#so many of the options out there are ''anti-ageing'' bullshit

[krakensdottir]

Why you can’t just ‘release’ dolphins

In case anyone who follows me was wondering about the captive cetacean stuff, I thought I’d type up a little thing about why they’re so difficult to return to the wild compared to many other animals.

Because animals differ widely in how easily they can be reintroduced to their habitat. It depends on how many life skills they need to learn, whether they have a complex social structure they also need to learn about first, how dangerous their habitat is, and how much they’ve already been accustomed to humans. Wildlife rescuers take in animals as babies and release them as adults on a regular basis, by taking pains to make sure they don’t bond with their caregivers. But this doesn’t work with all species.

Cetaceans are really complicated for two reasons: they’re predators, so they have to be able to hunt, and they’re extremely social, so they have to learn to navigate a pod structure. If they’re interrupted early in their socialization process, they actually fail to develop these skills. It’s why there’s a cutoff point around the age of 3, below which a stranded dolphin cannot be released. Like, legally. It’s not aquariums deciding this, it’s a national policy. A bottlenose dolphin that strands as a calf is not eligible for release, ever. It will not grow up into a wild dolphin at that point. It’s like the reverse of a feral cat.

(There are exceptions to this rule, typically involving less social cetacean species like harbor porpoises. They can be rescued as calves and later released, because the life skills they have to learn are less complicated. But bottlenoses and most other oceanic dolphins, orcas, pilot whales etc., cannot be released alone, and wild pods often don’t accept them. Hence the policy.)

They also bond to humans, like, hard. If a cetacean was captured or rescued as a youngster, or born in human care, it’s pretty much impossible to de-socialize them to humans. Every effort was made to do exactly that with Keiko, the whale who played Willy, and he just would not do it. Teaching him to hunt, trying to get him to interact with wild whales... he played along to some extent, but he wouldn’t take the final step of breaking ties with humans. He kept seeking them out. And since that wasn’t according to plan, he wasn’t allowed to return to human care. Wasn’t an option, it would’ve looked bad. Instead, when he refused to integrate, he was confined to a netted cove, where he died. This is on top of multiple cases of attempted releases, mostly of bottlenose dolphins, that resulted in the animals either starving, stranding, or coming up to humans in the wild and begging them for food and attention. (Including one in the 90s that was conducted by notorious anti-captivity advocate Ric O’Barry. The project failed miserably, one animal was killed in the attempt, but he didn’t learn his lesson and is still on his bullshit today.)

We’ve seen it again and again. Animals trained to go out to sea, who are reluctant to leave their pen and then reluctant to leave the escort boat. Animals that escape sea pens and come back, literally jump right back in as soon as the novelty of freedom wears off. On a few occasions, wild cetaceans have even tamed themselves. That’s how people used to end up with ‘pet’ dolphins back in the day when it wasn’t yet illegal.

Now, there have been successful cetacean releases. All of those cases involved adult animals which had only been captive a short time, usually after being rescued. They re-adjust just fine. But if the animal has adapted to living with humans, it won’t un-learn those behaviors. It is functionally no longer a wild animal. Ironically, considering their presence in captivity is more controversial than any other animal group, cetaceans are among the very hardest to ‘return to the wild’. And part of the reason seems to be that they don’t want to. Contrary to all expectations, they often choose easy meals and safety over freedom. A lot of wild animals will do this, given the chance, but dolphins are really stubborn about it. Releasing a captive cetacean involves convincing it that it WANTS to be free. And sometimes that seems to be the hardest part.

So yeah, we’ve tried it several times. We know what works and what doesn’t. It’s not a hypothetical, we have a very good idea what will happen if we try to release all captive whales and dolphins (most of which, by now, were born in captivity, since Western facilities haven’t captured wild animals in decades). We know that the odds of success are dismal, and animals will almost certainly die in the attempt. Hence the big clash between people who have practical experience with cetaceans, or in-depth knowledge of their care, and animal rights activists (and the public they’ve been misleading for years now). It doesn’t even matter at this point if you think they should be released. That’s not relevant. It doesn’t work, it’s dangerous, and it flies in the face of all welfare concerns. It shouldn’t even still be on the table at this point. I don’t know how many more times we’ll have to watch it go wrong before we accept that.

[ohwell-itsme-but-danganronpa]

The age-old question: Is Kokichi the villain?

Ves: this one whiplashes back and forth from objectively correct to SO SO WRONG so much idk how to feel

Me: well, they're right on their main point and simplified some things to get there and at the end he's an anti-hero, not a villain

Ves: i get being frustrated with woobfication but acting like the cast NEVER treated him unfairly is. UHHHHH Kokichi Is An Asshole, But! - my thesis statement also "bragging about how he got two people killed without a hint of genuine remorse" not a HINT!? NOTHING?? YOU CAN'T REMEMBER A SINGLE THING FROM THAT POSTTRIAL THAT SEEMED REMORSEFUL TO YOU!? 'start looking at him as a villain instead of a clueless victim' this is NOT a zero sum game both of those options r wrong

Me: they treated him Like That before he earned it and in his speech at the end of the 4th trial there's a portion when he says he's just stepping up to what's expected from him

Ves: NO LITERALLYYY THE SCENE IN THE DEATH ROAD LIKE….

Me: he was asking to be executed too, but sure, no remorse

Ves: what are we defining as remorse?? because that seems like literally the most remorseful a person could get to me oohhh i forgot remorse can mean REGRET yeah he's not very regretful neither is gonta! they're both crushed w guilt but that's not the same i guess

Me: the whole. everyone believing him when the lies fit what they want to see. bullshit he's a liar until he's saying he's evil, until he's taking something back, because surely he wouldn't lie about lying without saying the catchphrase

Ves: yeag like,,,when it's 'half my lies are told with good intentions' and 'i'm just trying to give gonta good advice, he'll get killed being so naive' and 'monokuma is going to make you suffer for cooperation like he did kaede' and so on and so on…. that's DEFINITELY a lie guys

Me: he left room to be seen through, he gave hints, he gave so many opportunities for them to get it, that he can't be doing it openly, but they went in with pre-packaged distrust specifically for him I love the theory that Tsumugi had them brainwashed to be opposed to him as a default to push him into his role

Ves: you're right but i wouldn't even describe it as HINTS, he has TWO SEPARATE MONOLOGUES about the danger of public cooperation that honestly monokuma should've clocked [sob emoji] but that's getting more into danganronpa writing than kokichi's morals i love giving him stuff that makes them inherently unnerved by him from the beginning

Me: this is also related to how much of "script" I believe there was for the game, I think they were given cues for how they're supposed to feel, little unconscious suggestions, a vague outline set with motives, nothing actually set in stone, the flashback making machine wouldn't need multiple options if there was a whole defined script that's expected to be executed to a t

Ves: i always thought tsumugi's claim that everything was scripted didn't. make sense. but i can never really feel out how much of it was

Me: she gave them roles, and then left them to improvise, she also has a lot of lines that cue you in on what she wants you to think of other characters, she wouldn't need to be doing that if she already controlled what you thought of them, but she's checking in, if you'll agree

Ves: truuuuee the way she talks about gonta always makes me shudder and the way she talks about kokichi always makes me giggle SNDJBHSHF she's sooo bitchy about him i love her

Me: she wants to shoehorn him into being a classic antagonist so bad and he just doesn't fit, like, I could swear she makes a reference to Nagito at least once when talking about him

Ves: THE WAY SHE TALKS ABT RANTAROU FITS THAT REALLY WELL TOO she KEEPS bringing up him being the fanservice character a playboy and he keeps shooting her down

Me: She fucking hates Rantaro and it's so funny, what did he dooo that finally puts her calling him a normie in a context, he ruined a cliché she was trying to pull, that's punishable by death

Ves: it's like when she yells at shuuichi in the FTEs for trying to say she isn't plain

Sini: I will say this, even though he did in fact show remorse in that instance I can’t blame the others for still being bitchy and pissed with him. Even if he had a good reason, which he did, what he did was still majorly fucked up. He was an asshole throughout the whole trial, an asshole to Gonta until that one moment, and then led him to his brutal death. I’m not saying how they treated him at that moment was good, but they aren’t really going to be thinking too rationally after all that. Ig one thing you could say is that they tend to not treat other culprits like Kirumi that way, but in that case I’d say they should’ve overall had written the characters reactions post trial or what not differently in general

Ves: oh no i absolutely think how the characters treat kokichi after ch4 is justified. i just think the op's casual dismissal is. UHHHH shoulda specified i was talking abt them and not the cast, sorry! kokichi was absolutely an asshole and deserved to get treated like one, but i think op fell too in line with the characters

Me: it was a situation where everyone sucked, nobody ever could begin to be equipped to deal with this shit, and so, nobody handled it well the end of the world was involved

Sini: Yeah, like, he’s a liar. Everyone only assumed he must be lying when trying to be helpful or didn’t mean well when he was spitting straight facts. No one bothered to listen to him. I get he’s an asshole, but fuck man, they cozied up to Maki. Wth is her excuse?

Ves: maki is the wall i always run into here maki is just as mean as he is and FARRR more dangerous but. her being an assassin was added later than her being a waifu

Mauri: i love maki. but in canon why the fuck did everyone love her she choked him out after he revealed that she was a fucking TRAINED KILLER and no one was worried abt that ??? kodaka dont make every single female character waifu bait challenge (almost impossible bc miu my love my life)

Ves: they literally cut to the next day when they're all looking through her lab and not ONCE do they comment on how that debacle…ended. DID ANYONE HELP HIM???

Sini: If Kokichi was a girl, I swear, things would’ve been a little different

Ves: if kokichi was a girl but written the same ppl'd say he EATS BABIES if he was written like kodaka likes to write women he WOULD eat babies but it'd be like, fine

Sini: Kokichi literally revealed a threat to the cast. And yet they still treat him like he’s this big villain….WHAT? Okay, but literally people treat Celeste better than Kokichi. Celeste is worse than Kokichi in everyway (personality wise)

Me: Celeste is evil in such a simple way, it's easy to brush over she's just greedy, a materialistic girl in a materialistic world, who could blame her? murder? god forbid women do anything

Sini: She’s very slay, but it’s just shitty cause you know people only excuse her cause she’s a cute girl

[lovecanbesostrange]

The following comes from a place of love, this is not an anti-post or whatever hate-bullshit. No, quite the opposite. I have been a Jo Wilson defender, I have watched her develop and puzzled her story together, I saw (and still see) so much potential. But I'm at a point where I have to give up.

By now a part of me wishes she had adopted Luna and then taken all her money to fuck out off Grey-Sloan. Find another job in a small town, because she dreams up some cozy single-mom life there or find a private practice to work at for good enough pay with a reasonable schedule. Whatever.

The problem has always been that she was written for Alex first and foremost. She has been on this show since season 9. We are closing up S20 next week. Counting her medical storylines is a shitshow. They had no clue what do with her as an actual surgeon. Except telling us that she's good at it and then there was the fun period in time where she was like I-read-research-and-know-stuff.

Personal drama always mixes with patient stories, that's the whole concept. We learn about the character's flaws and strengths and personal history that way. But oh dear, is this not balanced out with Jo. They dropped the ball when they had so many good opportunities. And when Alex left (the only real option the writers had was to kill him and I understand why they didn't want to), everything got worse.

Of course Jo grew up, good for her. I don't exactly miss "I used to live in my car" every episode. But that is a thing that did happen and how did they not let Mika and Jo have scenes together? (What I wanted was for Jo to end up in the house and mention something about living there; they gave that joke to Bailey instead who only ever visited. Then again Bailey is also the one who took a street kid in, the one thing I hoped Alex/Jo would do, because that would have made sense. lol )

Shouldn't the whole switching-specialties story be exciting? How come it is absolutely not? Ugh. The absence of plastics and pediatrics has been felt so much. But she goes into OB, where we have a character, but oh wait she's on the other show and also barely works.

Watching your fav die is painful. But this feels worse. A slow, dragged out death of character, but the person is still there. (Don't get me wrong, in this age of tv, any actor willingly passing on a gig like this - the secure paycheck, working with people you know so well - is madness. I would cling to the job, no shade there.)

[womenfrommars]

About the Russia / Ukraine war : Why aren't we allowed, as Europeans, to help other Europeans ? Why do we have to "welcome" people from non European countries with a very different culture, people who aren't even Europeans themselves ? I don't get it. Y'all act as if middle Eastern refugees have zero asylum options outside of Europe and that's bullshit. Americans, tell me, why don't YOU welcome Pakistani, Afghan, Syrian refugees, instead of lecturing us when we're helping our fellow Europeans in need first ? Ukrainians refugees won't pose any problem because they have the same culture as us. You know why we don't want to have people from the middle East in Europe, especially young males ? Because they grew up in a culture that is the exact opposite of ours. I don't want to be surrounded by men who think women should be locked up in the kitchen with 8 kids, a burqa and a mutilated clitoris. I don't want to have a neighbor that thinks I should be a slave with less rights than a fucking dog and that homosexuals should be decapitated. Does that really make me a bigot?! You take them. Go ahead. Don't complain when you can't go out wearing a skirt without being called a whore. Don't complain when acid attacks become the norm. Don't complain when gay and Jewish people of your city have to move out to avoid being harassed, beaten, even killed. Get out of your stupid little liberal bubble ffs!!!!!

People act as if all refugees are the same but they're clearly not. Ukraine right now isn't allowing males to leave the country, unless they are minors or of old age. Most Ukranian refugees are therefore women and children. However, Middle-Eastern and African refugees are mostly young males. The reason is that in these cultures, it is considered indecent for a (young) woman to travel alone. Families give all the money to one man, who will arrive somewhere safe and will then try to get the rest of the family to come later. It is doubtful to what degree this even happens. Many refugees are rejected so they won't be allowed to get their family to come over via family reunification laws. They are legally obliged to leave the country they applied for asylum in, but often they go to another European country to apply for asylum there (which is illegal according to the Treaty of Dublin). These countries are, coincidentally, also the wealthiest countries in Europe. Ukranian refugees, however, are mostly applying for asylum in Eastern-European countries, which are the closest to them. If they were so-called ''economic migrants'', they would move on to Western-Europe. As of yet, they're not really doing that. This also speaks to their motivations to leave their country. A Middle-Eastern refugee who applies for asylum in Germany will have passed many safe countries along the way, in contrast

It is doubtful to what degree Ukranian culture is similar to (Western) European culture. I'm taking a wild guess and will say I expect many of them to be homophobic. Some Ukranians are Jewish but many Jews also had to leave Ukraine due to anti-Semitism there. As of currently Ukraine is trying to portray itself as a Western nation whereas a week ago nobody considered them Western at all. Zelenski is now a Western hero whereas nobody even knew who he was until a few days ago. The topic of NATO membership is also coming up and even EU membership as well. I think people feel more solidarity when there is a common enemy (in case: Russia). But most people here know jack shit about Ukranian culture, I won't lie. I do expect them to fit in better culturally with other Slavic countries, not so much with Western-European countries. I believe they share the same religion (Christian Orthodoxism) and have some shared history as well. European solidarity is a bit wonky because most Europeans feel connected to their own country first and foremost. This is also a huge problem with the EU. EU elections always gather a lower turnout rate than national elections do. Many people don't have faith in the EU because it feels too far removed from them, and many Europeans don't trust Europeans of other countries. EU politics have been very intense because of the situation in Poland (the EU Commission alleged they broke down their own rule of law). It doesn't help that Belarus and Russia tried to break down the EU by using refugees at the Polish border

All in all I'd rather accept genuine (female) Ukranian refugees than (male) African and Middle-Eastern refugees who are oftentimes just economic migrants. Shoot me

[popculturebuffet]

Uncle Scrooge by Don Rosa:  The Isle at the Edge of Time (Thank You Comission For Rosie Isla)

Hello all you happy people! Today’s review is a bit special as it’s the result of another review. See I had trouble finding a translation of the subject of last weeks’ mother’s day special, Family Ties. 

