#i just did it for a bit that didn't even pan out... that's writing folks!!! *does a jig*

[tellthatbrokebitch]

i really loved and cherished “and do you feel like you should,” but i cant shake the feeling that it follows the trend of people re-writing classic novels with minor changes. like the great gatsby but nick has scoliosis that he mentions every so often. this fic is just what’s gonna happen in season 5, with the minor detail of Will Byers being lactose intolerant mentioned each chapter. brilliant work!

omg my first ask!!! hi!!! :)

i'm glad i waited until today to answer this, bc when i received this ask really late last night, it didn't compute in my brain and i was like... is this hate??? am i being dunked on??? and then i read it again

tysm!!! i'm glad you liked it!

okay, i'm going to be honest: the will being lactose intolerant thing was for my original fic idea that ended up fizzling out bc it didn't work with the prior seasons canon. it was going to be like a flashback situation where will and el were planning out mike's visit and when el was talking about getting milkshakes, will was going to be like "oh i'm lactose intolerant actually :/" AND THEN I SCRAPPED THE SCENE AND NONE OF IT MADE ANY SENSE. so that's why will is lactose intolerant in the fic

now that i'm thinking back on it, i scrapped that scene long before i wrote chapter 3, so i could've just... not made him lactose intolerant. huh

[wigglebox]

there's a thing i wish newer fans of spn could have experienced and that is when the show was airing, week to week, and for years and years on this website or on LJ or on twitter or wherever, coming up with speculation and meta posts and trying to follow the clues as to what this show was giving us in terms of material.

i'll admit some folks probably took it too far and didn't understand that just because the show didn't do 100% what they thought it was going to do, that it wasn't baiting or that they didn't know what they were doing — however for the most part, for a lot of us, it was just fun.

and i say this because fans that were brand new fresh once the show ended didn't get to experience that, it was all catch up and a post-show fandom environment for the last 4 years. the winchesters provided a bit of that rush again but it was so short lived that it was hard to get it going.

and why i think that experience is something good to have or at least understand that it's an experience that some people in this fandom have, is because it's gotten a lot of us used to not taking it all 1:1 face value. that is: we're used to things we think are going to happen not happening, we're used to the fact that our speculation and interpretations can be wrong, we're used to the fact that the people creating the stories have their own way of doing things, and while we think we know best, at the end of the day we're playing with the toys they left for us in the sandbox.

i don't think older fans are anything to sneer at or write off because even the ones who may have been the most jumpy during the show's airing have since grounded themselves and will essentially 'wait and see' how any continuation pans out, and also had that same approach with the winchesters and many folks i knew who took that approach were pleasantly surprised with that prequel.

not that we're The Wise Ones TM but that all that time in this fandom and interacting with the show did build this certain skillset for many and it's not that we're dumb, it's not that we're delusional or that we're always wrong about stuff, but that we learned how to have fun with it.

[radioisntdead]

Ways to piss off an Italian

Alternatively three ways to cartoonishly piss off an Italian

Hazbin hotel x reader [Platonic]

Warnings:

Italian stereotypes, just jokin' around this is all in good fun! I put an Imp OC of mine in as the reader assistant! She just pops in and out to stir things up! Reader's learning to cook other types of food because they've hadn't had to cook for themselves in ages they just had others do it. Ending is a little off but we don't talk about that I finished this at 6 am I need sleep, Angel isn't that pissed mostly dismayed

Good evening folks! This is a side story with Eldritch horror reader and Angel dust because he's Italian, this is somewhat inspired by my own bit of how my younger self made it her mission to piss off Italians because of that Italian TikTok duo back in 2020-2021 [???] She did not succeed as she did not know any Italians and all she did was eat spaghetti noodles with anything but a fork.

this is also the 100 followers special! Now at the time of posting we are FAR past that at 207! but better late then never! Thank you so much for the support, I genuinely did not think this many folks would like my silly little writings, I adore getting y'all's requests, comments, and just appearing in my inbox genuinely it makes my day thank you! And I hope you enjoy!

Angel Dust took great pride in his Italian heritage and culture, as he was truly Italian.

Unfortunately he lived with a centuries old Eldritch horror who may or may not have lived in Europe during the bubonic plague and didn't understand the more "modern'' Italian or Italy at all, and others that didn't understand the "sacredness" of the Italians.

🍝The spaghetti.🍝

You took over cooking in the hotel, you and Alastor had begun fighting over the kitchen, whoever got there first got to cook and today, you were victorious.

You were exploring new recipes you had thus far made spicy tteokbokki and Korean corn dogs, some type of curry that was sonic blue, teriyaki chicken, hummus and other things! You experimented with different flavors, seasonings,

These tasty things would've ended you if you ate it back when you were alive and not dying of the bubonic plague.

Anyways, you decided to give making spaghetti a try because you were in the mood for something fairly easy to make.

As you perused the recipe book while humming along to the songs playing from Alastor's radio show, you nodded noting down the ingredients before pulling out the phone that the little Imp that worked for you had bought you insisting you should have one to contact her instead of hunting her down at random and dragging her away.

You squinted as you scrolled through the few contacts you had until you reached said imp's phone number and slowly texted her a barrage of ingredients to buy.

Cece carefully opened the hotel doors and skittered over to the kitchen, having memorized the route since she delivered ingredients to you almost daily at this point.

You grinned as you took the ingredients from Cece's hands turning around to place them on the counter while she pulled up a chair and sat down waiting for the inevitable "Dear Cece can you cut this" or "Dear Cece can you stir this"

You washed off the tomatoes before slicing in an x and blanching them, you peeled the tomatoes after and diced them up before putting them aside to cut up yellow onions, you gathered them up and placed them into a pan, sprinkling in salt to unleashed the onion liquids and sweetness.

You added in some prechopped garlic and let it saute.

While that was happening you took the tomatoes and crushed them, once done you combined the tomatoes with the rest letting it simmer.

You added other components like herbs, basil and a little olive old at the end just for fun.

You filled up another pot with water to boil, sprinkling a twinge of salt and stirring it in.

You brushed your hands on your apron, as you scooted around to find the box of spaghetti noodles, grinning you opened it and take out the pasta.

It was at this unfortunate moment Angel dust decided to waltz on into the kitchen, intending to see what was for dinner and maybe snag something to munch on, you held the dry pasta over the pot, both hands gripping the ends

"Hey tentacles, what's for- WHAT THE FUCK!''

"Good evening Dearest Angel! I'm making spaghetti!"

You said unfazed as the pasta snapped in half and dropped into the pot as Angel dust watched in pure horror.

"Why would you do that?!" Angel asked, his voice pitched as he asked arms gesturing to the pot of sad broken pasta boiling away.

"Make spaghetti? I didn't think it was such a controversial meal"

"No! You broke the pasta! That's like the biggest sin ya can do! What is wrong with ya?"

"We're already in hell, I don't think sins matter much here," Cece popped in, you jumped slightly forgetting the imp was there.

"They do when it comes to' fuckin' pasta toots!"

Angel dust shouted before promptly turning around and leaving the kitchen, leaving you completely confused and Cece amused, unfortunately her amusement turned into irritation as you asked her to grab the ground beef and roll it into balls so you could cook them because meatballs.

During dinner time your spaghetti was a hit!

Charlie complimented your cooking saying you outdid yourself while Vaggie was grabbing a second serving, Sir Pentious enjoyed slurping up the noodles, Niffty kept stabbing the meatballs foe whatever reason, Husk seemed to enjoy the meal however Angel dust had one pair of arms crossed while he reluctantly ate, it was good he could admit but he knew the sin that you had committed while cooking, he knew that innocent pasta had been broken.

Angel dust almost died a second time when he walked into the kitchen later that night for a midnight snack and witnessed a probably drunk Husk eating leftover spaghetti pasta with ketchup because the sauce you had made was on a higher shelf in the refrigerator and he didn't feel like climbing.

🍕 pineapple pizza time.🍕

You and Alastor had... For lack of better words got into a little fight over the kitchen, tentacles, shadows, mild mind control and other things were used until Vaggie stepped in and separated the two of you,

It was decided that pizza would be ordered for the hotel, much to Alastor's disapproval.

