#could i have put in more effort? absolutely

[wileys-russo]

hi! laura freigang, 'can i use a picture of you as my phone's background?', locker room please?

lockscreen II l.freigang

you woke up to a flash in your face, ducking your head beneath the covers with a groan. "go away lau!" you moaned kicking out at your best friend who only grinned, tugging the covers away from you.

"it was for the collection!" laura explained as if that was completely normal as you tiredly glared up at her. "get out of my room, its not even eight yet!" you realised with a groan, shoving her a little harder than intended as she went rolling backwards off the bed.

you sat up with a start, covering your grin with your hand as the blonde moaned clutching her head which had collided with the carpet.

"sorry?" you tried with an innocent smile as she sat up and fixed you with a venomous glare. "idiot!" she huffed unappreciative of your efforts. "in my defense i have warned you before about not waking me before nine unless its an emergency." you reminded with a shrug.

"i was waking you because i made breakfast but now i think i will go give it to that cranky lady next door, she would be more appreciative!" the blonde grumbled standing to her feet with a shake of her head, stretching out her back.

"no no, no need! thank you." you shot up from bed, kissing her cheek in thanks before racing off toward the kitchen too fast to see the way the girls face burned beetroot red at the tiny gesture of affection.

laura had been pining over you for months now, and it was painful that it was obvious to absolutely everyone but you, even her teammates teasings only causing you to roll your eyes and dismiss them with a wave when they joked you were secretly dating.

laura could only wish to be so lucky, and only wish you'd finally see that all the little things she did for you was because she was crushing on you hard.

ever since you'd moved to the club the girl felt her knees wobble a little when you were introduced to the team, the first to put her hand up to show you around and within a couple of weeks the two of you were thick as thieves and laura had offered you her spare room while you hunted for a place of your own.

it was an offer which beat the pull out sofa you were currently sleeping on in an old school friends one bedroom loft who'd moved to germany for university and just never come back.

you'd be lying if you said without laura you'd have lost your mind and probably quit to move back home. she helped you set up everything, get better at the language, offered friendship and a comfortable bed beneath your back, cooked everyday for you and showed you around new places each weekend between matches.

you hadn't realized it just yet but you were also crushing hard on the blonde, only you'd grown up with four older brothers and attributed nearly every strong feeling you had toward a woman as just a longing for friendship.

it was idiotic how blind you were really.

"so." you looked up from your spot at your cubby, training finished for the day as you were icing your ankle you'd rolled, most of the team having already left for the day laura was kindly waiting around until the physio came back to check you over, currently in a meeting.

"as you know i've been making my phone look nicer." laura started as you chuckled, amused by her sudden interest in aesthetics which was spurred on by a late night tiktok doom scroll as you lay together 'hanging out' in complete silence in her room the other night.

"i found a lockscreen-" she turned to show you a photo she'd taken at the markets on one of her film cameras, smiling at the familiar setting. "-but, can i use a photo of you as my phone background?" she asked hopefully as you groaned.

"what!" she huffed, a little offended by your reaction. "not if its one of those awful pictures you always take of me sleeping, or eating, or at that gross zoomed out angle but super close and-" you started to protest making her frown switch to a grin.

"no schatz, not a bad photo." she patted your knee reassuringly, sliding closer to you as your head fell to her shoulder, missing the way she tensed up a little, clearing her throat.

"i have nice ones. i will even let you choose!" laura promised as you hummed and she clicked into her camera roll, selecting an album with a little sun emoji.

"see? look these are all candid ones of you. at the farmers market, out at dinner, cooking at home, when we went to ikea, when we went to the night festival, getting coffee-" as she scrolled slowly through, something suddenly clicked in your mind.

in nearly all of these you and laura had been hanging out, but always just the two of you. you took turns paying for things, you were always laughing, she was always surprising you with little adventures or taking you to new places and forcing you out of your comfort zone.

but it was always just with laura, and then it clicked for you, it was laura, you loved laura.

the girl was too busy recounting the story behind one of the hundreds of photos in the album with a soft smile on her face to notice you pull your head away to look at her, finally seeing the slight blush on her cheeks and not missing the twinkle in her eye.

so maybe, just maybe, laura loved you too.

