripped her boombox from the wall. “And no going out with your friends. You are going to go to school, and come home and study and get over this bullshit. Do I make myself clear?” He got in her face again and she turned to avoid his glare.

“I said, do I make myself clear!?” He yelled. She turned to face him, long streaks of black mascara running down her face.

“Yes.” Her voice was like ice.

He said nothing as he turned around and slammed her door closed behind him, her stereo in hand. She flopped back on her bed and pulled a pillow over her face so she could scream into it. She wanted to badly to go downstairs and yell at him some more, she had so much more to say, but she knew none of it would change anything.

So instead she just stared up at the ceiling for hours. Thinking over all of the things she hasn't let herself think about in a long time.

‘Where is Kali? I hope she is okay. Im sure she must hate me, but I would give anything to see her right now. No one understood me the way she did.

All I ever do is run away. Run away so no one can leave me first. So no one realizes that I am worthless. Worthless and unlovable.’

It started getting dark, and as the sun set it became clear that Hopper wasn't going to be making dinner. She didn't want to see him anyway. She felt like she was going crazy. She jumped off her bed and stormed back and forth, the anxiety in her gut rising and pulsing, not letting her sit down. Usually she could just tune her feelings out with music, or a movie, or a long walk through town.

‘That's it!’

She threw on a warm grey sweater and strapped on her favorite boots. She flipped the light in her room off so that he would think she was sleeping and she locked the door on her way out. She silently opened her window and perched herself on its edge, feeling the cool air wrap around her. Lucky for her there was a small potting shed just under window that she could use to jump onto, and from there it was only a slight drop to the ground. She set of in the direction of Max’s house, wishing more than anything she had taken up her offer to learn how to skate. It wasn't too bad of a walk, but it was cold and dark.

‘At least I don't have to worry about getting stabbed out here in the sticks.’ She chuckled to herself, wrapping her arms tightly around herself and pressing forward.

It was a little after 10:00pm when she arrived at the Mayfield house. She could hear the usual sounds of Billy, Max's brother, and her step dad arguing inside, but luck for her, Max’s bedroom light was on. She grabbed a handful of pebbles and tossed them up at the girls window.

A few second later Max was sticking her head out into the night air and looked around he darkness.

“Lucas?” Max asked in a harsh whisper. El burst out laughing and stepped into the light.

“Sorry to disappoint you.” El chortled. “Does he come throw rocks at your window often?”

“Ugh, no shut up!” Max rolled her eyes, blushing furiously. “Why are you here?”

“Hopper grounded me, so naturally I snuck out. Lets go to the park or something.” El kicked the grass and smirked.

“Oh shit dude that sucks.” Max shook her head. “Okay yeah let me get my jacket.” her head disappeared from the window, and a few moments later she was back, tossing her skateboard out and jumping down from her window.

They walked to the nearby park, well, if you could call it a park. It was really just a few swings, a small set of rusty monkey bars, and a big dusty baseball diamond, but it was all they had available. Max and El jumped up on the swings, Max kicked off with great force, sending her soaring through the cool air. El just sat, kicking at the dirt and lighting up a cigarette.

“Max, why does everything suck so much?” El griped, exhaling softly into the air.

“No clue. It’s like a global conspiracy.” Max chuckled, her voice raising and lowering in volume as she zoomed back and forth.

“If by global conspiracy you mean thousands of years of patriarchy then yeah, pretty much.” El leaned against the cold metal chain of her swing and took another long drag.

“Hey, I think I have an idea.” Max said digging her feet into the dirt bellow and kicking up bark chips and dust, skidding to a stop.

“What's that?” El said exhaling another long breath of smoke.

“I'll bet the boys have never snuck out before.” Her face was turned up in the signature ‘Madmax’ devilish grin.

“So?”

“So let's get them to sneak out with us!”

“I doubt they will be down for that.” El sighed, stifling the end of her cigarette against the chain.

“Please. Lucas and Dustin will do anything to prove they aren't dorks. Plus Will is kind of always up for anything, and I know seeing Mike would make you feel better!” Max swung sideways bumping into El. A faint smile flashed across Els face, and before she had time to think of a rebuttal Max was pulling her by the hand in the direction of the Sinclair house.

All it took was one well thrown pebble, and Max waving to get Lucas to climb down off of his roof and join the girls. He seemed practically giddy (and like this wasn't his first time scaling his roof to get down). He had his Supercom and he used it to call Mike and Dustin. Dustin called Will and within the span of less than half an hour, all six teenagers were congregated back at the park.

