#even my conservative family members know and care more about the goings-ons beyond the US border than these people somehow

[bitegore]

truly what are these people's fucking problem. what kind of shit do you have to do to yourself in order to think this is a normal way to treat other people

[imagitory]

I've never been more heartbroken in my life.

I was gobsmacked in 2016, don't get me wrong. I was devastated and frightened and shaken beyond words. I even had to go behind a wall and collect myself at one point that horrible November 9th, 2016, after colliding with a man wearing a red MAGA hat at work. A good chunk of us at work talked amongst ourselves about it, offering each other comfort.

But this? This is different. I could imagine dumb people making excuses for voting for Trump in 2016 -- saying that they thought a businessman would be good for the economy, saying that they wanted someone who wasn't a "Washington insider" like Hilary Clinton. Sure, it was stupid, but people can be stupid. Quite frankly, a lot of people are stupid, in this country and otherwise.

But now? Anyone who voted for Trump now has voted for a man who not only rounded up immigrants and put them in concentration camps separated from their families; bungled the response to COVID-19 so badly that the American death toll easily surpassed every other country on Earth; has poisoned the Supreme Court to the extent that they overturned years of precedence with Roe V. Wade and has basically given Trump cart-blanche to do whatever he wants while he's president; was the first president in history to refuse to concede on election day; was impeached for crimes in office not once but TWICE; was instrumental to and passionately supportive of the full-on attempted coup at the U.S. capitol on January 6, 2021 that could've very easily resulted in the deaths of his own Vice President and multiple members of Congress; has spoken glowingly of despots like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un and even said he will be "a dictator on day one" if elected again; has both used slogans originally used by modern American Neo-Nazis ("America First") and purportedly told one of his ex-subordinates that he wanted generals like Adolf Hitler's...but also has by the day proven more and more just how mentally inept, vindictive, and mean-spirited he truly is.

And unlike in his previous races, Trump is ahead in the popular vote too. We can't just blame this on the electoral college being antiquated and gerrymandered AF like in the Trump-Clinton or Bush-Gore elections. Even if all of the third-party voters in this country had grown a bloody brain cell and voted for Harris so as to show solidarity against Trump and his form of American fascism, it still somehow wouldn't be enough. We could potentially blame this on lower voter turn-out -- according to what I'm seeing so far, even with all the votes not counted in this race yet, it looks like there were far less votes cast this election than in the last one, though likely still more than the 2016 race. But even so, I don't think that's the only problem. I truly think there were just a lot of people who turned out en-masse to vote for Trump. And all I can think in regards to those people is...

This is beyond stupidity or even selfishness. This is cruelty. This is large swaths of people deciding that they want fellow American citizens to suffer -- because in their minds, if those people suffer, that'll somehow make them happy. This is a large chunk of America saying, "yeah, you know all that crap about 'liberty and justice for all'? Screw that, I want a 'strong man' to bully people different from me for my own amusement." And -- perhaps -- there's also an element of feeling like their vote doesn't really have any consequences for them, so why should they care if the man they voted for is a god-awful person? It's not like that man will hurt them.

I had hoped. I had hoped, seeing the outpouring of support from liberals, independents, and conservatives for Harris/Walz. I'd hoped, seeing how many ex-Trump appointees were standing up against him, how much people were shouting their disdain for Project 2025 from the rooftops, and how many women were protesting in the face of Roe V. Wade being overturned. I truly had started to hope that America would prove we'd grown beyond our country's own original sin -- how our United States preached freedom for all while still being built on the backs of slaves and refusing to grant a vote to over half their population -- by electing a smart, successful, charismatic woman of color who sees our country as great in potential and wants us to pursue that potential as our first female president, rather than backtracking all the slow progress we've made over the last 200+ years.

But now...my hope has faded. My heart is in pieces and the world is so dark. I hardly know how I'll function at work tomorrow, even if I know somehow, I have to try. We'll all have to stand somehow. Somehow, someway...we'll have to find the strength. We'll have to stand, and we'll have to keep moving forward, even when it feels like we're a Little Mermaid walking on knives.

We'll have to stand.

[bugsbenefit]

It’s because some of us can’t stand fanon mike he’s not will or el at the end of the day it’s not our fault the duffers already messed up his character arc long ago. some of us aren’t really interested in mike like that and to be frank I hate how much trauma people are putting on him as if he isn’t a privileged middle class *maybe cis maybe not* kid with insecurities cause he can’t play hero anymore like he used to. Fanon mike is retaliation to whatever we got the last two season from the character and I get it, but why are we keep acting like he’s important to vecna or the plot like that he’s just els boyfriend and wills crush at this point.

You don’t agree with this most likely but idc I’m just here to let this out for those who sympathize with mike. He’s genuinely not a interesting character and if Will wasn’t in love with him I wouldn’t look his way.

Hello? Will solo stan that doesn't get the show in My asks? more likely than you think

i'm sorry but you clearly sent this knowing i wouldn't agree with you and you don't sound like you want a conversation so... why did you send this? was it just to tell me there's people that don't care about Mike? because shockingly, i know that already, the influx in open Mike hate was why everyone doubled down on his character being important and purposeful last week in the first place

i'm genuinely confused on how you're watching the show, though. i mean, at least you're admitting you're only in it for Will so i guess you're aware of your bias and shortcomings?

also lmao sorry but *maybe cis maybe not*?? are you trying to say being queer in the midwest 80s in a small town with a conservative environment wasn't that bad or damaging or worth elaborating on because he's "probably cis" and the family is middle class? hello? newsflash just in, the queers need to stop complaining about how scared they are of coming out and potential consequences of it, if you're cis you're basically getting cishet privileges anyway. i'm really not sure what you meant to say here, you okay? also, aren't All the characters cis??

the vendetta you have against "fanon Mike" is fascinating tbh. what exactly is "fanon Mike" to you, bc the ask suggests it's just Mike with any motivations and 3dimensional writing orrrr? also thank you for telling me that Mike El and Will are separate characters! i almost forgot! i really needed the reminder that these extremely different characters aren't actually the same person or re-skins. thanks for your service, you really showed the evil Mike-sympathizers today o7

but you know what, sure, i'll indulge this a bit, i like talking about the show after all, you don't have to read this ofc, i feel like we're both aware we won't find common ground here

saying that Mike isn't important to the plot is batshit crazy sorry not sorry. not even talking about s5, it's just plain wrong in general and i'm assuming you haven't seen the show in ages

even right from the beginning Mike is established as the first MC and then proceeds to be the main pov for the entirety of s1. in universe Mike is the parties dm unofficial leader and according to Will "heart of the party", out of universe Mike is the only character that has established relationships and evolving conflicts with every single party member and even most adults like Hopper and Joyce. i don't know how you're watching the show to take away that Mike is unimportant and a support character

ST is an ensemble show and Mike is one of the characters, alongside El, Joyce and Will that consistently fills an MC role. (while also being one of the only ones to outright get referred to as one of the mains by actors and writers) where you got the idea from that Mike is a useless character people are stupid to care about is beyond me

if you're genuinely going into s5 hoping for Mike to be as unimportant and off-your-screen as possible i feel like you're setting yourself up for the disappointment of the century. i feel stupid just listing the reasons for why Mike is clearly going to be an important player in s5 because of how obvious they are but oh well

Mike is the first protagonist ever introduced and the final season that wants to go "full circle" Has to finish his arc satisfyingly for it to work

Mike is Will's love interest, a character that's already confirmed to be more of a main on screen again, so focusing on both parties of the ship is necessary to get them together

also Mike is still in a relationship? if he's supposed to go from dating El to suddenly dating a guy that's also his childhood bff you need to elaborate on his feelings. otherwise Will's romance is also going to fall flat and i'm sure you don't want that anon

Mike is part of the people that only came back to town after everything in s4 went down already and part of the group that seems to be the main focus in s5 (see the hill shot)

also just regarding the hill shot, Mike is center stage here (and also between his two "love interests"), totally accidental i'm sure

also the only character Will told about Vecna being alive in s4 and already swore to kill him with Will, also totally not a s5 set up don't worry

and before i go on here, aside from the writers themselves mentioning Mike as a main in multiple interviews David talked about the s5 mains a few days ago and Obviously Mike is up there along with El, Will and Joyce, exactly the people you'd expect

i don't understand how people are trying so hard to claim that there's nothing interesting about Mike to get into, as if even just s4 itself doesn't go out of it's way to set up an excess of potential conflict for s5

obvious relationship drama with El left hanging after an "i love you" monologue which we didn't see a response to yet

feelings for his best friend while he's still dating his gf

the unresolved painting lie

also the sexuality issue that comes with being queer/gay, that's been going back to s1. also made more severe by the show going out of it's way to repeatedly hammer home that the Wheelers are conservative and don't have close relationships with their kids

"you're the heart", speech about leading the party and bringing everyone together. he can't just face into the bg after Will gave him that talk, there needs to be payoff

the whole hellfire thing that's set up with the members names and faces being broadcast as "satanists" and the potential reason for everything that's been going on ON TV, sure that won't have any consequences am i right?

the Vecna plot itself, s4 makes it a point to have Will tell Mike and only Mike about Vecna being alive and the two of them agree to kill him right before the season ends

and that's just the obvious set ups s4 leaves us with, not even touching on the fact that Mike's pov has been withheld for essentially 2 seasons. which is something you can do and ignore, but only if the characters don't have anything going on during that time. Mike meanwhile changes drastically in these two seasons and we never get to learn what actually happened, why he's suddenly so set on growing up and getting gfs in s3, why he's suddenly such an uninterested bf in s4, why he suddenly feels weird about kissing El in the s3 finale after already having made out with her. there's a lot happening and we only see the fall out of it, we don't get Mike's pov. you call it "bad writing" but that's a picture book writing 101 set up, if you don't see that i don't know what to tell you

but i feel like you said everything already, i'm just rambling because i like talking. we probably won't find any common ground here. you only tolerate Mike because you like Will and that's that. not everyone has to care about every aspect of a show, however, i don't get why you're going to other blogs to tell them about your personal preference and about how you don't like one of the MCs. this is an ensemble show, it's not the El-show, and it's not the Will-show either, both of these takes are equally wrong

i don't know what the ideal s5 would look like to you, but if it turned out Will was the only important thing and the only character we focused on it would be absolute ass and horrible writing

Lucas just lost Max and left him with a shit ton of trauma, also Erica's gone through so much too. Max is still lost in a coma. El is distraught over not being able to save Max and now not find her anymore. Dustin just lost Eddie right in front of him too. there's a military presence in Hawkins now, the hellfire club fallout still hasn't happened, and so on and on. (also things like the "Nancy love triangle" still need time to be resolved too)

there's a lot s5 has to focus on to be a good wrap up for all these arcs. and yes, handling Mike's arc well is also part of that, shockingly

also ending this with a: you know people are allowed to like and care about character even if you don't give a shit about that character, right? claiming a central character with a ton of conflict set up isn't interesting is well withing your right and i won't change your mind on that, i'm aware, but going after people for actually caring about the conflicts the show is setting up isn't the move either. not everyone is obligated to share your views, especially when they're this far out there. and i feel like you knew that going in here

[pebblefanposting]

@princesseuphemia1007 on YouTube

I couldn't agree more about all the family stuff! I always hated how conservatives talked about 'family values' because I know they only mean biological family and that system of family is very oppressive. You never realize how many things in life large and small are gatekept behind having that biological family at your back. If you are disowned or have to escape your biological family because they are cruel or dangerous then it's really really difficult to live, and even when you make new friends it's hard to explain to them why you can't do certain things the way they can with their family connections and they start to distrust you because of that too. I'm really lucky I got adopted(unofficially) into a kind family 2 years ago that actually do treat me the same as they would a regular family member and my life has never been so easy. The amount of difference it makes is indescribable. Especially when it comes to finances. I can finally save money now and I don't have to live in constant fear of homelessness and trafficking. Even if I lost my job today and needed time to find a new one unable to pay rent for a while I would be just fine. No one would kick me out and I would even have free help getting a new job from my new family not because they hate me for losing my first job and want me to make more money for them but because they actually care about me and want me to do well. Which also makes it easier to care about the job I do have already and to do it well because I know it's for a good purpose. If I can make enough money to I also want to make use of the security I have now to help my other long time friends who are still trapped in abusive families and can't escape because they have no where else to go and no way to live otherwise. When people have the freedom to expand their families beyond just who they're biologically related to it makes family into something that can actually be based in love which is how it was always supposed to be.

The new Philosophy Tube video is out )

A Man Plagiarised My Work: Women, Money, and the Nation

[seththemusehub]

about time for a new one of these...one that has a proper explanation of where I am, and how things are going.

tl;dr: my name is Seth, I’m a queer trans dude with a laundry list of disabilities. I live with a super conservative family that is kind of forcing me back into the closet, despite me being Out of it for nearly 15 years, among worse things. I moved here from an even worse situation, and am hoping to someday move from here to a more stable and happy place with my best friend who lives across the country. I super need help for that to happen while I wait on disability to pull through, which could be any day now, but also could be several years from now, from what I understand of the system.

longer story is basically, I moved from an emotionally volatile home where we constantly struggled to feed ourselves and argued and screamed constantly, to here. I eat much more reliably, and there isn’t shouting, but I am also consistently told I am just not trying when my disabilities prevent me from doing things, am pushed to go back into the closet because family members ‘don’t understand’ and ‘struggle to adapt’ to things like my name change and using words like ‘he’ in reference to me. my stepdad, after knowing full well that I am disabled and struggle to take care of myself by doing basic tasks many days, has expressed frustration with my inability to do basic people or adult things on a reliable basis. my grandfather no longer speaks to me beyond short responses, often ignoring me unless specifically prompted to respond by my mother. and my mother is fond of ‘jokingly’ suggesting that I go without dinner, go back to my room so they don’t have to deal with me, and telling me that I am ‘expensive’ while going out of her way to do anything for me, like pick up meds or buy hair dye that I expressed an interest in obtaining someday after I have money to do so on my own. they’re all strong supporters of Trump, as well.

I’m struggling to feel hopeful for the future pretty often here. I want to leave, but I have nowhere near enough funds to do so, considering I have half of my belongings across the state still, and the place I want to move is all the way across the country, as well as needing funding to get into a place to start. my best friend, Kat, is willing to move in with me somehow. Kat has work, and we’re hoping to get into a house, we’re looking at a few of them, but we kind of need a lot of help, both to get things started on that end, and also to get me from Oregon to Florida. 

at this point, we have a few options, and we’re not sure which is more cost effective because everything wants to know how much you have, when you’ll be leaving, etc. etc. and we’re just looking for quotes to aim for at the moment. I’ll need assistance in getting my things packed and moved, so a moving service is likely going to be required, and then I’ll need to get over there, which likely means a plane or train ticket if we have movers take my things all the way there. on the other hand, there’s things like a uhaul, and Kat driving us all that way, which is difficult and stressful, but also means we can stop places along the way and decompress a little bit. there are those storage container things they ship across the country as well, which would also require some kind of transit for me to get there too...

first things first though, we need funds to get a place. it’s super cheaper to buy a two bedroom house and deal with the mortgage than it is to pay rent, where we’re looking. average two bedroom place with the accommodations I need is about $600-800 per month on a mortgage, rather than $950-1500 per month in rent. both are around the same initial cost with a down payment, versus first and last month’s rent, deposits, fees, etc. we’re assuming around $5,000 for a down payment.

even if you can’t donate, you can help by reblogging this, sharing elsewhere, waving down family members with money, @ celebrities, any of that. as for links...

my paypal (has my deadname): https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/seththemuse my gofundme, which I can’t update fully with all of this information because my family has the page’s URL: https://www.gofundme.com/f/moving-fund-assistance

[remythologise]

Hello! I found your blog via you amazingly summarizing all that's going on with the spn drama. Due to my schedules, rl stuff, some of the arcs that didn't vibe with me, my availability to find a place to watch...the rollercoaster I was used to with this fandom was more me binging it in a weekend to going months to over a year without watching it. I still haven't watched the last season(but with a fandom this big it's pretty impossible not be spoiled so I more or less know what happened) BUT oh great one I ask of thee for more information if you have it...other than being busy and whatnot, I'm not really one to keep up with the actors as well. So could you also maybe do a summary of all the stans? I'im seeing terms I haven't seen before. Who is Kelios(sp?)? Hellions?? probably messed it up but like...I guess what are the name of each legion? Who do they have alliance towards? What was their desires? Que paso?!?!?!?

