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johnrossbowie · 4 years ago

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LEAVING TWITTER

I wrote this earlier in the fall, before the election, after dissolving my Twitter account. I wasn’t sure where to put it (“try up your ass!” – someone, I’m sure) and then I remembered I have a tumblr I never use. Anyway, here tis.

How do you shame someone who thinks Trumps’ half-baked policies and quarter-baked messaging put him in the pantheon of great Presidents? How do you shame someone so lacking in introspection that they will call Obama arrogant while praising Trump’s decisiveness and yet at the same time vehemently deny that they’re racist? How do you shame someone for whom that racism is endearing and maybe long overdue?

You don’t. It’s silly to think otherwise.

Twitter is an addiction of mine, and true to form, my dependence on it grew more serious after I quit drinking in 2010. At first it was a chance to mouth off, make jokes both stupid and erudite and occasionally stick my foot in my mouth (I owe New Yorker writer Tad Friend an apology. He knows why, or (God willing) he’s forgotten. Either way. Sorry.) I blew off steam, steam that was accumulating without booze to dampen the flames. Not always constructive venting, but I also met new friends, and connected with people whose work I’ve admired for literal decades and ended up seeing plays with Lin-Manuel Miranda and hanging backstage with Jane Wiedlin after a Go-Go’s show and exchanging sober thoughts with Mike Doughty. When my mom passed in 2018, a lot of people reached out to tell me they were thinking of me. This was nice. For a while, Twitter was a huge help when I needed it.

I used to hate going to parties and really hated dancing and mingling, but a couple of drinks would fix that. Point is, for a while, booze was a huge help, too.

But my engagement with Twitter changed, and I started calling people my ‘friends’ even though I’d never once met them or even heard their voices. These weren’t even penpals, these were people whose jokes or stances I enjoyed, so with Arthurian benevolence I clicked on a little heart icon, liked their tweet, and assumed therefore that we had signed some sort of blood oath.

We had not. I got glib, and cheap, and a little lazy. And then to make matters much worse, Trump came along and extended his reach with the medium.

There was a while there where I thought I could be a sort of voice for the voiceless, and I thought I was doing that. I tried very hard to only contribute things that I felt were not being said – It wasn’t accomplishing anything to notice “Haha Trump looks like he’s bullshitting his way through an oral report” – such things were self-evident. I tried to point out very specific inconsistencies in his policies, like the Muslim ban meant to curb terrorism that still favored the country that brought forth 13 of the 9/11 hijackers. Like his full-throated cries against media bias performed while he suckled at Roger Ailes’ wrinkly teat. Like his fondness for evangelical votes that coincided with a scriptural knowledge that lagged far behind mine, even though I’m a lapsed Episcopalian, and there is no one less religiously observant than a lapsed Episcopalian. But that eventually gave way to unleashing ad hominem attacks against his higher profile supporters, who I felt weren’t being questioned enough, who I felt were in turn being fawned over by theirdim supporters. If you’re one of these guys, and you think I’m talking about you, you’re probably right, but don’t mistake this for an apology. You suck, and you support someone who sucks, and your idolatry is hurting our country and its standing in the world. Fuck you entirely, but that’s not the point. The point is that me screaming into the toilet of Twitter helps no one – it doesn’t help a family stuck at the border because they’re trying to secure a better life for their kids. It doesn’t help a poor teenager who can’t get an abortion because the party of ‘small government’ has squeezed their tiny jurisdiction into her uterus. It doesn’t help the coal miner who’s staking all his hopes on a dying industry and a President’s empty promises to resurrect it. I was born in New York City, and I currently live in Los Angeles. Those are the only two places I’ve ever lived, if you don’t count the 4 years I spent in Ithaca[1]. So, yes, I live in a liberal bubble, and while I’ve driven across the country a couple of times and did a few weeks in a touring band and am as crushed as any heartlander about the demise of Waffle House, you have me dead to rights if you call me a coastal elitist. And with that in mind, I offer few surprises. A guy who grew up in the theater district and was vehemently opposed to same-sex marriage or felt you should own an AR-15? THAT would be newsworthy. I am not newsworthy. I can preach to the choir, I can confirm people’s biases, but I will likely not sway anyone who is eager to dismiss a Native New Yorker who lives in Hollywood. I grew up in the New York of the 1970s, and that part of my identity did shape my politics. My mom’s boss was gay and the Son of Sam posed a realistic threat. As such, gays are job creators[2] and guns are used for homicide much more often than they are used for self-defense[3]. I have found this to be generally true over the years, and there’s even data to back it up.

“But Mr. Bowie,” you might say, though I insist you call me John - “those studies are conducted by elitist institutions and those institutions suck!” And again, I am not going to reason with people who will dismiss anything that doesn’t fit their limited world view as elitist or, God Help Us, fake news. But the studies above are peer-reviewed, convincing, and there are more where those came from.

“But John,” you might say, and I am soothed that we’re one a first name basis - “Can’t you just stay on Twitter for the jokes?” Ugh. A) apparently not and B) the jokes are few and far between, and I am 100% part of that problem.

I have stuff to offer, but Twitter is not the place from which to offer it.

After years of academically understanding that Twitter is not the real world, Super Tuesday 2020 made the abstract pretty fucking concrete. If you had looked at my feed on the Monday beforehand – my feed which is admittedly curated towards the left, but not monolithic (Hi, Rich Lowry!) – you’d have felt that a solid Bernie surge was imminent, but also that your candidate was going surprise her more vocal critics. When the Biden sweep swept, when Bernie was diminished and when Warren was defeated, I realized that Twitter is not only not the real world, it’s almost some sort of Phillip K. Dickian alternate timeline, untethered to anything we’re actually experiencing in our day to day life. This is both good news and bad news – one, we’re not heading towards a utopia of single payer health care and the eradication of American medical debt any time soon, but two, we’re also not being increasingly governed by diaper-clad jungen like Charlie Kirk. Clouds and their linings. Leaving Twitter may look like ceding ground to the assclowns but get this – the ground. Is not. There.

It’s just air.

There are tangible things I can do with my time - volunteer with a local organization called Food On Foot, who provide food and job training for people experiencing homelessness here in my adopted Los Angeles. I can give money to candidates and causes I support, and I can occasionally even drop by social media to boost a project or an issue and then vanish, like a sort of Caucasian Zorro who doesn’t read his mentions. I can also model good behavior for my kids (ages 10 and 13) who don’t need to see their father glued to his phone, arguing about Trumps incompetence with Constitutional scholars who have a misspelled Bible verse in their bio (three s’ in Ecclesiastes, folks).

So farewell Twitter. I’ll miss a lot of you. Perhaps not as badly as I miss Simon Maloy and Roger Ebert and Harris Wittels and others whose deaths created an unfillable void on the platform. But I won’t miss the yelling, and the lionization of poor grammar, and anonymous trolls telling my Jewish friends that they were gonna leave the country “via chimney.” I will not miss people who think Trump is a stable genius calling me a “fucktard.” I will not miss transphobia or cancelling but I will miss hashtag games, particularly my stellar work during #mypunkmusical (Probably should have quit after that surge, I was on fire that night, real blaze of glory stuff I mean, Christ, Sunday in the Park with the Germs? Husker Du I Hear A Waltz? Fiddler on the Roof (keeping an eye out for the cops)? These are Pulitzer contenders.). Twitter makes me feel lousy, even when I’m right, and I’m often right. There’s just no point in barking bumperstickers at each other, and there are people who are speaking truth to power and doing a cleaner job of it – Aaron Rupar, Steven Pasquale, Louise Mensch, Imani Gandy and Ijeoma Oluo to name five solid mostly politically based accounts (Yes, Pasquale is a Broadway tenor. He’s also a tenacious lefty with good points and research and a dreamy voice. You think you’re straight and then you hear him sing anything from Bridges of Madison County and you want him to spoon you.). You’re probably already following those mentioned, but on the off chance you’re not, get to it. You’ll thank me, but you won’t be able to unless you actually have my email.

_______

[1] And Jesus, that’s worse – Ithaca is such a lefty enclave that they had an actual socialist mayor FOR WHOM I VOTED while I was there. And not socialist the way some people think all Democrats are socialist – I mean Ben Nichols actually ran on the socialist ticket and was re-elected twice for a total of six years.

[2] The National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, “America’s LGBT Economy” Jan 20th, 2017

[3] The Violence Policy Institute, Firearm Justifiable Homicides and Non-Fatal Self Defense Gun Use, July 2019.

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imtherealsebastiansatan · 5 years ago

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The number of asks isn’t going down so I’m taking a break.

I’m going to address something.

Brace yourselves.

I try to avoid giving my opinion on issues. I also don’t like talking about myself (I made a personal blog for my whining).

But as some people have said - as bloggers, influencers, fanpages, we have a platform and we should use it. Now, let’s be real. I don’t have a big following. I have maybe 500 followers or around there. I do know that this blog is talked about so I’m going to say a few things. A lot of things.

I fully support the movement. Black lives DO matter.

Fully means any means necessary. I’m taking an online course and there was a bit about good communication. Good communication requires two people. One person needs to express their feelings and concerns the other person needs to acknowledge that. Between the two they need to come up with solutions. Black people have tried expressing their problems every which way. If they need to burn the world down to be heard, then let it burn. Now don’t go saying Kevin told you to burn a trash can. But I won’t sit here and tell people what to do when it’s about something I could never relate to.

I don’t know how I feel about ACAB. I think in a general sense, I disagree. I do question it though because is a good cop really a good cop if he sees his buddy murder someone and covers up for him? Food for thought.

I hate that Anti-Fa is going to be a “terrorist group”. I do think their methods can be extreme but is the message? You would think Americans would be against fascism. And if anti-fa is a terrorist group, when are all the white supremacy groups going to be declared terrorist groups?

On the topic of fascism: Donald Trump is a fascist. Prove me wrong.

Curfews to silence protests are bullshit.

The NYPD blocking Brooklyn protesters from making it to Manhattan is bullshit.

Snipers on rooftops are bullshit.

The micro aggressions from the cops are bullshit. (Destroying makeshift medical tents at protests. Pouring out milk so people can’t wash out the pepper spray. Pouring out bottles of water that people leave out for protesters). Serve and protect.

I know material things can be replaced. HOWEVER, I died when I saw rioters in DC burn a homeless person’s belongings. They can’t replace what they have.

All of this could be avoided if 1. cops showed solidarity 2. Trump condemned the actions of the cops and made an attempt to fix the system (it would have guaranteed his re-election as well, I think).

I’m angry that people are now going “awe but small businesses are being destroyed!”. Where were you when Asian-owned businesses had to close down because they were being threatened or boycotted because of the “Chinese virus”?

I think we should listen to black people and follow their lead. All minorities too. We’re back up. Let them run the show.

Don’t fall into the pressures of social media either. Think. Analyze. Do what you believe is right. You don’t HAVE to donate. You don’t HAVE to post the “blackout”. You don’t HAVE to go out and protest. There are a million ways to show solidarity. Ask.

#kev speaks

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greatpretending · 6 years ago

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I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up

Word Count: 5063

Pairing: Peter Parker x Female!Reader

Warnings: Cursing, cheesy fluff, discussion of sex/a little steamy stuff but nothing actually NSFW

Summary: The sequel to Catch Me If I Fall. Thank you to everyone for all of the support for that fic. I’m sorry it took me so long to get a sequel up, but the inspiration has to be there, you know? Huge thanks to @peterbparkerr for encouraging me and for proofreading it for me as well. Also @steelfeather for proofreading it and screaming in my text messages.

Your eyes were stinging. You blinked, hard, for what felt like the hundredth time, trying to get them to focus. You were sitting on your too-small couch in your too-small living room in your too-small apartment. Your legs were over Peter’s lap, and you were desperately trying to ignore the sounds of him tinkering with one of his webshooters while you read.

Five pages left.

You were so close. So close to the end of this book. So close to the end of your assignment. Of your class. Of your year. Of college.

Four pages left.

Peter’s tinkering continued. It was the first time in two weeks you’d spent any longer than 20 minutes in the same room together- sleeping not included.

Three pages left.

Between exams, final assignments, your thesis paper, and your job, you were living more off Starbucks and bagels than balanced meals. Not to mention Peter had all of that plus his Spider-duties, so your relationship had become little more than a quick kiss goodbye in the mornings and your hand reaching out to touch his shoulder when he finally crawled into bed late at night.

