#** polite not police fuck this autocorrect

[neechees]

Not even just Canadians, but everyone else also has to stop acting surprised when they find out Canada commits/ed war crimes & has committed genocide and still actively does it and isn't any better than the United States. What is there to be surprised about?

#even the whole 'Canadians are so police/nice!' thing isnt true. #theres white ppl here with confederate flags on their trucks. in canada. #** polite not police fuck this autocorrect

[miekasa]

any spare levi headcanons tonight????? 😁😁😁😁

Sure, why not, he is the love of my life after all. These are pretty random, and fit in some sort of generalized modern boyfriend au. Hopelessly domestic, as that is the nature of nearly everything I write for Levi, anyway. Also still terribly obsessed with the idea of him with a motorcycle, so there’s that.

He owns at least six black blazers. They’re nearly identical; slight differences in texture and cut, one with lapels, one that’s boldly all leather that you swear you’ve never seen him wear. They’re kind of his go-to staple, other than a sweater.

That being said, he doesn’t exclusively wear all black. His closet leans towards more neutrals, sure, but he’s not allergic to color. You might not catch him wearing neon orange on the average day, but he’s not averse to a nice shade of green, any shade of purple that suits his mood, even a softer pink.

He has towels and rags he sets aside especially for you when he comes over. He always washes them and put them back in place when you leave so that they’re ready to go for next time.

Claims to not have any attachment to the shows/dramas you watch, but he’s totally backseat watching. Halfway into every single series, he starts sitting down when you turn it on, and scoffs at dumb decisions the characters make.

He splurged on one of those frame TVs that look like a painting when they’re idle. It was a good investment in his opinion.

He doesn’t hate Starbucks drinks—there’s worse things out there in terms of quality of tea. What he despises about the establishment is the way they call out names for you to pick up your order. He’s learned that mobile order ahead is the way to go.

Has slippers for around the house, so consequently, you have slippers for walking around his house. He keeps both pairs (and a few extra for friends and guests) tucked neatly beside the door for easy access; yours always go next to his.

Does not understand the purpose of a robe. Buy him one tho and he will suddenly find an excuse to wear it: making breakfast, lounging around watching TV, doing some light cleaning and dusting. It’s comfy, alright, he can admit that much.

The little puppy you got him that he swore he was not going to warm up to now gets the royal treatment. The best doggie goods and treats, top rated shampoos, cutest drying towels, even a miniature couch he constructed just for the pup. They’re best friends, there’s no breaking that bond now.

Speaking of the puppy, affectionately named Captain, Levi can be found walking him every day shortly after work. They have a few different routes, but they always pass by the local vendors/market, who enthusiastically anticipate their appearance every day. Some of the older ladies running stands have even taken to bringing a few treats with them for Captain—after bundling up some goods for Levi, too, of course.

Captain also has a special doggy backpack Levi uses for when he’s on his motorcycle. If you follow anybody on TikTok in his area, you’re bound to see at least one video of the pup while Levi’s out riding. He’s become viral on social media without even knowing it.

(When you show him a video someone posted of him and Captain with well over 100k likes, and a million views, he only rolled his eyes. But remembers that particularly day; remembers the folks had a kid who politely asked to pet the dog, so he let him. He also maybe asks you to send the link to him).

On the subject of the motorcycle, there was a good few weeks he wouldn’t let you on it. Always found an excuse, a smart reply that was punctuated with gentle push on your forehead and calling you too clumsy for it. Later, you found out it’s because he’d ordered you a helmet; didn’t want to risk you riding without one.

He always keeps it in the storage compartment should he make a stop to pick you up while he’s riding; and he usually wears at least two layers to have a spare to wrap you in before you get on.

When he cooks, he always makes sure there’s enough for leftovers and/or to give you some later. He also bakes frequently, and at least once a week, he stops by with some kind of treat for you—“Trying out a new recipe, let me know if you think it’s missing anything.”

On the subject of food, he won’t police what you eat to annoying extent; he knows that not everybody has the time or will to make pasta from scratch like he does. But, he will smack your wrist if you consider ordering fast food when you’re over at this place. Give him 30 minutes and a single pan, he’ll make something much better than whatever you can find on Uber Eats.

Really, though, he doesn’t mean to obnoxious about the homemade food thing, it’s more habit for him. Growing up, he had to learn to be resourceful, so buying fast-food isn’t ever at the forefront of his mind. Cooking for you also turns out to be something somewhat intimate that he enjoys, so just let him.

Once bought an Apple Watch because he liked the look of them, it wasn’t insanely expensive like other high end watches, and it could connect to his other devices, so why not? A week later he returned it, the ping of his notifications were in one too many places for his liking.

You tried to convince him to keep it—“At least for when you’re jogging! It can track your activity and calories!”—but he clicks his teeth. He’ll survive without keeping track of them.

He learned the hard way that jogging with Captain is no good. His legs are too tiny and Levi ended up carrying the puppy the entire time. Captain is more of a walk dog… or ride on the back of his bike dog.

If you changed anything in his phone settings—like the ringtone for you contact, or the sound his keyboard makes—he wouldn’t go back in and try to figure out how to reset it. Unless it was something obnoxious, like adding an autocorrect shortcut to say something lewd.

He doesn’t really listen to music when he’s just walking. When he’s on a run, that’s fine, but he somewhat prefers to just… hear the environment around him when he’s on a stroll or a break from work. The only reason he’d have headphones on in public is to take a phone call, but even then, he’d prefer to wait until he’s somewhere more private.

He likes having you over at his apartment and has contemplated asking you to move in. He doesn’t want to rush anything, though, so he’s content with your sleepovers for now. (Though he really cannot fathom that you call them “sleepovers” like you’re 14. Please).

He speaks to his mother at least once a week, and she always asks about you. Levi tells her that you’re fine, gives her small updates about you, but Kuchel really just wants to know when the wedding is. He pretends to be busy whenever she starts asking and conveniently ends the call.

Occasionally, he’ll stop by and take you out for lunch. Depends on how much time he has during the day for himself, but he always enjoys sharing a meal with you.

Whenever you’re out with your friends drinking, Levi will pick you up. Even if you already told him that you’d Uber home; as soon as you text him that you’re going to leave soon, he’s already on his way.

He makes pretty good cocktails himself. Teases you for running his alcohol supply dry when the truth is he has more of your favorites in his cabinet than his own. He secretly likes the way you flirt with him when you’re tipsy.

You don’t always cuddle on top of each other when you sleep together. You can just lay by each other and that’s enough; but sometimes, you catch Levi turning towards you in his sleep, reaching for your hand. His body seems to search for yours subconsciously, and you swear there’s a hint of a smile on his sleeping face when you put your hand within reach.

Do not try to pay for dinner when you’re out with him. He’ll pull the “I’m going to use the restroom” move and pay the bill behind your back if he needs to. Open your own doors, maybe; pull out your own chairs, sure if you want; but not this.

He flosses very diligently every night. Mostly because he fucking hates the dentist, so if he takes the extra steps and is extra careful with his teeth, he doesn’t have to go as often, right?—Wrong, it’s the one time the roles are reversed, and you and Hange have to wrestle him into the doctor’s office.

