#Reiterates Commitment

[iwieldthesword]

I need to talk about this because it's making me feel insane.

Last week, my white leftist goyisch friends sat me, a wholeass antizionist Jew, down for a "talk" because they "needed to check in about Palestine" and make sure "our values aligned before we hung out again". They apparently needed to "suss out" where I stood on Palestinian rights, despite having had several conversations about Palestine and them being some of my closest friends. They needed to check, to search for and uncover my true values, because I had said some "disturbing things" that had made them "suspicious".

Disturbing things included:

Supporting IfNotNow which is a "liberal zionist organization" because it normalizes Jewish heritage in the Levant

Not bringing Palestine up enough, despite them also not bringing it up (this was apparently a test)

Mentioning that the Houthi's flag talks about cursing all Jews

Saying Stalin was antisemitic because of the "all the paw-grihms"

...and apparently other things they wouldn't specify, but had been tracking for months.

To clarify, I am an antizionist Jew from three generations of antizionist Jews. I have been vocal in my support of Palestinian liberation and in my condemnation both of Israel's actions and its violent founding as a state, and of zionism in many of its forms. I am a regular donor to Palestinian and Jewish NGOs and advocate for Jewish antizionism in person, at temple, and online. I have been talking about Palestinian liberation before they could point to Gaza on a map. But they needed to make sure, they needed to "suss out", they needed to check. And it's notable that the majority of moments that made them suspicious of me were times where I talked about antisemitism: not about Palestinian liberation, not about Israeli decolonization, not about anything actually relevant to Palestine. It was talking about antisemitism that made them check to see if I was a cryptozionist.

One of the most pervasive and insidious forms of antisemitism is the idea that Jews are inherently untrustworthy and suspicious. You have to constantly be on guard, track what they say and do, "suss out" the real truth. You have to keep them in line and and watch them carefully because they're liars and sneaks, and if you're not looking closely they'll return to their real values (and drag you down with them). This is where the idea of "cryptozionist" comes from and what it's directly building off of: the inherent untrustworthiness of Jews and the need to check. Because no matter how close you become you can't actually trust them, and any upstanding gentile should make sure to avoid associating with Jews before "sussing out" their real allegiances and intentions. You have to make them turn out their pockets, just in case.

I'm the first and only Jew they actually were friends with; I know because they've told me (strangely proud of it in the way white Americans are proud of that kind of thing). They've asked me questions about Judaism and fawned over how beautiful and unique it was for me to be connected to my community and culture. Pre-October 7th, one of them had even mentioned being interested in coming to services at my temple. She still has my copy of our siddur. But now she needed to "check" before she could be seen with me in public. Which is what it was: it wasn't a "you're my friend and I need to give you some feedback because you're fucking up" kind of intervention (which is normal and important to have), it was a trial. It was a last chance for me to prove to them that I'm clean-enough that they could afford to risk being seen with me in public, just in case someone noticed them fraternizing with a hypothetical Enemy and their leftism was compromised. It was a test to make sure that I behave properly when required to, that I'd play along and do what I'm told and turn out my pockets if asked (because any refusal would validate the notion of having something to hide). And above all it was an opportunity for them to reaffirm their own cleanliness by putting my imagined immorality in its place.

I did what I needed to do: I smiled. I apologized. I "didn't know that". I "appreciated the feedback". I turned out my pockets because what else could I do? They'd decided who I was and what I believed, regardless of what I said or did, so there was no point in explaining that they were wrong about me. If I had told them they were being antisemitic, it would just have been proof that they were right. Caring about antisemitism is a dogwhistle in the spaces they've chosen: it's not a real form of oppression, it's a tactic for sneaky, lying Jews to weasel out of admitting their true alliances. There was nothing I could say.

Nothing's really changed for me. I'm going to continue my activism for Palestinian liberation rooted in my culture and my faith. Antizionism is still not antisemitism. But I got a reminder that many white goyisch leftists fundamentally just don't trust Jews, and that the activist spaces they're in not only exacerbate their antisemitism in an increasingly insular echo chamber, but also allow them to finally vent their internalized bigotry in a socially-acceptable way. In my former friends' eyes, what they did was activism—disavowing a Jew (and making me feel humiliated, scared, and unclean in the process) as a cathartic stand-in for doing fucking anything for actual Palestinian liberation—but for me it was a grief that I'll be feeling for a long time: not only over losing friends I loved and trusted, but also over my sense of belonging and security in leftist spaces.

[m4rs-ex3]

ok as an ✨ artiste ✨ i'm here to tell non-drawers that drawing a person you know is a crazy intimate thing. like it seems so simple but depicting someone's appearance forces you to think about everything--every part of their physical attributes to their mannerisms and presence--in a way that makes you feel almost intrusive even if it's just a simple cartoon and even if you're not that close with the person. all this to say that callum drawing rayla is insane. like you don't just do that casually, specifically when you're already in love

[hoofpeet]

<;-- Sugar and Spice make a bet

-This takes place a bit after this comic; Spice is starting to realize he genuinely likes & cares about Ingo and is panicking about it

-He disappeared for a few weeks to prove to himself that he doesn't need Ingo in his life, is now hanging out with Sugar to distract himself

-Spice is definitely not projecting at all

-Sugar is hyper competitive with Spice specifically </3

[triptychofvoids]

Hey, sorry if this was asked before, I was unable to find clarification by just browsing the posts you tagged with Heavy, or looking the word up (great search system, Tumblr, thank you). Could you elaborate on your opinions about Heavy? And, by extension, HeavyMedic, since it's clearly only really a platonic thing in your work.

Which isn't a complaint, to be clear, your work is honestly rather refreshing, considering how often Those Two are just "the couple" in so many fanworks.

i like heavy, we are good friends and im rather fond of him! in addition to being a a valued asset on the battlefield and a good test subject, hes a quite an agreeable and interesting person as well!

i just dont feel anything more than platonic towards him, and i fail to see why this is such a problem! i understand heavymedic is rather popular and it seems some people care about shipping characters more than anything else when it comes to fan interactions. originally when i first saw it i had no problem with it, and even found some of it amusing or endearing in some cases. but over time, well. it stops being endearing very quickly, especially when you can never get a break from it. its a shame too, because heavy is quite fun to draw and id love to draw more interactions between us, but at this point i tend to avoid drawing him or even talking about him altogether because some people sadly do not know how to behave

[unopenablebox]

attempt to idly discuss concept of custom wedding vows with 🌸 ground to a halt after the realization that neither of us actually, like, wants to try to figure out what the fuck we'd be promising

can you do custom vows, but instead of vows to do stuff, it's just a list of the superbly good qualities of the other person in order to make it clear why any rational actor would agree that you should obviously plan to keep hanging out with them as long as possible

[kitkatyes]

One of my go-to brushes on procreate is this stupid (/aff) brush I made for ONE purpose,,, it’s literally the EOD logo—I made it so I wouldn’t have to draw it a million times on the silly guys. BUT LIKE, ITS SO GOOD FOR RANDOM TEXTURES AND SKETCHING?? It’s so very silly but I love it sm

[randomwriteronline]

"Do you have rice at home?"

What a weird question. Emmet turned to Briosa and nodded, an eyebrow crooked up to make a confused expression.

Why?, he signed.

She shrugged over the back of her seat: "You know," she replied vaguely, not answering, and added: "Do you have butter, shredded cheese?"

Emmet nodded again, more puzzled.

"Mushrooms?"

He shook his head. She clicked her tongue.

"Zucchini?"

That he did have, yes.

Briosa hummed loudly.

"Do you have broth cubes?" she asked. Her hand rose from beneath her chin and made a gesture as if holding something small between her index and thumb: "Like the uh, the ones that you put in boiling water and it makes stock broth?"

Did he have those?

He shook his head, struggling to find the right signs: Broth... Powder.

"Oh, that's still fine."

You... Need? Thing?, he asked. The vagueness was tiring him out more than the already long day had.

Briosa hummed for a long while.

