#it would be such a big fuck you to both their parents

[tanukitsuneko-suki]

build episode 36 thoughts:

- i thought the episode is titled “evolt hunts parents” and for a second i’m like yea he seems like the kind of guy to commit fratricide for fun. it’s his hobby

- yeah, damn straight!!!!!! it won't work for you ugly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🍅🍅🍅

- it's really moe when he looks pissed....evolt bring him back his wife already....ugly mf..

- when i said i wanted more of banjo and misora moments i didn't mean it like this... (both of them are possessed by aliens)

- i miss my wife you guys. banjo...come back....

- SHINDA HENSUU DE KURIKAESU KAZOE KOTO GA HARANDA NETSU (ramble// when i drew that sento fanart inspired by netsu ijou it really just happened to be on my playlist and i thought it would be fun to combine it with sento...apparently the song is about the last person on a planet as a black hole eats it away.. oh serendipity)

- "ah mb we got a lolicon in the team" ahh face

- oh god banjo ily lol. he's so cute i wanna put him in a jar (someone who folds quickly because of her oshi) (even if her oshi is possessed) (and in a suit) (banjo my wife)

- kazumin and gentokun bonding!

- kazumin recruitment era....kazumin... he's unexpectedly a really good character, isn't he? he's really noble... when he didn't give up the pandora's box despite threats to his closest friends/those he considers family... recruiting the murderer of someone very important to him because he knows they need all the power in their arsenal against evolt.. it's very refreshing!

- this goddamn scene

- WHY IS BANJO'S NAME ON YOU GUYS' MOUTHS. AGAIN. LMFAOOOOOOO I'M SO SERIOUS I WASN'T EXPECTING MISORA TO NAME DROP BANJO AS THE REASON HEKP

- I MEAN MAYBE HE'S JUST PREPARED TO DIE TO SAVE PLANET EARTH GODDAMN?????

- nevermind misora's just throwing guesses it fucking sent me though

- i'm so fucking sorry it's just his suicidal self-sacrificial streak talking i'm sorry for making it about ryusen again

- BANJO ENOUGH CHILLING IN THE HEADSPACE GO BACK HOME YOUR WIFE IS GONNA DIE

- his weak voice...oh god my...my meow meow...you don't have to do this.. STOOOOP FIIGHTIIIIIIING

- i'm in goddamn shambles ENOUUUUGHHHHHHHHH.. i miss banjo so much i can't take it anymore

- on a fucking android???? you can't even get an ipad for this my guy??

- he's such a goddamn hater lmao okay i got a bone to pick with evolt and of course i don't like him while watching the show because he's the antagonist but i can begrudgingly respect him because he's a damn good villain lmao. also that snort. i love you akaso

- i kinda forgot this is all happening in japan only and it's so funny like wdym nobody from china is knocking asking 'heyy uhh guys what do got there (referring to the big ass lights that beam to the sky every 18 hours)'

- yes well you're only fraternizing with greedy capitalists and i don't really think the opinions of the 1% is representative of the general attitude of humanity...i can assure you the normal guy on the street is only debating about whether they'll buy onigiri or tonkatsu on the way home from work..... evolt your sample is biased. never become a scientist

- atleast they can be together forever (used as evolt as fodder for war and violence)

- i just said "YOU CANNOT BE FUCKING SHITTING ME" out loud

- ... the best heroine of kamen rider

- suicide mission to save wife....... somebody help my wives are racing to sacrifice themselves for each other..

- ...

- uh, anyway! we are so back <3

- little white rabbit on the moon..

- YOU'RE SHITTING ME

- ENOUHDGSFSDHAFDSAFBDSHFGHDSAGFHKSADGFHSDAFGHSDAKFFDHFSDAHFKJASDLF IM DROPPING BUILD IM DROPPING BUILD IM DROPPING BUILD IM DROPPING BUILD IM DROPPING BUILD IM DROPPING BUILD IM DROPPING BUILD IM DROPPING BUILD IM DROPPING BUILD IM DROPPING BUILD IM DROPPING BUILD IM DROPPING BUILD IM DROPPING BUILD IM DROPPING BUILD IM DROPPING BUILD IM DROPPING BUILD

- THE FUCKING WORST

[iwasnotaslasher]

Not my rugby mom ass plotting a SuperBat Rugby Coach AU.

