#and am a broken record at this point but i'm never not dying over this

[tenacquity]

it’s monday emo hours of thinking about how many times people in ryuu’s life have betrayed him, kept information from him, lied to him—

and he’s still just /gestures through incoherent weeping

Him™

[pikahlua]

The problem is that even if it's supposed to be bittersweet and the message is that they can't save everyone, there are other factors in this story that make it look weird. All of AFO's major victims end up dying. Tomura being saved spiritually but not physically, becoming a martyr and "inspiring" the future generation of heroes is Tomura becoming another Yoichi. The story doesn't need another Yoichi, we already have one. If we're supposedly breaking the cycle here, wouldn't it make more sense for this "Yoichi" to actually escape AFO in full?

I do want to combine these two, because the problem is you're saying I'm implying all this stuff that I am literally on the record disagreeing with.

1. I didn't say the message IS they can't save everyone, I said that Izuku and All Might both acknowledge they can't save everyone. That's a big distinction. This is about Izuku's and All Might's sense of dissatisfaction and the solutions they come up with for this problem. What do you do WHEN you can't save everyone? That doesn't mean Tomura won't be saved. Hell, the story already posited that his heart was saved. The question is whether or not his life will be saved, and as I've said, any answer to that question can lead to an interesting outcome depending on how it's handled.

2. It is not true all of AFO's major victims die. Touya and Overhaul are alive. Himiko Toga, Spinner, and Kurogiri's statuses are currently unknown. Depending on how you wanna define "major victim," Izuku and Katsuki and All Might and Endeavor and Aoyama all survive, too. You're just talking about the vestiges (who were always dead characters) and the Shimura family.

3. I disagree that Tomura is a martyr. Just because his life inspired people doesn't make his death martyrdom. If Tomura's death sticks, he didn't die for what he believes in or to make a point or to stay true to himself. He didn't kill himself. His body was already crumbling, and AFO was about to abandon it to turn to dust. Whether or not Tomura changed his beliefs or identity in some way would have had no impact on whether or not he still would have died. He just showed up at the end to exact vengeance on AFO for what was done to him, despite the fact that they were both on their way out anyway. The only control Tomura had over his death was whether or not he'd do anything before it happened, and he did. That's a testament to his character and how he would behave in the face of death, but it's not the same thing as being a martyr. I bring this up because you're throwing a lot of assumptions about the story around as if you and I are on the same page. If anything, I've noticed I disagree with so many people on what Tomura's death even entailed, let alone the meaning behind it.

4. You have to understand, your talk about "the story doesn't need another Yoichi" and "breaking the cycle" is your reading. I never talked about breaking any cycle here. You're assuming that's the point, but I don't know if that's the point. There are many cycles that are still quite preserved in the story. Why wouldn't we need another Yoichi if another Yoichi just refers to a person who pays it forward? A person who believes in others and entrusts their legacy and dreams to them without forcing that other person to BECOME them? The story has never criticized characters for being inspiring, not even All Might. This leads into my next point.

5. I am so vocally on the record even just recently as saying I do not believe the theme is simply "this generation is better than the old one." I do not agree with the implication that Izuku getting out of All Might's shadow means his admiration is bad or part of a cycle that needs to be broken. "You're next" was a detriment to Izuku because Izuku took it as a message meant only for him when in fact it really was a message for everyone. Izuku took away a message that he should separate himself from others, but the true message was that everyone should come together. Everyone includes the old generation. The new generation is taking what the old generation gave them and improving on it with their own ideas and feelings, but they're not breaking what the old generation made. They are continuing the struggle in trying to make things better with each generation knowing that they will never see the completion of the thing they strive for. This is the natural cycle of human social struggle, and it is a struggle that will continue forever.

I'm not saying the ending as we have it now is good--because it's not even complete. I'm saying that there are things Horikoshi is consistent about, and there is POTENTIAL for Tomura's death to work well. I'm not saying Tomura is going to stay dead. The point I'm really getting at is that we can receive messages from stories all we like, but that doesn't make them the intended ones, ESPECIALLY when the story in question is not yet finished. If the Japanese readership is getting an entirely different feeling out of what's happened, it stands to reason that there are some cultural context points the western fandom is missing. I am open to the messages I read being incorrect, and I have revised my criticisms each time it has happened. I am open to learning whatever message Horikoshi has in store, no matter the outcome. And I am interested in understanding it as best I can even if my understanding is limited by my not being the intended audience. There is a lot I could be missing that I still need to learn, and it would be arrogant of me to presume I understand everything about this story's presentation the first time through. That makes it worthwhile for me to see what has remained consistent with my reading and what has not.

[hallowpen]

Hi Kodakins! I miss you🙁 Insomnia has plagued me once again, and you're on my list of people I bother when I cannot sleep. Don't worry, I won't put you through another round of either/or😅

Since there are "Top 5" polls going around, I was wondering: 1) Now that ThaiGL has taken over, which top 5 series are you most looking forward to?

2) What top 5 genres/tropes would you like to see from future GL projects?

Thank you for indulging me❤️

P.S. Now that I finally have some free time, I'm catching up on fics that I had saved to read for later and um

EXCUSE ME????? WTF IS THIS????? YOU NEGLECTED TO MENTION SOMEONE DYING!

❤️❤️❤️

Don't worry, I won't put you through another round of either/or😅

Thank you!!!

My Top 5 Upcoming Thai GL Series (I think you can probably predict most of these hehe)

1 - The Loyal Pin It's one of my favorite yuri novels (I own both the Thai and English versions). It's FreenBeck. It's promoting Thai culture on an international scale. It's the first Thai GL series to be backed by the MOC. It will break barriers... and my soul. I AM SOOO READY!!!

2 - The Last Case It's an original script. It stars openly queer actresses. It's being directed by N'App who is also openly queer. ESTER ORUCHE!!! The only reason it's not number one on my list is simply because it is Identity's first series and I have nothing to gauge their production by.

3 - Reverse 4 You I am a huge fan of Be My Favorite and while the premise is not exactly the same, it has its similarities. If this series comes anywhere close to being just as good, I'll be a very happy camper.

4 - Pluto Putting any issues I have with its source aside... I love Namtan Tipnaree. I tend to favor actors who have really great emotional range and Namtan can certainly deliver. Her being paired with an equally compelling actress like Film Rachanun certainly caught my attention. All I can hope for? That GMM will do right by them and the other female actresses involved 🤞🏾🤞🏾🤞🏾

5 - I'm Your Moon "กัษธิษฐาน" (the novel this series is based on) is a story of fated lovers and reincarnation...and that is one of my favorite tropes!!! The series is still in the very early stages of production, so anything can happen...

I'm generally not too concerned about genre or tropes in a series so instead, I'll answer you this...

My Top 5 Hopes for Future Thai GL Series

1 - Alright... there is one genre I want. VAMPIRES!!! Bet ya didn't see that one coming! 🤣🤣🤣 No...but in all seriousness, I'll take anything supernatural. Vampires, Sirens, Wiccans... it's all fair game. Bonus points if there's an incorporation of Thai mythology... there's such a rich history there.

2 - More Inclusivity. I'd love to see more sapphic stories beyond the standard variety. Give me trans leads, give me ace rep, give me neurodiversity, give me more disability rep, more Thai-black rep... there are so many identities that could benefit from more on-screen representation. I don't know if Thailand is fully there yet, but I hope someday we will be.

3 - Original Content. I'd love to see production companies develop their own original stories (much like The Last Case). I'm not saying to eliminate the Novel-to-Series model altogether, but original scripts tend to help diversify a genre.

4 - Step away from adapting Planoy novels. I probably sound like a broken record at this point, but my issue with them goes beyond their writing. I'll continue to say that they have contributed to the harm of the Thai queer community in both word and action. I will never support them and production companies should really stop giving them a platform. There are other, less problematic, GL authors who are more deserving of an opportunity.

5 - MilkLove in another, more mature GL. I'd (selfishly) love to see them in a series more suited to an older/adult audience.

...as for the fic, I don't know what to tell you hehe It's Shadowhunters. These are life/death situations... but just trust me. Not all is what it seems!!! (Thank you for reminding me to finish writing the fighting scenes for that. Those are always the most difficult to do and I've been putting it off for far too long)

[bigforeheadbaddie]

Fiona Apple when she has to opt out of performing for personal reasons:

“It's 6pm on Friday, and I'm writing to a few thousand friends I have not met yet.

I am writing to ask them to change our plans and meet a little while later.

Here's the thing.

I have a dog Janet, and she's been ill for almost two years now, as a tumor has been idling in her chest, growing ever so slowly. She's almost 14 years old now.I got her when she was 4 months old. I was 21 then ,an adult officially – and she was my child.

She is a pitbull, and was found in Echo Park, with a rope around her neck, and bites all over her ears and face.

She was the one the dogfighters use to puff up the confidence of the contenders.

She's almost 14 and I've never seen her start a fight ,or bite, or even growl, so I can understand why they chose her for that awful role. She's a pacifist.

Janet has been the most consistent relationship of my adult life, and that is just a fact.

We've lived in numerous houses, and jumped a few make shift families, but it's always really been the two of us.

She slept in bed with me, her head on the pillow, and she accepted my hysterical, tearful face into her chest, with her paws around me, every time I was heartbroken, or spirit-broken, or just lost, and as years went by, she let me take the role of her child, as I fell asleep, with her chin resting above my head.

She was under the piano when I wrote songs, barked any time I tried to record anything, and she was in the studio with me all the time we recorded the last album.

The last time I came back from tour, she was spry as ever, and she's used to me being gone for a few weeks every 6 or 7 years.

She has Addison's Disease, which makes it dangerous for her to travel since she needs regular injections of Cortisol, because she reacts to stress and to excitement without the physiological tools which keep most of us from literally panicking to death.

Despite all of this, she's effortlessly joyful and playful, and only stopped acting like a puppy about 3 years ago.

She's my best friend and my mother and my daughter, my benefactor, and she's the one who taught me what love is.

I can't come to South America. Not now.

When I got back from the last leg of the US tour, there was a big, big difference

She doesn't even want to go for walks anymore.

I know that she's not sad about aging or dying. Animals have a survival instinct, but a sense of mortality and vanity, they do not. That's why they are so much more present than people.

But I know that she is coming close to point where she will stop being a dog, and instead, be part of everything. She'll be in the wind, and in the soil, and the snow, and in me, wherever I go.

I just can't leave her now, please understand.

If I go away again, I'm afraid she'll die and I won't have the honor of singing her to sleep, of escorting her out.