"Are you hungry?" she didn't answer.

Emmet raised a hand to give an exhausted half-half gesture.

"Same," she replied - which was strange, because according to Briosa she was never hungry. She turned off the last computer still on: "Let's go."

Home sounded awful. Home sounded empty and soulless. Home sounded like Crustle yelling because he had missed feeding time by 1 minute and already trying to rip open the food cabinet to forcefully get his supper like a big cement baby, and that did make him chuckle a little and give him the strength to be on his way.

His head pulsed a bit. Mawile must have been as tired as him, because Briosa held her in her arms like a little kid as they walked down the street at a pace that was clearly not up to the shorter man's standards.

Emmet yawned. Goodness. So tired.

Briosa skipped a little at his side.

"There's some foods you absolutely cannot eat at dinner," she began unprompted, but her squeaky voice was a welcome distraction from the noisy quiet, "Not because there's some actual rule - technically there is but I call bullshit on that, it's all food - but because they're so heavy on the stomach that if you do eat them you'll be dreaming of green Raticate and pink Donphants like you got five shots of ketamine before bed."

His head snapped to face her with eyes wide from vague concern.

"I don't actually know if that's what ketamine does, I've never had it," she added, oblivious to his look.

"That's not how you pronounce that," Emmet managed to deadpan.

Mawile translated him sleepily.

Briosa turned to face him, the corners of her otherwise perfectly straight mouth pointed downwards and her forehead creased in puzzlement: "Pronounce what?"

"Ketamine," he replied - the last syllable making a 'meen' sound.

"Ketamine?" she repeated - the last sillable making a 'mine' sound, like the possessive pronoun or the place where miners work.

"Keh-tah-meen," he sounded out carefully so that she could easily read his lips.

Her brows furrowed over her crooked nose: "Ketameen?" she said correctly with a tinge of disgust. Being treated with a nod, she scoffed: "That sounds stupid. It's not a 'meen'-ending word, it sounds too stupid. It could be if it ended in 'a' but otherwise it sounds way too silly for me. I'm gonna keep calling it ketamine."

"That's wrong."

"Well, it sounds better."

Whatever makes her happy.

Emmet blinked heavily.

"Why are we talking about ketamine?" he muttered. The streetlights were too bright.

"We aren't," Briosa replied as soon as Mawile had translated him in sign. "I'm just trying to keep you awake and you derailed the conversation with what is the right way to pronounce ketamine."

"I am awake," he mumbled back.

"Are you?"

He showed her his tongue - immediately covering it with his hand. An awfully unprofessional thing to do: Briosa wasn't Elesa, even though her name ended with the same syllable, and as far as he knew they weren't quite considerable friends.

How had he even thought of confusing them enough for a mistake in etiquette like that? They were nothing alike, in looks and sound.

The substitute didn’t seem that bothered, proceding without a care: “Is it ok if I ask you for some food for my lads while I’m at yours? I’ll pay you back. It’s just because otherwise they’re gonna eat at 2 AM.”

Emmet nodded without really paying attention; only when the words swam from his ears into his brain and began being digested did he narrow his eyes and stop right where he stood.

He turned and looked behind himself.

Briosa only noticed his sudden stillness after a dozen or so steps, when Mawile pointed her back to the flabbergasted man in the middle of the street.

“You good?” she asked.

He pointed to the direction from which they had come silently, in deep thought. He blinked, then finally turned back to her.

“This isn’t the way to your house,” he noted.

“It’s not.”

The matter-of-fact tone didn't help.

"Why aren't you? On the way home?"

"I'm following you."

"Why are you following me?"

"I'm going to your house."

"You're coming to my house?"

"I'm coming to your house."

"Why are you coming to your- my house?"

"To cook you rice with zucchini."

"Why?"

"For dinner."

Emmet took a moment to pause and ruminate on all that.

"Did we agree on, on that? That you were... Coming to my house to cook?" he asked, because he genuinely didn't remember if they had.

"No."

Ah. Made sense.

A slow roundhouse kick that was probably meant as gentle (and while it did not send him hurtling across the street, it was still imbued with a discreet amount of strength that made him wobble on his unsteady knees) hit him with the back of the foot square in the ass and propelled him forward a little bit.

"Come on, let's go," the man (when had she gotten back at his side?) egged him on, much like a father dragging his noisy tired child out of the supermarket by an arm with as much vague kindness as possible: "You're sleeping on your feet like a Rapidash and you need to get some food in you."

He was too tired to complain or make a comment about that first part, and could not argue with the second.

He was really hungry.

Excadrill seemed perplexed when Briosa snuck under his arm as soon as the door was opened and made a beeline towards the kitchen, but Emmet just waved a hand, letting her know all was fine.

“She’s helping,” he told her with a yawn: “Said she’ll make dinner.”

The Steel mole looked back at the room the small vaguely antropomorphized Electrode had disappeared inside of, not very certain whether or not leaving someone like that in the vicinity of gas outlets, fire, sharpened blades and various more or less dangerous tools at her whims’ disposal; but she did consider, turning once more to the man trying to slip his shoes off while Archeops was nibbling at his wrist to shake him out of his tardiness, that was a risk she was willing to take if it meant her ward would eat before collapsing into uneasy sleep.

Footsteps stampeded heavily all the way back out of the kitchen, and Briosa appeared from the doorframe.

"I don't know where anything is," she said very flatly.

The light that came from the room hit the side of her frame, almost painting a yellow line where it landed, making her look something akin to incomprehensible in the dim sorroundings.

Emmet managed to blink slowly.

"I did find the refrigerated foods and knife and the tap water," she continued as if to reassure him she wasn't a complete cretin, "But I don't know where anything else is and I thought maybe I shouldn't slam open all the cabinets of some house that's not mine to find the rice jar."

Her boss raised a finger in the air to ask her to wait a moment; he stood slowly, heavily, and wobbled on his socked feet over to her.

He didn't have a rice jar, but he did have a box of rice, as well as a rice cooker. He provided Briosa with a pot, some oil and a plate at her request: she struggled to pour the grains into her small palm six, eight times, each fistiful dropped in the plate, cursing softly in what seemed like gibberish, and he watched her absolutely transfixed by the motion and sound similar to rain.

Something vaguely pinchy pulling at his leg snapped him out of it.

"Durant," he assumed as he croaked without looking, leaning down a big to pet lightly something vaguely metallic but not at all like his Bug's carapace, "I'll get dinner. Hold on."

A tongue clicked loudly while he reached for the pantry under the silverware that held the Pokémon food, and a large blackish mass delicately helped him get the bags out. Mawile's large mouth was a little clumsy, since the stem connecting it to the back of her head was quite thin, so Emmet ended up reciprocating her help to save her some of the strain.

Above himself he could hear the gas sparking into fire on the stove.

He nudged Briosa with an elbow to get her attention while remaining crouched - it was a little surreal to be looking up at her as he signed: Zucchini?

"Water," she replied. "I need to boil it. Also I think we forgot the broth powder."

Why boil?

"For the rice."

Sitting on his knees so he could peek over the counter, he pointed at the rice cooker; she looked at it, then turned back to him with a completely blank expression.

Rice cooker, he explained.

"Ah," she replied, and made no motion towards it.

For cooking rice, he continued.

"Yeah, I figured." Briosa checked around the station for a moment more: "Hm, yep, we missed the broth powder."

His brows furrowed: Why powder?

"For the rice. You gotta boil the rice in broth to cook it."

Emmet blinked: Rice cooker, he repeated.

Briosa blinked: "Hm," she noted.

Her boss pointed back to the utensil.

Use rice cooker.

"I don't know how to use that."

I teach you.

"That's gonna take longer than just letting me boil the rice," she waved her hand, her stoat fingers grazing his nose with a certain resolution to the movement that told him not to worry: "I know what I'm doing. You do what you gotta and try not to fall asleep. If you need me to do something or you gotta tell me something just punt your elbow on my shoulder."

Might hurt.

