#this creepy old man should drop out and focus on his legal troubles!

[mugiwara-lucy]

Like with EVERYTHING Trump says, of course I have to rip THIS UP:

YES you read that right! So he really feels entitled to our votes even though a LOT of people hate him??

Well let me give you one reason NOT to vote for him. Fun fact, not a lot of people know this but we actually LOST NET NEUTRALITY under his previous administration and we actually got it back UNDER the Biden-Harris Administration.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/fcc-votes-bring-back-obama-era-net-neutrality-rules-repealed-trump-rcna149415

And if you don't know what Net Neutrality is, it's the freedom to use our Internet uninterrupted and without censorship.

And should Trump get back into office, they will pass what's called the KOSA bill (or the Kids Online Safety Act) where things will be censored AGAIN which completely violates the Constitution.

(And not to mention these jokers care about kids yet will do NOTHING for Gun Reform as well as make a 13 year old have their rapists' babies).

Then again Trump recently said he never took an oath to the Constitution and happily supports the bullshit of the 10 commandments in schools which also violates the Constitution:

So if you'd like to continue using the Internet without any restrictions as well as being able to practice whatever religion you want or not want, PLEASE join me as well as convincing how every many you can both on and offline to VOTE BLUE so we can be done with this evil scumbag con artist ONCE AND FOR ALL.

Thank You. 🙏🏻

[ohjohnno]

Outrageous Fortune Reviewcap: S1E03 (”A Little More Than Kin”)

So, remember what I said about how Jethro’s lie about being part-Maori gets dropped pretty quickly? Well, it does, but not before we have to sigh and sit through an episode about it. It’s a silly idea from two directions - firstly, Jethro is very clearly white as snow, and secondly there’s no way the law firm at which he clerks would have been that lazy with their background checks - but it does, at least, provide us with a plot that gives the writers a chance to more firmly establish Jethro’s personality, and give us a few more clues into what makes him tick.

Cheryl loves Jethro because he’s a shining example to the rest of the family, proof that it’s possible for a West to go straight and live a life not defined by crime and dysfunction. And he is, accordingly, first seen in this episode working on some sort of legal problem, apparently on behalf of a Maori group who are in a dispute with a corporation (the details are left vague, probably for the better). But he soon falls into a dispute with cocky, intensely irritating fellow law clerk Hugh, who is somehow the only one who’s figured out that Jethro isn’t really Maori and figures he can use it to blackmail him. Jethro’s reaction to this is interesting, and troubling.

Hugh steals a piece of evidence Jethro found, hoping to claim credit for it himself and trusting that he has enough material on Jethro to prevent him from doing anything about it. I don’t think he ever had anything to worry about on that front, though - Jethro seems serious in his moral opposition to snitching (”family thing”, he says) and immediately opts to resolve the issue through dirty means. He gets Hugh drunk while Van and Munter raid his home, taking both the evidence he stole and a good deal more besides; Hugh ends up drunkenly revealing that he’s gay, which Jethro then immediately proceeds to use to turn the tables and blackmail him, trusting that the legal profession is still institutionally homophobic enough that it’ll be enough to keep him off his back.

Now, one might say that fair’s fair, and that Hugh was only reaping what he sowed here. I’m not gonna dispute that, exactly - it’s certainly difficult to feel any sympathy for the asshole, and the fact that he’s just performing heterosexuality doesn’t excuse the creepy way he behaves around women. But one can’t help but imagine that there were probably a whole bunch of ways Jethro could have handled this situation without resorting immediately to the traditional West route, and that depriving Hugh of so much expensive property for the simple crime of trying to take credit for some of Jethro’s work might actually be a teensy bit of an over-escalation. And then there’s the important matter of the qualitative difference between the two blackmails: Hugh is blackmailing Jethro over a lie he’s telling to cynically advance his own career at the expense of members of a disadvantaged minority, while Jethro is blackmailing Hugh over actually being a disadvantaged minority. 

So I don’t buy that this is a justified response. It is, rather, the first real set of evidence we have that Jethro’s apple really didn’t fall very far from the tree after all. He recruits Van into his scheme with full knowledge that Cheryl wouldn’t approve if she knew, fully understanding her mission and choosing to ignore it; he tries to convince his female PA to take Hugh home with her as part of the distraction, not yet knowing that he isn’t heterosexual and not at all caring that he gives her the creeps; and not once does he ever display any guilt for pretending to be Maori in order to receive what Hugh calls “brownie points”, not even when he’s clumsily speaking te reo to their faces. “You are one of them Wests, aren’t you?” says a shocked Hugh at the end; indeed he is, even if Cheryl is blind to it.

