#anyway. watching the second one. y’all are from Georgia you can’t be stupid like this

[iliveinprocrasti-nationn]

falling in love with ‘a haunting in connecticut’ a little because, while my cancer wasn’t nearly as bad as matt’s (like they just had to take out my thyroid and the bulk of it was gone), i’m currently having to decide whether to get the radioactive treatment and have to deal with that or not do the treatment and risk my cancer coming back. and either way it’s there’s a risk of cancer because i’m YoungTM and there’s all this time for it to grow in me or whatever no matter what i choose. but with that and also just the chronic illnesses and whatnot and constantly feeling like shit, this movie is kinda comforting. i like how matt can see the ghosts because he’s in the middle of life and death, and i like this acknowledgement that it’s not life vs death and sometimes there’s a spectrum. because when i could barely eat two bites without feeling like i ate a 3 course meal and couldn’t control my temperature and was going through life in a haze because i barely had the energy to move (much less pay attention), i certainly didn’t feel like i was living

[corvid-420]

listen, americans, i get that  y’all’s emotions are all ramped up to 11 right now bc the bourgeois dictatorship needs you cowering and all

but the Chechnyan concentration camp thing keeps getting turned into a “concentration camps in Russia” which is... kind of disingenuous and blatantly a state-sponsored push  to whip up the dumbest and most insipid of liberals - the kind who yawp, “WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING!!!”.

Disclaimer for these dumb libs and the imperial left No. 1 : NO YOU FUCKING DUMBASSES THAT DOESN’T MEAN THAT RUSSIA ISN’T A REACTIONARY STATE, AND IT DEFINITELY DOESN’T SAY ALL GLORY TO PUTIN, UNITED RUSSIA AND THE CHECHEN REPUBLIC.

It’s hard to believe, but it is possible to entertain two thoughts at once, and you can’t honestly call yourself a thinking being if you can’t entertain  contradictory thoughts simultaneously. Best of all, you don’t even have to try that hard here, watch:

Kind of odd that we’re seeing a media frenzy over “human rights violations” in a separatist region that the US has been trying to break off of Russia throughout the Pax Americana and has paid Top Dollar for analysis to get its diplomats to accomplish this while at the same time not getting dragged into open war.

The leaked cable tacitly acknowledges this possibility, saying:

We and the Europeans need to put our proposals of assistance to the North Caucasus in a different context: one that recognizes the role of religion in North Caucasus cultures, but also emphasizes our interest in and support for the non-religious aspects of North Caucasus society, including civil society. This last will need exceptional delicacy, as the Russians and the local authorities are convinced that the U.S. uses civil society to foment "color revolutions" and anti-Russian regimes. There is a danger that our civil society partners could become what Churchill called "the inopportune missionary" who, despite impeccable intentions, sets back the larger effort.

By civil society partners they mean their future compradores, the national bourgeoisie scattered throughout the Empire that governs on behalf of the satrap’s court in Washington. By “setting back the larger effort,” they mean in part the Russo-Georgian War in 2008, when Saakashvili in Georgia got a little too hot for his own good and played chicken thinking the US would intervene on his behalf to suppress separatist movements in Georgia hoping to rejoin Russia (SECOND DISCLAIMER FOR DUMB LIBS AND IMPERIAL LEFTISTS: This doesn’t mean that the separatists couldn’t have themselves been cultivated by the Russians in the same way Americans brush off evidence that they cultivate separatists and rebels anywhere they smell blood, from ISIS to al-Qaeda; this doesn’t mean glory to Putin etc., but it can seem that way when the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie drills you with, “either you’re with America or against America”).

Also odd that when talking about Chechnya (or really any region anywhere that gives off even a whiff of separatist ambitions that provide America an opportunity for “access to new markets and development”) Americans have NEVER talked about it as being part of Russia until now, since their ultimate goal is to break it off, turn it into a new satrapy, and put a few military bases there to keep encircling Russia, China and Iran (remember, America is the one going for global domination - the rest of the world is simply reacting to you/us). In pursuit of these goals, references to Chechnya have always been as a separatist region, and this is the first time in my life that i’ve seen Americans respect the boundaries of the Russian state by referring to Chechnya as part of Russia, as part of Putin’s orbit when even the fucking state department has admitted that Russia is incapable of effecting Kremlin policies in its own borders without desperate displays of force!