"lau." you interrupted, cutting her off mid sentence as she looked up and caught your eye, blush intensifying as she did. "was i rambling? oh god i was rambling wasn't i? i told you when that happens to snap me out of it or tell me to shut up or-" she started again making you smile.

"lau?" "yeah?" "shut up." you grinned as she did too, tips of her ears flushed pink which you found quite cute, suddenly now noticing a lot of little features you'd taken for granted.

"do you trust me?" you asked softly and the blonde nodded without a moments hesitation, but in her most wild of dreams she'd never expected what came next as your hand moved to settle on the back of her neck and you leaned in until you were barely a hairsbreadth away.

"is this okay?" you whispered, checking one last time as all the german could do was nod, dumbfounded and unsure if this was actually happening until you leaned in just that tiny bit further and pressed your lips to hers.

this was really happening, and as laura dropped her phone into her lap, tugging you even closer and kissing you back like you were her last breath of air, you realised that yeah, your laura did love you back, and this was the start of a brand new adventure together.

#woso community #woso #laura freigang x reader #laura freigang #woso x reader #woso fanfics #woso imagine #woso blurbs

[st4rgzer]

now playing…MY BOY ONLY BREAKS HIS FAVORITE TOYS (spencer reid)

summary: words get spoken on a night out with a team, things don’t go as planned as a realization dawned upon spencer.

genre: fluff/angst

cw!: alcohol, public humiliation kinda

a/n: i rlly struggled with this one guys, i like how it came out even if it’s not entirely the same as the song.<3 masterlist

anyone that saw spencer right now could tell he was absolutely and irrevocably in love with you.

his puppy dog eyes traced the exposed skin of your collarbones, eyes slyly exploring your silhouette. his gaze landing on your face, your mesmerizing eyes. he glanced at your lips and thought about how sweet the lipgloss you were wearing would taste.

he tried to conceal the smile that was stretching across his face, putting all his efforts in averting his eyes from you. which was probably the most difficult thing he had done ever (…)

you were invited to go out with the team, by penelope. spencer giddily awaited your arrival. glancing over at the bar entrance every time a person came in, his heart racing when he saw someone enter. only to be disappointed when he saw that the person was, in fact, not you.

yet another opening of the door could be heard, and spencer turned his head lazily. slightly dazed from the few drinks he had. his eyes practically doubled in size as he saw you walking in. you looked around a few times before setting your gaze to the group of friends stood by a table. your smile was contagious. by the time you arrived at the table, spencer’s cheeks hurt.

“hey, pretty boy’s been waiting for you all night” derek grinned. spencer shot him a glare.

“no i have not!-“ he stuttered, foolishly struggling to look at you in the eyes, though he really, really wanted to.

you smiled, rolling your eyes at derek’s play fighting with spencer.

“okay okay, who’s getting drinks with me?” you laughed, looking at spencer specifically. he smiled like a kid who just received a new shiny toy, glancing up at you with a bewitched smile.

“i’ll go” spencer spoke, his tone lacking confidence. following you like a lost pup, a soft smile still plastered on his face.

“hey looks like the genius is finally makin’ a move”

“go get her tiger!”

collective catcalls and words of encouragement toward spencer were heard from the table, voices becoming more faint as spencer and you went deeper into the crowd.

“assholes” you laughed, making the air immediately lighter. a trait that spencer admired, amongst many others.

“huh? oh! yeah ignore them, they’re- stupid…” he stumbled over his words, coming out faster than his brain could think. it’s funny how his IQ of 187 could easily be sliced in half when being met with you.

you laughed, nodding in agreement.

“so, what’re you having?” you asked, tilting your head slightly. you noticed how pretty spencer’s featured looked, illuminated by the dim light, accentuating the carvings of his cheekbones.

“i’ve already had something, i don’t drink much” he said quietly, afflicted by the fact that he just turned down your offer.

“but whatever you drink, it’s on me” he looks up, a smile in his voice as he sees a grin form on your face.

“really? you don’t have to do that” you laugh, looking down. you are incredibly thankful for the lights in the bar being to dim, or else you’d have no chance at hiding the tint that was creeping up your cheeks.