No not that one. I have Paramount+. I can watch all the Family Ties I want and that’s a fact that i’m pleased as punch about. 

No it was the story 80 is Prachtig, called Family Ties in the copy used, Della’s first major comics appearance and one that explains what happened to her in the classic continuity, one that clearly served as the foundation for her far more fleshed out 2017 versions personality and backstory. It also had Pinocchio in it for some reason, and spent most of it’s large run time on a meta comedy plot that had nothing to do with the reason anyone wanted to read this story in the first place.

But despite being a vitally important story, it never got an english translation, something that baffled me till I read the story and found cameos of the racist indigenous stereotypes from Peter Pan. In 2014. You may commence booing. Even with how weird the story was I simply couldn’t find the story googling it and the Della tag is too vast and deep to go spelunking in.

So what’s all this have to do? Simple I put out a post last month when neither I nor Kev, who wanted to comission it as part of Moons, Millionares and Mothers, my coverage of all three season 2 Ducktales story arcs, could find a copy and offered a review to whoever found it.  Weeks passed I got nothing.. then in the 11th hour I got a break as the lovely @rosieisla​ found a translation that was on this very site, one she seemed to have helped with. As a result I could do the review and as a man of my word, offered it up despite her clearly having not seen that part of the post and simply having done this to be nice. Still she gladly took up the offer and offered me my pick of two stories: The Carl Barks Story Back to Long Ago or this one. 

As for WHY I picked this one Back To Long Ago didn’t seem bad, i’m just not a fan of “The Cast is put in the past as their own ancestors” type deals. Or in some cases put the cast as people from that time period. It’s just not for me and is most often done in TV where it can get really goofy, Beverly Hills 90210 being a prime example of this, though Girl Meets World was no slouch in being embarassing... that being said I really need to finish that show and miss it. 

So yeah when put up against a story with two intresting hooks and FLINTHEART GLOMGOLD, even if i’ts not the version that’s my boy, it was no contest. So what are these hooks you ask? Well join me under the cut and find out. 

We open with a weird stylistic choice: This story has a narrator complete with caption boxes. Now for those of you familiar with comics or pastiches of comics in tv and film, this probably dosen’t seem like a big deal. It was a common thing in comics from their inception to 90′s to have caption boxes, big boxes of text narrating the action to help move things along faster. It did start to fade out by the 80′s and was gone by the end of the 90′s for the most part, replaced instead with first person narration. It’s the kind of thing you’d see most often in the Golden and Silver Ages, with stuff like tihs

It’s not a BAD device, it’s good old cheesy and bombastic fun and some writers did get clever with it.. like that time Chris Claremont used the narration to yell at a greiving cyclops after he lost a teammate early in his long and storied run on the uncanny x-men. 

This is a objectively weird scene that’s still somehow effective by the by. On the one hand it does come off as Chris Claremont essentally bullying Cyclops who already feels guilty for a death that was not in fact his fault as Thunderbird was told the plane he was attacking with fleeing villian Count Nefaria was about to explode and refused to listen.. and that they needed to get rid of either him or Wolverine as both served the same purpose and chose the non-white guy. 

On the other htough it comes off just as much as Scott beating himself up in his grief and anger over the event and his perceived failings as a leader. It’s good stuff and shows why this run caught on as this was only three issues in. Also the rest of the issue features the X-Men fighting a giant cyclopian demon that Cyclops accidently freed in his rage by destroying the stone thing keeping him imprisoned. No really here’s the cover

Huh so tha’ts what Nifty’s dad looks like. Neat. Also I REALLY hope we get the X-Men fighting aliens or demons in the MCU. Unlike the XCU the MCU isn’t alergic to getting batshit.. and for the record Deadpool and New Mutants are the exception, not the rule.

My point that I swear I do have is that this was common practice for most comics.. but never really for Disney Duck comics. It popped up ocasionally, like with Scrooge’s introduction, but Barks and those after him never really used them that much. Sure they’d have caption boxes for flasbacks and what not but Barks and Co geninely only used this sort of thing to set up a story. The most i’ve seen it in a duck comic is life and times and even then i’ts usually only used for gags or to set up the passage of time, as the story IS covering decades and thus often needed to have montages to show time passing, and in the case of chapter 11, had to cover decades in the span of a single chapter, so it’s not like they had many other options. So even Rosa as a personal quirk didn’t really use these often. 

Rosa used this specifically because he felt the plot was complicated by the use of the international date line. As for what it is, it’s essentially a line marking calender dates from one side of the hemisphere to the others. To use the offical defentition from the National Ocean Service I found via a quick google:

“The International Date Line, established in 1884, passes through the mid-Pacific Ocean and roughly follows a 180 degrees longitude north-south line on the Earth. It is located halfway round the world from the prime meridian—the zero degrees longitude established in Greenwich, England, in 1852.

The International Date Line functions as a “line of demarcation” separating two consecutive calendar dates. When you cross the date line, you become a time traveler of sorts! Cross to the west and it’s one day later; cross back and you’ve “gone back in time."

Despite its name, the International Date Line has no legal international status and countries are free to choose the dates that they observe. While the date line generally runs north to south from pole to pole, it zigzags around political borders such as eastern Russia and Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.”

Rosa felt this made the story complicated.... and that... really isn’t remotely true. The narration is mostly used for gagas and really dosen’t clarify anything. it’s mostly used well in the opening.. but the actual explinations for the date line are clear enough in the story that even if I hadn’t looked the thing up, I still would’ve got it and i’m sure a kid would’ve too. It just feels like a weird thing to ruminate on, especially because he’s got actual things to make up for: while to his credit the native american characters he cribbed from carl barks are sympathetic, their culture respected and treated decently and used for a green aseop, their dialouge is stitled and sterotypical something he dosen’t even comment on (And these trades ewren’t THAT long ago) 

And of course it dosen’t help that he dosen’t even comment on using a common device in american superhero boooks.. in the same volume where he ONCE again makes an unwanted and outdated diatribe about superhero comics. I’ll probably cover the Super Snooper Strikes again so I can throughly tear this apart but higlights include: Calling superhero comics “Unwanted” just because he dosen’t like them personally, when people like me would disagree and they’ve lasted through a LOT of highs and lows, outdately saying they took over the American market as the only suitable comics which while true for a TIME,but by 2015 when this book was printed is laughably out of date, as non superhero works like The Walking Dead, Saga, and Scott Pilgrim were massively popular, one of my faviorite comics that is entirely slice of life and would go on to bea huge hit, Giant Days, re-debuted that very year. He also has the fucking gal to insult The Uncanny X-Men by name and I swear to god I did not know this when I made those references earlier, but as you probably guessed REALLY god me livid. 

And this is just on his COMMENTS on the story I can’t imagine just how bad the content itself is and having read the first few pages which come off as Rosa using Donald to essentially do an “old man yells at cloud rant” about superhero comics, I really don’t want to. Might make htis a patreon exclusive or again would do it on comissoin. You all make the call.... the point is I don’t likes his elitist bullshit about superhero comics, and this is clearly something that gets my hackles up as I just spent a good two paragraphs of an entirely unrealted review yelling at the guy for it. I don’t like when he does this and this authors notes entirley felt like an excuse. I GET the dark age of comics were bad, they REALLY were that bad, but I will NEVER accept painting an enitre genre as bad just because one work in it is bad. And I wont accept it from someone who himself writes about an often throughly unlikeable anti-hero for a living.  Scrooge may not have a gun on his gun on his gun or get to stabbing or have pouches, but he DOES finacially abuse his nephew, scoff at people’s personal troubles, and often refuse to use his wealth to help others in general. So yeah in conclusion Rosa really needs to say less about this subject. 

Okay so where were we.. right the story hadn’t even started yet. Jesus. 

Okay so our story begins with the narrator. Whose going on about time and what not. The main point of this speech about time is that it’s night in Duckburg and Scrooge is going to bed as, even being the workhorse that he is, he can’t keep going 24 hours. While he’s snoozing though something major happens and it’s the hook that made me pick this story along with the international dateline one.. an island rises thanks to volcanic erruption.. and the lava is GOLD. That’s just pure unabashed classic Duck Stuff: a mysterious treasure or phenominon of gold bound to bring scrooge in. 

But Scrooge isn’t stupid: the sun comes up and the world still spins while he sleeps, so he set up a satalite to monitor for this sort of thing. The thing naturally goes nuts.. and even more naturally breaks down becasue Scrooge bought cheap parts. A nice gag and a fully in character way to bring our antagonist into the picture, as the Satellite of Loaded falls in the middle of South Africa... right on the property of my boy Flintheart Glomgold. 

This is something Rosa brought up in his commentary for the story i’d never thought about. It turns out Glomgold being a citzen of Duckburg WASN’T an invention of the original Ducktales but the comics: some overseas had understandably moved him from his home country of South Africa. Him bieing in the same town as Scrooge instead of half a world away allows for easier setups and more intresting ones.

Rosa however being obdient to Barks Version of things, ketp Glomgold in South Africa like barks did, which was an .. ifffy decision given Apartheid had JUST ended at the time of this story. Not so much in the reboot as not only had apartheid been long gone by the time of the reboot, but that’s more fair. Still we do get some gorgeous vistas as a result as Glomgold’s minon goes to look at it and finds it’s from McDuck Mining company... Glomgold’s reaction is obvious. 

So on that note we cut to Scrooge rushing to Donalds house and forcing him awake and not telling him anything at first. Look his Ducktales Counterpart straight up kidnapped his donald in my last review, I’d call this a win. He also tries to dress Donald while explaning both his panic to find the crashed satlitle and what it found: the golden island. The end result of him dressing donald is worth a chuckle

So after Donald puts his shirt and little hat on our heroes get rollin rollin rollin what keep rollin rollin rollin who to Manilla. On the plane we get the scene I mentioned: The boys make a quip about Scrooge having lost a day and the group go over the international date line. It’s a fun little scene especially Donald trying to get paid early at the end. Classic scrooge and donald stuff without the abusive undertones some of their classic stuff has. 

Meanwhile Glomgold works out the data and finds out about the gold island, and his excitement accidently wakes a giraffe outside.. welll it was nice knowing him, Giraffes are the deadliest species known to man.. here’s an educational video t back that up....

So at Manilla Airport, Scrooge finds out abotu the south african crash, figuring he’ll get a laugh out of glomgold being there ... only for Donald to spot the Jet. Scrooge figures this can’t be anything good... now come on man maybe he’s just promoting his energy drink. 

As super sayin god super sayian as my witness, I will never get tired of Ultra Instinct Glomgold here. 

Scrooge isn’t so nice about that though and figures he better find out if Glomgold knows about the island and bribes one of the fueling crew for his uniform. He sucesssfully eavesdrops on Glomgold talking to his pilot, finding out from him exactly WHERE the island is. He ends up hilariously botching the mission though: when getting ready to leave Glomgold complains abotu the price of gas and that naturally causes Scrooge, just as cheap, to join in... and Glomgold to find out it’s Scrooge. The two wrestle outside the plane but before this can progress to a game of Naked Robber an airport security guy comes up and Scrooge cleverly claims that Glomgold’s plane has an infestiation, requring it to be quanrantined and allowing Scrooge to jet on.. thoguh not with an actual jet. With Glomgold seemingly dispatched, he can afford to save some money and take his time with a seaplane and I know just the man for the job. 

Oh nope looks like he’s busy. So one time related rambles later we meet Keoki, their asian pilot from the tiny island of Wookawooka.. and no that’s not a real place i checked... and no Fozzy dosen’t own it his check bounced. That being said it is a very well done represntation of someone from a smaller country: he’s doing this job to try and bring money back home, but being a seaplane captain just isn’t enough and his island is dying. Scrooge naturally is about as sympathetic as you’d expect, having apparently never even heard of the idea of a bonus when Huey, Dewey or Louie suggests it. 

Even less suprising is that Glomgold streaks by in his Jet:turns out Manilla was already overun with the bugs Scrooge claimed and Donald rubs it in that had Scrooge got a JET this wouldn’t of been an issue. 

So Glomgold easily beats them there, and to add insult and actualy injury to a cash based one, our heroes get blasted by golden lava on the way in and crash. Should’ve gotten launchpad... got the crashing professional. Keoki is dispondent as this means his people are doomed. He also dosen’t know waht staking a claim is when Scrooge mentions it and the boys bring him up to speed with the poor guy saying he wish he could for WookaWooka. Donald also makes a valid point about how greedy and heartlress scrooge can be.. and really billiionares in general.

No no YOUR the Grouch who refuses to have one drop of emapthy. Donald’s just pissed at your general selfish and terrible behavior. 

Glomgold glomgloats and has seemingly won... but naturally that rant that seemed extranious at the time about the date line comes into play: turns out the Island is on it, and since glomgold put his marker int he west, Scrooge simply puts his in the east which is a whole day before. Now GRANTED there’s nor eal legal prescendice for the intetaoinal date line itself , as noted above... but there’s enough witnesses in Scrooge’s favor that it simply does not matter anyway. Scrooge SEEMINGLY wins.

But Huey, Dewey Or Louie instead backs another claim: Keoki’s from earlier. While it was made in gest, he and the others along with Donald back it as witnsses instad. WookaWooka is saved and SCrogoe ends the story yelling at the narrator.

Final Thoughts: Don Rosa.. did not like this story, feeling it wasn’t one of his best and apologizing for it. I however.. really loved it. It’s not PERFECT: the narration feels not entirely necessary and the gag isn’t as funny as he thinks, though the payoff of scrooge saying “it’s time for this story to end” is fucking hilarous. I also feel it’s a bit too compressed: the story is only 16 pages and was only THAT long because Rosa added a few for exposition, a worthy addition. This feels like one of his 30 page adventure stories but slightly crammed into half the length. I also feel the golden island bit was BADLY underused as it’s such a cool setting but barely shows up in the story. 

But despite that.. it’s still a fun story: as is standard for Rosa the art is gorgeous and the humor is great. And unlike some stories where Rosa casually ignores how terrible scrooge is, here it’s his own greed and hubris that do him in: had he actually agreed to help Keoki, the boys likey would’ve let him keep the island but his own cold refusual to be a human being does him in, just as his cheapness nearly did. Flintheart is also decent here.. not the deepest foe but frankly most classical duck antagonists really aren’t all that fleshed out, and we still get some good bits with him. The dateline bit, while telegraphing that it will be important, as I said REALLY isn’t that hard to understand. All in all while i’ll agree with Rosa this isn’t his BEST, it’s still a really damn good story and one he shoudln’t be ashamed of. 

Tommorow: Green Eggs and ham is back for some train shenanigans! Kay. 

Saturday: The Tom Retrospective returns for it’s last detour! Eclipsa and Moon team up to stop meteora but grapple with diffrent wants: One to save her daughter.. the other to stop waht she clearly sees as an out of control monster. The result.. will only lead to tragedy and a hell of a two parter. 

If you liked this review consider joining my patreon, patroen.com/popculturebuffet. At as low as 2 bucks a month you get accesss to my patreon discord, exclusive reviews, and to pick a short when I do one of my shortstragavanzas, a marthon of theatrical shorts honoring a characters birthday. And given Donald’s is next month, now’s the time to get on board. 

But if you go up to 5 you get a guaranteed review of whatever you want every month, and will get me to my next milestone, which will give everyone including yourself a monthly public darkwing duck review, reviews of the two Ducktales minis’ I haven’t covered (Time is Money and SuperDuckTales) and a reivew of the Danny Phantom film the Ultimate Enemy. So please join today and if you cannot, like this review, subscribe and give me your opinions on it bellow. Or even if you can feedback is always appricated and I will see you at the next rainbow. 

