#literally at this point i have anxiety attacks whenever i have to check mail from the danish state

[childishzombiejellyfish]

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[chicago-geniza]

well i intended to go for a nice evening walk, ended up having a panic attack, ordering a couple of cocktails at the bougie bar, joining a jam session with a bunch of old hippies on the logan green (one of them gave me a handpainted wooden medallion which seems to be carved out of tree bark, strung on a length of yarn???), met a crustpunk train-hopping dude in town for the month (& his dog, in a leather-studded harness) who's lived in 45/50 states & a 44 yr old guy everyone called "the wizard" wearing a tattered, patch-covered robe who shares most of my parents' conspiracy theories & considers himself a latter-day prophet, he bought us sorbet & ice cream, wound up hanging out with them & staying up all night at their indescribably eclectic, cluttered, blood-spattered (!!!) apartment, belonging to 44 yr old guy's art curator father & decorated accordingly, smoking m*th & listening to music & talking (or rather listening to them rant/rave/recount stories from their incredibly wild lives), i gave them advice on applying for unemployment & medicaid & how to appear compliant enough w/ carceral psychiatric intervention so they won't section you without actually submitting to forced medication or institutionalization, especially if they assign you a case worker & do regular "wellness checks." also how to pass off certain aspects of behavioral dysregulation as executive dysfunction, get them to pay for an adhd evaluation, get an adderall IR scrip, sell the 30 mg pills (cite body weight, high doses of other psych meds as reason for higher dose; look sincere; play to systemic biases toward cis white men, unfortunately), & use the cash to buy m*th, if they'd prefer to keep doing that. you can also pass positive psychotic symptoms--agitation etc.--off as severe anxiety, especially if you have a history of trauma, & they will give you benzodiazepines. it is in their best interest to keep you docile, i.e. tranquilized, particularly if your past convictions & involuntary institutionalizations revolve around a pattern of aggressive behavior, & that's On The Record/there's a paper trail. (e.g. one dude got arrested trying to keep cars away from an injured bird on the road, some genre of raptor i think (???) by threatening them with a shopping cart, not hitting them, but like, running at them as if to collide then feinting at the last minute so they'd swerve out of the way. not the safest or most effective maneuver, lotta reckless endangerment, but the motivation was admirable. probably put the fear of god into some drivers, though. he doesn't seem to have, like, impulse control.) it's a lot easier & you have fewer run-ins with the cops if you game the system & appear cooperative. they gave me this coat, which "just showed up in their apartment one day," like i did. 44 yr old guy walked me back to apartment, stole a street sign & tore down a real estate sign en route, lori lightfoot did indeed take down the pride flag in front of her house on july 1st & replace it with an appropriately patriotic american flag, i walked past the idling plainclothes cop car & another marked police vehicle with their Mayoral Guarding Detail inside at like 4.30 am smoking a menthol cigarette (not inhaling), high on m*th, draped in a neon anime jacket, in the company of a visibly insane, unshaven & unshorn middle-aged man in a technicolor patchwork trenchcoat, holding a lit cigarette in one hand & an upside-down traffic cone in the other, which he was using as an ad hoc amplifier for a noise track playing on my phone. he was also carrying the stolen real estate banner &, inexplicably, a stack of mail. i gave him my old backup phone (no SIM card & doesn't hold a charge long, ancient, but still works), since neither he nor the other dude have phones (cops took them), also one hybrid edible for each of them, as a thanks for the m*th & the kindness. their hearts are in the right place but they have some fucked-up beliefs about "reverse racism" being real, while also saying in the same breath that you can tell our country is irredeemable by the way it continues to