I would stick with some background canon facts, like Bruce as the heir of a rich Gotham family and Clark as a Kansas country boy adopted by farmers, but no alien powers or masked vigilante stuff. The two of them are just former professional players from different rugby teams: Gotham's Knights and Metropolis Meteors (yes, I lazily copy-pasted the canonical football teams' names, sorry not sorry).

As both closeted bi and madly attracted to each other, they developed a secret fling which lasted almost throughout their careers. They used to sneak away from the after-match party to fuck senseless, and of course they were in love but never confessed to each other. The relationship never got past the fling stage, mostly because they thought they could not have a real future, since they were both too scared to be ostracized by their teams if they would come out.

Eventually everything was put to an end when Lois came into the picture. Clark settled with her, they married, and later they had Jon, as well as becoming foster parents for Connor. After a good career, Clark retired from playing in his late thirties to become a match reporter and since then he carried a fairly normal mid-class life in Metropolis.

Meanwhile, Bruce quitted rugby in his early thirties, after a serious injury that almost left him paralyzed, and became fully invested in running the Wayne Enterprises. As for his love life, he kept jumping from one relationship to another, none lasting more than a few weeks. Only notable exceptions were his two and a half divorces: first marriage with Selina, his everlasting on-going-off-going affair, ended just after months; second marriage with Talia, lasted a little more, and from whom he had Damian; and then again he tried with Selina, but only to be left at the altar. Gossip magazine going wild every single time he's spotted with a new flame, also because he was known to have a weird habit of adopting a new kid whenever he divorced (or almost got married).

Alfred still jokes about the fact that they can't afford another marriage, since surely Bruce would end up adopting another kid when he eventually divorce. But he's secretly very pleased to have so many kids around the Manor.

Fast forward to the present day: they are both in their mid forties and single, since Clark is now divorced and Bruce has resolved to never commit again and just have fun.

And they are both involved in rugby again, but as coaches.

Every year Clark holds a rugby summer camp for troubled teens at Kent farm, with Ma's enthusiastical hospitality and the help of his long time friend Diana Prince, also a former rugby player.

As for Bruce, of course he founded a teen league, called it The Robins, and enrolled all his kids into it.

Now picture this: Bruce and Clark casually meeting after all those years and oh boy the mutual attraction is still there as if not even a day had passed. Clark ends up inviting him and his Robins at the summer camp for a weekend of training and matches, and Bruce, as a big city guy, can’t catch how much the offer from a mid-western country man is intended to be real, so he accepts just out of politeness. But after some weeks the league recieve an actual invitation, so now they are forced to go.

You can guess where 20 years of sexual and romantic tension between them can lead them when they find themself again on the field. But oh well, it's just for the sake of honoring the old times, not because they are actually in love. Two divorced dads coming out as bi in their forties and just living their love openly? Come on, it's not viable! Also, what would their kids say?

(spoiler: it's all so obvious that they got it since the beginning and they are already scheming some shenanigans to finally see their dads/coaches happily ever after)

Except after the summer camp they can't stop thinking about each other.

After months of ruminations, Bruce feels compelled to reciprocate the experience by inviting Clark and the kids to an improvised winter camp hosted at the Manor. Closing with a New Year’s Eve costume party à la ‘Romeo + Juliet’ (yes, I want to write about Bruce brooding around with an eye cowl).

The kids are thrilled, Alfred and Martha are already exchanging ideas about the wedding venue, Diana can't wait to be maid of honor, everyone is betting on when the proposal will be done.

The only two completely oblivious are Bruce and Clark, sneaking around the Manor at any given moment to indulge in heated making out sessions, trying their best to not get caught red-handed.

Much for Alfred's amusement but less from anyone else, they will end up not marrying right away and secretly enjoying for a bit the intimacy of not sharing their relationship with the whole world. They will eventually do it, years later, in a small (for Bruce’s standards) ceremony at Kent farm, with all their now grown up kids and grandkids. The rugby match and after-match party will be memorable.

Coincidentally, at some point during the party the happy newlyweds will sneak away for a while…

[dapper-lil-arts]

Looking back at G4, it’s always interesting to see which concepts were never fully fleshed out or explored by the writers, and the kinds of weird storytelling that inevitably leads to later down the line.

Like, what do you MEAN Celestia canonically assigned her pre-teen student full-time care of a baby dragon?! We’re just gonna accept that?

“She wanted to give me a friend”, okay but a baby is not a friend, right? Like we understand that? That you can love and care for a baby, but that is fundamentally NOT the same relationship you have with a friend?

