#'it's not intersectional' neither are you dumbass!

[acitybythelightdivided2006]

reposting bc op was a terf

[themagnusbane]

I swear, in all these Only Friends discourse that has been raging since the finale dropped on Saturday, I wonder if anyone actually took a second to be like: this story is being told through the eyes of 20-21 year old college students. They are the mouthpiece through which this story is being narrated. Is it possible therefore that their age, their lack of experience, their slightly sheltered lives, might play a role in how they navigate their friendships, the world at large and how they react?

Like @jojotichakorn has started several times, and I agree a 100%; this story isn’t a morality lesson. Nobody is saying casual sex bad. You are evil if you’re non-monogamous. Blah blah blah. As a graysexual polyam person who just uses the term queer cuz it’s easier than me having a 30 mins convo with a stranger about my orientation and how everything intersects for me, this show was everything. Cuz PEOPLE ARE MESSY! People are messy and judgemental and annoying. Just because they’re queer doesn’t mean they WON’T be messy. I was especially a fucking shithead at 21. Hell, I was a virgin until I turned 22 (not quite as sanctimonious as Mew, thank SPIRIT!!). Who I am now at 33 is vastly different from who I was over a decade ago. I moved out at 22. Been living on my own for that time. The person I am today is a product of all I have seen and experienced. I lost the black and white lens through which I viewed the world, in that period of time.

And you know what? I do feel that these kids (cuz they are kids to me. I haven’t sat in a university class in almost 13 years 🤷🏾‍♀️), will grow, and learn and evolve. Boston I think will do fantastically well in New York. He will continue to come into his own. Will figure out what kind of relationships work best for him (both in regards to his friendships and his sexual and romantic—if he wants any—relationships), and he will thrive.

Mew will eventually get that stick out of his arse and get off his high horse. He will realize that people are messy, imperfect, and make mistakes, and that he too is flawed. And that is okay. That he doesn’t need to be burdened to replicate the perfect home life he had with his mothers. That hell, just because he fancies himself better than others, doesn’t mean that he isn’t as capable of the depraved things the human mind can conjure up 🤷🏾‍♀️.

Ray will probably battle with his addiction all his life. Will realize that battling addiction is a life-long process. Will lean on the support he has. Will probably learn to forgive his mum, and come to terms with her frailty as a human being, and what that meant with regards her suicide. He will also probably let himself admit that as much as he loved her, and wanted her to hold him and love him, he is justifiably angry at her that she did neither of those things, and then left him. He will probably confront his dad about the role he played, and didn’t play in all of this. He might decide to break up with Sand later. And they will still be good friends. Or Sand might be that ex he hasn’t spoken to in years, yet he still thinks of and smiles when he hears I Wanna Be Yours.

Same goes for Sand, and Top and Nick as well.

And who knows, at some point Cheum might realize that she can be quite the shitty friend. That she’s been a shitty friend. She might reach out to her now former friends, and honestly sincerely apologize. Or not. That’s another thing. Some people take forever to grow. And some don’t learn a lick from their experiences. And when time has passed and they looked back at all their burned bridges and try to reconnect, they are left with hands fluttering in the wind, and everyone they love out of reach 🤷🏾‍♀️.

But yeah. I don’t know about y’all. Maybe you were well adjusted uni students who were always right and knew the right words to say, and didn’t fuck up every other Saturday, and whose lives were peachy. But I was a dumbass, making dumbass choices, being a sanctimonious dumbass, and being an absolute menace. And that was how I watched the show. Knowing that this is a story of these kids, told to us by THESE kids. P’Jojo was just the conduit for their story. But it is ultimately THEIRS. I just watched it for them. Not for any moral lessons (this isn’t a parable or a fable. And I say this as someone who has been fascinated by mythology since I was 7), but to be entertained by the lives of these messy kids, crash-figuring their way to adulthood, and thanking the universe that my early 20s are way behind me, cuz fucking hell. That era of my life was some shit-show!

[soleminisanction]

I deleted this ask because I'm not interested in engaging with people who aren't reaching out in good faith, but man, people on this site really need to get more comfortable with the fact that historical gay men have long been associated with and explored their own sexuality (in an abstract sense) through fictional characters who are explicitly young and associated with the concept of youth, like Peter Pan, Dorian Gray, the cast of The Wizard of Oz, and, yes, Robin the Boy Wonder.

This is a known Thing in queer literature, people have done papers. And yeah, a bunch of homophobes looked in on that sort of thing from the outside and cried pedophilia, the same way that a bunch of dumbass modern puriteens look in on a whump fic and cry rape apologism or incest or whatever other buzzword they can misuse. Because they're deliberately reading it in bad faith to paint the people who read that material as bad instead of considering where their emotional investment actually lies and what catharsis they're receiving.

With Robin specifically in the 40s and 50s, what few records we have from the time indicate that young, gay boys were projecting onto him specifically because they found themselves attracted to the idealized hyper-masculine presentations of characters like Batman and Superman, and Robin was the focus of Batman's care and attention. He filled the narrative role of "The Beloved," the one that Batman cares for, whose safety can be used to raised the stakes of a scenario -- a role more commonly filled by the hero's opposite-sex love interest, ie, Lois Lane or Steve Trevor. Bruce did occasionally and often save beautiful young women who were in love with him from peril, but at least as often he was rescuing and protecting Robin, and Dick would return the favor.

At a time when homosexuality was pathologized and you just didn't get portrayals of men loving each other openly and fully, it was a central part of the Batman & Robin partnership that they cared for one another, deeply and loyally. And while that bond was neither sexual nor romantic in the comics themselves, it still represented something desirable for young gay boys who didn't have many other fantasies to latch onto.

Which isn't to say that anybody has to start shipping the pairing or anything, it's just, I'm not incline to give up this fascinating intersection of literary analysis and queer history just because some people decided to be squeemish and/or homophobic about it. This was important to people. That means something.

[nihils-trolls]

Of Gold and Shadows

context here

“C’mon, Ria. It’s just some old hive that got left to rot. Telling me you’re scared all of a sudden?”

“Shut up, Gaz. If I was scared, I wouldn’t’ve followed you out here, dumbass.”

A young troll prods his friend as they walk along a cobbled path lined with planted trees, long since forgotten and overgrown. It’s a windy- but otherwise quiet- night, moons high in the sky and peeking through the clouds overhead. A rather large piece of property once- this small valley appears thick with weeds and brambles; any other buildings that were here now drowned out in green and falling apart.

The two had heard tales of this derelict estate that was tucked deep into the mountain pass to the north, and that it was haunted by the lingering spirit of the old staff and its last owner. Fate unknown, body never found.  But of course, those are just rumors. 

“Oh, okay then. I’ll believe that. One hundred percent.” Gazram says with a sarcastic tone, to which Rianne replies with a slug to his shoulder.

In all honesty, neither of them thought there was going to be anything out here. But just a short way back, they’d found an old trail that led to where they are now. Visible just through the trees ahead lies a stately manor. Or, what would have been one maybe several hundred sweeps prior. 

The building is still standing despite the disrepair it’s in; the porch in front is falling to pieces, windows broken in, a large hole in the roof- the list goes on. From the outside, the inside seems to be in just as bad of shape. Empty for who knows how long, boarded doors and slanting floors.

“Yeesh, this place has seen better nights,” Gazram states plainly. “So what. You thinkin’ we just… march right in, yeah? See if we can catch anything weird?”

“I mean. What else are we gonna do? I still don’t know why I even came out here with you.” 

“I dunno. To leave that stuffy hive of yours and live a little? No harm in exploring.”

Rianne steps around broken boards on her way to the main entrance, Gazram following close behind. Unlike others they’ve seen, this door remains unbarred. A quick jiggle of the handle reveals it to be locked; however, the motion causes the door to swing inside slowly, revealing a moth-eaten foyer. Large, golden colored draperies line the walls, black rugs line the once elaborate wooden floors- stained with mildew and rot.

The both of them step inside, Gaz closing the door behind them. The vast room is intersected by a stretching hall spanning left to right, with two staircases at the back. Both lead to a balcony on the floor above that overlooks the space below. A chandelier sits fallen in the center- shattered glass scattered everywhere. 

“What do you think happened?” Rianne asks.

“What, to the owner?” Gaz pauses for a moment, ambling into the room further before answering back. “I don’t know. From what I heard, it was some sort of feud between rivals- and not  the romantic kind. Rich highbloods get into all sorts of weird dramatic bullshit, don’t they?

Oooh! Do you think there’s anything cool left behind? Or do y’ think looters got to this place already?”

Rianne just rolls her eyes, following and continuing to look around. “You told me this place is old n’ well known already, so I doubt it. But… look around. Don’t you think it’s weird that there’s no blues or purples? Anything even remotely on that end of the spectrum?”

He stops in his tracks for a moment before continuing. “A little, but that doesn’t mean anything- shit could’ve gotten stolen already… Maybe the guy just had a weird sense of style.”

“... You’ve got me there. I probably wouldn’t’ve built my hive like this…”

Rianne trails off, looking down a hall to her right. Gazram follows her gaze, and looks just as bewildered as she does. The hall is devoid of light other than moonlight filtering through the windows. It seems to stretch on much further than expected; almost seems as if the corridor itself skews and twists towards the end.

“... ‘specially not like this. You seeing that too?”

“Wish I could say I’m not.” he replies simply.

She peers into the shadows further down, hesitating to speak again. “I think I saw something else down there. I… I don’t know. Maybe we should leave?”

Gazram looks dumbfoundedly at her. “Ria, we just got here. You really gonna leave because a creepy abandoned hive is starting to get to you?”

