#Americans don't even realize what America HAS

[askshivanulegacy]

Hey this isn't like me yelling-callout-post-NOW or anything but I was scrolling through replies on the trolley-problem-palestine post and I do want to say that I have to unfortunately be invested in US Politics as a non-US citizen because of the way these elections affect the rest of the world, culturally and politically. The US is one of the richest and most influential countries in the world and the way it decides to interact with the rest of us, where it sends money and military to, and the conversations people in the US are having even about domestic issues end up shaping the conversations that happen outside of it (trans and immigration issues for example). It's horribly unfair and I'm fuming about it always why can y'all veto shit ❤️ but uh yeah, just a minor nitpick with the influence of the elections on everyone else. I could be entirely wrong in my perception of the way things are but that's how it seems to me rn.

That post was a long time ago, so I can't remember specifically what I said about it, but I don't disagree with your ask.

My big beef (and what I typically rant about) with most of the chatter about the US elections and Palestine isn't that the elections influence other countries. They definitely do.

My beef is that all the US tumblrites are making Palestine into the one single issue ever, in the world and in the US, and they're putting on blinders to everything else.

Palestine isn't even CLOSE to being the single issue or even the most major issue. It simply is not.

And in a US election, Americans NEED to take a look at OUR issues. The issues that affect everyday life. Affordable and accessible education, housing, healthcare, LGBTQ+ issues, rights to bodily autonomy, etc., etc.

In a US election, those are the things that are the most important. In a lot of ways, those are the only issues that functionally exist, within the context of the election bubble. Yes, you can and should consider foreign policy as a factor, but it should NEVER be the only factor ... not when there are so many raw and bleeding gaps at home, and clear, obvious, and impending threats to the very lives of the people these sjw tumblrites claim to care about.

I'm saying that election time is the time for Americans to focus on America for just a minute. And when all I hear is Palestine to the exclusion of all else - all rational thought, all sense - with the conclusion being "punish Biden because he happened to be president when Israel was being a little shit," then that's when I say none of that matters.

Because the US election is not about Palestine or any other country. It's about the US.

People desperately need to remember that.

No, I don't want to put America first, and I care a lot about how we interact in the world. But by God, you don't put your own country LAST in the election that is specifically for your country and will determine how you survive ... and IF you survive. You don't throw your country and everyone in it under the bus.

We have the right to be a little selfish for our election. Not Trump-selfish, but selfish enough to have some sense for the things happening here. It's time to set Palestine on the shelf for a while - at least long enough to realize that "punishing Biden" is idiocy.

Also that Biden is not only America's best strategic option, but he ALSO happens to be Palestine's and the rest of the world's.

Honestly, I've seen more of that perspective from non-Americans, and I hugely appreciate it. I just need the actual Americans in the room to realize that 1) they need to take off their fucking blinders, and 2) their stupid little short-sighted Biden-punishment stunt will not only harm themselves but also all the other countries they seem to care about more than their own.

And I want them to start giving a fuck about the country they currently live in.

[qqueenofhades]

I think its genuinely fascinating how Biden has somehow become the bad vibes sin eater for the party. I'm seeing people who were doing the whole "voting doesn't matter both old men are the same" pivot hard into voting as harm reduction. The anti voting rhetoric has COMPLETELY lost The Youths on tiktok. People suddenly remember the good things the Biden administration has done but don't associate Harris with any of the things they didn't like. In my swing state volunteers are signing up in droves. People feel ENERGIZED, the vibe shift pre and post Biden dropping from the race has just been insane

Y'know, that is a... good way of putting it. It's also why I'm quite sure that Biden has probably been planning it for a while. I don't think he was intending to step down, and didn't want to be forced out at the drop of a hat, but after he realized that the circus was never going to stop until he did, he did the honorable fall-on-his-own-sword thing and definitely, DEFINITELY spent some time choreographing this behind the scenes. Because while the roll-out has been very smooth, it could just as easily (as many of us were expecting) have been a total disaster, and that doesn't happen without SOME planning. It's also entirely possible that the campaign staff flipped from Biden to Harris are superhuman, to come up with a massive online roll-out, new branding, new signs (they had plenty of 'em in Wisconsin yesterday), new everything, but I'm guessing it's a combination of both. Biden has spent his entire political career being underestimated, and after we literally made a meme out of Dark Brandon juking the Republicans out of their shoes, we should definitely give credit where credit is due in how masterfully he pulled it off.

Because we have had eight years defined by the central question of Whether The President Is a God King Who Should Serve For Life (the MAGAts obviously think yes), the sheer idea of a president willingly giving up his power BEFORE he had to is also novel and admirable. It's sad that this is the case, but so be it. The Republicans also got a heaping helping of Be Careful What You Wish For that was undoubtedly brilliant; they've been yelling for years that Biden is old and frail and can't serve and should step down. Biden went "lol okay" and gave it to them, and now they're fucked.

Aside from that, on the most basic level, it's far, far easier to see the actual difference in the parties with Harris as the nominee, just because it shows that one party is willing to make progress and reflect the new demographic reality and social mores of America, and the other one is not. Now to be clear, Biden deserves an incredible amount of credit for coming out of retirement (he was ALREADY 77 years old when he became president and had had decades of a long and respected career in public service behind him) to fight, beat Trump, and deliver an incredibly successful presidency. He held the line against authoritarianism at home and abroad, he rescued the trashed American economy and managed a world-leading recovery from Covid, he stood up for democracy, he spent four years filling the benches with liberal judges to reverse even some of the Trump/McConnell hack job, he finally passed comprehensive infrastructure investment and the Green New Deal under the name of the Inflation Reduction Act -- and so on. Many of these priorities had been languishing for decades or were completely trashed under Trump, and he could not have done so much in just 4 years without all that age, skill, and experience. Hence why all the Ageism!!! was (aside from being a Republican/media smear job) dumb. He's able to do the job because he has had decades to study. Turns out that makes you actually pretty damn good at it.

Yes, Biden could not do as much as he wanted or originally planned, had to deal with MAGA Republicans and Joe Manchin/Kyrsten Sinema sabotaging him the whole time (lololol Manchin, possible possessor of the World's Biggest Ego and with Trump around that's saying something, popping out of obscurity to self-righteously announce he would not be willing to be Kamala's VP. YEAH ASSHOLE. LITERALLY NOBODY ASKED YOU. NOBODY WHATSOEVER. NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS AT LEAST WE WILL SOON NO LONGER HAVE MANCHIN IN THE SENATE). And yes, Biden made some serious mistakes of his own, because he IS from an older generation and a different style of doing politics/different beliefs that no longer resonate with the younger segments of the electorate. But this old white Catholic guy at the age of almost 80 still managed to be the most progressive president ever, coming in at a moment of incredible domestic and international crisis and getting us safely to the other side, and all cynicism, criticizing, and caveating aside, he deserves an incredible amount of credit for that. I mean that absolutely, and I am very grateful.

As I said, willingly relinquishing that power takes guts, and when Biden saw the writing on the wall that he had to sacrifice himself, he took his time, he didn't jump too early, and he didn't jump too late. On the most basic level, it becomes a hell of a lot easier to make the "both parties are not the same" argument when one is running a (comparatively) young brown woman and the other is still running their loathed felonious old demented orange traitor. Most Americans are not plugged into policy minutiae and details. They look at Biden-Trump, they see two old white guys. When you take one of those old white guys away (who goes in a self-sacrificially heroic manner and in sharp contrast with the coup-happy fascist) and put Kamala Harris in there instead, it generates an obvious jolt. People can see for themselves that there is a real difference that doesn't rely on closely reading news and tracking complex policy, because as noted, most Americans simply don't. The brown first-generation American daughter of brown immigrants is a quantifiably different story from "old white guy career politician," which for better or worse is how Biden was seen, especially the old part. We needed that establishment expertise to beat Trump in 2020; I still think Biden is the only one who could have done it, and as noted, we owe him a great debt for doing so.

However.... 2024 is not 2020, and it is not 2016. There has been this HUGE and unbelievable swing to Kamala because she represents the antithesis of what the last eight years of Trump-induced anger, fear, panic, chaos, and hatred has stirred up. That's why people are so ready to rally around her, just as they were (I daresay) around Obama in 2008, after the exhaustion, chaos, war, and mounting economic misery of Bush. Trump has been out of office for the last four years, but his shadow over the American political landscape has been omnipresent. Now people know that we finally have a real chance at getting rid of him forever, and just as Biden was uniquely positioned to capitalize on that in 2020, so Harris is now. Which is why, however tough it will be, she has a real shot at winning. I can guarantee the Republicans know that, and are shit scared. Because the Black Lady Army of Democracy has indeed arrived in force to Get This Shit Done and I don't know about you, but I found that incalculably comforting:

Yikes! All lined up for Kamala pic.twitter.com/Dt4OCDp7WX

— Alex Cole (@acnewsitics) July 24, 2024

This, at the most basic level, is what scares fascists the most, it's exactly what we need now, and what Harris is uniquely positioned to mobilize, along with her gangbusters appeal to young voters:

This is the energy we need. This is what Biden saw and planned for and which he launched us into, and where all that experience and age paid off. This is why people, even people otherwise disengaged, disillusioned, or checked out of the tedious and mind-numbering drudgery and depression of American politics, are responding to it. Because it's easy to understand, it offers hope, and it tells a very simple story that is nonetheless long overdue:

Thanks so much, Joe. Go absolutely waste that orange fucker, Kamala. We got your back.

[neechees]

Late night thoughts, but seeing white ppl's reaction to landback & Turtle Island & Hawaii has really showed us that so many people still don't understand settler colonialism or why it's bad, or even acknowledge the fact that them being born in Turtle Island does in fact, mean that they have privilege as a result of that settler colonialism.

"My ancestors didn't do any of the killing, so they didn't do any colonizing" You being in Turtle Island is proof that they did in fact, participate in colonization. Even if you know for a fact that your ancestors didn't kill any Indigenous people, the colonizers that DID do that specifically did it so that other White settlers could replace the Indigenous population. That's what settler colonialism is. The settlers that moved here were just as much part of colonization of the Americas as people like Christopher Columbus was.

"My ancestors were mostly farmers" I said this so many times in the past, but yeah they were still colonizers. Natives were pushed off good, farmable land onto reservations (specifically areas that tended to be worse off for farming, crop planting, and hunting) specifically so that white settlers could have the good areas to themselves to farm. The U.S and Canadian government paid for White settlers' travel expenses specifically so that they could come colonize Turtle Island. The gov put out ads to "buy Indian Land!" And people definitely took them up on it. Plenty of poor White people trespassed onto what even was designated as land reserved for Native Americans, and that land automatically became theirs ( and disenfranchised from the tribe) for no reason besides that they were on it. One reason why so many White Americans believe they have specifically a Cherokee ancestor is because there's lots who faked Native lineage in order to steal land from displaced Cherokee. Theres a good chance your ancestors did any one of these things.

I think people have this image of what a "colonizer" is in their head and it's a moustache twirling white villian holding a sword or a musket, so much that they don't remember or realize that "colonizer" or "settler" does very much in fact does also include their pastoral great grandparents who were "immigrants"

[fellthemarvelous]

Deny. Defend. Depose.

It is clear to those of us that live in America, the only people we truly have on our side are ourselves. The ruling class has made it clear we don't matter to them.

Luigi Mangione was arrested and happened to have every single piece of evidence on him that law enforcement was looking for, including the parts for the ghost gun, inside his backpack (that he also got rid of in Central Park containing the Monopoly money???). Either he was trying to get caught or that evidence was planted. And when he was being forcefully pushed into the jail, he hollered back to the press about "injustice" and "being an insult to the intelligence of American citizens and our lived experiences."

The people have now turned against corporate America and the CEOs and billionaires are fucking terrified. Nothing the news stations are saying to us are changing our minds. The American people have finally united over this issue and there is no going back for us. Whoever did kill Brian Thompson (and theories abound on the game The Adjuster is playing because no one plays Monopoly alone) exposed the very real divide that exists between every day citizens and the extremely wealthy. Things were easier for them to control when they were able to divide us, but now that we are aware of how uncertain our future is in America and seeing just how little we matter to the people who take our money, we have realized that we have more in common with each other than the people who control every aspect of our lives. We are waking up.

There isn't one person in this country who hasn't been a victim to the predatory scam that is private health insurance. Medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy in America, and many of us are one ambulance ride or hospital stay away from homelessness. We all know people who have died because the insurance company denied them the treatment they needed or waited until it was too late for an approval of a medical claim to matter anymore.

Recently, I decided to be tested for autism and ADHD. Not life-threatening or anything, but my life is still in shambles and I want to know if I'm going untreated for something else. Before being tested though, I was informed that the insurance company (Aetna) has said that they were going to cover the full cost of the testing I was having (which was six hours of testing by the way). She even made sure several times that they were, in fact, going to cover it in full and they said yes.

The same day that Brian Thompson, CEO of another horrible healthcare company, was murdered in broad daylight, I received a call from that doctor's office with the woman telling me that Aetna was now telling her they never agreed to cover my testing and that they are going to bill me for $1600 (where the hell am I supposed to get that?) and she is fighting them, but considering our lives don't matter to the people who tell us what healthcare we are and are not allowed to receive, I don't think they will feel compelled to change their minds because they are bloodsucking parasites who only care about lining their pockets while I don't even have $6 lying around, let alone $1600!!

