#Like the people claiming he's alt. right are also frustrating because nothing has yet to spell that out | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dragons-socks · 4 years ago

Text

Baby Bumblebee chptr 4

////////Six Months Later\\\\\\\\\

Bee was walking home from school. Lennox and Ironhide were hunting down Decepticons in Europe, so he didn’t really have a ride today, which was fine. He didn’t mind not going back to the house when Lennox or Ironhide wasn’t there. It’s not that Bee didn’t like Sarah or Annabell, but they just didn’t really get each other. Annabell tried to poke at every nerve Bumblebee had, just testing his patience. And Sarah either babied him too much or acted as if he should already know how to do some complex human thing.

And then there was school. Apparently, Sarah was right about his name. Though Bee still didn’t understand how a girl in his class can be named ‘jasmine’ after a flower, but to be called after the insect that lets that flower grow and flourish… that’s taking it too weird? Not to mention no one in the institute knows morse code, and only a few, including his teacher know sign language. The school said they’d set him up with an interpreter. That has yet to be seen.

“Oh, hey, you’re Honey Bee, right?” Bumblebee jumped as a boy his physical age tapped him on the shoulder. Bee pulled out a small keyring of flash card that said common phrases to help him interact with people who couldn’t understand his other forms of communications. He tapped on the one with his actual name on it. “Oh, well I’m Raven.”

Bee made a saluting gesture; instead of his hand being horizontal and pushed in front of him, his palm was vertical and facing out while his hand moved away to the side of his temple. Then, Bee finger-spelt the boy’s name. Raven looked at his hands with wide eyes.

“Woah, you really can’t speak, can you?” Raven asked. Bee let out angry trills, glaring at the boy. He started to walk faster, getting away from the human. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that!”

Bee chittered, turning around and raising an eyebrow. You have one chance.

“I just didn’t want to believe Harvey. He’s always making up things about other people. My mom says he’s a bully.” Raven rambled. Bee nodded in agreement. Harvey was a larger kid in his class who kept trying to pick fights and make fun of Bumblebee. Bee would hand the kid’s ass to him, but he was still an Autobots and harming humans was still a big ‘no’ in his books. “We should be friends. I see you like Voltron. My favorite is the red lion, but the yellow one is alright too.”

Bumblebee shrugged, not knowing what this ‘Voltron’ was, but decided not to try to confuse the other with too complex interactions. This is the most pleasant conversation he’s had since being forced to partake in the human learning institution.

Soon Raven had to split off to go to his own home, but made Bee promise to meet up tomorrow to walk to school. Bee felt lighter for some reason, almost like he wasn’t so alone. Annabell picked up on his good mood as soon as he entered the house. A toy sailed through the air and whacked him in the forehead.

“Hey, Bee.” She smiled.

“Annabell, stop throwing toys. Go sit in the corner.” Sarah gawked. This turned into a ten minute scream-cry feast in which Annabell was forced to spend time in the corner for longer than her original sentence. Bumblebee was already set up at the table by this point, pulling out his homework. “How was school, Bee?” The woman said as she signed the words.

‘Good, I meet a new friend. His name is Raven.’ Bee signed, his feet kicking in the open air under the table.

“Oh, that’s nice, what did you guys talk about?” Sarah leaned over the counter, ruffling Bee’s hair. He huffed and waved her hand away.

‘He kept talking about some lion-show called Voltage or something? Said I liked it too, but I don’t know why he would think that.’

“You mean Voltron? Your bookbag is designed to look like one of the characters on the show. He probably thought you got the bag because you liked the show, not because it was yellow and black.” She explained, lifting up the bag in question. On the back in vinyl letters did read ‘Voltron’. “We could watch it. So you know what your friend is talking about.”

Bee shrugged at this. He’s tried to watch human entertainment, but nothing really caught his interest. Well, he’s only really seen whatever the Witwicky’s watched, and that was just through their living room window as he was parked in their driveway. Recently, Annabell has been making him watch her shows, which were all about learning numbers, colors, and being nice. At least she has her numbers and colors down.

“Yeah, it can be our thing, when you’re done with your homework we can watch a few episodes.” Sarah nodded to herself.

Annabell was returned from her sentencing. She shuffled up to Bumblebee, holding out the wooden block that she had thrown at him earlier.

“M’sorry, Bee.” She toed at the ground and gave him large puppy dog eyes. Bee huffed and took the block from her. He’s learned pretty fast to accept her peace offerings or have her throw another tantrum.

‘Yeah, I’m sure you are.’ Bee signed back. Annabell jumped around to her mom.

“Mom, what did he say?” Sarah shook her head at the young autobot. “He said, ‘apology accepted’.”

It didn’t take long to finish the easy equations or sentence structures his teachers assigned for his class. As soon as he put his work back into his bag, Sarah ushered him onto the couch and turned on their television.

“Get comfortable, sweetie, the first episode is the longest.” Bee wrapped himself in the yellow blanket that he’s since claimed as his own. As the episode went on, Bee found himself drawing parallels of his own life and the autobots to those of these characters. He was so immersed into this stupid cartoon that he didn’t even notice that Lennox had arrived and sat down next to his wife. Not until the episode was paused.

‘HEY!’ Bumblebee turned to Sarah, jumping a little when Lennox was also there.

“Hey to you too, kid.” Lennox said, his voice thick and his face contorted into worry. Bumblebee sat up.

‘Is Ironhide okay?’ Bee signed, trying to twist out of his cocoon to get a better look outside for the mech.

“He’s fine, Bee. But I do have some bad news. The Decepticons found the base. The Autobots had to be relocated and for your safety, we might not be getting their new location.”

‘But what about Ironhide? He still needs Energon to function. How will I find them once we’ve figured out how to change me back?’ Bee asked.

“They don’t think there’s a cure for you, Bee. Optimus thought it best to cut ties. Don’t worry about Ironhide. We’re still going to get shipments of Energon for him.” Lennox pulled Bee into his chest. Bee didn’t have room to sign his frustrations, but he also didn’t have energy to fight off his prison of warm arms. Instead he let Lennox’s voice swirl around his own thoughts that wanted to drown him.

_______________

Bee slipped out of the house. The moon, street lamps, and his blinking shoe steps were his only light to navigate out of the neighborhood and try to find his way back to Optimus. The mech might not want him, but that was where he belonged, and he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

It wasn’t the first time that he realized that walking was much more time consuming than driving. This was just another time that the notion ingrained itself into his head. This was the first time Bumblebee found himself walking for a long time after sunset. It seemed to take longer in the dark. It took so much longer to reach the school than it usually does.

Maybe it wasn’t the darkness of night that had Bumblebee shuffling his feet. Maybe it was the thought of seeing Optimus and the others after a month of not seeing them. Maybe it was the knowledge that this was in direct opposition of Optimus’s orders. This is the most rebellious he’s been in a long time. Bumblebee finds his feet stopping. He looks around and realizes he’s walked himself all the way just a house past Sam’s. The chill has already settled into his skin, but he’s just noticed his minutely shivers. His teeth are chattering, and he feels tired seeping into the very marrow of his human bones. His feet and legs ache. It must have been half the night gone by now.

A rumbling sound brings the rest of the world back into focus. Cars race towards him, screeching to a halt and boxing him in. At first he thinks its normal bad humans, until he recognizes the cars and notices the Decepticons’ insignias.

“I don’t get it.” Starscream’s voice is audible from his vehicular mode. “There is but a human child where the signal emits. No energon, no Autobots. Nothing.”

Bumblebee’s heart spikes. He backs away from Megatron’s right-hand. The other ‘Cons have switched back to their natural state. They leer down at Bumblebee. One even tries to grab at him. He rolls to the side, and books it for a crack in their formation. Breakdown snagged Bee’s leg, scooping him upside-down, before he could make it. Bee kept hissing and sputtering at the Cons, but they weren’t intimidated.

“It appears, Starscream, that the boy is the origin of the signal. Maybe Knockout’s weapon wasn’t as defective as we had first thought. This human child does have a striking resemblance to their mute scout.” Breakdown muses.

Bee lets out sharp whistles, hoping the sleeping humans around them will awaken, but its almost no use. His vision starts to blur as the Cons start moving away. He doesn’t know what to do. He starts pushing against the metal fist around his leg, but with each shove the only result is his palms getting hotter.

Bumblebee can feel in his gut that Breakdown is about to shift. He can hear the t-cog clicking its gears in the split second preparation of turning into the alt mode. Bee panics, pulling his arm as far back as he could and smacking hard onto Breakdown’s grip. Instead of being halted by the warm living metal, his hand pushed in with no resistance. A shot of blue energy cut a path from his hand to the open sky. Breakdown drops Bee on the ground in surprise. Bee is able to twist himself to land on his back rather than just his head. He ignores the searing pain of smacking into the asphalt and scrambles away from his capture. The other Cons make a quick double-back, but not before Bee is on his feet. His palms and fingers tingle from the heat, but are unharmed from the powerful blast-ray. Cons surround him. He pulls his arm back and lets out another blast, sweeping his arm in an arc and taking out a line of the enemies, and also some of the residential appliances.

“Bee?” It’s Sam’s voice as he scampers out of his house in a shirt and boxers. “Where’s Lennox? Why are you here?” Bee doesn’t answer. He can’t answer. He sidesteps a blast from the Cons. Its not enough, Bee is grabbed again. His arms are pinned to his side in Starscream’s hand.

“I’ve got him, retreat.” Starscream proclaimed, ignoring Bee’s chitters and Sam’s shouts. A ground bridge was opened a few feet away. Starscream watched his men walk into the portal before turning to Sam with a viscous grin. “Till the next time, Witwick-”

Bee was once again hitting the ground. His back is singing and his ears are ringing from the gunshot. His vision is blurry, but he can still make out Mikaela cocking back a rifle as Sam ran to him. Sam carefully moved Bee away from the Decepticon, who was clutching his shot-up hand. There was a moment where it looked like Starscream was going to exact revenge. Luckily the portal behind him started to close and if he wanted a ride back home he couldn’t fight the humans. Everyone sighed with relief until they looked down at Bee.

The worried shouts of his friends were cut short as Bee’s small body finally gave it quits and fell asleep.

#bumblebee #transformers #human bumblebee #william lennox

12 notes · View notes

beatricebidelaire · 6 years ago

Text

(sitting on the) edge of innocence

summary: Kit, Bertrand, and a talk in the Hinterlands about the upcoming opera night mission.

featuring: Bertrand, Kit. brief cameos of Olaf and Dewey.

word count: ~2.2k

alt: ao3

“Hey,” Olaf said as he walked into the kitchen, “you seen Kit?”

Bertrand felt himself tense slightly at the sight of O, but didn’t show it. He continued pouring the boiled water from the pot into his cup carefully, his grip tightening around the handle. The water in the cup eventually rose to the stage where he couldn’t add anymore without spilling it over when he walked, and he reluctantly put it down. He knew Kit was out for a drive, but he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to tell Olaf that.

On the other hand, it wasn’t like the answer would get Olaf anywhere closer to finding Kit, with vagueness of “out for a drive” and Kit’s driving abilities and how she had no qualms of going on a road she’d never travelled before, literally not figuratively anyway. It wasn’t like Bertrand had never lied to Olaf before, and he’d no problem doing it again if he needed, but he did try to avoid doing so when he could. As if he had some pre-allocated quota of lies he was allowed to tell him or something. There wasn’t, of course, but he tried to stick to this principle if possible.

He was also currently keeping something else, something very important from O too, but he wouldn’t count that as lying. Those were two different things. Besides, they were never that close anyway, it wasn’t as if he normally told Olaf stuff. If anyone’s Olaf’s friend that would be -- he stopped his train of thoughts and focused on the current situation. “She went out on a drive.” He said.

“Again?” Olaf rolled his eyes, huffing as he ruffled through the fridge, then found a sandwich. He began eating it as he walked out, “I’m starting to think she’s avoiding me.”

Bertrand was glad Olaf’s already one foot out of the kitchen and not looking back, because this meant he didn’t have to think of a reply to this.

He sighed, then took a sip of the tea.

Kit had good reason to avoid Olaf, of course. Getting an assignment from your organization to be part of the mission to murder your boyfriend’s parents wasn’t something that happened everyday. But if Olaf was suspicious of something going on …

He needed to talk to Kit, even though this wasn’t a conversation he was looking forward to at all.

Bertrand decided that since he wouldn’t be able to find Kit immediately now anyway, he might as well do something else for now. He slipped into a tunnel from down under the city headquarters, and headed for Hotel Denouement. Or, more precisely, the hidden underwater library.

