#i was social for years and it directly contributed to putting me in this hell. i will have my fill of oc central now i hope you understand

[nerice]

i can feel myself heal in real time and it's perhaps the wildest thing ive ever experienced

[drdemonprince]

ive seen you talk about FIRE/mr money moustache and i am interested in how you balance that with your politics. i ask because i am also interested in FIRE but struggle with the idea of saving 2mil+ to retire early when people need money NOW to survive. not just broadly but even loved ones and community members in my immediate vicinity. i dont mean this in an EXPLAIN YOURSELF sort of way, just so many of the FIRE etc people i find writing about it dont really address this aspect and its something i struggle with internally myself.

Sure, I don't mind speaking about this at all. I wish I more frequently had the occasion to because it's a major special interest of mine.

First, I'm not interested in the saving 2 million dollars (if that were even feasible) school of financial independence/ retire early. I'm more of an adherent to the r/LeanFire, r/BaristaFire type approach of maintaining a consistently very frugal standard of living that is sustainable for me, on a relatively smaller savings, and pursuing a life of relatively little consumption.

I also think that MMM, despite his many flaws, is broadly accurate in stating that when people continuing working all their lives, they also create more ecological devastation by consuming a whole of a hell lot more resources on convenience and burning more fuel, while chasing after a steadily rising living standard set by the norms of their profession. By taking myself out of the workforce sooner rather than later, I will be contributing less to climate change and waste because I'll need fewer convenience meals, fewer car rides, fewer flights, fewer hotel rooms, fewer fancy professional clothes, and so on and so on.

I also spend a lot of time on the Socially Conscious Mustachians group on Facebook, which focuses on investing one's savings in ways that are less ethically problematic. The easy mode version of this is simply putting one's money into index funds that exclude oil companies, gun manufacturers, etc. But honestly, today, with interest rates being as high as they are? It's pretty easy to just sock one's money into a CD or a bond, collect the cool 5.4% interest, and avoid having to contribute to the stock market directly at all. There are even high-yield savings accounts at credit unions that pay out about that much interest these days, and those entities typically do not invest in oil pipelines, BDS targets, or anything all that objectionable.

As for the hoading money while others are in need piece: Well. yeah. that's a difficult ethical challenge that we all must consider. how much can i hold onto for my own wellbeing in the spirit of "putting on one's oxygen mask first" without it being wealth hoarding? how much should i give to other people when i see that they are in need --someone could easily make the case that I have the moral obligation to give away what i have to my very last cent, and I couldn't really argue with them on that. maybe a person should do that. but i'm not going to do it. and of course the effective altruism freakos would counter that if i invest my money and grow it now, i will have more to give to others in the long run than if i cash out now.

realistically, i won't be able to continue working for much longer without having another health episode or worse. i will not qualify for disability benefits because high maskers who have had careers usually do not. and social security's coffers will be entirely drained long before i reach the age to qualify for it. if i enter my non-working years without any resources, someone else will have to worry about me staying housed and medicated and fed.

i tend to think of my retire early stash as my own little private disability benefits fund that will allow me to live safely and will hopefully allow me to take care of other people that i love as we age, and that will give me the freedom from having to do any morally compromising capitalist labor ever again, and only put my energies towards causes that either fulfill me or benefit others.

but it's still rooted in a highly individualistic capitalist system, this holding onto money under my own name and investing it thing. im sure a lot of people would choose instead to sock all of their money into some kind of cooperatively owned communist farm or something, and you know, some day down the line i would love to put money toward a big multi unit building that lots of people i am in community with could live in, with no financial obligations for them. but i dont have anywhere near that kind of scratch. as hannibal buress (that landlord piece of shit) said, "i don't have fuck you money, i have strongly worded email money." and you know, being able to write a strongly worded email to people who would otherwise be exploiting me into another huge burnout does feel good.

thinking that one day i might not work anymore is one of the only things that keeps me going. i am always on the razor's edge of not functioning, i dont think people really realize that, how could they, the mask is there to prevent them seeing it. im beyond privileged to even get to CONSIDER the dream of getting by on my savings for however long human society continues to exist. and it sure would be better if i could extend that kind of freedom and peace of mind to others. my life still feels very precarious and it always has and ive had to be stable for the sake of others for a long time, ive had to be financially responsible for others for a long time. i cling to the idea of FI/RE because it offers me a way to finally break down and be weak. but something more community oriented and interdependent would sure as fuck be better. in the meantime i guess im saving for something like that i could trust enough to give myself over to.

i also have a really strong fetishistic desire to be someone's completely brainwashed sex pet for the entire rest of my life, and having an early retirement account would really help me facilitate that

[marcuspierce]

okay, so while i was working on the formatting of my really really long answer, i tried to save it as a draft but the ask just... disappeared??? it's not in my inbox, not in drafts, not even in my queue! it's just gone???? so i am very sorry for not answering your ask directly, anon, but i did take a screenshot before that for ease of referencing + saved my answer in a word document so at least i can still answer your question, even if it's in a roundabout way!

here's the answer, exactly as i had intended to answer it before tumblr decided to be a bitch:

oh this is such a lovely question so thank you, thank you, thank you for asking!!! i just love anything that involves intimancy/vulnerability and commitment when it comes to these two and this combines those concepts so well!

before i put a read more (both for length and to hide some bitterness that slipped through), i will give a tl;dr and say that i have thought about it and my answer is yes! they would/could definitely end up considering having children, and they would/could even have some!

this is actually a concept i have previously explored some years ago in two fics and a post about adorable onesies, and, more recently, in two parts of my series of social media edits! at first i only wrote them with one child, but in my posts from this year they have two!

read more time now!

now, before i begin actually talking about the specific matter at hand i just wanna say... when you say that you wish rory's inclusion had been better executed do you mean that there should've been (more of) a built up around lucifer, who, even as far as season 4, said that he detests children and wants nothing to do with them, actually being downright enthusiastic about being a father? or at least that there would be some sort of a more specific exploration wrt his feelings about random children vs a child he has contact with (such as trixie or charlie, who are clearly dearly liked by lucifer) and how that would relate to a child of his own and how his life circumstances (being in hell - perhaps/hopefully there aren't many children down there => discomfort due to lack of contact, but as he lives longer on earth that diminishes, OR just in general his insane self-esteem issues/self-hatred that are deeply tied to his time in hell and the things he had to do there, which would push him away from fatherhood simply out of kindness towards his imaginary future child - or his own childhood - it is so so clear that at least on a subconscious level he is aware of cycles of abuse, due to his deep hurt and displeasure when he heard from adult!rory that he sucked as a dad, plus he sees a great deal of himself in his father, which would just contribute to his self-hatred and would result in a refusal of fatherhood in order to not "inevitably" repeat the abuse he endured at the hands of his father... or, if actually faced with the done deal, it would result in... well, whatever breakdown amenadiel had about charlie, but probably more extreme)? or perhaps it is about him being forced to be an absent father and therefore not break the cycle of harming your child that his own father started and that lucifer was shown to desperately want to break? or just a combination of all of these things?

ok, phewwwwww, i am done with the rant, but thank you for giving me the opportunity to rant about one of the two only negative hills about this show that i am willing to die on! cause well, i actually stopped watching the show some good seasons back because i realized that the writers and i had completely different ideas about how to approach things. and while most things i can just chalk up to that, well, everything i heard about rory and lucifer has left such a horrible taste in my mouth and nothing has been able to make me less pissed off about it!

on this note, my knowledge about seasons 4-6 is pretty spotty and therefore i generally only make use of concepts/plot ideas in my analysis wrt long term piercifer. so yknow, some characters, mainly marcus' parents, are most likely nothing like their canon counterparts!

ok, so now to get to the actual topic at hand, i think that the subject would definitely come up and it would be a huge issue, i think even on par with them needing to figure out how they work together and how to make their relationship fulfilling for both of them. which makes perfect sense, because this is a life altering decision, that affects both the individuals, but also the couple, AND, most importantly, the child. and the child truly is a faultless party in this whole thing, but also the party that would be hurt the most. it is not an easy situation and it requires a lot out of them. so both of them acknowledging and treating it like a big deal already is a step in the right direction.

for lucifer, i already outlined some ideas in the rant above:

firstly we have him just not being used to interact with children so he associates that uncomfortable feeling of inadequacy with a displeasure for children (tbh i feel like he is not used to interact with people, in general, outside of very specific contexts but that's a bit less related to my point) so point against fatherhood no1!

but, this is the easiest to solve, as it just takes time. after all, the more you do something, the better at it you become! but, because it is something that changes slowly over the course of years, that means that lucifer would be quite oblivious to it. everyone around him would notice, it would be hard not to. he stops being bothered by children just... existing where he also happens to exist. he starts getting along quite well with trixie and even starts asking her parents about her and buying her presents for her bday. when it comes to charlie, lucifer's thrilled to find out that he's going to be an uncle and he's quite emotional when amenadiel offers him to hold charlie, and he obliges very happily and afterwards he talks marcus' ear off about the moment. he is also very happy when it becomes clear that charlie likes him.

and everyone notices these things, except for lucifer. so when asked he still insists that he hates children and that he just cannot stand the little "parasites", but after a while people stop taking him seriously when he says things like that.

but not hating kids does not a father make, and lucifer's other hangups are far more complicated and deep-rooted, namely his own chilhood and the resulting trauma/issues. but for these things it is mostly a matter of realizing that you need help and then asking for it, which lucifer is trying to do. and i definitely think that finding the kind of therapy that is most useful to him would help him tremendously and that + a support system (which he has in his friends and marcus) would help him get to a point where most of the day to day stuff becomes manageable and then he can focus on more deep-rooted things, things that he may not even realize are influenced by his trauma or that he doesn't think affect him, such as how his trauma influences his views on certain issues and one of those issues would definitely be parenthood. and the conclusion would be that his self-hatred, both from him having to go against his morals and do horrible things to survive in hell, but also from seeing himself in his own (shitty) father and therefore expecting to turn out the same, has absolutely influenced how he feels about the topic.

for marcus, on the other hand, i feel like there would be a journey. like, i always saw his parents being young and inexperienced at just... life, in general, when they have him and they don't really have who to go to for help (well... i suppose grovelling for g*d's forgiveness - just so they could ask the guy some questions - was an option, but not doing that was the better option ny far), so they don't really know what raising a child means and because of that they end up being quite neglectful. as such, marcus had to learn how to fend for himself and attempt to fulfill on his own as many of his needs as possible really fast, especially once there was someone smaller and needier than him around, so he became very capable, responsible organized, as Knowledgeable as one could be in that situation, but also both cautious and quite curious and willing to try stuff out at the same time, and also someone who could fake maturity really well and who was really good at taking care of others, which extended into being good at reading and interacting with people. all of these things come from him, at least subconsciously, realizing that, despite being a toddler who's faking it, he's the one person in that house who has any idea what they're doing and that that position is one that desperately needs to be filled.

all of this results in him emotionally distancing himself from others and retreating into himself, starting to built the wall/armour that he would later on use as a jaded, heartbroken adult. and a consequence of that retreating into himself and of prioritising this role he has bestowed upon himself is that he doesn't really explore who he is and what he likes and wants until adulthood. as such, parenthood is, at first, something that he does to be fulfill a role that was assigned by society and by fulfilling that role he blends in with everyone else and the ways he is not like everyone else stay a secret, but also it's about doing something familiar, something that he knows how to do. but he likes. loves it, in fact. he adores that child, and is, therefore, a complete wreck when that child dies after having a life, growing and changing and getting older while he just stays frozen in time, looking the exact same way as he did when said child was born decades earlier.

but, the first tragedy would come before that, when he would realise that everyone around him is visibly growing older while he stays suspiciously young, and people will notice soon and no one can notice. and as he packs up he is forced to endure abandoning the child he loves so so much and miss out on the little time (by his standards) that he had left with them. and he couldn't even tell them. doing so would defeat the purpose of leaving.

still, he tried again and again and again, just like he had with friends, lovers and just about any connection one could make. and no matter how much he tried, it always ended the same way, until he decided to stop trying and he allowed his armour of apathy and his wall of isolation to fully encircle him and solidify cause then he wouldn't get hurt. we know how well that worked out and what it did to him... until he met lucifer, that is!

finally someone he can be fully honest with, someone who can see him exactly as he is and oh, he won't leave him either!

so really his issue, as with all things relationships and connection, is mortality, as it is a luxury he doesn't have, but one that any children he has will have. so it ended up being something that he considered to be off the table for him, and he didn't think to revisit those wounds and that issue in therapy even after lucifer came into his life and nestled himself a place in it because, well, for decades on end lucifer's stance on it was clear. and marcus was fine with it as that wasn't a wound he was keen on reopening and picking at.

but then those decades passed and lucifer reached a point where he had worked out through enough of his issues that parenthood did feel on the table for him. and trying to bring it up did not go very well, at first, because they just weren't quite in the same place... yet! but that alright, cause they had all the time in the world, and when they did end up in the same place all was well and all was easy cause they were, in fact, on the same page.

with one small potential caveat: marcus was all for it, he had loved being a father and he had always wished he could do it right, but he couldn't bear that pain, the pain of watching his child grow old and die while he stayed the same, ever again, nor could he bear the thought of lucifer ever feeling that pain either. that could be an issue... or not. i don't see how any child that is not completely human wouldn't be immortal lmao

and if that really is the narrative the show decided to go with well... loser behaviour! boo tomato tomato! good thing i don't care and, even if i did, there sure are ways around it!

but yeah, the child being related to lucifer and therefore immortal is exactly lucifer's argument and that realisation sways marcus pretty quick!

and i think in a scenario like this, where they both give themselves and the other the time to heal and to figure out how they work as a couple before bringing another family member into the mix, they would be wonderful parents! sweet, caring, attentive, affectionate, intentional, just all the good things. and it would be easy... because they have learned what not to do (well, that's not a guarantee, but all of that work towards healing sure brings it close to a guarantee).

i think that's it! going further than that would be off topic... and just excessive given the insane walls of text i already wrote lmao

so, again, thank you so much for the question and i hope this was a satisfying... and coherent answer!

[vaspider]

hi Spider. I have a….’friend’ (known them since i was a kid, only really recognized the scope of their beliefs in the past few years) and they are viciously pro-life, pro-trump, whole deal. I want to cut things off with them for obvious reasons, but each time I’ve tried they haven’t taken the hint. I think they now see me as a sort of “holy save me” project. Advice? (also pls feel free to be like ‘idk man go somewhere else,’ I just see you as such a role model and I know you’ve been around the block a few times heh)

Thanks. I try. :)

Unfortunately in a case like this, you definitely can't hint. You're going to have to SAY to them the things you just said to me, and then you're going to have to cut off contact entirely, at least for a while.

"X, we've known each other for a long time, and I thought because of that you'd understand that your beliefs are harmful to me. [Here you can put specific examples.] Unfortunately it seems pretty clear at this point that you don't understand that the things you say hurt me and contribute to a world where I am treated like less of a person. Worse, I feel like you treat me like a project or think you will be able to "save me" from myself.

I don't need, or want, to be saved. What I need and want are friends who understand that I'm an adult who knows my own mind, and who respect my identity and love me as I am. I don't think I'm going to be able to "save you," either. You chose your life path, and unfortunately that includes the beliefs which have brought us to this place.

We are no longer friends, and I do not want any form of contact from you. [If you want to set a 'if you come out of this we can talk,' do it here. I wouldn't do that if they haven't respected your boundaries in the past, though - a clean cut is kindest and most likely to be effective.] I have blocked you on all social media and email. Please don't try to contact me; I don't want to talk to you."

You have to say these things, you know? It sucks, but you have to say them directly.