“I just might.” she says.

“C’mon, there’s nothing here. This place is just falling apart at the seams… you really think there’s ghosts here?” he teases. Next thing he knows, she’ll be telling him she believes in magic, too.

Ria puts her hands on her hips, giving her ‘friend’ an unamused look. “No, but I don’t like this either way, asshole.  Y’know what? Have fun by yourself, getting injured in a shoddy building. I’m gonna go wait outside for you to be done with all this.”

Rianne then heads for the door- Gazram deciding to meander towards the twisting hall. “Fine, be that way. Just so you know, you might be waiting awhile.”

“Uh huh. And if I wait more than an hour, I’m leaving your sorry ass here.”

Jiggling the handle again, she remembers that the door is locked- and Gazram shut it the rest of the way. Sighing, she looks down to find that there’s no bolt keeping the door shut- no lock on this side either.

“... Gaz, did you do something to this door? If so, this isn’t funny.”

Turning on his heel to face her again, he gives Rianne a puzzled look. “No?”

The olive walks back over to the entrance, pushing her aside and attempting to open the door- and does so without issue. “See? It’s not even locked. I dunno what your problem is-”

Just as soon as it opens, Gazram is cut off by the door slamming shut of its own accord. The two turn to stare at it, shocked, and Gaz grasps at the handle to try and open it again. Unfortunately for him, it doesn’t budge.

“You cannot tell me that was ‘just the wind’-” Ria says, before being interrupted by her friend.

“I’m sor-ry, what do you want me to say? I don’t believe in ghosts, and I’m not about to because a door slammed shut spookily.” He quickly gives up the vain attempts to open it and walks away in a huff. “If the door won’t open, just bust open one of these windows and climb out. The rest are broken anyway.”

“... I can’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t? You’re not that weak, I know that for a fact-”

“I mean I can’t!” Rianne yells, surprising even herself. After a moment’s pause, she sighs and looks out the window. “I won’t do it. I just… listen. I’m getting a really bad feeling- if we break anything in here, it’s not gonna end well.”

Gazram stares at the cerulean, now returning the unamused look from earlier. “Are you being serious right now?”

“Dead serious,” she hisses, turning to look back at him. “Let’s just… find another way out. There’s bound to be a back door, or hole in the wall somewhere. Fast, preferably.”

“Fine, but we’re going the way I was going to go before you called me over.” 

… Both move down the skewed hall at a slowed pace. The floorboards creak and groan underneath their steps, the sounds echoing throughout the corridor. Out of the several doors they’ve passed, only one was unlocked- leading to an empty room infested with roaches and black mold. 

“You’d think…” Gazram starts, “That with all the time and number of trolls that had to have been here, these doors would be busted open, wouldn’t you?”

Rianne thinks for a moment, putting a hand to her chin. “Yeah, actually. It’s kinda weird, isn’t it? I kinda expected this place to be in worse condition. And this hallway…”

“What about it?”

“Dude, we’ve been walking down it for at least five minutes. It didn’t look that long before, did it? This doesn’t even match what it looked like from the outside.” After saying that, she stops to look behind her.

The hallway stretches on for quite the distance. Back where they had started, Rianne notices a tall, pale troll standing in a long, white dress. After staring a moment, she notices darkened, mustard colored splatters on the dress- and that the figure is staring right back.

Stopping in her tracks, she grabs a hold of her friend’s arm. Whispering for him to look too. Glancing back to see the same, he immediately regrets not believing Ria sooner.

They don’t have a moment to react before a wall springs upwards from the floor and slams against the ceiling, blocking the hall off from the foyer. They jolt from the sudden ‘thud,’ and the first is followed by more as the very corridor itself seems to fold in on itself and shrink.

Still holding his arm, Rianne begins sprinting down the hall dragging Gazram behind her. Despite the collapsing happening behind them, the end never seems to be getting any closer to them. Gasping for breath, the two continue racing onwards- not having any other option.

Finally, she sees a bend to the left. Pulling the olive around the corner, the wall continues advancing- until it slams against the end in an abrupt stop. Ria collapses to the floor, attempting to catch her breath.

“What… the actual fuck… was that??” she says, exasperated. “Suuuure Gaz, tell me the place isn’t fucking haunted! Oooooh, ghosts aren’t real,” Ria continues mockingly, “Then you mind telling me what the hell happened?

And do not tell me we’re hallucinating from… from.. mold spores or any other shitty explanation. I feel pretty sober right now, and I hate it.”

“-Alright! Fine! I don’t know! What do you want, for me to say this was a stupid idea? Then yeah! I agree, this was a fucking stupid idea.” he argues. “How was I supposed to know that there would be fucking… supernatural bullshit happening here?”

Rianne holds her head in her hands, too frustrated and too scared to say anything back to that. Or, anything for a few long moments. But finally, she steels herself- getting off of the floor to stand.

Gazram continues while she does so. “Look. I won’t bother you about superstitious stuff anymore. So let’s just… keep going. Ignore any other weird shit unless it’s actually gonna hurt us, since it looks like our only way out is through.”

Scrubbing her face, Ria sighs and nods. “Yeah. Fine.”

The duo continues along, the end of the corridor being marked with a large set of heavy-looking double doors. More rooms lie along this stretch, with most of them being locked like the rest. Sobbing echoed out quietly from behind them, and neither Rianne or Gazram dared to look back. Not again.

Instead, they both push open the doors at the end, revealing a ruined grand ballroom with a high, vaulted ceiling. Stairs along either side of the wall lead up to another balcony, decorated pillars holding it aloft. It’s mostly empty, save for an old grand piano and a small orchestral stage off to the side. The back wall contains an enormous, elaborate window with two glass doors leading outside- their escape, hopefully.

Not wasting any time, Rianne begins making her way over to the back wall with Gazram following close behind. Upon their entering of the room, music begins playing from the grand piano- despite there being no one there to play. The sudden disturbance only hastens their steps.

Before the cerulean can open the door, both trolls feel a presence directly behind them. No longer off in the distance, stifled weeping can be heard- a voice softly speaking to them.

“Why can’t you just leave me be?”

Ria dares to turn her head back, ever so slowly. She is face to face with a ghastly figure, pale as bone with long, frazzled white hair to match. Her wide, haunted eyes were black like voids with golden irises. Yellow blood streaks and drips from her eyes down her face, stains covering the entirety of the elaborate, yet ruined dress she’s wearing.

“Get out.” the figure finally commands, a forceful gust of wind knocking the patio doors open and shattering them.

No longer frozen with fear, Gazram grabs a hold of Ria’s arm- dragging her with him as he hastily retreats out the open door. Now free of the manor’s walls, the two scramble around and back towards the path that led them here. 

Neither of them really felt like exploring 'haunted buildings' anymore. Or, ever again for that matter.

[whetstonefires]

Leia does let her anger shape her behavior, though, in relatively petty ways--haranguing her dumbass rescue team, taking verbal strips off Vader and Tarkin, that unfortunate racist remark about Chewbacca, the even more unfortunate kiss with Luke--some of which are good or neutral, and some of which aren't. (More than half these examples are in reaction to Han lol.)

That's not nothing. How you behave from day to day isn't the deepest truth of you, but it is true.

When she kills Jabba, that's a perfect intersection of the reactive, snapping energy-anger that she carries around like that and unleashes whenever she has no good reason not to, and the deep, principled anger discussed about, and neither of these elements of her character are bad, even if they are dangerous.

But the thing is. That is not like Anakin at all.

Anakin did not let himself be angry over petty things, or express it in petty ways. Anakin 'I don't want to be a problem' going-to-get-a-good-grade-in-Jedi Skywalker, for basically his entire life pre-Vader, sublimated every bit of anger he felt into 'well Watto was a businessman' and 'obi-wan is the greatest jedi alive' and and and.

Anakin was not a person who felt he was entitled to his anger.

Which was not a good thing. Because it meant that when it did seize him, he didn't have any practice directing it or wrangling it. It meant that he had a whole sea of repressed anger-trauma-distress that he didn't know how to acknowledge and bleed off, just building up in his subconscious.

It meant that he was incredibly susceptible to being given a narrative that entitled him to what he'd done, after all, and becoming dependent on that narrative and letting it own him.

But up to that point, Anakin was not externally identifiable as an angry person. He tended to turn slights into jokes, or even apologize, or to get sort of mopey and dramatic. He didn't really like confrontation. His early life predisposed him to fear giving offense.

Leia does not fear offending any fucking person in the galaxy.

I feel like we can move away from Leia's main flaw being "anger" and the constant comparisons to Anakin. We can get DEEPER into Leia.

Leia's main flaws to me are that she can sometimes get a little imperious to the point of being condescending, she's fairly slow to trust people (some of which can obviously be explained by her Force sensitivity these days), and that she lets her identity get so wrapped up in the Rebellion that denies parts of herself to the point of maybe causing harm to others she doesn't even realize she's hurting with her distance.

She's someone who's had to learn how to hide beneath a mask for most of her life, masks of different kinds, sometimes the haughty condescension of royalty, sometimes the submissiveness of a loyal Senator, sometimes the grounded determination of the heir to the Father of the Rebellion. She probably relatively rarely gets to be entirely herself because it's just not always safe to do so, there's always something else to be done, someone else who needs her.

She's inherited Bail Organa's righteous passion that guides her every step, a passion to help the people of the galaxy with every atom in her body, and a knowledge that she is not more important than the cause she serves.

She is not, truly, all that similar to her sperm donor aside from some truly skin deep aspects of her. And we can dig deeper into Leia Organa than just "she's angry" now, I think. She's earned it.