Dewey lit up when he saw Bertrand, grinning. “Hey,” he waved enthusiastically, “I want to show you this poem I found.”

Bertrand found himself relax, the thoughts about the mission and the impending talk with Kit going away. Not entirely, as they were still on the back of his mind somewhere. But it was easier to ignore them here, surrounded by books that formed some kind of fortress against realities. In here, there were just piles and piles of books, poetry, and Dewey. No opera house maps with escape routes drawn, no trying to get poison darts supplies without arousing suspicions.

Unfortunately, these brief moments of peace always came to an end too soon. Dewey looked at him hopefully when he said “visit again soon”, and Bertrand meant it when he said he would try, but somehow he still felt suddenly guilty for some reason.

Kit stepped on the brakes with possibly much more force than necessary and the taxi came to a sudden stop. For a moment, it looked like she was going to hit her head. It didn’t happen, though it was very close. She drew a deep breath, and slowly loosened her tightened hold on the wheel. She tried to smile a little, or perhaps a flippant grin or something, so when Bertrand step into the taxi, she could make it seem like she was just braking like this for fun, like she usually did, instead of because of anger and frustration. It was hard trying remembering how to smile though. She managed to pulled the edge of her lips up slightly, but it felt more menacing than fun.

On second thought, whatever, it was Bertrand. She didn’t necessarily have to pretend in front of him, perhaps. Not like she had to with either --

The door opened, and Bertrand stepped in. However menacing or odd her unnatural grin might be, apparently he didn’t have much reaction to it. “Kit, we need to talk,” he said, straight to the point.

“I gathered,” she said coolly, finally figure out a way to smoothly ease out that weird grin. “Want to go anywhere specific?”

A part of her wished he would yes, then she could tell him “well, if you’re lucky, it might be the same as the place I had in mind” and then drove to the Hinterlands so she wouldn’t have to see Olaf for a while.

“There is a specific place I wish I’m at, but that’s not where I think this conversation could be held, so … your choice.”

She narrowed her eyes briefly at the statement, momentarily forgetting her own personal troubles and anger. “Is it an underwater library you have in mind?”

He looked slightly taken aback. “How did you -- ”

“Dewey isn’t just your friend,” she rolled her eyes. “He mentioned you two have been reading poetry together a lot lately.”

“Yeah, guess we are,” he shrugged, a little uncomfortably. She had the urge to ask if he ever thought he was using Dewey and his library as some kind of safe escape from the real life burdens, or ask him if he could see Dewey’s feelings for him that were just so … there. She ultimately didn’t, because just a look at him made her sure that the first answer definitely was a yes, and the second a no.

“Well,” she changed the subject abruptly, stepping the accelerator hard, “we’re going to the Hinterlands.”

She heard a soft sigh from him, which oddly made her slightly satisfied. The car sped up in an extreme short span of time, and she gripped the wheel tight, her fingers clenching around it as if clenching to the last thing still within her control as everything else spiraled out of order. Fuck Bertrand for having this perfectly organized, neatly ordered library to escape to whenever he wanted without even realizing Dewey’s feelings. Fuck herself for being jealous but refused to escape the same way, because she wanted to prove that she didn’t need the perfectly calm, isolated, and organized comfort zones right there in The City like he did.

If she was going to escape to somewhere, let it be a bleak, cold, snowy place up in the mountains.

She glanced at the intersection briefly, then ran a red light as they left the city behind.

They sat by a cliff, gazing at the snow mountains. She pulled a pencil out of her hair and stuck it into the snow, for no particular reason.

“You’ve been avoiding Olaf,” Bertrand said finally, “he’s probably getting suspicious of something going on.”

“What, you two talk?” she scoffed. Staring at the pencil in the snow instead of looking up at him.

“He talks and I keep an ear open for anything that might threaten the mission,” Bertrand corrected her.

She used one hand to hold the part of pencil that was just above the snow, and the other to bend the upper parts of the pencil forward. The pencil broke, leaving just the bottom half stuck in the snow. She looked up at him, eerily calm as their eyes met. “He might be suspicious in general, but he had no idea of what’s specifically going on.”

“Not yet.”

She laughed sharply, “And it won’t matter anymore at that point, will it? It’s not like he’s not going to find out who’s in on the mission eventually. It’s not like we’re all going to go back to our normal lives pretending nothing happened. It’s not like he and I are still going to be together after this.”

“Fine,” he bit out, looking a little angry. Her lips twisted humorlessly, thinking to herself that she bet Beatrice never saw this side of him. Neither did Dewey, probably. Or Jacques or Lemony. “But it’s still best to make sure he doesn’t think anything’s out of order, or he might start digging around, and if he got some help from others it might interfere with this.”

He sounded like he had a point, but Kit really doubted Olaf would directly jump to these kind of suspicions just by her avoiding him. He might think she was seeing someone else, possibly, but definitely not plotting a murder where his parents were targets.

“Beatrice and him are still hanging out like normal as if nothing’s happening,” he added, and Kit suddenly wanted to break something more substantial than a pencil stuck in snow. God, so this is about Beatrice now, is it? You think you understand her?

You don’t understand her like I do and you never will, she wanted scream.

“You think she’s perfect,” she said slowly. “Everything she does is never wrong. You don’t even understand why she’s keeping up her appearances with Olaf and that’s not just because of the mission. You don’t understand her at all -- you don’t understand her like I do.”

You don’t understand her like I do you can’t see her like I could you don’t see the real her completed with all her flaws and still love her anyway still love her still love her still love her rough sides and sharp edges and her darker sides still love her, she thought, painfully.

“Don’t confuse other people with me,” he snapped, and she wondered if he really meant to say ‘your brother’. “I don’t think she’s perfect and I don’t claim to understand her or know if she has other motives for doing so, I’m just saying she’s not suddenly avoiding him in a way that would make him suspicious -- unlike you.”

A beat of silence. Snow continued falling from the sky.

“Sorry, I’m just, so afraid something’s going to go wrong,” he said, voice dropping to almost a whisper. He looked very pained for a moment before immediately slipping back into his very particular on brand anxiously-trying-to-get-along-with-everyone mode. “I know this isn’t easy for you. I’m sorry.”

She didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to talk about Olaf or how she wanted to avoid him, or how she had agreed at the assignment briefing that yes she would take on the mission, and yes they could trust her, she would be a volunteer first.

He was looking at her, worry in his eyes and all the previous anger gone. She could practically feel him vibrating with anxiousness.

She was suddenly very, very tired.

She decided to talk about Beatrice instead. “Beatrice’s not just pretending nothing’s going on when with him for the mission’s sake. She’s -- they’re friends for ages and she’s going to miss how it was, once everything between them changes. She’s trying to hold on to the final moments.” I know her I see the real her I see everything she doesn’t say.

“I never really get their friendship,” he said quietly after some moments of silence, staring at the white scenery in front of them. “She’s -- I think she’s a great actress and there’s a lot she’s hiding underneath her dramatic performances that dazzle people. But, it’s like an earthquake, you know? Sometimes when the energy doesn’t release for a very long time and just kept accumulating ...”

“Some places never get earthquakes, though,” she pointed out, wrapping her coat around her more firmly.

“True,” he conceded.

They were quiet for a while. Then Kit said, “She won’t break, and she won’t let anything affect the mission, even if she’s trying to hang on to these last moments of friendship between them. She won’t. I know her.” Her fingers dug into the snow beside the pencil. I know her I know her I know her --

“Right, okay,” he said, quietly. “I trust you on this.”

“Trust me on what I said about Olaf, too,” she said. “I can’t handle this the same way Beatrice does because it’s easier to avoid him for me, but I do know him enough to know he’s not going to suspect anything specific until it’s too late that knowing what exactly to interfere wouldn’t change anything.”

“Okay,” he agreed, tearing his gaze away from the scenery and met her eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t trust your decisions.”

He looked as tired as she felt, but she could also see the sincerity in his eyes. She didn’t have the energy to stay angry anymore, not in this cold snowy weather. Plus, it wasn’t actually that easy for anyone to stay angry at him for too long.

“I know you’re just worried,” she said with a sigh. She pulled out the half of the pencil that was stuck in snow, and pocketed both halves. “C’mon. Let’s head back.”

#asoue #bertrand baudelaire #kit snicket #stuff i write #mine #oneshot #brotp: pencil bun and strawberry blond

10 notes · View notes

italicwatches · 6 years ago

Text

My Hero Academia, season 2 - Episode 21

Alright, let’s get this thing going. It’s My Hero Academia, episode 21! Here we GO!

-Opening!

-With the stage finally dry and clean, it’s time for the next match! In THIS corner, it’s the plant girl from Class B, Shiozaki Ibara! And in THAT corner, Kaminari Denki! Will their match last any longer than the others we’ve seen? Only one way to find out!

-Episode 21: Battle on, Challengers!

-Also Ibara doesn’t like the commentary calling her an ‘assassin’ because she’s here for honest and earnest heroism. And Denki is losing his focus because she’s cute. You stupid idiot. He literally asks her out before the match starts, while also assuming he’s gonna win. You stupid idiot, are you sure your brain’s fully kicked back on?

-So he goes full burn on his voltage…But Ibara kicks up a wall of vines to shield herself, before a tendril spears up from the ground and ensnares the stupid idiot! The match is decided in like two seconds.

-So the various heroes are starting to talk it out. He lost major ground in their eyes, while Ibara’s got a real notice with the sheer versatility she showed there, to say nothing of her grace…Also Deku is making notes. Thorough, thorough notes. And he hasn’t replaced the notebook that Katsuki burned, so it looks extra creepy. Especially when he reveals to Ochaco that he’s also been taking notes on them, including her. And I think we have our screen cap. That face.

-Okay, stage repaired, next match! It’s Tenya versus Mei!!! Yes I am incredibly excited for this earnest enthusiasm. …Wait why is Tenya strapping on a pack? Mei offered it to him, it turns out. She wants a cool match and so he’s given an exception to use equipment…As Deku watches and realizes she’s in no way the type to just want a good honest match.

-Yeah, she’s not. She slips on a headset as the match starts, and seems to have hacked the stadium’s PA system, because her voice cuts out our commentators entirely. She’s not interested in a good honest fight…She’s doing an infomercial. How do you like those actuators around your legs? THEY’RE WHISPER QUIET!

-And we also learn Mei’s actual Quirk! Those cool scope eyes of hers actually work, she can Zoom her eyes like scopes and see as much as five kilometers away. That’s legitimately a really cool Quirk. But, yes. Tenya keeps trying to get on her, but Mei just keeps dodging with her hydraulic extensions and keeping the hard sale going. Did I mention how much I like Mei and want a spinoff about her?

-And it just keeps going, as she even sends Tenya tripping right up to the edge of the stage…To show how her auto-balancer’s edge sensors can keep you from falling to your doom even when otherwise incapacitated! He’s starting to get mad, actually…As she takes to the sky with her hyper-enhanced hover boots that use potent electromagnets to allow temporary flight and instant evasion! And now, a classic, the net gun! She wove the nets so they could fit into an easily pocketable cartridge, and the gun can hold five in its magazine! They also self-ensnare, locking around themselves once they hook a villain to become a fully contained capture method! Just shoot and call in the retrieval!

-And who made all of these wonderful items, you might ask? Who showed not only the capacity to make a non-combat Hero battle-ready, but to make a combat-capable Hero better than they ever could on their own? Who do you want for your tech company’s R&D division?! That’s right, her, Hatsume Mei! Your choice is clear!

-It’s not even over. Ten minutes later, she walks off the stage feeling like a million bucks, casually giving the actual win to Tenya since she did everything she had to do. You got all that out of one chest of gear?

-So Tenya’s really not happy about this and if it wasn’t for Ochaco’s amazing face I’d have to use that reaction shot. In fact I’m saving it just in case I change my mind. And Deku realizes how terrifying Mei truly is. She’s ruthless!

-While Ochaco just goes total blank as she steps out….

-Next match! Laser boy, Aoyama Yuga! Versus pink girl, Ashido Mina! That could actually be an interesting match, just because their powers don’t counter each other at all. The match begins…And Yuga immediately shoots a laser, but Mina gets to using her slime to whip her way around, skating on it at high speed! And she knows his limits, that his stomach aches if he shoots too many lasers, and she’s gonna make him keep doing it…

-Indeed, soon his stomach gets all wrecked, and when that makes him hesitate, she slams a thick glob of slime right home that ruins the lens on his belt! It also ruins its ability to keep his pants up, and she delivers a single vicious uppercut that puts him right on the ground! The match is decided, and she is very hype.