Two pages left.

In fact, the only reason you were together right now was that Peter had needed to put off going out for the night to fix his webshooter. You knew as soon as it was fixed, he’d be swinging out the window. Selfishly, you hoped it took a while.

One page left.

As soon as you had your degrees, you’d be moving back to New York with Peter, where you already had a job lined up - thanks, Pepper Potts - and maybe, just maybe, things would be a little less crazy.

“Fucking finally!” you shouted, throwing your book onto the floor and startling Peter a little. “I never want to read a book about women that was written by a man again.”

“And you never have to,” Peter said, rubbing your leg soothingly. He slid his webshooter onto his wrist, poked it a few more times, then used it to snag your book off the ground, setting it on the coffee table. He then patted your legs to get you to lift them off of him. “Alright, I gotta go.”

Instead of letting him up, you sat up and knelt over his lap, knees on either side of his hips and arms around his shoulders.

“Or,” you suggested, pressing a light kiss to his lips. “You could stay in tonight.”

Peter hooked his hands under your legs and stood up, making you squeal in surprise as he carried you to your bedroom.

Peter laid you sideways on the bed, crawling over you and pressing quick kisses from your collarbone up your neck. You were just reaching down to pull his shirt off when he reached your ear.

“I can’t,” he whispered, then he pressed a kiss to your forehead and hopped off the bed.

“That was mean!” you complained, sitting up and watching him pull his suit out of your cramped closet.

“Sorry,” he said, pulling his clothes off and suit on. Mask in hand, he walked back over to the bed where you were still pouting at him. “You know I can’t take a night off right now. Not with all those muggings going on in Charlestown. Plus,” he continued, tapping you on the nose with a finger, “you have a thesis to work on.”

“Uuuughh,” you groaned, throwing yourself back onto the bed. “I would so much rather have sex with you.”

“I know,” Peter laughed, grabbing your hand and pulling you back up. “Three more weeks. Then we’re done and we can have all the sex you want.”

“All the sex I want?” you asked. Peter shook his head.

“I’m still not going to take you to the top of Trump Tower to defile it.”

“Fiiiiine.” You tugged on Peter’s hands to get him to lean down and kiss you again. After the soft peck, Peter held onto your hands, kneeling down in front of you and looking into your eyes.

“Oh my god,” you laughed, already catching onto Peter’s latest bullshit.

Lately, Peter had taken to getting onto one knee to ask you the dumbest things. Will you grab milk on your way home? Will you please order him a caramel macchiato with six shots of espresso and an extra pump of vanilla? Would you grab lunch with him between classes?

“Will you promise me you won’t wait up for me?” Peter asked, with all the sincerity of a real proposal. You rolled your eyes and continued to laugh.

“Yes, I promise,” you said, shoving on his shoulders playfully. “Go save some spiders.”

Peter pulled his mask on and headed to the window.

“Don’t stay up too late.”

“Only if you come home safe.”

“Love you.”

“Love you more.”

By 1 AM, you couldn’t keep your eyes open anymore, and decided to call it a night. By 2 AM, Peter was sliding into bed next to you. You reached out your hand and put it on his shoulder like you always did, but this time you didn’t notice the blood seeping into the sheets.

At 5 AM, your alarm went off, blaring loudly until you managed to dig your phone out from the sheets and shut it off. Wanting to cry more and more with every passing moment that you were awake, you sat up and stretched. You scratched your leg, which was weirdly itchy, and felt something… flake off.

In a lot of confusion and a little panic, you flicked the lamp on your nightstand on and pulled the covers back, finding dried blood on your thigh. You pulled the covers back more and found that your sheets were soaked dark with blood, coming from somewhere underneath Peter.

Panic setting in fully now, you grabbed his shoulder and shook him.

“Peter, wake up!” You all but yelled at him, voice shaking. “Peter!”

“H- What-” Peter grabbed your hand and startled awake, eyes flicking around the room before settling on yours. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re bleeding!”

You were already crying. Between the exhaustion and the terror, it wasn’t a surprise that you’d become such a mess so fast.

Peter sat up quickly and looked down at his leg, running his hands along it and trying to see every spot he could. With your brain in the state that it was, you couldn’t make yourself do anything more than sit there and stare at him with your hands covering your mouth.

After a few moments of Peter checking himself over, his shoulders relaxed and he turned to you, taking your blood-stained hands in his and pulling them away from your mouth.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he said softly, squeezing your fingers. “Whatever it was, it’s all healed up now.”

“Are you sure?” you asked, sniffling.

“Positive.”

You let out a sigh of bone-weary relief, leaning into his shoulder and feeling his arms go around you.

“That scared the shit out of me,” you mumbled into his skin.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

You took a deep breath and sat up again, resting a hand on his face and kissing him slowly.

“Go get in the shower,” you said. “I’ll take care of the sheets. And get us coffee.”

Peter kissed your cheek and stood up. You did your best to ignore his slight limp as he walked into the bathroom. With another sigh, you stood up and began pulling the sheets off the bed. You took them straight to the trash can, knowing that no amount of bleach could save them from that much blood.

As you were pouring two cups of coffee, you felt Peter come up behind you and wrap his arms around your waist. You leaned back into him as he placed soft kisses along your shoulder and neck.

“I’ll buy more sheets on my way home from class, okay?” he said, hugging you a little tighter.

“Mmkay,” you said, reaching up and carding your fingers through his hair. You stayed like that for a little while, just trying to enjoy whatever short time you got to spend with each other lately.

“I also have good news,” Peter said when you finally leaned away from him, unable to resist the aroma of the coffee any longer.

“What’s that?” you asked, handing him his mug and leaning back into the counter. Caffeine didn’t really do anything for Peter, but routine and familiarity did, so he shared morning coffee with you anyway.

“Tony wants to throw us a graduation party,” Peter told you.

“I love when Tony wants to pay for things,” you replied, sipping your coffee.

“It’ll be a black-tie event,” Peter continued, and your heart sank a little.

“I don’t own anything black-tie,” you said, and Peter grinned.

“I know,” he said, grabbing his wallet off of the counter and pulling out a heavy, black card. “That’s why I have his credit card.”

“I love when Tony wants to pay for things,” you said again.

You set your coffee onto the counter and went over to the couch, pulling your planner out of your bag and flipping to the current month.

“The only day that neither of us have class and I don’t work is… next Sunday,” you grimaced. “And my thesis is due at eight in the morning on Monday.”

“We can make that work,” Peter said, and you nodded, already penciling it in.

“Where do you even buy black-tie attire in Boston, anyway?” you wondered aloud.

“Uh… Tony said he wanted to set us up with personal shoppers at Barneys.”

“There’s a Barneys in Boston?”

“Uhm, maybe,” Peter said, seeming hesitant. “But Tony wants us to go to New York and get the full experience. Whatever that means.”

“New York?” you asked, incredulous and a little panicked again. “Peter, that’s a three and a half hour drive!”

“I know, I know, hear me out,” Peter said. “I’ll pick you up from work Saturday night and we’ll head straight there. We’ll spend the night with May, go shopping Sunday morning, and then you’ll have plenty of time to go over your thesis before Monday morning. Then you can sleep in, and we’ll come back that afternoon before your four-thirty class.”

You stared at your planner, already filled with pencil marks and notes. You couldn’t believe you had to block out forty hours for a shopping trip.

“Also Tony said he’d pay for gas.”

“He should fly us down in his dumb private jet,” you grumbled, filling in your calendar.

“I could probably arrange that,” Peter said, and you waved your hand.

“Between getting through security and finding a cab in the city it’ll take the same amount of time if we just drive.”

“That’s true.”

“Okay, I need more coffee and I need to go,” you said. “I need to be in my seat taking a test in…. 49 minutes, fuck.”

The week went by in a blur, just like the last few had been. By Saturday night you were almost grateful to be going to the city. At least May would cook for you and you would get to have something for dinner that wasn’t a microwave burrito.

Peter pulled up in your Mustang just as you were locking up, and you hopped in the passenger seat, immediately reaching into the backseat for your overnight bag.

As Peter began driving, you pulled out some pajama pants and a t-shirt, tugging off your work uniform as quickly as possible. You fucking hated khakis.

“Is it sad that this is the most naked I’ve seen you in almost a month?” Peter asked, glancing over at you in just your underwear as you struggled to get your pants on.

“Whose fault is that?” you replied. “I told you, any time you want, we can go up to Trump-”

“Okay!” Peter interrupted, turning up the music as you laughed.

You spent most of the drive working on homework, but as you got closer to the city and Peter began growing tired, you put it away. For the last hour you and Peter talked more than you had in several weeks, laughing and singing along to music and telling bad jokes back and forth. Even though you’d technically seen him every day, you realized that you had missed him. You’d missed just being with him. No homework, no Spider-duties. Just laughing.

And even though you had so much left to do, you had this moment to yourselves. For just a moment you felt your stress melt away and be replaced with pure, unadulterated joy. When Peter smiled at you and took your hand, you knew he felt the same way.

It was just nearing 2 AM when you pulled up to May’s apartment, and you and Peter let yourselves in quietly, heading straight to bed. You snuggled into him, feeling closer than you had in a while, and for the first time in weeks, drifted off to sleep with a smile.

The next morning you woke up to the smell of pancakes. Peter had gotten up before you for once, so you were sad to find the sheets empty.

You weren’t sad for long though, as Peter soon creaked the door open poking his head in.

“You up?” he asked softly.

“Hhhngdbjuh.” you replied, affirmative.

“May has breakfast ready.”

“Hmmmmminute.”

By the time you stumbled your way into the bathroom and back out, there was a plate of quiche and pancakes at the table for you, set next to a cup of coffee. You gave an awkward hug to May’s shoulders as you made your way to your seat, immediately reaching for you coffee.

“Thank you for breakfast, May,” you said, digging into the melt-in-your-mouth quiche. It was incredible, just like everything else that came out of May’s kitchen.

“Peter flipped the pancakes,” May said.

“And they didn’t end up on the other side of the kitchen? I’m so proud of you, babe.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re such a bitch before your coffee,” Peter joked, and you laughed as May kicked his shin under the table.

When you were dressed and ready to leave for Barney’s, Peter grabbed his wallet and your hand, kneeling down and smiling up at you.

“Would you do me the honor of going shopping with me?” He asked as you laughed and tugged your hand away.

“Yes, now knock it off!” You said through your laughter. “What if May had seen you, you would have given her a heart attack!”

Peter just shrugged and led you out the door.

On your way to the store, you let yourself revel in the familiar sights, sounds, and smells of New York City. Even the crammed subway felt calming and familiar as you stood with one hand on the railing and the other in Peter’s.

Walking up Madison Avenue, you felt a strange combination of nerves and excitement. You kind of loved the idea of spending someone else’s money on extravagant things, but you also felt a little guilty about spending all that money on extravagant things. You tried to push it out of your head - this was a gift from Tony, and he could choose to spend his money however he wished.

Peter held the door open for you as you entered Barney’s and you were immediately greeted by two very stylish employees. They swept you away to their “consultation rooms” and began asking questions about what you thought you might like to wear. You and Peter had talked about it a little on the way there. He was going to get a classic black tux, and you were leaning toward a red dress. Black and red were MIT’s colors, after all.

You tried on a few different dresses that your shopper pulled for you, not really loving any of them. Eventually (long after Peter had picked out a tux) you found one you felt really good in. It felt stylish and classy and a little sexy, and you hoped Peter liked it as much as you did.

He must have, because when you stepped out of the room to show him, he looked you up and down and said “Yup, you’re getting that one. I have to go try on shoes.” And walked away.

When you went back into the changing room, your shopper said “I know a great pair of Louboutins that we have that would look amazing with this dress, let me go grab them.”

“Okay,” you said, swallowing. You had a general idea of what the average pair of Louboutins cost.

She wasn’t wrong, though. The shoes were amazing. She also helped you pick out a nice pair of earrings and a clutch. You never saw a price tag or a receipt. Everything was “added to Mr. Stark’s account” and would be delivered to May’s apartment that afternoon.

“Why did you get all weird and walk away when I showed you that dress?” You asked Peter on the way home.

“Because if I looked at you in it any longer I was going to pop a boner,” Peter shrugged, and you laughed so hard you cried a little.

You spent the rest of your day on May’s couch, headphones on, laptop open, notes spread around you, and coffee nearby as you perfected your thesis paper. You didn’t move except for bathroom breaks and fifteen minutes to eat dinner. Peter, the ever-patient and wonderful boyfriend that he was, kept your mug full and periodically reminded you to drink some water as well.