treat black people. we were discussing medical weed for seizures on medicaid & 44 yr old guy mentioned one of his close friends, a black epileptic woman, whose seizures were frequent & severe enough they prevented her from working. then he added, in apparent bemusement, they she hadn't spoken to him in some time, & he wondered why. a little while later he relayed their last conversation & i was like "my dude, i can say with 100% certainty she is not talking to you because you said some *appallingly*, jaw-droppingly racist shit & did not even realize it was racist." then i, comma, a white person, explained to this man that he literally thought of their exchange as, like, an abstract argument over insignificant ideas, a theoretical exercise, & therefore considered it simply a smug gotcha to "counter" hotep theories about egyptian origin by claiming that "if that's true, american slavery & the oppression of black people in america are divine retribution for the enslavement of the jews in ancient egypt, an eye for an eye & a deserved punishment." like, first of all, what the actual fuck, if i were that woman i would also never speak to you again, second of all there's the collapse of historical time & mythical time, history & exegesis, an assumption that rests on spurious claims of biblical literalism (zionist colonization logic, btw! him: what's exegesis? what's zionism? me: never mind, not the point. exegesis is the interpretation of religious texts in a religious CONtext, in this case what you would likely call the hebrew bible.)--but most importantly it is 100% irrelevant to this discussion whether or not black americans are Actually Factually descendended from ancient egypt! you just told this woman to her face that the ancestry she claims, of which she's proud, is the reason & justification for SLAVERY & BLACK SUFFERING--not only that, but that if it WERE true, than black people would DESRVE to suffer, by DIVINE DECREE. you are trying to force her to abdicate her claim on this heritage by putting her in a position where she'd be forced to concede complicity in her people's historical & present-day persecution, oppression, & essentially the existence of structural racism. & using The Figural Jew as a rhetorical cudgel to bludgeon her into this corner. what a despicable thing to say. like, he hadn't considered it from her perspective at all, & once he groked why the comment itself was, like, unforgivable (idk, maybe she's more forgiving; she has a virtue-name), i started socratic-method-ing him through why it was particularly unforgivable for *him* to say to *her*--the individual is not responsible for the systems from they benefit, but they are imbricated in them, they are implicated when they actively perpetuate & uphold them, even with speech acts. & finally gave the same "there is no such thing as reverse racism because racism is not an individual act, it is an institutional, systemic phenomenon, & it is an ideology, one which individual acts can bear out or be in accordance with, & to which individuals can subscribe (this bearing it out in their behavior, in their institutional roles, in their interpersonal interactions--here i gave & solicited examples of each) or be subject (also gave & solicited examples). m*th makes me very good at Explaining clearly & he was surprisingly receptive--like, it was astonishing that it had not occurred to him??? but it hadn't, the same way it hadn't occurred to my mother, & she interpreted it as "reverse racist" when their next-door neighbor called her the "white devil" for disputing their property line, & i had to be like "ok but if you called in a random third party to mediate in lily-white [city], oregon, where white supremacists openly drive down the street in pickup trucks with swastika armbands, whose side do you think they would take, statistically speaking, in your property dispute. that's why racism is systemic & institutional, & your rude neighbor calling you a name over a disagreement does not constitute 'reverse racism,' because 'reverse racism' by definition cannot

exist." now this dude wants to like, read books, so i gotta get him some entry-level Intro To Racism primers??? how did i end up here, but better me than his black epileptic (ex-)friend, i guess??? jesus christ. both of these guys have the most chaotic, reactionary politics in a potpourri with these deep commitments to abolition & mutual aid & a kind of proto-anarchist consciousness, none of which would be called by those names, but all of which is borne out in practice & in the politics of everyday life. they remind me a LOT of my parents. i'm loath to imagine how they'd internalize my stepdad's rambling, street-preacher-style libertarian lectures. probably go out & buy guns & invest in gold on the stock market & double down on the conviction that free speech is being curtailed & individual rights are in jeopardy because you can no longer unleash a barrage of harassment against some guy on the street because you think he looked at you funny. these claustrophobic convictions, like the space to express oneself is getting smaller & smaller every day, *other people* are taking it away from you, suffocating you on all sides with their offense demanding your silence, they are *making* the walls close in--when in fact it's more like a holodeck. you're a member of the Hegemonic Group, afforded the privilege of the default, so you don't question the vast verdant expanse that is your domain--ah, Free Speech, the sun never sets on the empire of ~uncensored expression, you can say whatever you want whenever you want without facing consequences because you control all the organs that mete out consequences & you have also determined that those groups who might be adversely affected by your words--emotionally OR materially--are not, well...of consequence. but of course the vast verdant domain is an illusion, photons & forcefields, held together by the all-encompassing TOTALITY of the dominant group's hegemony, power, etc. once that power begins to redistribute throughout the system--however unevenly, however incrementally, however slowly--as even the smallest pieces are appropriated by those deemed inconsequential, who have endured years of systemic, material, institutional violence that allowed the dominant group to become dominant & retain its dominant position--once those 'inconsequential' groups speak up & say "actually, these words bear an indelible imprint of the violence enacted upon us, these words are the legacy of that violence, these words are a tacit endorsement of the ideology behind that violence, which classifies us as subhuman, & even if *you* can't hear those echoes, the words broadcast on two historical frequencies, so now that we're able to broadcast on a frequency *you* can hear, we request you find other language, & consider the implications of the words you've been using for years." well--once The Subaltern Speaks, the dominant group loses its 'innocence,' & becomes aware the vast verdant expanse of language is an illusion of infinite space, aware of the four holodeck walls pressing in behind the simulacrum of the horizon, & suddenly "what one can say without negative consequences"--largely social, sometimes, rarely, if social media goes viral, professional--feels much more claustrophobic. so they get angry. & some of them are just bigots, obviously, but some of them--like my parents, &, even, this weirdly well-intentioned m*thhead who said one of the most shockingly racist things i've heard in my life & *honestly didn't understand why it was racist*, is really riled up about free speech & individual rights, hates the government, hates "FANG" (facebook amazon netflix google) & has a bunch of dystopian conspiracy theories about data harvesting & personal information that only miss the mark in that they get too nefariously biopolitical (billionaires want to put microchips in everybody for surveillance to monitor our movements & sell us more stuff; they don't need to, they already use our phone location & browsing habits to generate the algorithm & sell the information to ad companies lol, it's digital& cast a

