#wish i was less media literate wish i had less brain cells!!!!

[narutomaki]

playing totk (not at this very moment but) like. wow that got like. really heavy handed on the Nintendo racism.

[cinnaminsvga]

🌷 social media au where y/n posts an advertisement looking for a new place to stay that is closer to campus, causing seven upperclassmen to make it their mission to recruit her into their dormitories 🌷

A/N: THIS TOOK FOREVER AND I KINDA RUSHED IT AT THE END BUT HOPEFULLY IT MAKES SENSE?? anyway, yoongi didn’t do anything stupid (depending on your definition of stupid) so no need to worry about him being cringey,,, i spared you all from the secondhand embarrassment but i won’t be so kind next time!! anyway... enjoy || W.C. 3.8K

prev // part 11 // next masterlist here.

By the time Seokjin’s phone begins to ring, Yoongi can already feel the dread settle deep inside his bones. The familiar coil of anxiety tightens around his throat like a vice, and Yoongi has to remember how to breathe to keep himself from fainting like a corseted Victorian lady. 

“Well, that must be her!” Seokjin chimes, promptly declining your call without a glance. Yoongi catches a glimpse of your contact photo anyway: it’s an unflattering angle of you from below your neck, giving the illusion of a multitude of chins. If it were any other time, Yoongi might have smiled like a lovesick fool. 

“Don’t you dare let her in here,” Yoongi seethes. He tries to sound menacing, but the effect is severely diminished by how badly his voice cracks. He tugs at Seokjin by the sleeve, but the older man refuses to budge. “Hyung, I’m serious. I know what you’re trying to do.”

“Are you done live-tweeting your confusion now? Finally got the memo? I always knew you were a smart boy,” Seokjin laughs, patting Yoongi on the shoulder with his tomato sauce-covered tongs. “Since we’re on the same page now, why don’t you change clothes while I finish cooking? I know your entire wardrobe is composed of the free t-shirts you got from job fairs, but it would do well to wear a clean, unstained shirt.”

Yoongi swipes at him, hissing like the catboy that he is. “You’re the one who wiped shit on me, asshole. And yes, I figured out what you are trying to do. You think you’re so slick, but I know that you’re just trying to embarrass me in front of Y/N!”

Seokjin shrugs. “It isn’t like I’m trying to be slick. I embarrass you all the time. Besides, I’m setting you up on a date with the love of your life! You should be thanking me, if I’m being honest.”

Yoongi stammers, his jaw dropping in shock. “Love of my–?”

Seokjin waves his tongs in his face, silencing him. “Oh, hush. Don’t even try to hide it, Yoongi. I figured out that you like Y/N. Your weird behavior finally makes sense! After years of you avoiding her, I always thought you were just bad at forming human connections, but turns out you’ve got a gigantic heart boner for my best friend!”

“Please don’t phrase it like that,” Yoongi groans, smashing his head against his kitchen counter. He hopes a few brain cells might have died, just so he can stop processing the words coming out of Seokjin’s mouth. “Actually, just please stop talking.”

Seokjin snorts in exasperation as if Yoongi was the dramatic one between them. “Point is, this is a favor that I’ve chosen to grant you from the goodness of my heart! As I said, I’m giving you the love life you deserve! So stop whining and get moving before Y/N gets up here.”

“There isn’t any goodness nor a heart inside of you. And more importantly, when was the last time you did anything for free, you capitalist bastard!”

Seokjin clicks his tongue, shaking his head. “That’s where you’re wrong, Yoongi-chi. You’ve already paid me for my services by offering me front row seats to watch you lose your fucking mind. And that, my friend, is priceless.”

“Aha! So you do admit that this is all just a ploy to humiliate me!” Yoongi shouts. He grabs a knife from his scabbard, pointing it threateningly at Seokjin. He doesn’t even flinch, instead gently guiding Yoongi by the wrist over to the chopping board where he had placed some garlic cloves beforehand. Without prompting, Yoongi’s hand begins to move, his culinary instincts taking over.

“Yes and no,” Seokjin admits as he grabs Yoongi’s cast iron pan from the top shelf (which he has never gotten to use since he bought it, ever since Seokjin had borrowed it once and placed it too high for him to retrieve.) “I’m honestly trying to help you out here, my dude. Besides, even if shit hits the fan, Y/N isn’t gonna think any less of you. She’s too much of an idiot to resent anyone.”

“Speaking from experience?” Yoongi huffs, eyeing him with intense vitriol. “Can’t say I understand how she’s gone this long without killing you.” The next time the two of them are alone together in the wilderness, he can’t promise that his hands won’t find their way around Seokjin’s throat, and it won’t be sexy.

“Hmm. Yeah, definitely,” he says, nodding absentmindedly. As he begins to season the steak, he hands the cast iron pan to Yoongi. “Start preheating this. We need it to be smoking hot before we can place the steak on there.”

“I know how to cook a steak, fucker. And who said you’re allowed to serve my Wagyu steak? I was saving that for a special occasion!”

Seokjin looks up from his ministrations long enough to raise a brow at him. “So going on your first ever date with Y/N isn’t considered a special occasion?”

Yoongi falters, eyes widening. “N-no, that’s not what I mean!” he defends hotly, but he quickly snaps out of it. “Wait, no! This is not a date! Not when both parties did not agree to any of this!”

Seokjin pauses from his cooking to place a perfectly manicured hand on his hip. “I mean, Y/N agreed to it, so are you going to reject her? Huh? Too good for her and my spaghetti?”

Yoongi scoffs, rolling his eyes. “No, she did not agree to this. She doesn’t even know you’re forcing her to eat lunch with me.”

“How can you say that with such certainty?” Seokjin challenges, puffing his cheeks. “You don’t even know what I told her!”

Except I do know what you said, Yoongi thinks darkly to himself. And more importantly, I know what she thinks you were implying. He is pretty sure that the words “crush on him during high school” have seared themselves underneath his eyelids forevermore.

But instead, he says, “Yeah, well. If what you told her is as vague as what you told me, I have a pretty good hunch that this is going to blow up into a huge misunderstanding.”

Like the absolute menace that he is, all Seokjin does is shrug nonchalantly. “Suppose you are right… Who cares? It’s not like the two of you are strangers, so I’m sure this is going to go great!”

“What the fuck? She is a stranger! I’ve literally only spoken two words to her in the past four years!” Yoongi seethes, his temple throbbing from an oncoming migraine. 

Seokjin ignores him, as per his want. “Grab that plate, will you? I gotta plate the pasta before Y/N starts calling again to let her into the building,” he says, nudging the tongs into Yoongi’s hands. Yoongi squawks, quickly turning the stove off to keep the food from burning. 

Seokjin tears off his (read: Yoongi’s) apron off, wiping his hands on his jeans with a quick smile. “Great! While you finish up here, I’ll distract Y/N for a bit in my room before I lead her in here, alright? You better hurry unless you want to keep her waiting!”

“Oh, like how you kept her waiting downstairs for the past–” Yoongi checks his wall clock, “–seven minutes?”

Seokjin cackles madly, rushing out the door. “Well, that’s where you and I differ, Yoongi-chi! I give no shits about how Y/N thinks about me, so good luck!” After sending Yoongi three flying kisses for good measure, Seokjin slams the door shut, leaving Yoongi to simmer in his bad life choices.

The worst choice that he’s ever made? Being friends with one (1) Kim Seokjin.

“God, just end me,” Yoongi mutters, placing his $80 steak on his pan. It sizzles deliciously, much like how his (nonexistent) love life is about to get burnt to a crisp.

x x x x x

“Took you long enough.” You watch as Seokjin taunts you with a funny little dance by the lobby of his dormitory, the building receptionist not even batting an eye at his eccentricity. That’s the sad side effect of living in close proximity with Seokjin: you start getting desensitized to most things, not even flinching at the sight of a man without a functioning central nervous system.

Seokjin slides his card to open the door, finally allowing you entry. “Sorry. Got busy preparing your lunch! Which by the way, you should be thanking me for.”

“The moment I thank you for anything is the day that you slip on your own cum and die,” you grouse, nudging past him to get on the elevator first. You punch the button for the 5th floor before rapidly trying to close the elevator door on him. Unfortunately, Seokjin makes it in time before his ass gets clamped by the two steel doors.

“Thinking about my cum? Oh my, Y/N… I know you’ve had a dry spell for too long, but I didn’t think you’d be that desperate for some of my butter,” Seokjin says, leaning closely to wink at you.

Against your will, your cheeks brighten furiously, weakly pushing Seokjin away from you. “You wish. At least I don’t spend my spare time loitering outside the campus gym to ogle all the sweaty hot people.”

“And the invitation to join me still stands by the way!” Seokjin singsongs, leaping out of the elevator once you reach his floor. You walk side by side until you reach his room, but you catch him shooting a furtive glance at his next-door neighbor.

“Is Yoongi joining us for lunch?” you ask, failing to keep your curiosity from showing in your voice. If Yoongi does end up joining you for lunch (which has never happened in the past four years, convincing you that he must have a personal grudge against you), then at least it can confirm to you straight away that whatever this “date” is just another prank by Seokjin. You don’t know if you should be disappointed or grateful if it is just a joke.

Seokjin beams in response, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “You know what? He is going to join us, actually!” 

He had been in the midst of unlocking his dorm when he changes direction, leading you to Yoongi’s door instead. He rifles through his other keys, and you notice one of them looks similar to his own house key, except with a Hello Kitty sticker on it. He pulls that key out and promptly unlocks Yoongi’s door without missing a beat.

What kind of weirdo must Yoongi be to give Seokjin a spare key to his dorm? You’d rather shit out a cactus than let Seokjin have free entry to your home whenever he pleases.

You hesitate by Yoongi’s door, feeling nervous all of a sudden. “Um, Seokjin? Are you sure it’s okay for me to–?”

“HONEY I’M HOOOOME!” Seokjin’s loud guffaw cuts you off before you can finish your question. He bursts through the door and leaves you by the hallway, and you watch as he nearly tackles Yoongi to the ground.

Yoongi, despite looking like he’s half the size of Seokjin on a good day, manages to keep upright despite how his back is now bent parallel to the floor. “Get off me!” he yells, roughly pushing Seokjin off of him. 

Seokjin tumbles to the floor, but the shit-eating grin on his face hardly wavers. He points at you by the doorway, a cheeky grin on his lips. “Look, Yoongi-chi! I brought a guest!”

Yoongi spares you half a glance before returning his attention to whatever he was cooking. “I suppose you did.”

Okay, this date is definitely a joke. Why the hell did you even think for a second that Seokjin might have been into you?

“Um,” you stutter nervously. You grind your heel into the carpet self-consciously, your gaze downcast. “Hello, Yoongi. Sorry for the intrusion, by the way…”

“It’s fine,” Yoongi replies, albeit a little curtly. He clears his throat, his face still tilted away from you so you can’t tell if he’s genuinely annoyed or not. 

You point a glare at Seokjin, who looks shamelessly pleased with himself. After taking a deep breath, you take your first steps into Yoongi’s home before gently closing the door.

As you look around at your new surroundings, you notice that his home is a lot cleaner than you would have expected, though you’re not exactly sure what you should have expected in the first place. It’s minimalist, but not in a barren type of way; it’s seems like Yoongi is fond of simple designs more than anything. It’s certainly a nice change of pace compared to Seokjin’s abomination of a room, with his vaguely yellow-stained bedsheets. 

The smell of freshly cooked pasta and meat being grilled catches your senses immediately. You watch as Yoongi flips over a hefty piece of steak, the aroma causing your mouth to salivate instantly. 

“I… What is… Huh?” you start, not knowing what to ask. You catch Seokjin snickering quietly to himself, but promptly shuts up when you mime punching him in the dick.

“It’ll be finished in a second. Why don’t you sit down?” Yoongi announces quietly, his gaze still fixed away from you. Confused but left with no other choice, you tentatively make your way to his couch, unable to relax as your spine remains ramrod straight and your jaw stays clenched. 

You hear Seokjin shuffling behind you until he eventually makes his way to sit with you, plopping onto the couch as if it were his home. “Ah… I’m soooo hungry. Smells good, doesn’t it?” he asks you, his brow wiggling too much to be considered normal. Either that, or he was having a stroke.

“Yeah, it does,” you say, greatly uncomfortable. You peek at Yoongi once more, who is still dutifully attending to the steak. Making sure he isn’t looking, you twist Seokjin by the nipple, causing the elder to let out a high-pitched squeal. To an outsider, it might have almost sounded like he was being pleasured. 

“Ouch! What the fuck was that for?” Seokjin whines, rubbing his tenderized nipples. 

“You know what that was for,” you hiss, keeping your volume low. “What the hell are we doing here? Why are you making Yoongi cook for us?!”

“For us? It’s for you!” Seokjin snaps back. “Didn’t you say you would only come over if you got fed? Well, this is how you get fed!”

“I was under the assumption that you would be feeding me, not him!” you seethe. You check back on Yoongi, who still hasn’t looked your way once. “The poor boy… No wonder he doesn’t like me! He must think I’m as bad as you!”

Seokjin snorts. “Of course he likes you! This whole lunch date wouldn’t have even fucking happened if he wasn’t assdeep in lo–”

“Lunch is finished,” Yoongi interrupts loudly, his spatula rattling loudly against his pan. The sudden noise makes you jump away from Seokjin, who appears vaguely triumphant. 

“T-thanks,” you stutter, standing up and resisting the random urge to shake his hand. Everything about this situation is so tense and awkward that it feels like you’re being filmed for a prank Youtube video or something. Knowing Seokjin, the odds of that happening are great. 

“That’s my cue to leave then! Bye! You guys have fun!” Seokjin says, jumping to his feet. 

You vaguely hear Yoongi gasp quietly when you launch yourself at Seokjin, just narrowly keeping from escaping. “Oh no, you don’t! Who said you could leave? You’re not going anywhere!”

But like the slippery snake that he is, Seokjin manages to wriggle out of your arms and hop over Yoongi’s coffee table to get to the door. “Too bad! I have classes to get to, so I gotta blast! Use this time to get to know each other or whatever it is that kids do these days,” he says, winking salaciously. With one final sputter of (evil) laughter, Seokjin makes his exit, leaving you and Yoongi to fester in some good ol’ fashioned discomforting silence.

“Um,” you say, just as Yoongi opens his mouth to say something too.

“No, you go first–”

“You go ahead–”

The two of you pause mid-sentence, staring at each other. You grin sheepishly at him, motioning for him to speak first. 

He returns your smile half-heartedly. “So, um… I just wanted to say I’m sorry for letting Seokjin rope you into this. I tried stopping him, but… You know how he is.”

You laugh, sounding a little crazed even to your own ears. That’s the longest sentence you’ve ever heard him speak! 

“Yeah, believe me… I am intimately aware of how he is. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t,” you joke. 

Amazingly, your little quip makes his smile widen, his cheeks puffing up imperceptibly. “Glad we can agree that Seokjin has the amazing ability to ruin people’s lives. It’s almost welcoming to find solidarity in a shared experience.”

“Shared experience? Try shared trauma. That dude is a walking serotonin sucker,” you say dryly. 

You don’t think what you said was remotely funny enough to warrant a laugh, but it causes Yoongi to let out a loud snort regardless. But the amusement on his face is short-lived, his cheeks going red in embarrassment. He slaps a hand to his mouth, breaking eye contact once more. “Oh fuck, that was so unflattering,” he groans, clearly mortified.

His blush, multiplied by his shy demeanor, makes you want to coo at him, but you doubt he’d take that too kindly. So instead, you change the subject to save him. “So, uhh… The food? You don’t have to give me any, by the way. I wouldn’t want you to waste your lunch on me or anything.”

