#anyway remember when i was institutionalized myself because i was too good at turning off all my feelings???

[bioethicists]

it's actually terrifying how quickly the concept of self care (originally a radical concept rooted in the black panther party's efforts to support other black ppl living through racism) became another tool of self-management which is viewed as both a moral obligation + an individual responsibility. businesses + employers + other institutions now easily wield it as a progressive way to say "if you're upset about xyz, make yourself get over it". "we are going to treat you like shit + you need to learn how to cope with that or else you're doing something wrong"

i have seen job listings where "ability to practice self care" was listed as a requirement for employment. as a case worker, we were repeatedly drilled on "self-care" as a response to unconscionably high case loads, traumatizing experiences, dead end job obligations, + poor living conditions due to subpar pay/high stress. my clients would go to appointments regarding their evictions, food insecurity, active domestic violence situations, etc + receive tips on "self care" without any tangible community, legal, or structural support to follow.

everyone absolutely deserves to care for themselves + it is useful to circulate affirmations + advice on how to do this. this should happen within communities, through a sincere concern/love for one another, as a way of helping everyone live the best life possible while we work towards total liberation. it should not be a replacement for caring for one another!!! it should be one of many ways of caring for one another!!!

#they once made me go to a training about how to turn off your feelings before working with institutionalized clients #literally stating that empathy + emotions are what cause burnout when working in the mental health field #i wish i was making that up i really truly do #i probably still have screenshots lmao #anyway remember when i was institutionalized myself because i was too good at turning off all my feelings??? #cuz i do. #anti psychiatry

[him-e]

what did you think of shadow and bone? have you read the books? i only read the duology

Thoughts on Shadow and Bone, now that you've probably seen it?

I think the show is alright? It lacks a real wow factor as far as I’m concerned, but it’s enjoyable. It’s especially enjoyable in those parts I didn’t anticipate to like / didn’t even know would be there. 

Whereas the main selling points leave a lot to be desired.

The good stuff: the visuals. The aesthetic. The overall concept. Production, casting and costumes are excellent, the setting is fascinating. The worldbuilding isn’t perfect and is sometimes confusing, which is probably due to the show jumping ahead of the books and introducing elements that happen much later in the book saga, but I’m loving the vague steampunk-y vibe of it mixed with more typical fantasy stuff and slavic-inspired lore, the fact that it’s set in dystopian Russia rather than your usual ye olde England.

I find it interesting that in this ‘verse the Grisha are simultaneously superstars, privileged elite, legendary creatures and despised outcasts, according to the context and the type of magic they wield. It’s A Lot, and so far it’s all a bit underdeveloped and messy, like a patchwork of different narratives and tropes sewn together without an organic worldbuilding structure. (there are hints to a past when they were hunted, but how did they go from that to being, essentially, an institutionalized asset to the government isn’t clear yet. There’s huge narrative potential in this, and I hope future seasons will delve into those aspects)

Many of the supporting characters are surprisingly solid. I appreciated that Genya and Zoya eventually sort of traded places, subverting the audience’s assumptions about them and their own character stereotypes, despite the little screentime they were given.

Breakout characters/ships for me were Nina/Matthias, and even more so the Crows, i.e. the stuff I didn’t see coming and knew nothing about (having only read the first book). (I thought the entire Crows subplot was handled in a somewhat convoluted way, at least in the first episodes; it was hard to keep track of who wanted Alina and why, but the Crows’ chemistry is so strong it carried the whole Plot B on its shoulders).

HELNIK. As an enemies to lovers dynamic, Helnik was SUPER on the nose, I’d say bordering on clichéd with the unapologetic, straight outta fanfiction use of classic tropes like “we need to team up to survive” and “there’s only one bed and we’ll freeze to death if we don’t take our conveniently damp clothes off and keep each other warm with the heat of our naked bodies” (not that I’m complaining, but i like to pine for my ships a bit before getting to the juicy tropetown part, tyvm). And then they’re suddenly on opposite sides again because of a tragic misunderstanding - does Bardugo hate high-conflict dynamics? It certainly seems so, because between Helnik and Darklina I’m starting to see a pattern where the slow burn and blossoming mutual trust is rushed and painted in broad, stereotypical strokes to get as fast as possible to the part where they *hate each other again* and that’s... huh. Something.

^That’s probably why I’m almost more interested in Kaz x Inej, because their relationship feels a bit more nuanced, a bit more mysterious, and a bit more unpredictable. (I didn’t bother spoiling myself about them, so I really don’t know where they’re going, but it’s refreshing to see a dynamic that the narrative isn’t scrambling to define in one direction or the other as quickly as possible)

-

Now, as for Darklina VS Malina... I found exactly what I expected. 

Both are ship dynamics I’m, on principle, very much into (light heroine/dark villain, pining friends to lovers) but both are also much less interesting than they claim to be, or could have been with different narrative choices. I’ll concede that the show characters are all more fleshed out and likable than their book counterparts, and the cringe parts I vaguely remembered from the books played out differently. And, well, Ben Barnes dominates the scene, he’s hot as HELL, literally every single second he’s on screen is a fuck you to Bardugo’s attempts to make his character lame and uninteresting and I’m LOVING it, lol.

But yeah, B Barnes aside, Darklina is intrinsically, deliberately made to be unshippable. 

It makes me mad, because it’s - archetypally speaking - made of shipping dynamite: yin/yang-sun and moon, opposites attract, COMPLEMENTARY POWERS AND SO ON. And what does Bardugo do with these ingredients? A FUCKING DELIBERATE DISASTER:

^ Placing the kiss so early on (season 1, episode five) effectively kills the romantic tension that was (correctly) building up until that point, and leaves the audience very little to still hope for, in terms of emotional evolution of the dynamic. 

Bardugo lays all the good stuff down as early and quickly as possible (the bonding, the conflicted attraction, the recognizing the other as one’s equal, etc) only to turn the tables and pull the rug so y’all sick creepyshippers won’t have anything to look forward to, because THEY’VE ALREADY HOOKED UP AND THAT BELONGS TO THE PAST, IT’S OVER, THEY’RE ENEMIES. This, combined to the fact that she falls for him *without* knowing who he really is, is the opposite of what I want from a heroine/villain ship (it’s basically lovers to enemies, and while that can be valid too, I wanted to see more pining and more prolonged, tormented symbolic attraction to the Shadow/Animus on Alina’s part). 

But here’s the trick: it’s not marketed as lovers to enemies - it has all the aesthetics and trappings of an enemies to lovers (the Darkling is, from the get go, villain-presenting, starting from his name), so it genuinely feels like a trollfic, or at the very least a cautionary tale *against* shipping the heroine with the tall dark brooding young villain, and I don’t think it’s cool at all. It makes the story WAY less interesting, because it humanizes the villain early on (when it’s not yet useful or poignant to the story, because it’s unearned) but it’s a red herring. The real plot twist is that the villain shouldn’t be sympathized with, just defeated: there’s a promise of nuanced storytelling, that is quickly denied and tossed aside. So is the idea of incorporating your Shadow (a notion that Bardugo must be familiar with, otherwise she wouldn’t have structured Alina and the Darkling as polar opposites who complement each other, but that she categorically refutes)

Then we have Malina. The good ship.

Look, I’m not that biased against it. I don’t want to be biased on principle against a friends to lovers dynamic that antagonizes a heroine/villain one, because every narrative is different, and for personal reasons I can deeply relate to the idea of being (unspeakably) in love with your best friend. So there are aspects of Malina that I can definitely be into, but it troubles me that in this specific context it’s framed as a regression. It’s Alina’s comfort zone, a fading dream of happiness from an idealized childhood, to sustain which the heroine systematically stunts her growth and literally repressed her own powers, something that in the books made her sickly and weak. But the narrative weirdly romanticizes this codependency, often making her tunnel vision re: going back to Mal her primary goal and centering on him her entire backstory/motivation, to the point that when she starts acting more serious re: her powers and alleged mission to destroy the Fold, it feels inorganic and unearned. 

Mal is intrinsically extraneous to Alina’s powers, he doesn’t share them, he doesn’t understand them, he has little to offer to help her with them, and so the feeling is that he’s also extraneous to her heroine’s journey, aside from being a sort of sidekick or safe harbor to eventually come back to. People have compared him to Raoul from Phantom of the Opera, and yeah, he has the same ~magic neutralizer~ vibe, tbh.

The narrative also polarizes Mal’s normalcy and relative “safety” against Aleksander’s sexy evil, framing Alina’s quasi-platonic fixation on the former as a better and purer form of love than her (much more visible and palpable) attraction to the latter. This is exacerbated by the show almost entirely relying on scenes of them as kids to convey their bond. I’m sure there are ways to depict innocent pining for your best friend that don’t involve obsessively focusing on flashbacks of two CHILDREN running in a meadow and looking exactly like brother and sister. LIKE. I get it, they’re like soulmates in every possible way, BUT DO THEY WANT TO KISS EACH OTHER?

Which brings me to a general complain: for a young adult saga centering on a young heroine and full of so many hot people, this story is weirdly unsexy? There are a lot of shippable dynamics, but they’re done in such a careless, ineffective way that makes ZERO EFFORT to work on stuff like slow burn, pining and romantic tension, and when it does it’s so heavy handed that the viewer doesn’t feel encouraged at all to fill the blanks with their imagination and start anticipating things (which is, imo, the ESSENCE of shipping). The one dynamic that got vaguely close to this is, again, Kaz and Inej, and coincidentally it’s also the one we didn’t get confirmed as romantic YET. Other than that, where’s the slow burn? What ship am I supposed to agonize over during the hiatus to season two? Has shipping become something to feel ashamed of, like an embarrassing relative you no longer want to invite in your home?

Anyway, back to Alina/Darkling/Mal, this is how the story reads to me:

girl suspects to be special, carefully pretends to be normal so she can stay with Good Boy

the girl’s powers eventually manifest; she’s forcibly separated from Good Boy

the girl’s powers attract Bad Boy who is her equal and opposite but is also a major asshole

girl initially falls for Bad Boy; has to learn a hard lesson that nobody that sexy will ever want her for who she is, he’s just trying to exploit her

also, no, there is no such thing as a Power Couple

girl is literally given a slave collar by Bad Boy through which he harnesses her power (a parody of the Twin Scars trope)

you know how the story initially suggested that the joint powers of Darkness and Light would defeat evil? LOL NO, Darkness is actually evil itself and the way you destroy evil is using Light to destroy Darkness, forget that whole Jungian bullshit of integrating your shadow, silly!

conclusion: girl realizes being special sucks. She was right all along! Hiding and suppressing her powers was the best choice! She goes back to the start, to the same Good Boy she was meekly pining for prior to the start of the story.

... there’s an uncomfortable overall subtext that reads a lot like a cautionary tale against - look, not just against darkships and villain/heroine pairings, but also *overpowered* heroines and, well... change? Growth?

Like, it’s certainly a Choice that Alina starts the story *already* in love with Mal. That she always knew it was him. The realization could have happened later (making the dynamic much more shippable, too), but no. 

#anon #asks #* #sab for ts #long post #darklina for ts #malina for ts #sorry it took me a while but i wanted to see the whole season first

[sellyoursoulforagoodfic]

Request: Jango Fett x Jedi!Reader

Request by @sweeetteaa​: So have had this idea for a while now, but I suck at writing so hear me out: Jango Fett x reader, but the reader is a Jedi who goes to investigate Kamino with Obi-Wan and when she meets Jango - it’s love at first sight. And of course sassy Boba also loves her.

Jango Fett x reader

Word Count: 1825

Note: Obi-wan is on Kamino a LOT longer than he is in the movie because reasons

There were times when you thoroughly enjoyed your long-standing friendship with Obi-wan Kenobi. For example, any time he’d come to you ranting about whatever ridiculous situation Anakin had gotten them into; you almost always got a hearty laugh out of those instances.

This, however, was not one of those times.

Right now, you were rueing the day you’d decided to spar with this particular human because he’d dragged you along on his hunt for an apparently not-so-imaginary planet where you were currently getting an astoundingly confusing tour to show off an army of (admittedly quite attractive) clones made for the Republic.

You leveled your friend with a glare behind the tour guide's back and mouthed a harsh, “What the fuck?”

He just shrugged helplessly. His face smoothed back over into calm interest the instant the Kaminoan turned to glance at him. It never ceased to amaze you when he displayed that renowned ‘Negotiator’ facade.

Always one to be hands-on rather than to be lectured at, you spoke up, “You said they were highly trained for battle, yes?”

“Of course,” she replied breezily.

“Would it be possible for me to sit in on one of their drills? I’m somewhat of a tactician myself; I’d like to see how they perform in action. You and Obi-wan can keep viewing the process in the meantime.”

“Brilliant idea!” Obi-wan agreed, obviously seeing your plan of gathering more information.

The Kaminoan nodded. “Your timing is most convenient,” she informed you. “There is a simulation scheduled a few minutes from now. We have an overhead observation bay from which you can watch alongside their instructor.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

~

By the time you arrived, the simulation was already underway, and the clone that appeared to be the instructor judging from the under-armor blacks he was wearing barely spared you a glance while you were introduced. Not that you could blame his disinterest, his brothers down below were putting on quite the show. Still, you would like to glean at least a little information from the clones themselves about this place, and there needed to be a conversation happening for that so . . .

“Your sniper there needs to learn that his priority shouldn’t be the heavy troopers first.”

A handful of scars on the instructor’s face were exposed to you when he turned to smirk in your direction were surprising; you’d assumed such injuries would have been healed flawlessly in this facility. Apparently, that wasn’t the case. There was a curious rush of Force that rushed through you when he raised an amused eyebrow at you. “Oh? Who should he be focusing on then?”

“If he wants the rest of his team to survive, he’d target the stealth team making their way around the edges of the room.”

His brown eyes widened fractionally in mild surprise. “A Jetii that cares about the safety of soldiers? An unusual find. Who are you again?”

“Y/N. Another Jedi and I are here to check on the status of the army.” You made sure to make your voice wobble in a false tell.

One he seemed to buy based off the way that his smirk grew into a lopsided grin that made your heart inexplicably race. “You’re a terrible liar.”

You weren’t, but it played to your advantage to make him think you couldn’t lie for shit. Your Master, Mace Windu, had always encouraged your underhanded methods of gaining information even when the other Jedi frowned on them. ‘Use every advantage,’ he’d always say. The strange emotions that were racing around your mind because of this strange man, though, did concern you, but you shoved that to the side for later examination. You allowed a defeated-sounding sigh escape your lips as you let your body sag. “So I’ve been told.”

“So let me guess: something tipped you off about Kamino and you came looking?”

Well, he was certainly more intuitive than you would have guessed given that he was right and all. Not just a pretty face. “Busted.”

“So a tactician, piss-poor liar, and a curious adventurer. You are quite strange for a Jetii.”

“And you seem to think you know a lot about Jedi for someone who’s never left this planet.”

The second the words left your mouth, his dark eyes lit up, and you knew you’d made a mistake in your read of the man. It very abruptly all fell into place. He didn’t have those scars because of any fault in the healing here in the facility; he’d earned them in the field away from proper medical care. His knowledge wasn’t learned from some other instructor; it was learned first-hand. And his prejudice wasn’t taught institutionally; it was born from some darkness in his past.

“You’re not a clone, are you?”

“No, sweetheart, I’m the original.”

Your heart skipped a beat at the sound of his quiet chuckle, and you’d be damned if you didn’t crack a small smile yourself in response. Vow of attachments aside, you couldn’t help but already be fond of this strange man you’d just met. “So what’s your name then, Mr. Original?”

“Jango Fett.”

That name rang a bell or six. “The Mandalorian bounty hunter?” The one with the famous loathing of Jedi because they slaughtered his people?

“My reputation precedes me?”

“As well as your hatred for my kind, making you a curious choice for the progenitor of an army meant to work beside us to protect the Republic.”

“Money is money, sweetheart, and I’m learning that there might be a few Jetii that aren’t all bad.”

“A few?”

“Well . . . one or two . . . that I’d like to get to know better over a friendly dinner?”

“I suppose that could be arranged. We need to talk about how you’re training you snipers to be blind, anyway.”