On the flip side, if there are any doctors you routinely avoid and/or forget to schedule check ups for, fear not, because Levi will do it for you. He’ll drive you there, too—the only caveat being, that he usually doesn’t tell you where you’re going until you’re almost there. You think he’s doing the mysterious man surprise date thing and then boom, he’s pulling up to the ophthalmologist. Good luck.

He’s purchased a physical, paper copy of the news on every one of your anniversaries, birthdays, and other special occasions. He keeps them all neatly tucked away in a drawer. Sometimes, he looks back on them—sees what was happening in the world around you on that day. Maybe someday he’ll cut them up and bind them together in a book for you.

He doesn’t like having headphones in when you’re home with him, and preferred if you didn’t either—unless it was for work or school. He welcomes you to use his speakers and play your music aloud; he likes listening to what you listen to. If you look closely, you can catch him humming along or tapping his foot when he really likes a song.

Saves pictures you send him in an album in his camera roll. Occasionally can be found scrolling through them—particularly if you’ve been away on a trip, or he hasn’t gotten the chance to see you because of conflicting schedules.

He takes relatively short showers and doesn’t have a strong preference for the water temperature, so he lets you shower first. Unless you want him to join you, of course.

It’s not hard to tell when Levi wants you. He becomes noticeably more touchy, even if that margin isn’t too wide by anyone else’s standards; and he rarely tries to hide it. It only happens in the privacy of your apartments; but he’ll come on to you—leaning a bit further into conversations, a hand on your knee, a kind of cloudy look in his eyes.

Sometimes he forgoes the attempts at being subtle, just kisses you out the blue, carefully backs you up against the wall, puts his hands on your hips. He can be awfully direct when given the opportunity.

#anonymous #[dreamy sight] levi where art thou levi.......... i am yearning deeply #levi x reader #aot x reader #levi smut #levi fluff #snk x reader #aot imagines

[caltropspress]

Notes on Pink Siifu’s NEGRO

You and anybody else who wants to get their random vicarious kicks off White Power can stay the fuck away from me. 

—Lester Bangs

Tell a nazi he can suck my dick. —Pink Siifu, from “SMD”

My first contact with white america was marked by her violence, for when a white doctor pulled me from between my mother’s legs and slapped my wet ass, I, as every other negro in america, reacted to this man-inflicted pain with a cry. A cry that america has never allowed to cease; a cry that gets louder and more intense with age….A cry? Or was it a scream? —H. Rap Brown (Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin), from Die Nigger Die!

it is the hour of conflict, antagonism, struggle the world turning autumn in warpaint everything silently prepares to scream —Amiri Baraka, from “Disorder”

1.  

White institutional power operates to negate or suppress. To that end, white institutional power bestows awards on singular figures when it’s convenient. Let’s call one such example Kendrick Lamar. Pulitzer Prizing DAMN. is white institutional power taking cover. This, in no way, defangs DAMN. But it does provide crowd control. Pink Siifu, meanwhile, won’t be awarded a Pulitzer for NEGRO. If he did, I’m confident he’d pull an Adrienne Rich, telling President Clinton to choke on his National Medal for the Arts, seeing as how the U.S. gov’t drives “the demonization of our young Black men.” Siifu would be PE boycotting the Grammys on the grounds of Black invisibility. Or John Lennon relinquishing his membership in the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire because, well, empire (see: Biafra).

2.

NEGRO is what happens when Three 6 Mafia goes full bandolier, full decolonization, full Thomas Sankara. When the emphasis is on the 666 sirening[1] across white cop foreheads, reflecting off Makrolon face shields. Siifu cites and channels Sun Ra, June Tyson, Death, and Bad Brains, but you also hear the mass hysteria of Abbey Lincoln’s vocal cords trembling, of Max Roach’s We Insist! in a street brawl showdown with the LRAD. Basically, it’s Ornette blowing sax in a riot, harmolodics like incendiary devices.

3.

“FK” is the primal scream reaction of hearing the news another one of your people has been killed, snuffed out. Suffer through our screams, it says to the listener. And “out of body, out of mind” distorts what we see with what we witness. It’s the re-played, re-tweeted, re-shared visuals of Black death.

4.

At moments, NEGRO sounds like Aaron Dilloway organizing a chapter of the White Panther Party.

5.

Siifu’s lyrics are a Stokely speech draft. His artistry is prismatic, shattered pane glass: crust punk, jazz cat, marching band drummer, hood ballerina, noisemaker, bareknuckle emcee. His lyrics should be run off on the mimeo and saddle-stitched into a chapbook for Totem Press to publish.

6.

“SMD” samples from Ivan Dixon's 1973 film The Spook Who Sat by the Door (“Do you hear me, man?...I am BLACK!”). Just like dead prez sampled the dialogue before Siifu on “We Want Freedom.” Siifu and dead prez are bedfellows, for sure, but Siifu's head rests on a pillow of static. It’s the friction that electrifies.

7.

NEGRO is the art of de-arresting in audio form. As the comrades at Mask Magazine have stated, de-arrests “are beautiful,” reminding us “the law and the state are not supernatural forces.”[2]

8.

I’ve always felt uncomfortable using the word freedom. It’s a word that’s been co-opted and gutted to the point of parody. I subscribe only to a different form of freedom, one articulated in noise. Suicidal Tendencies’ “Freedumb” cuts it: “Peace through politics is a fallacy—that doesn’t exist.” Liberation more seriously expresses the extinction agenda. Poor Righteous Teachers taught the curriculum out of Trenton, on “Freedom of Death”: “Consciousness—it’s a must / Just avoid the wicked, wicked ways of this pale Caucasoid.”

Regardless, we see freedom, liberation, knife through even with Siifu’s orthography. Revolutionary thought requires revolutionary language. Ask the Combahee River Collective. Come correct. Fuck autocorrect. Remember womyn. Siifu spellings like: nxggas, eye, tyme, iono, and the evergreen ameriKKKa. The abbreviated words—eliding letters wherever possible—don’t reflect self-censorship so much as the mindmaze of a harried man. Deliberate typos demonstrate no faith in the system. It’s like if Bon Iver (see: “22 (OVER S∞∞N)”) decided to forgo BLM symbolic gestures (Mahalia Jackson) and straight-up encouraged looting. Siifu is CAPS LOCK happy, too. We’re witnessing the joy of militancy.

9.

To begin with, it must be said that former African slaves and their ancestors have been the avant-garde of everything in this country. There’s no culture in America, in this American wasteland, without us. There’s no classical music; there’s jazz, and that was invented by us. And besides that, America has nothing to offer the world and it never has. —Idris Robinson, from “How It Might Should Be Done”

Siifu in the audience of the Congress of Afrikan Peoples, and Baraka imploring him like, “Get up, Pink Siifu.” It’s nation time. But on “Nation Tyme.,” Siifu groans, I’m tired…can’t fall…asleep. Black rage, of course—but what of Black insomnia? The French revolutionaries abolished the calendar. CPT, so, is rightly weaponized. “I feel fettered by Western time,” Gregory Pardlo writes in “Colored People’s Time.” Punch clocks need punching, smashing. I saw Baraka roll up to a conference panel late as fuck once, cane-walking right down the center aisle, shameless, commandingly.