-And Deku keeps making notes. Mina’s Quirk is potent and multi-faceted, but the thing that really shifted the game was her sheer physical skill and fitness…

-Next match! Fumikage versus Momo! People are starting to ask Deku what his take on the match is…And he thinks this one’s all down to time. Then it’s into Momo’s head, as she starts putting together a battle plan…And it has to be put into play almost immediately, as Fumikage puts her on the backstep in a flash with Dark Shadow’s strikes!

-But then, the attacks come to a stop…? She has a chan—

-Her foot got pushed over the line. She lost, simple as that, before she had a chance to engage her plans. The weight of it hits her like a freight train. It’s a depression and frustration that many of them know all too well…

-Okay, it’s Kirishima Eijiro the rock boy versus Tetsu*4 the iron boy. Will stone or iron rein supreme?!

-We’re not gonna find out yet. Tenya gets into the waiting room after his…let’s call it a match, and finds Ochaco is…How to put this…Well she’s very intense and freaking out a little. Her nerves have gotten to her.

-Which is when Deku finds them! As soon as he realized she wasn’t there, he came looking…And of course, her match is coming up fast…And he knows one thing all too well. Katsuki’s not going to hold back. He’s not going to slow down. He’s not going to go easy on you. But Deku wants to help. He’s got his notes. Everything he learned from watching Katsuki for over a decade, and the rough sketch of a plan to overcome the guy…

-But, no. Ochaco needs to do this herself. She’s let herself be too reliant on Deku, on her friends…For her own dreams, there’s only one way to do this. To claim her victory with her own two hands…So, thank you for everything. And may they meet in the finals!

-Back at the stage, it turns out to be a draw after a raw, bare-knuckle brawl. In such a case, they’ll be left to recover and have their match decided with a simple direct contest of capability. Of course, even being redundant, a lot of the more straightforward heroes are liking both of these guys. Fierce, strong, passionate, you can always use guys like that in the field…

-And now it’s time to get hype, because it’s Katsuki versus Ochaco! This is gonna be serious…And vicious. And rough. Especially with Katsuki having had one hell of a shitty day…And a target in front of him to take out all that frustration on. Eighth match, START!

-Credits!

So obviously this is gonna be a big one. Hell, I heard about this match while the season was going. I know it’s gonna be a Big Deal.

But so far, a lot of these matches have been really interesting. It’s always cool to see different people figure out creative and clever ways to use their Quirks. And of course, Mei’s entire display was, just, amazing. So amazing. Anyways come back to see Ochaco’s big match next time, in episode TWENTY TWO of My Hero Academia! Wait for it!

#where I watch #recap #anime #my hero academia #boku no hero academia

1 note · View note

kierongillen · 7 years ago

Text

Writer Notes: The Wicked + the Divine 30

Spoilers, obv.

And another quieter issue, where we primarily delineate the other other half of the issues of 28's reveals, while putting those final few dominoes in position. It's also, art wise, a relatively undemanding one. The rest of this arc is brutally hard, so an issue where the team could take a breath is also worthwhile. A comic series like WicDiv is a marathon made of marathons. You make it all uphill at your own peril.

It's also one of the more classically structured issues for a while. The issue's effective lead is Dio, and his 3-encounters-in-the-underworld structure the backbone which everything else is built around.

I suspect notes on this one will be short, by the way, but whenever I say that, I'm always wrong.

Jamie/Matt's cover:

That this isn't the best cover in the arc only speaks to exactly how great issue 32 is. Some startling design elements here.

Meredith's Cover:

She's always been great, but seeing her cover for East Of West was the thing which prompted us to go and try and talk her into one. It was a pleasure to work with her – all her design ideas were smart and interesting. We ended up here, because frankly, who can resist hot pink? Not us.

Jonathan Hickman's Cover

Talking about East of West. I've always been envious of Jonathan's designer string to his creative bow, so when we were asked if we wanted to be part of the month of his variants, we jumped at it, if only to see how he'd reinterpret our mythology. This is very much the cult-sci-fi novel alt dimension take on WicDiv.

Page 1-3

I'm always interested in the history of the second page reveal. Old school comic writer guides normally suggest opening with the big image, to throw people in the world. That – and, I feel, especially in the 00s – got changed into the delayed reveal. Enter the world in a quieter way, and then do the big reveal. That means you can create some context quickly, and use that big impact for something a little more complicated.

(It also means if you go to a 2-3 page splash, you can make the image bigger. If I remember correctly, almost all the New 52 books hand that rhythm, which I have to presume was an editorial guideline. I may be misremembering though.)

It's worth noting I say “a little more complicated.” I don't say “sophisticated” or even talk about effectiveness – complicated says nothing about a piece of work's quality. I just mean there's more moving parts involved before the reveal. Look at someone like BKV and his love of the opening splash to see how effective the HELLO, HERE I AM, LOOK AT THIS THING! Can be.

In our case, we have this little conversation between Woden and Cass, and then show what we've done to Valhalla. We've been talking about the plans for this gig for a long time, so we really needed to show what that means. Clearly, the gig is going to be key to the back half of Imperial Phase II, so we really let people have a good stare.

The best thing Jamie did here was make sure there's a stage built into Valhalla, as he correctly guessed they'd be one required for next issue. SMART MAN, THAT MCKELVIE.

This is the sort of page which is primarily expositionary, but by having the characters get together and basically scheme it out hopefully carries it. As you can imagine, there's going to be a statement of exact goals next issue in a similar mode.

(Why not say them here? Efficiency. Don't need to know it yet, and we'd have to repeat it next issue anyway. Why burn the page count twice?)

Cass speaks my own frustration at how people use facebook, I suspect.

The idealist/realist exchange on the first page is a good example of what happens when you have the broad strokes of what's going on, and then let the characters respond to each other. Woden has the Valkyries back? How does he act now? How does Cass respond? Where does that take us?

Page 4

I wrote this with no interstitials, and decided to add them later, when we saw how the issue was working. I looked at the page turns, and decided pushing everything forward one page would be most effective. Plus that the black of the interstitials does lead us into the underworld.

Page 5-6

And we show Dio where we left him last time. There was even the option to use the same panel if Jamie wanted to cut a corner. He didn't.

The page sets up the rhythm that runs through the issue, which happens three times. This is pure fairy-tale, folklore myth structure. It's also joke structure, in the rule of three way. First statement shows a situation. Second statement shows it is a pattern. Third statement subverts the pattern. It's just a very efficient way of doing basically everything... and that natural rhythm being used everywhere means that it always feels part of some longer, primordial sort of storytelling. I think the six panel is leaning into that – I only want five beats. Establish/show Dio's current state/arrival of Morrigan/Dio's response to Morrigan/Morrigan's final statement. Throw away everything which isn't needed for the folk tale.

(The final “Yeah, you won't” leans into the folklore. Dio signals that this is not just stubbornness, but a plan.)

Have I mentioned the Underworld being the inverse of Young Avenger's mother dimension? I probably have. It serves a similar purpose in terms of a direct thing which allows us to strong arm an atmosphere while also being relatively “cheap” to do in terms of Matt and Jamie's resources. I've done 32 of these. I'm sure I'm repeating myself all over the place. These really off the cuff.

Despite knowing everything I knew about the Morrigan at the start, I found it hard to articulate the key difference between her and Dio succinctly. Eventually, it hit me. Dio wants what's best for people. Morrigan thinks she knows what's best for people. Morrigan will sacrifice a lot, as long as they obey her entirely. When I had that in my head, Morrigan became easier. Easier, anyway. She's never easy.

7-8

Another two page scene – the issue very much runs off those short scenes. The hard cut rhythm is a key part of Imperial Phase II, I think.

I wrote the bottom of Page 7 with three panels, in a “Write minimum numbers of panel.” Jamie adds one to really sell it. He actually does a similar thing next issue as well, which proves he must like eight panel grids more than he claims.

The trick of this scene is signalling to the reader that Woden has done fuck all to any of the equipment. A reader would remember that Woden has a camera on Amaterasu from way back in issue 14, but this confirms it's more general than that.

(There's clues elsewhere – his timing when he turned up in issue 12 was more than a little suspicious, right?)

Of course, lying and sarcasm is one of the hardest things to pull off in comics. Comics, for some reason, lends into credulity in the reader. I'm not sure why, though have my theories. In which case, we really push it – look at all the “Er” and the bolded ADDED in the first panel of page 7.

Oh god. Page 8 had me really fuck up in lettering. I originally wrote Cass being snarky here, and glaring at Beth... having failed to remember Cass wasn't in this scene. Beth basically just teleports Cass to where she is. My brain, it no good.

Page 9-10

I basically said everything in the first iteration, right

Hmm. Badb is oddly unsweary here.

Jamie's working the shadows fascinatingly here – the last panel of Dio is also one of the best.

Page 11-12

This is the one sacrifice to the earlier interstitial – that the instagram pages don't appear on a spread. The loss is solely a visual effect.

These are the “two pages I comic but half a page of work for Jamie”. Clearly, Persephone is absent this issue, and we needed to keep her absence a presence, if you see what I mean. Plus the instagram is a way to do the montage-of-time and events. Its placement here is a lot to do with selling how long that Dio has been down this hole.

I actually wrote considerably more comments for each instagram, but there wasn't room to include them in the framing. It's okay. Don't read the comments.

When wrote Amaterasu's Instagram text and then put my fist in my own mouth out of embarrassment. My next career move may be bullshit internet motivational sentences.

Page 13-14

Third iteration.

As I've said, WicDiv is that conflict between this over-planned structural thing and also the discovery you undergo as a writer when exploring these people. Throughout, I couldn't quite work out why I never had a place for Gentle Annie in the story. I actually like writing her – it has the added bonus of her voice really annoying Chrissy, and I'm very pro annoying my editor. But no – Annie's just not around much.

Clearly, thinking about that leads to this scene, where it's the part of Marian that isn't really getting much play any more. It's probably my favourite Annie scene, which is lucky, I guess, considering where the issue goes. The mixture of twee and utterly scary motherfucker was always the line I wanted to walk with her.

Page 15-16

As much as this scene flirts with total disaster, in this ominous fucker of an issue, it's a relative moment of light. Also a chance for Matt to really push the palette. I will never get bored of his Baal lightning.

The Sakhmet cosplay is delightful.

The reds of Amaterasu's lightbeam form, and the blue of Minerva's chair is another great choice.

There was an editorial discussion over whether Amaterasu appearing in the final panel was too much or exactly the amount of too much. We clearly went that way. This is a playful scene.

Page 17-19

Yeah, this isn't. I'm kind of amazed this is only 3 pages. This issue is tightly wound – there's no scene longer than 3 pages, and the majority is 2 pages – but this feels especially so. It's telling that it's here we move to the eight-panel, that most Phonogram of structures.

(A modified eight panel)

I originally had a different idea for the flashback, bringing Leila back to essentially insert scenes into issue 16, but the space wasn't really there, and felt like formalism would be distracting around here. This is complicated stuff, so let's keep it clean. Notice how Jamie changes the panel shapes to separate the sub-narrative from the main narrative – obviously the blue-greys of Matt do most of the work, but it can't be underestimated.

Let's call out some panels – Baph in the seventh panel of 17, hiding behind the shades and the wise-crack. The fifth panel of 18, which in its blissed certainty, the possible single scariest panel of Morrigan in WicDiv. Oh – and Dio's heartbreaking on the third panel of page 19.

Anyway – boys, sitting in the dark, and trying to talk.

Page 20-23

The second interstitial I added, and a little annoying. I thought I had to add 2 to maintain the final page, and in fact I only needed to add one. As in, my first draft didn't end on a left, and I needed to correct that. I suspect I'll drop this interstitial for the trade, and regain the page turn.

In the end, the reveal that Sakhmet is waiting for a chance to strike at Morrigan isn't a huge reveal – it's a telling one, but not one which breaks the scene in a huge way. And of course, people on digital have all movement between pages be page turns.

I didn't actually have any dialogue in the second panel on 21 at script, which is very much me in a “I have no idea why I would do that – that panel clearly needs a sign that Persephone is rushing to the door or something similar.”

“Beware the Honest – they will hurt you just to feel clean” is one of those lines that has been lying around in my notebook since the start of WicDiv waiting for their scene.

The warm browns of the room and Morrigan's cold blues seem really interesting to me here. Strong choices, Matt.

The final page was also an awkward one – I knew the images, but the actual exact nature of the dialogue refused to be wrestled down precisely until the last lettering pass, where it coalesced.

We do kissing, and it's depressing kissing. WicDiv takes the fun out of everything.

Anyway – next issue is at the printers now and will be with you soon.

Thanks for reading.