~

As it turned out, dinner was in Jango’s apartment along with his clone/son Boba who you found out rather quickly you adored. The initial greeting had been rough, but he quickly warmed to you when you showed him the blaster you kept hidden within your robes for emergencies. He’d been telling some tale for the last few minutes about some trip he and his father had gone on, and his excitement was practically tangible.

“So anyways, Dad is busy trying to tie the guy up, and I spotted a no-good Jetii--”

“Boba!” his father interjected.

“What? It’s not like she’s a normal Jetii. She carries a blaster and agreed to go on a date with you.”

Your eyes widened dramatically, “This isn’t--”

“Son, this isn’t--” Jango cut himself off as the two of you talked over each other in your haste to deny the attraction you’d both been feeling all night.

“I’m a kid, Dad. I’m not stupid.”

“Boba--” This time you were cut off by a knock at the door.

The boy was already on his feet as he shouted, “I’ll get it!”

In the quiet that followed, Jango admitted, “He wasn’t wrong to assume that, you know.”

“I know,” you replied honestly, “but I took the vows, and we just met . . .”

“Dad! It’s for you!”

“Coming!” His eyes never left yours as he stood. “If you ever decide to leave that order of hypocrites . . .” The offer was clear.

“I know who to call,” you promised.

In the span of a single breath, you went from gazing at him longingly to being stunned still at the feeling of his lips on yours to staring at his retreating back in still-frozen surprise. And then everything devolved into a whirl of passive-aggressive accusatory comments, Obi-wan’s pitying gaze, and a chase that left you pondering, well, everything as you and your best friend chased the man that so easily swayed your mind away from your rigid vow of no attachments. 

“Obi-wan?” you called quietly over the comms that connected your two fighters. The two of you were tracking Jango’s ship, and you had a blackhole of anxiety gnawing its way through your stomach.

“I’m guessing this is something about that date I interrupted?”

“It wasn’t a date,” you argued automatically, but even you could hear how convincing you weren’t, “but yes.”

“It’s really getting to you that he is our assassin, isn’t it?” Your silence spoke libraries about your answer. “I’m sorry, darling.” Surprisingly, he didn’t kick into a lecture about the Code like he would have with Anakin, which you greatly appreciated. 

“Do you remember the old myths about the Force?”

“I suppose you have a specific one in mind?”

“The one about how everyone has someone out there connected to them by the Force.”

There was a heavy pause. “Do you believe this Jango Fett is your soulmate, Y/N?” Ever straight to the point was the renowned Obi-wan Kenobi.

You bit your lip, trying to fight back the tears that were currently making your eyes sting. That myth was the only way you could explain the feelings you had when looking at Jango, the way the Force seemed to dance between the two of you when he kissed you. “Yes.”

This time it was Obi-wan’s silence that was telling. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

~

After everyone was onboard a ship that was flying away from Geonosis, you locked yourself in your room with only Obi-wan allowed to enter so you could mourn in peace. All at once the galaxy was at war, your soulmate (for that’s what he must have been for you to have been brought to your knees by his death the second his head was severed even though you were too far to have seen it with your own eyes) was dead, and you were surrounded by his clones like they were living ghosts. You were a wreck, to put it mildly, and you could not let Anakin see you like this and get it into his head that such attachments were acceptable even if this was a special circumstance.

Already, you’d been weeping for hours while collapsed in the middle of the floor. And that was precisely the position Obi-wan found you when he finally returned from giving his report to the Council. In an instant, you were swept into a tight hug.

“Is there anything I can do?”

You shook your head minutely. “I can’t do this, Obi,” your voice shook. “I can’t fight with his ghosts by my side only to watch them die under my command in a war that no one wants.”

“You have my support no matter what you choose,” he promised quietly, “as long as you keep in touch.”

A shaky breath left your lips as some of the tension left your body. You hadn’t realized it, but part of you had been terrified that you would lose your best friend in this chaos. “Thank you.”

“What will you do?”

“Boba was there.”

“The little clone?”

“His son . . . sort of. He’s just a child that lost his father. I can’t just leave him.”

“I’d expect nothing less from you.”

#jango fett x reader #jango fett imagine #jango x reader #jango imagine #reader insert #sellyoursoulforarequest #star wars imagine #sw imagine

[more-miserables]

Ooookay, so my friend @cubeswhump got me into this corner of the whump community, and I’m pretty hooked. So I thought I’d give it a go myself. This is my first time writing for the whump community (mostly anyway, I was in another make-your-OCs-suffer community) so I’d be grateful for feedback and suggestions. Let me know if I get shit wrong.

Also Cube told me I should tag @albino-whumpee (hello, I really love your work and art, and I’m super nervous to post this lol)

Warnings for dehumanizing language, institutionalized slavery, boxboy universe, implications of past self-harm, implications of drugging, lots of messed up stuff, you guys know.

He thought it was an American thing. That’s where all the original stories seemed to come from. He remembered his parents’ fancy dinner parties when he was little, how all the posh folk had nattered on about what a great idea it was. A cheap, lifelong companion who would bow to your every whim. They must’ve been delighted when the idea spread across the globe, making its way across Europe and to England. He didn’t doubt his parents’ friends all had a boxboy/babe now. Maybe his parents did too; he wouldn’t know.

He never thought he’d need to go near the WRU. It wasn’t like he could ever afford one of their “pets.” But it was his only other option now, it was that or gash his wrists. He’d been fired from work, was failing university classes he was too anxious to go to and too depressed to care about, and completely alone in a grotty flat he couldn’t afford, estranged and cut off from his whole family because he was such a bloody pathetic loser. Not that they’d ever been too fond of him, but that hardly mattered now.

He’d seen the WRU adverts. They said they could cure your mental illnesses. They didn’t give much detail, but since his only other solution was death, he figured he didn’t have much to lose. He was longing to get rid of that awful tight feeling in his chest, the heavy fog of numb misery. They’d train you up and send you off to work, and you’d be treated like family in return. Honestly, he wanted a family far more than he wanted his anxiety and depression treated. A real family who hugged and kissed you, not a coldly indifferent, violent one like his own. He wanted to be loved.

He took a deep breath and walked up to the heavy wooden doors of the WRU.

***

“This one is very unstable. Scars all over his arms. That’ll lower his value. Reacting very badly to training so far. We can’t risk sending him off alone.”

“If we train him up as a Domestic, we can bond him to a more docile Companion. We can advertise them as good value if their owner doesn’t want to pay for scar reduction treatment. The Domestic doesn’t necessarily need to be pretty. And they’re both firsthands.”

“Do you have a Companion in mind?”

“Indeed.”

***

“Are you cold?”

“Shh. We can’t talk until our new owner gets here.”

“I’m whispering.” The bigger of the two boys wriggled around again, his back pressed up against the cold wood of the tight little box. The smaller one was squished in, their bare chests touching, shivering in unison in the chilly winter air. The box wasn’t doing much to protect them from the elements. Not that One expected that, of course. And he was lucky to have Two huddled up beside him to keep warm. Most pets travelled alone.

“You’re shivering,” One whispered persistently, trying to wriggle around in the tiny space to wrap his arms around Two. Since they shared a code number (156011) and attempting to remember their before-names hurt, they’d been One and Two ever since they’d met at training, when they’d been chained together by the neck and told they’d remain that way. Using the loo had been terribly embarrassing for the first few days - One winced as his temple throbbed. He wasn’t supposed to remember. That was bad.

He felt Two’s hands at his temples, stroking gently. “You think too much,” he said. “We just have to do as we’re told. That’s all.”

One sighed and thought it better to keep his mouth shut, resting his chin on the top of Two’s head. Two’s curly black hair was newly washed and soft as duck-down.

Time dragged on and on, endless in the darkness. It was freezing cold, but the air in the box was thick and breathing was difficult. One’s limbs twitched restlessly, longing to stretch. He wanted to whisper again, but he didn’t want to worry Two. He knew Two had plenty of worries when it came to him as it was. Their training had been far longer than most because of him. He’d been wilful and stupid and refused to learn. And still Two was never angry, never frustrated. He cried when One cried, held him when the sleeping drugs wore off and the vivid nightmares broke through, helped ease him out of bed when he was too hurt and sedated to stand. One knew he was supposed to be equally loyal to their new master, but deep down One didn’t think anyone could ever match Two for his affections.

PAIN. Bad thought bad thought bad thought...

They must’ve slept for a while, because they woke stiffer and colder than ever, clutching each other in alarm as the box lurched to the side. They could hear a chorus of female-sounding grunts and groans, and a male voice barking irritably at her to hurry up and get the dratted thing inside before he froze. Two squeezed One’s arm meaningfully. “Smile,” he breathed into One’s ear, feather-light and almost inaudible. One stretched his lips apart obediently.

“Open it then, girl!” The man’s voice again. It was old and raspy, but very posh and plummy. It sparked something in One’s memory - a bad memory, because it made his head throb again. He clenched his teeth and fought to hold a smile as the lid was finally lifted off and light flooded inside. It hurt after hours of darkness, but the pets knew it was unattractive to squint.

“Oh my! I didn’t know you ordered a pair!”

“You know I needed two of them. A Combination wouldn’t be able to get everything done around the house while taking care of me. Get them out, Ivy, what’s the matter with you?”

They stood up obediently, still chained at the neck. A middle-aged woman with a straggly ponytail and a very old man in a wheelchair were staring hard at them.

“Ivy, take the chain off, I have their collars for them. I don’t want you two joined together during the day, it’s not practical, but you’re to be chained together at night. I know the Domestic is a flight risk. You’d better call me Mr Stanley,” the old man said. He beckoned to Two as soon as the chains were off. “Come here, you. You’re the Companion?”

“Yes, Mr Stanley,” Two said, going to him obediently. One stiffened. This was the first time he’d been apart from Two in... he didn’t know. As long as he remembered.

Mr Stanley leaned right out of his wheelchair to examine him, nodding approvingly at Two’s smooth full cheeks, large brown eyes and his thatch of black curls. “Lovely little thing, but you’re very small. Will you be able to do the heavy lifting?” Stanley asked, sucking his teeth at Two’s petite frame and dainty 5’2” height.

“I’m stronger than I look, Mr Stanley. And One could help me if needs be.”

“Who? Oh, that one. Very nice. Position one.” Two got into the right placement immediately, feet apart, arms loose. In the background One did the same, just in case. Mr Stanley smirked. “Good. Now, I spent a good deal of money on you two,” he said. “I don’t want any funny business. If I think you’re slacking for a second I can send you back to be refurbished. You don’t want that, do you?”

They shook their heads in perfect unison, as if they’d practised.

“I’m pleased about that,” Mr Stanley said grimly, fixing an extravagant sparkly blue collar onto Two with his own shaky hands. “There you go now. My, you’re a pretty little thing.”

“Thank you, sir. I look forward to assisting you any way I can,” Two said, smiling angelically.

One watched morosely, wishing he could be as good at this as Two. He’d never have thought to say something like that, something the owners just ate up. Everyone had always told One that he held Two back in their training.

Pain again. Stop remembering things.

Mr Stanley continued fussing over Two, telling him all his duties and discussing his health problems at length. He tossed One’s collar to Ivy. “You can do his, Ivy. Fasten it tight.” It was plain brown, made of cheap scratchy nylon.

Ivy approached One warily, like she thought he might bite, sucking her teeth. “Stanley, couldn’t you pay for scar treatments?” she called, fastening One’s collar as quickly as possible. She actually shuddered when her fingers touched the icy skin of his neck, jolting backwards. “It’s turning my stomach.”

One could feel his cheeks starting to burn. No no no! Blushing was bad, any sign that you were feeling embarrassed was insulting to your owner! He had to fight not to hide his arms behind his back. He didn’t really remember how he got those scars. He’d tried to once, back in training, but it made his head hurt so much that he went dizzy and puked all over the floor. Two had held One’s unruly red hair out the way and rubbed his back. He’d be a great Companion.

One hadn’t tried to remember anything about the scars since, but sometimes - when he was really miserable - he suddenly felt like there should be a new one.

Mr Stanley scoffed. “Don’t be so pathetic, Ivy. I clearly didn’t pick that one for his looks, you know I never cared for redheads. He’s going to be holed up in the kitchen, I don’t give a damn what he looks like - and I’m not shelling out even more money to get him sorted. I’m only going to be seeing this one regularly, and he’s perfect.” His wrinkled face creased into a smile, eyes sparkling. He looked so proud of Two - and One suddenly felt something hot and ugly in his chest. He was envious. He didn’t like anyone else being around Two, not when they’d spent so much time together. Literally tethered to one another.

But this was his owner. A much more intense pain shot across One’s forehead, so powerful it was a struggle to remain in position one. The edges of his vision were fuzzy and red when the pain finally subsided, but he managed not to sway.

“I suppose I should give you a name,” Mr Stanley said to Two, tapping his nose like he was playing with a baby.

“We’d be very grateful for names, sir,” Two said eagerly.

“Ah, you’re a sunny little thing! Well, I’ll tell you what. You know what my surname is, boy? Yates. That’s me, Stanley Yates. And to show you’re a part of this family now, as long as you promise to be a good boy, I’d like you to be called Yates. Understood?” Mr Stanley said.

“Yes, sir. Thank you very much. I’d be honoured,” Two - no Yates, don’t quibble with the owner’s name choice - said, smiling. Then he looked over his shoulder. “Will One be Stanley, sir? Or will we both be known as Yates?”

One looked at Tw-Yates adoringly. He wanted him to be included in the family, just like those adverts had said. A family One never had, though he couldn’t remember why now. He couldn’t remember lots of things.

Mr Stanley peered over at One, sniffing disdainfully. He shook his head at the criss-cross of scars on One’s arms, of the thousands of freckles across his cheeks and arms and shoulders, at his baby-faced innocence coupled with a glint of defiance in his eyes, buried deep down after the training, but still present. Stanley’s eyes came to rest on One’s mop of fine red hair, sticking bolt upright and fluffing out all over the place like a dandelion clock. His hair seemed to defy gravity, both sticking upright and flopping in his face all at once.

“You can be Ginger,” Stanley said shortly.

And Ginger had to smile and thank him, because now he had a name and he needed to be grateful. He should always be grateful. Of course Stanley would like Yates best; Yates was perfect. Ginger was the scarred one, the one that reduced their value. The ugly one who stayed in the kitchen. He shouldn’t expect anything more. He shouldn’t ever think about how much easier it would be to not live anymore - he didn’t even remember where he got that idea from.

#my ocs #yates and ginger #male whump #dubcon tw #abuse tw #box boy whump #self harm tw #bonded pair #emotional abuse tw #my writing #bbu #wru #box boy #box boys #male whumpee #multiple whumpees

[dirtyfilthy]

The Betrayal Of Chelsea Manning By The Coward Adrian Lamo

I have only participated in “cancel culture” once that I can remember. Once, over the broad course of my life, and that was when Adrian Lamo sold Chelsea Manning out to the authorities. Motherfucker has the  sheer gall to call himself a hacker, and then rats someone out — not because of his principles, but from a constant desire for pure narcissistic supply -- and all this from a position of trust no less… 

I was real angry, and I wanted to put the boot in, any way I could. There was a special circle of hell reserved for people like Adrian Lamo… and as it would turn out, he was already in it. 

Amongst petty vendettas like stuffing his wikipedia page with all the well referenced dirt I could dig up, along the way, and kind of by-the-by, I ended up doing a lot of research on the guy, and then, well, the picture of Lamo that emerged… 

Jesus. 

He’s been a hardcore benzo addict since his twenties. If you know what to look for you can tell in some of his interviews, slurring his words and looking very spacey.  He never really had a real job, never broke into the industry he was aways on the fringes of. It’s kinda crazy, if you search for “homeless hacker Adrian Lamo” you can still see what the mass media thought of him before he turned in Chelsea. 

He’d kind of weaselled his way into popular consciousness by being a shameless self-promoter, and then managing to get caught in that spectacular “rebellious teenage hacker” vs. “huge faceless corporation” way that tends to capture people’s imagination. 