In a somnolent slur, Siifu says, “They treat me like I’m wasting away / I know I’m worth more than they pay.” What of these capitalist definitions of work? What of productivity? What does it mean to monetize every waking moment? He’s been quoted as saying, “I ain’t have to work for no white man.”[3] “Nation Tyme.” picks up there.

10.  Feel like deadmeat. They say I’m deadmeat.

“DEADMEAT” is a pig siren stuffed into an industrial-grade slaughterhouse grinder. It sounds the way Alan Vega's sculptures look—hazardous masses of electronic junk, like wires raveled inside a homemade bomb, like buzzing viscera. 

I want to see Siifu perform it at the Meat Locker, a cellar club in the underguts of Montclair, New Jersey (s/o the dramacydal Outlawz). The place is dingy and bedecked with feces—a venue befitting a GG Allin opener. GG Allin, a racist, who also hated cops. Who, on “Shove That Warrant Up Your Ass,” a track that appeared on the posthumous Brutality & Bloodshed For All album, sang, “You say I broke the laws in your state… / Your courts and cops should all be hung.” Allin hoists a headless, legless, armless torso on his hip in the cover photograph—a slab of meat. Like the Beatles with baby doll parts and prime cuts in their laps, bloodless butcher coats on the original Yesterday and Today (1966) artwork. Like the papal kill floor in Francis Bacon’s “Figure with Meat” (1954) with its tapestry of offal. But what you don’t get from Bacon, or the Beatles, or GG Allin is what Siifu needs us to hear. What Siifu tells us is the reality of corporeality is that cops continue to make carcasses of Black people.

11.

That cellar club can be scream therapy, can be cell therapy. Siifu brings us there—to the darkest, dampest corner of the Dungeon Family’s dungeon. Big Gipp, speaking self-defensively: “Try to separate me from the blood / Is disrespect like you coming in my home and not wiping your feet on the rug.” It’s echoed in Siifu addressing the question of his audience: “This [album] is for black people, but I know white people are going to fuck with it. I’m mad cool with that. I just want everyone to know, before they come through the door, that this is a black house and you have to respect my people.”[4] The theme of respect as it relates to a sense of home, to cultural tourism, is paramount in both. Everyone’s got to know their place. No listener should approach ignorant of the auction block. Siifu’s noise refuses the separation of kinsfolk and his stubbornness makes the dungeon shake—he is rightfully “tough, dark, vulnerable, moody,” and, on NEGRO, he has a “definite tendency to sound truculent.”[5]

12.  

“ON FIRE, PRAY!” eventually grinds the brakes to a cavernous slowjam pace. “Blood on my body / Blood on my face.”

13.

The racist dog policemen must withdraw immediately from our communities, cease their wanton murder and brutality and torture of black people, or face the wrath of the armed people. —caption on Huey Newton photograph

NEGRO’s album cover, painted by Junkyard, is a call-and-response. Pink Siifu is a portrait of exhaustion, slouched, shirtless like Huey was when he was released from the Alameda County courthouse in 1970. It’s a tableau like Huey in that rattan peacock chair was. Eldridge Cleaver orchestrated it, right down to the zebra rug.

If you squint, the glimmer of Siifu’s gold fronts looks like his jaw is wired shut. Of course, violent threats are routinely directed at Black people—that's how the system operates. Media is often behind the scope. Relentless orders to “shut up,” to silence yourself, police yourself. We know this from David Wojnarowicz, photographed with his lips sewn shut, blood dripping like shadows, in “(Silence = Death)” from 1989. The violent threats on queer life are kin to those on Black life. But Siifu, like Wojnarowicz, refuses the censorship. After all, those aren't wires—they're the glint of his grill. Siifu is dribbling blood, too, and those black splatters across the flag are like pen bursts—ink poisoning for all. If you squint, the mind’s eye might see the Pan-African flag.

The flag above his head recalls Jasper Johns’ flags: elliptical, non-patriotic, made slop-bucket sloppy from newspaper shreddings and other detritus, i.e. amerikkka is a trash heap. At least the stars are black in the “Flag (Moratorium)” rendition. Bullet hole dead center, too.

If all goes well, the riots going on—bless them—will go on interminably. Sly Stone’s customized flag with black in place of blue[6] and sharp solar-flared suns in place of Betsy Ross geometric stars is yet another parallel to Siifu’s flag. Like Sly, Siifu isn’t opposed to police ambushes. They both know you’ve got to grin at the gun of the devil. (“Don’t you mind people grinnin’ in your face,” Son House sings eternally.) Citizen takes on cop on “Thank You For Talkin’ To Me, Africa”: Bullets start chasin’, / I begin to stop. / We begin to tussle. / I was on the top. Just the same as Siifu on “SMD”: “Iono why eye ain’t shot ya.” Or on “run pig run.”: “Kill a cop / Left a pig dead.”

14.

We can't disparage any aggressive protest on the reductive grounds it's aggro or violent. I think of Pam Echols in Milwaukee in 1968. Siifu’s assertion of you are my enemy on “steal from the ENEMY” corresponds with Paris’s sophomore and shadowy album, Sleeping with the Enemy. Like on the corrode-ode “Coffee, Donuts, and Death”:

You get poached when you fuck with black folk. Said it ’til my voice was hoarse. I ain’t down with excessive force, But of course I wasn’t heard so I’m silent now. Black folk can’t be non-violent now. […] The only motherfucking pig that I eat is police.

Which is to say, try no pork, ameriKKKa.

15.  RE: punk

Think of Bad Brains playing CBGB’s in 1982. Lester Bangs writes of a woman in the scene who referred to Black people as “all these boons.” He tells us a Black friend of his believes the clubgoers “[strive] to be offensive however they can.” Anti-Blackness plagued CBGB’s and nascent punk like vermin, a pestilence. A white woman in the music business claims she “liked [Black people] so much better when they were just Negroes.” These anecdotes are culled from Bangs’ 1979 Village Voice piece entitled “The White Noise Supremacists.” He notes Ron Asheton’s predilection for “swastikas, Iron Crosses, and jackboots.” He cites Ivan Julian, guitarist for Richard Hell and the Voidoids—one of the few Black individuals to grace those inchoate punk stages—as saying “whenever he hears the word ‘n-----’…he wants to kill.” He calls Nico a “dumb kraut cunt” for her brazen, Third Reich-ish brand of racism, which was no industry secret. Bangs even implicates himself, quoting an earlier article: “…it’s the n-----s who control and direct everything just as it always has been and properly should be.” He meant this, somehow, as a compliment.

16.

On “we need mo color. Abundance,” there’s no innocence left in asking “tell me your favorite color.” Siifu answers rhetorically, parenthetically, melanin. Don't settle for forty acres of color—demand abundance. Take, loot in abundance. And don't be contained by the gendered parameters of “pink or blue.” “You can have any color you like” suggests the limitless possibilities if you move your mind beyond the imposed parameters.

The “favorite color” invoked on “we need mo color. Abundance” becomes abundantly clear on the following track, “BLACK!”

17.

“ameriKKKa, try no pork” starts in a slurry of radio static, news reports of Black death. Black, Black, Black, Black. Sped up. Slowed down. Drag the progress bar. “Progress,” ha.

18.