I'm sorry. I know this kind of cut is painful as hell. I said something very similar to my father during the Kavanagh hearings. I miss him a hell of a lot, we were real close when I was younger, but I can't put up with the things he says or does anymore.

[maldiaaym]

Why do I think Lily Evans (Potter) was not a good friend?

Until recently, the general opinion of the fandom was that Lily Potter was a good girl, deified and the representation of purity and goodness. But, doing a more exhaustive study of the character, we can get to see how Lily evans maybe was not so holy and made mistakes due to her education and, possibly, depending on the stage of her life where she found herself when she made those mistakes.

In relation to Severus Snape, I think she was not a good friend. Regardless of his age, which we all understand that we do not see friendship in childhood, adolescence or adulthood, she also had defects that compared to other characters in the saga, they were not a role model.

Starting from the little we know about her through the worst memory and Snape's memories, we are going to take some situations into account to assess her defects:

She blamed Snape for the letter Petunia sent to Dumbledore.

She got mad at Snape for dropping a branch on Petunia, even though he did so unconsciously and Petunia was rude to him.

The discussion with Snape about what happened with Remus (werewolf accident), his distrust of who was her friend and believing others before, not caring about Snape.

The lake scene, where she never addressed Snape once, as if he didn't know him and was just another boy to help.

The same lake scene, where she taunted Snape after he called her "Mudblood".

Now, let's talk about the problems at different levels (social, emotional, mental, physical and cultural):

Social: Snape comes from a lower social class than Lily and, although at first the girl Lily did not see the difference, I suppose that as time passed she realized that it did not look good for Snape to wear second hand clothes (surely ), he had serious problems in the family sphere, Snape's own unsociable nature that did not allow him to have a larger group of friends. In childhood we do not usually take into account the social variable when making friends with other children (pre-Hogwarts), but as she became related to the peer group at Hogwarts, she surely could not help feeling somewhat ashamed of the friendship with Snape . Let me explain, in Snape's adulthood it seems that no one knew about Lily and Snape's friendship, so it would be a secret friendship (and we all know that shame towards the other is what leads to secret friendships and relationships).

Emotional: Lily quickly connected with Snape because there was something she needed from him, and it was the knowledge and the desire to be accepted in a place like Hogwarts. Hogwarts was a new world that she did not know and Snape could offer her the security of knowing that world ... But, when she knew what she had to know, Snape had nothing more to offer her, but a clandestine and unrewarding friendship for her. It is not a mistake to think this, but it does show that she deliberately used Snape and that their friendship deteriorated over time. I think she might have felt friendship for Snape in a pure way, but when she began to be friends with the marauders, her emotional level turned towards these guys and she began to move away from Snape. I think the dark arts were an excuse to end the friendship, wanting to get away from him in an interested way ... it's easy to think that, when you really feel empathy for someone, you try to make the effort to understand that person, to know why him he likes the dark arts. However, she Lily was not able to understand him, understand his fears, his insecurities and the need to flee from the hell where he was stuck.Referring to the lake scene, I think Lily had a complete dissociation from Snape by now, she didn't defend being his friend, she didn't speak to him directly even once, and when he made a mistake due to the situation, she scoffed of him and "flirted" with James.

Mental: I think Lily never understood the true meaning of friendship, not at least as she later taught us Harry by understanding Ron and Hermione and accepting his flaws, even when this child was only 11 years old. I think that Lily, as soon as she could, got rid of Snape because she no longer wanted to have an uncomfortable friend, a friend who surely helped her for years in her studies at Hogwarts (I mean surely potions). Snape was like a teacher for Lily in her access to the magical world, he helped her in the study and knowledge of the magical world and I think that Lily stopped seeing usefulness when she already found in Gryffindor and the marauders the way to go her way . I mean, I think she coldly weighed whether or not she was interested in staying friends with Snape and she conveniently cut off the friendship when she got the chance. Lily showed herself to be a cold person who did not understand what Snape was in her whole and who did not appreciate all that he had done for her.I know that calling her "Mudbloods" was not right, but instead of trying to understand the shame and harassment that Snape felt at that time, she broke off the friendship and remained friends with the stalker, the one who emotionally blackmailed her and who continued to be a bully. No one can convince me otherwise.

Physical: here we will talk about the implications of a person who is not really physically attractive. There are studies that determine that people who do not fit the standards of beauty tend to have fewer opportunities in social relationships, love relationships or even find a job. With all this I mean that, when we are children, we do not care about anyone's physical appearance, but when we reach adolescence, our group of equals teach us the canons of beauty, which is considered handsome or what not. In this case, I think Lily was superficial. That is to say, Snape was not physically attractive, surely he did not look comfortable being with him because she was a popular, pretty girl, and he was attracted to a boy who was much more attractive than Snape (even though James was, in my opinion, uglier emotionally and disrespectful to others, adding being a bully). Lily preferred to go for the handsome boy rather than choose a loyal friend who was unattractive.

Cultural: At this level many factors enter, but here I will choose to talk about the differences of ideologies and different culture between Slytherin and Gryffindor. As we know, both houses were enemies, they were the contrast between good and evil in the Harry Potter saga. Slytherin represented everything bad and Gryffindor everything good. Here we also talk about the peer group (that is, a group of people that we consider our equals and from whom we learn cultural, social, emotional and behavioral factors), where Lily in the end ended up choosing to choose Gryffindor and be immersed in ideas prefabs that already existed about Slytherin even though, surely, many ideas were not true. Some of these ideas were hatred towards the "dirty bloods", defending the purity of blood, ambition as a negative element and cunning as if it were something bad that always leads to cheating.Where I see these preconceptions most clearly is in the scene where Lily argues with Snape for defending Mulciber, etc ... in this scene it seems that Lily puts the marauders before (she is supposed to talk about them) because they are from her house and believes that what Mulciber does is worse because he is in Slytherin. Being in Gryffindor, she is believed to have the moral superiority and the right to claim Snape to choose a position, when obviously Snape, like Lily, will choose their peer group. The point here is that Lily prefers to believe the marauders and put Snape in the guilty position, without even asking if his friend is okay or asking him what he saw ... Lily is not interested in knowing what happened because surely he was content with James's version and would always doubt any version Snape could give it.

Up to here, I did my study. It is a bit lazy, I wrote it on the fly and remembering some of the knowledge I acquired when I was studying Pedagogy. But, in essence, I hope you have understood. In the end, Lily opted for what she considered to be okay based on ideas and beliefs that she ended up having with her peer group. She put her friendship with the marauders first and decided to coldly and selfishly eliminate her friendship with Snape. In the end, we have all had friends from whom we have moved away because they no longer shared things with us (although I can presume that I never alienated anyone for thinking differently or liking things that I did not like), but also friends that we have from all our lives, with those of us who do not like things about them, but accept them and try to understand them, where the company of that person is valued more and we do not care what they tell us. It is true that the "peer group" exerts a lot of influence on us, despising those who consider strange people or have unusual habits for the majority of the population. But Snape and Lily met in childhood, this factor should not have been decisive for their estrangement and, I am afraid, that in the almost of Lily, he ended up accepting the conditions of his peer group to the detriment of maintaining a friendship that so much contributed. I don't hate Lily, I have no problem with her, for me she really is a flat character, too overrated and that only has a few three lines in the entire Harry Potter saga. It is impossible to empathize with her as we would with other characters and she hardly has any development of her. The most remarkable thing about her is that she gave her life for her son, otherwise she showed us a girl who had a strange friendship with Snape and who married the popular boy of her time.

[attanoempire]

Sun Venus Saturn Uranus

Sun - Ah now we get to the hard ones, I see. I'm patient, I have good control of my emotions most of the time, I'm loyal sometimes to a fault (though not without lines), I'm tall, and... I have very nice calves. Bit weak toward the end but we got there.

Venus - Passionate, caring, intelligent, witty. I like someone with a strong personality, a protective streak, and who isn't afraid to be passionately weird and show it. I also have some preferences that lean toward shorter and more homicidal women. What can I say, even with a sub, there being at least some possibility she stabs me is hot.

Saturn - Trying my best not to just answer "everything" lmao.

For real though, I have some pretty glaring weaknesses. Hypervigilance has me always reading hostility or problems where there are none and then doomspiraling about it, and on the flipside also means I'm basically immune to all but the most direct advances. Low intuitive empathy means I often struggle conceptualizing viewpoints too far from my own. Lacking executive function is hell in general but also specifically makes academia a waking nightmare (get on your fucking meds Ira). I have a bevy of troubles reading people socially that leads to an occasional bad habit of treating people like puzzles to be solved/fixed instead of, y'know, people, because they're easier to understand that way.

Outside shit that's more directly informed by trauma or mental illness, my memory is just also hot garbage, I have some impressively terrible luck, and related but separate to that I have the worst timing of anyone I have ever known. If there is a wrong time to walk into a room, check my messages, do something, or to NOT do any of those, you can be damn sure I'll stumble into it flawlessly.

Hm. Might be telling that I have two paragraphs and could go on about my flaws but struggle to conceptualize five bullet points I like about myself. Oop.

Uranus - Oh boy, we could be here all day, but let me just speedrun some of the changes I would enact if given supreme dictatorial power.

Scale back luxury production, appropriate most billionaire wealth and put them on trial, ensure food/water/housing/internet is universally available to everyone before allowing anyone to have so much as a winter cabin, abolish profit-driven capitalism and fiduciary duty and corporations as we know them, instead implement a similar system to allow people to contribute to projects they believe in/are qualified for, prevent generational accumulation of power via currency/possessions, aggressively expand the schooling system until classrooms are more like 1:5-10 instead of 1:25-35, make post-secondary education freely available, make mental health checkups a routine universal procedure and aggressively expand mental health resources, abolish the prison-industrial system in favour of tremendous spending on restorative and reformative justice (and either low-pop prison or exile for the unreformable, I guess?)

Just, y'know, to name a couple of things. I think at a more cultural level we also really need to address concepts like parenthood, sexuality, and religion.

We've been changing slowly but coasting a lot on "the ways things were done" for far too long. The US still makes laws based on the assumed views of people from the 1700s and a 2000 year old religion, we still think people should have absolute dominion over their child-rearing as long as they don't physically abuse the kid, and murder is PG but a penis is so taboo you rarely even see it in R-rated films.

But yeah no living in this world is great I love going to work and paying my taxes while wars rage and the earth burns.

[a-simple-imagine]

The Smarter Witch

Synopsis: You like to consider Hermione your academic rival but things begin to fall apart between the two of you when Malfoy and friends start asking questions. The reader is in Slytherin sorry.

Pairing: Hermione Granger x fem!reader (can be read as romantic or platonic)

Words: 3.5+

A/N - I’ve been rewatching all the Harry Potter Movies at the cinema recently and I think i like it more now than I ever did before. This is my first HP story so go easy on me, okay? Comments are appreciated and requests are open!!

Warnings - Swearing, excessive use of the word mudblood... i think that’s it. 

"Granger," You call out, shoving your things into your bag as quick as humanly possible before charging after her. The crowd of other students growing the distance between you as you slip between them but not without almost crashing into people a bunch of times along the way. "Granger- wait." You try but she continues to walk away with Potter and Weasley beside her. You eventually manage to push your way through until you're walking in step with the trio. The girl stands in the middle, guarded by her two best friends.

"Hey," You offer them a smile, "Guess who got a perfect?"

"How?" It's instinctive to turn your nose up when it comes to Ronald Weasley. Not because of his social status like Malfoy suggests but you just found him rather... irritating. You completely ignore his question; breaking formation, you get ahead of the group and begin to carefully walk backwards so you can focus on the girl. She looked anywhere but at you, however, she had a smirk on her lips. Small but visible.

"Only because Snape favours you," The brunette proclaimed. This was routine for the two of you as of late. Always making excuses as to why the other came out on top. Only because of this. Only because of that. It was never as simple as just studying and doing well.

"You're just jealous that I'm a genius." You insist, your smile growing as you teased your own brilliance. Her head shakes a little.

"Since when were you, two friends?"

"Nobody said anything about friends Weasley-" You growl, your once happy expression morphing into one of pure distaste as you look at him. Spinning gracefully on your heel, you begin to walk normally again. "Since I'm so much smarter than you, I can help you study if you need it."

"I don't need any help from the likes of you, thank you," The likes of you? Did she mean a Slytherin? Or just someone who was smarter than her? Although you didn't actually believe you were smarter... well, not entirely anyway. Hermione Granger was often proclaimed as the smartest in your grade, didn't matter how hard you worked; you'd never quite be the promising young witch everyone seemed to think she was. Which is why you find yourself constantly competing. If you can prove to her you were smart then maybe everyone would see you as more than just a Malfoy crony.

You slap your hand against your chest just above your heart; stumbling backwards as if she just shot an arrow straight through. "Oh, how you wound me, Miss Granger. Care to share how well you did? One hundred percent?" She wouldn't have done badly at least not by everyone else's standard of bad. "Ninety maybe?" You turn back to them, coming to halt directly in front of the girl. "Merlin's beard Hermione, don't tell me you got less than eighty? That would be a travesty."

"if you don't mind, we're a little busy." She hadn't answered the question and as she walked around you, you expected she wasn't going to. "Come along Harry," she took his hand. "Ronald." And his before marching away. You watch them as they go, a smirk lingering before slipping off in search of your friends.

Come Friday afternoon and you found yourself in the great hall. The busy castle was beginning to calm and few people sat in the tables alongside the two of you. You take a sip of some water as you watch the gears in her head turn, debated her next move. At this point you already knew you would win; you always did. While everything else was more of a competition; Hermione Granger surprisingly wasn't all too hard to beat at Wizard's chess. Your Fridays together we're brilliant times to chat though, you'd often sum up any achievements from the week just to see who's doing better.

"I can't believe you beat me in history of magic again- I spent hours on that stupid essay. I basically lived in the library."

"I can help you study if you like," she offered, her eyes not leaving the board as she ordered her bishop forward. You watch as the chess piece moves along the board.

"You're not funny Granger," you tease, ordering your knight forward to take down her bishop. "Check,"

A paper ball hit the back of your head, drawing your attention away. Pansy stood with a wide grin on display, you ignored her and returned to your game but Hermione was also focused on your friend. "I think she wants your attention."

Another paper ball collides against your head. You sigh loudly before turning and mouthing 'what?'

"We're going down to the black lake? You coming?" She asked. "Or are you too busy with the Gryffindor?"

"just give me a sec." You wave her away, turning back to the other girl. "Have you moved?" She nods a little, her hair bouncing with the movements. You examine the board trying to figure out who she had moved but it didn't really matter. With a final move of your queen, the king was knocked off the board. "I do believe that is checkmate."

"I'm beginning to think you're cheating."

"Me?" You ask, pretending to be offended by the notion. "Never. How little faith you have me in, Granger."

"Slytherins are known for being cunning."

"We're not all cheating monsters, my dear sweet Gryffindor. Some of us actually have a conscience."

"I find that hard to believe," Her lips were curled into a cheeky smile. You'd never quite noticed the way her eyes crinkle when her smile is so big or how teethy it was. It was adorable. 

"I gotta go- same time next week? Maybe I'll even let you win."

"I don't need you to let me win,"

"You sure?" Nothing more than a harmless joke as you stand. "How many times in a row have I won now?"

"Slither away," Hermione smiles as you back away towards Pansy. You had to admit, you did firm Hermione to be intriguing.

Being in the same year, meant you actually saw Hermione rather frequently, however, your actual interactions were limited. Yes, you played Wizard's chess together every Friday but other than that, you basically only had very short conversations. It was like being in two completely different worlds simply because you were put in different houses. This school had a weird obsession with separation by houses. You were a proud Slytherin as were you friends but your ambition to branch out was often looked at as beneath some of the others. It was dinner time and you sat at the Slytherin table but your focus was pulled towards a certain familiar Gryffindor student. She just happened to be sat in your eye line, so you couldn't help but amuse her from afar. With funny faces and playful winks. Her most common reactions were shakes of the head or rolling her eyes but you knew secretly she enjoyed the teasing.