Cheese, pepperoni, pineapple and ham, and supreme were the pizzas ordered unbeknownst to Angel dust since he was coming back to the hotel from a hangout with Cherri.

"Angel! Welcome back we ordered pizza!" Charlie said waving the spider over as Vaggie placed the pizza boxes onto the table.

"Great! I'm starvin'!" Angel walked over just in time to see the box containing pineapple pizza opened up.

"Nevermind I'll starve."

"We have other pizzas Angel."

Vaggie did not get paid enough to deal with this, she didn't even get paid!

Angel dust was extremely disappointed in you, you were the one to suggest getting pineapple pizza because you quote, "Never had it before and wanted to try it",

You were well over a few centuries old, you weren't a child, you had gone to hell and become an overlord that rained terror for a couple of years and therefore you should've been able to tell that pineapple on pizza was a crime against humanity, so what if pizza wasn't a thing during your time, it was a thing that came to be while you were down here!

He had later lectured you about it, it was amusing to you! You were a feared overlord and yet this little Italian guy had the gull to lecture you, this was normal in families right? To not be afraid of each other? How wonderful!

The lecture eventually switched over to Husk who was eating pizzas folded which was just weird because he was just tasting the crust! What about the cheese? The sauce? THE SAUCE HUSK? DO YOU NOT TASTE IT?

Husk was too sober for the lecture, Alastor found it amusing though.

🇮🇹Italian PowerPoint presentation 🇮🇹

"Alright tentacles, we're havin' a intervention!" Angel dust said throwing his hands down on the coffee table as you sipped something from a teacup, probably tea.

"Is what you dragged us here for? This shit?"

Husk was here, how did he always get dragged into these things? Niffty was beside him trying to stab a roach, Charlie and Vaggie were out of the hotel, Alastor was hell knew where, probably doing radio stuff and Angel dust had somehow tracked down your assistant and dragged her there.

"Oh! Whatever for dearie?" You asked head tilted as you placed your cup on the table,

"You've committed so many fuckin' crimes in the past week! Ya' broke the pasta before puttin' it in the pot! Ya' put cream in the carbonara! Ya ate pineapple on pizza, I get we're in hell but are ya fuckin' kiddin' me?-" Angel moved his arms around to empathize his point "Not to mention that little fusion stunt, ya' deranged octopus!"

You hummed thinking about the meals you've made recently before responding, "I don't think I made anything bad?"

"You decided to put tomato sauce, cheese and pepperoni on cooked ramen and stuck it in da' oven and ate it."

"It wasn't as good as the little people on the interwebs said."

"OF COURSE IT WASN'T GOOD IT WAS A CRIME! IT CAME OUT OF THE DEEPS OF HELL."

"Eh, it wasn't that bad" Cece popped in to stir the pot, Angel slowly turned around becoming slightly more spidery

"The fuck did ya just say?"

Cece shrugged, "Food's expensive and I need to eat."

Cece was picked up and thrown on the couch with you as Angel dust set up a PowerPoint presentation about the history of Italian food and whatever else, You did not want to be here you'd rather be drinking your drink in peace, Husk didn't want to be here he'd rather be drinking, your hellborn imp assistant didn't want to be here, she's never going to Italy she didn't need to know this and Niffty, well she's still stabbing things on the floor.

By the time Charlie and Vaggie returned you had zoned out completely and your mind was elsewhere, Niffty was napping on your shoulder, Cece had escaped by asking Angel if garlic bread was Italian and while he went on that tangent she ran out abandoning everyone.

Husk was more dead inside then per usual, he wasn't paid enough for this, the first hour was fine but this had been going on for five hours at this point, how did Angel dust manage to drag this PowerPoint presentation out so long?

Vaggie shut it down after it was realized that you weren't responding and they thought you had somehow died,

You did not die and you eventually snapped out of it when a white cloth was put over you in order to hide the body.

Good evening folks! Thank you for turning on in! I hope you enjoyed, my apologies for taking forever to get this out, if your wondering why it feels like there's a missing gap that's because I wrote a whole lil' thing of reader and Alastor combining forces to annoy Angel and I accidentally deleted it.

I'm gonna rewrite it eventually and add it to a different fic with Eldritch horror reader, also If your wondering why I have an imp OC in here there is a reason with Eldritch horror and their family complex you'll see eventually

I'll be getting the readers backstory which will be the 200 follower special out [hopefully] soon so tune on in for that! Thank you again have a wonderful day!

[kanmom51]

BTB Hobi Entrance Ceremony with BTS

cr./to the creators of the media used in this post.

I knew this would be landing today. No captions yet though.

They were all keeping up a brave face but it was obvious that each and every one of them (that we saw) was deeply sad. Did I or did I not say NJ was crying?

The love they all feel for each other, all of them, and the love they all, each and every one of them have for Hobi, it's just beyond description. They are a family. A mostly functional non biological loving family.

As we know, they arrived one after the other, pretty much at the same time. We see JK and Tae behind him walk up to Hobi interact with him and then JM comes over complaining of a back ache.

Muscle memory kicks in, it's just such a natural thing for him to do - JM in pain, JK goes into carer mode, reaching out to JM.

That hand.

JM doesn't seem to notice, walks by JK and Tae straight to Hobi for a hug.

A few seconds later JM turns to the person that gives him comfort, the person he gives comfort to, for this:

And a big strong super tight hug.

Prey do tell me, what about that interaction warranted that hug exactly?

That hug. That tone they have with each other.

The others just doing their own thing, not bothered what so ever, while Jikook are being Jikook right beside them.

Same same.

And it didn't end.

The camera panned out (or rather in, to Hobi and Tae's conversation/interaction) while they were still embraced. Still doing whatever they were up to. You can hear them in the background even though the cameraman decided enough is enough and better leave them out of frame at that point.

Ok, so listen up.

We know JK arrived the night before.

We know JK isn't wearing his CK jacket.

With Jikooks is it me is it you alcohol teasing going on there before that mighty hug, I kind of have a feeling the two were busy drinking together, not getting too much sleep, maybe leaving in a bit of a rush in the morning and being a little hung over, Mr. Jeon took the wrong jacket by mistake?

Hope he didn't get into trouble with CK, although with the success so far of his ambassadorship (shares prices going up, sales through the roof), I doubt they will be too bothered.

Just a theory here folks. Mostly unsubstantiated and can clearly be written into the next Twitter fanfic.

**Note to self: maybe I should start writing fanfics, or fiction in general, I might just have a knack for it...

But...

See, I'm not the only one that figures the two were drinking together...

The rest of the story, yeah that's on me.

Fast forward a tiny little bit.

And then JM's all up in JK's face again.

Yep, puffy red eyes confirmed.

The way JK just allows JM to do whatever he wants with him, lol.

I don't know if you noticed this, but a. most of the time that we did see them they were by each other's side, mostly glued together; and b. Much of the time they were off frame, and it felt intentional, probably because they didn't budge from each other's side.

The way all their faces lit up when Jin arrived.

Sadly, they couldn't show Jin in the BTB. Which means folks, that we won't be getting to see Jin and Hobi in any future content that may or may not be created upon the enlistment of the next member.

Those final individual photos with Hobi.

God, I'm going to miss Hobi so damn much.

[danses-with-dogmeat]

Smut and alphabets but not enough angst!!

I’m requesting a death claw with the prompt “You did this to me” with our favourite Detective Robot Nick Valentine? 💘

I’ve been reading all of your event works so far, and your writing still amazes me 😭

Poor Nick, omg 😩 No, but angst requests are good! They're tougher for me to write, so I'm glad when people ask for 'em! And this one is no exception, my goodness, the potential here had my brain going all over the place with the possibilities.

And ahh, thanks for reading! Sometimes I feel like these event prompts aren't my best work, since I move through them pretty quick, so it means a lot to hear you say that you're enjoying them! 🥰

And with that, I hope you like this one as well!