Yoongi snaps out of his previous embarrassment, returning to the more familiar stoic expression you’ve come to associate with Yoongi. “No, that’s fine. Seokjin–er, rather… I made enough for two people, so it would be a waste if you didn’t eat at least some of it. But I don’t care either way if you want it or not.”

For two people? you wonder. So Yoongi had known Seokjin wasn’t going to join for lunch?

“Oh, if it’s fine with you…” you trail off, meekly making your way towards him. The spaghetti and steak look absolutely delicious, though you don’t need to tell him that when your stomach speaks for you. “Oh shit, that’s so embarrassing,” you say, your cheeks heating up this time.

Yoongi chuckles, shaking his head. “Haven’t eaten breakfast yet, I assume? That’s pretty stupid if you ask me. Don’t you have class until 5? How the hell would you have survived until then?”

You choke in surprise. Where did all that sass suddenly come from? “Excuse me? I’m not stupid! I would’ve been fine with a sandwich from the cafeteria if you must know!” you say indignantly. You’re too busy being offended that you don’t fully comprehend his words, failing to notice how he had known you had class until 5 in the first place.

“Sure, whatever you say.” Rolling his eyes, Yoongi starts shifting through his cupboards and pulling out a pink tupperware. He begins to load them with food, nearly overflowing the containers with how much he tries to stuff in them.

“H-hey! What are you doing?”

“Packing your lunch. You have class in a bit, yeah? It’s almost 11:50 and it takes around 15 minutes to get to the main campus. You won’t have time to eat here and make it in time,” he says, pointing you with a look. “Wait. Did you have coffee this morning?”

“Yeah? So?” you ask, defensive. “Are you gonna call me stupid again for not having caffeine or something?”

“No,” he grunts. “If you’re caffeinated, then that means it should only take you 7 minutes to get to class.”

“That doesn’t even make sense!” you exclaim, but you can’t help letting out an incredulous laugh. “Wow. You’re kinda weird, did you know that?”

“You barely even know me, so how would you know?” he retorts. He finishes placing food into the tupperware and promptly clicks the lid in place. He offers it to you, smirking slightly.

You huff, but your ire is all for show. You aren’t actually annoyed by him–he’s just… different from what you expected. A little shy, a little rough around the edges… but you can tell he isn’t a bad guy. You understand why Seokjin loves to torment him; he seems like a fun person to tease. 

“That can be amended,” you respond, taking the tupperware from him. Your fingers graze the backs of his hand by accident, causing him to quickly retract his hand as though he’d been burned. You nearly drop the container in surprise, but luckily your reflexes save your precious food just in time. 

“Sorry. About… you know.” Yoongi gesticulates wildly, his gaze darting anywhere but at you. 

You smile secretly to yourself, amused. Ah. He’s like a human seesaw. Blushy one second and grumpy the next. “No worries, Yoongi. I’ll be sure to return this container soon, so don’t you worry.”

Yoongi shrugs. “Keep it if you want. I don’t care either way.”

Says the guy who has an entire cupboard full of color coordinating food containers. “Roger that, Yoongi.”

Yoongi walks you out the door, pausing outside the hallway with you. “Do you…” he hesitates, swallowing loudly enough for you to hear. “Do you… want me to walk you out?”

His sudden offer almost makes you want to laugh, but you have a feeling he wouldn’t find it amusing at all. Instead, you just shake your head with a smile. “Don’t worry. I won’t get lost. I think I remember where the door is.”

He pouts, his lips jutting out cutely. “Yeah, well. I was just trying to be nice, but you do you.”

You giggle lightly, patting him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. You were more than nice,” you say, winking for added effect. It does more than you thought it would, causing Yoongi’s cheeks to bloom once more.

With one last wave, you make your way out of the dormitory, your heart a little lighter than before. 

“Huh. That was weird.” You glance at the pink little tupperware in your hands, its warmth keeping your hands safe from the winter chill. As you walk to class, your thoughts are filled with nothing but a shy boy with soft hands and even softer cheeks. Maybe Tuesday isn’t going to be so bad after all.

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt 2

A wise man once packed up his whole life and moved to the country to escape people. That man lived happily, with his cat, his ford bronco, and high speed internet. That man didn’t entertain the notions of his two best friends, nor did he spend the night trapped at what had to be the weirdest bachelor party known to mankind. Who in their right mind decided to have a bachelors party in a haunted hospital? Rocking up in a party bus, the stench of cheap booze wafted from their sweaty skin, there were thirteen man sized toddlers to take care of. Pidge and Hunk both wore their regrets on their faces. Lance taking offence when the loud mouth of the group asked Pidge “Who pissed in her fruit loops?”, the man further daring to wag his finger in Pidge’s direction. Stepping between them, Lance knew his type too well. Daddy’s credit card had brought him everything he could ever want and need, other than brain cells. His arrogance was sickly sweet, stinging at Lance’s tongue as he took a calming breath. Vampires born vampires were supposed to have powers, all he had was the iron will of someone who was done with dickheads. Forcing his lips up to expose his teeth, he locked eyes with his target, hand coming up to take the man’s in an overly firm handshake

“Hello, you must be tonight’s tour. We weren’t informed it was a party, or we would have arranged a little entertainment for you all. Now, we do have a few ground rules. First, please don’t touch any of our equipment. It’s all highly calibrated. Secondly, please don’t piss in the hallways. Thirdly, and most importantly, you ever take that tone with my friends, I will break both your finger and your balls. Now, I’m Lance, this is Pidge, and this Hunk. How about we try this again with some manners?”

The man spluttered. His mate coming up to clamp a hand on his shoulder. The moment between them broken, Lance letting the man’s hand drop. He’d never actually hurt a human. He had his own code he lived by, even when he’d mugged he’d never fought back. If anything he’d been more concerned for the people who’d jumped him. A vampires blood was a curse he didn’t wish to spread. No... No, it was much better to turn the other cheek with the physical stuff, then sob it out over a bad rom-com and some ice cream. His Mami would always tell him how proud she was that he didn’t ever let that other side show

“Damn, man! You got told by a kid! Don’t worry, dudes, no trouble here. This dickhead’s...”

Lance blanked their names as fast as possible, fake smile in place as he nodded. His memory was unfairly good. An unwanted steel trap, where he refused to remember the annoyances before him. Maybe he was also jealous... It happened more than he liked to admit. He’d never gotten to be this kind of idiot, he’d learned too young about the things that went bump in the night. He wasn’t allowed the option of ignorance, sometimes things inside niggled at him, reminding him he’d never know nice it must be to be clueless. Ugh. Pidge had two jump scares planned for the group too... He already had Hunk’s heart to worry about, his friend too much of a teddy bear for this cruel world, and Pidge’s shenanigans.

As the drunk party started whooping, walking away from their tour guides to look at the exhibits in the main foyer, Pidge threw her arms around Lance, Lance snapping out his inner mullings as he returned the hug

“I’d forgotten you can be super scary”

Lance snorted, if Pidge thought that was scary, she should have seen of the court cases he’d been through. Nothing major, but enough for people to recognise behind his appearance he held a sharp tongue

“I couldn’t let them pick on my favourite Gremlin. She might go getting ideas of ditching me for them, then what am I going to do?”

“Be useless and hopeless? Barricade yourself at home and cry over the loss of my brilliance?”

“Mmm... all of that. Seriously, I know you can handle yourself, but don’t let people underestimate you”

“I think it was you, that they were underestimating. I thought that guy was seriously going to shit bricks when you shook his hand”

“He would have been cleaning it up with a toothbrush if he had. You ready?”

Pidge looked up at him, flashing him a toothy grin at the thought of the mischief she had planned

“Yeah. Let’s scare some idiots and take their money”

“They didn’t pay up front?”

“Maybe...”

Lance groaned

“Pidge, you can’t go hacking into their bank accounts. That’s not the kind of law I specialise in”

Pushing him away, Pidge pulled a face

“Then what good are you? What’s the point of having a best friend for a lawyer if you won’t defend me?”

Lance raised the back of his hand to his forehead, faking a swoon

“Is that all I am to you? What about my totally radical driving skills?”

“Your car’s as old as I am!”

“You leave her alone. She’s a priceless family heirloom”

“She’s a hunk of shit and you know it”

“You wound me, Pidge. I’m utterly wounded. Hunk, back me up here. Are my skill not the greatest ever?”

Hunk shuffled his feet, his friend having the habit of worrying his two pointers together even during banter like this

“There was that time we got bog-...”

“But did you die?”

“Well, no...”

Lance beamed

“There we go then. Let’s get this show on the road”

Two jump scares, one phone drop, three scoldings for touching, and two and half hours later, they were finally starting to pack up. Pidge could complain all she liked about Lance’s beat up Bronco, but she couldn’t complain over the fact that it had more than enough storage in the back to load all their crap up. Hunk had fretted through the ordeal, while Pidge had grown bolder, she dished out sass like there was no tomorrow leaving Lance in silent stitches. There was something about the way she said things that turned the most mundane of passing comments into an insult. The girl so salty the world was in danger of running out limes and tequila. As Hunk passed him the last of the camera boxes, Pidge reset the alarm system, the tour bus already long gone from the main road. Sighing as he leaned against the side of the car, Hunk was the embodiment of relief

“You okay?”

Hunk nodded as he yawned, Lance felt a kind of parental concern and the urge to send Hunk home to bed. His best friend was normal a night owl, but the weather made it a perfect night for climbing under the covers as the rain pattered on the tin roof

“Want to come back to mine for the night? I’ll drop you back in tomorrow after Pidge has processed the camera footage”

“I don’t know, man. I think I’m going to be out as soon as my head hit the pillow”

“I don’t mind either way, but you know Pidge is going to be calling first thing in morning if you go home now”

Hunk groaned. It wasn’t unusual for Pidge to call any hour she felt like it. More than once Lance had been woken in the wee hours to listen to Pidge rant about some new conspiracy theory. She was worse on road trips, she’d get so into what was going on, she’d literally jump into bed next to you, wake you up, then talk a mile-a-minute about whatever she’d worked out

“I’ll come to yours. Just gotta text the folks and let them know I’ll be staying over”

Hunk’s parents were amazing. Lance instantly fell in love with the whole clan of them. His family was big, but they loved even bigger. Hunk’s mother baked some of the best cookies he’d had in his life, and instantly made him feel welcome when Hunk left him outside the house, having formally forgotten to invite him in. Lance wasn’t sure if he needed an invite to actually enter, but he’d wanted to respect whatever family conditions that came with Hunk having friends over. As for Hunk’s father, the man ran the local automotive shop. Most people took their cars to Platt for servicing, but Lance knew he had to build bridges with the locals if he expected to last in such a small town. That didn’t stop Hunk’s dad for continuing to undercharge him when it came to labour costs, so Lance usually left the man a large tip. Plus, he knew how temperamental his old girl could be. Originally Hunk’s family had been from somewhere else, his parents selling up to move somewhere quite before retirement, or so Hunk said. Lance didn’t like to pry, not when he had a fair idea of how much shit came with a decision like moving. Hunk had finished his senior year, then moved down to Platt for college, before falling in with Pidge. The pair of them were thick as thieves, but went out of their to never make Lance feel discluded. The three of them making up what Pidge liked to call “The Garrison Trio”. A connection like this was dangerous for him, especially given he was less than human, and he’d had no intention of being best friends with anyone when he’d made his move. He couldn’t help but love them as if they were siblings he’d known all his life... unlike his real siblings who were still a little iffy about his vampire status. With all the crap in the media, Lance couldn’t blame them, not when he was supposed to be a blood drinking night stalker. He’d never even fed off an actual real life human, but the stereotype was too ingrained in culture and after the death of his Papi, the only one he really remained close to was his Mami who now lived in an assisted living complex outside of Platt. Before he’d moved, he’d been her “carer” for the five years after his father’s death. His Mami was the one who insisted she go into a home, Lance pleading with her not to, but if there was one thing that ran in their family’s blood, it was stubbornness.

Besides, the home was actually really nice. Mami has plenty of friends there, there were games and social events, outings into Platt out to places like the Zoo and the Aquarium. It wasn’t home like Cuba had been during his childhood, but if it hadn’t been so nice there was no way he would have allowed his mother to stay there. He also had a soft spot for everyone there. They all laughed over “Miriam’s hot grandson”, occasionally he was pinched on the arse or gently flirted with until he couldn’t help but feel his cheeks burning. He loved his Mami, so on weekends when nothing much was happening, he’d take her out for the day driving, wherever she wanted to go. At 82, his Mami was still full of life. Her eyes had always been kind, and her hugs the warmest in the world. No matter how many times he’d broken down over his curse, she’d tell him how much she loved him. Mami didn’t know that most of her living costs came from him. She was a proud woman who wanted him to spend his money on himself, to treat himself right and to be happy, but being with her was what made him happy.

“Dude, you okay there?”

Lance shook his head to clear his thoughts

“Yeah, man. There’s a bottle of Shiraz calling my name”

“Should I be worried?”

Lance chuckled. He couldn’t get drunk the way a human would. Mix in a little blood and then that problem went out the window. Mix in a lot of blood and he’d be recreating far too humiliating memories. Two glasses at night to relax, three if the day was bad. He kept himself in check, not wanting to let himself fall back into wallowing the weirdness of his life

“Only that Pidge is going to make us do this again. I don’t think they appreciated our “razzle-dazzle”

Hunk groaned as his hand went to his chest

“I thought I could do it, man. We knew where the jump scares were and they still scared the bejesus out of me. I love Pidge, but she’s scary”

“That’s because she’s our resident gremlin. I’m more scared of what she’s got planned for the footage of tonight”

“Y-you don’t think we caught an actual ghost on camera... do you?”

Lance played along, teasing his best friend felt a little mean, but seeing they most probably caught nothing but the sounds of the tour he shrugged as he said

“I don’t know... tonight could be the night”

“Boo!”

The ever queen of the jump scare, Pidge cackled as Hunk jumped

“Dude, you should have seen your face”

“Don’t do that! You know I’m naturally jumpy”

Punching Pidge on the shoulder playfully, Pidge laughed harder

“I’m sorry, but I’m not. Are you two losers done yet? The alarms all set and I sent the curators a message to let them know it’s all locked up”

“Yeah. Yeah, we’re done. You crashing at mine tonight?”

“Dah. I thought that was the plan all along”

“Then jump in already. Wanna make a stop for snacks on the way?”

The town had two service stations, the trip out to the 24 hour was half an hour out the way, nearly half way to Platt, yet his Mami had always told him that house guests came first

“Can I have a super large raspberry slushy?”

“I don’t know, is it before midnight? I’m not supposed to feed or water you between midnight and dawn, right?”

“For that, I’m having two. Oh, I dibs the front!”

“No fair! I was here first”

“You snooze, you lose, Hunkerino. Besides, Shay might be working”

Hunk blushed hard at the mention of “Shay”. The poor man had been crushing on her so hard that he’d failed to notice she was into him. Every time she’d ask him out, he’d say no as he didn’t want to inconvenience her. His best friend was as dumb as a sack potatoes when it came to getting a clue. Hell, Lance was sure Shay could scrawl her feelings across her face in red marker and Hunk still wouldn’t get the hint.

“She’s a friend, okay”

Pidge bumped her hip against Hunks, her voice sing-song

“A friend you’re too scared to ask for her number”

“I... but... she... I...”