Briosa smiled, toothy grin not nearly as terrifying as usual: "You're a wet noodle when fully awake," she laughed, sounding like a repeatedly squeezed rubber Ducklett: "You won't hurt me."

Then she turned to wash the zucchini a bit in the sink, humming something. Mawile slowly dragged a bag out of the kitchen, struggling a bit; Emmet carefully placed the powdered broth next to the stove where it could be easily seen and raised the other end of the heavy sack to help the little Fairy bring it all the way over to the livingroom, others following behind them in mid air, held floating in the air by Chandelure's helpful Psychic - to keep it away from Crustle’s impatient grabby claws as well.

It took him a hot moment to realize he would have needed seven more bowls (the other twelve already fetched by their respective owners, thankfully); he then also realized that other than Mawile, the six guests were not actually there.

Briosa was chopping a zucchini very slowly and heavily when he came in to ask her for her team, which sat in their Pokéballs on their counter a little closer to the kitchen door. Emmet saw it fit to collect them without bothering her, noting distractedly that she seemed to be singing and deciding, against his will, to listen in.

“... Amministra-zio-ne, e liquida-zio-ne, rateizza-zio-ni anti-previden-zial - misura came-ra-le, calcolo dell’IR-PES, scarico dell’I-VA, misura cata-stal...”

The tempo of her chopping increased to a horrendous degree immediately after as she vocalized quietly; Emmet watched her cut through the vegetable with admirable technique and fury for a moment more before deciding he did not want to have her turn around a little too fast and get that blade flying right in his eye socket, and went right back to the livingroom where his brother’s Bug was starting to scream his little bulbous eyes off in hunger.

Knowing full well how big, bulky, destructive and aggressive ‘the lads’ could be in battle, he was somewhat surprised to see their politeness outside of their Pokéball when he first released them. Their sizes did cause bit of a stirrup, especially among those who hadn't seen them before, and Emolga's heavily deformed scarred grin certainly did not put anybody at ease - but Seismitoad croaked very gently, as a kind greeting, and Bisharp bowed in an incredibly courteous manner; Klinklang did seem a little more than uneasy at the sight of Heatmor, trying to scoot behind Excadrill and to drag the much more relaxed Durant with it, but the Fire type seemed just as scared of the hunk of metal as he hid behind the only lady of the team.

Speaking of Conkeldurr - the poor girl was trying her hardest to shrink in her shoulders as soon as she noticed where she was, eyeing co-workers and new curious faces with a sheepish kind of apprehension, large rough hands playing with one another.

"Hello," Emmet welcomed them too tired to stop Boldore from running into the newcomers repeatedly. "I live here. You eat here tonight."

Cryogonal made a horrifying sound not too far from Candelure' worst cough.

He gave her a thumbs up: "Yes."

It struck him very suddenly that roughly three out of six out of Briosa’s team effectively could have been considered full ass human people by size, and that while one of them was indeed an enormous bulbous frog he should have probably just let Conkeldurr and Bisharp sit on the couch.

It also struck him that Cryogonal (from whom Haxorus was inching away) was a pure Ice type.

“We don’t...” he muttered, turning around to check on the bags. He stared at them for a second or so before remembering the rest of his thought: “Have Ice type food. Food for Ice types. Uh...”

Mawile’s little hands moved quickly to tell him something.

He blinked a couple times, trying to understand before giving in, pointing at his hand: “I cannot - three finger sign, I’m not. Fluent.”

The little Steel Fairy nodded apologetically and chittered as she repeated, slower so that he could try the signs out himself to properly translate them: No problem. C eat nothing or anything. C eat wood if want. No worry.

The chittering was probably so that Cryogonal could listen in herself and assure Emmet of the veracity of the statement with another ghastly shriek.

Which she did.

That got her another thumbs up.

It took a while, to properly get everybody their bowl of dinner, and he had to be helped a couple of times - mostly by Mawile, who seemed the most well-versed in reading written symbols.

He was so, so tired.

In the end they had managed to split the food around more or less evenly: both Durant and Excadrill had graciously declined the portion of Steel-specific food that should have been mixed with their other ones so that Bisharp and Mawile could have it, since they had nothing for Dark or Fairy types, and Emolga was more than fine getting only Flying-specific (Archeops wasn’t necessarily keen on that, but very wisely had not argued with the rat that looked like he had been through a shredder and survived) since Eelektross’ size demanded quite a bowl for him; Seismitoad had at one point striked up a conversation with his fellow Ground type regarding, Emmet imagined, which types of dirt tasted better, whereas Heatmor was still snout-deep in his can of beans, apparently eating them one at a time to better savor them, as normal Fire-specific food didn’t account for his digestive troubles.

Even Cryogonal had managed to snack around without causing an excess in panic. Gurdurr seemed to be the only one a little embarassed, glancing every now and then to the much bigger Fighting type in the same manner an elementary-schooler glances at a substitute teacher he may or may not have a puppy crush on.

It was relatively quiet, in the end. A lot of crunching and munching, and unintelligible words, but it was quiet.

Emmet shook himself a little when small teeth gently bit down on his arm: Mawile looked up at him with a slight concern, her little hands pulling at his pants to make him sit down properly instead of squatting on his toes.

“Hm?” he asked her - or, well, tried to - as he felt his head strangely light.

The Fairy insisted he take a seat first before explaining: No sleep yet! Rice not ready. Ready soon. Stay awake.

“I am Emmet. I am awake.”

Before no.

“Yes I was.”

Mawile pointed at Boldore: Called you, she explained. Food stolen. You asleep! No answer. Crab say shut up.

At that, he looked up to the three Bugs.

Durant and Galvantula both followed his gaze: Crustle turned his bulbous eyes in two completely different directions to try and feign ignorance.

That clearly did not work, as a perfectly straight finger pointed right at him.

“Bad boy.” his trainer’s brother decreted. Crustle (who by law knew any word he could have said could have been used against him) chirped out an indignated whine in protest. “No. Give Boldore some of yours.”

Bugs cannot quite huff, though the crustacean definitely did try; with no other option, he haughtily shoved what still remained in his bowl to the block of rock he had stolen the lunch from in the first place, who made a crumbling sound similar to a piqued ‘thank you’ and very slowly helped himself to the rest of his supper while the other retreated in his cement house as though he were the offended party here.

Well, that was solved.

Emmet rubbed one eye with his hand to shake the sleep dust off of it.

A three-fingered paw pulled at his shirt again: “I am awake,” he reassured Mawile, “I am not falling asleep.”

She did not particularly care about his blatant lies at the moment - not as much as she cared about getting him off the floor, at least, as evidenced by how she tried to pull him onto the couch despite her obvious size disadvantage. Bisharp, noting her struggle, quickly put aside his own bowl and rose to his feet, metal arms outstretched to catch the man in them.

“No thanks,” Emmet stopped him. “Can do it myself.”

Alright, he thought, time to stand up.

After a whole minute he had not moved an inch.

Bisharp, with as extreme a tenderness as a creature composed partially by sawblades could muster, gently slipped his hands under Emmet’s arms, lifted him into the air as one might lift a cat, and sat him on the couch.

“Thanks.” the human peeped.

Seeing the Dark type bow a little in response while Archeops blatantly laughed at him gave him some weird new kind of mortification to feel.

Maybe if he focused on the incomprehensible sounds somewhat reminscent of words coming from the kitchen, he would manage to trick himself into not thinking about having had to be picked up like a bag of cement because his joints didn’t respond.

From the door connecting the two rooms he could see Briosa perfectly still before the stove: a vacant look seemed to dwell in her eyes as her lips moved quickly, and perhaps most concerningly she was holding a kitchen knife in her right hand, bits and pieces of zucchini still stuck to the blade, with a grip that could have concievably crushed a piece of wood into shavings or caused a small enough pumpkin to explode under the pressure.

Not a very reassuring sight.

But it did immediately cancel his embarassment.

“... E il carica-to-re svuo-te-rà, sul-le aliquote della-li-bertà...”

