#and that it's not an annoying americans problem but in fact an annoying rich people problem

[partywithponies]

One of the biggest mysteries in the world is why American immigrants living permanently/longterm in the UK are the nicest goddamn people you'll ever meet, but American tourists are so often the rudest and most annoying people you'll ever meet.

[lazycats-stuff]

Remember when u wrote batbro who's Australian? Now u HAVE TO do Italian! This time with Italian toddler batbro, please little Italian people with their small hand gestures are so funny and so fricking adorable to me I'm tearing up just thinking about it

Yeah, Italians are funny and adorable, but I think it would work better if it's a teen instead of a toddler, so I have to modify that part, I just think it would fit better. Also, 1.3k, thank you guys and yes, I know this is a little bit short, but I do want to get this out for you guys. Also, Italians are my neighboring country lol, so if any Italians are reading this, hi!

Summary: (Y/N) is Italian. The family can't deal with him.

Warnings:

Bruce, yet again, found out he had another biological child. Another son. Bruce loved his sons, but he could get a daughter for once. Someone who was less chaotic to a certain degree. Turns out, when Bruce had a one night stand with an Italian model, she got pregnant and she didn't say anything to Bruce about his son for 13 years.

Bruce found out when she was put in jail. Bruce didn't know what happened, but he was more numb from the news that he has another son. Not to mention, man with a heavy Italian accent calling him in the middle of the night telling him about his son and Bruce having to call his lawyers...

The amount of paperwork that it took for Bruce to bring (Y/N) to America is nuts. Sure, you have to make sure that both governments know where the child is. The amount of connections Bruce had to pull just to get (Y/N) to the USA is actually insane. Thankfully, (Y/N) would soon get his citizenship and he would be able to keep his Italian citizenship.

Thankfully, both the US and Italy allow people to have multiple citizenships so (Y/N) could go back to Italy without any problems. Bruce and the others need to get visas. (Y/N) laughed at them when he heard that.

But hey, when they go to Italy, they will have a translator. And it's incredible to listen to (Y/N) not knowing English really. They weren't mocking him by any means, but they were crying of laughter a few times when there was some English problems.

But there were another things they didn't know about Italians. For example, (Y/N) was touchy in conversations. And he was closer to them, more in their space. None of them minded them, it was actually nice how closer he was to them because Americans prefer to keep their distance it seems.

And a thing that seemed like are they European or gay thing is the fact they have their little pecks on the cheek. It wasn't anything intimate by any means and it's a way to say hi to guests. Men do it as well so it wasn't gay per say... But then again... Bruce knew that Italy had a different way than Americans.

And by God, (Y/N) had so many cultural shocks. So many. The sizes of food in America... And (Y/N) will forever fight the notion that pineapple belongs on the pizza. He shall defend his Italian heritage and cuisine.

Also, while on the topic of the sizes, everything in America is huge. Cars, buildings... (Y/N) thought that in a way it lacked warmth. And (Y/N) didn't even want to think about the prices of medication and healthcare here. He knows that Bruce is rich, but still... My God.

Another thing was the fact that kind of annoyed Bruce and Alfred was the amount of espressos that (Y/N) can drink in a day. Tim loved him a lot for it, but Bruce and Alfred weren't so happy. So many espressos wasn't really helpful. But hey.

But one iconic thing that can make you tell who is an actual Italian or not, is the famous hand gesture. They still remember the time when (Y/N) was talking on the phone with a family member who lives in Italy and it seemed that the entire family was on the other side of the phone.

He was talking fast, phone on his ear while he was going to the kitchen to drink some water and get some snacks. They all watched in silence as (Y/N) talked loudly, even as he was opening the fridge for some snacks.

And that's when they saw it. The famous hand gesture, in between some passionate talk about something and yelling over the phone. He seemed annoyed, but there was a smile on the teen's face as he was talking.

Once he was finished, he joined his family at the table. Jason has decided to learn Italian. Bruce has silently agreed. Damian was already prepared to learn. Basically, the entire family has decided to learn Italian and help (Y/N) with English in return.

Another thing that made adapting to the American culture more difficult was the fact that talking and kind of interrupt one you are talking too. In Italy, that is not really considered rude since they are passionate about talking and just overall talking over.

In America, that is considered rude. He didn't like it that much, but understood. People won't like him that much and he would be considered a rude person if he interrupts other people. His family understood that it's not easy, but hey. You adapt to the culture and move on.

But still, it hurt a little bit.

And (Y/N) never understood one thing as well. Something called Italian Americans. He couldn't comprehend calling yourself Italian American, but you don't speak Italian and you are not connected to the culture of your other part. It was weird to him. No hate towards them, but to him it was weird. How can you call yourself a person who belongs to a certain culture if you don't know it?

But hey, no hate. As long as they don't insult Italy and the Italian culture, no hate.

And one more thing that no one prepares you for is the fact that you miss your home country. Despite Alfred doing the best Italian dishes known to men, but it just didn't taste the same. It didn't have that taste of Italy. Yes, it sounds weird, but it's true. Italy is one hell of a country with a rich history.

Oh the nostalgia is a worst feeling ever. Sure, it makes you feel happy and remember the great times you had., but sad at the same time. Bruce saw it, he wasn't blind.

He was sad for his son. So what does Bruce do? Summer holidays are approaching and Bruce had one great idea for everyone. 2 weeks in Italy, all paid for. He just needed to tell (Y/N) when and where they will be going.

And Bruce told him a few moments later, (Y/N) screamed from happiness and jumped into Bruce's arms, hugging him like a koala bear.

" Grazie Bruce! " (Y/N) screamed. Bruce didn't mind the use of his first name because (Y/N) was still getting used to the fact that he has a dad.

" Ti amo Bruce. " (Y/N) said as he stood back down at the floor. Bruce smile widely as he knew exactly what first two words meant.

" Love you too son. "

(Y/N) let out a woo as he went back to his room. Oh he will stuff himself with all of the Italian food he can eat and find. And he will go to Rome and the Vatican. No one is going to stop him. And not to mention, he will have to visit his family. They would never forgive him by any means and you don't want to piss off an Italian family.

[theonethatwatchesalotofshows]

I have already talked about how people hate Rory for the same negative traits that they ignore or even praise in Paris but I would like to talk more about the narrative that Paris is sooo hard-working while Rory just slides through life on pure luck and privilege.. because that's literally not what happens. Let's break this down:

Claim 1: "Rory is privileged while Paris is hard-working."

How is Rory more privileged than Paris? They are literally both white and go to the same fancy prep school, except Paris went to fancy schools like this literally all her life while Rory transferred in her sophomore year. I would argue Paris is more privileged than Rory. Out of the two of them she is the one that grew up in a mansion with lawyer parents and a silver spoon in her mouth, while Rory grew up in a shed (they lived there for more than half of her childhood) with a single working blue-collar mom. Yes Rory has rich grandparents and will inherit one day but she didn't even really know them until she was 16, so she didn't benefit from their money and connections for all her childhood, while Paris has.

How is Paris more hard-working than Rory? They are both top students in the same prep school, they are both in the student government and school paper, they both built that house one summer. People love to say how "Rory never has a job" but Paris literally didn't have a paid job till she was 21 and when she got one she spent the whole time complaining that she has to work. While Rory worked at the inn part-time in high school, worked at the school cafeteria in Yale, did the inventory at the Stars Hollow bookstore (although this one annoys me because she ended up spending more on books than earning), did the internship at Mitchum's newspaper, worked for the DAR, at the Standford Gazette and then had the tutoring business along with Paris. She worked, we just sadly didn't see it that often.

"But Paris had extracurriculars" so did Rory- the aforementioned student government and paper, volunteering to build the house that one summer, and I am sure all those years of helping out at Stars Hollow's festivals and town events count. Rory had extracurriculars, volunteering and work experience, while Paris only had the first two.

Claim 2: "Rory takes everything from Paris that Paris deserves more"

If you watch the show you will see that's not true and I don't say that because I think Paris is dumb or lazy. The problem with Paris is that she lives in her own personal hell where everyone is out to get her or sabotage her, so she acts accordingly and ends up getting in her own way and sabotages herself. It happens time and time again. Rory didn't get into Harvard over Paris because she was more privileged or luckier, she got in because she is likeable and didn't bomb the interview unlike Paris. Rory didn't become the new Yale Daily News editor in chief over Paris because of dumb luck, it was again because she was likeable and capable, which made the people like her more and vote for her over Paris, who was a terrible editor. As to how Rory became valedictorian over Paris I don't know, I am not American so I have no idea how that works, but maybe if Rory's grades from Stars Hollow High counted and Paris's grades slipped after she got rejected from Harvard, it is possible that Rory had better grades than her? I have another theory that the headmaster didn't want Paris to give a speech after the fiasco on C-SPAN, so he just named Rory and Brad over Paris, but I have no idea if he can do that.

Anyway, I don't hate Paris but these double standards just piss me off. I mean I understand that Paris seems more relatable to most people exactly for these reasons- because things usually don't go her way and she gets in her own way a lot. But please don't ignore the facts.

[skepsiss]

Modern Problems, Modern Solutions pt 1

Pt2

I have like 4 other parts to this written already but I'll post em when I have time to edit. Yearning with extremely awkward teen Steddie. Eddie as a proper 17 year old would be awkward as hell! I think at least. Additionally, there is quite a bit of swearing so you've been warned. Generally, I just wanted to explore EDDIE catching feelings first and being put out by that.

Modern day AU, or more or less modern give or take 5ish years circa 2015/19. I don't think this takes place in the Hawkins we know from the show.

Small American towns can be kinda backwards, but it varies a lot as to how open and accepting each town/state is. So, suspend disbelief and imagine it as a place that is tolerant of queerness. Also, read with the understanding that in a lot of places in this generalized time people think queerness is actually kinda "trendy" in some ways. It's not taboo but it's also extremely dependant on the person that is queer and "how queer they act". "be gay... but not too gay" etc.--

---

"Did you hear? Steve Harrington just came out as bi--"

Eddie looked up from his phone, feet propped up on the desk in front of him. The boy who had popped his head into their mostly empty homeroom had delivered the news so quickly that everyone there was quietly shocked.

"Son of a bitch," Eddie grumbled, putting his feet down and getting clumps of dirt on the linoleum floor. School hadn't even started and he was already having to deal with this bullshit.

"What?" Gareth asked, laughing a bit awkwardly. He sounded confused like he didn't understand where Eddie was directing his vitriol.

"Leave it to some preppy, jock, rich-boy to make 'being gay' cool--asshole," Eddie's words were drenched in sarcasm and mockery, going as far as to air-quote when he said being gay.

"I've been fucking gay since 8th grade and now some 16-year-old wannabe happens to be queer it's big news?" Eddie sat back with frustration, crossing his arms over his chest and slouching in his seat.

"I don't think you're supposed to say queer--" Jeff started to correct only to shut up quickly when Eddie whipped his head around to him and glared.

"I can say whatever the hell I want. I'm the one that's queer!" Eddie spat, hating that so much of this 'being gay is okay' culture circled around the heterosexual perspective of what was and was not okay.

Eddie grouched for the rest of the day, keeping his head down and feeling his nostrils flare every time a whisper of today's big news passed by him in the hallways. Who fucking cared? Steve Harrington was thee popular boy in school and was talked about as if he was their generation's teen heart-throb. It was to a point where Eddie knew who he was despite him being an underclassman. He was in grade 12 and he still had to hear about Steve Harrington as if he mattered. Sports star, good-looking, daddy's boy.

It was so goddamn annoying. Eddie had been out since he was thirteen and he had suffered through the humiliation of 'being queer' all the way through high school. He had the scars to prove it and it pissed him off that four years later it felt like people were singing Steve's praises for being brave enough to come out. Who fucking cared? Being gay was cool now or something--it gave you an edge and despite the fact that Eddie was bi himself, it truly felt like bisexuality was a cop-out to get girls to think you were hot with no intention to do the whole gay part of it. That was unfair to think, but in his biased opinion, some popular boy didn't deserve to be treated delicately while he had been in the trenches over it.

Eddie glared as the school day ended as he walked outside into the Autumn air. He could see Steve across the parking lot chatting to a gaggle of people around his car. He was smiling and laughing and everyone seemed so eager to let him know they accepted him. Or whatever the fuck. He couldn't actually hear what they were saying.

"Does the torture of high school know no fucking end?" Eddie grumbled, stuffing his hands in his pockets, not paying attention to where he was going.

"Tell me about it."

Eddie looked up at the sound of a voice; the words that were spoken dripped with sarcasm. Robin was leaning against her bike by Eddie, bag slung over her shoulder as she watched the fanfare from a safe distance--same as Eddie. Robin was president of the LGBT-Alliance club, and Eddie knew her from band. Robin was two years younger than him, but she had come in hot and loud about being a lesbian straight from jump. Despite how meek she was in many regards, she was smart and dedicated to her beliefs. Eddie could respect that.

"Get a load, huh?" Eddie asked, scoffing as he glanced back over at Steve.

"Hmm," Robin offered quietly, staring for a moment before starting to put on her helmet, "he's been coming to meetings pretty regularly over the last couple of months, you know."

Eddie looked back at Robin, surprised to hear her... defending Steve Harrington? He thought it was unanimous that geeks and weirdos like them hated guys like that.