Max and Lucas decided to race each other to the top of the monkey bars. A challenge that Max quickly won with little effort. Her and Lucas got lost in conversation from their perch, giggling and whispers about who knows what as the rest of the party milled around the field.

Will and Dustin were deep in a debate about some X-men character, and running around the field reenacting scenes like proper geeks.

Mike and El made their way to the swings and seeing him really did make her feel better. Being around her friends always made her feel better because they were the first friends she had that didn't make her feel like she had to prove something just to be close with them. If anything it seemed the opposite. It was always the boys trying to show off and prove they weren't just small town nerds, and it was kind of endearing.

“Hey El?” Will asked from across the dirt playground. “Who do you think is more likely to be a secret superhero? Henry Rollins or Glen Danzig?”

El snorted, surprised by the question. She admittedly didn't know a lot about superheros, but she did know that the lead singers of Black Flag and The Misfits respectively were some of the toughest guys in the music scene.

“Definitely Danzig. He probably has like demon superpowers. Did you know he is only 5’ 3”?”

“Holy crap really? That shorter than I am!” Will belly laughed.

“And just like you he is tiny but powerful.” El giggled

Dustin and Mike watched them like they were speaking in tongues, but it was nice having someone to talk to about stuff like this. She never would have guessed she would find someone with decent music taste in farm country. Thank god for Will Byers.

After the riveting talk wore down, it became apparent that Will really was out of his comfort zone. So much for being ‘up for anything’. As it got later, despite his clear discomfort, Will was pretending not to be freaked out by every noise, and car that drove past. And why he was asking for the hundredth time if they were ‘ sure everything was going to be fine’.

“God yes Will! We aren't going to get in trouble!” Dustin sighed rubbing his brow. While everyone else seemed to be enjoying the thrill of being out after dark, the Byers boy was a nervous wreck.

“You can't know that! I'm just going to bike home before my mom or Jonathan knows i'm gone.” Will zipped up his coat and hoisted his backpack over his shoulder.

“You shouldn't go home by yourself this time of night.” Max hollered from her place on top of the monkey bars. “There are weirdos out this late.” She snickered, throwing Will an unnerving expression.

“Really?” Will asked, gripping his bike handles and looking terrified.

“No not really, Max is just trying to scare you.” Mike rolled his eyes, throwing the giggling girl an accusing glare. “But it's probably more safe if I go with you.” He reluctantly moved to stand up, but before he could, Dustin beat him to it.

“I'll go home with you. I live closer.” He sighed, mounting his own Bike. He and Will clicked the small duct taped head lanterns on. “And besides, I don't want to be the fifth wheel.”

“Um well, bye guys!” Will smiled, clearly relieved to be getting home.

“See you later, little Danzig.” El chuckled.

Everyone watched in silence was the two boys peddled off, trying not to think about the implications of Dustin's ‘fifth wheel’ comment.

“Well alright!” Max hollered, jumping off of the monkey bars in a swift leap. “I want to walk around the track.”

“I'll come with you!” Lucas said, a huge grin spreading across his face as he climbed down. His descent was just as graceful as hers, and in seconds he was jogging to keep up with Max as she sauntered towards the distant baseball diamond.

El and Mike watched them leave, and became aware of the silence hanging in the air.

“I guess they are probably going to like... Makeout or whatever.” Mike chuckled nervously.

El giggled and nodded. “Yeah probably. You know earlier, when I knocked on her window, she thought I was Lucas. I think they do this a lot.”

“Jeez.” Mike rubbed his neck. “I guess that makes sense, I always thought Lucas would be the first one of us to...” He cut his sentence short, feeling suddenly overwhelmed with embarrassment.

“To what?” El asked curiously.

“To... you know...” He kicked at the dirt. “Like kiss a girl.”

El turned to him sharply, eyes wide with surprise. “Wait... none of you have ever kissed anyone?” She gaped.

Mikes face turned a deep scarlet and he cleared his throat nervously. “No not really. Dustin said that he kissed some girl at summer camp last year but I think he is full of shit. It's not like girls are really into the whole dork thing.” He gestured to himself, forcing an awkward smile.

El was genuinely shocked. Granted, she had never kissed anyone either, but that was mostly by choice. She looked at him and searched for the right thing to say, but she just found it so inconceivable.

‘How could anyone not want to kiss Mike? Dork or not.’

“Well it's not like a big deal or anything, to not be kissed.” She cringed at her own words. “It's probably not even that great.”

“Yeah. Probably not.” They both chuckled dryly in the tension of the situation. Then what she said dawned on him. “Wait, you have never kissed anyone either?”