Sometimes it takes me 20 minutes to pick which socks to wear to bed.

But this decision is instant.

These are the choices we make, which define us.

I will not be the woman who puts her career ahead of love and friendship.

I am the woman who stays home and bakes Tilapia for my dearest, oldest friend.

And helps her be comfortable, and comforted, and safe, and important.

Many of us these days, we dread the death of a loved one. It is the ugly truth of Life, that keeps us feeling terrified and alone.

I wish we could also appreciate the time that lies right beside the end of time.

I know that I will feel the most overwhelming knowledge of her, and of her life and of my love for her, in the last moments.

I need to do my damnedest to be there for that.

Because it will be the most beautiful, the most intense, the most enriching experience of life I've ever known.

When she dies.

So I am staying home, and I am listening to her snore and wheeze, and reveling in the swampiest, most awful breath that ever emanated from an angel.

And I am asking for your blessing.I'll be seeing you.

Love, Fiona”

———————————————————————

Chappell Roan when she gets flamed on the internet for claiming to have done her research and then promptly mispronounces the current Vice President’s (very simple) name:

[ravenwraithe]

Chasing Pasts in Shadows

part 1 | part 2 | part 3

please pay attention to the tags, there's some heavy stuff going on

Mr Reyes was a balding, rotund man in his fifties, who greeted them, showed them around the garden like a realtor and finally invited them into the parlour (A parlour!) to have some tea. Will was currently sat on the long couch with Mike crowding him in towards the right armrest and eyeing the plates suspiciously and worrying the rip in his black jeans . Max took the armchair nearer Mike, picking up one of the sandwiches. Mr Reyes took the last armchair, settling in with a sigh. “Oof. Bad knees, these days. I'm not as young as I was, back in the eighties,” he chuckled, “but you kids don't have to worry about that yet, hmm? I should hope not. Well, take whatever you’d like to eat and you can ask away,” He leant back into the plush of the chair.

Will nodded and reached in for a grape. ”Mr Reyes, before we start, if at any point of time you feel uncomfortable answering questions, do let us know. We want to know as much as possible about the case but not at the cost of your mental health. Do you understand?”

“I do.”

“Good. Max, hand over the recorder, please.”

Max passed it to Mike. Will reached out for it, electricity racing up when his hand briefly brushed against Mike’s. He fought down a shiver, clicking it on and placing it on the middle of the table, among the delicately arranged sandwiches, fresh fruit and cheese and crystal glasses of sparkling water. “Just say your name and age, we’ll take care of the rest.”

“Javier Reyes and 53.”

“Mr Reyes, you called us to investigate some disturbances in, um, your house. Could you please elaborate?” Will asked, chewing on his grape. It was delicious.

“Oh, what do you want to know about?”

“When did they first start?”

“About 10 months ago, I was in the kitchen to get a drink, I think, at 2 am in the morning, because the mini fridge in my room had broken down a few days ago. The entire house had blown a fuse, and some of my appliances short circuited before the fuse. Old faulty circuitry in an old house. So, I was getting a beer from the refrigerator, when the chandelier started swinging, just enough to be visibly moving. I thought nothing of it, going back to bed. Things progressively went worse from there,” Mr Reyes said. Will could see his fingers clenching hard.

“Worse how?” Max asked, reaching for another plate of sandwiches. “These are delicious, by the way.”

“I’m glad, Ms. Mayfield,” Mr Reyes smiled, his eyes losing a bit of their edge. “About your question, well, it didn't get bad right away. At first, it was swinging chandeliers, knives out of the wooden block, on the island or just my phone dying even if I charged it all night,” Mike, Max and Will glanced at each other. What the fuck? Mike mouthed silently.

Just keep listening, Max mouthed back.

Mr Reyes didn't notice their little conversation, continuing, “then I started finding the knives in increasingly weird places, like the library, behind a book I was thinking of reading, in the bath where I could have cut my foot on it, once I found a meat cleaver on the bedside table. I couldn't sleep again for the rest of that night,” Mr Reyes cut off, shivering. Will felt like it, too. Meat cleavers near his head? Will would run, screaming and never looking back.

“Are you okay, Mr Reyes? We can take a break if you like,” Will asked.

“No, no, it’s fine, it’s relieving to get this off my chest. I was so happy when I saw the Facebook ad,”

The what? Facebook? What the fuck was Lucas doing?

“If you are sure,” Will nodded.

“I heard footsteps, first on the floors above or below me, then it got closer, I heard it outside in the hallways, in the room adjacent to the one I'm in, and it always walks towards me. They start silent, barely audible, getting louder and louder til I'm sure there’s someone on the other side. Just there, looking, standing, staring. It’s gotten even closer since the last few days,” Mr Reyes' face was frozen in an expression of confused terror. Will felt sorry for the man. Mr Reyes seemed so optimistic, so happy. No one would ever think he was going through a horror film all the time.

Mr Reyes went on. “The footsteps are always coming from where I can’t see. I was making and eating dinner the day before, when the dreaded sounds came up, thud, thud, thud, behind me,” Mike inched closer to Will, a movement so minute, Will would have missed it if he wasn’t attuned to every single part of Mike. “I whipped around, sure I’d see the intruder, a squatter or something, but there was no one. Nothing. I decided I’d call someone, maybe a priest to have a look around the next morning. I threw away the rotting pb&j full of maggots-”

“Wait, rotting pb&j?” Mike asked, perplexed.

“Oh, yeah. It's been happening for some time but food goes bad the moment I take my eyes off them. It rots away like it's been sitting there for days. Liquified and maggots crawling through them,” Max set her plate of sandwiches down, a bit green in the face. “I'm not sure how that is happening, but I don't eat here anymore, my friends take me out for meals.”

“Mr Reyes,” What the fuck, Will asked, “Do you have any other place to stay for a while? All of this sounds like it’s very intense for you-”

“Oh no, Mr Byers, I can’t leave this place, not after- not after my dear Emily…” Mr Reyes choked up. “I can’t bear to leave this place, no. If I stay over at a friend’s, she won't come to me. She talks with me in my dreams, asks me how I am, we do things we normally do, like cooking together, reading in the library, kissing me, but if I don't come home, Emily doesn't come to me, only the sound of footsteps, getting closer,” A tear dropped down Mr Reyes’ face. Will felt unsettled. The things he was describing did sound like a true haunting, but what if it wasn't?

“Mr Reyes, I think it'd be good for you to take a stroll in the garden, get a breath of fresh air,” Will spoke up. “I insist.”

Mr Reyes slumped, breathing heavily. “Alright,” He said, after staring at his shoes, for what seemed like an eternity, “I'll take a short walk outside,”

Will turned back to the others the moment he left. “How are you guys holding up? If this case is true, it'd would be the biggest one yet, financially and paranormally,”

Max looked at Will. “You don’t believe him, do you?”

“It’s not that, I suspect other things as well,”

“Will,” Mike said, so softly near his ear, Will nearly jumped out of his skin. “I don’t think he's lying,”

“What do you mean?”

“Max, you can feel it right? It’s so heavy around him, It is coming off in waves,” Mike stared at the door Mr Reyes exited from.

“It’s still here though,” Max said. “If he was being haunted, then the intensity of the energy would cease the moment he left, but it didn’t.”

“But it’s different, they are not similar,”

“You mean there are more than one entities in this house?”

“It doesn't have to be an entity, Byers, it can be a object with history as well,”

“But this doesn't feel like an object, it feels separate,” Mike sighed loudly. “I don't understand.”

“So I was way off when I thought it was schizophrenia.”

“You thought it was schizophrenia? Have we not done this shit like a thousand times?” 

“Well, sue me, I was thinking of his mental health, Max. It has happened before, when it was just El, Mike and me.”

“Okay, okay, Max, calm down, Will can’t feel the traces so it’s not his fault. Will, thank you for looking out for us, I, uh, we appreciate it.” Mike looked at Will, eyes soft. Will felt his cheeks heat up.

The door swung open and Mr Reyes walked in, his face noticeably calm.

“I feel better now,” He took his seat. “We can continue.”

“Mr Reyes, can you show us the food thing?”

***

things are escalating, what is going to happen?

thank you for reading!!

once again this was only betad by grammarly and hemingway editor so please lemme know if there are any errors or weird dialogues bc english isnt my first language and some of it looked funky to me.

some more lore that i can't figure how to put in the story w/o infodumping

el's full name is Janelle Hopper

will and el are still step siblings

lonnie is out of the picture

el is hopper's bio daughter

el was never experimented on and she grew up a happy normal life bc hop and joyce got together when will and el were about 5

mike, will and el met in kindergarten, just like in canon

the only reason el has this backstory is because i personally want el to not have a trauma filled life

next part should be up tomorrow, same time ie 1800 IST, spam me with messages if i don't update ✨✨

tell me what part you liked!!

[mlobsters]

supernatural s11e17 red meat (w. robert berens, andrew dabb)

have a vague idea this episode is gonna be difficult to watch, didn't have the emotional fortitude to watch it last night

well, sam getting shot in the cold open sure would do it.

DEAN All right, well, we make a call and we put somebody on it. SAM Yeah, but... [He sighs, closes his laptop and looks at Dean]. We'll get him back. DEAN How? SAM I... I don't know. But we'll figure it out.

i feel like an asshole but i'm like, are we talking about cas? dunno what other dude he'd be distraught over. maybe it's my total lack of emotional connection with the character but i'm just very ???? literally whatever i'm expecting they're feeling about him, i'm always wrong. broken record on that.

s11e17 / s8e23

reminded of that little smile dean gave sam when he was wrapping his hand in the church. and it reminds me of being with my mom when she was dying in the hospital. we're gonna smile and be so positive and softer than we normally would, but also try to keep it light. (i'm not sure i have the emotional fortitude for this tonight either)

not quite sure i'll ever have it to watch sam die like this. this is awful. trying to talk myself into just finishing so i don't end up crying for an extended period of time today and another day.

BILLIE It's cute, though. You pretending you're trying to save Sam for the greater good, when we both know you're doing it for you. You can't lose him.

just saw this line in an edit recently and thought it was attributed to Death, no wonder i didn't remember it.

DEAN I'm asking you... I'm begging you, please. Bring him back. Bring him back and take me instead. BILLIE I'm not here to bargain with you, kid. I'm here to reap you. And the kicker is... Sam's not dead.

here's where i'm never happy with anything. despite the unhinged love and commitment of it all, this all is really veering into emotional torture porn for me. how can we make it the worst. and then a little worse on top of that. except instead of making me irritated, i'm just more sad and want it to be over. maybe this is one i won't be able to appreciate until i have some distance.