Hunk stumbled over the start of what he wanted to say. The poor dude had it bad. Stepping out the way, Lance pulled the back window down before snapping the trunk door shut. Patting Hunk’s shoulder, he sympathised with his best mate something chronic

“Hunk, she’s into you, buddy. You are the best man that I know. You’ve got a whole lot to offer, and any one would be lucky to have you. I swear man. Cross my heart and hope to die, if I ever tell a lie”

“Not you, too”

“Look, all I’m saying is that from my point of view she seems interested too. I’m not trying to push into something you’re not ready for. I just want you to know I’m there when you are”

Pidge blew a raspberry at him, ruining his attempt to be serious

“You sound like such a dad. I swear you’re like some old fuddy in that body. Hunk, grow some balls and get out there”

“I don’t want to grow balls”

Hunk moaned at his own words. Pidge went into a fresh fit of laughter at his expense. Lance cringed in second hand embarrassment. He couldn’t love the pair of them any more than he did, even if he tried

“For that, Pidge, you’re in the back. Hunk, I’ve got your back, bro”

[vannahfanfics]

If requests are open again could we see that fic where they keep the chopper clones.

Here you go, Anon! Who knew that my knowledge of science and medicine would become useful in a One Piece fanfic, LOL. Also if I go AWOL just assume the FBI has arrested me for Googling cyanide poisoning and its antidotes… 

Before you read, here’s Part I!

Look at All Those Choppers! Part II

About one week after the infamous clone carp incident, Chopper was once again perched on his little barrel with the tiny fishing rod in his hands, humming the latest of Brook’s tunes as he carefully watched the bobber drift up and down in the gently sloshing waves. This time his regular fishing partner Usopp was also in attendance, sitting on the railing of the ship with one leg hanging lazily over the side, so Chopper didn’t need to bother anyone else with having to supervise him. They were still moseying about in the same stretch of sea that the clone carp populated (according to Robin’s investigation) and so they had memorized a photograph of the silvery fish to ensure that a harrowing incident such as Chopper’s cloning did not happen again. No more clone carp sushi, nuh-uh, no way! He thought with a small chortle to himself.

“It’s such a shame, though,” Usopp sighed aloud suddenly, causing Chopper to look at him quizzically. The sniper gave the reindeer a contemplative look. “Just think how useful it would be to have more than one Zoro or Luffy, or even an army of you, Chopper!” The Zoan doctor was caught between being amazed that Usopp had read his mind and upset that Usopp had implied that an army of him equated to only two of the more beastly members of the Straw Hats. “I just wish we would’ve had more time to study it to see if we could use it,” he sighed while tugging on his pole to entice something from the deep.

“Luffy would eat it before we even had a chance to do anything with it, and that would be much worse than an army of Choppers,” Nami snorted as she walked by with a basket of aromatic, fresh tangerines; she knocked Usopp upside the head as she did, knocking him off balance and nearly sending him overboard.

“Watch it, Nami! You’re lucky I don’t have a Devil Fruit or I woulda drowned! Drowned, ya hear me?” Usopp shouted after her while shaking his fist. She just ignored him. “It doesn’t matter much, anyway,” he shrugged once her returned his attention to Chopper. “The odds of us catching another one of those clone carps is one in a million, probably.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“Yep. It’s a clone carp,” Robin confirmed as she looked from her encyclopedia of local fish species to the suffocating silver fish that was lying in a puddle of seawater on the deck. Usopp was crouched down next to it, jaw against the wooden deck with a disbelieving, drawn out “Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?” stuck in his throat. Chopper grabbed his horns and rapidly shook his head from side to side in dismay.

“We have to throw it overboard before Luffy eats it! We stopped in port and stocked up on apples just to be safe, but we all know he won’t eat it!”

“Shhhh!” Usopp hissed and slapped his hand against Chopper’s furry mouth with a shift gaze toward the front of the ship. Chopper had reeled in the fish without much fuss, so Luffy had not had the care to abandon his perch on the lion figurehead. Even now, he was still blissfully unaware of the discovery and was leaning into the wind with his tongue hanging out like some kind of slobbery hound. Chopper scrunched up his face in disgust when he saw blobs of spittle being carried away by the brisk breeze. “This is what I was talking about, Chopper! You’re a doctor. You can study the cells and see if we can make them into some sort of weapon or tool!”

“I don’t know, Usopp… I feel kinda bad… I mean, for their part, those clones had feelings too… I would hate to just create and destroy them at will,” he murmured as he looked at his shiny reindeer hooves. Although at first he had been overjoyed that his crew cherished him and him only, but after he had really gotten to thinking about it, it wasn’t fair to the clones to disregard their feelings and experiences, even if they were limited. Had they really been identical to Chopper after all, or was it only at the cellular level? What about their souls? “It doesn’t feel right…”

“Well, Chopper, maybe by studying the interaction between the clone carp cells and the cyanide antidote, you can find a way to halt the cloning process without reverting the clones back to fish,” Robin pointed out reassuringly. At such a suggestion, Chopper rubbed his chin thoughtfully while staring at the fish, whose eyes had glassed over and was presumably deceased.

“Hmm… That doesn’t sound so bad!” With a contented hum, he flung the fish over his wee shoulder; because it was nearly as large as himself, it disbalanced him a bit and he had to wobble back and forth to get his bearing. After he finally righted himself, he exhaled confidently and gave Robin a toothy grin. “Robin, I’m sure you have books that’ll be helpful; can I borrow them?” The dark-haired woman smiled sweetly and used her Devil Fruit powers to bring down helpful tomes from her voluminous collection, piling them into her arms.

“Shall we, Chopper?” came her wine-smooth voice. Chopper nodded eagerly and whirled on his hoof to totter off to his private study, with Robin walking languidly alongside him. She graciously opened the door for him and allowed him to enter before walking in after him. Chopper tossed the fish onto his work desk before clambering up into his spinning doctor’s chair, rotating it before standing up in it to get a good look at his project. He prodded it a few times to make sure it was really dead, as he didn’t want to needlessly make the fish suffer through the dissection process, before he retrieved his sharp tools from one of the shells.