"Are you even listening?" A sharp elbow slams into your side. You bite back a groan as you shove the boy gently.

"The hell Draco,"

"What are you staring at?" There was a particularly bite behind his words but you'd grown used to how aggressive he could come across. He was always trying to be the alpha and frankly, everyone let him be. You simply shrug at his question; grabbing an apple and taking a bite.

"What did you want?"

The grey of his eyes flickers in curiosity as he tries to figure out what had you so distracted. When you look across at Granger, she's chatting to Ginny Weasley about something.

"Sometimes I wonder if the sorting hat got it wrong with you," He muses. "Should have put you in Gryffindor since you're so obsessed with Potter."

"Says the boy who never shuts up about him." You fight back. You couldn't care less about Harry Potter or his chosen one status. You knew Malfoy hated him though; it was a little weird just how much.

"You gravely misunderstand my interest in potter."

"I don't care if you have a crush on him Malfoy," There are a few snickers around the table but he's definitely not laughing.

"Don't be ridiculous." He growled, leaving the table. It was only a joke. You follow after him along with the others.

After dinner, you're lounging in the common room. One leg hooked over the arm of the couch as you read a book all about dragons. Fascinating creatures.

"So are you and the Gryffindor friends?"

"Who?" You question. Not even looking at the blonde as he sits down beside you.

"Granger." He confirms. "Pansy thinks you have a crush or something?"

"Pansy is a liar." The joke isn't as funny when it's against you. Your feelings towards Granger was nobody else's business but your own. You were often left conflicted when it came to her. You roll your eyes, sitting up straight. "I just like proving that I'm better than her."

"You spend a lot of time with her," Goyle adds.

"So?" You finally lower your book. Your brows knitted together in a clear frown as you scan the room. A few people had invited themselves into the conversation. "I spend a lot of time with you but doesn't mean I wanna get into your pants,"

"I don't know why you associate with any of them." This was beginning to feel like a lecture. Why do they even care who you hang out with? You didn't care much for the boys but you liked Hermione. She was kind, funny and really smart. You enjoyed the little time you ultimately spent together but if you admitted that, they would crucify you.

"They'd probably say the same about you lot," you state. Bringing the large book back up to cover your face. "Now if you don't mind, I'm trying to read here,"

"You can tell us if you like her," Pansy contributes. "I mean we all know you have a soft spot for the weak."

"Are you taking pity on her?"

"Maybe she wants to start hanging out with Potter. Can you imagine?"

You grit your teeth, not at all reading the words on the page in front of you. They're just trying to get a rise out of you.

"I can't imagine anything more pathetic," Malfoy chuckles followed by a few of the others. "They're an embarrassment to the wizarding world if you ask me. Parading around like they own the place-"

"We're nothing okay?" You slap your book shut. "Not friends or secret lovers or anything, I would never date someone so.... dirty." The word slipped out before you had a chance to stop. You didn't see her that way; she was much too grand to be considered dirty. And you couldn't care less about pure bloodlines. It didn't make her any less of a fantastic witch. "I'm not joining Potter's Merry band of monkeys, so just drop it okay." Ignoring the snickers and hushed whispers, you march off to bed.

It's the Friday following your little session in the common room. You forgave them all of course; you always did. There was no point in being angry at them over some harmless teasing. You had the chessboard set up and even brought along a pack of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans but she was running late. Normally it was you showing up late; very unusual behaviour from someone known for punctuality. But as time ticked on and you were still left alone, you began to realise she wasn't going to turn up. Packing everything up, you decide it'll be best to search for her; something bad must have happened for her to not show at all.

"Weasley," you shout, jogging up to Harry and Ron who seemed to be missing their third arm. "You seen granger?"

"Why?" Asks the redhead. Harry presents you with a smile.

"None of your business," you spit at Ron. "Have you seen her or not?"

"Last we saw her she said she was heading to the library," Harry answered. You offer a grateful smile but you can't help but wonder why she's decided to head to the library. Was there a test you didn't know about? Was she trying to get the upper hand? Surely she could have just told you that instead of having you wait.

"Thanks, Harry," You skip along to the library but the journey proves pointless when you discover she isn't there either. You would be lying if you said you had searched particularly hard before giving up though. There was always next week. With a defeated sigh, you head back towards the common room. Luck must have been on your side because you spot her on the way back. Perched on a ledge with her head in a book. Typical Hermione Granger.

"I've been looking everywhere for you," you announce as you walk towards her. "I thought we were gonna play wizards chess so I could annihilate you again." The faintest sniffle hit your ears and you froze. Was she... crying? Shit. You don't do well with criers; you never know how to handle situations when people cry. It's always so... awkward. "What's wrong?"

"Go away." Her voice is quiet but echoes through the empty corridor.

"Granger?" You closer to her now, leaning against one of the stone columns.

"I said go away," Her words are harsh; she shoves her face further into the book. Was she trying to hide the fact she had been crying? It was pretty obvious at this point.

"What's up with you?" You wonder, folding your arms over your chest.

"I don't want to talk to you,"

"What did I do?" The confusion is very clear in your voice. You'd hardly even spoken to the girl recently so how could you have possibly upset her.

"You're as bad as the rest of them, now leave me alone," Sharp words as she grabbed her things and stormed off. As bad as the rest of them? What did that even mean? Pushing yourself upright, you follow after her.

"What's gotten into you?"

"Just some filthy mudblood am I?" Venomous words spat at you with the speed of a viper. You stumble back a little; she's never been so angry with you. Tears spill down her rosy cheeks."Malfoy told me what you said- Guess I should have known better considering your so-called friends. You're just as cruel as the rest of them."

"Hermione..." you sigh softly. You couldn't exactly defend your fellow Slytherin friends. "Why do you believe him anyway?"

"So you didn't say it then."

"No, I did," you shrug a little. "Well I said you were dirty, I didn't say... that word."

"Mudblood- Same thing though right? You think you're so much better just because you're of Pure blood."

"I didn't say that, I-"

"Just stay away from me." Her tone has you backing down from the fight. You consider following her as she charges off down the hall but instead, you go back to the dorms.

"You're a right git," you exclaim, storming into the room, grip tight on the book you launch at his head. Platinum blonde hair darts of the way.

"What the hell."

"You told her?" All eyes are on you as you confront him.

"What are you on about?"

"Hermione- you told her I thought she was dirty."

"Your words, not mine." Draco shrugged a little. A huff of a laugh passing his lips which pissed you off even more. 

"I-," you look around, picking up a pillow and tossing it at him. "You are such a pain in the ass."

"Why do you care about that filthy mudblood, you said you don't even like her?"

"I don't even like you and yet we're best friends," You shout, looking at the coffee table you grab a mug and aim at the boy. Draco's hand shoots up in defense.

"Don't you dare throw that at me or I swear-" He fought back. You lower your hand and so does he then you throw it anyway, hearing it break as you collapse on the couch. "You don't need someone like that." He muses as he cautiously approaches the couch.

"We can't all be insufferable snobs Malfoy," you grumble, rather casually considering what just happened. "You mess up everything for no bloody reason"

"Probably shouldn't go around calling her dirty then," He argues. "I didn't make you say that..."

The boy hovers over the back of the couch and you shove him away. "I hate you."

You realise you have to be the one because Malfoy's not about to admit he did anything wrong. And you know at the end of the day it was your fault for saying it in the first place. You retire to your bed, no longer watching to deal with other people.

For the next week or so Hermione avoids you like the plague. You'd obviously see her in some of your classes but when you'd try to speak to her after, she'd rush out before you had a chance to so much as saying hi. If you managed to catch her gaze, she'd stare daggers; if looks could kill you'd be six feet under by now. You'd sometimes find her in the library, it was the one place she could cause a scene but neither could you. When you tried to whisper to her, she'd completely ignore you. You were beginning to miss the limited interaction you hard; Half the fun of studying was ultimately doing better than her in the end.

The girl was alone today, searching the shelves. The library was fairly empty and it was getting late. You take the opportunity to make some paper birds and send them fluttering over to her. One by one until she whispers yells at you to stop. You chuckle. Doing it again. This develops into a habit throughout the next couple of days. You'll send paper birds her way, just to get a reacting out of her. You start writing little messages on them too but you don't think she ever reads them before setting them on fire.

It becomes abundantly clear she's not giving in and therefore one day during breakfast you abandon your table and enter what Malfoy would consider enemy territory. Pushing Neville aside to sit next to Hermione. A bunch of lions look to you like you'd just entered their den without permission; in their defense, you never sit here. Hermione gets up to leave but not before you can grab her wrist.

"Can you please stop ignoring me," she yanks out of your grip, walking away to leave you surrounded by kids you've only ever spoken to in passing. You groan loudly.

"What happened between you two?" Ron asked.

"Do you ever keep out of other people's business Weasley or do you have some obsessive need to weasel your way into everything."

"Just tryna help, jeez."

"If you must know, Malfoy told her that I referred to her as a... y'know."

"Mudblood?" Harry continues for you.

"I called her dirty but I didn't mean it."

"Thought you weren't friends anyway," Ron wore a smirk like he caught you out or something so you just ignore him.

"Now she's ignoring me. I just want her to talk to me."

"Have you apologised?"

"How can I apologise if she won't bloody talk to me, Harry? I thought you were supposed to be smart." You comment, dropping your head against the table. "I've tried writing notes but she burns all of them. I'm running out of ideas, I can only be so charming."

"Can't really help you there," Ron replies.

"All the boys in this school are so bloody useless," you sigh dramatically, slamming your hands on the table to push yourself up. "You’re her best friends and you can't help? Pathetic."

You debate joining the others but you decide against it and leave the great hall. You're not hungry anymore.

"You really should stop sending paper birds," The voice catches you off guard, whipping your wand out before realising it's her.

"I'll stop if you talk to me again," You counter, lowering your wand.

"I'm not ashamed of my parents."

"And you shouldn't be." Your head falls, "I really am sorry for what I said, it was definitely a peer pressure thing and I was stupid." You blurt out. "Malfoy can just be a lot sometimes and I was trying to study so... I don't think you're less than just because your parents are muggles Hermione. Not even a little." You take a deep breath. "I just want my friend back."

She hesitates. "Oh, so we're friends now huh?"

"Only if you want to be," You shrug. There was part of you that wanted to say maybe you like her as more than that but you kept it to yourself; at least for now. "I understand if you don't like... I was really shitty."

"So Friday then?"

"What?"

"Wizards chess? I think I may be able to beat you now, I've been practising."

"Pfft not likely," You tease, your smile growing. "Friday sounds good."

// NEXT

[populus-tremuloides]

Hey I noticed you linked the BLM website in a post but can you tell your followers not to donate to the organization

The donation link the website has is secure act blue and secure act blue funds democratic campaigns

So for the past 7 years all that money they collected over $1 billion probably none of that has touched the black community

Hoo boy so while I agree with the gist of this ask, there’s some misleading info here:

ActBlue is not giving BLM donations to the DNC, and this claim has been debunked multiple times by reliable sources. However, the BLM Global Network Foundation has faced questioning and controversy this year thanks to their nonprofit partnerships and a lack of transparency. I always advocate for donating as small-scale and locally as you can. I’ll put the rest of this analysis (with sources linked) under a read more, since it’s LONG (but it took me forever to put together so pls read thx ❤️).

ActBlue is an online fundraising platform that is not explicitly related to the US Democratic Party, but which only funds left-leaning and progressive candidates and organizations. It’s a tech company. It earns money by functioning as this service, so yes, your donations help fund it. Organizations and candidates pay ActBlue a 3.95% processing fee for donations, but the rest of the money donated does go to the organization or specific candidate. ActBlue is also registered as a PAC (political action committee) which is a whole can of Political Worms I don’t want to open, but that means it has to report to the Federal Election Commission/the IRS which is a positive because it results in transparency of conduit funding. 

So...96.05% of the money you donate through the BLM website SHOULD go to the BLM Foundation. It does NOT go to the DNC.  The person who started this rumor (from a since-deleted Facebook post which led to a viral video) is a member of a Students for Trump organization, and other conservative pundits picked up on it and posted it. It just isn’t true, and has been debunked many times.

HOWEVER there’s still a problem. It’s hard to say where the money donated to the BLM site actually goes, and that issue is directly related to tax laws and nonprofit organization status in the US. There were questions and lawsuits about this earlier this year. There is an interesting loophole in ActBlue’s policy that states that “contributions...which are not cashed or affirmatively refused will be kept by ActBlue and used generally to support its social welfare activities”. In other words, ActBlue will keep money that is not cashed by the organizations within 60 days and use it to “generally support its social welfare activities”. No, I don’t know exactly what that means--it’s probably used by ActBlue for program costs, or is reallocated to its general fund (which gives grants to nominee funds, the Flip the Senate campaign, etc) but it does mean that money doesn’t go to those organizations, even if it was donated to them, if the organizations don’t claim it. Then, in a Reddit AMA in June, a BLM Foundation organizer provided less than satisfying information about where the money they fundraise goes. It’s difficult to find that info online thanks to the way nonprofits function within American tax law. 

It’s important to note here that the BLM Foundation and BLM Global Network are not necessarily associated with individual community activist organizations, protests, or the general BLM social movement. There’s plenty of discourse on this you can research on your own if you want. Google is free.

What’s important here is that the BLM Foundation operates as a nonprofit with a “parent” charity. From 2016 to this year BLM worked with Thousand Currents, which “fundraises grassroots groups led by women, youth and Indigenous Peoples”. In July they switched to a “working relationship” with TIDES, which is a “philanthropic partner and nonprofit accelerator dedicated to building a world of shared prosperity and social justice”. 

I’m not going to get into my personal feelings about large scale nonprofit organizations and the oxymoron of conscious capitalism (because organizations like this are essentially venture capitalists for nonprofits imo), but personally I think the larger and more decentralized the organization (or parent organization, in this case), the less effective your donation. More on that later. 

Essentially though, Thousand Currents and TIDES are organizations that focus on fundraising and infrastructure and then fund smaller grassroots groups that might not have the infrastructure or foothold to do that for themselves. This is not uncommon in the nonprofit world. I work for a nonprofit that ran though a university foundation and an established local nonprofit for ten years before we got our 501(c)(3) designation and started functioning independently. It’s not abnormal that the BLM Foundation works with an organization like that, given BLM is pretty decentralized by design and is also a fairly new organization (2013/2014). 

Thousand Currents and TIDES have 501(c)(3) tax exempt status. It can be difficult for smaller and newer nonprofits (as well as nonprofits that function outside of the US but which rely on donations from the US or other countries outside of where they’re headquartered) to gain that status, so they often work under a larger organization. 501(c)(3) status means financial records have to be made public, which means anyone can access the financial records for Thousand Currents and TIDES. You can also find tax filings for the BLM Foundation, but it’s less comprehensive (the most recent I could find was Form 990 from 2017, but maybe I’m not looking in the right place). Anyone can request tax documents from 501(c)(3) nonprofits.

This is getting complicated, right? Welcome to American tax law and nonprofit organizational hierarchies functioning under late stage capitalism. i’m not trying to throw the BLM Foundation under the bus here, because honestly this is just how it goes with a lot of organizations in the US. I don’t think it means you shouldn’t support them. But it gets pretty twisted up. Maybe you made a $20 donation to BLM back in July and now you’re wondering where the hell it went. Here’s the pipeline: your donation goes through ActBlue (which takes 3.95%, or .79 cents of your donation) to TIDES, which then directs that money to BLM. They know how much money is coming to them for BLM because ActBlue differentiates fundraising campaigns--the BLM money going to Thousand Currents or TIDES is separated from the funds coming to them for, say, CLIMA or the Farm to School Network . However, Thousand Currents and TIDES probably take a cut to support their operating costs, too. I couldn’t find data on this, so this is conjecture and I’m not sure how much--this statement is just based on knowing how nonprofits and fundraising usually work. 