Hi there! 'Some of the arcs that didn't vibe with me' me emotionally quitting Supernatural in Season 7 after they killed Castiel 😂 Anyway I totally get it, I went through the same culture shock mid-last year when I got back into SPN and tried to find where fandom was at! There's really a LOT of lore and content after 15 years though so I'll just do the broad brushstrokes based on my impressions and personal stereotypes PLEASE remember this is oversimplifying groups and individuals to tendencies and I'm very biased! Also important that there are sub-factions within sub-factions - again, I'm simplifying here!

I've also linked to the 'Super-wiki' in terms of some definitions because the Super-wiki has pages for them where the Fandom-wiki does not. Great introduction actually - only in the Supernatural fandom. There are two Supernatural wikis. One, through curation and twitter activity, supports BiBro/Wincest factions and does not support Destiel users. One is more neutral or Destiel-friendly (I don't know that the Fandom wiki has a personality/social media presence per se). You cannot make this up. There is a factional war... within use of fandom wikis.

Destiel faction

People who primarily ship Dean/Cas, love Castiel and (often, although not always) Jack, and the 'found family' of Supernatural as well as the brothers, and like the post s3 seasons too. Hated 15.19 and 15.20 for killing Dean and ignoring the other characters/narrative arc of the show. Nicknamed 'Destihellers' by the Wincest faction as a derogatory term, 'reclaimed' and shortened as 'Hellers', a nickname they use affectionately to describe each other. See more info on nicknames here.

Sometimes also ship ‘Cockles’ (the ship between Misha Collins and Jensen Ackles) although generally speaking they're more respectful of the wives of the actors than J2 shippers, who are notoriously responsible for... a vast series of insane-fan misdemeanours. Historically most were also good at keeping RPF to themselves and not harassing celebrities with it directly, although recently, particularly with younger twitter fans, that has not been the case.

Sub-factions:

The ‘Desticule’ or ‘Destiel tumblr’ - general grouping of Destiel-shipping tumblr users around 20-30 years old, usually LGBT+, most who came back to the show post-15.18 after leaving it for various reasons including getting sick of the queerbaiting. Funniest bitches alive etc. and responsible for the best text posts you’ve ever seen. Can also start stupid discourse and in-group drama when they’re bored.

'POLOL' - People of Lots of Letters, a discord group (of tumblr and twitter users) that ran on the assumption Andrew Dabb was playing a hugely intricate game of 3D chess to do with gnostic symbolism among other things, and would make Destiel canon. Have since had their own factional sub-wars and fallen apart a bit. Some of their meta was and is good and interesting! Some of it was wildly off the mark. Now generally insist that Dabb/the writers were all pushing for Destiel canon and the network is entirely to blame.

Twitter fans (TikTok edition) - younger fans around 18 and younger who (FOR REASONS BEYOND ME) started watching the show around 2018-2020. Definition of 'stans'. Tend to be very loud and aggressive on twitter when Events Happen, which like. I do get, because they've grown up in a completely different media environment and this kind of Dinosaur Politicking around LGBT+ issues is beyond them. Fancam central. Anyway stream #CASTIEL for clear skin!

Twitter fans (AO3 edition) - older fans around 30+ who kept going with the show but either don't have a large tumblr presence or just prefer twitter. A lot of fic writers, GISH-ers, and BNFs in this group. Some of them are very cool and reasonable in their opinions, some of them act like the younger stans. Some of them too accepting of what happened wrt 15.19-20 in my opinion, because, in contrast to the younger twitter stans, they grew up expecting Destiel to NEVER be canon or respected. 'Can't believe we got this far' etc.

Multiship faction

Multishippers or shippers of things not as large as the two main behemoths . Sub-factions based on shipping, e.g. Megstiel and Sastiel. I don't think these groups are very large though, and seem to have very little influence in the Discourse.

Wincest faction

LARGE overlap with the 'BiBro' faction and their opinions, which I'll get to. Ship Sam and Dean romantically. Often pretend to be BiBros on places like twitter and reddit in order for outside groups to take their opinions more seriously. 'Wincesties' etc. are derogatory nicknames given by the Destiel faction.

Sub-factions:

Multiship fans - ship Sam and Dean but respect Castiel/the 'found family'. Politically overlap with the faction of multishippers, I think. I don't have a lot of insight on this group of people honestly, but I know they exist.

Bronlies - the typical BiBro and 'Wincest' shippers most people think of, twitter user 'Kelios' is one of the would-be ringleaders of this faction - typically tend to be older white midwestern women. Historically have been pretty nasty on twitter (leading to Robert Berens, writer who made Destiel canon, occasionally subtweeting Kelios). Also tend to ship 'J2' - and take it very seriously as a legitimate thing that is really real. This is called 'tinhatting'.

BiBro faction

People who think the show should JUST be about the brothers, love Supernatural s1-3 and everything after it should have been just like Supernatural s1-3. Hate Castiel, Jack, and the 'found family'. Largely loved 15.20. Go to literally any comments section on any Supernatural article and You Will Find Them complaining about how the show should just be about the Brothers. Tend to be older, straighter, and more conservative/Republican (and male) fans. (I am aware that the definition of 'BiBro' used to refer to people who just liked the brothers but there's no definitional difference now in the discourse.) The Wincest and BiBro faction are generally much more wealthy than the Destiel faction (they being younger and more diverse/queer/left-leaning in general) and would be the biggest revenue generators at conventions etc.

Sub-factions:

Reddit bros - literally anyone who visits r/supernatural. Well, that's not fair - there are people who post reasonable opinions on there, but it's pretty rare and they get downvoted a lot. Like to talk about 'toxic Destiel fans' 'ruining the show' and how Dean is a straight man who is straight and could never possibly be gay. Might even think the confession was platonic despite all evidence to the contrary. I'm Not Homophobic I Have Gay Friends, But No Gays on MY Show!

Old Guard - group of older fans who overlap strongly with the Wincest faction, but might not necessarily ship Wincest.

GA faction

'General Audience' - These are the group of audience members that aren't 'online' so to speak; most watch the show on TV as a Casual Viewing Experience (are therefore also sometimes referred to as 'casuals'. Mostly their opinions tend towards BiBros, but they have a vast range of baffling views thanks to being Not Online and usually Not caring about Supernatural that much or thinking that deeply about it.

Sub-factions:

People who simply watch Supernatural on TV and then don't think about it very much after that.

I said they weren't 'online' but that's not entirely true; I'd probably classify people on Supernatural Facebook Groups as GA, along with friends of friends who post statuses about how 15.20 was a neat finale that wrapped up the series.

Conclusion

Supernatural is famously the show that appeals to both Republicans and Democrats, literally All Orientations, so there's a WIDE range of factions. However, most warring online boils down to Destiel vs. Wincest/BiBro - the war that started in Season 4 and has simply never ended. In terms of the 'actors' and their stans, in general, Wincest/BiBro fans love Jared, like Jensen, and dislike Misha. Destiel fans love Misha, like Jensen, and dislike Jared. Of course as with everything, there are variations and this is just a generalisation. But that's the summary of it, from my perspective!

This didn't even get into Sam girls, Dean girls and Cas girls. God. Anyway.

Hope that answered your question, anon!

[transjoyblog]

How to Know Your Sources of Trans Information

Photo by Jez Timms on Unsplash

Finding reliable information on the transgender experience is tough these days. There is so much anti-trans fear mongering and manipulation of science going on online.

I ran up against this issue pretty recently when I was trying to source some informative books on the trans experience, more for my own edification than anything else.

I'm the first to admit that beyond my own personal experience I do not have a lot of experience with trans people. I have one trans friend, which I have come to find is an incredibly rare thing, even among other trans people.

We tend to be pretty isolated, especially if you are like myself and not entirely out to everyone in your life. This leads to some problems when you want to try understanding your own experiences within a larger context. You know this community is out there, but a lot of the time this community just doesn't have an active presence in your life.

Isolation also makes coming out a lot scarier, and more difficult. A few other supportive trans people can literally save your life if everyone else in your life rejects you, but a community of people like yourself also helps with the little questions that are specific to a transgender experience. Like, what do I say when my family starts asking weird questions? Is it ok to not want to come out to toxic family members? When is it appropriate to pack? Cis people may mean well, but ultimately if they are truly cis, they will not understand what it is to move through the world as a trans person. They just won't.

As a person who would like to better communicate my experience to the people who care about me I wanted a one stop resource to point people to if they are interested in learning more about trans people. So let's start with some generally reliable sources of information on the basics of what transness is, how people come to understand that they are trans, and how varied this experience truly is.

Blog/Journal Articles:

them.us - I recently found this blog to be a great resource for news and informative cultural articles

out.com - Founded in 1992, this magazine has the highest circulation of any LGBTQ+ publication in the United States. This is a great way to get news, entertainment, and culture geared toward LGBTQ+ people.

Gender Reveal - Podcast hosted by the incomparable Tuck Woodstock. Currently on hiatus, so this is the perfect time to binge all 6 seasons of this great podcast that uses interviews to explore what exactly gender is.

TransLash Podcast - Hosted by Emmy and Peabody award-winning journalist Imara Jones, this podcast tells trans stories to save trans lives. They promote trans owned businesses and have a great Instagram page which I think everyone should follow.

Youtube Channels:

CopsHateMoe - Newer channel from a great non-binary creator. Super informed take on the goings on in the greater trans community online.

Jammidodger - Long time YouTuber that produces funny, wholesome, and informative content.

Ty Turner - Very funny, and interesting content from a transman living in conservative America.

Kat Blaque - Offers very salient points on everything from sex and body positivity to pop culture.

NoahFinnce - Good for the younger audience, really helpful content from a personal perspective.

ContraPoints - Great long form content. Very informed perspective on issues ranging from politics to bigotry.

There are, of course, more YouTubers out there and tons of great content, but I am only offering a jumping off point.

Here are some specific recommendations on where to find reliable medical information on the trans experience.

Scientific American (in general, a great source of information) - https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/stop-using-phony-science-to-justify-transphobia/

Science Daily (also a great resource for the latest in research news) - https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200205084203.htm

Mayo Clinic Articles on HRT and Puberty Blockers -

Feminizing hormone therapy - https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/feminizing-hormone-therapy/about/pac-20385096

Masculinizing hormone therapy - https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/masculinizing-hormone-therapy/about/pac-20385099

Pubertal blockers - https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/masculinizing-hormone-therapy/about/pac-20385099

Gender dysphoria - https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/gender-dysphoria/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20475262

Books:

Transgender History by Susan Stryker

Any of the books listed here: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/center-transgender-health/patient-resources/books.html

General Tips on Sourcing Reliable Information Online:

1. Find the citations. Independently verify if possible. - If you're reading, or watching something that is making statistical or scientific claims there should be a section below the article or video that contains the source of these statistics. If this is not present, the article or video is not a reliable source, as reliable sources are able to be independently verified!

2. Is this information up to date? - This has been important in understanding the trans experience as a whole. While there is not nearly enough research on trans and gender non-conforming individuals, what has been published just this past year [2020] has contributed greatly to building a base of scientific representation of the trans community. A lot of people like to claim there is no scientific basis for the trans experience, when in fact the scientific understanding of gender as a binary has been under scrutiny for years and the most recent research does, in fact, support the biological existence of trans people. (Theisen et al.)

3. Determine purpose and reliability of information. - Some questions to assess the purpose and reliability of an article:

- For whom has this article been created? Scholars, scientists, or for the general public?

- What institution (company, government, university, etc.) supports this information? A news organization is NOT itself, alone, a reliable institution. All news articles should have reliable and properly cited source materials.

- If it is an institution, have you heard of it before? Can you find more information about it?

- Is there a non-Web equivalent of this material that would provide a way of verifying its legitimacy i.e. a regularly published medical journal?

TL;DR:

Skim through the points in this tutorial from Georgetown University on evaluating Internet sources. https://www.library.georgetown.edu/tutorials/research-guides/evaluating-internet-content

I feel I should include a good mental health and suicide hotline from the Trevor Project: 1-866-488-7386. They have a lot of experience with LGBTQ+ experiences and have proven helpful to me personally in the past. The trans experience does not preclude suicidality, but they do often go hand in hand, especially in people under 25, for whom this hotline was specifically made.

This is something I feel that people who love trans people don't understand. So, if you are a parent, partner, or friend of a trans person consider how the news of another murdered trans person affects the person you love.

Every few days there are reports of another murdered trans person and it does affect us. It's a constant reminder that the world as a whole is not for us, because no matter how supportive the people in our lives are, there are plenty of people who would like us dead. Consider using the above hotline, or consulting with your local PFLAG organization, if you are unsure how to approach these types of conversations.

Ultimately, I hope this article can function as a jumping off point for deeper research into being transgender and understanding LGBTQ+ peoples lived experiences a little better. Let me know what else I should include in the comments below!

Citations

Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University. "Gene variants provide insight into brain, body incongruence in transgender." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 5 February 2020. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200205084203.htm>.

Journal reference for above article:

J. Graham Theisen, Viji Sundaram, Mary S. Filchak, Lynn P. Chorich, Megan E. Sullivan, James Knight, Hyung-Goo Kim, Lawrence C. Layman. The Use of Whole Exome Sequencing in a Cohort of Transgender Individuals to Identify Rare Genetic Variants. Scientific Reports, 2019; 9 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-53500-y

[vanquishedvaliant]

Three Houses and Three Ages; An analysis of the perspective of Time in the ideology of each Lord's Route

META ESSAY TLDR: Each house leader represents the idealized preference of a certain period of time; Claude is the Past, Dimitri is the Present, and Edelgard is the Future. Their routes enforce these time periods as what one should prioritize when making decisions, and what is most important when society is revolutionized.

Playing through Three Houses, it's quite clear that each of the three main Lord routes is a unique story with more differences between them than which maps are cleared or what nation you fight for; each of the stories is rich with themes and symbolism asking questions to careful readers, and offering different solutions based on the ideals and values of the characters you choose to follow.

Many have suggested before some strong themes these routes carry, most notably the question of "Do the Ends justify the Means?", and what place memories of the dead should have on the actions of the living. While these hold true on many levels of the story, it never seemed to fully encompass the whole of what the story had to say.

Reading more broadly across the entire text, I have come to think about their messages on a different alternative angle; that each route and lord is also representative of a method of thinking and decisions making that is based on their perspective of Time, ultimately asking the question of where you should look in time to decide what is right when the world is at the brink of revolution.

I propose that Claude, Dimitri, and Edelgard are each defined utterly by the answer they can be seen to represent; the Lessons of the Past, the Reality of the Present, or the Promise of the Future. 

Below, I will go into each character at length and provide specific evidence from the text for my proposal. This breakdown includes detailed spoilers for all routes*. 

Claude von Riegan - Correcting the Mistakes of the Past

Claude, heir to the sovereign dukedom of Leicester, is a man defined by the past. Born of the mixed heritage of two different nation's noble castes, he inherited the expectations and responsibilities of both, and neither. This disconnection from both sides frees Claude from each of their cultural momentum, and lets him to step back to see a global and historical perspective without the biases of a man with a true stake in either.