“yeah yeah it’s fine, really, it’s on me” he say’s chivalrously. you nod, kissing his cheek lightly and muttering a ‘thank you’ before smiling and leaning on the counter to order.

spencer swore to god his heart stopped. he blinked a few times with wide eyes to make sure it wasn’t just a figment of his imagination. a lingering effect of his intoxication. no, it was real.

you sipped on a martini, nodding to spencer for him to follow you back to the table, where emily and jj were dancing not very far away (and definitely not very far apart) penelope was flirting with derek, and rossi and hotch were doing typical rossi and hotch things.

your face twisted in confusion as the team diverted their attention to reid, looking at him with a mix of pride from morgan, and wonder from the rest of the team.

“you got something there pretty boy” derek pointed to his cheek. spencer rubbed the side of his face, being met with a slightly red stained hand.

you covered your mouth, a laugh threatening to come out.

“sorry spence” was all your could muster without giggling. Spencer looked terrified, a slight pink tint painting his face.

the whole team broke out in laughter, friendly heat of course. but spencer didn’t seem to enjoy the little scene he’d made, he turned and started walking swiftly toward the bar. you tried chasing after him, after realizing he was the only one not laughing. but it was too late as he disappeared into the crowd of drunk dancing people.

you sighed, turning towards the team.

“guys.” you looked at them with a warning expression as their laughter slowly faded. you skipped to were you thought spencer would be. finding him sat at the bar with a glass of water, and his chin resting on his hand

“hey…sorry about that” you said, sitting next to him. closer than usual.

“it’s fine” he gave you a tight lipped smile, clearing his throat and avoiding your eyes. your heart ached, knowing the embarrassment you had probably caused him, and knowing his history with public humiliation. even if they were his friends, it was still wrong.

you reached and placed your hand on his shoulder, giving him a reassuring squeeze. you felt him tense underneath your touch.

“i’m sorry, really. i didn’t know you had the lipstick and-“ spencer interrupted you , which took you by surprise.

“it’s not that y/n, do you not understand? you are selfish. do you like making fun of me melting under you? do you actually like me or is it just fun to just watch me.” his words were fast and sharp. your brows furrowed and tears pricked your waterline. spencer’s eyes widened after he realized the full blown confession slash burst he just had.

you were his best friend, he trusted you with his life and viceversa. and he was making you cry, all because of his frustration with himself. his love life was not your problem.

“y/n, i didn’t mean it, i- i’m sorry i-“ he stuttered nervously, desperately wishing to reach for your face and wipe the first tear that fell.

“no its fine” you spoke, quietly, so your voice was less doomed to breaking. not only did his harsh words sting, it was incredibly heartbreaking to realize what you had been doing, and how it affected him.

you decided to walk out of the bar, spencer heading after you. the cold air hit your face, shivering at the sudden contact with your skin.

“please- y/n” spencer pleaded. barging out the bar chasing after you.

“spencer, i get it, i’m sorry” you yelled, a bit more loudly than you’d like. you felt frustrated at the fact that he thought you were simply making fun of him. he was your person, quiet console in the middle of the night, there when you most needed him. of course you inevitably fell stupidly in love with him.

“i don’t do any of those things to hurt you. i would never do anything to hurt you, and spencer, i’m so sorry if i did. i’m in love with you. and not just in a best friend way, in a way in which i want my bed to feel empty when you’re not there, i want to be able to kiss you and say how gorgeous you are in any given moment. and- i’m sorry if you don’t feel the same but i-“ you sighed, exasperated and out of breath from the drunken confession.

a minute passed and it felt more like eternity as you awaited for his response, or at least a sign of rejection or approval, anything.

“well, say something!” you threw your hands up in the air, breathing out.

spencer’s mouth opened to talk but nothing came out. he was still coming to terms with your reciprocated feelings toward him. and then his mind began to spiral, it all went downhill from there.

his palms began to sweat despite the cold breeze that sent shivers down your spine.

“i’m in love with you too. i love you, and i have for quite some time” he spoke too calmly, as if he was warning you about what was to come next.

“but we can’t be together. not right now. not with me.” he spoke crudely, trying to distance himself from you, hesitation coursing through his veins. he couldn’t blame the alcohol this time after the confession sobered him up. he was scared, but the terror that came from the idea of losing you because of him? no. even if you were eternally infuriated with him, at least you weren’t in front of him with a gun to your head.

you swallow a lump in your throat, making it hard to speak, hard to breathe.