[kordeliiius]

Hello there, im Supra (using the B.O.T account because im a dumbass don't mind me). I see you are a fellow City Of Metronome fan, have any headcanons or something?

OMG HI thanks for reaching out to me, yes I have tons of stuff on my mind that I'd be happy to get out >:D

I've seen people discuss possibility that the city exists somewhere within the LN universe because of how similar they feel. I realize that the metrognome cameos were most likely intended as harmless Easter eggs, but then again I believe everything in LN is intentional. One person I know went as far to say Six is actually from Metronome, since she's often said to be "different" or "doesn't belong."

CoM could also follow a certain thematic trend revolving around senses set up by the LN games; Pale City represents sight, the Maw represents taste, and Metronome of course represents sound

The souls that are used to power scouts are uncannily similar to shadow children, in the sense that they're fuzzy black incorporeal creatures that wear white masks, so I'm using that to support my idea that shadows are people's souls

I have a tendency to assign real-world parallels to the locations and cultures within Tarsier's games, so if I were pinpoint Metronome on a real world map it'd be somewhere on the coast bordering Russia and Manchuria. And I'm making this inference based on not just the faces of the people who live there, but also the apparent intersections of culture and language you can see throughout the city. Going off of that, Ten is Manchu and New is Kazakh

I have absolutely ZERO DOUBT that Ten and New were basically beta Mono and Six; one kid with some supernatural ability meets another kid who prefers to fight bare-handed and they form a rebel tag team

I read in a recent article that one of the main factors that prevented the project from going forward was the devs' struggle to make the sound mechanics fun and easy to use, so I hatched the idea to just abandon that mechanic and use something that's already prevalent, like photography. It's kind of a twisted idea because the corp is already using this technology to control their slaves, but I like the idea of the rebels using a loophole to their advantage to take the corp down. Plus now that photo modes are a thing in games that'd be a dope addition, assuming you don't let Ten get caught with cold hard evidence of his whereabouts ;^^ (if you try to take a photo of New she either runs and hides or tries to rip it out of your hands)

I haven't seen any mention of this one unnamed character other than on my own blog, so I'm gonna take a sec to go off abt them again. (for reference I'm talking abt the guy in the top right image, lmk if this link doesnt work) As far as I know this is the only image of this character to exist somewhat publicly but it gave me all I needed to make up a whole backstory lmaooooo First of all I'm pinpointing them as Runaway's parallel because it’d be super awesome if three core characters got resurrected as playable characters in LN. But when it comes to their actual narrative, im getting the image of a spy antagonist who's in league with the corporation and they've been sent to track down the main duo. Make that more tragic by adding the implication that they were friends with New once and are now staying with the enemy for revenge purposes

Ok now this one is real wildboy stuff, because it's not exactly based on any official material, but rather on something that appears to be fanmade. For awhile I couldn't tell who the ghost girl on this mockup cover was supposed to be, because she sorta looks like New, but I remember seeing a face like neither on them on the archived official site; it's a weird case of the Mandela effect but regardless of intention I am running with a number of ideas about this character, because who knows how big the original planned cast was The idea I have rn is that in life, this girl was childhood friends with New and the spy kid, but their huge falling-out was triggered by some sort of accident that not only killed this girl but cost the spy half their limbs. They then of course directed their anger at New, who came out almost totally unscathed. This ghost is only visible to whoever she shows herself to, and sometimes appears in front of Ten to assist him in certain tasks

Lastly it’s worth mentioning that while I can't ever see the protags being romantically involved (and i'm doing everything in my power to avoid certain tropes that were prevalent back then), I can't not see them as partners in crime either??? I say heteroplatonicism deserves more time to shine

so yea that should be everything I've written down both on and off the platform, if u read it all thanks a ton 👌

[psychemeanscure]

PART 18

“Boss!”

He was fresh from a secret gang bust once again that he even got a patch on his face but neither of it matters as he is still happily staring with the last text in his burner phone which only meant for her, his Sung Eunyoung. When Jae eventually comes in huffing for air.

“Yes, what is it this time Jae?”

his mere reply then as he’s attention were kept unmoved, unaware of the urgency his assistant is bringing.

“We have a problem, boss.”

“We always have a problem. Which one?”

He was in the mood, but not when he heard the final breath of the latter and utter the word that concerns him.

“Ms. Sung. I receive a call from Lee and…”

“And what?”

His full attention was in the details now as a stern impatience starts to pond him while vigorously closing the burner phone he’s holding. “She was kidnapped.”

For it was enough for him to look back onto Jae, prying more from what he needed. “Come again?”

“She was taken by several men from a meeting. Lee was trying to chase after them for he thought he can reach out easily but lost them instead.”

‘No.’ The only thought he can think of as he was dumbfounded for a while before jaws tightening for fear, piercing eyes glare in madness. He’s not in his sanity already, he’s just ready to kill anyone who harmed her. “Other than the chase, did he somewhat get a thing that might lead to the abductor?”

“He was able to sneakily knock one of them at least. That might be a help for now.”

‘At least’ he thought. Even without proof he had already a person in mind who’ll do that actually. He just wants to make sure though. “What should we need to do boss?” he was clenching his fist by then, trying to manage his anger. “Call Lee for the location. I’ll do something first, wait for my word by then.”      

“As you wish boss.” The simple reply of his assistant then before leaving him behind doors as he hastily calls for her phone after, hoping to get a bit chance of answer coming from her. But nothing, he was only answered by the voicemail instead. “Eunyoung, come on…”  for he calls her again and again, a leg moving in a motioning tapping, constant worries keep on rushing yet still, he was left unanswered.  

“F*ck this, no!”

Tossing the burner phone out of frustration, calling his assistant with full ferocity. “Jae!”

As it only takes a second for his assistant to appear from the door once again. “Assemble the gang, we are leaving. Now!”

His domineering command then as he was already standing with deafening impatience.

~

“Give me the details.”

His stone cold urge to his subordinate as it also understood in just a go for his attention never left the subject which already meets his vision the moment they arrived on the abandoned building it instructed. Bruises evident all over the face of the busted underling who’s still unconsciously lying on the ground. Seems Lee has started his job on squeezing some information by it.

“She was out from her last meeting when it happened, boss. I was about to barge in but---“

“But why is that? As far as I know your one of my best, Lee.”

He’s getting irritated indeed that a simple but alerted the urgency of his man. “I can’t, boss. For it seemed that she has been planned all along.” For it was his ears turn to perk up. “Enlighten me?” his strong impulse from the unclear information.

“I just learned that she apparently dealing the director of the Xi industry that time.”

“What the f*ck?”

He’s definitely fuck up, yes for he felt it coming the time he opened it up to her during their wee moment. He was supposed to be guilty himself for secretly following her by the assistance of his man, just to take it back after knowing her selfish agenda instead. “Again, Sung Eunyoung. F*ck! Woman.”

He doesn’t even care what the rest of his subordinates thinking of him right now. He just needed to let it out in a go. Openly cursing her without stops. “What more of it?” forcing himself for another one which he might not expected still.

“More of it, they both witnessed her abduction boss and didn’t do anything other than watching the car she was in. Because aside with the director’s presence, it somehow appears that they also been back-up by a general prosecutor so I had no choice but to follow from afar. I suppose Ms. Sung wasn’t aware of the general’s presence either.”

“Son of a b*tch. I’m not surprise. They probably sense your car and let you lose in an intersection.”

“My apologies, boss.”

The straight answer he’s seeking definitely that the only thing he could do is clench a ball of his fists while piercing eyes needed to close to control an outburst frustration. He was over-informed. He is for he requires himself absorbing every bits of details given. First, he had just learned that he’s been neglected by Sung Eunyoung once again. Then here is another one who he thought a simple sabotage but eventually not like what he expected. Then he recalled her last text to him. ‘Just one more.’ He thought, and if he confirmed it then there will be no turning back.  

“Where was she before this meeting?”

“Gyeonggi-do.”

And it did. “F*ck.” His menacing curses became unstoppable once again, yes just as how she had been harmed back then for he crouches to gradually slaps the unconscious underling, pushing it to wake up and succeeded. Meeting its worn-out eyes.

“Oy, shitty minion. You see I’m not usually patient with underlings but I might just grab chances on you. That is if you want to beg for your life either.”

But as what he predicted, he was only responded by its wobbling middle finger while showing a disdainful smile on its bleeding lips. He reciprocated. Insulted laugh crept into bargaining another consideration. The enemy’s minion is truly lucky definitely for it was rare for him to give chances that by just the knowing expressions of his two trusted men looking at each other, they are surprised.

Thus a yelp echoed the four walls of the abandoned building. Pain rejuvenates the face of the underling as its middle finger break by the infamous troubleshooter. A music for his ears, Jang was satisfied. “Minion I’m not even starting, yet you had pond yourself a strike already. Two more and your good to go in hell. So whether you like it or not, better tell me where your f*cking boss take my lady.”

“I won’t tell a soul, su--- A-ahck! F*ck.”

That another yelp came in as he bends more of its bone. “Two.” His serious countdown. “I’m not asking for a song scumbag so f*cking tell me a f*cking shit!”

Then again, the latter went to lean close to his face instead. “Shit my mouth first, sucker.”

And that’s it. He gave up. “Alright. As you wish, useless.” With Lee handing him a gun and a pull of its trigger, the minion faces his farewell. Splatter of blood were on his looks the moment he stands up gazing the slouching position of the kneeling underling, round eyes staring on nowhere, pistol still intact in its bloody mouth. 

“Jae!” That a stern call of his assistant is the mere step he could think of.