There were whole articles about him in Wired. Multiple in fact. Here’s one of earliest from 2004 (unfortunately now behind a paywall), “New York Times vs The Homeless Hacker”. The first few lines can still give you the gist, however

A self-styled security expert and serial self-promoter, Adrian Lamo made headlines as a grayhat hacker. Then the Gray Lady came down on his head. Not long ago Adrian Lamo was exploring an abandoned gypsum processing plant in West Philadelphia with two friends, when a police cruiser drove slowly by. Lamo’s friends were high on methamphetamines…

https://www.wired.com/2004/04/hacker-5/

Even during this phase of his life, a lot of people in the scene didn’t like him. At least, there were people complaining on hacker boards about him stealing exploits and then burning them for the publicity.  In the end he got off with probation and home detention, and that was the end of blatantly hacking into shit. Any more and he would certainly end up in prison. Attitudes were changing, the authorities had stopped seeing hacking as just high-spirited teenage hijinks. and the increasingly severe penalties could land you some serious time. 

After this, he just sorted floated around. He never got job in the industry like the rest of us, and I suspect he may have been  basically unemployable for one reason or another. The next time he popped up in my news feed was in 2010 with a strange article from ex-hacker turned journalist and friend of Lamo’s,, Kevin Poulsen — “Ex-Hacker Adrian Lamo Institutionalized, Diagnosed with Asperger’s” 

The first paragraph or so reads:

Last month Adrian Lamo, a man once hunted by the FBI, did something contrary to his nature. He says he picked up a payphone outside a Northern California supermarket and called the cops.

Someone, Lamo says, had grabbed his backpack containing the prescription anti-depressants he'd been on since 2004, the year he pleaded guilty to hacking The New York Times. He wanted his medication back. But when the police arrived at the Safeway parking lot it was Lamo, not the missing backpack, that interested them. Something about his halting, monotone speech, perhaps slowed by his medication, got the officers' attention

— (https://www.wired.com/2010/05/lamo/)

The article claimed Lamo had been arrested for acting strangely and then institutionalised, basically claiming the police had arrested him because he was autistic. At the time, I didn’t really give this a second thought, “oh well, ho-hum”. As itt turned out, this was a case of the most spectacular kind of “spin” I think I’ve ever seen; the only place the article actually intersected with general consensual reality was in stating Lamo had been arrested and placed on psychiatric hold.

The real story, which is entirely far more pathetic, was that Lamo’s family had become worried about his benzo use (“prescription anti-depressants”) and had cut him off. He totally lost the plot at this point and stormed out of house. Concerned about his mental state, and with fears for his physical safety, it was actually  his own family that called the police to try and find him. 

When confronted about this fairly massive discrepancy, Lamo claimed he hadn’t exactly “lied” as such, and had simply withheld some facts due to personal privacy concerns. 

It was at this point I finally began to see the whole tattered trajectory of Lamo’s entire life — trace the greasy path of his rainbow with my fingertips, and watch as the once bright twine became  increasing gray and frayed as each thread began to curve back towards it’s inevitable impact with the earth, when, at which point, everything important would begin to totally unravel around him.

At his core, Adrian Lamo was a narcissist, and so Adrian Lamo absolutely believed in the Adrian Lamo narrative, as only a narcissist can. Near of beginning of his tale, this was easy to do. He was a wandering Daoist sage, a renegade techno-monk character in a Neal Stephenson cyberpunk novella, and anytime he wanted to see his own reflection he could simply look in any of the major newspapers.  

After his arrest and release, the rest of the world moved on. His peers all settled down to well-paid industry gigs, and you couldn’t just pop the New York Times through an open proxy any longer — well, at least: not most of time, anyway. His own sword, never the exactly the sharpest in the first place, was beginning to show some signs of a serious structural rust. 

Without the constant assurance of people telling his own story back at him, what was he exactly? What did the mirror portray to him now?  An unemployed, semi-homeless drug addict, a hacker who couldn’t hack his way out of wet paper back with pick axe, the tired punch line to any number of bad jokes...   

Of course, the many similarities to my own life were not exactly lost on me. I was basically a case of being a few near misses and unlucky hits away from sitting in his exact position. I had made the transition to an industry career successfully, but I was still a drug addict with mental heath issues.  I had gone through my own narcissistic stage when I was younger, but thankfully grew out of it, the old moons no longer pulled on my tides the way they used to. 

The essential Lamo pattern had began to emerge. Still chasing the same bright stars that had long since sunk beneath the horizon line of the ocean; Lamo would begin to feel irrelevant —  Lamo would get then his name in the media in some fashion. A momentary peace was then achieved, then came a brief period of post-orgasmic. cosmic serenity. 

But of course, the wheel of karma will not stop spinning for anyone, and so, soon enough and all-to-quickly, the entire process of personal renewal, would have to, you know…..  begin anew.

A few other case studies were observed. An unreleased, permanently unfinished documentary featuring Lamo was mysteriously leaked on the internet. Of course, Lamo himself had leaked it. And there was always appearing on various morning television shows, Good Morning America, Fox News & the like.

But then the mother of all opportunities just dropped into his lap.

Chelsea Manning needed someone to talk to. 

Chelsea knew Lamo was Bi, so he was at least in the LGBT community. Adrian was a hacker too. He’d fought against the system in his day, he was certainly someone who would “get it”, she was very sure of this.  And when she did reach out, he was indeed very sympathetic. Honestly, it seemed like he really cared. Just a genuine human being, reaching out across the vast emotional void to provide a sense of empathy to someone who really, really needed it right now.. 

He was very sympathetic when Chelsea told him all about her struggles with gender identity, and he was very sympathetic when she said she was leaking gigabytes of information to Wikileaks…. But behind his sunglasses, Lamo eyes had already morphed into a marquee LED matrix endlessly scrolling his own name. Think of the news coverage!

This was big. This was very big.

It would, in fact, turn out to be fucking huge. Of course, within in the hacker scene, and to a certain extent, even outside it, everyone just fucking loathed him now.  Eventually even the news moved on, nobody wanted any more interviews, and in the end, when everything has already been all said and done: you are ultimately left with only yourself….

… a pathetic drug addict.  Of course, I have to keep telling myself that one point of intersection does not an entire venn diagram or an actual equality make. But I can’t shake the feeling that, perhaps, maybe we weren’t really all that different.  Maybe my own betrayals have had the simple luck of being a lot less public. 

Perhaps my own sins were just as ugly, but far less ambitious. 

Adrian Lamo died alone, from a drug overdose, in a private unit in an aged care facility in Wichita, Kansas.  He was 37 years old. An autopsy showed his kidneys were already failing. 

I guess Sartre got it wrong. Hell isn’t other people, it’s being left totally alone, with nothing else around but the tedious company of your own terrible self, and of course, the fucker won’t stop talking...

So obviously there was nothing more I could do to hurt Adrian Lamo, nothing that Adrian Lamo hadn’t done already. He had long since locked himself away in a prison cell of his own making. I do wonder if maybe one too many silent 3am’s hadn’t come crawling around the clock face when he was there & awake to witness it, lying in bed & staring at the ceiling and trying not to think about things.

Like I’m doing.

Shit, I hope don’t go out that way. 

#adrian lamo #chelsea manning #nonfiction #creative nonfiction

[eldritchsurveys]

930.

What may I call you? >> Mordred is fine.

Where are you right now, exactly? >> My bedroom.

Over or under 18? >> I’m over 18.

Have you been watching the Stanley Cup play-offs? (GO BRUINS!) >> No.

Ever believed your house was/is haunted? If yes, why; what happens? >> I lived in a studio in 2009 (my only time living alone) that I suspected had something hanging around. I was the first occupant, though (new building), so it couldn’t have been from a former resident, and I have no idea how else it could have accrued a haunting. Unless the site itself was haunted, I guess. I have no idea what kind of land the building was built on.

The building you live inside; how long ago was it built? >> According to the google search I just did, it was built in 1987, which makes me the same age as the building I live in.

Ever travel internationally? >> No.

If you could go anywhere RIGHT NOW, where would it be? And why? >> I don’t want to go anywhere right now.

Do you fancy someone currently? Tell me about them! >> No.

Ever have a big ol' crush on someone you've never met in person? If so, did you ever tell them you did? >> I’ve been attracted to people I knew online, yes. And yes, I’ve told most of them.

What makes you feel luxurious? >> I’m not sure. I don’t know when I last felt that exact way.

Do you enjoy drinking scotch as much as I do? >> Probably not.

What have you done that makes you proud of yourself? >> Well, I kept playing FFXIV instead of quitting forever in shame and telling myself I’ll never be any good at it. Believe it or not, that’s a milestone.

What makes you envy someone? >> Usually I envy people who seem to have had very little instability or suffering in their lives, because their brains work.

For you, is jealousy something that makes you more sad or angry-feeling? >> If you still mean envy, then it can be either one. I don’t experience jealousy as in relationship jealousy.

Do you get the munchies? >> I don’t smoke, so...

Every been to Germany? If so, what part? >> No.

Do you buy newspapers just for the puzzles? >> No, I have an app for newspaper crosswords.

Describe any tattoos or piercings you may have...? >> I don’t want to, I feel like I’ve described them a million times.

When's the last time you smacked someone's butt? (Or been smacked :P) >> That’s not a thing I do or encourage having done to me.

Do you enjoy making art? If so, what's your style like? >> I don’t make art.

Were you a shy child? >> I don’t know. I was mostly a distant child, I think.

Ever wanna run away with the circus? >> No.

What is the closest object to your feet right now? >> My weighted blanket, which is folded over the second half of the bed because it’s too hot to use.

Reach behind you- do you feel anything? What is it? >> The wall.

Is English your second language? >> No.

Have you ever designed and constructed your own clothing? >> I’ve altered clothing, but not designed and constructed from scratch.

What's the very last digit in your phone number? >> 3.

Is your house an odd or even number? >> This building is even-numbered.

Do you have a favorite superhero? Who? >> I like Iron Man and Doctor Strange. Also, does Promethea count?

What power would you like to receive, if given the option? >> I don’t know. The power of brain that work good.

Ever punch someone in the nose? >> No.

...will you write me a haiku? >> No.

What was the last thing that really delighted you? >> Probably a scene in FFXIV. For example, I did a lot of moogle sidequests today and moogles are fucking adorable.

Do you wear skin-colored clothes? >:C >> I don’t have any brown clothing, no.

Ever eat German cuisine? If so, what'd ya have? >> Yeah, I ate at Bavarian Inn on one of our yearly trips to Frankenmuth (which is a kind of... German-inspired tourist town or something -- we go there every fall for the giant world-famous Christmas store that’s also there). I don’t remember what I ordered, though. German cuisine, while hearty, isn’t dramatic or varied enough for me, though.

Do you have conversations with any animals? >> Well, yeah.

Do you have a little sibling? If so, are you protective of her/him? >> No.

Recommend me a good book? >> I don’t know you and I cannot recommend you a book.

Can you sleep on your back? (I can't, I feel too vulnerable!) >> I can, but I usually end up on my side eventually.

What's the last special thing you did for someone? (Buy, cook, etc.) >> I don’t know.

Did you cook something today? If so, what was it? >> No.

Ever baked ALL day? >> No.

Can you recognize the smell of death? >> A dead person? I mean, I could probably figure out what I’m smelling if I suddenly caught a whiff of a corpse. It seems pretty... singular.

Ever known a mortician or a coroner?? (Now you do!) >> Oh, that’s neat. Mortuary science is so fucking cool. Unfortunately, I don’t actually know you, so I still don’t know any morticians or coroners. :(

What makes you feel good about yourself? >> That’s a good question. I’m working on that.

Could you ever be some type of counselor for kids/teens? >> No.

Do you enjoy getting dressed up for no real reason? >> I imagine that could be fun. I don’t think it’d ever occur to me to do it, though.

What are you afraid of? >> Stuff.

Ever been to a maximum security prison? You, or just visiting? >> No.

Do you think mint toothpaste is too minty? >> I don’t.

How is a raven like a writing desk? >> Heh.

Are you currently eating or drinking something? If so, what? >> Aside from the occasional sip of water, no.

Do you own striped socks? What colors are your favorite ones? >> No.

Black Metal ist Krieg. Agree or Disagree? >> Eh. I mean, I listen to black metal, but I’m not going to make a big deal out of it.

Are there any numbers that have significance to you? >> Yes, 9 and 19.

Do you know how to read palms or tarot or anything else like that? >> I’m passable at reading tarot. For myself, that is.

Do you own any bones or other preserved organic ..things? >> Unfortunately not. Accepting all bone donations.

What do you think about internet piracy? >> I support the mateys.

Do you know anything about Nordic runes? >> I wouldn’t say I know anything about futhark, exactly. The fact that I have Mannaz tattooed on my hand notwithstanding.

How do you feel about children? >> I don’t have a particular feeling about children. It’s all dependent.

Whatcha looking forward to right now? >> Nothing.

How do you feel about clowns? >> I’m indifferent to clowns.

Are any of your friends clown by profession? >> No.

Do you put grated cheese on popcorn? (Yum!) >> I don’t eat popcorn.

Do you thing anyone ever actually gets in trouble for having milkcrates? >> Like, in their home? Who’s going to give a fuck unless a store employee literally saw you take it or something?

Do you tip street performers? (YOU SHOULD.) >> Not usually. I didn’t ask them to be there, I have no obligation to them. I’ll do it if I feel moved to (and if I happen to have cash, which is the other important variable here).

What are your virtues/morals? >> I don’t have a ready list.

What do you smoke, if anything? >> I don’t.

Does being an addict make someone a bad person, in your opinion? >> No.

Have you ever experienced any type of detox? >> No.

Ever been institutionalized? ...was it because of just one pepsi? >> Ha, I haven’t heard that song in a while. Anyway, yeah, I’ve been institutionalised.

Tie up, or be tied up? >> Well, I’m a switch, so.

Ever shoot a gun that wasn't a handgun? Rifle, shotgun, etc? >> No.

Is your mother a really cool lady? >> No.

Ever suddenly find a friend very attractive but had to keep it to yourself? >> Suddenly? That seems like a weird thing to have happen, lol. I imagine someone finally getting glasses after years of seeing everything kind of blurry and putting them on and going, “holy shit, my friend’s hot as fuck!”

What time is it right now? >> 7.42p EST.

Last time it's rained? >> Uh... a couple of nights ago, I think.

Ever been through a deadly natural disaster? >> No. I mean, I was in NYC when Hurricane Sandy came plowing through, but I wasn’t exactly in any of the parts of the city that got hit-hit.

What do you do when you lose power? >> I so rarely lose power that I don’t even know. I guess I would just read, if I could. Or go so deep into boredom that suddenly I become manically creative. They say that happens, or something.

Do you have a boot fetish too? >> No.

Have you ever done home-repair stuff? >> I mean, not really. I don’t live in a home, lmao. You’re supposed to call Maintenance if something needs fixing in these apartments. (I’m willing to bet that if you try fixing something yourself and you fuck up, you’re gonna be payin for it. Better to let Maintenance deal with it. At least if they fuck it up, the complex can deal with the consequences.)

Reason you last used a knife? >> I don’t remember.

Ever tattoo or pierce yourself? What, and how did it turn out? >> Yeah, I’ve pierced various parts of my ears a few times. Most of the time it turned out fine, but eventually all the holes closed up.

Have you ever assisted in a birth? >> No.

Have you ever had a bad trip? >> Yes.

Do you ever yell at your TV/computer/video games? >> Yes.

How long do you take in the shower? >> Like 10 minutes at most.

If you could ask someone ONE thing & get 100% honesty, what would you ask? >> ---

What's the best thing you've ever found in a thrift/second hand shop? >> I don’t know.

What's one skilled craft you like to learn? >> ---

How do you feel about magicians? >> Like, illusionists? I’m indifferent to them. I agree it’s clever work, but I don’t really care about it.

What do you smell like right now? >> I don’t know. Flesh.

Tell me about the last person that made you laugh. >> ---

Who was the last person to really make you feel special? >> ---

#surveys #survey #random survey

[islamcketta]

What a week it’s been. Seven days ago at this time, my husband was with our dog, Rocky, at the vet for what would be his second to last visit and I was trying to decide how to tell our four-year-old son that the dog wasn’t coming home. The dog did come home, and we spent a tense 48 hours watching for the inevitable before we could get the second, final visit. And somehow, on Monday I did find the words to tell my son that Rocky was not coming home. He covered his ears and did not want to talk about it. As heartbreaking as this conversation was (as well as subsequent ones where I tried to make sure he knew he could talk to me when he was ready), it’s nothing compared to trying to explain racism to a small child, even as I’m still learning about it myself.