single illuminati figure in the role of comic book villain, controlling the operation behind the scenes like an evil puppetmaster (classic conspiracy fare; again, we gotta take that energy, that suspicion, the understanding that they are being taken advantage of & tricked, the idea that power & capital & resources are concentrated among a very small number of people, however it's not an individual wealthy villain with a desire for world domination who wants to turn Free Americans into microchipped drones, it's a *class* of people--or rather several classes, but *who those people are as individuals does not matter*. if you guillotined bill gates, another billionaire would take his place. bill gates qua bill gates is not the problem. it is classes of people who control the means of production & own property & profit enormously from exploiting the labor of a desperate, rapidly increasing underclass, i.e. from the system as it is. therefore it is in their interest to maintain the status quo, because it serves them. 'the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.' the middle class gradually ceases to exist. if you want to compound it by race, consider the GI bill as an example - you learn about it as the leg up that enabled thousands of WWII vets to buy houses, enabling them to enter the middle class. hundreds of thousands of third-gen middle class white americans still reap the structural, socioeconomic benefits of their grandparents' initial upward mobility, including,, very tangibly, those selfsame houses, which can be inherited & then rented out as a second property if the children or grandchildren accrue enough money to buy their own properties. but only about 100 black vets got approved for homeownership loans, despite the staggering numbers of black soldiers who enlisted & applied through the GI bill. anyway! the impulses are there, & they're only being funneled into conspiracy thinking because that makes intuitive sense on a narrative level. these guys have a high school education; so does my stepdad. their reading habits are...eclectic, sporadic, pretty much dictated by occasional recommendations & like, little free libraries around the neighborhood. it's both interesting & frustrating to see like - hey, here are these people, we agree on a lot of things, they're earnest & open & want to learn & would give their neighbor the shirt off their backs as a matter of principle. they'd give a *stranger* the shirt off their backs; they'd share whatever they had. even what chores there are in their collective--they live with two other guys--(dumpster diving, walking the dog, tidying up the apartment) are allocated by ability & inclination. they made advance plans to look after the dog & their roommate with War PTSD on the 4th of july if the fireworks upset them, jokingly called the dog an emotional support animal. you give them the tools, the reading, talk to them like normal people with a stake in society--like, imagine a society that would have a stake in people like you instead of criminalizing you & consigning you to the margins! that's already *political imagination* because anyone who occupies a marginalized position will have their existence politicized, whether they want this or not, so better to become a self-aware, self-reflexive political subject, no?--talk *with* them because tbh i am them, i'm just better at situational masking & also i am very very afraid of cops so i only damage property in groups during planned political actions (not spontaneously, because i feel a flash of rage at my neighborhood gentrifying, & simply do not have a superego, so i tear down the real estate sign for the fancy new apartment complex in a fit of pique, because in this house we believe that spontaneity can & should be developed into class consciousness, again, the seeds of which are there in the initial trigger for the spontaneous reaction, i.e. anger at gentrification. not opposed to a little direct action, but they're just gonna put up a new sign tomorrow, it doesn't advance your agenda or hinder the gentrifiers' progress. now, if