Coming to be known as the 'Master Tactician' and a brilliant schemer, Claude's harsh biracial youth cultivated a careful and contemplative attitude in him. He learned about others so he can act according to their expectations and fill the role that they want from him. As an adult, Claude uses this friendly attitude as a mask for his true intentions in order to gather information, and then uses his detailed knowledge of people, places, and events to manipulate their behaviour to his benefit.

Claude also makes his decisions based on extrapolation of other’s behaviour based on what they have already done in the past, and he values the lessons learned from their failures. Claude is the only lord to express interest in learning about the history of the Church, and why they came to be the way they are. He is the only lord who confronts Rhea, to ask questions about history, and learn most of the truth of the original sins and offenses that lead to the conflicts taking place in his time.

As the war progresses, Claude goes so far as to forsake his own nation's flag to lead his war, and instead flies the flag of the Crest of Flames. Mimicking the army of Nemesis in history, Claude steps into the past and uses established symbols to his benefit, using the popular story of history to rally support for his goal, but revising the positions to create a more positive result.

As we learn about his own motives, he tells the player he wishes to create a land where people from different nations, races, and creeds can live together without conflict. Claude's revolution can be seen as addressing and correcting the history that lead to these conflicts, rewinding the sins of the original war between Agartha and Nabatea to a time when all of Fodlan was said to coexist under Sothis, and stepping back further in his long term view to encompass the world beyond their continent. He wants to build a world where those conflicts in the past were resolved intelligently, with all they've learned since, and to do so, he must learn why and how those events took place, and he uses his knowledge of history to present a story to accomplish this.

At the climax of his route, Claude comes face to face with the resurrected Nemesis, a literal embodiment of the conflicts and mistakes of the past. He faces down this foe with knowledge and planning based on his fighting style and the heroes under his command, and defeats him by anticipating and counteracting his movements in battle, placing an arrow in advance right where Nemesis will attack. He immediately claims that the victory will be hailed by Historians as a new dawn, and the narrative ending text references changing the history of Fodlan no less than four times in quick succession.

Each of Claude's actions are careful, planned, and considerate. He takes every factor into account, learns everything he can from the way things were, and takes action to reproduce the victories, and correct the mistakes others have made in the past. And because of this, Claude thoroughly represents the decision making perspective of learning from Lessons of the Past.

Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd - Conserving the Values of the Present.

Dimitri, crown prince of Faerghus, is a man with his eye locked firmly on the now. Burdened by the death of his family in the Tragedy of Duscur, Dimitri is unable to move on from events that happened in his past, and doing his best to do right by the people around him day by day. Dimitri is unable to rest when things he perceive to be unjust happen around him, and is the first to rush into action heedless of the repercussions.

As the story progresses, Dimitri confides in the player that he regularly witnesses vivid hallucinations of his deceased family members, describing them as if they are still there with him even 4 or later 9 years after their deaths. These memories encourage him to act, to find some kind revenge or salvation as he laments that he was helpless and unable to do anything on his own in the moment of that tragedy.

This manifestation of his trauma is emblematic of how he sees the world, still carrying the despair, anger, and helplessness of that time with him and unable to separate things that once were from things that are now, without properly grieving or accepting their fate. For Dimitri, the past is still happening in the present, and no matter what he does, he can't separate them.

Dimitri is determined to act upon this revenge without delay, and eventually confesses that his ulterior motives for all that he does, including attending the academy, are part of an ongoing plan to enact his revenge. When the perceived target of his revenge is revealed to be Edelgard, Dimitri immediately attacks her in that moment, with no need to confirm the truth of past events, or consider the consequences for the future.

As the war progresses, Dimitri's condition worsens and his anger overtakes him. His decisions become extremely impulsive and reckless. He charges into battle with no regard for the safety of himself or others, refuses to build connections with those around him, and is blinded to everything but what is immediately in front of him, acting on it the only way he knows how; with violence.

Dimitri's decision making during the first part of the war phase represents this need for instant-gratification. Dimitri directs the war effort directly into enemy territory, obsessed with achieving his revenge "Now" and either unable or unwilling to consider that his actions will affect the future of his people or his country.

As Dimitri regains composure and works to put the past behind him by learning the truth of the Tragedy of Duscur, Dimitri makes decisions with more consideration, no longer blinded to the past and the future, but now actively choosing the present. He chooses to return to Fhirdiad not for sake of the future or the past, but because his people are continuing to suffer in the now, and he chooses to continue the war in the fight to bring peace as quick as possible. Dimitri's personal values uphold his priority of the present; he values the culture of chivalry that Faerghus currently embodies, fully believing in their established norms of noble knights and a glorious king protecting the weak and guiding the lost, and correcting injustices happening in the present with direct action wherever possible. Dimitri does not believe that the systems that govern their society are inherently flawed, and that problems can be solved by addressing them one at a time.

One such issue he faces is the prejudice against those of Duscur, which is strongly tied to the Tragedy and his personal motivations. Dimitri wishes to correct this injustice, and acts immediately with whatever power he has to further this goal. In Dedue’s paralogue Dimitri will rush into battle to prevent his own nation’s soldiers from slaughtering Duscur troops, and he expresses intent to immediately address the prejudice. However, Dimitri proposes no definite actions for these reforms, showing that while Dimitri is insistent to act, he does not have a long term plan for the future of reconciliation with Duscur, and is taking things one step at a time. Dimitri is not convinced by promises for the future, and he is not influenced by lessons of the past. He values how things are right now, making decisions based on the good and bad with only the information and ideas at hand. And for these reasons, I contend that Dimitri utterly represents living solely in the Reality of the Present.

Edelgard von Hresvelg - Breaking New Ground for the Future

Edelgard, Imperial Princess of Adrestia, is a woman unflinching in pursuit of her goals. Devastated personally and politically by the corruption in her current government and the manipulation of evils from the past, Edelgard turned the trauma of the gruesome torture and suffering she was made to endure into strength, resolving to 'cut her own path' to the future she envisioned.

Edelgard thoroughly rejects the tradition and culture of the world as it is. She sees the suffering of those in the present, and traces it back to decisions of the past. Seeing how the lingering resentment of both the Church of Seiros and the Agarthans continues to damage the world, she rejects both as wrong, and instead chooses to craft new and revolutionary solutions to combat problems and inequalities and develop a plan for a just society free from their influence.

In everything she does, Edelgard is determined to move forward. Edelgard voices respect and even solidarity for those that resist conventions and forge their own paths, even when she is compelled to oppose them, complimenting the leadership of the disgraced noble turned bandit Miklan, and commending the resolve and bravery of Lonato and his rebellion, refusing to treat them as victims for fighting for change they believed in.

Constantly adjusting her plans with new information at every moment, Edelgard frequently changes course when the costs are deemed too high, or the plan unworkable. Edelgard abhors the experimentation done by Solon in Remire, and long plans to turn against the Agarthans that Slither in the Dark, enacting her vengeance on them during the course of the war.

Support conversations with Manuella and Ferdinand display her understanding of the role of faith in the lives of the spiritual, and the need to produce an environment to uplift individuals. She alters her plans for the future to take both into account; dissolving the church without rejecting the Goddess, and developing plans for universal education and training, understanding the role each of these plays in developing a stronger society with educated and enlightened citizens.

When providing support for the player during their moment of crisis and despair, Edelgard encourages them to look forward. The advice she gives is that world will always move forward, and being held captive by the tragedy of the past, or accepting the present as it is is fruitless when time moves forward for everyone. The only thing one can do to change the past, is to do their best to work for the future, and help others to move forward as well. When Edelgard's true plans are revealed, she dictates the manifesto of her revolution; dissolution of the Church of Seiros, and the abolition of the crest-bearing nobility, two traditions of ancient history which continue to define the world in the present and which are perceived to be sources of injustice and inequality. These burdens of the past, the Church's anger and punishment of mankind, and the legacy of the Crests that persists from the tragedy of a society long since dead, are cast aside in favour of putting all thought towards the future.  Edelgard goes so far as to declare war; determining that the grueling tax of war and destruction in the present is preferable to allowing suffering to continue across society for years and decades to come. She concludes that moderate change is ineffective; and her experience shows this. Political reform in Adrestia was unsuccessful and was met with a coup that separated her family and stagnated their government, allowing further negligence and evil to thrive. Edelgard concludes that the only way for true change to occur is through decisive action, and the need for change outweighs the short terms costs of lives, finances, and industry that war demands. In her personal affairs, Edelgard encourages others to never be satisfied with how things are, and instead work to improve them for the future. She commends Ferdinand and Caspar for constantly striving to improve themselves, she implores Petra not to settle for what is expected of her, and is frustrated by Linhardt's disregard for the fruits of his efforts. All of her relationships are influenced by her constant forward motion and desire for betterment. Edelgard is unsatisfied with the inequalities and inadequacies of the present, and chooses to reject the decisions of history that led to it, not accepting its effects on the actions of those dictating the future. For these reasons, I contend that Edelgard unequivocally represents working hard to chase the Promise of the Future.

Conflicts Between Each Lord.

With each character's ideology established, we can also examine how they interact with each other, and how their perspectives collide to create conflicts between them.

Claude and Dimitri, despite finding themselves against a common enemy, are not able to properly ally in either of their routes, as Dimitri's total concern for the present blinds him to the possibilities of cooperation. In Dimitri's route, he is impatient to assault the Empire, unable to overcome difficulties in communication caused by an enemy from the Past he is unaware of, and chooses to fight through the Alliance army and destroy it rather than be delayed. Claude later implores him for aid, but the history of the Leicester alliance is sacrificed for the needs of Faerghus' war in the present. In Claude's route, Dimitri is likewise unable to communicate, heedlessly rushing into battle without consideration that his brave war does not match the united front that the Kingdom possessed during its first war with the empire, and is defeated utterly. Dimitri and Edelgard, the most directly at odds, represent the greatest contrast in ideology. Dimitri is unable to reconcile the death and destruction that war causes in the now, and does not believe that violent revolution is just. Edelgard is unable to reconcile the disparities and suffering of the present, and does not believe that allowing inequity to continue to thrive is just. These ideals can be summarized most succinctly in dialogue between the two during the conclusion of Dimitri's route, wherein Dimitri states; "We must defend the present... After all, it is all the we truly have," prompting an enraged Edelgard to counter, "We must trample the past underfoot, and move onward to a brighter tomorrow." Each succinctly states the priorities that inform the core motive of each side of the war, and echo their statements in previous discussions. Claude and Edelgard's conflict is far more subtle and nuanced. These two lords fundamentally share the same goals; the revolution of current society to be more equal and just, but they differ greatly in their methods and reasoning. Claude believes that no future can be built without considering history; a future without the flaws of the present cannot be forged without respecting how those injustices came to be. Edelgard on the other hand believes that true change cannot be enacted while you are still beholden to the past; if you are afraid to discard tradition and history, you can never create something truly new. In each of their routes, these Lords bring their conflict to conclusion, and while their methodology and fates differ, each of them ultimately entrusts the future to the other, with Claude offering the Alliance and his allies to forge Edelgard's future, and Edelgard (via Hubert) informing Claude of the true threat rising up from the past. Their methods and their perspectives conflict, but they both accept the present as unacceptable and seek revolution, whether it be through solving the past, or by creating an independent future.

In Conclusion;

Three Houses is ultimately a story about a societal revolution that spans the continent. It involves breaking the old society into pieces, examining all of its strengths and weakness, and piecing it back together in the method of your choosing. Like a forest fire can cause death and destruction, but also breath new life into its ecosystem, so too does the war in Fodlan provide a means for a new beginning. Through the examples given above, I believe that one of the overarching themes of Three Houses, and questions posed in each of it's routes, is what is most important when you are rebuilding that society in the aftermath. Do you look to the Past, like Claude, and learn from what those in history did right or wrong to make the decisions with thousands of years of wisdom? Do you stick to the Present, like Dimitri, and preserve things the way they are, taking small steps in the now to enact gradual change? Or do you fight for the Future, like Edelgard, making sweeping changes and reforms to create a future that is truly new in the pursuit of betterment. Each of these routes, and each of these characters poses a different answer to this question, without providing any answer that is absolutely correct. The endings of all three of these routes are portrayed as good, happy endings, the most idealized crystallization of their ideology. No matter the player follows, what they decide is what will prevail. There is no wrong answer, and no right answer. Simply solutions with a different priority.

And through these options, a full completion of the game asks the player to decide for themselves; what is really most important to their decisions?

The Past? The Present? Or the Future?

--

If you've read this far, first of all, thank you very much! This is almost totally a full length literary essay! You're a real trooper. I hope you've gained a new insight on a method of interpreting the story. I think there's a lot of different levels to Three Houses and I believe examining it from all different perspectives with a fair and even approach is important to getting the most out of it. I think it's the mark of a truly great story to provide this kind of depth of discussion, and posing multiple themes and questions that the player can think on.

I've found a lot of the same ground tread over and over about the means to an end, fascism vs democracy vs monarchy; (sorry guys, but that ain't it. Edelgard ain't a fascist, Claude ain't democracy, and Dimitri's a monarch... so....), and I've wanted to take it at a wider angle. The quoted lines from Azure Moon really stuck out to me as incredibly poignant, and when I looked back into Claude more i found more and more reference to his interest in history and learning the truth.

I didn’t go into details with Silver Snow in this essay because... well, it doesn’t have a Lord. It shares half of its route with Edelgard, and half with Claude so it poses many of the same arguments, despite contradicting each other. You could consider Seteth to be a pseudo-lord as a replacement, but It’s my personal belief that the themes and motivations posed by that choice aren’t strong enough to provide a story truly distinct from either Verdant Wind or Crimson Flower. One might argue that Seteth stands for “Upholding Tradition” rather than Claude’s revising it, but I don’t think there’s enough evidence. It’s just as likely that Silver Snow has little message, or simply stands as an isolate rejection to Edelgard’s choices. It’s something to explore another time, but I think the bonds between the three lords are what is most important.

So hopefully this gives some juicy fodder for further consideration, and more discussion to last for time to come! Thanks for reading! 

-vanquishedValiant

[punkbuttt]

I may be just shouting into a void right now, but I’m very much not ok. I know no one is and no one has been for a very long time, but I just need to talk about it in a judgement free zone and I have basically no followers here or anyone that pays any attention so this feels safe.

I grew up in a small town. Very sheltered and conservative. There wasn’t anything around except for grocery stores, fast food chains, one movie theater that popped up when I was 16. To be very clear I grew up in Amish country. Everyone was white. I can recall maybe three students of color in my schools from kindergarten to senior year. I never really paid much attention to politics until maybe my senior year of high school. And even then, I didn’t really give it too much thought. We as a family never talked about politics. My parents are very religious so I have very clear memories of going to mass, CCD, first communion, confirmation. But we never talked politics.

I was a freshman in college when Obama was elected. I very much remember my mom asking if I had gotten an absentee ballot, since this would be my first election and I had just moved out of my home town but hadn’t been able to change my address before moving. I had gotten it, and my mom asked me who I voted for, so I answered Obama and she was shocked. That was when I first realized we were not on the same page when it came to politics.

The first time I can really remember getting into an argument over politics was right after Michael Brown was killed. My mom and I got into it over how Michael Brown didn’t actually attack that cop (won’t use his name) and my mo believes deadly force was justified. Then of course we had multiple arguments when Trump was elected. And I was getting so much blow back from so many family members for going on Facebook and saying “America was never great”. I got phone calls, Facebook messages, texts, and at one point my aunt cornered me at my parents house to tel me how wrong I was and ask me if I was a lesbian. And obviously this year, I got the same treatment once the BLM protests began. I’m very vocal about my support of the movement and again, I received much criticism from my family for it.

But the one person I never really heard from was my dad. It was mostly two of aunts and my mom who would confront me about political views. But my dad never did. Like I’be always known he shared the same views as my mom, I just always thought that it never mattered to him as much. But recently I’ve realized how wrong I was.