But the time for change is now. That’s why I finally took Ijeoma Oluo’s So You Want to Talk About Race off the shelf in my bedroom where it had been waiting too long to be read.

When my son was born, a friend insisted I read Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. An excellent book, and a hard read in that early parenting time when my empathy for all humans was almost shattering, I learned a lot from Coates. But my reading of that book did not fix our society and really, it did not fix me either. And I won’t say that I’m fixed now that I’ve read (most of, I’ll finish the rest this afternoon) Oluo’s book, either, but So You Want to Talk About Race engaged me in a conversation I needed to have with myself and Oluo gave me both the language and the understanding necessary to try harder.

A Lexicon of Racism

Too much of my experience of the world these days comes from Twitter-sized synopses in which I either smile or rankle before moving on and forgetting. And while I’ve had a superficial understanding of the concepts of white privilege, intersectionality, and microagressions, I haven’t really put the work in to know what I could do about any of it besides feel guilty and try to not say ignorant things. Oluo helped me take that next step by unpacking what the words mean and what they look like in everyday life. She opens up ideas of how white people can start to confront and dismantle them in their own lives and in the lives of the people around them. She also speaks directly to people of color.

Two of the most impactful things Oluo helped me understand are the power dynamics of racism and the ways I’ve been failing to properly empathize with the experiences of people of color. They are not unrelated, but while I cannot dismantle the white supremacy inherent in our institutions (today anyway), I can breathe in her “basic rules” of determining if something is about race until they are a part of my body:

It is about race if a person of color thinks it is about race.

It is about race if it disproportionately or differently affects people of color.

It is about race if it fits a broader pattern of events that disproportionately or differently affect people of color.

Do any of those rankle? As a student of sociology, I had no trouble accepting the last two, but I really struggled with the first. Which meant I had to ask why. Where I’m at now (a few days into this process) is that I’ve been so gaslit about my own experiences (as a woman) that victim blaming is part of my body. My mechanism for feeling better about myself is trying to control every aspect of every situation so that I can never get hurt so if someone else gets hurt then clearly they failed to control something. Except that argument is as full of bullshit for people who are subjected to the abuses of a racist system as it is for women who are raped, assaulted, or harassed.

And the passing of a counterfeit $20 bill is never, ever a crime that should be paid for with a life.

The Beauty of Vulnerability

“Acknowledging us, believing us, means challenging everything you believe about race in this country. And I know that this is a very big ask, I know that this is a painful and scary process. I know that it’s hard to believe that the people you look to for safety and security are the same people who are causing us so much harm. But I’m not lying and I’m not delusional. I am scared and I am hurting and we are dying. And I really, really need you to believe me.” – Ijeoma Oluo So You Want to Talk About Race

I haven’t read White Fragility (yet), but I do know that when confronted with my own racism I more want to hide in a corner than confront my bad actions and I’m certain I’m not alone. In So You Want to Talk About Race, Oluo does the reader the kindness of opening up her own vulnerability. She both unpacks moments when she was not representing the values she espouses and experiences when she has been victimized by institutions and individuals. I’m deeply grateful for this approach, because by being so open and vulnerable with her readers, she made it much easier to be open and vulnerable back. Although she often says (correctly) that it is not the victim of racism’s job to educate the perpetrator, this choice is helping me examine both the problems with the system and also the ways in which I have perpetuated those problems.

The Structures of Power

As I mentioned, institutionalized racism was one of the hardest parts of this book to get my head around, I think because I was raised to believe in this American ideal of founding fathers who were looking out for all of us and who set up this great nation around some very laudable ideals. And now I have to interrogate all of that. We all do.

The police in my brain are here to “protect and to serve” and that’s a comfortable place to return to when I want to ignore one more abuse or death at their hands. But I remember the way the teenagers in my home town were hounded by the police—and we were white. When you entrust someone with a job, you have to be very careful how you frame that job. Even if you think about little things like quotas for traffic tickets. That’s not the police looking to stop people who are breaking laws, that’s a worker trying to check off a list of tasks and they’ll enforce traffic laws at whatever level they can until that list is complete. Now add a government and a legal system that was designed to protect the property of white men. I don’t know enough about what makes the police act as a military force against people of color (though I’m thinking about it); I do think they are acting to protect a status quo that should not be protected.

I don’t need to watch the video of George Floyd’s death to know that kneeling on the neck of a human being (ever, not to mention until they die) is not ever okay. But when John T. Williams was shot down in cold blood by a Seattle police officer, I used personal knowledge of his behavior to make excuses for the officer. When the pregnant Charleena Lyles was shot and killed three miles from where I lived with my almost two-year-old, I was sickened yet did nothing. In truth, those cases formed a pattern where the police failed to place the value of a human life above the value of their own inconvenience.

It’s beyond time that we confront what is wrong with policing in this city and this country, that we dismantle the current system, and that we instead build something that serves everyone. Something that treats human lives (of all colors) with value. I believe strongly that this starts early in life when we must give all children the same opportunities. I also believe that we have to stop treating 12-year-olds like Tamir Rice like it’s too late for them because their bodies are big. That no one should die for selling cigarettes, as Eric Garner did, or for being in a house where drugs were suspected of being sold, as was the case with Breonna Taylor. Black lives are human lives and black lives matter.

What I’m Telling My Son

The day my (then two-year-old) son asked for a Playmobil tactical van, my heart sank. But he thought it was a police car and he wanted it and I wanted him to have what he wanted. Now he asks me to turn off NPR when they use the word “dead.” Mostly I do, because there are a lot of details he does not need to know. But this week is different. As will be all the weeks going forward.

This week we talked about why people become police officers, that some people want to help others and that’s good, but that some people want power over others, and that’s bad. We talked about skin color and things that make people look different but that’s only how they look on the outside. We talked about how he needs to stand up for his friends because sometimes they won’t be able to stand up for themselves. Later, I’ll probably have him sit through the Sesame Street town hall on racism. Because while we try to surround him with diverse books and friends of all colors with a wide variety of life experiences, it’s not enough.

So I’m going to keep reading, Oluo’s book and others, and turning that knowledge into action. There are a myriad of good anti-racism reading lists out there and I also recommend this podcast and essay. As always, I’m open to your suggestions. Let’s take our hands off our ears and change the world with the power we have. We’re stronger than we know.

The post So You Want to Talk About Race (I Do) appeared first on A Geography of Reading.

#Lit #Books #USA & Canada

[heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon]

Name: Moon or Rose, sometimes Luna to people who have known me for a long time

Zodiac Sign: Virgo

Height: I honestly can’t remember what they said last time they measured me an it wasn’t even “accurate” because slouching and hunching and scoliosis but my mother did it again when I was in bed and she had a tape measure and I’m 4′8 I think? :D

Languages: English

Nationality: Irish (American...Long Island)

Favorite Fruit: Rasberries, Strawberries, Pomegranate, Tomatos, Cherries

Favorite Sent: Roses, Fresh dirt, Gardens, plants and Flowers, any type of wood, rain, popcorn, Curry, (never actually tried but WANT TO) any type of hot beverage, any type of bake goods out the oven ..

Favorite colors: Black, purples and blues, ESPECIALLY the dark ones, any type greens ......... Also reds and pinks .......

Favorite Animal: Rat’s and rodents, always, ever since I was little ... Bats, Owls, bigger felines and canines (Lions, Tigers, Wolf’s, Etc.) Smaller Cats and Dogs, (Striped cats, fluffy cats, black cats, pit-bulls  and SPINX’S are my favorites cause those are the ones that I have expect for the last one) Frogs and toads too,... opossums,  chinchillas, squirrels, eye-eyes, pigs, rabbits, ravens, crows, in a certain way spiders, bees, moths, butterflies, fox’s, minks, lemurs....  skunks. flamingo’s, swans....lady bugs, crickets fireflies , goats....turtles, Gryphons ....(Far underrated and superior to dragons, this a fact not an opinion.)

And I’m about to admit this VERY, EXTREMELY begrudgingly and through my longest sigh ever but ... Deer? I just freaking. Wrote out an whole entire separate thing concerning my.... complicated perspective on deer and I had to copy and paste it into an entirely different document because I talked for way to long, but it’s gotten to the point where I have this desperate need to just ... vent of what this animal has become for me and what they mean to me, because this has currently became something that has made my heartache the more and more I’ve tried to pretend it does not effect me and I will say that it’s been a long time coming and as of recently I can no longer afford to avoid how much...So um. I’ve decided that this may be the year... That ...I am finally going to talk about this. Of course not like, right /now/ this minute ... But I will say in short that like, I live by a lot of deer and they’ve always been a part of my life for better or worse, and I could never really escape them or the part they’ve played in my life, hurting or healing, even if I wanted to. So, I say that, if I ever got the opportunity to observe one up close in my chair or feed a doe from my hand or hold a baby fawn or do anything like that with supervision in a moment, I totally would, in a heartbeat, without question. Even though from far away it hurts to think about the relationship I’ve had with them through who I was connected to. I refuse disrespect this animal just because someone who I loved who loved them hurt me once. Does that make sense? Sometimes.... Certain things that hurt you can also heal you. I’ve realized recently that I’m still not over how much I’ve been hurting. But that doesn’t mean that deer haven’t also, in their own way, been helping me heal. And I’m just thankful they exist for that because I’ve also learned through many narratives throughout the years, at in watching animation, how deer can have so many different sides to them and they don’t always have to be so interpreted as so “good” and “pure” and righteous and ...., ugh. As everyone projects to be, and I’ve always like to think that’s that’s helped keep a nuanced perspective of what’s happened to me throughout the years even as certain events were taking place and for that... I’ll always love and respect deer as an animal themself.  

As a character, trope though, I’ve always observed that they’ve always been these fucking, self important, entitled a-holes who always assume that they’re charming enough to deserve your time, and think they can just come and go in and out of your life as they please and are far too proud of themselves to admit  when they are wrong and will never apologize to you ever until they are pushed and until then, they just keep popping in and out of your life to vex and annoy you and ......

Mm.

Tastes like perspective.

Anyway, I’m writing something for later.

Maybe.

This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot.

First time sharing any inkling of my emotions about deer. 

I’m honestly so afraid about what this and the other post will entail for later, my other deer tail, if you will.

I’ll stop talking about deer before this gets weird.

You have no ideer......

Last pun until next post, promise.

Coffee, Tea or Hot Chocolate: My silly abled assistant worker got me addicted to coffee again before she had me institutionalized and soaking in my own piss for four days because she didn’t understand how hospitals worked, and then they cut her hours when she was about to abandon me in what was basically a nursing home for and after a month I started trying to explain to her and my caseworker that I wasn’t feeling very well and they basically laughed at me and told me I was dirty and so yeah I spent my 25th birthday in a nursing home with an infection that I didn’t know I had and then one of the staff yelled at me for allowing this nice hyper boy who lived there to help push my crappy black manual wheelchair (you know the one) and practically tossed me out of my wheelchair to get me to what she wanted and then accused me of soiling myself when she was removing my clothes for the shower when I was on the toilet and then started screaming at me again and accusing me of lying when I asked her why she thought I had an accident and then she slammed the door and abandoned me in the bathroom when I wouldn’t give her the answer that she wanted and then I had a breakdown ... So I decided to use my mom’s birthday as an excuse to come home and check what was going with me and get some real food and I told my assistant and my caseworker and they basically laughed at me and said was a bad idea and told me I was dirty again and then I was punished and taken home for being “rude” and “too emotional” but not before the assistant worker brought me some crappy bitter ass coffee flavored fudge when the rocky road was right next to it because she was some vegan ass “straight ally” one year younger then me with a 29 year old boyfriend millennial who “missed my birthday” and complained about how miserable I was and how wasn’t enjoying the pumpkin farm which she originally wasn’t even gonna take me through, because my caseworker insisted that she cancel plans and bring me back to the nursing home as punishment for calling my mother. So when she DID bring me back after arguing with me for being ungrateful enough to not enjoy a place that she didn’t even wanna take me, she left me parked on the living room carpet, instead of bringing back into the dining room where my laptop was set up, like she’d normally do, said “good luck with your mom”, and left. Then, it took me about an hour to wheel myself off of the carpet, find someone to help me to the bathroom, and get me the phone to call my mom back and tell her it was okay to pick me up.

I come home, discover I have a lump in my left breast which is benign but still hasn’t gone away, go to the doctor, and it turns out I had two infections. 

My mom seemed prepared to let me go back to the group home if I wanted to but after I told the doctor what happened with the staff worker the day after my birthday and the night before I called. The doctor told me that I wasn’t safe at the group home ether and ordered that I go back home with my mom and stay there.

So I’m back home now.

Two months. 

And of course my caseworker shit on me for THAT.

And of course she informed me that my assistant worker quit on me.

And I still haven’t spoken to my father since I’ve been back here.

And I still have the scar he gave me. 

And I’m still trying to ween myself off of coffee.

But before all of this my go to warm drinks were usual tea or hot chocolate. Sometimes hot chocolate with liquor.

My tongue went numb for a time because that was the first thing that I did non- stop each day for like four days after the day I finally finished my meds and my period hit immediately (which is already a whole other nightmare that I was dreading having to go through in a nursing home when everything already felt fucking inflamed and swollen and infected with already visible particles of dried up soap.... because.... it was ......) 

But like, yeah...... Tea and Hot Chocolate!  

Dream Trip: To have the opportunity to visit and interact with/get to know some queer cripple friends in person, and to visit my good friend @colorcinabrio in Mexico to travel round the world with them if ever given the chance! ❤

When Blog was created:

Somewhere around two years ago... I wanted to make blog that reflected my disability and really let me identify as a cripple and focused more focused more on cripple things and maybe make some cripple friends! ^ ^’  ❤

Last Movie Seen: That comes to mind that I actually enjoyed? The Favorite.

Favorite Holiday: I really love people’s birthday’s also and I always try and do something for my friends birthdays if I can! ^ ^  ❤

Songs on repeat: As of recently, ‘Fake Happy’, by Paramore.