You didn’t pay attention to anything else for almost sixteen hours. You couldn’t. Every word in every sentence in every paragraph had to be perfect. Every statement had to be fact-checked and cross-referenced. You couldn’t stop until the minute you turned it in.

When you finally crawled into bed, just as the sun was beginning to rise, you felt both anxiety and relief. You were asleep before you were able to pull the covers up.

At some point you were vaguely aware of Peter kissing your forehead and telling you he was making a Starbucks run, but you fell so deeply back into your sleep that you never realized it took him nearly an hour and a half to get back.

Your last week of college was a whirlwind of turning in projects, working, taking exams, and packing up your apartment. You’d never been so truly, deeply exhausted in your life. You knew you’d lost a little weight simply from not having the time to eat.

As you exited the building after your last exam, the sun was shining and your wonderful, wonderful boyfriend was waiting for you at the bottom of the steps. He was holding a bouquet of flowers and he shouted “You did it!” as you ran into his arms. He lifted you into the air and spun you around in a circle.

“I did it!” you repeated when he set you down, handing you the flowers. You took them and rolled your eyes as he got down on one knee, putting both hands over his heart.

“Would you make me the luckiest man on the planet and let me take you out to dinner?” he asked.

“Stop it!” you laughed. “Someone’s going to think you’re actually proposing!”

Peter pouted dramatically and stood up. “Is that a no?”

“Oh my god, I’ll go to dinner with you, stop being… the way you are.”

“Got it, I’ll be a total and complete asshole for the rest of my life.”

“So what are you going to change, the- hey! Don’t tickle me!”

You went to your favorite diner and had your first full meal since you’d gotten back from May’s. When you were stuffed and just picking at the remainder of your fries, you felt the exhaustion start to kick in again.

“Hey, babe?” you asked, feeling your brain start to lose focus.

“Yeah?”

“Can we go home and take a nap?”

“Yes, please.”

And so you did just that, flopping together onto your mattress and relaxing. You both slept through the night and into the next morning, despite your plans to pack and Peter’s plan to do Spidey things. Clearly you both needed the sleep though, because neither of you woke up until after 9 AM.

When you finally peeled your eyes open and found your phone, you groaned at the clock. Technically, you hadn’t missed anything that needed to be done, but you still felt like you’d wasted a lot of time.

You reached over and put a hand on Peter’s shoulder.

“Peter. Babe. Peter. Peter.”

“Huwassat?”

“It’s like… morning.”

And thus started another week of trying to keep your shit together. You finished up your last few days at your job while Peter finished his last class. You packed up your apartment. You finally had sex for the first time in five weeks.

Your commencement ceremony came and went in a blur of speeches, sweating in your gown, hugging your classmates, thanking your professors, hugging your family, and feeling all eyes on your group as you left with Tony Stark.

“They ask me to speak every year,” he explained when he arrived unexpectedly. “This is the only time I’ve ever wanted to come.”

Peter was very touched by that.

Tony took Peter, May, you, and your family out to dinner, and then it was back to the apartment to finish packing and cleaning. You moved back to New York in the morning.

Of course, the day after you moved was the party.

After getting everything down to New York, you brought everything inside and started unpacking as quickly as you could. Thank god Peter had super-strength, or you didn’t know how you would’ve gotten some of those boxes inside.

You had your shared playlist playing from your speaker on the windowsill as you sorted through box after box. It was a little annoying that unpacking was way faster than packing had been.

Now I’ve….had the time of my life….

“Oh, baby, we have to dance!”

You smiled. Peter only ever called you ‘baby’ when this song was playing, or right after you’d caught Dirty Dancing playing on TV.

“We don’t have time,” you argued, though you did let him spin you once.

“We have all the time in the world!” Peter retorted, grabbing your hips and trying to get you to sway with him. You smiled again and pecked him on the lips.

“We really don’t,” you said. And you weren’t lying. Tomorrow night was your super-fancy graduation party and then you started your new job on Monday.

You didn’t have time to dance, but as the song went on, you decided you at least had time for a jump.

“I love you,” Peter said, smiling as he set you down.

“I love you more.”

The next morning you met up with May at a nearby salon and got your hair done, then you grabbed a light lunch and went to the nail salon. You felt like you were going to high school prom all over again.

You went back to your apartment and steamed your dress, ridding it of any wrinkle it had acquired during the move. A few minutes before a car was supposed to arrive to pick you up, you stepped into it carefully, having Peter help you zip it up.

His eyes trailed up and down your body as you stepped back.

“I really, really just want to take that dress right back off you,” he said. You smiled, butterflies fluttering in your stomach as you grabbed his chin and kissed him. You loved how wanted he made you feel.

“You look pretty good yourself,” you said, tugging on the lapel of his jacket. His hands fell to your waist and he pulled you close to his body, kissing you deeply. He kissed you until your back was against the wall and his knee was between yours.

Eventually Peter broke the kiss, breathing a little heavily and leaning his forehead against yours.

“We don’t have time for this,” he said.

“No, we don’t,” you agreed. Peter pecked your nose.

“Fix your lipstick.”

When the car came and Peter held the door for you as you slid in. With every mile you drove you became more nervous. This was the biggest you-centered event you had ever had. Tony said there were around two hundred people on the guest list. And that was after he had trimmed it down. You didn’t even know two hundred people.

Peter held your hand during the drive and every step into the venue. You could tell he was nervous, too. Tony wasn’t there when you got there - he was never on time to his own parties, let alone early - but Happy and May were. Employees of the venue were finishing last minute set-up.

“There’s a fucking ice sculpture,” you whispered, staring at the giant beaver that you assumed was supposed to represent MIT’s mascot.

It wasn’t long until guests started to filter in, heading to the bar to grab a drink for cocktail hour before dinner. You mingled as best you could, introducing yourself to people you’d never heard of and embracing your family and friends. You lost Peter for a little bit, and you tried to smile and nod your way through conversations with several talented, successful, beautiful people. You probably explained your major to seventy-five different strangers.

Finally, dinner was served and you found your boyfriend again.

“Ellen Degeneres is at our freaking graduation party,” you whispered to him as you sat down.

“I know.”

“How the hell did that happen?”

“I don’t know.”

Throughout dinner there were a few toasts made in your honor. Tony made a lovely speech about Peter beginning his internship with Stark Industries at just 14 years old, and how in the time since he’s become nothing less than family to Tony. By the end of it, there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

When all six courses of your meal were through, you were really starting to feel overwhelmed by the event. There were so many people, and you weren’t even allowed to get drunk to cope with that. Well, you probably could get drunk, but you weren’t going to risk embarrassing yourself in front of all these people you could potentially work for in the future. Or who could work for you. Or Ellen Degeneres.

So you tapped twice on Peter’s wrist (his cue to follow you in a few minutes) and stepped into the hall where the bathrooms were. When Peter met you out there he took your hand in his.

“There’s a playground across the street,” Peter said. “Wanna go get some fresh air?”

You nodded and Peter led you out a side door so you wouldn’t be caught ditching your own party, if only for a few minutes. You hurried across the road and wandered into the playground, empty at such a late hour.

There was a tall tower structure right in the middle that you really, really wanted to climb.

“I’m having a really hard time not climbing that tower,” Peter said, making you smile.

“I was just thinking the same thing.”

“So lets do it!”

Peter started up the ladder without hesitation, but you knew there was no way you’d be able to make it up there without losing a shoe, so you carefully stepped out of them and then followed him up.

“Oh good,” Peter said when you reached the top. “You’re not an extra three inches taller anymore.”

“I like those shoes,” you pouted.

“And I like when I don’t have to give you a foot rub at night because you gave yourself cramps and blisters.”

“Okay, fair enough.”

You leaned against the railing of the tower, looking out across the street at your party that was still in full-swing. You knew you’d have to go back before things started to die down so you could say goodbye to your guests, but you figured you had a couple minutes to yourselves.

Peter stood behind you, arms around your waist and head on your shoulder. The silence was comfortable and calming, broken only by the occasional passing car. You leaned into Peter’s embrace, enjoying the quiet after weeks of chaos. Life would never move slow when you lived in New York City and had a superhero for a boyfriend, so you had to learn to appreciate these small moments.

“Are you ready to go back?” Peter asked after a handful of minutes had passed. .

“Yeah, I suppose so,” you replied, gathering your skirt to turn around.

“Okay,” Peter said, and you watched as he began a now familiar motion.

“Peter, don’t mess up your tux- yes, I’ll go back to the party with you, you don’t have to-”

Peter grabbed your hand, and when you looked down into his eyes, something was different. There wasn’t playful laughter there, but serious sincerity. Your mouth went dry.

“The last two and a half years with you have been better than I ever could have imagined,” Peter said. Your heart was thundering in your ears. “Doing what I do, I never expected to meet someone who was willing to- to put up with that. To support me. You have been the best support I could have asked for. No one makes me laugh harder. No one is more patient with me. No one makes me feel more loved.”

You squeezed Peter’s hand with your shaking one.

“If you’ll let me,” Peter continued, “I want to spend the rest of my life trying to make you feel just as happy, supported, and loved.”

Peter fumbled into his pocket with his free hand and pulled out a box, laughing at himself a little as he struggled to flip it open with his thumb. You weren’t laughing.

“Will you-”

“Yes.”

Peter smiled brightly. “I haven’t even asked you yet.”

“Sorry. I’m the worst. Go ahead.”

“Will you marry me?”

“Yes!”

Peter stood up and wrapped his arms around you kissing you and brushing the tear off your cheek. He pulled the ring out of the box and slid it onto your finger. Then you grabbed him by the back of the neck and kissed him again. You felt like your heart was about to explode out of your body.

“I love you,” Peter said against your lips.

“I love you more.”

#peter parker #spider-man #spider-man homecoming #tom holland #avengers #spider-man imagine #peter parker x reader #peter parker fluff #marvel #marvel imagine #marvel fluff #fluff #imagine #avengers x reader #my fic

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buttdawg · 5 years ago

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On my way to work this morning, I listened to a F4WO video about how this week's Raw had the worst-ever rating in its history, beating out the previous record, all the way back in... last Monday, because holy fuck Raw is doing really shitty in the ratings this year.

The big problem, according to Big Dave, is that they tried to book Extreme Rules to get people to tune in on Monday, and it did not work. At all. And even if a PPV can't help the ratings, what will? And what happens when they're going head to head with the NBA? And even if they could get the ratings up a bit, they would still be in trouble, because that's how bad the current ratings are. It's like being in the bottom of a 12-ft pool and doing everything you can to swim a few inches higher.

Dave's like "I don't know how you turn this around," and I see his point, because even if WWE created a new star or started a hot new angle, how would anyone find out about it? There's no live crowd, and there's fewer people watching on TV now than ever before. It's like how Impact ran all these crazy angles and signed all these big stars and the needle barely moved. What should they do?

I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter, because even if they had the answer in front of them, Vince wouldn't go for it because that's how out of touch and incompetent he is now. He seemed to think this "Rey loses an eye" thing was the answer, even though a) it wasn't and b) he couldn't even follow through with it, so why would anyone else have been impressed? Vince McMahon Is The Problem, and as long as he's still around the problem only gets worse from here. And even if he went away, that doesn't undo the damage.

Still, I thought about it, and imagined what I'd come up with if they asked me how to fix things. I'm probably not even remotely qualified to save a tanking wrestling show, but here's what I came up with:

1. Vince McMahon retires as publically and as transparently as possible.

Basically, there's only one star left from the Attitude Era, and it's Vince. And there's only one message WWE can send that will matter to lapsed fans, and that's "No more Vince." And Vince resigning would actually get some mainstream attention. Remember when his limo exploded on TV and people thought it was real? Remember when he sold Raw to Donald Trump and people thought that was real?

So use it, not as an angle, but acknowledge it on TV, the way they made a big deal about Undertaker retiring. I don't mean a big Vince Tribute Show. That's the last thing we need, but don't keep it a secret. The word on Raw is that Vince is done, and no one knows what happens next. In the real world, Vince should remove himself from WWE business as completely as possible, and this needs to be done in a way where it's very, very provable to skeptics. They need to show a paper trail that Vince really isn't in charge of this anymore and never will be again. I don't care who takes over when he's gone. Triple H, Stephanie, Bruce Prichard, whoever. But Vince is truly stepping away. That needs to be the message and they need to follow through on it. Then people will at least consider checking out Raw to see what happens to it.