“but, why?” you ask, awaiting for a worthy response that justified the worst sentence he could’ve ever uttered: ‘we can’t be together’.

“we can’t. it’s too difficult, my job is too difficult.” he had placed an invisible barrier between the two of you. refusing to look at you, and the damage he’d done.

‘There was danger in the heat of my touch

He saw forever so he smashed it up’

“but-“ you were rudely interrupted by the sound of the bar door opening, presenting a very drunken group of people. who just so happened to be your friends, watching you and spencer have this tense conversation, or at least the aftermath of it.

you closed your eyes for a few seconds, trying to regain your composure. spencer and hotch were the designated drivers. you decided to head home in the car where the driver wasn’t the guy you had just confessed to and had given you a pathetic response. you could see spencer look at you as you got into the car, a puzzling expression hard to decode on his face.

‘my boy only breaks his favorite toys.’

as you headed home, the quiet voice ringed in the back of your head, threatening to call him. for you to insist on a worthy response, an explanation to his unwillingness. instead you just laid in bed, your covers acting as a shield to everything in the exterior that could hurt you. you still wished that your bed felt empty. and that spencer would be the missing piece.

‘and I'll tell you that he runs

because he loves me.

cause you should've seen him, when he first saw me.’

taglist: @ilovesadiesink @sp3ncelle

*comment to be added!*

#spencer reid fluff #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid #spencer reid angst #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x reader #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds #criminal minds fic

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

At one campaign rally after another, former President Donald Trump whips his supporters into raucous cheers with a promise of what’s to come if he’s given another term in office: “We will demolish the deep state.”

In essence, it’s a declaration of war on the federal government—a vow to transform its size and scope and make it more beholden to Trump’s whims and worldview.

The former president’s statements, policy blueprints laid out by top officials in his first administration and interviews with allies show that Trump is poised to double down in a second term on executive orders that faltered, or those he was blocked from carrying out the first time around.

Trump seeks to sweep away civil service protections that have been in place for more than 140 years. He has said he’d make “every executive branch employee fireable by the president of the United States” at will. Even though more than 85% of federal employees already work outside the DC area, Trump says he would “drain the swamp” and move as many as 100,000 positions out of Washington. His plans would eliminate or dismantle entire departments.

A close look at his prior, fitful efforts shows how, in another term, Trump’s initiatives could debilitate large swaths of the federal government.

While Trump’s plans are embraced by his supporters, policy experts warn that they would hollow out and politicize the federal workforce, force out many of the most experienced and knowledgeable employees, and open the door to corruption and a spoils system of political patronage.

Take Trump’s statement on his campaign website: “I will immediately reissue my 2020 executive order restoring the president’s authority to remove rogue bureaucrats. And I will wield that power very aggressively.”

That executive order reclassified many civil service workers, whose jobs are nonpartisan and protected, as political appointees who could be fired at will. At the time, more than four dozen officials from ten Republican and Democratic presidential administrations, including some who served under Trump, condemned the order. In a joint letter, they warned it would “cause long-term damage to one of the key institutions of our government.”

In the end, Trump’s order had little impact because he issued it in the final months of his term, and President Joe Biden rescinded it as soon as he took office.

But if, as promised, Trump were to change thousands of civil service jobs into politically appointed positions at the start of a second term, huge numbers of federal workers could face being fired unless they put loyalty to Trump ahead of serving the public interest, warn policy experts.

‘AN ARMY OF SUCK-UPS’

“It’s a real threat to democracy,” Donald Moynihan, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University, told CNN. “This is something every citizen should be deeply aware of and worried about because it threatens their fundamental rights.”

Moynihan said making vast numbers of jobs subject to appointment based on political affiliation would amount to “absolutely the biggest change in the American public sector” since a merit-based civil service was created in 1883.

One of the architects of that plan for a Trump second term said as much in a video last year for the Heritage Foundation. “It’s going to be groundbreaking,” said Russell Vought, who served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget under Trump. He declined interview requests from CNN. But in the video, he spoke at length about the plan to crush what he called “the woke and the weaponized bureaucracy.” Vought discussed dismantling or remaking the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Environmental Protection Agency, among others.