[gay-jesus-probably]

Bisexuality didn't "feel right" as a label because you're biphobic and will do anything to distance yourself from bisexuality. Get well soon, the bi community will be here when you're ready.

Are you the raging homophobe anon back for round two or a new guy? ...It doesn’t really matter, you people are all the same.

If you are the same anon, then now I’m extra pissed off at you because do you have any idea how difficult it is to make fun of your messages? You’re making this really hard for me. First you send a five word ask declaring me a homophobe with no details, and it took a lot of thinking to come up with a vaguely funny response to such a lackluster prompt. You’re a really bad improv partner.

And now you send me this shit. Sorry everybody, no jokes today, now I’m actually just fucking furious.

Let me tell you a story, anon. When I was an innocent little twelve year old back in the far of reaches of 2011, I first discovered Tumblr, and soon enough I was learning about different genders and sexualities, and began exploring my own identity. As you already know since you’re sarcastically quoting me talking about my own fucking feelings, I’d been having a minor sexuality crisis for several years at that point, since gay, straight and bisexual were the only label I’d known before then, and none of them fit me. Despite me trying all of them. Multiple times. You condescending piece of shit.All this was resolved by me stumbling across a post defining pansexuality, and that being the first and only sexual identity that’s ever actually felt right for me. It clicked instantly, and has continued to be my sexuality for literally a decade now.

But back when I first started entering the queer community, pansexuality was actually pretty controversial. So was bisexuality. The two were just lumped together actually, because according to the exclusionists back then, bi/pan people are attracted to the opposite sex, and therefor are basically just straight. Actually they rarely cared enough to bother differentiating between bisexual and pansexual people, they just lumped us all in together as a bunch of heteros pretending to be gay for attention and oppressing the real gays. What a bunch of special fucking snowflakes, pretending to be gay for attention. So there I was, a twelve year old queer kid with a brand new identity, being welcomed by a bunch of exclusionists angrily yelling about how I was definitely just a hetero faking it for attention, and being pansexual was Wrong and Bad. But it was okay, because the exclusionists knew better than me. They knew how I really felt, and what my real identity was. They could fix me. I just had to agree with everything they said and become the person they decided I was supposed to be.

I didn’t do that.

Let’s jump forward a few years. I was older, and still perfectly confident in my identity as a pansexual. I hadn’t considered any other parts of my identity. Why would I? I just never really thought much about gender. Then shortly after my fourteenth birthday, I watched a short film online about a trans boy figuring out his identity and working up the courage to come out to his mother. I don’t remember what it was called or most of the details. All I remember was the last scene where the boy and his mother got into an argument about him not feminine enough, which ended with him screaming that he wasn’t a girl. And then I unexpectedly burst into tears because neither was I.

So that was a fun surprise. Once I pulled through that unexpected sobbing breakdown in the middle of the night and re-evaluated my entire life, I realized that yeah. I really wasn’t a girl. I wasn’t a boy either. Fortunately by then I knew that nonbinary people were a thing, so I had plenty of options. I spent awhile feeling things out and experimenting with different labels and pronouns before finally settling on agender and they/them pronouns. Which was great! I felt better than ever, and was confident that I had my identity down and everything would be fine. But everything was not fine. Because I’d been so happy about the biphobia dying down that I hadn’t quite noticed the exclusionists switching targets. Now the nonbinary people were lying. What a bunch of special fucking snowflakes, pretending to be queer for attention. The ones who wanted to medically transition were declared to actually be poor confused trans people who couldn’t get over their internalized transphobia to accept their True Identities. And the rest of us... well, we were just a bunch of cishet special snowflakes playing at being trans for attention, and oppressing the real trans people. I wasn’t agender. I was a cis girl making up fake identities for attention, and calling myself nonbinary was Wrong and Bad. But it was okay, because the exclusionists knew better than me. They knew how I really felt, and what my real identity was. They could fix me. I just had to agree with everything they said and become the person they decided I was supposed to be.

I didn’t do that.

Step forward a few more years, now to eighteen year old me. There’s no dramatic revelations or long struggles this time, just a slow realization. Because I’d been single for years, and I wasn’t bothered by that. I actually enjoyed it. Marriage didn’t sound very appealing. Neither did dating. I’d dated people before, but I wasn’t sure if I actually wanted to; it was just... the thing I was supposed to do. I found people attractive, sure. But I hadn’t wanted to flirt with anyone. Actually, now that I was thinking about it, had I ever felt romantically attracted to anyone? I didn’t even want romance in fiction! So I experimented. Went on some dates just in case age made it more appealing (it didn’t). Began calling myself aromantic, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the longer I used it, the better it felt. It was right.

But once again, the exclusionists were back and even angier than ever. Because now aphobia was in full swing. After all, asexuality wasn’t really queer. It’s just not having sex! It’s basically straight! What a bunch of special fucking snowflakes, pretending to be queer for attention. And the aromantics, oh the aromantics who weren’t asexual were even worse. Because everyone knows that love is what makes us human. How could someone not feel romance? Us aro people weren’t just lying about our identities, we were pretending to not have feelings so that we could get away with using people for sex without commitment. Being aro meant I was an abusive sex crazed monster taking advantage of all the poor innocent allo’s. I wasn’t aromantic. I was a sexual predator making up a fake identity to take advantage of people, and even though I wasn’t actually sleeping around calling myself aro was Bad and Wrong. But it was okay, because the exclusionists knew better than me. They knew how I really felt, and what my real identity was. They could fix me. I just had to agree with everything they said and become the person they decided I was supposed to be.

And I didn’t fucking do that.

Look. I’ve been here for a very long time, and I have dealt with so many versions of exclusionist bullshit. Every aspect of my identity has been met with random fucking strangers online smugly informing me that I was wrong about myself and they were right. And that’s just the ones that wanted me to pretend to be something else; about half of the exclusionists didn’t make any attempts at conversion therapy, and instead skipped straight to suicide baiting. I’m not even getting into the actual homophobes I’ve had to deal with, or the TERF’s that have come after me under the assumption that I’m a trans woman. My point is, I’m pretty fucking used to this sort of thing.

This just hurts a little more, because like I said earlier, the first round of exclusionism I faced was just expanded biphobia. And the bi/pan community banded together in the face of that. We weren’t the exact same identities, but we were being treated the same, and we were similar enough that nobody really minded the difference. It was wonderful. Bi and pan people were a tightly knit group, and that was a sense of community I desperately needed when I was young. I’ve been seeing this coming for awhile. There’s been increasing amounts of bi people getting drawn in by exclusionist bullshit, and I’ve seen anti-pansexual sentiment growing. I just... really hoped it wouldn’t get this far. It’s sad, y’know? It feels like losing an old friend. I’m really disappointed that you think trying to force people out of their community is right. It’s fucking pathetic, and I hope that someday you’ll rediscover basic compassion and realize how much damage you’re doing to yourself and others. This sort of thing doesn’t help the bisexual community. It drives people away. It’s like the damage that TERF’s have done to the lesbian community; this sort of thing poisons the whole well. I hope you re-evaluate what you’re doing and find a more healthy mindset.

...But also at the same time: Who the fuck do you think you are? Take your condescending bullshit and shove it directly up your ass you fucking waste of oxygen. How the fuck dare you. Do you realize the fucking audacity it takes to claim to know someone's identity better than they do? You self centered egotistical douchebag. Your parents should feel ashamed for having raised such an utter failure of a human being. I’d tell you to go fuck yourself, but I can already tell you beat off twice a day to how fucking clever you think you are. If you ever darken my inbox again you’d better be damn sure you keep it anonymous, because if I find you I’ll kick your fucking teeth in, you smug piece of shit.

[shinneth]

Spill the tea on Stevinel (just because I saw one for conniverse) And yes, I'm not on Anonymous. Because I'm a proud stevinel shipper and no one's going to stop me from loving it, also your blog is cool

And you know what? That’s the right attitude to have! People should be free to express what they ship without shielding themselves with anonymity. I don’t blame the people that do these days - antis are fucking dangerous people - but goddamn, people. It’s fiction. 

So I commend you for shipping Stevinel openly and proudly! Hard to believe it’s actually considered a bold and brave move just to be open and honest about harmless preferences these days. 

That said, I’m sorry it took so long to get to this. I felt you deserved an epic, given how unexpectedly successful my tirade on why Connverse is a shit ship with an undeserved golden reputation was...

But the truth is, even though I’m very much a Stevinel shipper, it’s definitely not my OTP.

And it’s very tricky for me to figure out how to spill the tea on Stevinel in a way that’s distinct from me doing the same with Stevidot.

Because, well, let’s face it: these two ships, beyond being very similar in nature, have also endured identical hardships from the fandom.

All the death threats Stevinel fans get from the raging antis for daring to ship something so “problematic/immoral/wrong/not Connverse”? 

Stevidot fans have been treated that exact same way for years. And still are. For the exact same reasons.

Both Stevinel and Stevidot shippers are valid, but the fandom constantly turns a blind eye to Rebecca Sugar’s husband who also worked on the show outright saying gem x human ships are FAIR GAME.

And also turn a blind eye to the recent interview where Sugar herself stated that the gems are more like AI - a conclusion I and many others deduced ages ago just by how gems are portrayed in the show. 

But by god, they’ll hang on Matt Burnett’s word that “grown gems” are a thing even though canon itself explicitly states that GEMS DON’T GROW.

Just like how despite Maya Petersen outright admitting that Aroace!Peridot is just her headcanon, people treat it like the fucking gospel now.

(no offense to anyone who’s committed to that particular headcanon - I just don’t really see it with Peridot in particular and it’s really fucking stupid to claim it’s 100% canon when the source herself explicitly said it wasn’t)

Well, it’s canon that Spinel kissed Steven and he didn’t turn into dust. And Steven was already well on his way down the path of self-destruction at this point in time; he would’ve gone monster whether this happened or not. 

Also, how often does a character get the “heart eyes” expression for just a platonic love?

If there was ever a scene where Connie or Steven had heart eyes, no doubt most of the pricks would scream “YES!!!! UNDENIABLE PROOF THAT THEY’RE IN LOVE!!!”

But when it’s Spinel, suddenly it doesn’t count? Really?

How convenient.

There’s also the stupid idiots who saw the conceptual development of Spinel in that movie artbook and saw some vague color keys during a conceptual stage and claimed that Spinel was “family” to Steven - which of course must mean “related” and therefore must make Stevinel an incestuous relationship! 

Which is bull. Also shit. It’s already common knowledge that gems don’t work that way. She was the designated playmate for Steven’s mother. Nothing more.

Of course, most gems who come in Steven’s orbit end up being sort of a family to him. 

But everyone seems to have this impression that a gem being part of Steven’s family means they become additional surrogate mom figures.

And yeah no, that’s dumb and wrong. Garnet and Pearl are really the only ones I’d consider actual “mom figures”. Amethyst’s more of a big sister. Everyone else can vary depending on perspective, but I’ve never seen any of the other gems as anything close to a motherly figure for Steven. Any time I see shit about Lapis or Peridot being regarded as “gem moms” to Steven, I laugh my ass off. They are so not moms or any kind of authoritative figure for Steven. Bismuth at best is more of the fun-loving aunt.

There are more roles in a family than just a paternal/maternal substitute. In fact, I believe Steven has considered Connie to be part of his family well before they hooked up in canon.

(as a side-note, I love how people who are allegedly SO squicked out by age gap ships totally pardon Connverse - you guys realize Connie was 14 in Future, right? Possibly 15 depending on the time scale? There’s gonna be a point in the relative near future where Steven is 18 and Connie isn’t - why don’t I hear you assholes angst about that “atrocity”, huh?)

I honestly do consider the CG B-Team as part of Steven’s family, but more in a loose sense. But by that same token, I consider Connie as part of the family in a similar manner. 

Especially since Spinel was shoved off to live with the Diamonds after the movie - and the Diamonds themselves have a very fucked-up relationship among themselves to the point where I honestly hesitate to put a familial label on it at all - it’s extra stupid to try and paint Stevinel as something with incestuous overtones when it clearly doesn’t. 

Spinel does happen to be a perfect representative of how full of shit antis are about age gaps, though. 

While Peridot’s age has always been left vague, we know she can’t be 5K or older due to being an Era 2 gem. Due to her utter lack of knowledge of Era 1 events (or being completely sold on the Diamonds’ propaganda) and her general inexperience with her own equipment - as well as her ability to quickly adapt to Earth - I always headcanoned Peridot as being especially young. Like, younger-than-Steven young. 

Mostly because Peri’s attitude reeks of Gen Z - also because it’d be nice for a change to have a gem who isn’t thousands of years old like literally every other noteworthy gem in the show. We need a representative of gemkind who hasn’t been around for ages. 

Of course, Spinel’s backstory proves that even if they went the boring route and made Peridot thousands of years old just like everybody else, it wouldn’t really mean much of anything. She’d be no less of a valid romantic option for Steven regardless of age.

Spinel is several thousands of years old, and the movie explicitly shows us what exactly that amounts to for a gem.

As I mentioned earlier, Sugar sees the gems more like AI. Spinel remaining in one spot for several millennnia, not moving an inch, not speaking to anyone, not seeing anything other than a gradually-deteriorating garden... yeah, and somehow, despite all that, Spinel’s still very childlike per her design. She had literally no room to mature or accrue life experience: Pink Diamond basically hit the pause button on her entire life.

Even though she’s several thousands of years old, through no fault of her own, Spinel’s mindset remained unchanged. It wasn’t until Steven inadvertently came into her life that she became twisted - understandably so after finally realizing she’d been abandoned by Pink. 

But she still didn’t completely lose her true self. Spinel realized on her own that Steven didn’t deserve to suffer just because his mom was a negligent asshole. She also came to understand on her own that unlike Pink, Steven truly cared for her no matter what shit she threw his way. 

Steven could give Spinel the care and attention she always deserved; something Pink totally denied her while deceiving her into wasting away with her abandoned playground. He could be the one to give Spinel the love she always deserved but was either denied or manipulated into believing she got. 

Honestly, this is more than enough to warrant building something more between these two. 

The age gap is irrelevant. The two have chemistry. They aren’t related.

(and honestly, this is fiction - these details are largely irrelevant in fiction anyway. I’m only bringing it up because it doesn’t take much research to find that every label the antis put on Stevinel is complete inaccurate Diamond propaganda bullshit)

Stevinel is FINE. Let people ship it if they want to!

Um... is that good enough?

Honestly, I’m not gonna lie: Stevinel’s pretty goddamned popular; so much that I’m a bit jealous of it. I enjoy the ship a lot, but I’ve been keeping it at arms-length all this time. I’m looking forward to when I can write my own brand of Stevinel interaction when I get to introduce her in my series, but that’s still a while to go. 

Also, there’s almost zero Peridot/Spinel material, let alone my Peridot/Steven/Spinel OT3. And Stevidot material is still hard to come by; I’m noticing Stevinel’s still quite a bit easier to find by comparison. 

So in a way, I feel many other unpopular ships deserve some tea-spilling sooner than Stevinel because Stevinel at least still has a sizable fanbase. Same can’t really be said for a lot of similar ships here...

A lot of this can apply to other Steven x gem ships, honestly. 

But I guess I haven’t been showing Stevinel much proper love due to my devotion to my superior SU-AU. I can only hope I can soon reach a point where I can have GA Spinel react to Steven, since their dynamic will be significantly different.

(and then one day I’ll finally make the Peridot/Steven/Spinel OT3 fic!!)

Until then, I can only hope I did Stevinel some justice here!