"You'd know if you ever showed up for meetings," Robin said a bit flippantly, and Eddie frowned at her.

He had tried the whole LGBT-Alliance thing and it just wasn't his space. It was boring and he hated that the group generally just talked about events and progress they should make. He didn't want any of that, he just wanted to hang out with a couple of people that were queer like him. He didn't want to be scheduling and painting signs or whatever the fuck. He had his own things to do after school--band, D&D, chucking dirt wads at a wall--anything was better than sitting in what was essentially a business meeting.

"Come on," Eddie grumbled, not wanting to acknowledge that if Steve had been attending the LGBT-Alliance meetings that this 'leaving the closet thing' had been a long time coming.

"He's actually a decent guy," Robin defended as she adjusted her helmet straps, "all things considered."

Eddie huffed a laugh, scoffing at Robin.

"Didn't think I'd be hearing this from you, Buckley--I thought lesbians were supposed to hate all men or something," Eddie retorted, not really meaning it but feeling confrontational.

"Don't be a drag," Robin sighed, rolling her eyes at the comment, "talk to Will Byers about it or whatever. He's in your D&D thing, right?"

"Hellfire," Eddie corrected, thinking about that for a moment. Will was in both their clubs and he was close friends with Dustin--who also seemed to adore Steve Harrington for some reason. It was stupid, he didn't understand why half the kids in his after-school club liked the guy. Eddie had never had any personal conflict with Steve, but he fit the shape of every guy Eddie had ever taken issue with.

"Whatever," Robin retorted, getting onto her bike, "you know we're having a mixer next weekend. You should come."

Eddie looked at her, frowning again. He didn't want to go to a mixer, whatever she meant by that. Robin seemed to pick up on the mild confusion he had around the comment, explaining further.

"Geez, there's like posters around the school, Eddie. Our alliance and like 4 other schools in our district are having like an LGBT dance, mixer, party or whatever. Hosting in Talho on Saturday. We've got a pretty big turnout already, tickets are five bucks."

"Five bucks?" Eddie huffed, acting as if that number was ridiculous for an event like this. He didn't want to admit that it sounded kind of... nice. With four other school districts... that meant there would be a lot of guys that were undeniably queer he'd get to meet for the first time if he went. That was something. It'd really be something if he walked away with a date.

"I'll think about it," Eddie said, waving Robin off and continuing his slouch across the parking lot to start his long walk home.

—--

"Call me if you need a ride," Wayne said as Eddie shuffled out of the cab of the truck. He stood at the door, having to look up at Wayne in order to see him from how much the suspension of Wayne's old gas-guzzler hoisted the truck off the ground.

"Yeah, yeah," Eddie huffed, feeling put out already for having decided to come. He was having second thoughts as he stood there, holding Wayne's door.

"Eddie," Wayne said a bit more firmly, looking for a straight answer.

"I'll call if I need a ride home-- or whatever," Eddie replied, sounding annoyed as he shut the door and turned towards the school gym.

It was obvious where the event was being hosted and he felt weird showing up alone. He had decided to come after much lamenting, resigning himself to just chatting to Will all night if he hated the damn thing. It felt weird, and he quietly hoped that at least some people his age would show up. He didn't want to be stuck as the oldest person there amongst a sea of 14 and 15-year-olds.

The event wasn't formal, but Eddie had tried to clean up a bit. He'd left his leather jacket and vest at home, opting for just an old denim jacket and a T-shirt that didn't have a band or logo on it. Other than that, he was still in scuffed-up shoes and ripped jeans, but he hoped that didn't put people off. Not that it mattered. Not that he ultimately cared. He didn't want to talk to anyone who had a problem with it to begin with, but it still made him feel self-conscious. Really, he hadn't dressed up because he didn't have anything to dress up into. Even the debate of if this was worth five bucks or if he should save it in order to get the luxury of sub-par pizza next week had been a difficult choice to make. He hated showing up to things like this and sticking out like a sore thumb--he hated being easily marked as poor.

Eddie paid his entry fee and stepped into the gym; the decorations were tacky and everything screamed 'event put on by teenagers.' There was something kind of charming about that though, even if it felt a bit pedestrian. It was sort of as he feared though... there were people here--a decent amount--but everyone looked so... young. The realisation made Eddie tense a bit as he moved over to the refreshments table and idled before getting a drink.

Great. Just great. He had spent five bucks for an awkward night leaning against a wall and drinking fruit punch.

"Eddie!"

Eddie turned to see Robin waving at him. She had a vest with a button on it signifying that she was a leader in the club. She probably had responsibilities to attend to during the night, but she did look mildly excited to see him there.

Feeling like he didn't have much of an option, Eddie migrated in her direction, feeling very self-conscious about the whole thing.

"Hey, you made it," Robin offered, a few people hovering around her. It was sort of obvious that she was busy, but Eddie appreciated her taking the time to say hi.

"Yeah, figured I'd check it out at least," Eddie said, talking into his cup as he looked around the room. He didn't really have time to lament though as a small commotion worked its way towards them.

"Sorry--sorry!"

Eddie looked to see Steve Harrington making his way over to them with what looked like 4 dozen balloons. It was kind of comical really, seeing him try to fight past the sea of bobbing, colourful globes.

"Steve!" Robin said sharply, her volume subdued but still stern.

"Sorry--there was a hold-up--" Steve replied, awkwardly trying to move the balloons to see past them and talk directly to Robin.

"Oh—oh-How-what? A holdup?" Robin mocked back, tisking as she took a bundle of the balloons from Steve and handed them to the girls beside her.

"Uh, yeah, Buckley. There was a holdup, you gagging on ten-dollar lipstick or something?" Steve retorted quickly "looks good by the way." He was gesturing to the make-up Robin had on and the bright red lipstick she had applied which was fairly different compared to her usual look.

Eddie snorted into his cup, choking slightly as he tried to hold back from laughing at the burn. Robin looked offended for half a beat before smacking one of the balloons directly into Steve's face and taking the rest of the handful.

"Ow--hey," Steve complained, getting aggressively jostled as Robin walked past him.

Despite what was being said, the whole exchange had been... friendly. It was weird really, it looked and sounded like Robin and Steve were actually friends. They were toying with each other and being bitchy in a way Eddie had only ever seen best buddies do, which was really goddamn weird to see coming from a superstar, jock hunk, and the local raging feminist, band geek.

"You're on my shit-list," Robin commented, pointing over her shoulder at Steve and then bustling off with the other girls and the balloons. Obviously, they had been meant for decorations and Robin was now rushed to finish setting everything up. The whole exchange had been so quick Eddie hadn't even been able to properly react before he was standing there... with Steve.

Steve turned towards him and Eddie averted his gaze, still holding his punch glass up to his lips.

"Hey," Steve greeted, sounding much too charming.

"Hey," Eddie mumbled back, turning slightly and facing the room instead of looking at Steve. He didn't walk away, that felt like a bridge too far, but he wasn't going to open himself up to a conversation.

"Eddie, right?" Steve asked, and Eddie glanced at him, watching Steve push his hair back into place. He hadn't realised, but Steve was panting slightly, obviously catching his breath from... probably running in here to deliver Robin's balloons.

"Yeah," Eddie confirmed, looking away again as he slouched. Great. He was stuck talking to Steve with no obvious escape plan. Perfect.

"Steve--"

"I know who you are," Eddie replied, not letting Steve finish his introduction. It had probably just been to be polite anyway, but it was obvious that Eddie knew who he was. They went to school together. They had mutual friends. It wasn't rocket science.

That shut Steve up for a moment and chewed at Eddie's guts. That had been a bit rude. Steve hadn't actually done anything wrong, yet, so really he should just save it for another time. Steve was stuck here too after all, with a bunch of kids just like Eddie.

"Pretty... young," Eddie said, watching the gym as people mingled. It really was just a bunch of 14 or 15-year-olds chatting with one another. They seemed to be having fun, and Eddie was glad for that since he hadn't had anything like this when he was that age.

"Hm, yeah," Steve replied, sounding kind of amused for some reason. "Always the damn babysitter, huh?"

Eddie glanced at him for that comment, not really understanding where it was coming from.

"Yeah..." Eddie offered, wondering if he had said it because Hellfire Club also skewed younger. He had seen Steve drop Dustin off before, scolding him like a mother would over something, but he had never come inside to meet anyone at Hellfire. Eddie had just noticed it was all.

An awkward silence drew out between them and Eddie could tell that Steve was starting to feel uncomfortable too.

"You seen Will Byers anywhere?" Eddie asked, looking for an out. He knew that Steve knew Will, he was one of those mutual friends.

"Oh, yeah," Steve offered, not making a motion to point anywhere, "but I'd leave him alone tonight if I were you."

Eddie quirked a brow at Steve, something of a challenge in his stance as he looked at him. Why on earth would he leave Will Byers alone tonight?

"I drove him--" Steve half explained, obviously realising that he needed to elaborate, "that's why uh I'm--it doesn't matter. There's a boy here that he likes."

Eddie's eyebrows shot up at Steve's explanation, looking back at the floor and the sea of dweeby, little gays circling each other awkwardly. Oh. Right. This was a lot of people's first chance to do anything with someone queer like them. He hadn't considered that Will would have someone here he intended to talk to.

Eddie laughed, both at his own stupidity and the charming realisation that he was glad this whole thing was happening, even if he wasn't having a good time.

"Good for him," Eddie snorted, cheersing the room and taking a swig of his punch.

"God," Eddie sighed, finding the humour in this whole thing now, "who the hell am I supposed to bother now?"

He was lamenting for no real reason, wondering quietly to himself if he should hold out and wait to see if anyone else his age showed up or if he should just cut his losses and start the long walk home. At least then, once he got back, Wayne would just assume he got a ride and had a good time. He didn't want to admit to Wayne that he ditched, not after he had agonised over whether or not it was worth it to spend the five dollars. Wayne had supported him going and assured him it wasn't a waste if he wanted to go. Eddie didn't want to prove him wrong.

Eddie glanced at Steve, wondering how he was going to excuse himself now that his out was occupied. He caught Steve looking at him and quickly looked forward again, surveying the room. That was weird. Eddie took note of that, slowly looking back at the party unfolding before them.

"So... Bi, huh?" Eddie offered, not sure why he was trying. He'd give it until he finished his glass of punch and then he'd walk home if no one interesting entered the party.

Steve seemed to laugh a bit awkwardly to that, doing this weird thing with his hands where he clasped them behind his back and then swung them forward to clasp at his front. It was the most uncomfortable Eddie had ever seen him--not that he had paid a ton of attention to Steve before now.

Oh. Eddie realised, feeling his chest clench a little, this was a lot of people's first chance to talk to another queer person. He was the oldest one here, closely followed by Steve... they were both fish out of water. Steve had the club, but there weren't a lot of guys their age that Eddie knew of who were queer. Steve had been mingling with kids this whole time. He was the elder here... weird.

"Yeah, I didn't really expect it to become a whole... thing," Steve replied, shaking Eddie from his thoughts. Right, he had pointedly questioned Steve's sexuality. Classy.

"Yeah, well, they'll get over it," Eddie retorted, feeling a bit bad now that he had been so dismissive of Steve's attempt to talk to him.

"I mean, it's been fine, I guess," Steve replied, sounding unsure of himself but not exactly bothered. Eddie could understand that, he didn't have the same experience per se, but all the guys at Hellfire knew he was queer and it was fine. He could remember being unsure though how gay he got to act around them all. It had been awkward and uncomfortable to find the rhythm of where you all sat, even if no one was blatantly rejecting you.

"Feels like you and everyone else are walking on eggshells about it, right?" Eddie asked, sighing as he leaned back until he hit the wall behind them, slouching.

"Something like that," Steve replied, his words coming out slowly as he watched Eddie and then took half a step back to join him against the wall.

"My advice? Just don't fall in love with your best friends," Eddie joked, only half serious. It verged on real advice, but it wasn't like it was something you could help.

Steve laughed anyway, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Yeah, as if. No thanks."

Something about that made Eddie smile a bit. Steve had been so dismissive of the idea as if the mere mention of having a mild interest in some jock was unheard of.

Eddie took a swig of his punch, swallowing hard as he started to relax a little bit.

"I'm bi too, you know," he said, sucking his upper lip to get the rest of the juice off.

"I can't remember if I used that word when I came out though--people just sort of figured with me, I don't think I really had to tell anyone."

"Yeah?" Steve asked, sounding interested but not sure how to progress.

"Uh, c'ya, what do you think?" Eddie mocked back, flipping his long hair over his shoulders and then flicking it back with his hands from side to side as if he were walking down some kind of runway. Long hair didn't mean you were gay, but it was a step towards making people think you were.

Steve laughed at that too, properly this time without that edge of awkwardness to it. That, in turn, made Eddie smile a bit. He liked it when people found him funny, it felt good to make people laugh. It felt better still to be joking about something gay and not having to correct or explain anything to the other person. Steve was queer too, even if he was new at this, there wasn't that same level of judgment. Huh... funny though that he suddenly just accepted that Steve was queer when he had been put off by the idea initially.