Honestly, I wouldn’t even be really annoyed by this if not for the fact that the show never really establishes what Spikes relationship has to the rest of Twilights family (except Sparkles Seven, but that always felt like a ‘throw the fandom a bone’ moment to me).

Like, in all 9 seasons, they couldn’t even give him ONE interaction with Twilight’s parents (they even wrote him out of the episode where they’re prominently featured)?

Idk man, at that point, I say just go with Lauren’s original idea and make Celestia his caretaker for the first portion of his life.

I now forget what the point of this rant was, but yeah.

He coulda been just a sidekicked but now hes placed on a little brother role that he's absolutely never going to outgrow and doesnt even have the chance to meet the paretns (who already are completely utterly uncharacterized)

The show treats him like a sidekick bc thats what he is but his back story begs for something more. this happens all the time, too! If Shining armor is a 'captain of the royal guard' then why is he just a dorky guy that never does anything well-- He even gets airsick man come on. If Cadance is the princess of love, then why does she never have anything to say about love exept just getting married? This continues absolutely ENDLESSLY in the show, lmao.

Also if I was a big sister to spike I would tell him a crush on an older woman is going nowhere and its unhealthy and fucked up for both parties.

[maydaydiaz]

buckley-diaz has to be their wedded names because. their parents are awful people but let them rewrite the legacy of their names. let them look at every bill, every letter and credit card and be reminded of what they fought through. that you can have a husband and be man enough. you don’t have to change to still be loved, that you’re never too much for the right person. let them raise their children with those same names and give them everything their parents failed to give them

[yardsards]

so apparently my roommate straightup Did Not Know that leaving your food out on the countertop for several hours can give you food poisoning. i thought when she brushed me off every time i told her to put her food away she was simply throwing caution to the wind. "ohhh, is that why i get sick so often?" FUCKING PROBABLY!!!

[coffeeastronaut]

got mad about the portrayal of adoption in media again. 10 dead 50 injured

[toytulini]

"why are people mad about AI being pushed on them when they SHOULD be mad about all the privacy erosion??"

1) plenty of us bitches are mad and annoyed about both, actually.

2) the privacy erosion has become the normalized state of existence for the average person for the last 10 fucking years at least, its snuck in, they disguise it as Convenient Features to Help You Shop Better, and thats IF they bother telling you theyre doing it, instead of just opting all your shit in without asking, its so fucking normalized that yeah, a lot of people do not bother to question it, they just sigh in resignation and go, yeah, i guess, do i even have other options? and they do, but theyre an investment of learning and time you dont have capacity for at the moment, or maybe you do but you feel like you dont bc it feels like a bigger hurdle than it is, and computer stuff is already kind of intimidating, cos man, what if you hit the wrong thing and brick your expensive ass machine? easier to just let it data harvest, you guess, it cant be THAT bad, can it? plenty of people live like this, put up with this, seek this out, its easier not to resist the privacy erosion. fucking whatever, i guess. yeah, i guess twitter i mean X, or walmart, or facebook, can just have all of my contact info and my phone number and my birthday and phone contacts and bank information and fuck it, give them my ssn while im at it. less effort later. this is just how tech has been for the last 10 yrs. no one can effectively get rage clicks on this topic anymore bc we all fucking know. it sucks and we know. what do you want me to fucking do about it? i have other shit to deal with more urgently. etc

3)

you cant turn anything on or log onto anything or go anywhere without hearing about whatever new shit theyre throwing AI at for no real reason, no one will fucking Shut Up about AI, and its Annoying, man

[fridayyy-13th]

i am feeling So Many Things at the moment but mostly i just feel like a disaster

[lesbianjackkline]

supernatural was soooo sick for directly paralleling dean taking his grief for cas, out on jack, with john taking his grief for mary, out on sam and dean. like what the fuck was up with that??