#WicDiv #writer notes #the wicked and the divine

104 notes · View notes

pennswoodsman · 7 years ago

Text

The summer of hate

Well, I have now been on this earth for 42 years. 41 was perhaps my worst year. It all started shortly after my birthday where I started to get crippling anxiety attacks…to a point where I had to stay home on disability for a week. I always had anxiety, but never like that. I was waking up in the morning with a rapid heartbeat, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and major anxiety. I usually couldn’t even pinpoint what caused it. I would go to work for a few hours, suddenly I would feel short of breath. My heart rate would go up and I would start to feel like I had a fog in my brain. Almost light headed. It was happening more and more frequently. My doctor suspected it was a new diabetes medicine I was on…as this had never happened to be before and I had been on the meds for a few months. Now, the anxiety symptoms did start before I took the meds, as I had a panic attack in 2015 at work…but they were starting to occur at least 4 times a week. Sometimes more than once a day. I was terribly uncomfortable in my own skin. I started to take meds to calm me down. Which worked…but then the insomnia started. I had gone through bouts of insomnia pretty much my whole life…but this was the worst. I would go for days without sleeping at all…then fall asleep at 730 pm and wake up the next morning feeling a little better. But, would have insomnia the next night…and it would start all over. I started to see a shrink right around the time of the election. One of my big fears was Donald Trump getting elected president. I had a lot of issues with fear of an alt right wing government gone mad. Another problem I had was a lot of unresolved anger toward my late mother and other people in my past. My shrink was a good man. We were both ardent Bernie Sanders supporters and he had a lot insight about my insomnia, and fears and exercises I could take to lesson my fear. One thing I told him that I knew wish I could have worked on was that I was secure in my marriage. So, that was something that we never worked on. My panic attacks began to lesson after I stopped taking that diabetes medicine (which was a shame it caused those panic attacks, as it really lowered my BSL to a healthy level) and he eventually left the practice to work with under privileged children. I stopped seeing a shrink because I felt like I didn’t really want to see another shrink and my panic attacks were far less frequent. That was in February or March. I had no idea of the bombshell that was about to tear my life apart 2 months later. Now, I don’t claim that was a great husband. I have plenty of flaws. I watched way to much TV. I would come home from work/gym, eat, turn on a Phillies game and mindlessly look at my phone. If Alba tried to talk to me, I was usually only half paying attention and would get defensive when she would call me out on it. I had a bad habit of pressuring her for sex at night too…especially when she was drinking wine (which was starting to become more and more frequent). I have anger issues. I get frustrated easily. I have issues with getting inpatient with the boys. Skip ahead to the evening of May 25th. I had been giving my wife back rubs for a few days. I was trying to get in the habit of giving her massages due to her stress levels. I gave her one on our bed, then held her hands after I was done. She suddenly asked me if I was happy. I said yes. She said she was not. Suddenly she started to list all my flaws and how she was miserable having to live with them. This was at 11 at night. I was so upset I couldn’t sleep that night. The next morning I thought maybe I would stay home. I wanted to catch up on sleep and talk to Alba about this. I couldn’t take it. She told me to go to work. Saying that “you only wanted to stay home for yourself” making me feel immense guilt that I wanted to talk to her and give myself a day to process it. She claimed she still loved me, but she said it in such a hesitant way I knew it was a lie.

I go to the gym that night after work. I still called her every day on my way. I asked her if she saw us still being married 10 years from now. She said “you will always be a part of my life”. Essentially saying “no” but trying to sugar coat it the best she could. My answer was “of course I’ll always be in your life, I’m the father of your children. What about us?” She hesitated, then just repeated “you’ll always be a part of my life”. For the next few nights I came home and we fought. It was mostly me listening to her yell at me as to what a bad husband I am and her listing all the reasons. I cried and said I was sorry. I made a list of things I could do to improve on one of the first days this was occurring. She glanced at it and said that she didn’t want me to improve for her, only for myself. She angrily said she made me no promises and she didn’t want me to say “I changed for you, and you’re still leaving” when she inevitably left.

After about 4 or 5 days I had enough. I was at the gym thinking about all that had happened over the past 4 or 5 days and I was just fuming. It felt so unfair to me. It felt like I was on trial every time I got home and everything was my fault. I stormed in and began fighting. Alba was shocked and appalled that I dare raise my voice to her. She hid in the bathroom while our sons watched cartoons. I knocked on the door and she was hysterically crying. She asked if I wanted her to move out. I angrily asked where she would go? How exactly did she think this was going to play out? She could just continue to live here the same way we did before…all expenses paid, yet always telling me I was a terrible husband? I started to see a new shrink. About halfway through the first session, I brought up my wife’s…aheam…best friend…who we will call Ringo. Ringo is married to her real best friend’s girlfriend, who we’ll call Scarlet. Ringo is an immigrant from the UK (Liverpool to be exact) and is a self-proclaimed feminist and defender of all women. We all met back at an all hallow’s eve party over at Alba’s real best friend, Janet’s house. They were starting to “chat” all day and all night. She kept telling me that he “helped her with her anxiety” and “he didn’t judge her” and “never used her words against her”. I looked at her phone one time after they were chatting and he said “I love you” and she said “I love you very much!” I decided not to say anything because I knew she would just say she loves all her friends…and for all I knew at the time, that’s all they were. But, I told my therapist that I really didn’t trust this guy. He seemed way to into Alba. Wanted her attention for what seemed like every waking minute and she was always willing to give it to him. They would be chatting while Scarlet and I were at work, while we were home in the evenings and late into the night. This went on every. Single. Day. She kept telling me he had nothing to do with our situation. He was “just a friend”. It always struck me as odd that someone of the opposite sex who was “just a friend” would want to talk to her that often…or even of the same sex. It’s not like she talked to any of her other friends anywhere near that often.

We also began to see a marriage counselor. One our first session she asked us to describe each other. I was positive in my description, she was negative in hers. She asked Alba if she always focused on the negative. She got very angry and defensive. One of the most hurtful things she kept saying to me was that I didn’t know her. I mentioned this to the counselor and she asked me to name things I knew about her. I named easily 15 things. She asked Alba if that changed anything. She said no, because they were just “general things” that anyone could learn via social media. Even though I brought up things that she never mentioned on social media before. I knew she had just decided that I didn’t know her and nothing was going to change her mind. That, and her telling me that “all I ever talked about were women’s bodies” which I admit I did at times. Not my proudest moments. But to say that’s all I talked about was just totally untrue and she knew it. When I called her out on that, she angrily said “What do you talk about besides, music (specifically The Grateful Dead), baseball and Bernie Sanders?!” Three things that never seemed to bother her before but I knew Ringo openly hated. Every time I would try to point out how much of an effect he was having on her, she would get very defensive and say “I think for myself”. Right before we left, she pointed at me and told the therapist “you are seeing him at his best right now”. Sigh. That night, when we were putting thing 2 to sleep, I asked her what she thought of the therapist. She started to get angry, saying she was “taking my side”. It seemed to me that she was just able to see through her obvious bullshit, but whatever.

Anyway, I get home from my first therapy session and Alba is out interviewing a nanny for when she goes back to school in the fall. She texts me saying she loves her and she was in our price range. I’m fuming thinking about how I’m still considered on the hook for these expenses. I’m in our bedroom packing clothes because I was taking our sons to my father’s house for the weekend, like I always did to give her space…and time to decompress. I opened a drawer to get our 3 year old some shirts when I suddenly remembered Alba telling me that she has been writing in her diary. I opened the top drawer and found a journal. I leafed through it until I found entries. She talked about Ringo…how she had confusing feelings for him. She tried to talk to him about it, but he talked her down. They then “basically had cyber sex until 5:30 am” and she woke the next day with a hangover. I literally felt my stomach drop and panic set in. I shouted “I fucking knew it!” and kicked our son’s drawer closed and hurt my foot. I called her and got her voice mail. I sent her a text to pick up. I knew it was going to be ackward to tell her I read her diary, but I didn’t care. I just laid into her. Screamed and cursed, called her every dirty name I could think of. Asked her if she had gone insane? Was this man (who has never had a job, is addicted to alcohol, and has severe mental problems…not to mention married to her friend) really better than me? She said he was going to tell me, but didn’t know how. I asked her how would she feel if I were the one doing this to her? Sneaking behind her back to carry on with another woman. She said “If you found an honest connection with someone, I’d be happy for you” I lost it. I continued to call her every name I could think of and threatened to kick her out of the house. The house being in my father’s name….I asked her if she liked having all bills paid, with a free gym membership, a free car, the free house, money to spend when she goes out with her friends and a fridge full of food. She asked at one point if I wanted her to stop talking to him. I said I asked her to do that months ago. I asked her who initiated the cybersex. She said “what difference does it make?” She admitted it was she who initiated it. I exploded in anger. I called her every dirty name I could think of. We hung up still furious. I went to south Philly and told my father what happened. He said that was a shame, but I knew he wasn’t getting involved for the sake of the boys. I sent Ringo a facebook IM telling him he better tell Scarlet about the cybersex in 24 hours, or I will (big mistake…I should have just told her). He sent me a message saying he told her and that their marriage was dissolving anyway. I tried to curse him out, but he blocked me from his and Scarlet’s profile on Facebook and Twitter (i found out later he was actually en route to having a sexual encounter with Alba when he made the claim that he told Scarlet…more on that later) I spent the rest of the night pacing, cursing under my breath while I got dinner for the boys, got them ready for bed and put Nathaniel to sleep. I sent Alba an IM around midnight to start another fight. She just said she was really tired and just wanted to go to sleep. I said “oh, NOW you want to go to sleep as a reasonable hour? Just have a glass of wine and stay up till 3 like you do every night, only this time to talk to your humiliated husband”. No more responses.

The next afternoon we begin to text each other. She continued to defend her actions, defend Ringo from any attack I said and continued to act like she was doing nothing wrong…and it was me who had the problem. I kept telling her she was disrespectful and if she really wants us to get along, even if we do ultimately get divorced, she should stop talking to this guy. She kept insisting “they were just friends”. I couldn’t believe my eyes/ears. She seriously believed this to be true. Acting like her…ahem…”friendship” with Ringo was on the same level as her friendship to Janet…and acting like my request is no different than asking her to give up THAT friendship. At one point she said if she agreed to stop talking to him, I had to literally never bring it up again. I laughed and said no freakin’ way. She said “I am giving up a friendship. So I get nothing in return??” Again…acting like I’m asking her to stop talking to Janet. She kept accusing me of telling her what to do. Telling me that Ringo had nothing to do with our situation, he “just happened to be there”. I asked her what Janet would think of her cyberfucking her friend’s husband. She said kind of avoided the question by acting like no other friendships mattered to her…and she and Scarlet were never friends so it’s not like she is betraying a friend (only her husband…but clearly that didn’t matter). I ended the text battle with “I just want to stress out that I hate that you talk to him and I feel like if you ever cared about me, you’d stop” Her answer “don’t you want me to happy?” My response “so, I’m a controlling monster because I don’t want my wife having an affair” Her response “I didn’t say that. I want you to be happy. I am not happy and I told you this” “So, you’re not going to stop spending every night talking to Ringo, even though I made it clear it’s a major problem with me?” her response “He’s my friend and I don’t have to stop talking to him if I don’t want to” me” so, that’s your final answer?” Her “Yes, that’s my answer”. That night I began to think more and more about it. I lost her. I have no idea how this happened or how an unemployed, married alcoholic with mental issues somehow offered more than I did…a hard working loyal family man who was the father of her children. The only thing I could think of that he offered that I didn’t was the ability to calm her down when she was freaking out. This was something that I was bad at…and apparently he was good at. So good, that she was going to him for all her issues before me. I knew he was talking trash about me to her while building himself up…i just had yet to prove it. She revealed a little bit at our first marriage counselor session. On social media, I often called her “my hot wife” which she didn’t seem to mind at first, until some of her girlfriends said they thought I should use other adjectives to describe her…which is true. There are a lot of great things i could say about her. Another thing i am not proud of. Ringo, on the other hand, went on to say “you’re so much more than that…don’t get me wrong though, you are hot" which she ate up. (When i say it, it’s being a creep, but when he says it, it’s a compliment? How does that work?) I told her that it bugged me that he said that. She asked me why it didn’t bother me that Janet and her other mom friends said the same thing, but it bothers me so much that Ringo said it. I was puzzled that she would ask such a question. “ummm…because your girlfriends don’t have ulterior motives, where as he does” She scoffed and acted like he was always so objective in his opinions. I, of course, didn’t buy that for a second and let her know it.