[rpbetter]

You make some really good posts!! Can I ask something about DNIs? I know it's not directly RP-related, but I have trouble as an RPer with how many DNIs, with urls, there are now. I try not to interact with muns who have them, I block them, because it feels manipulative? But I'm also tempted to block people who follow those muns, because they probably think their DNIs are okay to have, so they're still "bad", just not as bad? Do you think that's overkill, am I shooting myself in the foot?

Oh, thank you! I'm very happy you've enjoyed them!

And, of course, ask anything at all!

I think, ultimately, the answer to whether that's overkill is entirely dependent on what your experience is and if you're happy with it. I don't think it is overkill at all, but if you feel like it is costing you too many mutuals, it might be overkill for you.

I'm a pretty insular RPer, I like a handful of close writing partners that I write a lot of threads with, so, having something like, under ten writing partners is great for me while it's miserable for other muns. I can go wild on blocking and not have it negatively impact my enjoyment, but I know that's not the case for everyone!

And I do, actually, I do go pretty wild with the blocking when it comes to things like DNIs. If it comes off as policing to me, not just something like a difference of opinion or a strong opinion on something, I'm going to block. Otherwise, it's just recognizing that this isn't a mun I'm going to work out with, but no hard feelings. With policing though...I don't want that anywhere near me or my mutuals, so, it's going to be a block.

Because they do tend to be in these odd, like, nested situations lol I totally will spend the effort if their DNI is bad enough to look at the muns they interact with and make sure I don't have future contact with them either. The RPC is such a big place, making it easier to forget URLs than to remember them, but it's also a place where we establish circles of contact, making it easier to run into the same group repeatedly. I feel like it's better for my peace of mind to be a little more certain than not at all that this isn't going to happen as easily.

If that DNI etc. has been so awful, I definitely don't require their mutuals professing the same beliefs as loudly as they are. If you interact with someone, maybe you don't know their pet fish's name or the obscure lore in a headcanon they posted five years ago or the rule they updated without telling anyone, but you do know what is on their pinned post or blog description or rules. At some point, we all visit each other's blogs in dash-view if nothing else when we're getting replies or checking for memes they might have posted, going through their tags, whatever. I do not believe that you're mutuals who reblog from each other often, reply frequently to each other, ship each other's muses and so forth, and all this time, you've somehow failed to notice your bestie mun is telling proshippers to die in their DNI lmao

No, you've seen it. And I find it extremely hard to believe, too, that it's never come up in conversation OOC either.

So, this hypothetical mutual is so oblivious to others, completely agrees with the other one's views while not feeling confident enough to share them publicly, or is scared enough of the other one that they won't disagree...and no matter which/which combination that might be, they're not a mutual I want.

Especially when it comes to a DNI with someone's URL in it. Hard pass on anyone who is okay with that!

If I visited a writing partner's blog, let's say this person is also my closest friend, I value them and the threads I have with them so much, and I saw that in their DNI they had dropped someone's URL? We would have to talk. I'd have to bring it up because it's the right thing to do (and would also be highly out of character for any of my friends, thus very concerning). There would have to be a question posed about what happened here, why did you feel like this was a good choice, and do you think it's increasing or lessening the problem to have that there?

Honestly, sometimes people do get so upset about something that has happened that their worst impulses are let loose freely. When you ask someone you have an established relationship with about that, unless you're being really hateful about it right off, it can help them settle down, take a step back, and see that this is maybe not the right action to take. To me, silence says you're okay with it.

When muns started putting more elaborate DNI's in, that alone rubbed me the wrong way because I genuinely do not think that the majority of that information is at all necessary. It's something I can see and fully understand minors doing, not because they're terrible or anything but because the impulses and rationale are just different. You're very much geared to be as loud as possible about things that are important to you, making them a part of you in a huge way, as a teenager. Shit just is unreasonably intense! But as an adult, I expect that behavior to be different. You don't actually need to say on your RP blog's DNI that "transphobes WILL be blocked!!!"

Well, yes, I should hope so lol we're a community filled with muns who are trans, I'd certainly hope you were not cool with that kind of thing. It's one of those assumptive states, it goes without saying because, in a group of legitimate adults, it literally doesn't have to be said that a trans mun in a group of trans muns in a RPC filled with trans muns would be intolerant of transphobic assholes.

And, no one likes a damn transphobe, it's not like this stunning, fresh information, here. Not making such a statement does not, in fact, act as a welcome.

Saying that, and I do not mean literally just that, it's just an example of the type of things found in a common DNI, is a little immature for me. Some of those things are, in addition to being purely self-validating: playing into the fear created by policing, virtue signaling, policing, or baiting. And all of them are pointless. Telling someone who would already be bigoted toward you and others to not interact if they somehow miraculously ID as whatever label that takes for them to not interact with your posts is waving a metaphoric red flag in front of a bull. Kind of like tagging a post as either "antis don't interact" or "proshippers don't interact." Actual quickest and most assured way to get that interaction!

I totally understand the age thing, it's self-protecting. Most people do respect it, but when they don't, you've clearly stated that this is not for whatever age group. Things pertaining to your writing and/or muse I also understand and think are great for a quick glance before someone even gets to the rules. Having in a DNI something like "muns who are easily triggered by gore" when you write a horror muse, for instance. You're advising them that this isn't a great idea for them, and it shouldn't be expected that you change your muse and topics because they decided to follow anyway.

But it became excessive very quickly, and there is the expectation that blogs have a DNI. The further expectation is that there be a specific list of things found in that DNI, if yours does not include it, you obviously don't have a problem with those things. I really cannot be okay with that, you know?

However, when it wasn't being used as a callout or a way to police, that was something that could just be ignored. Once URLs of other RPers started to appear, it was a whole other problem.

It used to be the pervading rule of the RPC that it is not alright to force other muns to chose between you and another mun that you had an issue with, but now we have DNIs with other muns' URLs in them. Now, it's the opposite take - if you have an issue with a URL being dropped in a DNI, or if you continue to interact with the mun, you're likely to get a callout or be on the receiving end of other bullying.

So, I very much think the self-insulating thing to do is to avoid those mutuals as well as the RPer with the URL-laden DNI. They could just block you, but is someone who was so juvenile as to put another mun's URL in their damn DNI going to be mature enough to do that? Will their friends once they complain about you? For me, it's too high of a risk of being around muns I wish would take a very long break from RP and only come back once they've grown up some.

I would never advise anyone to do something that is erring on the side of getting them into harassment water unnecessarily (as in, not something that pertains to digging in your heels and writing what you want or not tolerating bullying where you see it happening), and I feel like not doing what you are is that. However, I also am a firm believer in agency, even to make mistakes.

So, if you genuinely feel like blocking mutuals of someone with a URL-dropped/callout/other highly offensive and bullying thing in their DNI is costing you so many chances to RP that you're no longer enjoying yourself here? You might want to consider adjusting how widely you are blocking.

If that's the case, try going for mutuals who are what I call Casual Mutuals and leaving them open. Those are mutuals that the mun doesn't write with often or at all, they're technically mutuals because they both follow each other, but that's it. There might be some liking of posts or even comments or non-committal, OOC style memes sent in by Casual Mutuals, but that interaction is sparse and, yep, casual. These mutuals might legitimately be unaware of the mun's hateful, bullying bullshit in the DNI, or they are actually afraid to unfollow/block them at this point, so their option feels like staying around as quietly as possible.

With that last deal...you could even be doing someone a favor, Anon. When I've encountered that situation before, it's come about because the other person's Casual Mutual is painfully anxious, shy, and a previous victim of bullying. They feel isolated, they don't have many or any writing partners, and they really, truly, are terrified to distance themselves in a way that might be noticed. It's a type of toxic interaction that rarely gets mentioned in PSAs, presumably because it is so low on the actual interaction scale.

Giving them someone else in their corner, especially if that other mun is more open about their intolerant stance on bullying, can go a long way toward giving someone else confidence. I've had other people's Casual Mutuals become my Casual Mutuals and wouldn't you know it? After a while, they get braver. They see my friends and mutuals doing our thing without any of the bullying going on, they see us supporting anti-policing and not tolerating bullying, and they get brave enough to unfollow the hateful mun. It feels nice to even inadvertently help someone, and over the years, some of those Casual Mutuals have become great writing partners, too. People I would have missed if I had made the choice to block them by the association of a hateful mun they were trapped in the orbit of.

Just try to exercise caution! You seem like a reasonable person who doesn't mind truly thinking on things or doing the work required to be cautious. Assume the close mutuals are a problem, too, and block away. Build a wall with some razor wire on it with those blocks! Don't assume the low-interaction, very casual mutuals are, though. Check out their blogs for signs of agreement with Hateful Mun, and if they don't have any, give them a shot as far as just leaving them unblocked goes.

I also have to say, here at the end, that it's extremely nice to see that people out there are doing this. Honestly would have thought I'd be the last person to encourage a ton of blocking, but that's the environment of the RPC now, and it's really the only way we can deal with this issue. You can't reason with these people, you can't stop them, you can only stay away from them for your own good and send a message that this isn't benefiting them. Not everyone agrees with them, they're not going to keep having people left open for their attacks or their RP entertainment. And if enough people are just walling them off, that is a message they'll have to receive because RP runs on interaction with others.

They might think they want every "nasty ass" xyz Problematic RPer to block them, not interact, or vanish from their view of the RPC, but I don't think they realize what that really looks like. What it looks like is a huge percentage of the RPC missing, including people they didn't realize were "problematic." We tend to be quieter, wanting to stay in our own lanes and actually enjoy the hobby and each other. That's why they have to resort to shit like making everyone pre-guilty, or setting up traps to catch people out on being "gross."

So, I genuinely do not think they're prepared for the rude awakening of silence that would happen if we all actually vanished, but I am dying to see it lol and do sometimes have to wonder if the complaints about the RPC being dead/dying/empty, not in a fandom but overall, are coming from the purity police some of the time. It's quite active over on the Leave Folks Alone Over Fiction side of life :D

[disembodiedapparition]

Breaking The Pro-Life Argument Down:

I think it’s hilarious how right wing “facts don’t care about your feelings” activists are almost always pro-life. The argument against abortion as an accessible form of birth control is 100% an emotional appeal, and here’s why:

1. “You have no right to kill your fetus. It’s not your body, the baby is an individual and has the right to life.”:

Of course, all embryos are human individuals, separate from their mothers. They have their own unique DNA composition, and are definitely alive. But do they deserve the right to life, which would make abortion equivalent to murder?

Pro-lifers are largely okay with IVF, an industry that throws away and destroys millions of fertilized embryos every day. In-vitro fertilization is an uncertain science, so couples are advised to fertilize multiple eggs in the labs in case the first few don’t work out. If a couple succeeds and have extra embryos left, they have the option to continue paying to store them in the lab, donate them to medical research, or destroy them.

Anti-abortion bills always have exceptions for IVF clinics. Republican, pro-life lawmakers have literally had children via IVF. If a pro-lifer ever tells you that life begins at conception and that every embryo has the right to life, know that it’s bullshit. They don’t care about an industry that kills more embryos in a day than Planned Parenthood does in a year.

2. There are two possible responses to this.

A) “Fine, let’s ban IVF.” Out of all the conservative groups in America, only one major group explicitly stands against IVF – the Catholic Church. The same organization that condemns sex before marriage, homosexuality, divorce, masturbation/porn, the use of condoms, getting drunk or high, and tattoos. At this point, I’m assuming you understand that the Church’s ideas of morality are regressive, illogical, primitive, and… make life extremely boring. IVF is a wonderful science that brings children to parents who want them all over the world and is in no way a bad thing.

B) “Fine. Maybe not at conception, but at [x] months, it’s a baby.” This is the point where most conservatives start arguing about the point up till you should be allowed to have an abortion. Two weeks? Six weeks? Three months? Unfortunately, there is no scientific way to determine when an embryo is no longer just a clump of cells and now a human being with rights.

Since pro-lifers are okay with IVF, we can assume they don’t believe in the right to life at conception. How about the heartbeat theory? At six weeks, the fetus develops a heartbeat, and proponents argue that it is the point at which the fetus is no longer simply a fetus, but a human being. However, having a heartbeat doesn’t necessarily mean you have the right to life.

Legally, if you are brain dead, you’re… dead. You no longer have the right to life, which is why organ donation is possible. All this while having a heartbeat, so that’s clearly not a viable hallmark of an individual that inherently has the right to life. So while it’s true that at six weeks a baby develops (what is flimsily termed as) a heartbeat, that doesn’t somehow give it rights to life that it did not have before. So far, I haven’t come across any other sensible theories as to “when” an embryo deserves the right to life. It’s a lousy concept to begin with, as blurry as the legal definition of adulthood – not all 18+ year olds are mature and nothing fundamentally changes in a person once the clock strikes midnight. Similarly, embryo development is a process. There’s really no point at which you can logically claim it’s transformed into a human being with rights.

3. Evidently, there are two extremes — life begins at conception, vs life doesn’t begin until birth.

There’s no “scientific backing” for a point in between, but you’ll never find a pro-choice advocate arguing in favor of the latter, because it’s called an extreme for a reason. The best way to deal with the abortion issue at this point is to leave the science and technicalities alone, and think about the people who are actually getting abortions.

4. “Use protection and you won’t get pregnant”:

Protection is never 100% reliable. Plus: if two people are irresponsible enough to have unprotected sex, what makes you think they’re responsible enough to have and raise children? The number of children growing up with unqualified, immature, abusive, or neglectful parents automatically disproves the theory that parenthood beings about a sense of personal responsibility. Being raised by bad parents inflicts often irreparable damage on children. Treating babies as some sort of “divine punishment” for irresponsible sex, instead of human beings who deserve a stable upbringing, is harmful on both an individual and collective scale. The data on irresponsible, neglectful, or abusive childhoods/single parent childhoods speaks for itself. In the quest to punish irresponsible parents, most of the damage is inflicted on their children, which in turn impacts the generation that will lead us forward into the future. It is in our best interests to raise as many mature, healthy, and productive young adults as possible, and while not every child born into these circumstances live lives of mental health/psychological/intimacy issues and criminal behavior, a large majority do. Growing up with bad parents is simply not ideal for an impressionable child’s wellbeing. Quality of life > quantity of life.

5. “Don’t have sex if you don’t want to have children.”:

Unhelpful, unrealistic, and telling of no real desire to solve the problem at hand. People will have sex. What are we going to do to make sure the sex doesn’t lead to unplanned pregnancies?

6. “Okay but what about xyz who had an abortion and has regretted it ever since?”:

Abortion is a result of unplanned and unfortunate circumstances. Whether it’s because the doctor tells you your baby will be stillborn or born with a fatal illness, or if you were raped, or if you had sex with your boyfriend during your first year of college and found yourself pregnant: these are bad situations, and no matter what you do, there’s always a chance you’ll look back and wish you’d done things differently. Kept the baby? Well, maybe you’ll find that the baby brought newfound purpose to your life. But maybe the baby added an additional financial strain to your life and forced you to quit your job, leaving you destitute and homeless with no way to feed it. Alternatively, if you got an abortion, maybe you end up being able to finish college and fulfil all your goals… or maybe you regret that decision for the rest of your life. There’s no way to guarantee that you’re making the right decision, but being informed about your options, and having options available, makes it more likely that you do. That’s why we are advocating for informed choice. Whether they eventually choose to keep the baby or have an abortion, give women the time and resources to truly evaluate their options and do what’s best for them in their own circumstances.

7. “Why kill the baby? Put it up for adoption.”:

The adoption system is known for being isolating, exploitative, and unhealthy for children growing up in it. Being adopted into a great family can create healthy, happy young adults. But far too many kids don’t get that opportunity, and pay the price for it. In 2019, 122,216 children in the US adoption system were waiting to be adopted. Young people who age-out of the foster care system without being adopted are over-represented in rates of incarceration, suicide and substance abuse.