“run pig run.” See the pig / Run away / Run, pig, run. Like a Dick and Jane basal reader. Like picking your favorite color. Like a Three Little Pigs fable. Like huffing and puffing. These are childhood exploits for childhoods that aren’t allowed to be. As long as the Kenneth and Mamie Clark doll experiments keep providing the proof, there can be no childhood innocence. So it's a carnival game in the meantime: See a pig / Shoot a pig. Huffing and puffing: Run, pig, run.

19.

"myheartHURT" is the safehouse after the shooting. It's the cooldown, the chillout. The hypnagogic nightmare. It's vaporwave minus whiteness. We all know Biz had the vapors before Daniel Lopatin. As if DJ Screw was just an apparition, a codeine cloud. The fact remains, Screw's phantasmagoria hovers above all our heads.

20.

The wail of distorted police sirens introduces “Chris Dorner.,” a track gleefully indebted to Ice-T and Body Count’s “Cop Killer.” Repetition was a popular device and it still is: die, pig, die. Chris Dorner has achieved folk-hero status in anarchist circles and beyond since he waged asymmetrical warfare on the LAPD. His manifesto has been published as a zine.[7] “No one grows up and wants to be a cop killer,” he wrote. Begs the question.

21.

“faceless wings,BLACK!” nods to Frank Castle[8], a figure who may or may not be recoverable from militias and thin blue liners, despite Gerry Conway’s best efforts.

22.

White institutional power operates to negate or suppress. Pink Siifu, through NEGRO, refuses suppression and negation. Siifu delivers a hole in the head, and it’s sublime.

Footnotes:

1  “The Law comes sirening across the town.” Gwendolyn Brooks, “THE THIRD SERMON OF THE WARPLAND” from RIOT

2  “De-Arrests are Beautiful.” Mask Magazine.

3  “The Necessity of Pink Siifu’s Rage.” Marcus J. Moore. The Fader.

4  “Pink Siifu’s ‘NEGRO’ is a Riotous Mix of Jazz, Rap and Punk.” Max Bell. Bandcamp Daily.

5  Baldwin, the god.

6  “What did I do to be so black and blue?” (see: Armstrong); light a reefer and listen to the phonograph (see: Ellison)

7  Research and Destroy New York City. https://researchdestroy.com/

8  https://archive.org/details/PunisherPigs

Images:

Emory Douglas work (detail), courtesy of Sean Stewart archives | Makrolon face shield, Google Image Search result | Amiri Baraka performing at the Congress of Afrikan Peoples (screenshot) | Alan Vega light sculpture (photograph) | GG Allin Brutality & Bloodshed for All album cover | The Beatles Yesterday & Today album cover | Francis Bacon, “Figure with Meat” (detail) | Goodie Mob “Cell Therapy” (screenshot) | Splitting up a family at auction, Public Domain | Huey Newton Black Panthers Minister of Defense, photographed by Blair Stapp, 1968 | Andreas Sterzing, David Wojnarowicz (Silence = Death), 1989 | Sly and the Family Stone There’s A Riot Goin’ On album cover | Jasper Johns, “Flag (Moratorium)” | Pam Echols punching cop, 1968 (photographer unknown) | Sid Vicious, nazi (photographer unknown) | Emory Douglas work (detail), courtesy of Sean Stewart archives | Biz Markie Goin’ Off album cover | Oneohtrix Point Never Memory Vague album cover 

[antifainternational]

Hi, I'm super confused. The memes you're posting today about liberals... That's all conservative views, in my experience. The memes seem mislabeled. What gives? Am I missing something? Not trying to be accusatory, sorry if it comes across that way. I just am genuinely confused.

You’re not the only one confused here, Anon.  Another Anon wrote to us asking “did ur meme makers autocorrect break and replace alt right with liberal lol.”  Allow us to explain why we’re going in hard on liberals:We get that the term “liberal” can mean different things in different contexts.  Most times on this blog, we use “liberal” when we’re referring to the kind of person that has progressive-ish politics but firmly believes in the rule of law & the existing overall order & governing structures; who believes that progress is made only through reform within those existing structures and order; and, when they encounter anyone that challenges that view by attempting to change things outside of that existing order and structure, opposes them almost as vehemently as the opponents they might have in common.Antifa are often subjected to criticisms and attacks from two sides.  On one side, there are fascists and bigots - the people from which we expect to be attacked. But the other side are liberals - people who claim to be against fascism and racism and generally see themselves as aligning somewhere on the left, yet seem most-intent on attacking antifa if they don’t personally agree with our time-tested strategies and tactics.Liberals tend to come at us with the same arguments, over and over:-you can’t fight hate with hate;-if you fight fascism militantly, you’re just as bad as they are;-nazis should have the right to publicly advocate and organize genocide because “free speech;”-if we just ignore the fascists they’ll go away;-shutting down racist events won’t change their minds about their racism;-the police and the state will protect us from fascists;-we need to “shine a light” on the racists’ bankrupt ideas, so everyone can see their ideology for what it is, in the free market of ideas blah blah blahA lot of us lump those people and their bullshit arguments together in the category “liberals.”  Mostly because we don’t have time to deal with their fascist-enabling, collaborationist nonsense.  All their arguments tend to boil down to this:NAZIS: we want to beat up minorities. We’re going to do that now.ANTIFA: we aren’t going to let you.LIBERALS: uwu don’t fight hate with hate. Antifa is sooo violent.ME: they’re literal fucking nazis who are beating people up.LIBERALS: that’s their opinion and you gotta let them. It’s the rules. The thing is, liberals aren’t experts when it comes to dealing with fascists and their  liberal “strategies” of non-confrontation, “debate,” and giving fascists free publicity are counterproductive, dangerous, and irresponsible,  The people that have been dealing with fascists for decades - and the victims of fascism - know what it takes to stop fascists and bigots from doing real harm.  As Holocaust survivor Frank Frison put it: “If fascism could be defeated in debate, I assure you that it would never have happened, neither in Germany, nor in Italy, nor anywhere else. Those who recognised its threat at the time and tried to stop it were, I assume, also called “a mob”. Regrettably too many “fair-minded” people didn’t either try, or want to stop it, and, as I witnessed myself during the war, accommodated themselves when it took over … People who witnessed fascism at its height are dying out, but the ideology is still here, and its apologists are working hard at a comeback. Past experience should teach us that fascism must be stopped before it takes hold again of too many minds, and becomes useful once again to some powerful interests.”  