2. Build a fucking babyface and book him strong.

This is something Vince hasn't been able to do since Cena's heyday, so committing to this would convince curious fans that it's not just the same old shit. Pick a guy and fucking stick with him as long as possible. Drew McIntyre seems like a proper choice. If he gets into some scandal and they have to get rid of him, then okay, but immediately set up someone else. Don't screw around deciding, like they did with Roman Reigns. Pick a babyface superhero and go. Have him destroy Brock Lesnar, not just upset him in a four minute match. Have him face the Fiend in one of those bullshit "Cinematic Matches", but he turns the tables on him and wins. Have him beat Big Show in a retirement match. Have him beat Triple H in a retirement match. Maybe save Randy Orton for a later guy.

3. Steal a page from AEW's playbook and never do DQ or countouts.

Every. Fucking. Match. Ends with a pin or submission. Every. One. Don't even do cage matches or ladder matches for the next year or so, or any other gimmick where there's a screwy way to win.

Seriously, what always captured my fancy about ECW was the implication that DQ's and countouts were impossible because every match was hardcore. I didn't want to see hardcore matches all the time, I just wanted to see someone win without a lot of horseshit. AEW achieves the same result sinply by not booking DQ's in the first place. WWE desperately, des-per-ate-ly needs to prove that they get it: There's no point watching a wrestling match where no one wins.

4. Make a cool-ass heel stable with cool-ass merch.

Note that this does NOT mean bringing back DX or the nWo, or signing ex-Bullet Club members in the hopes of reverse-engineering whatever makes BC work. They need to make a NEW thing, because they need to prove that they can. Down the road, if Kevin Nash wants to manage a new nWo squad, that might be a decent idea, but first they need to prove that they can make it work without a nostalgia pop. The Inner Circle proved it can still be done, and Bullet Club is still going strong a decade later, so we know there's a way to keep these things going. But don't just chase a nostalgia pop. The original nWo sure as hell didn't.

5. Trim down the roster to guys you actually plan to use. I saw Eric Young saying that Raw was a "broken show" because it's 3 hours long and yet they couldn't find five minutes for him to be on it. He's right, they should have either made him a fixture on Raw or they never should have hired him in the first place. WWE's goal should have been to hire guys that would make Raw better, but instead they hired guys to keep other people from using them on other shows. And maybe that was a smart business move, but it also took their eye off the ball. They were so focused on spiting their competition that they failed to notice their own show sucks ass. Nobody needed all that talent to compete in 2019 because Raw sets the bar so low. No disrespect to Eric Young, but AEW managed without him, and WWE is crumbling whether they have Eric Young or not.

6. Don't bother with talent raids.

In the 90's, WWE could get guys from WCW to jump ship and make waves. Someone probably thinks that could work today, and maybe it could, but that shouldn't be an end unto itself. WWE already has a big, talented roster. They need to prove that they know how to use it. Right now, the only reason I see for a wrester to sign with WWE is for the money. That's great for the wrestlers, but it doesn't do me any good as a consumer. If they pay a guy a shit ton of money and he barely gets used on TV, it only makes the promotion look dumb.

Instead, they need to prove that a guy like Drew McIntyre made the right call by signing on. Book him in a way where other talent will see hin succeed and decide they'd like a piece of that pie.

That's all I got right now. Maybe none of this would work, but it sounds good to me, anyway.

#wwe

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5sosbitchfest · 6 years ago

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Why Crusty is the Legit Worst: A Masterpost

So I mentioned a while ago in an ask that I could make an entire masterpost dedicated to why Crusty is the legit worst... and here it is. This is going to be a very long post, so bear with me.

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

1. The racist/fatphobic/xenophobic tweets

Much before 5sos was involved, Crusty was one of those wannabe LA influencer/model people who tweeted shit like this:

Now, apparently she’s claimed that these tweets were faked and never apologized for them, but then again, when does she ever sincerely apologize? Oh wait, never. So, were these tweets faked or not? Well...

There are responses to the tweets on the left. Here are the responses to the top left one:

Jac Vanek was one of Crusty’s old friends. They’ve been photographed and tagged in the same photos together. So, sure, people could have found out they were friends and faked the tweet/response to the tweet. However, 1. how and why would anybody go that far, and 2. if you look closely, the screenshot with the other deleted tweets and the screenshot with the response look like they were on different phones (the emoji, font, spacing between the letters/lines). Two different phones, eh? It’s almost like the tweet was real and could be seen on multiple platforms! Wow!

In addition, the tweet was sent out on February 8, 2013. Here’s another response to the supposed fake tweet:

Same date, eh? And only less than an hour later! Who would go through so much trouble to fake the tweet, the responses, and even get it down to the dates that the responses were sent out?

Back to the first screenshot of all of her tweets:

The bottom left one had some responses too! Here they are:

Same date, a couple minutes later. Seriously, who would take the time to fake the responses down to the dates and times? It’s almost like... the tweet was real! *gasps*

Now, this response could possibly be one to the bottom right tweet:

The only reason why I’m unsure of this one is because the time the response was sent out was three hours prior to the actual tweet, not to mention the month of the tweet isn’t really distinguishable in the screenshot. Even so, the response looks pretty nasty, and I’m sure it was to an equally nasty tweet from Crusty.

Now, I can’t find proof of the top right tweet being fake or real, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was, considering she has no problem saying “sleazy foreigners.” Of course, obviously, these tweets were deleted, which brings me to my next point.

2. She deletes tweets whenever she gets backlash, doesn’t apologize, and plays the victim card.

So back in September, she had a pretty epic Twitter meltdown (which is still up, she didn’t delete it), where she basically guilt tripped her entire audience, whether they “hated” on her or not.

Uhhh... sure. I agree that you never know what someone is going through, but 1. these “trolls” you see are usually fans with valid opinions and reasons as to why they don’t like you, 2. the constant use of ‘do you want to do this’ or ‘do you want to be that’ is playing the victim card so hard and blaming literally anyone who reads the tweet, making them feel guilty, otherwise known as guilt tripping. Y’know, something that emotional manipulators/abusers do? Yeah, that, and 3. she just HAS to make the whole thing about her. Notice how she says “your words affect me” and puts "and any other person you’re bullying” in parentheses. Notice how she says “you don’t know if I’m depressed, going through trauma, etc.” Notice how she says “do you actually want to inflict pain, hurt, tears, & hate onto me & others?” She tried so hard to be inclusive... and failed. The whole thing is about her, and she just kinda threw in some other terms to make it seem like some kind of positive message for everyone, when in reality, it’s just her being a whiny brat.

Not to mention she just threw Messy into the mix and shaded Arz. Which, lol. Arz was literally her PR client. It’s actually very likely that she was the one who put Arz and Luke together. Hm.

There was the time she pissed off a bunch of Kpop fans when she tweeted this and automatically tried to patch it up:

She probably saw how pissed people got and tried to fix it and make it seem like it was just a joke. Even still, people saw it as being quite fishy, and rightfully so. After all, it probably wasn’t a joke. And then shortly after, like a few weeks or something, she posted a link to a BLACKPINK song or something saying how good the song was. Ooookay.

Then we have the magazine fiasco:

Basically people were angry because a magazine cover came out that featured mostly Luke and the other boys were kinda off to the side. Colliscool is some weirdly famous 5sos fan who is another wannabe LA influencer chick, and of course Crusty is kissing her ass because it makes her look nice. Anyway, if complaining about a magazine cover is “standing up for what you believe in,” what about actually important issues, like racism or homophobia or poverty? It’s a fucking magazine cover. And while it’s hard to hear, Luke is the lead singer, so it only stands to reason why he would be the main feature, tbh. But once Crusty compared fans to Trump, she received backlash, deleted these tweets, and never spoke of it again.

Let’s not forget how a few days later, the whitewashed photo of Calum came out, and people were angrier about that and thought it more important than the magazine cover (which I agree with), and Crusty didn’t say anything on the matter. People were pissed that she complained about the magazine cover and not the whitewashed photo of Calum, but those fans gotta understand that unless it involves Michael, she doesn’t give a shit. I mean, with the past xenophobic/racist tweets... her not saying anything makes sense.

Then there’s the more recent ordeal with Cardi B:

She really thought her backlash was about Mac Miller not winning. And when a fan tried to explain why Cardi B is problematic, she went ahead and played the victim card again. For comparison, here’s how Debby Ryan, Josh Dun’s fiancee, responded:

Not only did she acknowledge her lack of knowledge, she handled the situation by engaging with the people who were educating her, asking them for more information, and thanking them for educating her. Meanwhile, you have Crusty, who’s all like “WELL HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW I’M ONLY HUMAN” and... yes, Crusty, we’re all fucking human, but not all of us are assholes. She likes to tweet, delete, and yeet, as I like to put it.

And I’m going to put this out there for people who might try to argue with me: yes, I spent a good hour scrolling through her twitter to try to find any ounce of proof that she’s a decent person. I did find some rt’s and threads of her talking about mental health and racism (she was talking about the movie the blackkklansman and how it’s revolutionary or something along the lines of that), and she took part in that whole campaign last year to get young people to vote. Here’s the thing: yeah, those are good causes. But it’s really easy to seem like a good person online. It’s so easy to say things and not mean them. Also, just because someone may have liberal viewpoints or morals doesn’t necessarily make them a good person, especially if they don’t outwardly show it, which brings me to my next point.

3. She’s an asshole to fans.

That’s kind of a well-known fact, at least, to the people who can see past her bullshit. She will literally enter group chats with fans, get the twitter names of people who talk bad about her, and block them on her and Michael’s accounts. But of course, because she’s interacting with the fans, she’s seen as a saint because she’s just so sweet!!! And whenever people don’t see that, well, they get blocked. She checks her indirects, obviously, so if you so much as mention her name in a negative way, she and “Michael” will block you. Which is so fucked.

Remember when she was rude to some fans in Bali a few years back? If not, here’s the video. When people saw the video, of course she played the victim card again:

Oh yes, because coming up with a bunch of excuses, mentioning the fact that you’re “crying in lax,” and using a thousand emojis really expresses how guilty you feel. Kiss my entire ass.

But that wasn’t the end of that! When Crusty went to Bali earlier this year, she met up with the very fan she was rude to after she sent the fan this DM:

And of course, the girl fell for her bullshit because she got to meet Michael. She just had to make herself look like such a sweetheart before the big engagement! And sadly, it worked, the fan was happy, and Crusty was seen as a saint once again:

She’s even a bitch from southy’s account:

Like... what that person said wasn’t even that bad. Them breaking up is a perfectly plausible situation (if they were actually dating, lol), and yet Crusty literally cussed them out for bringing that up. Oof yikes.

4. The nature of her “relationship” with Michael.

Their first public interaction on Twtiter was back in 2014, when Michael was 18.

This was right before Michael turned 19, so Crusty was 29-30ish (?) at this time (who the fuck knows, I’ll get to that later). It’s not exactly known if she was 5sos’ PR manager, but she was ATL’s, and since 5sos and ATL had worked together, it wouldn’t be surprising if she actually was/is 5sos’ PR manager.

So before Michael, Crusty had been dating a guy named Spencer. Crikey’s timeline starts in January of 2016, where Michael posted this photo of them:

They were “dating” at that time, but neither of them went public until January 2017. However, Crusty continued to consistently interact with her ex Spencer on ig, all the way from January 2016 to May/June 2016, and it started to slow down after that, though she still liked some of his posts here and there. There was even an instance where Spencer sent her flowers in April, which... why would your ex send you flowers???

My belief is that Crusty was still with Spencer at the time she started “dating” Michael, technically cheating on him, and I have an idea in my mind that he probably got sick of it and finally decided to drop her. Which, good for him. After all, she left to be with someone eleven years younger than her just to gain money and fame. Yikes. And apparently there were rumors of her sleeping with Jack from ATL (when she was still with Spencer) when she was their PR manager... she liked to fuck her way to the top and didn’t give a shit about cheating on her boyfriend, I guess.