“Okay! Let’s begin, Robin!”

~~~~~~~~~~

Chopper, with the aid from Robin, conducting his experimental medicinal research in secret for about one week with no progress. He had been sneaking ice from the freezer in Sanji’s kitchen to keep the fileted fish meat on ice in his room until he had made enough cell plates to last him through his research. Once he had the brain cells cultured so that they could continue giving instructions to the body cells, he had set to his research. He had figured out how to get the clone carp cells to convert to his own cells by using some cheek swabs, but he hadn’t figured out how to negate the clone toxin without killing the parent cells and making the other cells turn back to clone carp cells. With an agonized, frustrated groan, he slammed his forehead down against the desk, making all his tools and cell cultures and sample jump up from the force. “This is hopeless! I’m not getting anywhere, Robin! No matter how diluted we make it, the cyanide solution just keeps reverting the cells!” he wailed in distress. He looked up at her with tear-filled eyes, disappointed in himself.

“There’s no need to fret, Chopper. Science isn’t an easy process. None of the greatest scientific achievements have happened overnight!” she responded encouragingly from her seat on the bed. She had several of Chopper’s medical textbooks spread out around her, and had been scanning the passages for useful biochemical or cellular physiology information that may have been relevant. His bottom lip stuck out in a pathetic pout. He was less than reassured. He slunk down from his office chair to scamper across the room and climb into Robin’s lap and hug her midriff sadly. She laughed lightly as he buried her face into her belly, and she wrapped her arms around him in a motherly embrace.

“I’m a failure as a doctor.”

“No, you aren’t, Chopper. We all think you’re a fabulous doctor. Think of how many times you’ve saved us from our wounds! The Straw Hats couldn’t ask for a better doctor.”

“Ah, shut up, you bastard~!” he giggled as her kind words finally seeped through his depressive aura to send a fluttery, blissful butterfly of joy flapping around in his little heart. He looked up at her with a grateful grin which she returned with a soft smile. He spun around to sit in her lap, feeling quite contented perched on her pillow-soft thighs, and picked up one of his toxicology textbooks to begin flipping through the pages. He then screamed and brought it close to his face, as if the passage that had caught his attention would be more significant if it were literally right in front of his eyes.

“What is it, Chopper?”

“How could I miss this? Of course! We shouldn’t have been diluting the cyanide! We should’ve been converting it into a related but less toxic substance! Sulfanegen sodium; do I have any sulfanegen sodium?!” he screamed as he dropped the book and jumped off of Robin’s lap. With how fast his little hooves were whirling, he probably ran on the air across the room to frantically clamber onto his desk and begin rifling through the various bottles shelved in his desk. Cyanide poisoning wasn’t exactly something that pirates had to worry about, as it was mostly used in assassinations performed by elite bounty hunters (and the Navy, probably) but Chopper kept a stock of random antidotes to all kinds of things just in case. It had been a habit after his beloved mentor had perished thanks to his ignorant gift of a poisonous mushroom. Chopper knew much better now, but in the back of his mind he was always afraid that one of his beloved crew mates would suffer some kind of intoxication and he wouldn’t have the antidote for it.

He squealed in glee when he found the labelled bottle reading “Sulfanegen Sodium.” As he sat down on the desk, not even bothering to use the chair, Robin crossed the room to lean over and watch his experiment, hands on her knees. He drew up a small amount of the liquid into the dropper before transferring the little droplet to his current diluted cyanide solution, mixing the two together. He then took one of his cell plates and scooped up a bunch of them to re-plate them on a fresh media plate; they immediately adhered and began rapidly dividing, slowly spreading out in a circular fashion. Before they could fill the plate too quickly, he aliquoted a drop of his new solution and dropped it onto the cells. He awaited a reaction with bated breath. In all his trials previous, the parent cells would shudder and die, while the others changed color to a silvery hue which was indicative of their reversion to clone carp cells as a result of the toxin being negated by the small amount of cyanide from the crushed apple seed solution.

Instead of the aforementioned result, the cells quivered before their division slowly came to a stop and remained the salmon hue that was indicative of human (or in Chopper’s case, human-reindeer) cells. Chopper crowed triumphantly and held the plate over his head as he did a happy jig. “Robin! I did it! I did it!”

“Yes, you did. I told you that you could do it!”

“Hey, what’s with all the noise in here? You woke me up from my nap…” Came a sleepy third voice. Chopper turned around to see that Zoro had opened the door and was scratching his stomach while he stifled a yawn with the other hand.

“That’s what you get for sleeping literally in front of his door,” Nami chimed as she shoved him aside to poke her orange-haired head into the room. “What’re you so excited for, Chopper?”

“Go on, Chopper. Why don’t we tell the entire crew your monumental discovery?” Robin mused. Chopper nodded eagerly and hopped down from the desk to skip out of his study and out onto the main deck. It only took a short moment to assemble all the crew members, and soon they were all looking with expressions of confusion and interest at the little cell plate in his tiny hooves.

“Robin and I have been working with clone carp cells to see if we could find a way to stop their transformation without reverting them back to the fish!” he announced proudly. Sanji stopped his scientific revelation reveal with a startled gasp.

“Chopper, you what? But we agreed that the clone carp was bad news. We don’t need two of Marimo or Captain Idiot!”

“Hey!” the two insulted parties chimed in irritated unison.

“Shut up; you know I’m right.”

“Yeah…”

“I just felt bad about what we did to all my clones,” Chopper admitted with a deep frown. He looked down at the plate of unassuming cells. “Sure, I’m the real Chopper, but all the other Choppers still had feelings, too! It makes me feel sad that we just disregarded that…”

“Are we really debating the morals of getting rid of clones produced by a dumb fish?” Nami asked uncomfortably, but from the look on her face, the moral dilemma was affecting her too. A discontented murmur rippled around the group.

“But with this new solution I made, we can stop anyone who eats the fish from dividing indefinitely! The host cells live in the main host and the other cells that are the clones communicate by quorum sensing to conduct their cellular operations!”

“What the hell does that mean?” Luffy asked while picking his nose. The scientific jargon was rapidly making him lose interest.

“The cells talk to each other,” Robin clarified.

“Whoa! That’s so cool!”

“Yep! The cyanide in the apple seeds killed the parent cells, which are slightly different genetically from the clone cells. It’s not actually reproducing by budding, me and Robin figured out, but a very complex process in-between asexual and sexual reproduction! The daughter cells are the ones that are direct clones and produce identical cells.” By the blank stares, he could tell that he was losing his audience. “A-anyway, with this solution I made, the parent cells don’t die, but the toxin is destroyed and the daughter cells get a signal to stop dividing so fast, but instead probably undergo the cell cycle at the same speed as our cells do instead! That means that the division stops but the clones don’t turn back into fish and are free to live their lives!” he finished with a big grin.

“Wow, Chopper. You’re brilliant!” Nami praised while patting him happily on the head.

“I understood none of that but it sounds important, but good job! That’s my doctor! Shishishishi!” Luffy laughed with his arms crossed. The rest of the crew similarly showered him in proud, appreciative remarks and Sanji even graced him with a celebratory cookie. He munched on it elatedly, careful that the crumbs didn’t fall into his cell plate, while answering questions about the process. Sanji had forgiven him for stealing the ice since it was such important research.

“So, are we gonna test it or what?” Usopp asked suddenly. Chopper swallowed his last bite of cookie before looking uncertainly at the plate. Sure, it worked in cell-level trials, but an organism was complicated. Would it really work?

“I wanna eat it! I wanna it eat!” Luffy cried and shot towards Chopper’s room to abscond with his frozen fish samples, but thankfully Zoro and Sanji were able to muscle him back. All it took was Robin telling him that two of him couldn’t be Pirate King for him to consent to never, ever eating the clone carp. “I ain’t competin’ with me…” he grumble with his arms crossed as he sat cross-legged on the deck.

“I think Chopper should have the clones,” Nami suggested, which threw the little reindeer for a loop.

“Huh? Why me?”

“Because you’re our most important member, duh!” the navigator beamed brightly down at him. If a reindeer could blush, he would be. “You’re always running yourself ragged trying to heal everyone at once. How many times have you wished there were more than one of you? When they aren’t doing doctor things, they can do other things you like to do too, like helping me water my tangerines.”

“-and helping me and Franky repair the ship and build new things! We always love your help, Chopper!”

“Yeah! It’s superrrrrrr!” Franky agreed with Usopp, striking his signature pose with a flashy smile.

“I always enjoy you helping in the kitchen, too,” Sanji mused while taking a drag from his cigarette.

“And you always make a good audience for my performances! Yohohohoho!”

“Imagine how many fish tons of you could reel in!” Luffy hollered with his fists in the air. “Meat all around!”

As they listed off the so many helpful things that Chopper did on a day-to-day basis, he began to sniffle and cry, so overwhelmed by their appreciation of him.

“Y-you guys… I love you so much!” he wailed and jump forward to hug the nearest pair of legs to him, which happened to be Sanji. Even though he was staining the cook’s black pants with tears, he didn’t seem to mind, only leaned over to loving rub the top of his head through his hat. “But… But… With all those other me’s… Will I still be useful?”

“Of course,” Robin smiled gently at him. He rubbed his eyes while looking up at her. “Those other Choppers will be like your brothers. They might know the same things at first, but in time, they’ll evolve their own personalities and skills- but you’ll still be our ship’s doctor, and they can never replace you in that.” A fresh wave of tears flooded his eyes and he buried his furry face into Sanji’s legs again.

“Wahhhhhhh! I love you all so muuuuuuuch!”

And so, that’s the story of how the Straw Hat crew sort of got bigger. The Chopper clones were an existence only known to the Straw Hats, as they were never taken along in the fighting (to protect them, as it turns out they couldn’t actually use Chopper’s Zoan powers like he thought they would be able to) and lived in the bowels of the ship, all seven of them occupying a cozy little bedroom that Franky had added on. Like Robin had said, they soon developed their own interests, styles, and personalities. Timmy Timmy Chopper was even shyer than Chopper was but took a liking to Robin, and loved it when she told him bedtime stories. Tommy Tommy Chopper was rambunctious and adventurous like Luffy, and if they had no hint of danger on islands they stopped at, the captain would tote him along; if there was danger, they always made sure to bring him back little unique gifts. Terry Terry Chopper had a culinary talent and Sanji made him his apprentice. Tama Tama Chopper had a penchant for gardening and looked after Nami’s tangerine trees whenever they were gone and even has a little garden of his own growing flowers which they sold in port for income. The two they liked to call “the twins” because they were so alike, Tippy Tippy Chopper and Tappy Tappy Chopper, were little shipwrights in their own right and loved to help Franky go to work on the Sunny’s never-ending repairs and improvements or test out Usopp’s newest inventions. Tappy Tappy was a little different from his twin in that he was musically inclined; he enjoyed learning about it from Brook. Finally, there was Tavi Tavi Chopper, who was rough and gruff and looked up to Zoro like an idol. More than anything, though, they loved their big brother Tony Tony Chopper and always made sure of one thing…

That they all went fishing together, because it was what bonded them as siblings. Sometimes, Chopper wouldn’t even sleep in his own bed but would slip down to where his brothers slept, and they would abandon their bunks to all dog-pile in a pallet on the floor. Every day after that, he was so glad he pulled that clone carp out of the sea, because his family just got that much bigger.

Enjoy this oneshot? Feel free to perusemy Tableof Contents!

[glorious-spoon]

Hostile or Destructive Action

Fandom: Captain America Rating: Teen Warnings: Referenced rape/non-con Summary: The tapes of Captain America being abused in Hydra custody hit the internet. In the aftermath, Steve has to make a choice. Inspired by @shinelikethunder‘s fic The Interests of National Security. Link: On AO3

*shows up to the dumpster five years late with hurt/comfort*

*

He spends the four-hour flight into Dulles breathing canned air and trying to feel like he’s not about to shake apart into pieces. It seems like every single damned person on the flight was within earshot of that checkpoint, and the few who weren’t have evidently been caught up, God bless cell phone cameras and the 24-hour news cycle. He hasn’t bothered to turn his phone back on; it’s too easy to guess the contents of his inbox, and he doesn’t feel prepared to face that just now.

No one manages to get up the guts to say anything, but even without looking up from his book he can see three people with their cell phones out, and they’re not even trying to be discreet about filming him. He flexes his fingers, entertains a brief fantasy of snatching the pink kitten-themed phone away from the woman across the aisle and crushing it into dust—but pitching a fit mid-flight won’t improve the situation any, and it also won’t actually make him feel any better.

He’s read the first two pages of Foundation six times in a row before he accepts that even intergalactic space wars aren’t going to be enough of a distraction, but he doesn’t close the book, just grips it in his lap until his fingernails have left deep divots in the paper.

*

He didn’t call to let anyone know that he was on his way back, but Natasha meets him at baggage claim anyway. One moment he’s alone, waiting for his battered suitcase to make its way over so he can get the hell out of there already; the next, there’s a whiff of strong coffee and expensive perfume, and she says, “You should consider answering your phone once in a while.”

“Rub it in, why don’t you,” Steve snaps, yanking his bag off the carousel and slinging it over his shoulder. The weight of the shield settles heavily against his back, comforting. There’s a trio of middle-aged tourists on the other side of the carousel blatantly staring at him. He gives them a tight smile and looks away.

Natasha is silent for a long moment, then says, “I’m sorry, Steve.”

It’s quiet and sincere, and Steve finally brings himself to glance down at her. She looks tired and drawn, and it occurs to him that this can’t have been easy on her, either. On any of them.

He sighs. “Sorry. How bad is it?”

He can guess, but he hasn’t been able to bring himself to look at any of the newsstands he passed on the way through.

“Bad enough. Stark Industries is running interference.”

“Remind me to send Tony a fruit basket,” Steve says dryly. “Can we get out of here now? I’d rather not have this conversation in the middle of an airport.”

Because she’s Natasha, and she’s kinder than anyone ever expects her to be, she nods. “Yeah. Come on, Sam has a car outside.”

*

The car is clearly on loan—or possibly stolen—from SHIELD, a sleek black SUV that could probably drive through a tank. Steve slings his bags in the trunk and slides into the backseat. In the driver’s seat, Sam twists to look back at him, lifts his sunglasses, and says, “Hey. Welcome back.”

“Hell of a welcome,” Steve says. “When were you planning on letting me know?”

Sam sighs. “We’ve been trying to get in touch with you for a week, Steve.”

“I’m sorry.” He pinches the bridge of his nose, tries to rein in his temper. Biting Sam’s head off isn’t going to help anything. “I’ve had a rough day.”

“Man, you’ve got a real gift for understatement.”

The other door opens, and Natasha slides in. “We’re clear,” she says to Sam, then adds, with a glance back at Steve, “Reporters.”

“Assholes,” Sam interjects, pulling away from the curb.

Natasha puts her head back against the seat cushions and closes her eyes. “I took care of them.”

Steve knows his line here: You can’t just assassinate everybody at the Washington Post, and she’ll smirk a little and say, Who said everybody?, but when he opens his mouth, what comes out instead is, “Are they real? The pictures?”

There’s a long, thick silence, and then Sam clears his throat. “We don’t know,” he says. “Not for sure.”

Steve looks at Natasha, who doesn’t look back. After a long moment, she says, “Probably, yes. But the only person who’d know for sure is—”

“Me,” Steve finishes, bitterly. “Maybe Bucky, if he remembered any of it.”

He doesn’t have to see Sam’s face to hear the wince in his voice. “Steve—”

“Never mind. God.” He rubs a hand over his face. “Sorry.”

For the first time since he left Wakanda he’s glad—horribly, guiltily glad—that Bucky is still in cryostasis while the doctors there sift the rest of the hidden triggers out of his brain. Bucky doesn’t remember. He would have said something if he did. Bucky—and he is Bucky again now in all the ways that matter, even if he and Steve will never be what they used to be to each other—he would have found time to say something. To offer an apology, as little as Steve needs or wants one.

In the grand scheme of everything Hydra forced Bucky to do, that was nothing. But Steve’s glad, all the same, that he isn’t going to be finding out from a fucking media scandal before Steve figures out a way to break it to him.

“He’s not in any of the pictures, anyway,” Natasha says calmly from the front seat. She leans forward and comes back up with a file folder, which she hands back to him. “Here.”

“You really think that’s a good idea?” Sam asks, but Steve takes the folder. There’s not gonna be anything in there that he doesn’t revisit in full Technicolor detail in his nightmares on a regular basis. All else being equal, he’d rather know what he’s up against.

“They didn’t bring out the cameras until after Pierce left.” Small mercies. The smallest. He’s glad of it all the same. “Guess it’s hard to claim plausible deniability if you’re caught on film raping prisoners.”

Neither Sam nor Natasha flinches, and Steve loves them for it. He flips the folder open as the car accelerates onto the freeway. The top page is a memo on CIA letterhead, detailing the source and particulars of the leak: as expected, a Hydra agent’s phone that had never uploaded to the mainframe, all the nasty little secrets in its video files stumbled across by some analyst who looked at some of the worst moments of Steve’s life and saw only dollar signs.

The next page is briefing notes. Then newspaper headlines, or a sample of them: he could find a more up-to-date selection if he wanted to check the news on his phone, which he damn well does not.

Underneath that, the pictures. Black and white, at least, although he knows the video must have been released in full color. On these printouts, the blood smeared on his skin, down his thighs, pooling on the floor beneath him—it all looks gray and colorless. Like pictures from the war. Less shocking, somehow, than the reality of it.

He flips the folder shut and sets it on the seat beside him. “They’re real.”

Sam lets out a slow breath, and Natasha nods. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.” He leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees as the city whips by outside the window. All crumbling concrete buildings splashed with graffiti, railway tracks stretched overhead.