you sabotaged the construction site for the new apartment buildings & painted a few potent symbols + graffiti'd a pithy, written statement expressing your opposition to gentrification generally & these apartments specifically? in a prominent place, large font, eye level, visible & legible from oh, a block away? maybe as a member of a collective, your neighbors, perhaps? & you could sign it "[neighborhood] or [block] residents" to pack more of a punch, the power of a crowd speaking in unison to say "not OUR home, you predatory developers"? that's no longer spontaneous, impulsive, affective violence, & it's also no longer an individual--acting alone leaves you vulnerable. again--i didn't just *intuit* that he tore the sign down because he was mad about gentrification, i asked, in a genuinely curious tone, not at all accusatory, no hint of reprimand or censure, just...interested, "why did you do that?" & he was like "it made me fucking mad." & i was like "what about it made you mad? the apartments? how come?" & he thought about it for a minute & explained. i'm not sure *he* necessarily made the conscious connection until prompted. idk, i know people talk a lot about the fact that breitbart & drudge report are free while NYT & "all the news fit to print" is paywalled, & q-pilled covid hoax sites are free while "reputable" pandemic coverage & public health guidelines & explanations of mRNA vaccines for a lay audience are paywalled & that's true but also We Live In A Society & if you talk to the wingnuts who AREN'T that way because of any far-right ideology, a lot of them are just...autodidacts without much formal education but a lot of raw intelligence that leads to analyzing The Big Picture & trying to deduce a pattern, find a framework that explains why the world is the way it is, profoundly frustrated, deeply aware of American society's, universalized & figured as the world's, exceptional unfairness & cruelty, & *that can be redirected* with reading, discussion, prompting critical thought, introducing community connections, & perhaps most importantly for this genre of person, getting them to see patterns at work in terms of systems & structures rather than individuals, letting go of American individualism's explanatory power & belief in its liberatory potential (see: the sort of ad hoc libertarianism that goes hand-in-glove with much conspiracy thinking, both stemming from 1) mistrusting the government, & 2) ultimate freedom of the individual as the most sacred value, therefore it is what all enemies want to take away), outlining positive, actionable goals rather than just ambient suspicion & anger at authority, & figuring out how those goals can be accomplished more effectively by an organized collective (but this will ultimately benefit the individual). If the world isn't run by a shadowy cabal, if you begin to understand the structures responsible & how they manifest even on the scale of your block (e.g.!!! predatory developers buying up properties during a pandemic, tearing down affordable housing to build expensive condos on the lot, or giving old buildings a "spit and polish" so they can double the rent, pricing all the current residents out, not to mention all the little local businesses, almost all mexican & run by the mexican families who live here, that give our block its culture & will get pushed out by boutique coffee shops & the like, catering to a more affluent & almost certainly whiter clientele)--you can, in fact, change the world, something both of them repeatedly referred to as their purpose on earth. it may not be as a maverick figure, one against an army, but strength in numbers is an aphorism for a reason.

anyway! thse guys were also really weird about jews, in the philosemitic way conspiracy theorists of a certain stripe often are. the itinerant vagabond guy gave me one of his drawings; it's really lovely. i'm going to give them "are prisons obsolete?" & "the wretched of the earth" & some david graeber. 44 yr old guy has this idea that society is atomized & people aren't connected to each other & have lost the willingness or the ability to communicate with each other, also that the overreach of authority has driven some people to violence, & that makes the world feel unsafe to everyone else. he feels guilty because he is acutely aware that language, when wielded adroitly & intentionally, always has the capacity to manipulate; he is afraid of succumbing to the temptation, because he senses the coercive power of language within himself. the other guy was mostly quiet but said 44 yr old guy is one of the best friends he's ever had. he thinks animals are able to sense emotions and to heal, & he thinks they can mediate between people who have become too isolated, who have forgotten humans' innate ability to forge connections, approach others as social creatures seeking to bond instead of mistrustful, apprehensive, rejecting overtures of friendship because they expect subterfuge, or propriety has evolved to deem such overtures inappropriate outside of strictly delineated, artificially orchestrated contexts. deviation from the norm is not permitted. & back again to policing. they have an idea called "the omega family," omega for the end, a group of like-minded people who come together, who encounter each other serendipitously (predicted through auspicious auguries & recognized on sight through a constellation of signs & wonders, because of course we are all psychotic here, it was nice to just be psychotic & discuss these things like they were normal lol), & serve as catalysts to each other's "personal truth." anyway this is why i don't go out when i'm crazy, i always end up in situations like this, see also: the last time i did m*th, in a pizza hut bathroom in tallinn with an art student from glascow named muhammad ali (he went by ali), the son of white muslim converts--we thought it was c*ke but it got lost in translation & that's how i figured out i had adhd. later i got [redacted] by a filmmaker from kazan & he gave me his business card afterward for some reason, which was extremely funny. thankfully these dudes were better behaved. one of them even gave a speech about how men shouldn't rape people??? & also how our society shouldn't construct women as universal victims because in doing so it makes victimhood almost compulsory & shoehorns women into a victim role as part & parcel of womanhood? i was like yes my dude you are almost there, read the essay "abject feminism." (i did not tell them i was trans bc i wasn't sure how that would shake down, to be honest; couldn't get a read on it. did tell them i was gay & they respected it, though one did say he dated a lesbian once, & i explained that many men feel compelled to interject with an anecdote relating an exception to the rule or insist that they will he the exception to the rule, & it's really just bad manners, not even getting into the bad politics. he took it on the chin & talked about how the girl in question came home to find her partner dead of an overdose & his wife had just died of MS, so their relationship was more about grief & comfort than sexual attraction. i was like that's really, really sad, & it's wonderful that you were able to be there for each other at a time of such staggering loss, & i am a person who totally understands what you mean to communicate, but if a lesbian tells you they're a lesbian & you reply that you once dated a lesbian & they get offended & instead of responding with contrition or correction you elaborate on the tragic backstory of the relationship as though that explains the circumstances in which a self-proclaimed lesbian would date a cis man, other lesbians *will* deck you, or at the very least not take you, an unwashed white guy in