Now, I know the age gap is a heavily-debated topic, but here’s my stance on it: if the younger party is a full grown adult (I’m talking late twenties/early-mid thirties) when they start dating a person several years older than them, then sure, whatever. They’re basically full-fledged adults who are capable of taking care of themselves and have matured enough to a point where they can make rational decisions for themselves. Michael was twenty years old when he started “dating” Crusty in 2016. People make the argument of “he’s a mature adult he can do whatever he wants!!!” Um... in legal terms, yes, Michael is an “adult,” but twenty is nowhere near the age of maturity. I’m 19, and I know several people around that age, younger and older, who can’t make rational decisions to save their lives. Early adulthood is still a time for growing and figuring things out, and just because Michael is a famous musician doesn’t mean he isn’t still figuring things out. Also... do people know how Michael acted when he was 20? Watch him in interviews, I dare you to call him mature. I’m sure he’s mature in some aspects, but overall, he’s still a young adult who is still in a stage of developing maturity-wise.

So what does this have to do with Crusty? Well, with Michael being 20 when they started “dating,” that would make her 31. A 31-year-old woman dumping/cheating on her boyfriend (who was actually within her age range) to chase after a barely-legal dork from a decently famous pop punk group. Doesn’t that sound sketchy? In my eyes, she took advantage of everything in that situation: the fact she was a PR manager, the fact that Michael was young and naive, the notion that she would get more money and notoriety, and that Modest was probably in need of a beard, well... I’m sure she didn’t hesitate. For her, it’s a win-win-win situation. Just look at her! It doesn’t even look like she has to work that hard anymore, like she’s gone full LA influencer who gets sponsors up the wazoo and gets paid to be a beard. Her fucking dog is a walking advertisement (just look at southy’s ig page, it’s pretty much all sponsors). And no, I’m not saying she doesn’t work, but it seems like social media has taken up most of her life. And she barely even uses it for good/actually important issues. So there’s that.

Fun tidbit: she’s been working in the whole PR/entertainment realm since 2002. Michael was 7. Let that sink in.

Anyway, yeah, my point is that her “relationship” with Michael is pretty creepy. If the roles were reversed, that the younger was female and older was male, people would see it as creepy rather than “they’re both mature adults who can make their own decisions!!” 1. No, that’s a huge double standard, and 2. any time an older person goes after someone who is several years younger, regardless of sex, will always be sketchy in my (and a lot of other people’s) eyes.

5. She is a massive hypocrite in pretty much every way.

Oh, the positivity and sunshine her stans claim she spreads is more like a nasty downpour of hypocrisy and bullshit. Let’s start with this whole ‘spreading positivity’ thing she’s all about.

Crusty stans always say she’s all about spreading positivity and loving yourself and fuck the haters and blah blah blah. I already showed an example above of how she guilt tripped the fuck out of her audience, whether they support her or not. It wasn’t her trying to prove a point, it was straight up guilt tripping, especially because of how much she inserted herself into such situations. She could’ve worded it much differently that shed light rather than guilt.

And this whole being positive/loving yourself thing... well, that brings me to the age thing.

No one seems to know how old Crusty is. 34 is the mostly-agreed upon age, so let’s roll with that. It’s no secret she gets treatments, I mean, just look at this post:

She literally admits to it. And unfortunately I can’t find screenshots of her raving about the intravenous vitamin treatments among other things, but I do remember seeing them (if anyone has them, let us know!)

And it’s been shown she loves to use photoshop (not just on herself either). I mean, how could you go from this:

to this:

She doesn’t even look like the same person! If anything, it looks like she’s gotten younger instead of older... oh wait.

And she always does that pouty-lip thing, and I have a friend who says she thinks she sees lip fillers, which wouldn’t be that surprising. I mean, just look at this old picture of her:

Yeah, keep telling yourself that those lips are all natural.

Seriously... in pretty much every photo of her on her ig, she’s jutting her bottom lip out like it’s some duck face selfie from like, 2011. Please.

And her ass, well.

Here’s what we see:

And here’s some reality:

Bruh even Luke has a bigger ass than she does.

She posted a video on her twitter of her in the first picture saying something like “to all the people who think it’s photoshopped,” but y’know, it’s like... videos can be edited. Camera angles and poses can make an ass look bigger. Okay sis.

Fun fact: she deleted that picture of her by the pool, probably because people were making fun of how she literally had her bathing suit stuck in her ass. I mean, that’s what she gets for trying to make it look like she has one when she doesn’t.

Aaaaand here’s the heavy hitter:

When my friend saw this photo, she said that if she didn’t know Crusty was Michael’s girlfriend, she would’ve thought she was his mom. Y I K E S.

You can see the age literally everywhere. Her entire face, neck, and even the skin on her elbow in the second pic (it’s one of the first things I noticed tbh). And this was literally back in Bali 2019. You know, not even four months ago? Like damn, the sun really did her dirty lol. These pics are why me and many others question her actual age. She seriously looks like she could be in her forties in these photos, which, if she is, then her “relationship” with Michael gets even more fucked up.

Oh and she doesn’t just photoshop herself. You have this monstrosity:

Like what the fuck? Who are they trying to fool here????

And then this:

That’s a really... interesting ear.

So yeah, what part of Crusty’s face/body/everything is real? Not much! So, if she’s all about positivity, loving yourself, embracing your flaws and "fuck the haters" and whatnot, why can’t she practice what she preaches? You’re getting older, get the fuck over it and start acting like it, maybe start accepting it and stop getting treatments that will probably eventually backfire (like in the Bali pic).

Moving on from her looks, her entire attitude is just extremely hypocritical. I saw how she tries to preach online about mental health and how important it is to take care of yourself, and then she does shit like this:

So you’re just going to make fun of someone who’s struggled with severe drug addiction and eating disorder like that? She’s said on her twitter that her father was an addict, yet she’s going to make fun of someone who struggled with the same issue?

She’s considered a role model because she speaks out about this kind of stuff, including feminism, but let’s examine this a bit. This is her pinned tweet, and has been for a while:

Good message, yeah? Oh, but then she interacts with disgusting trash like Musty Collins:

Musty Collins, who puts on this whole sad boi~ act and then name drops 5sos to prey on underage girls. If Crusty’s so keen on empowering women, WHY DOES SHE INTERACT WITH A LITERAL PEDOPHILE WHO PREYS ON YOUNG GIRLS. Literally two of the most emotionally manipulative people in the world of 5sos. I guess that’s how they get along so well. They should just get together, but they wouldn’t because they’re too old for each other.

And of course it circles back to her fatphobic tweets. So much for empowering women.

Considering that spreading positivity is what she’s known for (besides being with Michael, yikes), it surprises me that she say something like this that goes against her entire spiel:

Uhh... sis, you are a fake ass public figure trying to get people to like you by saying random regurgitated greeting card BS online. Her ig stories are always screenshots of positive~ messages that are usually found on pinterest or some shit (not shading pinterest, don’t worry lol). That’s some greeting card BS regurgitation right there. Basically what this comment is saying is that she’ll only be nice to people who she thinks worthy of being nice to. A “realist” my ass. I’ve already gone over how “real” she is.

And then you have these ridiculous tweets:

“People are people no matter who they love or how old they are” “When did I say I was all about positive vibes?” Alright then.

I love how these tweets just SHOW how much of a hypocrite she is. Her entire “relationship” with Michael is shown through photos. Literally any time there’s a camera, she will take advantage of it and come up with an excuse to show off her relationship. Where’s the “human connection” you’re going on about? Oh wait, it’s not there, because their relationship isn’t real. Oops.

The second tweet.... just oof. She’s just tweeting about herself lmao.

I love how her excuse for her fucking up is just “I’M A HUMAN BEING WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT FROM ME!!!” Girl, in case you haven’t noticed, we are ALL human beings, just not all of us are assholes when we fuck up. And then she goes on about how “we are all just human beings and we should all love each other!!” Yeah, it all comes back full circle, one of hypocrisy.

And this isn’t really a reason why Crusty is the worst, just some tweets I saw that kinda made me laugh:

“Luke who?” Oh I don’t know, the guy that your fiance’s actually in love with? HA. She wishes she could be Luke. It’s hilarious how jealous she is of him, how, whenever Lemon content comes out or the spotlight falls on Luke somehow, Crusty has to post about her and Michael’s relationship/engagement to get the attention back on her. Let’s be real, she’ll never be as gorgeous as Luke is, and Michael will never love her like he loves Luke.

So, in conclusion, Crusty is just a fake lying hypocrite. No amount of “this was in the past!! she’s changed!!” excuses will ever change my mind. After all, a lot of things in this masterpost were fairly recent. She might not tweet those horrible things anymore, but her old self shines through sometimes in the form of “I’M HUMAN I MAKE MISTAKES!!!” If she’s really changed, why doesn’t she show it?It’s because she really hasn’t, she’s just gotten better at controlling her social media presence. And that, my friends, is why Crusty is the legit Worst™.

#peach #crusty #crustemort #crikey #sketch

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thelearningcat · 6 years ago

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I just rewatched the Ugly Truth and I feel like I need a bath.

I will preface this by saying, I watched this when it came out and enjoyed it. I didn’t think it was an amazing romance, but I enjoyed it for the romantic trash I often enjoyed.

Rewatching it, post-women studies, post-academia, post-growing up and experiencing real relationships, it’s disgusting on so many fronts.

All the critiques it appears to almost try to criticize, it instead holds up and applauds.

We have this strong, capable, good at her job, smart woman who is a producer despite being a woman and somewhat young being completely undermined at every term by the men above her at her job and the man she’s supposed to be in charge of. This is nothing to say with the constant sexual harassment, degradation of women, and overall sexist message it constantly purports.

Hell, Hitch somehow manages a better message than the Ugly Truth. Hitch at least had it turn out that the woman they were trying to lie to liked the guy who was lying better for all the things that were 100% him rather. The Ugly Truth quite literally proved the misogynist right and then rewarded him with our protagonist.

Maybe this doesn’t come to a surprise to anyone else. I haven’t watched this film probably since 2012 or so, so it has been a hot second. I’m almost scared now to watch The Proposal, because that was a movie that came out the same year that I also liked.

How in the hell two women could have written this movie is beyond me. At every second it felt terrible and degrading.

I watch a lot of romantic trash that had terrible messages to women, but they usually at least have some redeeming qualities or empowered women. Not the Ugly Truth. There is literally nothing. No moment in this movie qualifies as redeeming. The love interest learns no lesson to be nicer, the woman isn’t given power over her career, the third wheel love interest doesn’t turn out to be a nice guy, there are no kind and supportive friends, and there are no funny moments that don’t involve the humiliation of the female protagonist I’m supposed to be rooting for.

To end my rant, let me propose how to fix this travesty, if only because it’ll make me feel better to imagine how I would write it better:

Abby takes control of her job and shows she knows better than the assholes who are always just ignoring her clear brilliance and ability to think on her feet. This has to happen for me to feel vindicated for what she has to go through with producing the Ugly Truth. There are three ways I see this going. Option 1: she quits in the end. Instead of Mike quitting or in lieu of him quitting and being told she has to find his replacement, Abby quits instead, declaring she deserves a workplace that values her talent. We are given one reason she stays at a small local network, but it’s not a good enough reason to prevent her from really going somewhere in my opinion, especially not at least to a different network than the trash place she works at. Option 2: there are massive protests against the Ugly Truth, and Abby leads the charge to instead turn the network around to be a feminist dream workplace. I do not buy for a second that 98% of women would like the Ugly Truth. Sure maybe the white women who voted for Trump would like watching it because they’ve been brainwashed to think toxic masculinity is chill, but the rest of us, and even a lot of those women, would disgusted either by the sexism or the non-Christian discussions. Ideally, the networks higher ups would be fired and Abby would be given the reigns to turn it around. Option 3: She turns the Ugly Truth around. By sheer brilliance. She brings in feminist women and men who could counter and argue against Mike’s Ugly Truth. She brings in academics who can show scientifically that Mike’s perspective is wrong. The Ugly Truth turns into a show breaking down the ugly truth about toxic masculinity and the patriarchy. This one is probably my favorite since it lends itself to really enabling Mike to be a better person so he can be a love interest. This is a romantic comedy (or its supposed to be at least), so I’m fine with some acceptance of a love interest.