Corporate America leeches off our taxes. They take and take and take and we see nothing in return. They raise prices on insurance coverage and then deny us the very coverage that we pay for. They poison our food, price gouge our poisoned food, and then force us to pay for the treatment we get when the food makes us sick. Corporate America profits off of our hard work, our taxes, our health, our lives, our deaths.

I don't know if this will reach a larger audience or not, but I wanted to talk about it on Tumblr because this platform seems to be a crossroads for every type of creative soul. I initially brought up this idea on TikTok earlier, but I want to see if it can get traction in other places as well since I have fewer than 3,000 followers on TikTok (and I have seen a small few express interest in my idea in the hours since I posted the video.)

We're busy being lectured by politicians and the news media because while they are clutching their pearls at what happened to Brian Thompson, the rest of us do not give one single flying fuck about what happened to him. As CEO of a for-profit health insurance company, he signed off on denied claims and death for those of us who struggle to make it from one day to the next. The sicker you are, the poorer you are, the more they force you to struggle and pay. The love to deny coverage because regardless of whether we live or die, they already have the money we are forced to pay them.

I don't condone murder at all, but I also don't care that he was murdered because he was guilty of murdering so many more people in this country through legal means because it's profitable. The CEOs are scared and there are wanted posters with their names and faces popping up in places. Every CEO of every healthcare company is guilty of murdering Americans and they continue to go unpunished for it because "it's just business".

So (if you've read this far) all of this previous rambling is to say that I keep thinking about how I want to make an impression. I want to continue upsetting the billionaires and the CEOs because corporate America is full of murderers who are legally allowed to decide whether we live or die based on which outcome will give them more money.

I have thought about the idea of creating a wall/constructing a wall somewhere as an art piece or something (making a statement) that will somehow honor the memory of people who died because insurance denied them care.

I know I definitely want it to say something along the lines of "In memory of those murdered by for-profit healthcare systems in corporate America". Something blatant. Loud. Something they are forced to look at every single day. Somehow. The wall could have images of those who are gone, or names of the person who died with the name of the insurance company responsible for their death underneath. Just something to make it clear that we see them for what they are. Something to avenge those who were sacrificed so billionaires and CEOS and shareholders could brag about record profits. Something that shows the whole world that American citizens are waking up to who the real monsters are.

The Adjuster (whoever he is or is not) has fanned the flames of revolution in America. He managed to unite us in a way I can't even recall before. It's not over. We know what happened to Brian Thompson was just the beginning, and corporate America only just now realized how much we actually hate them. A single shooter has sparked an awakening in America that is starting to snowball into something much bigger.

So if there is anyone out there who might be interested in collaborating on something like this, please let me know. I know we are all tired and demoralized and we have no money. I want to make a statement though, and I love doing that through art or writing. Collaborating with other people who have been through this same shit will also probably help us unite even more.

This is a watershed moment in American history.

In the words of Kanan Jarrus, Jedi Knight,

"There is a future for us. One where we're all free. But it's up to us to make it happen."

[seriousfic]

Here's what happened.

After 2016, we got four years of every story, every game, every comic pushing far-left anti-Trumpism. And it got to the point where, in 2020, the majority of Americans said "okay, fine, we'll let you have this one, just shut up and let's go back to normal."

But after 2020, every leftist doubled down. Long story short: under Trump, we lost Star Wars. Under Biden, we gave them what they wanted and they still replaced Indiana Jones with diversity.

So now in 2024, America said "if that's the way you want it, FINE. If you can't even let me watch a fucking Marvel movie without it being about gay race communism, then I'm voting for my guy. At least you'll be suffering with us."

And lo and behold...

I genuinely think if there hadn't been this widespread, nigh-omnipresent Message-fuckery--and it got to the point where people were and are seriously advocating for a female James Bond--most Americans would've been happy to just ignore politics. But the Left just had to go where they lived.

And sure, it's not the biggest issue. But I think it's the canary in the coalmine that convinced people there's a problem and something had to be done.

Which brings us here, with an electorate that has realized they don't have to just take this shit, they can hit back.

They're going to hit back.

[coff33andb00ks]

Rule Breaker - Pt 1

max verstappen x single mom!reader

{next}

face claim: none, random pinterest find warnings: cursing, max is broody, jos is an asshole, fluff, barely proofread, idk red bull team aside from Max, Checo, and Horner... (y/n's bestie is named after my irl bestie bc she told me to write this, and y/n's son is not named after Magnussen i swear) Summary: Max has it all...right? Besides, he's too busy collecting trophies and completing side quests for anything else. Until... You moved across a whole ass ocean to start over, uprooting you and your son's lives to become social media admin for cars that drive in circles. word count: 4293 auth.note: hiii new to writing for f1 so I'm posting this in the middle of the night and hiding in bed - feedback greatly appreciated. also this is forbidden love/he falls first/friends to enemies to lovers

"Hey Max, come meet the new social media admin."

On his way out, he barely heard the words. But they registered and he immediately turned, knowing how important it was to have a good rapport with the social media personnel. He only had to meet them, then he could leave and go to the team apartment and… He didn't know. Pass time in his sim until he couldn't hold his eyes open. Maybe he'd go for a run until he was close to exhaustion. Or see if Lando was in the country and they could go out together. It was only when he was about to pass out that he was able to sleep and not be plagued with dreams.

His eyes swept the small office, swiveling to focus on the new face. She smiled, giving him a little wave as she set down her slice of pizza.

"Max, this is y/n. Y/n, this is Max."

"Hello," he said, watching as she wiped her mouth with a napkin.

"Hi, sorry." She took a sip of her drink and wiped her mouth again. "Sorry – It's so great to meet you."

She was American. Walking over, he extended his hand. "Where are you from?"

Shaking his hand, she smiled up at him. "Well most recently I was with—"

"No, no, where in America," he corrected.

"Oh! North Carolina. I try to keep the country accent to a minimum but sometimes I slip up." She motioned to the pizza box on the desk. "You want a slice?"

No, he had to leave. His work was done, he didn't need to hang around and kill his precious down time. Besides, his diet was strict for the next few days, what with the race coming up. He had to focus on… Within fifteen seconds he was sitting across from her, holding a slice in one hand. One slice wouldn't hurt, he decided as he took a bite. "How long have you been in England?"

"About three weeks?" She glanced at her watch and nodded. "Three weeks tomorrow. I was staying at an Airbnb until a week ago when I moved into my apartment."

He nodded. "Are you going to be based here or go to the races?"

"Races. Gonna be living the glamorous life of travel and hotels and surviving on caffeine and sugar," she said with a roll of her eyes.

"It's not so bad."

"I'm sure I'll get used to it. You've been doing it for, what, half your life now?"

Shrugging, he took a sip of his water. "More than that, really. Are you saying you don't travel?"

"Not like this. I lucked out with my last job because I was able to do it mostly from home. I think I went up to New York or out to Cali maybe six times total? But I know I can do it," she added when his eyebrows lifted. "It'll just take a little getting used to, especially with a little one in tow a lot of the time."

That surprised him. His eyes immediately moved to her hands, which were completely bare of rings. "A little one?"

Y/n nodded, her eyes lighting. "He's three."

"What's his name?" Max asked. It was none of his business about the boy's father, anyway, so he wasn't going to ask about him. And he didn't even care.

"Kevin." Her smile was both shy and sparkling.

His chest tightened. Kevin, he knew, was one of the most loved children in the world. "What's he like?" The words came out and only after saying them he realized he wanted to know.

"He's… He's Kevin." She laughed. "He asks a million questions and will talk to anyone about anything. He's high energy but has laser focus when it's something that interests him – Like the other day I took him to the park. I expected him to be running around and trying out all the swings and stuff, but he spent an hour crawling in the grass following a caterpillar."

"Laser focus can be good at times," Max told her, earning a warm smile.

"I know. He comes by it honest because I do the same thing when I'm working."

"Will you be bringing him to the races?" Finished with his pizza, he shook his head when she nudged the box towards him and sat back to finish his water.

"Yeah. Not all of them, but to the next few. I already talked to Mr. Horner and Wanda about it," she said quickly, as though expecting him to be upset about her bringing her child to work. "He won't be in the way. My best friend – Ellie, she's his godmother – is traveling with me to Imola and Monaco to watch him for me. But her new job starts the first of June so I have to make arrangements before then."

"Does he like racing?"

"He's three," she deadpanned. "He loves anything with cars or trucks."

"You'll have to bring him to the track—"

"He also loves fart jokes and bugs."

Max blinked at her, snorting on a laugh when she grinned at him. "Fair enough."

"I do have to warn you, though," she said carefully, standing to gather the napkins and throw them into the trash. Closing the pizza box, she used a clean napkin to wipe off the desk. "He likes McLaren."

"It's the orange livery isn't it?" Max sighed. When she nodded, he shrugged. "I'll do my best to not hate him."

She giggled, letting out a snort.

And, for the first time in six months, Max felt lighter.

*-*

"There's my lil doodle bug," Viv cooed as Kevin leapt off the couch and ran towards her. Dropping her purse and work bag, she scooped him into a hug. "Hi sweetheart. How was your day, hm?"

Her son grinned, squeezing her tight. "I fell in poop!"

Viv froze for two seconds and leaned back a little. "What kind of poop?"

"Dog. Yes, it was fresh. Yes, he had a bath. Yes, I washed his clothes," Ellie announced as she came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel. "Your dinner's almost done – How was work?"

Viv kissed her son's cheek and set him down so she could pick up her bags. "I spent the day reading protocols and policies and signing contracts. Oh, and getting my uniform."

Ellie took the knapsack stuffed with team shirts and jackets. "Good thing you love blue huh?"

"No kidding." She glanced over to Kevin, who had climbed back onto the couch and resumed lining his hot wheels along the back. "How was he today?"

"He was fine. You worry too much, mama," Ellie said gently, following y/n to her bedroom. Setting the knapsack down, she took the work bag and reached inside to switch off y/n's work phone. "Ah, ah, you're off now. You don't officially start work until Monday, so they can't expect you to be on call."

"Yes ma'am." Y/n held her hands up in surrender. "I'm gonna change and get him tucked in then I'll eat, promise."

"Perfect. Bridgerton tonight?" Ellie asked on her way out the door.

"You know it!" y/n called after her.

Once she'd changed into sweats and an old t-shirt she went to the living room. "C'mon, doodle bug," she said softly, smiling when Kevin slid off the couch without hesitation. She helped him pack his cars into their cubby, telling him about her boring day at work while she led him to the bathroom so he could brush his teeth. Then to her bedroom, wishing she had been able to afford a larger apartment so he could have his own space. But he didn't seem to mind, and more often than not he ended up crawling into her bed during the night. Something she treasured, because she knew that all too soon he would be "too big" to share a bed with his mama.

Three storybooks and a rambling made up tale about a one-eyed dragon and the princess that saved him from the evil knight later, she pressed a kiss to his cheek and turned off the light. "Good night, sweetheart. Sweet dreams," she whispered before she left the room.

"So I met Max Verstappen today," she told Ellie a few minutes later while fixing her drink.

"Ooo Mr Tu Tu Du Du himself?"

Y/n snorted. "Yeah, that one." The chicken alfredo with a side of broccoli looked so much more appetizing than the greasy pizza she'd had for a late lunch, and she almost felt like she'd cheated on her best friend for ordering takeout.

"What's he like?" Ellie asked, scooping a little more sauce over the noodles.

"He's nice."

"Just nice?"

"I mean, he asked me surface level questions and laughed at my lame jokes? Yeah, nice." Y/n pulled her plate away before Ellie could push more food onto it and sat down to eat. "Everyone's been so nice, Ellie…"

Her friend squeezed her shoulder. "I'm so glad. I have good news, too."

Y/n lifted her eyebrows, unable to speak because her mouth was full.

Ellie sat down, smiling brightly. "I spoke to HR today and Kev will be able to use the daycare."

Gulping down her mouthful of food, y/n gasped. "Oh that's great!" she cried, feeling the weight of worry that had been plaguing her for three weeks lift. "They're sure?"

"Yep, you just have to come in with me before the first and sign a document giving me permission to take him from the premises."

"Excellent, we can go in the morning? I have to go in after lunch to get my kit. Camera, laptop, all that. And Wanda told me to get more shirts so I don't have to worry about laundry while on the road – Oh and I'll be getting our passes."

"Kevin is so excited about Italy. He wants to see the leaning tower of pizza."

"Bless his heart, maybe I can take him one day."

Plans made, she finished her late dinner and did the washing up then changed into her pajamas before settling on the couch to watch Bridgerton. They were rewatching the series so she didn't feel guilty about scrolling her social media, finally biting the bullet and following all of the RedBull people she knew from headquarters.

"You are the bane of my existence… and the object of all my desires."

"Ugh," Y/N and Ellie whined in unison.

"So much nicer than you've had me hard since we met," y/n muttered.

"Let's be real, practically anything is better than that," Ellie agreed.

They finished the episode and y/n headed to bed, keeping as quietly as possible even though she knew her son could sleep through anything. Digging her work phone from her bag, she powered it on to check for any missed messages, smiling slightly when she saw Max had added her on WhatsApp. Adding him back, she was about to turn the phone off again when a new message popped up.