Very suddenly, she began banging her fists against her hips in asynchrony, large knife very much still grasped tight in her palm, as if her body was a drumset and she were playing it after getting a dose of pure sugar injected in her veins.

“Ed il so-cio scompa-ri-rà, sul-le aliquote della-li-bertà...” she continued unperturbed by neither her own choreography nor the possibility of accidentally stabbing herself for that matter.

The rest of the chorus turned a little garbled from her furious headbanging, the movement so violent and so spread out through her entire frame (her torso and pelvis were oscillating in tandem back and forth to lend more strength to the motion, making her look a little like one of those bird-shaped toys that are constantly quickly dipping their beaks in the water, rising out of it, then diving back in for another sip) that it made him fear for a moment she would slam her head on the counter and either knock herself out or destroy it completely, with a higher chance of the latter.

Emmet turned back to Mawile, who had climbed the couch to sit next to him.

“She is always like this?”

She followed his finger with her gaze as he pointed to the kitchen.

Then she nodded.

“Man.”

No like silence, the Fairy explained.

"Aaah. So she talks."

The little beast waited a moment, then waved a hand in the air in a sort-of-yes-sort-of-no kind of gesture: Talk, no really. No hear voice. Feel mouth move, remember how voice sound. But no hear.

Emmet tilted his head: "She can't hear her own voice?"

Mawile nodded.

He clicked his tongue in thoughtful aknowledgement and blinked.

That was such a weird concept, not being able to hear yourself. It was the sort of obvious thing one never ponders on at all: so he had always assumed she could, without really thinking about it enough to question whether or not that was possible. And even if he had found himself reflecting on it in a sudden burst of curiosity, he would have probably still rationalized that she could, maybe by feeling the vibrations in her neck as she spoke.

But that would have meant keeping her hands on her throat all the time, he reasoned, and it would have been really bothersome for someone as prone to action as she was.

He wondered, suddenly, if she knew how squeaky she sounded.

Probably not.

"Could she hear herself?" he asked. "Somehow?"

Yes!, Mawile nodded enthusiastically.

Emmet blinked again. From what she had told him, he hadn't expected that could have been a possibility.

Headphone! Microphone!, the Fairy continued without needing any prompting. Ear implant! But no wear for long. Hurt ear. Or yell!

"Yell?"

If loud enough! Like before!

Did that mean she had been yelling?

This whole time?

Oh, Emmet suddenly thought: yes, actually, she must have been. The kitchen was a room that in some strange way never let any noise escape it; no matter how much the oil could have sizzled or how agonizingly the blender could have screamed, their agony remained hushed into silence between those walls. It was very nice, by all means - he still remembered having to retreat in his closet to escape the noise of his uncle in the kitchen so it couldn’t make him feel like there were Stunfisks flapping around in his veins - but it brought along the slight side-effect that if they had to set a timer that wasn't the oven's (which turned the machine off as soon as it was done) they would have to put it in the livingroom, or they'd never hear it.

For him to be able to listen to her, Briosa must have been belting the hell out of her incomprehensible song like tomorrow wasn't planning on being a thing.

“Verrry loud,” he commented, slowly.

Mawile nodded, whirring her tongue to imitate him as she signed: Verrry loud.

Some minor inconvenience must have happened, because Briosa shouted something irritated, possibly profanity of some kind.

Emmet leaned his head on the back pillows.

Now she was singing again.

“Al-me-no-fi-no-a-do-mat-ti-na-ti-pro-me - tto-che, sarò la fa-ccia, di-cui-hai-più bisogno...”

This one was much calmer. More melodic. The way she pronounced the words had a strange cadence, quick yet slow - it was hard to explain. He blinked, feeling drowsy all the way into his marrow.

“Me-glio-non-di-re-nien-te-aspet-tando-il-mat-ti-no, sor-rido, se-pen-so-al-no-me-che-tu mi-darai do-ma-ni...”

Huh. This verse had a completely different rhythm. Weird.

Maybe the author was part of some avantgarde musical genre he didn’t know.

He felt something lukewarm pulling his forehead back and realized his eyes were closed. When had that happened? Chandelure chimed at him something that sounded like ‘don’t fall asleep yet, you still have to eat’.

Ah.

So it wasn’t the song’s fault for having different-sounding verses.

He mouthed that he wasn’t asleep, voice barely leaving his mouth. He hadn’t even noticed he’d dozed off.

“... che, orati-mangida-den, tro, piccolo-pianeta-spen, to, come-una bri-ciolaal-ven-toe-un-bu-co-ne-roe-un-oc-chio-blu,” Briosa was continuing.

He wondered how much of it he’d missed.

“E, so-no-po-co-più-di-un-jamais-vu, tra tutte queste persone, nella-mia-testa-io-gioco-a-tabù, perdo-se-dico-il tuo no - me...”

A pinch at his leg.

Ow, he murmured, furrowing his brow; Durant chittered worriedly at him, nudging him to spur him into action. His eyelids felt horribly sandy against his sclera as he rubbed them with as much vigor as possible to shake any tiredness away.

He was not tired. He was not sleeping.

His knees popped when he straightened them to tense his legs.

He was not about to fall into a nap again.

“Io ti terrò la mano, tu tienimi l’anima...”

He bent down to grasp his feet.

“E pure se non sai chi sono non lasciarla mai...”

Maybe, if he went to check on Briosa, he would avoid knocking himself out on the couch for the next five hours.

He stood as though he were made of lead.

Following her saccharine voice, he slowly began wobbling towards the kitchen.

“Ve - di, ci sono, dei-ri, cordi, che-mi de - vi, sei grande, ma-ti, chiamo-an, cora ba - by,” (oh, a word he recognized) “Ho gl’occhi rossi ma non te ne accorgi, ti guardo mentre dormi, ma solo ieri-”

Her nose stuck out so much when you looked at her from the side. It jutted out from her forehead out of nowhere, somewhere a little above her eyes and almost right below her eyebrows, and then it came right down like a straight wall. It wasn’t perfectly straight, because there was a dent where it had likely been broken and incorrectly healed; so more than a wall it was like a waterfall interrupted in the middle by a rock. Despite the contrast with the rest of her more graceful features, it fit everything about her like a glove. Emmet’s nose showed no signs of harm and pointed outwards instead, like half the head of an arrow. What weird things to notice in the split second between two verses of a hook.

“-C’e-ri, nei giorni ne-ri, quelli che piove troppo fo-rte per stare in pie-di,” she sang: “E fottevamo anche la morte volando legge-ri, m’hai chiesto dimmi cosa te-mi, in che cosa cre-di, la mia risposta sei tu.”

She hummed loudly, thin lips pursed tight, tilting her head with the melody.

“La mia risposta sei tu...” she repeated while stirring the mass of rice in what little broth was left.

Emmet stared.

She had a nice voice.

When she turned to the door - maybe to call for him - she had a startle and flattened herself closer to the floor, little eyes blown wide and hand grasping the counter. She looked like she had a heart attack.

They simply stared at each other for a moment, before Emmet remembered she couldn’t have heard him come in and likely had shat her pants.

Whoops.

Briosa was quicker: “Hello!” she grinned apologetically. “I was really really loud, wasn’t I.”

Her boss shook his head, smiling back: No problem. You sing nice.

Expression losing any mortification, she flipped her wooden spoon to tap her chin with it a few times as though she were thanking a deeply captivated audience - giving a ‘youch’ and a ‘porca puttana bastarda’ when the heat carried by the utensil scalded her a little.

He wasn’t sure what that second thing meant, but it made him chuckle.

Briosa turned back to the pot and twisted her mouth: “Ok, since it’s almost ready, do you want me to put...” she rocked in place for a moment, hand waving a little, “A sensible person’s idea of a good amount of cheese and butter, or my idea of a good amount of cheese and butter?”

Second, he signed.

“Gotcha.” and she got her big knife back in hand and grabbed the brick of definitely softer butter like she was going to squeeze it between her fingers and annihilate it completely: “Drown it in dairy it is.”