Speaking of Cheryl, she is once again the focus of the other main plot here, and it concerns similar themes. She leaves her supermarket job - voluntarily this time - and takes up work with a man called Allen, the husband of her cancer-stricken friend and himself an old friend of Wolf’s. But his motives turn out to be mighty impure, and the result is another mess.

It’s not the most interesting plot the show ever did - it’s a little predictable, honestly - but it does give us more insight into Cheryl’s own personality, and gives us more of a handle on one of her most important flaws. Early in the episode, at a party for the aforementioned friend, a drunk Eric doesn’t take no for an answer and has to be forced off Cheryl by Allen; an attempted sexual assault like that should be an instant friendship-ender, but the moment Eric’s gone Cheryl brushes it off, blaming it on the drink and absolving the man himself. Later, when Allen himself finally gets too horny and starts getting incredibly - and aggressively - inappropriate at work, Cheryl treats it probably far more frivolously than she should, and even after the police (unrelatedly) show up, she continues to insist that he’s a decent man. It’s a permissiveness she must have learned in the course of her marriage with Wolf, and it serves her ill.

It’s ironic, considering how hyper-sensitive she is to the danger of anything similar happening to Pascalle. She finds out that she works as a waitress in a strip club - a truth she presses out of Loretta, who seems remarkably uninterested in exerting any particular effort to maintain the lie - and warns her of the likely ulterior motives of her new boss; Pascalle rejects the counsel (loudly), citing Cheryl’s decision to work for “creepy uncle Allen”, and she does turn out to have something of a point. On the one hand, one totally feels for Cheryl’s concern for Pascalle, considering the latter’s naivete and vulnerability; on the other hand, one totally understands Pascalle, who knows that her mother doesn’t really like or properly respect the direction in which she’s taking her life anyway and is most probably correct to see some moralistic hypocrisy in her motives. Eventually Cheryl does accept Pascalle’s decisions, if only reluctantly, and the two mend the bridge; this is well-timed, because shortly thereafter Cheryl finds several of her other bridges afire.

This, see, is where Wolf comes into it. His part in this episode doesn’t tell us much we couldn’t already at least guess about him, but it is, at least, good to see it properly laid out that he is one of those men who gets incredibly paranoid in his possessiveness about his wife, and that, in turn, suggests things about him that haven’t yet been revealed. 

He’s a real bastard this episode, truly in unapologetic antagonist mode. He correctly guesses what, exactly, it is that Allen wants, even as Cheryl denies it, but he can’t bring himself to trust her to actually deal with it herself; instead, he immediately starts to undermine her, first by contradicting her about Pascalle (expressing approval of her new job, which Cheryl correctly notes would be unthinkable if he’d heard about it first) and then by breaking his own no-snitching code and getting Allen busted for various illegal side-activities, shutting down his entire business and depriving Cheryl of her income. After all his bleating about their children’s futures last episode, it’s instructive to see his priorities laid out: he might, indeed, value those futures, but he values his own possession of his wife’s purity more, and he’s willing to do anything necessary to protect it, no matter how much harm it causes. Of course, the fact that a man who assumes his woman would cheat on him at first opportunity is most probably projecting his own personal history goes unmentioned by any of the characters in the episode, but it’s hanging in the background nonetheless, especially considering what he knows about his friend Allen. ”Can’t keep his dick in his pants”, indeed - judge a man by the company he keeps.

This finally wears Cheryl down to breaking point, and her usual tolerance for Wolf’s malfeasance dries up. Her confrontation with him at the end, dressed expensively, is brilliant; Wolf’s first thought is not of her, but of him, and you can tell by the way his first reaction upon seeing her is to immediately and dangerously look round at all his fellow inmates to make sure they aren’t checking her out before accusatorily asking her why she’s dressed to invite their potential stares. Cheryl says she doesn’t wanna see him for a while; Wolf does his best to look like he’s just accepting it, but you can tell it gets to him. And yet for all his sadness, he still doesn’t seem particularly introspective; his self-confidence is too great to be truly pierced by any one thing, even this. 

For the most part, that’s it for the episode. Loretta appears just long enough to get perved at by an inmate, drop her sister in the shit and drop a couple of her usual zingers, including one satisfyingly aimed at Eric; Ted remains a mince-joke machine and nothing else. Wayne Judd appears briefly, being less confrontational with Cheryl than he was before (take note of this). The school headmistress reminds us all that she’s Jethro’s girlfriend, a fact I forgot to mention until now because it hasn’t been important yet. The next episode will feature every important character (save Ted, who has a few episodes to go yet) in important roles, and it happens to be one of my favorite episodes in the entire show. Onward!