At one point this past September I think, a good amount of black owned business owners, mostly women, received very threatening emails saying that their businesses would be burned to the ground and the owner would be horribly murdered and worse. I posted a link to an article about it, saying that we should show these businesses a little extra support. My dad takes so much offense to this, that he sends his first ever Facebook message to me saying that “while it’s sad that this happened, other businesses are suffering too that are owned by whites, Asians and Latinos” so we get into it through Facebook about that. Then, my brother texts me a picture of my dad learning how to shoot a handgun at a shooting range and my brother says he’s feeling really uncomfortable about it. My dad also has a book on how to use a handgun. He’s never really expressed any interest about learning how to shoot, at least to me. My mom seemed very surprised by it too. My dad also bought 2 months worth of MREs to “prepare for the government comes after us” He won’t watch Fox News anymore. I’m not sure what was the last straw, but it’s scary to think that Fox News isn’t conservative enough for him. Now he only listens to talk radio. People like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. And watches their stuff online too. To a point where if he has to leave the room, he puts whatever program on his phone so his viewing/listening won’t be interrupted. And he also believe that the pandemic isn’t serious, that businesses should be allowed to stay open and that our constitutional rights are being infringed upon, so much so that he gave all of us pocket sized constitutions to refer to when “they” come for us. He’s not really an anti maskers because I know he doesn’t fight anyone when going to the grocery store or anything, but as soon as he’s out of the door, he all but rips the mask off his face. And he (nor my mom for that matter) seem to care much about the fact that my coworker and two of my friends’ parents have died from Covid.

And now, he’s posting things on his Facebook (which he used to never do! He would only every like or comment on his children’s photos!) In defense of Trump. He posted a video that claims trump asked the terrorists to go home and that the media will never let anyone see it. But trump made that video hours after that rally. And he fully believes the election was rigged. Part of me is wondering if he had the chance, would he have gone to DC today? Would he have been there? It just seems very likely to me and it’s just... devastating.

The point of this whole post is to say that I’m afraid my dad is beyond reason. I was talking to my sister today and she’s ready to cut him off. I’m not ready for that but I feel like I may have to. He’s defending terrorists. How can he not see that? I love my parents so much, and they’ve done so much for me, and I know that they’re good people. But they’re sheltered. They grew up in a white, small towns and then chose to live and raise a family in another very white and small town. They don’t travel. They’ve only been out of the country twice and both times it was just to Niagara Falls. I could have easily gone the same route but I’m so grateful that I managed not to. It would have been very easy.

I feel very alone right now. I live alone, in a city that even before the pandemic my family didn’t really want to come visit me in. And the pandemic has made it worse, but knowing that my dad and possibly my mom are this far gone just really make me feel so isolated. Like I said my sister wants to cut my dad off, but it’s easy for her because she’s married. So is my brother. They have their spouses and in laws at least. I don’t have that. I have friends yeah but that’s just different. I don’t really know how to describe that difference though. I still miss my family. I still want to see them for the holidays and birthdays. But it’s so hard to go home now. I feel like I can’t even call my parents’ house home anymore. It feels tainted.

If anyone has read this, and made it this far, and is experiencing or has experienced something similar, I hope we can talk. I don’t know anyone who is at this point so I just feel even more alone. I don’t think anyone I know really understands how I’m feeling. And if you can relate, I’m sorry. This sucks. So much. So so so much. I know not everyone has a great relationship with their parents, and while I wouldn’t said me and my parents were BFFs, I know that they love me and want the best for me and would do anything for me. But I can’t take their borderline extremist conservativeness anymore. It just goes against everything that they raised me to be.

All of this is to say I’m just really fucking sad and I don’t know what to do about it.

[faedawayyy]

A Useless Guide to the Carmichaels

DISCLAIMER: this is a bunch of headcanons that i’ve come up with. OBVIOUSLY since synn and katie and nadine and meg in a way have characters that are tied to their family...BUt these are my original headcanons for the family, so if things aren’t quite right or sound different, it’s bc they’re my most developed family and it’s the way i’ve written them in canon verse!

SYLVIA CARMICHAEL - GRANDMOTHER

sylvia’s family are russian and came over to england after the war. her father was a general and her mother was a seamstress and she was raised in a very, very conservative and upper-class family. she went and studied at st andrews in edinburgh and that’s where she met hank carmichael, who her  father always pushed her towards from the moment he knew of him.  sylvia carries a lot of her family values and clashed with her GEN X kids because their ideologies were so different. for example, she sturggled edwin’s sexuality and oliver’s more liberal mannerisms. it doesn’t stop her from trying to “guide” her grandchildren.

HANK CARMICHAEL - GRANDMOTHER

hank was born and raised in england. his father was an extremely wealthy banker, his mother died when he was young but he never really thought about her because his father never spoke of her. he was raised mainly by his aunt while his father worked around the clock. they were an extremely wealthy family and when he was old enough, hank attended boarding school. he never really had parental guidance and his creativity always ran wild. he was trouble at school, but smart enough not to get caught.  after he graduated from st andrews and moved in with sylvia, he invested his entire trust-fund into a book publishing business, which is still successful to this day. he’s a huge family man due to not having one when he was younger

second generation.

EDWIN CARMICHAEL

edwin is the oldest of sylvia’s and hank’s children and always worked hard to be a people pleaser. he was often referred to as the golden child and the absolute brightest star in his mother’s sky. from an early age, he showed interest in entertainment which hank inspired and supported.

things changed for edwin in the middle of high school when he decided to come out about his sexuality. he was severely bullied and his relationship with sylvia broke down. he STILL hasn’t got the best relationship with his mother, especially after he married his husband, but they stay civil for the rest of the family’s sake. 

he now works in property and lost his confidence in acting when he was bullied.

OLIVER CARMICHAEL

SYNN’S CHARACTER, BUT HERE IS HOW I INTERPRET HIM. oliver is the second oldest child of sylvia and hank. he was rebellious from the start. he never enjoyed trying to live up to edwin’s golden standard, he hated the events and the social climbing. he just wanted to be a regular kid and have regular experiences, but it never happened for him.  when he was 18, it hit him that he was an adult and sylvia and hank have 0 influence over him. he took his trustfund, travelled and got the hell out of violet springs. however, just like with everybody else, age caught him up and he ended up settling in london with a woman he met while backpacking in australia.  he likes his children knowing their family, so he reluctantly shows up to family events but you’d never catch either of them in violet springs if they didn’t have to be.

JAMES CARMICHAEL

james is the middle child and arguably the most successful of the carmichael’s. he was never the favourite and had a streak in him that caused him to clash with hank from a young age. he was a loveable rouge who grew into a loveable white-collard criminal. he was smarter than he let on and had endless ambition.  like edwin, he attended university but instead of picking a profession that hid away from his true ambition, he invested his entire trustfund into a studio in los angeles where he planned to make amazing films...it paid off. he married his wife (patricia) who he met when she worked as a set designer on one of his projects, but it wasn’t all happily ever after.  james played around with money a little too much and tried to take out his competition in shady ways. this led to things getting too much for him and he faked his death almost a year ago. all of his family beside mason believe him to be dead.

JOHNATHAN CARMICHAEL

completely synn’s character, the father of theo

SINEAD CARMICHAEL

sinead was the only girl of five children and completely used it to her advantage. she watched the way her brother’s and father knew how to dominate rooms, conversations and other people. she grew up with the mindset that she could have absolutely anything she wanted, as long as she worked (or cheated) hard enough for it.  sinead dropped out of school at 15 and almost gave her mother an hernia. she blew most of her trust fund on a sweet 16 and then a sweet 18, anything that was left went on her 21st. she’s a very “live in the moment” woman and cares little for consequences.  she actually ended up teaming up with james and starring in a few of his earliest projects before becoming an actress in her own right. she’s blacklisted by a lot of hollywood producers for her refusal to submit and listen to direction. she’s head strong and does what she likes. 

third generation.

RUBY ROSINI - ADOPTED DAUGHTER OF EDWIN.

when ruby was adopted by edwin, there was all round excitement from every single member of the family; a little, brown-eyed girl from italy arriving on their doorsteps. she was so different from the majority blue-eyed children who filled the family tree. the cousins all immediately became protective of her and loved getting to know who she was as a person. now they’re grown up, she’s viewed as a cousin and it’s easy to forget that she was ever adopted or came from anywhere else. 

THOMAS CARMICHAEL - SON OF OLIVER 

thomas is the oldest son of oliver and like his dad, he’s a bit of a free spirit but unlike his dad, he’s a lot more laidback and less likely to clash or argue with anyone. as far as carmichael’s go, he’s quite wholesome and kind and oliver will 100% say that it’s because he was raised away from the madness of their family.  however, growing up away from the others isn’t as good in his eyes as it is in his dad’s. he often feels boring and on the outside, he will always do his best to fit in with the other guys and is easily manipulated. as a child, he got into trouble so many times from listening to the shit brody and leo used to tell him to do. even to this day, he’s overly loyal and attached to them because he’s desperate to feel a real part of the family.

KATELYN CARMICHAEL - DAUGHTER OF OLIVER

katelyn is the oldest of the third generation and oliver’s daughter. she’s blunt, witty and doesn’t mince her words. unlike most of the women in her family, she cares little for appearances or staying in certain social circles. she’s a drama teacher in a high school and enjoys living a normal life, but does dip into the funds of her family name every now and then to have a bit of fun.  she’s a blast at family parties and everybody is always excited to see what scandalous or stupid thing she’ll do next to annoy her grandmother. 

ANASTASIA CARMICHAEL - DAUGHTER OF JAMES 

the oldest of james’ children and undeniably the real favourite. she’s an overachiever and type of girl who was good at everything in school and still is; she’s athletic, artistic, academic, a good mother, an amazing business woman, she’s smart, she’s intuitive, she’s healthy and rarely loses in competitions with her siblings or anyone else for that matter.

anastasia has her daughter, darcy, and is engaged to ryder banks. there’s no love there but like her grandmother, she understands the importance of appearances. you’d have to be crazy if you thought she hasn’t had a string of affairs and STILL has them. however, she also has standards and is very selective over who she lets get close. 

darcy is her #1 priority and she’ll fight fiercely to make sure she always stays that way.

LEONARDO CARMICHAEL - SON OF JAMES

leo is james’ oldest son and again, like anastasia, kind of set the bar in the early days for the rest of his siblings. when it was the two of them and mason, everything was about leo and anastasia, they grew up in constant competition; leo tended to always fall short of his sister’s achievements. however, as they grew and the two of them came into their own, it was clear that leo was never going to be one to be in the shadows for too long - starting with gaining the attention from girls as he grew through high school. even girls in brody’s and miles’s year were heart-eyes over him and he was a few years older.  yet, just like with the rest of his siblings, he was promised and later engaged to somebody that his father handpicked for him to ensure the carmichael wealth wouldn’t dwindle out and fall into the wrong, new money hands.  OOC//i could write more but it doesnt feel right bc he’s now katie’s character. obviously i have my own ideas/fiancee for original leo! 

MASON CARMICHAEL - SON OF JAMES

mason broke the trend of extroverted, go-getter type kids and ended up being the quietest and youngest of the bunch until miles was born. he was a big momma’s boy growing up, and even though he’s never really felt like the favourite, he always enjoyed the company of adults and quieter environments compared to his siblings who would thrive around kids of their own age.  mason is wise beyond his years and it’s a running joke that he was supposed to be born first. he is the only one that knows james isn’t dead and was trusted with this information because even though brody was the favourite by a longshot, james knew mason would keep it quiet and be less affected by the secret.  mason both hates and loves being a part of the carmichaels. he loves his family but also hates the madness that comes along with it.

BRODY CARMICHAEL - SON OF JAMES 

brody never really had to work to be the favourite of his parents - he just is. he had the right amount of intelligence, cockiness and charm to keep adults on side throughout his whole life. ironically, out of everybody in the third generation, he’s probably the biggest fuck up too but the adults turn a blind eye to it because it’s him.  a huge reason he’s favoured by james is because he was clearly enough for charles to allow him to marry his oldest daughter, disney. this was such a big deal for james because charles has a LOT of connections (shady and not shady) in the entertainment industry and he knew the merger between the companies would keep the carmichael legacy in tact for generations.  brody usually rises to being the favourite and is slightly smug about it, but he also cracks the most under pressure and has had dozens of meltdowns over the span of his life growing up.

MILES CARMICHAEL - SON OF JAMES

miles is the youngest...son...of james. james has no idea that patricia had an affair and that miles isn’t actually his son. miles has always struggled severely with keeping up with his siblings. he developed common but crippling mental health issues in his pre-teen years such as depression and anxiety. it started with acting out and being a “problem child” but quickly developed in being too scared to leave the house. he locked himself away and wasted away his young years not really interacting with anyone outside of his immediate family. on top of that, he had he achievements of brody, mason, anastasia and leo to remind him of what a failure is...eventually he just stopped trying.  these days his siblings are supportive and aware of how he can get. his cynicism is literally his humour and he’s just taking one day at a time.

BELLA CARMICHAEL - DAUGHTER OF JAMES

bella was dubbed the next brody. all of her siblings adore her and so do her parents and grandparents. she’s the second child who can do absolutely no wrong in anybody’s eyes. bella was a young star and worked in hollywood making tv cameos long before she started school. she had two lives; her school and dance life, and her celebrity life. she grew up with more life experience than other kids and this made her painfully cunning. she knew exactly how to get people on side and had whoever she wanted wrapped around her little finger.  she and brody were hit hardest by james’s death. bella was all over the place and gained a little weight - something she wasn’t familiar with after being petite her whole life. she’s now just trying to stable herself again.

THEO CARMICHAEL - SON OF JOHNATHAN

SYNN’S CHARACTER

HERA CARMICHAEL-RUSH

hera is the middle child of sinead. she too is inteligent and calculated but she’s also the opposite of the james’s girls. hera has never worked a day in her life and has no intention to. she’s a socialite and just like her mother, does what she wants when she wants to. she lives off of mommy’s money (because her dad bailed on them and honestly, fuck him). hera also came out as bisexual at a christmas party because she knew it’d make sylvia uncomfortable. she’s a wind up and enjoys getting a rise out of people.

OPHELIA CARMICHAEL-RUSH

ophelia is old enough to remember the messy divorce of her parents and adopted her mother’s bad-ass and care free attitude towards it from that day on. she hates her dad for what he did to their family but doesn’t let it hold her back and when she turned 18, she took him to court to keep her name on the inheritance of his million dollar winery business...and won. she’s the trailblazer for her quieter and more introverted siblings. she’s someone who knows she’s gorgeous and uses her looks to her advantage. 

LUNA CARMICHAEL-RUSH

luna has always been shy and hid behind the bolder personalities of her sister’s. she used to feel boring because of it but has quickly accepted that’s who she is and she’s happy with it. as she becomes 26, she’s starting to feel extremely embarrassed and insecure about her lack of experience with anybody. yet, her father walking out makes her find it hard to connect with and trust people. she has high standards and no standards at the same time and is really lost in terms of her romantic relationships. HOWEVER, she is thriving in her career and mason has featured her as an actress in many projects. she currently attends rosewell and enjoys the french culture.

DAMUS CARMICHAEL-RUSH

damus is a pastiche of every criminal and calculated act a carmichael before him has committed. he actively seeks out trouble and due to not being able to find his “place” in the family, he seems to like to win the affections of his elders by getting involved in dodgy dealings that they’ve set up - particularly those of james and johnathan. damus gets a rush out of being in on his family’s darkest secrets but he also feels like a spare part - the one who gets put into dangerous scenarios because the others are too precious to do so.

third generation age order: - katelyn  - anastasia  - leo - thomas - ophelia   - mason  - brody - hera - luna   - ruby - miles   - bella  - damus 

fourth generation (work in progress): - darcy and wren, children of anastasia  - fleur and dixie, daughters of brody  - victoria and peter, children of mason  - jacob and harlow, son of theo

[annoyinglyjovialbird]

Voltron: Next Generation

Dangerous Clashes: III

Word Count: 3245

AN: A little longer chapter today since its my birthday. Thanks!