The night carried on like that and Eddie was surprised to find... that he didn't mind talking to Steve all that much. There were quite a few cultural touchstones that he didn't have when it came to 'nerd shit' but he didn't seem to be annoyed by Eddie explaining those things to him if it was necessary. Eddie had gotten a bit louder and more loose before too long, even if he wasn't exactly buddy-buddy with Steve. And Steve, surprisingly, had stuck with him the whole night. Really, the event hadn't matured at all and Eddie had little desire to go mingle with the kids--especially when the kid that he knew here was probably trying his best to flirt. What the hell was he supposed to do? Walk up to a group of youngsters and just ask what they were talking about? "Trust me, trust me. I play games with children all the time!" Yeah, no.

Eddie's watch beeped at him and he looked at it, turning the little digital screen off. It wasn't that late, just past 10 really, but the longer he waited the more miserable the walk home would be.

"Well, that's my queue," Eddie said, pushing off the wall and leaving his cup on a table by them. "I should go."

He stuffed his hands in his pockets, not regretting having come after all, but not really feeling like staying either. Steve had made the night bearable, but Eddie wasn't all that eager to keep it up.

"Why? Or you'll turn into a pumpkin?" Steve asked, teasing a little.

Eddie snorted at him, finding that line incredibly cheesy and in turn kind of funny because of that.

"Yeah, I've got to go traipse into the woods and take root or I'll start sprouting weeds like a chia-pet."

Steve chuckled at him, looking over to the doors. Eddie started walking towards the exit anyway, and Steve seemed surprised that he was actually going. He got off the wall and walked a few paces with Eddie before they both stopped, lingering a bit.

"I've just got to start walking home," Eddie explained, pinching his brows in, finding it kind of amusing that Steve seemed... concerned? He wasn't sure, it felt out of character for a cool guy to be following him.

"Walking home?" Steve asked, again, sounding surprised. "To Hawkins?"

"No to the moon, Bilbo was writing about me. Yeah back to Hawkins," he answered sarcastically, jamming his thumb towards the doors. Steve didn't seem bothered by the reply, even if he squinted for a moment with confusion with Eddie's mention of Bilbo.

"You live at Hawkins Trailer Park, right?" Steve asked.

The question instantly made Eddie tense, and he set his jaw a bit.

"Yeah, why?" He asked, sounding a bit defensive. He didn't like this line of questioning. It always felt weird when people commented on the fact that he lived in a trailer park. It especially felt weird coming from rich-boy Steve Harrington.

"Jeez, chill. I'll give you a ride, I live near there too," Steve explained, taking his keys out of his pocket and jostling them, "Hawkins is too far to walk to from here."

Eddie blinked at him a moment, floored by the offer for some reason.

"You don't have to do that, man," Eddie replied, feeling extremely awkward all of a sudden. "You should stay."

"And do what?" Steve asked, sounding amused. He looked over his shoulder at the crowd of young teens chatting and mingling before looking back at Eddie with a raised brow.

"Fair enough," Eddie replied, banishing his guilt for now. Steve was right though, Hawkins was far to walk to from here and there really wasn't a lot keeping Steve at the mixer. Will was getting a ride home from his brother and Robin was too busy fussing over every little thing to mingle. Plus, the event really would be closing soon so Steve didn't have to stay.

Eddie still felt awkward as he walked up to Steve's beamer and prepared himself to feel awkward the whole drive back to Hawkins. It was a nice car and he couldn't help but constantly think about how he had never been in a car this nice before. It wasn't brand-spanking new, but it almost felt like it with how clean it was. The car was spotless really and it was obvious that Steve took extremely good care of his ride.

"This is... uh, a nice ride," Eddie said, running his hands over the dash as Steve drove, before sitting back again.

"Thanks," Steve replied, chuckling a little. Eddie really was admiring the car; he wasn't a gear-head but he could appreciate a nice ride. Thrill bubbled in Eddie's stomach all of a sudden as he glanced at Steve.

"How fast can this thing go?"

Steve looked at him in turn, the moment drawing out between them before Steve's lips cracked into a smile.

"Want to find out?"

Eddie's eyes widened and he smiled back, surprised and pleased that his ask was being met. God, it was so stupid. They were being such teenagers right now. Steve in his daddy's bought, fast car with the punk, bad-influence kid in his passenger's seat ready to tear it up on the freeway.

Steve pulled off the main road and Eddie's stomach swooped with excitement. He didn't know where they were going but he figured Steve knew somewhere they could drive without hitting anyone. He didn't want to be stupid about it, maybe a bit reckless, but hey--they were young. When else were they going to do this shit?

Eddie leaned forward, turning on the radio and fiddling with the dial.

"What're you doing?" Steve asked, sounding amused as they drove towards some back, country road. Perfect.

"Finding the right music!" Eddie replied, sounding equal parts excited and exasperated for being asked. He was flicking through the dial quickly, only pausing for a beat or two before switching again until he found what he was looking for.

"You done?" Steve asked as Eddie paused for a moment longer to confirm that he liked the song. He looked at Steve before cranking the volume dial and sticking his tongue out.

"Let's fucking go," Eddie whooped, sitting back and bracing himself as he felt Steve hit the gas and they started rocketing down the road.

Fear mingled with thrill as Eddie sat back, holding onto the door as they drove down this pitch-black road. He shouted with excitement, obviously stressed but having a blast. Steve seemed cool as could be, smiling with the thrill of it too but none of Eddie's anxieties.

"Fuckin' hell--" Eddie managed as they reached a bend and Steve slowed down to take it. He started to decelerate, their quick little drag race having finished.

"We should do that again!" Eddie continued, panting a bit as he felt his heart pounding in his chest.

"Chill out--" Steve snorted, falling back into the rules of the road as he stopped at an unmarked rail crossing. "Cops like to drive around here--we'd be risking it."

"Boooo," Eddie called, smiling in a joking way. He understood and he wouldn't push it even if he wanted that adrenaline rush again.

"Another time then," Eddie replied finally, pausing for a moment as he realised he had assumed he'd be in Steve's car again for some reason.

"Sure," Steve answered back easily, chuckling a little.

Eddie glanced at him, before reaching to turn the music volume back down. He didn't turn it off though, needing the quiet metal to help settle him.

Steve sure did laugh a lot, didn't he? Was Eddie really that amusing?

Eddie felt his pocket buzz and he squirmed before taking his phone out. It was Wayne. He was asking if Eddie needed a ride, surely expecting that Eddie had lost track of time or something like that. Eddie let the car fall into silence as he replied back to Wayne, feeling a bit weird all of a sudden. He kept typing and retyping what to say.

No, I got a ride from a friend. Were Steve and him friends?

I'm good. Too vague, it would worry Wayne too much.

Some guy gave me a lift. That sounded sketchy as hell. Eddie just settled on 'no, I got a ride' and left it at that, but it made him feel weird regardless.

"Everything okay?" Steve asked, drawing Eddie's attention back to him.

"Oh, yeah, no, yeah. Just my uncle wondering how I was getting home," Eddie explained, feeling weird about Steve asking him something like that. Robin had been right... he really wasn't such a bad guy after all.

"So," Eddie said, breaking the silence, running his hands over the seat, "this car get you mad puss?" He asked, his tone jovial and teasing as he stuck his tongue out between his fingers, being lewd on purpose. He didn't know why his default was raunchy humour, but it had tumbled out of him before he thought too hard about it.

"God, shut up--" Steve replied in good humour, sounding surprised and amused by the sudden comment.

"I know I've got a reputation, but jeez, man," Steve laughed, driving them back onto the main road towards Hawkins.

"So... that a yes?" Eddie teased, enjoying this little banter.

"Yeah," Steve confirmed, before glancing at Eddie out of the corner of his eye with a wry smile.

Eddie burst out laughing at that, finding it more than a little amusing that Steve was leaning into the tease and taking it on the chin.

"Fuck, dude," Eddie giggled, not sure why that was just so amusing. It felt so weird to have good-boy, Steve Harrington talking to him about getting laid. This was so fucked up. This was so fucking weird.

"So," Steve started as Eddie stared out the window, still grinning to himself a bit, "how long have you known you were..."

Eddie glanced at Steve before lounging against the door, smiling at him.

"Queer?"

Steve looked at Eddie from the corner of his eye, obviously a little unsure of himself.

"You can say it you know," Eddie offered, crossing his arms and looking nonplussed. "If you are one, you get to say it as long as you're not like slurring it at someone or something. Welcome to the restricted section."

"Alright..." Steve replied, sounding a little unsure still. Eddie smiled at that too, finding it a bit charming how baby gay Steve was over the whole thing. He felt a bit superior all of a sudden, and he liked that feeling with Steve. He was in a fast car with the most popular boy in school and he was talking to him about how to be queer. What a trip.

"Since forever," Eddie replied, "I've known since forever. It was more weird for me to figure out that not everyone felt the same way. Like, girls--guys, whatever. Hot people are hot, end of story."

Steve nodded to that and Eddie tucked into the corner of his seat, feeling cool and relaxed as he watched Steve drive.

"You?"

Steve seemed to waffle a bit at the question, putting too much thought into it no doubt.

"I don't know," he finally replied, looking dissatisfied with his own answer, "somewhat recently, I think? It's like... I acknowledged it maybe a few months ago but, I don't know. Before that, I sort of felt like I was being dramatic or something? Like, obviously, I like girls so that's fine, it felt kinda... cliche?"

Eddie cringed a bit at the phrase Steve used, nodding his head and glancing away. He had much the same judgment towards Steve until recently. That had been unfair. It didn't matter that Steve was popular or that there had been less risk involved in his 'coming out' compared to Eddie. He was pretty and sporty and even if there was something a little cliche about an all-American boy like him turning out to be queer it didn't mean it was wrong.

"Your folks know?" Eddie asked, talking softer, not wanting to pry if Steve didn't want to talk about it.

"Yeah," Steve answered easily, his tone unreadable. "They knew before I uh... came out socially?"

Eddie nodded, rubbing his head against the window and feeling the car vibrate under him.

"They... cool?" He asked, feeling a bit weird about the whole thing. He was older than Steve, but he didn't really feel like he was. Steve had so much... going on. He had his own car, activities, career paths--he seemed so put together. He was perfectly coiffed and dressed, his car spotless... Eddie was the exact opposite. He wanted to be a musician and he worked hard at it, but sometimes it felt like he was putting all his eggs in one basket.

"Uh.... yeah, mostly," Steve replied, sounding a bit hesitant.

"That great, huh?" Eddie asked, smiling lightly and trying to sound sympathetic.

"No, well, my mom seems pretty accepting of it. Unsure like... nervous? I don't know. My dad... I don't really know what he thinks yet. He's--it doesn't matter."

Eddie frowned slightly as Steve cut himself off. It was a personal topic and he didn't blame him for not wanting to share, but it felt kind of bad to hear Steve say it didn't matter.

"What about your uh... uncle?" Steve asked, sounding awkward as he shifted the conversation.

"Yeah, he's cool," Eddie replied, looking back out the window, "I don't think he really knows how to be supportive necessarily so he's just like... trucking on but he's never dropped the ball. Treats all my... gay shit as if it was just normal shit." Eddie replied, laughing a little bit. He knew he was lucky to have Wayne. Not every queer person had a supportive family and once upon a time, he hadn't had that either. Wayne was a saviour... in more ways than one.

"That's... cool," Steve answered and Eddie snorted a little at how awkward the delivery had been.

"What?" Steve replied, sounding a bit amused.

"That's... cool," Eddie mocked, making his voice sound girly and vapid.

"Shut up," Steve scoffed, drawing up the syllables a bit.

Eddie grinned, liking that Steve seemed to be easy to torment. He went for the bait every time, but he never seemed overly offended.

"Gee wiz, Eddie, your uncle seems like such a cool guy," Eddie continued, being annoying on purpose. He kept it up as Steve started to laugh in mock annoyance. "Let's you go to a pre-teen party and everything."

"Stop--" Steve booed, glancing at Eddie quickly before purposefully wobbling the steering wheel and making the car quickly veer back and forth.

Eddie jolted up right at the movement, grabbing the door.

"Shit--don't--" Eddie squawked, smiling despite how that had made his stomach drop.

"Asshole--" Eddie jeered, looking at Steve who was grinning back at him. Okay, so Steve was actually fun? Was this why Dustin and those kids liked him so much? Mr. Uptight-jock was actually a little bit of a wild child hidden behind good hair and a dazzling smile?

Eddie settled into his seat, feeling kind of good about the night as he looked back out the window and let the rest of the drive grow quiet. They weren't far from Hawkins now and a part of Eddie felt kind of strung out from the weird emotional whiplash of the night.

"You know," Eddie said as they pulled up towards the trailer park, "you're actually not a bad guy, Steve Harrington."

Steve looked at him, eyebrows pinched in with mild concern.

"Thanks?"

"It's a compliment," Eddie scoffed in a friendly way, unbuckling his seatbelt as Steve drove slowly down the gravel road.

"Oh, well, thank you then," Steve reiterated a bit more sarcastically.

"You're also kind of a bitch," Eddie retorted, smiling at him and getting an incredulous sound from Steve. The car pulled to a stop and Eddie climbed out. He shut the door but lingered a second until Steve rolled down the window. He leaned over the frame and looked in at Steve.

"I can see why those kids think you're kind of cool," Eddie continued, feeling kind of... charmed. "Guess that makes you cool in my books too."