We need to overhaul these fucking asshole love interests. Mike and Colin are both absolutely terrible and Abby’s interaction with them give me no reason she would fall for either or them or that they would fall for her. Let’s start with Colin though, since he’s clearly just the trope “boyfriend who causes conflict by existing”. There is nothing special about him. He’s rich and handsome, the protagonist spends most of the movie thinking he’s the one, he turns out to be a dick, and his being somewhere and the real love interest seeing him makes the real love interest go running. I hate this trope. I much prefer the newer(?), less common trope that I’ve seen in some movies where the established love interest is legit nice and things just don’t work out between him and the protagonist for some reason. I want a Colin who says yes when Abby asks him out. I want a Colin who is clearly turned off (to the audience) whenever Abby tries one of Mike’s ploys, but is too nice to just turn her down for them (because he likes her otherwise). I want a Colin who in the end says they should break up because while Abby is great, because she clearly won’t be honest with him. Or that Abby breaks up with saying that she has feelings for someone else and Colin is just like, cool, let’s be friends, I still like your cat a lot. And we get to see them hanging out on double dates in the end scenes. Mike... Mike is just terrible and there’s no way he can ever get the girl without major changes. In fact, if I just got description of them both, I would assume this was a secret “nice man right in front of you when you are chasing after the asshole trope” wherein Abby gets Colin instead. It would be a nice surprise. However, Mike has some interest character elements that lend itself to a potentially fascinating love interest. First off, let’s get out of the way, he has to learn, or admit, that the Ugly Truth bullshit is just that, bullshit. Otherwise, he can stay in the dumpster he lives in. However, putting that aside, there are some questions would might lend to a much more interesting love interest. His relationship with his nephew is one of them. He clearly is super potentially cute to his nephew and sister. He teaches his nephew terrible things, which is unfortunate, but if we fix that? Let’s say instead of Abby hearing him say that it’s awesome girls are already going to him [the nephew], we instead hear him saying that empowered women are the best and sexiest. Earlier in the movie instead of hearing him say that he should be insulting 20 year olds, we hear him say that he should never insult women, they get that enough from assholes who follow his show. If we have it clearly established that he doesn’t believe the things he says through the lessons he gives his nephew, we would have an easy way to show the dissonance while still seeing the cute uncle-nephew relationship. This also brings up the potential for why he got started on the Ugly Truth. We get a vague comment once (that’s never answered mind you) about how he got hurt before, but that’s bullshit and a cop-out. I instead want it to have started out as a satire, or maybe he was really hurt from a break up- OR he was really angry when his sister’s baby-daddy left her so he went on youtube and ranted about “The Ugly Truth” about love. Basically, we just need some backstory to believe he stumbled on this character, whether because he was telling the truth for a moment or trying to make a joke, but now he’s earning money doing this and he doesn’t really know how to get out. Maybe he never got a degree because he helped his sister earn money (seriously, it’s so easy to milk this relationship he has with his family) or maybe he got one but its in something that doesn’t make money like art and he doesn’t know how to transition from acting to that. Now he’s stuck, and maybe he’s tired of people assuming he’s the character he plays so he stops disputing them. Maybe he’s knowingly using his male privilege because he knows this character gets along with the creeps who run networks. Maybe he’s just bitter in general and has a hard time turning it off anymore. On the other hand, I would also accept swapping out a lesbian for Mike and have Abby turn out to be bisexual. The lesbian could say all sorts of bullshit to get on TV and it’d make sense considering what men in charge of entertainment expect women to do to get their airtime.

At least one supportive friend to the protagonist. We get Joy, her friend/employee? But Joy almost just acts to support the idea that somehow women are okay with Mike. Besides getting Abby dates, we see no reason to suspect she’s actually a friend to Abby. Maybe they are trying to say Abby doesn’t have any friends because she put her career over all else, but I find that really hard to swallow. I spend the majority of my time on work and me-time recuperating from working, but I still have friends that I see semi-regularly and a significant other I spend a lot of time with.

We need there to be a legit sexual harassment claim filed at this workplace and people to get fired. That’s all.

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spanishmossshea · 4 years ago

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So this was a response I had to a reddit post asking where "detrans" comes from and it turned into a dissertation. TW: EXTREME TRANSPHOBIA, HOMOPHOBIA, MENTION OF KILLING, MENTION OF CONVERSION THERAPY

Or, as I find is more often the case, it is specifically part of a delegitimization campaign fronted by tokenized right-wingers.

For example, the recent controversy surrounding Milo Yiannopoulos, where he "came out as ex-gay." Is he really no longer gay and once was? Is it that he never was gay in the first place? It's hard to say. He did have a husband, but in his own words that man was recently "demoted to housemate."

What is easier to say is that he is definitely surrounded by and on the side of people who see gayness (and frankly, any other minoritized quality) as an inherently bad thing. It's not hard to look to the right-wing crowd and find many examples of people being homophobic, transphobic, what have you.

So it's not hard to imagine that through either internalizing those same views of those who surround him as "gay = bad," or he's conscious of this bias and is merely conforming to his peers as part of a grift, to ingratiate himself to the bigots who pay his bills.

What's worse is that either way, it's allowing him to push an incredibly harmful, anti-LGBT message: "Conversion therapy works." It gives right-wingers an example to point to and go "See? We can fix the gays! And you already know how we feel about the 'should'!"

I'm sure I don't have to delve into just why that's a terrible and also incorrect message, but I can and will should someone need me to. But even if we know how terrible that is, many people either don't know and will be swayed by this faulty logic, or they are already actively pushing it, both of which set our community back leagues.

I personally don't know of any detransitioners, but I think I can predict one; Blaire White.

Now for those who don't know, Blaire White is a conservative transgender woman who creates YouTube content. Some of her recent videos include taking a political compass quiz and lying about the results to make herself seem further right-wing than her answers would indicate, and another going to bat for the recent super-straight movement (pronounced "Not-see bul-shit") where she spouted the rhetoric behind said movement, that trans people aren't the gender that they, for lack of a better term, identify as (I'm sure they mostly mean trans women because that's who the bigots almost always focus on).

Less recently, her channel is usually dedicated to the same sort of delegitimization of trans people in much the same vein as Milo does for gay people. She'll spout transmedicalist bullshit, point out whenever a trans person does anything bad, back up TERF talking points, etc. Basically, much the same as Milo, trying to (virtue) signal to the right that "You're right to think trans people = bad, except me that is, pick me, I'm on your side.'

And if that weren't bad enough, the most recent thing I've seen involving Blaire was a right-wing debate panel featuring herself, Karlyn Borysenko, a self-proclaimed "conservative liberal" who by her own admission is only a right-winger because she went to a Trump rally and people were nice to her, John Doyle, unabashed fascist chud who recently made a two-hour video on "why porn bad", and Lauren something-or-other (idk, her last name was probably "Braun" or something like that judging by her views), a mostly unheard of nazi and looks-wise, literally Hitler's wet dream.

Now you may be wondering; how can so much cringe exist in one place without passing critical mass, creating a black hole, and swallowing the solar system, leaving not even a memory? Scientists are still stumped to this miracle of physics, so don't feel bad if you don't know either.

Anyway, why I think Blaire is going to eventually, if not soon, be the next detransitioner to be decrying trans people as a concept, is that she already was in this debate. Several times during the panel, Lauren brought up incredibly mask-off criticisms of Blaire and trans people in general, citing the "40%" statistic, saying that Blaire was encouraging children to be trans, and at one point literally saying (SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE EXTREME TRANSPHOBIA, also I'm paraphrasing a little at the end) "the best thing you could do [for the republican party] is to grow out your mustache and stop pretending to be something you're not."

Now, in the face of such horrid hatred, did Blaire stand up for herself, or indeed other, possibly even conservative, trans people? Nope. Capitulated to her point. Said that she was the biggest advocate for children not to transition. That she didn't want people to be like her. And it was like this for the entire gut-wrenching panel. Two fascists and a fascist-friendly moderator berating and laughing at anything that wasn't white, cis, and hetero, versus one idiot arguing (ironically pretty pragmatically) for a bigger-tent strategy, and a token trans woman buttoning her lip as she and everyone like her were being barraged with hatred.

So, it seems Blaire, and other right-wing trans people like her, are faced with a choice: Either A) Realize that these people hate her guts and will gladly take her vote and then legislate against her existence, and stop associating with them at the very least, B) Continue to air-headedly go to bat for these people while dissonantly holding onto her identity, right up until the day it's her own turn in the showers, or C) and I think you know what's coming here: Detransition to ingratiate herself to the people who hate her for existing but pay her bills. And I'd like to think it's not hard to imagine how likely option A is. And when she inevitably takes option C, those same nazis will have another example to point at and say "See! We can fix the transes!"

So to cap it off, I think that's essentially where the bulk of "detrans" comes from. Don't buy into it. If someone really does realize they weren't really trans, then good for them. But I think it would be worth it to examine whether those are genuine feelings, and where they're coming from.

Sincerely,

A Proud and Out Trans Woman

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theliterateape · 4 years ago

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I Can't Drive 55 | Lessons Learned in the 55th Year

By Don Hall

In my thirty-second year I felt incredibly sorry for myself. I was getting my first divorce, was living in a one-room studio in Uptown, my theater company was imploding over ego-driven bullshit. I drank myself into a state of suicidal yearning. It was a rough year.

I called my mom. Mom is that voice of reason in good and bad times.

"This has been a really shitty year. Maybe I should move back to Kansas."

"How old are you?"

"Thirty-two."

"And in thirty-two years you've lived on the planet, how many of those years were bad?"

I thought about it for a moment. "Really bad? Two. No three. Three years. Why?"

"Well, three out of thirty-two is a pretty solid track record. Seems to me that you weathered those other bad years and had good years to spare. Maybe you decide to quit wallowing in how bad this year has been and get to work on next year because based on your experience you probably have another cluster of good years in store."

Some have the Dali Lama. Others have a priest or a shelf of self-help books. I have my mom.

My fifty-fifth year (or the specter of 2020) was a rough year for so many people in the world it's almost a joke. The whole year has been covered in shit—from the campaign to unseat the least capable and most destructive president in my lifetime to three months in a pandemic shutting down the planet and economic hardship most of us have only read about in Steinbeck novels—2020 looks like the toilet bowl moments after a morning constitutional from a night of White Castle and rum.

Sure, the act of comparing one's life with those around is a narcissistic self-loathing experiment best suited for recently jilted lesbians and Instagram junkies, but while the entire world has been burning down in both literal and figurative ways, fifty-five has been a damn good year for me.

In January, I was well into my year and a half managing a casino on the corner of I-15 and Tropicana. I had done my due diligence in training and had hit the sweet spot of knowing enough about the business to be an effective leader on the floor. I knew my high rollers and had figured out the best approach to dealing with the meth-addicts and prostitutes. I could fix 90 percent of the machines and could process a jackpot inside of four minutes consistently.

Then came the pandemic and the economic shutdown of Las Vegas in March. Most were laid off and in free fall but I had stumbled into working for one of two gambling corporations in Nevada that committed to keeping the payroll rolling despite losing millions per day.

The three months of closure saw me coming in to work every day, cleaning the bar and the machines, and hanging out to make sure no one ransacked the place while it was closed. I did a lot of writing in my office during that time.

In terms of personal tragedy, my nineteen year old nephew overdosed in a parking lot in April and, virus be damned, Dana and I flew out the next day to help my sister.

We re-opened the casino in June.

Seven months of balancing life in a pandemic with idiots motivated to gamble, arguing with people about the necessity to wear masks, and submitting essays to everyone. Getting paid to write (even in small increments) was a genuine drug.

Over the summer both Dana and I were asked to write for an anthology of essays. Las Vegas writers writing about Las Vegas. It was a boost, man. Don't get me wrong, the casino gig was solid and, for the most part, enjoyable. Getting paid to write words and sentences was fucking delicious.

The book came out in October launched with a Zoomesque gathering.

The casino gig, while solid and simple, was becoming dull. Rote. Combining the fact that my best (and meager) talents were not usable during a pandemic in a struggling casino, I told my General Manager that I needed more money for such routine grind and that I’d start looking aggressively for something more in tune with my skills that also paid a bit more on my year-and-a-half mark.

Six days after I started the search, I was hired by a Denver-based firm as a Senior Copywriter.

Turns out I’m pretty good at it. Getting a salary for writing words and sentences is sweet and working from home as the pandemic continues to rage on is smart and comfortable. No longer a slave to the swings shift, my schedule is my own.

I can, for the first time in my life when asked what I do for a living, answer “I am a writer.” In a career path marked by ten year gigs followed by "gotta pay the bills" gigs, it looks like Casino Manager is the latter and "Writer" is the former. Now it’s time to write some books, yeah?

It’s been a year, my friends.

Here are the lessons that landed in my 55th annum.