his 40s who isn't neurotypical & sits way too close for social convention in a way that could easily be construed as a come-on, in good faith.) tl;dr made some new friends, did some good drügs (i much prefer smoking m*th to snorting it, basically like purer, more potent adderall, & as such will not be doing it again for a LONG time, because i enjoy it FAR too much; slices through the brain fog & the chronic fatigue & the joint/bone pain, makes me able to pay attention, follow the thread of a conversation, actually be *interested* & want to ask *questions* & expand, build, encourage my interlocutor to elaborate, place more kal-toh pieces until the conversation shimmers into a three-dimensional shape, instead of being listless & exhausted & disengaged & *bored* all the time, so obviously i would get addicted immediately if given the opportunity, & i've known this forever lol)--now going to hydrate, refill pill case, write some emails, & meet C at the beach! not how i expected to reboot my brain, but it works! also putting them on limited facebook view because i try to keep some groups of people in my life quarantined from each other & that includes 1) my relatives & my academic ~colleagues (ne'er the twain shall meet), 2) my exes & my family, 3) my relatives, colleagues, & uh. a couple of lovely, but extremely psychotic dudes with very long criminal records i met while doing hard drugs

[klanced]

soooooo i was late on asking for the second movie but i call dibs for whenever ur organized enough to infodump it: What Happens In The /Third/ Movie Katie Klanced?

I meant to post this last year but then I got suspended and forgot smh -_-

Anyway it’s been almost a year, so here are a few links to refresh your memory on the masterpiece that is my Despicable Me au. In fact, here’s the tag because I love this au.

In my correct opinion, the third DM movie is definitely the weakest in the franchise, and I pretty much ignored its canon plot and wrote my own. So sorry if there’s a few loose-ends/plot-holes. But this is a Despicable Me au, I am beholden to no gods, no rules.

Roughly a year has passed since the events of the second movie. Coran and Alfor have finally gotten together (they’re either dating or married, I haven’t decided yet). Allura is away at college because I have way too many characters on my hands and I have to sideline out of necessity. Sorry, Allura.

The movie opens up with the entire family getting ready for an award ceremony at the AVL happening that night. It’s about as hectic a scene as you can imagine. Lance is running around without a shirt on. Pidge is wearing three shirts. One is her pajama top, the second is Lance’s aforementioned missing shirt. No one has any idea where the third shirt came from.

When suddenly, the phone rings!

Krolia picks it up, paying only 1/3 attention to the person on the line before she yells that it’s for Coran. Coran limps over, half a chewed shoe in his hand, the other half still on his foot. His right eyebrow is smoking. He is, understandably, a little terse when he shouts to be heard over the background din into the phone.

The screen diagonally bisects, to show Coran on the phone and… Shiro on the other side of the line!

Shiro introduces himself as the new CPS worker assigned to Lance/Hunk/Pidge’s case. Coran immediately has a heart attack and runs to his soundproofed study, slamming the door behind him as Shiro continues to just. Awkwardly talk on the phone lol.

Coran, internally: oh shit oh shit oh FUCK oh shit why now why nowwww oh lord is he calling to take away the kids? is he going to take away my BABIES??

Shiro: sorry for the late phone call sir, i meant to call earlier but i dropped my phone in a puddle and- i mean! the life of a cps worker is just packed hahahahahahahahahaah (WHY are you still laughing you IDIOT) ha-ahem! anyway. i’m the new cps worker, have i mentioned that yet? because i am. it’s just that, after we realized that the kids’ last foster home and agent let a supervillain just walk out with them - uh, no offense, sir! i just meant that, well, supervillains are generally understood to be bad- not to imply that you’re evil of course! Haha of Course Not, even though you were Literally voted the world’s most evil and accomplished supervillain several years in a row, but! That’s neither here nor there. Of course. :)

DM!Verse Shiro is a bit of a nervous doof but he also has a spine of steel when it comes to kids and making sure their living situations are safe. And he is very skeptical of Coran and his parenting skills, which is honestly pretty reasonable considering he’s an outsider looking in. 