"Cool? Or cool?" Steve asked, mocking Eddie's previous buffoonery.

Eddie laughed, shaking his head as he leaned back.

"You're a bit of a dork too, you know that?"

He liked dorky guys.

"A dork? This? Coming from you?" Steve asked, inching his car forward a bit to keep Eddie in view of the window.

"Oh, cram-it," Eddie retorted, flipping Steve off through the window. He patted the doorframe lightly, careful not to hit it with any of his rings.

"Thanks for the ride though," Eddie swallowed, not really looking at Steve but still trying to be friendly.

"Yeah, man. Don't worry about it."

Eddie nodded, feeling weird about just walking away. He kind of wanted to stay out, chat more, and just listen to the radio with Steve which was... a weird thought. They didn't really have anything in common, and somehow Eddie knew that they weren't going to talk again at school. Steve was popular, he wasn't. Eddie was graduating this year, and Steve was 16. They ran in completely different circles.

"Kay, well, later then," Eddie offered, half waving his hand in front of the window before sticking his hands in his pockets and walking towards his trailer. Steve didn't say anything back, but he waited for Eddie to get his door open before pulling away like a proper gentleman.

The whole night felt... so odd to Eddie. He didn't know if he could say he had a good time, or even what had happened during the night, but it had been... nice. It had nothing to do with the mixer or anything Eddie had prepared himself for that night but instead, his good mood rested solely on his interaction with Steve. It was so weird and it left him feeling like he was in limbo. Like this night had been a weird pocket event and he'd never have a repeat of anything like it again. Nothing big had happened, nothing important, and there was nothing to remember about it really... but it felt like he wanted to hold onto it somehow.

Eddie huffed and stretched his lips, before finally taking the last few steps into the trailer. There was no point dwelling on something he couldn't touch and thinking too hard about it would probably ruin everything anyways. This could just be a one off. He could just look back on this and think about how nice it had been to bond... with Steve Harrington.

[channnel]

Okay, so- My drawing of Jules is nearly done BUT my hand hurts from drawing the flowers and my eyes hurt cause I've been staring at my tab for a week and my back's a banana now.

So, since I haven't posted some actual art in this blog- Here are my random headcanons of the brothers in My Dear hatchet man. This is purely fan-made, alright? I'm bored and this headcanons have been in my mind for months.

Claude

Claude fully knows that he looks good in dark colors and will not wear any other hues even if you paid him. Even if it's summer, he will still wear dark clothes.

The type of man that will glare down a kid in public if the kid is being a little shit (Same goes to the parent).

Claude would stare at wall for long minutes before answering a call from Jules.

Will judge Jules' healthy eating diet despite having the same exact diet.

The type of guy that hates being treated differently because he's handsome but also often uses the same treatment to get what he wants.

Nobody in his workplace know who he is. Nobody knows where he lives, nobody knows if he has any family- pretty sure that most of his ex-partners doesn't even know that he got younger brothers, and so on, and so forth. They just knew that Claude is a rich, good-looking photographer with a French accent.

Believes that Alan is probably working in an organized crime, he watches the news just in case Alan's name come out... Same goes to James.

Jules

Use filters, stickers and quotes in all of his social media post.

90% of what he says are all passive-aggressive and he genuinely thinks that he helps people.

Probably has a bit of a hoarding problem.

Would judge James' DIY hobby despite also doing it.

The type that would watch a kid being a little piece of shit and would promptly tell the nearest person where their parents at and judge their parenting style. same thing goes with noisy pets in public.

Would give Claude fruit bouquet everytime they meet cause Jules know damn well that Claude can't throw it out and will be force to appreciate and eat Jules' gift so it will not rot.

Would say to others that Alan simply move away and that they haven't talked for a long time. His neighbors and friends probably believed that Jules' younger brother is simply living in a cottage with a bunch of dogs and cats. Would also say made-up stories of Alan if his neighbors asked more before promptly shutting it down.

Alan (Honestly, I don't have much headcanons on the two younger bros)

Will recite the full script of any classic horror movie in rapid succession, filled with actions and diy sound effects. If it's night time, then get ready for him to shout out every words.

Still uses Canadian terms rather than the American one.

Sometimes wonder if he looks cool using other types of weapons instead of a hatchet. Knows a lot of trickshots with his hatchet.

Doesnt like statues.

knows every domestic dogs and cats in Doomsbury, he even has his own names for them and he probably knows the pets even more in a spiritual level.

is also the type that would glare down a kid if they're being an annoying piece of shit, and immediately disappear if the kid starts crying.

In college au, I like to headcanon that not only did the boss in that AU gave him a scholarship- but also hide an unfortunate event between Alan, a hatchet, and some guy.

James

⬆️That's him everytime he argued with someone, lost a friend, or had another break up.

Believes that Alan is now living in a forest away from society, which is somewhat accurate. Often thinks about Alan a lot, and wonder if he's doing okay after the incident- doesn't hide away the fact that Alan ran away and will tell what actually happened to very, very close friends of his.

The type of guy that would deliberately trip a kid in public without the parents noticing- especially if the kid is being a little shit.

"Shit, I accidentally have way too much fun solving those problems in my exam and now my brothers are gonna expect better from me" Got immediately accused of cheating.

Saw his two older brothers years after the incident but was disappointed to see that they haven't changed, so he doesn't talk to them nor accept Jules' multiple invites. Ended up changing his number after some time, did not regret about it.

Always give himself a pep talk everytime he woke up.

Can efficiently argue with someone in fluent sign language without pause, Style all of his clothes on his own, has wrote numerous songs in his guitar, very good at Parkour, and he can juggle three crowbars.

Dixon Dallas, Good lookin.

And that's all folks.

[boonedelmont]

𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐌 . 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 . 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐓𝐈𝐅𝐘 . 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐒 . 𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃 .

[cis man & he/him] Welcome to Aurora Bay, [BOONE DELMONT]! I couldn’t help but notice you look an awful lot like [BOYD HOLBROOK]. You must be the [THIRTY SIX] year old [BOAT DRIVER AT AIR BUBBLES SCUBA DIVING CLUB]. Word is you’re [PROFICIENT] but can also be a bit [VOLATILE] and your favorite song is [GENTLE ON MY MIND BY STEFIE SHOCK]. I also heard you’ll be staying in [FISHERS COVE]. I’m sure you’ll love it!

———— ◽️ 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐒

government name.    booker nelson delmont

preferred name.    boone

current age.    thirty six

birthdate.    december 23rd

height.    6'2"

identity.    cis male, he/him

sexuality.    heterosexual

moral alignment.    chaotic neutral

language(s) spoken.    english, very little spanish

occupation.    boat driver at air bubbles scuba diving club

residence.    inherited house in fishers cove

———— ◽️ 𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐀𝐏

without having a hope in hell from the get go, boone was raised in the sweltering depths of louisiana in a household that always had some form of drugs or alcohol ( usually both ) at his parents' disposal at any given time. so he was exposed to these addictions at a very early age and would eventually follow the same path, but to a lesser degree.

as the apple of his parents' eye, for some reason, he could do no wrong. when, in fact, he did very wrong, at any given moment. boone was labelled a problem child by his teachers. it started off with him being an annoying punk kid, disrupting class and clowning around with his friends. but as he got older, the problem grew with him.

fist fights were a common occurrence whenever he was in attendance at school. so if he didn't skip, he was sent home regularly. however, he never let his parents know the difference ( if they'd even notice anyway ) and he'd stay out on the streets all day -- drinking, smoking, wreaking havoc on the small town -- until school was let out and it'd be time for him to go home. as a result, he was held back a couple times in different grades.

eventually, boone would flip a final fuck you to the system and drop out of high school. who needs big brains?? certainly NOT him. instead of pursing a fruitful career like every other kid on the block, he acquired the necessary license to become a long haul driver because 1) he wanted to travel and 2) what else was he gonna do.

rootin great rapport via walkie talkie channels with all his trucker buds, tootin his loud ass horn down the highway at every little car that tried to cut him off, boone was content with this way of life. until he met some girl at some bar, somewhere along the way home. then he was apparently in love.

when word spread of this, he inherited ( rly was given ) a whole ass house in aurora bay from a relative. rumor has it some shady business was going on in there and so having boone and his aforementioned gf live there was all a cover up to keep the cops from sniffing around. but whatever the reason, he didn't care. he got a free home, away from his parents.

while boone wasn't exactly your all american, golden boy or best big brother, he felt guilty ditching his younger siblings, and made a point to keep his door open for them if they ever needed a place to crash. he wasn't the affectionate type by any means, but he tried to be a better influence than their parents ever were.

without ever having any real big bills to pay, thanks to the inheritance, boone did well to save up a huge chunk of his earnings. so when his girlfriend ended up having a baby, he quit his long haul job and bought a boat, eventually landing a solid gig with the local scuba diving club. all the rich people loved disrupting the ocean life, so he thought it was a great investment. big brains.

having been the boat driver for air bubbles for nearly a decade, he's been through all kinds of ups and downs. his girlfriend left him for an accountant and moved across the country with their kid, he lowkey became an alcoholic by trying to drink his sorrows away, and his house was broken into one night by a couple guys he used to run with ( he thinks ), which resulted in him almost getting shot for trying to fight off the assailants. safe to say now, he keeps a shotgun tucked away for future intimidation ( which he may or may not legally own ).

———— ◽️ 𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐒

he's lowkey insane. like homeboy has no qualms when it comes to protecting his territory and his people, and is no stranger to violence.

however crazy he may get, he has a soft spot for his family & co-workers. to make up for being so shitty when he was younger, boone does his best now to help out where he can and looks out for his own.

drives an old ford bronco, but also owns a loud af dirtbike that he rips around on at night to 'clear his head'.

checks in on his parents every so often bc as much as they tainted his childhood, they also showed him some sort of love in their own fucked up way.

still drinks almost every night, so he's always at a bar or lounge. would probably sing karaoke if he was drunk enough.

does a video call with his kid every day ( or every other day ) and faithfully pays out child support. while he misses his daughter, boone knows she's better off growing up away from his family's antics.

( @aurorabayaesthetic )

[masschase]

for the boss ask meme, I have my own question:

what little (or big) bits of lore about your boss have you not shared yet with the world?

- snail-eggs :)

(p.s. your boss is so cool and i’m living off crumbs here, i wanna know more)

Boss ask meme

You think my boss is cool? 👉👈

It's funny because I do toss out scraps to some extent because irl I am extremely shy and awkward. I have a much higher confidence level online but I still get the feeling of oh no, I'm annoying everyone so... I sling out ask memes to see if there's anything people actually want to hear. I make fun of my asshole with a gun disaster bi emperor of everything but she is very close to my heart too. I wanted to draw her in each era to do a proper intro post, but I'm still developing confidence in drawing again.

I do get a little confused about what I've posted in fanfic vs what I've written but not posted yet vs what I've posted about her on here vs what i've slung in tags on other posts.

So I'm going to post stuff that just feels 'lore-y' and more about her personality vs. her life before the Saints, which I've written about in the other ask meme here and during the Saints which is basically the events of all the games with some fill-ins between/during them.

Ahem.

She's a big literature nerd. Spent her childhood escaping into books. Wanted to study English Lit at college but ended up dropping out of HS instead. She particularly loves period novels because they have relatably strong heroines but their problems are so frivolous compared to days without food or getting shot in the streets. She can relate to them just enough to escape into the idea of having no real problems. In fact she'd very much like to be Austen's Emma. It's pointed out in the post-SRIV era that she is in fact handsome, clever and rich now.

Obviously (and this is an example of really running a brief mention in canon) she particularly loves Jane Austen. She tends to fling out quotes when she's drunk because they just come to her in that lucid state, but also because, as Johnny calls out, she'd probably be doing it sober if she wasn't worried about "being a dork". Also the Brontes would be her next choice as Male Voice 1's line about reading Jane Eyre 13 times is canon to her too.

Again I think this is not unusual for a Boss in general but she often comes across as a bit of an airhead when really she is quite intelligent. I feel like by SRTT she is playing this up a little without realising and by some time post-SRIV she's straight up doing it on purpose at times; more out of humility than anything though it does contribute to people underestimating her. The first time Matt tries to tell her about her brain activity in the simulation she responds with "Sure, whatever Matt, blah blah FUUUUCK.". He tries again a year and a half later when they are actually friends and gets "Huh. OK. Well let’s just keep that between us, Matty."

Underneath/alongside that, though, is this third level that is just... slightly surreal and quite cheesy. Not always for humour, either, sometimes it's just her being completely serious in her bizarreness.

A slightly humorous example would be how she sticks Viola and Oleg together to run Steelport. She says it's her get along shirt. She does the same with Pierce and Shaundi and the 'dirty dancing' dance.

A more serious example would be from one of my favourite chapters I've written but not posted yet where she's talking to Matt about their new planet during Nyte Blayde night. They get onto how they can persuade people to want to live there and to repopulate and the concept of the American dream. She points out that it was always something used to drive immigration and asks why he wants to live in her new nation. He makes a joke about her new nation having no internet if he doesn't, but then gives a very heartfelt response. She gets emotional and doesn't really know what to say so she gives him a green m&m. "My... green card?" he asks, because they're super close by this point and he's used to her weird brain.