[philtatosbuck]

if you Genuinely think that john b’s hatred of ward and “lack of understanding” about ward and sarah’s relationship has to do with him not caring about sarah vs him thinking ward literally murdered his fucking father and then actually framed him for murder and the fact he’s a grown man regularly terrorizing the only family john b has left besides his father i literally do not know what to tell you besides seek help

[yikes-ajax]

My mom once got so mad a piece of her tooth popped out, and if that isn't my role model I don't know what it

[dilfologies]

being fucked so rough by stepbro!satoru:( he’s got you face down ass up, pounding into your squelching cunt over and over. he’s been fucking you for so long that your pussy is practically gushing. you can both hear it and it only makes you hornier. the thick white rim around where you two connect only adds to the nastiness occurring in your bed.

his fat tip pounds against your sweet spot continuously. you’re mewling and shaking and your eyes are rolling to the back of your head, but no matter what you do you’re at the complete mercy of your older and much stronger step brother! after all, he’s already laid claim on you by shooting load after load of his hot, thick cum into you and fucking it so deep that you’d be worried if not for the birth control.

you yelp when he delivers a particularly hard thrust, his cockhead kissing your cervix and making you see stars. it dizzies you for a moment. and before you know it he’s grabbing you by your hair and forcing you up, creating a half moon shape in your back. his big, muscular bicep curls tightly around your throat.

“you like bein’ my whore, lil sis? huh? gettin’ fucked raw while our parents are—oh s-shit—just down the hall? fuck, y’so nasty. fuckin’ love it,” his voice sounds breathless, but not nearly as spent as you.

and although you should be worried about your parents walking in, you gave less of a damn about it now than when you two initially started your endeavours. if anything were to get revealed it would be your parent that you blame for marrying someone with such a damn hot son.

satoru trailed his hand down to lay pressure on your lower belly, intent on making you cum a fourth time. but he stops in his tracks when he discovers something that makes his cock grow impossibly harder.

“aww baby…” he purrs into your ear, so deep and raspy you could cry. “my cock is so big that it’s bulging out of you! look-” he grabs one of your hands that was busy grasping at his forearm and drags it down to palm over the obvious belly bulge that his cock is creating. “see? god— y’so perfect. takin’ me—ngh—so well.”

you came with suddenness, exploding all over satoru’s cock again, and this time on the sheets. the wetness pooled at your knees, soaking into the fabric of your bedsheets. satoru never let up.

“that’s it baby, cum on my cock, filthy girl.”

[dear-ao3]

so. as you may know it’s christmas eve. as you probably don’t know i am eastern european. and probably the only real tradition anyone holds onto is christmas eve. normally my great aunt does all the food and very begrudgingly sometimes lets everyone help make like. one thing.

well.

this year. the year of our lord two thousand and twenty four. she decided she was done cooking and it was up to everyone else.

so i got a phone call from my mom a few weeks ago being like hey so. you’re making the cake. got it? good.

the cake in question is a walnut cake. i was entrusted with my great aunts recipe about seven years ago. i’ve made it twice. the first time i fucked up the frosting quantity. the second time i fucked up the eggs. both times were passable at best and notably! my great aunt did not taste either of them.

and i have to make this cake. on christmas eve. it is dessert. for everyone. my extended family will all be eating the cake. the walnut cake. on christmas eve. even my great aunt.

so yesterday, december 23 if you are counting, i went on the annual Last Minute Christmas Food Shopping Trip with my father, watched him climb into the case to get his half and half like he does every year, and stressed about my cake as i made sure i had all of the ingredients.

then. we went to my great aunts house. where i was met with Trial Number 1: The Cognac

this cake has cognac in the frosting. not a big deal really. except for the fact that my mom hates that there is cognac in the frosting. (my mom is hell bent on making christmas eve dinner vaguely healthier. no one else agrees.) and i was to be making the cake in my moms house.

also important to note: we (as in my parents) do not own cognac. mostly because none of us drink.

so my great aunt is like oh i have to give you the cognac. cause she knows. i am baking the cake. the walnut cake. (my dad told her. he is a traitor). and i say okay. sure. this won’t be a problem at all.

so she gives me. a shot of cognac. and when i say a shot. i mean an Entirely Full Shot Glass of Three Hundred Dollar Cognac. in a jar. for the cake. the walnut cake. that i have to make.

upon bringing the cognac home my mom says no we’re not putting that in. the cognac sits on the counter in its jar. no one touches it.

then i was met with Trial Number 2: The Frosting.

this recipe requires a pound of chopped walnuts. first. i couldn’t even find the walnuts. my sister and i searched high and low and in every cabinet we could find but no nuts. i called my mom. and said mom where are the walnuts? and she said. “they’re in the nut bag behind the basement door.”

oh of course. how could i have missed the nut bag? a holiday bag full of bags of nuts that was half hidden by wrapping paper and also behind a door?