[why-mca-blog]

Night Life (Chapter 2)

Technically This Is Kidnapping, But Neither of Us Care

“Wait, so you’re part of the Umbrella Academy?”

“Unfortunately.”

After the whole ‘murder situation’, for the sake of not wanting to be stuck in a prison cell, Five and I got out of Griddy’s pretty quickly. And by that I mean one second I was looking at the people we killed trying to process what had happened, and the next second Five grabbed my arm and instead of Griddy’s we were in a hardware store.

“Five, what do you mean unfortunate? I would kill to be part of something that cool, you know.”

“Well then welcome to the Academy, (Y/n), really you’ll have a great time.” His voice was practically dripping with sarcasm, and I was honestly pretty taken aback. “I mean with a father that only gives a shit about what we can do, not who we are, a mother who said father programmed and for some reason gave the others actual names but skipped me, sibling who are constantly fighting and no matter how much better you are than the rest of them, your number is your permanent ranking.” He pushed around on the shelves for a bit until he found two flashlights. He tossed one over to me and turned his on before looking up at me.

“Oh and let’s not forget that instead of having a childhood we were forced to train and develop our powers so we could fight crime and our old man could take the credit.” He rolled his eyes and started off towards the clothes sections. “It’s just peachy, you’ll love it there.”

“Don’t walk away from me Five, you know full well we’ve both got it shitty.” He turned back to me and gave a questioning look.

“Oh yeah, my parents faked their deaths to get rid of me and because she’s the closest blood relative to me, I’ve become my aunt’s personal maid.” Five’s expression didn’t change at all, and my blood started to boil. Not because of him, I just get really pissed off and on edge when I think about my aunt.

“Five, why do most kids get over their fear of the dark?” Now he was quite obviously confused, but I figure if I glare long enough he’ll answer the question.

“Uh, they grow up I guess? Or the fear of people thinking less of them outweighed their fear of the dark and they got over it?”

“Yeah okay, that’s why most people get over it.”

“Yeah, so? Where are you going with this (Y/n)?” I took a deep breath trying to collect myself.

“Do you know why I had to get over my fear of the dark?” He shook his head slightly.

“Because that’s what it took to survive. I’m just lucky I didn’t develop claustrophobia after so many years of that bitch locking me in the cupboard under the sink.” He looks at me with shock and sympathy playing at his features, and I panic, not knowing what to do or say. I start up in the direction he had been walking in and changed the subject as quickly as I could.

“So what do we need here anyway?”

“I need to get something, don’t worry about it. You just grab what you think you’ll need and we’ll head back to the Academy.”

“Five you’re insane.” He glances back and arches a brow, then smirks at me and keeps walking.

“Five my aunt will kill me if I’m not back in time to make her breakfast.”

“Holy shit (Y/n), do you really think that after you told me that about your aunt I’d actually let you go back?”

“I mean, what else would I do?”

“You know (Y/n), I know you’re smart, but you ask the dumbest questions. You’ll come back to the Academy with me, my siblings will fawn over you for a bit, and we’ll get you situated in a house where people actually give a shit about you.” He tossed a glance back at me before continuing.

“Pick out some clothes you like before we go, what you have on now is the last you’ll see of anything from your aunt’s house.”

“Goddamnit Five, there’s stuff back there I’ll need.”

“Fine, we’ll stop back there before heading home.” I try not to let the shock of his words set in. What he earlier would only refer to as ‘the Academy’, he called home for my sake. I definitely wasn’t expecting from someone I had only met about an hour ago. I smile to myself, flattered and honored that a guy like Five actually cares about my wellbeing and happiness.

I decide to listen to him and get things I might need in the future while I’m here. I grab a duffel bag and start to load things in; clothes, a couple pairs of shoes, toiletries, knives, a handgun, and bullets. You know, the works.

All of a sudden, somewhere in the clothes section I hear a familiar voice scream out. “No!” Then gunfire. Shit.

I peek over the racks to where the yelling came from and see a woman in a pink bunny mask and a heavyset man in a blue teddy bear mask both holding machine guns. The masks are creepy enough on their own, so realistically I think the guns are overkill. That being said, if I don’t hop in soon we’re going to be overkilled.