"Kid, I..." Nick was at a loss, his good hand reaching out to rest comfortingly onto Sole's shoulder, as his yellow eyes were met with the broken sight of his partner's adversary, their greatest enemy, and... and the only means to find their son, lying dead in a puddle of dark crimson.

"I'm sorry it happened this way." His hand made contact, and he felt the way his partner's shoulder shook below his gentle touch, the way their breath hardly seemed to leave them, only in shallow, muted gasps. "But there's still time. We know without a doubt where Shaun is now, and, well... If we're to believe our friend Kellogg here, it sounds like he's unharmed. If we can only--"

"We can't." Sole's voice was as stony and cold as the body that laid before them. "That was our only chance, our only way into the Institute, and now..."

They pulled away from Nick's touch as they shook their head, pushing past him quickly and moving towards the exit without a glance back. His glowing gaze fell to the grey floor, his hat low on his furrowed brows as a hollow feeling crept through his synthetic, steel bones.

That can't be true.

Nick set his jaw, and turned to follow Sole out- no, to stop them, to force the hope that still clung to him into their hands, to make them hold onto it as tightly as they had before today, as he still did now.

We're going to find him. Somehow. We have to.

His hand landed back upon their arm, and when they turned to face him, there were tears in their eyes.

I can't let them down. Not after everything they've been through to get here.

"That wasn't our only chance, Sole, I don't believe that for a second. We'll find a way, you'll see."

"How?" Their eyes and voice pleaded with the same desperation.

"There's more folks out there than just Kellogg. More synths who maybe know something, more Institute eggheads coming out to check up on the--"

"But he knew, Nick." His light touch over Sole's arm was rendered useless again as they pulled away. Pulled away from him like his fingers had bitten them. "Kellogg knew we were coming, he prepared for this. And he prepared to die to hold onto the Institute's secrets. You think others wouldn't do the same? You think they wouldn't kill us, or vanish like everyone from that horrible organization seems to?"

He nodded grimly to his partner. They were all good points, but there was something Sole wasn't taking into account.

No matter how resilient, how resourceful the Institute's people were, their synths were, well... he was one of them, wasn't he?

And I'm resilient too, dammit. I won't give up now. It's more than a case, it's personal. And I can't fail them. Not again.

"I can't promise that the folks from the Institute will cooperate with us, Sole, but I can promise you that I'll do everything in my power to help you find your boy again." He stepped closer to them, even as their still-glistening eyes narrowed. "Look, I know this time didn't quite pan out, but it's not the end of it. We're closer than anyone's ever been to finding the Institute now, all we gotta do is buckle down, use what we know, an' with a little bit of elbow grease, a little bit of hope, I believe we'll be the ones to crack this. I believe you'll see Shaun again."

"We can't just hope, Nick. We need more than that. We can't dream and believe that I'll find Shaun, that he'll be unharmed, unaltered by these people." Their eyes were distant as they said the words, as a despondent expression made a home upon their face.

He opened his mouth to refute it, to try and drive his, maybe foolhardy, optimism into them, but their eyes snapped to meet his and they spoke before he got a chance.

"You did this to me." Their voice was raw, accusing. It cut through him like raking steel fingernails. "You made me believe that I could find him, that this was the way, that Kellogg was the answer, that I could have at least a part of my family again, that I could trust a synth to help me when it's synths like you that are the fucking problem."

"Sole--" He stepped back, as though their speech had shoved him away like a set of cruel hands.

"Whether you want to be or not, Nick, you're still one of them. And... And if you are, I can't go on trusting you. I can't put faith or hope or anything in you. Not if it's just gonna end up like this. Because this?" Their hand gestured back to the body behind him, to the mangled 2nd gen synths still smoking and sizzling on the floor. "This hoping and working through my pain, going for days on end without resting or eating or anything, and thinking that there'll be the payoff of finding the only family I have left? If I have to go through that... If he's not there at the end of it... I can't do it again, Nick. I'm sorry. I'm--"

They kept backing away from him, a fear in their eyes that he should've been used to by now, if only it hadn't been his Sole showing it.

"I've gotta go. I've gotta try and fix this. Try and find him. And... I've got to do it without you."

Nick's hand reached out as they turned and fled from him, their harsh footsteps echoing down the hall as they vanished in the smoke and dust still encasing the battle-torn room.

His voice was caught in his throat, his feet locked in place as he watched his client, his friend, his partner fade into the bleakness of the room. Without him by their side.

Maybe they were right. Maybe he didn't even know it, but maybe he had jeopardized their mission from the start. Maybe they were better off without him.

Nick didn't know. But he knew what he'd told them, what he'd promised, was true. He'd do anything to help them find their son. Even if he couldn't be by their side.

He breathed out slowly, the sigh that left him a remnant of the old Nick's personality. That, and the way his good hand came up to rub at his face harshly, brushing his hat back on his head before his fingers came down and pressed hard to the bridge of his nose.

A moment of stillness passed. The only sound that of the elevator that was bringing his partner back up to the surface without him. Nick turned his head as the sound faded away, casting one last glance at the dead man who'd torn Sole's seemingly ceaseless hope to shreds and left them hollow and mistrusting. His glance easily turned to a glare at the sight of that man, who'd so easily ruined his friend's life more than it already had been after the end of the world they knew.

What the hell gave him the right?

Nick walked up to the body slowly, steeling his emotions and assuming the air of the professional detective again, shedding the true guise of being Sole's friend, their partner, as he prepared to find the evidence necessary to solve this case. Even if he had to do it alone.

[airlock]

well! that's all the jellyfish couldn't swim. might as well write my thoughts on the finale down here from the top of it. maybe sometime in not very long I'll see what the thing looks like watched all at once, the way I usually do this

so first of all: I went in without raising my expectations for yuri too high, so I'm not burned as hard about that as folks largely seem to be. that said, I did go in with a lot of other expectations, and came out underwhelmed

the escalator scene was cute, and I did really want to see mahiru and kano back to being cute and physically affectionate with each other -- but god, what a weird way to build up to the resolution, and what a weak resolution. they really couldn't have had one conversation until after the big show? mahiru couldn't even tell the gang herself about the performance arrangement? and did they really not have more to say to each other than "oops I said something thoughtless" "whoops I may have done a few inconsiderate things" "[in sync] BUT MOVING ON--". like, on the one hand this is totally how some conflicts I've had in real life ended up, but on the other hand, this conflict was gnawing at the core of the plot for three episodes, and spoke to the central character motivations of both characters involved; how was the conclusion of it not supposed to be the main event today?

I guess that's where I really set myself up, because I'd spent the whole week dreaming up what a good resolution would've looked like, what sort of stirring words would've been exchanged then. maybe I'll just have to write that myself sometime.

and speaking of conflicts that were just glided over! I didn't want to believe that the Yukine situation was headed to the old "forgive and forget because they're family" scrapyard, but I guess that's also where I totally set myself up. I'd been waiting for things with Yukine and Mahiru to sour even a little; I'd been waiting for Kano to actually really find her way outside her shadow; and most of all, I'd been waiting to find out about the last depths of her character. and today, for a ghost of a moment, I thought they might actually have Kano choke off a show in front of her, see what something like that would bring her to do. but nope! the gig goes smoothly and all is forgiven. kano ugly-cries at just being called her damn name by her mother, like we're supposed to find that touching. turns out Yukine's just reeeaaaal all-business-like, y'see, and there was nothing deeper than that to when she tossed her daughter to the fucking wolves. remember when this show was good at organically developed drama?

(and while we're at it, anyone find it super weird that Mero just gets to have a "look up at the motivating sight" moment with Kano? out of nowhere? like I'm not strictly opposed to it happening at all, but maybe it should not have been the second thing to be said or thought between them since The Punchening.)

all of it coalesces into the culmination of what'd been really bugging me for much of the back half of the show: weird pacing. things getting glided over that could've been whole episodes, missing chunks, and just the general sense that we went from a superproduction straight into a rushed mess. I wonder what happened in the back end. I wonder if this would've gone better, or just been more of the same, if this weren't a 12-episode standaloner.

at least Kano did finally find a reason to sing that doesn't completely revolve around one person! it was a bit cheesy, but it was one of her matters getting a good, satisfying conclusion. more than can be said for Mahiru, unfortunately.