👋🏻

Rolling her eyes, she replied with the same emoji and waited a few seconds before plugging the phone in and turning on do not disturb. She wasn't going to have a late night chat with Max Verstappen of all people. He was probably just being nice, she told herself as she brushed her teeth and did her skincare. Wanda had told her that Max added everyone but rarely messaged anyone aside from Mr. Horner or the engineers.

Besides, she wasn't there to make friends, she reminded herself as she climbed into bed. She could be friendly, but she was there to do a job.

And no flirting with him either, she thought, immediately wondering why the idea had popped into her mind. She would never – okay, she might, if unintentionally. She knew it was a protective thing, knew it was because she had the undesirable need to have everyone like her. But she couldn't do it. Not with him, especially. He'd probably laugh in her face. He was younger than her and probably had a never ending line of gorgeous women waiting to please him.

Before she switched off the lamp she glanced over at her sleeping son. A living, breathing, very real reminder of what she'd gone through just four years ago. And she knew she couldn't go through that again. She wasn't strong enough. She refused to endure that torture and heartache. Kevin needed her, so she had to be strong for him.

Not to mention there was a no hanky-panky clause in her contract?

She had barely closed her eyes when she heard his toddler bed creak. Lying there, she listened to his feet whispering against the rug, smiling in the dark when he slowly slid the covers back.

"Mama," he whispered, and she reached for him. He snuggled close, tucking his head under her chin as she pulled the covers over them.

"Love you, sweetheart," she murmured, pressing a kiss into his hair.

"Love you, Mama."

*-*

"I think it's good, yeah," Max said, eyes scanning the screens of data from the upgrades. "It'll be great for turn seven." Nodding, he listened to the engineers as they went over potential upgrades for Monaco. Once the meeting was finished he grabbed his water bottle and left the room, ignoring the almost immediate phone call from his father. He knew it was his dad without checking, and strode down the hall, intent on leaving and heading straight for the airport to go home. Where he could ignore everything and everyone until Sunday when it was time to fly to Italy.

Rounding the corner, he lurched to a stop as a small child darted in front of him, his giggles echoing down the corridor. The little boy stopped and looked up at Max, blinking slowly.

"Hi!" He waved.

"Hello." Max heard rapid footsteps and glanced up to see y/n iquickly approaching.

"Kevin Scott—"

"I've got him," Max told her with a quick wave, squatting down to the boy's level. "So you're Kevin?"

The boy nodded, light blonde curls bouncing on his head. "I'm Kevin. That's Mama."

"I'm Max. I heard a lot about you."

Kevin's eyes widened. "You know Mama?"

"About this much." Max held his thumb and index finger barely a centimeter apart. He quickly looked to y/n, who was walking up behind Kevin. "I work with her."

"Ohh… She's gonna take me to see cars. D'you like cars Mister Max?" he asked seriously. As though cars were the most important thing in the universe.

"More than I like myself some days," Max quipped, reaching to check the miniature car the boy was holding in his hand. "I drive one like this."

Kevin gasped. "Do you got it here?"

Max chuckled. "We have a lot. Do you want to see them?"

"Please," the boy said, and Max couldn't have said no under any circumstances.

"You have to ask your mum," he said gently. "And maybe say sorry for running away from her?"

Kevin immediately turned to his mother. "Mama I sorry. Can Mister Max take me to cars?"

She sighed, squatting down to fix his shorts. "We've gotta be more careful, sweetheart. And yes, Mister Max can take us to see the cars."

Kevin spun to face Max again. "She said yes!"

Grinning, Max nodded and stood.

"Thank you," y/n said softly. "I'm sor—"

"He's three, yeah?" Max reached to place his hand on the boy's head, gently guiding him closer when he started to wander off. "Don't apologize for him being a child."

She tipped her head at that, then nodded, grabbing hold of Kevin's hand as Max turned to lead them back down the hallway he'd just left. "I only came by to get my kit, and his aunt had paperwork at her new workplace to finish up, so I had to bring him."

"I'm glad you did." Max gave her a gentle smile, using his card to open the door leading to the back of headquarters. "Have you been back here?"

"Only on my tour the other day."

"Just stick with me," he said. They wouldn't be entering the engineer or design areas, only taking the corridor to the garage. Otherwise they'd have to travel all the way to the main entrance and walk around to the back, which would be tedious for her son.

"I'm under contract and signed an NDA, and it's not like I'd know where to go to sell team secrets," she told him. "And I wouldn't even know what I overheard."

"Not a car fan?" he asked, accepting the model car Kevin was shoving at him. Slipping it into his pocket, he guided them along the curving corridor.

"Eh… Kinda? I like racing. I don't understand all the mechanics to it, I just like the adrenaline of watching twenty guys drive really fast. And I can admire good craftsmanship, like a Bugatti or a McLaren, ya know?"

"What do you drive?" Max asked, using his card to open the door to the garage. Met with the faint aroma of rubber and asphalt, he inhaled deeply, catching with it a lighter, more pleasant scent.

"Nothing at the moment. I've been taking an Uber to and from the apartment," she explained. "I'll probably get a used car after my first paycheck."

Max furrowed his brows, stopping on the catwalk. "You haven't gotten paid yet?"

"No? Well, only my signing bonus, and that's gone to household necessities like rent and food. It's fine, Max, I don't need a car right now."

What are you going to do, give her one of yours? he thought, reaching to Kevin and lifting the boy to his hip so he could carry him down the stairs to the main level. Kevin was already oohing and aahing over the neat rows of cars. "It's just me, Brandon," he called, seeing the member of the security team at the other end of the garage. "A quick tour for a new friend, yeah?"

Brandon waved and disappeared around the corner.

At the bottom of the stairs, Max set Kevin down, ushering him to the nearest car. The boy's excitement was contagious, and Max gleefully told him about each one that he'd driven, helping the boy climb into each and press buttons on the steering wheel. Laughing when Kevin made racecar noises, he pulled out his phone to pull up some videos for sound effects. Swiping away the notifications from his dad, he turned up the volume so the engine sounds echoed in the garage, enjoying Kevin's childish glee.

"This one you know," he said, guiding him to the most recent addition. Lifting him into the seat, he squatted down. "This is a car I drove last year, which—" He pulled the model car from his pocket and set it on top of the steering column. "—is just like the one you have."

"Wow." Kevin looked at him with pure awe. "Did you win?"

"I did. And I won the championship too."

"You're a champ-een, Mister Max?" the boy gasped.

"I am."

"Like Lightning McQueen?"

"You could say that," he chuckled, affectionately ruffling the boy's curls. Glancing over at y/n, he paused when he saw she was holding up her phone.

She peered at him over the top. "Is it okay to take pictures?"

"Of course." He had a feeling she'd already taken dozens. He stepped out of the way so she could get photos of Kevin in the car, then lifted him out once she tucked her phone away. "Have you seen the trophies?"

"No. Can we see 'em, Mister Max? Please?"

"You have to ask your mum." Turning, he sent y/n a pleading look as Kevin asked permission.

"As long as Mister Max doesn't mind," she said, rolling her eyes when Kevin squealed yay.

"It's a long walk, do you want me to carry you?"

Kevin squirmed, wriggling so he was piggybacking. "Thank you Mister Max."

His chest tightened, and he reached to adjust the boy's legs around his middle. "You're welcome, Kevin. We do have to make a stop on the way to the trophy case, though."

Next to him, y/n cleared her throat. "I can take him if you've got something to do."

"No, it's fine, a quick stop," Max assured her, motioning for her to go up the stairs first.

"A pit stop?" Kevin asked, giggling as Max jogged up the steps.

"Exactly that. No more than ten seconds," he promised.

Fifteen minutes later, he was squatting down to fix the collar of Kevin's new shirt. "There you go, mate. What do you think?"

Kevin grinned and gave him a thumb's up.

Max looked up at y/n, who rolled her eyes. "He has to be Team Red Bull," he explained with a shrug, adjusting Kevin's new cap with a grin. Thanking the merch manager, he handed over the bag of goodies he'd grabbed and motioned for Kevin to climb onto his back.

"Thank you!" Kevin called, waving enthusiastically as he was carried out.

"Thank you, Max," y/n murmured while they walked towards reception. "But please don't get him anything else."

"I won't," he said softly. "If I overstepped—"

"No, no, it's fine. He'll wear the shirts until they're too small and he'll play with the models until they fall apart. I just don't want him to think he'll get this type of treatment all the time."

"I understand." He nodded. She didn't want her son to be spoiled. Which he found admirable. "…So giving him one of my old cars is out of the question?"

She halted, jaw dropping. "Max!"

"A joke!" he promised, flashing her a grin as he jogged ahead.

"Not funny," she scoffed behind him, and he heard her huff as she ran to catch up. "Those things cost probably a million—"

Max swung around, easily catching Kevin and swinging him back onto his back. "The car for Miami was about sixteen million."

Her eyes widened. "Sixteen—" She pressed her hands together right in front of her mouth. "Million? As in sixteen then six zeroes behind it?"

Nodding, he started walking backwards, amused at her reaction. She was staring at him in shock, and her son was giggling. "It's hard to pinpoint an exact cost, because we reuse some components from race to race. A chassis, or wings, yeah? If you really wanted to know I can pull up the data and get the price for each part—"

"No," she said, shaking her head slowly. "Please don't. I'd probably faint."

"It's an expensive sport, y/n," he reminded her.

"Yeah no shit," she muttered, exhaling harshly. "I've got so much to learn."

"You'll be fine." He'd meant it to come out in an offhand manner. A generic it's okay so feelings wouldn't be hurt. But it came out gently, laced with reassurance and promise. And, before he could stop himself, his mouth opened again. "If you have any questions you can ask me."

"I can Google," she told him.

"I can change my Wikipedia to say I'm eighty-six. Doesn't make it true," he quipped.

To his relief, she laughed. "Fair point. I'll be sure and ask you."

He turned his attention back to Kevin, swinging him from his back to his hip. Reception was empty, and he set the boy down so he could explore the various displays. "He can't hurt anything," he reassured her, knowing she was watching carefully as Kevin ran over to a wing displayed on the wall.

"I just worry," she sighed.

"Why do you sound like you're apologizing?" Folding his arms over his chest, he watched Kevin walk around the large room, drinking it all in. "You're his mother, you're supposed to worry. If you didn't you would have to apologize."

"Thank you."

"He's a good kid, y/n," he said softly.

"I think so too." He could hear the smile in her voice and turned slightly to see it on her face.

Every other time he'd been in this room the weather outside had been cloudy or rainy. He couldn't remember the sun ever shining as he'd stood there to soak in all the history. Until now. It poured through the windows, causing the trophies in the cases to sparkle and the polished floor to gleam. It shone into her eyes, and he could only stare at her as she squinted a little, a tiny dimple appearing in her left cheek.

God, she was lovely.

She glanced at him and his breathing kickstarted. Unconsciously licking his lips, he cleared his throat. "You seem to be doing well, for a single mom."

Her smile faltered and he mentally kicked himself. She looked to Kevin, who was studying the Red Bull logo on the wall, and looked at Max again. "I didn't have a choice."

"I'm sorry," he said automatically.

"Oh he's not dead." She watched her son, her smile gone. "Just dead to us."

"Then I'm sorry for bringing it up." It had ruined the day. Well, alright, not the day but the moment. They'd been having fun, he'd been having fun.

You always fuck up don't you?

His jaw clenched as the angry voice from years ago echoed in his mind.

"It's okay, Max." Her gentle voice cut through the echoes of the past and he forced his jaw to relax.

Nodding, he uncrossed his arms and called to Kevin, taking him by the hand and leading him to the towering trophy case. "Come on, y/n, time to learn some history."

She snorted on a laugh but joined them, and he could tell she was paying attention as he rattled off years and races and drivers to Kevin.

You're going to fuck this up too, the voice sneered.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

Xerces Society: Announcing The State Of The Bees Initiative: Our Plan To Study Every Wild Bee Species In The U.S.

This is really exciting news! For those unaware, the Xerces Society has been focusing on invertebrate conservation for over fifty years, and has pioneered a lot of the work to bring awareness to the devastating losses of not only insects but other terrestrial and aquatic invertebrates. It gets its name from the Xerces blue butterfly (Glaucopsyche xerces), the first North American butterfly driven to extinction by human activities.

Even if you haven't heard of the Xerces Society, you've probably come across various "Save the Bees!" campaigns. These frequently focus on the domesticated European honey bee (Apis mellifera), which, while it may be important to crop pollination in many parts of the world, is not a part of natural ecosystems in places like the Americas and Australia, and can be considered an invasive species at times. With the rise of colony collapse disorder (CCD) particularly after the turn of the 21st century, where entire domestic honeybee colonies would die off, the need to preserve bees began to gain wider public acknowledgement.

But what many people don't realize is that it is the thousands upon thousands of other native bee species worldwide that are in greater danger of extinction. They don't have armies of beekeepers giving them safe places to live and treating them for diseases and parasites. More importantly, where honey bees may visit a wide variety of plants, native bees often have a much narrower series of species they visit, and they are quite vulnerable to habitat loss. Most bees are not as social as honey bees and live solitary lives, unseen by the casual observer.

Invertebrates in general often suffer from a lack of conservation information, meaning that particularly vulnerable species may fly under the radar and risk going extinct without anyone realizing until it's too late. This ambitious program by the Xerces Society aims to solve that problem, at least for the 3,600+ species of bee in the United States. If they can assign a conservation status to each one, then that strengthens the argument toward protecting their wild habitats and working to increase their numbers. Hopefully it will also prompt more attention to other under-studied species that are in danger of going extinct simply because we don't know enough about them.