DEAN Michelle, this is gonna be very hard. But you will be okay. And, eventually... eventually you'll get back to normal. MICHELLE No, I won't. They said I could leave an hour ago. But... where am I even supposed to go? After everything we survived together... I watched the man I love die. There's no normal after that.

not sure what this pointed zoom into dean making the sad puppy face is about. we know he can't be normal when sam dies, he knows it too?? does he remember that year with lisa and ben? and now he has the threat of not only losing sam, that sam won't be waiting for him in heaven or anywhere else if he does die.

well, fortunately we have the production draft of the script linked in the wiki for this one so actually can get answer

so i mean.. ok. both watched their husbands die is what we're saying

DEAN So, that's it, huh? Two quarts O-neg, and you're good to go.

i thought we were treating abdominal gunshot wounds like the serious emergency they are but i guess not

SAM Hey, so, what did you do? When you thought I was dead? What did you do? DEAN Thought about redecorating your room [Sam chuckles], you know, putting in a Jacuzzi, a nice disco ball... really class up the joint. SAM Right, seriously. DEAN What, I, uh... I knew you weren't dead. SAM Right. DEAN I knew.

so i mean. sam not buying that, clearly. wonder if dean ever tells him

should remember to check for a script next time i have wonderings about what they're trying to convey with their faces (went to check if they had 11x11 because i was curious about that whole pining line, but wiki doesn't have one linked)

tonal shift after the like.. heavy focus on sam (mostly) dying very... graphic in swimming around in the pain and slow death and almost-murder of it all and then we're having dean kill himself (briefly) to try to take sam's place with no consideration of repercussions, to hey dude we saved (and tried to kill sam) is a werewolf and he changed and he's gonna punch through this cop's chest cavity in a pretty silly manner. so no moral quandary killing him either, look at that. weird. anyway, the woman who played michelle was really good in those emotional scenes

i'm wiped out.

[gamesception]

Done with Utena for now, but I had fun trying to post something near daily and would like to try to keep that up. Given my track record I'll likely not get very far, but I didn't think I'd finish the rgu read, so who knows. I've got a few ideas, but I also have to take like a week to get out from under the minis-painting commission, so in the mean time why not a poll to see which idea I should go with? explanations under the cut:

Cass Cain project: Cassandra Cain was my favorite comic book superhero, and DC bungling her character back in the day was what got me out of comics altogether. She has since been revived as a new character after a reboot or two, but while I tried I was never quite able to get back into the later version of her, and around the time of the Birds of Prey movie I started a project looking back at her comic appearances more or less in order to try and put into words what I liked about the character back in the day and why later reinterpretations of the character didn't quite hit that same note, for me at least. I put it on intermission at some point and promised to come back with a look at the 'Shadow of the Batgirl' graphic novel, but that book was too long for the too little I had to say about it, so I never did finish that post and the project stalled out. I have thought on and off about dusting the project off and starting it up again. Now might be a good time to do so.

Dark Souls: I've played Dark Souls before. I had a lot of fun with it, and for a while watched a lot of lore & cut content videos. One of the bits of cut content that really stood out to me was Oscar, Knight of Astora. In game he's the nameless knight that drops the key to you at the start of the Undead Asylum, and later gives you the estus flask before dying, but until relatively late in development he was supposed to survive the asylum and appear repeatedly in the main game, following a sort of parallel path to yours. Ever since hearing about this cut npc quest line, I've kind of wanted to recreate it by naming a new character after Oscar, collecting all his gear early, and then using co-op and pvp features to play out Oscar's narrative in the games of random players online, helping early on before becoming a rival and invader later.

Morrowind: I never did beat Morrowind - just played it until I had completely broken the game by accident (through bartering if you'd believe it) and sort of lost interest after that. The game's a classic that deserves a better run than that.

Fallout: New Vegas: Another project I started but failed to finish, multiple times over. But maybe third time's the charm for Bethany? I had a lot of fun with New Vegas but the liveblog got bogged down because I ended up playing too far ahead. If I just post thoughts or updates to where I am currently instead of trying to create a continuous narrative of the entire run that shouldn't happen.

Hollow Knight: I've done all the Hollow Knight Achievements on both Switch and Playstation, but on PC my record's sitting at a shameful 83%. Gotta fix that, plus I kind of want to replay it again before the release of the sequel, which I'm still thinking will be later this year.

Cyberpunk/Nier/Sekiro/Disco: Nothing much to say about these, just some games I heard were good and bought on steam that I haven't gotten around to playing yet. At least, not more than just the intro/tutorials.

[echthr0s]

Trying to do WoL QotD on Bluesky (which seems to really be the place for it, there's so many over there) is a nightmare. I'm sure Twitter natives are just used to character limits but I am DYING... especially since I need to incorporate various contexts that have already been long-established on this blog. For example, there was this, for which I tapped out a condensed answer for Bsky's purposes but you know I can't thrive without being able to ramble at length:

So obviously the answer to this one is 100% yea for Dayir, to the point where I feel like a broken record going on about how much radical love, deeply spiritual and intensely physical love, is the whole of the law for her. It's how she gets things done in Eorzea and beyond.

But then there's also the fun fact about how all of Osiris's shards tend to "spotlight" some specific facet of its complex being. Ishan very much exemplifies the ability to face deepest darkness and know it well, but to remain uncorrupted by it. (Whether Osiris remained uncorrupted is what we call "a matter of debate", BUT.) Fun fact again, Zenos would have borne the mantle that Dayir wears but the whole time-fuckery shit with Dayir resurrecting in the late Sixth Astral kind of broke the system (everyone say "thank you, Emet-Selch"). To undigress, the fact that Emet-Selch -- who knows enough that he can reasonably be held responsible for his results -- basically created Dayir means it's possible he angled for these results. This was the facet of Osiris he wanted to bring forth. This is what would save the world. This is what would save him.

Ishan's "focus" being what it is, he is both averse to but very well-suited to the complexities of loss and grief -- which, of course, makes one well-suited to experience love without fear. He... doesn't fully realise this, is the thing. He thinks he's afraid of loss, he thinks he'd rather just be alone -- in fact, he thinks he's made for loneliness, that this is his lot, and anything else is just a temporary diversion. The thing is, he's a dirgesinger for a reason. He can express pain and grief and sorrow with such bittersweet depth and stark honesty because that's how he feels it. And it never breaks him. He is always steadfast and present and open-eyed. If your suffering is too heavy, he'll carry it for you. It won't even occur to him not to. But he's just really bad at seeing himself, as a lot of people are -- he can't see this strength, this empathy, this incredible emotional intelligence, for what it is. He just knows he doesn't feel the same lightness and happiness and frivolity that other people seem to feel in love, and thinks that means he doesn't love properly, or isn't suited for it. The people that love him, however, love him exactly because they feel their darkest selves are safe with him. It is a gift beyond measure, to be able to provide that safety.

[myatuesday]

It's very frustrating when all advice in regard to being burnt out on dating/failed relationships vs dying alone all is just endless loops of women saying to love yourself/be your own best friend and/or to focus on building close female friendships.

Ummm...

Bruh. Honey. Baby. Sweetie. Sweet summer child. I've BEEN my own best friend my entire life. I've spent SO much time with myself, that I'm bored of myself.

That isn't to say I don't love myself. I'm obsessed w myself.

Just Jesus Fucking Christ. Believe it or not, not everyone is profoundly disconnected from self.

"Go to therapy" is the 3rd most popular advice.

Oh, you mean that thing I've been doing for over 20 years.

Like... is it actually possible that BECAUSE we've spent so much time w ourselves, whether that's self care, healing, indulgence, making mistakes, or doing the work, or everything else in btwn, that we've actually done ALL that do death and that's WHY we are wanting a relationship

What a concept

I'm so fucking bored

And life is hard. Period.

I need help.

I'm not a millionaire.

I can't hire a personal nurse. Or a landscaper. Or wtf ever.

Like Idk how to take care of a house.

I can cook and clean and sleep and eat and fuck and paint and plant a tree.

But I've never cleaned a fish or trained a dog or cleaned the fucking gutters. Hell, I've never mowed a lawn.

I wanna decorate and garden and make babies and bake cakes and just sit on the porch and have a fucking drink.

Like

Being my own best friend or not has no real impact on that.

Going to therapy or not, at this point, has no real impact on that.

Having a close group of girlfriends sure as fuck doesn't solve that in any way. Building my relationships w my male friends would benefit me, if anything.

I just don't understand what reality people live in.

I mean, it's obviously very different than mine.

And also certainly seems to lack just basic logic and practicality.

I mean, ffs. My grandfather died alone because he was a bachelor. Period.

We could've and should've been there. But mom was busy dying of cancer and I was busy trying to figure my own shit out. [Edit: Oh this is the fun part where I brain fart that I have cancer, despite cancer being probably where 50% of my FML freak out is stemming from in the first fucking place. There's just so many catastrophes, it's hard to keep up. But, you know, I'm sure being my own best friend would solve all that for me. *eye roll*]

But if he had a partner, he'd probably be alive as we speak. He at least wouldn't have been dead alone in his home for a week before anyone discovered him FFS.

In what way was therapy supposed to save him from that? Or being his own best friend?

I suppose having a group of friends could've maybe played some role. That's fair.

But who's fucking single?

All my girl "friends" are married.

I have literally no friends locally.

My best bet is relying on single guy friends, both locally and at home.

But... idk

I just hate how short sighted and unrealistic or overly simplistic or presumptuous or whatever people seem to be.

If I hear that "be your own best friend" thing one more time, I'm gonna kill someone. You know.

Like, bitch. Stop projecting.

The reason I'm tripping is because I AM and HAVE been my own best friend. For a long goddamn time. And realize it's not enough.

Please and thank you.

Your advice sucks.

(Not that I'm asking for advice. I just see this advice all the fucking time in this dumb as fuck women's group I'm in w all these seemingly vapid fucking jaded man-hating idiots. And they all say the same shit to eachother like a broken record)

I don't want more female friendships.

Honestly, one good female friend is probably enough.

What the fuck can a woman do for me that I can't do for myself?

The most important female friend of my adult life died.

All my other friends are fucking married.

Wtf am I supposed to do with that?

I mean, converting to Judaism will give me something to do (as in to occupy myself) while also giving my life some meaning. So there is that.

But that still doesn't give me anyone to pick me up from the hospital or make me hot tea when I'm sick or reach shit on the top shelf or know why the toilet is being weird or wtf ever.

Just BASIC yet really goddamn crucial important shit that people take for granted.