So, the money stream from you to BLM is like this: You------> ActBlue (takes a 3.95% cut) ------> Thousand Currents or TIDES (probably takes a cut, then directs the money to)------>  BLM -----> Whatever BLM uses it for. Despite that strange loophole in ActBlue’s policy, Thousand Currents appeared to be claiming the donations and directing them to BLM (as of 2018...will be interesting to see tax stats from this year since their move to TIDES after unprecedented donations). 

BLM does have a huge grassroots organizing fund that began this June in response to overwhelming donations following the murder of George Floyd. The fund provides grants up to $500,000 to smaller grassroots organizations and activists, as well as educational curriculum and political platforms. Their grant campaign is supported by TIDES, which provides the infrastructure and tax-exempt funding conduit needed for such a large scale effort. I’m guessing most of the money they’re fundraising goes to that fund. A chunk definitely goes to paying employees, running their website, and funding outreach and education. 

So ALL THAT BEING SAID, I would always say donate directly to bail funds, mutual aid funds, legal fee funds, and local activism organizations before donating to a larger, all-encompassing charity or organization. If you can Venmo someone you know and you know where that money goes, that’s always the best. 

Venmo accounts, gofundme campaigns, cashapp accounts, paypal accounts...that’s often what smaller scale organizations and activists are using on a local level and it’s generally collected and distributed more directly. The BIPOC and COVID mutual aid funds where I live are active on Facebook and Instagram and operate based on requests for help from community members that are posted on Google documents available to the public. Here is a good example of a grassroots COVID mutual aid fund that is directing A LOT of money locally and transparently--there are similar funds and organizations like this worldwide for COVID, BLM, and beyond. 

The biggest impact you can make always comes at the community level--you should do some research into figuring out what’s going on in your area. There’s almost always something nearby, even if you live in a rural area or smaller town like I do, and if there’s not, hey--you could start something! Engage in your community and put your money into that, or into other communities in need. Pay attention to stuff going around on Twitter and Instagram--a lot of community organizing is facilitated there. 

I included the BLM link in the original post because the website is a good place to learn about actions around the globe, organizing basics, and has a lot of up to date news and educational materials. I advocated for donating to bail funds, mutual aid funds, water projects, and local activist organizations and I stand by that. I’m not saying you shouldn’t donate to the BLM Global Network or other larger-scale foundations, but the conduit of money to cause is usually not as direct. I still don’t think it’s a bad thing to donate to them.

But ALSO don’t spread straight-up misinformation like this ask does. ActBlue is a fundraising platform and it’s not stealing the money you send to BLM and giving it to Biden or the DNC. It’s a whole lot more complicated than that, and this is a great way to dissuade people from donating money to progressive organizations who use ActBlue because it’s an easy, accessible online fundraising platform. Funny how right-wing pundits latched onto this so quickly, huh?

Feel free to correct me or add more info. I’m white and operating within US-centric organizing circles. But PLEASE give some sources if you do have corrections or arguments and PLEASE do a google search before you spread stuff like this. 

_______________________________________________________________________

TL;DR: ActBlue is a fundraising platform, it is not stealing your money and giving it to the DNC. The money you donate to BLM goes to that organization, though it is a meandering path from donation to impact. Donate to bail funds, mutual aid organizations, legal fee funds, local activism organizations, etc., over larger organizations. Invest in your own communities, and directly in black communities, and always do your research. 

[joannerowlingfans]

Great article from June by Eileen Blair. Here’s some excerpts: 

“The Bodily Function Which Must Not Be Named

Daniel Radcliffe knows some things about menstruation. Recently he wrote a statement assuring us that the correct word for those who experience periods is not “women” or “girls,” but “people who menstruate.” However, when he told us this, he didn’t actually tell us this. He never used the word “menstruation,” or “period,” or “blood,” or any related word. There was no mention of clots, or cramps, or dysmenorrhea, or endometriosis. He did not name the “people who” experience these things.

Instead, Radcliffe did name author J.K. Rowling, who recently came under fire for stating the controversial opinion that the word “woman” is still of use, and that this now-contested term may even provide a more appealing way to describe human beings than “people who menstruate,” or the more streamlined “menstruator.” But while Radcliffe invoked Rowling’s name, he did not acknowledge her ideas, which she has expressed publicly in a number of tweets and in a recent essay. Instead, he opened his statement by simply insisting that there is no “in-fighting” between him and Rowling, without mentioning why anyone might think there is. He anticipated that “certain press outlets” might seize on the opportunity to report on a conflict between Radcliffe and Rowling, which they promptly did. The Guardian, the Independent, and the Times all referred to a “row” between Rowling and Radcliffe.

On social media, many enthusiastically shared Radcliffe’s statement, but I have yet to see any of Radcliffe’s fans mention that he both failed to identify the topic at hand and neglected to consider Rowling’s ideas about it. In 2020, it seems, if someone mentions Rowling, however obliquely, and with even the slightest hint that they disapprove of her for some reason they need not even state, they can count on being showered with unreserved praise.

The Menstruators Who Must Not Be Named

There is more that is not mentioned. The third sentence of Radcliffe’s statement asserts, “Transgender women are women.” Curiously, he does not go on to say, as anyone familiar with scripture would expect, “Transgender men are men, and nonbinary people are who they say they are.” In fact, there is no mention of transgender men or nonbinary people anywhere in Radcliffe’s statement, even though the ultra-specific term “people who menstruate” is intended to accommodate these groups—people who have periods who do not identify as women.

Why does Radcliffe choose this occasion to remind us that trans women are women? Trans women do not menstruate. This is why it is now considered exclusionary for those women formerly known as women to claim that menstruation is related to being a woman. That’s pretty much the point of terms like “menstruator.” By intoning “transgender women are women,” Radcliffe associates women, and only women, with the expression “people who menstruate.” This is exclusionary and transphobic. Not all women have periods, and not all who have periods identify as women.

Among those who cheered Radcliffe, I have yet to see anyone call out Radcliffe for his exclusionary and transphobic refusal to acknowledge “people who menstruate.”

The Silencing That Must Not Be Spoken Of

There is yet more that is not said. Rowling has been on the receiving end of misrepresentation and verbal abuse for over two years, simply for suggesting that women formerly known as women have the right to discuss the word “woman.” For advocating free speech, she has been derided, slurred, and even threatened.

Into the fray saunters Daniel Radcliffe, who, without any apparent effort, scribbles a few words calculated to score points with his base. His four-word magic incantation, “transgender women are women”—again, this is transphobic and exclusionary of people who menstruate—ignites passions and encourages continued demonization of Rowling. Readers need not even know what Rowling has said, for Radcliffe’s magic spell sanctifies him and positions him securely on the moral high ground. Rather than discuss menstruation, or Rowling’s point of view, he describes the discrimination young transgender and nonbinary people have self-reported. It goes without saying that this should be eradicated, but it is a diversion. Rowling, the prop he uses to display his righteousness, is at this very same moment being mercilessly bullied online and in the press. By ignoring this, by saying her name only to turn away from her, by making the sinner a foil to his own saintliness, he lazily enables those who would consign her to the online ducking stool.

Rowling has taken pains to be considerate and measured, just as women formerly known as women are still expected to do. Nevertheless, she has been described as “hateful” and “transphobic.” She has been accused of saying trans people “don’t exist.” Rowling has been called a “bitch,” a “cunt,” a “whore” (also “hoe”), and even—gasp—“a Karen.” (In reality, the offense seems to be not that Karen has demanded to speak to the manager but that she is the manager.)

As expected, Rowling is also called a “TERF.” (Rhymes with “serf.”) Proponents of “letting people be who they are” have proposed that “TERFs” like Rowling deserve to be physically assaulted or killed. One TERF-hunter calls upon a well-known veteran to do the honors: “I’d pay to watch [Charlotte] Clymer put on her army camo and shoot the TERF.” Another goes for the DIY approach: “Smack JK Rowling so hard I give that fool a lighting scar on HER forehead.” Rowling has been challenged to a duel by Tara Flik Wolf: “Oi JK rowling ow about you meet me outside! Hyde park! Lets fucking have it you cunt!” (In 2018, Wolf was convicted of assaulting Maria Maclachlan in Hyde Park in London.)

The demeaning comments are not limited to the blue circle of hell known as Twitter; otherwise reputable news outlets have also adopted the term “TERF.” Mainstream publications insist that this is not a misogynistic insult but a neutral term, an acronym radical feminists invented and applied to themselves. No matter how many times we insist that we consider this term a slur, no matter how many times we see “TERF” joined to “bitch” or “cunt,” we are informed that we have misunderstood, that this term is not intended to demean us. We really do like it, we are told. And a minute later we receive, for the 83rd time, a cartoon image with a gun pointed at us, an anime character threatening, “Shut the fuck up, TERF!”

The mainstream media has also joined in telling Rowling to “STFU.” The Washington Post says it directly in an article titled, “J.K. Rowling’s Transphobia Shows It’s Time To Put Down The Pen.” Molly Roberts informs us that Rowling is flailing; she’s a bigot; she’s even—middle-aged! And therefore obsolete. Other prominent publications have described her tweets and essay as “transphobic” or “anti-trans.” This is eerily reminiscent of how second-wave feminists were described as “man-haters.” In the 1970s, we were said to hate men. Nowadays we are said to hate trans people. Fifty years ago, we learned to speak about our bodies. Nowadays, we learn how not to.

Major advocacy organizations have issued patronizing “reminders,” as if Rowling has forgotten her lines. The Human Rights Campaign laments, “We see JK Rowling is at it again. Helpful reminder: If your feminism isn’t trans-inclusive, then it’s not feminism.” A GIF of Emma Watson as Hermione is included for no extra charge, mocking the author with her own invention.”

“Radcliffe’s statement has been applauded online by people like me: college-educated, feminist, middle-aged American women of the sort formerly known as women. I haven’t seen any of them mention the gleeful dehumanization of Rowling; nor I have I seen any of them object that Radcliffe has remained silent about the abuse, or that it was taking place as he crafted his “response.” While he is not directly responsible for others’ treatment of Rowling, he is responsible for contributing to a hostile climate, and not just among anonymous Twitter trolls.He is responsible for what he does and does not say, and for what he does and does not know (or pretends not to know).”

“The final paragraph of Radcliffe’s statement offers consolation to those who feel betrayed, who feel as though their experience of Rowling’s fiction has been sullied by Rowling’s continued existence. He assures fans that they may still be nourished by—well, by “the books,” “these stories,” and “the book that you read,” despite “these comments.” He doesn’t say whose books, whose stories, or whose comments.

The explicitly violent tweets and the contemptuous journalistic dismissals are unsettling enough on their own, and it’s troubling to think that Radcliffe’s failure even to address the matters at hand may have amplified them. But here he moves from omission to erasure. Whereas he began his statement by focusing on Rowling’s name and not her ideas, now he appropriates her ideas while refusing to utter her name. This final negation is pernicious in its own way. Radcliffe opened his statement with an acknowledgment of J.K. Rowling’s influence on his life, but just a few paragraphs later, he seems to have forgotten that he played Harry Potter in the movies based on the books rather than inventing Harry himself. At the same moment when Rowling is being “cancelled” by those who loved her books, as her former fans and even major publications demand that she surrender her agency and autonomy, Radcliffe steps in and arrogates the right to speak for “these stories.” He assures his base that they may still find meaning and solace in the books, despite the mortal sins committed by—She Whose Name Must Be Erased From The Covers Of Her Own Books. Chillingly, Radcliffe assures his readers that “nobody can touch” their experience of the books, implying that the unnamed, erased author has been purged entirely. How magnanimous of him. How inclusive.”

“I haven’t seen any complaint that Radcliffe fails to mention the trans men and nonbinary people who menstruate, or that he pretends not to know Rowling has already been fending off verbal attacks for years, or that he erases her name as he refers to “the books.” 

“Daniel Radcliffe seems to have forgotten Harry Potter began as an idea in J.K. Rowling’s head. But he wants “women” to be an idea in his own.

For all its popular appeal and re-postings, “Daniel Radcliffe Responds” does not respond to what J.K. Rowling expressed, and much is communicated by what he did not say. Radcliffe did not acknowledge the terminological issue or the content of what Rowling said about it. He did not mention the “people who” are affected by the issue or even credit Rowling as an author of “these stories.” Nor did the thirty-year-old honor Rowling as an elder who carries significant wisdom and experience—and who just might know something he doesn’t about the word “woman” or the practice of menstruation. He expressed fervent opinions about who counts as a woman, but didn’t show respect for this woman. Perhaps it is Daniel Radcliffe, not J.K. Rowling, who should “put down the pen.”

[letterboxd]

Sundancing.

As the 2021 film festival season kicks off, Sundance Film Festival alumni and this year’s newcomers share their best tips for at-home festival attendance.

With contributions from Joe Talbot, Aneesh Chaganty, Ekwa Msangi, Heidi Ewing, Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine, Levan Akin, Max Barbakow, Jim Cummings, Sara Hirner and Rosemary Vasquez-Brown, Kentucker Audley and Albert Birney, Alexis Gambis and the Letterboxd Sundance team.

While it’s a small relief not to have to share a bunkbed with Gary from Australia, and go trudging up those Park City slopes in chunky ol’ snow boots, it’s still a challenge to create the ambience that the world premiere of a brilliant new indie film deserves. So, as well as creating a new, official Letterboxd festival hub (Festiville—give it a follow to receive festival updates in your main activity feed), we’ve also called in some friends to help us overcome the barrier of a lonely room, a smaller screen and a too-familiar couch.

At home, you can sit as close to the screen as you can bear. (‘Paddington’, 2014.)

Bring the mountain to you.

How best to recreate the specific feeling of trying not to break your neck while running across the icy carpark between the Doubletree and the Holiday Village 4 during a tight turnaround? Letterboxd’s West Coast editor Dominic Corry advises getting into the Park City swing of things right from breakfast: “Place a headshot next to your coffee machine to replicate the experience of bumping into an A-lister at the Starbucks in Fresh Market”.

Before your first screening of the day, say Boys State directors Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine (Sundance 2020), “Stand outside in the cold for sixty minutes before viewing the film, then watch the film while wearing a very heavy parka, and realize you’re very hot twenty minutes into the movie and have to wrestle your parka off whilst not disturbing your fellow viewers.”

Or, don’t even bother trying to remove those layers, says And Then We Danced writer-director Levan Akin (Sundance 2020): “Recreate the sweat-soaked sensation I had by dressing in thermal long johns to outsmart the cold, only to sit through screenings in a pool of your own sweat. Rookie mistake!”

Between screenings, you have a couple of options. “Hit that StairMaster between virtual engagements to simulate the high mountain altitude,” advises Palm Springs director Max Barbakow (Sundance 2020), ”and don’t forget that chlorophyll to catch your wind!”

Kentucker Audley and Albert Birney, writers and directors of Strawberry Mansion (Sundance 2021) have an alternate suggestion: “After a screening, we recommend turning off the heat in your home, getting into your bathtub (imagining it’s a hot tub), and once it’s nice and freezing in your house, get out of the tub with wet feet, step directly into your snow boats and race to the nearest towel, which for some reason is nowhere near you. Then watch another movie and repeat the process.” Seems eerily legit.

There’s no corkage charged for BYO in the home cinema. (‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’, 2008.)