[if-not-now-tell-me-when]

Semi paraphrased from another post about Crowley’s portrayal in the Good Omens book versus the show. On the importance of hope, even when you don't have optimism.

Crowley as written in the early 1990s called himself an optimist. Crowley in 2023 is very much not an optimist, and I think this reflects what the audience for this story needs now. (And keep in mind, I'm an American writing from my personal, individual American worldview. I'm aware that there are other countries besides America).

The 1990s were a time of optimism in the West. The Cold War was over, the threat of nuclear armageddon was finally lifted, the economy was booming. It was a pre-9/11 and pre-Columbine world, a world in which you didn't have to pass through metal detectors and x-ray scanners to board a plane or enter a government building. Readers in 1990 had reasons to be optimistic in their future.

We in 2023 do not. We live in a very dark timeline. Climate change is barreling down on us, and time is quickly running out to stop it. We've emerged from the wreckage of the War on Terror, and we've realized just how much we were lied to in order to justify 20 years of war. Rent is soaring and wages are stagnant. Income inequality is at historically bad levels. Fascists openly march in the streets and storm our houses of government.

So why would we carry on? Why would Crowley of 2023 carry on? Because he has to. We have to.

Be brave. Do the hard thing. Do it anyway. Do it while not being an optimist in the slightest.

Even in the face of impossible odds.

Especially in the face of impossible odds.

There is nobody coming to save us. All we have left is each other. So we must keep on loving, and keep on living.

All is not lost.

[magicalgirlypop]

i'm feeling controversial today so here's another hot take. and before you type away at your keyboards, know that this is all coming from a south asian.

white leftists have got to stop acting like christianity is the only religion that deserves to be criticized and you cannot touch any other religion because that'd be racist and bigoted. because as an indian who's watching my country progress towards hindu nationalism, this attitude doesn't help at all.

white people see hinduism as this exotic brown religion that's so much more progressive but don't know the violence of the caste system, how it others a large portion of the population on the basis of caste, literally branding them as "untouchables". they teach us in school that this problem is a thing of the past but the caste system is still alive and shows itself in violent ways. and that's not even covering how non hindus are treated in the country. muslims especially are being killed, have their houses bulldozed, businesses destroyed, and are being denied housing, our fucking prime minister called them infiltrators and there's this fear among hindu extremists that they'll outnumber the hindus in the country. portraying hinduism as this exotic religion does a disservice to all those oppressed by the hindutva ideology

similarly, white people see buddhism as this hippie religion that's all about peace but have no idea how extremist buddhists in myanmar have been persecuting the rohingya muslims for years and drive them out of the country.

if anything portraying these religions as exotic hippie brown religions is a type of orientalism itself.

and also y'all have got to realize that just because christianity has institutional power in america doesn't mean there aren't parts of the world where they are persecuted on the basis of religion. yes karen from florida who cries christophobia because she sees rainbow sprinkles on a cake is stupid but christian oppression DOES exist in non western countries where they're a minority. pakistani christians get lynched almost on a daily basis over blasphemy accusations. just look up the case of asia bibi, a pakistani christian woman who was sentenced to death on blasphemy charges because of something she said when she was being denied water because it was "forbidden" for a christian and a muslim to drink from the same utensil and she'd made it unclean just by touching it (which is ALSO rooted in casteism and part of pakistani christians' oppression also comes from the fact that a lot of them are dalit but that's a whole other discussion). and that's just one christian group, this isn't even going into what copts, assyrians, armenians etc have faced and continue to face. saying that christians everywhere are privileged because of american christianity actually harms christian minorites in non western countries.

and one last thing because this post is getting too long: someone being anti america doesn't automatically mean they're the good guys. too many times i've been seeing westerners on twitter dot com praise the fucking taliban just because they hate america. yes, the same taliban who banned education for women, thinks women should be imprisomed at home, and consistently oppresses religious and ethnic minorities in afghanistan. yes, america's war on afghanistan was bad and they SHOULD be called out for their war crimes there. no, the taliban are still not the good guys. BOTH of them are bad. you cannot pretend to care about muslims and brown people if you praise the taliban. because guess what? most of their victims are BROWN MUSLIM WOMEN. but of course white libs who praise them don't rub their two braincells together to make that conclusion.

this post has gotten too long and i've just been rambling so the point of this post is: white "leftists" whose politics are primarily america centric should stop acting like criticism of ideologies like hindutva, buddhist extremism, and islamic extremism BY people affected by these ideologies is the same as racism or religious intolerance because that helps literally no one except the extremist bigots. also america is not the centre of the world, just because something isn't happening in america doesn't mean it isn't happening elsewhere

[shera-dnd]

I have decided against my better judgement to be weird about the Dawntrail MSQ

and we can't talk about an expansion set in the fantasy americas without talking about

COLONIALISM

oh yeah, we're going there baby

So disclaimer that I may be brazilian, but my ass is white as hell, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. Also if any native americans have made posts on this please let me know so I can boost their analysis as well

Also also I'm more than happy to delete this post if I mess up. I'm genuinely trying to make a thoughtful analysis, so if I fuck up just say the word and this thing is gone from this website

Oh also also also, Dawntrail MSQ spoilers ahead!

So FFXIV has had a... messy relationship with colonialism over the years

The fact that the major antagonists for the first half of A Realm Reborn a literally called "beast man tribes" is absolutely not a good start to this story

Add to that the fact that The Twelve (Eorzea's gods) are shown to be kind all powerful deities, while the Primals (the tribal gods) are evil spirits summoned to bring destruction to the world

and yeah no ARR is not good with that shit. It's EXTREMELY not good. If I hadn't been told it got better later on I would have dropped this shit before I got to Titan

But they have been taking steps to unfuck things. First we're shown that even the "civilized societies" (in this case the catholic elves) can summon Primals, then that Primal summoning isn't an actual native custom but was introduced by foreigners with malicious intent, and that not all "beast man" practice that

Then they changed the names of the "Beast Man Tribe Quests" to "Tribal Quests" and then finally to "Allied Society Quest"

Which would have been an empty gesture had like half of the post-Shadowbringer patches, as well a lot of Endwalker, not been about forming alliances with those people and working together with them, recognizing that they have as much right to the land and to life as any Eorzean, this all culminating on the Primals being summoned with the express purpose of helping you protect the world you all share

I guess they realized that they couldn't have their big bad for most of the game be the evil expansionist empire, if they didn't like actually reflect in their own imperialist fantasies they were propagating

Then the teaser trailer for Dawntrail drops and everyone in the fandom is like "wait... are we gonna do a colonialism?"

And memes were abound of how all those lessons from before don't apply to the "New World" of Tural

THANKFULLY the actual questline leading to Dawntrail helped to settle some of those worries

We're not going to Tural to explore a new uncharted land, but are actually being invited over by the local royalty in order to aid them with their right of succession. We get introduced to the nation of Tuliyollal and how it's a thriving land with its own culture and not just a "terra nil" waiting to be colonized

Still there are some worries that this is gonna turn out poorly and that we're just gonna end up being white saviors

But I think they managed to avoid that pretty well

For starters neither the Scions nor the Warrior of Light are the protagonists of this story. You're all simply supporting character's in Wuk Lamat's story

A story that centers her people, her culture, and her family

And it's not even one culture. They don't portray Tuliyollal as this monolithic mish mash of every single native american culture

No, the lands of Tural are in fact comprised of multiple different people's and nations, each of them with their own customs and traditions which are informed by their history and the lands they live in

In fact learning about their cultures and partaking in their customs is the whole point of the Rite of Succession. It's all set up so that the next Dawnservant would be someone who understands and respects each of the peoples that comprise Tural

(I could, and probably will, write about what Dawntrail has to say about what makes a good ruler)

And our girl, Wuk Lamat, is shown to be the rightful heir because she really goes out of her way to understand each of the nations and show her appreciation for their customs

Putting her well above her Sharlyaboo brother Koana, The King of Unresolved Daddy Issues Zoral Ja, and whatever the fuck is going on with Bakool Ja Ja

(I joke, I love my two headed traumatized dumbass)

Tho I will admit that this does end up giving the tribes a somewhat "planet of the hats" vibe. Like their named NPCs are diverse and interesting, but you can just assume that most random NPCs of any given people are gonna act according to the stereotype

Which is unfortunate, but I have hopes that with the next few patches and the addition of Dawntrail's own Allied Society Quests, we'll get to see more to them

But that... is only up to lvl95 and the end of the Yok'Tural (southern Tural) segment

because then we get to Xak'Tural (northern Tural) and holy shit does it feel like they drop the ball there

Like they really COULDN'T keep themselves from making Shaaloani a fucking Wild West map

Instead of doing anything with the actual cultures and histories of Native North American people, they just do wild fucking west

Because there's ceruleum in them thar hills! And apparently Koana turned most of the region into Sharlyaboos too

So we get a bunch of Wild West frontier towns mixed with native american tribes and mud brick cities. We have trains and guns and a sheriff and a duel at high noon, but now everyone got native american names

At least there's one group off to the northern side of the map who seems to stick to tradition and live in harmony with nature, and that group is shown respect by the other people of the region

so we at the very least avoid the "cowboys vs indians" crap, but my god does that region just feel bad compared to everything else they had done so far

Then we get to the big twist: THE CYBERPUNK PORTION OF THE GAME

because yes, we go full fucking cyberpunk

so turns out that a whole segment of Xak'Tural got colonized by the kingdom of Alexandria, including the lands of the Shetona (Erenville's people)

And I feel like this is the most poignant section of the MSQ when it comes to colonialism

Because here we have Alexandria, an empire that has reached the limit of what it can do sustain itself on its own world, and so has decided to spread out and colonize others in order to gain resources

We see the Shetona and other natives of the region being separated from their families and kept in isolation from the rest of their people

And tho Queen Sphene is shown to be a kind and caring ruler who gives people a choice when it comes to joining the empire, WELL SHE'S STILL THE QUEEN OF A FUCKING EMPIRE

Like her form of kindness and just stagnant peace is put in stark contrast with Wuk Lamat's own love for her people and more proactive pursuit of happiness and harmony

(again with the "what makes a ruler theme")

Also the people that choose to be assimilated into the Alexandrian Empire? Yeah, they're doing so because Alexandria has advanced medical technology and you can only receive their aid if you're a citizen

Not only that, but you have to be a working citizen. We see later on a character being denied medical aid, because he lost his job, thanks to the King's decision and at no fault of his own

yeah this is cyberpunk, not just sci-fi

ALSO can we talk about how the technology used for that medical aid and the little gizmo they give you to signify you're now a citizen, will literally erase the memory of the people you lost

So the Turali who are assimilated into Alexandrian culture not only lose ties to their culture and their loved ones, but are not allowed to grieve their loss, because what they once had is slowly being erased

How their choices add up to survive on their own OR be assimilated

How this all takes place IN NORTH FUCKING AMERICA!

THE CYBERPUNK CITY IS LITERALLY SET IN THIS WORLD'S EQUIVALENT TO THE UNITED STATES

So yeah, I don't think is is accidental. I genuinely thing that they're making a point about the realities of imperialism and colonialism, as well as taking some shots at the US while they're at it

Of course this part is still centered around Wuk Lamat, and instead of having a moment of "the only ones who can stop the evil white europeans are the GOOD white europeans", we have Wuk Lamat be the one to save the day, defeat Sphene, and save her people from the colonizing empire

So I would like to argue that everything that happens from lvl97 onwards is them picking up the ball again and making a real point

buuuut that comes at the cost of us being unable to engage with the native peoples of Xak'Tural outside of the context of colonialism

Which genuinely fucking sucks, and I hope it will be remedied with the post-Dawntrail patches

As well as handling the whole shared land situation they ended up with and how this might end up in a Land Back sort of movement, and oh boy can they mess shit up royally there

So in conclusion FFXIV has had a messy relationship with colonialism and imperialist fantasies and tropes, but the devs seem to be making a concerted effort to undo their mistakes and show respect in their depictions of american natives

They still fuck up

boy do they

but they're at least trying, and I'd say Dawntrail so far has been quite well executed

so yeah, look forward to more insane rambles like this one I guess

[maybe-boys-do-love]

I think pretty regularly about the claim against the queerness of BL that BL was originally constructed for and by women, especially straight cis women. To begin, the last clause of that statement frankly has no possibility for legitimate measurement. Even without the problems of queer identity formation and identification that might prevent people from identifying themselves as such, publishers and marketing analysts haven't actually been going out surveying sexualities. My bigger issue with the claim, however, lies in the implication that women ought to have no voice in the creation and depiction of queer male characters, when the relationship between women and queer men has been foundational for both at a broad level (and for many queer men like me, personally).

On my bookshelf, I have a collection of personal essays titled "Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Girls: true tales of love, lust, and friendship between straight women and gay men." I've had a preoccupation long preceding my engagement with BL with those types of relationships. I looked for it in media to feel represented. The ending of My Best Friend's Wedding where Julia Roberts character ends the movie dancing with her gay best friend was an even happier ending in my mind than romance. Then, there were the women who had their hearts broken by a gay protagonists coming-out narrative like Abby in Love, Simon only to reassemble it with a deep friendship. I had to adjust my ideas of queerness when viewing stories from cultures with gender segregation in schooling or more broadly. For me, gay male identity had a relationship to women (all shapes, sizes, and sexualities) at its core. We all lay distanced from macho masculinity and its orientations.