Emmet wheezed weakly.

He fetched a couple plates and forks to set on the table, slowly, so slowly. By the time he found the glasses and started checking for a bottle that still had some water before pikcing one and putting in the sink to fill it, the rice had completely dried up, and Briosa was stirring it with butter and shredded cheese with such a focused gaze and furiously quick hand that an inattentive onlooker might have thought she was busy making merengues instead.

(They had tried exactly once, and in the end they’d both ended up with aching wrists and a bunch of half whipped egg clears despite their best efforts. In the end they had made sweet white omelettes that weren’t as bad as they could have turned out to be.)

“You wanna lick the spoon?”

Before he could even register the question he had already clamped the wooden utensil in his mouth.

Clearly the correct course of action: that tasted great.

Must have been all the cheese.

Now he was salivating.

“This’ll kill you,” Briosa assured him with a calm tone. “If you’re not gonna be sleeping after this I might have to punch a hole in your head.”

He gave her thumbs up. A good last meal either way.

They ate in silence, fairly quickly. Had he really not noticed how hungry he was up until now? Dragons. He shouldn’t skip meals. But maybe it was just because this rice specifically tasted so good. Why, he couldn’t really tell. It was just rice and zucchini. Drowned in dairy, but still rice and zucchini. It wasn’t even that hard to make. He probably could have made it on his own.

Maybe it was because he’d fasted the whole day.

He stood and fetched a second portion. Briosa was eyeing the pot like a Braviary waiting for the right moment to strike a Basculin.

When he motioned for her to hand him her plate she shook her head: “I’m not hungry,” she claimed, though he never quite believed her when she said that, even when she sounded so honest - maybe she was trying to convince herself, but as to why he couldn’t tell, “It’s just gluttony. Keep that in a tupper or something, I made a lot for that especially. And!”

Her index waved a little in the air, possibly to distract her boss from how she was standing to wash her dish and everything before he might object: “And, when you warm it, do it in a pan. With some oil. Gets all crunchy like popcorn. Good shit, let me tell you.”

Emmet nodded. You know a lot, he signed back once both his hands were free.

“My dad always fries his rice instead of putting it in the microwave.”

I see. It was very good.

She smiled at him weirdly.

“You gotta do it like this,” and she signed ‘very’ back at him - though her index and middle fingers paused for a moment after parting, dipping just a second towards the floor before she finished the sign.

He tilted his head: he’d been fairly sure he’d learned how to sign that correctly. Nevertheless, he imitated her.

“There you go!” she grinned. “It’s too weird when you say it with no gemination.”

Twin?, he asked, even more confused.

She spelled the word quickly: “Gemination - doubling letters in a word to make a longer or stronger sound. Like rubble or throttle or bottle. In this case it’s over-gemination because no letter in ‘very’ is doubled but that doesn’t matter. You geminate it. It doesn’t feel right if you don’t.”

How do you know?

“Know what?”

Gemination.

“Ah. Your mouth.”

He pointed at it, surprised. It likely looked a little comical, since he had taken a rather big bite at that moment.

Briosa smiled a little wider: he watched her clearly mouth the word twice, slowly.

“The eh sound opens it a little wider than the ee sound,” she explained, and mouthed it again. “The R by itself has a shwah sound, a sort of ‘uh’ - that’s really weak, so it gets replaced easily by a different one. If you stall it after an eh sound, the lips remain in a similar position, and you can see how they flatten more once the ee sound comes along.”

He looked more carefully as she repeated the motion once more before gulping down his last forkful and imitating her, trying to feel the sounds on his lips. Huh! That was true. He could tell the different shapes made by the vowels. Curious.

Verrry interesting, he signed. The stalling made her grin. Where did you learn?

“Phonetics class in college I had to take to meet the right amount of credits. I actually chose it mostly because the professor was deaf too, so.”

Emmet clicked his tongue, understanding; Briosa clicked it back in affirmation.

Who knows where they’d picked that up from.

He leaned his strangely heavy head on his crossed arms, splaying himself on the table with a sigh. He felt comfortably warm, at ease; he grumbled a protest when a smaller hand slipped his empty plate and dirty silverware away to wash it in the sink, but didn’t quite manage to coax himself to stand up fast enough to stop her from doing his dishes. He did manage to seize the still half full pot before her, emptying its contents into a glass container and managing to hold onto it long enough to squirt some dishsoap in it - not to clean it, because Briosa twisted his arm behind his back without breaking a sweat (without hurting him either) forcing him to hand it over to her.

You should not clean, he pouted once he had both his hands free again: My house. I’m host. You’re guest. I clean.

“I invited myself over though.”

And cooked.

“And ate also.” and she kicked his hip gently to get him out of the kitchen: “Get your pijamas on while I’m busy, you’re going straight to bed once I’m done.”

You’re not my dad.

She stared directly into his eyes with a face so blank it almost made him laugh.

“Do you want me to adopt you,” she said like it was a threat.

Emmet’s entire body began shaking to contain a giggle. He shook his head.

“Then wash your teeth and put on your jammies.”

He wheezed in her face.

She snorted back.

“But seriously,” she chuckled, “Go get changed. The rice is gonna hit soon and you’re not gonna be able to move a muscle for the next three hours otherwise.”

Alright, fair.

He didn’t notice it, but the Pokémon chatting about in the livingroom were all greatly relieved to see him stumble into his room giggling to himself like a kid.

Flannel felt good on his arms. It was soft, warm, loose... It seemed like forever since he had last worn those pijamas. They were awfully comfortable. He had to make an effort to change into them more often when he came back home. They were much better than a dirty button up and dress pants.

(He hadn’t called before eating. He should have called now.)

(One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty.)

“If you’re naked stick out your leg!”

The sound of Briosa’s voice shouting from the corridor made him almost throw the Xtransceiver into high heaven, fumbling to catch it so that it didn’t shatter on the floor and hastily closing the call before she could hear the ringing and ask about it.

The fact that she was deaf dawned on him a second too late, but that was done.

(And he hadn’t replied, anyways.)

He settled the gadget on the nightstand, trying to pull himself out of the spiral he’d almost been sucked in; without even thinking he proceeded to stick his leg out through the doorway.

There was a beat of silence; then: “I said naked!”

Emmet cawed out a laugh.

His head peeked through as well. Briosa looked at him, face plain, coat in her arms and hat in hand.

“I thought you’d passed out,” she noted.

Nope, he signed back. Still awake.

“Not for long!”

Sounds evil.

Her brows furrowed: “What’s that mean?”

You sound like you’ll knock me out.

She thought it over a moment before squeaking a chuckle.

It would be verrry easy, he shrugged.

“It would!”

He accompanied her back to the livingroom. The various bags of food had been transported away, the bowls had disappeared back into their cupboard, Crustle still refused to grace the room with his handsome face, and Gurdurr hurriedly scuttled away from Conkeldurr despite having barely come close enough to graze her, deathly embarassed by his crush and round nose redder than usual; Cryogonal shrieked something in his general direction as greeting.

He gave her thumbs up.

“Alright my beautiful death machines,” Briosa called with a tone so affectionate it felt as though her mouth was dripping cotton candy: “We’re goin’ back home! Time for the circus trick.”

She patted her belt a few times, looking for her set of Pokéball. Emmet helpfully pointed them to her from where he’d laid them on the table; Mawile took that as an opportunity to gently bite her shirt as she collected the spheres to rapidly sign something at her and direct her attention over to Heatmor, who was fidgeting rather nervously with his yellow claws.

Once he had her undivided attention, he pulled the sweetest pair of Baby-Doll Eyes he could muster, wiggling demurely as though whining.

Briosa smiled: “Go on, give her a snuggle,” she allowed.

In a second the Fire type wrapped Durant in a tight hug, rubbing his snout on her with a concert of thrilled chirps; the Steel Bug for her part clacked her mandibles rather happily as though to remind him they were going to see each other tomorrow at work anyways.