Creating those creature comforts.

For those of you who have long since accepted that we’re on the sofa rather than the slopes this Sundance, the trick is to make home as inviting as possible, despite its being far too familiar these days. That could mean moving the screen from its usual spot. Heidi Ewing, writer and director of I Carry You With Me (Sundance 2020) has a three-step plan: “1. Carmel-corn 2. Bathtub with bubbles 3. Play it loud—bathroom-tile acoustics will make it all feel bigger and boomier. That’s my sage advice.”

“Definitely co-sign the bathtub!” agrees Letterboxd’s London correspondent Ella Kemp. “And I’d also suggest watching the midnight-leaning stuff—big horror, big genre, big WTF—first thing in the morning, if you can. I do not have the same energy late at night in my own at home as I do with a sold-out crowd.”

Expose your folks to a whole new world—make them watch Midnight category films with you over breakfast. (‘Good Morning’, 1959.)

Indeed, energy for film festivals is a thing whether you’re an in-person or satellite viewer—this applies to mental energy, too. “If you’re ever stressed or tired, watch a documentary to reset yourself,” says Jim Cummings, writer and director, Thunder Road short (Grand Jury winner, Sundance 2016), producer, Beast Beast (Sundance 2020).

And, given it’s a seven-day-long haul, feel free to throw cooking plans out the window and follow the Park City diet, in which you “eat nothing but finger foods for the duration of the festival,” according to Moss and McBaine. Or, as Ekwa Msangi, writer-director of Farewell Amor (Sundance 2020) recommends, “get some deliciously flavored popcorn and a hot drink for afterwards!”

Another at-home tip from Corry: “Don’t turn the lights on when you get up to go to the bathroom mid-movie, so as to recreate the sensation of your eyes struggling to adjust to the light in the restroom.”

Mac ’n’ cheese and a cold one for the last viewing of the day. (‘Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood’, 2019.)

Hell is other people (but animals are cool).

Not all of us live alone, and not all of us live with film lovers. Company is welcome, interruptions are to be expected, but do set some boundaries and decide what you will and won’t compromise on. “If you’ve got to bargain with roommates and family members for your turn to use the TV, be intentional about sound!” advises Letterboxd contributor, Selome Hailu. “Don’t compromise on music documentaries or well-scored horror, but rom-com dialogue might still sound okay with your laptop speaker.”

Housemates not human? That’s no problem for Alexis Gambis, writer, director and co-editor, Son of Monarchs (Sundance 2021): “Make room for your pets, let them be the film critics this time around.”

Importantly, says Cummings, “Be kind to everyone.” Whether you’re at a satellite screening, joining a festival event online or talking about the films on your social channels, “everyone is here to watch crazy weird movies. Remind yourself that it’s all about weird cinema and the creators. Watch movies!”

“And definitely stay for the Q&As,” say Moss and McBaine. “Always incredible.”

Director Dorothy Arzner and star Clara Bow are dressed to impress. (‘The Wild Party’, 1929.)

Watch the premieres as their makers intended.

Look, filmmakers know what they’re up against in 2021, but it doesn’t stop them dreaming big when it comes to how we see their films for the first time. Sara Hirner and Rosemary Vasquez-Brown, directors of the Sundance 2021 short GNT, have put some thought into this:

“We demand that GNT be viewed in one of two very specific ways, and since we have no control over ourselves or the world at large, we urge you to at least pay us this small kindness!

Option A: You shall view GNT at 3:00am, sans pants, with two-day-old pizza and your laptop perched on your titties.

Option B: You shall dress in your finest garb, slather your face in makeup (please consult the swaths of teenage beauty gurus if you’re unsure on how to accomplish this task), and adorn yourself in your highest heels. These must all be the same color (tone variations will be accepted). Crack open your cheapest available sparkling wine and get to it. We hope you enjoy the show.”

For those whose Sundance dress code extends only to bed-wear, Msangi pleads: “If you’re staying in your pajamas, at least put on a cool beanie to spice things up!”

Sharing is caring. (‘Shithouse’, 2020.)

Tweets, or it didn’t happen.

Finally, and most essentially, Aneesh Chaganty, writer and director of Searching (Sundance 2018), declares: “It’s not a Sundance hit without insane amounts of buzz. If you like it, tell everyone you know.”

After all, it’s what we’re here for… isn’t it? The last word goes to Joe Talbot, co-writer and director of The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Sundance 2019): “Since so many people at Sundance like to say that, between all the meetings and panels, they just haven’t had a chance to see any movies, let 2021 be the year that if you haven’t seen the movies, you admit it’s because you just don’t like movies.” Boom.

Related content

The ten most anticipated Sundance 2021 premieres according to Letterboxd members

The full line-up of the 37th Sundance Film Festival 2021

All the Dramatic Grand Jury/World Cinema Dramatic Grand Jury winners from Sundances past

Follow Festiville on Letterboxd for daily updates

The Sundance Film Festival runs from January 28 to February 23. Thanks to all the filmmakers for advice, and good luck to the 2021 festival fam!

[animeraider]

I get a lot of flack from anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, and other fuckwits about my words on the COVID-19 Pandemic and in particular the response to it in the US. I pull no punches about it, I believe firmly that the previous administration and ANYONE who enables them and their policies are complicit in the deaths of all of these people. They belong in prison.

I'm not going to fucking apologize for believing that. The fault for all of this belongs directly in the laps of the Republican Party. If you believe otherwise, you're WRONG. I can bring the receipts.

I've been pretty isolated during all of this. I went into lockdown on March 11, 2020 and I'm technically still there. I now work from home, and even though I've been fully vaccinated for two months now I still go out masked. I may never eat at a buffet again. Sorry Sizzler, but I've learned how to make your cheese bread.

I ripped a tendon in my left knee in May of 2020. I had to go to the hospital, but I was out in a few hours with crutches. I would joke with people that I'm now out of hinged joints to break.

But in July my cough returned with an attitude, and I picked up an infection. Not Covid, but it all made me pretty sick. So that you understand, I have what's called "Chronic Cough Syndrome". I've had it since I was 8. No one knows the cause or the cure. Believe me, we've looked. I just start coughing, and after a few months, I stop. It can be treated but I just have to live with it until someone comes up with something we haven't tried before.

Doctors have gotten into fistfights over whether or not I have Asthma. I don't, but sometimes Asthma medications work for a bit. To be honest, I've had this for so long that sometimes I don't even notice when I cough. It's just part of the wonder of being me.

I took the Pandemic seriously. I stayed home, I socially distanced, I got real familiar with teams, bluejeans, and zoom. I did a LOT of cooking. Started making bread. Watched the country fall apart at the seams and commented on it from my own little pocket of safety. I contributed a new song to a fund-raising effort for nurses. I did my part to stay safe, but my cough had other ideas.

Anyway, this time my coughing got pretty severe and I finally agreed to go to the hospital. As stated above, turns out I had picked up an infection. Combine that with my cough and I showed all of the symptoms of a severe case of COVID-19.

I'd been careful, but the hospital staff were all very cross with me. If I had COVID, I just exposed all of them, and the main nurse who tended to me had already been quarantined that same month for a different exposure. When the test came back negative the tension in the emergency ward calmed down immensely and everyone treated me kindly and professionally - I was a patient with something they knew what to do with and didn't bring plague into their house.

I spent 4 days in the hospital but the worst part, scariest part, was the wait to move from the Emergency Room to a private room. I came to the hospital in the late afternoon. I finally got my bed nearly 12 hours later, a good 8 hours after my test for COVID had come back negative.

I needed to be hospitalized, and needed a bed, and there weren't any. I had to wait for someone to either be discharged or to die.

I got my bed at 4 in the morning. Someone had died. Musical chairs was played and I was finally moved out of the Emergency Room.

It's really hard to understand how sobering that is without experiencing it. Many years ago, before we even knew about AIDS, I had the honor of donating blood and seeing it get used in a surgery mere minutes later. I became a regular blood donor at that moment - I felt so happy and alive that my blood had been used to save a life mere minutes after I had donated it (I'm O Negative) that I became a life-long believer. I donated every time I was eligible from that moment forward until a blood infection disqualified me from ever donating again 20 years later.

This was just the opposite. The guy with a cough and a treatable infection had to wait for someone on a ventilator to stop breathing. Someone with COVID died so that I could get a bed. They never knew this had happened, and I never learned who they were. Some random person died so that I could get better.

Try sleeping after that realization hits you. I couldn't. I barely slept the entire time I was there.

Despite the fact that I wasn't in the "COVID Ward" I got to see the effects first-hand. The newly disinfected bed and room I had was previously occupied by someone moved up to the Covid Ward. They in turn had moved up there after a ventilator was taken away from a patient who died. Staff rotated through different wards on different shifts. My first nurse was rotated into the Covid Ward. My next day nurse had just rotated out. I have never in my life seen a group of people look so haunted by their day to day lives.

A well-liked member of their staff was on a ventilator. So was a priest who worked in the hospital. I had never seen in person a "Code Blue". There were six of them my first day. There is also a "Code Black". It's much worse.

My wife and daughters weren't allowed to visit me. When your daily soundtrack is nothing but medical staff talking about the good and the bad, terrible television and the moaning/screaming of your new neighbors getting that visit from family is a huge stress relief. It wasn't available this time. I didn't see my family again until I was discharged. There was no outside world.

I admit that being in hospital during all of this, even though I myself didn't have COVID, shook me. When you're in hospital mostly what you deal with is yourself and your own condition, and getting the hell out of there as soon as you can. This time I was not only aware of the people around me, their conditions, their suffering and their recoveries, but I was also aware that a whole section of the building was dedicated to people who were going to die, and that the people who were treating me were also treating them.

This was as close as I got to the Pandemic. When I got home I fucking STAYED THERE. I went to the grocery store and the pharmacy and that was it. That was life for MONTHS.

Our grocery store was fantastic - they enforced social distancing and masks with gusto. They cleaned EVERYTHING. It had been a 24 hour store but converted to shorter hours so that the down time could be spent cleaning. Aisles were made one-way.

The first time I saw someone in the parking lot without a mask I have to admit that I lost it. I screamed at them (a white couple about my age), "PUT YOUR FUCKING MASKS ON YOU FUCKING MORONS!" Understand, I'm a fairly large man with a deep voice and have been a professional singer for decades and have played sax even longer. I'm loud and imposing. Everyone within 50 feet turned and stared at the couple. Okay, me first then the couple.

It's possible they didn't speak English. They exchanged a few words in Russian to each other and then masked up.

I've been known to let my temper show. I try not to because I know it's there and I know it's terrible. I've worked for decades to keep it in check and I just let it all out, screaming at a couple of rando Karens 20 feet away from anyone else who hadn't put their masks on yet. I had to acknowledge that this affected me profoundly. I'm dealing with that.

I've lost friends to COVID. One of my neighbors spent almost 3 months on a ventilator and survived it. Some of my friends have lost family. It hurts. It all hurts. It has changed me.

Some of you have noticed that I've been pretty productive in 2021 in terms of music, after not releasing material for over a decade. This whole experience has changed me, changed my perspective. I was already an angry liberal but I'm far angrier and much more liberal now than I was. The album I worked on forever essentially no longer exists. The person I am now couldn't make that album. I am excising demons and allowing the new to come in and take its place.

And you know what, so far, I'm okay. I'm still here. I intend to stay. In fact, what I intend to be the first song from my next album in its own way deals with the fact that I don't understand depression - I've never experienced it.

But I have to admit that I'm grateful to have family and friends in my life who accept me as I am, who provide unconditional love and support and I hope I do for them. I have the occasional doubt that I'm as good a friend/family member as I can be. I can be an ass sometimes.

(A couple of my long-time friends have just done spit-takes. "Sometimes????")

Because the scariest thing about what we've all been through - what I've been through - is that we have changed so much that I'm not sure that the people who know me best would be my friends if they met me as the person I am now. I am changed.

And the odds are pretty good that you have too. This is something we're all going to need to deal with, or we're lost.

Please, don't be lost.

And because it still needs doing, because the pandemic is still going strong as ever among the anti-vaxxers, the science deniers and the Republicans, please support our nurses. Here's the album I'm on that is still to this day, long after falling off the charts, raising money for them:

[rex101111]

Following Orders.

Rating: E

Warning: Gore, blood, body horror, Mentioned attempted suicide, Holocaust mentions, civilians getting shot by nazi soldiers (the usual awful things).

Right so I recently got into The Magnus Archives so I had to contribute something :D blame @imbeccablee she introduced me to it. You should check it out it’s REALLY fun if you into horror and podcasts and horror podcasts :D

Anyway enjoy!

"Statement of; Johan Hess. Regarding an encounter in France during his time in the German army around the Normandy landings.

Statement Originally taken: December 15th, 1981

Recording by Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the Magnus Institute.

Statement begins;"  

-_-

The phrase "I was just following orders" is the emptiest thing a soldier could say. It is a pathetic, cowardly attempt to dodge responsibility by pinning it on your superiors. You throw away your choice, the option that you could have done different, by claiming you had no choice at all from the moment you placed yourself in uniform and became just another face in a firing line.

Of course I shot those civilians, I was following orders.

Of course I burned that house down, I was following orders.

Everyone was following orders, everyone was shooting each other and walking in lockstep as they were told to march, march forward onto hell and onto death and onto the enemy's bullets and bayonets without a thought.

We were all just. Following orders.

It's the excuse, and that it all it will ever be, an excuse, given by soldiers in the Great War when questioned about the mustard gas in the trenches. It's the answer you'll get from the soldiers that came back from Vietnam with mud between their fingers and blood in their teeth.

And it was the excuse I used, every single day of my life, from the moment I joined the German Military during World War Two. It is the excuse I use to get up from my bed in the morning, the one I used when I hugged my wife and had to convince myself I had the right to say that I loved her, the one I used day in and day out even after the true scope of what the Fuhrer had done to the morals of my country and the values we held dear.

I know it is a lie, that the cause for that war was corrupt and cruel from the very beginning, I have always known, but that lie is the only reason I managed to keep the barrel of my gun out of my mouth after we saw the...footage.

Have you ever seen pictures of the survivors of the death camps? Those gaunt figures with their bones nearly sticking out of their skin? Bodies, dressed in filthy rags, so emaciated that they barely appeared to be human? Their eyes filled with pain and fear?

How about film? Even in black and white, the way they moved, as if struggling against the wind lest it folded them in two, spoke to the depth of the horror and cruelty those people endured.

My people did that, my countrymen did that to those people. My neighbors and friends dragged them out of their homes, shaved them bald, starved them, beat them, put them into rooms filled with death, stripped them of everything that made them human until all was left was a massive hole in the ground filled with meat and blood.

 And I allowed it to happen, me and every other soldier in that army when we put on those uniforms. As we swept through Europe like a hive of locusts, stripping the land bare and dragging people kicking and screaming from their homes and gave Hitler and his sycophants more power and territory. I was not one of those animals, those soulless demons of the SS, but the blood on my hands was the same as the blood on theirs.

 Both of us allowed those terrors to happen. The only difference between them and I is that they did of that all directly, with full knowledge of what would happen to those poor Jews and Blacks and anyone deemed lesser. I was a fool, placing my fingers in my ears and refusing to see things as they were.

 My fellow soldiers were the same, high on patriotic fervor that blinded them to what our fatherland had become. I didn't join the Wehrmacht to kill people, though I knew that it would be asked of me, I joined because the thought of my friends and family dying out there alone made me sick. I wanted to do my part, and every article in the newspaper and every poster on the streets and every speech on the radio convinced me that my part was to hold a gun and shot until I was either dead or we won.

 Even as we turned on the Russians and operation Barbarossa failed miserably, even as the Americans started landing on the beaches of France, even as more and more of my fellow soldiers died around me, I was convinced that I needed to do my part.