 Tagged by @qjusttheletter

Tagging: @colorcinabrio @thetrainticket @finallyhaunted @thequantumqueer @rosered3 @isnezzed @purplepeoplelickingtruthpeddler @transplorer

Thank you so much for tagging me, Q! ^ ^’ ❤ I know it took a while to answer but as I said before I really did go on a deer tangent for a minute! ^ ^’ ❤ But being tagged by you brightened my day and  I know we don’t talk much directly but I really do think of you as a friend!!!! :D ❤ O.X

#qjusttheletter #replies #tumblrs also really been upsetting me lately so that's I've kinda been offline too but seriously thank you for the tag it means so much I'm #just sorry I took so long writing!!!!! ^ ^; <3 O.X

[thestraightmutt]

EDUCATION

My parents never once told me if they were Republican or Democrat and, until my senior year of high school (08-09), i never paid any attention to politics. My parents were and are firm believers that no one has a right to know who you vote for. that the right to vote is also your right to your privacy of that vote. My Government teacher was a DIE HARD democrat and probably the original obama worshiper (as well as an original dinosaur). I called her "Demon Dawson" and for good reason. At the beginning of the school year, I was nervous because i knew nothing about the topic and didn't think i'd be able to bs my way through it like i did the other classes which just came easily to me. I asked her if we would be able to debate and see both sides of all the arguments because i had no idea what was going on. She said of course we would.

fyi, we did not. Now. I am a white mutt. Both my parents are mutts and they had mutt children. I have a sister who is blond and a brother who could move to mexico and not look out of place. I myself could live in any continent i choose and look both native and foreign at the same time. while demon dawson tried to single handedly shove her preaching down my throat, again, i grew up in a house hold that if you had questions, then you had to ask. No one can read your mind. So I asked her questions...and she hardly answered them, and when she did, it was in a round about way which ended up with her talking about something else entirely. This irritated me. I was, and still am, used to straight answers; even if that answer is "look it up for yourself and then we’ll talk" or “read a book (or this book) and then we’ll talk”. So I took to watching every single news station i could. And then weeded them out from there. HLN and the like i cut out first, i really had NO interest in celeb -news (I was a strange child...) ABC was similar to my local news CBS so it was just a waste of time. and MSNBC for some reason just institutionally pissed me off ....for some reason....maybe because i don't like being told what to think..... So I settled into watching FOX and CNN. I would have just settled on FOX because i realized that CNN and FOX covered a lot of the same stories, but i got MORE of the story from FOX and, seriously, if you're gonna tell the story, then tell the whole story, am i right? BUT demon dawson made watching CNN part of my grade, so i watched CNN and FOX the entire year. demon dawson realized i wasn't falling into her wrinkly clutches and decided that the class needed to turn against me. One day she specifically asked me what i thought about obamas speech the night before. Truth be told i only watched half of it. I told her as much, hoping she'd move on. She insisted on my thoughts so, being the blunt person i am, i told her he sounded like a snake. That he had a forked tongue and it felt like he was talking down on me and trying to trick me. I don't like being called stupid...even indirectly, so i stopped watching it. Then the class decided to start cussing me out and threaten me. The teacher let them. that day a friend of mine had to walk me to the school bus because of all the threats to jump me after school. I can handle one or two on my own, but after about three out loud death threats....not so much. Later on that same class period, she brought up my comment again, and ENCOURAGED the class to cuss me out and attack me verbally.  After obama became pres and was sworn in and all that, i was officially on demon dawsons black list because they all assumed i did NOT vote for obama.  And if i didn’t vote for him, then it didn’t matter who i voted for. When i was "cornered" about this in class, i told them it was because i believed a man with military experience should be in charge of the military; somehow this still made me racist... (by the way, we never learned anything about actual government....we were just preached to...seriously....we all failed the final and she passed us all anyway because she wanted to look like a good teacher to the school board....) My dad used to work at the high school but was fired because too many of his students had 'F's ...even though he was at the school by 6am and didn't go home until city curfew. He always made sure he was available to students who needed help. if they failed, it was their fault. BUT that wasn't good enough for demon dawson. I discovered that she had a hand in getting him fired. See i was reading a book during class on day, ya know, cause we weren't learning anything anyway, and all of a sudden she stops in the middle of her sentence and was like, "Was that your father?" I blinked up at her and then looked to the hallway and didn't see anyone out there. "I just saw your dad out there, i thought he didn't work here anymore," she had said this rather rudely, i might add. But I just shrugged. My dad can do whatever he likes, its not like he's banned from the school. then i remembered something he'd said the night before. "Dad said he was going to see Ms. Powers today and give her some chocolate, so what?" demon dawson then calmed down, she even put a hand to her chest (like she'd seen a ghost) and was all like, "oh well, then never mind." And she just continued on like nothing happened. I told my dad that evening and he told me about a time when she had tried to get him to 'debate/argue' with her and he wouldn't. She kept on trying to get him riled up and he just continued to answer her calmly and refused to engage in any political discussions with her. Funnily enough, that was the year before he was fired, so, yeah. demon dawson got my dad fired because she was afraid of him and she couldn't manipulate him. My story isn't so much as "#Walk away" as its a "#stay away" and "#let's see how this plays out". the reason i never considered myself a dem is NOT because of my parents, but because the moment i started to pay attention to politics, i was attacked and told i was stupid for not following the "norm". i was told i was racist because i didn't like rap and i didn't like being talked down to by flamboyant obaka. I was told i was a bigot because i believed in traditional marriage. i was told i was a freak and stupid and mean because i was pro-life. i don't like being TOLD. in middle school i was TOLD to go die. I was TOLD that i was ugly. I was TOLD that i was nothing. I am alive. I never shot up a school. because i know THE truth. there is no "MY" truth. there is THE truth. and THE truth, is that we are ALL humans and we are ALL going to screw up. i don't hate these people, but they hate me. So what are we going to do? are we going to react and let THEM dictate how we behave? are we objects to be acted upon? or will we hold to the truth and work hard and trust that everything will be ok and act. for. our. selves. we are humans. we will act with what we know. just let them freak out and blow their own minds. protect yourself if it gets to that point, but really....they're just noise. Hurtful, noise. But we are humans and we don't have to let that effect us. (sorry this is so long....)

#educated #education #politics #conversion #join the conversation #join the intellectual dark web #feminism #toxic femininity #my dad is awesome #walkaway #stayaway #let's see how this goes

[vintagemiserie]

ok rocketman was so good that i just wrote 1200 words of jazz au becuz of it lmao

Patrick took a deep breath, wiped the tears from his eyes, and pressed the "record" button on the tape deck, hoping its batteries wouldn’t die part of the way through. "Hey, Joe. Sorry you probably haven't heard this from me yet. I dunno how soon I'll be back, but you've probably seen me, uh, um, in a fucking institution if you've seen me at all. You already know about this, but you haven't heard from me, so that's what… what this is doing, that's what.

"I'm currently sitting on the floor in a stall in the bathroom of a library in Austin. I did cocaine for the first time in years today, and I drove and crashed a car today, and I'm sitting here because I'm hiding from Andy, who's probably called you at the same time that I recorded this, or… or the rest of the band, too, I guess. I'm probably gonna get tried for something, and the headlines are probably going to look terrible, and I'm—I'm sorry, Joe, I'm sorry, but you need to hear this from me and I could barely hit the buttons on this stupid fucking tape deck, so calling you is completely out of the question.

"Let's see… oh, I missed coke. I forgot how great it made me feel. I forgot how to do a show, really, and—god, I'm absolutely fucking crashing right now." Patrick made an explosion motion with his hands, and accompanied it with sound effects. He chuckled, which quickly turned back into crying, as he had been before he arrived to the library. "Down on the floor of a fucking bathroom, Joe, that's how down I am. I'm crashing, I've got whiplash like hell, and—I'm fine. I feel great, like I'm fucking alive.

"Andy has ought to bet that I regret this, but: you know what, I don't. I absolutely don't. I might when I'm in group therapy in a couple weeks, but right now I'm on top of the world. The only thing that'd be better would be another couple drinks, Joe, but I'm not trying to get caught out in the open like that. Which is why I'm here in a stupid fucking bathroom, telling you all of this. Consider it an open diary, yeah? I get to vent it all out, and you get to listen."

Patrick sat there, realizing he'd been speaking perhaps a bit too loud. He caught his breath, not realizing how much he'd been struggling with it, and he settled his head against his knees. "I'm going fucking crazy, Joe," He said, feeling a million times lower than moments before. "I should've drank more before I crashed that stupid ass car—coke sucks, man, it's too short of a high. I'm fucking angry."

He considered that, perhaps, Joe would be a bit concerned at this point, in that way that tugged on his heartstrings in the worst possible way, that made him feel angry for getting pity. "Don't apologize about this, Joe. I already know everything you'll say about this, and I know you'll pity the sorry sack of shit you call a boyfriend. Don't even… don't mention any of this to me. I'm hoping I've got enough of a buzz to not remember this, not remember—" A bout of some brand of emotions sent Patrick to slam a fist against the wall. "Not remember sitting here on the floor of a stupid bathroom!

"Thing's'll be fine. It'll be fine. Joe, I—trust me, it'll be fine. I just stepped back on years of rehab, but it'll be fine. I'm gonna go out and let myself get found, and it'll all be fine. You've gotta be feeling okay now, baby, okay? I want, more than anything, for you to be kissing me right now, and you've gotta know I miss you. I miss you. Stupid fucking tour, it's over now, and it's my fucking fault. I need to be gone for a while, I'm pushed too thin, I'm sorry.

"I guess you'll see me a lot soon. Andy's gonna have me institutionalized for a while, I know he will. I…" The door into the bathroom opened. "Shit, I can't—bye." He ended the recording, picked up the tape deck, and stood up. A deep breath took care of a majority of the shakiness in his limbs, and out of the stall revealed that, indeed, it was Andy.

"Well?"

"I wanna go to the post office and then go home," Patrick said. His attempts at looking anywhere besides the ground immediately in front of him failed. "Need to send a tape to Joe."

Andy stepped up to him. "I'll send it for you," He said, setting a hand on the tape deck; Patrick jerked it away.

"No you're not! You'd listen to it. You always do that shit, you're not putting a fucking hand on this tape."

Andy sighed. "You're impossible," He said. He sounded so calm, it was more than irritating.

"I'm not impossible, you're just an asshole who can't fucking listen! I don't wanna—Andy, please I can't—" Though he had continued crying throughout the recording and into the conversation, it was only at that point that Patrick began to sob. He spent a moment standing there like an idiot, crying his eyes out, then regained some sense of dignity and managed to at least stop sobbing so loudly. "Drive me to a fucking post office, I need… I need a package and a stamp or two or whatever. Who's, um, who's dealing with the legal aspect—not me, right?"

"You're getting a couple hospital visits before you should even be thinking about that, Patrick." Andy put an arm around him and guided him out of the library. Outside, a majority of the band was standing there, gawking at the stupid kid holding his stupid tape deck. "Try to go a fucking month without another relapse, Patrick. Try, for once," Andy muttered towards him.

He tried his best to block out Andy, and the rest of the noise around himself. "Does anyone have a package and some stamps, I need to send this cassette to Joe," He said, forcing himself to look around at his bandmates. Even those who seemed the most empathetic seemed to be hesitating. "Please? I—this is important."

An alto, one of the touring members, offered a drive, and Patrick took it. It was wordless, and so outrageously long that the ten minutes all blended together into feeling short, anyways. They got an envelope and some stamps and sent the cassette tape off. Then they returned to the hotel they were staying at.

"I'm not gonna force you to go to the hospital," Andy said; Patrick was in his room, now, and the clock said it was nearly four in the morning. Time wasn't really being kept track of at that point, though, since Patrick took the rest of the cocaine he'd been given and spent the half-hour (or so) of glee lying in bed writing out melodies.

"That's a lie."

"No it's not. We both know the right decision, and you'll make the right decision."

Patrick tried his best to find a clever thing to retort with. "What if I didn't?"

"What did you put on that tape."

"Nothing you need to worry about. Joe'll know, my therapist'll know, and that's it, 'cause I sure as hell won't remember what I said."

Andy looked at him with what seemed to be nearly a glare. "I don't know why I put up with you, Patrick. Would you prefer a flight home tomorrow or in two days?"

"Tomorrow, please."

Andy turned from him, seeming to dislike the bored tone Patrick used. "Goodnight," He said, shutting the door of Patrick's hotel room behind himself before Patrick had even a chance to respond.

#there arent any spoilers for the movie i just stole the general uhhhh driving conflict #n also cuz sometimes i need to write some angst u kno?

[pianosmasher]

for the ask meme: odd numbers!

Oh, worm? Alright let’s do this shit

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most?Since I already answered this song, here’s six songs that I listened to the most when I was sixteen:

”Thrash Unreal” - Against Me!”An Ocean Between Us” - As I Lay Dying”The Modern Leper” - Frightened Rabbit”The Outer Banks” - the Album Leaf”Hide and Seek” - Imogen Heap”Jesus” - Brand New3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.“No you listen here, buckaroo.” Could not have picked a better line if you asked me to.

5: What does your latest text message from someone else say?“Hell yes!”

7: What’s your strangest talent?I can juggle and do a few of those metal screams.

9: Ever had a poem or song written about you?One of each, though both authors have never admitted it to me specifically.

11: Do you have any strange phobias?I’m terrified of anything with a stinger, but that’s about it.

13: What’s your religion?Whatever it is, I’m losing it.

15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?Behind the camera. I love catching candids of my friends, and I’m not very photogenic anyway.

17: What was the last lie you told?I told my boss that I needed caffeine before I could talk to him (I don’t - just like mornings to myself), though most people will say my last lie was that last part to the previous question.

19: What does your URL mean?Too long to explain in full here, but basically: to me, piano as an instrument represents the way the art of music can endure in spite and because of institutionalized learning practices. Guitar, meanwhile, represents the improvised result of a pure drive to create the art in one’s heart by any means necessary. Between those two ideologies, I’ll side with the guitar every time.

21: Who is your celebrity crush?Oscar Isaac.

23: How do you vent your anger?Decimate them in a verbal argument - in my head if I’m angry for a bad reason, out loud if I’m angry for a good one.

25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?Phone calls are the best. Nothing feels better than shooting the shit with someone through my headphones while I stare at my bedroom ceiling. 

27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?The sound of a perfectly tuned E major chord on a guitar in standard tuning puts me at such an ease. The worst sound is probably a fork scraping across the surface of a plate.

29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?Ghosts, nah. Aliens, maybe.

31: Smell the air. What do you smell?Cat hair.

33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast?I’ve only ever been to the east coast, so either that side wins by default or I should be disqualified from making this decision

35: To you, what is the meaning of life?Figuring out the best way to kill our time and reach people.

37: Do you believe in luck?More than most things.

39: What time is it?I started this at 11:30 PM last night. Then my computer crashed and I lost all my answers, so I’m going back through it again at 10:27 AM this morning. So pick your favorite of those?

41: What was the last book you read?At Your Own Risk, by Derek Jarman

43: Do you have any nicknames?None that have stuck around, unfortunately.

45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?I had a gash in my knee when I was seventeen due to a skateboarding accident. Not fun. I spent my first three weeks of summer bedridden that year. 

47: Do you have any obsessions right now?Between the Buried and Me.

49: Ever had a rumour spread about you?Too many to count at this point.

51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?Not as a general rule, no. I tend to be forgiving to a fault, and try as best as I can not to regret that tendency.

53: Do you save money or spend it?I feel I have a good balance of both, knowing when to treat myself and when to live off rice and beans for a while.

55: Love or lust?Love is easier.

57: How many relationships have you had?I think this is my ninth?

59: Where were you yesterday?First work, then rehearsal at Champion studios, then Starbucks for a production meeting, then back to rehearsal, and then home to feed the cat.

61: Are you wearing socks right now?Yes.

63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?Ask them to talk to me as long as they like about something they’re passionate about, actually engage with what they’re saying to me, and finally learn more about that interest in my spare time to show them that I care.

65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr.@teddyberika has the best shitposts. @shortsightedseer has the worst ones. @peoplegettingreallymadatfood always surprises me beyond belief. @animalmusicthemes is a recent favorite. @shitmystudentswrite is an old favorite.

67: What were you doing last night at 12AM?Trying to fill this out the first time and watching the new Lindsay Ellis video on Marxism.

69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?Are you kidding

71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?I’m saving the dog. My boss could be bluffing, but the dog definitely isn’t.

73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love.I honestly can’t tell the difference between the two.

75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?5309

77: How can I win your heart?Take your time and take me as seriously as I take you.

79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?Moving to NYC.

81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone?“Did everything he could while he could.”

83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart.An actual, beating heart.

85: What’s the last song you listened to?“Famine Wolf” - Between the Buried and Me

87: What is your current desktop picture?A possum covered in paint, making art on a canvas spread out across the floor

89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on?“Who are your friends?”

91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?Teleportation. Eat your vegetables, kids.

93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?No specifics due to involving real life people who don’t need to be name dropped on Tumblr Dot Com, but I burned a bridge a while back that I’d still rebuild, if given the chance.

95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?Nashville. I owe it to David and my mom, and I miss all the music, too.

97: Have you ever thrown up in the car?Actually… not that I can remember? As much as I’ve vomited in my life, it’s never been due to motion sickness.

99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?Register to vote.

#Ask Ross #sunnybaudeclaire #thanks Claire! #what a challenge #there are like three song references in the post collect em all

[forget-me-knots-behind-our-eyes]

I’m putting this here as my brain is refusing to let me move on with my morning until I say shit and my private journal isn’t helping right now. 

TW for generally abusive parents, mentions of suicide, and probably more that I just can’t think of right now. 

I don’t know my parent’s version of events and I probably will never know, I’ve pretty much decided against talking to either of them ever again. When I was very little (less than 6), we lived in a few little suburbs in Chicago. The last one we lived in was your stereotypical, white picket fence, doctor and lawyer neighborhood, complete with a chandelier house. The first house I remember living in, I had a terrible dream about an “evil cat lady” that tore out my baby brother’s eyes and killed the rest of my family. The dream terrorized me for a full week before I stopped dreaming altogether. The woman looked distinctly like my mother, but I have left that out of every single retelling I have ever had. 