Always Leave ‘Em Wanting More

Over the course of my bizarre career as a “Writer. Teacher. Storyteller. Consultant.” to refer to my donhall.vegas website, I’ve had a tendency to overstay my welcome.

Instead of leaving circumstances on good terms, by the time I was ready to go, I was all Fuck these people! What a bunch of dickseeds! and at least a few of the people were Fuck him! What a dickseed!

I stayed one year longer than I should have as a public school teacher. I stayed at least a year too long in my second marriage and, despite some incredible shows toward the end of the WNEP Theater years, I stayed too long with that company. I should’ve left WBEZ at least a year earlier and I waited until things got weird in the storytelling scene before leaving Chicago.

With the casino, I left long before things become too rote or sour. I found the new gig, jumped on it, and was told if it didn’t work out, I always had a place to land. That I was a part of the Station Casinos “family.” My staff bought me booze and when I swung by just to see them, they are happy to be seen.

Hell, the GM even gave me one of the chairs from the Craps Table for my home office!

As I get older, recognizing the signs that perhaps it’s time to go is an essential skill. At fifty-five, maybe I’m finally into that.

Family is Always More Important Than Work

Last year, working the first 24/7/365 job in my life, I was told I had to work on Christmas. It was the first Christmas in decades I hadn’t spent with my family in Kansas. It wasn’t bad—Joe flew in from Chicago, he took Dana and I to see Penn Gillette at Rio, Kelli joined Dana and Joe on the casino floor while I worked.

This year, especially after the death of my nephew, it became obvious that family had to come first. Months before I landed the writing gig, I let my GM know I was taking the week of Christmas off, COVID be damned. I was clear that if the company couldn’t pay me for the time off I understood and if I was to be let go because of it, then that was fine, too.

The casino was incredibly cool about the request that wasn’t really a request. In fact, even though I gave my two week’s notice before the Christmas vacation pay would kick in, my GM allowed me to be paid for it anyway (see that first lesson again).

It was in every possible way the correct call. My sister needed me. I needed my mom and dad. We got to reconnect with a cousin I hadn’t seen in years. Turns out she’s a professional copywriter in Austin, TX. It was a soul-filling holiday and I’ll never miss Christmas in Kansas again.

It’s Pointless to Argue with Zealots

Maybe it’s in part due to my new-found desert surroundings or my distance from the increasingly Woke Chicago Arts scene but this last year of Trump and the ridiculous nature of angrier social media has pushed me closer to Left Center than Full-On Progressive.

As a younger man I decided that religion was simply not for me. Too emotionally charged without a sense of rationality. At the distance Nevada gives me I can see how irrational both the Extreme Right—the overtly white nationalist taint with the individualism bordering on sociopathy—and the Progressive Left—the quasi-religious circular logic of white privilege, erasure of women as a category, and focus on tribalism over all—have become. Or maybe they were always this way and it took some time away from a major urban center to see it.

Whichever the case, arguing with either side has become synonymous with filing my teeth with a dremel. Besides being as productive as screaming into an Amazon Box, taping it up, and shipping it to Congress, it’s fucking annoying.

If there is a resolution I’m attempting to adopt in the latter half of my fifties, it is this: find common ground with everyone and if I encounter someone so far into conspiracy territory that I cannot, walk away and don’t look back.

Social Media Enables the Very Worst in Us (and Me)

I can’t remember if I shed myself of Faceborg, Twitter, Instagram, and the host of social media this or last year but I’ve spent most (if not all) of my fifty-fifth year absent the noise and it was an excellent decision.

Mobs of imbeciles canceling professors, trolling J.K. Rowling, threatening violence to strangers, and organizing a breach of the Capitol all using tools for communication that should be extraordinary made me hate people I had never met. This cannot be a good ‘chicken soup for the soul’ arena to spend time in.

I’ll admit that I do feel left out of the mix some yet I’m happier for it. I jumped back recently with a new LinkedIn account (which is sortof like social media but with jobs) and the only good thing about that has been being able to message with Rob Kozlowski.

I’m a Social Distancing Jedi

Five years ago, Dana threw me a birthday party and there was a room full of friends in attendance. This year, I’ll be lucky if even Dana remembers my birthday.

The culling effect of both getting rid of social media and the pandemic has been like a hoarder finally ridding himself of boxes of empty Altoid tins and those square plastic bread ties. Always a bit of a misanthrope, this year has cleared out so much noise and my new gig at home has me isolated from the wash of the unwashed.

Turns out I’m good with this. My interactions with people are more intentional rather than surface level and while life has made me more cautious when it comes to whom I genuinely trust, those whom I do choose teach me things I wouldn’t know and enrich my dwindling time on the planet.

Your Reality is Dictated by Your Optimism

Optimism isn’t merely hope. It isn’t happiness or a cheery disposition.

Optimism is an act of resilience against the brutal harshness of living the existential crisis.

It’s darkest just before the dawn implies that there will be a dawn. What if there won’t be? What if it’s just more darkness? If the implacable timpani of human greed, a self correcting planetary environment, and the algorithm that defines our modern interaction has no end, should that result in giving in to the despair?

As optimism is a breeze when things are going your way, despair is the path of least resistance when things turn to shit. Seeing through the mist at a better future takes effort and commitment like a solid marriage or a massive novel you’ve committed to writing. It’s a project to be managed not a feeling to languish within.

One cannot truly call himself an optimist who refuses to see the horror. Pretending that people are essentially kind and generous is stuffing the ostrich head in the sand. People are apes with higher brain functions and follow the rules of the jungle. Tribalism, essentialism, war for resources, the history of brutality of all humanity goes far beyond Hannah Jones 1619 Project. Taken in whole, we aren’t a very enlightened and forgiving species.

Further, optimism is an individual choice. It’s not something that can be enforced but it is something that can be inspired. The American Experiment, despite its many missteps and flaws, is grounded in a belief that humans can govern themselves justly and effectively. Given the larger picture, belief in democracy is only slightly more delusional than the guy playing slots so he can pay his rent. The odds are astronomically against success and yet the choice to persevere is made.

When you see someone who has one of those death camp tattoos on their arm you are witnessing a genuine, tried and true, bona fide optimist.

Optimism is hardest when things turn to shit but it is then when it is most necessary.

Becoming Antique is a Journey

For the first time I see that more of my life has been lived than I have left to live.

I recognize that I wish I could give the years I have left to my nephew because I have done a lot in my five and a half decades and he didn't get the chance. I wonder, absent the obsessive drive to achieve I had in my younger days, what I have to offer in the next ten years? What value does my existence provide to others and how do I manifest that value in pragmatic terms?

Like an old car or a pair of worn-out shoes, we all must acknowledge a certain sense of obsolescence. The pandemic has up-ended so many of the fictions we lived with up until this point and finding North on the compass is a challenge these days. Becoming irrelevant is like that boiling frog—slowly and without even recognizing the boil—we all find ourselves as vintage.

Perhaps that's what I've become. Not the rusted Coca Cola sign in the corner but the "like new" vinyl Def Leppard album with slightly tattered and stained liner notes.

In my next ten years (if I have that much time in store or more) I'd like to read more. Write a lot more. Listen to more live music. Be a better husband. Become that cool old man on the block with good advise and a snort of rye in case it's a little chilly. Christ, I already smoke a pipe.

There is so much more to learn that, in order to avoid feeling useless, I need to learn more.

In a Pandemic, Look For the Simple Things to Keep You Sane

A really well-made sandwich

A cold beer in 115˚ weather

A road trip with your Soul Mate

A book by a new author

A slideshow of you and your Soul Mate doing things together

A long walk

Recognizing that you have a Soul Mate

Sometimes I wonder if there’s anything else. I wonder if I’d miss anything important if I simply ceased to breathe on the couch I bought back in Chicago as it sits in Nevada.

In those moments of melodramatic existentialism, I remind myself that the experience of living is this annual letter to you. A summation of the things I’ve learned and the life I’ve lived.

If I had finished this race last year, my mettle wouldn’t have been tested by a pandemic. I wouldn't have found my sister again. I wouldn’t have seen Trump slink away to Florida. I wouldn’t be sitting in a Craps Chair in a home office of my design.

I wouldn’t have learned anything at all (you know, because dead people stop moving forward).

Here’s to another year and what adventures I will have!

#Fifty-Fifth Birthday #Birthday Lessons

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stone-man-warrior · 4 years ago

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November 8, 2020: 5:57 pm:

https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1325447314203418625 This reminds me to say something about the "Green Jello" and "Green Gelatin" terror cells I used to report more often about.

An observation is that since Donald Trump has been US president, there has been far less to say about Green Jello terror.

Instead, what used to be Green Jello terror, has given way to "MedDems" variety of offensive terror, at least where I live it has. The Green Jello elements are still around, however, they are rapidly losing ground to other, "Afterswords" terror, German terror.

I don't know where to classify "MedDems" terror cells. The full name of the cell, is "Medical Democrats", but that has absolutely no real association to the political party as far as I can tell. It may appear as if they are Democrats, and there are indeed hard core democrat terror members in the MedDems, but I am careful not to contain the MedDems in any one particular category of terror, they are all over the place, have no rules, no boundaries, will kill infant babies, and elderly wheel chair bound people with the same swing of a sword without blinking an eye.

What was once all about the "Green Jello" terror cells, has given way to MedDems terror over four years time, that much is very clear, on the street I live on.

Green Jello and Green Gelatin are the terror cells that are responsible for the collapse of World Trade Center, so, they are global terror, are basically composed of Seventh Day Adventists from Canada, who get their marching orders from Universal Studios, nbc, Metro Goldwyn Mayer, other big media, including LA Times & new York Times which are known in some circles as "the two towers".

This can easily be said: The more SDA the terror members are, the more Green Jello is the terror.

The fewer SDA, perhaps the more MedDems is the terror, but that is not certain, just something to think about as a possibility for solving problems.

Another immediately visible observation is that the MedDems have taken over all of the medical establishments, hospitals at the corporate levels, all hijacked. People are shepherded to the medical establishments, clinics, hospitals, doctor offices, for slaughter.

Green Jello took down the World Trade Center. At the top floor of building 7 was the HQ of that vast majority of the US national security offices.

I am beginning to see that the place we think of as "Langley Virginia" as the HQ of national security, is only a media label they use to brainwash people with. "Langley" could very possibly be a way to say variants of the word "linguistics". "Virginia", of course, is elementary, comes by the "Half Gross", 72 at a time. That said: "Langley Virginia", when it comes up in news stories, might only serve as a way to announce that someone, somewhere, is talking about a lot of truth about terror.

I think the real nsa went down with the towers in 2001.

The taking of the towers was preceded by teams of people in the lower floors emptying the building of gold. There was said to be vast gold stockpiles there in the lower floors. Three days prior to the towers coming down, the gold was taken.

The real target was the Pentagon.

The towers were a media spectacle, all eyes were on those towers for a long time. Meanwhile, the attack at the Pentagon, where no evidence of an airplane can be seen, was the goal. Was it a success? Or a failure?

I don't have a definitive answer, I lean towards success given the state of the USA today.

Three targets, towers, Pentagon, and a hole in the ground somewhere in the middle of "no air" (nowhere) where there was zero amount of debris, just a hole in the ground where the airplane must have vaporized. Everyone is believing that there can be a hole in the ground, without any debris when an airplane crashes.

It's a "Trinity Rules Applied" terror scenario fingerprint. Father, son, holy spirit.

See?

My read on Boris Johnson's Green statements, is that he is excited to know that the Green Jello is going to be in the driver seat once again after Trump leaves. Research this to find truth: Trump is a traitor to USA, he is also double crossing the SAG/British elements in US Government. Trump has his own set of goals, pretends to go along with the Green Jello/SAG/Britain elements, so, he won't reveal any secrets of either side, but he has demonstrated a "Black Mail" approach, by sending the Green Jello messages through his words and actions.

This: He visited "Langley Virginia" early in his term. There was a news conference from Langley. That has never been done before to my knowledge. At the "Langley" news conference, the cameras were fixed on Trump, never wavered into the audience members.