“Yes, boss.”

“Bring the f*cking Mr. Kim in front of me as well as that lifeless limp both on the underground.”

~

He gets a ride turning to their next location then while into wiping the splashed blood on his face when he sensed the confusing look of his assistant on the driver seat. “All you do is ask. So ask.”  his intuitive guess from the backseat that surely taken the point of Jae who only has to clear a throat ashamedly. “I-I was just thinking, boss. Isn’t it better if we trace the abductor first?”

The blurt out curiosity of his assistant finally as he ominously shifts his eyes through the buzzing streets of the outside. “No need. I already have someone in mind.” As it was enough for Jae to know further, nod and cover another someone to pact instead.

“So Mr. Kim as well as the lifeless underling, boss?”

For it only takes a second for him to show his proud smirk by the rear-view mirror, intentionally conversing the eyes of his man. Envisioning an awestruck idea, he had all along. “Oh. I almost forgot about it.” As if an innocent casual plan he says. “Well, let’s just say…”

“We are joining a game they were playing?”

His last verdict before a sinister smile came back, ready to pawn a dumbass king.                                  

[ayo-edebiri]

Anon who just started watching Prodigal Son here: so I’ve been binge watching it, mostly because I’m avoiding school work tbh, but also it’s pretty good. I like it so far, don’t love it but I think that’s more of my issue with the genre than the show tbh. I get scared pretty easily and I don’t usually watch cop shows, but I’m still watching so that’s a good sign. Also I wrote down some thoughts I had while watching:

- this is making me reconsider getting a snake tattoo

- I like Dani, the weird intersection of sarcasm and soft is fantastic

- This family is so chaotic and it’s definitely genetic

- Mother always knows when someone’s lying which is impressive ngl

- I want Brights book shelves, that looks like a beautiful collection

- why is it so dark and grey, did they forget non-grey tone colours exist?

- it’s really weird seeing Michael Sheehan in this after seeing him in Good Omens, the characters are like polar opposites

- His mom seems to be an actually good and loving mom, actually both parents seem to be that way which is kind of nice honestly, not to be ominous but I really hope it lasts

- this child needs to sleep through the night

- Sprinklings of comedy to spices things up

- Neither Dani nor Malcolm can properly follow orders which is very one brain cell of them

- Bright high is hilarious... and then suddenly very much not holy shit jump scares I wasn’t prepared

- Dani is very pretty

- Malcolm needs friends

- there have been more mentions of Freud than I am comfortable with (at least 3 by now)

- why is Martin so funny? It feels weird to laugh with him...

- This gets progressively scarier

Watching tv shows while ignoring school work? The best thing ever 😌. I don't think it's a really scary show but I understand, and please take care of you if you don't feel comfortable watching it.

Yes the filter they use for this show is atrocious, try to gif it and you'll understand it's even worse than you think. They use it even more for season 2, because they're dumbasses.

Michael Sheen is impressive! Honestly every time I see good omens I have to tell myself that he's playing in it too. It really shows how good the actor is.

Every character needs more friends on this dumb show, honestly... I'm in love with Aurora Perrineau who plays Dani, can't blame you on this one.

I think season 1 is scarier than season 2. Thank you anon!

[aerospectrum]

“Bet you're having fun back there-.”

“Shut up.” Sam narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips together so sharply they could’ve ben peeled off with a cheese slicer. His phone buzzed and he answered halfway through the first ring, the panic evident in his tone quickly shifted to worried relief. “We just passed the community park off 15th and Fort, coming up on the stoplight that intersects with Center—.” Sam was still giving directions when the loud flutter of wings rushed the impala; forcing Dean to half swerve nearly tanking them in the ditch. Sam’s relief switched on a dime to frustrated irritation. “I told you don’t!”

“I tapped into radio; they were going to wipe you off the map.” Cas winced, holding this arm across his lower ribs. “You can thank me for saving your asses later.”

Sam choked on his words, huffing in an attempt to argue, finally rolling his eyes and shaking his head. “The wardings could’ve killed you, you know that right?!” He watched Cas squint then slide his vision to the side slowly to level him with a glare equal to his own. “Rowena must’ve built in a fail safe for your dumbass…”

“What now?” Dean asked. “When she wakes up surrounded by 3 guys I can’t imagine it’s gonna go how the movies go-.” He snickered to himself, but stopped when neither Sam nor Cas cracked a smile. “Damn… tough crowd. So the angels want her for what, Cas?”

“I don’t know. The woman's husband was… devout in his own way- not a traditional sense like she was; I’m only getting bits a pieces but her spirit’s bound to a Rit Zien; until the Rit Zien fulfills their duty Madison’s in danger; they won’t stop until they get their full…”

“you mean the pepto bismol sonofabitch… what’s Madison have to do with them?” Dean asked.

“They seek to end the suffering of the chosen.”

“and if the woman’s husband was bonded to Madison then how are they still after her, he died; shouldn’t that have broken the connection.”

“yes, but the wife’s suffering still exists, she latched onto Madison; that pain is attached to a living being and without the object keeping the old woman tied here the Rit Zien is focused on Madison.” Cas rubbed at his eyes and leaned his head back. “I can teleport to the neighbors home, but without any lead for what I’m looking for it leaves you all susceptible to another attack.” He winced again. “And for the record, Rowena’s spell works… so… I’m sorry for not listening, but you three didn’t have a choice they were going to kill you all if I hadn’t stepped in.”

“we’ll pull over at a motel and you can recharge for a few hours… I don’t think this one’s gonna wake up anytime soon anyway, she could probably use the sleep too.” Dean pulled into a lot and once situated in the room he took a seat next to the bed he’d carried her in and laid her down on. A few hours passed and he started to wonder if he should wake her or just let her sleep the night away. He set a glass of water next to the bed and then sat again, just staring at her like she'd suddenly get up and do a trick.

Ever seen one of these movies when an explosion goes off? Everything slows down, there’s a ringing in the ears, & the words others are shouting are broken & delayed, some even falling deaf to the ears.

That’s exactly what was happening to Madison.

Dean had backed her into a corner & she could hear him telling her things. Don’t do something? A salt circle was drawn around her & she assumed she had to stay inside. When Dean handed her the red bike she looked at. Slap the wall? Hand? What???? What she did manage to hear clearly: ‘I’ll come back for you’. Her eyes widened, “n-no! Don’t leave!” Her little hands squeezed him tighter, “no please!” She cried again.

Suddenly she was alone clutching the vile in her hands & staring at the door way. Footsteps alerted her & thankfully it was Dean again. There was a moment of relief before two women appeared in suits.

Madison gasped & backed up a bit careful to stay in the circle of salt. “Dean…” she choked out. She was shaking so hard her body felt like it would cramp from the effort she was using to hold herself still.

[rheyninwrites]

Old Friends Part1

f!OC- Modern AU

(Literally the very first RDR fic I wrote, the first thing I’d written in YEARS. Merry Holi-New Year.)

Shit.

I looked both ways on the gravel road, searching desperately for headlights I knew I wasn’t gonna see.

Fuck.

I knew the dumbass was gonna do this again. I fucking knew it. But I went along with him anyway, just like I usually do, and now, here I was, in some stranger’s yard tucked away in the backwoods of nowhere, with no way home in sight.

I sighed. I was tired of the bullshit. Tired of my god awful boyfriend dragging me to these god awful parties. Tired of him deciding he had to leave “just for a minute” to get more booze, or ice, or some other little thing that I definitely didn’t need to come along for, usually because he was already bringing five of his dumbass friends. Then he’d end up getting distracted somehow, or maybe lost, or just too goddamn drunk to drive, leaving me to find my own way home. I couldn’t even count the number of times I’d had to wait in some strange living room, walls covered in animal heads and smelling like beer and piss, for someone to sleep it off so I could find out where the hell I was and get a ride home. This shit wasn’t funny anymore. Not that it ever really was.

I wasn’t doing this again.

I squinted into the distance, trying to find some reference point. There was an intersection not far away, and I was pretty sure I saw the green of a street sign. That was lucky. Sometimes it was just dirt roads for miles. I’d like to say I didn’t know why in the hell a thirty-seven year old man would be attending backwoods drinking parties, but I’d be lying. I knew exactly why. He’d just never managed to grow up past his high school years. That was why all of his “friends” were either losers like him, jumping from job to job, or were half his age. I guess some people just don't like to deal with reality.

Unfortunately, that usually left me dealing with it in his place. I paid the rent, took care of the bills. I made sure the taxes got done. I bought the groceries, I cooked the food- the meals he never ate because he was either too hungover or “just really craving tacos, man, I dunno”. Hell, most of the time he wouldn’t have made it to work on time if I didn’t wake him up! At least, those times when he actually had a job.

As I made my way down the darkened road, I pulled out my phone to see if I had a signal, and happened to notice the time. Three fucking fifteen am. Who the fuck would be up at this ungodly hour? Most of my friends actually had decent jobs that they cared about.

I knew that, in the long run, it really didn’t matter if any of them were already up. Every one of my wonderful friends had my back, regardless of the circumstances. Yes, maybe I’d have to deal with an earful for letting myself end up in this situation, again, but they loved me and wanted me to be safe. Anyway, once they heard I was dumping the moron, it’d probably more than make up for it.

Let’s see . . . who would I be disturbing the least calling at this time?