Something similar is at play to the intelligence thing is how nice she is. She gets caught up in the snark with everyone else but equally when someone is kind to her she leans into that too. She would deny that she is the tough girl with a heart of gold type bc she doesn't try to hide her softer side. She just IS badass and reckless and kind and emotional and will do anything for her friends all at once. She doesn't stop calling herself an asshole, but that's more or less an internalised message by this point.

Which brings me onto honesty. It's not like she just comes out with everything, hardly surprising considering how shy she was pre-Saints, but she's not inclined to lie either. Ask a question and unless she is in denial about it herself (e.g. love) or concerns something from long enough ago that she finds it cringey (e.g. her penchant for trading cards and other non-techy nerdy shit in her teens), she's likely to answer honestly. Kinzie never seems to learn this and will ask her things to try to fluster her only to get a very honest gross answer. Alcohol or weed definitely exacerbates this honesty.

She is like... superstitious in a slightly weird way. Like where she's half joking and half believes it. Shaundi notes that she buys good luck charms whenever she sees them because she broke a mirror in *checks notes* February 2015. She *has* to get the christmas decorations down on time. She has this whole thing where pancakes are a bad omen bc Zinjai started making them whenever he had bad news for her. This came from a longer thing where Keith David's mom always did that and Casey told Johnny no-one ever did that for her and then Matt overheard and told Zinjai to do it for her when the heat broke and they were on backup heaters... this is already so long lmao.

She's always cold; she grew up in several layers and a snowsuit. She eats a lot. She fucks a lot of people including every SRIV romance option once bc she decides if she only fucks each of her friends once she won't develop feelings for them. She has a lot of these sorts of somewhat arbitrary, pulling rank rules about work at times actually, it's one of her more unpleasant qualities. A little dizzied by power. Luckily she does get called out on it and she does get better over time.

She tends to cry at most media, a lot more than irl. If that media is somehow relatable to her own life; something about a protective older sibling, a lonely child, a struggle for money, something where the protagonist loses a friend or friends, the floodgates full on open.

She's extremely anti-relationship for years and at times her excuses are pretty flimsy. Again, Johnny takes issue with this as he wants to see his best friend/little sister figure happy and feels she uses his loss of Aisha to back up her commitment issues. She has a genuine fear of losing someone she loves but fails to notice how dramatically her circumstances have changed between sr2&3 for this to be way less of an issue. All of it really is backing up a very deep fear of abandonment. Her father left, her mother neglected her, her sister had to leave home for the good of her own child. This is why the Saints become such a family to her.

This is probably super incoherent as I'm running on very little sleep and I've been writing it in drabbles for most of the day. In case it wasn't obvious, I'm always happy to answer more questions about her though and I'm sorry if this is kind of... boring. I never know where to start. I've been writing this character for months now and now I feel like I know her so well that it's almost as hard to talk about her without specific questions as if I was asked to just talk about myself. That's why I'm always fishing for questions from ask memes. I either don't know where to start or it ends in a word vomit like this 😅

Thank you for your question @snail-eggs!

[phatskoreanlitblog]

Reflections on a Year of Reading Korean Literature

Book: 

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

I’ll Be The One Lyla Lee 

Shine by Jessica Jung

When I learned about the assignment this year I was excited to learn more about 3 specific countries in general: Korean, Vietnam, and Japan. I decided to go with Korea because out of the 3 it’s the one that I know the least about. Plus I know Vietnam and Japan will be more popular so Korea will be the one that I’ll most likely get. After 20 weeks of reading about Korean literature I learn so much more about how the country view on thing like multi racial and people of lgbtq+ community. All though Korea is still a very old fashion country when it come to being open to LGBTQ+ community. But as time went by they became more open to it and started to slowly accept them as part of their life slowly but surely. A very common theme from all the books that I’ve read is talking about how a life as an idol looks like. It kinda in one way exposed the ugly side of being an idol. When everything looks so elegant and glamorous on the outside. But deep inside it is full of manipulation, unhealthy diet, underage labor, and many many more things that happen behind the scenes.

From Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. I learned that you should always be appreciative of people around you, especially your family before it is too late. Even if sometimes they could be harsh on you to make you become a better person. But deep inside it comes from a place of love and they truly wanted you to be successful. Yes that could be very annoying and you could hate them but always remember that no matter what happens they’ll always be your comfort zone and someone you can fall back onto. So always appreciate and give them love and spend time with you before it is too late and you'll regret it for the rest of your life.

From I’ll Be The One Lyla Lee. I learned about how harsh it can be to be someone who is on the plus side of living in a place where beauty is the most important thing. How it's hard to be right when everyone looks down on you just because of the way you look. But at the same time it is up to you to prove them wrong. So despite what people tell you or say about you it is important to keep a straight mindset and work hard to get what you want. And prove to everyone that it doesn't matter if you’re fat or skinny, pretty or ugly, rich or poor as long as you work hard people will look up to you and see you as successful and also as their role model. Proving to everyone that you have been right all this time.

From Shine by Jessica Jung. Another problem and theme that come up in the book is being multi racial and family problem. But if I have to be honest it is not just a problem in Korea but also around the world. Like in Rachel's case she’s Korean American, she doesn’t feel American enough in America nor Korean enough in Korea. But at the same time being biracial is also hard for her to follow her dream as an idol. On one side her mom wanted her to go to college and get a quote on a real job. But on the other hand her colleagues kinda come at her for being American in a way. But at the end despite everything she went through she fought hard and debuted in Girls forever. But what sticks with me the most is also the fact that her mom and her have a talk about how she just wanted to protect Rachel from getting hurt just like her when she was young. Solving all the misleading thoughts and problems between her and her mom throughout the book.

To be honest throughout the 20 weeks of reading. I still think that I’m not really a reader. Yes sometimes reading is fun especially when it’s about my interest. But if I have to be honest it really is not my thing. But at the same time I learned that it is okay for me to be weak sometimes when it comes to certain things. And the value of family to me as a person. It's hard to be around people when you don't feel like you belong. Yes it might just be me and my head. But at the same time you never really know what could be really going behind my back. Besides as an Asian moving to a whole new continent and country of course I’ll never feel like I belong no matter how long it has been or how hard I work to prove to myself that I do. Because in reality I’ll never be.

[snugglyporos]

Worth noting how 'media literacy' applies here, because media literacy is not just normal literacy in the sense of being capable of reading. Lots of people talk about media literacy but won't talk about how you learn to be literate, so I'm going to do that here.

First, we have a tweet, a picture, and a headline, all of which are designed to invoke a response by the reader: former rough sleeper wins permission for anti-homeless gates outside 8 million pound home.

This, right here, should raise a ton of red flags. Even if the story was true, the reality is that this is a perfect example of media speak, and the purpose of a headline is to make you buy papers. This kind of thing is indistinguishable from when advertisers go 'new! different! fast acting!' So right away, we should be asking questions and not taking it at face value.

Second, let's consider the source: who are the Telegraph? Americans probably don't know them, but they're a right wing media outlet in Britain. More importantly perhaps, they're owned by Lloyds Banking Group, which is as the name indicates, a financial player in the British Economy. Not much different from how, right now, the San Francisco Times is being influenced by their billionaire owner.

Young people, myself included, are pretty familiar with the concept of clickbait, or rage bait, where things are meant to get you to do or think something based entirely on knee-jerk emotion. Many people are less used to thinking of this sort of thing being deployed by legacy institutions, or that a bunch of stodgy old people could deploy it like they're 15 year old redditors. But they DO, and you should be aware of it.

Now, we should go a bit deeper. We've examined the intention of the headline, and the source it's coming from. But now we need to examine deeper, and talk about the motive. Could they simply want a dirt story on Sheeran? Possibly. Celebrity dirt always gets someone's attention. Could they be trying to tamp down on his anti-homelessness work in service of a larger conservative effort to punish homelessness? Also possible.

But that's not really the core reason for the story, and reading it should give us clues as to what it's really about.

First, we have the facts of the case: Sheeran wanted to build a privacy fence, and he was denied, because the city council decided that the one he wanted wouldn't fit in the area he lived in, because something something 'cultural homogeneity' or whatever. Wherever you fall on the 'bring down the HOA vs gentrification bad' spectrum isn't really relevant here.

But what IS relevant is the fact that he wanted a privacy fence, this was not news for the Telegraph when it was denied, but when it was approved they ran this story.

Okay, so now let's ask a question: why does he need to have a privacy fence in the first place?

Well, you could say A. that's his right as a homeowner, or B. that he wants to keep weird fans away, but neither of those is true, and the REAL answer is informed by the Telegraph itself posting this.

You see, in Britain, the paparazzi is, to but it bluntly, legendarily bad. They have a history of doing everything from illegally hacking phones to causing the death of Princess Diana. Press freedom might be more restricted in the UK with their libel laws, but their paparazzi are much, much worse than in the US.

And then you can put together that the reason Sheeran put up his fence is to keep people from the Telegraph and other papers from banging on his doors and trying to take photos inside his windows and things like that.

Which, as you can imagine, is a problem for the Telegraph. But 'famous musician puts up gate and fence to keep annoying paparazzi away from his house' doesn't sell many papers.

Thus you get 'Ed Sheeran, former homeless guy, joins in the anti-homeless sentiment now that he's rich' because the goal is to pressure him to take down the fence and give the Telegraph and others like it more access.

And it is, of course, worth noting that it isn't a lie, not entirely, that things like gates and privacy fences could, in theory, be used to be anti-homeless. So it'll fly under the libel laws.

But it's worth noting here that this is how a story is spun, how it is disseminated, and how it's designed to get you to react to it. There's zero difference between that tweet and a tiktok or youtube thumbnail trying to get you to click on it and hear spin.

So, to be media literate, follow the following steps when you encounter something like that tweet in the wild:

Examine the words used. Are there words that act as deliberate triggers of emotional feeling? Words mean things, and using, for example, anti-homeless alongside 8 million pound home, are designed to cause a reaction. With a tweet, there's a character limit, same as a headline, and that means every word used is deliberately chosen to invoke a reaction.

Examine the source. Who is writing this story? In America, we would probably expect different things depending on whether the source was First Things or if it was The Jacobin. The source matters. No source is ever entirely non-biased; bias is innate to people after all; but some sources are more biased than others. In this case, the Telegraph is a right wing rag, closer to what we in America would call a tabloid.

Ask what the goal of the story is. Space in media is limited. Doesn't matter if it's the space of a physical page or space on the website for articles, someone still has to take time and effort to write a story and then put it on the website and those people need to be paid, and that means that they have some intentions behind that. They're not putting up whatever they feel like, like it's a tumblr blog you run for fun. This is a business and there will always be motive behind every action. In this case, the motive of the story is to twist actions that hurt the paper into things that paint Sheeran as a hypocrite, in order to gain support for what the paper wants, which is more access to Sheeran and others like him.

Remember! Do this for things you like as well as hate. Lots of people are willing to do this for things they like, but are not as willing to do them for things they dislike, because we naturally view our own preferences as being apolitical or unbiased. When you do something, it's okay, when they do something it's political, that's how people think.

Media literacy is about asking questions about things, not just accepting what you're told at face value. If your first instinct upon reading a tweet like that is to immediately accept its premise, you could stand to take a step back and consider if that was intended or not.

Please don’t pay for his music.

[xxdoubledaisyxx]

"Well... I've never had a girlfriend to ever care about one and I've had only the scarcest and rare sighting encounters with women to never be able to socialize with female beings. So I literally have nothing better to do than solve the world's problems by taking over from now on. Seriously... they are dead set on preventing me from having a girlfriend, and that is the very reason I find it so convenient to destroy them and hang their bastard pawn."

With nothing to think about women without ever having had a meaningful relationship with one, I have nothing to distract me from world domination, and nothing to distract me from world domination.

Whatever. Not my problem that women are livestock property of rich people and media contracts.

That's their own choice because they are too lazy to work in real life.

Oh really? Why do I need to point every god damn thing out to you for you to start realizing how fucked up and stupid you are?

Anyway, where's that bastard traitor? Hey Trump! You are an offensive stain upon creation with your unwanted and vile existence leaving a forgettable memory of how pathetically greedy and insecure in your own masculinity you are while boasting otherwise. As a matter of fact, you are intolerable to me, so I'm going to destroy you, and take everything that was yours, including that hell hole nation you were the evil idiot who sacrificed himself to be president. Why? Because fuck you. You annoy me you ungrateful, arrogant fool! So I am going to put you out, and no longer be burdened by your wasted life and vile existence as a living citizen in what is now my nation.

What other reason do I need to kill a man? You are an annoying bastard ruining the fun for everyone. Die.

Once his corpse is disposed of with all the other dead terrorists and traitors, party on.

There will be no party anywhere while those bastards in the government are being a problem with their immaturity and disrespect for American tradition and culture. Government... you are not allowed to be a problem. You will be corrected with extreme prejudice to hopefully discourage you from requiring correction again. Doubtful considering how unintelligent you people are.

We have got to hold our elected officials to a higher standard than that.

Destroy a nation because they are all so obediently subservient to the very one person I intend to have hanged to shatter the illusion of government security. There is only one way to stay safe and secure from now on. Nico's Way.

Here is how it goes: I get my way, or I leave. There is a third option, that is better left implied.