“You don’t actually have to do anything,” Sam says. His tone is caught between gentleness and resignation, as is the smile he tosses over his shoulder at Steve. He knows that doing nothing isn’t really in Steve’s repertoire, never has been. Steve could kiss him right now. Half wishes he’d gotten up the courage to try it back before Insight, before everything came crashing down, both literally and figuratively. That particular ship has long since sailed now, but even so, Sam is the kind of friend he’s never deserved. Him and Natasha both. “You could just tell them to shove it where the sun don’t shine.”

“The entire free press of the US of A?” Steve says, and drops back in his seat. “Come on. They’ve probably staked out my place by now.”

“They have,” Natasha says. “That’s why we’re not going to your place. I have a safehouse outside the city. Should be secure. We can regroup and—”

“No,” Steve says. “I’m not hiding.”

Sam huffs out a dry laugh and then says, to Natasha, “Told you.”

“Worth a try.” She leans back to look at Steve. “You sure about this?”

Steve takes a breath, and it’s not the cell he’s thinking of now, it’s not Bucky’s hands holding him down or Pierce unzipping the fly of his expensive suit or the team of guys he led for two years kicking him, spitting on him, slicing him open and jeering while they took their turns with him—

Instead, it’s the utterly prosaic scene of the airport this morning. The little indignities of it that everyone there just seemed to expect. Turn out your pockets. Stand on a mat and let a man in uniform put his hands all over you, and if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.

Liberty for security. To hell with that.

He closes his eyes. The peace he managed to find out in the mountains seems very far away, just now. “I’m sure. If the press wants a statement, I'll give them one.”

[lgbtqtruestories]

Piers Morgan - World’s Biggest F*ckwit and Shame of British Television

Greetings.

It’s been a while since I have had a rant on here/posted anything at all, so here I am! Today, I am going to be discussing one of the most vile, repulsive cretins to ever grace our television screens. A man who I not only despise, but believe is a genuine danger to society. That man is Good Morning Britain presenter and all-around fanny, Piers Morgan. Who is that, I hear you ask. Well, ladies, lads, variations thereupon, buckle in because once I tell you about comments he has made in the past, I think you will hate think you will hate the ignorant hunk of fecal matter just as much as I do. 

He REFUSES to accept non-binary as a valid gender identity

Good Morning Britain is famous for its debates, one being the ‘gender debate’. The show is equally famous for Piers being uneducated and refusing to admit when wrong. When two non-binary individuals, (Fox Fisher and Owl Stefania), came on the show, Piers acted in his usual manner, that being less intelligent than the average 4-year-old. He said, quote: “If I identify now as anything… can I be anything I want? Can I be an elephant? Can I literally say I’m now an elephant and do I get afforded elephant rights? Can I go to London Zoo and demand to be put in an elephant compound because I have decided I’m an elephant?” I wish I was joking but alas not. WHAT EVEN---! Learn about this thing called the gender spectrum! Then learn to be a decent and kind human being with more than three brain cells! After this whole ordeal, the legend known as Sam Smith came out as non-binary. Piers had some things to say about this because of course he fucking did. “I’m now identifying as Sam Smith so I can get his royalties. It works both ways.”His co-host Susanna Reid, who I feel endlessly sorry for asked: "Why do you care? “He has millions of fans," Piers went on. "What are they supposed to think?” Dirty, dirty clown man. 

2) He is disregards mental health issues

I AM NOT JOKING!!! HE ACTUALLY TWEETED THIS: “34 million UK adults are mentally ill? What utter nonsense. Man up, Britain & focus on those who REALLY need help.” You sick, patronising, twat! So you’re telling me, Piers lad, that people who suffer daily, who fight to survive, who have to walk around daily with agonising pain, who are real fucking warriors with bravery and determination that need help to regain a positive mental state, YOU are telling me that those people need to “MAN UP”? Rot in hell, you pathetic son of a bitch. Waste of good sperm cells has also been sceptical about people who suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (or PTSD), particularly Lady Gaga and Will Young, who have both previously struggled with it. Being the professional mental health mastermind he is (obvious sarcasm), Piers has said that Will has never suffered with PTSD but instead what he calls WNTS (whiny needy twerp syndrome). 

3) Piersy was annoyed after Ewan McGregor responded in a logical way after he was a sexist prick

Back in January of 2017, Mr Morgan had some things to say about the Women’s March. He notified everyone that he would be organising a Men’s March to “protest the creeping global emasculation of my gender by rabid feminists”. Aw, look at that! He’s using big words to pretend the Satan’s edjaculate sprouting from his mouth is logical! His views caused Ewan McGregor, Scottish actor and my new hero after this refused to go on the show as planned. Predictably, a twitter rant and a Daily Mail column ensued.

Do you see now why I believe this man could damage young minds with the shit he talks! The pigeon lady from Home Alone 2 who believes he is supreme ruler of the universe and speaks gospel truth always is telling the viewers of British breakfast television that if they are non-binary they are ridiculous, that if they struggle with their mental health that they need to man up and that if they are feminist or god forbid, don’t support Donald Trump then they are rabid. Thankfully, he has been on a break from GMB for summer and won’t return to our screens until 2nd September. We have until then to get him banned from every form of social media to ever exist! Please do your own research on this man as I have summarised his arseholeness greatly. Keep your minds open kids and don’t believe what the idiots like Piers on TV tell you!

~ Gabby xox

[letstalksymphogear]

Symphogear, EP. 5

LAST TIME ON SINGY WINGY

ANGRY GREMLIN BEAT UP GOOD BY SUICIDE MOVE SURVIVE BLUE BIRD YES. BLUE BIRD GO TO HOSPITAL FOR WATER METAPHOR WITH AFTERLIFE GIRLFRIEND. TINY BIRD SAD, BUT THEN NOT GET SAD! JACKIE CHAN TIME AFTER MUCH THINKING. WIFE WORRIED ABOUT THINGS. SOMETHING SOMETHING PUNCH GOOD NOW.

Let us continue.

Miku wakes up to see her wife has run off yet again. This is the part of the Sam Reimi’s Spiderman franchise phase where the Mary Jane (not weed) begins having a rockier relationship with Peter Parker (not slang for penis) due to lack of availability.

It’s contrived.

It’s almost impressive that she left a note and had time to draw a tiny Hibiki saying something in a bubble. Glad to see you have your priorities straight, Hibiki.

“you know she might have had a better time in the local art school that doodle aint half bad”

Hibiki is motherfucking Rocky all up in this.

She’s going to kick some ass and nobody’s getting in the way.

“YOU’RE GONNA EAT LIGHTING AND YOU’RE GONNA CRRRRRAP THUNDER TACHIBANAAAAA”

“THAT’S A DIET I CAN GET BEHIND”

I wasn’t joking when I said she’s not fucking around anymore. Did you think I was joking? I can see how you can get the impression given the first few episodes, but I really can’t emphasize the thoroughness of the ass kicking she is going to be capable of.

“MY FATHERLY ENERGIES ARE WORKING! ADOPTERS ANONYMOUS WAS WRONG AFTER ALL!”

That’s totally not ominous in the slightest.

Meanwhile, in the middle of an unnamed McMansion in the middle of who knows where...

Gratuitously spoken English is heard. To be fair, it’s actually really impressive pronunciation coming from people whose native language are systemically different to ours. Most shows would just settle for “this dude is actually speaking english but everything is said in japanese for better interpretation” but not Symphogear! No siree!

Relic business is afoot.

We have a random blonde lady shooting random Noise from the thing The Gremlin had in her hands.

She’s really trying her best with her accent. She’s also casually shooting Noise because let’s face it, would we not do the same if it were in our hands?

“i do whatever i want with my big stiff rod pal”

Also, she’s a nudist. To also be fair, if you lived in a fuckoff rich McMansion with weapons beyond your comprehension, you likely couldn’t help but walk around naked doing whatever the fuck you want.

The people she’s talking to are the Americans, which we explained before are portrayed strictly in an antagonistic light. They want some relics, and this lady clearly deals them like like some sort of glorified drug dealer.

Suffice it to say, she’s not a very nice person.

Also, the subs don’t match what they’re saying in English in the slightest.

The name of this woman... is Fine (pronounced fi-neh). And she is the main antagonist of this series.

Fucking identical.

And here is the most unpleasant scene in the entire season.

The person we’ve repeatedly alluded to as The Gremlin is called Yukine Chris. She serves Fine in whatever the hell they’re up to right now. In this case, it’s using the Nehushtan armor to run around with Solomon’s Cane to throw Noise around the city.

“shits gonna get real abusive, pal”

Fine is a narcissistic sociopath. She’s manipulated Chris into servitude by believing she is the only one that can pave humanity into salvation.

“i dont like that smile”

Chris thinks Fine can secure her deepest wish. Ironically? It’s world peace.

“yeah! yeah yeah, world peace, yeah, totally. just treat me like jesus and we’re gucci”

Anyway, she proceeds to thoroughly shock Chris.

The lore behind this is that this is helping her resistance with dealing with the physical demands of the Nehushtan armor, as well as deal with the pieces of Nehushtan that may be still inside. Let’s be real, though. Fine’s a sadist, and just likes hurting people willy nilly.

“fuck... that hurt like shit... hey wait... wouldnt some of the electrical arcs hit you and shock you too, given you’re so naked and close to all this...?”

“ya nevermind that food looks real nice and i want a piece of that fuckin turkey”

It’s a real creepy scene, and it cements Fine’s horribleness really well. One of the most pivotal things to take note is that Fine says that people can only communicate with each other universally through pain. Strong, terrible BDSM overtones notwithstanding, this will be a common (though varying in quality) motif of the entire series.

“BITCH YOU THOUGHT WE WAS GUNNA EAT AFTER THAT FUCKIN’ WISECRACK ABOUT GETTING SHOCKED LIKE YOU’RE EVEN FUCKIN’ NIKOLAI TESLA ALL UP IN HERE WE’RE GONNA ELECTRIC SLIDE YOUR ASS TO NEXT WEEK”

“FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK”

“WHERE THE FUUUUUUUCK IS HIBIKI?!”

“i was gonna invite her to the circus with the rest of the class ‘cause i felt bad about how i treated her but i guess she’s not here”

“the only clown im interested in is hibiki, in the carnival tent of my own bedroom”

“isn’t being a part of /fit/ great, hibiki? can you just feel the gains?”

“yeah who needs doting wife based significant others when you have your gym bros, right newly acquired father figure?”

Hibiki, having acquired a new brain cell during her training, asks the million dollar question:

“Why the fuck are we relying on schoolgirls to deal with all this stuff?”

“anime just be that way, hibiki. i’m just the wrong protagonist in the wrong show.”

Japan is super big on keeping the Symphogear a secret because they are strong and the world really, really wants a slice of the Symphogear pie. These people are basically walking super-weapons. Tsubasa literally dropped a sword the size of a skyscraper. It’s like the premise of the series of Iron Man films.

“do i get like a superhero name too or”

Something to wrap your head around. This was released around 2012, and while the setting seems to be slightly more futuristic, the world it was made in at the time had not been through the era of social media/smartphones we have right now. It was on the cusp of doing so, which means the idea of decent (yet vertical) amateur footage of things happening wasn’t something in the mainstream yet. Why do I say this?

Because in Symphogear, the fact that Symphogear exist is the biggest open secret in this unidentified city ever. NDAs are passed like hotcakes to keep people’s mouths shut on seeing monster-fighting singing superheroes. And they sing, too! Symphogears as an entity are the most high-profile fighting agents out there. Bright colors, no masks, constant singing, fighting in broad daylight in populated areas. Everybody knows, but no one says a word.

Which means every politician on the face of Japan hates these idiots, but they’re stuck with them out of sheer necessity.

“i swear to god if you bring up sam reimi’s spiderman one more goddamned time”

“look it’s the truth, all anime comes back to sam reimi’s spiderman. fate zero did it. uhhh, fucking...baccano, probably? now us. face it. its pretty much the bible.”

It’s also pointed out that the very concept of a Symphogear is born from a science that didn’t exist, and it probably contributes to political frustration as well.

“im going to microwave all your sam reimi spiderman dvds. im gonna do it. you try me, motherfucker. i didnt go into acting and get into this position to hear lectures about a decades old film franchise nobody cares about anymore.”

“can we stop fighting about the validity of sam reimi’s spiderman for five seconds and get back to helping me thing of a dope as hell superhero name? now, lemme lay one on you: Mister Fister”

Hibiki asks where Code Ryoko is.

“any answer besides Not Here works”

“oh, she left to talk to the americans, why?”

“huh, shes sorta late, actually”

“WHY A BAD BITCH LIKE ME GOTTA GET STUCK IN TRAFFIC LIKE THIS”

In the mother of all Mom Vans, no less.

MEANWHILE... IN METAPHOR LIMBO...

Tsubasa has reached the sea floor of the water metaphor dimension surrounded by water, which is her feelings, which are very gay. Imagine the Mariana Trench but like, deeper. Way deeper. That’s where Tsubasa is.

Leave it to Kazanari “I am literally a sword” Tsubasa to successfully spin the very act of surviving a suicidal move during combat as a failure. That’s a special kind of self loathing right there.

“the sheer force of my love for big ladies is keeping me alive”

Tsubasa asks about the point of Kanade’s sacrifice. Why’d she do it? Why was she so hungry at the end?

She personally shows up to answer that question, because that’s Kanade for you.

“being badass is cool, but you know whats cooler? caring.”

“sharing the sauce... you... you shared the sauce...”

“thats right, tsubasa. i wanted to protect the sauce, but... ultimately... sharing it was better. it wasn’t my sauce, tsubasa. it was everyone’s...”

“im gonna suck on a ketchup packet in your memory, tsubasa”

Kanade’s spirit pulls her out of the dimension of water metaphors as she is slowly undrowning from her emotions.

Tsubasa, like Kanade, was lost in the sauce. But now, after Kanade’s touching peptalk, Tsubasa is lost no longer.

“will i ever see you again in my dreams, kanade...?”

“where there’s a sauce. i’ll be there.”

“ill eat taco bell every day just to see you again kanade”

“and i dont even like taco bell... im more of a chipotle girl...”

After accepting Taco Bell as her lord and savior, she is immediately pulled out of the metaphor zone.

And wakes the fuck up.

“b..... b..... b............”

“Baja Blast....”

[changji]

Wow you really went off the other day but at least it was worth it 😪 I normally look at the scenery when I’m on a road trip, but then I get bored of it and decide to sleep bc there’s nothing else to do. Motion sickness must suck :(( do you take gravol or something to help with it? Coffee literally drains the life out of my funds it hurts me

Yes omg pls make me cookies I love them. Maybe you can even open a bakery with pastries and sell some good /cheap/ coffee. Ilyt my dear baker 🥺 ye I’m not the biggest fan of my bday either but gotta celebrate anyway!! One year closer to death woohoo 🎉🎉 your birthday is the most important day of the year!!! You can’t fight me on this I’m right

Pearls are so good. Like most places I go to don’t add anything to the pearls so it’s just bland squishy balls but the place I frequent adds I think honey to sweeten them. It gives the pearls life istg. It tastes so good 🤤 hollering is a funny word. For some reason I always associate it with yodelling which makes me laugh

Ksks you must be op if you can make a joke in the wall with a door slam. I can’t relate my arms are literally sticks and I have no strength in me. Chrome books are terrible in general. Add my schools terrible wifi and you get one big recipe for disaster. I’d never fight u either (unless it’s for your bday) ily too much for that 🥺🥺🥺

Hahah I think it’s me. I haven’t heard anyone say “go ham” except for the people who go to my school. I find it really funny tho so I try to incorporate it whenever I can LOL easily burnt? Can’t relate but apparently I easily tan. There’s this one diagonal stripe on my shoulder that separates pale me and tan me which ??? How did that happen and what was I wearing for that to happen??

It’s all fun and games until you go outside and see a mountain of snow waiting for you to be shovelled. But there are some good aspects to winter, like skating and skiing and all that fun stuff. Snow is so heavy?? Or maybe I’m just weak but after I finish shovelling I’m beat. Gardening is not my thing. There’s too many bugs involved flying around 🥴

Kind of? I always thought it was short for cappuccino but I could be wrong. They don’t taste like fraps tho, they’re sm better. I was always a frap hoe until I discovered lattes. My old elementary school was close to a Starbucks so whenever frappy hour was happening, my friends and I would go almost every day LOL

I heard that dunkin coffee is really good. Oof there’s so many things that the us have that Canada doesn’t. But apparently you guys don’t have ketchup chips?? How can one live without them? You know that’s what soulmates are, we’re stuck together forever and I don’t mind that. I’d never leave you 😌😌

YES OMG LATTES ARE SO EXPENSIVE. I pay around the same amount and my wallet cries every time. If you ever yeet yourself off a bridge I’d come visit u in hell and bring u iced coffee 💖 we really are soulmates wtf I get almond milk in my lattes as well!! I used to get normal milk and was like “I’m a bad bitch milk can’t hurt me” but that didn’t really work out. Sigh what we do for coffee 😔

Washing dishes is disgusting. I hate doing them but yk someone’s gotta do it and that someone is me 😤 I’m acc lazy when it comes to smoothies, I usually ask my mom to make them LMAO. Pancakes are pretty much made of flour if you think about it so technically when u eat one plain ur eating cooked flour,, how barbaric. Waffles are Built. Like. They have a 20 pack 😪😪

I love angst personally so pls go ham but not too ham I’d like to keep my heart. Honestly at this point my last brain cell has given up on me. But yes I love angst and I love torturing myself with heart wrenching angst that leaves me crying into my pillow at 3am (I’m talking about this one haikyuu fic that I forgot the name of. I was literally dying inside jalsjwo)

Pls do send me peet’s I’ll send you an iced capp in a cooler so it’ll be somewhat melted and probably spilt everywhere 🤪 tumblrs probably gonna block me again, I’m looking at how much I’ve typed rn and it’s a lot lmaoo. Yes I managed to save myself. I redid the whole last with less detail bc I was not Having It but it turned out better?? How is ur drawing now?

I start after labour day in September. But starting in 3 weeks?????? On a Thursday?? I could never wtf. When do you end? I’m so confused with these ap and honours thing, like there’s none offered in my school nor majority of the school district. Are they just advanced classes or something? It is 7 classes a semester or the whole year?

Stan talent i think you meant yourself??? Jsjsksk I am not only ur coffee soulmate I’m not #1 fan as well and I support u bc ily 🥺🥺 the read more tag had me laughing for a hot minute. Like we really could make an essay out of all of our replies. I don’t have any pets (besides fish does that count?) unfortunately bc my moms allergic to fur 🥺 hbu?? (I can’t believe tumblr blocked me again they can fight me)

-

i didn’t even pay LOL i freeloaded off my cousin 🤧 i like to look @ scenery sometimes but like i can’t bc my head hurts LOL and the scenery is always the same for me, mountains and fields with cows. i try to take dramamine but it makes me so drowsy that i’m just basically dead,,, i live off of my cousins money so i’m okay 🤪