I don't even really want love anymore. I don't think about love. I sure AF don't care about sex.

I care about a functioning life and a functioning household. And having all the moving parts to make shit work.

And, yeah, I'd love to not die alone.

And I don't mean the moment of death.

I mean the slowness of death. The dying that starts the moment we're born. The eventuality of death always being there around the corner. And all the moments leading up to it.

Alone in dying. Just the same as alone in living.

It's not shameful to want to share your fucking life with someone. It doesn't mean you're goddamn lacking self anything. It means heaven forbid that just maybe you want something outside yourself, because you don't want to live with your head in your own asshole, number one. And two, that you realize that you can not do all things. In 100 years no man or woman could possibly do all things. And we're going to need someone to help us do SOMETHING. For Fucks Fucking Sake.

Stop saying trite bullshit to eachother and sure AF to me. That does NOTHING to remedy the situation nor even come close to meaningful advice as to how to handle actually living and surviving the course of your fucking life.

You're all full of shit.

And if your biggest issue is learning to be your own best friend, I don't even know what to say to that. Wtf did you spend the last XYZ years of your life doing? And how interesting can you possibly be that spending the next XYZ years w yourself is enough for you?

That's a helluva ego to think that's the be all end all solution for all of our problems in life. Sucking your own dick?

Um ok. Good luck w that.

Where the fuck does that leave someone like me?

I can't comment on any of these questions because I'm 99% sure I'm literally just killing myself within the next year if I don't secure an actual real life partner or child. And I'm still pretty sure a life partner isn't going to do anything honestly but fucking annoy me if I'm just stuck w them forever, without something else to do. Like idk, raise a kid. Or two.

If someone can make their life worth living (and not just worth living, but livable. As in have the ability to care for themselves and their home and all their hierarchy of needs) by simply owning a dog and being their own best friend, more power to them.

Do we have any evidence this is realistic at all? Much less possible for a female?

I would really like to see the data. Or even an anecdotal example. Truly.

Because ime even truly capable self-assured able-bodied full grown [single] men die alone w no one to care for them or even discover their bodies. Only to get buried in a pine box without a fucking eulogy or proper obit.

But go off, I guess.

A bunch of gashes running at the mouth helping no one.

[thesinglesjukebox]

ST. VINCENT - "BROKEN MAN"

We like this era a bit better...

[6.00]

Harlan Talib Ockey: In 2014, St. Vincent released a self-titled album, saying “the hardest thing for a musician to do is sound like yourself.” In 2017, she decided that was too hard and pivoted to glossy, scripted “pop-level intention.” (For the record, I still liked it.) In 2021, another pivot to ‘70s cosplay. (Not a fan.) Now, after ten years, she finally returns to something that sounds like an evolution of the St. Vincent concept. “Broken Man” is the primal, slow-burning, ‘90s-industrial brother of “Bring Me Your Loves” and “Birth in Reverse”. The bass is a half-dead cement mixer. The guitars are a cannon blast. The drums are pedestrian enough to have not required a celebrity guest, honestly. With “Broken Man” posing like St. Vincent’s last two albums never happened, you could argue that this is a strange and disappointing step back. And in some ways, it is; the idea that an artist might be disowning their own progress is upsetting, and I would feel a little better knowing there were signs of Masseduction elsewhere on the album. For now, however, I’m choosing to say “neat, I loved St. Vincent (2014), this seems pretty cool.”  [7]

Katherine St. Asaph: An exhibition of sudden swerves: the thrilling swerve when the guitars come in to shatter the skeletal restraint, something you knew was coming but not that sudden or that big; and the slight letdown of a swerve when the song turns out to not be Annie Clark indulging her inner Trent Reznor, but Annie Clark indulging her inner Mac Aladdin. [8]

Alfred Soto: Annie's Clark restlessness is a strength regardless of the consequences. "Who do you think I am?" she asks wearily over skronked-up guitars, as if tired of reminding us. The rest of "Broken Man" uses Clark's impatient jabbing warble as a series of provocations. It could move faster. [7]

Leah Isobel: I don't get it. [5]

Hannah Jocelyn: For the last decade, if I’ve wanted to listen to St. Vincent, I’ve just listened to Torres imbuing Annie Clark’s fuzziness with extravagant theater kid energy (the highest compliment I can give). But Torres’ album this year was a surprising disappointment, so St. Vincent wins this round with a “Dance Yrself Clean”-sized volume jump and a crunchy, restless arrangement. Not to put two genderless guitar gods against each other, of course!   [7]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: At this point I'm getting nostalgic for St. Vincent albums I didn't even like – the Goats Head Soup worship of the last record did not inspire joy in me but at least it was an ethos of some kind (and I'll stand by "Down" as some of the finest electric sitar playing by a white person in the 21st century.) This is just rote alt rock fodder, a vague sketch of industrial textures without any hook or distinguishing characteristic other than the loudness of Dave Grohl's fills.   [3]

Nortey Dowuona: The drum breaks from Dave Grohl, Cian Riordan and Mark Gulliana take place in three places; the first drum fill, the second bridge programming, the outro groove. The final one swallows the first threadbare drum programming, largely unable to hold the weight of St. Vincent's thin topline, bulky guitar and thinned-out synthesizers. The melody is novel, floating atop the simple synth riff and becoming foggy and weepy at the bridge. Then the sudden avalanche of sound in the outro groove kicks the song into gear, enlivening a tense arrangement and adding muscle to the thin synth riff that remains looping at the center. The sudden ending leaves you broken in half, staring at the concrete and not knowing whether to crawl or crumple. [5]

Taylor Alatorre: The abrupt transition from abattoir atmospherics to an unchained "Get the Led Out" session brings to mind, of all things, the famously ambiguous ending of Taxi Driver. Did Travis Bickle really achieve a heroic redemption through the full flowering of his violent masculine instincts, or was it all a dying dream; and what lessons is the viewer meant to draw from either one? Whether Clark intended it this way, the heavy-blues riffage is bound to come off as triumphal after so much austere bleakness, and unfortunately it’s a bland sort of triumph that doesn’t feel fully earned, narratively or musically. It might have been a better illustration of the song‘s themes to reverse the sequence of the two main sections, so that the brokenness became more instead of less apparent over time. Would make for less of a concert crowd-pleaser, though. [5]

Isabel Cole: St. Vincent channels both Karen O’s snarling, twisting yowl and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ glitter-grime ambience to craft something tight and tense, fun with an edge of darkness that keeps building as if the song is straining against itself until it explodes. Listening to this feels like watching someone strut down a runway built in a junkyard, rhinestones glinting off her dirty fingernails until she lights a match and sets fire to the stage. [8]

Ian Mathers: I truly don't know whether it's her or me, but I used to hear a new St. Vincent single or album and feel the shock of the new, or at least of a distinctive voice. This is fine, and the guitar playing is certainly still bracing, but it just feels so much less... distinct. I don't want something that sounds like "Cruel" or "Digital Witness" or "Actor Out of Work," but I do want something that makes me feel the way all of those did. [5]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[thoughtsaladblog]

Foolish One...

It's one of those days when you kinda wonder about your life. I mean ok, in my case I wonder that quite often, but it's a little stronger today. The other day I took a trip down memory lane and much to my chagrin I realised I may have been a bit more fast and loose with my life than I'd realised- and let me tell you...It didn't feel good. Suddenly images of hellfire loomed in front of me. Despite my constant quips about dying at 35- I realise that that may not be to my benefit, given my promiscuity.

Honestly, when it comes to random moments of everyday life, I take pride in my openness and somewhat carefree approach when it comes to love and sex- God knows, it took some pretty brutal batterings and scars to get there. I dare not let a man break me like that ever again. And yet, I am human, and I crave love and an intimate connection.

In the last few days, I've been feeling all kinds of frisky- that time of the month of course- but simultaneously I've craved a partner with whom I could simply sit and talk, or just make-out. Yep- you read that right. Make-out. I may be associating teenagers too much, because I thought I was over this nonsense. But here we are...

Anyway, looking into my life I searched for someone I could have that with and could find no one. None of the guys I know could possibly provide the kind of connection I seek- they barely manage to give me what I'm expecting in terms of sex- if they manage to do so at all. Speaking of which, Numb3rs (yes, he resurfaced) and I hooked up last night. It was Meh. I mean, the man's got potential, but I feel like he was trying to do a lot at once and didn't quite pull through in anything because of it. But more importantly- talk about selfish in bed. Dude came, turned over, said he's recovering and dozed off. Le Fuq??! Ummm... still here bro.. this is a two way street. *insert exasperated eyeroll*

And of course what followed was his usual hit it and quit it- the guy woke up at 4.30 and booked a cab back home. He might as well start leaving some money on the bedside table at this rate. And of course, because my dumbass is always drawn to the toxic motherfuckers, I'm fighting back my compulsion to think about him or feel things for him. It's a tough battle- coz I'm attracted to the dude. Don't ask me why- there's no rational reason other than the fact that I'm a lunatic who is just attracted to smart people and the fucker is smart. Feeling about as ridiculous Deepika in "New Year's Eve" at this point. But yes, I need to stop thinking or expecting anything- for the sake of my mental health. Coz foolish one, he was never interested.

But moving on from that... at the expense of sounding repetitive- yes, I went through some of my past posts...I get it, I really need to get a life instead of playing the same old broken record. Buuuut to continue... I'm starting to feel shamed of my promiscuous life and frankly could do with a stable relationship- if those exist. And maybe at this point stop collecting more sins of adultery to an already mile-long list...

I mean it been 31 years... Frankly even I'm judging myself at this point for being unable to lock down some poor soul.

And on a completely different note- I probably ought to re-read the few sensible "enlightened" posts form this blog and get some focus to my life instead of meandering through it. Might lead to less whining- and less repetitive posts.

All in good time, my dear.

K byeeee.

[viinchester]

Prompts

How/What to request

Please comment or send an ask with the number of the prompt(s) you want + the character + more details you want to be included. I'm feeling really creative right now, so I might be able to do some of your requests.

-

1. "Did you bring us here to die?" - "Obviously." - "I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not."

2. "You.. You are-.." - "Beautiful? A genius? Immensely talented?" - "Dangerous."

3. "All that blood looks good on you, it really brings out your eyes."

4. "You keep on pointing that gun at me and blabber about how much you've been wanting to kill me. I'm beginning to doubt your commitment."

5. "Remove your hand or I will rip your arm off and beat you to death with it."

6. "I don't care if you're panicking - just do it quietly."

7. "How long have you been standing there?" - "Longer than you'd like."

8. "Keep your morals away from me."