Whether it was smart or dumb, the guards delivered the armor to Kova's makeshift cell. She spent a few minutes looking it over, then started working. The bodysuit was like a second skin, completely different than the street clothes she wore before.

The tech on the suit was older than anything she had ever seen, but that was the privilege of attending the intergalactic hub on Earth. We mean the Garrison if you're lost.

She was attempting to use a paperclip as a pair of pliers on the location tracker when the door reopened. Ezrid, or Vhix, stood in the doorframe. Kova spared him a glance before returning to her work. 

"Are you not going to say anything?" Vhix asked, crossing his arms behind his back. 

"Should I?" Kova glanced at him again, noting the scowl that crossed his face. 

"You should be grateful for everything we've given you." He hissed. "Most prisoners rot in the cells below, never seeing their home planets again."

"Ooh, how scary." Kova mocked him. "I should be grateful for being put in a janitor's closet. That's rich."

"What are you doing to the suit?" Vhix asked, noticing her position. He was about to cross the boundary. He was about to trigger the explosion before she was ready. 

"NO!" She yelled. "Stay away from me!" Vhix stepped back, shocked at being yelled at. "I don't want you anywhere near me!" Vhix found his voice, fixing his dark blue cape.

"Aren't you overreacting, Kyla?" He smiled, talking in the tone you would talk to most children with. She stood up from her place on the floor to at least be eye-level with him. 

"I'm not the one our parents chased across the galaxy." She cocked her head. "Am I overreacting?" Vhix had no words. He only looked on with wide eyes. Almost like he didn't know what her parents had done. Without another word the door closed, leaving Kova alone once again. 

She had to finish the suit.

Right. Now. 

——————

"Cake, cover me!" Caleb yelled over the intercoms. 

"You got it!" Cake yelled back, moving his controls. The Coeus had taken another hit. This time, there was a small platoon of ships striking. The Red and Yellow Lions were deployed, against Shiro's orders. The Lions were taking heavy hits, but at least there was no attention at the Coeus. 

The Red Lion was zipping past the cruisers, all their shots missing. The Red Lion was fighting its pilot, but Caleb was having none of it. The Yellow Lion, as the densest lion material-wise, was ramming into the cruisers head-on. 

Liz and Kenny were readying the Coeus for defense, while Allie cowered in a corner. She would have to come out eventually, but for now, she was staying put. 

The Yellow Lion zoomed past the cruisers, either ramming itself through them or leaving them alone for later pickings. 

A communication link request was sent to the Coeus, which Liz immediately refused without looking at it. She glanced at Allie, who was covering her pointy ears with her hands, hoping to silence the gunfire. 

"Can you guys stop playing and knock them out already?" Liz yelled over the intercom to the boys, who weren't quick to respond. The Red Lion was drawing fire towards the enemy ships while Cake used their distraction and fear to ram them down. In the end, all but one of the ships were destroyed. 

Seeing the last cruiser fly away, the Red and Yellow lions released a deafening roar and returned to the Coeus. The Coeus had activated their particle barrier and it would be up for the next few hours until it deactivated itself. 

"Now that that's taken care of," Caleb said. The screen on the bridge appeared, showing the paladins inside their respective lions. "What's next?" 

"We're going to have to double-check every point we travel to if we're going to make another jump."

"Ugh, seriously?" Cake complained. "That will take way longer than whatever we were doing before!" 

"Well, its the only thing we've got right now." Liz was at the head of the bridge, Kova's place, typing away. Kova's console, as it turned out, was the only console with complete access to all files and consoles onboard. 

"Griffin's right," Caleb spoke, leading the Red Lion to fly underneath the Coeus. "If we want to avoid another encounter like that, we're going to have to be more careful."

"But that will take ages!" Cake groaned, rolling his eyes. 

"It's better than not doing anything," Caleb said. 

"Right, 'cause we're still looking for Kova while trying to keep the Coeus intact." Neither Liz nor Caleb were amused by Cake's comment. "Easy enough."

"Speaking of Kova, Griffin, how are we doing?" 

"The tracking is still activated, and it shows we're about one full jump away from reaching her." Liz looked away from the camera and console for a minute, staring at something off-screen. She turned back with a sigh. "I have to take care of something now, but all systems are stable and shield will deactivate in a few hours. Until then, just hang on tight." The connection between the Coeus and the Red and Yellow Paladins was cut, and Cake and Caleb were now left alone with only each other to talk to. 

Where do we even begin with these two? Cake and Caleb were on different teams since they started as cadets at the Garrison. Kova and Caleb had similar leadership tactics, but they weren't on the same level. Caleb was maybe a few months behind Kova's level of understanding. At nine years old, she repaired a major issue on the Achlys. An issue the top engineers couldn't figure out. Kova was the only thing Caleb and Cake had in common. Beyond that, there was nothing. Cake was half-Balmeran. Caleb was completely human. Cake was raised by his biological parents. Caleb was adopted by the Shiroganes at three years old. Cake lived on Earth after ten years old. Caleb hadn't even been to space. 

"This might seem like a weird question, and you don't have to answer," Cake began. Caleb raised an eyebrow. "But didn't Keith have a dog?"

"I, uh, don't know, actually," Caleb said. "Dad and Uncle Lance used to stories, but I don't know if they ever mentioned pets."

"Really? I could've sworn my dad mentioned a dog."

"Huh." Caleb sat back in his chair. If there was a dog, why wasn't it ever mentioned again? "Maybe we could ask Keith about it."

"Maybe." Cake agreed. "Hey, uh, where are you?" 

"Under." /Please say it/, Caleb thought. Kova always switched her words and Cyrus copied her. No one did it. 

"Under /where/?" Caleb erupted in laughter, while Cake looked around confused. /Then/ he realized the joke. 

"Ha ha, okay, very funny, Caleb." Cake said sarcastically. 

Onboard the Coeus, Keith and Shiro were sequestered away in Shiro's office. While Caleb and Cake disobeyed orders, Shiro was getting Keith up to speed on everything they had been doing. 

"The Fire of Purification was terminated as a threat years ago." Shiro had activated a holoscreen, showing the progression board the team had been working on. They were at the beginning of the current threats when Keith spoke. "I killed Sendak!" 

"I know." Shiro took a seat across the desk from Keith. "It seems that some of their former members resurfaced with a vengeance, and began recruiting."

"The Fire of Purification wanted to wipe out every species in the universe if it meant conserving the Galra." 

"And that mission changed with the times." Shiro leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. "The Fire we're fighting today was led by a half-Galra and is currently being led by a different one."

"The one that might've taken your daughter." Shiro's eyes widened a little, shock written on his face. As quickly as it came, it left. 

"Yes. Her status is the reason for the bounty on her head."

"She's half-Galra?"

"Yes, but that's not the only thing." Shiro turned off the holoscreen progression and removed it from his desk. Taking out the tablet Kova had given him when they began this crazy journey, Shiro logged into the Garrison's database. "The students have given her the nickname 'Jax'." Shiro turned the tablet to show Keith the screen. A picture of Kova was on it. Her eyes were like steel, and her features were cut from stone. Her uniform jacket was crisp, and her hair was pulled away from her face in a bun. That was all that could be seen. Shiro turned the screen away from Keith and swiped to view the next picture. It was Kova's log. Her entire school history was there for the men to see. 

"Why do they call her that?" 

"Her teachers would call her a jack of all trades, then it became Jack. To be fair, most instructors thought she was a boy when they heard about her capabilities. Eventually, the student body would call Jack, then Jax. It stuck."

"Teachers? Instructors? Like, she had multiple people teaching her?" Keith was astounded. Even he didn't require that much instruction, and he was considered the best pilot of his generation. 

"Programming, engineering, piloting, was offered private instruction with Commander Holt but declined, and still had time to spend with Lance and our family. Before we left Earth, she was being scouted as an instructor by other schools." 

"With someone like that," Keith began. 

"She could win wars if she stood on the front lines." Shiro finished Keith's sentence. "Caleb is capable of it, too, but he isn't as hyper detailed as Kova." 

"So the Fire wants your daughter, Kova, on their side?"

"More than anything." Keith sat back in his chair, staring into the void. Shiro turned off and put away the tablet while Keith contemplated everything. 

"What are we waiting for, then?" Keith said, standing from his chair. A hand rested on his hip with an iconic smile on his face. "Let's get her back." 

—————

"C'mon, c'mon!" Kova muttered under her breath. "Change color, you stupid light!" She stood on the dirty mattress in the furthest corner of the room. The garbage bag that held her street clothes was propped against the wall closest to the emergency toilet. The dark gray armor fit Kova almost perfectly, but if she wasn't careful, there could be an opening. Her hair was tied in a braided bun at the back of her head, her helmet screen open. She was trying to change the color of the insignia on her chest plate, but for whatever reason, it didn't. The top of the insignia was blue and the bottom was the original purple.

The sewer was emptying, and her window of opportunity was going with it. Let's all say it now: NO ONE CARES ABOUT THE COLOR OF YOUR STUPID LIGHT!

Heavy footsteps rang through the room. The metal grate was horrible like that. The steps became heavier, the metal groaned louder, and Kova's heart raced faster as they approached her room. 

"Screw this!" She finally exclaimed, throwing the paperclip aside, grabbed her plastic bag, and stood at the mouth of the gaping hole. The footsteps had stopped just outside her door. Indistinguishable words were being exchanged between the guards and the newcomer, but Kova wouldn't be around to see it. First went the bag, making a disgusting brown splash on the sewer walls. It was carried only a few feet from the weak current before coming to a standstill. Activating her helmet screen to completely cover her face, Kova took a deep breath. 

May Allura give her strength. 

She jumped feet first into the hole. The brown, maybe green liquid splashed under her feet, but there was no time to consider what it could or couldn't be. As soon as her boots made contact with the bottom of the pipe, Kova ran, grabbing the plastic bag on the way. 

In her now empty room, the door opened to reveal the maniac himself with his second-in-command in tow. 

"Where is she?" Yorak asked, staring at the empty room.

"Let me see," Vhix said, pushing past Yorak into the room. His step into the room triggered the boxes of yeast the guards had brought Kova to fall into the buckets of peroxide and dish soap at their feet. As the yeast fell into the buckets, the white foam quickly overfilled the buckets, spilling onto the floor. The metal grate didn't allow the foam to stay very long, but the results were worth it. Vhix was quickly overwhelmed by the foam, slipping on the metal grate. Yorak was fuming, his expression dark. He turned his stone-cold eyes to the guard at his right. The guard, for what it's worth, was rusting their armor at the glare. 

"Search the ship," Yorak growled, whipping his head to meet the stare of the second guard. "If she isn't found, it's your lives." Vhix had somehow stood and walked away from the foam. Thankfully for him, yeast doesn't stain. The guards ran down the hallways like their lives depended on it, because they did. 

"I told you we should have kept her in a prison cell," Vhix muttered, trailing foam. Yorak sighed, staring at the mess Kova had caused. 

"If we did, she would've discovered our plans before she was ready." Yorak stalked away from the room, heading for the bridge. Vhix strode after him, still trailing foam. 

"She isn't going to switch sides so easily." Vhix shook his shoulders, then aggressively shook his cape. "She's been taught to be a paragon of power."

"As am I." Yorak turned to meet Vhix's eyes. Vhix was one of few to meet the stone-cold gaze of the Emperor and not shake in fear. The others were either dead or changed. 

Down below, Kova ran, drifted, and jumped over pipes, large lumps of something, and tight corners. She simply followed the current. Kova's sloshed steps grew faster as voices grew louder overhead. The desire to live was starting to become her. Out of some misfortune, there was no exit to the sewer. At least, no exit she could use. The water escape through a small vent at the bottom of a wall. 

Kova looked up at the metal grate, searching for a means of escape. Another hole was torn into the metal grate directly above the sewer. Another emergency toilet. Tossing her bag through the hole, Kova jumped to grab hold of the edge. The sharp, torn metal pierced her skin through the bodysuit, but it did not break. 

She was in yet another janitor's closet, but it was worth it. If the map on the wall is correct, she's about ten feet from the closest exit.

Activating the helmet's shade, Kova walked straight for the doors that led to her freedom. The door opened up, four armed soldiers running past her without a glance in her direction. Quick as can be, she slipped through the doors. 

The room was a loading bay, stocked with wooden crates and small cruisers. If she could hotwire one, it would make her escape all the better. 

"Hey! You!" A voice yelled from above Kova's head. It didn't sound like either Yorak or Vhix, so at least she was safe. "What are you doing here? This ward is restricted to—" Kova turned to face the man yelling at her. He noticed the blue on Kova's insignia. The light is pretty hard to miss. The man yelling at her stared at the faceless armored soldier with surprise, then anger. "Hey! I found the runaway!" 

With a salute, Kova booked it to the doors. The man, completely caught off-guard, panicked, climbed the railing, and jumped to the floor twenty feet below. He didn't chase after her. At least, not immediately. 

Three armor-clad soldiers marched in, holding their weapons up. Kova had made it to the wall on the other, the door that should lead outside. One of the soldiers had fired on her, hitting the door three feet from Kova's head. She ignored it, searching for the control switch. It required a password to open it. Another blast was fired, only inches from her face. 

Kova turned to see the firing squad. They wouldn't kill her. Of course, they wouldn't. That's a death wish waiting to happen. Yorak and Vhix still want her alive. 

One of the soldiers aimed at the wall next to Kova, hoping to ricochet a blast to knock her out without completely damaging her. The soldier's stance wavered, the gun along with it. Kova held her hands up in surrender, but the soldiers made no moves to apprehend her. Not until they were sure they wouldn't be attacked. The soldier's finger was prepared to pull the trigger. It wouldn't take much, just a little push. 

The entire ship took a blow, and everyone took a fall. Kova held onto the frame of the door closest to the control panel. She connected her armpiece to the control panel, uploaded her code, and the door opened. As the oxygen was being sucked into the nothingness of space, some of the lighter boxes were being thrown out as well. Kova hoped it was food so they could slow down their pursuit. As the suction pulled everything, Kova braced herself and threw herself out into the nothingness. 

Curled into a small ball, she spun until she wasn't sure which way was up and down. Is there even an up and down in space? Kova had been pulled so far away from the ship, she could see what had caused the blast. 

The Coeus had come to the rescue, firing heavy blasts to the side of the enemy ship. A particle barrier had been activated, glowing orange. Two figures were dancing in front of the barrier. It took Kova a tick to realize they weren't just any figures. It was the Lions. 

Red sped past the entire length of the enemy ship, firing on the windows of their bridge. Yellow was clawing the side Red had left unscathed. Escape pods began to leave the ship, and Red noticed. It took after them, preparing to fire again when a small blast hit their snout. Red turned its head to look for the culprit. 

Kova fired again. She was so glad the arm piece had a laser, or she would have been a goner. 

Red was hit again between the eyes. Forgetting its original prey, it flew towards the source of the blasts. 

As Red got closer, Kova hung onto her bag for dear life. She was floating into nothingness. She didn't want to be like Keith! Lost for ten years until the new generation of Voltron came to find her. They haven't even formed Voltron!

Red stopped before Kova, staring at her figure. What was wrong? Didn't he recognize her? Then she remembered she still had the shade on. Deactivating it, she stared at Red again. Red opened its mouth, and Kova floated into it. The depressurization left Kova lying on the bottom of Red's mouth staring at the top of it. Eventually, she stood and joined Caleb in the pilot seat. He was updating the Coeus on the mission. 