tbh i use nestle toll house pre made cookie dough, like that shit actually slaps. it’s the best it’s so good omg, perfect for lazy hoes 🤧 death here we go ! the order is ur bday, then skz debut date, and then christmas i don’t make the rules sorry sis 😤

pearls are Dangerous, i once drank a smoothie and there were pearls in it and i couldn’t see them bc there were like. only 3 and they were Buried under the smoothie but i choked and almost died but i chewed one of them and it’s like. so weird. HOLLERING AND YODELING IM- i once went to some public yodeling class and left in 2 seconds bc it was a bunch of white boys dressed like the kid from walmart 😪

it’s not even strength i’m actually rly weak,, i always think the doors are closed but they’re not and so i like slam them open and the walls are thin so it’s just. a sad hole. terrible wifi,, my school has pretty good wifi tbh but we have like three connections, one for the chrome books only, one for the teachers & staff, and one for students and guests. like it works rly good but everyone has a VPN bc of stupid social media restrictions 😤 & ilyt 🥺 u would probably win in a fight tho LOL

go ham is so interesting. the first time i heard it i thought it meant go pig and i was so confused but ig,,, i live lathered in sun screen whenever i go somewhere with the sun. ppl are like “i smell sun screen” and im just there like 🙃 it’s me u got a problem u burnt chicken nugget ??? i wish i tanned easily, i have a tan friend and when i showed her when my legs got tan she was so confused. i thought i was tan tho? bc during marching band season my sock tan becomes So Bad i’m basically white. she said she was blinded when she saw me pull my sock down and i laughed so hard LOL & i hate those dumb random tan lines like. where u @ bro? where u come from??

snow is fun for like a day and then i get tired LOL i csn only handle wet socks and a red nose for so long 😔 i tried skiing one time and i did so bad that the instructor had to hold me down and walk with me down the slope. i fell so many times i think he hated me 😳 i’m also rly bad at skating? i went w my friends once and i held both of their hands and still managed to bring both of them down when i fell. a cute guy once helped me when i was struggling to walk so 🥴 not my brightest moment tbh,, trying to walk in skates while on ice. do u enjoy skiing/skating? also gardening is. gross. worms and dirt and the sun i’m not here for it.

u: cappuccinos! me: ...ice bergs,,, now that i think about it fraps kinda suck,,, i used to think i was So Cool for drinking starbucks but now i’m like. wow. i used to think there was coffee in a frap but it’s just. sugar and ice LOL also speaking of tmrw is bogo fraps here,, idk if it’s all over the world but myb u should check it out 😪

dunkins okay it depends on what you get, i once got an iced latte and it was good but my dad got an iced coffee and he like. hated it so we had to switch and it was so bad like. it was coffee crime. it was horrible and not strong it was basically milk 😤 also,, ketchup chip? i just googled what that was and. that’s literally so weird. fun fact i hate ketchup and all other condiments i can only eat bbq sauce and i tolerate steak sauce

UR LITERALLY SO CUTE OKAY UR MINE NOW HHHH

i mentioned this in the other ask but. we going broke bitches club 😪 when u come visit me it’ll be old town road the one w mason ramsey on a loop. nothing will top the og remix but no, i’ll be stuck listening to some 5 year old rap for all of eternity

I USED TO BE SUCH A GOOD KID AND DRINK MILK EVERY MORNING ever since i got to middle school i preferred sleep over waffles and milk and i hardly drink milk but when i do. my stomach does not have it.

my mom made me wash dishes today and she just stared at me when i put ziploc bags on my hands bc we didn’t have gloves but i just painted my nails and i’m not abt to put myself thru chipped nails. not yet 😤 waffles are so good like i love waffles and lattes only 🤧

well i’ll go very ham (am i doing it right LOL) 😤 the angst ending is a lot better than the open ended or happy ones LOL i’m so excited for it 🥺 i’m rly tryna get it out before the end of this month bc the edit says july and it’ll make me Mad if i don’t get it out before the end of this month

i wanna start in september 🤧 and i usually end in the first week of june. also on a wednesday LOL it’s gross. stupid. ap means advanced placement so it’s just. a college level class. lowkey mad bc i’m taking ap euro (as a sophomore 😒) and other schools take it in their senior years? apparently this is normal? and honors are just faster paced classes with more weighting so,, idrk oops 😬 some people take 7 classes in a semester but i took it for the whole year! this year i’m dropping orchestra i’m Not for that spit in the carpet life

the only talent in this house goes by ada and jisung. i don’t make the rules. i’m ur #1 fan 🥺 as soon as u post anything i automatically smash that rb button LOL also put a read more here bc like. we’re really out here writing a whole ass essay. i’ll look @ all our convos bet it’ll be like. a lot. i don’t wanna say smth and be off so i’ll just not. i have a dog! he’s the cutest in the world and i love him sm 🥺 tumblr can fight me first like. what’s this ask limit bull hhhhh

[jeonsdear]

God I’m 22 and I know almost nothing about politics and I get so confused when people talk about it and I feel so stupid. I’ve had people explain some things to me but I always forget bc my brain is the size of a peanut. Same thing about different incomes or taxes or rent or literally anything, I never know what is wrong, right, a lot or too little? Feeling stupid is a everyday mood for me and I hate it

Don’t be fooled by people confidently stating they know about politics. If there’s one thing I’m taking away from being a politics major is that most people know what the government, the media, their parents and conspiracy theories want them to know. Meaning, most people know shit. I’m a very empirical political science scientist (I guess? lmao) and I believe in numbers and tests instead of philosophy. Not saying you can explain everything empirically, but I do believe if you try to explain the world, international relations and politics purely philosophically you are not explaining reality. You are explaining your own reality. So don’t worry, most people just think they know. Or they love to pretend they do.

Having said that, I don’t believe everyone needs to be super into politics. But I do wish people would at least know the basics aka being able to identify major presidents, knowing how their own voting-system works etc. By not knowing you are allowing other people to control you. That’s not cool. See? The basics are enough and you don’t need to know International Relation Theories. 

I’m sure you understand the basics and that’s perfectly fine! Taxes, rent and income is mostly economics. Which is a part of politics, yes, but even political science researchers and scientists have their field they work in. You most likely won’t find a professor working in International Relations and at the same time publishing papers about Comparative Politics. We all have our strong interests, and we work in those. Economic classes are the ones I struggle the most with. I love law. God I could study law all the time. But I hate economics. Why? Because I’m not good at maths. Fiscal politics is my death.

What I’m trying to say is that just because you don’t feel smart in a certain field doesn’t mean you’re not intelligent. There’s no way I could teach a 7th grade maths class without epically failing and throwing myself out of the window because I can’t even remember how to divide without a calculator. Same goes for most natural sciences, I always sucked at them. Never understood chemistry nor physics and I dropped those in school as soon as I could. My strong suits are humanities. Psychology, paedagogics, language studies, literature, politics, history.  I’m really smart in those but have zero brain cells for natural sciences and mathematics.

What about students that suck in school in general, you might ask me. Well, I’m that kind of teacher that firmly believes that not every person is made for theoretical studies. I’m also that teacher that does not think that makes those people any less smart. They might not be book smart, but most of them excel in practical fields such as sports, sewing, cooking, building etc. I am a very book-smart person and I prefer theory over practical application so I can guarantee you I’m pretty dumb when it comes to fixing anything in my house. I can’t even change tires. I can barely cook. I don’t mind that but what I want to say is that they might be a lot more advanced in living life more easily. Our society puts so much value on academic intelligence when in reality it is practical people holding daily practices together. No society can work without one or the other. There shouldn’t be value placed on either. 

And you shouldn’t discredit yourself for not being the smartest in politics either. You are smart in your field. 

However if you ever feel like asking questions, feel free to drop by and I can try my best to explain 💖

[rudeinterrupti0ns]

Amazon Prime Concert

ok here are all my thoughts about the gig. i've already posted a few thoughts such as how brilliant the audience were before taylor even came on, chanting her name and then screaming to high hell when appeared, and a few other things, but i've sort of decided to live post a bit in one post to be less annoying. so here is my terrible stream of consciousness, live from my bed and thanks to a total lack of sleep!

omg she's starting with me! yay!- i loved that she played this first. her first song released which is, at the end of the day, owned by her and it's so happy and cheery and it's such a positive start to this era. love it. also the video is unbeatable. suddenly thinking about benjamin. been distracted brb.

blank space - hell yeah after the last few weeks taylor's gonna play blank space! another great big fuck you to the media's opinion of her. god i love this song. she so smort. this song will never age because the media will always be this dumb. this is why taylor's timeless.

owh she's giving a speech about everyone already being the most supportive crowd. good work gang. that's what we were aiming for tonight.

ikywt - i felt it was really interesting she played ikywt, especially given that it's one of the few songs sc**ter changed on apple music. to me it felt like she was reminding everyone that it was HER song, no matter what he did with it. ooh a slightly funky ending! ooh taylor yeah mix it up!

'I wrote all of it'' YES TAYLOR! fucking tell em! we will never forget this. and i love that this is how she's dealing with it. cause she's right. tbh it's not like she needs the money from them and although i'm sure it fucking HURTS to a) be backstabbed by someone so close to her and b) have her musical children in the hands of someone else, she knows that in the world's eyes and in the fans' eyes and especially in her eyes the music is hers. and that's so important. we're not under any pretences that entire albums were ghostwritten like some singers do. we know that taylor's work is her own and so we accredit it to her. so i'm glad she's reminding everyone publicly again who wrote those somgs because she deserves to reiterate that no matter whose hands those songs are in...that she wrote them. good for you taylor.

love story yay!! - i cried during the intro lmao happens every time. and oh my god. there's a guy in the backwards cap during the first verse and he is so intensely singing the words and staring at taylor and it is amazing someone please find him. and oh my god PAUL SIDOTI YES BB show him the love he deserves.

"A little me and you time one on one on the guitar" YES PLEASE AND NEW YORK CITY HOOOOOLD UP WHAT YOU SAYING-

"I get inspired by lots of things in life, not just my own life but books and relationships between characters... but then there's being inspired by a place. That definitely happened to me when i spent a lot of time in new york city... this is the FIRST song that I wrote which was inspired by new york city" OK GUYS SHE HAD A MAJOR INFLECTION ON THE WORD "FIRST" I BET THERE'LL BE ANOTHER IN LOVER!!!!!!

ok side note i've just noticed yellow stars on the frets of taylor's guitar WHAT IS THE STAR THING?? so many easter eggs, so few brain cells.

AND YOU CAN WANT WHO YOU WANT BOYS AND BOYS GIRLS AND GIRLS yes taylor you show them that yntcd isnt queerbaiting you've been publicly supporting lgbtqa+ for yonks give them the receipts!! also this has got to be a shout out to the us womens soccer team. so cute. so deserving.

well that was bloody beautiful taylor. what a lovely version of that song. we have been blessed.

DELICATE 123 LGB!!! her face when everyone screamed it oh my god. she loves it. she fucking gets it. i love that amazon didn't censor it in time lmao, they weren't stan enough to know it was coming. i bet there was at least 1 swiftie working there keeping their mouth shut just so we could get an hq version of 123lgb lmao. brilliant.

also isn't delicate just so fucking good? ahhhhh the switch from acoustic to the backing track! love that. the kick into the 2nd verse is my favourite bit. great stuff.

STYLE. i s2g i hear the tiniest part of the beginning of the backing track and my whole body lights on fire. there really is no song like style. it is a pop masterpiece.

she's talking about lover!! - a love letter to love itself AHHHHHHHHHHHH!! love is complexity, struggle, pain, joy, hope... love is EQUALITY YEEEEEEEEET god she's such a good precious lil bean!!!! so much support for the queer community this era i am so here for it.

"would it be ok if for the first time ever we play yntcd live?" lmao taylor WHAT DO YOU THINK? hooooly shit. i love it.

ahh she's dancing! aha omg the little boxing motions taylor u geek. owh her lil choreography ugh, soft bean. MUST HAVE TAKEN ALL NIGHT lmaoooo her face. CAUSE SHADE NEVER MADE ANYBODY LESS GAY yes the crowd went IN! well done bbs. and omg why does amazon keep cutting to people standing there being miserable??? they've done it the whole show like what are these camera people doing?!?! maybe focus on people actually obviously having fun lmao. um also i see the beachballs in the background video... is that a wango tango reference? who knows maybe she's somehow made it another easter egg, incredible work.

last song?? noooo! but SHAKE IT OFF yes!! you literally feel the vibe in the room change. there's something about that song man. you literally cannot help but dance. god i wished i lived in nyc. for so many reasons. but also so i could have attended this. so much fun!!

LIARS AND DIRTY DIRTY CHEATS OF THE WORLD yes taylor fucking TELL THEM. these are your words!!! and you own them and you can apply them to whoever you want. because you are the rich man!! you are so strong and powerful and don't you forget it!

also whenever i see the shake it off rainbow confetti i just die. the love in that room.

oh she's going around holding everyone's hand!! TAYLOR!!!!!!

ok that was so much fun. now just 2 more days til july 13th 👀 and 4 days til my birthday, what a life we lead. hope you enjoyed my stream of connsciousness it probably reads terribly but i'm very excited and underslept. CONGRATS @taylorswift you KILLED it as usual!! @taylornation

[cinnaminsvga]

🌸 social media au where y/n posts a fake boyfriend application on twitter as a dare but ends up seeking something real in the long run (aka how to fall in love the zillennial way) 🌸

A/N: I know I said this update wouldn’t be written, but I decided to fix the little drabble I already had written and... It’s not as bad as I thought and now I’m moderately happy with it. Anyway... We’re entering angst city babey so please put on your seatbelts because we are SOARING! || W.C. 1.8K

prev // part 18 of ? // next masterlist here.

[updates every 6PM PST]

After sending his last text to you, Namjoon is only slightly surprised when he sees your caller ID flashing on his phone screen. When he looks at the time, he notices that it had taken you less than a minute for you to call him, no doubt ready to scream your head off at his outrageous suggestion. Admittedly, he knows that his idea might be a little outside of your comfort zone, but he believes you can do it. If his people reading skills are even remotely average, then he’s sure that it’ll work if you just—

“KIM NAMJOON! HOW IN THE WORLD DID YOU COME UP WITH THAT CONCLUSION?” Your voice is loud enough to burst an eardrum, but luckily, Namjoon had already expected your volume and had held his phone an arm away. In his nine-ish days of knowing you, he’s somewhat accustomed to your theatrics, though you’re still no match for Hoseok’s excited shrieks.

“Hello Y/N,” Namjoon hums, sitting up groggily from his bed. It’s a bit too early to go to sleep, but he supposes that your panicked screams are going to keep him up a little bit longer. “I feel as though you’re overreacting a little.”

“A little?” You scoff loudly, and Namjoon can imagine you pacing circles in your room. You did always seem a little fidgety when you two went out together. “Namjoon, you can’t just expect me to go on a date with Jungkook—“

“Why not? You guys go out all the time, don’t you?” Namjoon points out, smiling slightly at your exasperated huffs.

“Well, that’s different! Those were platonic hangouts! Just bros being bros!”

“Then change the context a little bit. You don’t have to ask him to be your boyfriend just to go on a date.”

“Namjoon, I know you’re a smart man but I don’t think your math skills are all that great,” you say brusquely. “That doesn’t add up! If I ask him on a date, then he’ll know I’m into him and—“

“And that’s a bad thing?” Namjoon interrupts, raising a brow. “Y/N, we both know you’re being a little unreasonable right now.”

You splutter for a moment, but you find that you’re unable to retort. Namjoon smirks, continuing, “Y/N, I know you’re worried that Jungkook might get swept away now that he’s quote-unquote ‘single.’ I get it. But if you’re not going do anything about it and suffer in silence, then he’s definitely going to leave. Besides, I already told you that he probably likes you back, judging from how jealous he got. You could probably even ask your friends and they’d tell you the same.”

You snort. “God, I’d rather die than talk about… love stuff with those freaks I call friends,” you cough out a laugh, muffling the sound before it can continue. Namjoon knows you’re a bit conscious of your “unflattering” snorts, but he just finds them cute. A lot of the things you don’t like about yourself are cute in Namjoon’s eyes. “I can’t even imagine going to any of them about this… They’d just bully me and make me do something I don’t want to do!”

“Isn’t that basically what I’m doing right now?” Namjoon laughs, giggling even harder when he hears your tired groan.

“Yeah, but you’re nice. Unlike those meanies,” you say. Namjoon hates to admit it, but he does appreciate being special to you, even if it’s over something trivial like this.

“You’re right. I wouldn’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do,” Namjoon starts. He can hear you humming in agreement, but he doesn’t stop there. “But, it is a suggestion. Seeing as how you don’t have any other idea how to solve this mess, I’d say go for it. What’s the worse thing that can happen?”

“Um? I get rejected? Hello?”

“You don’t have to let him know it’s a date, you know.”

“What do you mean? Namjoon, you should stop speaking in riddles because I honestly don’t have enough brain cells for this, clearly.”

Namjoon sighs. “I guess what I’m trying to say is… What if you fake date him?” When you don’t reply immediately, Namjoon is quick to keep talking. “Not that I’m asking you to stop fake dating me! What I’m trying to say is… Maybe try to rekindle the rumor that you and Jungkook are dating? He doesn’t have to know it’s a date, so long as everyone else thinks that you two are.”

“I… I guess?” You sound unsure, though Namjoon admits it’s kind of a long shot to begin with, not when you wouldn’t know the last thing about being subtle. He kind of wants to throttle you, in a gentle way. It’s honestly frustrating to see you like this, and he just wishes he could… Make the problem go away.

That would be easy. If Y/N just stopped pining after Jungkook, then he could just come in and—

His thoughts skid to a halt, nearly slapping himself to keep from going down that road again. Look at him, trying to help you with your mess when even he can’t get a handle on his own emotions. What is going on inside my head, he thinks sadly to himself.

“Listen, it’ll be really easy! All you have to do is text him and say, ‘Hey, wanna go have dinner with me tomorrow?’ but bring him somewhere nicer, perhaps? Then take a photo of him all dressed up and looking boyfriend-y and post it on Instagram. I’m sure that’ll shut people up.”