I guesd that's the other thing I'd been expecting of this chapter that didn't pan out. ep9 centered on Kano; ep10 centered on Mei; ep11 centered on Kiui. but ep12 had like one really good Mahiru scene (the negotiation at the beginning) and that was it for her. not a great comeback for our out-of-focus protagonist! she delivered the final jellyfish speech that I'm sure we all knew was coming, but it felt totally unearned. wish you could've really shined on your own today, sweet jelly

Mei and Kiui got very good slices of epilogue for themselves, at least. Mei gets to be the inspiration she once needed! Kiui wasn't going to have much new to do, but she's already starting to put her dreams into practice!! those two I could walk out happy for, at least!

the graduations and the new mural painting scenes were cute, but they really just kind of happened, despite how much more of the episode they took up; again, weird pacing. and y'know, for how inportant the bonds between those four had become, I wish they'd had more to carry into the future than "maybe we'll still hang out sometimes". still, I suppose I would've been less sour on all of that if this hadn't had to be the episode that so much else was riding on, and crashed down upon. I guess that's also something I'd noticed earlier about this half of the show: the downtime scenes are ending up sort of carrying the emotional core where the main plot keeps letting it down.

oh well! much as all the unmet expectations hurt, and much as I'm not going to be able to say that yorukura actually surpassed a lot of my existing favourite anime, it's been a fun ride up to here. and I'll be carrying the better moments of it forward in my heart

[ryanhamiltonwalsh]

The first Velvet Underground show in Boston - 10/29/66

In Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968 I devoted many pages in service of fleshing out just how important Boston was for VU in the late sixties. But what I didn't get to talk about was the very first time the band appeared in the city on 10/29/66, which happens to be 57 years ago this week. It's a fine excuse to briefly stop thinking about the ceaseless horrors of the larger world and collate/post a bunch of info I've collected about that show as well as their first show in Massachusetts all together in Provincetown a few months prior.

The Exploding Plastic Inevitable—Warhol's multimedia bombardment of lights, film, live music, performance, and dance—was less than a year old when it was scheduled to appear in Boston. This EPI, featuring the music of the Velvet Underground, was to serve as the culmination of Warhol's exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art (the ICA), which at this point was located at 100 Newbury Street (where H&M currently resides). This was only Warhol's second museum exhibition and the mere booking of it at the ICA led to robust conversation in local art cliques. Boston was titillated and ready to have strong opinions about the new pop sensation whom some were calling genius and others a charlatan. More on that in a bit.

But before that exhibit even opened, Massachusetts had gotten a preview of the full Warhol experience late that summer at the Chrysler Art Museum in Provincetown, the coastal resort town located at the very tip of Cape Cod.

The Chrysler Art Museum is the large white building in the background of this postcard on the right.

Since the late 1800's, Provincetown had been in contrast to much of Puritan-singed Massachusetts, welcoming artists and writers as residents and visitors, presenting experimental theater, and supporting thriving art colonies. In 1916, the Boston Globe wrote that Provincetown was 'the biggest art colony in the world.'" By the time the Warhol entourage rolled through, it was also quickly becoming known as a safe haven for LGBTQ folks as well. "There had been a gay presence in Provincetown as early as the start of the 20th century as the artists' colony developed, along with experimental theatre. Drag queens could be seen in performance as early as the 1940s in Provincetown." This, far more than Boston, was the kind of environment you'd imagine the Velvet Underground would be welcomed with open arms. But that's not how things panned out at all.

The Boston Globe previewed the event in late August:

By the time the EPI was set to come to Boston, the Globe preview of that booking (published 9/18/66) was far less dismissive; the write-up noted how the Exploding Plastic Inevitable grew out of Warhol's statements to the press that he had given up on painting (which was a terrific lie):

But back to Provincetown and the Velvets. Save for album opener "Sunday Morning," the debut VU album was already complete at this point, but would not be out until March of next year. Earlier in the summer, the band's first single had been released with Nico on lead vocals on both the A & B side. This no doubt frustrated Lou Reed if not all of the other Velvets. Warhol had convinced VU they needed a mysterious chanteusse in the mix, and they reluctantly, begrudgingly agreed to facilitate Nico's membership in the band while always simultaneously keeping her at arm's length (though both Reed and Cale also eventually both had affairs with her).

On the single version of "All Tomorrow's Parties," the six-minute prepared piano tour-de-force fades out after the 3 minute mark, undercutting its power substantially. The single did not chart. Reed claimed "All Tomorrow's Parties" was about the scene he witnessed at The Factory ("I would hear people say the most astonishing things, the craziest things, the funniest things, the saddest things," he explained) while Cale contends it's about a woman named Darryl they were both pursuing. In any event, it's highly unlikely anyone in Provincetown had heard the single before these performances but, factually, there *was* recorded VU music available out in the world at the time.

The complete EPI entourage in Provincetown featured all the Velvets—John Cale, Sterling Morrison. Nico, Lou Reed, and Maureen Tucker—Warhol himself, dancers Gerard Malanga, Mary Woronov, and Eric Emerson, road manager Faison, and Warhol assistants Paul Morrissey and Ronnie Cutrone. Relatively new to the group was Susan Bottomly (aka International Velvet) with David Croland, her boyfriend.

While it's certainly been mentioned that Susan Bottomly was from Boston (well, Wellesley, specifically), I haven't seen anyone chronicling the VU story or its primary players note that she was also the daughter of John Bottomly, who was not only the State Assistant Attorney General but also the chief of the special “Strangler Bureau," aka a key player in the infamous Boston Strangler saga.

International Velvet's father had never conducted a criminal investigation before heading up the bureau created in order to capture the phantom-like serial killer who had been terrorizing Boston for years, murdering over a dozen women. Bottomly was criticized for the interrogation methods he used on lead Strangler suspect Albert DeSalvo, guiding him directly towards certain ideas and details, for instance, and even more so when he became a paid consultant on the 1968 film The Boston Strangler. Between Bottomly's controversial Strangler hunt being recounted in Gerold Frank's best-selling '66 book, The Boston Strangler, and working on the Tony Curtis-starring-film of the same title, his daughter danced in the EPI, had flings with Lou Reed and John Cale, and appeared on the FEB '67 cover of Esquire sitting in a trash can. Being able to draw a direct line from the Boston Strangler case to the Velvet Underground is truly a hallucinatory, peak-1960's kind of footnote.

But according to Warhol, this was not how the Bottomlys actually felt about Susan's trashcan cover turn and current direction in life: "Her parents weren’t happy with her new ‘career’ - modeling in New York - and later on, when she was on the cover of Esquire, photographed in a garbage can (‘Today’s Girl, Finished at 18’), they were really upset... but they went on supporting her, and she went on supporting lots of her friends.”

Along with Nico, Bottomly was one of the few performers in Warhol's Chelsea Girls film that actually lived at the Chelsea Hotel. Bottomly also appears in the Andy Warhol 1966 film "The Velvet Underground and Tarot Cards" in which, over the course of 65 minutes, all members of the band get their tarot read (there's more on VU's unlikely interest in astrological signs and other occult topics in my book). The film is extremely difficult to screen, but here's a short silent clip featuring Susan.

"I'd be dying to go to bed with Susan Bottomly (International Velvet)," whom Lou was also fucking on the side," Cale wrote in his 2000 autobiography. "Unfortunately [Lou] caught me in bed with Susan and he threw us both out of the apartment." How much of this had already transpired by the time the New Yorkers landed at the curled edge of Cape Cod is unclear.

"Everyone is uptight for amphetamine," Gerard Malanga wrote upon the crew's first impressions of Provincetown and the lack of connections to a dealer in the area. "We're all waiting in front of the museum to go to the beach." Enjoying the beach might have been the last good thing to happen to the EPI team in Provincetown. For starters, apparently, the toilets in the house Warhol rented did not work and members of the entourage were "throwing shit out the window."