Trump pointed to a central "support column" in the building, and said something like: "That support column in the middle of the room is not necessary. I am going to build all of you a new, modern building, one without central columns"

Ok. That is a Black Mail. Right there. He is referring to the Times newspapers, saying he's going to take them out. It means he has damaging information, embarrassing (Embers; Bare Ass-ing) information. He suggests, in his own way, that the Green Jello in government should back off, or bad things could happen. Donald Trump is definitely not Green Jello. He could be MedDem, but only as a "Afterswords" variety of MedDem. I would like to take this moment of opportunity to thank Mr. Johnson for his inspiring words today, and Twitter news media for presenting them to the millions of terror soldiers they are intended to reach today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju_GLKaH4vM

youtube

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This: (some is repeat of what I was rambling about above, this expands the same ideas more)

He visited "Langley Virginia" early in his term. There was a news conference from Langley. That has never been done before to my knowledge. At the "Langley" news conference, the cameras were fixed on Trump, never wavered into the audience members.

Ok. That is a Black Mail. Right there. He is referring to the Times newspapers, saying he's going to take them out. It means he has damaging information, embarrassing (Embers; Bare Ass-ing) information. He suggests, in his own way, that the Green Jello in government should back off, or bad things could happen. Donald Trump is definitely not Green Jello. He could be MedDem, but only as a "Afterswords" variety of MedDem. Donald Trump is definitely not Green Jello. He could be MedDem, but only as a "Afterswords" variety of MedDem.

He may never concede. He has dirt on the Dems, but they have dirt on him. SCOTUS may play in here somewhere.

There are reasons why Trump stacked the deck there. If SCOTUS happens to play some role that overturns the vote, it will all be for show. If that happens, it means stalemate between two dirt clods.

Critical thinking about possibility of a SCOTUS involvement goes like this: We know Twitter is here for advancing terror orders.

We know all of the face value of all of the stories is bullshit.

We saw Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barret picked.

Problem for Trump is Kavanaugh is French, aligned with the Dems, but Trump does not know that.

We know that Twitter stories are set-up and introduced into the Twitter feed far before they need to be accessed, for deployment as marching orders. We know that Donald Trump knows exactly what his marching orders were before he took office.

We know he has a plan, one that was crafted as far back as 1980, maybe before that. We know that the Britain/SAG Global terror take over plan was crafted before JFK was assassinated.

We know the Donald Trump's goals are not the same as the Britain/SAG plans are.

We know that the fake vote, is in favor of Biden.

We don't know who the pre-planned winner was supposed to have been, per SAG/Britain arrangements.

Speculation suggests that Trump was planned to have served two terms, face value, while handing everything over to Mitt Romney, eliminating the existence of USA, in favor of French north American Republic Territory. Romney was/is scheduled to serve as first King of the new communist kingdom, FNART. Justin Trudeau as first Prime Minister of the kingdom, which would occupy the area currently occupied by Canada, USA, and Mexico, all three replaced with French north American Republic Territory.

We know Trump built a wall at the Mexico border.

We know the wall caused division among the parties in government.

We can speculate the the wall was not part of the prearranged Britain/SAG plan, Trump broke rank at that time.

We can speculate that he planned for every possible outcome. We can speculate that SCOTUS packing was part of a fail-safe arrangement on the part of the Trump Apostles.

We can then speculate that the SCOTUS will play a role to reverse the vote. At that point we need to step the fuck back and have a look at reality. That all of that jockeying for position, is only in order to satisfy "The Show". The presentation of a lot of bullshit. We need to understand that behind the guilded curtain, there are two opposing sides. Each side knows the other side is cut-throat terror army. Each side has embarrassing dirt about the other side. Both sides agree on at least making sure that none of the dirt gets out into the realm of public exposure. That means the Art of the Deal, happens back stage. We only see the cover up.

It may come down to which side is less filthy.

not likely.

We cannot afford to be caught with our pants down with this line of thought. What I see is a lot of investment in SCOTUS media plot building technics. The Plot Thickened with all of the SCOTUS news we have been presented with, so, to me, it's rational to assume that we will be presented with the next scene that features the SCOTUS themes that were already seeded into the story lines in the Big Picture. How to stop the madness is not that difficult to see, is very difficult to do. First, there needs to be a authoritarian opposition to mass murder on a global scale. Given people who are opposed to being killed, there is a way. First and foremost, Twitter has to come down. Offline. needs to be silenced. That will slow them down considerably.

Then, the Vatican needs to go. Put a fence around it, take away their media access.

Then, British House of Lords members need to be rounded up. Take them to Easter Island, drop them off. There will be many to bring there by the time I am done saying what needs to happen.

Amazon. We need to find out more. How many are there? Where are they at? What kind of weaponry do they have at the Amazon holdings? Round them up, take them to Easter Island, drop them off. US Congress, and all of the state Governors, are all SAG actors. Round them up, take them to Easter Island, drop them off. With that done, most of the dangerous leadership is dealt with. Then, the news media personalities. I don't have a suitable suggestion about how to proceed with that. There are not reasonable measures available for that, only unreasonable measures come to mind.

It starts with people who are opposed to being murdered. Where are the people who are opposed to being murdered? Those are the people who can stop the madness.

The information I have, includes that Mike & Karen Pence are both dead, been dead for more than six months.

Most of the Trump original cabinet is dead.

Many famous actors, musicians and government officials have died while trying to shut me up, hundreds of them, killed in defense of my life and home.

Some research will show what I am saying, but those who look for dead politicians and entertainers put themselves in harms way by doing so, and, they would need to see past the Hollywood movie make up, masks, look-a-like cast replacements, in order to see the charade.

I don't go looking for trouble, I am confined in my home. When I go outside, there is an army there, finding opportunity to shoot, run me over, or cause me so much grief that I will do something stupid the would justify the shot, or an arrest. They continue to set me up for crime daily. Recent attempts to do that now include Department of Motor Vehicles tactics.

In the past ten years while begging for help everyday, I have been run over by a truck, shot in the face, suffered many attacks where ground up glass dust was blown into my eyes, and beaten with baseball bat many times. Intruders into my home bring swords and poison gas regularly. I fight almost every day to stay alive. no one will send any help. no one has ever talked to me about the things I report online, and there are no real police to report to, all is hijacked in Oregon. Many hundreds of thousands of US Citizens were slaughtered over the past twenty years. They did not see what I did, the use of nitrous oxide as a weapon, mixed with medazolam, is the single most powerful and effective weapon ever used on earth when used by people who developed ways to use it offensively. With the gas, the terror army is able to direct victims into traps where they are killed. The people simply do as they are told, "just walk right into that giant blender right there, that's right, keep going..."

That's how powerful the gas weapon is.

Had those victims simply used a lighter or struck a match at the time they were killed, they might still be alive today.

==================================

That, and a small, fixed wing wing airplane crashed in a rural neighborhood just north of Grants Pass Oregon, in the afternoon hours. The crash shook the ground, witnesses say, and produced a fiery flash of light that could be seen for miles around.

There are no official reports of any aircraft having hit the ground, newsmedia is backing away from the toxic nature of the event.

Witnesses say that the airplane burst into flames just at the moment when a local man lit a Bic Lighter while taking a short walk in his yard. A "lightning bolt" was reported from one neighbor to another, reaching from the ground toward the airplane, which was flying just above the overcast sky.

Locals in the town say that it's normal and customary for airplanes to fall from the sky in the region. They are said to fall at a rate of about 10-15 annually, and tend to fall in pairs, where one crash precedes another on the following day. One man describes the phenomenon as the "Double Down" aerial defense strategy.

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I'm a wig-wam. I'm a tee-pee. I'm two tents. I suspect there will be more to this Two-Tents of Terror.

Look for reminders of these kinds of ideas in news stories on Twitter:

Fantasia, Walt Disney's "Masterpiece".

Big-Top: Hats, Big Stetson ones, pointy ones, beanies, hoodies, beret's (very important, and sneaky), toupee qualifies.

The opposite of hats: Bald men. Secret Service members.

Three Rings: any amount of rings will serve.

Circles and things that go round & round.

Sammy Hagar's band, "The Circle".

Props, items used by actors to fool you.

Dogs & Pony's.

Ford Mustangs, if convertible, is a decapitated cup of coffee.

"Intencity": Look for mobile terror soldiers who reside in tent cities, carrying props, while riding horses, with a dog. Some may be bald, with toupee & hat. "Circle the Wagons": Spaghetti Western terror is likely. If so, then, Japanese Godzilla comes with it.

"Helpless people on subway trains screaming "My God!".

Trump at the Border Wall news could happen today.

Caesars Palace is next door to Circus Circus. It gets complicated right there. The whole thing starts to turn into a giant female. "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" could happen. Keep close tabs on Hillary Clinton today and don't let her get anywhere near an airplane or helicopter.... bad news.

Watch for signs of "lettuce", especially "Romain Lettuce", very dangerous, comes with Alpha Breasts and a worn out pelvic floor.

Summery: This is bad news. It is a set-up of terror comm that seems to lead to the bottleneck at the border wall. It looks like "tent city" terror soldiers are called to arms here. Here is how the math works out: There are two parallel walls at the border somewhere. One is 18' tall, the other is 30' tall. It's symbolic.

30 - 18 = 12

That means it's all very real. 30. Three Dimensional. Three D.Comes with:

Detour Distraction Delay (that one is part of the Pope's peddle board on his 1958 Gibson Flying V Guitar rig, played through a stack of Marshall's.)

The "12" is a dozen doughnuts, police. Anyone who is not a terror soldier, is a doughnut for this. Everyone is a police if not a terror soldier.

"pleeaasse nooo! don't hurt me any more!" kind of police.

Comes with preying.

The "12" from the math, is the "difference by subtraction".

Subtraction = Thompson sub machine guns at the border bottleneck, fitted with the Pope's drummer, a drum magazine loaded with 72, 45 ACP, each.

The 18 is "Calling Age" for dating. (Steely Dan says 19 is "FM" for that. "Fucking Magic" "no static at all". The terror bastards collect those, take them home.) Big Ten "call age" football at the Border Bottleneck.

It's a "Corona Bottle" (put a lime in the neck, then drink, keeps the scurvy away) Where is "The Border Wall"?

At the US/Mexico border?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Could be a symbolic wall.

If so, it goes like this: Someone gets a phone call. They answer the phone. There are Royal Canadian Mounted Police who have taken over all of the state police offices in USA. They have a lot of Stingray surveillance units and they pass them out to terror cells to use.

The call received is planned, arranged at a time when attacking terror soldiers are in place at the victims home. While the victim is engaged with an important call, might be receiving good, or bad news right then, and is preoccupied by the call, that is when the terror attack occurs. The terror soldiers already know exactly where the person will be in the house, seated, talking on the phone, unarmed, unprepared for intruders. They come in with keys they obtained earlier. The house is fogged with nitrous oxide/medazolam before the attack. The victim is tortured while on the call, the person on the other end of the call hears the trouble, hangs up and calls police to check on the loved one that was called. State police terror cells go to that address, and repeat the process there. It makes a giant circle, as people are called, attacked, tortured, someone calls for help, and the process repeats endlessly, gaining cell phones filled with contacts for further targeting. Once a family and the circle of freinds they associate with have all been killed and replaced, there is very little chance that anyone will ever find out that the people who belong to that circle of freinds ad family, will ever be missed or noticed as gone. That is when the terror army gains a completed terror family cell.

Hard to believe I know, but that's how it's done. So, 30 = Real, three dimensional, in your face. 3D. 18 = Calling age; College Football; Big Ten. 12 = the victims, the doughnuts, the police and everyone who is not a terror soldier is a doughnut, has money and assets to steal. (incoming call from Walgreen's just now.) "Ten, Ten! The big one on the end!"

It's a craps game at the big top. Odds pay 2:1. Trinity rules apply. Even money on the pass line. If a number is marked, then Come, "Hey 19, FM. Stealy Dan." Two Tens. "Two Ten Come Ins" "Tuten come ins" "Tutankhaman"King Tut The Luxor. <o> <o> “Allah and the Virgins” are playing in the lounge. Pope Francis on lead Ax. Trump on Drums. Boris Johnson on Bass. It's a power trio. The band stays at the Bellagio.

It's Trump's last show, he was fired by lead Ax and Bass. He stays over on the other side of the freeway. Joe Biden is in line with the Throne on the drum kit, and when he gets his chops warmed up, Allah & the Virgins will finally have a backup singer, Kamala, the Two-Hump Kamel. O Aces. Black Jack. 6:15 pm (it’s been a full day of terror activity on Twitter and here around my home today. I deleted much of what I wrote in the Twitter text boxes, saved out the gems that are above, for your consideration should there be anyone who does national or global security work, and is also opposed to being slaughtered.)

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