Vought focused on a plan he drafted to reissue Trump’s 2020 executive order, known as Schedule F. It would reclassify as political appointees any federal workers deemed to have influence on policy. Reissuing Schedule F is part of a roadmap, known as Project 2025, drafted for a second Trump term by scores of conservative groups and published by the Heritage Foundation.

Vought argues the civil service change is necessary because the federal government “makes every decision on the basis of climate change extremism and on the basis of woke militancy where you’re effectively trying to divide the country into oppressors and the oppressed.”

A Trump campaign spokesperson pointed CNN to a pair of campaign statements from late last year in part responding to reporters’ questions about the 900-plus-page Project 2025 document. The campaign said, “None of these groups or individuals speak for President Trump or his campaign… Policy recommendations from external allies are just that – recommendations.” However, the Project 2025 recommendations largely follow what Trump has outlined in broad strokes in his campaign speeches – for example, his plans to reissue his 2020 executive order “on Day One.”

Ostensibly, a reissued Schedule F would affect only policy-making positions. But documents obtained by the National Treasury Employees Union and shared with CNN show that when Vought ran OMB under Trump, his list of positions to be reclassified under Schedule F included administrative assistants, office managers, IT workers and many other less senior positions.

NTEU President Doreen Greenwald told reporters at the union’s annual legislative conference that it estimated more than 50,000 workers would have been affected across all federal agencies. She said the OMB documents “stretched the definition of confidential or policy positions to the point of absurdity.”

Trump’s comments about wanting to be able to fire at will all executive-branch employees suggest the numbers in a second term would be far greater.

Moynihan, at Georgetown, said US policies already grant the president “many more political appointees than most other rich countries” allow – about 4,000 positions.

“Almost all Western democracies have a professional civil service that does not answer to whatever political party happens to be in power, but is immune from those sorts of partisan wranglings,” said Kenneth Baer, who served as a senior OMB official under President Barack Obama. “They bring… a technical expertise, a sense of long history and perspective to the work that the government needs to do.” Making thousands of additional positions subject to political change risks losing that expertise, while bringing in “people who are getting jobs just because they did some favor to the party, or the president was elected. And so, there’s a risk of corruption.”

Such concerns cross the political aisle. Robert Shea, a senior OMB official under George W. Bush, called himself a hugely conservative, loyal Republican. But hiring people based on personal political loyalties would produce “an army of suck-ups,” he said.

“It would change the nature of the federal bureaucracy,” to remove protections from senior civil servants, he said. “This would mean that if you told your boss that what he or she was proposing was illegal, impractical, [or] unwise that they could brand you disloyal and terminate you.”

Biden has moved to block such a move. On April 4, the Office of Personnel Management, which in effect is the human resources department for the federal government, adopted new rules meant to bar career civil service workers from being reclassified as political appointees or other types of at-will workers.

The new rules would not fully block reclassifying workers in a second Trump term. But they would create “speed bumps,” said Baer. “To repeal the regulation, there would have to be a lengthy period of proposed rulemaking, 90 days of comment,” and other steps that would have to be followed. “And then probably the litigation, after that.”

“PLACES FILLED WITH PATRIOTS”

While assailing “faceless bureaucrats,” Trump also has said he would move federal agencies from “the Washington Swamp… to places filled with patriots who love America.”

But when he tried such moves before, the effect was to drain know-how, talent and experience from those agencies. That’s what happened in 2019 when Trump moved the headquarters of the Bureau of Land Management to Grand Junction, Colorado, and two agencies within the Department of Agriculture to Kansas City.

“The vast bulk of (headquarters) employees left the agencies,” said Max Stier, president and chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan group that promotes serving in government. It led to the loss of “expertise that had been built up over decades,” he said. “It destroyed the agencies.”

A 2021 investigation by the Government Accountability Office found that the BLM move pushed out hundreds of the bureau’s most experienced employees, and sharply reduced diversity, with more than half of black employees in DC opting to quit or retire rather than move to Colorado. The GAO also concluded that the USDA’s decision to move its Economic Research Service (ERS) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) to Kansas City was “not fully consistent with an evidence-based approach.”