Not Javier- he always turned his phone off. Charles would probably answer, but he works so much, and by the time he got me home, he might not make it to work on time, if he happened to be working today. Sadie would be glad to come, but she worked almost as much as Charles did, and had a harder time sleeping most of the time, so she was out. Lenny? The poor kid was on 24/7 at the hospital, and I wasn’t about to disturb him during the little sleep he might be getting. Tilly had just moved in with her new boyfriend, and I didn’t know him well enough yet to be sure he’d be alright with being disturbed, even in an emergency. John and Abigail were out of the question, despite the fact that Abigail would love to be the first to know I was getting rid of that jerk. They had Jack, and I didn’t want to be the one responsible for waking him up.

God, this was turning out to be more difficult than I thought.

Sean and Karen were also bad choices. Either of them could quite likely be just as drunk as my now ex-boyfriend, and if neither was, they were likely either fighting or making up for fighting. While Bill was generally a good friend, and would probably be more than happy to help me out, sometimes he stared at me in a way that made me feel like if I asked him, he might expect a little something in return, and I just didn’t want to deal with that. Mary-Beth had her routines, and, while I knew she’d be happy to come get me, I also knew it could throw her off her writing for weeks, and I didn’t want that.

Shit.

That only left one person.

Oh hell.

As I searched up his number, I was half hoping he wouldn’t answer. At least that would give me a good reason to call someone else. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see or talk to him, I actually missed him a lot. We used to be the best of friends , about as close as two people could be. But that had been a long time ago, and a lot of things had happened since then. Part of which was me realizing that I had a tremendous crush on him.

“Hello?”

“Shit. Oh. Hey Arthur, it’s me.”

“Mmm. Whatcha want?”

Always a man of few words, Arthur.

“Yeah, uh, I know it’s late and all. I’m real sorry if I woke you. It’s just, I’m kinda stuck in the middle of nowhere, and if you can, I really need a ride.”

“Aw, shit. Car break down?”

“No. My car’s still at the house. See, uh,” I swallowed hard, not really wanting to bring it up, but knowing that I’d have to eventually. “The thing is, the damn moron I was dating brought me to a party, then kinda . . . took off. Again. And if I have to spend another night in one of his dumb friend’s disgusting houses, I think I’ll fucking murder someone. Possibly myself.”

Gruff little chuckle on the other end of the line. That was a good sign, at least.

“Alright, we ain’t gonna let it come to that. Where you at, anyway?”

“The middle of fucking podunk nowhere! Some damn off the map place called Riverbend?”

“River’s End?”

“Oh! Yeah, I think that’s it. Anyway, right now I’m standing where Whiteacre crosses North Beech. Gravel roads, don’t know how many turns we made to get here. I just hope you can find it.”

“I got a rough idea where it’s at. Ain’t too far from my place. You say you’re standing right there where they meet?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright. Got to get dressed, make a cup of coffee quick. Then I’m on the way. Your phone got enough battery? Decent signal?”

“Surprisingly, yes. That worked out for me, at least.”

Another chuckle, a bit louder and more animated this time, which meant he was waking up, and I didn’t have to worry about my friend dying on the way to pick me up in the middle of nowhere.

“Okay then. If it’s where I think, I should make it in about fifteen to twenty minutes. If I ain’t there by then, call me back. I’ll call you when I get on Whiteacre so you know it’s me coming when you see the headlights. If you see headlights and I ain’t called you yet, you back off the road, get outta sight if you can.”

“Roger that. I’ll be sure to duck and cover, sergeant. ”

That got a real laugh.

“Alright then. Be on my way.”

“Arthur?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks. Seriously.”

“I know.”

[daryls-dixon-antoni]

Chapter 23.) Thank You

"Rick!" Daryl calls through the radio.

"I'm here."

"What's going on back there?"

"Half of them broke off. They're going toward Alexandria."

Mason... "Daryl..." I say, and can distinctly hear the panic in my own voice.

"Towards you?" Abraham asks through the radio.

"We ran ahead. There's a horn or something. Loud, coming from the east. It's not stopping."

"I'm gonna gas it up, turn back." Daryl says, to which I nod enthusiastically.

"We have it. You keep going." Rick corrects.

"They're gonna need our help."

"Gotta keep the herd moving."

"Not if it's going down, we don't."

"The rest of that herd turns around, the bad back there gets worse."

I take the radio off Daryl's shoulder, "Rick!" I seethe whilst pushing the button to speak down, "My son's back there!"

"And we have to keep the walkers from getting there." I hand the radio back to Daryl, my heart in my stomach.

"Daryl?" Rick asks through the radio.

"Yeah, we heard you."

I glance back to where my son is; probably in danger and I'm out here, just like I'd sworn not to be.

"We'll get there," Daryl reassures me. "We'll get there and he'll be there."

"You don't know that," I respond, tightly.

"I don't." He agrees. "But we'll finish this, and we'll get back"

I nod, trying hard not to panic. And then the horn stops.

"It's stopped!" I observe.

"Could be a good thing." I nod, knowing that neither of us believe his words.

Rick drives parallel with Abe and Sasha's car and yells, "Hey, we gone five miles out yet?"

"Give or take some yardage. You got a reason for asking?" Abraham responds.

"Next intersection we're gonna spin around and go back."

"The plan is to go 15 more," Sasha corrects.

"Yeah, I'm gonna change that. Five's gonna have to work."

"The magic number's 20." Abraham contradicts. "That's the mission."

"The mission doesn't allow me to go make sure my son's alive and well," I snap.

"The missions making sure they're off munching on infirm raccoons the rest of their undead lives instead of any of us."

"You can't tell me your not wanting to go and make sure Sev and Rosita are safe."

"You two want to go, we can't stop you," Sasha intervenes. "But without you, they could stop us."

Daryl glances back at me, I know I am pleading him with my eyes, and so he says, "Nah, I got faith in you."

I hear Sasha yell "Daryl!" As Abraham yells, "Don't do it, man!" But Daryl is already speeding us off.

We hear Glenn's voice over the radio, "Rick, it's Glenn. We're in a town five degrees east of the green marker. If you get around on Redding in the next 20 minutes, you should be good. I think that's how far we're ahead of the herd. I'm gonna try to set a fire and distract them. If you don't see smoke, they're still coming your way. I got to go. Good luck, dumbass."

"They split up," I gather.

"Sounds like it."

"Rick isn't dumb enough to try and take on the half that broke off alone, right?"

He doesn't answer me, which means we both know he might be. "Shit."

Our radio is heard after a long while, it's Rick's voice, "Glenn. I'm in place by my best guess. You guys make it back yet?" After a moment of silence Rick repeats, "Glenn." A little more silence. "Tobin, you there?" He waits another minute before saying, "Daryl?"

"I'm here."

"Won't be long now. They're almost here. I'll get them going your way again."

"How 'bout that, Daryl?" Sasha's voice can be heard. "He's gonna be coming our way."

"There's gunfire coming from back home. We gotta sit with it and hope they can handle it. I think they can. They have to. We keep going forward for them. Can't turn back 'cause we're afraid." Rick states.

"We ain't afraid," Abraham's voice is heard.

"This is for them. Going back now before it's done, that'd be for us. The herd has to be almost here."

I sigh, "I'm sorry."

Daryl shakes his head, "Don't."

We then both hear the gunfire over the radio, and I jump, almost knocking Daryl and I off the bike.

Once Daryl get's our balance back he gets back on the radio, "Rick? Rick?" No response, so he pulls over, "Rick? Rick?"

"What do we do?" I ask.

He doesn't respond, just starts driving again, this time in the other direction, we eventually meet back up with Abraham and Sasha, leading the heard away from Alexandria.

[reading-with-nixie]

Top 11(ish) Books of 2017

This was a weird year for me reading-wise in a lot of ways. For one - I didn’t just fail my 100 book challenge, I basically turbo-failed it: I only read about 44 books (I’m on 45 now). Like last year, this year was not conducive to reading for many reasons. As most of you know, this year was pretty shit for me until about late September, and then in early October I switched to full-time employment and needed to chop my long commute into three much shorter parts - meaning that reading on my commute became harder.

All that said, I actually read more books that I actually liked this year than I have previously, because I started being less strict about my rules for putting down books. I used to only stop reading books if I had a major ideological difference with the text (not the story, the text - if this confuses you, talk to me). But this year I also stopped reading books if I noticed that I wasn’t inclined to read them. I finally settled into the fact that there are enough books out there that I’d love to waste my time on ones I don’t. So instead of 10 or 9 favorites this year - I have 11 or 12 (I lumped two books together; I’ll explain why when I get there).

So here we go, in no particular order:

1) Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey

You’ll probably notice a trend for this year, which is that I read a lot of horror/thriller novels - Elizabeth is Missing falls into the thriller category, but only because of the point of the view in which it is written. Namely, the protagonist is an elderly woman named Maud who struggles with dementia. 

She is convinced that her friend Elizabeth has gone missing and that her older sister Sukey (who disappeared herself after World War II) was murdered by her husband. But no one is listening to her about Elizabeth, nor did anyone listen to her about Sukey - so Maud decides to solve both mysteries by herself. 

This book was memorable for me, again, because of the POV. The book portrays exactly how terrifying it is to feel with all your might that something is true, only to have everyone around you be dismissive. The reader also gets a glimpse into Maud forgetting things that her daughter, caretaker, and other people surrounding her say. So what happened to Sukey? What happened to Elizabeth? Is Elizabeth even missing in the first place?

All in all a very interesting read, but if you’re already terrified of aging, I’d maybe pass. 

2) The Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron Hurley

Kameron Hurley is a Hugo award winner and a woman...which means she’s needed to deal with a lot of shitty nerd boys. This (pretty inclusive) book discusses feminist sff, misogyny in nerd culture, and (most prominently) what it’s like trying to thrive in sff as a woman. Especially a woman who writes diverse books. 