I look around, scanning the aisle I’m crouched in for something to fight with without having to dig through the bag. A few yards to my right I notice the sports section and lucky for me I can swing the shit out of a bat. I pick up a wooden one with a good weight and sprint over to where the gunfire is coming from. I glimpse over the rack I’m blocked by and see the man walking in the direction opposite from me. Great, now’s my chance.

I creep out from behind the rack and take a nice hack at the back of his head. There’s a loud crack as the bat snaps in half and the end flies across the room. At least I know not to aim for the head anymore. Speaking of aiming for the head, the man turns swiftly on his heel, and swung his oversized fist directly at my jaw. fortunately, he narrowly missed. Unfortunately, I had to throw myself to the floor to get him to miss.

Propping myself up on my elbows, my mind races to figure out what I should do. He walks toward me pointing his gun at my temple. My mind goes blank and I panic, not used to allowing my instincts to take over. Once the barrel of his gun is in arms reach, I push up with my left arm and grab the barrel in my right, using his strong grip on the gun to pull myself into a twisted jump and jerk my leg back towards him hoping for the best. I feel something rip through the skin of my left shoulder blade, burrowing deep beneath the surface. The excruciating sensation rips through me and I can’t help but let out a strangled yelp. Although the pain is unbearable, I know Five needs me, so I focus on the groaning on the floor behind me and revel in the fact that I won this battle. With my good arm, I drag myself up and look for Five.

Sirens are blaring outside and terror fills me; I’ve been in trouble before, but never legal trouble. I see our attackers start to leave, and I let them, only because I’m more concerned with Five and I getting out without being dragged out by the police. We can always kill them later. Unable to find Five, I begin to panic. The fear burning in my chest along with the throbbing screaming in my shoulder do not mix well in any way, shape or form. Holding back tears quickly becomes impossible as I fail to steady my breathing. Between sharp and painful gasps, I scream out for Five, just needing to know he’s alive. After calling for him twice, I see a hand shoot up from behind a counter and a wave of relief eases my breathing, if only slightly. I turn around and grab the bag that I dropped in my fight with the evil teddy bear man, forcing myself into a jog towards the counter that Five was at. Relief snaps into fury as I take in the sight of him sitting behind the counter, cradling the top half of a mannequin.

“You have got to be kidding me.” Five looks up at me with no quick comeback or quirky remark playing at his tongue. It would almost be better if he had.

“All of this.” I gesture towards my bloodied shoulder frantically, “Everything. All for a fucking mannequin?”

“Her name is Dolores.”

“We’ll discuss your mental break later. Let’s get out of here.”

“Yeah, about that-” he hisses on inhale, and I brace myself for the worst, knowing whatever it is can’t be good “I sort of used my powers too much for one day. I can’t teleport us out of here.” I stand, frozen in shock.

“And you wait until we’re about to get arrested to tell me that your powers have limits?”

“To be fair, I didn’t exactly get the chance.”

“To be fair, we have to go. Now.” I start to run towards the back exit, fueled solely by the adrenaline of my soon-to-be panic attack pumping through my veins. “Get off your ass, Five! They’re not taking us alive if I have any say in it.”

I hear footsteps coming up next to me, so I don’t turn around. I already know it’s Five. Just as we burst out the back door I hear a crash behind us and force myself to run faster, knowing we barely made it out. I twist and turn down streets and cut across alleys with Five tailing me the whole way. Finally, we arrive at a set of fire escapes, leading up to my bedroom window on the 3rd floor.

“Okay, Five, stay here.” I drop my bag at his feet as I try to prepare for the pain of climbing with my bad arm. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

The immense pain throbbing on my back makes it close to impossible to climb up the fire escapes without screaming, so not wanting to wake anyone and put Five and me at risk, I take my bottom lip between my teeth and bite down as hard as it takes to keep quiet. By the time I reach my window the taste of blood is settling on my tongue. With my good arm, I pull the window up enough to get in, crawling through without making a sound. I look around the small room and take it all in for the last time. Finally.

I’ve always wanted to run away, but I never imagined anyone would care enough to help me. I pick up my school backpack and crawl back out the window to catch Five’s attention. I drop the backpack down to him and head back in to grab my valuables. I already have my wallet in the back pocket of my jeans, but I’m not leaving without my sketchbook or my journal. I glance at my door making sure I didn’t wake my aunt and then slowly make my way back down the fire escape.

“You ready?” Five maintains eye contact with me until I respond with a nod. We walk side by side in silence for a good ten to twelve blocks. He stops in front of a massive building, which everyone knows as the home of the legendary Umbrella Academy. Aside from being shot, this would be a dream come true for just about anyone. And get to live that dream. Who’d have thought?