in any case. could i have used a food processor? absolutely. did i? no. half because i forgot and half because i didn’t want to accidentally grind the walnuts into a paste. so i enlisted the help of my younger sister to chop the walnuts By Hand while i embarked on the real devil: the frosting.

which remember. is supposed to have cognac.

so i cream my butter. i add my sugar. i’m careful not to over sugar. i taste it a million times. i add my coffee and my vanilla extract (instead of cognac. which is still sitting on the counter) and it was all going so well until. the butter rebelled.

now remember. one time when i made this. seven years ago. i made too little frosting. so i made more this time. and i thought i had all my conversions right but evidently i did not because suddenly there was too much liquid in my frosting and it split.

the frosting for the walnut cake that everyone was going to eat. on christmas eve. the very next day.

i felt like a contestant on great british bake-off getting smited by the tent.

so i did the logical thing and shoved the whole mess into the fridge hoping that it would sort itself out overnight.

then it was time to face Trial Number Three: The Cake Itself.

as i have said this cake is a walnut cake. the christmas eve walnut cake that has been at christmas eve longer than i have been alive. and it requires no less than ten egg whites. which i whipped and i added to my walnuts and shoved the whole thing into the oven in my two baking dishes.

only to discover no less than 40 minutes later that the batter in the pans was Not Even (despite my best efforts). so i cooked one longer than the other and hoped that i hadn’t monumentally fucked up the walnut cake. like i had the frosting. which was in the fridge. and i was ignoring.

which leads to Trial Number Four: The Egg Yolk Cake

see i had ten egg yolks. i didn’t know what to do with them. my mom said flush them. my dad said make a custard. i proposed making egg nog. my mom said she didn’t want it in the house cause it was too fattening (a blatantly incorrect statement. please, if you are reading this, go drink a glass of eggnog. or some other fun festive drink. food is for the soul.) so i produced a recipe for an egg yolk pound cake. i made it. i still don’t know if it came out good cause i haven’t tasted it. i hope it did. but that was not the point. the point is the walnut cake. the christmas eve walnut cake.

and the following morning i was met with Trial Number Five: The Frosting Part 2

first i threw my failed frosting back in the mixer and it immediately secreted a brackish combination of vanilla extract and coffee so i did the only thing i could. facetimed my dad and said “father there are problems abound.” and he gave me the fatherly advice of “make it again.”

and so i did.

with more correct measurements. still scared it would split at any second.

though it didn’t.

and i didn’t add the cognac.

maybe no one will be able to tell???

my mom said that if anyone asks the first batch of frosting failed and i had to toss it. this is technically true.

but i had frosting. i had two uneven cakes. and it was time for Trial Number Six: Decorating

decorating cakes is easily in my top ten least favorite activities. decorating the christmas eve walnut cake is easily in my top three least favorite activities. because i am terrible at decorating cakes. and also because it has a filling.

the filling is jam. and i once again made the wrong choice because i put the jam on first before the frosting. which to be fair is what the directions say. but as everyone knows, the directions in recipes you get from your eastern european great aunt are not the real directions. so now i had to smear butter cream. on top of jam. for the filling of the walnut cake. for christmas eve. that we would be eating in a few hours.

and we didn’t have a cake plate. we had a large dish.

i had to use my fingers. i had to use three spatulas. i got jam everywhere. but i did it. and as soon as i set the top cake on top of the filling i realized my monumental mistake: i was supposed to trim down the cakes.

so now they were uneven. and lopsided. and there was nothing i, a mere mortal tasked with the impossible task of making christmas eve walnut cake, could do about it.

so i continued to spread my frosting. which i had enough of. and tried and failed to not get jam everywhere.

in the end it was almost presentable. not great. slightly lopsided. and definitely not as nice as any of my great aunts cakes.

which left me with Trial Number 7: Chilling It

our fridge was being taken up by other important christmas eve things (though not as important as my cake. the walnut cake) so i had to put it in the car. which was fine because there is snow on the ground.

i covered my cake. the walnut cake. in tin foil and hoped i wouldn’t accidentally squish it. and then i went outside. i tried to steal my moms shoes to walk outside. she was not impressed.

“you know, saph,” she said. “some of the time you’re pretty great. the other half of the time you’re really weird.”

i could not agree more.

i put my cake on the trunk. prayed to the cake gods and went inside.

on the one hand if the cake is good, i will be stuck making walnut cake for christmas eve for the rest of my life. on the other hand, if it sucks i will never have to make another one.