The beasts who hadn’t visited the station in quite some time eyed the exchange with genuinely dumbfounded gazes.

It probably felt a little like beholding a glitch in nature itself.

A brief whistle tore Heatmor from his friend; he waved her bye one last time before a reddish ray sucked him right back into one of the six balls being juggled by his trainer, followed suit by each of his associates while Mawile latched herself onto her aidee’s elbow.

Emmet followed the trajectory of the flying spheres without trying to keep up with their increasing speed, head heavier than lead lolling back and forth until all six were caught with a fluid graceful motion between the fingers of the Substitute, the little Fairy swinging from her arm leaping onto her head and landing perfectly balanced - thanks to her main maw acting as counterweight - right on her buzzed mousy hair with a little flourish, like an olimpic gymnast.

He weakly waved his hands in a silent applause. Mawile bowed deeply, proud; Briosa curtsied and thanked him by grazing all ten fingertips to her chin.

Must teach me, he signed as he forgot to stifle a yawn.

“Maybe when you’re not falling asleep on your feet.”

Agreed.

Galvantula gently nuzzled her leg.

“Ye, ye, I’m leaving him to y’all now,” she assured the Bug. She saluted the rest of the beasts as she slipped her coat back on hurriedly and helped her aide back down into one of her pockets: “Thank you for not mauling me!”

A chorus of noises she couldn’t hear bid her farewell.

Socked feet accompanied her to the door. Emmet stalled for a moment before opening it; his fingers drummed on the knob under eyes of rotten green waiting patiently for him to send them on their way.

Instead he turned towards her, hands a little sluggish as he signed: Thank you. For rice. And company. Elesa does this, usually. When she can.

“That’s nice to know.” Briosa noted.

Not always. She comes, not always. I mean that. Always nice, when she comes. But doesn’t come always.

“Yeah, I imagined you meant that.”

Sorry. Verrry tired.

“I can see that.”

I am... Bothering?

“Not at all! You just kinda look like you’re melting. You should go sleep.”

Will do.

Briosa smiled. It was the most angular smile he’d seen on her yet, and it fit her like a glove. It made him think like the smile that made Elesa’s eyes too small and her face too round. It was sweet.

“Next time I’ll make you a soup,” she said. “And if I remember them I’ll sing you some songs from old cartoons to keep you awake.”

He liked the idea of a next time.

He gave her an ok; she tilted her hat at him.

“Goodnight.”

Goodnight.

Then he closed the door behind her; tucked his and his brother’s partners to bed; turned off the lights; crawled under the covers.

He slept well.

[nikosasaki]

gonna make a poster board presentation for my master's program like the ones american high school children on tv always make

[daffodil-duchess]

i'm just re-watching the runaway and was reminded that toph invented insurance fraud before insurance existed

the only thing stopping my girl from making counterfeit coins is the fact that they were made from actual bronze, silver and gold and when you have those there is no point in making the money counterfeit

NOW, the real question is would toph go for mixing in cheaper metals in order to stretch the metal for more coins

Because to me it's too boring for toph

It’s a bit unrealistic how Toph never made any counterfeit coins once she learned to metalbend

[historyandmemes]

(Note: See updated post) The new DRAFT U.N. Resolution, set to be voted on today, calls for:

• ... “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses” in the fighting throughout Gaza and the opening of corridors inside the enclave “for a sufficient number of days to enable full, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access.” • U.N. Secretary General António Guterres to appoint a senior coordinator “with responsibility for facilitating, coordinating, monitoring, and verifying in Gaza, as appropriate, the humanitarian nature” of all assistance, and demands that “the parties to the conflict cooperate with the coordinator to fulfill their mandate without delay or obstruction.” • ... “immediate and unconditional” release of the hostages. It also demands that “all parties to the conflict comply with their obligations under international law ... including with regard to the conduct of hostilities and the protection of civilians and civilian objects.” • It reiterates the council’s “unwavering commitment” to a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians and “stresses the importance of unifying the Gaza Strip with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority.” (12/22/23 | Source: WaPo)

Although the resolution's language was toned down, this is a sign of progress. While such measures are long overdue and should have been honored from the start, we must do everything possible to meet the urgent humanitarian needs in Gaza and relieve unfathomable suffering.

DON'T STOP POSTING. KEEP UP THE PUBLIC PRESSURE. DEFEND HUMAN RIGHTS.

Stay tuned for today's vote.

[liberalsarecool]

I owe my Trump-supporting friends an apology. I’ve been critical of the Trump presidency and am still exhausted from the experience.

But to be fair, President Trump wasn’t that bad, other than:

• when he incited an insurrection against the government,

• mismanaged a pandemic that killed over a million Americans

• separated children from their families

• lost those children in the bureaucracy

• tear-gassed peaceful protesters on Lafayette Square so he could hold a photo op holding a Bible in front of a church

• tried to block all Muslims from entering the country

• got impeached

• got impeached again

• had the worst jobs record of any president in modern history

• pressured Ukraine to dig dirt on Joe Biden

• fired the FBI director for investigating his ties to Russia

• bragged about firing the FBI director on TV

• took Vladimir Putin’s word over the US intelligence community

• diverted military funding to build his wall

• caused the longest government shutdown in US history

• called Black Lives Matter a “symbol of hate”

• lied nearly 40,000 times

• banned transgender people from serving in the military

• ejected reporters from the White House briefing room who asked tough questions

• vetoed the defense funding bill because it renamed military bases named for Confederate soldiers

• refused to release his tax returns

• increased the national debt by nearly $8 trillion

• had three of the highest annual trade deficits in U.S. history

• called veterans and soldiers who died in combat losers and suckers

• coddled the leader of Saudi Arabia after he ordered the execution and dismembering of a US-based journalist

• refused to concede the 2020 election

• hired his unqualified daughter and son-in-law to work in the White House

• walked out of an interview with Lesley Stahl

• called neo-Nazis “very fine people”

• suggested that people should inject bleach into their bodies to fight COVID

• abandoned our allies the Kurds to Turkey

• pushed through massive tax cuts for the wealthiest but balked at helping working Americans

• incited anti-lockdown protestors in several states at the height of the pandemic

• withdrew the US from the Paris climate accords

• withdrew the US from the Iranian nuclear deal

• withdrew the US from the Trans Pacific Partnership which was designed to block China’s advances

• insulted his own Cabinet members on Twitter

• pushed the leader of Montenegro out of the way during a photo op

• failed to reiterate US commitment to defending NATO allies

• called Haiti and African nations “shithole” countries

• called the city of Baltimore the “worst in the nation”

• claimed that he single-handedly brought back the phrase “Merry Christmas” even though it hadn’t gone anywhere

• forced his Cabinet members to praise him publicly like some cult leader

• believed he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

• berated and belittled his hand-picked Attorney General when he recused himself from the Russia probe

• suggested the US should buy Greenland

• colluded with Mitch McConnell to push through federal judges and two Supreme Court justices after supporting efforts to prevent his predecessor from appointing judges

• repeatedly called the media “enemies of the people”

• claimed that if we tested fewer people for COVID we’d have fewer cases

• violated the emoluments clause

• thought that Nambia was a country

• told Bob Woodward in private that the coronavirus was a big deal but then downplayed it in public

• called his exceedingly faithful vice president a “p---y” for following the Constitution

• nearly got us into a war with Iran after threatening them by tweet

• nominated a corrupt head of the EPA

• nominated a corrupt head of HHS

• nominated a corrupt head of the Interior Department

• nominated a corrupt head of the USDA

• praised dictators and authoritarians around the world while criticizing allies

• refused to allow the presidential transition to begin

• insulted war hero John McCain – even after his death

• spent an obscene amount of time playing golf after criticizing Barack Obama for playing (far less) golf while president

• falsely claimed that he won the 2016 popular vote

• called the Muslim mayor of London a “stone cold loser”

• falsely claimed that he turned down being Time’s Man of the Year

• considered firing special counsel Robert Mueller on several occasions

• mocked wearing face masks to guard against transmitting COVID

• locked Congress out of its constitutional duty to confirm Cabinet officials by hiring acting ones

• used a racist dog whistle by calling COVID the “China virus”

• hired and associated with numerous shady figures that were eventually convicted of federal offenses including his campaign manager and national security adviser

• pardoned several of his shady associates

• gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to two congressman who amplified his batshit crazy conspiracy theories

• got into telephone fight with the leader of Australia(!)