Kova placed a hand on his shoulder, to which Caleb lay his own over it. They shared a look, and Caleb turned Red around to return to the Coeus. Kova slept in Red's cockpit until the barrier deactivated a few hours later. 

[pickledchickenetti]

So I’ve had something on my mind for the last week or two that I’ve been trying to figure out how to best start a post about and coming up short. We all know that I have a tendency to be long-winded, and some of this post is going to be stream of consciousness, at least moreso than my usual longer posts, which I usually wait to start until I have a pretty solid idea of what I want to say and how I want to say it. I may go back and edit this some at the end, I may not, probably depends on how it comes out. (Edited at the end to add: I’m not editing anything. It’s long and I’m not expecting anyone to force themselves through it, but thanks to those who do!) Since this is partially me using my blog as a place to ruminate on some things, I’m going to put it under a read more for those who don’t want to have it clogging up their dashboard. 

Lately I’ve had a lot of mixed feelings regarding social media and what voices and mindsets I allow to be a part of my everyday life. I put a lot of effort into carefully treading the line between taking unnecessary negativity out of my social media feeds and creating an echo chamber where I only see people who agree with me. Most of the time, the decision comes down to the tone and intent. If someone is consistently rude, angry, or condescending, with very little useful contribution to any conversation I unfollow them. This applies to people on Facebook who constantly use slurs, post hateful things about people with opposing beliefs or political stances (even if I generally agree with that person’s beliefs or stances) with little attention to facts, and it also applies to people here are just needlessly rude with no real contributions to the overall conversation. 

The older I get, the more I find choosing kindness to be a priority in my life. I’m not perfect; I fully admit there are still times when I’m rude or condescending. Sometimes this is an accident, and unfortunately sometimes it isn’t. I don’t like this, and I try especially hard not to be intentionally condescending. Kindness is a choice, and progress takes time. 

As I’m sure most of you know, I am often very critical of @kristagay‘s posts. I still stand by many, possibly even most, of the opinions I’ve shared. Kindness is important to me, but it’s also important to me to not let other people’s hurtful words or actions go unchecked when I have the ability to say/do something. (This applies to everyone in my radar, not just Krista.) I have very strong opinions on a number of subjects, but it’s especially important to me to speak up in defense of others in the LGBTQA community as that’s a community I belong to and those struggles are more personal to me. 

A little while back, I got a string of anons (many were answered, some were deleted) that made it seem like someone was trying to create some sort of feud between me and Krista. As I said in one of the posts at that time, I was under no illusion that Krista was reading any of my posts that didn’t tag her directly, and had no interest in any sort of feud. Krista does not follow me, and in general does not seem to interact much on Tumblr beyond asks to her and posts she is directly tagged in (or reblogs/comments on her posts of course). I would likely be the same way if I stumbled onto a community of people discussing every little detail of people I was friends with in real life. I would want to set the record straight and defend my friends while also respecting their privacy, and as a result I doubt I’d interact much anyway. I respect her choice to not discuss them at all, even the things seen on TV, and hope she will continue to make that choice no matter how annoying people asking her for info might get. (And to Pickles and anyone else who has crossed the line and sent her intentionally inflammatory messages/questions about the Duggars or hate for the sake of hate, please kindly delete your accounts and learn how to interact with actual humans in a respectful way.) 

When I got the string of anons asking me about Krista, I took a step back and tried to objectively examine why I followed Krista, why I continued to devote energy in responding to her posts, and if it was worth my time and emotional energy to continue doing so. The difference I found between Krista’s posts, which do often frustrate me, and posts from others who I have chosen to unfollow and/or block is the intent and context behind the posts. 

At the end of the day, Krista and I are very similar. We were both raised in very conservative families/churches, who had different plans for us than the lives we’ve chosen to pursue. We’ve both come to believe differently about God than the churches we were raised in. And we both know what it’s like to have to keep up appearances, especially online, in order to not destroy (or majorly hurt) relationships with people in our lives offline who it’s still important to maintain a relationship with. 

There are a couple big differences between us. First of all, I’m gay. I came to believe differently than the church I was raised in largely because I’ve had to just to be who I am and not feel depressed and suicidal all the time. When you grow up gay in a conservative family, life gives you two choices: shut off who you are and spend your life convincing yourself you are who you were told you were supposed to be or do major amounts of soul-searching to figure out who you are and how to accept yourself. When you’re already evaluating one major aspect of who you are and what you believe it becomes nearly impossible to not do that same evaluation on the other beliefs you were raised in. Because of this process, I’ve come to see a lot of hypocrisy and downright lies in the belief system I was raised in. This has pushed me into developing a pretty strong set of opinions, beliefs, and political stances that stand in stark contrast to my family and lifelong family friends. 

As a cisgendered straight woman, Krista did not have this huge thing forcing her to do major soul-searching. Despite this, she has done soul-searching, and seems to still be doing it. (It’s really a lifelong process, after all.) She has stepped out into a world that she likely didn’t consider being able to live in as a little girl. She’s pursued an educational and career path that’s impressive for even women who were raised being encouraged to focus on education, so for someone in her church and belief system to get to where she is is monumental, and for that I applaud her. So while I definitely disagree with her beliefs on a number of subjects, and will continue to say so (with thoughtful responses, not just complaints) when I feel her posts call for it, I am doing my best to remember that no one was born perfect, and she is still learning just as much as the rest of us are. I’ve said many times that I really do believe her intentions are good, and I stand by that belief. She’s learning. She’s trying. She may be one of the more conservative voices in our tumblr community, but many of us have admitted we used to be worse than we are now, and she’s come a long way from who she once was too. 

The other big difference between us, at least as far as tumblr goes, is that she has chosen to attach her name and face to her posts on here, and I have not. Many of you know who I am, follow me elsewhere, etc. That doesn’t change the fact that publicly, all you see is a food-based username and (currently) a photo of Jana Duggar on a boat. I share my first name, my age, and my general location. While someone who knew me offline could likely piece together my identity if they paid enough attention, I am careful to not overly-identify myself. This relative anonymity grants me the privilege of speaking freely online without worrying about offline consequences. Krista has not granted herself that same anonymity. I’m honestly a little embarrassed that I had never considered before the fact that she likely does not feel she can speak freely on Tumblr. I am very careful what I post on my other social media platforms. When my name and face are attached, I pretty much never mention LGBTQA issues for fear of outing myself and losing family members I’m not ready to lose. I don’t post about the abuses found in many Baptist churches or the lasting harmful effects I feel from my overly-religious childhood. This is partially to avoid a can of worms with a widespread ripple effect and partially out of respect for my parents and their desire to not have to defend me for believing things they don’t even agree with themselves. For Krista, the things she says here can and likely do affect her life offline, and it’s something that’s important to keep in mind when reading her posts. 

I don’t say all of this to say that Krista gets a pass for hurtful things she says. We all are still accountable for the things we say, and she has chosen to put herself in the position of having to choose between saying things that will hurt her offline life, censoring herself, or staying silent. There are topics I still wish she would just address openly or not at all. But at the end of the day, she has the same right to censor herself here as I do elsewhere, and I will be trying to keep that in mind going forward. When interacting with her privately, she’s only ever proven herself to be kind and open to hearing what I have to say. In the future, I may give her the same respect I often give my offline friends where I just send her a DM to clarify her intent of a seemingly rude or hateful post instead of just calling her out publicly. We’re all learning, Krista included. 

Social media, especially Tumblr, has given in to a dangerous mindset that’s often referred to as “cancel culture”. There are times when it is absolutely the right choice to “cancel” someone. Like I said at the beginning of my post, we have the right to choose what voices to allow into our feeds. We should all take advantage of that right and do what’s best for our mental health. I just think we should also be more mindful of context and intent when deciding whether or not to “cancel” someone. We all say we want young girls (and boys) in fundie communities to get out of that lifestyle and find better beliefs, but getting out doesn’t happen overnight. Many of us have the benefit of getting here after shedding many of our toxic beliefs. For those who aren’t there yet, I hope we will just remember to choose kindness and respect and do our best to be open to educating them without being hateful or derogatory. 

[bobbystompy]

68 Quotes I Enjoyed From 2019

Below are my favorite quotes from 2019. Though most occurred throughout the year, some took place before but were encountered during.

1) “I don’t bitch about Millenials.

John Entwistle once complained that he didn’t understand rap. Pete Townsend said, ‘It’s not our job to understand it. It’s our job to get the fuck out of the way.’

New generations come of age. The older generation’s job is to shut up and adapt.” - @danagould

2) “I can’t do drugs with you until we kiss.”

3) “If you pay me $50 I'll show up to your funeral but stand really far away, holding a black umbrella regardless of the weather, so that people think you died with a dark and interesting secret.” - @DanaSchwartzzz

4) “A human being is a dangerous thing to let loose in a room with itself, when it cannot think.” - Roger Ebert

5) “There are no bad bourbons, only better bourbons.” - Dave Hernandez

6) “You can’t put a dollar in a kimono.”

7) “This is how it was.” - rampant takeaway from watching ‘Superbad’ several years after its release

8) “What if I had been born fifty years before you in a house on the street where you lived / Maybe I’d be outside as you passed on your bike / Would I know? / And in a wide sea of eyes, I see one pair that I recognize” - Ben Folds, ‘The Luckiest’

9) “Learn the rules so you can break them.”

10) “Nobody makes chili for two.” - Stacy Massey

11) “‘Best city in the world,’ I mutter to myself, as i adjust my ‘driving blanket’.” - Chicago resident Deanna Belos, during the 2019 Polar Vortex

12) “Dude, no one’s ever got arrested for listening to Counting Crows.” - Ricky O’Donnell, justifying late night music volume at his party

13) Bill Belichick: We’re going to have fun tonight. Rob Gronkowski: Yes we are. We deserve it. Belichick: You’re damn right. Gronk: I haven’t stepped out in like eight months. I gotta step out tonight. Belichick: I’m with you, man. I’m even going to step out. Gronk: Oh, I like it!

A Super Bowl winning exchange.

14) Center David Andrews thanked Bill Belichick for giving him "a shot".

Belichick disagreed with it.

Andrews: Thank you for giving me a shot. Belichick: A shot? I didn't give you shit. You earned it! I don't give anything.

Another Super Bowl winning exchange.

15) “We elected one of the very worst living human beings to be President, and it's exhausting. Each and every day, it's an exhausting slog, just to exist in a world where that's true.” - Michael Schur

16) “Some of y’all always picked Odd Job when you played Goldeneye and it shows” - @thedad

17) “Any app is a dating app if you try hard enough.” - Z.W. Martin (though he says it’s lifted)

18) "Once you're as woke as I am, you learn to feel bad all the time.”

19) “Everything’s a balance beam when you’re 90.” - John Dingell

20) [I wake up in a world where The Beatles never existed]

Me: Check out this song I just wrote

[I begin playing “Ob La Di Ob La Da” without having first built up years of goodwill]

Crowd of people: Wow, this sucks ass

-- @seanoneal

21) “People change people.” - Corey Matthews, Girl Meets World

22) “The easiest thing to do on earth is not write.” - William Goldman

23) “Dan could be like a difficult uncle. I didn’t love his fire-breathing conservative politics. I didn’t love the transformation that came over his novels. In Semi-Tough, he created two benighted Texas jocks and laid their prejudices bare. He was declaring himself a member of the Mark Twain coaching tree. In later books, Dan seemed to be trying to prove he could still tell a racist joke. He insisted that his memoir—the last truly immaculate piece of writing he delivered—include a tirade against political correctness. When his editor said people might be offended, Dan said, ‘Fuck people.’

There are certain writers whose style you pilfer. Certain writers whose moral fiber you try to inherit. For me, Dan represented a third category: a writer whose aura you replicate—or, failing that, try to stand in for a while.” - Bryan Curtis, on Dan Jenkins

24) “Never marry anything. Never choose. Even in love, it's better to be chosen.” - La Dolce Vita

25) “An uncluttered, uncomplicated happy ending might sound wonderful, but it’s hardly ever satisfying. Because the value of great stories lies in the tension between desire and need, between the yearning for the ideal, and the unshakable conviction that ideals don’t really exist, at least not the way we want them to. A great story should hurt a little when it leaves us. There should be some hope, but that hope should remain somewhere just an inch beyond our fingers, because that’s the truth. Even if you had all the perfect moments in the world, you’d still be reaching.” - Zach Handlen, on the Futurama series finale

26) “You can’t see him because he has sunglasses on.” - Alissa Levy

27) “The cinema is the greatest art form ever conceived for generating emotions in its audience. That's what it does best. (If you argue instead for dance or music, drama or painting, I will reply that the cinema incorporates all of these arts).” - Roger Ebert

28) “‘Are you gonna let politics ruin a friendship?’ 

Yes tf I am

People talk about politics as if it’s this isolated, abstract concept that only matters at election time. Somebody’s politics is their world view. It’s whether they think certain human beings deserve rights. It’s how they think the world should be. And if somebody thinks that the world should be colder, meaner, less accepting and downright hostile to people that are different to them, then sure as fuck is the friendship over.”

29) “Can the Supreme Court get me mushrooms?” - J-Papp

30) “Any song under two minutes already has a head start on its way into my heart. Just scream at me and then leave me.” - Drew Magary

31) “Long neck cold beers never broke my heart.” - Clemson Tom

32) “I’d just like to point out that the last spoken words of Game of Thrones were: 

‘I once brought a jackass and a honeycomb into a brothel.’”

- @Authoroux

33) “Just once before I die, I want to toss my keys to someone and tell them ‘Bring the car around’.” - Mike Skully

34) “For all the weight they're given, last words are usually as significant as first words.” - Grand Maester Pycelle, Game of Thrones

35) “The best remedy for unrequited love is a trip around the world.” - Cheers

36) [on switching from a hotel to a motel]

Manny: I don't like the sound of that. A lot of amenities disappear when an H turns into an M. Jay: Hey when I met you, you were eating cereal out of a bucket.

-- Modern Family

37) “You and Lindsey don’t want to be ‘estranged’. Estranged is the relationship we want to have with our mothers.” - MegFil

38) “Cigarettes are undefeated.”

39) “My toes are like my fingers on my feet. I can pick stuff up with them.” - Tracy Cunningham

40) “Republicans govern without shame, Democrats shame without governing.” - Bill Maher

41) Sam: I don’t understand the vagaries of the Internet Josiah: Post often, without thought, and you’ll either get cancelled or cancel someone else.

-- Blink-155

42) “Hang a lantern on your problems.”

43) “What a weird web we weave.” - The Situation, The Jersey Shore: Family Vacation

44) “Let the ocean worry about being blue.” - Alabama Shakes, ‘Hang Loose’

45) “Honesty without tact is cruelty.” - Shelley Rokos

46) “My whole life is the wrong porn link.”

47) “One parent can take care of 10 kids, but 10 kids cannot take care of one parent.” - Joe Gestetner, via “an old Yiddish saying”

48) “There are no heroes in the room.” - Classics of Love, ‘Gun Show’

49) “If I am a little dismissive, it's only because of my harrowing backstory.” - Mitchell, Modern Family (on why he doesn't like sports)

50) “Every time I’m wearing black, I meet a dog.” - Tracy Cunningham

51) “Shower sex? Why would I fuck in my crying chamber” - @chridollarsign

52) “My theory about quarterbacks, having written about some of them, is you either have to believe in god or think you are a god.” - Mina Kimes

53) “The contradictions of capitalism always manifest in our lyrics if you look deeply.” - Blake Schwarzenbach of Jawbreaker, Riot Fest 2019

54) “Got a ‘hang loose’ from the weakside bartender.”