As the boys played, I re-read our texts over and over. She said I fixated on things…and that I should only be mad at her…not at him (defending him over and over) I threated to tell Scarlet and Janet. She acted like she didn’t care…even though she begged me not to tell Scarlet the previous day “He might get kicked out of the country” she pleaded. (Der…i was counting on that) I felt justified in my fixating over my lying cheating wife and crumbling family. I felt bad for the boys. They were going to be caught up in the whole thing. The following afternoon I went home with the boys and didn’t call her on the way. I continued to think about it on the hour commute back from South Philly. She was never going to change her mind. She doesn’t give a shit how I feel all of the sudden. She honestly thinks all her lies and sneaking around are perfectly justified and it’s ME who has the problem. I cannot be married to a woman who honestly feels it’s ok to lie and cheat on me. It really hurt. But, I had to accept it. I didn’t want to though. When I got home I saw she had taken down all of our wedding photos. I was expecting this. We texted and I said we could divorce. I asked her if she still had feelings for him. She shrugged and said queitly “as a friend”. (Later, i realized when ever she lied to me, her answers were always in that quiet, unsure tone). I knew I wasn’t going to give up the love of my life without a fight. That peice of filth had no idea how much I was willing to fight. My wife was still in there somewhere. I was going to find her…and free her from his creepy grasp.

The next few weeks are kind of a blur. Alba pretending everything was fine. Acting like I was the jerk if I got upset by things. I demanded to know if Ringo had told Scarlet yet and she just shrugged and said queitly “he told me that he did” which I was positive was a lie. Why did Scarlet “unfriend” and block me but not Alba? Alba asked me how I knew Scarlet didn’t block me herself? I was dumbfounded by her audacity for asking me this (she blocked me seconds after Ringo did). I went on to twitter and noticed Alba was not only no longer following me, she changed her surname back to her maiden name…DiDominico. I got really upset. My best friend Wolf…who I had been talking to daily at this point, put it in perspective. We’re getting a divorce, she is going to drop me from most of social media. It’s just a part of the deal. I knew he was right. I hated having to see her every damn day. We talk about us, but it usually ends up with us fighting when I bring up Ringo. She always rolled her eyes and tells me to stop fixating on him…because “he has nothing to do with it”….which she honestly believed. Meanwhile, HIS opinions were suddenly becoming HER opinions. I just knew a lot of the things she said to me were originally from Ringo’s mouth.

Despite all this, I still love her. One night we have a good conversation. An open and honest conversation…the kind we used to have. I end it with telling her I still love her. That I still want her back…and that I don’t want anyone else…and it’s NOT only because she is the mother of my children. I took our vows seriously. I truly love her. It’s just the kind of man I am. While at work the next afternoon I think about things I should have been doing for her. Sending her flowers was one of them. I decide on a whim I’m going to have flowers sent to her. I wanted to show her that I was serious. That I was working on being a better man, husband and Father. I order from a local florist and look forward to her response. I get a text about an hour later from the florist that they were delivered. I knew she was home. Another hour goes by and I hear nothing. I finally anxiously send her a text asking how she was. I don’t remember exactly what went down, but somehow my sending her flowers and then wanting to hear from her and said flowers was a jerk move. She told me I was putting pressure on her by expecting a response right away. Even though I felt like I didn’t need to give one, I apologized to her. I found myself apologizing to her a lot this summer even when I really felt like it was ME who was owed an apology.

That night I get home and I see she’s texting Ringo. She quickly hides her phone. She tells me she is taking the dog for a walk. I see her quickly pick up the phone and resume texting him. Thing 2 is looking for his own tablet to watch cartoons on. I look around and find our new tablet hidden in a drawer. I turn it on and notice Alba’s gmail account was left open. I look at it. I find a conversation between her and Ringo. It starts off with her telling him about the conversation we had the night before. The one I was so happy with. The one where I felt like we connected again and maybe I could show her I cared and was going to be a good husband. She (I’m paraphrasing) said “he told me last night that he wanted only me. Ever. And I don’t want him. I feel numb when it comes to him and I don’t see that changing. You say you don’t know what you want…that you can’t promise me anything and I know that I want you. I need to feel wanted and needed. And the person I don’t want it from can give it to me, but the person I do want it from can’t. I cry every day and he thinks it’s over him. I feel like I’m going crazy. I love you so much but I don’t know what to do with it” Ringo’s response was what really got my blood boiling. In true fashion, his response was long winded, full of 50 cent words, and sort of went in a circle. But, in his response, I finally could confirm what I suspected all along. He was twisting my words and actions to make me look bad. Telling her that I didn’t really love her, that I was just scared to be alone. That the flowers I sent her were insincere and just an attempt to “twist her arm and give her a one way ticket to the past” He called me a “man bot” (which I later learned was a jab at me being an ardent Bernie Sanders supporter, who he openly has contempt for). He then proceeded to go in a long winded ramble about how she is his rock. That he has love for her that he has never felt with anyone else, but even though he has thought about “taking a midnight train” to meet up with her to run off together…that he can’t. not because he loves Scarlet…oh no. Because he can’t afford to leave…and all four of us are mentally sick.

I then not only finally confirmed that he was going out of his way to twist my words around (which I already knew…I just had no proof up until now) that he didn’t give a shit about destroying my family. He wasn’t thinking about Things 1 or 2 in any way. He just assumed Alba would just leave them for me to take care of…which I would have done in a heart beat. However, this just made me realize what a sick bastard this guy really is…and how messed up Alba is by continuing to carry on with this immature douche bag of a man.

She gets home. After the boys are asleep I confront her. At first she gets indignant for violating her privacy again. But soon it just turns into me yelling at her. “THIS is the man you want?? You’re going to leave me for THIS guy?? Are you fucking serious?? I’m sure your macho hard working father…who had to work incredibly hard for everything he has ever gotten is going to love this. You don’t want me…your loyal hard working family man for a drunken, chronically unemployed mental case…because he’s *now in a mocking voice* sweet and sensitive…and he understands you! He doesn’t judge you! He’s a feminist and he always calms you down!!” I was a bit surprised…as she seemed truly remorseful. She said she really hated herself right now and she was really sorry. I asked if she was sorry she did it? Or was she sorry she got caught? She said she was really sorry she did it…”I can’t stop!” she wailed. My anger started to subside. I saw my wife. The sweet beautiful woman I married. The woman I love more than anyone. I wrapped my arms around her and looked into her eyes. It was her. My bride. For a moment, I had her back. After I calmed down, we had another talk. She agreed to possibly work toward a reconciliation…but no promises. I told her that the only way that would ever work is to cut off Ringo. She needs to end it with him…like yesterday. She said she was thinking about cutting him off on her walk anyway.

So, the next week, things seemed to be going a bit better. I was starting to let my guard down a little. I would sometimes dream about buying her a new wedding ring…or us moving to a new house in a new neighborhood. This whole time, she was still staying up till 3 am every night and when I was awake and home, concealing who she was texting from me. One day I confessed I was still paranoid she was still in contact with Ringo (which I totally knew she was…I’m not an idiot) she rolled her eyes and exclaimed “you’re never going to get over this! Just admit you don’t trust me” I lied and said I did. I really wanted to see if she’d own up to it. She didn’t. She did, however, tell me I need to “back off”. I’m “smothering” her. ..and she can’t be married to a man who doesn’t respect her privacy. This was less than a week after I busted her lying to me again…and clearly still doing it.

Waking up in the mornings were always the worst for me. I would wake up at 5 am and think about us. Think about our family crumbling. Early one Saturday morning I was working I began to think about something she said to me. How I always ignored her. She was right. I used to get distracted by the stupidest, most irrelevant things…that went on pretty much our whole relationship. I sent her a heartfelt email apologizing for that. I really meant that apology. I really wanted to make up for it. I truly want to be a better man…and learn from my mistakes. I came home that night and after the boys went to bed, I got drunk for the first time in over a decade. I felt so bad. Alba drank with me. She was never that big of a drinker until Ringo came along. She suddenly started drinking wine almost every night. While I was crying, she gets a text. She giggles and starts to respond. I get angry. I know who she’s texting…and it ain’t Janet . I ask who she’s talking to…even though I know. She pauses…and says “I don’t want to tell you” I get furious and storm outside. She walks upstairs. I text Wolf about this. He tells me that I really should act fast. Kick her out of the house, close our joint checking account and hire a lawyer. She clearly doesn’t care about me and could possibly close the joint checking account herself or start to give Ringo money…my money. She made her bed, now she must lie in it. I go upstairs and she’s crying. At this point I’m just so angry her tears have no effect on me. We start to fight. She starts to get sarcastic to me back. I said “I’m not the one always having falling outs with various friends” she responded “you have to have friends to have a falling out”. God. I stayed in the guest room where she slept until there was some sort of resolution. It’s what I do. I went to bed really angry and feeling like she needs to move out. Now. I’ll never get over her for as long as she still lives here.

I meet up with Wolf and my other best friend, Ben at the Dead & Company show in Camden, NJ the following night. I have a long talk with both of them. They both had their spouses cheat on them too. Ben was divorced long ago. Wolf and his wife had a reconciliation after her affair. It was really great talking to them. I really missed my friends. My allies.

I had been making lists on ways to improve myself and emailing them to Alba for the past few weeks. I make another one with updates and email it to her. I also find an article written by a marriage counselor talking about how men can change when their wives start to lose interest due to being aloof or other reasons. I send her that article. I come home and she’s furious about that article. I really didn’t expect that. She was mad because the marriage counselor who wrote it had a bias toward making up (ummmm…she’s a marriage counselor…no shit) and it was biased against wives. So, according to her, I was saying it was all her fault (which I never claimed. I always owned up to my faults. The difference was I started to work on changing them right away). We fought. At one point she sarcastically said “oh Ebenezer, I’m really going to fall in love with you now” I apologized…even though I didn’t think I did anything wrong.

Skip ahead a few more weeks. We are drinking together again. This time it wasn’t so bad while we were drinking. Around 11 pm she says she’s going to bed…which I know was a lie because she stayed up till 3 am every night. I take a look at the tablet. Her gmail account is still signed in. I decided to take a look to see if any of the things we’ve been talking about has been sinking in. Was she serious about working toward a reconciliation? I saw an email to Ringo. It was my list of things to do for self improvement…with the subject “He’s on a roll today”. My heart sank. Even though I knew she wasn’t taking it seriously…this was proof. My list of things to make me a better man was being mocked by her…and sent to Ringo who would in turn twist the words around to make it seem like I was lying. Why she shouldn’t believe me. And why he was a better man. I confronted her the next day. Again, she got all indignant that I hacked her email account. But I told her I was ok with a divorce. She choose Ringo over me. She had a golden opportunity to make up with me after the email, but she chose to continue to sneak around with him instead.

The next few weeks we barely spoke to each other once the boys went to bed. She would hide and chat with Ringo. Or pace and make sure I couldn’t see her phone. Then one night, it occurred to me to check our Amazon Prime account. I looked at the purchase history…and saw she bought him a $75 fitbit, a $330 phone and a $20 case. The Phone was ordered literally the following day after she told me she wanted a divorce. I was seeing red. I was so angry. This was felt like the straw that broke the camels back. I stormed upstairs and started to shout and call her names. I demanded to know why she thought me paying for expensive gifts to her boyfriend was going to be ok. She proceeded to tell me how he destroyed his phone, and he “needed” a new one for his business…which I then said he needs to pay me back for right now. She said he’s broke. What?? The guy sells vintage action figures but apparently needs a really expensive phone to do it…but doesn’t make enough to pay it back?? I lost it. Alba was texting…someone…while lying on the bed. I snatched the phone out of her hand and started to look at it, she got up and tried to wrestle it out of my hand. I pushed her back on the bed with my right arm. She suddenly shouted “oh! You want to hurt me??” I suddenly snapped out of my hulk like rage. Started crying and said “you hurt me every fucking day” and threw her phone back on the bed. We then fought again downstairs. I said I wanted a thank you note from Ringo. She said in a sarcastic tone “you want a written note or should he email it to you?” I don’t remember now what she said to me…I was mocking her and she was mocking me right back but she said something that made the hulk rage come back. I grabbed her and screamed “you fucking bitch…get the hell out of my house!” But I stopped myself. I hated her so much in that moment but I still loved her. I couldn’t stop loving her.