“Namjoon, I don’t know if you’re aware, but Jungkook’s definition of ‘dressing up’ is combat boots, a hoodie, and his god-awful backpack the size of Africa. He looks like a nerd.”

“I mean, you kinda dress alike…” Namjoon mutters, and he’s thankful that you don’t hear his slight slip-up. He clears his throat. “A-anyway, I’m sure it’ll be fine? I think it would be more suspicious if he wore a suit and tie or something. So long as you guys look cozy and comfy together, I’m sure people will take the hint. If worse comes to worst, I can maybe slip something to Johnny and he can retract his statement or something.”

“I hope to god that isn’t the case,” you say. Namjoon nods, before realizing you can’t even see him.

“Right. Well, I think everything should work out perfectly. Just ask him to some popular couples restaurant. Maybe the nice Italian place in Hongdae? Something more romantic, not necessarily fancy.”

There’s a pause on your end for a moment causing Namjoon to sweat a little, wondering if he might be overstepping. He does genuinely want to help you, though he hopes he isn’t actually weirding you out somehow. He’s not adept at handling love problems as much as he’s trying to appear to be, since he’s mostly using the romance novels he had read during his teen years as his sole source of reference. This is what I get for not dating for so long, Namjoon thinks, grimacing.

“Namjoon.” You break the silence, your voice quieter than before. Namjoon has to strain his ears a little, pursing his lips as he waits for your response. “Are you…”

Namjoon tilts his head. “Am I?”

Namjoon hears you hesitate, stuttering syllables over his phone speaker like you aren’t quite sure how to ask your question. “Do you remember when I asked you a few days ago if you were sure you don’t actually have a girlfriend?”

“Yeah?”

“I just… I don’t know how to say this without being weird, but I just want to say you’re great. Like,” you huff out a laugh, incredulous. “You’re just… The perfect package? You’re so kind and so sweet and it’s just? Almost mysterious how you don’t have someone special to call your own yet.”

Namjoon smiles wryly to himself, head bowed as he stares at his wrinkled bedsheets. “I suppose other people don’t feel the same way.” He tries forcing out a laugh, but it sounds a little strangled. His chest feels tight, strangely. Hopefully, you don’t notice.

“No, I highly doubt that! You’re literally the perfect guy. Any person would be lucky to have you as their boyfriend.” You sound almost indignant, like you can’t imagine anyone ever thinking badly about him. He almost wants to laugh, but he tightens his hands into fists instead, digging his nails into his palms and leaving crescents in their wake.

“Well then… I guess that makes you lucky to have me, then?” Namjoon nearly slaps his hands to his mouth, a cold tingle of embarrassment mixed with fear running down his spine. Did he really just say that— “What I mean is, erm…”

“N-no, I get you.” You’re giggling, but—is he imagining it?—you sound a little nervous to his ears. If he thinks hard enough, he can almost imagine you blushing, bottom lip trapped underneath your teeth. “I guess I am lucky to be your fake girlfriend, huh? Even for just a few weeks?”

“Yeah,” Namjoon breathes out the word, guilt washing over him like waves. Here he is, feeling things that he shouldn’t be, over a girl who was never his to begin with. There are seedlings in his chest, barely anything to write home about. But he knows—a gardener can see the garden even before the flowers have bloomed. Each day he spends with you is another day they get a chance to grow, and he’s afraid he’ll soon be overrun, unable to handle the forest that is bound to erupt. “Just a few weeks,” he echoes, unable to completely hide the sadness from his words.

“I guess I am just being melodramatic about everything, huh?” you say. It takes a moment for Namjoon to even remember what the two of you had been talking about, so caught up in his thoughts that he has to pinch himself back to reality.

“Think of it as a funny story to tell your grandkids,” Namjoon says.

You laugh, and Namjoon can feel a seedling sprout its first leaf. “Yeah. Definitely. God, I can’t even begin to think about kids… Not when I can’t even ask him out on a fucking date.”

“You can do it, Y/N.” Namjoon whispers. He flops back down onto his bed, eyes half-closed as he stares at his cracked ceiling. If he breathes quietly enough, he can hear the sounds of Seoul outside his windowpane. If he stops breathing altogether, he might be able to hear you across the city, your socked feet padding towards your bed, curling up into your own blanket.

“Thank you, Namjoon. Really.”

For what? Namjoon leaves that part unspoken. “You’re welcome,” he says instead. He drops the call, feeling a little emptier than before.

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

Sorry To Bother You

You need to see this movie - even if you don’t like it. Normally I try to be a little coy in my reviews, leave my assessment until after the cut just to hook the people in, y’know, basic marketing stuff. But this review is different. First, there will be spoilers a-plenty because it’s tough to discuss the biggest themes of the film without getting into some big reveals. Second, this movie is WILD, y’all. LIke Being John Malkovich had a baby with Get Out and that one scene in RENT where Idina Menzel is doing the mooing. You think you know where it’s going and then IT GOES A WHOLE OTHER PLACE. But...it’s still a Hollywood movie with a roster of established stars. Writer/director Boots Riley can’t really be that audacious, right? Well...

It depends on how shocked you are by a coked-out Armie Hammer gleefully (and unironically) uttering the phrase, “You’ll have a horse cock.” 

A basic plot summary - Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield) is struggling to pay the rent for the garage apartment he lives in with his artist girlfriend, Detroit (Tessa Thompson). He gets an entry-level telemarketing job at RegalView, but doesn’t have much success until an older, wiser employee (Danny Glover) advises him to use his “White Voice.” Cash does, to his sudden and great success - so much so that he gets promoted to Power Caller, and steps into the world of RegalView’s elite, led by Steve Lift (Armie Hammer). But Power Callers aren’t selling encyclopedias over the phone...no, they’re selling WorryFree, the company Steve Lift started that encourages people in poverty to sign a lifetime contract so they can have guaranteed housing, meals, and work for the rest of their lives at no cost...and also no pay. And the housing is shared bunk beds. And the meals are cafeteria-esque prison food. And the work is slave labor. Cash is uncomfortable with this but hey, he’s finally making some real money, so he goes along with it and even gets invited to a party at Steve Lift’s house! And that’s where he discovers Lift has found a solution to the pushback he’s getting for WorryFree. He’s found a way to turn his laborers into human/horse hybrids, or Equisapiens. They can work twice as long for half the cost as all these whiny humans, and Lift just needs Cash to agree to become an Equisapien and become their Martin Luther King, Jr - to lead the Equisapiens in the direction that Lift and WorryFree have decided is best. Cash is horrified and exposes Lift’s evils, which just makes WorryFree’s stock prices skyrocket. Cash decides to stand with the striking workers in front of the RegalView offices, and in the ensuing riot, the Equisapiens escape and they help the striking workers win against the militarized police force that’s come to stop them. All seems like it’s back to normal until the next day when a horrified Cash begins to turn into an Equisapien. He and a couple other Equisapiens break into Steve Lift’s house and as we see Lift’s terrified face, the movie cuts to black.

Some thoughts:

This movie is getting compared to Get Out a lot, for a multitude of reasons: Lakeith Stanfield, a visionary first-time black director, a bonkers third act. These are surface level comparisons, but the feel of watching something new, and crazy, and so dark but also scarily-almost-maybe-plausible is similar enough that I think the comparison fits well.

Steven Yeun of Walking Dead fame kills it in the major B-story as Squeeze, the leader of striking RegalView workers who are fighting for a living wage from a company whose founder is literally making millions off of slave labor. It’s interesting to me that most of the striking workers appear to be white, and Squeeze is the sole person of Asian descent in the bunch. There’s an insidious tendency for East Asians especially to be seen as “white-adjacent” or a “good minority” - POC who are non-threatening to white people. Squeeze wants the telemarketers to unionize in order to negotiate for a living wage, and unions have almost overwhelmingly been organizations accessible only to the white working class. I think it’s telling that Squeeze, the “safe” POC, is the leader of this fight, rather than Danny Glover or Tessa Thompson, who are also employees of RegalView.

OK but I really don’t understand Tessa Thompson’s performance art piece. She is also using specifically a British White Voice when she’s talking to the people at her art show after she’s gotten angry at Cash for his White Voice.. This makes sense because the bulk of the show is about reclaiming images of Africa, and that voice reeks of colonialism. But when she allows spectators to throw cell phones, bullet casings, and balloons filled with sheep’s blood at her, is that because she knows she lives in a world where her body will be subject to violence? Because violence inflicted with her consent somehow gives it less power? Or is she just as complicit as Cash in trying to leverage white people’s racism to her own financial gain in an evil capitalist system?

I wish we had gotten more time with Danny Glover. Where did he come from? How does he know about the White Voice? Was he once a Power Caller? This is a character I wish had been fleshed out more.

The scene in which Cash is forced to rap at the party thrown by Steve Lift in front of a huge group of white people is one of the most cringeworthy, horrifying things I’ve ever seen on film. He tells them he can’t rap and they keep pressuring him until finally he just starts screaming “N****R SHIT” over and over again - and the crowd enthusiastically repeats it back to him. It’s “Scott’s Tots” level of brutal but covered in a thick gloss of racism, and it made me want to crawl out of my skin because I know this exact phenomenon happens to black people in real life.

Even though it was hysterical, I’m not certain I understand what was going on with the battle of niceness that Cash and his friend Salvador (Jermaine Fowler) got into when Cash abandoned the strike. Was it just because they were still genuinely friends and weren’t really that mad at each other? 

Shout out to David Cross, who perfectly plays Cash’s dubbed White Voice, and to Patton Oswalt who is the White Voice of Mr. _______, Cash’s Power Caller boss. Both of them inject a sly, self-aware note of performance into their voices because they know that this kind of whiteness IS a performance. 

This is the most I’ve liked Armie Hammer in a role since he played the WInklevosses in The Social Network. He is perfection as the smug, richer-than-God, hedonistic power player who genuinely thinks that the logical next step in his cure for poverty is turning people into horse hybrids.

Ok, the Equisapiens. I know this is the part that loses people. They think the film goes off the rails here, or that the horses aren’t necessary to make the point. That now everything the film is saying just feels ridiculous. But anyone who’s studied the history of labor laws can see that this doesn’t feel ridiculous at all. Unchecked capitalism is EVIL, y’all, and it’s also all tied up in the racism we’ve been seeing at play in the movie. The system cares about profit and nothing more - and anything that can yield more profit, no matter how inhumane, is fair game. Boots Riley is using an allegory, sure, but the satire only works because Jeff Bezos is the richest person to ever live in human history and his Amazon warehouses have been accused of various human rights violations on a regular basis. We’re talking sweltering heat, no bathroom or meal breaks, freezing cold, vermin...and N-O-B-O-D-Y C-A-R-E-S. Prime is just too convenient, amirite? To people that make decisions that privilege profit over human lives (especially the lives of the poor, which just so happen to usually be POC), Equisapiens makes a lot of sense. 

There’s even more to unpack here than I can get into because I can’t fit it all into my brain. This movie is brilliant, unapologetic, and vehemently anti-capitalism in a way that no media I’ve ever seen is. You need to see it, your friends need to see it, and your family needs to see it, even if they hate it, because we need to confront the evils Boots Riley is tackling here, and that starts with recognizing them. 

[captaingrumpyteen-blog]

social media & the spread of medical misinformation. my issue.

I’d just like to preface this by saying that I do understand the concern that parents face when seeing information that vaccines could be harmful to their child. It’s concerning to anyone, to think that something that has always been thought to be benign is ‘revealed’ to be dangerous, and possibly causing more harm than good. I understand that. The panic is understandable. But, inadvertently, these parents, these concerned mothers, are causing more harm than good. This blog will be debunking and detailing some of the most popular myths surrounding vaccines and the harm coming to the most vulnerable.

Myth 1: Vaccines cause autism.

This is by far the most common myth, and although it’s been debunked many times, I’ll be adding this to the list just for good measure. Andrew Wakefield, a researcher back in the 90’s published a paper suggesting that autism and the MMR vaccine were correlated, because the MMR vaccine caused inflammation of the gut, and the inflammation would travel through the bloodstream and affect the brain. His study has been criticised by many for it’s bad design, as he only had 12 subjects, 8 of whom were already diagnosed with autism, the other 4 with developmental difficulties. Inflammation was only observed after the children had already been observed, and there was no control group without autism/developmental difficulties to compare them to.

Well then why has the rate of autism in children spiked since the introduction of vaccines? A theory is that the rate of autism has not spiked, but the rate that doctors could detect and diagnose autism, especially on the milder end of the spectrum has increased. Another theory is that because autism is diagnosed at around 18 months of age, a couple of months after vaccinations, and the proximity of these two things could lead parents to believe that the vaccines caused their child’s autism. Myth 2: Vaccines can actually infect you with the disease you are vaccinating against.

When antigens enter the body, your cells make antibodies specifically for these antigens to kill it off. Vaccines are these antigens but dead or weakened, so that your body can create these antibodies without having to face the actual symptoms of the disease. The body is then equipped with those antibodies so that if the body becomes infected with the real antigen, it already has the antibody to defend itself. So, no, your body will not succumb to these diseases.

Myth 3: Vaccines have unsafe levels of mercury/formaldehyde/other chemical.

They do not. You ingest more mercury on a daily basis than present in vaccines, and formaldehyde is a chemical that your body produces in higher amounts than present in the vaccine.

When Facebook Moms, as I like to call them, band together in support of something, misinformation spreads like wildfire. Because social media gives you the option to spread misinformation so quickly to so many people, the rate that these beliefs spread is extremely fast. And the effects are disastrous.

In America, the vaccination rate has been high enough that people experience the effects of something called ‘herd immunity.’ Herd immunity is the concept that when vaccination rates, and therefore immunisation rates are high enough, the people who are medically exempt from vaccinations, newborns, extremely young children, and people who can’t get vaccinated for other medical reasons, will be much less likely to come in contact with the disease. In cases of especially contagious diseases, this is extremely important. These diseases spread literally like the flu, and the reason your child needs to get vaccinated is to protect the most vulnerable, the people who cannot get vaccinated.

More recently though, the vaccination has gone down, especially in certain religious groups and smaller, more close knit groups. Within these groups, there’s a high social pressure to conform, and a higher level of trust within the members. So, if an authority in these groups chooses not to vaccinate their child, others will likely follow suit. This was the case in a Rockland County town, where religious leaders and their followers gathered to rally against the vaccine movement. Among the religions were The Church of Scientology, (I really wish I were joking) and Ultra Orthodox Jews. Because faith leaders are so trusted, and their followers follow them for faith, would it not make sense for them to stay faithful that their leaders want to protect them? And I don’t even doubt that, I don’t think that these religious groups are gathering, planning and orchestrating the subsequent measles outbreak that occurred, most likely a result of herd immunity being nonexistent within these groups because the percentages of non-vaccinated people was too high. It also didn’t help that they gathered in ballroom to protest this, and hundreds of unvaccinated people in a relatively small, enclosed space, is just a disaster waiting to happen.

Other than the misinformation about vaccines, other ‘natural remedies’ are suggested as alternate solutions. Occasionally essential oils are suggested as remedies to illnesses and ailments instead of taking their child to the doctor. I want to say that that the anti vax movement has really spread because of this mistrust of Big Pharma and doctors and the government. And although anti vax movement is not responsible for the mistrust, it has a lot of other symptoms. People are tending towards organic, non-GMO, otherwise ‘natural’ ingredients in their food, and natural things in their body. This bias towards ‘healthy, natural living’ is ironically putting more people at risk than not, with effects other than the recent spike in measles cases in the US.

(If you really want to see something grotesque, you can just look up black salve, which I feel like is a side effect of being able to order pretty much anything off the internet, and also the spread of misinformation surrounding medicine and cancer treatments.)

[hasanthedon1000]

Don’t find a way out, find a way in.

For me, my way out was anime & video games.(it still is) For a lot of children it’s social media. That’s y u have folks running around thinking women are stronger than men (physically) and we’re all the same, and race doesn’t matter 😒 (Common sense ain’t so common anymore) Like idk if these kids will be able to handle this world, cause it’s the opposite of what’s on the internet…

We’re always trying to get away. Never facing what’s right in front of our faces. Most of the time all the right answers are right there, literally. There have always been good people present, but our focus is always on what we can’t have. Never on what we have.

It’s like this….we can’t have it our way, which is good. When I was little, I wanted everything. And in having such an unrealistic frame of mind I neglected the friends that were right in front of my face. I still think of them to this day.

But it’s too late. Sometimes I wish god could let us go back in time so that we could reverse our dumb decisions into smart decisions. Give our immature minds the focus we needed to appreciate what we had. Too bad that’s impossible…

We could’ve been friends if I wasn’t so stupid.

And now I’m alone….But it’s okay. I don’t deserve friends, because at the end of the day if I did, they’d be here.

(Back on topic) You rarely here people say, “ok cool that makes more sense”, or “hmm I never thought about like that”. There’s not much self reflection these days. It’s always “me me me me me.” You could be wrong, and sometimes people know they’re wrong and still just want to be right. That’s the part where I exit the scene.

“I don’t deal in legends, I deal in facts” TFS Freiza