Trial Number Eight: The Tasting still waits.

[inbabylontheywept]

bad dating stories time: the shoe incident

so in highschool, my best friend wasnt allowed to go on dates unless there was another couple there to keep an eye on him. part of this was his parents being insane, but also, part of it was him being insane. in a problem with no reasonable parties, there are no reasonable solutions.

at some point in my junior year, my sorta-gf broke up with me, and i just wasnt feeling dating, which was bad for my friend, because he had a good thing going with a girl he met in court.

he kind of hounded me about it. kept pushing me to just put me feet back in the dating pool and i wasnt real thrilled about it, because i knew he was pushing me for his own benefit, not mine, so i kept telling him to fuck off, and after a few weeks of being told that i would date when i was damn well ready, he eventually said: okay. what if i paid for the date AND found you a blind date AND all you had to do was show up?

and i shouldve said no, i know, but i let him wear me down, and i will own my fault in that. a date starting on such a stupid premise could never have gone well.

but he still managed to find a way to make it worse.

i dont know how long he tried to set a blind date up. it couldve been multiple attempts. he couldve stooped to this immediately. but what happened in the end was that he called a girl from the ward he attended - a girl that he knew had a giant, mushy crush on him - and he said: hey! how would you feel about going on a date this weekend?

(you know, implying it was with him, but never actually saying it.)

and she said YES WOW I WOULD LOVE TO and he said great! and then he called me up and said he found me a date.

i did not learn about his crimes until several weeks later. i will die swearing before god almighty that i would never have allowed this travesty to happen if i had known.

that was on a monday. the date of the date rolled around that friday evening, and im sorry to confess, i really phoned the whole thing in. i showed up in my favorite comfy outfit, which was also a fashion crime: basketball shorts and flipflops and a baja hoodie. it was super comfy but it made me look kind of crazy. i picked him up first, and then i picked up his date next, and then we went to pick up my date, and thats where you're gonna get the play by play.

i arrived, walked across the yard, and knocked on the front door. she opened it almost immediately, like shed been waiting right by it, and i could see her expression go from OMG IM SO EXCITED to super disappointed, then disgusted and finally pissed. and because i didn't know about my friends sins, i thought it was from my outfit. which seemed... harsh. like, hey, im allowed to be quirky, fuck you. also its a blind date, i thought the deal was that we were both going to be sad broken sacks of mortality.

anyway, we looked at each other for several seconds before she slammed the door in my face.

i looked back at my friend. he was sweating bullets. i dont know what he expected from this, but there was this big long pause where we both tried to figure out what to do, and then the door opened up, and her dad invited me in, and he said she was gonna need a few minutes to finish getting ready, and that in the meantime we could sit and talk.

we did not talk. we did sit. i sat down on the couch, and he sat down in a chair across the couch, and then instead of talking he cleaned his pistol on the coffee table. i wasnt actually sure if it was a threat, or if it was just a fidget thing for 40+ year old republican men, but when i tried to help he got snappy so i just watched him put a pistol back together.

he was okay at it.

eventually my date came downstairs, still mad as hell for reasons beyond my ken, and i felt pretty guilty for being such a mess because i thought that was why she was so angry. i tried to make up for by walking her to the car and getting the door for her, just generally trying to be extra polite, but before i could make it back to the drivers side, her dad called me back to the door. so i flipped around, went to the door, and immediately regreted my decision.

soon as i was within range, her dad got waaaay too close to me, leaned in, and said "whatever you do to her, i will do to you," and my brain went into overdrive making three consecutive realizations.

realization one was, damn, the pistol thing was a threat. that sucks. what an asshole. realization two was, wait, im autistic and even i know theres a 0% chance me and my date even hold hands, least of all boink. does this guy actually think there's even a 1% chance of anyone in that car getting laid tonight? is he an idiot? and then realization three went through, which was wait, is this guy threatening to fuck me? and unfortunately, with my brain doing so much processing, my mouth was left to run amok, so somewhere between realization 2 and 3, i said:

"i can't get pregnant"

which, i swear, wasn't actually me trying to be a smartass, it was just me pointing out that he couldn't actually follow up on that threat. it just wasn't possible. we do not live in the omegaverse and im not scared of you.