 That all changed in a single night.

 I was stationed in France, near the Eawy forest, on June 13, a week after the Allies began landing on Normandy. I was sent to France almost as soon as I finished my training, almost two years previous, and had been to many places in that time. France is a beautiful place, its cities gleamed and its nature spanned wide and far in many places.

 It pained me in a way I refuse to say out loud to have to visit this place with guns and tanks.

 I was a part of a unit made to combat partisans and French rebels hiding in the forest, rooting out encampments between the trees and keeping the local population in line and stop them from thinking to do anything as foolish as fighting back.

 My unit passed through many villages in the forests of France, burning and pillaging as we went. Our commander, Heinrich Werner, was a vicious man who believed the word of Hitler down to his bones. He ordered us to take every Jewish civilian we could find in every village we passed, gather them in the town square, and shoot them were they stood.

 He often complained aloud at how unsatisfied he was at his position and placement, only growing louder as news of the Americans landing on the beaches reached us and we all stayed put. I suspect he exercised this cruelty to prove himself in some way, to show he should be fighting the allies instead of hunting in the forest for rebels with rusty weapons. If that was true than he failed miserably, and only grew more and more cruel as time wore on.

 Man, woman, child, elder, Werner wanted them all dead to the last. It mattered not that they screamed or begged, his voice was calm and steely as he ordered us to bring our rifles to bare.

 And no matter how they screamed and pleaded and cried, we all did as he said, we all followed our orders.

 None of us hesitated, none of us questioned, none of us were shot for disobedience. Every time, we lined up our rifles, steadied our grip, and pulled our triggers as one. You never appreciate how loud a gunshot could be until you put your hands on an actual firearm. Movies will try, but the sheer noise a gun makes when you tell it to help you take a life is something that can't be replicated.

 Imagine a wall of noise, slamming into the center of your chest. For a split second, every single one of your bones rattle inside your flesh. The liquid in your eyes shivers from the shock, blurring your world for a long moment.

 And then, nothing. Your shot echoes out, slowly dying in the air, but all you hear is nothing. The world is a void of sound and noise, the shot ringing in your ears is gone almost as soon as it arrived. When you are part of a firing line, you not only have to suffer the shock from your own weapon, but the weapons to your sides as well, walls of the noise crushing you from all directions at once.

 It deafens you, even after your ears either adjust to the noise or are so damaged by constant gunfire that it no longer stings, those walls of noise steal every sound from the world for a few moments.

 Just long enough for you to hear the bodies of your targets fall to the earth. You shot someone while they stand and they fall apart from the bottom up. First their legs give out, lacking the strength to hold up the weight, and then they slump forward or backwards, laying on the ground as if their strings were cut.

 The thud of flesh hitting the ground, be it mud or cobblestone or bricks, is unavoidable. You can't escape it. Even if you fill the air with so much noise and fire and death that you can't even hear your thoughts from the lead all around you, you can always feel the moment someone hits the ground and begins staining it with blood.

 And if your bullet is the one that caused it, the thud echoes. It reverberates through your chest and lodges itself between your lungs, and for a long time after you hear it with every breath you manage to pull.

 The nights after we raided a village were always quiet after that, each of us making sure not to look each other in the eyes as we ate our rations and crawled into our sleeping bags.

 Until one night, when Werner started screaming at us to get up, "On your feet! Everyone in uniform! NOW! EVERYONE OF YOU GET UP!" I remember those words exactly, even after all those years, like he had just shouted them right in my ear. It was the first time I ever heard anything other than cold satisfaction or cruel excitement from the man. This time, every single word he spoke was quivering with shock, even as he tried to hide it with his orders.

 It was a rush of people in the dark, elbowing me and hissing at me to hurry up as I shook the sleep from my bones and put my uniform on in a near blind panic. I was the last to get ready and follow the rest of the soldiers to the center of our makeshift camp.

 I was not very close with many of the soldiers in my unit, despite how long we spent together. I was never an overtly social person even back home, so I exceled at making sure I never stepped on anyone's toes, but suffice it to say no one there considered me a friend and I extended them the same courtesy.

 None of that made the sight of a mangled pile of body parts any less shocking to me. Least of all because I recognized the soldier it had once been. It was Karl, one of the riflemen that always seemed to be the most eager to file into a firing line when Werner started barking orders.

 He was pulled apart like an old doll, each of his limbs bleeding profusely from ragged stumps on the torso they were arranged on, with his head on the very top of the pile as some sort of vicious centerpiece.

 And his face. His face was the worst of it, instead of a blank stare like that of a drowning fish, or the twist of dying agony and terror I had so grown used to over the two years of my service, instead his face was the very picture of fathomless sorrow. His eyes were as if on the verge of weeping, his mouth closed in a mournful grimace.

 I felt myself drawn into those eyes, the clear blue of it glinting in the moonlight as I stared. I could swear they were filling up with unshed tears as I continued to gaze in numb horror and felt a deep, shredding dread cutting up the pit of my stomach.

 I could hear more than a few of my fellows retching at the sight, and I was barely able to hold back my own bile as Karl's blood continued to pool around the flesh of his mangled corpse.

 Werner was pacing back and forth, breathing heavily through his nose as he glared at us. "Who did this?" He asked us, voice trembling with some mix of anger and fear. "One of you must have heard something, did anyone see?"

 We all looked at each other uneasily, none of us having heard a thing before Werner had started screaming. He started shouting at us again, calling us all idiots, pathetic excuses for soldiers if someone could just walk into our camp and kill one of our own and get away with it.

 He continued shouting meaningless insults for another full minute, wildly gesturing with every word as he seemed to try and wring out his own fear, before he stopped abruptly, leaning his ears towards the deep, dark woods.

 We did the same, and all of us flinched at once when a deep, loud noise rumbled from between the tree trunks. Nothing human could have made that sound, and I heard no animal capable of anything like it either. It was something between the growl of a bear and the dying gasp of our many victims, echoing with a mix of anger and hate, and it made the dread in my stomach burn more and more brightly.

 Werner snapped at us once more, barking at us to gather our rifles and flashlights, and to march with him into the woods to hunt down whatever was, "making a fool of him." His face was twisted with anger and denial, as if the murder of his soldier and the noise was accusing him of something, and his pride was refusing to take it laying down.

 It said something of German Military discipline when there was only a short moment of hesitation before we all began to gather our equipment, all of us defaulting to the one thing our basic training had drilled into our heads in the face of this horror.

 We followed our orders.

 Again, I had fallen a bit behind, only one of the other soldiers, Wilhelm, waiting for me for a moment before continuing on to the group gathering in front of the woods with Werner. My hands were still shaking from the pile of body parts, unable to stop myself from stealing glances at it as I gathered my things.

 As I finished attaching the bayonet to my rifle, something caught my eye near what was once Karl. A piece of paper, resting on the palm of one of the hands, not flying off in the breeze despite the fingers being spread open.

 I walked over to the paper almost without thinking, the sounds of Werner shouting orders and warnings to the other soldiers sounding muffled, as if through water. With every step I took towards it, Werner sounded further and further away, finally falling silent as I stood right next to the outstretched, severed palm of my fellow soldier.

 It was a note, on it a single word, scrawled in French, the letters scratched and thin.

 I learned more than a little French back at home, my mother being from Paris, and the word on that note was unmistakable.

 In the beginning, the Jews we executed merely whimpered at us, begging for their lives. As time wore on, as the French people became more emboldened by the resistance and the allies pushing us back, they began shouting at us in rage and anger.

 They shouted many things, but one word kept repeating, over and over, the children screaming first, before their parents joined in. The word echoing in my ears even as the gunshots died on the wind.

 The same word on that note, the letters changing color from ink black to a familiar red as I stared at it, burning themselves in my mind as the note started to bleed from them.

 Monsters.    

 I was suddenly wrenched from my trance when I heard Wilhelm calling out to me, the rest of the unit, 29 men in all including myself, Wilhelm and Werner, already deep in the woods. I looked back at Karl's palm for a moment, and saw that it was empty.

 I shook my head and followed Wilhelm's call, barely hearing Werner shouting marching orders at the head of the party. I took a breath and marched forward with clenched teeth, feeling the woods swallow me whole.

 Forests at night were a terrible thing. Without the sunlight filtering through the canopy, they were utterly pitch black in every direction, only the occasional ray of light from the moon piercing through to barely illuminate anything.

 You could hear every little sound in the night, owls flying between branches, insects and lizards scrabbling up the bark, the trees attempting to deafen you while you were blind. Only the solid footfalls of my unit walking together gave me some sense of place, and whenever I looked away, the dark seemed to stretch out for miles.

 The Eawy Forest is one of the largest in France, over six and a half thousand hectares of forest, a border of trees on the northern edge of Pays de Bray. You could literally walk for miles, hours, weeks in these woods if you got turned around. And in the dark, the trees stretch out into the abyss no matter how hard you look.

 You could hide a body in these woods, and it would be months before anyone found what was left of it. There could be an enemy hiding behind every trunk, every errant bush, and the possibility of that seemed to finally enter Werner's head as we walked on and into the woods.

 More than once, a loud snap would sound from a direction, and every one of us would whip our rifles to shot whatever made the foolish decision to be alive and moving within our sight. Every time, there was nothing, and Werner would growl at us to keep our wits and keep marching, his voice losing more and more of its edge with each repetition.

 I don't know how long we moved through those pitch black trees, at some point my mind was panicking over why we hadn't seen the sun yet, thinking we must have walked for hours now.

 Me feet ached, but I dared not complain, not even as a matter of discipline, but more that the thought struck me that if something in these woods heard me admit a weakness, it would be the last thing I would ever do.

 And so we walked, deeper and deeper, almost in a trance, not a single one of us daring to speak a word, fingers tight around our weapons. In that silence, I noticed the sounds of the woods stopped as well. Wilhelm looking over his shoulder at me, a ray of moon light illuminating his face just enough for me to catch the worry in his pinched brow.

 I could only shrug helplessly at whatever silent question he threw at me, and he turned away with a silent grimace.

 All of a sudden, we stopped, Werner having apparently seen something and ordered a halt. One by one, the unit began to spread out wide and forward, with me at the very back I could only see why when the motion reached me about a minute or so later.

 We reached a clearing, large enough to fit all thirty of us and still leave room to spread our arms out. The moon was shining brightly, perfectly lighting up the clearing even though it had almost completely waned.

 I looked around at the rest of the unit, seeing them all stare ahead at something at the far end of the clearing, all of them still perfectly silent with Werner the furthest in. I leaned my head up to see what it was, not trusting my voice enough to risk breaking whatever heavy silence had fallen on us all with a question, and then felt the bile rise again in my throat as I caught the smell.

 The acrid scent of old, stagnant blood filled the air. Every breath I took was laced with the pungent odor of rotting, fetid meat, and the source was right in front of me, but I could not see. Images of torn city streets flashed in my mind, bodies strewn about haphazardly and left to bleed and rot in the sun, crows and maggots picking at their flesh.

Some force of morbid curiosity pulled me forward, the same mindless walk that led me to the note in Karl's hand, and I was about 10 feet away from Werner when I saw what he was staring at.

 And saw him shaking like a leaf in the wind, whimpering like a child.

 It was a pool, about 30 feet wide and stretching out into the dark of the forest, it's surface calm and smooth as glass, and the moon light blooming in the clearing reflected of it perfectly.

 The smell, fetid and stagnant and rotten, was the strongest right at the lip of the pool, and the moonlight made it impossible to miss the deep, red color of the water.

 No, not water, the more I looked the more I was certain that not a single drop of water was in that pool. The bile rose in my throat and burned it as I stared at this huge pool of blood, smelling of decay and sorrow so strongly it nearly knocked me off feet, and so thick I could not see through it.

 I desperately wanted to look away, to hold my nose and turn on my heel and flee from this place with all my might, but I was rooted to the spot. Despite my horror, something else rose in my chest, a crushing feeling of guilt stuck itself between my lungs and stopped me from breathing, and tears started welling up in my eyes as I continued to stare at this massive pool of red.

 A Knowing grew in my head, a certainty that would have dragged me to my knees had I been able to move. I spilt this blood, I filled this pool to the brim with every trigger I pulled, I couldn't look away, I had no right to look away. All I could do was weep and feel the bile I could not vomit churn in the back of my throat.

 I could vaguely hear the soldiers around me whimpering along with Werner and myself, some of them whispering desperate apologies and gagging on their own vomit as we stared at this pool of gore we all made.

 After what felt like an eternity of begging for forgiveness and staring unblinking at that pool of blood, the glass like surface of the pool began to ripple outwards from the center, something moving just below the blood.

 The ripples began inching closer and closer to the edge of the pool, closer to us, before stopping dead and vanishing all at once. We all fell silent and held our breaths as we stared at where the ripples were, waiting for…something.

 Almost without warning, an arm shot out of the crimson pool, and started clawing at the grass. Before we could fully understand what we were seeing, a second arm joined the first, and together they started pulling at the ground, dragging something, someone, out of the blood.

 It stood up slowly, painfully, blood dripping off in rivulets and pooling near its feet instead of sinking into the ground. It was barely the size of a child, limbs thin and muscles emaciated. They wore bloody rags, the cloth sticking to its skin, through which I could see bones nearly bulging out, bent at odd angles.

 Its hair was shaved in irregular patterns, and what hair it had was soaked with blood like the rest of it. It kept its head down, taking deep, ragged breaths. Every inch of me was screaming at me to run, that what I was seeing was wrong, that staying where I was meant death in every sense.

 But I did not move, the Knowing that told me I made the pool told me that this is where I needed to be, and I could do nothing but stay, and wait.

 It raised its head, and it wore the face of a child, the face of every child. The face of every child I saw while I went to school, the face of every child I saw dragged kicking and screaming to the trains, the face of every child I saw at the far end of my rifle.

 Its eyes were a deep brown flecked with red, mud on a rainy battlefield, and the sheer depth of hatred in its eyes made me feel like someone was ripping me in two. It hated us, this thing from the pool, hated us all, personally, on the deepest level possible. It hated me, for everything that I was, everything that I am, for everything that I ever did in that pointless, cruel war.

 Its jaw started twitching, wrenching open with a sickening sound of stretching flesh, and a sound began coming out of its throat, slowly forming into a word.

 I knew the word before it said it, before it scowled at us and its face twisted into an overwhelming expression of sheer rage. I could feel the word burning in my mind as it took a deep, wet breath between its blood stained, jagged, broken teeth.

 Monsters.

 It spoke with the voice of a little girl, word dry and ragged in the air like it hadn't had a drop of water for years, and it echoed deep into the woods and deep in my bones and I could not argue with it at all.

 It said it again, and again, and again, the same word, the same accusation, over and over and over.

 It called us monsters, in French, in German, in Hebrew, and more and more and even when it spoke in a language I had never heard before I knew what it said, knew every implication and every nuance and every inch of hate in the words it used.

 And I knew, know, that it, that she, was right.

 We were monsters, every single one of one of us, and we had earned the hate in her eyes. Every. Last. Inch of it.

 I felt myself fall to my knees, tears of shame and fear and sorrow running down my face as the words flowed through my blood and strangled my heart. I heard the soldiers around me do the same, their whimpers replaced with broken sobbing as the words sank into the trees behind us and went on, on into the wind until all was silent again.

 She stood there for a moment, sweeping a hateful, furious scowl all around the clearing as she took us all in. And she scoffed, but said nothing in response to the weeping and sobbing of the men, cowards, monsters, around her.

 She began walking forward, her steps landing in a loud squelch of wet dirt, the blood dripping off her form never seeming to end as she closed the distance between her and the sobbing mess that was Heinrich Werner.