9. "When did you become so smart?" - "Since I stopped listening to you."

10. "I remember kissing you.. Why do I remember kissing you?"

11. "I was just kind of hoping that you'd.. y'know.. fall in love with me."

12. "Well, that didn't end the way I expected it to, but at least nobody important died."

13. "You're going to have to tell people you're leaving eventually." - "Yeah, but how should I do it? Shall I shout it from the rooftops or send a mass e-mail?"

14. "I have never been so insulted!" - "You don't listen much then, do you?"

15. "What are you doing?" - "… Eating." - "We're being held hostage and you decide to raid the kitchen!?" - ".. They didn't say the fridge was off limits."

16. "Come over here and make me."

17. "I have a name and it's not sweetheart."

18. "I wouldn't miss you. Nobody would." - "..." - "No, wait! I didn't-" - "Fuck off, I hate you."

19. "I really wish you were never born." - "Well, me neither. But.. life be like that sometime." - ".. You're an idiot, you know that?"

20. "I'm dying and you can't do anything about it, so please just hold me. I don't want to die here alone.."

21. "You're bleeding! Where's your friend!?" - "Left me to die to save their own ass. Guess you were right, I really am not worth it."

22. "Did you really think I cared about you?"

23. "This is what I get from trusting you.. Everybody told me to stay away from you, but I ignored them.." - "Yeah, that was really stupid. You should've known better. And for the record: I don't regret anything."

24. "You lied to me! Everything you ever did.. It was all just a game to you!" - "You found out? What a shame.. I kind of enjoyed playing with you."

25. "This is a joke, right? Right!?"

26. "What are you doing?" - "Just what's long over due."

27. "I'm a monster." - "You know you're not."

28. "Listen, I believe there's good inside of you somewhere.. Just.. Just put that knife down, okay?"

29. "Sometimes you need to make your sarcasm more clear."

30. "Oh crap. That's your »I did something bad«-face."

31. "This never happened. Understood?"

32. "Can't you be happy for me for just five minutes?"

33. "You don't give a damn about me!" - "Frankly, I do give a damn about you, my dear."

34. "Innocent until proven guilty, my friend."

35. "You did what!?"

36. "I know I'm very drunk, but I want to kiss you so bad.." - "Excuse you?"

37. "Are you done?" - "Depends."

38. "I should hate you, but all I feel is love!" - "Well, I have that effect on people."

39. "I didn't do it." - "Then why are you laughing?" - "Because whoever did it is a genius."

40. "Was it really necessary to hit me with the corpse's leg?" - "Necessary? No. Hilarious? Yes."

41. "Oh, you're still alive." - "Don't sound so disappointed, I might begin to think you don't like me."

42. "Hold on, you died!" - "Yeah well, it didn't really stick."

43. "I think I'm having a feeling. How do I make it stop?"

44. "This is a beautiful place." - "What a shame you came from so far away to destroy it, right?" - "Not really."

45. "I don't like how that ended. Let's pretend it never happened." - ".. Life doesn't work like that." - "It does now."

46. "I didn't-.. I didn't mean to! This wasn't what I wanted!"

47. "Do you feel any remorse for what you did to them? For what you did to me?"

48. "Please, you have to let me make this right!"

49. "How long are you going to keep on blackmailing me?"

50. "This is going to sound controversial, but I think that went well."

51. "You know, you're adorable when you're mad." - "I could literally kill you."

52. "Well, this is a nice change of scenery." - "It's a prison cell." - "I was being sarcastic."

53. "Run! Run away as long as you got the chance!" - "Run away from what!?" - "From me!"

54. "Rumour has it, I make you nervous."

55. "I can't focus with your damn hand in my- ah.. Oh…"

56. "How are you mad at me, when I'm the one with the broken arm!?"

57. "Well, shit. I'll need a fucking lawyer."

58. "Are you enjoying the party?" - "Party? This isn't a party." - "Not until somebody almost dies."

59. "FUCK! You scared the shit out of me!"

60. "Don't. Move."

61. "You're bleeding on my carpet."

62. "Excuse me, but whoever stood you up is an idiot and a jerk."

63. "Call me that one more time and you'll see what happens."

64. "It's pitch black in here and I can still see you're blushing."

65. "Am I supposed to be scared of you?"

66. "Murder is kinda against the law, you know?"

67. "Bend over."

68. "Beg for it."

69. "I'll make sure you never see them again."

70. "If you relaxed, it wouldn't hurt so much."

71. "There you are. Did you really think you were gonna escape?"

72. "I love you, I love you so much and I'll make sure you feel the same." - "You-.. You are insane.."

73. "Let me out of here! You're a fucking psychopath! I won't ever bend to your will!" - "Now, why did you have to make me mad by saying something so inconsiderate?"

74. "See, now was that so bad?" - "We're in the hospital, you idiot!" - "Yeah, but we could be dead instead, so I consider us lucky."

75. "How do you even sleep at night?" - "Oh, just like a baby."

76. "It'd be a shame if I had to damage that beautiful face.."

77. "Stop struggling. It doesn't have to be painful."

78. "I killed my own blood. What do you think I could do to you?"

79. Person A is wrapped in christmas lights, their body bound tightly to the chair they're sitting on. Person B comes in and grins. "Oh boy, I must've been good this year."

80. "Why don't you ever listen to my orders!?" - "I don't like being told what to do."

81. "I'll go easy on you."

82. "You don't look like a professional criminal.." - "Oh sorry, let me just.. grab my Ted-Bundy-Mask and put on some bloody gloves."

83. "You don't have to stay. I understand."

84. "You don't have to fight me."

85. "Watch me."

86. "You make a sound and it's game over."

87. "I'm like 75% sure this isn't going to kill us."

88. "Uhm, I don't think kidnapping is legal.. So if you could just let me go, that would be great."

89. "Please, I'm begging you.. I will do anything!" - "Anything, you say?"

90. "Cooperate with me and nobody will get hurt."

91. "Shoot him/her. Or I shoot you."

92. "I'm not going to kill you, Y/N. You will kill yourself."

93. "Your life is completely in my hands, so don't test my boundaries."

94. "Why are you crying?"

95. "I could help you, but it will cost you."

96. "Oh, you mean you need.. this antidote?"

97. "Go ahead and pray. See what good that does for you."

98. "What did you do to them!?"

99. "If we get caught, I'm blaming you."

100. "Complain all you want, but hurry and help me hide the body while you're at it!"

101. Person A to Person B: "There's no way in hell I'm doing that!" *Five seconds later* Person B to Person A while watching them do it: "You were saying?"

102. "They don't make a card saying »Sorry for almost bleeding out on your two thousand dollar couch and completely ruining it«, so I got you this instead."

103. "I didn't ask you, because I knew you were going to deny. And I don't need your fucking permission to do anything!"

104. "I am the only thing standing between you and all those people out there wanting to kill you, so I strongly suggest you stop pissing me off."

105. "Why is everbody running around like the city's on fire? What did I miss?"

106. "Alright, so I'll do this ridiculous thing you asked me to do, but in exchange you'll have to come to family-dinner with me and pretend to be my boyfriend/girlfriend, because I've kinda been lying to my family about being in a relationship to get them off my back and now they want to meet my partner."

107. "That's a terrible thing to carve into a tree."

108. "This is definitely not as charming as you might think."

109. "But that wasn't the fucking question, was it?"

110. "You take me instead! Do you hear me? Give her/him/them back and take me instead!"

111. "You know I hear you talking, but I still don't have my coffee."

112. "Take one more step and I'll snap her pretty little neck."

113. "This is real. You're real, I'm real.. I need you to come back to reality with me."

114. "You shouldn't have seen that."

115. "Whatever you do, don't make a sound."

116. "I'd rather be spitting blood."

117. "You can't have her and it's killing you inside."

118. "I could hear you screaming, are you alright?"

119. "I was made to destroy. Not to fix or repare, but to break."

120. "I know how this goes. First, you buy me a drink, then you tell me how pretty I look and at the end of the night, you'll ask for my number."

121. "I'm drunk and I hate everything.. Wait, lemme correct myself, I hate everything but you."

122. "Put the gun down, please. You're starting to scare me.."

123. "I'm right here. I've been here all along. Please, just.. see me."

124. "Stop looking at me with pity in your eyes. Stop it. Stop fucking looking at me like that!"

125. "You took adventage of me when all I did was help you. Others would've left a long time ago, but I kept on believing in you. But you only ever saw me as an opportunity to get what you wanted.."

126. "You really don't know how to talk to women, do you?" - "There was no need to until now!"

127. "You already know how this will end. It always ends with my blood on your hands. I've come to terms with it, you should get used to the idea too. After all, you can't change destiny."

128. "If you want to keep me away, then tell me a lie that will hurt me so deep I'll never want to see you again." - "I love you."

129. "Go ahead, underestimate me. That will be fun."

[himbowelsh]

can i request a fem baberoe where gene works at a library. thats all i got for you to go off of but i'm really feeling lesbian baberoe and i'm really feeling librarian gene

AN: i am always up for more lesbians

“Don’t get mad,” she says as she drops a stack of books on the counter, “but I think I might have done something.”

It’s impossible to get under Genie Roe’s skin, and this is no different. Instead of looking alarmed at the prospect of damage done to her precious books, she just looks… curious. Her eyebrow crooks, as much a question as it is a threat, as she sets her coffee mug down on her desk.

“Heffron,” she says, “you better not be tellin’ me you got pizza on another library book.”

“No!” Babe squeaks, and immediately regrets it when her voice comes out far too high-pitched. It’s a nervous tic, to be sure, but she can’t help being nervous around Eugenia Roe. 

The young woman who moved to Philly from the bayous of Louisiana a few months ago and settled in as a librarian at the local library has quickly become one of Babe’s favorite people. Genie is quiet and reserved. Every time Babe sees her, she has her nose buried in a book. Her voice is soft, heavy with a hard-voweled accent that never fails to send electricity coursing down Babe’s spine. Her eyes, so dark and bottomless, seem gentle at first; but Babe has seen them flare with anger at disrespectful patrons.

Babe first met Genie when the librarian scolded her and her friends for being too loud. That moment changed Babe’s life.

She’s never come to the library as often as she has in the past few months. When she wakes up in the morning, her mind is filled with thoughts of dark hair and pale skin. When she closes her eyes at night, a Louisiana drawl haunts her dreams. Seeing Genie and getting to talk to her, even if it’s just for one minute, is always the highlight of Babe’s day.

That doesn’t mean Genie Roe -- with her cool demeanor and unshakeable calm -- doesn’t make Babe nervous. Hell, she drives Babe out of her mind -- because always, without fail, Babe makes a fool out of herself in front of the girl of her dreams.