still, it was an insanely catastrophic thing to say, and the moment we both heard it, we bluescreened. that single sentence obliterated both of our momentary streams of consciousness like a saltine in front of a sand blaster. problem was, he'd probably gone his whole life not even realizing someone could say something that stupid, and making that realization was going to cost him a lot of thinking time. me though? i had been saying shit like that for 17 years, i didnt have to rewrite my expectations of human nature, i just had to plan an exit and start striding. so i was already halfway back to the car before i heard "hey. hey come back. Hey. Hey. HEY. HEY WAIT. HEY GET BACK HERE. HEY-"

and then i was in my car, and i drove away.

if this happened today, he'd have called her, and the whole thing wouldve imploded then and there, but back then, there were still a decent number of teenagers without cell phones. especially the teenagers of insane, gun toting parents. so she just said: whoa what was that all about? and i said: dont worry about it, he'll tell you about it when you get home.

and she said: ok and went back to staring daggers at me and my friend.

WHICH SURPRISINGLY isnt even how the story ends.

we went to an improv comedy show, and it was a disaster. it shouldve been like, 7/10 tops, but between my date being mad, and my friend having a good time, and me having the existential terror of knowing that a guy with a pistol was probably waiting outside his house for me to come back, it was easily 11/10. i laughed way too hard at everything. especially the jokes that flopped. id sit there in this mostly silent room and laugh until i dry heaved a little, and my date was absolutely disgusted, and even my friend was a little embarrassed, which would just make me laugh harder. i laughed so hard that night i could barely talk the next day. and then the show ended, and my friend said, you know, that was a good time, but i think we should maybe do something a little chiller? who wants to walk around the park? and his date said yeah, and my date said no, and i finally had mercy on the poor woman so i said, look, im gonna drop you off. and i am so, so sorry about this, but im dropping you off like a block away. super duper sorry.

do talk to your dad about the pistols thing if you dont want this happening more in the future tho.

and she said: okay. so i dropped her off, and she walked a block down, and that was that.

then i drove my friend and his date to a park that was good for wandering. i figured they wanted something more private, so instead of following them around point blank, i chose a park with this 30 foot rope tower, and i climbed to the top and i said: hey i can see you anywhere from up here, you are officially chaperoned from a distance. get panopticoned idiot. except my friend really is an idiot, and he didnt really get the whole 'now i dont have to third wheel so insanely hard with you guys' thing so he climbed up the tower too, and then his date followed behind him, so there are three people basically sitting together on top of a telephone pole.

and then they started making out.

i was close enough to hear it.

i didnt really know what to do so i was just kind of sitting there, dissociating, when some college kids came around and started shaking the tower. my friend's date went aaaaaaaaaa im afraid of heights :( and my friend went oh, dont worry, ill hold you tight ;) and i went hey, im gonna climb down and ask them to stop.

so i did climb down, and i did ask them to stop, and they flipped me off, which i wasnt even mad about. at that point i was i was like yeah, it would be weirder if this wasnt a mess. gods plan has been to fly this day like a 747 into my metaphorical twin towers and brother he is close enough for me to see him grinning through the cockpit window. still, eventually the college students got bored, so they climbed up the tower, which gave my friend and his date a window to climb down, and together we walked back to my car.

now, i cant explain why this is, but sitting back in the drivers seat was my carriage-back-into-a-pumpkin moment. i'd been chill about all the chaos, just rolling with the punches, but sitting down made me realize how much of a shitshow the day had been, and while i couldnt go back and fix all of it, i could go back and fix one thing.

so i told my friend and his date, hey, you two, stay here and don't do anything weird. don't. then i walked back to the rope tower, and i started picking up the shoes the college students had left at the base in order to climb.

about halfway through this, i realized that if i took all their shoes, they might think i was in it for the money, and i actually wanted them to know i was in it specifically to spite them. fuck those guys. so i put all the right shoes back, gave myself a 100 foot headstart, yelled "nice shoes, assholes", did a little jig, and started running.

my advice to everyone is that college students are faster than you think. even with the headstart, and the whole climb down the tower thing, i was still only fivish seconds ahead of them by the time i got to my car. i flung the door open, looked in the backseat, didnt see anyone, flung the stolen shoes in the backseat, heard two "ow"s, took that as proof of presence, jumped in and pealed out of the lot.

my friend and his date popped up a few seconds later. they were, uh, doing something weird in the back seat. my one request - obliterated.

they climbed up to ask where the hell all the shoes had come from, and i was like yeah i stole them from the college students, and they were like oh. cool. hope you had fun. and i was like, i did. i did. but speaking of fun, what were you doing back there?

and for the first time in my buddies life, i think he was actually embarassed.