[queenmabscherzo]

Queeny, my love, I have a question for you: As another resident Lover of Football, what's your take on the whole Kaepernick situation? I wrote a long response to an anon asking about it, but I'm curious what you think of all of it.

if you mean in general? i love colin kaepernick with my whole heart and he’s done amazing things wrt charity and activism, even outside the obvious and crazily publicized kneeling Bla Bla Blah. and i wish he had a job … not to mention on my teams … i’d take him in a heartbeat.

i think to turn his stance into an issue about patriotism, as some people (republicans) have, is to miss the point (in some cases, in an obviously deliberate way). he was never protesting any country or military or political stance and everyone knows it. conservatives are just twisted and vile and don’t know how to win arguments so they invent some opposing stance like Murrica to get people on their side.

if you mean specifically the new news with Nike, i think it’s great. i like the campaign and i think it’s a good idea. Steven A Smith said it better than me, though: to paraphrase, Nike is on the right side of history, but a little too late. not knocking them, but they’re obviously in the game of making money and they’ve monetized Kaep now that they’re comfortable doing so. it would obviously have been better if them if they ran this ad, oh idk, when he actually lost his football job. but it’s a nice gesture.

i think his sacrifice is real, and comparing it to veterans’ and soldiers’ sacrifices is, again, inventing an irrelevant argument. to compare his sacrifice to Pat Tillman’s is to redirect the conversation and silence Colin Kaepernick entirely and it’s deeply fucked up. Nike would be totally within their rights to draw attention to soldiers and veterans and military, just like they are totally within their rights to draw attention to civil rights activism and police brutality, and those things do not negate one another. like ….. it’s not even worth arguing about, dude! you know?! that’s not the conversation???? people out here burning their Nike’s … like damn!! we get it you’re racist and as my husband said you couldn’t even come up with a black veteran as an example??? you couldn’t even donate those shoes? to … a veteran? maybe?

anyway colin kaepernick didn’t just sacrifice any old job, and he didn’t just sacrifice playing a fun game. he sacrificed money that he could (and as history proves, would) donate to charities. he sacrificed a platform. he sacrificed visibility. who knows where he’d be playing or who he’d be playing with and whose lives he might affect if he had a job?

also let’s not forget eric reid, who made the same sacrifice and ain’t making money off it.

at the end of the day, our grandkids are more likely to read about Colin Kaepernick in a history book than Tom Brady, and that is how i sleep at night. i can’t wait for the biopic in 2043 and i hope they get wonderful actors to play both him and Nate Boyer

also y’all should have seen all the crazy things autocorrect offered up to fix “Kaepernick”.

#football #mab hath been with you

[supersoldierfreak]

Prompts

Send me a prompt xx

I did my patriotic duty

Remember that time when we turned a can of Axe into a flame thrower?

I woke up next to a veteran this morning

So I had a dream last night that involved you

And I didn’t hate it

If anyone could figure out how to pee on someone’s soul, it would be you

Thank you for extending my knowledge on the effects of vodka

You always know what to say to make me feel better

Speak of what happened and I will kill you

I’m not above blackmail

I found them in the bathroom trying to wrap an American flag around Steve

It’s really sad I had to specify this but…

I didn’t ask questions

Why can’t I come over and snuggle?

I am taking my rightful place as ruler of the undead appearance wise

You’re doing that ‘overestimating how much I care’ thing again

Good lord you suck at this wake up call

Son of a bitch took my liquid eyeliner

If I can, after drinking enough vodka to knock out a Russian soldier, muster up enough motivation to call you the next morning the least you can do is pick up and listen.

I’m like Cupid

The fact you thought licking it would fix it boggles my mind.

I don’t understand it.

You’re a whore with a bow and arrow

It worked

Not the point here, guys

Woke up with chlamydia and a bruised rib

Don’t call the police the police about the strange man passed out in his car.

I’ll collect him later

I love you

Sorry I punched you in the throat. You got in my way. You understand.

It’s like autocorrect knew you weren’t well endowed

Let’s play a game called ‘Chill the hell out’. You’re the first contestant

I am NOT getting arrested in a wig!

I think I’m at that stage in my life where I subconsciously purposefully mess everything up just to see if I can find a way out of it.

That doesn’t involve shooting people. Or stabbing them.

I don’t understand how I managed to fuck up so much in an hour and a half

I cried for thirty minutes at the bar before the bartender helped me and gave me free drinks for the rest of the night

I’m confused why you asked me to buy you a life alert at 3:28 this morning

Have a merry Christmas

I’ve been here twenty minutes and a sweaty half naked man has kissed me

What happened?

I thought I told you to wait.

And apparently I tried to pay for a drink with a tampon

I think I fucked up my elbow when I tried to fight off the paramedics

.Shut up

I wear heals bigger than your dick

Are you sighing and judging me through the phone right now?

SINCE WHEN IS USING A FROZEN WATER BOTTLE ATTACHED TO A ROPE AS A THROWING WEAPON A GOOD IDEA!?

I felt like I didn’t get that across well enough

Is it a bad thing that I’ve made out with everyone I work with?

�� well anything sounds bad if you say it like that

Her voice kills me.

Are you just sitting in your room drinking popsicle vodka?

It’s the perfect pitch to fuck with my hangover

Fries before guys, foods before dudes, shakes before dates, chips before dicks, lemon bars before football stars, macaroni before screwing’ Tony.

What I’m trying to say I’d can we just have a girls night?

Wanna tell me why vodka seeped out of my mattress when I got into my bed?

How do we have all these hot friends we never do body shots off of?

Not really

Babe

Can we just?

makes grabby hands

What the fuck?

What happened?

I think it is a scientific achievement that I can make jelly that is 95% vodka so suck it up.

I don’t know if you’re aware of this but…

Wow. Damn. Okay.

We’re plotting your demise

We could have the the best hate sex… ever

I’m bonding with your girlfriend

But he’s like a baby bird with his wing broken that I want to FUCK

They pay me to be heterosexual or helpful. I’m going to need a hell of a raise to be both.

I think I pulled a muscle in my tongue

You’ve never felt ridiculous until you’ve walked through downtown in a Viking costume

So you threw a knife at me last night

I honestly wish I could say I was surprised

Well since you’re literally falling for me, it’s hard to say no.

Oh, wait, let me get some popcorn

When he pulled his dick out I told him he brought a knife to a sword fight

I am so sorry

Watching you make your own decisions should be quite the shitshow

I’m about two and a half drinks away from being gay

I’m coming over

Don’t let go

You’re everything I’ve wanted in a friend

You have questionable morals

Do I look like a person who has full control of their limbs on this plane of reality?

You drink too much

If you don’t want me in your apartment you should get better locks

I just felt emotion and I am not okay with it

My move of emasculating men with my superior intellect isn’t as charming when they can’t see my huge rack.

Why do I feel like I really don’t want to know the end of this?

Go big or go home, am I right?

You’ll never guess whose blood is on my shirt

It was just a casual affair

My apologies

I’ll try not to let my dick interfere with official work duties in the future

That’s what you get for having butt ass naked roof top sex at night in the middle of December

Worth it

Fuck you!

I’m the Pilot!

Please and thank you

Just come back with most of you limbs… and that mouth of yours

I hate it when she philosophises on my counter drunkenly

He has the ass of a Greek god, honey

He made me break fast

Not even sober to I understand Latin

Drunk is not a location

I waxed the left side of it and was in too much pain to do to right side so now my crotch looks like Cruella Devil

We kind of broke a table while making out

I hate cats

So yes, I’d say it was successful

Pants are for mortals

People like you and me aren’t meant to go for this long without sex

Well, personally I like to keep my blackmail in organised folders

You forgot the part where I played slip and slide in my own puke and messed up my knee

I was trying to save face

He just got home drunk

My apartment looks like the apocalypse of sobriety

It may be a clusterfuck, but I’ll be looking classy as shit as I watch the nightmare unfold

Why do I like him?

He literally has no redeeming qualities

Drunk me is basically the Oprah of nudes

I’m going to have a badass scar

Yo! Human Dorito, get your ass out here!

We all know that badassery is carried of the xx chromosome

90% threatening to punch him in the dick and 10% actually punching him in the dick.