My mother was a stay-at-home mom during that time, and she spent a good portion of her time with me showing me how to be booksmart and get A’s in school while also telling me exactly how to care for a baby and cook and clean. This started when I was 3. My first ever F was on a spelling test in first grade and I remember bringing it home and thinking nothing of it, after all, it was just a letter. I remember getting relentlessly spanked and from then on I was required to write my spelling words 10 times each and an extra 10 times for every misspelling. I didn’t find out I had dyslexia until I was in college. 

My dad lost his job due to his work cutting his department and on his way out, he shared information with the company that was hiring him, which sparked an entire court case and ended with him being blacklisted in Chicago. I don’t know if this is when he started drinking heavily or if it was before. My mother claims he was drinking excessively long before she met him and my brother has said that my dad’s new girlfriend (T) was told that dad started drinking because he couldn’t deal with my mother. 

My mom managed to find a job in NY, working at a nuclear power station and she found my dad a job at the same plant. So we moved north to live near my grandparents so they could watch us during the day while my dad worked. The commute was over an hour one way. This was one of the few times I could not be a mother to my three siblings as grandma was there to do it for me. I do know my dad was drinking heavily at this point and there were a few times I had to stand up for my siblings so they wouldn’t get beaten. 

On one occasion, we had taken some photos with a disposable camera. My dad went to have them exposed so we could see the photos. Apparently, some of them were revealing (I think it was a butt). Obviously, we should have known that doing so could have my parents thrown in jail and we deserved to be beaten for that. (sarcasm) I’m not sure about other adults, but when you hear a child crying and saying “no don’t hurt him hurt me instead” the thought should be “wait, that’s fucked up” not “okay, I’ll hurt you both.” 

We later moved to a nicer house, closer to our parent’s work. I was told to help out the babysitter as she wouldn’t know what to do and they just needed her there because I couldn’t drive. I was 10. I cooked, I cleaned, I did first aid when the babysitter cut off the tip of her thumb, I did my homework, I looked after my siblings and made sure they stayed out of the way and did their work. Since it was usually just my dad, we could just hide and we’d be fine during his drunk escapades. My mother would come and find us if she didn’t have my dad to scream at. 

10 years old and I had the responsibilities of an adult. And then our school decided to tell us about drug use and suicide. I didn’t even think suicide was an option. I knew hurting myself made my brain feel better, physical pain was easier than emotional and I was careful so that no one would ever see or be able to tell. Suicide was an entirely new concept. And fucked up 11 year-old me decided it was a good idea. I tried, I survived, and I was alone. The only reason I am still here is because my baby sister would have been the one to find me and I couldn’t stand the idea of her handling what I was handling. I told my mom about it years later and she told me I was an ungrateful bitch and that she was suicidal too and had picked a corner to crash her car into. 

I only have snapshots, most everything prior to college is a complete blank. It is blocked out and I am not sure I want it back. 

We moved again. And again. New house same bullshit. I started high school. I was alone most afternoons as I went to a public school and my siblings went to a private Catholic school. My parents, mostly my mother, kept trying to force me to conform with religion. It was something I’d been dealing with my whole life and I had learned to just roll with it and say what they wanted to hear. 

One sunday, my mother gets into her head that Jesus was telling her to send her kids to this private Catholic school 45min away that she saw a billboard for. She had promised me I could stay at the same school for all of high school. I was making friends for once. I was doing sports and enjoying it. I wanted to be left the fuck alone. Saturdays were my rest days and Sundays were the days I finished up any leftover homework. I had a paper due. She knew this. She agreed to let me stay home to finish it before we went to church. Afterward, she demanded that I go to the open house with them. That Jesus told her I had to go. There was no other option for me. She said I hadn’t told her anything and she hadn’t promised anything. 

I finish High School at the Catholic one. Spend the last 2 years in an abusive relationship then getting shunned by the school because he was one of the popular kids and the friends I had made stopped talking to me because I wasn’t gay. (I’m bi and apparently that didn’t fucking count) My one friend left is my spouse now and I love them to pieces, but I still regret attending that school. 

I go to college and the family fucking falls apart. No one knew what to do without me. My dad started going after my siblings more, as did my mom. I came back one summer and said I was going to a party. I was 20 at the time and they said okay, let us know when and where. I told them both. I wrote it on the whiteboard we kept in the kitchen. I reminded them of it every damn day. Day of the party, my mother is out of town and my dad is alone with my siblings. He can’t remember or read the board and interrogates and threatens them. Calls my mom freaking out. Does not text me even once. 

A relative I cared for died and I wasn’t told until after the funeral. My brother became suicidal and I didn’t find out until after they institutionalized him. My parents started divorce proceedings and I wasn’t told until they were halfway through it. 

I stopped talking to my dad after I finally moved all the way out. I had planned to stop talking to my mom as soon as I had my own phone. But then she started going to therapy and taking her meds. She was doing well, so I stayed in touch. She was acting like a mom for once. She had boasted for years about her hitting us to stay in line and that she really only needed to slap me once for mouthing off. She had complained for years that she never wanted kids. 

This past year, she complained more about having kids, and how she was horny and wasn’t fully attracted to the men she was dating. She either didn’t like their mind or didn’t like their body and couldn’t do even a one-night stand if it wasn’t the full package. Well she met Rick a month ago. He’s basically my dad. None of us like him. She’s relapsed into the person she used to be. She got into a fight with my brother and told him that she didn’t care if all of her children left her as long as one person still loved her. She said this in front of my sister who is 15. Who was taken off of her anxiety, depression, and adhd meds because “she didn’t need them” after she forgot to take them for a week and “seemed fine.”

On our vacation a couple of weeks ago, my sister was being a typical 15 year old and my brother was a typical 18 year old and she snapped at my sister. I had told my brother (I have 2 the other is 20 and was the one having the fight) and he told my mom that the reason I had told her to calm down was that she snapped at her and was being a bitch about normal 15 year old behavior. My mother then turned to my sister, who clearly wanted to run away and said “I didn’t snap at you. Right? “ and then didn’t listen when she said kinda. 

My brother was kicked out of the house at the end of the night. She texted my dad saying she was concerned for her safety and had thought about calling the cops. She wouldn’t let him pick up his stuff unless she was there. He had to send my sister. She now won’t let my sister get her stuff unless she goes alone. My dad, who was always a violent drunk, is the safer option right now.

I trust my brother and he says dad ha sobered up and is doing better. The depiction my brother paints of him is the exact opposite of what my mother says he’s been doing. Apparently my dad is being a dad for once. He apparently wanted to reach out and apologize to me, but didn’t because my brothers told him I was still pissed. 

My mother, on the other hand, has left guilt-trippy messages, and tried to message me in ways to get me to respond to her. (Voicemail : Hey just wanted to see how you were doing since I haven’t heard form you in a while and wanted to make sure you were okay. (She had previously said that she wasn’t going to talk to me until I apologized for telling her to calm down after she snapped at my sister) Apparently I have been put on the “do not talk to” list. Don’t know how I got there. If you’re not answering I guess that’s true. (She called me on my busiest night, I wouldn’t have answered anyway) I love you.) A snapchat of “Hey are you okay?” and finally a text of “Do you want me to mail you the dollhouse” (Which was made by my dead Popo).

I’ve decided not responding is better for my mental health since nothing I say will change the outcome of this scenario or undo the damage that she had done. Talking to her will only make it worse. I’m just a bit disappointed that it came to this. But, she always said she never wanted kids. Now she doesn’t. 

#rin rambles #venting #just needed to get this out

[jmrphy]

Meta reflections on Jesse Pinkman’s new book, Enlightenment Now, with a special focus on the Joe Rogan chapter

Warning: This was supposed to be a really quick thing about the reception of Steven Pinker's new book, in part just to rev this blog back up as an easier-going place for short, fun stuff. Accidentally it became a 4k-word world-historical meta-narrative about the changing political coordinates of contemporary intellectual life on a razor-thin evidentiary base.

I just read RS Bakker's thoughts on the new Pinker book. I thought they were very stimulating and seemed important/credible—although I didn't grok everything in my one time through on the train. They did, however, motivate me to jot down a few thoughts that have been recurring to me lately. They're not really related to Bakker's post.

I'm not going to comment on the Pinker book, first because I haven't read it; second, because I don't like playing in already overpopulated peanut galleries, it pains my frail ego; third, because, as with many things today, it seems to me the real theoretical points of interest are at a meta level. There's a time and place to use proper names, no doubt, but individuals and their particular products are often red herrings, I think. If I use the name Pinker below it's just for shorthand; this will really be about the larger class of prestigious public intellectuals of which he is only one example (as opposed to, say, the high-brow but unpaid batshit blogger class, the personal-brand-with-a-patreon class, the Youtube philosophy for dummies educator class, the Alex Jones balls-to-the-wall flight from Earth class, etc.). It turns out there are wayyy more ways to be a famous and influential intellectual than anyone could have known when they were in grad school in the 70s or 80s, or even the 90s really.

In fact, I won't even use Pinker's name, to emphasize that I'm really not out here trying to ankle-bite this great and good scientist who is much smarter and more accomplished than myself. Wherever I might want to refer to Pinker as an example, I will instead refer to Pinkman. That way you'll think of Jesse from Breaking Bad, in the form of a prestigious social scientist instead of a meth kingpin.

Highly successful and publicly influential academic intellectuals are playing a very particular kind of game. The logic of this game made sense even ten years ago, but I'm not sure it does anymore. The logic is something like this "Get really smart, make real scientific contributions, earn legitimate credentials and status, then leverage this elevated status to shape the body politic toward the Good (and also be handsomely remunerated, admired, etc. — but hey, fair enough.) I've never met Pinkman or many other famous scientists but my sense is they have given much of their life to some version of this noble vocation. This is an archetypal Liberal identity-mold, a tried and true, recognizable Calling, in a world where such things are increasingly hard to find.

Well, the past decade has thrown up some data points that really make you wonder whether the basic terms of this model still obtain. A few things lately have given me the bad feeling that someone like Pinkman may have invested most of their life in a certain kind of bargain with Liberal Society that, sadly, Liberal Society has now reneged on. I say this is a bad feeling because, if true, it's very unfortunate and I genuinely feel for them.

So what's this bargain I speak of, in a little more detail? First, for background, remember that for much of our history highly talented and creative individuals are typically punished by their groups. Reverse dominance hierarchies, etc., you can't let super talented people get too ahead of the others because then they'll dominate, or group morale suffers, or the group disintegrates, or whatever. Bad things will happen. So they'd cut you down to size at every opportunity. But liberal society was willing to offer super smart and able people a bargain: If you're really smart and able, then you can go off and cultivate your smarts but only on condition that you respect Liberal Society. It's a pretty genius solution actually: let the ablest flourish above everyone else but make them pay a cut of their gains to the cohesion of the whole. Win-win. The society got all the benefits of crazy geniuses solving problems, without them dominating or collective cohesion suffering. The geniuses not only got to enjoy their objective superiority on full blast, they also got to feel like it was all about doing good for others. And maybe it is.

It is the right to generously bestow social improvement that is one of the great joys of being a prestigious intellectual--could you imagine how exhilarating it must feel to have earned, through a life of study, the exalted role of institutionally sanctioned Society Improver at grand scale, how genuinely good it must feel to know that all of your sacrifice and hard work now empowers you to improve the knowledge and character of millions, and the political health of a whole society? Understood a little more rational-choicely, this is one of the key income streams that liberal society pays to its most prestigious geniuses, in return for their lifelong loyalty to all of the official tenets of harmonious Liberal Society. I think the data is pretty obvious in showing that no matter how genius you might be, if you go off the rails of "reasonable discourse" beyond a certain degree you quickly lose all of your standing and influence (on this model, anyway.

(Note that the newer classes of public intellectuals have figured out that if you decline the liberal institutional bargain, then going maximally off the rails can be its own direct path to extraordinary intellectual influence and economic reward. But more on that later, let's stay on track understanding the fine print of the liberal intellectual's bargain with liberal society).

Here's where things get a little shadowy because the harmony of Liberal Society is quite sensitive. It's kind of like a precious baby, and we love babies and would do anything to protect them, but this is how hypocrisy enters in automatically, because Liberal Society requires everyone to presume everyone else is an adult, and to treat everyone as such. For instance, when two groups violently disagree over certain deep moral questions, well, liberal society doesn't allow them to deal with it violently (a good thing perhaps, as Pinkman has amply documented). But what does it do instead?

The simplest way to summarize all of the things that Liberal Society does to reduce violence: It papers over the conflicts, which is maybe a brilliant solution, or maybe an insane, explosive solution that simply hasn't exploded yet — the jury is still out on that one. If Group A thinks abortion is murdering babies, and Group B thinks prohibition of abortion is enslaving women, the only way to deal with such profound and high-stakes ethical disagreement, other than civil war, is to derive some symbolic artifice(s) that will let both groups live peacefully with the other. Hmm, thinks Caesar, do we have anyone around here good at generating clever symbolic artifices? In swoops the knighted genius. The genius is delighted to take a break from self-cultivation in order to contribute to Harmony, and Caesar, as well as the common people, are happy to have someone on hand to explain why I don't have to worry if my neighbor is Evil. Win, win, win.

Thus baked into the vocation of the modern liberal intellectual is, from the get-go, a highly dissimulated condescension and hypocrisy. The liberal intellectual gets their status precisely from a superior ability (earned or inherited, doesn't matter) but they are contractually obligated to treat the normal masses as equals, when they know damn well that in fact, the normal masses are dumber, more dangerous, and in need of Harmonizing by institutions (paper). Also, remember that the genius wants to help, it's extremely rewarding to sincerely help society, but the noble sacrifice the genius admirably contributes to the social good is precisely the papering over, of whatever the normal masses need papered over for their well-being. This is how a basic minimum of dissimulation, condescension, and hypocrisy is structurally embedded in the vocation or calling of the modern liberal intellectual. We might note in passing it's also an avatar of Plato's Philosopher-King, a conceptual-political thought-rut that many progressive intellectual personae tend to inhabit in one way or another (and yes, here, Pinkman is a Progressive, despite some infamy among SJWs).

OK, so the modern liberal intellectual might be forced to pay lip service to a few small Noble Lies, but it's soooo much better than all that homicide and war in the earlier chapters of Pinkman's violence book, that it seems like a no-brainer. "There are political realities, it's not my fault, all I can do is speak the truth in a way that helps society the most. If that means I have to use my words judiciously, is that really so bad?" an elite cognitive scientist might reasonably ask. The only problem is that this entire model presumes that the speech of the prestige intellectual will remain highly weighted relative to the speech of anyone else who might take it upon themselves to explain things publicly.

What if external circumstances change in such a way that the masses start to intuit that the knighted geniuses have quietly been playing a political game all along? What if, empirically, things just so happen to play out in such a way that a critical mass of pretty average people (on the right and the left, and in their own languages and for their own reasons), quietly update their mental and behavioral models of the world in the realization that: "Eureka! I have a strong suspicion that some really serious issues have been papered over for some time now... and I'm not going to be a dupe any longer. I see what's going on, and I can play this game, too..." Well, one thing to note is that if this updating were to occur, even on a massive and rapid scale, there's no reason to believe we would know it anytime soon after it occurred. The next thing to see is that, suddenly, the entire bargain that the prestige intellectual based his whole life's labors on would suddenly be off the table.

So long as your pronouncements are weighted well by institutionalized attention monopolies, your lifelong service to science mixed slightly with Harmony-producing fluff was a reasonable and even maybe noble project. If your prestige loses its weight, then tempering your extreme intelligence with little white lies would be all for nought, because you're about to be left in the dust by new startups who specialize in unreasonably extreme truth-telling ("red pills" and many other colored pills now available) and also unreasonably extreme hypocrisy (self-help bullshit, SJWism, etc.). You'll still have your niche, but your effect on people and society will rapidly fall towards zero (along with the overwhelming majority of other people, including most smart people).

It seems to me that as a sociological phenomenon, Pinkman's recent book dramatizes a lot of what I'm modeling here. I think the world has changed a lot very recently and with many things we're like the roadrunner who's already off the cliff, but we haven't yet looked down to see the vast empty space beneath our galloping gait. In a strange way, I think dumber people have been doing more correct updating as of late, and some of the smartest people have been stubbornly failing to update lately. Dumber people have updated to not listen to a word of what the mainstream intellectual culture says, but smart people have not yet been able to update in response to this updating by dumber people (in part because smart people don't have any way of hearing about how dumber people are updating, and they're not exactly accustomed to caring about it). The inertia of media representations enforces a substantial lag between increasingly rapid techno-economic changes in the distribution of powers and our meager human mental models of where that power is.