I mean, someone who was arguably the world’s greatest villain suddenly deciding to move to suburbia with his three (stolen) adopted kids does… seem like a bit of a stretch. And pretty sus lmfao.

Coran and Shiro eventually stutter their way into a productive conversation and arrange for Shiro to conduct a home visit/other CPS survey stuff very soon. Coran politely bids Shiro farewell, hangs up the phone, and has a panic attack because suddenly it feels like all his worse fears are coming true. Because the other shoe has finally dropped.

Life has been so kind to Coran lately, between his loving marriage and his lovable kids. It’s sad to say, but he’d half-expected something like this to happen for a while. Because people like him don’t deserve this kind of uninterrupted happiness.

Alfor quietly knocks on the door and takes in the scene before him. Coran reaches out, and he immediately rolls to his husband’s side.

Coran collapses against him and catches him up to speed. There’s a pause as Alfor pauses, absorbs, and digest the information, before he starts making calming shushing noises.

Insert Supportive Spouse Speech. Alfor reminds Coran that, for all he’s done in the past, he has damn well earned his present life. Alfor can attest to that, as can Krolia and, most importantly, their children. 

It also doesn’t hurt that the internationally recognized Anti-Villain League is both a sponsor of and willing to provide a character reference for Coran. That counts for something, and Coran finally calms down.

This is what we in the writing business like to call “foreshadowing” :)

Scene cut to the AVL award ceremony. Krolia and Coran are both being recognized for their incredible heroics from the past year, etc etc, blah blah blah. Their speeches are very true to their character.

At the end of it, Kolivan goes up and stage and announces he’s retiring. Krolia, who knew this was happening in advance and fully expects to be named as his replacement, starts checking her lipstick in her hand mirror- only for Kolivan to introduce a ‘Commander Hira’ to the crowds.

FML, this is exactly the plot to the Spongebob Squarepants movie.

The entire Wimbleton Smythe-Altea Family freeze, mid-applause. Hunk awkwardly puts away his ‘CONGRATULATIONS KROLIA!!!!!!!!’ banner. Krolia shatters her hand mirror in her fist.

Within her first month, Hira makes some dramatic changes to the AVL. One of which is the agency’s complete separation from anything having to do with villains, including its rehabilitation program.

“Once a villain always a villain” essentially. Hira insists that villains are simply too evil to ever truly become good again, and that so-called “former” criminals are simply biding their time until they can enact their revenge.

As a result, Coran is fired. Alfor protests Hira’s decision, and resigns out of solidarity. Krolia calls Hira a bitch and is also fired.

The kids are ecstatic that their dads + aunt are home 24/7 now. Krolia is less pleased. She’s been an active agent for more than half her life, so this sudden and forced turn for domesticity has her clawing at the walls.

One of the sub-plots is Alfor trying to convince Coran to become a superhero, “just like the old times.” (Coran: Love, I was literally your supervillain arch-nemesis).

Coran is hesitant, because 1) He still has low self-value and doesn’t see himself as a hero, and 2) He’s perfectly content to mooch off his billionaire boyfriend and spend his time as a stay-at-home dad.

To take their mind off their sudden unemployedness, Coran and Alfor throw themselves into preparing for Shiro’s house visit. This mainly entails Alfor calming Coran down from an anxiety attack every other hour. 

There is a lot of tension in the house.

And then, like magic! An invitation to the biggest supervillain symposium of the year appears, because villain mailing lists are especially evil and refuse to take Coran off their register even though he literally arrests villains for a living.

“So you’re telling me,” Krolia says, and Coran instinctively inches for the door. “That you’ve had an opening into the world’s biggest villain convention, this entire time, and you didn’t tell anyone?”

“W-e-ll,” Coran stutters, slapping blindly behind him for the doorknob, “It just didn’t seem very fair, you know? To ambush them like that, all because of their lazy office workers. That’s not very good sport.”

Krolia and Alfor try to convince Coran that he should go. Krolia is convinced this is the in they need to reclaim their jobs; they’ll infiltrate the Supervillain Symposium, arrest all the biggest bads, call the AVL, rub it in Hira’s face, take a selfie while she’s sobbing in the background, celebrate as the masses drag Hira to the guillotine-

Coran: Krolia I love you, I really do. But you have issues.