Most people don’t, especially women. I’ve heard more bullshit(delusions) come out a women’s mouth than any other creature on this earth 😂. It’s really fascinating. I wish I could be in denial that much and still be sane. But it’s all good. Ig that’s just what we got now. And why I’m single. Also, that’s just my experience with women. I hate to argue facts with anyone because it’s stupid. What’s real is real and it’ll never change. Get over yourself and own up to your shit. And women (from my experience) don’t accept reality. If you know some women that do then lmk.

“I dislike stupid people. Especially those that can’t admit that they’re stupid. I mean you’re(my past self) pretty stupid but at least you know you are. So when I tell you that you’re stupid maybe you’ll become less stupid.” - Saya Takagi

I didn’t get it back then, But I do now.

It a waste of time. I’ll have more luck talking to hamsters than those kinds of women. But I’m cool.

If I have to devalue & lower my standards for anyone, then I’ll be alone forever. I’m talking friendships, relationships, situationships, companionships, whatever. Dumb people hang out with dumb people, which is why they remain dumb. That shit’s contagious. Just like rage, sadness, ingratitude, laziness, greed, hate, etc.

I’m damaged enough, don’t need anyone fuel to this fire.

Now hold up a sec…I’m only referring to women who deny facts. Not women who have they’re own opinions and outlooks on the world. I love hearing different perspectives and would gladly spend time with women who were open to discussion, I’m not a narcissist 🤪. But I’m not debating what’s been proven factual to anyone. That’s ridiculous and a waste of brain cells.

I feel like I went off topic. Happens allot when I write from the soul. Sorry🙏🏽. I’m not trying to bash women either, or men. Just the stupid ones. The world is what it is, not what we’d like it to be. Accept it, because if you do then you can deal with it, work around it, and do what you want happily. Denial breeds dissatisfaction. I’ve seen it….

I’ve lived it.

(Switch) You know, A big piece of me still wants it to be real.(Anime) Even though ik it’ll never be. My mind won’t accept it. I still want to fly even though ik I’ll never be able to.

Truth is, I’ve never liked this world. That’s why me & my brother told stories and created characters. Why we wrote. I picked up the pen because of my own sort of denial in a way.

But I never project it. Not anymore. I know what’s real. I’ve accepted it and it’s okay, because I know they’re beautiful places in this world, wonderful creatures and even wonderful people. That’s worth it to me. So Even if my mind is corrupted by fantasies, I can still be happy in the real world. I can try. When you know what’s real, you can deny it to everyone but yourself.

My way in is threw the beauty of this world…🌏

[rhetoricandlogic]

Revelation Space - Alastair Reynolds

I first posted a review of Alastair Reynolds' fearlessly ambitious Revelation Space, what was to become the first book in a trilogy, in 2002. And while I acknowledged most heartily that Reynolds "has more imagination in two brain cells than perhaps the entire populations of several small towns," I was, in the end, disappointed, giving the book two stars and labeling it "a colossal bore." Reynolds' adventure, I thought at the time, was simply crushed under the weight of his verbose, detail-obsessed prose.

But something kept nagging at me in subsequent years, in a way that I am almost never nagged after disliking a novel. No, it had nothing to do with the fact that mine was a minority opinion among critics, most of whom were tossing out "Best Science Fiction Novel of the Year" clichés as fast as their fingers could type. I try never to let either popular or critical opinion influence me if I can help it. My thinking is that going into a book as cold as possible will result in the most honest opinion.

What was nagging me was that, despite my disappointment, images and bits and pieces of the novel simply would not get out of my head. This is saying something, since, with the volume of SF and fantasy I read, I do not exactly retain an eidetic memory of everything I've read that I can call up in a second or two unless the book literally bowled me over. But in the case of Revelation Space, two and three years later I still could remember the opening scene in the archaeological dig on the lonely planet of Resurgam with remarkable clarity. The dark, eerie corridors of the vast starship Nostalgia for Infinity still brought haunting images to mind. Had I just missed something? Perhaps I had read Revelation Space at a time that I was not very receptive to epic SF. (I suspect that having since gone on to read the work of Peter F. Hamilton and Dan Simmons, SF of this monumental scale has become more appealing to me now that I've seen it done well.) Or was this all just wishful thinking, and the book truly a soporific snoozefest?

There was only one thing to do: re-read the book. And while re-evaluating something you've originally panned isn't a common practice among critics, we should be open-minded to doing so when the occasion warrants. (And it doesn't always, so don't expect a new review of The Eye of the World.) Often works of art are released before their time, like Blade Runner. Or their qualities are only evident to some audiences right away, while other audiences have to warm to the work over time.

Well, upon re-reading Revelation Space, I will say that to a large extent I maintain some of my original opinion. This is an often ponderous epic. Reynolds has so many Big Ideas to communicate to his readers that he falls into the hard SF writer's most commonplace trap: the infodump. Passages go on at g-r-e-a-t length to elucidate some aspect of Reynolds' extravagant future. But there's nothing anywhere that could be called bad writing. The complaint is more akin to that hilarious line from Amadeus: "Too many notes!" Clearly Reynolds' universe is more important to him than his characters. So not only does the cast never fully reach the point of perfect reader identification/empathy, it seems that Reynolds knows it and couldn't care less. It's the big picture that matters to him. But if, in a manner of speaking, Reynolds can't see the trees for the forest, you can't deny that it's an astonishing forest.

The story revolves around the quest to discover what led to the extinction of the Amarantin, a pre-technological race that once inhabited the bleak world of Resurgam, orbiting Delta Pavonis. Resurgam is now a human colony wracked by political upheaval. Dan Sylveste is the son of one of Resurgam's founders, the infamous leader of the Eighty, the unwitting victims of a bungled immortality experiment. Sylveste is on the cusp of a crucial discovery — an Amarantin obelisk with engravings that hint at technologies this species should never have had — when he is unseated from power in a coup. He is only released after 20 years when his former rival, Nils Girardieau, requires his help in understanding the dazzling discovery that the obelisk has led to: a buried Amarantin city, encased two kilometers beneath the surface of Resurgam in a black sphere.

Two other groups of players enter the stage. From the rather Ridley Scott-ish Chasm City, on a planet in the Epsilon Eridani system, we meet assassin-for-hire (this seems to be the job du jour of hot chicks in the far future) Ana Khouri, who is hired — well, conscripted, actually — by a mysterious wealthy dowager named the Mademoiselle to travel to Resurgam and, for reasons cloaked in obscurity, take out Sylveste. Through plot machinations that, it must be said, are a bit clunky, the Mademoiselle forces Khouri to work for her with the aid of a rather implausible twist concerning Khouri's long-lost husband. Then, Khouri infiltrates the crew of the Nostalgia for Infinity, an unimaginably massive ship ("unimaginably massive" seems to be the only level at which Reynolds will even deign to consider an idea) whose skeleton crew of cybernetically enhanced human "Ultras" are journeying to Resurgam also to find Sylveste. But they aren't looking to kill him; they believe Sylveste can help combat a mysterious viral plague attacking the ship's systems and endangering their captain, Brannigan, who's been in suspended animation at near absolute zero at little better than "brain in a jar" status. But why, Khouri wonders, is the ship looking for a gunnery officer? And where did it get all its gargantuan WMD's, some of which could probably take out whole stars?

Before the characters all come together, Reynolds shows a deft hand at building cosmic mystery while slowly weaving thematic threads together. The Nostalgia's previous gunnery officer went mad, raving to Ilia Volyova (one of the ship's triumvirate of commanders), before she was forced to kill him, about some being he calls the Sun Stealer. And Sun Stealer appears to be the name attached to the sculpture of an enigmatic winged deity, not previously known to be part of Amarantin religious traditions, found within the buried city.

Tied into all of this is an even more bizarre enigma, that of the unspeakably alien Shrouders, who maintain areas of distorted spacetime — the Revelation Space of the title — which are rumored to protect vast repositories of wildly advanced technologies. Dan Sylveste is the only human to have ventured into Revelation Space and returned alive. And what he learned there is a key mystery of the plot.

All of these riddles wrapped in mysteries inside enigmas sometimes, not surprisingly, overwhelm the narrative. It will be the patient, not easily daunted reader who will find Revelation Space most rewarding. (For one thing, we're nearly 200 pages into the book before we get anything resembling action.) The narrative is non-linear in a way that sometimes lacks clarity, popping forward then back again over gaps of decades, and there are odd hiccups in plausibility such as the one I mentioned before. Most readers who choose to tackle this book may find it's best read in small chunks. The meticulous, nearly obsessive attention to detail in this huge narrative results in a story that can be as daunting and difficult as it is compelling.

Still, you'll find a lot to like in those details, including hints at Reynolds' disparate influences. Khouri's career choice in Chasm City — she stalks clients who pay to be stalked, and it's all captured by the media — has echoes of Robert Sheckley's The 10th Victim. And there's something about that buried city (not to mention the Shrouders themselves) that's more than a little Lovecraftian.

Finally, the reason this book satisfies where similarly overwritten epics don't is that Revelation Space does have a focused storyline that Reynolds is driving towards a climax. (And what a climax!) Too many books like this commonly leave several unresolved plot threads gaily swinging in the breeze, leaving readers with the forlorn hope that all will be tied together in some distant future sequel. Revelation Space leaves plenty open for its sequel, too, but it doesn't do so in such a way that it's a letdown in its own right.

Given that this trilogy's second and third novels are even longer than Revelation Space, I don't get the impression that Reynolds' self-indulgence is a thing he's felt any particular compunction to rein in. But I have confidence he knows how to smooth his rough edges. And as writers like Simmons, Martin, and Hamilton have proved, there are ways to do Bigness well. This debut reveals a powerful imagination straining at the leash to explore the Biggest Ideas it can tackle. And as we all hopefully would agree that SF ought to be, at the best of times, a literature of Big Ideas, to criticize a novel too harshly for attempting to excel at what this genre is all about — as opposed to falling back on the same overworked tropes — seems churlish. As Reynolds' career evolves, I suspect it's more likely that, rather than make his stories more accessible to readers who've long cut their teeth on undemanding work, he'll expect readers to evolve to his level, just to keep up. That's not a bad thing, and it might even prove a revelation.

Followed in the trilogy by Redemption Ark, as well as Chasm City, a stand-alone novel set in the same future.

The Nostalgia for Infinity

[sweetnessthesweetmess]

Depression Mind Dump

I live in a generation that only sees worth in what you can do for others. What job you have, how much money you have, how many followers you have. We smile for social media because it's not okay to show weakness, but for me it didn't start with the cell phones and the internet, it started at home.

 My parents had me and my sister at a very young age, as did most of the women in my family. My mother, barely out of high school herself, suddenly had twin baby girls to care for in a city she didn’t know. My father enlisted and spent much of my childhood overseas to provide for us. I understand that things were hard for them. What they never understood, and still don't today, is that things are hard for me too. The only difference between me and them, is I don't have a support system. Systematically each member of my family has found a reason to discredit me and push me aside, yet now they wonder why I don't reach out to them. Why I don't seek comfort in them or ask for help. It's been instilled in me since I was a child.

 As early as I can remember I just wanted to make them proud, especially my father. I followed the rules, a got good grades, and I was praised on how smart I was. It wasn't because I wanted to learn, and the archaeic system used in our schools doesn't promote learning. It promotes the ability to absorb information and regurgitate it for a score. I was lucky to have a great memory then, but my sister was not. I was the "smart one" and my sister was "the pretty one." We fought for attention, for love, for acceptance for who we were. This competitive life we lived ruined my relastionship with the one person in this world I should have been able to confide in. My twin sister.

I found out later that I was referred to as "the other one" by my mother, which really solidified my thoughts that she always loved my sister more than me. They were so close, I wished that I could have had the relationship that they had. I had my father though, and for a long time things were good. I got good grades, I played softball, I took advanced classes and graduated in the top 15% of my class of over 1,000 seniors. My relationship with him was decent, as long as I succeeded. But he used to do one thing that would break me all the time. Tell me that I was "too good for that".

 I wanted to be an artist, I used to paint and draw, but I was too smart "just to be an artist."

I wanted to be a chef. I love to cook, but "chefs don't make money, and you'd never see your husband or children."

The career choice was always different, but the answers were always the same.

"You should go into cyber security, like me," he said.

"But I don’t like working with computers…."

"It doesn't matter, there's job security there. You'll always be needed. You'll always be able to find work."

So I never picked a field because nothing seemed to good enough for HIM. When I should have followed what made ME happy.

 I struggled with depression from a young age, and I still do today. I had no one to talk to because I systematically watched my parents hide all of our problems from the people closest to us. Our own family. We never spoke of our fights or disagreements in front of them, and if I mentioned any of our "dirty laundry" to them at Sunday dinner I was punished for making them look bad. Image was everything back then, and even more so now. I was taught that asking for help was weakness. That talking about our problems did nothing but destroy our image. That I had to be this perfect little girl.

 Things got even worse as I grew older, my mother and I fought about everything, and still do now when we do speak. I wasn't a bad kid. I just had opinions that didn't match hers, they raised me to think and understand the world around me, but never to use it outside of the classroom. She would call me terrible names and destroy my self worth. Some examples include -

"If I could have aborted just one of you, I would have kept your sister and let you die." I don't remember what I did that day, but her response really stuck with me. I believe it was when I peeled the paint off the bathroom wall because she had been upset with me and locked me in there for hours. I was maybe 10 years old at the time.

"Get out of my house you n*gger loving whore." That was when I started dating a black guy in high school. I was 17. I moved out that year because all my parents ever fought about was me.

"You'll never make it one your own without a man, forgive him and get over it." She said this to me when I confided in her that my boyfriend at the time was emotionally abusive and I was thinking about leaving him. I was 19.

 My father, bless his heart, always defended me. I know his heart is in the right place when he badgers me about not finishing my degree. He introduced me to reading, and I always enjoyed our "family time" in the evenings when we would read together. He isn't emotionally cold because he wants to be, but because he doesn't understand how to be anything otherwise. He's been there for me when I needed him. When my mother demanded that he choose between her and me, he always picked me. When I needed some money to get a license for work he was there, though my mother complained that she wouldn't get as nice of a toilet in their bathroom they were renovating at the time. I tried to pay him back a week later, but he told me keep it. That was and is the only money I have ever asked them for in 9 years. $200. I wish I could have a relationship with him now, but my mother keeps that from happening. I get the impression that she is jealous of the love he has for me. And because I love him so very much, I refuse to complicate his life by being a part of it.

 My sister has always been a piece of work. Her goal as a child was to sabotage me in any way that she could. She would tattle on me when I did anything wrong, trash my room so that my mother would scream at me, pick fights with me and pester me until we were throwing punches. I wanted so badly to have the romanticized "twin" relastionship, but were too different, and pitting against each other. I never thought she was dumb, I admired her so much. She could talk to anyone with ease, she made friends so quickly and people just wanted to be around her. I wanted to be around her… but I wasn't pretty or popular, so I cramped her style. We couldn't have been any different, and after I moved out we didn't really speak. She's "winning" in the eyes of my family now. I am happy that she is happy, she has found a family that truly cares. I was so angry with her when she chose her husbands sister to be her maid of honor, it hurt so badly, but I can understand why. Our family always told her that she wasn't enough either because she wasn't the smartest girl. So, she found a family that did accept her for who she is. I hope that one day we can be friends again, but we don’t know how to love each other.

 I thought things were going to be different after my diagnosis, but it further separated us. They don’t know how to handle my illness. They don’t know how to accept it, so they choose to ignore it. That's what we do, we ignore the problems in our life that make us seem like less. Because there is no fixing me.

For a brief moment though, we were a family again. I was dying in a hospital bed, but we were all together. After I was released things were alright for a little while, but soon we all drifted apart again. We don’t know how to talk to each other and it breaks my heart.

 So now I am alone, with no job or healthcare. A wide variety of skills, but no degree. I suffer from brain damage from literally dying so many times in the last five years because I drown in my own blood, so the idea of going back to school terrifies me. I want to find a job, but I get so sick so easily that being around people is almost impossible. I hurt everyday, but I don’t qualify for disability because lupus was a word thrown around by my doctors, but never written down. Even when I had health insurance I couldn’t go to the doctor because it was still too expensive and now I don't have insurance and it is almost impossible. Even if I did go back, I'm not ready for the barrage of tests and needles that I have to endure. The blood draws and infusions, transfusions, and plasma dialysis. I don’t want to endure the suffering just to continue to live in a world where I am already suffering alone.

 I don’t know how to build a meaningful relationship. I don't know how to maintain them. I don't have any desire to be a part of this world where money is all that matters because I KNOW that there is something greater out there. I want to disappear, to be away from it all so I no longer feel like a burden.