• had a Secretary of State who called him a moron

• forced his press secretary to claim without merit that his was the largest inauguration crowd in history

• botched the COVID vaccine rollout

• tweeted so much dangerous propaganda that Twitter eventually banned him

• charged the Secret Service jacked-up rates at his properties

• constantly interrupted Joe Biden in their first presidential debate

• claimed that COVID would “magically” disappear

• called a U.S. Senator “Pocahontas”

• used his Twitter account to blast Nordstrom when it stopped selling Ivanka’s merchandise

• opened up millions of pristine federal lands to development and drilling

• got into a losing tariff war with China that forced US taxpayers to bail out farmers

• claimed that his losing tariff war was a win for the US

• ignored or didn’t even take part in daily intelligence briefings

• blew off honoring American war dead in France because it was raining

• redesigned Air Force One to look like the Trump Shuttle

• got played by Kim Jung Un and his “love letters”

• threatened to go after social media companies in clear violation of the Constitution

• botched the response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico

• threw paper towels at Puerto Ricans when he finally visited them

• pressured the governor and secretary of state of Georgia to “find” him votes

• thought that the Virgin islands had a President

• drew on a map with a Sharpie to justify his inaccurate tweet that Alabama was threatened by a hurricane

• allowed White House staff to use personal email accounts for official businesses after blasting Hillary Clinton for doing the same thing

• rolled back regulations that protected the public from mercury and asbestos

• pushed regulators to waste time studying snake-oil remedies for COVID

• rolled back regulations that stopped coal companies from dumping waste into rivers

• held blatant campaign rallies at the White House

• tried to take away millions of Americans’ health insurance because the law was named for a Black man

• refused to attend his successors’ inauguration

• nominated the worst Education Secretary in history

• threatened judges who didn’t do what he wanted

• attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci

• promised that Mexico would pay for the wall (it didn’t)

• allowed political hacks to overrule government scientists on major reports on climate change and other issues

• struggled navigating a ramp after claiming his opponent was feeble

• called an African-American Congresswoman “low IQ”

• threatened to withhold federal aid from states and cities with Democratic leaders

• went ahead with rallies filled with maskless supporters in the middle of a pandemic

• claimed that legitimate investigations of his wrongdoing were “witch hunts,”

• seemed to demonstrate a belief that there were airports during the American Revolution

• demanded “total loyalty” from the FBI director

• praised a conspiracy theory that Democrats are Satanic pedophiles

• completely gutted the Voice of America

• placed a political hack in charge of the Postal Service

• claimed without evidence that the Obama administration bugged Trump Tower

• suggested that the US should allow more people from places like Norway into the country

• suggested that COVID wasn’t that bad because he recovered with the help of top government doctors and treatments not available to the public

• overturned energy conservation standards that even industry supported

• reduced the number of refugees the US accepts

• insulted various members of Congress and the media with infantile nicknames

• gave Rush Limbaugh a Presidential medal of Freedom at the State of the Union address

• named as head of federal personnel a 29-year old who’d previously been fired from the White House for allegations of financial improprieties

• eliminated the White House office of pandemic response

• used soldiers as campaign props

• fired any advisor who made the mistake of disagreeing with him

• demanded the Pentagon throw him a Soviet-style military parade

• hired a shit ton of white nationalists

• politicized the civil service

• did absolutely nothing after Russia hacked the U.S. government

• falsely said the Boy Scouts called him to say his bizarre Jamboree speech was the best speech ever given to the Scouts

• claimed that Black people would overrun the suburbs if Biden won

• insulted reporters of color

• insulted women reporters

• insulted women reporters of color

• suggested he was fine with China’s oppression of the Uighurs

• attacked the Supreme Court when it ruled against him

• summoned Pennsylvania state legislative leaders to the White House to pressure them to overturn the election

• spent countless hours every day watching Fox News

• refused to allow his administration to comply with Congressional subpoenas

• hired Rudy Giuliani as his lawyer

• tried to punish Amazon because the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post wrote negative stories about him

• acted as if the Attorney General of the United States was his personal attorney

• attempted to get the federal government to defend him in a libel lawsuit from a women who accused him of sexual assault

• held private meetings with Vladimir Putin without staff present

• didn’t disclose his private meetings with Vladimir Putin so that the US had to find out via Russian media

• stopped holding press briefings for months at a time

• “ordered” US companies to leave China even though he has no such power

• led a political party that couldn’t even be bothered to draft a policy platform

• claimed preposterously that Article II of the Constitution gave him absolute powers

• tried to pressure the U.K. to hold the British Open at his golf course

• suggested that the government nuke hurricanes

• suggested that wind turbines cause cancer

• said that he had a special aptitude for science

• fired the head of election cyber security after he said that the 2020 election was secure

• blurted out classified information to Russian officials

• tried to force the G7 to hold their meeting at his failing golf resort in Florida

• fired the acting attorney general when she refused to go along with his unconstitutional Muslim travel ban

• hired Stephen Miller

• openly discussed national security issues in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago where everyone could hear them

• interfered with plans to relocate the FBI because a new development there might compete with his hotel

• abandoned Iraqi refugees who’d helped the U.S. during the war

• tried to get Russia back into the G7

• held a COVID super spreader event in the Rose Garden

• seemed to believe that Frederick Douglass is still alive

• lost 60 election fraud cases in court including before judges he had nominated

• falsely claimed that factories were reopening when they weren’t

• shamelessly exploited terror attacks in Europe to justify his anti-immigrant policies

• still hasn’t come up with a healthcare plan

• still hasn’t come up with an infrastructure plan despite repeated “Infrastructure Weeks"

• forced Secret Service agents to drive him around Walter Reed while contagious with COVID

• told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by”

• fucked up the Census

• withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic

• did so few of his duties that his press staff were forced to state on his daily schedule “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings,” allowed his staff to repeatedly violate the Hatch Act

• seemed not to know that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican

• stood before sacred CIA wall of heroes and bragged about his election win

• constantly claimed he was treated worse than any president which presumably includes four that were assassinated and his predecessor whose legitimacy and birthplace were challenged by a racist reality TV show star named Donald Trump

• claimed Andrew Jackson could’ve stopped the Civil War even though he died 16 years before it happened

• said that any opinion poll showing him behind was fake

• claimed that other countries laughed at us before he became president when several world leaders were literally laughing at him

• claimed that the military was out of ammunition before he became President

• created a commission to whitewash American history

• retweeted anti-Islam videos from one of the most racist people in Britain

• claimed ludicrously that the Pulse nightclub shooting wouldn’t have happened if someone there had a gun even though there was an armed security guard there

• hired a senior staffer who cited the non-existent Bowling Green Massacre as a reason to ban Muslims

• had a press secretary who claimed that Nazi Germany never used chemical weapons even though every sane human being knows they used gas to kill millions of Jews and others

• bilked the Secret Service for higher than market rates when they had to stay at Trump properties

• apparently sold pardons on his way out of the White House

• stripped protective status from 59,000 Haitians

• falsely claimed Biden wanted to defund the police

• said that the head of the CDC didn’t know what he was talking about

• tried to rescind protection from DREAMers

• gave himself an A+ for his handling of the pandemic

• tried to start a boycott of Goodyear tires due to an Internet hoax

• said U.S. rates of COVID would be lower if you didn’t count blue states

• deported U.S. veterans who served their country but were undocumented

• claimed he did more for African Americans than any president since Lincoln

• touted a “super-duper” secret “hydrosonic” missile which may or may not be a new “hypersonic” missile or may not exist at all