The two USDA agencies do statistical research and analysis. The ERS focuses on areas including the well-being of farms, the effects of federal farm policies, food security and safety issues, the impacts of trade policies and global competition. NIFA funds programs to help American agriculture compete globally, protect food safety and promote nutrition, among other areas.

Verna Daniels had worked for the USDA for 32 years, most of them as an information specialist at the Economic Research Service, when she and her colleagues found out their agency was being relocated in October 2019.

“I really enjoyed my job. I worked extremely hard. I never missed a deadline,” Daniels said. She said the announcement left her in shock. “Everybody was afraid, and it was happening so fast… We were given three months to relocate to wherever it was or vacate the premises.” She quit rather than uproot her whole family. “It was heart-wrenching.”

The Trump administration said moving the USDA agencies would bring researchers closer to “stakeholders”– that is, farmers. Catherine Greene, an agricultural economist with 35 years at the USDA’s Economic Research Service, called the idea ridiculous. “Every state that surrounds Washington, DC, has farming… I grew up on a hundred-year-old farm in southwestern Virginia.”

“We’ve all dedicated our lives to looking at farming in America, to looking at food systems in America,” Greene said. “I think the goal was to uproot the agency in such a way that most people would have to move on, and most people did. It was highly predictable.”

The other relocated research agency, the National Institute for Food and Agriculture, had 394 employees at the beginning of the Trump administration, said Tom Bewick, acting vice president of the union local for NIFA. Trump imposed a hiring moratorium that left positions unfilled as people moved or retired. By the time the relocation to Kansas City was announced, NIFA was down to 270 employees. “Once it was announced they would move us, we were losing 10 to 20 people a week,” Bewick explained. “We had less than 70 people make the move.” Five years on, he said, “We still are not the same agency, and we’ll never be the same agency we were.”

The USDA said the move to Kansas City would save taxpayers $300 million over 15 years. But the GAO said that analysis didn’t account for the loss of experience and institutional knowledge, the cost of training new workers, reduced productivity and the disruption caused by the move. Including such costs, the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association estimated the move actually cost taxpayers between $83 million and $182 million.

Greene, at the Economic Research Service, retired rather than move. After Biden took office, the BLM and the two USDA agencies moved their headquarters back to Washington, but also kept open their offices in Grand Junction and Kansas City, respectively. Greene said she worries for federal workers who might face the same choice in a second Trump term. “They mean business,” she said. “They spent four years practicing, and they are ready to rock and roll.”

To Stier, at the Partnership for Public Service, there is a huge gap between the perception and the reality of the role that the civil service plays across the country. “We’ve been doing polling on trust in government, and when you tag on the words, government ‘in Washington, DC,’ the trust numbers crater,” he said.

USING THE GOVERNMENT TO GO AFTER ENEMIES

On the campaign trail, Trump has regularly claimed, without evidence, that Biden and the Department of Justice are stage-managing various prosecutions of him – including state-level indictments in New York over falsifying business records and in Georgia, on charges of election subversion. Trump has used that false claim to say it would justify him using the Justice Department to target his political enemies. He’s said that in a second term he’d appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Biden. He told Univision last year he could have others indicted if they challenged him politically.

Trump tried to use the Department of Justice in this fashion during his previous term, repeatedly telling aides he wanted prosecutors to indict political foes such as Hillary Clinton or former appointees he’d fired, such as former FBI Director James Comey. He also pushed then-Attorney General Bill Barr to falsely claim the 2020 election was corrupt, which Barr refused to do.

In that term, some senior officials at the White House and the Justice Department pushed back against pursuing baseless prosecutions. Their resistance followed a tradition holding that the Justice Department should largely operate independently, with the president setting broad policies but not intervening in specific criminal prosecutions.

But in a second term, Trump could upend that tradition with the help of acolytes such as Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice official who faces disbarment in DC and criminal charges in Georgia for trying to help overturn the 2020 election results. As Trump tried to hang onto the White House in his final weeks in office, he pushed to make Clark his acting attorney general, stopping only after senior Justice Department leaders threatened to resign en masse if he did so.