 She stood in front of the bawling man for a long moment, staring down at him as he fell apart under her burning hateful gaze. He said nothing intelligible, all he could manage was a long string of blubbering and tear soaked pleas for mercy. His voice went on and on, growing more and more hoarse until I was sure I started to see blood mix with his spit from the strain and yet he kept begging her. Begging her to spare him.

 Even as she ripped off his right arm, gripping it with boney fingers and slowly ripping the flesh away from him he continued to beg.

 She ripped off his other arm, his legs, cut open his stomach to let his entrails spread across the grass, and yet he kept begging.

 She grabbed his head with both hands, her broken teeth grinding together as she started to pull, and only then did he stopped begging, and started screaming.

 His head screamed and screamed, even as the last strips of flesh connecting his neck to his skull snapped away with a wet sound. It screamed and screamed and screamed, the sound ringing in my ears and rattling the teeth in my head, before she crushed it between her palms, the gore of Werner flying off in odd directions, spraying me and the other soldiers in blood and liquids I dare not name.

 She grabbed the body parts she pulled from Werner, and dragged them to the pool, tossing them into the deep, dark red with a careless gesture. The ripples died almost as soon as they started, the opaque blood swallowing the meat ravenously until nothing remained.

 And then she went to Wilhelm, and the begging, the tearing, the screaming, it all started again.

And again with the next.

 And the next.

 And the next.

 All around me the soldiers begged and then screamed and then were devoured by the pool as she ripped them apart one by one. I could not move, not to run, not to look over my shoulder to see her claiming her pound of flesh from us. All I could do was sit on my knees, the tears continuing to fall down my face, and wait.

 Soon, the last soldier screamed their last behind me, and she walked passed me to TOSS the meat into the pool. She stood in front of it for a long moment, the wind whispering between us as I waited.

 Slowly, painfully slowly, she turned to face me, the hate in her eyes burning just as brightly as when she first emerged. She pinned me down, stopping my shaking and crying and even my breathing as her face twisted into a soundless snarl.

 I blinked and she was right in front of me.

 She waited, waited for me to beg, to scream, to plead.

 I opened and closed my mouth, trying to say the same as the rest of my unit, but my voice refused to leave my throat to say them. I was a monster, just like they were, I deserved no less and no more than what she did to them.

 But when I finally spoke, when my voice finally formed into words, all I could manage was a sob.

 I took one last breath, and using strength I did not have, by the force of a will I did not deserve, I looked right into her eyes, her burning, piercing eyes, and said, "I'm sorry."

 No excuses, no begging, no pleading for mercy or cries of fear. Nothing more than apology, weightless and pointless in the face of my sins, but it was all I could manage to say.

 For a moment, for a single second, the hate in her eyes were replaced with shock, her face dropping the burning scowl she's had from the beginning. I could see her for the first time, truly see the young girl behind the gore and blood that called us all monsters with such conviction. And the guilt sunk in my chest again, and the Knowing came back and told me that I did this to her, and more tears fell again.

 As soon as that Knowing passed through my mind, the hate returned to her eyes, twice hot and making my heart drop to the bottom of my stomach, before I could say another word, a plea or another worthless apology, her fingers clenched the flesh of my shoulder and pulled, ripping my arm without a hint of resistance.

 The pain blitzed through every inch of me, burning so bright I couldn't even scream, but the urge to do so blared in my mind so brightly it nearly blinded me. Before I could even fully comprehend the pain, she grabbed me by the collar of my uniform shirt, and started beating me furiously about the head and face.

 She did so soundlessly, no grunts of exertion, no growls of anger, but in the brief moment before she landed each blow, I could see her face. The scowl was still there, still as accusing and raging as it had been since the beginning. But between her beating my face to a pulp I could see something reflecting the moon light off her cheeks, and in the delirium of pain I realized they were tears.

 The beating went on for what felt like hours, but soon she dropped my bloodied form on the grass. She looked down at me like I was a piece of filth stuck to her shoe, face impassive as I spat red stained spit and teeth on the ground.

 My vision began to blur, but before oblivion could embrace me fully, she grabbed me by the shortened hair on my bleeding scalp and began dragging me towards the pool. I dared not struggle, knowing, Knowing, that she was pulling me to a fate I deserved.

 I think I managed one more blood soaked apology before I blacked out, but I was never sure.

 Next thing I remember; I was in a field hospital in the village of Ventes-Saint-Remy, with a missing arm and nearly my entire body covered in bandages. My head especially was heavily wrapped in gauze with the exception of a single eye.

 A nurse was the first thing that I was able to focus on, she was speaking to me in calming, gentle French, asking for my name.

 Without thinking, I answered in French, and she smiled at me with kindness I will never deserve.

 I did not tell her I was a German soldier, and she did not think I was. Apparently I was found in the woods by a couple of young boys, naked as the day I was born and covered in wounds. That was months ago.

 It was December, she told me with a grateful and tearful smile, and the Germans were losing.

 If you asked me why I didn't tell her who I truly was, or what had happened to me, the only answer I could give you is that I was a coward. That I am a coward. But whatever the reason was, I spent the rest of the war in that hospital, slowly regaining my strength under the care of that nurse.

 Her name was Irene, and her kindness and heart were more than I will ever deserve.

 As the war ended, I found my way back to Germany, and saw my home in ruins. I did not live in Berlin or anywhere that far east, so I was somehow spared having Stalin and his Soviets watching my every move.

 But I never forgot that night in the forest, where my whole company payed the price they owed for being monsters. I spent years waiting for a court martial, or for someone to unearth some document that proved I was the unit that burned lives and towns in France and for an angry mob to demand my head.

 But it never came, it was like I never fired a gun or served in the army a day in my life. Whenever I asked my parents about it, they acted like I spoke nonsense, that I never spent a day in France, much less as a member of the Wehrmacht. They said my injuries were because of some car accident, or the result of a building fire, every time I asked they were confused as to why I didn't remember and refused to speak further of the matter.

 I started to believe that perhaps I imagined it all, that perhaps my nightmare in the French forest was just that. A nightmare.

 Years passed, I started a family, had children, and tried to ignore that alien feeling of guilt that sliced up my stomach whenever I passed a Jewish temple. It was a nightmare, it had to be, and that was what I was able to convince myself.

 Until the pictures started coming out, until the trial in Israel began appearing in the newspapers. Until footage of the full scale of what would be known as the Holocaust became public knowledge.

 I went to a newly opened museum in my home town, and with every display, with every picture, with every frame of film, the terror I remember from that night returned to me in full force.

 Gaunt figures, broken teeth, shaved heads, every one of them a reminder of that blood filled night in the forest.

 I can still remember that moment, that instant where I recognized a face in a group photo, a young girl in rags. The face nearly made me vomit in the hall, but when I saw the caption of the picture, saying it was taken in France, I collapsed then and there and rushed to a hospital.

 I never told my family the truth that I could no longer deny. Not my wife, not my children, not my grandchildren. Even as I had irrevocable prove of the punishment I had suffered, I could never find the courage to admit to the ones I loved that I was a monster.

 I spent the last few years applying myself to charities for the survivors of what my people did. I spent back breaking hours in soup kitchens and rallies, I devoted every second I had to make the apology I breathed in the forest air mean something.

 It was never enough, even as people received help and money and hugged me so fiercely I thought they would snap me in half it was never enough. And I never told a soul that I wore the same uniform as those that treated them like animals.

 Until today.

 Understand, I did not come here for absolution, or aide, this was simply a long needed confession from me. It is getting harder and harder to get out of bed, my wife passed away years back, and my children and their children barely keep in touch with me anymore.

 I have run out of excuses, I can no longer hide behind the orders that told me to commit such horrible sins. I will forever be a monster, no amount of charity or apologies will change that, but me being a coward? That is something firmly within my control.

 I do not expect you to find anything, or even believe this crazy, one armed man who suddenly appeared on your doorstep. That's okay, giving me a chance to write this story down, even if no one will ever read it, was more than enough.

 Thank you, all the same. And for the tea.

 It may seem small to you, but to a monster like me? It's more than I will ever deserve.

-_-

"Statement ends. Johan Hess died two months after giving this statement, so any chance of a personal follow up is impossible as this point.

 Further, considering that he recounted events that happens forty years previous, even Gertrude could not find much with what little investigation she did. According to German Military records that have survived from the French Occupation, no unit such as the one that Hess claimed he belonged to ever existed, at least not anywhere near Eawy Forest.

 In fact, there is indeed no document stating that Mr. Hess served during the war at all, so nobody remembering he went to France is no big surprise.

 There is a picture of him included in the statement, which does show an extensive amount of injuries to his face along with a missing left arm, but that hardly proves anything. Finding anything about any building fires or car accidents that could have given him those injuries have also turned up nothing.

 He didn't lie about his contributions to charity work to support Holocaust survivors, and there was a report of him being rushed to the hospital after collapsing in a museum, but that's where anything solid about what is said in this statement stops.

 I would dismiss this report entirely, if not for one thing regarding his death. The death itself was not as…visceral as what had allegedly happened to his unit, simply a heart attack in his sleep. But his neighbor, who had reported his death to the police and called an ambulance, found something clenched in his hand.

 It was a note, written in French. The neighbor, as well as the rest of the tenets in the building where Mr. Hess was staying, does not speak a word of French, and handwriting analysis determined that Mr. Hess did not write it himself. Translated, it reads as follows:

 Not a monster. Not anymore.

 End Recording."

[neopound]

A rant that doesn’t matter I just have no one to talk to

- ive been actually making stuff and having art ideas lately, but I just feel I can’t post it on my art IG. I posted the ACAB shirt commission bcuz it’s relevant to what’s going on. But these other things I had planned and have made are not. I want to post them bcuz I’ve honestly been slacking ..but I just. I feel weird about posting if it’s not directly related to the BLM movement or covid. Like. Even on my personal IG. I’ve put stuff in my stories, I sold off the rest of my old cops shirts and donated the profits- but I just...I don’t want post anything personal. I posted abt Pokémon snap on my story and felt like...I was doing something wrong. I know I’m not. But. Idk. I’m not like over the riots and everything- I’m very aware this is still happening and needs to continue, but personally I can’t handle the gore and it seems lately that’s all ppl are posting. And I’m also only seeing the same 5 posts on everyone’s stories over and over and over. It’s a different 5 posts every week and I just....also feel like I should constantly clog up ppls stuff with the same info over and over. I feel weird doing anything on social media right now.

I’ve had ideas for art related to COVID and the BLM- but whenever I sit and think I’m like “that’s stupid and no one will care-youre a white girl” and I just don’t do it. Part of it is me overthinking about all my art being bad like normal and part of it is like... should I tho? Am I actually contributing? Or will ppl just think I’m trying to get clout with what’s going on. Which I def am not trying to do- but shit right now i feel like no one can do anything right without being told you’re doing something horrible and wrong. Like I only had a few of my old all cops are bad shirts from a year ago- and I thought it was a good idea to just sell them and donate the profits and it was. I mean I don’t have a lot of money myself but I was able to donate a good little bit bcuz others were supportive. But then I saw a post like “white ppl shouldn’t be making art or selling stuff in relation to this BLM bcuz they’re just doing it to get likes and followers and like even if they’re donating the profits it’s fucked up” and I’m like ???? I mean I’m SURE there’s people doing that- but seriously ?? as long as the person is actually donating the money- why the hell not??? Who CARES if some broke ass white kid gains 10 followers this week if they end up donating $100 to a bail fund or a families fund or just??? When I first saw that post I felt awful like I really fucked up or something. But like. Then I realized if I didn’t sell the shirts and donate the money- someone else would have made a post abt how doing the opposite was fucked up. So fuck it. I was able to donate like $60 or so when before I wasn’t able to donate much at all out of just my own pocket.

I just feel like no matter what I do or don’t do I feel like I’m doing something wrong. That’s pretty normal considering I overthink everything all the time- but lately it’s just worse bcuz everything going on and there’s a shift in “do this” “no don’t do that” with literally everything, but I’m also just not wanting to sit here and do nothing. But I’m petrified of doing something wrong. I hate my dumb baby brain.

[lovelyr00]

A conversation that I had with my stepdad many weeks ago made me want to share my thoughts on Trump.

So fair warning to everyone:

⚠️THIS IS A LONG POST⚠️

I still get salty that I pay more thousands in taxes every year, shit…I pay more in speeding tickets and Trump pays a measly $700 for his.

I brought this argument to my stepdad and he got upset.

“It doesn’t matter that he pays less than us,” my stepdad told me.

Throughout the rest of the night, while my stepdad continued to talk..I stayed silent. I was so upset that I did not get a chance to put any words chiming in on our discussion. Now that I am calm, I think back to that moment and realize what I should have said to him.

My stepdad should not get to complain about what our tax dollars pay for as a country. He made money on stocks, profits from giant conglomerates. THEY were the only ones profiting from this whole mess.

It is so agonizing. That is because the poor every day people have to continue working and put themselves at risk in order to stay ALIVE. We are not worried about the big corporations. They will still stay open and survive despite all the pain losses that the every day person is experiencing.

So many mom and pop shops have closed, so many people have died, so many have become homeless, and every day there are people on the front lines risking their lives. While businessmen are able to live in luxury, still making money, and acting as though everything is the same because they do not feel these fears personally.

My stepdad asked me: “what is Biden’s platform? What are his plans to continue for this country?”

I did not answer at the time, due to my anger but what I did wish to say: “I don’t know yet but if you asked me this…well, what is Trump’s?”

Anytime Trump is asked for a finite plan, there is nothing. We do not necessarily vote for Biden for his platform and policies. We are simply voting AGAINST Trump for who he is…for the MASS CHAOS he has sown, for the lack of empathy and understanding in what his words have caused. If for nothing else, his extremely and disgusting handling of the pandemic is sole PROOF why he should not be in office. His vocal and baseless attacks on other politicians, organizations, etc. are all insults under the belt.

His entire platform is built on fear…fear and hate mongering.

To not understand this is to be completely disconnected with the current condition of our country and our people. If nothing else, his lies and bolstering of himself should be concerning. He galvanizes the far right and he cannot even-for one second-condemn white supremacists, a group that even the FBI calls “the biggest terrorist group in the US.”

What we need in such a trying time is someone with empathy.

Let me get this message across loud and clear: I do NOT like Biden, that is the sole truth. I really do NOT.

However when compared to two evils…there is only one clear choice. Maybe if there is a different Republican, America would have been okay.

I do not vote party lines but we only had two true choices at this point.

Trump, in every single way, has undermined our democracy. The election was never Trump vs Biden, not for the majority of us who understand our government. This election was Trump vs Democracy.

Trump used third world tactics from dictators in order to hold onto his power. He has never been fit to be president. Nothing made him qualified.

An average person can compare him to a game of family feud. Where Steve Harvey asks, “what scares rich white people the most?”

Trump took advantage of that fear. He dug into so many people’s deepest and darkest fears because he touts that he will solve it all.

Then what do people do? People listen.

Let us be honest, the education system in America is sorely lacking. It is only the stupid and the willfully ignorant that is deceived.

Why is it mostly people in my age group and generation-those that grew up with technology and the entire world of information at their fingertips-can grasp the true reality of our situation?

Generations before us fought through a recession. They fought to take back their lives and to break old norms, but now scoff at my generation for doing the same thing. The only difference is that my generation is at a precipice.

What is a precipice? It is a very steep rock face or a cliff, especially a tall one. That is where we are at.

We are focused on the future, not just the here and now.

The generation before is worried about too much government control, yet they seek to control women’s bodies and right to healthcare. Why? Is the reason that they will actually have to contribute to society? To “strangers” they do not know?