I left work early the following day because she and I needed to talk about it. I left for my father’s place that afternoon. I took a long walk to the little bridge by Penn’s Landing off South Street. I walk up to the fence overlooking i-95 and look at the traffic. I think about how my life is suddenly spiraling out control. How my wife was in love with another man, she acted like she hated me and showed me no respect…and acted like I deserved no respect. Like a really unfunny Rodney Dangerfield. I thought if I just did a cannonball into i-95 the pain would be over. I got down and started to cry. I didn’t care I was making a spectacle of myself. I talked to my sister and my father about it. My father agreed to pay for a nanny. That way Alba could move out. I didn’t care where. That wasn’t my problem. My father also suggested that he buy the house next door to him, where the boys and I could move into. I’m not against the idea. I love the Bella Vista neighborhood. I mention this to Alba when I come home and she gets really quiet. She asks what about her? I was all “what about you? You are the one who chose another man over me. I’m the one with the house, the money and the job. Getting a divorce was YOUR idea. Besides, if I do it, it won’t be a few more years anyway”.

Alba spends an afternoon over at Janet’s house. She comes home really upset. I ask her what is wrong and she says she really made bad choices this summer. Just because she felt a connection with another man didn’t mean she had to act on them. Yea…no shit. While at Janet’s house she saw a photo of Her, Thing 1 and me taken on Janet and her husband Seamus’s wedding day. That seemed to have struck a chord with her.

Very shortly after this, Scarlet finally catches that it’s not just 2 “friends” having long late night talks. She makes Ringo block her on all social media. I knew he’d be back. He’d create some kind of fake profile to contact her again. He’d never let her go. One night we are talking about it. I was making my feelings pretty clear…that I thought it was karma biting her in the ass. She got all indignant, so I asked “am I supposed to feel bad for you?” her response “if you cared about my feelings, you’d care that I lost my best friend”. Haha…yea. No…. We spent the night pacing together. She mentioned something I had said previously “we could have been working on our marriage this whole time”. I said “it’s not too late, you know. It’s only been 2 months”. She gave me the same run around bullshit non-response “we all have to work on ourselves first before we do anything” Rich…considering I’ve been working on myself to improve and be a better man since the day she said she was unhappy. It was she who hadn’t done a god damn thing all summer to change…in fact only made things worse by carrying on with Ringo and refusing to even consider the idea that it was wrong. She also told me Ringo getting banned from talking to her didn’t change anything. She still wanted a divorce (I found out later they continued to chat via “meet up” unabated for another week. So it was like nothing had changed, really). She sent me a text which I shared with Wolf stating “he really had nothing to do with our problems”. Yea. Sure he didn’t .

The final piece of the summer of hate. Alba went to walk to dog. She left and my curiosity and driving need to know what was going on got the better of me. I went into her car and pulled out her diary. I read the latest entry. It was a pro/con list of Ringo. The very first row had the following entries:

· He’s a very good kisser · Energizer bunny · His touch is electric · He’s my soulmate · He’s my best friend · He’s a feminist · He’s a liberal · His touch! · I love looking in his eyes · His words, my body responds as if he’s doing what he says to me Even one of the cons were positive in some way

· He’s overweight · He’s ugly (the last 2 are very superficial. I fell in love with him on a mental/emotional level so looks are really incidental) I wasn’t sure what to do. To confront her again would show that I again was reading her diary. But…I knew I couldn’t pretend I didn’t read that. I called her and confronted her. At first, she was all indignant that I read her diary. Then she admitted that she had met up with him the night that I yelled at her about the cybersex. When I took our children to Philadelphia to give her a break, she arranged for him to meet her half way, in the parking lot of a bar in Trenton, NJ. She told me they “just kissed” but me not being a fucking retard, didn’t buy that for a second. I called her every dirty name I could think of. I hung up. Took all her credit cards, all her cash (she like $400…which I later found out Janet gave her after she told her I tried to throw her out of the house in her pajamas. I can only assume she left out a whole lot of the story)and her car keys. She got home and we fought more. She asked if I was going to hit her. I was pretty annoyed she asked that. I never hit her. I pushed her on the bed. She said she kind of wishes I would hit her. I finally followed through with my threat…I told Scarlet all about the affair. She said she knew about them talking. I said did you know about them meeting up in the parking lot of a bar in Trenton? She said Ringo denied that was true. Exactly what I wanted him to say. I sent Scarlet the emails they sent to each other via twitter IM (I took screen shots to show Wolf) and I also took shots of her diary entries. Scarlet responded with “Jesus Christ!” . Good. Alba tells me she was actually glad I finally blew the lid off of it. It was hard for her to be the only one who felt bad about it. I was surprised she said that. I admit I was trying to hurt her too. WE spent the rest of the night quietly chatting. She said a few times she was surprised I was so calm. I got my anger out. I finally did something about it. I felt better…like I had finally struck back.

The following day was a Tuesday. Marriage counselor day. I come home and greet my father who is hanging out with Thing 1 and Thing 2 while we are at our appointment. I come into the kitchen and Alba is crying. I wasn’t to surprised . What she said next really surprised me. She said she wanted to atone for what she did. We went upstairs to talk. She said she wanted to make it up to me. I asked her how…she didn’t know yet. While we are talking she brings up reconciliation…essentially saying it must be off the table after all that has happened. I had already decided that I would only consider reconciling if it was her idea. I had brought it up 4 times and it was scoffed at pretty much every time. It was different. I could feel it. The beautiful woman I married was starting to resurface. Her doppelganger was finally starting to fade away. We told the therapist what happened, our conversation and our decision to stay married. A few days later she said “I love you” on a text for the first time in over 3 months. I rejoiced. Our evenings were suddenly calm. Back to normal in a way…but forever altered in a good way. I was no longer lost in an endless surfing of facebook and mindless TV. I am spending out time together talking. Getting to know each other again. Laughing. Cuddling. Kissing. Holding hands. I’m learning every day to be a better husband, father and man.

About a week or so after our reconciliation we are outside talking on our front porch. We talk about the Trenton night. I ask for her to tell me exactly what happened. I need transparency. There were so many secrets between us for the past few months. Everything should be out in the open…all mistakes. I asked if they had sex. “no!” she exclaimed. I then asked if they did other things. She cried and nodded. I asked of he fingered her, she nodded. I asked of she blew him. She said yes. We paused and didn’t say a word for about a minute. I had my face on my knees. She asked me to look at her. With tears in her eyes, she said she was so sorry. It was a terrible choice that was done impulsively and with the thought that she was getting kicked out of the house anyway. She didn’t know I was bluffing. She asked me why I was so calm? She was expecting me to explode in anger. The answer was simple, really. I already knew it happened. I didn’t know the details, but again…me not being a fucking retard, I knew no one meets up for a secret triste to just kiss (or kiss on the cheek as Ringo apparently told Scarlet…man. She really wants to believe him).

We still take it one day at a time. She also wants Ringo destroyed and laments the whole summer. The whole embarrassment of getting essentially brainwashed in a text book case of sociopath meets empath is pretty overwhelming for her at times. She has found screen shots of Ringo talking about their sexual escapade in detail as well as he telling her that he loves in ways he’s never loved anyone else. I’m sure Scarlet would love to see that. Hopefully I can fulfill my final resolution to the this whole nightmare with a crushing blow to Ringo’s marriage…as he tried to do to mine. Hopefully one day soon.

1 note · View note

chimpanzeemusic · 7 years ago

Text

I’ve been picking up some financial slack between jobs and travels by working as a substitute teacher. The pay is bad, The flexibility is nice, the absurd conversations are worth remembering.

2nd Grade 7 year-old: So, how old are you? Me: Eighty two. 7 year-old: Oh. An hour later, another teacher enters the room to get something and I recognize her from when I used to swim at a neighborhood pool, and we chat Me to teacher: Yeah, I think I was a teenager when your kids began swimming there. 7 year-old is watching nearby, eyes narrowed. After the other teacher leaves, he moves to confront me. 7 year-old: You were talking to the teacher, and she’s, like, thirty-nine. If you’re just a little older than her kids… then you’re not eighty-two! Me: My disguise has been discovered! **runs from the room**

Katrina, 2 min sketch

High School Typically the easiest job. The benefit is people don’t really care about your existence, so they mostly do their own thing. The drawback is people don’t really care about your existence, and mostly do their own thing, regardless of what you do.

The high school medical anatomy class finishes a quiz. Student: Can you put on some surgeries for us to watch while we’re working? Me: Your teacher shows you these in class. Student: Yeah, totally. Me: I have no way of verifying the truthfulness of this claim. Imma go with no. Student, sighing with disappointment: Ohhhkay. It’s probably for the best, though. People sometimes pass out when they watch nose surgeries, they put a chisel up the nose and pound with a hammer… that tends to get ’em. The next class comes in. Me: Does Mr. C show y’all surgeries? Class: Yes. Me: Oohkay then.

I asked another class about Mr C, who apparently shows all kinds of amputations, ACL surgeries, removal of a hairball from the stomach of a woman addicting to eating her own Herbal Essence-infused follicles, the extrication of a fist-sized kidney stone from a bladder…

Student 1: Sometimes I can’t watch. Student 2: We’ll be dissecting something in class and he’ll cut off a piece, like he did with this cow lung one time, and He flung it at the whiteboard and yelled “Look, it sticks!” and then just left the slice there all class period. We get blood on the whiteboard a lot.

“He flung it at the whiteboard and yelled ‘Look, it sticks!’ and then just left the slice of cow lung there all class period. We get blood on the whiteboard a lot.’

#justsurgerythings

That part about sticking a chisel up someone’s nose and whacking it with a hammer? Apparently it’s accepted rhinoplasty technique. Which, disappointingly, does not involve a live rhinoceros.

Middle School A middle school dance class is practicing for a multicultural dance assembly when someone nabs the audio jack and blasts Justin Bieber’s “Baby.” Me: There is no way this song is still relevant. Middle schoolers sing word-for-word to the song. Me: It cannot be. The Ludacris rap section begins, even bystanders get down. Ludacris and Tweens: “When I was thirteeeen, I had my first luuuv!” There was nobody that compared to my baaaaby— And nobody came between us, no one could ever come aboooove…!” Me: noooo

Elementary If you’ve slept sufficiently, elementary and especially kindergarten are enjoyable: busy, hilarious. Also, cruel.

Me: Hello class! My name is Mr… I lose my train of thought and hesitate a split-minute too long. Kindergartner: Potato! Kindergartners, losing it completely: Hahahaha! Mr. Potato! Me: What? No, it’s— Kindergartners: Potato! Potato! Mr. Potato! After weakly struggling to restore order, I retreat to the teacher’s desk and sulk quietly. Me: My name is not Mr. Potato.

#organic

Kindergartner: Your shirt has lots of birds on it. Me: That is because I am secretly lots of birds taped together. Kindergartner: …

A student teacher is leading the kindergartners in reading three-letter words aloud. I am reading with them, but have not yet been introduced. I am sitting next to Señorita Sassypants, a bright, outspoken and conniving child. Class: B-at. J-am. C-at. H-am. Me: Bat. Jam. Cat. Ham. Señorita Sassypants: Wait, how do you already know all this stuff? You don’t go here. You’re not a student!” Inclusive Child, (same height as my waist): Wait, wait, you go here! You can be a student, too!

Kinder 1: Why you wearing fancy shoes? Me: These here are my dancing shoes. Kinder 1: Why you wearing dancing shoes? Me: So I can dance away the blues. Kinder 1: …Huh? Kinder 2: You’re Team Rocket!?

Hairy Otter and the Rage of Elsa, Conte on Paper

Six-year old: When you learned to walk, you were one year old. Five-year old: Actually, I was five!

Who gets to draw the Purple Froople?

Visiting Music Teacher to kids: Who gets to draw the Purple Froople?

Fergalicious, an ideal name for your weasel

Child: I want to draw the Chocolate Womple! Visiting Music Teacher: Nina, your Stroiper looks amazing. Me to me: The heck is going on in hereMy brother also subbed kindergarten for a bit. Here’s two experiences of his: Brother: Okay guys, I am going to tell you about a scary story about a time I had a run-in from a bear. Before he even begins the story, several students crawl beneath their seats. Brother: Where–what are you are you doing? Students: We’re scared, teacher! Brother: Look, you can’t be under there. Everyone get back up. They do. He tells a story where various noises and surprises happen and the students think it is a bear, but it ends up being a stick, or a squirrel, until… …Well, the next thing that happened was as I laid in my hammock was the bear came up and pushed my hammock a little. And then I screamed, and looked out of my hammock, and it ran away into the woods! I had to change my pants after that. Student 1: Wait, why did you have to— Student 2: IT’S ‘CAUSE HE PEED HIMSELF! Students, shrieking with laughter at the implied urination, fall on the floor and roll around, at last fulfilling the ancient AOL messenger prophecy, “ROFLOL.”

Students shriek with laughter at the implied urination.