Granted, for some kids it’s a better alternative to the families they would have grew up in, but again: it’s an unideal situation. An unideal situation that can very easily be avoided with abortion. Why would a person choose 9 months of labor, plus all the emotional labor of having to give your child away to a system that more likely than not will eat them alive, knowing they will grow up asking themselves why they weren’t good enough for their birth parents, when the person could… simply not have that baby and not invite all that pain?

To summarize:

It is definitively not in anyone’s best interests to force unwilling and unprepared parents to have an unwanted child. It’s also not a good idea to get too deep into the technicalities of when an embryo is a fetus or when you’re allowed or not allowed to abort it. We need to focus on the women who are actually getting abortions. Having a baby is a huge life adjustment. Keep it, and you’re taking on an 18-year responsibility. You are responsible for another person’s wellbeing, and your life will never be the same.

In three months (about 12 weeks), a potential mother can: find out that they’re pregnant (missing periods is extremely common. A lot of women only find out they’re pregnant at two months, or 8 weeks), think about their financial, professional, social, romantic, or whatever situation and figure out what would be the best course of action, and then actually get the abortion if she chooses to. 12 weeks is enough, 12 weeks is reasonable, 12 weeks is humane. Nobody wants third-trimester abortions unless there are serious, life threatening complications.

The pro-life argument is reduced down to: well, abortion is bad! That’s a little innocent baby. It didn’t hurt anyone. Well, we agree: abortion is bad. It’s not a good thing, it’s not something people want to have to do. Nobody looks forward to giving or receiving an abortion, it’s physically painful and often heart-breaking. But is it as bad as forcing a woman to go through nine months of excruciating, potentially life-threatening labor for a child she doesn’t even want to have? Is it as bad as enforcing serious health, financial, emotional, social, and professional risks on a woman who knows she is in no way ready to give a baby the life it deserves? Is it worse than having to wake up every day with a heavy pit in your stomach because you can’t feed your little girl since you had to drop out of high school to take care of her? Worse than having to give your baby away to an adoption center, where they’re likely to join the hundreds of thousands of unadopted children? There are evils, and then there are greater evils. Abortion may not be ideal, but for some people, it’s the best option out there. When broken down, the pro-life argument is nothing but sad, provocative videos & descriptions of surgical abortions intended to pull at your heartstrings. But they’re sometimes the best option for the mother and her unborn baby. Nobody is pro-abortion — we’re pro-choice.

[geekgemsspooksandtoons]

Why Bioshock Rebirth Part 3 won’t be a thing for a while

Guessing that title will work. I think considering now and on this day. There isn’t much else to do. I’m finally gonna talk about this. This is gonna be a long one. I’ll think about adding a keep reading thing as I make this. 

If any of you are a Bioshock fan or follow me. Or whatever else. I have this reimagining AU named Bioshock Rebirth. It has people who like it. There are mainly three parts on my mind. 

Part 1 and 2 basically deal with Rapture. Which are basically a reimagining of the main stories of Bioshock 1 and 2. With the events of Minerva’s Den being the epilogue. Part 3 from my mindset would deal with something outside Rapture. But I’ll talk about that later.

Yet I feel like to me. The reason I am not wanting to make a part 3 as soon as possible. Because it’s really tricky for me. I think I’ll just make the points and what my plans possibly were. Including I am gonna publicly reveal what my version of Zachary Hale Comstock would of been. Which is may be the most craziest decision. Whether people like it or not.

Now I just finished this post. I’ll put the tag after I write this. I will reveal I have a Bendy reimagining AU on my mind. But I want Dark Revival to come out soon. Which is why I don’t wanna focus more time on part 3. Along with other things. I feel proud or so with my work on Rebirth. I’m glad people love this AU/reimagining of Bioshock I made. :) So I will add the keep reading option. Now here is my detailed development of part 3. Not everything about it is there. But it’s a lot.

1. Part 3 would of taken 5 years after Bioshock Rebirth parts 1 and 2. Parts 1 and 2 took place in 2002. While part 3 takes place in 2007. Meaning the character ages have changed.

Basically Archie Wynand is 28. Elizabeth Comstock is 24. Brigid Tenenbaum is 40. Eleanor Lamb is 22. Even though Archie/Jack and Eleanor had her their ages sped up by people. With Archie being 10 and Eleanor being 12. But again there ages were sped up. Also the Little Sisters and Big Sisters that have been rescued have grown up too.

It depends on what characters would return. Like Delta/Johnny being 42. Daisy being 34. Booker being 43. Considering it’s not in Rapture. I don’t know if many characters would of returned. Yet that’s because I didn’t start writing possibly the main story for part 3. In case if anyone is worried. Many of the Vox Populi are fine. They must of moved on with their lives with Rapture sadly being a mess.

2. From what I get. The main story again was outside of Rapture. I seemed to be going with my old ideas I had for this AU. A public Rapture or the idea of Rebirth’s version of Columbia.

Considering Rebirth was born from the mistakes and retcons of Burial At Sea breaking the multiverse. Basically me disowning, shaming, yet acknowledging that DLC. So the idea I seem to be going with is that Columbia is the aftermath and America trying to make their own kind of Rapture. A public Rapture in a way for tourists. Something kind of like Jurassic Park.

Yet I don’t think it would be fully in the sky. It would be an island on water. With possibly Rapture under it. They built it over Rapture. 

Again Columbia is like America’s pale imitation of Rapture. With Rapture being discovered by America. Basically making profit off of it. Despite how tragic the results of Rapture of.

3. More on the main story. I think what it would be or as of now is Archie, Elizabeth, Brigid, and Eleanor going to Columbia or America’s public Rapture to stop Comstock. Considering this city has become a mess. The original idea is that it some how became worse than the tragedy of Rapture. 

With Big Daddies and Little Sisters being legalized. And Splicers or so possibly becoming more I guess crazy. With an old or possible dark idea of a Splicer eating out of a Little Sisters neck. Yet that’s really dark and just me showcasing some how this place became worse than the original Rapture.

4. Vigor’s in Rebirth would of been America’s knockoffs and pale imitation of Rapture’s Plasmid’s being reworked by Jeremiah Fink to make them more accessible so that you don’t have to inject them into your wrists. You could just simply drink them. 

Basically again they are strangely knockoffs and pale imitations in a way.

Shock Jockey is Electro Bolt. Devil’s Kiss is Incinerate. Bucking Bronco is Telekinesis. While some are again knockoffs. But some are original being the other Vigor’s.

But considering an idea from my anonymous friend who has helped me with this AU. With them mentioning well I’ll copy what they said instead. I’ll put the “ around it.

“Ironic considering the stereotype about most of the world's products being inferior knockoffs made in China. I can imagine that Fink's imitation of Rapture's products might be even more unscrupulous and dangerous compared to the original versions in Rapture, as the greater capitalist system intersects with the small-scale capitalism of that city.”

5. To be honest and I want to get this out of the way. The reason I am not making part 3 right away. Because I want to see if the leaks about Cloud Chamber’s Bioshock 4 are really true. Spoilers.

Basically the leaks being about that Rapture seemed to have been discovered. Now London is at war with ADAM being used. You play as a character named Lucas with other characters like Eleanor Lamb joining you. I want to see if this is all true. So I can see how Cloud Chamber interpreted of how the world would react to a city like Rapture. 

While there are folks who have made criticisms about people discovering Rapture being the end of the world. Basically being critical about the Bioshock series going in a Resident Evil like direction. Which I can totally understand.

But I’m gonna be honest. I want to see what Cloud Chamber are doing. Yet this horrible thing I’m gonna say next. As someone who’s.....opinions of their planet and maybe species is I guess low....I kind of don’t care. Because I want to see the chaos of the consequences if a place like America discovered Rapture. 

It’s maybe my darker side and my action junkie side having the best of me. I am strangely interested to see Hell on Earth all because governments got fucking greedy with ADAM. Again my opinion on my planet and whatever else is tricky.

Fuck it like we as a species deserve it. But I’m sounding pessimistic. I want to see war torn London destroyed by ADAM junkies.

5. My direction for part 3 I feel is weaker and not as powerful as parts 1 and 2. Because the general idea of part 3 seems to be, “America is fucking stupid. Because it empowers young rich pricks like Zachary Hale Comstock and makes shit like Columbia. Our country needs to be fucking better if really are the land of the free” It feels less original and been done before.

Compared to the first two part’s stories of humanity, found family, love, forgiveness, empathy, and compassion. Along with other stuff.

While I recall my inspiration for this idea long ago was this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXjJOmRkN6s If I recall it being like an example of....America’s thought process of it thinking it’s awesome or whatever the Hell. I wanna say stupid thinking. But that video is awesome. Amazing what that person did.

Also my version of Comstock I feel is less threating and less interesting than the likes of villains like Andrew Ryan, Atlas/Frank Fontaine, and Sofia Lamb. Unless I really tap and dig deep into his character.

There’s also the other thing part 3 I feel unless I decided. It doesn’t deal with dimension travelling and all that crap.

6. There’s another thing is that I used many of the major characters from Infinite and incorporated them in Rapture. Such as Elizabeth, Booker, Daisy, and the Lutece twins. I haven’t done much with Annabelle because she sadly died before the events of parts 1 and 2. Also Bluto is practically Rebirth’s version of Songbird when he was in Rapture. He was the Proto-Daddy.

Fink and Comstock are the only major Infinite characters I haven’t used.

7. Bluto’s robotic corpse would of been found by Fink and Comstock. He would of been rebuilt into Songbird as being the supposed mascot and guardian of Columbia.

It’s also a way of torturing Elizabeth mentally. Because two men practically took her protective older brother’s corpse and rebuilt him as something else. With the added angst that Songbird still have memories of Elizabeth.

8. Another reason why I don’t feel so highly of part 3. It’s because it just seems unrealistic. Which may sound stupid. My ideas of America’s own Rapture like place becoming somehow worse than the original Rapture seem crazy.

Along with things like legalized Big Daddies and Little Sisters seems crazy. Despite how stupid my country is. The idea of taking human beings and turning them into that under an American government seems like bullshit. Unless they didn’t know. 

Yet it seems to be dissing on America. Considering the direction of Comstock I’m going with is more like, “We’re America and we are great.” Yet everything goes to shit.

Along with the crazy idea of the place being built in 5 or maybe 4 to 3 years. Which is why I wanted to give it a timespan.

Also it’s a fun easter egg that it’s the time span of the original Bioshock’s development. Unless I make part 3 in 2013. But don’t think I should.

9. There’s been a recent idea of Lucas being an antagonist. Something similar to the Arkham Knight from Batman Arkham Knight. But I should wait and see if this Lucas character is seriously real. Yet what I have read about him, he reminds me a bit of Booker.

I’m guessing and even was thinking a bit more in detail. Lucas being a US Marine who was born in 1981. He’s 26 during part 3. Possibly being an anti-thesis to Archie’s character. Now I’m thinking he may of met Arch during possibly tours. Even though they weren’t really friends but knew each other.

With Archie being an earnest and kind man. Now this makes sense. Lucas being jealous of Archie’s position as, “The Demon Of Rapture” and, “The Killer Of Fontaine”. Lucas being a bit more angry and less honorable than Archie.

Man these ideas make more sense than Comstock being an anti-thesis to Arch. Yet we also have Frank Fontaine and Booker Dewitt being anti-thesis to his character too. But the idea of Lucas is strangely perfect.

The ideas I am having are he’s Columbia’s poster boy of a super soldier. But without the horrifying results of Archie’s origin possibly. Since Lucas I’m imagining is more equipped with stuff(Again thinking of Arkham Knight)....fuck this is strangely perfect. 

Man we haven’t gotten more info on this who I am calling Lucas Parkside....fuck I thought of more of him being a deeper character or so.

10. But again about Bioshock 4. Considering Rebirth is the result of Burial At Sea and also Infinite breaking the multiverse. It combined the worlds of the main universe(Bioshock 1, 2, and the Rapture novel if you want to include that) and Infinite. Which resulted in a timeline where Rapture was made later during the cold war. Along with characters like from Infinite being more connected to Rapture because of the events of Burial At Sea.

Yet Bioshock 4 or those Parkside leaks. I question if I should put them in here too. Because it’s unknown if well the events of 4 happened yet in the main universe. Unless we take into the good ending being canon. With 4 taking take in the 70′s what I read.

I’m rambling, I’m sorry about that. Basically the events of the novel and first two games happened. But the events of Infinite and Burial At Sea disturbed the main universe. And whatever I’m using some weird comic book logic. 

Again I hope sometime but soon I want more information considering Bioshock 4. 

11. I guess I’ll just reveal this now. Including I called him a young rich prick. I gave a hint early on. In fact this character was hinted at in memes. But him combing in Comstock was something I was surprised by long ago. Yet I felt I guess could be genius or whatever.

Only two friends of mine know. The anonymous friend. And also @feckinatlas

Zachary Hale Comstock in Bioshock Rebirth would of been the Mark Zuckerberg of Bioshock.

While there was the idea of making him the, “Radec” or something similar to make him more threating. But Booker is already that. Including the Mark Zuckerberg angle is something I’m interested in.

Yes Comstock is Rebirth is younger than his main universe counterpart. He’s also not Booker and possibly not related to him.

One of my original ideas was that he’s a year younger than Elizabeth. But I changed that and may make him possibly 30 or so. Or even Archie’s physical age or 29.

An old idea I even told Feckinatlas that him being Fontaine’s kid. But Frank never knew about him. Practically making even more of a terrible father. Yet I don’t know if I’ll go with that idea. Yet it seems better than Comstock being a kid of Booker. Which I don’t like. I was trying to keep the Booker and Comstock connection. I’m still wondering now.

Yes I think that’s all I’ll reveal now.

Edit I forgot this one other important thing. Oh crap two actually.

12. Considering Ava Tate survived and escaped Rapture. She would of been one of the villains in part 3. Basically she sided with Fink and Comstock. Ava is kind of like that character who might not care what side she’s on. Despite she has redeeming qualities in her.

13. Even though this wasn’t part of the main story. To be honest there are ideas that one of Elizabeth’s looks is like her Burial At Sea look. Yet she’s not a femme fatale. Basically it was the idea of her and Archie going undercover. With Elizabeth trying to pose as a femme fatale. Which in reality she isn’t. She’s still the same joyous girl that people love. It’s something a bit more strangely adorable.

Also Brigid tried to teach her some stuff of trying to act different. I remember talking about this with my anonymous friend. It’s mainly silly and adorable stuff before meeting her seeing Ava. Like Arch being pouty that he may have to put on a tux. When he’ll put on something like maybe Clark Kent would wear. He doesn’t wanna look like a rich prick and would rather have black ops gear on. While Brigid and Elizabeth find it adorable and funny he doesn’t wanna dress like Ryan and whoever else. Despite they would kick him out if he looks very normal.

But again Brigid teaching her some tricks. Along with Elizabeth trying to smoke to look cool. But she coughs and again it’s adorable. XD

This idea is like before the main story. But I should develop it more. It could still be before the main story. I wanted to share this because I forgot about it. 