This is like the walk of shame down memory lane

FYI, At my funeral it’s your job to dramatically throw yourself on my casket

Text me if you’re not dead and wanna have a drink later

I’m confused

I’m constantly crying

Do you know anyone else who comes home with as many unexplainable injuries as we do every night?

You keep asking me questions like I have a magic thing called a memory

I want to kill someone right now but at the same time I just really need cuddles

How do you get the 'hangs out with drunk assholes’ insurance?

I’m still trying to decide whether it’s a compliment or not

It’s the never ending clusterfuck that is my love life

I can say with absolute certainty the only time we’ve had a civil conversation was when we both liked pizza

I’d like to subscribe to your Daddy issues

I’m like, not good at living

I did tell you I spoke over 30 languages

I’m sorry I couldn’t bail you out, apparently they don’t take credit cards over the phone.

Listen, I will certainly take anything I can get my little gay fingers on

I don’t know where I am

I make bad decisions on probably a regular basis

I think this guy is dead

We make up for it in dry humour

What fucking idiot decided to make an entire stupid state where you can’t take a damn right turn. Fuck New Jersey

She is so graceful and swan like

Just calling to say thank you for not dying

I’m still not sure how to feel about the fact that we had a threesome with a guy older than my grandpa

It’s what god put me on earth for

Sorry I wasn’t really responsible earlier. I was really high on adrenaline and very into that car chase

EVERYBODY CALM YOUR SHIT!

I am pretty great at coffee and mistakes

How did I get here?

It’s my life mission

It took too long for people to come up with things for 'Never have I ever’ so we changed it to 'Don’t judge me but…’

You ever feel like an organ is just failing you?

If you with any of them tell them I apologise for (insert whatever I did wrong here)

All you did was repeatedly scream 'GET IT IN’

Hold on I’ll be right there; I can’t find my arm

Just because I’m a woman and I’m cranky and irritable right now does not mean I’m on my period.

Babe? It’s shark week.

People are talking politics and I have had 9 mimosas

Did you at least make friends in jail?

Help me?

You just can’t follow orders, can you?

What the hell is Code C?

Between the Marvin Gaye and the candlelit dinner, I’d say you’re trying to woo me baby

What made it obvious?

Hell no! I went out this morning to buy those so you better put them right back down

You’re interrupting date night!

you predictable little shit

You can pay me back in chocolate and cuddles

Will you marry me?

I love you and that scares me.

When I told you to tell the cops, I meant federal agents not the local PD, idiot

Why did you run out the room when I arrived?

I feel like I should know you and I’m really sorry that I don’t

I really really like you

I hate you too. The feeling is mutual.

Happened in Vegas, stays in Vegas

I told you not to get into trouble.

I would tell you it’s a pleasure to see you again but I’d be lying

All I ask is….

Boo! I scared you! I didn’t scare you did I?

I knew you

What did I tell you about touching stuff?

I trusted you

I asked you to stay safe for one mission. For one bloody mission and now look at you.

We should get awards just for turning up when disaster strikes

We haven’t been getting paid for years yet we have potentially the most dangerous job on the planet.

We are so bloody stupid

I need a doctor.

Avengers Assemble. Team bonding session is mandatory. Everybody meet in the common room

You’re such a dork

Do you have any idea how many people are dead because I wasn’t clever enough, wasn’t quick enough, wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t good enough?

#Steve #scarlett johanssen #tony stark #sam wilson #series #prompts #winter soldier x reader #winter soldier imagine #wanda maximoff #civil war #anthony mackie #marvel cast x reader #marvel imagine #avengers imagine #imagine #captain america x reader #comicon #captain america #natalia alianovna romanova #natasha romanoff #rdj #russo #chris evans x reader #chris evans #sebastian stan imagine #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan #natasha romanoff x reader

[watchtheblog]

invidious consumption

i was crippled with anxiety in the weeks leading up to my 21st birthday (just last year! wow, time sure does fly!) terrified that one of my earnest girlfriends, in an innocent but spectacularly misguided attempt to celebrate me, would surprise me by hiring a limo** - with a sunroof that i would be expected to stick my upper body out of - to drive us around times square because she had misinterpreted my denouncement of a limo full of rabble (one of whom - having witnessed my disdainful facial expression - had rolled down her window to look at me pityingly and emit with no irony the query, “jealous?”) as repressed curiosity… when in actuality it had been a manifestation of my vehement distaste for unfettered, garish exhibitions of joy.

(limo sidebar: my alter ego, reina, is *obsessed* with limos:

you can see more of her work here. HIRE ME TO RUN YOUR DATING APP ACCOUNT THAT YOU USE TO AMUSE YOURSELF AT THE EXPENSE OF DESPERATE MIDDLE AGED MEN IN YOUR AREA!)

while the last time i was flailing my body through a limo’s sunroof was never, i can say with the utmost confidence, i could go to my grave never having had 50-100% of my body in a limo and my life will have been full.

ditto drunkenly slurring “genie in a bottle” in a neon lighted basement in chinatown with strangers who smell like a chain hibachi restaurant. (i’m describing a karaoke bar. did it work?)

double ditto having a man in a thong swathe me in a sash and other bridal accoutrements and proceed to rub his muscles on me in the name of tradition at a bachelorette party (which is why i don’t allow anyone near me who owns a michael kors purse, whose favorite movie stars reese witherspoon, anyone who has seen magic mike in a theatre, or anyone who thinks instagramming a glass of wine with a caption about “relaxing” is an appropriate thing to instagram… also anyone who has ever posted a collage or that “year in review” on instagram. also anyone who wishes family members who don’t have instagram a happy birthday/father’s day/mother’s day etc. on instagram. #instagram #spon)

fear of having to refuse to partake in the activities someone has planned for me because they assault my sensibilities - and therefore having no celebration at all - has not stopped me from expecting to be surprised in some way on my birthday (september 26th. that is my birthday) every year since i turned 14 my first year at boarding school.

my parents are not “fun” people. they don’t “do” surprises. my mom is not “warm” and my dad is not “sneaky”.

despite this, i was absolutely convinced that my parents - who lived in new york and had acrimoniously divorced the summer before - would surprise me for my birthday and, i don’t know… take me to dinner and look at me, my mother contemplating why she’d crossed the atlantic ocean to do this when she could have just not and instead she could be in new york at like, the chobani store (this is a private joke for myself about my mom and her v specific, repellent personality). but no, instead, she’s in london with her ex husband… watching their daughter eat her weight in prosciutto and not even have the decency to have adopted a british accent yet.

honestly, the best possible outcome was no less grim than this… and yet!

when i woke up, assuming they’d taken a red eye, i calculated time for collecting their bags, getting lost and added two hours in case my recalcitrant mother had gotten detained for saying “bomb” on an airplane in a post 9/11 world - something she has literally done for sport; i have borne witness to it.

so, at lunch until the end of the school day, i stared out the window, waiting for them to arrive. when school ended and they hadn’t arrived, i expected them to surprise me in the dining hall at dinner. they didn’t. when my dad called me after study hall to wish me a happy birthday i thought, “oh maybe just my mom is coming…”

neither of them showed… nor did they the next three birthdays i had there, even though every year i woke up with the same eagerness of anticipation.