Brother is passing the school snack to students. It is pineapple, which many have not tried before. Brother: It’s pretty good, right? Students nod and continue eating the unfamiliar fruit. Brother:There’s lots, if anyone wants to eat more. Students return for seconds, then many for thirds. As the children eat, the pineapple begins to tenderize their mouths. One girl sticks out her tongue and begins to touch it, wincing. Frightened child: My—my tongue hurts! A number of things happen simultaneously. Several other students also conclude they are hurt, dying, even. Yet another student screams out as two students run for the door. Take Action Children: Hold on! We’ll go get the principal! Sprinting for help, they almost escape before Brother is able to catch up, contain the breach, and calm the frightened students by persuading them to drink water. The Great Pineapple Crisis has been averted.

Let us now return to dumb and mean things kids say.

Child playing doctor during playtime: **approaches fellow child on tiny couch, places stethoscope on Patient Child, listens, and begins to panic as a diagnosis is made** Doctor Child: She has the contagious!

Big Treble in Little City, Conte pencil on paper. Artist: Señorita Sass

I am demonstrating an intentionally bad magic trick for Señorita Sassypants. I put my face in profile and pretend to pull a pencil out of my nose. Señorita Sassypants: You didn’t pull that out of your nose. There’s no boogers on it.

“You didn’t pull that out of your nose. There’s no boogers on it.”

Me: Rats! You got me. But check this out. I select a white crayon and twiddle it in my hands and slip it into my lap when SS’s concentration wavers. I drop it to the floor and it rolls under the table, where I put my foot over it. Me: It’s gone. Bam. Magic crayon. SS searches my hands and sleeves, finding nothing. She begins to search the floor, frustration building. She peers beneath the edge of my shoe and spots the crayon, which she seizes triumphantly and holds aloft, sneering. Me: Uh, it must have teleported! SS, drawing close to my face: No, you hid it there. This crayon isn’t magic. You’re not magic. **snaps crayon in half, tossing the fragments of wax and vaudeville showbiz dreams to the floor**

JajsKe, Ballpoint on Paper

Time for dinner: Platinum Edition

Inclusive Child: Do you know Cat? Me: The despicable animal? IC: No, my friend from church. Me, rolling with it: Oh, right. Our mutual friend, Cat. IC: You know Cat? Me: Yaaah. About yea tall **gestures about three feet in the air** likes running… and… pizza.” IC: Wow! You know Cat!

Inclusive Child, giving me the sideye: Are you a kid, or a dad? Me: I’m not a dad. IC: So… you’re a kid? ‘Cause you look like a dad. Me: …Yes? No! I’m not a dad, but I am an uncle. In fact, I have four– IC: An uncle? I—I thought you were a kid!

Señorita Sassypants peers in my ear while I sit criss-cross applesauce on the floor. Señorita Sassypants: The inside of your ears are disgusting. Me to me: I have just had my personal hygiene questioned by a child. I have never before felt so insecure.

elixir of life

2nd Grade Me, joking: Hey, look, it’s those purple glue sticks! Makes you kinda hungry, yeah? Child 1: Yeah. I haven’t had one in a while, though. They’re not bad. A little minty.

“Hey, look, it’s those purple glue sticks! Makes you kinda hungry, yeah?” “Yeah. I haven’t had one in a while, though. They’re not bad. A little minty.”

Me: Wait—I was just joking— Child 2: Yeah, minty is a good way to put it. But they sort of give you a headache. Child 1: Just a little one. Me: A headache. Do you… eat these often? Child 2: Not that much. Child 1: Like, not that much, I mean, I’ve only eaten them twice this school year. Child 2: Twice for me, too. Me: It’s barely October. Child 3, wandering over: Are we talking about eating glue? Me: You—you’ve also— Child 3: It’s pretty good. Kinda minty, but there might be little bit of a headache after. Me: …ohhkay then. Hours pass. All the students have left for the day. A purple glue stick sits temptingly on a semicircle table.The pursuit of knowledge and flavor beckons. It’s labeled nontoxic, after all… “Hey, that is minty!”

Then… the headache.

For more ridiculous school conversations, do check out the original Tales from the Trenches: Conversations of a Substitute Teacher. Then, go hug a teacher. And put money and chocolate syrup into their bag so they can have a good Monday.

Mercenary of Knowledge: More Conversations of a Substitute Teacher I've been picking up some financial slack between jobs and travels by working as a substitute teacher.

#crayon #elementary #existential #frustration #Funny #kindergarten #overheard #public school #school #stuff kids say #substitute teaching #teachers #teaching #work

0 notes

wesonerdy · 7 years ago

Text

There’s a coup in the White House… is Liv willing to overturn Mellie’s whole administration in order to hold onto power? Full recap of Scandal, “Army of One”. Plus, preview the HOW TO GET AWAY WITH SCANDAL crossover event!

Courtesy of ABC/Eric McCandless

“Army of One” picks up exactly where “The People v. Olivia Pope” ends–with Liv in the Oval demanding answers. Interestingly, Mellie is cool as a cucumber. She no longer believes Liv’s lines about them being sisters in this male-dominated game. Liv is a liar–she didn’t kill Rashad for a treaty, but because she believed Mellie to be a bad president. Mellie isn’t angry, but Liv has to go. She has until the end of the week to announce her resignation.

Jake is pretty please with his new gig as Chief of Staff. He and his wife, Vanessa (almost forgot about her!), meet with David Rosen, who will be vetting Jake for his new position. He admits to an “open marriage” with Vanessa. In fact, she’s sleeping with another man. David doesn’t think it’ll be a big deal.

For his first order of business, and as an act of good faith, Jake brings Mellie into the B613 Command Center. While he’s explaining his plans to make B613 into a tool Mellie can use, all the lights go out. Looks like Liv is shutting things down! Jake might have been able to take Chief of Staff from Liv, but she reminds him that: “You can’t take Command.” It turns about the entire network has been taken down by phreaking, an old-school hacking strategy. Apparently, Liv has reached out to Hector, one of Papa Pope’s OGs, for help with hacking. Liv also claims that the real guns and money are still with her.

As for Cyrus, he’s enraged that Mellie is willingly working with Jake.

Abby and Huck call Charlie into QPA with a new case, something to help take his mind off of grieving Quinn (though we know that Charlie isn’t grieving anymore!). Supposedly, Robert Bacall, a mid-level State Department employee is being set-up by the Russians. $12 million was deposited into his account against his knowledge or will and he received an email in Russian saying he was now in their service. He’s very concerned that he will be accused of treason.

While Huck and Charlie attempt to trace the email, Abby finds out that Bacall is having an affair. And as he’s explaining things, a news report drops that he’s been sleeping with Vanessa Ballard and using her for NSA secrets to funnel to the Russians. YIKES.

In fact, this is all part of Liv’s plan to force Jake into withdrawing his name for consideration as Chief of Staff and resigning as head of the NSA.

Mellie is increasingly frustrated that Liv is making a fool out of them and their plans. (Today was supposed to be the day of her yearly mammogram, the first U.S. President to do so.) She tells Jake and David to make Liv and her machinations go away. Jake and Vanessa meet with Bacall at QPA. It seems they’re unable to prove that this is all Liv’s doing. As for Bacall, he decides to take a chance with a lawyer to clear his name. But Abby and Huck are concerned that maybe this is a sign that QPA needs to shut down. Charlie really doesn’t want that to happen. You can tell he wants to tell Abby and Huck that Quinn is alive, but he doesn’t, yet. He does ask them to wait for him…

Liv goes to see Cyrus and tries to apologize for dragging Fenton into the fallout from Rashad’s death. She wants his help to restore her to the Chief of Staff. Cyrus knows what Liv did was right because he would have done it too. And if Jake pushes Liv out, he’s coming to Cy next. Yet, Cyrus decides to offer his help to Mellie and Jake… his idea is for Vanessa to go on television. There, she admits to participating in a sting operation to bust Bacall as an agent for Russia. This definitely throws a wrench in Liv’s plans.

But it looks like Cyrus is a bit of a double-agent himself. The next day, he brings Liv a memo from Mellie to the CIA director asking for corroboration of Vanessa’s sting operation story. This is evidence of obstruction of justice and would take down Mellie’s administration. Liv doesn’t want to use that memo to get Mellie impeached, but Cy is gunning for the presidency for himself. All Liv has to do is hold a press conference to expose that she’s being forced to step down, but it’s punishment because she uncovered Mellie’s conspiracy. This is how Liv can seize power for herself.

Courtesy of ABC/Eric McCandless

While Mellie waits for her mammogram, Liv comes to see her to say that she has decided not to step down. Liv will be having a press conference in the morning to call for Mellie’s resignation… she then presents the memo Cyrus gave her. Liv offers Mellie some advice on how to resign with grace and by taking responsibility for her actions, so other women coming up won’t be tainted by Mellie’s downfall. You can tell Mellie thinks this is preposterous, but she tells Jake that she plans to resign.

Meanwhile, Papa Pope and Quinn hear news about unconfirmed rumors that Liv is out as Chief of Staff. For Quinn, this is the perfect time to strike, when Liv is down. Rowan is more cautious… Liv has always been the one to dictate the news cycle, so if there are rumors about her being forced out of the White House, there must be a larger plan/purpose.

Later Papa Pope spends time with Robin, when Quinn accuses him to going soft. Is he in denial about going after Liv because he doesn’t want Quinn and Robin to leave him? Rowan let’s Quinn know right away that there’s nothing soft about him. And if he wanted to kill Robin with his bare hands, he would know exactly how to do it. Quinn becomes upset and demands that Rowan hand Robin over. Just as Quinn rejects any threat against Robin, Papa Pope will not allow anyone to hurt his child. It’s Mother Nature.

It becomes clear to Quinn that when the time comes for Rowan to choose between Liv and Quinn/Robin, he will always pick his daughter. So Quinn suggests that she, Robin, and Charlie leave town. In exchange, she will give up her quest for vengeance against Liv.

But instead of Quinn and Robin leaving with Charlie, Quinn sneaks into Liv’s apartment. Liv returns from talking to Mellie and is very shocked to see Quinn is still alive and that she’s given birth. Quinn pulls a gun on Liv and has written a confession for Liv to sign and turn over to David Rosen. She will spend the rest of her life in jail. Liv is very agitated and keeps walking to her window. Right now, there are B613 snipers with a target on Quinn to stop her from threatening Command’s life. Quinn thinks Liv is bluffing, but then the shots come through the window. Liv pushes Quinn out of the way and takes a bullet in her arm. She shuffles to the front door and yells from Quinn to take Robin and run.

"I wanted you to see your goddaughter….once." #Scandal pic.twitter.com/qWLqquOCo7

— Scandal (@ScandalABC) February 10, 2018

Liv goes to Papa Pope for help patching up her bullet wound. She’s shaken up, but most concerned that Quinn hates her. Rowan embraces Liv and tries to comfort her… dinosaurs cared for their young and so does he.

Family first. #Scandal pic.twitter.com/oT7LdMxs27

— Scandal (@ScandalABC) February 11, 2018

At the end of the episode, Charlie brings Quinn and Robin to QPA. Huck and Abby are beyond thrilled, and the moment where Huck meets Robin is so sweet. Simultaneously, Liv holds her press conference, praises Mellie’s leadership as president, and resigns as Chief of Staff.

"Her dreams are bigger than all of us." #Scandal pic.twitter.com/dRYaetLrWy

— Scandal (@ScandalABC) February 16, 2018

Courtesy of ABC/Eric McCandless

Scandal is on brief hiatus until Thursday, March 1 and then we’re back with the double-crossover episodes with How to Get Away with Murder!!!

“Allow Me to Reintroduce Myself” (written by Raamla Mohamed and directed by Tony Goldwyn)–In the midst of moving on from the White House, Olivia gets an unexpected visitor in criminal defense attorney Annalise Keating, who seeks her help in fast-tracking a judicial reform class action to the United States Supreme Court. However, after Olivia’s recent fall from political grace, it’s going to be more challenging than ever to get the support they need. (via ABC)

“Lahey v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania” (written by Morenike Balogun & Sarah L. Thompson and was directed by Zetna Fuentes)–As Annalise’s class-action case hangs in the balance, a meeting with the esteemed Washington D.C. fixer, Olivia Pope, proves to be crucial in getting the opportunity to argue her case in the nation’s highest court. Meanwhile, Bonnie discovers concerning information pertaining to Simon that threatens to expose what really happened during night he was shot. (via ABC)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

RECAP: ‘Scandal’ Season 7, Episode 11 “Army of One” There's a coup in the White House... is Liv willing to overturn Mellie's whole administration in order to hold onto power?