55) “It’s Jennifer’s birthday always.” - Eric Hutchinson 

56) “I can’t think of a less relevant artist in 2019 than Kanye West. A Jesus freak in a MAGA hat. Yeah, congrats dude -- you’re every grandma who watches ‘Young Sheldon’ and mails checks to Joel Osteen now.” - Dan Ozzi

57) “The past and future are in the mind. I’m in the now.” - Tom Brady, via someone else

58) “Sometimes you walk around boring places and you feel like the most exciting thing in it.” - Drew Magary

59) “Sitting is the new smoking.” - Modern Family

60) “I'll straight up fight folks at a book club and discuss books at a fight club I really don't give a shit anymore.” - George Wallace

61) “Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.” - Rose Garvey via wine country

62) “It’s all ‘ok boomer’ until you need someone who can drive stick shift.” - @OrdinaryAlso

63) “He likes the result of the math.” - Dad, talking about my worst subject frustrating during the process but satisfying in the end

64) Stepmom: Do you want a Bears urn or Alabama urn? Dad: Ask me after they play Auburn.

65) “A cold body carries a warm heart.” - Stefanos Tsitsipas’ Instagram, after his Iceland sabbatical

66) [preparing a dish called the Sandwich of Justice with his friend’s recipe]

"The fun thing about it is when you give it to someone, you can say 'Justice is served.’ That's, uh, Ryan's line. I built my whole life on the backs of my friends." - You Suck At Cooking

67) “Usually three people can keep a secret only when two of them are dead.” - The Irishman

68) “An artist can't control who consumes their content any more than a chemist can control how their chemicals are used once they're created.” - Brian Crooks

[saintmachina]

What were some parts of seminary that you liked, versus ones you didn’t? I’m thinking about my future (read: freaking tf out) and I know I want to study theology in some way, I’m just not sure how exactly, ya feel?

Thanks for the question! Your mileage may vary: I went to a Princeton Seminary, which I would categorize as a theologically/politically moderate, academic, traditional Western-style seminary. Seminary culture varies WIDELY from school to school, so keep that in mind when choosing between, say, a Princeton, which may be a more insular academic community focused on research and internships, and a Fuller, which may be a larger community more integrated with the surrounding city concerned with practical training for missionaries, worship leaders, and Christian artists. This is NOT to say that you can’t learn to be an awesome worship leader at PTS (I know them) or an awesome theology professor at Fuller, but make sure you shop around for your particular cultural, career, and academic needs. 

Things I Loved

The residential experience. Nearly all students at PTS live in beautiful on-campus housing or in apartments specialized for families with children just a few miles away. Living a few minutes walk from the library, my professors’ offices, and the chapel was amazing, especially since students at PTS tend to be sociable with the others who live on their hall. I would often spend my evenings studying with friends in their dorm rooms, and since everyone on campus at any given time tends to eat their meals in the cafeteria together, I formed a strong clique of ten or so people who unpacked my readings + spiritual crises with me at the lunch table. 

Spiritual friendships. I was able to make deeper friends than ever before in my life from a variety of denominational and theological backgrounds. We saw each other through vocational shifts, prayed with each other, administered the Eucharist to each other, celebrated birthdays and ordinations together, and stayed up late into the night when anyone needed us. I would literally drive across the country to bail any of them out of jail at a moment’s notice.  

The emotional crucible. Seminary is bootcamp for the soul. You get exposed to so many new ideas and theologies, learn how to preach, sit at people’s bedside while they’re sick, pull together responses for every new act of violence in the news, and most of the time, are thrust into a leadership role at a church that is either going under and begging you to save them or so large and thriving that it nearly swallows you whole. Nothing will grow you up like that. I have an insane amount of poise now dealing with other people’s crises, rage, or grief, and that wasn’t the case when I matriculated. Pastors are all making it up as we go along, but seminary gives at least the appearance of sage wisdom under pressure. 

Academic engagement with theology. This one seems obvious, but after spending four years in a secular liberal arts university that was tolerant of my enduring interest in religion but didn’t offer me an outlet for it, seminary was balm in Gilead. I loved being able to dig into what I really cared about directly, be that metaphysics, church history, or the Bible as literature, and I thrived being surrounded by other people who cared about it and did the reading and wanted to explore together. 

Freedom to research what I wanted. There are plenty of demanding intro-level courses that throw you to the ground and kick you while you cry into your notecards (New Testament, what’s good) but it was fun being on that ride with the rest of your small cohort, and upper-level classes offered chances to research what you cared about. I got to present research on astrology in the book of Daniel, queer American Muslim communities, IVF treatments and theology in Ghana, overlap in myths about Odin and Jesus, and I did an independent research study linking the emergent church to the spike in Millennials re-discovering the Episcopal and Catholic churches.The library was stuffed to the brim with books I would kill for. What a treat.

The melting pot. PTS DEFINITELY has its ideological and admissions biases but they do work hard to create a diverse student body, and I was close with students from so many different counties, denominations, ethnicities, and political leanings, which was enriching beyond belief. It was one of the big reasons I chose a seminary degree. That said, not all schools skew diverse, and I was very specific about choosing a seminary that was explicitly affirming of women in ministry and the goodness and wholeness of LGBTQ+ folks, so I knew that I would be supported by general school policies. Getting that information up front is important. 

Access to university resources. This one is PTS specific, but I went to a independent seminary closely linked to and basically on the same campus as Princeton University (they were the same school back in the 1800s until an amicable split, but we’re still cozy). This meant that I had access to Princeton U libraries, free events, lectures, and religious life, and I was a member of the Episcopal Church at Princeton U for most of my time at seminary. People bribe admissions officials or work themselves to nervous breakdown to get access to the resources I had at my fingertips, and I don’t take that for granted. 

The aesthetic. If I’m gong to take tens of thousands dollars of loans out for graduate school you bet you’re ass I’m going to be sitting in American Hogwarts while I do it. 

Things I Did Not

The cliquishness. This one is a double-edged sword, because I thrived on having a clique of high-functioning. highly-educated pastors who ate at the same lunch table and gossiped about the same people and showed up to campus parties in a gang, but that’s not always healthy. People tended to fragment off by denomination or where they fall on the liberal-conservative scale, and differences can fester that way. Students of color were often implicitly excluded from certain spaces through this behavior. Humans skew towards tribalism to begin with, but when you put super socially-oriented people with strong beliefs in one space where they have to live on top of each other and are looking for low-effort socializing after a long day in the trauma ward, confessional, or picket line, it gets worse. 

Imposter syndrome. Maybe it’s grad school in general that does this, but I spent most of my degree fighting off the feeling that I was dumb, lazy, not serious enough about my “calling” or my research, and probably a heretic. Part of my character growth came from learning not to give a fuck about what people who didn’t share my passions thought of them, and from realizing that I wasn’t on the ordination or PhD track like most of my peers, and that was okay. So I grew from this, but it stung like hell. I cried a lot.

No handholding. The professors at PTS were, by and large, old school, and they were busy as hell. While there was opportunities for office hours, most engagement with professors came in the performative form of “a question, well, more of a comment really” during lectures. Students, (mostly men, I’m not going to lie to you) scrambling for a good letter of rec for a PhD tended to monopolize whatever time professors had. I can think of exceptions (Ellen Charry was exceptional and made time for me in her home when I was struggling to unpack antisemitic theology) but it was a far cry from the literature department in my undergrad, where professors were accessible and knew me personally as mentors and friends. 

Caregiver burnout. This is my big one, and is the reason I’m still in recoup mode doing the office job thing instead of working in formal ministry. Everyone at my school was a pastor, hospital chaplain, activist, or social worker. We are the people who care so much, and who are constantly doing emotional labor for those around us with no time off and usually, poor personal boundaries. Working in a field where it is your job to hold everyone’s hurt and be the face of God to them while their life falls apart is….hard. It was not unusual for me to work ten hours at Penn on my feet in campus ministry, helping people sort through whether or not they wanted to report their sexual assault, holding mini-interventions about excessive drinking, and scrambling to re-schedule worship night after my volunteer went to the hospital after a suicide attempt, and then ride the train home while my phone blew up with news of a new mass shooting that I would have to help host a candlelight vigil for. You hold your parishioner’s hand while they die in hospice. You watch social services take your client’s children away. You stand still while someone screams at you for being too political in your sermon, or not political enough. You sit down to do the budget only to realize the beloved pastor who just retired had been embezzling. Typical Tuesday. 

A lot of the items on these lists are specific to my temperament and the culture at PTS, but by and large I would say it was an amazing experience well worth my time, effort, and money. I pushed myself academically beyond what I believed I was capable of, made the deepest friends of my life, found a home denomination, learned how to effectively care for others and myself, and was met by God in transformative ways again and again. Someday I may get that ordination or work for a ministry nonprofit again, but I have skills now that no one can take away from me, skills I use every day in some capacity. 

Good luck in your discernment process, and I pray you find yourself in exactly the place you need to be!

[drmicrochp]

A Marathon trip to Havana, from the depths of the Chilean south.

A MARATHON TRIP TO HAVANA FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE CHILEAN SOUTH

Everything and everyone will pass you by in an airport if you wait long enough. While waiting for the plane to travel to Lima, I spent a short while in the Santiago airport. Chile’s main airport is about as busy as the Sacramento airport (14 million passengers in 2014 versus 11 million passengers in 2017), but an immense amount of construction is going on. Like the rest of Chile, it is growing rapidly. Trying to talk to strangers there is a lost cause. Everyone is paranoid that you're going to try to sell them something or con them.

It has been isolating for me. I have been able to get to know very few people outside of my wife’s circle. I hold back somewhat with them because we have such different ideas. Little signals tell me when I have strayed beyond the limits of polite conversation. However, outside of Chile, I can see the difference between conversation which is always to create a certain impression and talking to engage the other person.

What will the Cubans be like? I´m sure it will be different than living in this cold country to the south. I'm also wondering what it might be like to talk with educated people about politics. Usually I must bend to the right to avoid confrontations with the conservatives. In Cuba will I be able to find common ground with people who have a true revolutionary heritage, or would it seem that everything that I have to say is a repetition of a lie or completely uninformed? I've been practicing my little speech mentally; that people on the left should find common ground, between liberals, socialists and communists in the hopes of defending the small gains in justice and equality that have been won. All around the world, it seems that the forces of reaction have the upper hand, with racism and greater inequality being the result.  In the U.S., where it is so polarized, it seems that the only interaction these days is shouting and name calling and… it seems that there is no interest in facts. How do you even talk to someone who denies climate change and the thinks that racism is a made-up excuse to harass white people. After that type of interaction, a Cuban viewpoint might be refreshing.

 ARRIVING IN CUBA

I had so many impressions from my trip and I was so tired that I just let them wash over me and tried to live in the moment. Even so, there were so many amazing events that the images just stuck with me and, only now, do I realize what was so special about them.

There were three long flights with long layovers to bring us to our destination, from Temuco, Chile to Havana, Cuba. Spending six hours in the Lima airport was nice because it was so huge and interesting to see all the shops. The Lima airport was the antithesis to what awaited in Cuba. The most expensive luxury goods, duty free, beckoning me to spend money, any single purchase enough to feed a family in Cuba for a week. Like Chile, Peru has had a commercial explosion and the place is about ten times larger than it was the last time I was here. And, of course, there was construction going on all over the place. Drinking coffee was always my main activity as I can’t abide the thought of being sleepy and disoriented while having to keep track of my possessions, worry about schedules, and to be on the lookout for thieves.

Raquel, who is of a different mindset, concentrated on capturing moments of rest, sleeping here, there and everywhere she had a moment. Checking out the passengers in the waiting area in the airport for the group that was bound for Havana is one of my favorite pastimes, sleuthing the origins of the passengers around me. It seemed to me that they were mostly from Brazil, Peru and Argentina with a smattering of Cuban expats.

They were more Bohemian in appearance than the rest of the passengers at the airport. One young woman, with multiple tattoos and a hipster vibe, was very nice and explained the tattooed portrait on her arm as Celia Sanchez, an icon of the Cuban revolution. Surprisingly, there were several families with babies and small children. Bringing my crutch with me (a kind of strategic move as I rarely use it these days) earned us the right to jump ahead at each line at boarding time. I was grateful for every small favor as the trip was already becoming a grueling experience. Sitting amid strangers on mid-sized jets that were packed full of passengers gave me claustrophobia.  

When had passenger planes ever flown so full? What enormous quantity of fuel was being consumed to lift all this weight into the sky and fling us to our destination? We were a smelly lot as sitting around in the same clothes for days on end can produce that effect. I don't much care about that as I’m not bothered by smells and find them to be an ordinary thing. The women seem to opt for spraying perfume and air fresheners everywhere. Raquel had a bottle of eucalyptus scent which, although it had a piney medicine smell, was a welcome alternative to all the other odors that were accumulating. I'm always reminded of medieval Europeans who rarely bathed and always carried around little handkerchiefs with orange peels and cloves in them. I can imagine the intensity of those olfactory onslaughts from my encounters with the truly homeless in Stockton, California. Just another indignity of poverty.

Finally, we arrived in Havana and I noticed that our cell phones, iPad and portable chargers were depleted. I have tried meditation, watching everything and everyone, mindfulness and conversation to pass the time, but it never seems to go quickly enough. Like the rest of my over-stimulated generation, I depend on small electronic entertainments to keep my mind occupied so I don’t have to think.

Havana airport! Smaller than I would have thought and about the size of the airport in Stockton, California. There were long lines for customs, baggage checks, and visa checks. My mind was filled with so many doubts and questions. How was it that all these people were doing their jobs with salaries of $25 dollars a month? Although the Cuban government doesn't let anyone actually starve, it doesn't seem possible that people would care about anything without getting paid more than that. Yet here they were, and they actually seemed to be enjoying themselves. We could hear laughter and joking from the baggage handlers from the other side of the wall. Although everyone was dressed in crisp khaki and blue uniforms, they were far from the rigid, military postures that I remember in other international airports. They sat comfortably in their chairs. Many were enjoying conversations. They kept everything moving, but it was not like the work, work, work, hurry, hurry, hurry attitude that I remember from other customs experiences.

My happy observations came to a halt though when I realized that the airport had few seats. Also, there was no way to call our hotel people and our son’s flight was delayed. To add to that, the whole situation seemed confusing as there were so many people wandering around the exit area -taxi drivers, passengers, and people waiting for their friends and family to appear as they disembarked. Also, the lights in the airport kept flickering on and off. I concluded that this would be a trip of unexpected little problems, sudden surprises, and great beauty.

Finally, our son, Joaquin, arrived on a separate flight from New York and we were all reunited at last and, amazingly, nothing was lost or stolen, nobody injured, and no obstacle had proven too great for this encounter.

 OUR FIRST NIGHT

Sure, we were exhausted when we checked into our beautiful hotel in old Havana. But stay in our rooms and rest? Never! Our ground zero was within the overwrought, grandiose, but decaying old sector, leaving us within walking distance of all the most interesting places in the capitol. I experienced déjà vu seeing these streets again, after having seen them in so many YouTube videos before the trip. We found a top restaurant not far from the hotel and, after checking out the prices, selected three cocktails and three appetizers. Even with judicious selections our bill came to around $50 dollars. We were surprised and amazed at the gourmet offerings and the three musicians who serenaded us. I was in disbelief at the prices of suggested wines handwritten on chalkboards; one of them selling for as high as $60.

Other contrasts confronted me as a member of a privileged group. The indifferent tourists, enjoying the musicians playing magnificently throughout, who would neither tip nor applaud.  A single bottle of wine selling for two months average salary in Cuba. The impression I had was of two completely different sets of people, each one a stranger to the other. Perhaps they would never really see one another. Perhaps they could not.

I realized that I wanted to reach out and talk to everyone, to know their reality. Could they see me as someone who applauds their courage and their sacrifice? I think that everyone who comes here has some level of respect for the Cubans, how they have faced every trial with their dignity and ideals intact. Even so, when do tourists cross the line into disrespect? When will the Cubans get tired of this other group, a group that cavalierly enjoys and discards so much, so much denied to them by an accident of birth?