This book is great for feminists and nerds - but above all I recommend it for my woman writerly friends. I really enjoyed her snark, but the main thing I got out of this book was an extreme increase in my desire to create.

3) The Girl with All the Gifts by MR Carey

This was definitely one of the more inventive books I’ve read this year or possibly ever. I’ve described it to people as being a zombie book that reads (at least in part) like a fairy tale; it’s been compared to Matilda a lot -- which I think makes sense. 

The narrator for much (though not all) of the novel is Melanie, who is a child zombie who “grew up” in an army base/school for child zombies. Then one day the school is attacked and Melanie, her favorite teacher (their relationship is really fucking touching), and some military folks escape and must try to survive out in the world. 

The book switches narrators, which allows for some interesting shifts in perspective. Some parts feel more like a typical horror novel than others, but all in all I would highly recommend this to someone who is interested in seeing a unique approach to zombies or horror. Or just people who like horror novels and also like Matilda. 

4) All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Another really unique one -- but very, very different from the last. This one won the Pulitzer Prize and pretty much all the awards in 2014 and goddamn if there isn’t a reason. 

This one is less unique for the way it tells its story (it’s very lyrical, but not particularly groundbreaking in that regard as far as I remember), but for the content of the story itself. It’s a story set during WWII in Europe...but not the sort of story you’d expect. The main characters of the story are a young blind girl living in Nazi-occupied France and a German kid who ends up (obviously) working with Nazis. Neither of them ends up in a concentration camp or anything like that. Rather, Marie-Laure must deal with the social and economic everyday consequences of the occupation and Werner sees terrible shit happening around him all the time and doesn’t interfere despite having an increasingly bad feeling about what the German army is doing. 

Obviously, the novel is heavy as fuck, so definitely proceed with tissues. 

5) Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire and The Diviners by Libba Bray

These two go together in my head, so I’m also putting them together here. They have completely different premises, but I read them at the same time and there are some weird similarities. Most notably, both books have serial killer antagonists who remove body parts from their victims - and the same body parts at that. 

Every Heart a Doorway is a really interesting novella which explores the idea what happens to children once they return from magical worlds (a la Alice in Wonderland and The Chronicles of Narnia). Nancy is a newcomer to a boarding school for these kids who makes fast friends with a couple of her classmates. When someone starts killing them, Nancy and her new pals come under suspicion and need to prove their innocence, and in so doing save the school from being shut down. It’s actually a novella, so it’s fairly easy to read in a short period of time. And gets a TON of brownie points for having a CANONICALLY ASEXUAL MAIN CHARACTER. 

The Diviners is set in the Roaring 20s and features a cast of teens with various and sundry magical powers that have to deal with shutting down a ghost that some dumbass rich kids unleash with a luigi board in the first scene. I was kind of pissed that there’s a scene early on in which sexual assault occurs and the narrative never addresses it as such - but aside from that major qualm I have with it, it’s solid. Also, totally spooky.

I recommend both of these books - just maybe not the same time? Don’t repeat my mistakes. 

6) The Secret History by Donna Tartt

If you know me more than just in passing, you know that I love me some Dark Shit™ in my literature. The Secret History more than satisfied that craving. The story, set in a rural Vermont college (apparently a Bennington expy...which I’m gonna go ahead and say is NOT a complement to Bennington), is one of pretentious classics students who are basically a cult. A new kid comes to the school, gets indoctrinated into said basically-cult’s bullshit, and gets fully entrenched into their bullshit when they semi-accidentally kill a guy and THEN kill one of the basically-cult-members (this is not a spoiler - the book literally opens with them killing the dude).  

It’s definitely not for everybody, but if you are also Team Dark Shit™ and like gorgeous writing - it’s probably for you. You’ll probably get even more out of it if you A) went to college in rural New England or B) were a classics student.

7) The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

The Hate U Give is another book that got a LOT of hype and 100% deserves every amount of praise it received. 

Sixteen year old Staff is one of few Black kids at a private school and still lives in a poor neighborhood, thus she divides herself up into two versions of herself to fit who those two communities expect her to be. One night, she’s being driven home from a party by an old friend (Khalil) they get pulled over and Khalil is fatally shot by an officer.

Both the media at large, at least one of Starr’s white friends, and a local drug lord try to paint Khalil as a thug. Thus Starr has to decide whether to stay quiet and keep her life in tact or to speak up and upend everything about her life.

Highly recommend, especially for other White folks.

8) Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Another thing to know about my reading habits: I really love mixed media and weird layout/typographical decisions.

Give me maps, photographs, whole pages with only one word, transcripts, just ALL the variety of ways of telling -- and I’m a happy camper. Like, go to a bookstore and flip through a copy of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. There is a reason its my favorite. 

Illuminae has an interesting story and all of these things. 

It’s sci-fi YA told from multiple POVs - the main characters are two halves of a couple that breaks up on the day that their home planet is destroyed, but there’s also an AI who becomes progressively more and more of an interesting character as it goes along. 

On top of a conspiracy, there’s a lot of action, potentially evil tech, and a scary af plague. It’s a little much for some readers, but I think it works - and it’s interesting to see several genres intersect. 

I highly recommend this for other mixed media loving folks and people who want to see how many tropes can interact with each other at once. 

9) Bird Box by Josh Malerman

Unlike most of the books I have on this list - I would actually recommend this to VERY FEW PEOPLE. It has aspects that could be triggering (namely, there’s a lot of suicide and some child abuse), it has multiple dog deaths (one of which is probably the saddest I’ve ever read; it had me crying on the bus), and is fucking TERRIFYING...but I loved it, so here it is.

In the world of Bird Box, something weird started happening - people started seeing something which launched them into a violent frenzy, causing them to sometimes kill those around them and always kill themselves. The book follows two stories - one is set five years after people started seeing whatever it is that’s driving them to madness, when Malorie and her two children need to leave their safe haven and travel down a river to a safe location that may or may not exist any longer; the other is set when Malorie is pregnant, people are just starting to see the thing, and Malorie finds (and loses) a chosen family in a sort of “how we got here” situation. 

I love this one for two main reasons: 1) It addresses things in a really interesting, vaguely Lovecraftian way because, by the very nature of the crisis, NO ONE has seen the thing (or even spoken to someone who has seen the thing) and lived to talk about it - so the characters spend the whole time wearing blindfolds, covering their eyes, or inside with things to block any windows and the readers spend the entire book having NO IDEA what the thing is. And that makes pretty much everything more terrifying. One of the most nerve-wracking moments in the novel is when a LEAF falls on someone’s shoulder and there’s the question of “OH SHIT WHAT IF IT WASN’T A LEAF” but the person obviously can’t just check. There are also several times when whatever the heck this thing is is in the same space as Malorie (in one of them it actually plays around with her goddamn blindfold) and obviously she wants to see what it is, but she can’t or she and her kids will die. Both Malorie and the reader also need to trust that her kids won’t look. 2) It addresses the sorts of questions that would occur in that situation. What if you view whatever the thing is indirectly? Are animals immune to the insanity? Couldn’t blind people just go about their lives more or less normally, provided they don’t end up around someone who saw the thing?

You can judge for yourself (or ask more questions), to figure out if this would be a good or safe read for you. 

10) Uprooted by Naomi Novik

To say that I enjoyed the experience of reading Uprooted would be completely incorrect. Anyone who was around me when I read it can tell you about the pained noises I was making most of the time. Most of the book was a conga of backfiring plans, terrifying bullshit, and the protagonist being thrown into generally unpleasant and/or bleak-looking situations. At one point I actually told Lauren “I...I don’t think I would ever say this...but it might be too depressing for me?” 

That being said, it’s actually really good - which is why I kept reading through the pain. All of the characters were really engaging, even the ones I didn’t like; I wanted to know what happened plot-wise; there’s a really interesting magic system; and so much fae nonsense. 

Agnieszka lives in a small village located near malevolent woods,a wizard takes her away from the village....and basically the entire rest of the plot is spoilers. But you should read it if you’re into fae nonsense. 

11) The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

I haven’t finished this book yet, but I’m close enough to the end that I feel comfortable recommending it.

This is another ensemble cast book featuring a spaceship full of compelling characters (one of whom is basically an alien cultural anthropologist - which is neat) that form an amazing little chosen family. 

It has a cool plot, too, but let’s be real - this book is about the characters and their relationships. Insofar as it’s possible to have representation in a book with mostly alien characters, this book pulls it off pretty well. There’s at least one lesbian couple, an essentially chronically ill character, an alien/AI relationship, and an alien who’s basically autistic. A fabulous people who like the ideas inherent in science fiction but are bored of pew-pew action crap. 

I also have one anti-recommendation to close this out, because I feel the need to warn people away from this book.

DO NOT READ BOY, SNOW, BIRD by Helen Oyeyemi. It’s a transphobic piece of shit. 

It starts off gorgeous, has some nice magical realism, involves some really good discussion of racism and what it means to be biracial...and then gets WILDLY transphobic very suddenly in the last twenty pages or so. I’ve heard people say “OH, but it’s actually a METAPHOR, you see!” but here’s the thing, you can’t use real marginalized groups as your goddamn metaphors. NOPE. Stay away from this piece of garbage, or at least don’t give Oyeyemi your money and everything except the last two chapters out of a library copy. 