0 notes

nothingman · 7 years ago

Link

The “new atheist” movement emerged shortly after the 9/11 attacks with a best-selling book by Sam Harris called “The End of Faith.” This was followed by engaging tomes authored by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and the late Christopher Hitchens, among others. Avowing to champion the values of science and reason, the movement offered a growing number of unbelievers — tired of faith-based foolishness mucking up society for the rest of us — some hope for the future. For many years I was among the new atheism movement’s greatest allies.

From the start, though, the movement had some curious quirks. Although many atheists are liberals and empirical studies link higher IQs to both liberalism and atheism, Hitchens gradually abandoned his Trotskyist political affiliations for what could, in my view, be best described as a neoconservative outlook. Indeed, he explicitly endorsed the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, now widely seen as perhaps the greatest foreign policy blunder in American history.

There were also instances in which critiques of religion, most notably Islam, went beyond what was both intellectually warranted and strategically desirable. For example, Harris wrote in a 2004 Washington Times op-ed that “We are at war with Islam.” He added a modicum of nuance in subsequent sentences, but I know of no experts on Islamic terrorism who would ever suggest that uttering such a categorical statement in a public forum is judicious. As the terrorism scholar Will McCant noted in an interview that I conducted with him last year, there are circumstances in which certain phrases — even if true — are best not uttered, since they are unnecessarily incendiary. In what situation would claiming that the West is engaged in a civilizational clash with an entire religion actually improve the expected outcome?

Despite these peccadilloes, if that’s what they are, new atheism still had much to offer. Yet the gaffes kept on coming, to the point that no rational person could simply dismiss them as noise in the signal. For example, Harris said in 2014 that new atheism was dominated by men because it lacks the “nurturing, coherence-building extra estrogen vibe that you would want by default if you wanted to attract as many women as men.”

This resulted in an exodus of women from the movement who decided that the “new atheist” label was no longer for them. (I know of many diehard atheist women who wanted nothing to do with “new atheism,” which is a real shame.) Harris’ attempted self-exoneration didn’t help, either — it merely revealed a moral scotoma in his understanding of gender, sexism and related issues. What he should have done is, quite simply, said “I’m sorry.” These words, I have come to realize, are nowhere to be found in the new atheist lexicon.

Subsequent statements about profiling at airports, serious allegations of rape at atheist conferences, and tweets from major leaders that (oops!) linked to white supremacist websites further alienated women, people of color and folks that one could perhaps describe as “morally normal.” Yet some of us — mostly white men like myself — persisted in our conviction that, overall, the new atheist movement was still a force for good in the world. It is an extraordinary personal embarrassment that I maintained this view until the present year.

For me, it was a series of recent events that pushed me over the edge. As a philosopher — someone who cares deeply about intellectual honesty, verifiable evidence, critical thinking and moral thoughtfulness — I now find myself in direct opposition with many new atheist leaders. That is, I see my own advocacy for science, critical thought and basic morality as standing in direct opposition to their positions.

Just consider a recent tweet from one of the most prominent new atheist luminaries, Peter Boghossian: “Why is it that nearly every male who’s a 3rd wave intersectional feminist is physically feeble & has terrible body habitus?” If this is what it means to be a “reasonable person,” then who would want to be that? Except for the vocabulary, that looks like something you’d find in Donald Trump’s Twitter feed. The same goes for another of Boghossian’s deep thoughts: “I’ve never understood how someone could be proud of being gay. How can one be proud of something one didn’t work for?” It’s hard to know where to even begin dissecting this bundle of shameful ignorance.

More recently, Boghossian and his sidekick James Lindsay published a “hoax” academic paper in a “gender studies” journal (except that it wasn’t) in an attempt to embarrass the field of gender studies, which they — having no expertise in the field — believe is dominated by a radical feminist ideology that sees the penis as the root of all evil. I’ve explained twice why this “hoax” actually just revealed a marked lack of skepticism among skeptics themselves, so I won’t go further into the details here. Suffice it to say that while bemoaning the sloppy scholarship of gender studies scholars, Boghossian and Lindsay’s explanation of the hoax in a Skeptic article contained philosophical mistakes that a second-year undergraduate could detect. Even more, their argument for how the hoax paper exposes gender studies as a fraud contains a demonstrable fatal error — that is, it gets a crucial fact wrong, thus rendering their argument unsound.

The point is this: One would expect skeptics, of all people, who claim to be “responsive to the evidence,” to acknowledge this factual error. Yet not a single leader of the new atheist movement has publicly mentioned the factual problems with the “hoax.” Had someone (or preferably all of them) done this, it would have affirmed the new atheist commitment to intellectual honesty, to putting truth before pride and epistemology before ideology, thereby restoring its damaged credibility.

Even worse, Boghossian and Lindsay explicitly argue, in response to some critics, that they don’t “need to know the field of gender studies to criticize it.” This is, properly contextualized, about as anti-intellectual as one can get. Sure, it is a fallacy to immediately dismiss someone’s criticisms of a topic simply because that person doesn’t have a degree on the topic. Doing this is called the “Courtier’s Reply.” But it decidedly isn’t a fallacy to criticize someone for being incredibly ignorant — and even ignorant of their own ignorance — regarding an issue they’re making strong, confident-sounding claims about. Kids, listen to me: Knowledge is a good thing, despite what Boghossian and Lindsay suggest, and you should always work hard to understand a position before you level harsh criticisms at it. Otherwise you’ll end up looking like a fool to those “in the know.”

Along these lines, the new atheist movement has flirted with misogyny for years. Harris’ “estrogen vibe” statement — which yielded a defense rather than a gracious apology — was only the tip of the iceberg. As mentioned above, there have been numerous allegations of sexual assault, and atheist conferences have pretty consistently been male-dominated — resulting in something like a “gender Matthew effect.”

Many leading figures have recently allied themselves with small-time television personality Dave Rubin, a guy who has repeatedly given Milo Yiannopoulos — the professional right-wing troll who once said that little boys would stop complaining about being raped by Catholic priests if the priests were as good-looking as he is — a platform on his show. In a tweet from last May, Rubin said “I’d like a signed copy, please” in response to a picture that reads: “Ah. Peace and quiet. #ADayWithoutAWoman.” If, say, Paul Ryan were asked, he’d describe this as “sort of like the textbook definition of a misogynistic comment.” Did any new atheist leaders complain about this tweet? Of course not, much to the frustration of critical thinkers like myself who actually care about how women are treated in society.

In fact, the magazine Skeptic just published a glowing review of Yiannopoulos’ recent book, “Dangerous.” The great irony of this intellectual misstep is that Yiannopoulos embodies the opposite of nearly every trend of moral progress that Michael Shermer, the editor of Skeptic, identifies in his book “The Moral Arc.”

Yiannopoulos is a radical anti-intellectual, often ignoring facts or simply lying about issues; he uses hyperbolic rhetoric (e.g., “feminism is cancer”) that stymies rather than promotes rational discussion; he holds some outright racist views; he professes nonsensical views, such as the idea that birth control makes women “unattractive and crazy”; he uses hate speech, which indicates that he’s not a very nice person; he once publicly called out a transgender student by name during a talk; and he supports Donald Trump, who has essentially led a society-wide campaign against the Enlightenment. Oh, and need I mention that Yiannopoulos once said that if it weren’t for his own experience of abuse by a Catholic priest, he never would have learned to give “such good head“? The merger between the alt-right and the new atheist movement continues to solidify.

Perhaps the most alarming instance of irrationality in recent memory, though, is Sam Harris’ recent claim that black people are less intelligent than white people. This emerged from a conversation that Harris had with Charles Murray, co-author of “The Bell Curve” and a monetary recipient of the racist Pioneer Fund. There are two issues worth dwelling upon here. The first is scientific: Despite what Harris asserts, science does not support the conclusion that there are gene-based IQ differences between the races. To confirm this, I emailed the leading psychologist Howard Gardner, who told me that “The ‘racial difference’ speculations of Herrnstein and Murray remain very controversial,” as well as James Flynn (world-renowned for the Flynn effect), who responded that, “Taking into account the range of evidence, I believe that black and white Americans are not distinguished by genes for IQ. However, the debate is ongoing.”

The point is simply this: Scottish philosopher David Hume famously declared that the wise person always proportions her beliefs to the evidence. It follows that when a community of experts is divided on an issue, it behooves the rational non-expert to hold her opinion in abeyance. In direct opposition of this epistemic principle, Harris takes a firm stand on race and intelligence — even receiving adulation for doing this from other white men in the new atheist community. A more thoughtful public intellectual would have said: “Look, this is a very complicated issue that leading psychologists disagree about. A minority say there is a genetically based correlation between race and IQ while many others claim just the opposite, with perhaps the largest group holding that we simply don’t know enough right now. Since I am rational, I too will say that we simply don’t know.”

The second issue is ethical: Is it right, wise or justified to publicly declare that one race is genetically inferior to another, given the immense societal consequences this could have? Not only could this claim empower white supremacists — individuals who wouldn’t be sympathetic with Harris’ follow-up claim that generalizations about a race of people don’t warrant discriminating against individual members of that race — but science tells us that such information can have direct and appreciable negative consequences for members of the targeted race. For example, “stereotype threat” describes how the mere mention that one’s racial class is inferior can have measurable detrimental effects on one’s cognitive performance. Similarly, “teacher expectancy effects” refer to this; if teachers are told that some students are smart and others are dumb, where the “smart” and “dumb” labels are randomly assigned, the “smart” students will statistically do better in class than the “dumb” ones.

To broadcast a scientifically questionable meme that could have serious bad effects for people already struggling in a society that was founded upon racism and is still struggling to overcome it is, I would argue, the height of intellectual irresponsibility.

Although the new atheist movement once filled me with a great sense of optimism about the future of humanity, this is no longer the case. Movements always rise and fall — they have a life cycle, of sorts — but the fall of this movement has been especially poignant for me. The new atheists of today would rather complain about “trigger warnings” in classrooms than eliminate rape on campuses. They’d rather whine about “safe spaces” than help transgender people feel accepted by society. They loudly claim to support free speech and yet routinely ban dissenters from social media, blogs and websites.

They say they care about facts, yet refuse to change their beliefs when inconvenient data are presented. They decry people who make strong assertions outside of their field and yet feel perfectly entitled to make fist-poundingly confident claims about issues they know little about. And they apparently don’t give a damn about alienating women and people of color, a truly huge demographic of potential allies in the battle against religious absurdity.

On a personal note, a recent experience further cemented my view that the new atheists are guilty of false advertising. A podcaster named Lalo Dagach saw that I had criticized Harris’ understanding of Islamic terrorism, which I believe lacks scholarly rigor. In response, he introduced me to his Twitter audience of 31,000 people as follows: “Phil Torres (@xriskology) everyone. Mourns the loss of ISIS and celebrates attacks on atheists.” Below this tweet was a screenshot of the last two articles I had written for Salon — one about the importance of listening to the experts on terrorism, and the other about how the apocalyptic ideology of the Islamic extremists of ISIS is more likely to evolve into new forms than go extinct.

First of all, Dagach’s tweet was overtly defamatory. I wrote him asking for a public apology and heard nothing back, although he quietly deleted the tweet. But even that did not happen until I had received a hailstorm of disturbing responses to Dagach’s false statements, responses in the form of internet trolls aggressively defending Harris by asking me to kill myself and proposing new nicknames like “Phil Hitler Torres” (seriously!). This is the new atheist movement today, by and large. The great enemy of critical thinking and epistemological integrity, namely tribalism, has become the social glue of the community.

I should still be the new atheist movement’s greatest ally, yet today I want nothing whatsoever to do with it. From censoring people online while claiming to support free speech to endorsing scientifically unfounded claims about race and intelligence to asserting, as Harris once did, that the profoundly ignorant Ben Carson would make a better president than the profoundly knowledgeable Noam Chomsky, the movement has repeatedly shown itself to lack precisely the values it once avowed to uphold. Words that now come to mind when I think of new atheism are “un-nuanced,” “heavy-handed,” “unjustifiably confident” and “resistant to evidence” — not to mention, on the whole, “misogynist” and “racist.”

And while there are real and immensely important issues to focus on in the world, such as climate change, nuclear proliferation, food production, ocean acidification, the sixth mass extinction and so on, even the most cursory glance at any leading new atheist’s social-media feed reveals a bizarre obsession with what they call the “regressive left.” This is heartbreaking, because humanity needs thoughtful, careful, nuanced, scientifically minded thinkers more now than ever before.

via Salon: in-depth news, politics, business, technology & culture Salon

#IFTTT #Feedly #Nothingman uses feedly

0 notes