Seriously... how did so many of you people get screwed by one single idiot's lies and cowardice? You ought to be ashamed, and not only because a citizen is telling you, even though it is my place to. You should be ashamed because of what you have told yourself to ever have to require a reality check about your stations and offices because of what you abused your privileges to do.

Debate that among yourselves later, this ends in death because that's life and fuck you too. War wins over peace every time. Who is pretending to be at war, and who is pretending to be peaceful?

[whereareroo]

JUST A GLITCH

WF THOUGHTS (9/4/24).

We seem to be having a problem with our television. It’s stuck on the tennis channel.

It’s a recurring problem. It happens every January, when they play the Australian Open. It also happens at the end of May and the beginning of July, when they play the French Open and Wimbledon. To complete the cycle, it happens again in late August and early September, when they play the U.S. Open. It’s annoying. Mrs. Lifepartner says that it’s some glitch in our system. I have my suspicions.

I’ve never liked tennis. In fact, I hate tennis. I’ve always hated tennis.

First of all, tennis isn’t an American sport. Baseball is an American sport. Football is an American sport. Basketball is an American sport. Tennis is an import from England. Tennis is in the same category as black pudding and haggis. They’re three items that should have no place in America.

Secondly, tennis is a sport for rich people. It was played by rich people in England. It’s primarily played by rich people in America. I don’t like elitist sports. I like sports that can be played by street kids on the street or in a school yard. You can’t play tennis on a street. You need a fancy tennis court. Fancy tennis courts give me the creeps.

For reasons that I won’t fully discuss here, Mrs. Lifepartner likes tennis. She’s played tennis for most of her life. In high school, she was a premier player. She likes to watch tennis. I suspect that she conspired with our cable provider to engineer the recurring glitch in our system. She denies it.

This year, there’s a glimmer of hope for me. I might not smash the television with my baseball bat.

My glimmer of hope is a 26 year old American named Frances Tiafoe. He was born in Maryland in 1998. To escape a civil war in their homeland of Sierra Leone, his father immigrated to America in 1993 and his mother followed in 1996. When Frances was born, the United States Tennis Association (the elite governing body for elitist American tennis) was building a new training facility in Maryland. When Frances was a year old, his father got a job as a laborer on the construction crew. When the training facility was completed, Mr. Tiafoe was hired as chief custodian. As part of his compensation, Mr. Tiafoe was allowed to use a small office at the facility as his living space. Frances Tiafoe, the future tennis star, lived in that small space at the tennis center for 11 years. When he was four, he started to play tennis every day. When Frances was five years old, his father convinced a coach to teach his kid for free. The rest is history.

This year, the U. S. Open started on August 19th. It started with 128 male competitors. There are only 4 men left. Frances Tiafoe is one of them!

To get to the finals, Frances needs to win a big match on Friday night (September 6th). Despite my strong dislike of tennis, I’ll be cheering for him. You should cheer for him too. Isn’t his story amazing?

If Frances doesn’t win, I’ll be needing a new television. Send your contributions to Mrs. Tennislady. Do you think that a new TV will solve the glitch in our system?

[tanadrin]

I think this is wrong in the worst way--that it's superficially plausible, if you aren't really paying attention, but doesn't engage with the actual substance of the problem, and doesn't approach the problem in a way that would actually give us the tools to solve it. And it narrows the blame far too much! It exonerates the huge numbers of people in the US who think the current system is fine, who actively vote for it, but who don't happen to personally benefit from it.

Rural towns which bid for prisons to be built nearby, simply are not numerous enough--not even with prison populations inflating the size of their electoral districts--to shape law enforcement policy across the country. That policy is shaped by prosecutors, judges, and lawmakers, is reinforced by police departments and a media that is extraordinarily hostile to any attempts at reform (cf. the fight over bail reform in New York and the way media outlets have flagrantly lied about and misrepresented the consequences of bail reform, often repeating claims of cops and former cops without any kind of fact-checking). And the people who elect those prosecutors, judges, and lawmakers--whose opinions are shaped by stories in local news--are the larger body of voters, many of whom are urban and many of whom vote pretty reliably Democratic.Voters who are scared silly about the Crime Bogeyman, voters who often have strong implicit racial biases when it comes to imagining what the Crime Bogeyman looks like and where it comes from.

That this is a more diffuse phenomenon is important! Because the problem isn't a single set of greedy evil small-town racists, it's the general American media environment and the general American perspective on crime, which still believes that tough-on-crime approaches work and that progressive attempts to reform law enforcement do nothing but cause crime rates to spike. And while some of that can be blamed on bad reporting and cops lying (both of which are pretty common!), there is a broader and deeper cultural attitude that makes those lies and bad reporting particularly plausible to American voters, and particularly effective as political tactics. And unfortunately it's the same attitude that makes suburban whites in favor of school integration in principle, but causes them to freak out when you propose integrating the schools their kids attend, and it's not the product of shady manipulation by a small clique of oligarchs deliberately perpetuating racism to get rich.

Like I don't deny there are people who probably benefit from structural inequalities in American society. But there is a very big difference from being in a position to benefit off preexisting inequalities, and creating those inequalities. If you could somehow erase every small, racist Southern town from the map, you would not stop the phenomenon of mass incarceration in the US, because small Southern towns that are supported by prisons are a symptom, not a cause.

And this is what I meant in my response to @alkatyn. For someone like you, who must divide the world into Manichaean categories of good people and bad people, it would be enough to disempower or to punish the right bad people, because bad things come from bad people, and not from more diffuse social attitudes or incentive gradients. But that's a comforting lie: in fact, the world is full of people who are good in some respects and ignorant and foolish in others, and it is not a matter of identifying and dethroning the power-wielding bad people, because the obviously bad people are like at best 20% of the problem. They give you a satisfying emotional and rhetorical target, but the world is mostly bigger and messier and more complicated than that.

And I won't lie, it annoys me a little that you can't name specific examples, you can't even put broad ballpark figures to your attempt at arguing against my post, that all you have is vibes. Like my back of the envelope math shows that prison labor in the US just isn't that profitable! It's not that big of an industry! $11 billion a year, the estimated fruits of all prison labor, is like 0.04% of U.S. GDP--not 4%, 0.04%. 80% of that labor is spent in prison upkeep, so that's what, $2.2 billion available to line private pockets? This is not a load-bearing part of the American plutocracy. Even private prison contractors aren't that big a portion of the prison economy--only around 8% of U.S. prisoners are housed in private prisons.

And none of this is an apology for the American prison system, which is brutal and inhumane, or for the American justice system, which is deeply biased against poor and minority defendants. But I wish people who had been whipped up into a frenzy with rhetoric about the vast machine of the American prison-industrial complex would try to put some relative figures to their intuitions, because you talk about it like millions of prisoners are being worked to death in sweatshops, and that's. Uh. Not true.

This is not just dumb evil shit, but a hundred and fifty years old technique to control Black population and a tool for the white elite to compensate themselves for the loss of slaves.

This rhetoric just histrionics. The total U.S. prison population is about 1.2 million; IIRC about 800,000 prisoners are employed (again, 80% of those in prison upkeep!). So not only is the replacement for the whole system of slavery a fraction of the number of slaves held in the South at the time of the Civil War--about four million; and keep in mind 800,000 is the nationwide prison population regardless of race, not the population of prisoners in the South--it's gone from about one-third of the population of the South to 0.6% of the population of the south (again, if all prisoners in the United States were held in the South. Which they are not).

And what also annoys me mightily about this is that I paid attention in U.S. history in school, and I know that there was an actual system imposed to try to replace slavery in the post-Civil War era, and it was a combination of sharecropping and Jim Crow laws. Which were much more effective, because they actually worked to keep black agricultural workers working in agriculture--you know, the whole industry slavery existed to support in the 19th century! So not only is your rhetoric hyperbolic, it's historically erroneous.

Please read actual American history (there's some really good leftist American history out there!), and don't get your understanding of the American political economy from tumblr posts and twitter.

Saw someone claim in a comments section that something like 25% of Louisiana’s GDP comes from prison labor. Which would be insane if it was true. They must be running the most technologically advanced prisons in the country. They’re using prison labor to build microchips or some shit while everybody else is still using it to make license plates.

[tumbling-darkling]

Miraculous Ghosts

Danny and friends visit Paris and come across trouble, as well as the cities local superheroes.

Lately, Hawkmoth has been recycling villains. There are only so many people in Paris and not everyone gets emotionally vulnerable strongly enough or long enough to be akumatized. Those that do, and commonly like Mr. Pidgeon, usually had a certain fixation that was easy to exploit. The thing was, both Marienette and Chat Noir already knew their weakness, the items that would most likely get akumatized, the whole schtick. So the battles were really fast and easy.

A new face always had to be met with caution, the lack of knowledge regarding the person was dangerous and if the pair wasn’t careful, they could end up losing the battle. And their Miraculous.

With the start of summer came tourist season, and tourists could be victims of akumatization. Which seemed to be the case within the first week. 3 villains, all new faces, but the pair had gotten lucky with the similar powers that the heroes had faced before and the three were all defeated in a timely manner.

There was a short week of nothing happening.

And then all hell broke loose.

—————————————————————

Marienette knew the start of the tourist season had begun just based on the filled streets of strange faces, sunglasses, cameras, and the use of foreign languages. This also was noticed based on how busy her parents' shop had become, and how rarely she was managing to escape outside to enjoy some of summer's freedom. The good thing was she was able to brush up on some of her English, since the tourists usually spoke the common American language and the experience was always welcome to help boost her grades in the upcoming year. Even if it was a few months away.

She’d figured out the best way to sneak off during any attacks was to ‘use the bathroom’ or ‘accidently’ make a mess and excuse herself to clean up. It had worked during the first week and she didn’t have to do anything the past week since Hawkmoth seemed to take a break. She finished serving a young pair of Americans, a tall girl with orange hair, and a lanky boy nearly the same height with raven black hair.

She had to admit, some Americans had a certain charm, but the bustle of the kitchen quickly caught her attention as she was back to serving the next person in line.

Just as Chloe waltzed in, basically knocking the american boy over as she strutted to the front of the line, causing people to cast glares in her direction. The boy hissed when he fell, the American girl offering to help him up in English as he shook his head and stood up, dusting himself off as Marienette went to deal with the walking form of pure rich privilege. “Urg, Dupain-Cheng’s dingy little cafe? Of course she works here, it just smells like burnt bread.” She huffed.

Marienette bristled, but put on her customer service smile, noticing the poor Americans victim to Chloe leaving the shop. She was hoping to offer them a replacement after dealing with Chloe but it was a little late now. “Ma’am, unless you are here to pick up an order, you will have to wait in line like everyone else.” She strained.

“Ma’am? I am Chloe Dubois! I don’t need to wait in line like some sort of peasant! Just give me whatever you didn’t make.”

Marienette had to swallow down any returning insults and put down one of their most expensive items, handing it over with a clearly strained smile, “have a nice day.”

Chloe huffed with her baked goods in hand but left as soon as she appeared, allowing Marienette some relief. Very little damage. A little annoyance but nothing worthy of an akuma-.

An explosion was heard from outside, and Marienette groaned internally.

She just had to jinx it.

—————————————————————

Ladybug dove off to the side as the villain shot out a ray of white, plasma-like energy. Adrien, fighting as Chat Noir, and his partner were having a hell of a time with this dude. He spotted the chaos on the news, the villain calling himself ‘Black Hole’ and giving his poor Lady a hard time. When he finally arrived on the scene, he wasn’t able to do much either.

The villain was basically a godly powerhouse, floating in the air, shooting burning rays of heated plasma, or even ice! Ice and plasma! Sometimes he MIXED the two beams to create an even WORSE beam! Whenever either of the heroes got close enough to land a hit, their punches and kicks would go right through him. Then he would DISAPPEAR. REAPPEARING AND LANDING ANOTHER HEAVY BLOW. He would fly around like gravity was non-existent, and these abilities didn’t stop there. Every so often, he would yank out this thermos looking thing and shoot out these wormholes. Or… possibly black holes. Calling them black holes felt wrong though… since they glowed green and swirled before disappearing after a few moments.

The villain's outfit was a change of pace too. It was impossible to figure out his age since he was completely covered in a thick fabric material that reminded him of space suits. Yet looked a lot less bulky than actual space suits, thin yet sturdy metal covered his forearms, and formed a backpack that was attached by a wide metal collar that spread to his collarbone and slightly covered his shoulders, as well as a metal strap that wrapped around right under his chest. A plated, metal belt circled his waist with a clip for the green black hole thermos, and thigh high boots with a similar fabric to his suit covered most of his legs, thick plastic looking platform soles attached at the feet. Black bands wrapped around the ankles of the boots. A helmet covered his entire face, a metal frame covering the bottom half like a muzzle while the top was a tinted glass dome following the shape of his head, the inside of it entirely black except for the eerie glow of a single, left eye. The helmet had a tube on the back of the helmet that connected to his backpack, but neither he or Ladybug could figure out if it was essential or for decoration. His entire colouring was monotone, much bleaker than their previous villains. His suit was black, the boots, forearm cuffs, belt, backpack and collar were all a middle shade of grey, the only flash of colour being the glow of the single toxic green eye amongst the darkness of the helmet.