(that christmas, aged 14, i learned there was no santa.)

the perpetuation of this surprise fantasy allows me to excitedly anticipate a thoughtfully placid fete… and then inevitably gently fails to come to fruition, effectively allowing me to enjoy a day pleasantly marked by sangfroid, as i consider the calamity that “could have been” while at a dinner i have guilted one to three of my five friends into attending at the last minute!

and THAT is the cycle of my birthday and the 364 leading up to my birthday. (my birthday is a lifestyle, just like drake said.)

(an alternative explanation is that i continue to delude myself into thinking someone will plan a surprise party for me *in order* to be disappointed so that i may blame any potential melancholy on someone (everyone!) else instead of my hatin ass for being a human being who is impossible to please and whose inability to literally be “fun loving” and embrace gauche celebratory activities has barred her from ever experiencing the type of youthful excitement katy perry songs are about. this is a shitty but also v honest assessment. thank you for reading.)

ALL THAT BEING SAID … if you’ve been here before, you know my hatred of vulgar displays of birth nostalgia does not prevent me from loving being celebrated privately and has never stopped me from treating my birthday like it’s a wedding and creating a tacky but v self aware registry for the occasion.

so without further ado …

my birthday list! (which - because i refuse to leave my home unless it's to go to a lawyer's office to sign a contract and pick up a check for a series order for my pilot - is the only acceptable way in which you may celebrate me privately. so if you choose not to celebrate me financially, please consider yourself removed from the following list.)

thanks!

(if for some perverse reason you’d like to see my prior innocent but spectacularly misguided registries, please go here. it’s a doozy! however, please note i will only be accepting gifts from this year’s registry. so stay current!)

also, i’m not going to say whether or not anyone has ever purchased something for me off one of my lists, but i will quote william blake “If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise” as opposed to albert einstein and you may draw your own conclusions.

the list.

givenchy pandora purse

here are 1, 2, 3, 4 options

a casual throw for my bed

i just love something easy you know? i beg you to click that link and know that the description includes this: “perfect for cuddling in the cold”. literally lmao. correct. and unfortunately there’s zero other way for me to cuddle in the cold.

seriously though a casual throw

this one is on sale in the white, which is the only color i allow on my bed. isn’t that nice!

ditto this one

here’s one that isn’t

a pillow

i need a firm pillow. i didn’t know that. i thought i liked soft. but then i realized i like firm and my pillows are soft. you can see my dilemma. here or here or here

this bathrobe

it’s a bathrobe. you know how they go.

a juicero

i don’t know how many times i have to ask. i’m not even putting a link because i’m so furious. ditto: a range rover. smh. 

a personalized clutch

do what you will. small or big

a vacation

you know... so i can chill from all the stress of waking up and realizing i have to figure out how to spend the next 10 hours… every. single. mother. fucking. day. here are some places i’d like to go. you’re more than welcome to book a trip for yourself, but i will not engage with you in any way. (i kept it domestic…ish to be polite)

arizona

this is a whole spa thing…

tulum

utah. also utah

montana

this is an all inclusive ranch experience… can you imagine the discreet fun i would have! and the joy you would get from witnessing that, second hand.

wyoming

erewhon gift card

somewhere in the range of $1000-5000 should take care of me for the fall. if you need to understand why, please read this

macarons

not shitty ones. please use bottega louie as a standard but you can find better i’m sure. go to france! i want like 45 of them. pistachio is my favorite; i also like rose, salted caramel, strawberry.

i want to go to a lakers game, but i must be courtside.

no link.

sunglasses chain thing

i am v embarrassed to put this here because i was directed to it from some bop’s instagram i never should have been on… but we all make mistakes and now you can literally pay for mine. (when i typed “sunglass chain”, it autocorrected sunglass to dumbass.) feel free to have a regular glasses chain custom made if you’d rather not support the local business of an instagram celebrity. i wear glasses now to look smarter but uglier.

a candle 

this candle smells like the gramercy hotel in new york. i once stepped on john mcenroe’s foot “accidentally” at the bar inside this hotel in 2013. that is enough of an interesting story to make you buy me 5 of these candles, right? consider it preemptive retribution for the serena williams comment.

a yoga mat

it’s a long story… i saw a spider in my home and my neighbor called the police on me because i was yelling and crying so loudly she thought i was being murdered. but in actuality, i was heaving a yoga mat across the room to cover the intruder... and then i stomped it to smithereens, effectively rendering the yoga mat - which had previously never been in use - useless. i need another one. and this one is one of the most expensive ones i could find. it’s luxuriously dense, like my cerebrum.

really good headphones

i think this pair are really good but then again i am an idiot. i will accept any that someone deems “really good”.

megaphone

i’d like a megaphone for reasons i don’t feel comfortable getting into here. i have not googled but any top of the line megaphone should do.

in conclusion, i will settle for a job a dinner at olive garden or nobu malibu on my birthday - with uber suv roundtrip fee included - where no one sings happy birthday to me and no one asks “how my career is going”! my birthday is september 26th.

godspeed.

#my birthday #lists of things #lists of things i want #birthday lists #9/26; never forget #hello it's my birthday #Happy Birthday To Me #birthday gifts #things i want #invidious consumption #waste!

[ollies-outies]

After effects of a main superhero story, the antagonist tries to get life back to basic order, living a simple by-clock job life. They become seriously depressed, especially with reflecting on their mistakes as well as PTSD from the fight with the hero.

hi id like to entitle this piece: “i dont have depression, ptsd, and have only ever had a mild panic attack.” if i fucked anything up pls tell me so i can like? not fuck it up in the future.

[1888 words, warnings for suicide mention and all the other stuff i talked about]

As soon as the plan went sour, they’d all killed themselves. It had been a pact of sorts: better to die than see the plan fail.

But, of course, Benjamin had been too slow.

And now here he was.

He could still see the spot from the window (the stupid fucking McDonalds drive-through window), where Marie had died. He hadn’t been there when she’d pulled the pin, of course. But the giant bite her grenade had taken out of the cement and storefronts that the city still hadn’t managed to fill was all the proof he needed.

A blue Subaru pulled up, cutting off his view of the scene that he didn’t want to see anyways. A lady, bleached-blonde and middle-aged, poked her head out the window. Her knockoff Gucci sunglasses glinted light straight into Ben’s eyes.

“You ordered the salad, right?” He asked, trying to sound cheerful.

“And a coffee,” she said, not putting nearly as much effort into her cheer. As he handed her the food, she lowered her shades, squinting at him. “…you look familiar.”

He got that a lot. Even though he’d worn a mask during his time as public enemy number one, his image had been plastered on every newspaper at least once a week for a solid year or so; that kind of exposure tends to leave an imprint on people’s minds.

He wasn’t worried though. This woman didn’t expect the man who’d threatened to destroy the city on a near-monthly basis to be serving her Micky D’s takeout. So she didn’t make the connection. He shrugged at her. “I’ve just got one of those faces.”

Once the coffee was safely in her seat holder, she rolled up her window and drove away. But not before leaving him with her two cents: “Not with that scar, you don’t.”

Thanks for the reminder, ma'am, he thought at her. He would’ve said it out loud, but McDonald’s policy dictated that he avoid sassing customers. The scar, which ran from his forehead, down the bridge of his nose, and ended in the center of his cheek, had also happened on the day when it all went to shit.