Krolia: I happen to be perfectly adjusted for someone in my situation.

Coran is still hmming and hawwing because, now that he doesn’t have to fight villains for a living, he quite likes Not Being In Constant Danger. But then Krolia reminds him that he is both unemployed AND now blacklisted by the AVL, two things which might very well doom him in the eyes of Shiro (and the rest of CPS). He needs to do this if he wants his job back and, therefore, keep his kids.

(…. At some point, Coran shaves off his mustache in a stress-filled attempt at appearing as a better guardian, but no one recognizes him so he has to wear a fake mustache for the rest of the movie)

Coran of course is immediately super gung-ho for this plan and declares they’re leaving ASAP.

The kids of course are raring to go, the adults are vehemently hell no to that idea, and in the ensuing argument everyone forgets that Shiro is coming today. 

A series of events thus follows, which can be summarized as:

The adults say that the kids can’t come.

The kids decide that yes, in fact, kids can come and plan accordingly.

The kids are preparing to tail after the adults (after waiting a reasonable amount of time of course (this isn’t their first rodeo) in their own modified plane when they hear what sounds like their babysitter, the Reformed Lotor, coming around the corner.

The kids immediately go into attack mode only to realize, after the dust has settled, that they’ve actually knocked out Shiro.

In their infinite pre-teen wisdom, the kids decide to stick with the plan and load Shiro into their equivalent trunk and take off.

A few moments later, Lotor finally arrives, looks up from his phone, realizes there are no kids to be watched, and shrugs and goes home.

The scene cuts to Shiro groggily stumbling out of the corner the kids have stashed the plane in, only to realize, to his absolute horror, that he’s on an island filled with Supervillains attending a Supervillain Convention.

Hunk: Man… I feel like we forgot something.

*Shiro screaming in the distance*

For brevity’s sake I’ll cut off here, but just know that this is only the FIRST THIRD (IF EVEN THAT) of the movie. I am absolutely off the CHAINS. I still haven’t even introduced Keith yet. I love this au.

[loadingoliver]

compulsive shopping

something I never thought I would be dealing with. for one, I was never a big spender. since being very little, I hated the thought of people having to spend money on me and I was very good at saving it. yet I've never bought as much as I have the past year and I don't remembered why I bought most of the things or even what they were. which means I've never owned as many unnecessary things before. during that year I also spent all of my savings including some money I’ve had put away for years and rarely touched before because I never had big needs that would require extra money. whenever I reached for those savings this year it felt like an emergency, I planned on putting it back there after my next paycheck, but I never did - some new purchase would always seem more urgent. “I was living from paycheck to paycheck. I was living FOR the paycheck”*(The Minimalism documentary). pretty early on I found myself in a financial crisis and had a lot less money to spend, unfortunately it wasn't about how much I would spend, but the way I would spend it.

since I can recall I’ve always hated spending money going out, going to movies, eating with friends, buying food for myself - it seemed like such a waste of money - on something that lasted a moment instead of something material that I could have forever and that would bring me joy and serve purpose. or better yet, multiple purposes, right? too bad I wouldn’t use anything for long. I own some clothes that I wore literally once or twice. most things I would get were horrible quality and poor source which I was aware of. a lot of clothes didn't fit me, therefore didn't serve purpose, but instead would make me feel frustrated with what I looked like. and the joy, momentary excitement, dopamine kick - that was what would initially drive my constant need to buy new things, but it would last less and less time. the rush I would get from checking out “inspirations”, looking up things, reading product reviews, planning purchases, placing orders, waiting for deliveries and then using those items for the first few times- gradually it shrunk to feeling excited until the end of each transaction. I haven't even worn something, I didn't even get it in the mail, I would already look for something else, I was already hung up on something new. I had never-ending lists in my head of stuff I wanted to get next, that I needed next. I had a few private Pinterest boards specifically for that, that's what all my Instagram likes went to. and I would obsess over them. that’s what I would spend all of my free time on. my energy, thoughts, motivation to get up, to work, to survive through bad days. to live, I guess. they were my treats for doing well, my consolation prizes and my what the hell’s. I didn't plan on buying 10 things at once, but just this one and, of course, these two. while still in my head, most things felt essential, unlike previous ones- I was crazy getting that previous item, but this? I clearly need this. if I look better, I’ll feel better.  my shopping habits were gradually becoming more impulsive and compulsive. I was no longer thinking through or questioning what I needed, practicality was not high on my list. I would almost never try on stuff, I would base my decisions on the fact that I liked the way something looked on someone I saw. usually on Pinterest or Instagram- so people of completely different proportions, physical features, lifestyles, preferences and identities - not me. it usually looked good with other articles of clothing that I didn't own, so when shoes arrived in the mail and I wasn’t so sure about them, I would sometimes convince myself that I also needed different trousers, t-shirts, different colours or materials to go with them, that would solve it. when I had less money, I would buy more, but cheaper items. it made so much more sense to buy multiple things for less. and if it’s cheap, why think twice?what's the harm? I actually knew enough about the harms of fast fashion industry, but I chose to ignore them. I thought I couldn’t afford to be environmentally conscious, to make ethical choices, to consider people behind products, to pick more intentionally. I couldn’t afford to buy as many quality items, so I chose quantity over quality. and it’s hard to appreciate quality, when you get bored and dissatisfied with everything so quickly. but each time it felt like that one item was the one that would perfectly fill in the painful space in my life, each product seemed ridiculously important for a short while, it somehow was supposed to be the start of a new life- a toothbrush that, at least in the pictures, matches my bathroom tiles and other beautiful, pure, and organic-looking sink accessories that I was getting next; or a running windbreaker that I can fold into the size of my fist and that might not go with any of my clothes, but I could always have it with me and it would help me save space in my giant everyday backpack full of other essentials. it felt like every little thing would weirdly define me for a second. that when I pick a product, I decide what kind of a person I am. but who I was and what I liked was becoming very blurry.