Queer men had a role in constructing many revolutionary female personas and characters that influenced women's self-perceptions and societal roles, for better and for worse. Think of the Euro-American fashion designers, the hair and make-up artists, the writers and directors who collaborated and/or shaped the great models, divas, and icons of the twentieth century, and likely prior (although the concept of queerness becomes a very different beast beyond Euro-America in the past 100 years). Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910-1969 by William J. Mann provides a wonderfully intricate and well-researched history about that work. Both women's rights and women's wrongs: queer men created them and queer men celebrated them, ideologically and in the marketplace, in a partnership that had a purpose for mutual freedom from puritanical laws and social expectations.

Did they always hone in on the realities of women's experience? Certainly not. Realism, as we know it, was neither in-line with the genre expectations at the time nor a fully-realizable possibility for men who only bore passing witness to their female allies. Witness always comes with its limits on perspective, but those limits are the forges of storytelling. Instead, these men, despite the areas of ignorance, designed complex and empathetic portraits of power, faltering, suffering, and striving, across the spectrum of feminine to butch.

I will forever kick myself for forgetting the book or article or post I read where a gay-identified man discusses how women might not have insight into all the aspects of every day gay life, but they see and create a version of gay men that's devoid of the self-pity and self-effacing irony gay men have portrayed themselves with historically, which somehow arrives at an emotional reality that feels more honest to his experience. That's the essence of BL for me. The queerness lies not in the accuracy of anal sex depictions or relationship dynamics--some reflect reality and some don't, so what? The creators of BL as a genre develop queer male characters that are soft, sensitive, and often without the artifices gay men have had to put on to endure. To quote a Carly Rae song, they 'Cut to the Feeling.'

Women's fictional prowess in writing queer men isn't novel to BL. One of the most notable examples is Mary Renault, a prominent queer English author in the mid-twentieth century of especially historical fiction, like The Charioteer, The Last of the Wine, and her Alexander the Great trilogy, among others. Enjoy here a elder gay man's engagement with her fiction for The Guardian. It's not simply that her books struck a chord with some gay men, they influenced their self-perceptions, influenced the genre of gay fiction, and garnered an even broader audience of support for queer characters, holding bestseller status prior to the legalization of homosexuality.

What's so noxious and ignorant about the criticism with which I started, even as some people bring it up with good intent, is the idea that an identity is created in isolation. Our experiences are not ours alone. We impact other people, and other people are watching us with care. Women have long had an outsized role in producing influential fiction and circulating it with joy over its observations about people and their social dynamics. Why set a boundary for them around queer men, when in fact we have a whole history of reasons to understand one another? Not all women will get it because they're not a monolith, and not all queer men will vibe with each or even any of the stories because neither are they. Still, BLs' observations might hold truths about queerness for some that other genres don't offer.

We actually have a few scholars offering evidence of BLs' influence, if so far limited, in queer self-concepts. In "Faen of Gay Faen: Realizing Boys Love in Thailand betwixt Imagination and Existence" by Kang-Nguyen Byung'chu Dredge, the author describes how in Thailand "gay couples recreate Japanese bishonen (beautiful boy) and BL imagery in their own photos." That essay's alongside many others that detail the relationship of BL to fan identities across East and South Asian nations in a collection, Queer Transfigurations: Boys Love Media, edited by James Welker, with the input of many Asian scholars (2022). I'd recommend it to people interested with the caveat that there's been massive political and cultural shifts regarding these topics in those regions since even 2022. Thailand's marriage equality law wasn't initially submitted until 2023! And the BL industry has grown dramatically.

Women and queer men and, in fact, plenty of people with gender identities outside of the western binary have built up these stories and this industry together. Women's contributions or exclusions of certain gay male practices don't necessarily make a work less gay. I probably sound like a broken record at this point trying to widen the breadth of queer inclusion on my blog.

Is there even a possibility for something not to be queer in my book? Well, yes. Boys kissing boys won't fall into that category, though, unless its played to disgust the audience and discourage queer relationships. And there are instances in many queer works, Western and BL alike, including media by queer-identified individuals, that disparage specific queer relational dynamics or behaviors or simply fail to evoke the full-force of queer desire. Of course, we all fail on these fronts sometimes, allies and queers alike.

What I will say is that many women were and continue to be as much as a part of my queer development as queer men, if not more than. I value their insights. I value how they have listened to me. I value their observations about what they see in me. I value their vision for my feelings and future even if it's not always what I have in mind for myself. They have an important place in my life and have every right to have an important place in queerly crafting BL. If we have an issue, let's do our best to name the actual issue rather than revert to over-generalizations about someone's identity.

[qqueenofhades]

There is no law that prevents a convicted felon from running for and becoming president, nor a law that bans someone from being president in prison. Also, if Trump gets incapacitated in someway, many ultra right republicans who equally despise trans people and immigrants and Muslims would happily take his place

And I ask, with all due respect, what is your point?

Do you think I don't know that?

Do you think I am somehow convinced that everything is hunky dory now and we don't have any work left to do?

Are you just determined to be the first of the gloom-and-doomers who show up like clockwork in my inbox, every time some consequence happens to Trump, to morosely insist that no consequences will happen to him? First it was "he'll win re-election." Then it was "the coup will succeed." Then it was "he will never be indicted." Then it was "2022 will be a red wave!" Then it was "he will never be tried." Then it was "he will never be convicted." Now we've moved on, within less than 2 hours of the first US President ever to be convicted of ONE felony, let alone THIRTY-FOUR, "he'll never be sentenced or face a real consequence or lose the election." The goalposts keep moving RIGHT along without even a single pause to acknowledge the difficulty and the value of the progress we have made thus far, and it makes me CRAZY.

Do you people realize how fucking rare it is, both in the world today and historically, for a former (and would-be future) head of state to be held to criminal account by a jury of 12 anonymous ordinary citizens? When that one person, Trump, is the center of the malignant fascist cancer that has spread through this country ever since 2016, and plenty of his cultists are still insisting that it's Trump or nobody for them? When we've actually reached the stage of holding him legally accountable for (some of) his crimes for the first time in his miserable misbegotten life? I suspect that most of you are so deep in the "America is totally broken and the system is useless and we can only Revolute!!!1" rabbit hole that you're bound and determined to argue away every step we take, however slow, as Meaning Nothing TM. Voting? Fake. Fighting to make real progress? Also fake. Everything is fake except our belief that everything is broken and we need the Keyboard Warrior Glorious Revolution!!! As long as you can keep inventing ever more contorted twists of logic to ignore everything else that's happened so far, this makes sense... or something. I guess?

Now we're onto "removing Trump won't matter :(" when a whole lot of people have been fighting day and fucking night to get all the privileged-princess Online Leftists to get off their Che Guevara cosplaying asses and cast a single fucking vote to keep us from full-on-sliding into fascism. A slide into fascism that, again, has been spearheaded and centered around Trump's toxic cult of personality and which is still tied to him in almost every way. Apparently holding him to account (again, which has never happened to him in his life) already doesn't matter because wah wah he won't suffer any consequences. If he loses this election he's probably going to jail for the rest of his life! We would have electorally defeated the greatest threat to the American democratic experiment in 250 years, and frankly a huge part of the fascist far-right hydra that is currently attempting a comeback around the world! This is, yet again:

THE FIRST TIME ANY AMERICAN PRESIDENT, EVER, HAS BEEN CONVICTED OF MULTIPLE FELONY CHARGES IN A COURT OF LAW BY A JURY OF HIS PEERS

and yet we're still hearing that nothing matters and no work has been done and removing him will have no effect???

Come on. Come on. I know it's tiring and it's slow and it doesn't go as fast as we want. But every single damn time the process goes another step, here you people are in my inbox insisting that we're still at zero progress and it means nothing, and lemme tell you, I am Tired of it. Come on. You don't have to jump up and down (my own feeling is glee and vindication but still not relaxation, I will not relax until he loses the fucking election and goes to jail), but you also don't need to keep myopically pretending that all the effort thus far by so many people means nothing. Come on.

[batboyblog]

You realize Trump was being facetious talking about Hannibal Lector and only using the character to make a point, right? Btw, get ready for MORE taxes since Biden apparently just canceled more student debt. At this rate, you'll be able to bring home a whole cent!

I wouldn't really normally bother to answer this, but who knows I'm in a mood

one, Trump is dumb as hell and thats what the people who worked for him think, "has the understanding of a fifth- or sixth-grader", "an idiot", dumb as shit,” “like an 11-year-old child,” “moron,” and “kindergartner,” all from people who worked in his White House or were in his Cabinet

so forgive me if I don't think the great galaxy brain was being "facetious" a word I'd be my life he couldn't spell (or even say correctly)

second, Biden's stated budget will cut taxes on normal Americans so unless you happen to make over $400,000 a year and waste your billionaire time on Tumblr, you won't see your taxes go up, in fact they go down.

but finally, even if Biden wasn't gonna cut my taxes, a tax cut isn't worth my soul, I'm not gonna vote for a rapist

no amount of money is worth that, nothing is worth that, nothing is worth telling EVERY woman and girl in America, every victim of sexual abuse and assault in this country, "you are worthless" absolutely not. so fuck off, vote for you rapist.

[nimrochan]

I don’t think that my few handfuls of followers on various social media accounts realize that I’m an American-Israeli. I’ve been watching things unfold and staying silent for the most part. I know it’s very easy to have an opinion from the comfort and safety of my home, but too many people are also echoing online opinions without enough information or thought behind them. Although it’s fair to say that I’m biased, I think it’s important to view conflicts from multiple perspectives. Including and especially from someone from the actual region/culture that everyone outside of it suddenly has an opinion on. And I think I’m ready to say what I wanted to say:

Why aren’t people more angry with Hamas?

I’ve spent some childhood years in Israel. Every week on the news was another incident - a bus b*mbing, a car b*mbing, a s*icide b*mber… I remember being terrified of getting on buses, or going to public places. I remember soldiers standing at the entrance of every mall, and I remember hearing how one soldier died while stopping a s*icide b*mber at a mall entrance - both were women in their early 20’s. Until today my father tells me to avoid crowded places, and to always stand in a corner with my back on the wall to observe my surroundings.

When I moved to America I had moved on from these memories and didn’t really think about them. But the attacks never stopped. For DECADES. And over the last few years I did notice that very few non-Jewish Americans were aware of what life is like in Israel - having a barrage of rockets rain on you every once in a while. Having alerts to warn you to head to the nearest shelter. Israel has the protection of the Iron Dome. But it’s not perfect, and some rockets do hit their targets. Also, you know, maybe people shouldn’t be firing rockets unprovoked into another country?? (Don’t even get me started on Hezbollah, too.) No one bats an eye if other countries randomly shoot rockets into Israel, but as soon as Israel retaliates to try destroying the area where rockets come from, everyone comes out of the woodwork to condemn them.

Some of my American family members have an app that dings every time rockets are fired into Israel. I could never bring myself to download it. The number of dings drives me crazy.

In fact, if you ever wanted to buy a piece of jewelry or sculpture made of Hamas rockets, there are businesses upcycling them.

If you’re not from Israel, I just want you to imagine the number of rockets that regularly have to come into your country for any rockets-to-products businesses to even exist. For reasons beyond my comprehension, a lot of political parties in America want to defund the Iron Dome, a system designed solely for defense. But I digress.

Gazans never had an Iron Dome and yet Hamas gives no regard to the lives of their own people when they fire openly from homes, schools, hospitals. When they hide hostages and weapons in heavily populated areas.

I remember frantically texting and calling people on 10/07 to see if any of my family members were harmed or killed in the attack. All while anti-Zionists already rallied on social media to offer no sympathy and blame the attack on the Jews on, the Jews. Right. Luckily, whatever close family I had in the area was far away enough from the attack that they were spared, and they soon evacuated. My second cousin and her kids were only spared because they happened to be away, but their home was in ashes and their friends and neighbors were dead.

Israel is a small and close-knit country. I don't have words to describe how we grieved. 1200 innocent civilians sl*ughtered for no reason. That number is just a little under half of the number of deaths on 9/11, and it was done without the help of airplanes, just men running around killing people. The youngest one was 14 hours old. This is the largest m*rder of Jews since the Holocaust. I won’t even go into detail about how some of their bodies were mutilated because it’s too horrific for me to want to type it out. In fact I left the most disturbing footage out of this post. I had been avoiding seeing the footage of Shani Louk, but it was shown at the exhibit too and I’ll never be able to forget it for as long as I live. It made me sick to my stomach.

Look at the pictures. Look at all those shoes. The last time I felt such powerful emotion staring at shoes was at a Holocaust museum. A lot of item displays included their owners’ smart phones showing their final videos on a loop. The people who attend the Nova festival tend to be laid-back, free spirits. They show up covered in glitter and wearing fairy-wings, waving rainbow flags. They lived next to Gaza because they felt safe there, and they often supported Palestinians. Listen to the unhindered joy in the voice of the man calling his father to tell him he had m*rdered ten Jews. One of the most disgusting parts of this is the fact that people protested outside this exhibit as well.