[mistyskeleton]

PRO LIFERS STOP SCROLLING

i’m well aware of how long this is, but bear with me, ok?

if you are, as you say: “pro-life”, then here’s the things you should be/campaigning for:

-vegetarianism and veganism 

-free universal healthcare

-free contraception and sex education reform

-abolishing ICE

-pro-vaccinations

-prison reform and removing the death penalty

-Black Lives Matter

-supporting MMIW causes

-gun control

-raising the minimum wage

-marriage equality

-foster-system reform and adoption equality

-religious freedom

-stopping climate change

vegetarianism and veganism actively save lives of animals, and you actually shouldn’t even be eating plants, fruits, or vegetables because they have life too, right?

free universal healthcare will save many lives of people who can’t afford live saving treatment like chemotherapy and surgery. it will also help close the financial gap between patients as you won’t need to pay out of pocket for insulin or other life saving medications. most of these people have no choice in their illnesses, and insulin prices were about $300 for about one-and-a-half to two months of necessary medical items. many people died or suffered even more health issues because they couldn’t afford it. also, pregnancy is quite expensive, if a mother who cannot even afford to feed herself everyday gets pregnant, she won’t have to pay upwards of $5,000 to have the baby. where were you pro-lifers when bernie sanders and alexandria ocasio cortez proposed free universal healthcare? 

free contraception and pregnancy prevention items such as birth control and condoms would drastically decrease the amount of unwanted pregnancies. same with reforming sex education. an abstinence only education actually causes more unwanted pregnancies than education that teaches how pregnancy occurs and how to prevent it. so why aren’t you campaigning for these?

abolishing ICE is actually pretty obvious. deporting undocumented immigrants for no reason other than for their own egos disrupts people’s lives, and sometimes it sends them into a deadly situation. not to mention the treatment of families at the border. putting kids in cages, separating families, not providing soap to these people. many people at the border have died because of diseases that could’ve been prevented had they were given soap. not to mention, many children who were at the border said that they were extremely mistreated. where were you?

vaccinations prevent completely preventable and potentially deadly diseases and viruses such as measles, small pox, chicken pox, and the flu. children have died from these illnesses, and just because some people think that vaccinations are ‘dangerous’ or will ‘cause autism’, which is all de-bunked by many reputable scientists. why are you not spreading that vaccinations should be mandatory (unless you’re allergic to the vaccine)?

prison dramatically affects the lives of many who are sent there. most for unnecessary crimes such as selling pot-brownies, resisting arrest, etc. many of the people that committed these ‘crimes’ will never be able to find a job and therefore, become poor and not be able to afford basic things like food, healthcare, and other necessities or could possibly become homeless. also, studies have shown that about half of the people on death row could potentially be innocent and killed for no reason. even killing criminals who are very much guilty goes against your ‘pro-life’ argument. 

the black lives matter movement is actively protesting against absolutely unnecessary killing of black people by white police officers. like freddie gray who was arrested for ‘possession of a knife’ (which is a bullshit reason to be arrested, but that goes with prison reform), while he was in police custody, in hand-cuffs mind you, he ‘mysteriously’ became beaten and fell into a coma. the officer walked free. where were you pro-lifers then and countless other times when things like this occur?

MMIW causes, or missing/murdered indigenous women causes, should be supported. indigenous women are more likely to be assaulted, murdered, or go missing than any other race, for no reason other than the fact that they are indigenous. where are you pro-lifers when these atrocities happen?

gun control will actively save the lives of many americans. shootings have killed thousands of americans, whether they were civilians, students, concert-goers, etc. if you say you are ‘pro-life’ then you should be fighting for universal background checks and gun licenses, because these show that gun deaths will drastically go down if these were to occur. 

raising the minimum wage will increase the quality of life among many people across the country. minimum wage currently is not a livable wage, especially with the average rent being at an all time high in our country. also, many mothers who have an abortion because they cannot afford to raise it (because let’s face it, kids are expensive) will have a better opportunity to not raise it in poverty. why are you not campaigning for this?

same goes for marriage equality. if you allow people to marry who they want, their quality of life increases. and studies have shown that ending homophobia and being accepting of their sexualities actually decreases the amount of LGBTQ+ suicides. if you’re pro life you should NOT  be homophobic. 

thousands of children are in the foster care system, and many of the foster families they can get sent to are abusive and absolutely horrible to them. if you’re pro-life and say that ‘adoption is an option’, then you should be trying to reform the system in which these children will be put into. also, you should support gay couples adopting children, because this will increase the number of children getting adopted and will give children a better chance at life. but you say you don’t want gay couples adopting children because it will ‘corrupt’ them? grow up. 

religious freedom will improve the lives of many americans of numerous different faiths. if you end islamophobia and anti-semitism, there will be less hate-crimes against people of these faiths. they won’t have to be afraid of practicing their faiths, they won’t have to be escorted by police to their temples or mosques. why are so many of you pro-lifers anti islam?

stopping climate change will save the lives of everyone on earth, because if climate change is not stopped, it is predicted to kill us by 2060. but why are so many pro-lifers actively against stopping climate change?

and one last thing that you should support if you really are ‘pro-life’:

abortion.

you know why? 

there was a young girl at the age of eleven, that’s right, ELEVEN, who was a victim of rape. she got pregnant because of this, and was forced to carry her baby to term. 

pregnancy is a dangerous and invasive thing, and people who will get their lives ruined because of it should not have to go through it. because then it directly interferes with your mantra of ‘all life should be given a chance’. 

oh? you don’t support all of these things? then guess what:

YOU’RE NOT PRO-LIFE, YOU ARE PRO-BIRTH. IF YOU DO NOT CARE WHAT HAPPENS TO THE CHILD AFTER IT IS BORN OR THE MOTHER AFTER SHE GIVES BIRTH THEN YOU C A N N O T CALL YOURSELF PRO-LIFE. 

rethink your choices. 

[theritualofourexistence]

[hyper]tension

There are so many things I could be writing about right now. 

I’ve chosen to stick with one of the things I know best for this post.

Did you guess “body image issues and the problem of narrowly defining the concept of health?” 

If so: a cookie for you! 

A handful of pictures popped up in my Timehop from 12 whole years ago that gave me pause the other day.

Sometimes when I see older pictures of myself I am overwhelmed by how different I look now... in a bad way. I see myself in those pictures as thin and beautiful and I see myself now as a sausage monster stuffed into bike shorts. 

The more I sit with and work on my body image issues, the more I have noticed healthier thinking habits developing. Let me be clear, this has been an incredibly slow process. But seeing those changes is something I am really encouraged by... and it makes the every day body image fight have some measurable value. 

I can say with confidence that, at 200 pounds, my body image is currently the best it has ever been.

That has nothing to do with the specific number on the scale and everything to do with working really hard over a lot of years to understand that neither “beauty” or “health” are inherently defined as “thin.” A fundamental pillar of that understanding is that you cannot separate mental health from the concept of general health. 

Mainstream culture does this. 

Mainstream culture wants you to believe that it’s your weight or your BMI that determines whether or not you are healthy.

That is bullshit. 

Here are the pictures of me from 12 years ago. We were moving my high school boyfriend into his freshman dorm for his first year of college. I don’t think any of the people in these photos will mind me sharing them in the context of this blog post. 

I am *THIN* in these pictures.

I am 17.

Apart from a very clear warning sign that I was already developing horrible posture, I noticed a couple of things right away about these pictures when I was looking at them the other day.

My shirt is a size small or extra small. 

I am holding my arm across my stomach in the fourth picture because I do not think I am *thin enough* to be wearing that shirt. 

I may have been a thin 17-year-old. But I was not healthy.

I was physically fit.

I played soccer for three out of four seasons of the year.

But I was not healthy.

I know I wasn’t healthy because I was about to embark on my senior year of high school during which I would, at times, only allow myself one and a half meals per day. Sometimes that one meal would be pasta. Other times that one meal would be a bag of dark chocolate peanut M&Ms and a Mountain Dew. Other times it would be a gallon of strawberries. Other times it would be a family pack of Twizzlers.

My body in those pictures might look healthy. 

But appearance is not an appropriate indicator of health. 

The two times in my adult life that I have been the thinnest have also been the times in my life where I have struggled the most with body image and disordered eating. 

After I escaped the abusive relationship of my freshman year of college, I gained around 20 pounds.

The following summer, I exercised for an hour every day and ate only pickles and Greek yogurt (separately, of course, don’t be gross). 

I lost 30 pounds.

That was also not healthy.

Fast forward a handful of years to 2015. 

I start an anti-depressant. 

Over the course of the next two years I gain around 50 pounds.

Today, in the spirit of full disclosure (and because the numbers don’t mean shit), my weight fluctuates between 190 and 200. 

I am obese.

A mathematical algorithm used to determine BMI has labeled me “obese.” 

My clothing sizes vary day to day thanks to IBS-related bloating but I’m somewhere around a 14-16. 

Do you know the cut-off for plus sizes? 

It’s 14. 

So, I am an obese, plus-sized woman.

The numbers aren’t very polite, are they?

Within the last two years I was diagnosed with severe iron-deficiency anemia.

I committed to correcting that with a number of lifestyle changes including taking supplements and adding iron-heavy foods to my diet. I took Vitamin C to boost my absorption. On days I took the supplement I had no coffee, no tea, no dairy, and no acid-reducer meds. In 6 very committed months, I resolved my iron issues, for the most part. We have since learned that the daily stomach medicine I take may be affecting my iron absorption so, although I am no longer taking supplements, I am taking a daily vitamin to help maintain a healthy level of iron. 

That story is about health.

I had a health issue and I developed a strategy to resolve the issue, being sure to consider my mental health as well. 

I have worked really, really hard to consider my HEALTH instead of my WEIGHT.

This obese, plus-sized woman exercises for around an hour every day. She does not drink alcohol or soda. She is aware of what she eats and is careful to eat when she’s hungry and stop when she’s full. 

One of the ways I know my thinking is healthier is that when I look at bathing suits on Target’s website, I have started to consider their plus-sized models “normal.” 

The average size of an American woman based on the most recent data is between sizes 18 and 20. 

I spent over twenty years unable to see an average-sized woman as beautiful.

Even though the clothing industry has labeled me “plus-sized,” if anything, I am “slightly less than average-sized.” 

In this post, I’m sure my thinking seems sort of piece-meal and disconnected.

In my head, thin-ness and health and body image and eating and exercise and cultural interpretations of beauty are all smashed into one big Frankenstein’s creation. 

For a long, long time I did not consider plus-sized or average-sized women to be beautiful solely because they were not thin.

When I was thin (and not healthy), I know that I considered people of that size, the average size, to be unhealthy.

I am at a point in my life where my habits are the healthiest they have been and my mental health regarding my body image is also the healthiest it has been.

And I weigh 200 pounds. 

You cannot look at a person and have any idea how healthy they are. 

You cannot look at a BMI or a number on a scale and judge a person’s health accordingly. 

I have worked with people who are suicidal who are thin and people who are suicidal who are not thin.

Health cannot be separated from mental health.

Can you be too thin? Absolutely. Your body needs a certain amount of fat and muscle to function properly. Can you be too big? Absolutely. Risks for all kinds of delightfully chronic and fatal conditions increase with weight gain.

Can you be big and be healthy? Yes. 

I know because I am those things.

If you exercise, if you are aware of what you eat and are careful to not over-eat, if you get the vitamins you need, if you prioritize balancing mental health and physical health, if you get enough sleep, “healthy” is within reach for everyone. 

If I ever write a book, it will be about balancing mental health and physical health. Because for basically my entire adult life, I’ve focused on one or the other and that does not work. I promise that if I do write a book, it’ll be better organized than this zig-zaggy blog post.

We have to push back against the cultural tendency to keep mental health separate from our definitions of general health. 

We have to push back against the cultural tendency to define health by how a person looks.

You are not “healthy” if you are not physically healthy.

But you are also not “healthy” if you are not mentally healthy.

And sometimes, especially if you have a tendency toward body dysmorphia or disordered eating, the healthiest option is not to focus on weight loss or buy into a fad diet plan. 

I am not trying to lose weight.

I am trying to be healthy.

And, you could argue, I’m not trying to lose weight BECAUSE I am trying to be healthy.

Trying to lose weight feeds mental illness for me. And that is not healthy.

This blog post is brought to you by a lot of years of working really hard to understand myself. My specific approach to managing my health may not work for you, but I challenge anyone reading this to take a moment and think about whether or not you are giving balanced consideration to physical and mental health. Because, even if our specific situations are different, balancing mental and physical health is the only path to being healthy. For me, for you, for everyone.

This blog post is also brought to you by a new health hurdle that has been laid in my lap over the past few weeks.

I have high blood pressure.

Chronic hypertension runs in my family, so I have a predisposition for high blood pressure. I have not been aware of having it at all in the past but thanks to my mom’s new blood pressure machine, I am aware of it now. 

Learning that I have high blood pressure instigated a bit of a breakdown. 

For a lot of the reasons I have already mentioned.

I’m working really hard to be healthy by balancing my mental and physical health. So why, if both those things are headed in the right direction, does my body not seem to agree?

Well, genetics will do that.

In the name of health, I scheduled an appointment with my doctor. We talked about the typical “lifestyle changes” that would be recommended for someone my age with high blood pressure.

I am already doing all of them. 

There are things I cannot control, however, that are affecting my mental health right now. I am carrying a lot of stress about the upcoming election. I am carrying a lot of stress about Black people being disproportionately arrested, charged, jailed, and killed by police as part of a system of oppression that I would very much like to have a part in dismantling. I am carrying a lot of stress about the pandemic that has killed 170,000 Americans. I have spent 7-8 years learning how to manage my stress. Those tools were not intended to work in situations like this.

So, my doctor and I made a plan to monitor my blood pressure, to try do more meditation and progressive relaxation, to eliminate processed snacks from my everyday diet (on occasion is still allowed), and to start doing some basic weight exercises with my cardio. 

Blood pressure is a really good example of why a healthy approach requires balancing mental and physical health. 

I’ve checked the physical health boxes for blood pressure management. 

And things beyond my control are preventing me from checking the mental health boxes for blood pressure management.

And also, genetics.

With the help of my doctor, I’ve developed a plan that considers both my physical and mental health and only time will tell if that has an impact on my blood pressure. For what it’s worth, my doctor is optimistic. Part of the reason my doctor is optimistic is because I am healthy.

To clarify, being healthy does not mean that my IBS has gone away, it just means I am treating my IBS with diet and medicine. 

Being healthy does not mean my anxiety has gone away, it just means I am in control of my anxiety.

I would not be healthy if I was unable to manage my IBS. 

But I would also not be healthy if I was unable to manage my anxiety. 

I would not be healthy if I had not figured out the value of balancing physical and mental health. 

Just like I found a way to overcome my iron-deficiency anemia, I will find a way to overcome my high blood pressure. It may require new medication and lifestyle changes, but by giving adequate consideration to both my physical and mental health, I have no doubt that I will eventually find a healthy solution to push myself over this hurdle as well.

Gonna wrap this up with a poor quality mirror-selfie I took this morning when I tried on a new bathing suit. This is a (headless) picture of a 200-pound, obese, plus-sized, healthy person.

[randomrainman]

american conservatism and the minds of people: a black man’s perspective.

Hi, it is I.

I often think long and hard about the mind states of the people around me, and my inevitable conclusion is that the vast majority of people are monumentally and irrevocably fucking stupid.  As it turns out, people have a really hard time letting go of things with which they have grown familiar or fond, and therein lies the basic principle of conservative thought.  

“But aren’t some things okay to keep?”

Well, obviously, not everything needs to be thrown out in order for improvement to occur.  In the Army, we have things labelled “sustains” and “improves”.  The two terms are pretty self-explanatory (as are most things in the military): sustains are the things that work, and the improves are the things you either completely nix or need to, erm, improve.  Of course, this begs a question: as it relates to a society of living, (mostly) breathing human beings, how does this apply?

"Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water,” it is commonly said.  I am not entirely sure who was throwing away bathing children, but that’s a discussion for a different time.  The baby in this idiomatic expression is whatever it is we are supposed to be maintaining.  Let’s start with an example: police.

Obviously, it is entirely infeasible to literally abolish police.  We absolutely need the police force as an institution, and good and effective policing is a pillar to a modern, functional society.  However, we can abolish unprofessional, unnecessarily violent, racist, or otherwise unbecoming behaviour from police departments, and also demonstrate that such things are intolerable and met with appropriate punishments every time these rules are broken.  NWA didn’t make “Fuck The Police” because they wanted to express interest in having thoroughly arresting cop sex; it exists because they don’t trust the police.