“Nope. No one has ever been cool enough to deserve it.” El giggled. It wasn't the entire truth, a big part of her never having dated anyone lay in the fact that she was terrified of opening up to someone else, but everyone being lame was a large factor as well.

Mike chuckled with her, and looked up to catch Els glaze, she was wearing a similar blush to his own and he felt the sudden urge to move closer to her.

El shifted on the swing seat, feeling compelled to move in closer as well. The pale moonlight beamed across Mikes dark eyes and freckles, making him look incredibly beautiful. She felt her heart catch in her throat as they moved even closer.

They were close enough now that Mike could feel the heat coming off of her body. Her hair was firmly slicked back to way it usually was, but her walk had shaken several of her curls loose and they twisted around her cheeks and ears. That, combined with the oversized grey sweater she was wearing made her look so soft and warm.

They were only inches apart now. They both hitched their breath, suddenly hyper aware of everything that was happening. Every sound, every breath, the whistle of the wind, the blue moon light, every slight movement towards the other. El’s eyes fluttered closed, as Mike tilted his head in towards her. She could feel his shaky breathe on her lips, and she realized he was just as nervous as her.

‘I can't believe it! I'm about to have my first Kiss! And with Mike Wheeler!’

But then something ripped through the silence.

Just as they were about to close the small space between them, Max and Lucas’s laughter filled the night, and they both jumped apart. The chains on their swings groaning from the movement. Lucas and Max came running from the far side of the field, Lucas trailing behind and both teens squealing. It didn't seem like they had seen anything, they were far too preoccupied in whatever nauseating form of couples tag they were playing.

Mike jumped up from the swing and smoothed out his shirt nervously. He was still sporting a deep red blush and a slightly goofy smile. El was sure she didn't look any better. Her stomach felt warm and like it was twisting itself into knots, she couldn't look him in the eyes.

“Lucas Im going to kick your ass!” Max laughed as Lucas, finally catching up to her, picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. Max slapped at his back but she was laughing too hard to actually be much of a fight.

He set her down once they reached the park again and she punched him hard in the arm. The couple walked over the the swings, both of their faces plastered with huge grins.

“Okay kids, I think it's time to go home.” Max said, slapping an arm down on Els shoulder. El sighed, her nerves still racing from her almost-kiss. Max was probably right, it was getting late and they did have school tomorrow morning.

The boys grabbed their bikes and everyone walked out to the road. While they did not live anywhere near each other, Max and Lucas both started walking off in the direction of Max's house.

“Um Lucas? Aren't you going home?” Mike scoffed at his friend.

“Uh... yeah I am I just want to make sure Max gets home safe.” Lucas and Max ginned bashfully at each other. “Because of the weirdos and stuff.”

The couple turned around and walked off again, trailing down Old Cherry Road and into the darkness of the night. Even when El couldn't see them, she could hear Max’s boisterous laugh.

“They are such dweebs.” El chuckled.

“Yeah totally.” Mike sneered. They stood in silence for a moment, not wanting to part just yet. “I could... walk you home if you want.”

El beamed up at the shaggy dark haired boy and nodded. “That would be cool.” She tucked a curl behind her ear, quickly adding with sarcasm; “So that the weirdos don't get me.”

They walked slowly down the hill towards the quiet side of town that El lived on. Mike pushed his bike next to him, hands gripped the handle bars. They both stole glances at each other, each time making them quickly look down at their feet. They walked almost the entire way in silence, both too completely lost in thought. El was still dazed that she had been so close to kissing someone, and she hoped he was thinking the same things. Every time she looked over at him her heart thumped loudly in her chest. She wanted to kick herself for being so gushy over him but she just couldn't help it, he was the sweet nerdy boy of her dreams.

In only 20 minutes, an unfortunately short walk, they reached Els home.  The lights were off inside, meaning Hopper had gone to bed. Mike didn't know what he had been expecting, but this cozy little farmhouse on the end of the quaint road wasn't it. El was just too surreal to live somewhere so... normal. They stood under the streetlamp for a moment, Mike marveling at the way she looked while bathed in yellow light, and El not wanting to walk away from him just yet. It was a strange feeling, like some kind of gravitational pull keeping her glued to her spot whenever he was near.

Eventually she figured she should say something. “Well this is me.”

‘I am such an idiot! He knows this is my house he just walked me here!’

“It's nice.” Mike said, hoping to drag the conversation out as long as possible.

“I guess i'll see you at school tomorrow?” She asked, looking at the ground.

“Yeah!” He said a little to enthusiastically. “Um... thanks for asking us to sneak out. I had a lot of fun.”