[canaryatlaw]

okay, well today was decent. I woke up to my alarm at 11:30 and got ready for my psychiatrist appointment. we’re at the once every three months to get meds refilled state, which is fine with me. I know I’ve said this before but like, I’m at the point where even if I start to feel depressed unless it gets really bad I’m not going to report anything and fuck with my meds because I’m not taking the chance of them getting messed up and me being practically catatonic for months, and I especially can’t afford to do that if I’m presumably (hopefully) working. but anyway. So I got ready and ate a quick breakfast, than went to catch the bus. This one of the few times I actually take the main street bus north, just four or five stops, until it intersects with the other road where I get off and get on their bus which takes me all the way there. It works pretty well and got me there in good time, a little early but not too early, just like I like it. I got seen pretty quickly. I’m still not like, 100% comfortable with this psychiatrist mostly because he is relatively new (this is maybe like my fourth or fifth time seeing him?) and this is after losing the psychiatrist I adored and had been working with for the past six years when he retired, and I was so comfortable with him, so I think that just kinda exacerbates my anxiety with this new guy. He’s always looking at my medss list and asking questions like “how’s your sleeping?” and when I said good he brought up that I’m on melatonin and was like “so that’s good on melatonin?” and I’m like “well, yeah, in the current state I’m experiencing it it’s fine” and then about side effects on meds and if I was getting dry mouth which I was but I can’t really tell if that’s a side effect of the psych meds or acid reflux/acid reflux meds, so that’s complicated. So that was all kinda awkward but whatever, it was a quick enough appointment and I got what I needed. At the end after he sent the prescriptions to the pharmacy I was trying to remind him about the xanax refills and having to call them in each month and he insisted he had the authority to grant refills of controlled substances, which apparently not all doctors have, and I was just like if that’s true why have we been doing this call method for the last three months?? so I guess we’ll find out what the case is there in a month. I caught the bus from outside the office and rode it to where it intersects with the red line (one stop north of where I generally get off for home) and took that south to Target to get the prescriptions and grab a few other things. I had picked out a recipe to make next week so I was getting ingredients for it, but I’ve since kinda rethought it (I have a very weird thing about making recipes with like, whole pieces of chicken (as opposed to it like cut up or shredded)?? like I just find them like, uncomfortable to think about?? idk it’s weird. I have complicated feelings re: chicken lol. but I found another recipe that using most of the same ingredients with pasta and cut up chicken included which makes me more comfortable lol, and I’ll make the other ingredients fit in somehow. I grabbed a few other things I needed like large envelopes to send some job applications in that wanted submissions by mail, and then to find a bluetooth speaker for Jess because her preschoolers are graduating tomorrow and apparently nobody thought they would need one up until now, I ended up picking one up from their crappy section but then wanted to check their actual electronics section, so I went up there (it’s on their second floor) and picked up a similar speaker that appeared to do the same thing but was $10 more, so I asked the guys working there if there were really any difference between the two, and they were basically like “the [target brand one from the crappy section] is terrible quality and will break on you in the first hour you use it” so that was that lol and I sprung for the more expensive one. I checked in with the pharmacy because I hadn’t gotten a text from them yet about the prescriptions being ready and they said it would just be another like 5 minutes, so I took the rest of my items and went through the regular self-checkout with them before returning to the pharmacy and picking up the prescriptions. I wanted to take public transit back home instead of an uber because it’s Wednesday and my neighborhood’s farmer’s market has officially started up for the summer and if I take public transit I can get off one stop early and go to that. So I ended up walking up the street a bit to reach where the main street bus is, then take that the rest of the way up to where the farmer’s market is and headed straight to the cheese booth, lol. they have what are essentially mozzarella cheese sticks but are freshly made by them and they’re smoked and they are actually my favorite thing on the planet, so I was very psyched they’re back for the season. When I walked up the guy was talking to another girl and he just started handing me cheese samples as he was giving them to her too, and they were of course great lol so that was nice. but I got my little bundle of cheese sticks and headed home from there. Put the groceries and other supplies back, then congregated on the couch to accomplish a few computer tasks while watching the last episode of Dead To Me, but forcing myself to actually be productive. The first was coming up with “questions” about the decision the guy I have an interview with on Friday sent me, so I looked over it and came up with a few questions I thought showed I had read and understood the opinion and wanted to further my knowledge on the subject. The one actual sort of question I had after reading it I ended up scrapping because I decided the answer was too obvious and it wasn’t something that would reflect well on me for picking up on. So I ended up with 3 pretty solid ones and emailed them his way. The other things to do were to assemble and print out the mail applications, so I went through changing up the cover letter and printing everything they wanted out and then addressing the envelopes and putting everything inside, then using my kitchen scale to see how many stamps I needed for each one, lol. Once I had that done I checked the job boards again to see if there were any new postings and there were a few, so I sent resumes/cover letters to two of them and ended up doing an online application for a position with the railroad company near us, because why the heck not and the position was well paid, so I guess we’ll see what happens there. At this point I’d moved on to an episode of The Big Family Cooking Showdown since Dead To Me was over. As far as a review on it goes I’ll say they better be planning a season 2, because I cannot deal with them just forever leaving it where they did, I need my murder buddies who are clearly in this together now lol. So I enjoyed that. Once the cooking episode was over I started prepping stuff for dinner, which here meant cutting up the chicken I had stuck in the sink with the claw thing and water to thaw, and mincing the garlic using the little thing I have. Jess had a parent conference after the school day ended, so she texted me when she was leaving at which point I started the actual cooking part. I was making cheesy chicken and broccoli pasta which I realize is just the switched starch version of the cheesy chicken broccoli rice I made a few weeks back, but it works and I like pasta so it’s all good. I won’t recount the full recipe for you play by play, but I ended up getting a little annoyed first by how long it was taking to come to a boil and then how long it was taking for the water to actually boil away, but it ended up being pretty close to done just when Jess got here so that worked at least. We got our food and started this week’s episode of Game of Thrones. I’m a sucker for spoilers so of course I already knew everything that happened, so there were no real shockers there and the rest of the episode was little just all fighting, so I don’t really have that many opinions on it lol. I of course don’t agree with Dany’s decision, but I can’t really have any sympathy for Cersei when she knew exactly what she was doing. I’ve always liked Dany so I am of course upset that they’re apparently taking the mad queen route, but it’ll be interesting to see where they actually end it off. I suppose it would be some sort of poetic justice if she ended up on the throne just to start the cycle of the mad king/queen all over again? I don’t think that will happen though, I think something will happen to intervene, but I guess we’ll see. I also think Jaime is a giant dumbass and got what was coming to him for being the world’s biggest idiot for running away from Brienne after finally getting together with her just to run off to see his twin sister lover and die with her. You fucking moron, you could’ve had such a good future and you threw it all away. smh. Arya of course continues to kickass, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she ends up playing a role in the final resolution of whatever happens in Sunday’s episode. Of course I’ll be getting home from MegaCon when that airs, so I’ll have to wait to see what happens and probably get totally spoiled before I can actually watch it. sigh. anyway. After Game of Thrones we watched last week’s episode of Supergirl since Jess hadn’t seen it yet and we were then going to watch this week’s episode which neither of us had seen yet but Jess had to be a sleepy baby (her words) which tbh I knew was going to happen at this point so it was not a surprise lol. Once she left I tuned into what was left of the flash podcast live stream and got in their live chat, which is always fun. Once they ended up switched to the news and then Jimmy Kimmel, and then showered and started to get ready for bed, and now I am here. Idk why I felt the need to go into so much detail on this relatively uneventful day that this is so long, but apparently I did have the need and here we are. Tomorrow should be good, got the allergist and the the chiropractor, but then we’re seeing the Rent tour so I’m looking forward to that. It’s like 2:30 am now though so I should definitely be getting to sleep. Goodnight babes. Sleep well.

[afearing]

since apparently theres no consequences for delivering unto this website extremely long and good takes i will present to you my hot take on the ace d'escourse, with no sources because I Dont Feel Like It. its more words than is reasonable bc i have been stewing in this for like 4 years and if i dont type it out at some point im going to fucking lose it. no, literally, it’s 3 pages long in word about shit no one cares about anymore. please remember to like and subscribe.

some background on me, i id’d as ace for something like 8 years, from the first time i read the wikipedia page on it back in maybe 2009 or thereabouts. i also id’d as aro for about a year in 2016. that is to say, i have a lot of compassion and understanding for asexual individuals and feel i understand the inclusionist side of the argument pretty well, as i never questioned inclusionism until maybe 2014 or so, when the discourse blew up. i took some time off tumblr because i was so fucking distraught to think that, as i id’d as aroace at the time, that i had to come to terms with not being lgbt. lol i was a little too attached to being ‘gay’ because... fun fact, past dumbass self... you are gay. anyway, i really dont want anyone to feel that i hate them, but after i cooled off a little bit i realized that the exclusionist take on asexuality just makes more sense. hopefully i can explain why clearly enough.

i really believe that what is understood as aphobia is 100% of the time simply a manifestation of our culture’s expectations surrounding sexuality. while “expectations surrounding sexuality” as a very broad topic does indeed cover both the lgbt community and people on the ace spectrum, facing these issues does NOT make a person lgbt. i subscribe to the idea that lgbt is for people targeted directly by homophobia and transphobia. ace issues ARE super important to talk about and the whole inclus/exclus nonsense is entirely because this discourse has been put under the wrong category. im aware that probably most people will not care that much about my opinion on the correct framing of asexual activism as i no longer id as ace but i think this is important for everyone. sexual expectations also weigh on straight individuals, especially women, and i’m going to describe a few examples to try to demonstrate why i believe both that it doesn’t make sense to consider asexuality lgbt as well as why it does make sense to frame it as an issue based mainly in misogyny.