Last year, Clark published an essay titled “The U.S. Justice Department Is Not Independent” for the Center for Renewing America, a conservative nonprofit founded by Russell Vought. Clark also helped draft portions of the Project 2025 blueprint for a second Trump term, including outlining the use of the Insurrection Act of 1807 to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement, as first reported by the Washington Post.

Trump also has talked about bringing to heel other parts of the federal government.

“We will clean out all of the corrupt actors in our National Security and Intelligence apparatus, and there are plenty of them,” Trump said in a video last year. “The departments and agencies that have been weaponized will be completely overhauled so that faceless bureaucrats will never again be able to target and persecute conservatives, Christians, or the left’s political enemies.”

Project 2025’s blueprint envisions dismantling the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI; disarming the Environmental Protection Agency by loosening or eliminating emissions and climate-change regulations; eliminating the Departments of Education and Commerce in their entirety; and eliminating the independence of various commissions, including the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission.

The project includes a personnel database for potential hires in a second Trump administration. Trump’s campaign managers have not committed the former president to following the Project 2025 plans, should he win the White House. But given the active involvement of Trump officials in the project, from Vought and Clark to former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, senior adviser Stephen Miller, Peter Navarro and many others, critics say it offers a worrisome roadmap to a second Trump term.

“Now they really understand how to use power, and want to use it to serve, not just Republican partisans, but Donald Trump,” said Baer.

On the campaign trail, Trump leaves little doubt about what he’ll try to do.

“We will put unelected bureaucrats back in their place,” Trump told his supporters at one rally last fall. “The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within.”

#us politics #news #republicans #donald trump #conservatives #gop #2024 #2024 elections #project 2025 #deep state #civil service workers #political appointees #at will hires #at will employment #Russell Vought #Schedule F #Heritage Foundation #cnn #deregulation #Office of Personnel Management #Jeffrey Clark #partisanship #fascism

[ex-textura]

Auric | Soldier | Devotion Paladin / College of Swords Bard

Naught | Folk Hero | Beast Master Ranger

Ciaran Finch | Haunted One | Thief Rogue / Open Hand Monk

Jinx | Entertainer | Wild Magic Sorcerer

Amaris | Acolyte | Knowledge Cleric of Selûne

#bg3 #my ocs #auric #naught #ciaran finch #oc: jinx #oc: amaris #just felt like compiling my little lads #could i have put in more effort? absolutely #will i ever put the appropriate amount of effort into anything? Definitely not #yes i have more planned #we're not talking about them yet

[positivelybeastly]

Do you think you can explain in explicit detail why Percy's version of beast doesn't work?

All right, so, hopefully you can forgive me for taking a bit of time to come to this ask, because it's quite the subject matter, and it's one I take very seriously. I want you to have a good answer or no answer at all.

In order to explain why Percy's Beast doesn't work, we first need to establish a continuity for Beast, and why and how he works.

Which is why it's a good thing I have a 14 page Google Doc that goes into detail about all of this, which I'm going to drag and drop here:

Beast in the Krakoan era is a fascist mutant supremacist, who believes that the ends justify the means; he's cold-hearted, cruel, endlessly self-justifying, unfunny, shortsighted, and overall, a bastard. He is without nuance - and it's not just me saying that, that's both the writer and the characters saying that. He has, apparently, always been evil, and all it took was power for his true self to come out.

This does not jive with any of his characterisation prior to this point. Don't believe me? Let's deep dive.

Hank McCoy was born in Dunfee, Illinois to two very normal human parents. His mutation was apparent from the moment he was born, due to his father taking an enormous dose of radiation after an accident at the nuclear power plant he worked at, and while it would occasionally raise an eyebrow, he was able to hide what he was for the first 15-17 years of his life (Marvel ages are vague, but Hank is usually portrayed as the oldest of the O5, so we'll just say he was 17). He was recruited for the X-Men by Charles Xavier after his parents were taken hostage by a Z-list supervillain called the Conquistador, who wanted Hank to steal components from his father's place of work.

I should note that already, pre-X-Men, Hank did not believe in giving obvious supervillains nuclear power plant components, and gave the Conquistador a box full of flashbangs that disoriented him and his goons before defeating them in a fight. He did the right thing, at potential great personal cost to him and his parents, whom he loves very much.