 THE HOTEL

On our first day we enjoyed the softest of landings -a bathroom with hot water, air conditioning, a beautiful room in old Havana. There was so much to be grateful for, including friendly hotel staff, nearby restaurants, and impressive two-hundred-year-old architecture throughout this sector of the city.

The owner of the hostel (less than a hotel, more than a lodge) is a Spanish entrepreneur married to a Cuban woman who purchased the two-story home and rebuilt it into a hotel with twelve rooms. In the morning we enjoyed a full breakfast with fruit, bread, eggs and CUBAN coffee (delicious).  Joaquin, my son, reproached us for looking at our cell phones during breakfast, but it was the best time to check the internet as the hotel provides a strong signal, as long as you’ve paid up your Wi-Fi access keys and figured out all of the steps to configure it. The public internet service here, less than five years old, requires that you buy little connection cards, each with a scratch off code good for one hour. Once you enter the code, the clock is ticking. Breakfast time is intense: eating, talking, connecting devices onto the net, answering email, checking web pages. Command central for planning out the entire day.

The staff at the hotel shared directions, recommendations, and chit chat. We felt close to them. I know that Raquel gave away some toothbrushes and toothpaste. I, myself, have been donating USB drives with collections of Chilean music on them. In an act of solidarity between old time music lovers, one gentleman even gifted me some of his prized Nueva Trova records, Cuban folk music from the 70’s records.

The street where we've been staying is an eclectic mix of private residences, private restaurants, hostels, government offices and other services. The streets are very narrow in Old Havana, full of pedestrians. When a car, taxi or pedicab comes by we all have to jump on to the narrow sidewalk until the vehicle goes by. Garbage trucks and water trucks are even wider and can be a challenge to escape.

The streets are an amazing combination of young Cubans, tourists, mobile salespeople with pedicabs full of bread or fruit, people just chilling and sitting on stoops, and a few homeless or derelict-looking people that just wander around. And nobody bothers anybody! And there aren’t any police. I'm told that there are a lot of police wherever you go, but that they dress in civilian clothes so as not to be recognized. I couldn't say for sure.

I enjoy talking with everyone that I meet and find an astonishing amount of honesty in every conversation. Sure, some of the people are just trying to hustle me to eat at their restaurant, take a ride in their taxi or buy whatever they're selling, but it always morphs into a conversation about Cuba, politics, or the United States. As I've said, I highly respect everyone I meet, and they reciprocate.

There is some apprehension in the air as our current government is trying to limit remittances and tourism. At the same time, Venezuela has reduced petroleum shipments here by two thirds. Cubans are expecting a return of the “special times,” a period during the 90´s when Russia cut off all support and the country endured hunger, unemployment and shortages. If the White House goes through with its plan, things may get a lot worse. They won´t be as bad as the 90´s, though. Still, hearing of a return to the “special times” sends a shiver down the back of any Cuban.

 OUR FIRST TOUR

We met with our tour guide, a lawyer that had been employed with the television and programming ministry who had to leave a job that she loved, paying $25 a month, for a job as a freelance tour guide, paying ten times as much. She took us to the University of La Habana where the revolution began with a student uprising. Later we saw the Plaza of the Revolution and a nature preserve in the middle of the city, the Almendares River, where tall ceiba trees overrun with vines overlook the sleepy river. It's probably less sleepy when the rainy season arrives. We also visited a couple of street art projects, one named “the tank” (from a repurposed water tank) and one called “Callejón Hamel.” Both places featured sculptures, painting and art in open air galleries, using recycled metal or ceramics, free to visitors. The creations were ingenious and surreal, framed with poetry by José Martí or other messages promoting love, friendship, and patriotism. I was very impressed. I could only compare it to a neighborhood in Valparaiso, in Chile, where my Chilean niece convinced a dozen muralist and graffiti artists to paint everywhere throughout the sector, making the whole neighborhood a giant open-air gallery. Perhaps the movement to bring art to the people is something common to Latin America.

Finally, our guide took us to her apartment in the largest, most popular part of the city, 10 de Octubre, taking its name from the date when slavery was abolished in Cuba. It was eye opening to see this part of the city with the more affordable homes and the state stores with people queuing up for bread, eggs, or other foods sold at subsidized prices or redeemed with ration cards.

On the way to our guide’s home we picked her son up from kindergarten and traveled to her home on the third floor of a little cement building. Her husband gave me gift of a Cohiba cigar, one of Cuba’s prized exports. A quintessential experience in Cuba is to smoke a Cohiba cigar while drinking rum. It doesn’t get more Cuban than that.

 THE BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB AND ART GALLERY TOUR

We had reserved tours to see a “Buena Vista Social Club” style concert and to visit the commercial art galleries in central Havana. The Buena Vista concert was a pale reminder of the musicians I remember from the movie. The musicians were uneven, some spectacular and some less so. We were also hindered by sitting sixty feet away from the musicians with pillars blocking the view no matter where you sit. We arrived early, but all the best seats were blocked off and reserved. The show was a lineup of a dozen different singers, each one singing a song, followed by another with an orchestra backing them and an emcee introducing the acts. Following the magic of the movie, a reunion of the best musicians and vocalists in Cuba, is a bit like capturing lightning in a bottle. The best songs evoke nostalgia for a time gone by, the sultry rumba of Cuban rhythms and the sweet sadness of lost love.

The art galleries ranged from modernist themes with ironic overtones and political messages, to wonderfully complex panoramas of men, machines and urban landscapes. One gallery specialized in amazing woodcuts of sugar plantations and refineries. Sugar production is a resource that once carried the country’s economy, but now has a fraction of its previous production and export value. Since the time of the Chanel fashion exposition (May 3, 2016) and the Rolling Stones’ concert (May 26, 2016) a few years ago, art masterpieces valued in the thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars, seem less out of place. The glitterati and the literati have discovered Cuba and now walk these streets, perhaps disposed to pick up an expensive collectible piece, just as in any major city.

We weren’t able to include the “Museo de la Revolución” or the “Museo de Bellas Artes” in our tour but have heard that they are spectacular exhibits. We plan to return to see these sights at a later time.

 A FAILED EXPEDITION TO VARADERO BEACH While planning our trip and scanning the possible destinations for our travels in Cuba, a constant lodestar was the chance to visit a beach considered by many to be the best in the world, Varadero. I was struck by the high price of the outing as listed on our AirBnB internet options and had the bright idea of bypassing these tour guide run operations and buying the tickets ourselves from whatever transportation service in Havana offered trips to said location. Ha! What we discovered is that buying a ticket on a bus to the beach from a public transport agency, the one available named ViaAzul, is next to impossible.  We spent $30 on taxi fare to and from the bus station, wasted time with a phone number for the bus station that nobody answers, and an indifferent ticket sales office. It proved to be too much for us. We found the bus terminal, but the agent wouldn’t sell us a ticket until the “official time” to open, requiring us to wait a long time at the bus station. Remember, the ticket lady, the bus driver, as well as everybody else working at the bus station is on a salary of $25 a month. It seems that regular Cubans don’t buy tickets to travel to the most expensive beach in the country. Most of them don’t do any traveling at all, concentrating on how to procure food, money or other scarce, but vital resources. No wonder the ticket lady stared at us with indifference.

As some have said, “the government pretends to pay us, and we pretend to work.” So, long story short, we never made it. As weird as it sounds, the only way to organize a visit to anyplace in Cuba is from some other country than Cuba. From Chile or the U.S. one can buy a ticket and pay for it online. Trying to do it in Cuba is an exercise in frustration. We did, however, travel to one of the little beaches to the east of Havana, Santa Maria and had a good time splashing in the water, drinking rum from a coconut and getting sun burnt. We enjoyed talking with medical students from Gambia and took pictures together. For $5 we even paid a trio to sing us a song which I joined in on for the refrains. A little more frugal. A little more authentic. Memorable.

 FROM VICTORIA, CHILE TO HAVANA, CUBA, METHODIST CHURCHES CONNECT TWO CONGREGATIONS It´s not in the Lonely Planet guidebook but making a direct connection with the congregation of the Methodist Church of Havana was probably the most authentic moment of our trip. Our little Methodist church in Victoria (a congregation of less than a hundred) charged us with outreach to the Methodist church in Havana. It´s common for people of certain faiths to visit with a sister church in another part of the country or even in a different country. A sense of belonging to a universal creed follows this kind of visit as people feel the connection that their church is part of something larger.

We arrived in time for Bible study and listened to the pastor´s wife tell us of the attributes of the “good wife” from Psalms, appropriate for this “Mother´s Day” service. Just as in Victoria there was plenty of joyful singing, the verses appearing synchronized on television screens throughout the church. Women wore elegant dresses and the men mostly wore shirts and ties. The pastor spoke and the congregation was rapt with attention. At one point he filled a glass with water and continued filling it as the water spilled to the ground. We grasped that someone that is already full up could not accept anything new (grace, knowledge, God’s presence). There is a Buddhist koan that teaches a similar lesson. Finally, the pastor moved to recognize visitors from other congregations. Some came from the east. Others from the west. Raquel, Joaquin and I stood up and introduced ourselves as visitors from Chile. People stared at us. How often do the curious hipsters and tourists in Cuba spend a day visiting a church and sharing in the service?

Raquel, never at a loss for words, said that her church in Chile sent greetings to this church in Havana. It felt electric. A more genuine regard for solidarity with Cuba couldn’t be expressed. I was asked to speak as well and used the moment to ask of the pastor if he could help me to find someone in the congregation who needed a cell phone. I had brought my used iPhone5 to give to someone in Cuba. The pastor asked the congregation if they knew who should receive the phone. On everyone´s lips was the same name, a praise leader who was also a fourth-year medical student who needed a cell phone. Nothing seems more miraculous than a prayer answered. Apparently, the church had been praying for this and now received a reply. He joyfully, tearfully, accepted the gift. There are no cell phone stores in Cuba and few people with the resources to buy one. We hadn’t visited every place on our list, but we made more real connections with people than we had ever hoped.

[cartoonbudartz]

NIGHT TERRORS (A Ducktales 2017 Fanfic)

First real fanfic I’ve written! For my creative writing class @ school, the teacher let us write a fanfic based on our favorite thing. So I decided to write one that takes place after the s1 finale of Ducktales 2017. Hope u all enjoy!

“AAAAHHHHH!!!”

Kicking her legs in a furious manner, Webby tossed the blanket away before subsequently fumbling off her bed. She felt the sweat dripping off her forehead as her coughs and screams rang out through the walls. She could still remember that day; the anger she felt, the terrifying, not-nice lady that threatened her family… but none of that could compare to what happened with Lena. She still saw the terror on her best friend’s eyes as Magica’s… magic vaporized the poor teenaged duck to dust. Just thinking about it was enough to make her eyes water. Eventually, the screaming stopped, but in its place, came the ear-wrenching sounds of sobbing.

Webby’s cries were put on hold when she heard the creaking of her door. Looking up, she saw a shadowy figure entering her room, slowly walking over to her. Reaching her jittery arms over to her lamp, Webby flicked the on switch and raised her fists in defense. The light revealed a groggy-looking Dewey with a bad case of bed hair. The sight of a familiar face helped to ease the girl’s nerves, but not by much since there was still tears streaking on her cheeks.

“Uh, yo,” Dewey said quietly while making a “hand gun” gesture.

“H-Hi,” Webby muttered in a croaky voice.

Dewey scooted over to Webby’s side and kept his eyes on the unusually morose duck. His lips tightened the longer he stared into her reddish eyes.

“So,” he began tapping both thumbs, “you had that nightmare again?”

Webby nodded.

“The one about… her?”

Webby nodded again.

“Did it end like last time with Lena… y’know…?”

The third time she nodded, new teardrops emerged from her eye sockets. And then the sobbing returned.

Without hesitation, Dewey threw his arms out and held onto Webby tightly. Sure, she was staining his favorite PJs shirt with her innumerable amount of tears, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t pretend to understand what his honorable family member was going through, but that didn’t stop him from comforting her.

“This is like, the fifth time this month.” Dewey dragged himself away from Webby for a brief moment and looked directly at her. Both his hands held onto the girl’s. “Are you sure you don’t wanna talk to Uncle Scrooge about it? Or maybe Beakley?”

Wiping away the tears from her face, Webby shook her head. “N-No, I’m okay. Besides, it’s not like we haven’t been through tougher scrapes before.”

Dewey sighed as he firmly held onto her shoulders. “You don’t have to pretend that everything’s alright. This isn’t what Lena would’v---”

“How do you know,” Webby snapped, “you’re not her best friend!”

Dewey jumped back at the female duckling’s unexpected outburst.

“You didn’t have to see the one person you’ve cared for get zapped outta nowhere! She was going through all this bad stuff with her aunt and… I could’ve done something. I dunno what, but I could’ve gotten Uncle Scrooge, or Donald, or maybe even Granny to help, too. But I didn’t.”

The female duckling hunched over.

It was silent for a couple of minutes. Both Dewey and Webby awkwardly avoiding each other’s glances. Finally, it was Dewey who broke the silence.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Webby felt the male duckling’s arms keeping her body warm.

“You couldn’t have known what Lena was going through. This was beyond anyone’s control, even Scrooge’s. But just because you couldn’t save her doesn’t mean it’s on you.”

Once again, the ducklings looked directly at each other. Webby’s nerves slowly began to soothe.

“In fact, if it weren’t for you, Lena wouldn’t have known what it was like to have a real family. I guess spending all those sleepovers with the second coolest duck ever made her realize that.”

Dewey gave out a silly smirk, which made Webby chuckle for the first time this morning. Slowly, a smile grew on her face as she gave her friend a bone-crushing hug.

“Okay,” Dewey chuckled nervously, “I’m glad you’re back to your sweet and energetic self, but please I’d like it if you didn’t snap my spine into two!”

Webby quickly released the blue-clad duckling and gave a sheepish smile in response. “Sorry. These last few days have been preeeeeetty tense.”

Massaging his back, Dewey regained his confident posture. “Aw c’mon, it’s like you said: we’ve been through worse than this.”

Webby chuckled as she twirled a lock of her white, messy hair. “Thanks, Dewey. For, y’know, being there.”

The male duckling held his hand out to his surrogate sister. “That’s what family’s for.”

Both ducklings rose up from the wooden floor and gave each other yet another hug. As Dewey walked over to the door, Webby could feel her body shaking again.

“Wait!”

Dewey halted in his footsteps and could almost feel the uneasiness flowing back into the duckling. He sighed. “Wanna sleep in our room, tonight?”

Webby nodded furiously.

“Fine,” Dewey said as he gestured his hand to the door. “I’ll see if I can find any spare blankets from Huey’s drawers.”

Regaining her smile once more, Webby ran across the room and leapt out the door.

Before Dewey could follow her path, he went to the lamp with the intent of turning it off (Scrooge was awfully strict when it came to conserving energy bills). He reached his hand over to the switch, but before he could flick it, the middle triplet could’ve sworn he saw a shadow flickering across the wall.

“Wait, wha?”

Dewey squinted his eyes as he inched closer to the dimly lit wall. Then, out of nowhere, the shadow re-materialized on the wall, giving the duck quite the scare. As the shadow chuckled to herself, Dewey closely observed the shade’s features. He wasn’t sure, but he could’ve sworn it looked exactly like…

“No way,” Dewey muttered, “that’s not possi--”

“Hey Dewey, what’s taking you so long?”

At that moment, the shadow immediately disappeared, leaving the middle triplet both confused and a little frightened. “Don’t worry, I’m coming out soon.”

Dewey exchanged some quick glances with the wall before exiting the room entirely. As he did, his mind began racing with questions and concerns, which made it hard for him to even think about sleep.

“Great, now I’m gonna have trouble sleeping, tonight.”