“See, what happened was, we were making spaghetti -- my friend Billie, she’s a ‘real Italian’, so making spaghetti is practically an art for her -- and a thing kinda happened. With the sauce. And, I mean, it was no one’s fault --”

“Sounds like it was your fault if you had the book open in your kitchen.” Genie picks up her coffee mug and takes a nonchalant sip, watching Babe over the mug’s rim. Babe, suddenly feeling like she’s trapped in one of those dreams where she’s naked in front of a whole baseball stadium, reaches up and ruffles her short red hair.

“Well, see -- uhh, I mean, you’re right --”

Genie sets the mug down again. She knows she’s right. “Let’s see it, then.”

Babe almost chokes on her own tongue. “See what?”

“The book. How bad is it?”

Genie makes a vague gesture at the book on the counter. Babe hastily snatches it up, flipping it open to the obviously stained pages. It wasn’t as if she had just dropped a bit of spaghetti on the book. After Babe nearly added too much garlic, the kitchen had seen a minor sauce fight. Babe’s library book was an unfortunate casualty.

Genie stares at the book for a moment, taking in the large red splotches covering not just the pages, but the edges of the book as well. She takes a deep breath, then heaves it out all at once. Babe feels something within her shrivel up.

“Alright, you know the drill,” Genie says, holding out a hand. Babe grumbles as she begins digging around in her pockets.

“Yeah, yeah...” Eventually she pulls out ten dollars, and presents it to Genie with all the pride of an injured cat. “Your fee. Jeez, what is this, the third time this month?”

“Well, if you could stop ruinin’ library books, maybe you wouldn’t have to pay for them all the time.” Genie handles the injured book with care. Her nimble fingers run over it’s weathered spine, trace the cracks in it’s tomato stained cover. Babe feels embarassingly short of breath as she watches Genie peel the library sticker off the back of the book.

“Good news is, this belongs to you now.” The librarian presents the book back to her with a degree of official bravado. They’ve both been through this exchange enough times that it’s become routine. “At this rate, you’re gonna wind up buyin’ out the whole library.”

Babe rolls her eyes. If she’s being honest, she’s surprised she’s even allowed to check out books anymore. Her awful track record with libraries is a long and sordid history, and that’s most of the reason she never frequented them to begin with. In nineteen years, she’s managed to get herself banned from three libraries, just because she can never keep the books she checks out in readable condition.

For some reason, however, Genie keeps letting her come back for more. Babe can’t understand why -- she must be considered a hazard to the establishment at this point. She’s surprised they don’t have Most Wanted posters for her on every door. Yet every time she walks in, Genie always has a small smile for her.

(Really, that’s the only reason she needs to keep coming back.)

“Ahh, come on, Genie,” she sighs, leaning against the counter as she reaches for the book. “I’ve got a lot better ways I could be spendin’ my cash.”

“Oh, really? Like what?”

Genie’s hand brushes against hers. It’s a split-second, light blue manicured nails caressing Babe’s scraped up knuckles, but it shuts her entire brain down. She feels like she’s been electrocuted. Every cell in his body is vibrating, her hair is standing on end, and maybe that’s why she says what comes next.

“Like taking you out.”

Just like that, everything grinds to a halt. Genie goes still, her eyes widening. The library is dead silent. All Babe can hear is the thrumming of her own heart, and it is mocking her.

After a moment, Genie inhales a deep breath. “Elizabeth,” she says, “did you just ask me out on a date?”

Did she? She doesn’t know. She has no idea what just came out of her mouth, except that she wasn’t in charge of any of it. All communication between her brain and tongue have been cut off. Babe can’t hear herself let out a nervous peal of laughter, but she feels her entire body grow tense like a puppet on a string.

“I,” she says. “You know what. Maybe.”

“Maybe you asked me on a date.”

“Maybe I did.”

“Maybe we should go out.”

“Maybe we should.”

Genie stares at her. Babe stares back, and tries to keep from screaming.

Then, just like that, the spell is broken. Genie reaches for her mug, finishes off the last of the coffee there, and turns back to Babe with a small smile upon her lips. “I get off work at five. Meet me here?”

Babe’s entire brain is a mess of color and sound that she can’t make sense of, so it’s all she can do to nod. “S- sure.”

Genie’s smile widens, and Babe feels like she’s standing in the center of the sun. She’s dying, but it feels so, so good.

“Great,” she says. “See you then.”

[amaintainedrisk]

i'm sorry if anybody is worried about me.

I think the most disturbing thing about the century is that I’m not even scratching the surface about what has been going on around here and what my family has been doing to me but I don’t have it in me to tell everything right now. It’s going to have to wait until this headache passes.

Still don't have a phone. The abuse has gotten so much worse and I cannot get anyone to help me. My mother and my aunt have done nothing but torture me since my grandmother died and taking it out on me. I've spent the last three months locked away in my room, and I'm lucky if I eat once a day. They have turn the Internet off so I can't use my iPad to tell anybody or talk to anyone to tell them about this. The only reason I can update right now is because I waited for my mother to leave and I want and ask my neighbor for her Wi-Fi password. She was kind enough to let me use her Wi-Fi.

One of the reasons the abuse has gotten so much worse is because my grandmother completely destroyed her house and we didn't know it. We were trying to clean it up but we didn't have time and they gave us an evection notice and now we are being sued for the damages my grandmother left. They have been taking their frustration out on me. My medicine has been stolen over and over again and I can't tell my nurse because I'll get put into a group home with people who have mental illnesses and don't take their meds. there have been reports of people being attacked there and I'm blind and can't defend myself. I know I'm being abused here but it's the evil I know. At least hear there's no chance of me being sexually assaulted again like at the Cleveland clinic.

Today alone on my mother has done is scream at me and tell me I'm worthless and how much life for her would've been better if I had been born. How much she loves my aunt and my cousins more than me. How much easier it's going to be for everyone once I'm gone. I've spent all day in my room crying while they told me this and laughing. I would not let them in my room but that didn't stop them from doing it outside the door. They wanted me to hear. I have always known he hated me and considered me a burden but whenever they get stressed out they take it out on me. Now because of what my grandmother did to her house, we might get sued and obviously we don't have the money. So it's been taken out on me and for two months straight it's just been me at the age of 32 years old being locked in my room all day long. Some days I don't even go down to eat. It has gotten so much worse since my grandmother died and that's why I haven't said anything because I'm so tired of giving bad news and talking about how much my family hurts me.

even worse, my mother seizure condition has gotten worse so I have to listen to her tell me I'm worthless every day and then turn around and take care of her at night. So she doesn't throw up in her sleep or swallow her tongue. I'm barely getting any sleep and it's worse when I don't have my meds because they're being stolen and again, if I report them, I'll get put in a group home with people who could really, really hurt me. my mother has been screaming at me all day and I can tell she starting to have a seizure so I have another long night ahead of me of taking care of the person who told me recently that if I had a heart attack and died. She would be happy. I actually recorded a bunch of stuff my mother said to me, about how I deserve to be beaten when I was a little kid and I recorded her laughing at me when I fell and hurt myself and I uploaded it all to my vineo Account. I password-protected The videos because they are embarrassing and I didn't want anybody but my friends to hear it. The password for all of my password-protected videos is just my name: "dani" without the quotes.

to make matters worse, my health has been declining as well. As my brain sinks down into my spinal cord, I am now myself having seizures. It means I've entered the last stage of my condition. but I have to suffer through my seizures alone. No one will help me so I just collapse alone in my room and wake up whenever it's over by myself and if I say something I get called a liar and that I'm making a big deal out of nothing. I'm terrified one day soon I'm going to have a seizure and I'm not gonna wake up and I'm just going to be laying up you're dead for weeks because no one will check on me. It scares me the most for Carly because I don't want him to starve to death because nobody knows to feed or water him because I'm not allowed to do it. The doctor told me I had less than two years to live in June and I've spent the last seven months alone and dealing with this by myself and knowing the end is coming and my life has been completely wasted and I can't do anything about it now without making it worse on myself. I don't want to die in a homeless shelter or being assaulted in a group home, Which my social worker has said there have been reports of in every group home in this area.

I had to stop typing this because my mother came upstairs to pick a fight with me and told me she hates me and she loves my aunt and my cousins more and she doesn't care that they abused me. They are her family and I am not . I'm her worthless burden daughter who does nothing but disappoint her. And I'm going to have to take care of this woman all night to make sure she doesn't swallow her tongue or throw up in the middle of the night. I don't have my medicine. I won't be able to sleep and I haven't eaten today and I'm having my own seizures but I have to take care of my mother because if she doesn't have me she will die in her sleep and it will be all my fault and then that would make me no better than her. I am not my family. I may be a burden and yes, it would've been better if I wasn't born but I'm here now and I'm not going to do to them what they do to me every day. I even put up a video of my mother telling me I deserved to be beaten at the age of three years old because I left the room. It's on my vineo.

do you see why I haven't updated? Nobody should have to sit through my whining and crying about the same old thing again. About a 32-year-old woman who is being abused and letting it happen. I've been waiting six months for a new phone and now the Internet is gone so i've beensk for my neighbors Wi-Fi password and I am praying she doesn't tell my mother she gave that to me. I couldn't ask her not to say anything because that would've drawn too much attention to it and probably would've screwed me over even worse. so I have the Internet again now… Kind of. It's really spotty. But it's better than nothing.

Another reason I didn't want to update is because I know that Monsie and Christina would ask me to move in with them. and I can't with my health declining so much. I cannot ask my friends to literally be my nurses aids. Especially now that I'm having seizures and I've entered stage four. It is going to be much worse later on if I don't want to spend the last few months I have being a burden on me only two people who care about me and don't abuse me. I refuse to do that I will slowly lose my functions and I am not going to be some unholy burden that… I can't even say because it's so embarrassing. Let's just say the symptoms, near the end, we're going to make me lose control of every single one of my functions. if that wasn't the case I would leave in a second because I am getting just so fed up with life but I'm just having thoughts of ending it every day. Not because of the physical pain but because of the mental pain of being told I'm so unloved and worthless and a burden. The mental pain of knowing my life has been a waste and at the end I'm going to die unhappy and alone. Never experiencing love or life of any kind and Diane a complete failure of a human being. I have tried so hard to get away from these fucking people but I can't without hurting myself more. my grandfather is dying now too and I can't even see him. I have no family here because my mother has told every family member that I have left a bunch of lies about me so they think I'm a horrible person too. They don't know that I spend almost every night sitting by my mother's bedside making sure she doesn't die from her seizure, only to be told I'm worthless and hated all day the next day. The only reason I ran for my neighbors Wi-Fi today is because today it has been particularly hard and abusive and it's caused me to have two seizures today alone. I'm so tired of all of this and I'm just ready to die already because there's no point in staying. Last night at 6 AM after I was done with my mommy duty and watching her over her I just laid in bed and cried and raised my arms and screamed out please help me to a God I don't even believe in. yelling out to the ceiling for someone to hold me and tell me I'm not worthless I'm not a burden. To tell me I'm loved. To tell me not to be scared to die because I won't have to die alone and my life hasn't been a waste. But of course my pleas went

unheard. I am so tired of my mother choosing my aunt over me after all I have done for her and I would do anything to get away from her but I'm out of options, especially with no phone and now no Internet except for the spotty Wi-Fi.