[Putin] still needs to keep forces in the region as a constant reminder to Kadyrov not to backtrack on his professed loyalty to the Kremlin. Ideally, that force would be small but capable of intervening effectively in Chechen internal affairs. That is unrealistic at present. The current forces, reportedly over 25,000, are bunkered and corrupt. When they venture on patrol they are routinely attacked. One attempt to redress this is to position Russian forces close but "over the horizon" in Dagestan, where a major military base is under construction at Botlikh. However, that may only add to the instability of Dagestan. A Duma Deputy from the region told us that locals are vehemently opposed to the new military base, despite the economic opportunities it represents, on grounds that the soldiers will "corrupt the morals of their children."

This could be said of American troops in Korea, in Philippines, in Iraq, in Germany, in Colombia, in Afghanistan... but notice the big difference here: Russia has to use force to keep centuries old’ territories from falling to the American empire (Georgia was going to be in NATO until that little disaster), which unlike Russia, is still building new military bases on every single continent, including the largest and most expensive embassy in history in Baghdad. It would be like Russia setting up a puppet regime in separatist Arizona: outlandish since only one of these powers has the ability and desire for global domination).

I’m going to start demanding money for each of these - too bad there isn’t a state to collect for me the unnecessary labor i have to perform in doing these disclaimers because y’all are fucking stupid, y’all belong in a countryside farm so we don’t have to coddle you dipshits, anyway... DISCLAIMER FOR DUMB LIBS/IMPERIAL LEFTISTS NO. 3: 

This doesn’t mean that Russia is a righteous liberatory force for good and a paragon of virtue - you’re mistaking your position for ours. Americans tend to project like that, even among the left. Leftists in the American press have referred to Washington D.C. as “an American Pyongyang” when the opposite is true: Pyongyang, with its ideological monuments, deeply militant character, and founding father worship, is really a Korean Washington D.C., the result of being born out of a bloody war waged by a nuclear-armed, globe terrorizing empire. Likewise, American reactionaries of all political stripes - from upper class Republicans in Arlington to Berkeley Democrats - will do what reactionaries do best: impose their limited imaginations onto your positions.

Americans, acting out of emotional and moral reflexes rather than out of genuine concern for the world they terrorize for their particular brand of universal values, will impose those limited values onto leftists: ‘As i support my country’s strike against [list of epithets: genocidal, totalitarian, authoritarian, anti-christian, hates freedoms, etc.] purely for moral performance, and since i’m acting out of universal values l believe to be universal because my values are universal, there is no other way you can argue against imperialism except through the same empty moralism. Ergo, you need to understand war more, you lack the nuance for a complex issue, etc.; and since you’re with us or against us, any opposition must of course be support for the Other, and must also mirror my own empty moral platitudes, since there can’t be any other values but mine.’

All I'm saying is, the undeserved self-righteousness of Americans is literally destroying the planet and all its current inhabitants, but keep falling for homonationalist “civilize the savages” tropes

[likeshipsonthesea]

Get Back To Me When You Get a Chance

Nursey Week Day One: Silence

*

         As the guys walk into the locker room, Nursey puts his phone away as subtly as he can. He lets his hand linger a little longer than usual, hoping for the telltale vibrations of a reply, but he knows he’s expecting too much. He did just send the message, after all.

         “Sup, Nurse?” Holster nods at him, shoving his bag in his cubby. Nursey can tell by the way his gaze lingers that it isn’t one of Holster’s rhetorical “sup’s”. Not something that he can pass off with a shrug of the shoulder and a generic “I’m fine” like he usually can. He quickly threads together the strings of a story already prepared in his mind.

         “Not much, man. Got a paper due tomorrow that I’ve gotta polish off, but nothing too big.” It’s not much of a lie, hardly even a lie at all. He’s long stopped believing in the idea that a lie of omission is an actual lie. There are loopholes for a reason, he figures.

         “Good on you,” Holster says, obviously pleased with this reply. He turns back to his cubby to start changing and Nursey is safe, for now.

*

         “Uh, so yeah. Get back to me as soon as you can.” Nursey hesitates. “Please,” he adds, after a moment. “It’s important.” He hangs up when he hears a knock on the door. It’s not his room, but Chowder lent it to him to make the phone call. He didn’t ask why Nursey had to make a call at 10 o’clock at night, which Nursey is thankful for. Time changes get him all existential when he thinks about it too much.

         “Hey,” Chowder says, smiling tiredly. They’re all tired, as they just finished a hard fought game that they scraped a win out of, but Ransom makes them celebrate these difficult wins. He says they’re the most important to learn from, so they sit around watching tape and eating pie until someone falls asleep. Usually it’s Holster, which gets Ransom all grumpy, and the rest of them can slip out as Ransom attempts to fit large quantities of pens in Holster’s mouth without waking him up.