• retweeted a gif calling Biden a pedophile

• forced through security clearances for his family

• suggested that police officers should rough up suspects

• suggested that Biden was on performance-enhancing drugs

• tried to stop transgender students from being able to use school bathrooms in line with their gender

• suggested the US not accept COVID patients from a cruise ship because it would make US numbers look higher

• nominated a climate change skeptic to chair the committee advising the White House on environmental policy

• retweeted a video doctored to look like Biden had played a song called “Fuck tha Police” at a campaign event

• hugged a disturbingly large number of U.S. flags

• accused Democrats of “treason” for not applauding his State of the Union address

• claimed that the FBI failed to capture the Parkland school shooter because they were “spending too much time” on Russia

• mocked the testimony of Dr Christine Blasey Ford when she accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault

• obsessed over low-flow toilets

• ordered the re-release of more COVID vaccines when there weren’t any to release

• called for the construction of a bizarre garden of heroes with statutes of famous dead Americans as well as at least one Canadian (Alex Trebek)

• hijacked Washington’s July 4th celebrations to give a partisan speech

• took advice from the MyPillow guy

• claimed that migrants seeking a better life in the US were dangerous caravans of drug dealers and rapists

• said nothing when Vladimir Putin poisoned a leading opposition figure

• never seemed to heed the advice of his wife’s “Be Best” campaign

• falsely claimed that mail-in voting is fraudulent

• announced a precipitous withdrawal of troops from Syria which not only handed Russia and ISIS a win but also prompted his defense secretary to resign in protest

• insulted the leader of Canada

• insulted the leader of France

• insulted the leader of Britain

• insulted the leader of Germany

• insulted the leader of Sweden (Sweden!!)

• falsely claimed credit for getting NATO members to increase their share of dues

• blew off two Asia summits even though they were held virtually

• continued lying about spending lots of time at Ground Zero with 9/11 responders,

• said that the Japanese would sit back and watch their “Sony televisions” if the US were ever attacked

• left a NATO summit early in a huff

• stared directly into an eclipse even though everyone over the age of five knows not to do that

• called himself a very stable genius despite significant evidence to the contrary

• refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and kept his promise

And a whole bunch of other things I can’t remember .

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

main take aways from Halloween (1978) rewatch:

michael myers is canonically 21??? this bitch should be at the club

*sees tiddies* ***MURDEROUS RAMPAGE NOISES***

that's it that's the movie

outside of the fact that everyone who has sex is murdered by the narrative, this is a surprisingly chill portrayal of female sexuality? these teen girls are horny and actively enjoying Getting It On with their boytoys. no pushy boyfriends sneaking in through their bedroom windows--these ladies are taking the initiative to sneak out and GET SOME. one of them gets laid and then immediately orders her boyfriend to get her a beer. (yes she gets Slashered soon afterward, but so does the boyfriend so honestly, gender equality.) yes the Final Girl is the only one not having sex, but she's not bullied for that, nor are her friends slut shamed except possibly by being murdered by the narrative

actually the only character who is shown being morally condemned on-screen is michael myers. specifically FOR his violent overreaction to other people's sex lives. (people he is spying on). metaphorically, the villain is American Puritanism sticking its judgy nose into other people's business.

aka Michael Myers Is A Republican

but actually the real villain is the doctor. guy's a judgemental, shaming, pathologizing asshole. and he's been in charge of michael's care since he was SIX YEARS OLD? kid never had a chance. i'd go on a killing spree too

also the parents. where are the parents? it's halloween night and all the teenage girls are home babysitting their younger siblings? come to think of it, michael's first victim was his own older sister, whom he killed while she was babysitting him. teen girls are really shouldering a labour burden here. maybe parentification is the true villain

side note: mike commits his first murder wearing a clown costume...which is never referenced again? his 'iconic' costume is a generic mask and wig and jumpsuit, when we coulda had a Killer Clown Michael Myers??? travesty

i like how the Final Girl and her friend casually smoke weed in her car. yeah she's an honor student and her friend is the sheriff's daughter. yeah they smoke weed. so what it's 1978

(to reiterate, mike is 21 and should be at the club. im not saying he shouldn't be rampaging, im saying it's sad that he broke out, tasted freedom for the first time in his life, and immediately snuck back into his childhood home to go rampaging. let's have a remake where he goes to a nightclub and has a few beers. maybe some slutty dancing. then rampage)

oh no he's hot

[tulip-lesbian]

Its a personal thing but it literally makes me so uncomfortable when anyone under 25 gets engaged or married. This isnt a judgement on them, it just makes me personally incredibly uncomfortable

[truetellsnigeria1]

NASENI EVC Reiterates Commitment To Delivering On Presidential Priorities, Inaugurates Staff Welfare Committee

The Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), Mr. Khalil Halilu, has charged the management staff of the Agency to put forward ideas on how NASENI can effectively support the priorities of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu such as large-scale switching of petrol and diesel-powered vehicles to alternative fuels to…

[greyennui]

tbh it feels absolutely unreal that I've been posting Don't Commit for 20 weeks now. 20 chapters. that's 5 months. heck.

and I know that rn it says 20/40 chapters but if I'm being honest we're def not halfway through this story yet lol

[redflagshipwriter]

Mama Bat pt3 progress Post

Part 3 Progress

Batcount: Stephanie, Dick

“Danny Fenton, parents declared him dead and claimed they buried him,” Dick said, spinning around in the batcomputer batchair. Anxious, unhappy, too much energy because there's nothing to fight here. “He has an older sister, I think she knows he's in Gotham and she's covering for him. She'll be coming to Gotham University next semester, despite having accepted a better offer from Harvard last year.” 

Steph let out a low, long whistle. “Whatever's going on at home must be bad,” she commented. “No other contacts?”

Dick pulled up a grainy class photo. “He's part of a small friend group, but neither of them have made any unusual moves. If Sam Manson or Tucker Foley get a plane ticket we'll know, but for now?” He shrugged, eyes distant. “Seems like he ran off alone. But probably for really good reasons.” He switched tabs back to the unhinged Fenton works website. He all but vibrated: wanna go, want to run, look, see.

Steph squinted for a few moments, reading. “...We’re going to go see what crimes against nature they're committing, aren't we?” She sounded resigned to it.

Dick shrugged. “It's not ideal,” he said unhappily. “The town is too small for how we normally do our night work. But face out is a big risk.” 

“Maybe we should lean on a friend?” Stephanie suggested. “Someone who has a public role that wouldn't be a problem?” 

“We’ll have to ask Mama Bat.” 

They both turned to look at Cass, who was sitting on a desk. She arched an eyebrow at them. “We ask Danny,” she said pointedly. “He knows best.” 

Stephanie made a face that said she disagreed. 

Cass huffed. “He knows,” she reiterated. He had lived there. He knew the people. “We could make a mess.” She mimed sweeping the stack of Bruce papers off the desk surface and then an expression of exaggerated batdad horror.

Stephanie untensed enough to laugh. 

Cass considered that good enough. She jumped down and patted Dick as she passed. He let out an exaggerated sigh but he powered down the computer and followed her up. “I'm excited to get to meet the little guy,” he said. The lights turned off. All three of them hit the stairs and jogged up. Dick chattered away, tweet tweet tweet. “It's so sweet that Dami latched onto him like this. When I asked what Danny would like as a welcome home gift, he told me that I was a cretin and should not corrupt the baby.” He laughed, high and joyous. It was contagious. Cass found herself laughing with him.

Stephanie squinted at the back of Dick's head as the oldest brother bounded up the stairs. “Damian… likes him?” She confirmed. 

Cass beamed. Of course he did. Danny was a good baby. He and Damian were out now walking dogs at the animal shelter while Alfie did the big weekly shop. 

Dick shrugged. “He gets to be the mentor,” he pointed out. “He’s not the Babiest Bat anymore.” 

“Danny is older than Damian,” Stephanie protested. Cass glared at her. 

“He's baby,” she said firmly. End of conversation.