Next up, one of the EPI entourage stole various items from a local shop for the show, and the police arrived on stage during one of the performances. They "untied Eric Emerson from a post (which he was strapped to in preparation for being whipped by Mary Woronov) in order to retrieve some belts and whips that were stolen from a leather store." (Source: Up-tight)

Additionally, Gerard Malanga was running out of patience with how little control he had over any visual aspect of the EPI and having to compete for the literal spotlight with the Velvet Underground. In Provincetown, Susan Bottomly refused to dance where Malanga instructed her to and then, during "Heroin," she blocked the spotlight that provided him with any source of light to navigate the space. "I'm in total darkness. Mary is also in total darkness," he wrote in his diary. "Andy seems oblivious to the situation and to my personal feelings."

In a letter written to Warhol but never sent, Malanga griped about the Cape Cod performance: “I thought the Provincetown show got off to a rough but very good start, until you were so kind enough as to let Susan and everyone else not directly connected with the show to get involved with Mary and I on stage…You are slowly taking this away from me by allowing outside elements to interfere with my dance routines…From my vantage point on stage to have more than two dancers the show becomes a Mothers of Invention freak-out.”

Even worse, new dancer Eric Emerson tried to steal a priceless piece of art from the museum "just to see if he could get away with it" and negotiations to return the art without charges being pressed were only narrowly achieved.

Finally, to tie a bow on the cursed Provincetown engagement, the large photograph on the back of the debut VU album was taken during one of the Chrysler Museum performances, and that particular image led to a legal issue which severely affected the impact the first VU LP was able to have with the listening public. It all has to do with the head above the projection of Lou's head, both hovering above the band. That upside down man is would-be art thief and EPI dancer, Eric Emerson.

The best, succinct explanation of the debacle comes from Richie Unteberger's excellent White Light/White Heat: The Velvet Underground day-by-day book:

“Seeing how no one asked [Eric Emerson] about putting his picture on the jacket, he asked Verve for a lot of money,” Morrison later explains in M.C. Kostek and Phil Milstein’s critical Velvet Underground discography. “Verve got scared and airbrushed it out.”

As an immediate consequence, The Velvet Underground & Nico – which has only just entered distribution and the lowest levels of the charts – has to be pulled from stores while Verve/MGM alters the artwork. The delay effectively kills the record’s chances of rising up the charts – not that it goes very far, peaking at a lowly Number 171 on Billboard...When the album finally reappears, Emerson’s image has been airbrushed out, leaving a murky, yellow glow where his face once appeared. Even worse, some copies simply paste an ugly, black-and-white sticker with the album title and Warhol’s production credit over where Emerson’s face had been. There are no winners in this battle.

But how was the music? The Boston Globe's Ray Murphy covered the event and his specific references to the Velvet Underground sound more like how you might describe different shades on a painter's palette than an innovative rock band comprised of five unique individuals:

The performance ended when "all the fuses in the room blew out under the strain of all the projectors, amplifiers, and lights. The quiet made you dizzy."

"It was a wild affair and difficult to analyze," Murphy concluded.

"They got run out of Provincetown on a rail," Cutrone said in summary.

---

Less than two months later, the EPI/VU gang marched right back into Massachusetts for a rematch, this time in Boston proper.

Andy's appearance at the ICA in early October for the opening of his exhibit kicked off the Beantown version of Warhol-mania. The Globe reported:

Guess who this chic hangman was? That's right...

The Boston Globe spelled her last name incorrectly here, but other articles about her get it right.

Warhol, as he often did, just stood there and let people project their ideas onto him.

The paper declared Warhol "the hottest living art personality since Picasso and Dali." Then it was off to the races, with droves of Bostonians visiting to see what all the fuss was about, making it the most popular exhibit in the ICA's history.

Future Fletch novelist Gregory Mcdonald covered the phenomenon weeks into the exhibit for the Boston Globe. Mcdonald conjectured that it's not just people who love his art and hate his art, but also a third category of person who knows it's a fraud but finds it delightful that he's pulling one over on the sophisticated art world.

"His work has the limited future of a soup label," Mcdonald writes, unaware how wrong he'll eventually be proven, but then again, Warhol felt the same way. "My work has no future at all," he told the reporter, "I know that." Outside of a good caption joke about an older patron confused about whether she was at the supermarket or an art gallery, the Mcdonald piece concludes in what can only be described as the writer spiraling out trying to put the artist's ethos and its consequences into words:

"What are you currently reading exists this morning in 600,000 copies," he declares, "but by 2:30 this afternoon will not exist at all." And yet, here I am, reading those words and thinking about that same artist. No one saw what was coming.

The EPI event promptly sold out and an additional performance was added for 11PM on October 29th at the ICA. In the lead up to the show, the Velvet Underground are referred to in the press as a "cultural mafia," a preview of the event says the band will be "unleashed," and that "Boston has not seen anything like it." Admission was five dollars.

---

Just like the Provincetown trip, Boston had its own unique roster of ancillary players involved with the EPI and VU, and a few of them had some connection to a scene that was just starting to develop up on Fort Hill in Roxbury. The Mel Lyman Family, or Fort Hill Community, like Warhol, would soon receive reams of press coverage in an attempt to figure out who/what/why they precisely were. For now, Lyman and Co. had just acquired several dilapidated houses on Fort Ave. in the wake of Mel's initial audacious claims that he was God. Their alternative newspaper, Avatar, would start the following year in June of '67.

Ronna Page, who would dance in the EPI that night, had previously done a Warhol screen test and is the co-"star" of one of the most infamous scenes in Chelsea Girls in which an amphetamine fueled Ondine slaps her after she calls him a phony. It's a real, unscripted moment. It's also one of the most exploitive, squirmish moments in all of Warhol's work. Warhol said the unexpected violence made him uncomfortable and he had to leave the room while it was happening but Mary Woronov, in her memoir Swimming Underground, reported that privately the director said, "it's our best film yet. It's so beautiful."

The description of her screen test: "Ronna Page, lit only from the left, stares hard at the camera without blinking, until her eyes tear up halfway through the roll."

It was Page who introduced filmmaker Jonas Mekas to Mel Lyman at the Paradox Restaurant in New York, a connection that would lead to Lyman's first book, Autobiography of a World Saviour. It's unclear if she was ever a full time member of the Lyman family or just a friend on the periphery. In 1967, a member of the Fort Hill Community wrote of Page in the pages of Avatar:

The darkly voluptuous superstar, Ronna Page's metier is seducing swamis, and there's more and more work for her every day. Everyone's off to see the Master these days. The Beatles, Shirley MacClaine, Mrs. Frank Sinatra (that's Mia), Kandy Kane, Bobby Vinton are all looking for someone to help them on the journey to spiritual salvation. Can't you just see it! In a few years everyone will be going to their "psychia-christ" to the tune of seventy love — dollars an hour. But as long as our lovely Ronna is around, she'll weed out the swamis who are not bent on salvation but are bent over something else.

The subtext of this gossipy blind item is unknown, and whether this is in praise of Page or a dig is hard to say. In the 1966 "Expanded Arts" issue of Film Culture, Mel Lyman is listed as available for "A full evening show alone or together with Eben Given, Ronna Page, Jonas Mekas, light, images, voice, human presence" (Film Culture 43 [1966]: n.p.).

Also part of the Warhol entourage in Boston is artist and future art critic Rene Ricard, who was actively trying to avoid the Cambridge police for living illegally on Harvard property "and numerous flower thefts - from gardens, flower shops and particularly an alleged heist of one of Andy’s flower paintings."

In a November '67 article in Avatar, apparently Rene wrote an anonymously disparaging piece about himself:

A raging, high-pitched, red-eyed little transvestite called, get this, Rene Ricard, attacked Mel Lyman the other night in the back room (the place) of Max's Kansas City. Mel, slightly startled, but always the Master of the situation, just shut the little thing up by slapping his face. It turned out the reason for his attack was somehow everyone in New York thinks he's ME and he feels that I am ruining his name — YOUR name, you little bitch, think what you're doing to MINE!