[giantkillerjack]

It is very true that this "kid-glove explaining" IS sometimes the only way to get any assistance at all, and that this is absolutely not the fault of the disabled people who have been put in so horrible a position by their ableist loved ones. You have to do what you must to survive.

But i just want to emphasize how it is also true that the labor of these kinds of repeated forced-calm explanations can be extremely harmful for the disabled person long-term.

I say this because I THOUGHT I had made progress with teaching my family, but in fact I had only gained a LOT of additional trauma and grief during a time when I desperately needed non-ableist support.

I was sick and in crisis for years, and during that time, I repeatedly spent the energy i could have used to ask friends for help on instead begging my family to learn how to stop hLeping me and start Helping me.

This genuinely endangered my life on multiple occasions. Imagine the difference between getting immediate help bailing water out of your sinking ship (ex. my friend Laura metaphorically jumping into my boat with buckets and pumps and no judgment), and having to instead stand in your increasingly-sinking ship explaining (so SO gently or else they will dismiss you entirely, even though the water is creeping up to your neck) to someone that "actually no, adding water to my boat doesn't help please PLEASE just bail it out; I cannot emphasize enough that I can't swim why do I have to keep saying that? no I don't think I could have avoided that hurricane and it hurts that you keep asking; no I am not faking it - why would I fake this?? What kind of person do you think I am??" - as they allow the water to creep up to your chin. That's the difference between help and hLep.

Also, a helper wants you to have all the help you could possibly need, and they recognize that they almost certainly can't provide you with everything you need on their own. (Ex. My partner can't help me with panic attacks most of the time due to her own mental illness. But she helps with all sorts of other stuff, communicates her limits, and actively encourages me to rely on my friends for support.)

Meanwhile, a hLeper might be offended that you would even want ANYONE'S assistance besides their own because it isn't about *your need,* it is about *their pride.*

If the people around me *get angry at me for being angry* when THEY are the ones who hurt ME, then I no longer want them around me. And I hope to have the skill and the privilege to be able to stay in control of that. I hope someday we all can have that.

And to every disabled person stuck waiting for better days: Please survive in the meantime because your survival is the key to a better future for us. It will be better with you there. I don't care if you disagree with me; you won't persuade me otherwise - I am a stubborn Jack. I want you there. Disabled survival is an act of radical resistance. You, along with the other contributiors to this post, are Punk As Fuck.

I go into these concepts some more in this version of the post.

[Also, if you have any trouble reading the opening paragraphs of this post, I edited the original post into a more dyslexic-friendly version, and I've tried to include that link in every version of the post that I refer to.]

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hlep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you ask for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hlep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hlep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it helps reinforce the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hleper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

[toytulini]

"why are people mad about AI being pushed on them when they SHOULD be mad about all the privacy erosion??"

1) plenty of us bitches are mad and annoyed about both, actually.

2) the privacy erosion has become the normalized state of existence for the average person for the last 10 fucking years at least, its snuck in, they disguise it as Convenient Features to Help You Shop Better, and thats IF they bother telling you theyre doing it, instead of just opting all your shit in without asking, its so fucking normalized that yeah, a lot of people do not bother to question it, they just sigh in resignation and go, yeah, i guess, do i even have other options? and they do, but theyre an investment of learning and time you dont have capacity for at the moment, or maybe you do but you feel like you dont bc it feels like a bigger hurdle than it is, and computer stuff is already kind of intimidating, cos man, what if you hit the wrong thing and brick your expensive ass machine? easier to just let it data harvest, you guess, it cant be THAT bad, can it? plenty of people live like this, put up with this, seek this out, its easier not to resist the privacy erosion. fucking whatever, i guess. yeah, i guess twitter i mean X, or walmart, or facebook, can just have all of my contact info and my phone number and my birthday and phone contacts and bank information and fuck it, give them my ssn while im at it. less effort later. this is just how tech has been for the last 10 yrs. no one can effectively get rage clicks on this topic anymore bc we all fucking know. it sucks and we know. what do you want me to fucking do about it? i have other shit to deal with more urgently. etc

3)

you cant turn anything on or log onto anything or go anywhere without hearing about whatever new shit theyre throwing AI at for no real reason, no one will fucking Shut Up about AI, and its Annoying, man