call out post for myself, i use reddit, and i think the r/childfree community is a good example of what i think the framing should be like. although it’s acknowledged that not wanting children has larger social consequences for women, both men and women talk about their issues in the forum, including horrific accounts of reproductive coercion and rape, the intersections with race/being lgbt/ageism (although they could do a LOT better with intersectionality, many posters do touch upon it), profoundly cruel comments made by those who have/want children, difficulty finding an understanding relationship partner, discrimination at work, misunderstandings and even hatred from family and acquaintances, discrimination in healthcare, etc.

i think you can tell where i’m going with this. even though being childfree cuts against the expectations for sexuality in most societies, even though it leads to unfair judgment from others, and even though they face discrimination on the basis of the way they express their sexuality, childfree people do NOT frame parenthood/childfreedom as an axis of oppression, nor do they claim that their lack of desire for children makes them lgbt. it’s not even a question if straight childfree people are straight, because duh? nor if the presence of lgbt childfree people makes the whole community fall under the lgbt umbrella, because it obviously doesn’t.

to drive the point home, the reason why this is NOT an axis of oppression is because parents face a ton of issues as well! they also face reproductive coercion as well as judgment over the number of kids they have, constant scrutiny and moralization over every aspect of their parenthood style, judgment based on parents’ age/wealth/sexuality/marital or dating status/race, housing and employment discrimination, especially for mothers, the government hating poor parents and cutting their benefits, and more i’m sure i’m not thinking of. again, this is due to societal expectations of sexuality. to complete the analogy, people who aren’t ace face their own set of challenges and discrimination. part of homophobia/biphobia is tinged with hatred of our sexual attraction; no one except for straight white men is allowed to really express their sexuality without backlash, and even then there is this shame leading to a lack of proper sex ed and horribly unhealthy understandings of sexual attraction in a large portion of the populace. so calling aphobia an axis of oppression is just not right. and in addition, the large proportion of lgbt aces doesn’t make asexuality lgbt, that’s not how groups work.

some more on what i mean by ‘expectations around sexuality’... in terms of my experience in the US, there is some blueprint in many people’s minds of what a person should be like in terms of sexuality, and that is something like “cishet, abled man, who is neither ace nor aro, who gets laid regularly (but not to excess) starting no later than 18 and ending no later than 28 when he settles down with one cishet abled wife, also neither ace nor aro, who has only had sex with up to three committed boyfriends, and they have precisely two children, approximately two years apart in age, whom the parents can financially and emotionally support to the utmost, because they are also moderately to very well off, and the parents work under traditional gender roles to raise their children as conventionally as possible.” and if you deviate from this script in ANY way that’s viewed with moral panic and scrutiny by someone. and the connection to misogyny is that women are seen as sort of the bastions of sexual morality. we are punished especially harshly for nonconformity.

if you’re poor you’re fucked because either you don’t have kids or you can’t send them off to private schools and feed them fancy organic shit. if you’re lgbt or polyamorous or aro or ace? fucked! if you dare to reproduce as a disabled person, and if your disability impacts your parenthood, especially for women, you’re practically crucified even in liberal circles. if you have too few kids or too many (don’t you know only kids turn out weird? / how can you possibly raise 5 children properly?), if you have too much sex or too little, if you split up the work in your relationship not along gender lines, if you do unconventional things in your parenthood, like accept your trans kids or move a lot or any number of other things, the social judgment rains down like the fires of fucking hell. meaning practically no one can escape it!! huge bonus to the screaming crowd with pitchforks if you’re a person of color or a woman, mega ultra bonus to women of color.

but does that make everyone i just talked about lgbt? no! although every single one of the groups i mentioned is tangentially related through this issue, even though all of them face a lot of horrible problems and discrimination, that does not make those issues inherently lgbt. again, they are tangentially related and i could see a good case for solidarity among many of the groups mentioned; all of them are fighting for greater acceptance of different kinds of relationships, greater acceptance of seeking happiness and being who you are rather than pressuring everyone to conform as much as possible to the LifeScript. but all of those groups are equally related to the lgbt community - that is, tangentially only. just as you can be childfree and straight, a stay-at-home dad and straight, a straight woman of color, so too can you be polyamorous and straight, ace and straight, or aro and straight.

that’s it for my main point. ace and aro people? your lives are hard. i’m not going to downplay it in any way because i know there are a lot of people who actually hate your guts. fuck, i’ve seen people full-on shittalk asexuality, in the internet and real life, in the most blatant of ways, so it’s not just something you can necessarily escape by logging off. not as much so for aro people tbh but i predict as much once the Public gets more wind of your existence. i fully believe that you face a higher risk of sexual assault; discrimination in relationships, housing, and the workplace; horrible comments from everyone who thinks their shitty opinion on your sexuality and love life matters; and I believe you that that hurts and is terrible and that you deserve a place to discuss and provide support.

but. those issues are not exclusive to you. they’re not exclusive to lgbt people, or oppressed people, and so those issues don’t and cannot make you lgbt, nor do they make ace/aro vs. allo an axis of oppression. our communities intersect, yes, considerably, but you are not a subset of lgbt. perhaps our rhetoric can help you, but because straight ace and aro people exist you cannot and should not consider yourselves lgb+. i think you understand that the issues you face are a form of oppression, but they are the result of the toxic and misogynistic sex culture in this society, which, yes, targets lgbt people but also, practically everyone, including groups which are definitively absolutely not inherently lgbt, such as parents, gnc straight people, poc, disabled people, the list goes on.

to conclude, what really converted me to being an ace exclusionist was the example of a straight grey or demi ace. how could you possibly argue that someone who falls in love with the opposite gender only, but with more conditions or less frequently than someone not aspec, is lgb+, can call themselves queer, etc.? exactly what material reality does that person share with a gay or bi person? i think that their issues fall in line with aspec community issues but extremely clearly not at all with lgbt ones. 

the end but post script since i brought up orientation modifiers: perhaps it isn’t my place to say, but i don’t think that microlabels are very healthy and that it would make more sense for the ace community to work on expanding the idea of what sexuality is than to try to create a label to describe every single person’s experience of their sexuality. not that i think you should necessarily kick grey ace people out of the aspec community or that they’re not valid or whatever, but that perhaps it makes more sense to say that some people experience sexual attraction less frequently, and that’s alright. i don’t know.  i spent sophomore year of high school poring over those mogai blogs looking for some new orientation label that would make me go like, oh my god that’s me! and believing that if those labels helped people feel that way they weren’t doing any harm. but what actually finally made me feel like that was expanding my understanding of what attraction is and a better conception of lesbian issues and why i might feel so disconnected from my sexuality and why i might be obsessing over every interaction with a guy looking for signs i was attracted to him but feel super disgusted whenever they exhibited interest in me. i spent so long trying to go like maybe im cupioromantic lithsexual and feeling terrified that that i had such a weird and esoteric sexuality that no one could ever possibly understand enough to be in a relationship with me... like, ok dyke! i know a lot of people have had similar experiences and i don’t think i know a whole ton of people now in college who are still doing that, which makes me think those labels are more harmful than not. 

i guess that’s anecdotal but it’s easier for me to believe that a person could cling to those labels due to internalized homophobia than actually have a new form of sexuality heretofore undiscovered throughout all human history, but that’s just me. and so many of them just sound so unhealthy, like dreadsexual. i really wish people would work on expanding what not being asexual can mean and look like and i dont think there would be this drive to create these labels anymore. even demisexual which i think is probably the most mainstream conditional orientation, i think many people who have never heard of it and are perfectly content not to would describe the way they experience sexuality a similar way and just consider it normal. sexual attraction isn’t necessarily having your nethers set aflame upon first making eye contact with someone, it looks different for every person and it’s alright to just be how you are without making it part of your whole identity.

The End II. this is 2,200 words. if you read this far you’re a fucking mad l- *the academy cuts my mic line while looking directly at the camera like in the office*

[jbrack86]

A Rant about Bad Drivers

Let's start with an easy one people; that red octagon with the word "STOP" written on it means STOP and wait until it is safe to merge into traffic. It doesn't mean pause and then cut into traffic and cause the people who were already traveling on this road to slam on their binders and deal with your dumbass. Have some patience if there is literally one vehicle and it means you have to wait an extra 15 seconds do so save pissing the person who will now be right behind you off.

If you're out for a drive and there is snow accumulation on the road you best have an idea of what you're doing. If you're going to need to stop it's going to take longer than normal. If you're going to turn it's going to take longer. If you're trying to accelerate it's going to take longer. Stay further back from other vehicles. It's not a sin to travel the same speed you would normally do long as you know you have control of your vehicle and so long as you can be respectful of other motorists. Then I'm hoping that all you who are scared to drive in the snow stay home until the plies have been around because going less than half the posted speed has the potential to get us both rear ended.

Next at a four way stop it's the vehicle who makes a complete stop at the intersection first who gets to go first. Then it continues in clockwise form. If two people get to the four way at the same time it's the person to the right who has the right of way. That's really the easiest way to remember is "Right has the Right of way". If you're across from each other the vehicle(s) going straight have the right of way. At a four way more than one vehicle may go at the same damn time so long as nobody is going to get into an accident.

Last and by far not least!!! Drive in the driving lane and pass in the passing lane. If you're in the passing lane (the left lane) and you're not actively passing someone you're in the wrong and need to get over so faster motorists can get as many speeding tickets as they like. Don't be that douche who camps in the passing lane and makes people pass them on the inside you aren't the commander and chief of the highway. If there are only two lanes then only pass in designated passing lanes because I want to make it home and neither of us can see the transport truck barreling around that corner or over that hill.

Sorry it was so long. Yes there are more things that bother me but these are daily occurrences. End rant.