Above: An Autistic Swedish dude spitting shockingly accurate commentary-by-proxy about American society. Flames!

Due possibly in part to dubiously worded slogans such as “defund the police”, modern conservatives balk at the thought of changing anything of significance about how policing in many communities in the United States is conducted, even going as far as to label the reform for which we call as an attack on the very idea of police.

That said, historically, the very pillars of police forces in the United States have their foundations in slavery and post-slavery racist institutions, which means that, while much has changed on the surface, the way police implement policy reflects structural and societal racism.  As a result, simply attacking individual instances of misconduct will almost always fail to elicit any meaningful progress, which is why some do seek to dismantle police departments (an option I cannot fathom as being realistic, especially not in the short term). 

The lack of a centralised police organisation from which to implement policy certainly does not help, and while some police departments, to include the Department of Justice itself, have introduced implicit bias training, it would appear that change was difficult to measure. Additionally, many police departments have not addressed the more overt problem of explicit racism in law enforcement, which is a nigh-impossible thing to tackle expeditiously without a top-down structure to deal with it. It has improved steadily overall, however, but not without significant disapproval...

Pictured: “disapproval”.  A civil rights demonstrator is attacked by a police dog in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963. (Photo credit: AP)

The Origins

As I noted earlier, there is plenty of shit people want to keep, and most for relatively understandable reasons -- after all, those things provide a sense of familiarity.  “It’s always been this way -- why change it?” they ask.  One needs only to look at our, um, flowery history to see countless examples of things that required change...

The transatlantic slave trade transported up to 12 million forcibly enslaved Africans to the Americas, many of whom arrived in what is now the United States.  As unspeakably horrifying as the actual journey was, this was only the beginning of the tribulations that would befall the slaves and their descendants in the future.

While Europeans played a large part in introducing the idea of race-based caste systems into colonised lands, the American brand of discrimination is different in the fact that the idea that Blacks and Native Americans were genetically inferior to whites was endemic to our inception, and thus, formed the basis of the things enshrined into American democracy.

Photo credit: Alexander Gardner / Wikimedia Commons

Abraham Lincoln entered the chat.

Naturally, having someone even so much as threaten the idea of racial dominance after literal fucking centuries of treating Black people as property did not sit well with the slave-owning populace (even if Lincoln’s motives were not exactly altruistic).  While the Southern states did in fact operate an agrarian economy heavily dependent on chattel slavery, it was that notion of superiority combined with societal comfort they felt that ultimately catalysed the secession of the Southern states from the Union...

Pictured: Civil War reenactors (from the Confederate side) simulate the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest battle in US history.  Also, why the fuck is Civil War reenactment a popular thing to do? It’s deeply weird. (Photo credit: MPRNews.org)

...and then they decided to have the deadliest fucking war in American history over that comfort.  Spoiler alert: the Confederates lost both the war and their precious bullshit institution of slavery -- but even after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, many Southern slave owners did not even pass the news of freedom to their slaves for months.

In keeping with the preservationist and racist mindset which occupied most Southerners’ brains, any attempt to integrate Black people into society during the Reconstruction period was stymied at every turn.  To them, despite Black people being de jure full citizens in accordance with the Civil Rights Act of 1866, we were still subhuman.  Due to Jim Crow laws, Ku Klux Klan terrorism, and other assorted nonsense, we made virtually no progress toward equality until the Civil Rights Movement and resulting laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

“Well, you got what you wanted!  YOU’RE EQUAL!  Quit yer bitchin’!”

Ah, if only things worked that way in real life.  As previously noted, even if things are codified into law as changes, there are still people who try really hard to keep everything exactly the fucking same, so it does not end up happening in practice.  Things such as residual effects of redlining and continuing disproportionate and excessive imprisonment of minorities, amongst other issues, still affect people in the present day. In other areas, people exploit loopholes in order to lawfully discriminate against others they might deem “undeserving”.

Lots of things, especially when it comes to role of minorities in society, have historical precedents.  When arguing said precedents with conservative types, the conversation almost always leads to one of several (predictable) conclusions: the person believes that 1) negative historical events (e.g., slavery, Native American genocide, etc.) were not that bad; 2) those things did not happen at all; or 3) those things were bad, but somehow do not affect modern society.

Obviously, all three are emphatically wrong.  This is why typical conservative behaviour, even in this modern era in which information sharing is instantaneous, does not surprise me: often, the rhetoric is not rooted in reality, and often resorts to appeals to emotions to elicit a knee-jerk response.  This is not to say that this does not occur on liberal ends of the spectrum, but modern conservative rhetoric is rooted primarily in unjustified fear of change and anti-intellectualism.

Pictured: A screenshot I took of someone on a pro-President Biden post desperately trying to be oppressed.

This kind of shit is utterly exhausting.  Neoconservatism, in a nutshell, is people literally inventing problems and subsequently getting angry at their own creations.  It is the equivalent of setting up a bear trap, immediately stepping in it, and wondering why the fuck you’re stuck in said bear trap and your foot doesn’t work anymore. During the Obama administration, the only thing I would witness is people insisting (without any evidence, of course) that President Obama was the Antichrist and that he would usher in the New World Order and take everyone’s guns.  All zero of those things happened, of course, but when Donald Trump assumed the presidency, the rhetoric completely reversed, and he was named “God’s chosen" by evangelical figures, despite him having broken perhaps all of the Old Testament’s Ten Commandments.  Of course, as you can see with the above screenshot, clearly, they have returned to the Obama bitching method, but diminished, partially because President Biden is also an old, white male, and they don’t need to ask where he was born.

Pictured: what happens when you fuel millions of self-victimising people with QAnon conspiracy theories and possibly loads of Bang energy drinks.  Photo credit: ABC News

The hypocrisy is absolutely palpable amongst these types of people, and if I tried to sit here and continued to provide examples of conservative figures contradicting themselves, I would die either of old age or myocardial infarction, whichever happened first. The difference in the reaction to Black Lives Matter protests versus the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 makes the double standard quite transparent: justice and equality, while technically codified into law, are clearly are not administered equally in modern-day America.  We’re still not like the others.

Our brand of conservatism, by and large, is the enemy of those two very important American ideals.

|the kid|

[addictivegerard]

why the prolife argument makes no sense

I think it’s hilarious how right wing “facts don’t care about your feelings” activists are almost always pro-life. The argument against abortion as an accessible form of birth control is 100% an emotional appeal, and here’s why:

1. “You have no right to kill your fetus. It’s not your body, the baby is an individual and has the right to life.”: 

Of course, all embryos are human individuals, separate from their mothers. They have their own unique DNA composition, and are definitely alive. But do they deserve the right to life, which would make abortion equivalent to murder?

Pro-lifers are largely okay with IVF, an industry that throws away and destroys millions of fertilized embryos every day. In-vitro fertilization is an uncertain science, so couples are advised to fertilize multiple eggs in the labs in case the first few don’t work out. If a couple succeeds and have extra embryos left, they have the option to continue paying to store them in the lab, donate them to medical research, or destroy them. 

Anti-abortion bills always have exceptions for IVF clinics. Republican, pro-life lawmakers have literally had children via IVF. If a pro-lifer ever tells you that life begins at conception and that every embryo has the right to life, know that it’s bullshit. They don’t care about an industry that kills more embryos in a day than Planned Parenthood does in a year.

2. There are two possible responses to this.

A) “Fine, let’s ban IVF.” Out of all the conservative groups in America, only one major group explicitly stands against IVF – the Catholic Church. The same organization that condemns sex before marriage, homosexuality, divorce, masturbation/porn, the use of condoms, getting drunk or high, and tattoos. At this point, I’m assuming you understand that the Church’s ideas of morality are regressive, illogical, primitive, and… make life extremely boring. IVF is a wonderful science that brings children to parents who want them all over the world and is in no way a bad thing.

B) “Fine. Maybe not at conception, but at [x] months, it’s a baby.” This is the point where most conservatives start arguing about the point up till you should be allowed to have an abortion. Two weeks? Six weeks? Three months? Unfortunately, there is no scientific way to determine when an embryo is no longer just a clump of cells and now a human being with rights.

Since pro-lifers are okay with IVF, we can assume they don’t believe in the right to life at conception. How about the heartbeat theory? At six weeks, the fetus develops a heartbeat, and proponents argue that it is the point at which the fetus is no longer simply a fetus, but a human being. However, having a heartbeat doesn’t necessarily mean you have the right to life.

Legally, if you are brain dead, you’re… dead. You no longer have the right to life, which is why organ donation is possible. All this while having a heartbeat, so that’s clearly not a viable hallmark of an individual that inherently has the right to life. So while it's true that at six weeks a baby develops (what is flimsily termed as) a heartbeat, that doesn't somehow give it rights to life that it did not have before. So far, I haven’t come across any other sensible theories as to “when” an embryo deserves the right to life. It’s a lousy concept to begin with, as blurry as the legal definition of adulthood – not all 18+ year olds are mature and nothing fundamentally changes in a person once the clock strikes midnight. Similarly, embryo development is a process. There’s really no point at which you can logically claim it’s transformed into a human being with rights.

3. Evidently, there are two extremes — life begins at conception, vs life doesn’t begin until birth. 

There’s no “scientific backing” for a point in between, but you’ll never find a pro-choice advocate arguing in favor of the latter, because it’s called an extreme for a reason. The best way to deal with the abortion issue at this point is to leave the science and technicalities alone, and think about the people who are actually getting abortions.

4. “Use protection and you won’t get pregnant”: 

Protection is never 100% reliable. Plus: if two people are irresponsible enough to have unprotected sex, what makes you think they’re responsible enough to have and raise children? The number of children growing up with unqualified, immature, abusive, or neglectful parents automatically disproves the theory that parenthood brings about a sense of personal responsibility. Being raised by bad parents inflicts often irreparable damage on children. Treating babies as some sort of “divine punishment” for irresponsible sex, instead of human beings who deserve a stable upbringing, is harmful on both an individual and collective scale. The data on irresponsible, neglectful, or abusive childhoods/single parent childhoods speaks for itself. In the quest to punish irresponsible parents, most of the damage is inflicted on their children, which in turn impacts the generation that will lead us forward into the future. It is in our best interests to raise as many mature, healthy, and productive young adults as possible, and while not every child born into these circumstances live lives of mental health/psychological/intimacy issues and criminal behavior, a large majority do. Growing up with bad parents is simply not ideal for an impressionable child’s wellbeing. Quality of life > quantity of life.

5. “Don’t have sex if you don’t want to have children.”:

Unhelpful, unrealistic, and telling of no real desire to solve the problem at hand. Telling people not to have sex unless they deliberately intend to have children is like telling people not to smoke, drink too much, or eat unhealthily. People will have sex. What are we going to do to make sure the sex doesn’t lead to unplanned pregnancies?

6. “Okay but what about xyz who had an abortion and has regretted it ever since?”: 

Abortion is a result of unplanned and unfortunate circumstances. Whether it’s because the doctor tells you your baby will be stillborn or born with a fatal illness, or if you were raped, or if you had sex with your boyfriend during your first year of college and found yourself pregnant: these are bad situations, and no matter what you do, there’s always a chance you’ll look back and wish you’d done things differently. Kept the baby? Well, maybe you’ll find that the baby brought newfound purpose to your life. But maybe the baby added an additional financial strain to your life and forced you to quit your job, leaving you destitute and homeless with no way to feed it. Alternatively, if you got an abortion, maybe you end up being able to finish college and fulfil all your goals... or maybe you regret that decision for the rest of your life. There’s no way to guarantee that you’re making the right decision, but being informed about your options, and having options available, makes it more likely that you do. That’s why we are advocating for informed choice. Whether they eventually choose to keep the baby or have an abortion, give women the time and resources to truly evaluate their options and do what’s best for them in their own circumstances.

7. “Why kill the baby? Put it up for adoption.”: 

The adoption system is known for being isolating, exploitative, and unhealthy for children growing up in it. Being adopted into a great family can create healthy, happy young adults. But far too many kids don’t get that opportunity, and pay the price for it. In 2019, 122,216 children in the US adoption system were waiting to be adopted. Young people who age-out of the foster care system without being adopted are over-represented in rates of incarceration, suicide and substance abuse.

Granted, for some kids it’s a better alternative to the families they would have grew up in, but again: it’s an unideal situation. An unideal situation that can very easily be avoided with abortion. Why would a person choose 9 months of labor, plus all the emotional labor of having to give your child away to a system that more likely than not will eat them alive, knowing they will grow up asking themselves why they weren’t good enough for their birth parents, when the person could… simply not have that baby and not invite all that pain?

8. “It doesn’t matter, no one has the right to take another life.”:

Here’s another way of looking at the abortion question: the fetus is in a position where its existence impinges on its mother’s bodily integrity, and it stays in that position until the point of viability (at which it could plausibly survive outside the mother’s body) at about 24 weeks. One person’s bodily integrity will always override another person’s right to life; this is a fundamental truth. Otherwise, we would have mandatory kidney and liver donations. People all over the world are dying due to a lack of kidneys or other organs - why should we be allowed to keep both of ours when one of them could save someone’s life? 

Let’s say I caused a car accident that resulted in someone needing a kidney donation. It’s my fault they’re in that position, and I was negligent - should I be legally obligated to give mine up?

If the idea of being forced to donate one of your kidneys sounds violating, you’re closer to understanding why forcing someone to have a baby is such a barbaric thing to do. Even if the risk is small - kidney donations have a death rate of about 0.03% while childbirth is at 0.02% in the US - it’s still wrong to force something so invasive and risky onto someone against their will. Additionally, there are many complications that can arise from pregnancy short of death, just like there can be consequences to living your life with only one kidney down the line.

To summarize:

It is definitively not in anyone’s best interests to force unwilling and unprepared parents to have an unwanted child. It’s also not a good idea to get too deep into the technicalities of when an embryo is a fetus or when you’re allowed or not allowed to abort it. We need to focus on the women who are actually getting abortions. Having a baby is a huge life adjustment. Keep it, and you’re taking on an 18-year responsibility. You are responsible for another person’s wellbeing, and your life will never be the same. 

In three months (about 12 weeks), a potential mother can: find out that they’re pregnant (missing periods is extremely common. A lot of women only find out they’re pregnant at two months, or 8 weeks), think about their financial, professional, social, romantic, or whatever situation and figure out what would be the best course of action, and then actually get the abortion if she chooses to. 12 weeks is enough, 12 weeks is reasonable, 12 weeks is humane. Nobody wants third-trimester abortions unless there are serious, life threatening complications.

The pro-life argument is reduced down to: well, abortion is bad! That's a little innocent baby. It didn't hurt anyone. Well, we agree: abortion is bad. It’s not a good thing, it’s not something people want to have to do. Nobody looks forward to giving or receiving an abortion, it’s physically painful and often heart-breaking. But is it as bad as forcing a woman to go through hours of excruciating, potentially life-threatening labor for a child she doesn't even want to have? Is it as bad as enforcing serious health, financial, emotional, social, and professional risks on a woman who knows she is in no way ready to give a baby the life it deserves? Is it worse than having to drop out of school with no way to feed your child? Worse than having to give your baby away to an adoption center, where they’re likely to join the hundreds of thousands of unadopted children? There are evils, and then there are greater evils. Abortion may not be ideal, but for some people, it's the best option out there. When broken down, the pro-life argument is nothing but sad, provocative videos & descriptions of surgical abortions intended to pull at your heartstrings. But they’re sometimes the best option for the mother and her unborn baby. Nobody is pro-abortion — we’re pro-choice.