When I brought myself to browse social media again, over and over I saw posts about how “they deserved it” and “they had it coming.” The same people, the same self-proclaimed “feminists” who would shared the #MeToo and #YesAllWomen hashtags, people with immensely large followings, were now having no sympathy for the Israeli women who were r*ped, basically saying “she asked for it.” People defending and excusing Hamas because they “weren’t created in a vacuum.” When did we start excusing r*pe and t*rrorism for ANY reason? On that note, don’t you think Israel’s aggressive defense of itself also stems from a historical reason, shaped by outside forces?

And then there are many voices still expressing plain denial! This was the most well-documented t*rrorist attack in history, because the attackers filmed it with pride, and yet over and over I also saw people posting about how “it never happened,” “they would never do that,” and how these t*rrorists were just “resistance fighters” with propaganda crafted to “make them look bad.”

In my home state of New York, I saw people marching wearing same types of scarves that these “resistance fighters” wore to commit crimes against humanity so recently, tearing down posters of Israeli hostages instead of hanging their own posters on innocent killed Gazans and sharing in the grief.

I see people over and over calling Israelis “white colonists,” when in fact MOST OF THEM ARE BROWN, dark-skinned just like their neighbors (if I showed you photos of my family in Israel, you'd be surprised to learn they aren't Arabic). We are an ethnic minority on this planet and in every country except Israel, but antisemites love to flip the script and paint us as majority white colonizer oppressors. When the majority of Americans calling for the abolishment of Israel are themselves actually living on colonized land (I mean, really?) When most of North Africa has been colonized by Arab populations, yet everyone seems to conveniently forget that. Most alarmingly, I see people marching the streets and praising Hamas and the actual 10/07 attacks.

These same people probably could never spot Gaza on a map before 10/07. Where were they for the Chinese Uyghurs? Where were they for the mass murdered Syrians? For Afghans left at the mercy of the Taliban? For Iraqis killed after 9/11? For Darfur? Because no news unless Jews, right? How can you say you care about Muslims and then praise Hamas? How can you be Pro-Palestine and Pro-Hamas at the same time?! There is a huge, sick problem in America when college students here are applauded by overseas t*rrorist leaders on goddamn Twitter.

And these “Queers for Palestine”- where is the support for the gayest, most feminist, and most liberal country in the Middle East? (Go ahead and look up which country in the Middle East holds annual Pride Parades.) Where is the support for the millions of Arab-Israelis and other non-Jews who call Israel their home? Where is the support for the Arabs and non-Jews also killed on 10/07? Where are the feminists using their voices to demand Hamas return the hostages that are very likely being r*ped as I type this?

I feel like I’m going crazy telling people that there is a lot of fake news and propaganda being spread by Hamas and eaten up by the West. I am not the kind of person to use the phrase “fake news.” But when I see some extreme footage allegedly showing the IDF doing something especially horrible, I count the hours or days before the news is silently retracted because it turned out to be incorrect. Propaganda against Jews has seeped so far into gentile culture over the decades that people don't even realize it. It’s become sickeningly casual and normalized in all kinds of circles. Hell, I don’t even know who to vote for or who secretly wants me dead - the left side with the pro-Hamas crowd or the right side with their white supermacists .

No, I am not denying that a lot of innocent Gazans are dying horrific deaths. When I see footage of injured Palestinian children, I don’t look away and pretend it doesn’t happen, because it does. But what about Hamas dressing up as civilians, firing weapons among civilians, and continuing to hide the hostages??? What about the 15-17 year old brainwashed children marching with guns? When is enough enough? You know which army doesn’t hide in civilian clothing, or recruit children, or parade naked dead women around after they’ve killed them?? Take a guess.

War is fucking awful. And I'm not trying to justify it, just trying to articulate why this is such a clusterfuck of a situation. Someone please name any other country that wouldn’t retaliate and demand their hostages back after such an ugly, unprovoked attack. Someone please explain to me why the hatred is so intense and out of proportion. Again, DECADES of attacks. Someone please tell me what should be done - because if you do nothing, then 10/07 happens over and over and over again. Israelis are all living, breathing people with families just like Gazan civilians are. Stop dehumanizing us.

Why is it that after the Ukraine-Russia war started, when most westerners were on Ukraine’s side (including myself so don’t jump down my throat), that individual Russians living in western countries did not feel threatened the way individual Jews are being threatened? That war actually seems a way more black-and-white situation to me. Why did the Israeli singer for Eurovision need presidential-level protection from the mob gathered outside her hotel? Why did the other contestants continually insult her? You think every single Jew on the planet has a say in what happens in Israel?

Why am I going on social media to dumb down, only to see posts like “Reblog to increase IDF soldier s*icides” and “Like to # CeaseFire” and “From the river to the sea” (that expression basically means to promote the killing of all Israelis, I don’t care how you look at it). Why are you trying to call a cease fire with t*rrorists who are known to constantly break ceasefire, then make a surprised Pikachu face when they do it again?

Anti-Zionism is a clever cover for anti-semitism. The very definition of Zionism is the pursuit of an independent Jewish state (of which there is currently only ONE - for comparison, there are 57 Muslim countries). A lot of people don’t even know what Zionism is when they call themselves Anti-Zionist. And if you do? Most Jews are Zionist. You can’t separate semitism from Zionism to make yourself feel better. Israel is such a tiny country, it takes 6 hours to drive end-to-end across the longest part. While all over the world, synagogues are being threatened, Jewish graveyards are being vandalized, and Jews are being attacked, you are absolutely telling me and my people that we don’t deserve a safe space. And yes, Jews are indigenous to the Middle East just like Arabs are.

How do people rally against discrimination, but in the same breath act like discrimination towards Jews doesn’t count? You can’t reason your way out of it. You do not get to tell me what is and isn’t antisemitic.

Hamas does NOT give a damn about the actual land that Jews are living on. Hamas’s ultimate goal is to kill all Jews (it's LITERALLY spelled out in their government charter), is that what people want?? And even if you deny it, you think you could theoretically move all 8 million Jews out of Israel to where exactly?

You think other countries want to welcome a mass migration of 8 million Jews? (Remember why Jews left in the first place?) You want literal t*rrorists to have a stronger foothold in the Middle East?

Why do the surrounding countries condemn Israel, yet not step up to help Gazans either? Why won’t they open up their borders?

I’m sick and tired of people who have zero stake in the Middle East and very little knowledge just jumping on the bandwagon and virtue-signaling like it’s some clear black-and-white situation when it’s not. And then having the nerve to lecture ME. I’m angry and I’m frustrated.

Bring them the fuck home.

[justagirlwholikesadam]

The American: Welcome to Hogwarts

Remus Lupin x Fem! American! Reader

Prequel of The American: Welcome Back! -click to read

Summary: Entering their 5th year, Remus and his friends are told of a new student coming to Hogwarts. While dealing with problems of his own, Remus can't help but notice the new transfer student from America.

Warning: slow burn, bullying, issues of self esteem, suicidal thoughts, xenophobia against reader, name calling, the word mud blood is used a lot, very dark content.

A/N:I haven't read the books but I have seen the movies and read a shit ton of fanfic. I'm making stuff up as we go so my plot can work. There are some characters that I thought were real but where made up for fanfics. I hope people don't mind if i add them because i already wrote the chapter. I later found out while googling stuff abt The Marauders. I will be added them and other characters to my story with my own twist. With that being said, don't come for me if this character is doing this and that. Not sure how many chapters I'll be doing, really depends on the feedback. please read the tags before reading. Enjoy -L

Remus found himself staring at the tracks in front of him. His eyes studied the nails and the iron bars of the train tracks. He can hear the horns of the Hogwarts Express blasting indicating it’s near. It drowns out the sounds of the students and their families around him. He looks at the red and black train coming and Remus takes a step forward. 

Remus has thought of this a lot before, stepping in front of a train. Trains, buses and cars. Just one leap and it will be over. His fingers tighten over the straps of his bag over his shoulder as he thinks about it more. 

A quick death, what a wonderful relief. 

He hates having a full moon in the summer when he is away from Hogwarts. He didn’t have any of his friends during that time. They were off on vacation or doing activities with their families and Remus doesn’t have the heart to ask them to come over. His friends have done so much for him. He’s afraid of asking for too much and they will leave him for it. He doesn’t want to be alone. 

Remus takes another step forward getting a bit closer to the edge and as he looks ahead. His mouth slightly dropped open when he saw a man standing on the other side of the tracks staring back at him. The man stood there bloody, throat ripped open, slashes across his face and chest. Blood was gushing out from the man’s wound. He wore dark blue trousers and a white ripped collar shirt. The man lifted his hand towards Remus, reaching for him. With his finger, he pointed at Remus as blood dripped down from it. Remus feels the bile coming up his throat when the man try to open his mouth to speak. Blood came pouring out from his mouth and Remus stands there frozen in fear. Remus doesn't see a flash of red running towards him. 

“Remus!” He feels a force come at him making him take a step back from the edge of the platform. The train approaches, hiding him away from the bloody man. He felt Lily hug him and Remus shut his eyes as he wrapped his arms around her pulling her into a tight hug. He missed her so much this summer. He didn’t visited her like usual. He couldn’t. He was ashamed of himself. He tries to get rid of the sight of the man he just saw, he continues to hug her. Lily rubbed his back when Remus didn't pull right away. 

Lily Evans, was the first friend he made when he came to Hogwarts. She was the first to realize what he was and she was the first to not make him feel bad for being a werewolf. As times passed he was welcome into a group of three boys. They didn’t make him feel bad as well, they had even helped him by becoming animagus and stayed with him through his transformations.

“You haven’t written back to me all summer.” Lily said when they pulled away. The students around them started boarding into the train. 

“Forgive me, Lils. Rough summer is all.” Remus said as he grabbed his luggage by his feet along with Lily’s. She gave him a thanks and he just nodded. He wasn’t going to allow her to carry the heavy thing. 

Lily and Remus greeted the other students in their year as they walked to their usual compartment. Remus with ease placed the luggage on the top shelf as Lily sat down. Remus sat down with a huff beside her, next to the window, his favorite spot. Lily opened her beige shoulder bag and took out a brown lunch paper bag with the letter R written on it. 

“Mom, send you a snack.” Remus smiles as he grabs it from Lily. 

“She’s a saint.” Remus said as he opened it, taking a look inside. In separate plastic bags, he saw there were slices of green apples and a jam sandwich cut diagonally. There was even a small juice box. 

“Green apple, my favorite.” He comments. 

“Ugh, she likes you more than me.” Lily pulled out a bag of baby carrots instead of apples like him. Lily’s mom knew of Remus, he would visit Lily sometimes during break and the summer. Lily’s mom was always happy to see him and even called him a son at one point when he always offered to take out the trash or wash the dishes. Remus thought it was the least he could do since they had him over for dinners. Petunia wasn’t really fond of him, but he didn’t mind her. He ignored the names being aimed at him when he sat across from her during dinner. 

Remus chuckles at Lily then he takes the bag of apples out. “I’ll trade.” 

“You would really do that for me?” She asked him with a pout. 

“Hurry, before I change my mind!” Lily laughs and gives him the bag of baby carrots as she gets the bag of apples. 

Remus drops the baby carrots into his brown paper bag, saving them for later. He looked over at Lily when he noticed what she was holding out. He gives her a smile and grabs the slice of apple from her hand. 

Quickly putting it in his mouth,  he hummed at the sweetness of the apple as he chewed. Lily frowned and stopped mid-bite when she noticed Remus looking out the window. His eyes roaming quickly on the other side of the platform. 

“Looking for someone?” Lily asked and Remus looked over at her. He shook his head, telling her nobody. 

Lily is eating when Sirius and James come walking in. Remus rises up from his seat to greet his friends. Lily does the same. Remus helps Sirius with his luggage as James sits next to Lily by the door. Sirius sits across from Remus. 

He’s listening to Sirius ramble on about his summer, it was another horrid one. His mother had gone mad about tradition with the family. He was a disgrace for being a Gryffindor, but he was even more of a disgrace to his family when they found out Sirius doesn’t agree with the pureblood ideas. James and Lily are talking amongst themselves. Remus and Sirius just gave each a look, James was finally getting on Lily’s good side. 

Sirius hits Remus' shoes with his elbow that rested next to him. Remus had quite a growth spurt last year. He had his leg resting on the seat across from him.

“How was your summer, mate?! I sent you a letter, you know?” Sirius' cheeks grow pink and Remus notices it. 

“I’m sorry. I did receive it. I had a hard time answering back. Last moon was draining.” Sirius nods at him, understandingly. 

“Are you okay now?” He asks Remus. Sirius notices something odd with Remus when he doesn't answer right away. He didn’t like it one bit. Remus was usually cheerful whenever they came back to school. 

“Yes, Padfoot.” Remus answers as he leans his head against the window. Sirius decides to not push it and asks Remus about a book he was reading before summer break. He smiles when he sees Remus' whole demeanor change, Remus sat up and excitedly told him about it. The train lets out another sound and a few seconds later. The train began to move then after a few more conversations about Lily and James’ summer. One by one they started to doze off. 

Remus was sleeping with his head against the window. His body jiggled softly as the train kept on moving. He scratches his nose when he feels an itch in his sleep. Inhaling deeply, Remus’ eyes shot open when a scent hit him. The scent is new, it didn’t come from his friends. Remus felt a chill down his back, it was a strange feeling. He doesn’t know why he’s smelling it, the full moon has passed already. Why is the lycanthropy still residing in him?  Sitting up straight, he looks over at his friends. They are still sleeping, he wonders why Peter isn’t here. They have been taking the same spot in the train for five years now, so Peter couldn’t be lost in finding them. 