So that's why I didn't update. I had no Internet but even if I did, what good would it have done? It's just the same thing every day. I am so alone and so broken and so scared and it's my own fault because of the age of 32 I shouldn't be allowing this to happen. I'm so ashamed of my family, and of myself. if I could find somewhere to go that would take my Medicaid and a doctor would treat me, and it wasn't a homeless shelter or group home and it wasn't where I would be a burden to my friends, I would go in a heartbeat. in a heartbeat. but I can't find a place like that. My aunt stole my great grandmothers rings when I was in the hospital and my mother knows it. It happened years ago but today she brought it up again and said she didn't want to hear me talk about her stealing it because she's sick of me picking on my aunt for little things. Stealing family keepsakes given to me by a family member that died when I was 12 that I deeply loved isn't very little but she said I was a bad person for bringing it up. My aunt isn't bad for stealing it but I'm a bad person for talking about her stealing it and it just got worse from there when she started talking about all the ways she cares more about my aunt than me even though my aunt treats her like shit as well and refuses to help her. Even though she knows I'm the one taking care of her all night long she still packs my aunt over me and all I heard about today is how I'm not part of the family and how everyone has always been sick of me.

Yeah, this whiny shameful update really needed to happen. It's just the same abusive shit that has just gotten so much worse since my grandmother died. I was hoping it would get better but I was completely wrong and completely stupid for even thinking that. Of course it got worse.

And again my mother is now outside the hall so I have to whisper. She's faking a phone call to somebody or she actually is talking to somebody and she's doing it loud enough for me to here so I can hear her telling them all these lies about things I said or did today that I never did or said just because she wants me to suffer because she stressed out and wants to take it out on me.

… It's been 35 minutes since I wrote that last line. I just had another seizure. The stress is literally killing me faster and I don't know what to do. If I tell on them I go to a place that's extremely dangerous and a blind person cannot defend themselves like that. I'd rather be yelled that van raped or beaten, the way people have been in there Group houses that are my only option. I looked up news reports and police reports and they are just not safe so I have to put up with this.

if you can see this or read this, thank you for your friendship because it's the only thing that has kept me going even though I haven't talk to you in months. You are all I think about and you were the only reason I have ever felt loved in my life. without you I would be dying never knowing what love felt like at all so at least you gave me back and for that I am so grateful and I miss you so much. thank you for being my friends. I'm about to go to bed tonight feeling alone and hated by my family. Going to cry myself to sleep wondering why my mother loves my aunt more than me to the point where she's happy that my aunt abused me. It's going to break me and give me nightmares like it does every night. But every morning I wake up and think of you and I hold on and I would give anything to be with you right now if only I would be such a burden. You can try to text my iPad. Hopefully I will get it now that I have Wi-Fi but my phone is completely a no go. I miss you guys so much and I love you so much and I'm so fucking sorry for being a bad friend and for once again doing nothing but whine and complain. I don't deserve you but I'm so glad to have you anyway. I love you.

I love you.

this is the link to my Vimeo Page:

https://vimeo.com/user79298455

although I just noticed that I don’t think the password-protected videos are listed so I have to post each link one by one down here. I’m not asking anyone to listen to all of them. Or even one of them. I just put them up here so I can document the way my mother treats me so people know I’m not making it up or lying when I say my mothers abusive. The password to each video is the same one: dani

Deserved to be beaten

https://vimeo.com/300103444

Mental and physical

https://vimeo.com/300103444

when they abuse me, it’s to protect my feelings

https://vimeo.com/297632955

worthless

https://vimeo.com/270006846

nervous breakdown

https://vimeo.com/266402098

[svartikotturinn]

Discussing American politics with an American politics & history connoisseur, pt. 2

I talked to my good friend ‘Twenty-One’, a Californian Paleocon who’s read lots about US history and politics, and asked for his take on Trump’s presidency. Here it is.

[2017-02-04 06.55.17] Twenty-One: My take is that I'm glad Clinton isn't in the White House. Otherwise, my primary note is surprisingly, he kept his word on ending the TPP, and his Supreme Court nomination was completely regular

[2017-02-04 06.55.52] Twenty-One: I find his mannerisms annoying and the tweeting strange, but most of the clickbait articles about his administration have little of substance when I read them

[2017-02-04 06.56.17] Twenty-One: I am still waiting to see if he will indeed make the GOP more friendly to LGBT, that's a major concern of mine

[2017-02-04 06.57.26] Twenty-One: As for the attempts to renegotiate NAFTA, I agree with the spirit but I do not know how practical it is

[2017-02-04 06.59.35] Twenty-One: One thing I have noted is that this election officially confirms my suspicion that your average center-of-left American is just as stupid and reactionary as your average center-of-right

[2017-02-04 07.00.07] Twenty-One: Much as the right-wing overreacted and vilified Obama over literally anything, I am seeing the same for Trump, even over mundane administrative details

[2017-02-04 07.00.12] Twenty-One: With the primary cause being misleading headlines

[2017-02-04 07.00.47] Twenty-One: Also, a fun piece of trivia is that I'm doing a report on the (now defunct) TPP for my International Business class, so my expertise is being applied to it

[2017-02-04 07.07.01] Twenty-One: Anyway, I am still as skeptical as pre-election, but it's still so incredibly early into the presidency, anyone making analyses right now is grasping at straws

[2017-02-04 08.24.17] An Cat Dubh: What’s wrong with the TPP?

Also, isn’t the judge he picked openly opposed to Roe v. Wade and equal marriage?

[2017-02-04 08.29.16] An Cat Dubh: What about the travel ban he established?

[2017-02-04 08.30.18] An Cat Dubh: And, unbelievably, he’s actually trying to build the fucking wall

[2017-02-04 09.16.17] Twenty-One: The TPP is an extremely long and complex trade agreement, but a key part I disliked was that it gave corporations greater legal power in suing nations

[2017-02-04 09.16.48] Twenty-One: The judge he picked has written extensively against activist judicial styles, to overturn Roe v Wade would be judicial activism

[2017-02-04 09.16.59] Twenty-One: the entire point of being a good judge is that you will make rulings your personal morals do not agree with

[2017-02-04 09.17.41] Twenty-One: The travel ban does not bother me in the slightest, the list of nations is even a bit lazy in that they carved it from a list created by the Obama admin of unstable nations

[2017-02-04 09.18.15] Twenty-One: It's not a Muslim ban, as the headlines call it, because it only applies to the 7 nations in question, and it's also only binding for 90 days, as I recall

[2017-02-04 09.18.38] Twenty-One: And technically we have had border fencing along the US-Mexico border for nearly eleven years

[2017-02-04 09.19.06] Twenty-One: It's just not continuous due to the sheer expanse of land we're talking about

[2017-02-04 09.19.11] An Cat Dubh: True, but that’s 3 months during which people are stuck in a country where they’re likely to be killed

[2017-02-04 09.19.25] Twenty-One: Just because they can't go to the US, does not mean they are bound in their home nations

[2017-02-04 09.20.03] Twenty-One: Not only that, but I do not consider it the US' (or the West's, for that matter) responsibility to house all people who desire it

[2017-02-04 09.20.30] An Cat Dubh: But those people have been vetted.

[2017-02-04 09.20.34] Twenty-One: People are dying and suffering by quite large numbers in the Middle East and much of Southeastern Asia

[2017-02-04 09.21.09] Twenty-One: That doesn't mean we stop acting as a sovereign nation first and a philanthropist second

[2017-02-04 09.22.03] Twenty-One: Again, it's a temporary stay, and personally I am skeptical about the degree of vetting that can occur for people from nations with terrible infrastructure and record keeping.

[2017-02-04 09.22.26] Twenty-One: And again, they can migrate without necessarily coming to the USA.

[2017-02-04 09.22.57] Twenty-One: Fleeing instability and war as a refugee does not mean that every locale will welcome you, but there are so many that remaining in those nations is completely unnecessary.

[2017-02-04 09.23.09] An Cat Dubh: They’ve been vetted by the US, that’s where they got their visa to, isn’t it?

[2017-02-04 09.24.12] Twenty-One: I'm sure that their cases vary in their circumstances, some are no doubt vetted significantly

[2017-02-04 09.25.44] Twenty-One: Most of the particularly unsavory incidences I read about, were actually mistakes on the part of airports in enforcing the law on people who should not have flagged it

[2017-02-04 09.26.38] An Cat Dubh: Because it was done hastily and sloppily

[2017-02-04 09.26.54] Twenty-One: Indeed it was

[2017-02-04 09.28.50] Twenty-One: I would certainly argue that it should have been done with more refinement and advanced planning

[2017-02-04 09.29.01] Twenty-One: But that's not a condemnation of the concept itself

[2017-02-04 09.30.20] An Cat Dubh: Didn’t he ban specifically 7 countries that had never had any terrorists come from them to the US?

[2017-02-04 09.30.41] Twenty-One: Yes, but that's a completely arbitrary metric

[2017-02-04 09.30.54] An Cat Dubh: Huh?

[2017-02-04 09.30.57] Twenty-One: Nations not historically having terrorists, does not mean they are not risky populations in their current climate

[2017-02-04 09.31.09] Twenty-One: Not to mention, terrorism is not the only concern with people from those nations

[2017-02-04 09.31.25] Twenty-One: They can live without blowing things up and still be Islamic fundamentalists

[2017-02-04 09.32.07] An Cat Dubh: That’s what Trump talks about though. The ‘bad dudes’ who can commit the next 9/11 or Boston bombing or San Bernardino shooting

[2017-02-04 09.34.45] Twenty-One: Sure, but based on his style that's because it's low-hanging fruit to appeal to people's fears, I'd say.

[2017-02-04 09.35.22] An Cat Dubh: So what reasoning is there behind the ban?