All of this has been quite abstract, and I mentioned above that I have some data points, so I'll just end with those. I might have tricked you, accidentally, because to be honest, I've extrapolated this whole bonkers historical meta-narrative from a few very measly anecdotal observations. Well first, I kind of had in mind things like Trump and Brexit, i.e. signals of widespread mistrust of dominant institutions and respectable liberal wisdom. So those are pretty big and real data points for the kind of perspective I'm articulating here. I also have a few more specific ones, although they are very tendentious.

The first one is so silly, you're really going to laugh at me for writing this long post in part because of this ridiculously tiny and personal anecdote. You can write your own blog, I for one sense significant causal evidence in this little story. Basically, I listened to the Joe Rogan podcast with Pinkman about his new book and... Pinkman was fine, he's a brilliant and likable guy... but... something was wrong. Very wrong. Don't tell anyone because it's kind of orthogonal to my personal brand and I have to stay on point, but I've listened to many, many Joe Rogan podcasts. And I'm a professional social scientist mind you, so if anything the Pinkman podcast should be more interesting and effective on me, relative to the average episode. But it was just so... "boring" is not even the word. Flat? Anachronistic? Bloodless? Zombieish? None of these quite convey it, but together they give some sense. The point is that, as a minor young academic but a relative connoisseur of the new media, for me something really significant in the machinery of intellectual experience was failing to fire, so much so that it was quite strange. I was surprised and confused. But now I think I understand it; it's everything I've said above.

The world that Pinkman seems to think he is in, is not the world we're actually living in now. The book will be successful economically of course, but it has no affective-identity constituency, other than people who are already socio-culturally neutralized or priced-in by the current equilibrium. It's hard to see how anything will move or shake from this type of project anymore. Most intellectual figures preach to a choir, of course, so Pinkman is no better or worse for that — but some choirs move and shake and generate novel ripples on world history, while others just sit there doing nothing other than precisely what was yesterday's world history. Some books and podcasts and youtube videos make people want to leave their friends and family to join a jihad, some give you strong confidence that a reality-TV star would make a great president, some give you the extraordinary realization that all of society is controlled by a white supremacist patriarchy; all of these lead to novel, unpredictable schisms and re-aggregations, new social formations and subcultures, which in their affective vitality bubble up, viralize or mutualize or enter into arms races, and end up producing system-level outcomes such as electoral victories, migrations, communicating-contagion shooting sprees, various contagious mental pathologies, as well as genuine self- and community-improvement dynamics, unequally distributed. There's nothing better or worse about the Enlightenment Is Cool niche; it's just that it's identity-affective character seems predicated on precisely what we've recently realized is already gone, as demonstrated by the whopping piece of incontrovertible evidence that was my personal lukewarm reception of Joe Rogan's podcast with Steven Pinkman.

You can say I should not generalize from my personal affective experiences, but my personal position seems like it'd be most conducive to liking and being affected by the Pinkman podcast! I'm not talking about the content of his book whatsoever, I'm talking about the reality he takes himself to be playing in. I don't think it's here anymore. First of all, the halo effect of prestige markers is weaker than ever I think. Once upon a time his prestige would have increased the excitement of listening to him. Today, much less. Second, all of the intellectual action today is coming from unique combinations of intellectual horsepower with identity alignments. Jordan Peterson is blowing up in part because he's a smart, credentialed intellectual with a message but specifically because he gives an image of admirable life for a certain type of person. It's not that JP lovers are now changing the world in a way Pinkman lovers will not, it's that JP's identity-affective alignment is not already priced in by the status quo from which Pinker's authority derives (JP tapped emotional needs not already being supplied, through new media, not prestige; hence the socio-political splash). Hell, Joe Rogan himself, who no Serious Intellectual would even call an intellectual, is making similar waves in the intellectual ecology because his basic intelligence and character combine with a certain affectively attractive performance of life that he offers to certain types of people. I could go on.

The problem for traditional public intellectuals on the Liberal Vocation model is that the image of life they herald is radically unavailable to most people so the aspirational inroad to affective alignment is close to nil; it's actually genuinely contemptible to many people (and this is getting worse as the very real racket-nature of much academia is becoming increasingly transparent; ironically the hard-science backlash against postmodernism might have unintended consequences in this regard); and the information they're able to share with the unwashed masses tends to be freely available anyway. Or worse, listeners/readers can usually find someone rehearsing the same information who also offers an identity-performance more affectively aligned with their own temperament and social position. So vanilla prestige intellectuals don't have a monopoly on the information, they no longer even have an advantage on trustworthiness given widespread mistrust toward most institutions, and they uniquely, sorely lack one of the biggest drivers of intellectual impact in the new ecology: affective-identity alignment with moving and shaking niche audiences. (Although note that, with the global internet, "niche" can very well mean several millions of people). To make matters even worse, their cultivated knack for walking the line of polite respectable "good taste" is actually a negative on the balance sheet of their social influence.

Here's another data point. I was struck by the nearly instant appearance of so many reviews and commentaries, almost all of which were ideologically colored. I don't mean that in a bad way necessarily, I just mean so many of the usual suspects were saying things to the effect you would expect them to say. And when most of those items would appear on my radar, my eyes would just glaze over. But think about the commentary that most struck me, and by "struck" I mean this combination of intellectual horsepower plus temperamentally conditional excitement. I'm talking about the post by RS Bakker that inspired this post (by the way I really wanted to just hammer out a quick 500-word thing, but this always happens, which is why I can't let myself sit down to "write a quick 500-word thing" very often). As I said, I read it quickly on the train, and at this point I don't even really remember what it said. All I know is that it had intelligent comments about Adorno and Nietzsche and their critiques of Enlightenment modernity. It was scientifically competent as far as I could tell, and then it had some kind of batshit scientific extensions I didn't really understand but which seemed promising maybe. It was only after I read the post that I wanted to see who this guy was, and from what I could grok apparently he writes fiction but also co-authored with someone in Nature? (!).

So just reflect on this for a moment. Prestige scientist I admire writes book about philosophical/political topics I am highly interested in, he does a podcast that has no effect on me, a million reviews from prestige outlets come out and I can't feel any reason to care about any of them, and it just so happens that the one item in the intellectual ecology that affected me (e.g. motivated novel production on my part), was maybe the one fiction writer in the world who has a publication in Nature writing something on his personal blog (and I didn't even know anything about him until after I read the piece). That's so strange... or rather, it would be strange if we were living even in the 1970s or even the 1990s, but it's not at all strange today. Of course there exists in the world some scientifically sophisticated blogger able to talk deeply about Adorno and Nietzsche, of course he has a blog, and of course it would find its way onto my radar. Of course it would strike me, and of course as a young academic myself right now I am more motivated to write long blog posts than do my institutional duties. Of course, this is the new reality. The real puzzle is how and why the respectable prestige dancehall of liberalism v1.0 is still populated with a good number of really smart people, when all of the music is clearly pumping out of a variegated, thousand-room warehouse of the less compromising... liberalism flatlining at degree zero.

#theory #history #intellectuals #joe rogan #steven pinker #science #jordan peterson #enlightenment

[jack-manpain-zimmermann]

10,000 Weight In Gold

Heavy trigger warnings for Jack’s rehab and overall stressful and upsetting discussions about his and Bob’s lives. I don’t know why I decided to hurt myself like this. It’s a plain old shot of angst.

This is perhaps a version of Jack that might not agree with everyone, but I promise I founded it in what Jack and others have said about him in canon mixed with a little commonalities with other children of rich and famous parents. It’s still only my interpretation, of course.

I’m pretty neutral/on-the-fence about Kent but I totally respect how others react to him so warning that he is mentioned a couple of times in here.

Title from song of the same name by The Head and the Heart

on AO3

If it weren’t for the feeling that he was paying for his eighteen-year-old son’s life with it, he could enjoy the lodge atmosphere and the waterfront view from the window.

There are a few tells, of course. Not least of which is how the place can never get warm enough. Having to wear a jacket indoors for Christ’s sake, he thinks in low-level agitation.

The floral arrangement in the hollow of the shut-up fireplace seems to hover at the corner of his vision every time he is there. Bob doesn’t consider himself at all a poetic man but even he thinks it’s unnecessarily funereal.

Sat right there for him to stare at every morning and every night.

He crosses the room with decision and snatches it up just to throw it into the garbage basket two feet away, fully aware of how hysterical the action would seem to an outside observer. Defiant, he moves to stand in its place on the smooth stone hearth.

A striking memory of his own father occupying a space so similarly comes to Bob’s mind. He remembers being a boy and wondering how his father could look so belligerently out of place when he was brought indoors. How often had he wanted to yell, Would you just sit down! Look at Maman! Look how tense we all are. Can’t you just relax?

Stood so tall and broad in the small disused fireplace, it twists his insides a little to think that his own father’s presence had expanded over a lifetime of working in fields and a God-fearing duty of providing for his family. Bob’s own outsized imposition is nothing more than growing accustomed to being treated like a god.

He breathes out a sigh when the door opens.

Jack pauses at the sight of him before entering the room. His hair and sweats are slightly damp from a shower, a towel draped over one shoulder. His eyes stay on Bob as he moves around, body all loping athletic grace beneath a weakened frame and strained attention.

“You’re so early. I’ve got IGT in fifteen.”

Bob tries for a grin. “I asked Dr. Sidana if it was alright for me to have unscheduled time with my son, and she seemed to think it would be safe.”

It isn’t really a joke and he isn’t surprised that Jack doesn’t react to it.

“I spoke to Riggs this morning, actually.” He watches Jack carefully, inching closer as if he might spook. “I told him how well you’re coming along here and he practically begged me to send you to him for a meeting once you’re out. That is,” he hesitates, trying not to loom when he stands next to where Jack is sat on the bed and staring out the window, “if you want to. It’s his hard luck if you don’t. No pressure.”

His son’s shadow of a smile at the emphasis placed on ‘no pressure’ is enough that Bob could live on for a month.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll meet him. But I ah, I don’t think I want to talk about me playing again. Not yet.”

Bob feels intense shame at the drop of disappointment in his gut.

“Sure, sure. Anything you want.”

Jack glances quickly up at Bob and begins to knead the edge of the bed with his hands.

“I think I’m gonna coach peewee for a little while. I mentioned to Mairead how I want to get back on the ice but I don’t feel ready to go back into all that pressure. She said how a lot of the stuff I’m learning here could sink in better if I’m… ‘helping others.’”

Bob sees the implied inverted commas around the words. Hell, even he and Alicia are starting to feel a little institutionalized and they only spend half their time here.

“I’m pretty good with kids, so I thought… And yeah, she agreed it would be a good start.”

“Jack, you’re not pretty good with kids, you’re great with kids. They know a natural leader when they see one.”

Jack looks up at him directly and returns his father’s smile. Bob can’t help but reach out and tap a finger against Jack’s chin, settling onto the bed beside him.

“There’s something else I wanted to mention, and I didn’t want your mother here because, well. You know she’s never been a big fan of Kenny.”

A rawness breaks across Jack’s blue eyes but he nods, indicating that Bob can continue.

“He wouldn’t stop calling and the other day she seemed ready to really give it to him. So, I waited for her to go to that Vogue perfume launch thing.”

He waves his hands dismissively as if he hasn’t posed for photo shoots in said magazine multiple times. Jack snorts lightly and ribs Bob in the side.

“Anyway, he practically pushed me over trying to get to your room. I’d told him you weren’t back home yet but well, you know Kenny.”

“I know Kenny,” Jack murmurs at the same time.

“It took a couple beers and letting him knock a few pictures off the wall, but I eventually sat him down and got him to listen. Now, I’m not going to tell you everything that came out of him. At least not until you’re out of here. Because if any kid needs therapy more than any other, boy is it that one.”

Jack makes an expression of sad agreement.

Bob clears his throat. This is the difficult part.

“I’ve been able to guess that certain things have gone on between you two. And God knows you’ve been into things you were too young for, no matter how much we tried to keep you from that crowd. But this is the first time I’ve known you to be with a boy, and Jack,” he reaches a hand up to Jack’s shoulder when he senses the tension in the room rise. “I’m not gonna ask you anything invasive. And you know I trust you, I know you’ve been taught the right things. But as your father I have to ask: did Kenny ever push you into anything? Did he ever force himself on you?”

The smile of bewildered relief that forms on Jack’s face is so close to his old self.

“No. God, no. Papa. It’s… I don’t know how to say it. Uhm. He wasn’t the one who was, uh,” he trails off on an awkward laugh. “Kenny talks a big game but he really isn’t, you know. It’s all for show.”

Realization dawns on Bob’s face at last. “Aha! You’re saying you taught him everything he knows, eh?”

Jack ducks his head. He’s always embarrassed by how frank his father can be about this stuff.

Bob drops his hand and leans a shoulder into Jack’s.

“Tell me if I’m way off here, son. But I think maybe it isn’t a bad thing that you and Kenny take a break from each other. Maybe once you’re out of here and settled into a new pattern, around new people– Jack?”

What he had thought was quiet laughter is crying.

Jack has his head twisted away and a teardrop clings to his eyelashes. It extinguishes when his eyes screw up in pain.

Bob feels his heart miss two beats. He reaches out to hold his son’s face, but Jack flinches away. He turns just enough to let his father see him but can’t meet his eyes.

“Some of those parties… the shit we all did… Christ, I’m so embarrassed when Maman acts like Kenny led me astray.”

He begins to lurch under the roiling shame. Bob holds him by the shoulders now, trying not to look at the way his son is vacant in the eyes but his face is taut with pain.

“I could never tell her any of it. And she hates him because she thinks,” his breath is ragged now, forming into sobs, “she thinks he screwed up her perfect little boy, I… fuck, Papa, I just… ”

His body slumps as if invisible wires had been holding him up and Bob has to slide both arms around him. He presses their faces close, searching for the soft cheek of the little boy he used to hold long ago. But there are only the bony edges of Jack’s lean face, the child gone and the young man barely there at all.

In the darkening reflection of the window Bob sees ghosts of himself; young and old.

“What do I tell him, Papa?” Jack grits out, and it takes Bob a moment to shift to where Jack is headed. “How do I say that I’ll always hate him for never having to be on medication and getting to do everything I’ve wanted since I was a kid? The draft… the contract… 

Jack lets himself list towards his father’s embrace at last, head cowed under Bob’s chin as he weeps.

“How the fuck do I say that to someone who told me he loved me three weeks ago?”

They cling to each other in pain, perhaps the only bond Bob can imagine they share now that hockey has proven itself to be the force tearing them apart.

“I should be able to tell you, Jack,” Bob swallows thickly. “I should be able to tell you, because I’ve been in that position far more times than is forgivable. Each time, I’ve dealt with it horribly and been ashamed of myself. And the last time I let someone down like that, it was you.”

He expects Jack to pull away with an expression of fury or betrayal. He inwardly curses this damn place for making him give up his secrets so easily.

Instead, he feels Jack shift until his arms wind around Bob’s middle. Bob could howl at the undeserved forgiveness he’s receiving, but he can only be grateful.

“You were waddling over to say goodbye to me, and you fell. Not hard, but it shook the wind out of you and made you cry. In my head I heard myself think how annoyed I was because you were still learning to walk and every five minutes you would fall over or hurt yourself. I was this close to handing you over to Maman because I was already late heading out and… “

Bob wipes at his eyes briefly before clinging to his son again.

“God, I have never hated myself more than when you caught me looking at you like that. Like you were an annoyance. Eleven months old and you’d never seen your Papa give you that look, but somehow I could tell that you knew. Jack, I’ve done some terrible, awful things to people in my life but if Saint Peter turns me away at the gates because of anything, I would have understood that as unforgivable.”

“Oh, Papa,” Jack whispers. Turning his head, he presses a kiss to Bob’s cheek quickly and looks away when he knows his father almost loses composure entirely.