The dude was disturbing. He didn’t make any sound, in fact he seemed to ABSORB the sound around him. Like they were in space.

Paris was getting destroyed more and more by the second and the two didn’t know what to do. The Lady’s lucky charm turned into a thermos, which she didn’t have a clue how to use in the situation in front of them. Maybe it was a hint? A clue about soup? Or getting the villains thermos?

The problem with the last idea was that neither he or Ladybug could TOUCH this villain. And each of them were getting worse and worse for wear by the second. He could tell Ladybug was getting ready to get some sort of help, but who could make something untouchable… touchable? Chat even tried to use cataclysm on the villain's thermos while Ladybug had distracted him, but he twisted at the last moments and grabbed Chat's hand, draining cataclysm before he tossed him aside like it was nothing.

Another blast of plasma sent the two tumbling away from each other, and then a blast of ice caught Chat off guard. Cold shot up his arm as his muscles convulsed, a scream caught in his throat as the ice trapped his arm in such a tight and sturdy prison. He twisted to try and use his free arm to claw the other out of the ice, a shadow in the corner of his vision causing him to twist and jolt in surprise as the villain stood right in front of him. The glowing green eye was cold as it bore into him, and the villain grew closer and closer, drifting off the ground and absorbing every noise around him, the air around them dropping to freezing temperatures. Chats breath formed in front of him as gasps, panic clear in the quick breaths, fear intensifying as the only thing he could hear was his own heartbeat and blood roaring through his veins.

The villain's hand shot out and grabbed his free one- the one with his miraculous.

Chat heard Ladybug cry out as the villain gripped onto the ring, a quick glance showing she too was trapped.

That she was next.

Chat tried to keep his fingers curled, but he was battered and weak, and the villain hadn’t even broken a sweat during their fight. Prying open his fingers was easy, the ring vulnerable. This was it. He used cataclysm too soon and now he was powerless. He couldn’t escape. He couldn’t save anyone. He was a failure. This was the end of Paris.

They lost.

—————————————————————

Fucking. Vlad.

This entire trip had Danny on edge and it was all because of Vlad.

At first, he thought maybe, for once, Vlad wasn’t being a piece of shit when offering the family a fully paid trip to France for two weeks. He was suspicious. He probably just wanted the family out of town to do some shady shit. But a two week trip to France wasn’t the WORST thing a man could do. Especially in comparison to kidnapping and cloning.

But then his parents got sick. A common flu. Right before the trip. And they wanted Jazz and him to experience Paris. Then Vlad offered to be a chaperone.

It was all a play to get Danny alone for two weeks and try and manipulate him.

He did manage to get Tucker and Sam to tag along, something about friends being his family and the two unused tickets his parents left behind. But Vlad knew how to separate the group. How to corner Danny at the worst moments and whisper annoying remarks in his ear as he tried to get away.

He survived a week. He only had one more week to go. Tucker and Sam were off checking out some places for lunch while Jazz and Danny went to pick up sweets for everyone to share after their meal.

Vlad was off doing who knew what so Danny had put him to the back of his mind.

The cafe they found was… well it smelled incredible. There were so many baked goods on display and the air was filled with the warm and sweet smell of the goodies. He let Jazz do most of the talking, she wanted to practice her French and Danny had recently discovered that being dubbed the ghost king meant that now he had a natural grasp on all verbal languages, including the dead ones. This meant his speech in French was almost flawless, and his understanding was like he was listening to someone speak English. He couldn’t read other languages though, just speak them. He was told though by a few locals he had an odd accent. It wasn’t an american one, just… odd.

So Jazz ordered the treats and the pair was headed out to meet Danny’s friends.

Then some blonde girl with way too much make-up basically knocked him to the ground, not even sending him a glance that indicated she knew what she did. It was annoying, but he dealt with bullies on a daily basis back at Amity Park. Well… used to. But he knew better than to waste any thought on some jerk like her. He sadly looked at the ruined cat paw shaped cookies, the icing ruined and the cookies crushed under his weight when he fell.

Standing up with the help of Jazz, they left the shop as Danny insisted on finding somewhere to wash off the icing stuck to his shirt. He liked this shirt too… he hoped it wouldn’t stain too badly. It was better than ectoplasm at least, that stuff needed to be burned out, there was no such thing as washing out ectoplasm.

Jazz asked to help, but Danny brushed her off, telling her he could easily clean himself off by himself.

And then Vlad chose that moment to corner him.

—————————————————————

“Hello Daniel.”

Danny splashed water wildly as he spun around to glare at the older Halfa, hissing out an ‘Ancients!’ in surprise. “What the hell, Vlad?” He spat, “sneaking up on a kid in the bathroom? I should just call the police and tell them about all that stalking you like to do.”

“Aren’t you tired of this childish game?” He hummed.

“Not really, seeing as I’m a child and I love games,” Danny sneered.

“I’m older, more experienced, and stronger. I am also patient, little badger. And it’s easy to wear you down. By the end of this trip, you are going to be begging to be my-.”

“Son? Pet? Little slave that does everything you ask? Sorry, Vladdy, but I ain’t the type to listen to crazy fruit loops. How about you go enjoy the company of your French rich friends like that Agreste dude instead of stalking me and trying to get with my mom and kill my dad. Might do you some good to make more friends than just your cat.”

“Oh Daniel, you throw your petty insults but I know ways to break you even further. You know, a lot of accidents happen in Paris. Terrible things.”

Danny felt his eyes flash as he spun on his heel, “listen to me, if you even consider-!”

“Not to mention your brand new ghostly responsibilities as… the ghost king? Imagine that. A child as the king. You don’t even know everything about ghosts.”

“Neither do you!” Danny spat.

“Oh but I know so much more. And I could easily teach you-.”

“Just shut up!”

“When you mess up, when the ghost zone begins to fall apart, you will wish you took my offer, but I may not be as forgiving when that happens.”

“I said shut up!”

“And we both know the moment the ghost zone falls apart, so will this world. All because a boy became king and didn’t take help he was so graciously offered.”

“SHUT THE HELL UP!”

Something inside him shifted, and Danny suddenly felt his mind cloud, a deep voice echoed his mind.

“A cruel man harassing a young teen that wants nothing to do with him. A shame when someone can’t take a hint.

Black Hole. I am Hawkmoth. I can give you the power to show this old man that he never should consider looking in your direction ever again.

All I ask is for Ladybug and Chat Noir’s miraculous. Do this for me, and Vlad Masters will never be an issue for you ever again.”

Danny’s clouded mind and building rage smirked at the offer, his voice echoing as he glanced up at Vlad who was giving him a confused look. “Yes, Hawkmoth.”

Darkness engulfed him and then his memory began to fail him.

—————————————————————

A boomerang slammed into Black Hole’s head, causing it to jerk to the side and a small crack formed on the glass that was hit. The metal boomerang dropped to the ground and Black Hole slowly looked down at it as a robotic voice cried out from it, “ghost detected!” And then a recorded voice spouted out, “take that, spook!”

Black Hole’s head slightly tilted at the noise it made, a hand subconsciously rubbing the crack it left behind. Then he twisted his gaze back to Chat Noir, going back to taking the hero’s miraculous.

Then a shout came from behind Black Hole and Chat caught the eyes of a teenage girl yelling and holding a bat over her head. Black Hole twisted, his body turning that transparent look whenever Chat or Ladybug had tried to hit him before, and Chat knew that it was useless. “No! Stop! Get out of here-!” He screamed at the citizen, but stopped when the bat connected with the villain's head and sent him flying into a wall.

Chat was at a loss for words for once in his life, watching the villain slowly pry himself from the wall from being hit by a baseball bat when he and Lady couldn’t land a single hit. He looked back at the citizen and shrieked as she raised the bat above her head and swung down at him, flinching and squeezing his eyes shut. She hit something, causing it to shatter and then- his hand was free!

He opened his eyes and looked at his hand in awe and then back at the girl, “who the heck are you?”

She huffed, dropping the bat casually on her shoulder, “Sam Manson. Friend of the idiot that didn’t do his research before taking a trip here. I’m surprised this didn’t happen earlier.”

Chat blinked, “you- you know that’s your friend? And knew this would happen?”

Sam shrugged, “the booo-merang is never wrong. And yeah, my friend there is not exactly the most emotionally stable person on the planet. Sorry it took us a while to get here. You guys really do move fast.”

Chat just opened and closed his mouth a few times, then yelled as she suddenly swung the bat again and smacked the villain in the gut as he got close during their exchange, knocking him sideways but not down like the first time. Black Hole turned again, making a snarling sound before he was blasted by some sort of green ray and sent flying sideways, rolling along the pavement before smashing into a car. Another teen jogged over with Ladybug behind him, dropping his hands to his knees as he wheezed, “I have ran… way too much for this to be considered a vacation.”

“M’Lady-, what is going on?” Chat asked.

“This is Tucker, and his friend Sam, and they know how to help,” Ladybug quickly explained, glancing back at Black Hole. “We need to draw his attention and get that thermos off of him, then Sam and Tucker can use this,” she held up the thermos from her lucky charm, “and we can get his akuma.”

“Akuma is in the thermos, knock it off,” Chat summarized. He heard his miraculous beeping, a sign he was close to his limit.

“Let’s end this fast.”

—————————————————————

Ladybug held the booo-merang in one hand as the two teens and Chat drew Black Hole’s attention, the teens equipped with weapons that seemed to get past some of Black Holes abilities.

She narrowed her gaze, waiting for the perfect moment, then threw the weapon, watching it arch in the air then knock the thermos off of the villain's waist. The thermos clattered to the ground and drew his attention, he quickly twisted and dove to try and retrieve it, which was when a bright beam erupted from the polka dot thermos Ladybug had given the teens. The beam caught the villain's legs and he was tugged back, his form pulling towards it like taffy as he twisted and a horrid scream of anger burst from him. He tried to escape it, flailing and reaching for anything to hang on to, but in a matter of seconds he was pulled into the canister and Sam slammed the lid shut. The screaming stopped and Ladybug made her way over to Black Hole’s thermos, stomping on it and crushing it, releasing the Akuma hidden inside. With a flick of her wrist her lucky charm turned back into its original form, dumping Black Hole onto the street, then the butterfly was caught and purified, and another click of her miraculous, she let the little bug flutter away harmlessly. With a shout, ‘Miraculous Ladybug!’, everything around them was engulfed in black and red as the damages were undone around them.

At last, the villain's form was released of Hawkmoth's influence and it left a lanky teen laying on the street. He slowly sat up with a groan and a hand to his head and she then realized it was the same teen as from the shop. So once again, this was Chloe’s fault. She turned her attention to the two teens that helped her, noticing Chat let out a hasty farewell and thanks and disappeared around a corner. “Thank you, both of you. Without your help… well, without your help we may have lost that battle. But how in the world did you do that?”

“What the fuck just happened?” The teen groaned, “I feel like the booo-merang smacked me in the head like… fifty times.”

“That’s because I may have smacked you a few times with the fenton creep stick,” Sam shrugged as she helped her friend up who gave her wide eyes in return.

“You fucking what?”

Tucker took a step forward to answer Ladybug’s question, “let's just say back in our town, we have very specific supervillains that have abilities that make it hard for regular attacks to land. So we have specialized gear. Sam and I did a bit of research before heading here and figured if any of us got Akumatized, we may reflect some of those traits.”

“I… see…” Ladybug hummed, “and where did you say you were all from?” The three cast a few glances between each other, but before any of them could answer, her miraculous beeped angrily as she quickly realized she was out of time. “Thank you again for your help, if we could meet again to exchange some of that tech to make sure this never happens again-,” she quickly tried to set up a meet up before Sam held up a hand.

“This won’t happen again. A lot of what happened here is very unique to Amity, so once we finish our vacation, you won’t see this kind of thing ever again.”

Ladybug only had more questions but the angry beeping only forced her to nod and bid a quick farewell before getting out of sight to let Tiki take a rest. Marienette held out a few macaroons for Tiki as her thoughts swirled in her head. The questions about the odd American trio and how they knew how to deal with a villain as unique as Black Hole.

She may be able to corner them later. They did say they had to ‘finish their vacation.’

And in the meantime, it was time to do some research on this place called ‘Amity’.

—————————————————————

Danny didn’t remember a lot of what happened while he was the villain, Black Hole. It was like a dream, he kinda remembered the feeling, vague details, but nothing specific.

What he wished he remembered was whatever he did to Vlad. He must have done something because his memories cut out right after Vlad harassed him in the bathroom and after the event, the froot loop avoided him during the entire trip. Even refused to make eye contact!

What he would give just for a few seconds of that memory! Or for someone to have recorded it!

For now though he got to reap the rewards, flashing his eyes green when Vlad would glance over and causing the man to flinch. Oh man, he was going to abuse this newfound intimidation ability till the bitter end.

[wenellyb]

hey! every now and then i've seen random posts about sebastian's comment/s on colin kap kneeling among other things, but i've never seen any source material or hard facts. do you have any posts about this or deconstruction of your own? i'd be very interested, ty!

Hey yourself😉!

So I've found the screenshot of the post (at the bottom) and just so you know he also posted an apolology but that one I couldn't find a screenshot of.

There are plenty of posts talking about this but I think most of them are old so it would take some time for me to find them.