Remus felt his throat close up when the smell hit him again. He rose up from his seat, taking another sniff in the air.  He noticed the door was a bit open. He figured it was Sirius who usually forgets to latch the lock whenever coming back from the restroom. 

Remus decides to go to the bathroom and wash his face. He figured he was smelling things because he had a rough summer. He was barely sleeping at home. The nap on the train was the best sleep he had all summer. He shuts the door behind him then looks up and down the hall, it’s empty. The lights of the hallway were lit up, he saw most of the other people had pulled down the curtains for privacy as he walked to the restroom. Remus yawns as he walks inside the restroom and turns on the light. Rubbing his eyes he steps in front of the toilet to relieve himself. Letting out a small moan when finished urinating, he turns his head to the door. That fucking smell is there, he quickly walks to the door. He presses his forehead against it. Remus inhales the scent, it's on the wooden door. 

The scent of copper, the scent of a girl. 

Remus doesn’t realize at first but he breathes heavily, his forehead is pressed against the door as his right hand touches his chest and drops down to his lower stomach. He fist the sweater he wore on top of his uniform in his hand as he sniffs harder. When his fingers hits the zipper of his trouser, the urge to touch himself came over him. His eyes shot open and he quickly stepped away from the door. He stared at it, scared. This has never happened to him before. A scent that was making him horny, it was new to him. 

Remus knows this isn’t him, this has to be Moony. The wolf that resides in him. Moony should be gone by now but he isn’t. He leans against the wall of the bathroom and let's out a sigh. He shook his head as he looked down at his hands, he shut his eyes when he remembered how his hands looked with all that blood. He looks ahead at the mirror and whines when the background changes. He saw himself back again in the woods behind his house. 

“Stop it.” He hissed to himself as he looked away and started to push the button of the soap dispenser on the wall. 

Turning the hot water all the way up. He ignored the heat of the water as he washed his hands until it was pink and raw.  He kept telling himself, he had to scrub it away, wash the blood away. He looks ahead at the mirror and stares at himself. His eyes are staring at the new scar on his face. He hates his appearance, despises it. It’s just a constant reminder of what he is, a monster. His friends tell him differently but Remus knows he’s one. He truly is especially after what he did. 

Running his fingers through his hair, damping his sandy brown curls before turning off the light, he walks out of the bathroom. The hallway is still empty, he shuts the door and starts to walk back when he smells it again. His chest started to feel tight and he bit his bottom lip as he turned to face the other side of the hallway. 

He’s staring down the hall and he can smell it again. 

“Fuck.” He murmured when he saw that part of the train, usually students of House Slytherin, sits in. He steps forward carefully as he looks to the left. Most of the train compartments had the curtains drawn down, he stopped when one of the doors was slightly open. He guessed whoever was in there forgot to use the lock. 

‘Another Sirius.’ Remus tells himself as he looks inside. He sees a figure sleeping on the cushion seats, a leg hanging out. He frowns when he notices they wore jeans and sneakers. The person wasn't in uniform like them. Remus hears laughter further down the hall and quickly goes back. Last thing he wants to do is come face to face with a Slytherin. Making it back to his seat, he gently sat back down to not disturbed Lily who was leaning against James. He grabs the brown lunch bag Lily’s mom made for him. 

Remus quietly eats his sandwich as he stares out the window, watching the scenery. He never gets tired looking at the mountains and lakes as the train makes its way to Hogwarts. 

Shelley Mumps was the one who woke everyone the following morning. Remus had dozed off after eating his sandwich. He jumped out of his sleep when Shelley slid the door open with such force. 

“What happened?” James said in a sleepy voice as she shut the door and sat beside Sirius waking him up. 

“There's a transfer student. She's in our year.” Shelley said, looking at them. 

“Cool, can we go back to sleep?” Sirius said getting himself comfortable again against the wall. 

"She's American.” She added. Remus frowns. “They allow Americans in Hogwarts?” He questioned. 

“ Apparently because she’s here. Some of us saw her walking down the hallway. She was staring out the window. You should have seen the clothes she was wearing.” Shelley laughs and Remus looks away from her.

Lily just sighs at her friend. “What do you mean by that, Shelley?” 

“She had ripped holes in her jeans and her shoes looked dirty. She had this shirt with this ugly green army jacket. She looks homeless.”  Sirius was awake now and looked at Remus who kept quiet and stared out the window. 

“I'm sure, it wasn't that bad.” James said, clearing his throat as he sat up straight in his seat. 

“Oh please. The train is stopping soon. You’ll see her.” Shelley said before waving bye at them. 

“Tell me why you are still friends with her?” Remus asks softly, looking over at Lily.

“I have too, I share a dormitory with her.” Lily said, grabbing her bag as they felt the train stopped. 

They quickly got up and started to get their belongings. The students lined up and walked out the train. “Let's see if we can catch a glimpse of this girl.” Sirius tells Remus and James as Lily waved bye at them to find her other friends. 

Remus walked behind them as they walked to the waiting carriages. Leaving their trunks and luggage behind, they sat down. Remus looks around but has no luck in finding this ‘homeless girl.’ The carriages make it to the gates and they step down to walk towards the school, it was a five minute walk. 

“Peter!” James exclaimed and Remus looked over to see his friend walking towards them. 

“I missed the bloody train! My parents were furious. They had to drop me off.” Peter said with a sigh. Sirius and Remus shook their heads, Peter had a tendency of being late. They welcomed Peter with a hug.

“Did you hear the news?” Sirius asked. 

Peter rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Shelley gave me the full details on the new girl.” 

They walked together to the castle when they noticed a group of students standing by. 

“Oi!” James yells and a Ravenclaw boy, named Hems in their year, turns around. “What's going on?” 

“The American is with Hagrid.” Hems tells them as they get closer. Remus looked ahead to see. 

“Is she daft? What's she petting?” Remus hears another student ask. 

“Her name is-.” Someone said your name and Remus thinks it’s a nice name. He continues to look at you, trying to get a good look at your face. 

He can see Hagrid talking to you with a smile as you kept petting at the air but Remus can see the thestral you were petting. He could see its leathery wings flap for a second before circling around you making you giggle. Shelley was blowing your appearance out of proportion but it was exactly what he expected from a pureblood. He looks at you and he thinks your smile is pretty, that's what he noticed first about you. He looks at your clothes. You look casual. You look like a regular muggle, it reminded him of the outfit Sirius usually wears whenever going out to a muggle place. The green army jacket is a bit big on you. You wore a black shirt and blue ripped jeans. 

The thestral rubbed its head against your bookbag, you wore and Hagrid shooed the thestral away from you when it started to nibble on your bag making you laugh loudly. 

“What is she laughing at?” A student asked loudly. 

“You idiot, it's thestral.” Remus looks over and notices Severus with a group of Slytherins standing by. He was glaring at you as he answered. Remus noticed Hagrid leaning down to tell you something. You turn to face them and Remus sees your face for a second. Your eyes widened by the sight of them and quickly looked away before he could get a good look at you. 

“Two galleons, I’ll have her in bed by the end of the week.” Remus noticed an older student from House Ravenclaw speak out. Remus rolls his eyes when the group of students around him starts to snicker and begin to place their bets on you. He watches you walk away with Hagrid towards the school. 

“James? Sirius?” The guy said, looking over at them. 

“No, mate. I’m good.” James said before signaling his friends to keep walking. Remus doesn't want any part of it either. 

Sirius stops in mid step when one of them starts to laugh and yells out, “The American probably has diseases. You know they are sluts.” 

“15 galleons says she doesn't sleep with you.” Sirius said, making them stop laughing and look at him in disbelief at the amount of money he was placing. 

“You're on, Black.” 

Remus, James and Peter waited for Sirius to finish when he saw Severus and his friends walking away. James just glared at Severus and the long, dark haired boy did the same to James. 

“You really think she won't sleep with him?” Peter asked as they continued to make their way to the castle. 

“You have to be Shelley to sleep with them. I doubt she's like her.” Sirius said, shaking his head. 

Settling back down in Hogwarts was easy for Remus. He missed his bed and being around his friends. The atmosphere was different from back home. He wasn't alone, in Hogwarts he was surrounded by students, professors, and even ghosts. 

Getting ready for dinner, he spoke to Sirius about another book he got. Remus was fond of Sirius and even though they both came from completely different backgrounds. They were best friends. Sirius was the second person to figure out what he was. Remus had cried in front of him when he figured it out. Sirius didn't speak while Remus told him that he would understand if he didn't want to be friends anymore. Sirius just hugged him tightly. Hugged him until he calmed down. 

“You’re ridiculous. If you think, I'm going to stop being your best friend, mate.” Sirius spoke out after a few minutes. 

‘We’ll figure something out to help you. I promise.” 

Remus didn't believe it at first but when James and Peter figured it out he told them the truth. The three managed to become animagi behind his back and showed Remus when they accomplished it. He never felt so accepted before. They supported Remus during his transformations and mood swings when the full moon was near. They accompanied him in their animagi form to the Shrieking Shack then later carried him to Poppy Pomfrey. 

He was forever grateful for them. He really was so when he got too deep in his head and started thinking about dying and ending himself. He thinks of them. He thinks of Sirius, Peter, James and Lily. He thinks of his mom as well. 

He thinks about the time his mom would bath him when he was too hurt. She would feed him, dress him when he couldn’t move. His mother changed completely during the recent summer. She couldn’t look him in the eye and it broke him. His father who treated him differently already barely said a word. 

‘Oi!” Remus was deep in thought when James caught his attention. 

“You okay, Moony?” James said, walking towards him. They were in their dorm room, putting their stuff away when James saw Remus laying on the bed with his hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. 

“Yeah, Prongs.” James nods and sits beside him on the bed. Remus pushes himself up and holds himself by the elbows. 

“You know I wrote to you this summer. Like four times.” James said softly as Peter and Sirius were in the bathroom freshening up to go to dinner. 

“I know. I just-.” Remus feels James' eyes on him. “I don't know.” Remus lied. 

“Everything okay at home?” James whispered in a concerned tone, he knew about his life at home. Remus nods as Peter and Sirius come out of the bathroom laughing about something. 

“Ready to eat?” Peter asked as they put on their robes. 

“Yes!” Remus said getting out of bed, he looked over his shoulder to meet James' gaze who was still sitting down and staring at him. He did not believe Remus for a second. James drops it because he knows Remus hates being the center of attention so he drops it for now and says yes to Peter. 

Remus finds himself looking for you at the great hall but he can’t. He keeps his head down and listens to James and Lily talking in front of them as Sirius is talking with Marlene. Peter is next to him, trying to ignore Shelly who was talking about her summer. He was more interested in what's for dinner. 

“Welcome Students! Back for another year with us. I do hope everyone had a good summer.” Remus sighs as he looks down at the empty plate in front of him. The headmaster Dumbledore makes a few announcements about classes and a new teacher who will be teaching D.A.D.A. 

“Lastly, it gives me great pleasure to introduce a new student that will be joining us,-.” Dumbledore announces your full name and Remus repeats it in his head. He remembers your smile. It was so genuine, no one smiled like that to thestrals. 

“She’s from America, boys and girls. She will be studying with us. I want everyone to give her a warm welcome.” Remus looked up from his plate and looked over at the doors of the hall when it opened. He saw you wearing their uniform on. You stood next to Hagrid who urged you to walk inside. 

Remus claps along with his friends as you walk to Dumbledore and McGonagall, who had the sorting hat ready for you. 

“She looks like she's going to throw up.” Remus hears a Slytherin ahead of him joke. While you walked up the steps and sat down on the stool, facing everyone. Your eyes were looking down when McGonagall placed the hat on your head. 

The sorting hat hums as it rests on top of your head. 

“I feel it, young one. Don't you?” Remus saw you looking over at Dumbledore with a frightened look. McGonagall nods at you, easing your worries. You look down at the ground once more and your hands clasped on top of your lap. 

“Difficult choice, indeed.” The hat says. 

“A fighter!” The sorting hat yells, making everyone whisper. 

 “A protector!” Remus noticed the look on Dumbledore's face. 

“Oh- my, that is-.”  The hall quieted down when the hat stopped in mid sentence. 

“I know now! I see it!” The sorting hat crackled loudly. 

 “Slytherin!” Remus saw you lift your face to look ahead and Remus thought you were the most beautiful person he had ever seen. He took notes of your nose and lips. Your eyes and the way you looked so nervous made him feel bad. 

He looked away from you when the hall started to applause. McGonagall was kind enough to show you where the table was. You looked down at your uniform when you noticed the color had changed.  

He peeks between Lily and James and sees you picked the farthest empty seat from the table. He can see you take a deep breath as you look at the silverware in front of you when you sit down. 

Shelley is sniggering with an older student from Gryffindor who is sitting beside her. 

“What's so funny?” James asked. “She probably doesn't know what a fork is? Don't Americans eat with their hands?” The boy asked James. 

“That’s fucked up, lad.” Sirius says, eyeing him. 

“Look ahead, she's using them just fine.” Lily snaps before looking down to eat her food. Remus looks over and notices you have begun to eat as well. It was quiet after that, Remus ate and only looked over when he took a sip of his juice. They ignore the others who keep making jokes are your expense. They spoke about your hair and how you looked. Some thought you were hot while others thought you were ugly.