[2017-02-04 09.43.46] An Cat Dubh: (Sorry, internet is wonky)

[2017-02-04 09.44.54] Twenty-One: Like I said, I suspect it's both suspicion of risk of terrorism, because the nations' situation in the past was quite different from what it is now, and apprehension about accepting refugees who won't assimilate into American society well

[2017-02-04 09.46.43] An Cat Dubh: Can you give me an example of a threatening de-stabilization? I suspect I might be out of touch with the news in those areas

[2017-02-04 09.48.23] Twenty-One: Iraq is currently embroiled with ISIS

[2017-02-04 09.48.42] Twenty-One: Syria is still a broken shithole destroyed by civil war

[2017-02-04 09.49.07] Twenty-One: Libya has not really recovered and become a functional nation post-Libyan conflict from several years ago

[2017-02-04 09.49.46] Twenty-One: Somalia has their own ISIS-esque group that they're contending with (I don't recall if it's a splinter faction or just similar)

[2017-02-04 09.49.56] Twenty-One: I admittedly don't know about Sudan

[2017-02-04 09.50.00] An Cat Dubh: The people blocked from Iraq are interpreters and collaborators

[2017-02-04 09.50.08] Twenty-One: and I believe Yemen is also experiencing civil war

[2017-02-04 09.51.04] An Cat Dubh: Did Trump order to ban people who’ve already been vetted or was that a mistake on the airports’ part or whatever?

[2017-02-04 09.51.53] Twenty-One: I don't know.

[2017-02-04 09.54.24] An Cat Dubh: Hrm.

About the judge. you said he was against judicial activism, but wasn’t Roe v. Wade and marriage equality just that? Wouldn’t he repeal those because of his stance?

[2017-02-04 09.54.38] Twenty-One: That's not what being against judicial activism means.

[2017-02-04 09.55.03] Twenty-One: Common law is based on precedent, and Roe v. Wade and gay marriage are the current precedent and law of the land.

[2017-02-04 09.55.17] Twenty-One: It would be activist to overturn them.

[2017-02-04 09.55.29] An Cat Dubh: OK.

[2017-02-04 09.56.02] Twenty-One: The best way to think of it is that judicial activism is not just code for "progressive judges"

[2017-02-04 09.56.17] Twenty-One: it refers to all rulings that are agenda-setting, whether they're left- or right-leaning, rather than following the law

[2017-02-04 09.58.06] An Cat Dubh: I get that. What I asked was about him determining it’s OK to commit it for the sake of undoing a previous act of judicial activism

[2017-02-04 09.58.29] Twenty-One: Generally no.

[2017-02-04 09.58.34] Twenty-One: Even if it was activism before

[2017-02-04 09.58.37] Twenty-One: It is still the precedent now.

[2017-02-04 09.58.46] An Cat Dubh: I see

[2017-02-04 09.58.51] Twenty-One: hence why being a judge means making rulings you may not personally agree with

[2017-02-04 09.59.22] Twenty-One: Your job (according to this philosophy) is to rule based on the existing common law cases, not to rule how you think it should be

[2017-02-04 09.59.39] Twenty-One: And even if it was activism, Roe v. Wade is now a US common law precedent.

[2017-02-04 09.59.43] Twenty-One: As is gay marriage.

[2017-02-04 09.59.49] An Cat Dubh: OK.

[2017-02-04 10.00.15] An Cat Dubh: What about the whole ‘move the embassy to Jerusalem’ thing?

[2017-02-04 10.01.16] Twenty-One: Seems callous, but only time will tell if it's actually worth paying attention to.

[2017-02-04 10.01.42] An Cat Dubh: Why the fuck is he on about it

[2017-02-04 10.02.03] Twenty-One: Main thing that comes to mind is appealing to the pro-Israel chunk of the GOP

[2017-02-04 10.02.41] An Cat Dubh: That’s not pro-Israel. That dumb fuck is gonna drag this country into a huge, senseless war

[2017-02-04 10.02.52] Twenty-One: I didn't say it was pro-Israel

[2017-02-04 10.02.59] Twenty-One: Being technical, it's pro-GOP-that-is-pro-Israel

[2017-02-04 10.03.00] An Cat Dubh: Or, in his care, yuge

[2017-02-04 10.03.02] Twenty-One: Do you see the difference?

[2017-02-04 10.03.21] Twenty-One: It's about Israel, but not really.

[2017-02-04 10.03.57] Twenty-One: It's really about trying to get the GOP to accept him; remember, Trump is not a conservative and many traditional Republicans dislike or outright hate him

[2017-02-04 10.04.16] An Cat Dubh: So he’s basically making cheap political gain on our backs.

[2017-02-04 10.06.43] Twenty-One: That's my personal opinion.

[2017-02-04 10.07.10] An Cat Dubh: What’s he gonna do when war does happen here?

[2017-02-04 10.07.17] Twenty-One: Who can say?

[2017-02-04 10.07.55] Twenty-One: Due to his seeming actual intention of trying to keep a fair amount of his campaign messages to his base, which included not being a warhawk compared to Hillary

[2017-02-04 10.08.05] Twenty-One: (with some commenters going so far as to call Trump pseudo-isolationist)

[2017-02-04 10.08.19] An Cat Dubh: Pseudo?

[2017-02-04 10.08.35] Twenty-One: True isolationism cannot exist in the way it did in the early 20th century.

[2017-02-04 10.08.44] Twenty-One: Modern telecommunications and trade make it impossible.

[2017-02-04 10.08.56] An Cat Dubh: I see

[2017-02-04 10.09.40] An Cat Dubh: What about his racist dog whistles?

[2017-02-04 10.10.32] Twenty-One: Such as?

[2017-02-04 10.10.52] An Cat Dubh: ‘America first’ is an obvious example

[2017-02-04 10.10.55] Twenty-One: No, it isn't.

[2017-02-04 10.11.14] Twenty-One: America first is absolutely not racist dog whistling and I am admittedly a bit incensed at the suggestion.

[2017-02-04 10.12.00] Twenty-One: It is an appeal to a somewhat common sentiment in the United States that being the world's sole superpower has resulted in our Federal Government paying more attention to other nations and their peoples over Americans

[2017-02-04 10.12.54] Twenty-One: That particular phrasing is one I agree with, I think our government's focus should be more internal, both to be more attentive to domestic problems and to limit our global interference with the nations of others

[2017-02-04 10.13.45] An Cat Dubh: http.//edition.cnn.com/2016/04/27/opinions/trump-america-first-ugly-echoes-dunn/

[2017-02-04 10.14.47] Twenty-One: That's an opinion.

[2017-02-04 10.15.18] Twenty-One: America First is not at all an unusual combination of words.

[2017-02-04 10.16.01] Twenty-One: If I so wished, I could probably make most political campaign slogans sound quite devious or find similar or even the same slogan being used by unsavory types in the past.

[2017-02-04 10.16.03] An Cat Dubh: But its use as a political slogan is very particular

[2017-02-04 10.16.33] An Cat Dubh: Damn that took forever to send

[2017-02-04 10.16.52] An Cat Dubh: Can you give an example?

[2017-02-04 10.17.02] Twenty-One: An example I saw someone else make was

[2017-02-04 10.18.03] Twenty-One: Give me a second

[2017-02-04 10.19.59] Twenty-One: Gerald Ford's campaign slogan in 1976 was

[2017-02-04 10.20.09] Twenty-One: "He's making us proud again"

[2017-02-04 10.20.34] Twenty-One: Restoration of pride was a major theme that allowed the Nazis to take power in Germany following the Weimar Republic

[2017-02-04 10.21.00] Twenty-One: The fact is that slogans by their nature will draw from simple ideas

[2017-02-04 10.21.09] Twenty-One: And that people of very different backgrounds may use the same slogan components

[2017-02-04 10.21.35] Twenty-One: Especially since nothing forbids an organization from naming itself yadda yadda, other than copyright and trademark.

[2017-02-04 10.22.29] Twenty-One: I could make a brotherhood named "Lodge for Brotherhood, Education and Technology" and be a total fuckjob nut who believes in Anarchism

[2017-02-04 10.22.43] Twenty-One: That wouldn't make a politician talking about brotherhood, education and technology an anarchist

[2017-02-04 10.23.03] An Cat Dubh: I see

[2017-02-04 10.23.19] An Cat Dubh: Back to the TPP though

[2017-02-04 10.23.38] Twenty-One: I honestly will be better able to discuss it when I've done the research for my presentation

[2017-02-04 10.23.56] Twenty-One: The extra power granted to corporations alone was enough for me to dislike it

[2017-02-04 10.24.14] An Cat Dubh: Do you think whatever Trump wants to replace it with something that won’t give them that power?

[2017-02-04 10.24.14] Twenty-One: But in the coming weeks I'll learn entirely too much about it

[2017-02-04 10.24.32] Twenty-One: Trump isn't likely to try and suggest a replacement for that.

[2017-02-04 10.25.03] Twenty-One: The TPP, being a trade agreement that existed between a number of nations, is not something one can simply "replace," especially since Trump campaigned on and actually followed through in dismantling it

[2017-02-04 10.25.24] An Cat Dubh: So what’s he gonna do?

[2017-02-04 10.25.24] Twenty-One: National will toward agreements like that is always changing

[2017-02-04 10.25.32] Twenty-One: About what?

[2017-02-04 10.25.39] Twenty-One: The TPP wasn't like, a pressing thing that needed to happen

[2017-02-04 10.25.54] Twenty-One: It was a massive trade agreement, but it's not like its destruction leaves a problem unsolved

[2017-02-04 10.26.33] An Cat Dubh: So he’s just gonna pull out and leave nothing in its place?

[2017-02-04 10.26.51] Twenty-One: That's already what he did

[2017-02-04 10.26.55] Twenty-One: "Leave nothing?"

[2017-02-04 10.26.59] Twenty-One: There already was nothing.

[2017-02-04 10.27.02] Twenty-One: It was a proposal.

[2017-02-04 10.27.20] An Cat Dubh: Ah. I thought it was already in place

[2017-02-04 10.27.26] Twenty-One: No, it was a proposed trade agreement

[2017-02-04 10.27.37] Twenty-One: However, due to our marketplace and general economic significance

[2017-02-04 10.27.46] Twenty-One: our withdrawal is a near certain death for the agreement

[2017-02-04 10.28.01] An Cat Dubh: OK.

[2017-02-04 10.28.17] An Cat Dubh: Well, I’m somewhat calmer now.

[2017-02-04 10.28.21] An Cat Dubh: Thanks =)