style and clothing felt like such an easy way or opportunity to redefine or redesign myself. it gave me a sense of identity, it was a symbol of a different better life. and when I was out of ideas for myself and my life, any image that gave me a sense of what I lacked i.e. self-confidence, self-respect, ease, balance or even better social skills or ability to fit in among certain people sounded great. I reached a point where there were too many different voices saying what would make me feel better and I would get very confused. not even with what I needed or wanted, but as to what I liked, what was aesthetically pleasing. which btw, while not the most important in life, comes in pretty fucking handy when you work as a product designer and a craftsman. that lead me to my worse state. I could change my mind about what I wanted to look like, which subconsciously translated into whom I wanted to be, in five minutes while randomly scrolling through a board of pictures on my Pinterest or checking out my Instagram feed. it didn’t come out of nowhere, I was never able to stick to the same clothes, I went through so many stages, I tried out more haircuts within the last five years than most people have in their lifetime. I actually would feel sorry for people who had the same hairstyle their whole life and wore the same type of clothes for years- how boring are you and how unadventurous is your life? I didn’t see the integrity some of those people have, the lack of need to fix what already works, the peace, the contentment, the blissful zero fucks to give about something this empty and unimportant. I thought they lacked sensitivity, awareness and were afraid to experiment or take a risk, while it seemed natural for me to play around, constantly research, look for something. I even convinced myself that I had to be that way to keep an open mind and my creativity levels high. but when it got out of control and started changing so fast I couldn't keep up with it, I realised how much my low-self esteem was being used by the industry convincing me to want new things to fix me and immediately hate the old ones. definitely wasn’t news to me as a phenomenon, but took me a while to realise that it affected me, and how much. as those things tend to, it aligned with various work stuff, break ups, prolonged health problems, family conflicts, other everyday stuff and social media apps, including Instagram and Pinterest, have become my pacifiers, a way to push away all sorts of thoughts, issues, anxiety, to look away, to avoid, to calm down, to entertain myself, to distract me and keep me busy. once I realised just that, they stopped working that well. I suddenly felt like notifications, badges, sponsored posts, fake smiles, free trials, special discount codes, pictures carefully selected for me were attacking me more and more, but none of them no longer made much sense. it all quickly turned into an uninteresting, disturbing, worthless noise and waste of my time that I was able to, surprisingly easily, let go off. sadly, that didn't make my shopping urges and impulses go away. in fact, I still have to fight them pretty much every day and it will take a while. but I really want to work on this. work on this by not letting things be more than things are and define me or change the way I feel about myself. even though I don’t feel great about myself right now. I want to end this post on a positive note because I’m really feeling incomparably better most days now, but the truth is I obviously just started uncovering some stuff and it’s not pretty, so it might take more than giving up retail therapy.

if you can relate, feel more than free to message me, bother me, ask me questions, but beware I might recommend you an endless list of podcasts, essays and videos that helped me and that my friends can’t take any more. if you can’t relate, you lucky fuck, hope you found this interesting. and if you did, the interesting part actually is the shit that happens next, now that I’m taking steps to live a simpler, slower live, without all that excess bullshit, so stay tuned.