If you want my opinion. The whole thing was f*cked up and I remember being extremely surprised and unfollowing him after that post.

And he did apologize, which is good and I do think he understands that that post was not great, but it wasn't my main issue.

When the whole story with Kaepernick happened it was a real eye opener and exposed a lot of racists even among celebrities. I'm looking at you Christopher Meloni. But not only him.

So Colin Kaepernick was to kneeling to protest against police violence and racism.

And a lot of people reacted like a lot of White people react when the topic of racism arise: deny everything and get defensive "How dare he protest blablabala" "He's so rich and he's saying White people are priviledged..." "How dare he say there is racism in this country". You know the usual.

But the thing is to me, the way he protested was the most respectful, and most peaceful way to protest and also so impactful. And some people had still a problem with it...I don't understand how ANYBODY could have a problem with it ... unless they were racist in one way or the other. That was the bar for me... I could not have respect ANYBODY who had a problem with him kneeling, because their message was clear “just sh*t up and play football”.

To me, anybody who had a problem with Colin Kaepernick taking a knee... was automatically problematic and the worst.

For other forms of protests there can always be arguments against it, lousy arguments, but arguements nevertheless: "They're blocking the streets" "There was violence during the protest",... etc... But what is your argument with having a man kneel during the National Anthem, to call out something as serious as police brutality.

To me it was clear that they just wanted Black Americans to shut up, and stay in their lane. "Sports have nothing to do with politics blablabla"

And unfortunately history proved Colin Kaepernick right, and I don't think anybody could voice bad opinions about him today, but at the time, a lot of people were criticizing him, calling him names, insulting him, and even some celebrities were talking about how disrespectful he was.

They cared more about the way he was voicing his protest, than the fact that racism was a real issue.

And because of the protests last year, I think a lot of people tend to forget about that time, but Kaepernick faced A LOT of backlash, A LOT and for what....??? Absolutely no justification. With the way some people reacted you would have thought he burned the American flag on a daily basis, or used it as toilet paper.

So having that in mind, it was really disheartening to see an actor you respect take part in that...

And just to be clear, this is my personal opinion, but I don't think Sebastian had any bad intention with that post (not like other celebrities who were outright criticizing Kaepernick, for some reason I only remember Chris Meloni lol). But the timing, and the content, even as a joke, even as a promotion tool for his movie was extremely bad. You also have to understand the context, and how there were a lot of people rooting against Kap.

Worst case scenerio Seb’s post was racist and best case scenario it was tone deaf.

I can only assume Sebastian watches the news in the US, so he must have known what the caption "take a knee" meant and still decided to post it... So maybe he wasn't ill-intentioned, but to him the topic was light enough that he could post it on his social media...

My main problem isn't even with Seb's post, it was a weird way to promote his movie, or a joke I don’t know. Artists do problematic stuff all the time, and it's up to the fans who support them to decide if they keep doing supporting him or not.

My main problem was and still is the reaction of the fandom, where White Seb stans think they know and understand racism better than anyone else. And honestly this is not me saying that Seb is racist, this is me saying that we should be allowed to voiced our opinions without being silenced or accused of trying to villainize him or cancel him blablabla .

But the Seb stans don't understand that and prefer to turn a blind eye.

I make difference between stans and fans. The Seb fans are the ones who are willing to listen, understand why some people might be offended and admit that their fav f*cked up. The stans are the annoying ones who yould rather keep their head in the sand.

And nobody is even asking to stop supporting Seb... If I cancel an actor, I will stop consuming his content, supporting him, paying to see his movies etc... But I'm not forcing anybody else to do it... But I would like to be free to voice my dislikes especially if that actor was being problematic... without the stans complaining about how "I don't know their fave"

I haven't cancelled Seb btw, I just don't feel like finding him excuses and glossing over the words and if I think that something he did was racist, I will say that it was racist, not "problematic" or "tactless" or "clumsy"...

I think that a lot of people are confused about what racism is, and think it is only White Supremacists who want to harm all non White people.

But it's not only that and in my opinion, there are many layers to racism. If you have "nothing against Blacl people" but there is a part of you that believes you or White people are better than Black people, well you are racist... If not hiw would you describe it? I have already told this story, but I have a friend who swore she wasn't racist and we even had a big debate about racism, and a few weeks later, her boyfriend told me that during a family dinner, she had talked about a common Black friend of theirs saying "She is pretty for a Black girl"... But if you ask my friend, she will say she isn't racist.

If you try to silence people calling out racism, you are contributing to it instead of fighting it.

Another example, I received a lot of "problematic" comments at work from coworkers on my hair, my origins etc, but when I talked about it to my friends and said those comments were racists.. they said that I was "overeacting" that those comments were harmless or just my colleagues being "ignorant". But one time, I was done with it and I wrote to HR about it losting all the comments I had received and the HR director called me and told me that those comments were racist full stop, he didn't try to minimize it or act like I was exagerrating.

And that's how I see the reactions of Seb stans whenever something from him re-sufaces, like my friends who just act like it is nothing.

Just so you know you are not helping when you do that.

They act as if we're suppoosed to accept that because "it's not that big of a deal". Who told you that? How do you determine what is a big deal or not? Especially when you have never dealt with racism?

Fandom behaves as if people who were hurt or offended by that post were overracting. "It was a joke" "It was a long time ago" "He would never do somthing racist"

How hard is it to say " I can see that my fave did something problematic, or that what he did was racist, and I would still like to support him but I understand that people were hirt"??? How hard is it to continue to stan your fave WITHOUT trying to silence people who call out the behavior.

And also the way they refuse to use the words is annoying... it's always "I'm sorry if anybody was offended", never "What I did/wrote was racist and I know better now". If no one wants to admit it when they do racist stuff... nobody will never get anywhere... Like my friend who is convinced that she isn't racist but goes around thinking that White Women are more beautiful than Black Women, and even says it when surrounded by her family. 

And people act like the people who were hurt have no reason to be hurt because he apologized, but I hope those people realize that it doesn’t work that way. An apology is great of course, but it doesn’t take out the hurt, or the feeling that if he was comfortable enough sharing this on social media, what is he comfortable doing in the safety of his close circle?, or remove the idea that maybe an actor you adored, and respected doesn’t view Black people struggles as a serious matter.

I personally don't hate Seb, far from it. And the reason why I have so many posts about him, calling him out or not, is that he is one of the very few White actors I'm interested in. I don't know him personally, but I enjoy his interviews with Anthony and enjoy his movies. But I'm not about to act like he is perfect like some of his stan do and also I have absolutely no issue with people who have "cancelled" him because of his past behavior, because I understand them and it's their choice, it's what works best for them... I don't want to force them to root for someone who maybe wouldn't root for us.

Last point, that I won't elaborate because I have already written way to much. There's a difference between people actively trying to be racist, and people who are racist and maybe don't realize it, or people who have prejudice but are working on it...

I hate it when White people act like the worst thing in the world is being accused of racism when the actual worst thing in the world is being racist. Because it shifts the conversation from... "Oh how can I improve myself and stop this racist thing I'm doing, or how can I work on this prejudice I have?" to "How dare you call me racist!!! I would never" all the while they continue doing the racist thing they do.

TL:DR: His Instagram post was f*cked up, and he apologized. And it's up to each person to decide if they still want to support him or not, but it would be great if thise who still support him stopped pretending that those whose don't are overreacting or had no reason of being offended.

[androgynousblackbox]

Ok, so i saw a post (it might have been the same one you mentioned before but maybe not) and at the end it complained about the "queercoding" of the VIPs which just... I-

Ok first of all, the only VIP I ever thought was queer in any way was the one who tried to sexually assult jun-ho, in which case- we were long past "coding" at that point. The thing that irks me is that the VIP being gay (or at least into men) wasn't what was meant to demonise him- it was the very blatant sexual coercion and attempted assult over a person he knew (or at least thought) was below him in power. Like-? If Jun-ho had been a woman, would it have been okay then? Because I mean, the rich, white capitalist can laugh at and enjoy the suffering of the people below who are killing themselves and each other for not even a tiny fraction of his wealth, literally sitting on a throne of human bodies, using and abusing other humans as if it were child's play- but GOD FORBID he be attracted to a man! Because as we all know, the apparently obvious point of that character and scene was that same-sex attraction was the problem, and not i dont know literally everything else?!

WHAT. THE FUCK.

No, the article that I saw was from the Mary Sue and was purely complaining about how the VIPs could have been cooler and more threatening, painting them as the only thing that was unrealistic enough that took the author off the show (which is wierd as fuck because... White rich Americans being annoying vapid assholes is very fucking belieavable for me), it didn't say any of that.

So, let me get this straight, the post you saw was making a case that the show was going out of it way to "queer code" the VIPs as a way from the show to further illustrate their evilness?

And let me guess... The post was using this argument to call the entire show homophobic and maybe something about how nobody should be surprised considering from where it comes from? Because I have seen people trying to accuse the show of being misogynistic purely because they thought that there were only painted women being used by the VIPs when it was in fact men and women, and so many other shitty ass takes from gringos doing their best to find something to paint this show as problematic and bad according to their standards. It's because of clout? It's because of racism? Both? Who the fuck knows at this point.

I am fucking floored. This is why we on the west, but especially gringos, don't deserve nice things from the east. We will always find a way to ruin it and the people have really fucking tried with this show need to learn to shut the fuck up until they unlearn that their way of viewing the world is the only valid one.

[tanadrin]

police in the US are not generally, as others have pointed out (and despite what cop shows are constantly telling us) in the business of solving crime. their mission is heavily oriented around 1) maintaining public order (down to cultivating an apparently deep culture of disgust even for lawful protests), and 2) recording crime, so other elements of bureaucracy (insurance companies, national statisticians) can respond as necessary.

where it's really obvious who committed a crime and that crime is really serious, police do sometimes solve crimes, but if you want to actually reduce petty crimes like vandalism and theft and break-ins, this isn't much help. these crimes are inherently low stakes and inherently not super easy to solve (frequently being crimes of opportunity that require no special motive).

part of me thinks one solution would be to more clearly separate the function of "the people who solve crimes after the fact" from "the people who keep order at parades and protests, and respond to violent crimes in progress" so that from a public accountability perspective we don't confuse the operation of the two. after all, a police department strong on the latter might be seen as a "good police department" even if it is weak on the former, while the things that inhabitants of a city complain about (the stuff in their car getting stolen all the time) is in fact part of the job of the cops to deal with. but these functions are often at least nominally distinct within police department, and fiddling with the org chart seems like a mostly cosmetic thing.

part of the answer is, i'm afraid, cultural--on top of a rich history of segregation, the US has had forty or fifty years now (at least!) of law-and-order rhetoric, of valorizing the police despite their track record of violence, of officials from local police chiefs up to the supreme court sneering at the notion of people accused of crimes having any rights whatsoever, of thinking the tradeoff is between the constitution and having safe cities, of creating a fundamental distinction between the cops and the communities they police, so that as far as i can tell, police really do see the violence they inflict as the core of their job, and solving crimes as secondary. just look at the quotes on that article about a high school band director who got the shit kicked out of him because the cops didn't like that the music went on longer than they expected. the basic psychology in operation there seemed to be "this situation annoys me, so i'm going to find someone to whale on until i feel better."

that's not an outlook conducive to solving crimes!

so other than (very slowly, with lots of fits and starts) looking at the last several decades of the authoritarian turn in American culture and recoiling in horror, i think the only thing that will really improve policing with time is the slow, messy process of 1) municipalities deliberately, and despite the furious protests of the cops, clarifying the mission of their police forces, and hiring or electing officials (like prosecutors, but also city councilors and mayors and the like) who are willing to stick to their guns, 2) increasing political accountability through any means possible. break cop unions, if you think it will help. prosecute cops who commit violence. fire ones who refuse to work in response. demand police chiefs increase clearance rates, and fire them if they don't. heck, maybe switch to elected police chiefs. wouldn't be any weirder than an elected sheriff or prosecutor. policing is traditionally a matter reserved to local government, but there's no reason it has to be--states could implement statewide standards, and could replace local cops with state-level police forces that were the equivalent of the national civilian police forces in countries like the UK.

mostly, refuse to be blackmailed, and be clear-eyed, despite the inevitable fear-mongering, about where the problem is. you cannot have a safe city by executing everybody who breaks into a car, if nobody is investigating car break-ins. and if you are catching most (or even a decent fraction) of the people breaking into cars, you don't need an insanely punitive response.

I feel... unsatisfied by a lot of the discourse around police. We had this huge moment in 2020 where everyone and their mother realized the cops were bastards and thousands of people took to the streets and accomplished... what, exactly? Idk.

The left's goals don't really seem smart to me - I've talked at length about why police abolition is a nonstarter and "defund the police" is very "baby's first reformist policy idea"

Meanwhile the right is just shoveling money into a bottomless pit labeled "policing" and closing their eyes and hoping for the best. Maybe when cops make $300k a year and each have their own private tank, crime rates will be low!

And idk what the liberals are doing - my rough impression is oscillating between the right's approach and DEI nonsense that is especially laughable when applied to the cops

Are there legislators still trying to reform policing in an intelligent way? Does anyone care? Is this all done at the local level, which is why I don't hear about it?