[yaz-the-spaz]

I don’t know why zi*i’s are so pressed, or whoever believe to them I mean a lot of people (or so I think) believe to them and they’re official narrative and they make you believe there’s nothing fishy going on because they’re official and their stans should be happy about it so why they’re so keen on wanting us to be wrong? If the situation were reversed, I wouldn’t spare a minute to look at them (at people who don’t believe) because I know they’re real and there’s nothing to be worried about

EXACTLY nonnie. my thoughts exactly. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again - WHY are they so threatened by us if they really believe their ship is real lmao? like if you really believe in something you have literally no reason to go seeking out ppl who don’t believe in it just to start shit. like the only reason you have to do that is b/c you feel subconsciously scared of or threatened by the opposition and why should they be if their ship is really real? they act like they’re some sort of missionaries on some moral crusade to save ziam believers’ souls or something lmao but last i checked this isn’t the dark ages lol. ppl are free to believe what they want and we’re literally not hurting anybody by sitting in our own little subsection of the interwebs minding our own business and talking about what we wanna talk about and letting them do the same amongst themselves. but yet they ALWAYS find some dumb ass reasoning to just intrude in our corner and be like 

I THINK YOU’RE WRONG AND I DON’T LIKE YOU CAUSE I’M 12 AND YOU’RE A STUPID BOOGER MCBUTTFACE

and it’s like...

ok and...?

like literally no one asked you and you don’t have to waste your time reading it or even seeing it at all if you don’t want to? there’s a block button for a reason? there’s a blacklist option for a reason? but the fact that they keep coming back and doing it anyway to me just really shows their true insecurity in their ship lol. like look at us ziams, most of us ain’t checking for z*gis and ain’t worried about shit they have to say cause we know it’s all smoke & mirrors and pr bullshit, and we’re secure enough in our beliefs to just ignore it. but they keep coming back here. why? one reason: insecurity. they see us a threat. and a big one based on how many of them just keep coming back. cause what other reason do you have to keep coming back to antagonize a group of ppl that you claim not to care about or not to agree with UNLESS you’re worried that all the holes they’re poking in your ship might be true and you don’t know how to handle it lol

anyway i rest my case lol

*bangs gavel*

in conclusion antis are insecure, immature whiny little brats looking for someone to take their misplaced anger and insecurity out on and they know it too or they wouldn’t be hiding on anon

[hollenka99]

The One Where Jackie Meets The Others

Summary: Chapter 4. Jackie enjoys a couple trips out with Marvin.

Warnings: death and blood mentions

@bupine @badlypostedeverything

Things don't smoothly transition back to the way they were following that morning. However, they both agreed it was clear Anti's intentions were to divide them. Therefore, it would be dumb to give him that satisfaction. When Marvin asks, out of pure curiosity, about the mullet, Jackie doesn't really have an answer. He'd simply liked the style. But maybe it was time to move on. The chances of him returning to the '80s were particularly slim. With the green having faded weeks ago, he has it cut so it now only reaches his ears. The style is nice but he does miss his old look. He supposes Marvin was pleased with this development. He definitely got a lot of joy from teasing Jackie about how much curlier his shorter hair became following showers. The only quip he has in response is that the hero's hair wasn't much better when wet either. The next thing on the agenda was the excursion to Pizza Hut. The four of them agree to meet on Thursday. In preparation, Marvin offers Jackie a copy of the restaurant's document on allergy information. Marvin faces falls when he learns just how many items he loved posed a certain risk to Jackie's health. Nope, no pepperoni for him. No garlic breadsticks or cheesy fries either. Fried items were a contamination risk too, apparently. He lies when his friend asks about stuffed crust. Jackie trying the crust option was one of the main reasons they'd agreed to visit the establishment. Besides, it wasn't guaranteed it would trigger a reaction. He could possibly get away with sampling a little of Marvin's crust if he didn't push his luck. It is comforting to learn Henrik, the friend who made educational videos for others, had coeliac's disease and therefore had to be wary when eating as well. Jameson was Marvin's cousin of sorts. Their grandmothers had been sisters. Then their mothers were friends, leading to their sons to develop a good relationship while growing up. Jameson was a performer who used his control over time and sound for entertainment purposes. He and Marvin frustratingly run late due to the hero misplacing his wallet. They are apologetic to Henrik and Jameson who have already found a table and ordered drinks for themselves. Jameson has neat brown hair that extends down his face to his jawline and closely surrounds his mouth. Henrik, on the other hand, has black hair which has been swept back as well as glasses. The two of them promise they don't mind the delay. They haven't been here for ages anyway. In time, four pizzas are delivered to the table. There is the pan BBQ americano, gluten free Hawaiian, cheesy bites pepperoni and stuffed crust BBQ beef and onion. Marvin suggests he and Jackie trade a slice. His friend makes a supposedly humourous comment about how he identifies as Jackie's pizza base but it's lost on the former drummer. How someone can deeply relate to dough that's been baked in a pan, Jackie has no clue. He allows Marvin to take a slice regardless. However, when it comes to him returning the gesture, Jackie insists he only wants a little bit of his friend's crust. Half a slice's worth of stuffed crust is placed on top of his own pizza. Jackie regrets it as soon as it enters his mouth. God damn it, it was actually really tasty. He could see why Marvin was so enthusiastic about it. His expression remains neutral as he chews, well aware he has an audience. He hates how disappointed Marvin looks when Jackie gives a bullshit review about the cheese within being too chewy. Allergies and cross-contamination risks fucking sucked. Screw his body for being an asshole who overreacted to a commonly used spice. "Oh well, more for me." Marvin winks as he recovers from the blow before stealing a piece of chicken from Jackie plate. Alright, maybe letting one small inconvenience ruin tonight in his mind was stupid. Marvin had said he'd act as translator. Which was a lovely gesture. Jackie was grateful he was prepared to sacrifice part of his evening to play the middleman so he and Jameson could communicate. Except Marvin got sidetracked at one point and had delved into a whole conversation with his cousin, spoke entirely in BSL. It looked like a funny one too. Jackie was glad the pair were enjoying their evening. He stuck to conversing with Henrik instead. It's a struggle as they don't seem to have much in common. That is until Jackie absentmindedly asked what sort of food Henrik enjoyed. This in turn triggered the German man sitting opposite him to enthuse about fried potato slices with pieces of bacon and onion. Jackie himself launches into a story about how his mother used to work with a woman who had family in West Germany. Then this German colleague would sometimes write down a recipe or two to give to them. In no uncertain terms, those foreign dishes beat jacket potatoes or beans on toast any day. The four men give their stomachs a chance to settle a little while they chat as a group. Then it was time to finish off the night with ice cream shakes. Two strawberries, an oreo and a chocoholic are brought to the table. Although there had been several mentions of what Jameson did for a living, it is only at this point that a proper conversation about is initiated. "Jameson's doing a show on the 4th. I think we should go. What do you say?" Jackie's response is delayed due to Marvin making the suggestion just as he takes a long sip of his strawberry shake. "Oh uh, yeah, sure. What exactly will be in the show? Time stuff, right?" Jameson taps the side of his nose with a wry smile. The younger of the cousins translates this as "I believe he's saying that's for him to know and for you to find out." The performer signs something. "Expect the unexpected." Marvin rolls his eyes with a smile remaining on his face. "Oh yeah, like when you get a younger member of the audience to volunteer for your sound tricks. I once heard Hacker T Dog from CBBC sing Thinking Out Loud, you know. That was an experience." Jameson makes a comment. "I haven't seen the weirdest combinations? Well yeah, I sure hope I haven't. Kids' minds can come up with bizarre things. Henrik, especially, should know that." Henrik nods to this with a sense that this was a profound understatement. The banter carries on and Jackie soon feels like less of an outsider. The ice creams shakes eventually get drained as the evening draws to a close. Once all the goodbyes and "It was nice to meet you"s are over, the tow of them hop into Marvin's car to head home. Bohemian Rhapsody happens to begin playing on the radio as they set off. Jackie doesn't even have to ask before he's turning the volume up for both their benefits. They haphazardly fall into a duet. Jackie's heard Marvin singing absentmindedly to himself before this. He therefore already knows he has a good voice. But it isn't until tonight that he's able to hear it out loud. "I need you to do me a favour. Do you mind headbanging like in Wayne's World?" "What?" "Wayne's World. Never seen the film myself but there's a pretty well known scene where a bunch of them are in the car while this song is playing. Then during the instrumental that's coming up, they really rock out. I've always wanted to do it while in a car but I always seem to be the driver when I get the chance. So do you mind rocking out in a minute on my behalf?" Jackie chuckles. "Sure. My pleasure." As Freddie finishes claiming Beelzebub has a devil put aside for him, Jackie springs into action. He moves his head back and forth in rapid succession to the music. The pair follow along with the next verse as loudly as possible. At least, they attempt to. It isn't long before they have both descended into raucous laughter. "Thanks!" Marvin manages in between breaths when it calms. "We should do that again. With us stationary next time so you can do it too." "Deal." Marvin bursts into laughter once more and Jackie thinks he's growing particularly fond of it. --- Another crime scene, another person fighting to remain alive while bleeding from the neck. Cat is only able to stand by while the paramedics do their job. He'd like to beg them to not take this guy to hospital, to not risk history repeating itself. But it's not like he can ask anyone to skip properly treating the victim. He's sure everyone here knows this situation is a catch 22. However, they can't do anything other than perform their jobs. It takes great deal of convincing but Cat is allowed to stay outside the patient's room for the night. He's been standing guard for a good while when midnight passes. A doctor comes along on her rounds. She speaks to Cat and the other member of security he's been spending the night with. While she's talking, Anti's latest victim begins coding. Any and all resuscitation efforts prove futile. The guy is gone. So is the doctor. If she even existed in the first place. And Cat suspects Anti himself is long gone too. The day afterwards, he catches some reporting of the murder while flicking through channels. The victim has an identity now. There's a name, age and grieving loved ones. The television is bitterly switched off as Marvin searches for his notebook instead. Joining the countless other entries is 27/4/19 - Nick Shaw, 34, wife + 2 little kids The next time he sees Anti, he's not fucking around. Enough was enough. Marvin was putting a stop to this once and for all, by whatever method was necessary. --- The first Saturday of May is a cloudy one. That doesn't stop a crowd from flocking to the Jolly Gentleman's show. Chase is still getting out of the car when Niamh races out, the name Oscar having barely left her mouth before doing so. It is with great relief that Chase witnesses his daughter collide with a familiar man. The pair of single fathers briefly kiss as a part of a greeting while the five year old girl is returned. Her twin sister and older brother hover around as the greetings continue. Eventually, Fletcher drifts into his own group with both of Oscar's boys. The seven of them make their way inside. "So where is this friend of yours?" Oscar asks as they take their seats. "Do you see him?" "Not yet. He should be bringing his new roommate with him." His scanning of the tent is halted. "Speak of the devil." Chase spots Marvin entering the area, along with another man whom his best assumptions identified as Jackie. They seat themselves in the same row as the fathers. The children sit directly in front of the adults. Marvin introduces him to Jackie as Dr Chase Brody, emphasising the title. "I'm just spending the day out with my kids, there's no need to be throwing my doctorate around. Chase." He offers his hand for Jackie to shake. "And this is Fletcher, Ciera and Niamh." Oscar carries on the round of greetings by introducing himself, Milo and Max. They spend a full minute going through the mundane pleasantries before Marvin and Jackie finally stay seated. As the performance begins, Chase relaxes. They'd filled the wait time with small talk and chatter amongst themselves, however, he had intended for today to be a chance to spend time with his partner. He gives Marvin the benefit of the doubt. The thing is, Jackie came across as a decent enough guy. He also understandably seemed a little overwhelmed by the amount of people in the group. If the chit chat served as a distraction, then fine by him. Besides, he only looked like he was in his late teens anyway. They did share a history of drumming when they were younger though which was a nice surprise. That certainly allowed for a whole avenue of conversation. As soon as Jameson emerged to start his performance, the auditory atmosphere changed. There were speakers around the place and at certain points of the show it almost felt as if the sound was travelling around the space as a physical thing. He also seemingly teleported to a different spot than moments before. A woman was completely flabbergasted when she discovered a small thank you card in her handbag that certainly hadn't been there when she arrived with no easy explanation for how it got there. Throughout the performance, one of his colleagues acted as his commentator. Among his other tricks, the Jolly Gentleman sets a row of plants on fire with an elongated lighter. One of his colleagues dramatically shows up with a bucket of water to extinguish it. The performer stops him with a raised hand. He then holds the lighter, still producing a flame, up for the audience. It trails across the plants, erasing any evidence that there had been any combustion taking places. Not a single scorch mark or hint of smoke in sight. A little girl is summoned from the audience. She's about the twins' age, maybe slightly younger. After being asked what her favourite character was (Daddy Pig, of all things) she was encouraged to sing a song she really liked (I'm a Little Teapot). Already familiar with work stories his friend had, he knew what to expect. The crowd was treated to Daddy Pig's rendition of I'm a Little Teapot, complete with actions. Or at least, they were partially treated to it as the volunteer kept giggling into the microphone throughout her performance. It is evident that Jackie is too enthralled by the show to notice the barely subtle yet fond glances in his direction from the one sitting next to him. Ah, so it was like that, huh? Good for them. Chase catches Marvin's arm as they head out, taking advantage of Jackie going to speak with Jameson. It would be more discreet if Marvin's friend wasn't in earshot. With a wink, he teases his friend. "And they were roommates." "Hey, shut up. It's not like that." "Sure. And Oscar is nothing more than my buddy." "Chase-" "Seriously, what have you got to lose? If he's straight then it might get a little awkward for a moment. But I feel like he would be reasonable and appreciate the honesty. Well, you know him better than I do. You tell me." "You sure?" "Listen, I was already married to a woman when I started being cool with liking dudes. But since the split I've been around the block a few times. It is going to be fine." Marvin moves towards his car as Jackie re-emerges from backstage. It's clear he's still very much skeptical about it all. "If you say so, Chase." ---- Joel makes the judgement that Jackie would probably be fine to travel through his portals a week later. His apartment is pleasant. The ledge of one of his windows has a cushion to improve comfort. Jackie notices remnants of blu tack on the wall where something had clear been removed, which was odd. He almost makes a joke about it but decides against it. "Well... fáilte!" Joel spreads his arms to gesture to the whole room. "Wait, you know some Irish?" "Yep. Had an Irish grandmother who got me conversational." "Really? Nice. In that case, go raibh maith agat." Jackie chuckles. "So... anyway, you going to tell me how you know I'm from '86 or not?" "Okay, so you already know about my portals." "Are you trying to tell me you portalled me through time?" "What?! No, of course not. Bold of you to assume I have any control over the 4th dimension. I meant, I have powers and therefore I inherited the ability to have them." "So how then?" "One of my dads has a time based power and I guess, that trickled down to me a little. Stuff like that happens sometimes. I think Jameson might have an unusually strong immune system because his mother has enhanced immunity. Either way, I just have a sixth sense for time stuff." "...Right." Joel huffs in annoyance. "Alright, believe me or don't. The point is I want to help you go back to your own time if that's what you want." Ah. That's where that elephant was hiding. He was slowly getting used to the future but there was an inexplicable longing to return to where he came from. He was never meant to be 20 in 2019. There was no denying that fact. And as much as he enjoyed hanging out with Marvin and the rest of his new friends, it felt wrong somehow. That said, he was particularly good at going with the flow where necessary. If he was stuck in this century for good, then he'd deal with that. But if there was a chance he could be returned to 1986, there was no way he wouldn't take it. "How?" A sly smile appears on Joel's face. "Ah, for that, we will need Jameson and Henrik's help. All we have to do is wait for the right moment to ask for it. And seeing as it's now May, I don't think we'll have to wait that long."