         “Hey, sorry, I’m done. You can have your room back.” Nursey makes to leave, but Chowder doesn’t move from the doorway.

         “It’s fine,” he says. His eyes turn inquisitive, suspicious almost but there’s no malice there. “Who were you talking to?” he asks.

         Nursey wishes that he wouldn’t. Out and out lies are so much harder to justify in his head. “A friend from Andover,” he says, the line already prepared for the worst case scenario. “She’s in India for this semester and I thought I’d ring her up to see how she was.”

         “Oh,” Chowder says, seemingly placated with this answer. But there’s something about Chowder that makes it seem like he knows more than he’s letting on. It’s always there, in the set of his lips and how he phrases his questions, but now it’s amplified enough that it’s deafening.

         Nursey coughs. “Well, goodnight.” And he makes his escape. He tells himself that he can’t feel Chowder’s eyes on him, because he always felt that was a stupid saying anything. How can anyone feel anything as intangible as a look?

*

         Dex nudges him, pulling Nursey’s attention away from his inbox. He raises his eyebrows in question, as he can’t speak at the moment. The professor is lecturing not twenty feet away and it’s a small enough class that she’d know it was Nursey speaking. Dex points the end of his pen at a Post-It note that’s been affixed to Nursey’s book. Then he turns back to the front of the room.

         Are you waiting for an important email? the note reads in Dex’s sturdy print. Nursey tenses, glancing back at his inbox.

         He’s got three unread messages sitting there; a notification from a beauty channel he follows on YouTube that says they posted a new video, comments from Jack on his history paper as it’s always good to get a second opinion, and an online coupon from Barnes & Noble for fifteen percent off his next purchase of three books or more. As wonderful as each of those things are, none of them are what he’s been hoping to see sitting there.

         They probably got lost in the stream of work emails, Nursey tells himself, justifying it. He immediately hates himself for his naivety, for his childishness. He thought he beat that out of him when he went to Andover, but apparently he just can’t run away from that, either.

         He pulls his books closer to himself and writes back on the note. No, just checking for replies about this slam poetry night thing.

         Dex crinkles his nose when he reads it. He writes back, pay attention then. You being distracted is distracting me. He doesn’t ask more about the email or about the poetry; Dex tries not to ask about poetry too often, as he knows it will lead to long monologues from Nursey that he only partly understands.

         Am I always so distracting? Nursey writes back, wiggling his eyebrows ridiculously when Dex sends him a glare. It splits the glare on his face into a reluctant smile, a subtle snort emanating from the back of his throat. He grins quickly and shakes his head, returning his attention to the lecture.

         Nursey refreshes his page. Three emails sit unread in his inbox.

*

         It’s late, so he has his headphones in as not to wake up his roommate for the night, which is Ransom. He knows that Ransom has a test when they get back to Samwell and he needs a full eight hours before a cram session or he’s just fried, so Nursey’s trying to be considerate. He can’t stop himself from tapping nervously on his laptop, though.

         He presses call again, hoping for something, anything. Even just the ending of the call, an acknowledgement. Anything. The noise drags on, a repetitive beeping that rings in Nursey’s ears so loudly that he’s sure he’ll still hear it when he gives up. He switches from his Dad to his Mom, hoping stupidly that it will make a difference. It’s 9:00 in Dubai, he’s pretty sure. He memorized time differences years ago. It’s early enough that she’ll still be free from a meeting, as his parents are the only people he knows that actually enjoy early meetings. Maybe, Nursey tells himself, maybe.

         The call is answered and Nursey’s heart soars before he can grab it and hold it down. It has to be her, his heart whispers, who else would it be?

         His mother’s assistant, Patricia, Nursey says when Patricia’s face comes up on the screen.

“Hi Derek,” she says, wincing a little as she glances behind her. “I’m sorry, but your mom’s in a meeting right now.” She looks sympathetic, as she always does, but she’s good at her job, so she won’t let him through. He doesn’t hold it against her; he’s intimidated by his mom, too. “I could take a message?” she suggests, even though Nursey is sure that she’s taken out numerous trash bins filled with irrelevant messages.

         He tries anyway. “Yeah, uh, just tell her to call me, okay?” He winces at himself, his voice cracking. It’s because it’s late, not any other reason. “Just. Just please tell her to call me.” For a second, it looks like Patricia is considering barging in on whatever meeting is happening right now to tell Nursey’s mother that she needs to talk to her son. It makes Nursey realize how pathetic he must look, so he coughs and says goodbye, hanging up before Patricia can say anything else.

         “Nursey?” Ransom mumbles behind his pillow. “‘V’rything okay?”