“I’m not… I’m not saying that to get you to forgive me or to pretend that you and I share anything like similar blame in how we live. God knows I’m not, Jack. I’m saying it because I’ve had to climb out of a similar hole before and I want to help you any way I can. The people here, they’re good people. Fine professionals. But they’re not miracle workers. You’re going to need to find somewhere to put your love until you’re ready to give it to yourself, sweet boy.”

He pauses to press a kiss to the side of Jack’s head, brushing his fingers through long dark hair.

“I still love it, you know,” Jack answers hesitantly. “Hockey. I love everything about it, except maybe not the competing. Not right now.”

Bob holds himself back from saying, ‘that will come back to you someday soon as well.’

“I think you’ve got the right idea. There are a lot of kids out there who would love to have Jack Zimmermann as their coach. And take it from me, children can be incredibly forgiving and kind.”

Their eyes meet at last and they share a soft smile before there is knock at the door. A voice murmurs Jack’s name, reminding him of the time.

Jack stands and Bob rises as well, pulling his son into a tight hug.

“Your mother says she can be here for dinner, if you don’t mind?”

He pats Jack on the side as they walk to the door.

“Good for me.”

Jack pauses with his door on the handle.

“Do I need to be worried about Kenny? Do you think… “

“No. Not at all, son. He’s angry and upset for sure, but it’s just because he misses you. You don’t owe him… any of us, anything. He’ll be fine.”

“I hope so.” Jack’s voice is barely a whisper.

“We’re hard to get over, son. But they always do.”

Jack smiles a little wryly, fear only evident in his eyes.

“What about us?”

“Oh, well now,” Bob ambles over and opens the door for Jack. “We may feel like heartless assholes a lot of the time, but when we do finally fall in love…” He makes a soft whistling sound. “We never get over it.”

Jack can’t say why that piece of information out of the entire rehab experience remains his strongest source of consolation. But it is.

_________________________________________________________________

I’ve written up some probably superfluous notes about my thought processes during this fic. Totally self-indulgent but I’m posting them in case anyone’s interested. *crickets*

#bob zimmermann #jack zimmermann #zimmermann family #jack in rehab #tw for mentions and discussion of past drug and alcohol use #not quite dead dove but if you're not in the mood to feel sad and angsty then don't read #past pimms mention #jangst #My fic

[supere1113]

The Conflict Within Myself - Track 11: Stretched and Compressed

Wow. What do you follow such a climactic song as Polaroid with? Well, it could go either of two ways: The conflict within the person consumes them and they are corrupted and destroyed (.ie dying by suicide), Or.... they are somehow saved from their darkness and led on a different path. Shall I continue the story?

****TRIGGER WARNING****... again. probably the last one, though.

So last time I left off, It was early October 2017, I had just survived the closest-call suicide attempt of my life. After I didn’t die, I knew that if I were to try again, I would get even closer, and closer, and closer till I actually died (didn’t have that far to go that last time, but still). I didn’t want that to have to happen, so I decided that if I was going to go on, I would need help. Of some kind. I doubled down on getting my parents to understand what was going on with me by writing a letter and printing it out for them to read that night. It blew up in my face, and I lost a chunk of hope a little bigger than most of the other ones I was losing almost daily (At this point, they thought I was trying to drop out of school, potentially to pursue music full-time. That couldn’t been further from the truth. I can’t give one passion up for another, I’m a renaissance man. I mean, have you heard my song Multipotentialite from the last album? It surprised me that that didn’t click for them. I imagine they were scared too, though; whether they’d ever say it out loud to me or not. Sad situation it was). All that happened during a weekend where I went home to visit my parents. After I got back on campus, my mood swings continued to intensify. I every time I was in an extreme state, I would quarantine myself in my dorm (I feel sorry for my sophomore roommate. Thankfully, he was out doing things around campus during my most rapid descents into madness. I won’t say his name here, but I love you, bro. Thank you) and I eventually only left to eat... occasionally. My psych evaluation finally came on October 17th. I was mentally close to death. My mom brought me over there, I did the evaluation, and then, knowing what she did about my current mental state, the psychologist asked me if I wanted to be hospitalized, saying she could make it happen, even if my mother still didn’t get it after that. I went in the car, waited for my mom and the psychologist to finish their conversation and then, after she got in the car, mom called dad and said she “wasn’t playing around with this anymore.” She was finally willing to go through with getting me the help I needed, the way I needed it at that point. The unfortunate part is that after you’re so far gone, meeting with a counselor each week just isn’t enough. Though I wasn’t in immediate danger, I was still quite suicidal, and my parents couldn’t guarantee to the psychologist that they could protect me from me, not long-term. So, mom drove me home, and that night brought to my family the full impact of what was happening with me. Since may parents couldn’t keep me safe enough, I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital near my childhood home the next day. My dad never wanted either of his children to be institutionalized in any way, so this was especially crushing to him. We didn’t know how long I’d have to be there, so for that reason, among others, I was medically withdrawn from school. While I was there, my results from my psych evaluation came in. I was diagnosed with Bipolar I Disorder with psychotic features and Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Crazy. In every sense of the word. You could smell the stigma on me.

I never wanted it to be that way. I mean, I got access to the help I needed, but at what cost?! Even over 2 years later, there’s a lot about that that I’m still, even if only a lil bit, angry about, which surprises me. It was just a crazy time. And in the time after the realization, I would hear for the first time my parents say to me that they missed something. That shook all of us.

~~~~~

Anyway, the end of Polaroid marks the beginning of a new phase, a new suite in the album (Act III: The Explosion). This song, along with the remainder of the album, takes place in a psychiatric facility, and, similar to Polaroid, kind of explores my thoughts while I was in there, and what changes were finally able to take root in me (fitting for an album titled ‘The Conflict Within Myself’ to explore inner thoughts, huh?).

Stretched and Compressed is really a song about the general realization that I had mental illness. My own, mostly. Even though that realization occurred long before I was hospitalized, I simplified the sequence of events on here to make the album more universal, as I stated before. As a result, S&C also explores my parents realization of my new mental reality. This was unintentional, but this song could potentially be divided into two distinct halves, The first being Stretched, the last being Compressed. The music even corresponds to those titles. The sounds of the Stretched half heave upwards as if they are being stretched by a magnet. It’s meant to channel the surprise and pain of realizing, and accepting, a new reality. In contrast, the Compressed half covers moreso the small part of you that dies in the face of that reality, and the grief, the sadness and the depression that can flood your life when you realize that this is not the way you thought your life was going to go, nor what you intended, or after something traumatic happens.

I put a little nugget in the Stretched half that I think will be looked on in awe in the future. Just before the second verse, you can faintly hear me say “I’ve been suicidal, you can’t kill me ‘cause I tried it.” This is a direct reference to a line by one of my favorite rappers, Itsdink! I call him Cody. He and I have been friends for over a decade in 2019, and earlier in the month of October of this year, he dropped on Soundcloud what I believe to be his best work yet: Want Me Dead. This album was therapeutic for him to make and for both of us to listen to because it showed all the struggles he had endured since we last saw each other face-to-face (as I stated in my song Normal off my last album, The Artist In Me, I had to leave our childhood school in 2010. Cody and I haven’t been in the same place together since then). I had been through different things than him, but much of the mental damage that ensued, we had in common. Anxiety, depression, paranoia, Suicidality, all that. It broke my heart that he had to go through that, and also blessed my heart to know that he went through it and it didn’t consume him. We were both survivors, and we were both going to drop the albums that chronicled and helped us through our struggles on opposite ends of the same month: October 2019. I wanted to connect these albums so that history may remember Want Me Dead and The Conflict Within Myself as transcendent projects, connected to each other.

The Compressed half of Stretched and Compressed is even more somber than the preceding half. This is when the stigma of having multiple mental illnesses (or even just one) really hits me; and it hits hard. When I was in the hospital, I thought I had lost everything, and in a sense, I did. My sanity, my grades, an important part of my relationship with my parents, my ability to be a good student (or any student for that matter), my scholarships, my certainty, and a whole lot of other things associated with those things. I was relieved I was getting help, while being frustrated that it got so bad that I had to be there, saddened by that fact and just in a general state of shock from all that I had endured. Those mood swings I was talking about, that was what people in the mental health community call Mania. I was manic ever since July of 2017 when Chester died. The Mania is the high end of those mood swings. Depression is the low. And being manic doesn’t always mean being happy. I describe mania as being an amplifier to whatever you’re feeling. So if you’re happy and Manic, you are ELATED! If you are angry or irritable and manic, you get beyond furious and so irritated that you may turn suicidal. Actually, though. I suspected I had bipolar, but who ever wants to be right about that?

I had a lot of fun making Stretched and Compressed, especially the last 2 minutes. That transition from Stretched to Compressed is crazy. You ever heard something like that? then when the drums and plucky mental, metal guitar kick in on Compressed.... it’s over, bruv.

Stretched and Compressed is interesting because, much like Synchronized Sound and When Your Brain Is Fried, its instrumental was thought out years before Conflict even came out (the idea, though not yet carrying the S&C name, is probably as old as songs off of Identity, so circa 2015)! The pain of the Stretched half gave me Stephen Richards and Aaron Lewis vibes from their performances on P5hng Me A*wy and Krwling respectively off of Linkin Park’s remix album Reanimation. So I channeled them in the choruses (sprinkled a little bit of Jonathan Davis from Korn in there, too. ;) He also featured on that album on 1Stp Klosr). The Compressed half is much more genre-fluid than the Stretched half. But among many others, I was really inspired by the work of MUNA and The Red Hot Chili Peppers for that part of the song.

So you’re admitted to a hospital. You’re getting help, but you’re still reeling from all that led you there. Where else could the mind take us, I wonder...

[flowerfell-well]

Some characteristics and background information of the main characters of Train Train Choo Choo

The first person I would like to introduce you to, who also just happens to be our little ring-leader, is Su-Wei. Su-Wei may not be the oldest of our motley little crew, but she has the head of a leader on her shoulders for sure. She’s smart, good with words, and makes good decisions more often than anyone else I know. She’s also got a soft spot for strays. If she had any flaws, I would say it’d probably be her many fears: heights (despite coming from one of the flying city-states), bugs, authoritative people with weapons. She also has a weak constitution. Honestly, I’ve never seen Su-Wei without some form of medicine, or a cough, or a runny nose…

Su-Wei is usually pretty easy to spot, even though she’s not too tall for her age. She’s only 16 years old and stands at 5’2”, though she insists she hasn’t hit her growth spurt yet, so who knows if that’ll change in the years to come. She has tanned skin, the tan lines apparent when she wears tank tops, and really, really long black hair that she keeps up in twin buns. Her eyes look black, too, but they’re actually a very dark brown that light up when the sunlight hits them. Su-Wei is also recognizable by the large burn scar that takes up most of her left arm, which meant she had to learn to use her right hand instead. It’s still a work-in-progress.

Next up, we have Erasyl, the oldest of us at 17, 5’11” tall, and verified pretty boy. Erasyl is pretty good at getting what he wants, especially when it’s a job that requires lying. He gets a lot of odd jobs, but never sticks with any of them, though that’s probably our fault for moving around so much. He’s got a wishy-washy personality, can be a little bit of a jack-ass, and is a little too mean-spirited, but I know for a fact that he’d throw himself in front of any of us to protect us. And he’s done some pretty nasty stuff to protect us, including but not limited to: stealing a boat for travel, locking a noble out of his mansion so we could sleep in big beds, and, oh yeah, literally killing a guy who got too close to one of our younger members.

Erasyl’s deadly with a knife gadget, which is like a knife, but not really. He’s a little bit of an all-arounder, and I’m sure he’s one of the few of our group who could survive on his own. Erasyl has this really pretty wavy, dark brown hair, sandy skin, and large, brown eyes. He’s got a gap between his front teeth that he uses to help him whistle, which is cheating if you ask me, but he’s scrappy like that. Erasyl is a weird mixture of not too muscular, but also not too lanky. Lean, I think, like the meat. He’s also the only one of us who owns a certified weapon, though he did steal it so maybe it’s not certified anymore?

Our youngest is your neighborhood cutie, Makani! He’s short, under 5 feet for sure, and he’s recently turned 11 years old, something he is incredibly proud about for some reason. Makani may just be the sweetest person to have ever existed in the history of existence - he even beats out ice cream! He’s also very adaptive, and can make a living out in the woods as easily as he could squatting in a noble’s house. Despite being the youngest, he’s also the most skilled hunter-fisherman I’ve ever met. He’s technically from Maulun’in, but also not, since he really comes from the Manalands that border™ the sea-land nation.

Makani might be the youngest and sweetest of us, but that also makes him the most naive and gullible. At least, he used to be, but he’s wising up. His only real problem is that he tries to shoulder his and everyone else’s burdens by himself and refuses to talk when something’s bothering him. But, it’s hard to stay mad at him when he’s got the cutest freckles and dimples in all the lands! He’s got these strange eyes, his left one colored green while his right is a dark hazel gray. Otherwise, he’s got normal honey brown hair that he hasn’t cut once in his life, I’m sure. Erasyl has to braid his hair every morning.

Remember how I said that Makani is no longer our most gullible/naive member anymore? Yeah because of his adaptive nature, but also because it’s really hard to beat Maite’s naturally trusting nature. Seriously, she would follow a murderer if they asked nicely. She’s got the most polite, softest voice I’ve ever heard. She’s only a year younger than Su-Wei at 15 years old, but stands taller than our leader at 5’5”. Maite may be naive of the world, but one thing she definitely knows her way around is machinery. She even made her own legs!

Maite is also one of the prettiest girls in the world, I am thoroughly convinced. She’s got a healthy complexion, curly, shiny blonde hair that she keeps back with a metal headband, green eyes framed by long lashes and steel round-frames, and some strange looking birthmarks covering her stomach and back. She’s also got an adorable little button nose. Maite could be one of the best mechanics of our generation, if those snobby higher-ups would just give her machines a chance.

Hakan came with Maite, the two of them having been institutionalized at the same hospital, but he has none of her sweetness. Or maybe he does? Hakan is quiet, but not just due to his closed-off attitude. He’s a straight-up refugee from Ruswarwa, and mute from birth. He can be a bit of a cry-baby, but he is the second-youngest at 13-14 (he doesn’t know his age, so we’ve had to retcon a bit). He’s about 5 foot flat, also making him the second-shortest of us. Despite this, he’s the fastest runner of our group, and I’ve yet to see anyone beat him in a race or catch him on foot.

Hakan tends to look pretty grungy all the time, since he hates baths, but his skin is naturally a darker tone, being a reddish-brown. He’s got slick black hair that looks greasier than it is, that he keeps trying to cut, badly. Last time, he nicked his neck, so he hasn’t been allowed to hold anything bladed since. Anyways, because of this his hair is now shoulder-length, but he keeps it tied back in a half bun. Hakan also has these weirdly sharp canines. His eyes are a light, amber brown, and strangely wise, or haunted. As if he’s seen something he shouldn’t have. Still, he’s a great marksman during hunting, and while he may not be a true mechanic like Maite, he can tinker and fix most standard machines. He seems to be warming up to the rest of us, finally, after three whole years together.

And finally, we have me! My birth name is Afia, but some days I go by Kofi, when I feel just a little too “manly” for skirts. If I had to say, I’d say I’m the glue that really keeps our little family together! I’ve got a couple of sticky fingers, and perhaps a penchant for taking what’s not mine more often than I should, but I can usually get myself out of any trouble I gather - especially with my knuckle-busters that Erasyl got me last year. I may be the most impulsive of the group, but I blame that on my age, 15, like Maite, though I’m much taller than her at a whopping 5’7”. I’ve also got the whitest teeth of the group!

My skin is a very dark, dark brown, and I’ve got lots of freckles that shimmer in the dark! My hair, an equally dark brown, almost black, I keep dreaded and long, pulled into a low ponytail to keep it from catching on anything important. I’m the only one of the group to have piercings in my ears, lip, nose, and belly button. My eyes are black, good for reflecting the stars in the sky, and I’m missing both of my ring-fingers, so it’s a good thing I haven’t planned on marrying! Maite made me some cool new ones that look like her legs, though, so maybe one day when the wars are all over I’ll be able to settle. Maybe I’ll just get a dog, though?

#traintrainchoochoo #characters #kid characters #teen characters #su-wei #erasyl #afia/kofi #makani #maite #hakan