Uh, ok. Sure. Maybe you had to be there.

Some of the NY entourage stay with Gordon Baldwin, others with Ed Hood, and because Nico only appears with the Velvet Underground a few times in Boston, this date is a fairly good candidate for one of the times the band stayed in the houses of the Mel Lyman Family. From AW68:

On one such occassion, when Nico simply helped herself to someone’s bed, the German singer was bluntly instructed to find somewhere else to catch some sleep. Personnel from the band and a Fort Hill Community member had certainly crossed paths at least once before; Faith Gude and VU’s whip dancer Gerard Malanga had a brief affair in the early sixties.

At 9PM, Saturday, October 29th, the first Velvet Underground show in Boston began.

Gerard Malanga sets the scene in Up-Tight:

In Jack Bernstein's review of the event for MIT's The Tech newspaper, he knew he had seen something ahead of its time:

To borrow a phrase, "it's the shape of rock to come." Andy Warhol's Expanding Plastic Inevitable featuring The Velvet Underground with Nico performed their new 'psychedelic rock' at the Institute of Contemporary Art Saturday. The biggest difference between this music and the stuff you get on 'frantic forty' radio is that you have to see this to believe it.

Bernstein describes the disorientating nature of the opening of the EPI with its lights, films, and a sense something was about to happen. And then:

Their first number, 'All Tomorrows Parties,' which, incidentally, has been released by Verve records, featured Nico singing, and the Underground, electric bass, electric guitar, electric piano, and supersonic drums, providing the most driving backing I've ever heard...the technical armament of Velvet Underground is something fantastic to behold...the most starling of all was two huge gas-discharge lamps which would flash in syncopated time as the music reached its climax. The only aspect of the performance which could been improved upon was the group's tendency to rely on the background material for too long between numbers, but once the music started, all was forgiven.

It sounds like an unadulterated win, but just like Provincetown, apparently, the New Yorkers left feeling down about the gig. EPI entourage member Susan Pile had a fairly grim assessment of how it all shook out in the end in a letter to her friend:

"Boston’s reaction was an incredible rejection. The thing is, those who do not get involved with the show tend to react in loud objection; those who do get involved are too overcome with the experience (capital E) to do much of anything. And the show in Boston was beautiful--it was a stage show in the auditorium - no dancing by scum on the floor."

But Pile also noted, "the Velvets are getting so much better--their album is done, but everyone is becoming disenchanted with the idea of touring." In truth, it wasn't quite done, and it was going to be awhile before it came out, and even then, it wasn't going to get the praise and adulation it deserved for decades, arguably. A long, long wait was ahead for the band, as an entity and even as a name. Think of the anticipation and crazed majesty of this first performance compared to the final Boston VU show, at Oliver's on Lansdowne St in 1973 with no original members and Doug Yule leading a competent bar band through a set that included some Velvet Underground songs. There would be a long free fall towards obscurity before they would be crowned one of the greatest to ever do it.

"One of the more celebrated rock groups..." indeed.

As would become tradition, the post-VU-Boston-show after party was held at Ed Hood's place in Harvard Square. Pile recalled, "A totally paranoid party - millions of people at Ed Hood’s in total isolation, everyone stoned beyond belief and uncommunicating."

The EPI in Boston generated an avalanche of stimuli, information, and discussion. Maybe everyone had done enough communicating for the night.

[makoredeyes]

So quite a few people have sent me very similar notes over the last couple of years. I want to say to all of you that have reached out: You did it. Collectively. This was the final straw that tipped the scale, but it was having this tidy little stack of people reaching out who CARED and understood, who were kind and respectful and sympathetic that helped. It's ALSO the spectacularly special little community of new readers I've collected from the Destiny2 community and all your incredible support and fantastic feedback and it's been just ten months of a DAMN GOOD TIME and maybe ya'll didn't know this maybe you did but every time I've posted another fic and it's been nothing but goodness coming back, I've healed a little bit from some BIG trauma. Should it have been that traumatic? Maybe. Maybe not. But it was. TLDR I freaked the fuck out, and I took a bunch of fics out of the public for almost exactly two years. Buuuut... It's time. I'm not going to heal the hurt by burying it, and the sting has softened for all those reasons above, and I talked with Crafty (because he is my best friend and also because half of these fics ALSO contain characters and creations that belong to HIM that I was also protecting) and he made the very smart and good observation that even if people get carried away, inspiring and exciting people with my writing can only, ultimately, be a good thing. And he's right. So I'm feeling a little spooked about it but mostly optimistic and I'm going to try and do a better job at trusting and assuming the better of people and just about everything should be back out in the open again with the exception of the original Mortal Prison, which I republished last year, and the second part to Imagine a Safe Place which unfortunately is abandoned for now so I'd just as soon leave it in deep storage for now. But here is everything else: --- Out of the Pan Into the Fire Ignite --- Trust Exercises --- Compassion --- Imagine A Safe Place --- If ya'll try the links out and find you can't access the fics for some reason... I fucked up. Let me know. This is thank you. Would have never expected Tumblr to be my place but I really love the folks here. Thanks for your patience.

Hey Mako, just figured I'd ask. Will we ever get to see the TF2 Blisk X Cooper fan fictions again?

I know the fandom hasn't been good to you so I understand if the answer is a hard no, but as someone who has read basically all your Titanfall stuff it's always sad to see that the fandom as a whole had to ruin for the people who actually enjoyed reading the stories you were putting out.

If your decision is no then forget I ever asked. I know it's likely still a raw subject, but I knew if I never asked I would keep being sad knowing I couldn't read the stories.

Thank you for your time.

Hi Anon!

If you follow me at all you probably recognize that I am extremely responsive and usually get back to people right away, and this ask has sat in my inbox for a whopping 9 hours which is like… dog years for me.

I am not ignoring you but I want to give you a good answer and I am considering my words very carefully so keep an eye out for my actual response. I just didn’t want you to feel like you were getting the cold shoulder because whatever else I do I don’t play like that. Hang tight please. I’ll RB here with the rest when I have it.

[osaruehara]

cool guy being cool

i am at a place where i feel like i've grown in places i'm proud of and grown in areas i'd rather not include here. i feel like i'm more of an adult, whatever that entails. more responsibility. big boy job. big bills. i'm not as lost as i used to be. i think that's what the charm of being young was: the world was just opening up and you were grabbing at the teat of any new opportunity with the grip of alex honnold.

one thing i haven't liked about myself especially is my distractability. like, i used to be on reddit for 3 hours a day. but now..... i'm on youtube AND reddit for 3-5 hours a day on my off days. i feel so lazy!!! i was on a really good running binge for a while. i stopped after a seattle trip and my fatass hasn't gotten back on it. i'm thinking of going back to the gym cause these guns are water. i'll stay on that for a month or two, and then boom back to running just in time for the 12k.

to address the elephant in the room...

i've been getting rid of social media kinda so i could stop getting so caught up in other people's biz. i felt like it wasn't healthy. i'm not seeing half these people ever again so why bother lool. i do miss certain folks but i see the beauty of life in my local caltrain.

i don't know why i'm talking like i don't give a fuck. i do really care. about a lot. i'm just impulsive and do whatever i want for the most part. i wanted ramen nagi today and i got the shit out of it. pork chashu, pan fried pork gyoza, karaage, ramen, fucking fight me asshole that's all me. two dudes on either side of me were eyeing like i couldn't finish it! i need to stop overeating but it feels so good to stuff my face like that mom and dad from spirited away when they turned to pigs.

i think life is good. when i look at the autumn leaves, i smile. i look back on my posts from this platform and....