“I had fun too. Maybe you should start sneaking out more often, live on the wild side a little bit.” She said sarcastically. “Maybe you could even come throw pebbles at my window.”

Mikes eyes went wide and he suppressed the urge to smile like a dope. “Uh yeah! And maybe we can run around acting like dweebs like Max and Lucas.”

El giggled, trying to act apathetic, but desperately wishing he was serious. “Totally! And maybe next time i'll get to walk you home.”

“I would like that.” Mike smiled.

Suddenly it became apparent that they were standing just inches apart again. El felt her heart beating in her chest, and in an impulse she took another step forward, so close that they were practically embracing.

Mike looked down at her, and his voice caught in his throat. He wanted to tell her how much he liked her. How much fun she was to spend time with, how happy she made him, how he felt like he was alive whenever they hung out. But he just stared at her. Her beauty, her warm hazel eyes, her loose caramel curls, her soft rosy skin. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Even more than that, she was the most amazing girl he had ever met.

On impulse, acting against every instinct he normally would have had, he reached out and put a gentle hand on her cheek, cupping her face. Their sudden proximity made him feel almost dizzy, but everything about her made him feel dizzy. He let his bike drop to the road, and he placed his other palm lightly on her side.

El was stunned. She wanted him so badly to kiss her, but he didnt move. She wrapped her arms around his shoulder and inched even closer. It felt like an eternity as they held each other, and she realized that if anyone was going to make the move it was going to be her.

So she moved ever closer, and just as she was about to go in for the kill, he spoke.

“El?” His voice was a whisper, his breathe warm on her skin.

“Yes?” She leaned in closer.

“I... never gave you back your mixed tape.” He said it like some kind of admission of guilt.

El let out a sudden, short laugh in surprise and stepped back a bit. Her face quirked up in a half grimace, half astonished glower. “Oh... Um, It's fine. Thank you for remembering... I guess.”

“Uh yeah... sorry I kept it so long.” He fished it out of his pocket. “It was pretty good by the way. I mean I only got to listen to it once before my little sister stole my tape player.” He rubbed the back of his neck and cough awkwardly.

“I'm glad you liked it. I'll have to make you another one sometime.” El let herself frown fully. Had she misread the entire interaction? Was he really only concerned with her mixed tape? She wanted to punch herself for getting so flustered, and worked up and... hopeful.

“Well... um... Have a good night.” Mike mumbeled, scuffing his shoes along the ground.

El creased her eyebrows at him. Maybe she had gotten a bit carried away, and maybe she had gotten ahead of the situation, but she was damn sure that they almost kissed. Twice! She wasn't going to let him get away so easily.

She turned to face him straight up and down, and looked at him intently. “Mike. I like you.” He looked up at her with wide eyes, as if he had seen a ghost. “I mean it. I think you are nice, and sweet, and you care about people, which is super foreign to me. You make me laugh and you make me happy and I don't feel judged when i'm with you. I like you. A lot.”

“El...” He started, still bewildered.

‘Go ahead, tell me you don't feel the same way. Why would you?’

“El I like you too. A lot. You are so smart and amazing, and awesome. You don't let people push you around, or push me and the guys around. You are so strong even though you have dealt with a lot, and you are so so crazy intelligent. You know so much about things I had never even heard of. I like you so much.”

“Wow...” She breathed, not meaning to say it out loud, but realizing she had when he blushed.

El walked forward, and wrapped her arms around him in a sweet, yet encompassing hug. After a while they stepped apart, but remained close enough to feel each others warm breath as it clouded in the evening air.

“Wow to you too.” He Smirked. She punched him in the arm lightly, making them both laugh. She still wanted to kiss him, more than anything she wanted to kiss him, but there would be time for that another day.

El reached out and grabbed his hand, musing over how nice it was to watch the way their fingers laced together. “Goodnight Mike. I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight El.” He squeezed her hand softly for a moment before mounting his bike and driving away in the direction of home. The whole way, smiling like the biggest dopey, dweeb anyone had ever seen. He understood every part of the face Lucas had made when he rejoined them on the park. He was head over heels for El Hopper, the Punk Rock badass from Chicago.

El watched him ride away, waiting until he was out of sight before she walked to her house. She decided to use the front door, assuming it would be much quieter than trying to clamber back up to her window. Her house was silent, but her ears were still ringing with the beating in her chest. She layed back down in her bed, and for the second time that day she muffled a shriek into her pillow.

Only this time, it was a scream of joy. Pure, innocent, unfaltering, heart-swelling, joy. She was head over heels for Mike Wheeler, the kindhearted nerd from Hawkins.

Tagging:

@el-themage @mileventwentyfourseven