Our government is falling apart. Without federal help, each state has been forced to deal with the pandemic themselves. Look where that brought it. Fucking hell, there are counties where cops are not allowed to wear masks. How is that even something that makes sense?

All our generation is asking for is a voice. This is the sole foundation our nation was founded on. It is why we separated from England back then, a right to govern ourselves.

“By the people, for the people..” Is that what our declaration said?

So let the people have a say. Let us govern.

The truth is that the majority of our citizens want more, want better.

Just like what happened in 2016, Hilary won the popular vote yet Trump still got elected. Amy got nominated and sworn into the Supreme Court without true vetting.

Our government is not what it once was. There has always been corruption, everyone knows it but now no one cares to even hide it anymore. Those that inflect it are not even remotely embarrassed in any sense.

This does not sound like the proud America our parents sought out to live in. This sounds like a corrupted government of any other third world country, where citizens are fighting for basic human rights and safety for their family.

The left is not brainwashed. They are educated. The far right is the one who can only mimic Trump’s words when asking for why they want him in office.

Both my mom and stepdad voted for Trump again. They still say my only perception of Trump is that he is a bad businessman. There is no winning my parents or anyone over.

Being American born Vietnamese, I have been drilled how my mom and her family escaped Vietnam constantly my entire life. Despite that I see there is a disconnect between myself and other children of immigrants with our families. Those who fled Vietnam cannot understand us, because in Vietnam the government over there is in total control. That is the core depth of their fears. They do not understand that the breadcrumbs we get (while more than they ever got), are still just breadcrumbs.

Our democracy is a facade. The only way to fix it is to vote for those who at least WANT to try. Trump only cares about exploiting any and all loopholes that he can. Fuck that, he has always openly voiced how he has “all the power and can do whatever he wants.”

That is not a president, that is a dictator. Our parents and others who follow him are just blind to see it.

Republicans only ever talk about the economy and “family values.” Whereas Democrats are currently prioritizing social causes and policies.

The truth is, when Republicans talk about the economy, they use the stock exchange as a metric. Again, those are companies that have their own legal-they identify in the eyes of our government. Democrats are talking about saving the people, the individuals that make up the working class and beyond. That is the core difference between both parties.

Republicans hold dear of an idea. An idea of fictional rights and benefits attributed directly to them but in truth, benefits no one but those at the very top-those in power and those with already padded pockets.

Just like how they cling to the idea of a fetus as human life, but completely disregard that baby once born. Republicans hide and pretend that real life struggles do not exist because on paper America is thriving.

Those I fear, honestly, are not Republicans but Nationalists. This is not “American Pride.” Nationalism is when that gets taken too far...to the point of no return.

So with me sharing this, I hope you understand where I am coming from. Everything that happened in this past year has been difficult to bear. Hell, the past four years felt like a long ass tv show that I did not want to be a part in.

With this new presidency, it feels like a season finale…a new arc that has been desperately desired by my generation and others that look forward to something new. Let us be prepared for what is to come that will come indefinitely and that is change.

[plums-from-the-icebox]

I’m feeling absolutely beyond dreadful as I recently received some of the most emotionally devastating news and I am really not fucking doing okay at the moment. I know this isn’t as cheery and optimistic as all my prior posts but I can’t act like I’m doing okay, I’m just simply not. The way my university handled the case of covid-19 has me absolutely beyond fuming in rage. The man in question, supposedly a 50+years old professor, who has already quarantined himself. Because of this, my university is starting their spring break two weeks early, classes for tomorrow and Friday are suspended, AND all student organization events are cancelled and or postponed until further notice. This is particularly crushing to me because I am involved into two very time-heavy-commitment things. I am involved in one of the biggest LGBTQ student orgs on my college’s campus and we had planned out numerous events , many of which were heavily advocacy-based and that’s just so genuinely upsetting because that’s something I and the rest of the people on the board have wanted to do for a long time because we wanted to do for such a long time. I am/was also in a play that was supposed to open next week. I heard my theatre group say they might put on some type of performance of it in some capacity since spent since literally December prepping for it. Which makes me feel awful because we all worked so fucking hard. I’ve spent so much time, energy, money, and labor and for what? For all of it to amount to fucking nothing??? What the fuck. Very important to mention: they tweeted this information BEFORE actually sending out an email to the general student body at my university which I genuinely feel is incredibly unprofessional and a major misstep on their part. Not only are they creating mass hysteria by giving students the most vague amount of information in regards to finances/in general, they also are contributing to the violent, massive amounts of racism and xenophobia that are directly harming Asian people, and especially East Asian people. Given the nature of all my classes being online as of right now until further notice starting the 23rd, that means I’ll more than likely have to be stuck at home in my apartment more often. I cannot begin to tell you how much I don’t want that to happen. As someone who has the horrible habit of severely socially reclusing himself when he’s insanely depressed (which I know WILL happen) I am literally afraid for the state of my already shaky mental state. Also, my roommate is problematic and toxic (yes I mean that in the genuine definition of the word) as all hell. She’s also racist,transphobic, emotionally immature and overall a really shitty person to live with/ be around and that thought of having to be there even more than before when I essentially relied on the spaces and activities at my university as an escape from my toxic home environment. And no, going back to my hometown is not an option for me either, because my mother is literally emotionally abusive and genuinely a toxic, awful person to be around for long periods of time which would also destroy my mental health. All around? It’s a lose-lose situation for me. Literally half my classes require in-class participation/discussion-based (including the last class needed to complete my minor) which more than likely, HIGHLY LIKELY, will have to further delay my graduation moreso than I currently have to (which originally was postponed to spring 2021 to complete my bachelors but who the fuck knows now) and I’m just already in such a rough space mentally and financially and I’m just really going through a genuine emotional crisis. I’m not doing okay, I can’t sugarcoat it. I haven’t felt this intensely dreadful and depressed in months. I literally broke down in tears in front of other people, something I rarely do anymore, for the first time in over a year so there’s that emotional weight too. It’s been sending me into an already further depressive spiral than I had unfortunately been experiencing thus far this year.Fuck today, truly. I am tired.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

40, 47, 59, 62, 76

lmao hell yeah thanks for All this support i love it!! quastions

40. weirdest thing to ever happen at your school?

really idk i feel like even our schools’s Antics were pretty par for the course and i was just sitting in the corner reading the whole time basically......trying to think if anything wild happened in college but even then it was p similar. well you know what, whatever donors covered the majority of the cost of the school’s black box theater being renovated apparently Stipulated that every other year a rodgers and hammerstein production be put on. absolute freaks. my roommate/friend and their then-boyfriend, the one mormon i have Knowingly Known in my life, were in pirates of penzance (sic?) together. hilarious

47. favorite type of cheese?

i like cheddar and like, parmesan, smoked gouda.....let’s get that shit Sharp!!! and hard lmao

59. if you were a video game character, what would your catchphrase be?

idk i’d be like an npc just doing their weird thing on their own. i’ve never played pokemons unless you count pokemons Go but i think about the famed “i like shorts they’re comfy and easy to wear” npc kid. like, yeah. i feel the same. and would say similar bullshit nobody asked about

62. seven characters you relate to?

oh god.........recognizing the self through the relatable characters :|

well let’s just talk about the wrol roles right off b/c the characters that Most occupy my gay thoughts (which is to say: my general thoughts) will inevitably get priority when it comes to Remembering things

1) whom among us doesn’t relate to jared kleinman........will roland emerging from relative obscurity and coming for our entire fucking lives like the goddamn legend he is. it’s tough b/c it’s like, oh well alana is relatable too, so is evan unfortunately sorry evan, and in ways i might ~usually act~ like one of those two more than jared but. no. it is Jared who wins the relatability contest, and we all get to be beautifully haunted by it forever

2) leaning hard into winston even with the few glimpses of him b/c somehow will Cannot play an allistic cishet. and this is even More of a case where maybe i don’t much have winston’s demeanor.......even without winston being a beacon of confidence, he has more confidence lmao. and he has that ability to just Be Himself in a situation which, i wish i had that moxie lmao. i am a lot more [usually trying to be accommodating wayyyy harder than i should], booo......even though he’s clearly not great at conflict considering how it doesn’t take Too much to put him out, it’d be pretty impossible for me to be all “called them hacks and lame” or carry out a very irritated monologue in front of four people in the first place lmao. but who knows. and it’s more in the details of like, oh no winston’s the odd one out even though he hasn’t really Done Anything, but we all ~understand~ why he Deserves it.........his expectation / treating it basically as Fact that he will disappoint people.......the [weird] [offputting] behaviors and his way of speaking in What he Says and How He Says It seeming wrong to people.......like it’s only 15-ish min of content that we have here and we don’t have the least info about will’s own thoughts on the character but it’s like. how is this such an iconic Gay Autistic Quant b/c these vibes are so rare. and i appreciate that he can be ~difficult~ lmao. same with jared though i didn’t mention it. i can be difficult!! love it for us...

3) briony atkins from murder of bindy mackenzie as a character who Does act more like how i Usually Act Like lmao.....god we’re only on three i forgot there was seven of these. and yet i know there’s probably at least 2 dozen characters who could make this list and i just won’t think of most of them unless directly reminded......but anyways yeah i mean in person i mostly do Not want attention unless i feel comfortable enough / in my element or whatever. especially if it’d be some situation like “sitting in a group of randos” lol. i mean it depends b/c i also can sometimes be ~on~ in terms of Masking and trying to be like Haha I’m Social I’m Regular and i def engage in Nervous Chatter sometimes, but like, very often it’s like god don’t talk to me and i don’t want to talk either.....and then yeah people Will be surprised that like, idk, i’m opinionated as shit and idk that i Enjoy Things / Have Thoughts And Feelings coz the assumption i guess is that you must simply have nothing to say. so the dismissal of this person who seemingly has nothing to contribute and must be Boring rings true lmfao.....but then of course it’s also important that her personality Under that is the one getting mistaken for emily’s lol cuz yeah At Heart i am sure of that dramatic / intense / excitable type Sometimes. but it takes some excavation before i am like “oh i can engage in my actual self” and like weeks and months to get comfortable w/ people and i’m always suspicious that anyone actually would enjoy it and i’m not too much......i am a motormouth actually and have something to say about any and everything and like to Have Fun Here but like. idk i come off as boring and can be Notably Quiet lmao

4) oscar martinez from the office is weirdly [Haha Same] sometimes lmfao. sort of keeps to himself but also has to pipe up with Opinions and Pedantry and the kind of Drama of a restrained theatre gay. some deleted scene from an episode where during an interview clip of Jimothy in a theater lobby and you have oscar call from across the group in that [wearied Ugh God] way of ‘jim, they’re remaking ___’ while jim just kind of gives a cursory “wow gosh” or whatever and like, i sure don’t have lots of Theatre Opinions but that “oh jeez i have a Take on this and have to share it with someone” vibe is like hahaha yeah.....it’s funny in the “the gang goes to the ice rink for a third of the ep” bit where you just catch oscar doing [ice skating turn] with some solemn intensity.......the “here’s a question nobody’s asking: is this worth it” quote.........way at the end where there’s a whole deal with one of the indoor plants and he’s like “why is it a He” @ the collective gendering of the houseplant lmfao.......i love the one thing where he and pam and uhh toby right? have the Finer Things book club or whatever and jim wants to join just like ~ironically~ and pam has to tell him that oscar doesn’t want him to join b/c he’s not going to take it seriously and use it as a Jokes Vehicle. and then you get the scene at the end where jim Is basically doing that and they’re just like taking it out of him and oscar’s all very seriously like “did you get it all out of your system” lmfao like yeah, earnest members only lmao.....the thing where he gets mad at angela’s like Jazz Musician Posed Babies posters all “it’s kitsch it Destroys art” lmaoooo and in a totally different season all “this is the problem with debate” over the completely inconsequential “is [whichever actress, i forget] Hot” “”””debate””””.......the whole tendency to get involved and always have a take to get across.....opinionated-sometimes-to-the-point-of-petty central. also that he’s the canon gay, are there even any others? anyways and as the us office’s spiritual successor i’ll add on to this by uh what’s the name of billy eichner’s character on parks and rec? it’s craig right. that Self-Powered Intensity is very #me as well.

5) augh god........im like lmfao shit who represents my Hater Club side. hmmm. oh no wait you know what. totally different but i love Prof Beatrice Hotchkiss in the trt nancy drew pc game. she’s holed up in her room writing all the time and just is weird when you try to talk to her all like no i won’t open the door, bring me food, do this Research, bring me my Ski Boots i guess......and then when you do meet her it’s all at like post-midnight in the lounge and she’s all like, encouraging you as a Night Owl and your investigative curiosity and all and i’m like oh word yeah being up in the dead of night is the shit. she’s just weird and passionate and this is another character i might not Act hardly at all like but who i vibe with lmfao. hotchkiss was the supportive adult in my life

6) remembering how hotchkiss is a historian made me think of academia which made me think of like, once again with “these vibes are So So Rare” i really ought to put the wrol role of Nato on the list cuz like. that essential representation of “gets gr8 grades but isn’t really ~academic~ / doesn’t care about that and really just cares about Hanging W Friends and [real specific interests]” is like wow damn that’s the Mood. coz like to an extent i can always Relate to the ~overachiever~ types a la the [nerd character gets all-A’s and other nerd shit] deal, but there’s eventually the issue of like.....those characters like bindy mackenzies and alana becks Care about their achievements (not exclusively as some ppl would have it 9_9) and are Studious whereas i always hated school and was a godawful student in terms of Habits and always got good grades b/c the devil was with me or something and like people will think i must have tried real hard and dedicated myself to Academics and stuff and it’s like.........no................not at all hardly, sure i did my hw every night but at like 11:29 pm or studied for a midterm at lunch right before the class lol or flipped through a lil bit of the sat study guide the night prior.........the “low-effort dumbass who Academically Excels Anyhow” representation is so crucial like!! i run into a wall when it’s the Good Grades nerd character who is real studious and focused and stuff like. couldn’t be me. meanwhile the “naturally weird + probably some ‘deliberate’ weirdness” and “likes animals” and “most likely to just wanna Roll With It” and “shitty focus lol” and “non sequiturs” and “without [activity] i do nothing” is all like....ahahahohoho..........nato rly got to make this list. and honorable mention for Wrol Jeremy. again: whom doesn’t relate!!!!!!!!

7) damnit i know there’s So many answers to [characters i relate to] and whom cover like, more particular Facets here but i’m struggling lmao. Uh. like i’m like, who’s the Hot Mess / continually evolving disaster characters i vibe with......who’s the peak despresso detached Haters rep......who embodies the solo production lifestyle........dammit you know what lol i tend to Feel for like, the background ~nobodies~ who might just get like totally destroyed in some movie with life or death stakes just to like, show how much danger our heroes / Important Complex Protags are. same w/ jeremy not feeling like the Hero / the one who the story’s about / the cool guy / player 1 / etc etc etc i’m like oo i’d be the npc who doesn’t really do anything, i’d be the rando getting blown away in the background of someone else’s story. on a totally different note another shoutout / honorable mention to wybie from the coraline lmfao one of the best characters invented from thin air for an adaptation......tangentially relevant b/c he’s entirely here to support the protag / not his story at all, just here to help and prompt interactions / exposition really.......but love that [weird loner kid who’s best friend is a cat and annoys the other kid and doesn’t Get it and has specific interests and entertains himself and just is doing weird shit around here tf dude lmao killing it] like, #mood. #lifestyle. less dismal to relate to than the bg person who dies......his counterpart who totally dies is somewhat fleshed out / given Investment so it doesnt Really count as [background Nobody who’s really just fodder for “defining the stakes / threat level”] Character Concept

76. what’s your favorite potato food (i.e. tater tots, baked potatoes, fries, chips, etc.)?

latkes maybe......Yummy