         “Yeah,” Nursey says, forcing the roughness out of his throat with years of practice. “Everything’s fine. Go back to bed.”

         At another time, Ransom would surely be nosier, but as it’s midnight and everything, he turns over and falls back asleep. Nursey goes back to Skype and switches back to his father. It’s three in the afternoon in Beijing, but he could be in London now, where it’s only five A.M. Nursey knows the probability of his call being answered isn’t affected by the time, but he pretends, anyway.

*

         Bitty sighs, sitting down hard in the chair next to the couch, looking exhausted. “Packing is so hard,” he laments, his head falling to the side to look at Nursey. “Don’t ya wish you had magic just to send all ‘a your stuff to the place where you’re goin’?”

         “It wouldn’t be the only reason, but it’d be a nice bonus,” Nursey says, switching between his quiet phone and empty inbox. He refreshes the page and turns off his phone.

         “I can’t wait to get back to Georgia for break,” Bitty says, his eyes slipping shut. “If y’all think I bake a lot here, just imagine how much I bake in a kitchen full of old ladies whose only goal is to “put some meat on those bones!”.” Bitty laughs pleasantly. “Oh the cakes, lordy. I absolutely detest baking them, but what I wouldn’t give for a nice, classic hummingbird cake right now.” He hums. “Ooh, or a good Bundt cake sounds nice. I’m gonna have to work my butt off just to maintain my figure.”

         “You’re fine,” Nursey says, turning his phone back on and playing with airplane mode, making sure it’s off. He can’t get messages if it’s on, can he? Could he get calls?

         “I know, I know. I’m just playing.” Bitty opens his eyes and watches as Nursey fiddles with his laptop and phone in equal measure. “You okay, sweetheart? You’ve been antsy since the beginning of the month. What’s been eatin’ at you?”

         “Nothing,” Nursey says, but then he catches a glimpse of Bitty’s expression and he knows that he isn’t slipping out of this one. He sits up a little, preparing a scene in his head. “It’s stupid, really, you don’t want to hear about it.”

         Bitty perks up at this. “If it’s worrying you of course it’s not stupid,” he says, pleased with his apparent advances in his line of questioning. “What is it?”

         Nursey glances down, trying to look bashful. “Well, uh. Um.” He says the next part quickly, like he’s nervous. “I don’t know what to get my mom for Christmas.” He’s not nervous. He’s a liar. He hates himself, especially when Bitty smiles at this, reassuring and knowingly. He’s so happy to help, Nursey knows, and he hates abusing that trait in this way.

         “Oh, honey. Moms are lovely to give presents to because they love whatever you give them. It’s an inherent Mom trait.” He smiles warmly and Nursey loves him for believing in what he’s saying, loves Mama Bittle for teaching him this. He also hates the certainty in Bitty’s words and hates the assumptions being made. He almost hates Bitty, too, in this moment, but he could never hate Bitty, truly.

         “I’ll try to keep that in mind,” Nursey says, smiling a little so Bitty thinks he’s solved the problem but that Nursey is still nervous. Bitty stands, squeezing Nursey’s shoulder briefly as he walks to the kitchen.

         “It will all work out in the end, honey,” Bitty says. “I’m sure of it.”

         Nursey turns back to his devices. There are no responses to the texts, calls, emails. It’s all so painfully empty. He shuts his laptop and puts it on the coffee table, then puts his phone on top of that. He curls up and tries to take a nap, letting the warmth of the Haus surround him, soak into his skin. It’s the best winter coat he’s ever had.

*

         The doorman nods kindly, wishing Nursey a Merry Christmas as he walks into the lobby. Nursey wishes him the same, adjusting his duffel bag on his shoulder. He’s only got one suitcase aside from it, so he declines the doorman- Reggie- when he offers to help. Nursey makes his way over to the elevator and presses the button. Then, when he’s inside, he pulls out the special key he needs to get into the penthouse suite.

         The elevator goes up, up, up and then stops on the top floor, opening up to the clean white foyer of Nursey’s childhood home. The floors are a sleek white tile that make dull thudding noises when Nursey steps onto them. The elevator doors slip shut behind him, soft whirring sounds accompanying the action. Nursey looks around, dropping his bags onto the floor with a sharp and quick slap that reverberates around the hallway.

         Besides himself, there’s no one on this floor. The penthouse is so far up that none of the traffic can be heard. There’s soundproofing between floors, so the family beneath the penthouse is nonexistent as far as Nursey’s concerned. He holds his breath and-

         And there it is. His greatest fear.

         Silence.