i don't cringe at myself. i see a boy trying to figure out his feelings. i was so emotional and that was okay. i wasn't happy with where i was and where i was going. i was stuck working in kitchens (love/hate relationship) because my clinical jobs couldn't pay shit. and i didn't even like my clinicals cause professor dickhead of the athletic training program during one of my rotations made me feel worthless. he was aight i guess. but i didn't fit in to that shit. felt like a bunch of jocks. funny jocks, but not really my form i guess. but that, in combination with conflicting love interests made my early 20's such a roller coaster of just feeling awful about myself. constantly writing that i'm scum and i don't deserve shit. in a way, it was true. i did scummy things and i STILL do scummy things now! but at least now i have a little bit more self love. self respect? nah. self love? yes. i don't know if that even makes sense. but i've come a long way man. i'm happy with how far i've come. i'm happy to be working with sick patients and being part of their day. i'm happy to be doing something that feels profound. seeing people at their worst... maybe best, given their coping mechanisms.. it feels like i'm doing something that actually matters, and not trying to make an otherwise completely healthy dude or dudette feel healthier.

okay goals for the next couple of months:

[ ] you're only allowed youtube and reddit twice a day asshole [ ] you HAVE to at least jog OR yoga OR do home routine 3x a week, seriously your knees are feeling it [ ] keep promise of yosemite once every season

[citizentruth-blog]

I Didn't Vote or Campaign for Hillary. Please Don't Use the Separation of Immigrant Families to Try to Shame Me for It. - PEER NEWS

New Post has been published on https://citizentruth.org/i-didnt-vote-or-campaign-for-hillary-please-dont-use-the-separation-of-immigrant-families-to-try-to-shame-me-for-it/

I Didn't Vote or Campaign for Hillary. Please Don't Use the Separation of Immigrant Families to Try to Shame Me for It.

If you want to talk about my white privilege, fine. If you want to talk about what I could have done for vulnerable immigrant groups and can do going forward, I’m genuinely sorry, and with you. If you want to shame me for my vote for a third-party candidate, however, I reject your ignorance of electoral realities and your political bigotry. (Image Source: CBS News via YouTube)

I don’t often share personal experiences in my political writing, mostly because I feel like I’d be sharing stories that no one wants to hear. That still may very well be the case, but seeing as this situation was made relevant to the ongoing crisis facing the separation of immigrant families, I figured I would highlight my experience as a way of talking about the related issues.

A now-former friend on Facebook, who is a leader/organizer on behalf of a nonprofit organization, recently took to social media to ask whether any Jill Stein voters would like to apologize for their choice in the wake of said crisis. I, as someone who voted for Stein, took umbrage to this comment, if for no other reason than it seemed particularly haughty of him to begin the conversation on these terms. Granted, I could’ve (and probably should’ve) not engaged at all, but I did, and so here we are.

First, a note about my vote for Jill Stein: I am neither an ardent supporter of Stein nor am I am a Green Party fanatic. I also don’t fully know what the heck the point was of the recount she spearheaded or ultimately what exactly became of the money raised to fund recount efforts. For some of you, I suppose that just makes it worse: that I would just up and support a third-party nominee of whom I am not a follower despite being a registered Democrat. In this sense, my vote can be seen as somewhat of a betrayal.

I also should note that I supported Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign, and voted for him in my state’s Democratic primary. By this point, I had no illusions that Bernie would capture the nomination; my home state, New Jersey, was one of the last handfuls of primaries to be held in the 2016 election season, and several media outlets were already calling the nomination in Hillary’s favor before the polls could open. Accordingly, you might see my refusal to cast my ballot for Clinton, too, as a manifestation of the “Bernie or Bust” mantra. Although technically I did vote, just not for a representative of either major political party. Nor did I write in Sanders’s name as a protest vote. Or Harambe’s, even though I’m told he would’ve loved to see the election results.

When it came down to it, though, I didn’t feel like Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party did enough to try to win my vote—simply put. To me, Clinton’s campaign was emblematic of a larger strategic flaw that characterizes the Dems: too much capitulation to centrists, too dismissive of concerns about reliance on corporate and wealthy donors, too little regard for the concerns of working-class Americans and grass-roots organizers until it comes time to donate or vote. To me, Hillary’s pitch seemed largely tone-deaf if not disingenuous, plagued by secrecy about E-mail servers and Goldman Sachs speeches as well as ill-advised comments about “deplorables,” among other things. And for those of you already raising a finger to wag about the deleterious aspects of the Republican Party and its nominee, I never even remotely considered Donald Trump or another GOP candidate for my vote. At present, that’s a line I won’t cross, in jest or otherwise.

Thus, despite her evident misunderstanding of quantitative easing, I voted for Jill Stein—not because I thought she could win or because I feared Trump could—but because I felt the values she and her campaign expressed most closely matched mine. That’s it. I imagine many Trump voters felt the same way re values—that is, they supported his economic or social platform more than him or his antics, though if that’s the case, I don’t know how much that says about their values. I’m just trying to get the idea across that people’s “support” for particular candidates can be more nuanced than today’s political discourse might otherwise suggest.

My voting mindset, therefore, was not “strategic” in the sense that I didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton specifically to block Donald Trump. In light of my state’s final tally, it would seem my vote was unnecessary in this regard, though I could not know that for sure at the time I cast my ballot. Clinton came out ahead in New Jersey by more than 13 percentage points and close to 500,000 more votes, and thanks to the Electoral College and our winner-takes-all style of deciding these matters, all 14 of the Garden State’s electoral votes went to her. Stein did not even manage a third-place showing, being bested by the likes of Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party’s candidate.

This was the crux of my initial rebuttal about the need to apologize for my vote. While on a state-by-state basis, the notion of Johnson and Stein being “spoilers” may or may not have more validity (more on that in a bit), in my state, it did not. Regardless, to point fingers at lowly third parties deflects a lot of blame, and to borrow a term from Ralph Nader, who faced similar finger-pointing following the 2000 election, is to succumb to a high degree of “political bigotry.” In other words, it’s scapegoating perpetrated by members of major parties to distract from their need for substantive reform.

In addition to the culpable parties oft-cited by Clinton’s supporters and defenders—namely Russia, James Comey, and sexism (this last one may or may not be so true depending on the context or individual voter’s mindset, but that’s a whole different kit and caboodle)—there’s ample room to consider what role other groups played or, in theory, could have played. After all, what about the people who could vote and didn’t? What about the people who couldn’t vote but perhaps should be afforded the privilege, such as convicted felons? And what about the folks who actually voted for Donald Trump? Are they to be absolved of responsibility because they didn’t know better? If so, where is this written?

Additionally, what does it say that someone like Clinton, vastly more qualified than her opponent and, from the look and sound of things, quantifiably more capable, lost to someone in Trump to whom she had no business losing? For all the justifications for Hillary Clinton failing to capture an electoral majority—let’s not forget the fact she won the popular vote, an issue in it of itself when considering it’s not the deciding factor in presidential victories—we shouldn’t overlook some questionable decisions made by the Clinton campaign, including, perhaps most notably, how she and her campaign paid relatively low attention to important battleground states like Michigan and Wisconsin. Of course, even in Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania where Clinton campaigned heavily, she still lost, so maybe any establishment Democrat the party trotted out might’ve met with the same resistance fed by blue-collar whites flocking to Trump. Still, one can’t shake the sense Hillary approached the final throes of the campaign with a certain sense of arrogance.

To my ex-FB-friend, however, my reasoning was insufficient, and at this point, one of his colleagues, who happens to be a person of color, interceded to agree with his sentiments. As far as they were concerned, my support for Jill Stein may have influenced people in states more susceptible to a Trump win to vote for someone other than Hillary Clinton. I guess, for the sake of an analogy, my thoughts could’ve “infected” those of otherwise discerning voters to make them vote the “wrong” way. My assignment of blame to Hillary despite the forces working against her was panned as well, as was my diminishment of Stein as a spoiler. All in all, they contended, my position was one that exhibited my white privilege and made me sound—quote unquote—morally reprehensible.

As far as I am concerned, if I’m morally reprehensible—fine. You can call me a serpent demon, for all I care. The legitimacy of the arguments within is what interests me. On the subject of my potential game-changing pro-Stein influence, though it’s possible, it’s highly unlikely. In my immediate circle, I told few people unless specifically asked who I planned to vote for. I also wrote a post back in 2016 about why I planned to vote for Jill Stein and posted to Facebook, but—let’s be clear—hardly anyone reads my writing. My own mother doesn’t even read it most of the time. From her standpoint, my entries are of the TL;DR ilk, and what’s more, they tend to be devoid of pictures of cute animals or how-to makeup videos. Fair enough, Mom.