Benjamin preferred not to think about it.

Which meant that, of course, the next five customers were spent actively trying not to think about the scar. Or Marie, or Jacob or Marcus or Lee. It worked about as well as it always did.

Four customers more, and then Alyssa, the manager, called him over. “I’m taking over at the window. You take the counter, ‘kay?”

He nodded. At least then he wouldn’t have to look at the crater. Marie’s crater.

With every customer that came through, Ben became more and more aware of the scar. People would look at him, and he was sure their eyes would flick to the scar for a moment before politely averting their gaze. It had faded over the two years since he’d got it, and he covered it up every morning. Apparently the concealer had rubbed off today.

The scar was throbbing by the time the man walked in. Even in civilian clothing, even after two years, Ben knew that face like the back of his hand: the tree-bark eyes, the dark hair curled like a Greek statue’s, the slightly upturned nose, bent to the left where it had broken and healed long ago.

It wasn’t a face Ben relished seeing.

A cold sweat sprung up between his shoulder blades. His hands started to shake with adrenaline. He looked around for something to do, someone to give the counter to, but Carter was already in front of the register.

To the rest of the world, the man was Solar Flare: protector of Radon Canyon, defeater of extraterrestrial threats, dimensional anomalies, and ‘domestic terrorists’ like what Ben used to be.

Right now, he was Carter Sanchez, complicator of Ben’s already not-great day.

“I’ll have a Big Mac and a cookie, please.” He smiled, and it might have been charming if Ben’s stomach weren’t swirling at the too-familiar, too-intimate smell of Carter’s cologne. Sandalwood. Fresh and woodsy, like a newly cut pine tree.

His fingers punched in the order, like a machine following a code. But his head was racing. Why’s he here? Does he recognize me? Is he here to kill me? Finish what I couldn’t? He wouldn’t. He doesn’t kill. But what if he did?

The food was handed to Ben, who handed it to Carter. For a moment, their hands brushed. Ben forced himself not to jerk away, and focused instead on praying that his shaking was less noticeable than he thought it was.

Carter thanked him and then just. Sat down.

Sat down and didn’t look at Ben again.

He seemed so… Okay. Like he wasn’t constantly thinking about the day two years ago.

And why would he? It was all just another day of work for Solar Flare. It was only Ben’s life that had gone up in flames.

It happened over at the stadium, just a couple blocks east of the McDonalds, and Marie’s Crater. The comm lines had cut abruptly to static as one by one, all of his friends pulled their pins and died, until there was only Ben left.

But he hesitated, like an idiot, and that was all the time Carter needed to knock the grenade out of his hand. When he tried to recover it, he’d been kicked, hard, and sent flying across the rubble left over from a previous battle. A sharp bit of metal scraped across his face as he flew past, cleaving from forehead to cheek. Deep enough to scar. Not deep enough to kill.

Because why would he ever be that lucky?

And then Carter had pinned him down, and asked him how, and why, and all that other stuff bleeding-heart heroes were probably contractually obligated to ask. And he was so close that Ben was suffocating in the sandalwood cologne and the coppery smell of blood pouring from the rift in his face into his eyes.

The sandalwood still lingered at the counter and Ben was having trouble keeping himself in the right moment, in the right place. Carter was still right there, enjoying a fucking Big Mac, oblivious to the presence of one of his greatest enemies not even ten feet away.

Well. Former greatest enemy.

After Marie, Benjamin had stopped. He’d had a cause to fight for - they all did. But without her and the others, it all seemed meaningless.

“Jamie,” she’d said to him, right before it had all gone wrong.  “When we win, you owe all of us ice cream.”

Most likely, she was just trying to lighten the mood. It worked, and he smiled. “Why me?” he’d asked.

“Because it’s your turn, stupid. I bought last time.”

And then they’d all died. But Carter was still there. And he was sitting down and eating a burger, and Ben’s friends were still dead.

A tide swelled up in his chest, threatening to break at a moment’s notice. It hurt, and there was an urgency to it that told him to get out.

He hardly heard the words that came out of his mouth (his throat felt so swollen, he wasn’t even sure if there had been any) to try and tell Alyssa he had to leave for a moment. He managed to make it to the family bathroom and lock the door before his legs gave out. The bathroom had been recently cleaned, and the tang of bleach wafted around him, mingling with the sandalwood still lingering like fog in his mind.

Breath was coming in and out of his windpipe in erratic bursts, like a bird being shook in its cage by a particularly sadistic child.

“Just kill me already!”

“No.” It was infuriating how easily Carter could hold him down. Nobody that dressed in such a ridiculous latex suit had any right being so strong. “You’re going to calm down, and then we’re going to the police.”

Ah, yes. Calm down so he could be handed to the police. Like that wasn’t the same as a death sentence.

He hoped the awful choking noises he was making were drowned out by the bathroom fan. Its low humming crowded his ears and made it hard to think.

Police choppers hummed in the distance, close to where Ben, in a moment of confusion, had managed to give Carter the slip. He was miles away now, in one of the safe houses Lee had hooked them up with.

He was tempted to call his friends, make sure they were on their way safely. But he realized that, of course, they couldn’t respond. Not anymore.

His phone buzzed, knocking him out of the scene.

It was a text from Alyssa. ‘You okay? You’ve been in there for a while.’

Deep breaths, he told himself. In, out, in, out. Bleach filled his nose. Not the most pleasant, but its pungent smell helped root him back in the harshly-lit McDonald’s bathroom.

The sweat was drying, making his shirt stick to the small of his back. He didn’t want to go back to the safe house again. Any of them. Not the one he was staying at now, or any of the others spread around the city. He wasn’t sure if he could stand another night sleeping next to his friends’ ghosts; especially not now.

His legs were shaky, but he managed to push himself up the wall into a standing position.

‘I’m fine,’ he responded. ‘Could I leave a bit early though?’ It took him a good seven tries and a couple autocorrects to get his shaking fingers to sort out the right letters, but he eventually got it.

‘Of course! I’ll take your shift tomorrow too, if you need?’

He smiled. Alyssa was much kinder than he deserved. ‘Thank you.’ Only three tries this time; he was starting to feel better. The shaking was subsiding, his stomach was settling, and though the dried sweat made him smell a bit like a scared animal, at least his skin was feeling more like it belonged on his own body again.

After a few more deep breaths, Ben felt alright opening the door. He didn’t bother going to get his bag, and he didn’t risk looking back to see if Carter was still there. The goal was to get on the first bus and ride as far from Radon Canyon as possible. There was probably enough money on his card for a motel room. He could worry about quitting and his woefully barren resume tomorrow; all that mattered now was leaving.

The bus he finally got on was heading east. There was a game going on in the stadium where his life should have come to an end two years ago. Ben’s eyes lingered for a few moments, until the cement walls and giant parking lot were hidden from view by the train station, and then a block of office buildings, and then a park where a team was just starting soccer practice.

Every mile out of the city felt like another weight lifting away. Another painful reminder gone, another memory out of mind.

At the last stop, hours away, in the middle of the night, it felt like he was breathing for the first time in two years.

#mutuals are asleep time to post my shitty writing before they wake up #also sorry im Bad AF at endings yikes #megans writing