Sirius noticed how Remus was quiet. It was pretty normal for Remus to be quiet. Quiet Remus, who only speaks when spoken too but right now it was different. Sirius felt his best friend’s vibe completely off right then and there. 

Remus had different sides of him. He can be so quiet then be very cheerful and make jokes. Until the full moon comes, he becomes cranky and snappy. Sirius stabs his chicken with his fork as he looks at Remus. There’s a new scar on his face and Sirius doesn’t have the courage to ask him about it. Especially since he saw how Remus acted when asked why he hadn't responded to his letter. Something must have happened during the summer, Sirius thinks to himself. 

He noticed Remus looking over when he took a drink. He followed his gaze and landed on you. Sirius does a double take when he sees his younger brother Regulus walking towards you with his plate in his hands along with his cup. 

Regulus flashes you a smile. “Oh fuck!” A Gryffindor from the table whispered.

Regulus sits down across from you. “You ok?” Remus whispers when he sees it. 

“Of course, why wouldn’t I be? He’s with his kind.” Sirius says to Remus but he doesn’t believe that Sirius can just be okay. Remus knows the complicated relationship that Sirius had with his younger brother. 

It was a few minutes later when Regulus and you stood up. Plates are empty and Remus watches as you pick up the empty plate. 

“What is she doing?” A boy from the Hufflepuff table behind them says catching their attention and the voices in the hall become quiet. 

“Do we have to wash it?” It was a simple question that you asked. Remus gets annoyed at the fact that you get laughed out by the Slytherin table when you ask Regulus. 

Regulus shoots them a glare and shakes his head at you before telling you that there was no need. You can leave your plate there and the elves will get it and clean it. 

“Elves?” You frowned, and your eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

“Like a Santa's elf?” Remus hasn’t heard the word Santa since he was a kid. 

Regulus tilts his head at you, he’s confused now. 

“She’s half blood then?” Remus hears the table start throwing ideas of what your blood is. 

“What the fuck is a Santa?” Sirius whispered to James then looked at Remus when James shrugged his shoulders. 

“Are  you sure that she’s in the right grade if she thinks Santa is real?” Someone asked loudly and people began to laugh. 

It had gotten to the point that the laughter behind Remus started to get to him. He didn’t find it funny at all that they were making fun of you. He wondered what did you know about magic, perhaps you didn’t know anything at all. His guess had to be that you were muggle born but he keeps it to himself because if he was right about you being a muggle born then you will have a difficult time, especially in house Slytherin.  

He knows what it feels like to be made fun of and he hates it. He gets bullied for his scar face. He gets bullied because he’s quiet. He gets bullied because he’s poor. 

He sees Regulus walking out with you from the great hall. He leaves a few minutes after saying he had a headache but he just didn’t want to hear the comments they were making. He decided to go to sleep early that night. 

He was glad he had a dreamless sleep. He didn’t dream about the man. It was morning and he saw you again walking with a younger student from your house to the great hall. Remus walks in with Peter and he sighs when he sees Shelly and Marlene there already, eating. He didn’t mind Marlene at all, she was kind and reminded him of the female version of Sirius. She was spunky and played quidditch with James and Sirius. 

“Morning, guys.” Remus greets them and sits down. While a Ravenclaw girl ahead of them rises up from her seat and runs to Shelley. 

“You won’t believe what I just heard!” The girl said to Shelley. 

“The American slept in the bathroom on her first night here. Her roommates are telling everyone. They heard her crying.” Shelley and the girl began to laugh. 

Marlene looks at the girls. “I don’t find that funny. She probably misses her home.” 

“Oh come on, Marlene.” Shelley said, waving her hand dismissing Marlene’s words. 

Before she can say anything James and Lily along with Sirius came in. “Morning.” They greeted their friends. 

“I’m not ready for classes.” James sighs as he sits down. 

“Guys, Penelope just told me that -.” Remus finally cracks and cuts her off when he slams his hand on the table loudly and looks over at her. 

“Would you shut up already? Enough making fun of the new girl.” He said and Shelley grows red from embarrassment of his sudden outburst. 

“You feel bad for nasty foreigners?” The Ravenclaw girl, Penelope asked, crossing her arms over her chest. 

“I feel bad for anyone that has to deal with tossers like the both of you!” Remus said, looking at her and Shelley. He stood up from his seat ignoring James and Sirius calling out for him. He walks out the doors and goes back to his room. He paces around the room, coming to terms on what he just said to Shelly and the other girl. He felt bad for calling them that name but he just got so angry. 

How can people make fun of other people suffering, he asks himself. He had lost count on how many times he’s cried himself to sleep during his first year coming to Hogwarts. Being alone and afraid that someone will find out his wolf secret. He checks the clock on the nightstand and notices it's almost time for his first class. He grabs his books from his trunk and hopes he doesn’t see Shelley or the other girl.

He started to grow worried as he walked to class that Lily would be angry at him for calling her friend a wanker. He was surprised when Lily hugged him when they saw each other for the third class of the day. 

“I can’t believe her!” Lily told him when she unwrapped her arms from him. 

“Don’t tell anymore but sometimes I get homesick. I’m in tears in the tub.” She admits to him. 

“You know how I feel about bullies.” Remus tells her and she nods at him knowing all too well about bullies. She was a victim like him, she was bullied heavily in her first year for being a muggle-born and sometimes even now. 

When lunch began he was walking with Peter who didn’t say much about the incident and Remus was grateful for it. They talked about their class they had last period. As he walks in he sees you sitting with the same younger student. You were smiling and so was the kid. 

The kid had a book open in front of you and Remus smiles at your choice of writing utensil. You were using a pen instead of a quill and you were writing down on a regular notebook instead of parchment paper. 

The kid kept talking while you nodded and wrote frantically. 

Everything seems to be going well, Shelley had decided to eat with her friend, Penelope at the other table. James and Sirius came soon into the hall talking enthusiastically about quidditch. 

“Guys! Guys!” Remus flinched when a group of Hufflepuff students came beside him and stared ahead at the Slytherin table. 

Remus looks ahead as well to see what all the fuss is about. Lance, from house Ravenclaw is in his last year and everyone knows him for being a bully. He was pure-blooded so he thought everyone who wasn’t was beneath him. He usually picks on the muggle born and the half bloods from any house. Of course no one interfered because they didn’t want to get bullied as well. Lance’s blue eyes widen as he walks into the great hall and makes his way to the kid sitting across from you. 

“He’s such a twat for always picking on Ruben.” The Hufflepuff next to him tells the group. 

“Ruben is the kid?” Sirius asks and they all nod as Lance gets behind Ruben and pulls on his hair making him yelp. Remus has never seen someone's eyes grow hard so quickly. The smile you had on disappeared. The hall grows quiet when you stand up from your seat. 

“Get the fuck away from him.” It was not usual for Lance to have someone stand up to him. He was caught by surprise from your words. 

“What did you say?” Lance said with a disbelief chuckle. 

“Get. The. Fuck. Away. From. Him.” The great hall is quiet and Remus noticed a few teachers had risen up from their seats when they noticed what was going on. 

“What’s going on here?” McGonagall had walked towards the table and stared at Lance then at you. 

“Nothing, Professor McGonagall. Just having a chat with my friend Ruben.” Lance said, taking a step back while still staring at you. 

Ruben was almost in tears by the whole thing. Professor McGonagall walks Lance back to his table. 

“She just placed a death mark on herself.” One of the Hufflepuff near Remus said, shaking his head. Lance was staring daggers at you and you kept your eyes on him showing no fear, just hate. You didn’t take your eyes away from him until he sat down and spoke with his friends. 

“You might just win your bet. She got balls.” James says, turning back around to Sirius who turned as well to continue on with his meal. 

“What bet?” Lily asked the boys and they got quiet real fast. James being whipped for Lily ratted them out and she shook her head, telling Sirius how horrible that is. 

“I betted that she won't sleep with anyone, Lily!” The redhead girl shook her head as Marlene copied her. Remus kept silent as he glanced over the table and saw you grabbing Ruben’s bag. You and the kid started to walk out of the great hall after collecting your things.  

He was surprised when he saw you walking inside the classroom. You were a few minutes late for charms class. The professor grabbed the slip from your hands and pointed at an empty seat in the back. Remus almost drops the quill in his hand as you pass him to sit on his row. Remus usually stayed in the back because he was tall. A Hufflepuff girl, Nancy sat in the middle between you and him.

In the corner of his eyes he noticed you had taken out the same book as before and a pen. 

The Charm professor called out your name as he walked towards you. The student laughed when he told you that there is no pen and notebooks allowed only quill and parchment paper. 

“I’m sorry. Mr. Robinson. I‘m still learning how to use the feather thing.” You told him, looking up at him. 

“First, it’s called a quill and you're a witch now so you better start learning fast how to use it. Second of all, it’s Professor Robinson. Things are different here, Miss.” 

“Yes, Professor Robinson.” Remus looks away by the tone of your voice. You sounded so defeated. Professor Robinson walks away and continues with his lesson. Nancy leans over to you when you grab the quill from your bag and the ink. 

“Hold it like this.” She whispered to you showing you how to handle your quill properly. 

Remus goes back to write his notes, he hoped you realize not everyone in this school were mean. There were some students who were kind. Throughout the class, his eyes would glance over Nancy to you. 

After class Remus walks to the Gryffindor common room. Making it inside, he heard chattering and looked over to see Lily and Mary Macdonald. 

“Hey, Remus!” Lily said, waving him to come over towards them. They were sitting on the couch by the fireplace. Remus sits on the other side as Mary hands him a box of chocolates they were eating. His eyes widened and they giggled at his expression. 

Lily chuckles when Remus is wiggling his fingers trying to decide which one to take. James and Sirius came with their Quidditch uniforms on. Lily frowned when she saw them walking towards them. 

“I thought you guys had practice?” Lily asked and Remus looked over at them with a frown when they didn’t say anything. The guys just looked at each other for a brief moment. 

“Oh fuck, Sirius have nothing to say. It must be bad.” Mary said, trying to lighten up the mood but James and Sirius didn’t say anything. They sat on the couch across from them instead. 

“They canceled practice.” James said and Lily glanced over at Remus. It had to be more, James would be in tears if practice was canceled. He took quidditch very seriously. 

“Why?” Remus asked, grabbing another chocolate from the box. Sirius takes a deep breath. 

“The word is going around that the new girl is muggle born.” 

‘Shit.’ Remus says to himself. He was right. 

“She didn't know what it meant, they asked her about her parents and she told them they weren’t wizards. Those snakes dragged her by the feet to the quidditch field and slimed her while chanting mud blood.” Sirius said. Lily and Mary dropped their mouths open in shock. Sirius and James glance at each other. They were famous for their pranks. Being slimed in the field was a good idea but they didn’t like how you began to cry and how confused you looked about the whole thing.

“Never seen Professor McGonagall look so mad before. She started yelling.” James said, leaning back on the couch crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Did you see the new girl?” Lily asked and James nodded. “Yeah, the other professors had to help her off the field.” 

“Blimey.” Remus mumbled as the door of the common room burst open and Shelly walked in laughing with a group of students. Remus rolls his eyes when he hears your name being whispered. This year was going to be rough, he tells himself while popping the piece of chocolate in his mouth.

[drdemonprince]

People treat American politics like sports -- and it serves very much the same function as sports. It is a source of constant new content that can be easily analyzed, repackaged, and commented upon by the media class for a profit, distracting the public and manipulating their emotions, often by amplifying fleeting, moment-by-moment shifts that won't actually be consequential.

It also defines the boundaries of American life -- what American culture supposedly is, and what it means to belong to it or to participate meaningfully in it. If you pay too much attention to it, you get to believing that all that matters is who is holding the ball, and you stop forgetting that it's all a game, and that we could all collectively change the rules at any time we wanted.

It's endlessly frustrating to me to see even the people who realize that it's theater get swept up in its ongoing mini-dramas, and take part in endlessly churning content out about it themselves. If you already recognize that the leadership of both parties represent the interests of the ruling class equally, and equally represent police militarization, the national surveillance apparatus, corporate interests, global exploitation, colonialism, and genocide worldwide (and are the source of your own economic and legal oppression, if you're a person living in the country) why would you find a debate between candidates fascinating? Why would you be rooting for one representative of the ruling class to score a dunk on the other on a stage?

I can't think of a worse use of one's time. If you know who your enemies really are, you don't start rooting for one of them simply because you like their plotline better. And if you actually recognize a solidarity between yourself and the people who are constantly having resources extracted from their lands by American companies and who are being killed in Gaza by American-made bombs, then you wouldn't be hoping for the continued existence and prosperity of an America that occasionally does one or two nice things for you to keep you quiet.

If you think that it's the American government that "gives" you the right to get an abortion or to be gay or transgender, then you're always going to be easy to manipulate into compliance. In reality, it is the state that has the power to take your freedom AWAY -- and it does so constantly, with its police-patrolled protest zones, restrictions on healthcare access, prisons, and taxes for bombs.

But if you recognize that no state should have the ability to define how you get to live and who you get to be in the first place, then you'll forever be suspicious of all the little pacifying treats and fleeting distractions that it offers you. You won't feel relieved that at least the person extracting money from your wallet to build Reaper Drones is a woman, this time. And you won't thank her for giving you the abortion pills that are prepared and distributed by workers who live all around you, and who will continue to know how to do that vital work long after the empire is gone.