On the subject of Jill Stein as the spoiler, while it’s true that Stein’s numbers may have been larger than Trump’s margin of victory in key states, to say that all those votes would have gone to Hillary instead makes an assumption which may be accurate, or it may not. Again, however, it doesn’t change the contention that the race shouldn’t have been this close in the first place. Weeks after the 2016 election, as vote counts were yet being finalized in too-close-to-call contests, Jim Newell wrote as much in a piece for Slate. He argued:

The lesson of the Comey letter should not be that everything was just going fine until this singular event happened. Obviously Democratic candidates can pick up some tips for the future, such as a) always be sure to follow email protocol and b) keep your electronic devices as far as possible from Anthony Weiner. But they can never rule out some other Comey-equivalent October surprise. The question to ask is: Why was the Clinton campaign so susceptible to a slight shock in the first place? A campaign is resting on a very weak foundation if one vague letter from the FBI causes it to lose a huckster who sells crappy steaks at the Sharper Image.

The “Jill Stein or James Comey cost Hillary the election” narrative is akin to the narrative that Bernie Sanders did irreparable harm to the Democratic Party. You’re telling me that one man not even officially affiliated with the Democrats as a U.S. senator permanently damaged the entire party apparatus? To me, charging Sanders with potentially bringing ruin to the Dems says more about party’s infrastructural integrity (or lack thereof) than it does the intensity of his so-called “attacks” on Hillary Clinton as her primary challenger.

On the subject of my white privilege, meanwhile, well, they’re right. Let me say I don’t dispute this. I enjoy a certain amount of privilege on a daily basis and have almost certainly benefited from it over the course of my educational career and my professional life. Going back to the state-by-state basis of variation in election results, though, the biggest issue would appear to be my geographic privilege. If I lived in a state projected to be much closer based on polling data, might I have chosen differently?

Perhaps. It’s a decision I’m weighing on a smaller scale as we speak with Sen. Bob Menendez seeking re-election in New Jersey after a poor showing in the Democratic Party primary. Sure, Menendez is still the likely winner come November, but with doubts raised about the ethics of his behavior still fresh in voters’ minds, can I take his win for granted? On the other hand, if I do vote for him, what does this say about my values as a voter? Is choosing the “lesser of two evils” sufficient, considering we’ve been doing it for some time now and the state of democracy in this country doesn’t seem to be all that much better for it? These are the kinds of questions I don’t take likely.

Another issue invoked at around the same point in this discussion was whether I had done as much as I could to prevent Trump from winning. For what it’s worth, I wrote a piece separate from my pro-Jill Stein confessional right before the election about why you shouldn’t, under any circumstances, vote for Trump, but as I already acknowledged, my readership is very limited. At any rate, and as my online detractors insisted, I didn’t vote for Hillary, and what’s more, I didn’t campaign on her behalf. I could’ve “easily” made calls or knocked on doors or what-have-you for her sake at “no cost” to me, but I didn’t. As a result, according to them, I was complicit in her electoral defeat.

Could I have told people to vote for Hillary Clinton? Sure. I don’t consider myself any great person-to-person salesman, but I could’ve made an effort. Although this would present a weird sort of dissonance between my advocacy and my personal choice. Why am I instructing people not to vote for Trump and choose Clinton instead when I myself am choosing neither? Then again, I could’ve chosen to vote for Hillary, or simply lied about my choice, assuming anyone ever asked. I also could’ve tried to lobotomize myself with a fork to forget anything that happened leading up to the election. That’s the thing with hypotheticals—you can go any number of ways with them, no matter how unlikely or painful.

Eventually, it became evident that these two gentlemen were demanding that I apologize, but in a way that could make them feel better about accepting me as one of them—a liberal, a progressive, a member of the “Resistance, etc.—rather than simply apologizing to immigrant populations and people of color for “putting my white privilege above” their more immediate worries. My original critic was unequivocal in his demands: “You need to apologize.” His colleague and my second critic, reacting to my expressed feeling that relitigating the 2016 election only to quarrel among various factions on the left was of limited use and that we need to be more forward-thinking in our approach to 2018, 2020, and beyond, was likewise stern in his disapproval. As he stressed, you can’t just do something shitty, say “let’s move on,” and be done with it. I would have to admit my wrongdoing, or he and others would reserve the right to judge me negatively. Such was my “choice.”

Ultimately, my parting remarks were to reiterate my positions as stated above and to insist that people not be shamed for their vote as part of some scapegoating exercise against third-party/independent voters. I also closed by telling my second critic in particular—someone very critical of me on a personal level despite barely knowing me—that I hope his recruitment efforts as an organizer are handled with more aplomb. End of discussion, at least on my end, and click on that Unfriend button. Now you guys don’t have to fret about having to work with me—because I won’t work with you unless I have to.

The unfortunate thing about this conversation—other than that I let it happen—was that it grew so contentious despite the idea we seemed to agree on a lot of points. For one, I conceded my privilege in voting the way I did, something I have characterized as not merely being about race, but of geographical privilege as well. I would submit that admitting privilege is only a small part of the solution, however.

A more constructive recognition of inequality between people of different ethnicities, I would argue, involves advocacy for those who can’t vote, those who should be able to vote, or those who can vote, but otherwise ,find obstacles in access to the polls. On the latter note, there are numerous reforms that can be enacted or more widely used to expand the voter pool in a legitimate way. These include automatic voter registration, increased availability of the absentee ballot and early voting options, making Election Day a national holiday, and opening and staffing additional polling places in areas where election officials are unable to meet the demand of voting constituents.

Moreover, these issues can be addressed concomitantly with issues that affect all voters, including the electoral vote vs. the popular vote, ensuring the integrity of machine-based voting with paper records, gerrymandering designed purely for one party’s political advantage, the influence of Citizens United on campaign finance laws, and ranked-choice voting as an alternative to a winner-takes-all format. American elections have a lot of avenues for potential improvement, and particularly salient are those that disproportionately affect people of color.

I also conceded that I could have done more and can still do more on behalf of undocumented immigrant families, especially as it regards the separation of children from their parents, and this recognition more than anything merits an apology on my part, so to those negatively impacted by the policies of this administration, I am sorry. By this token, many of us could probably do more. Hearing of so many horror stories of young children being traumatized and parents being deliberately deceived by Border Patrol agents is disheartening, to say the least, and as powerless as many of us may feel in times like these, there are ways to contribute, even if it seems like something fairly small.

There seems to be no shortage of marches and protests designed to elevate awareness of the severity of the crisis facing immigrants and asylum seekers, notably from Mexico and Central America, as well as groups devoted to advocating for and defending the most vulnerable among us that can use your contributions. RAICES (the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services) and the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) jump to mind, but there are numerous possible recipients of much-needed donations. As always, be sure to do your homework regarding the reputation of any charity you seek out.

Though it may go without saying, you can also contact the office of your senators and the representative of your district to express your desire that they support any legislation which puts an end (hint: not the House GOP bill) to the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance policy” on illegal immigration, and to thank them for signing on in the event they do. If they don’t accede to or even acknowledge your request, keep trying. As it must be remembered, these lawmakers serve us—not the other way around.

The point I refuse to concede, however, is that I should apologize for my vote for Jill Stein in a state won by Hillary Clinton when I neither voted for nor supported Donald Trump, when both major parties have contributed to destructive immigration policies over the years, when Democrats lost an election they most likely shouldn’t have lost, and when this same losing party refuses to own its shortcomings and open the door to real reform, instead only becoming more calcified. That is, I certainly won’t apologize merely to assuage the concerns of fellow Democrats and liberals. Now is the time for a dialog, not a lecture, and certainly not the time for endless dissection of the 2016 presidential election and guilting conscientious objectors. At a point when we should be working together, I reject this means of tearing one another apart.

  With Allies Like Trump, Who Needs Enemies?