Xavier then proceeded to step in, and, depending on the continuity, wiped the minds of everyone Hank had ever loved of the memory of him, so as to keep him 'safe,' or wiped the mind of Hank's first love, a girl called Jennifer Nyles, who is consistently depicted as being the woman who encouraged Hank to step out of his shell and do something with his obvious natural physical and intellectual gifts. Either way, this quite irritated Hank, and mere hours after he had put on his X-Men uniform, he was already about to fight the Professor over an egregious breach of mental privacy and security. But because he believed in what the Professor espoused, he let it slide.

It's worth noting that this mindwipe was seemingly undone later, because there are comics released both before and after Mike Carey's Origins issue that depict Hank having a deeply loving relationship with his parents. This will be important for later.

Now, a lot of people love to point to Uncanny X-Men #8 as the first evidence that Hank has always been a supervillain in disguise, and while I think it's a little egregious to point to any issue of any 60s comic book and say that anyone acts in a way that is sensible, moral, or decent, it's worth noting that the act in question, dialling up Unus the Untouchable's powers to a point where he can't control them, is in direct response to Unus attempting to defeat/kill the rest of the X-Men, or at the very least, hand them over to Magneto (who, let's not forget, in the 60s was a homicidal maniac happy to nuke entire countries). Is the response of threatening Unus with a slow death by starvation disproportionate? Yeah, it is.

Scott and the rest of the X-Men seem completely fine with it.

So, now you have to ask yourself - do we accept the morality of the time, and assume that Hank was basically justified to do what he did, to save his team and stop a dangerous mutant, or do we judge him for acting like a supervillain would, and thus everyone else on the team is fine with it? Iunno. That's a personal judgement. It's 60s X-Men, it's shit. I basically hardly regard it as canon, and given that any time anyone comes on to the Reddit board looking to start X-Men gets waved away from starting there, it clearly isn't regarded as very well written, is it? Maybe we regard it as a point for him to grow past? After all the very next issue, Cyclops starts a fight with the Avengers over jack fuck nothing, just because Professor Xavier told him to, and he clearly outgrew that.

All right, so let's speed forward a little bit. Hank's been an X-Man for around 3 years when he gets a job with the Brand Corporation, a scientific research company in Long Island. People love to bring up the fact that it's a subsidiary of Roxxon, who are notoriously evil, or that it has its own nefarious plans going on, but we don't judge people who work at Cat Chow for the fact that Nestle is fucking evil, do we? Hank didn't know. He was a 20 year old scientist with budding aspirations of helping the world in ways he couldn't with the X-Men. So, what was he researching?

Now, this is where we get into a bit of a sticky wicket, because this has been retconned to hell, but in the original version of events, set in the early 1970s, Hank is working as a scientist at Brand when he finds out that the Secret Empire want to steal his research into genetic mutation. Understandable thing for him to want to research, given his father's accident and his own obvious mutation, and an understandable thing for the Empire to want to steal, especially given what his research had resulted in.

In the process of Hank's research, he manages to isolate the chemical/hormonal extract that causes mutation - naturally occurring, it's also the basis for MGH, or Mutant Growth Hormone, which later becomes used by humans all around the world to obtain temporary mutant powers. But this can't be attributed to Hank, especially since he goes to great efforts to destroy all of his research, rather than let it fall into the hands of spies.

Now, this is the point that everyone likes to point to as the moment that Hank reveals his true colours, as a true mad scientist, a Jekyll hiding a Hyde - except that even just hours after his mutation, even in the midst of a rage at his own stupidity, Hank attacks Professor Maddicks, one of the Empire spies, and tries to kill him. He has him dead to rights, he's strangling him, it would be easy.

He stops. He can't bring himself to do it.

It's worth noting that Hank already starts to show signs of a marked personality change here. Gone is the long winded, stuffy, Superman curled Beast of the 60s - now we have the grey furred Beast of the 70s, soon to turn blue due to the limitations of comic book printing. He cuts himself off from the X-Men, starts to fall into depressive slumps and fits of mania, which is a personality pattern he falls into regularly, leading to a lot of people, including myself and Grant Morrison, to consider Hank bipolar. Obviously, here, it's exacerbated by his mutation and his extreme circumstances, but it's something he comes back to, again and again. It also explains why he decides to attack Iron Man, also investigating Brand, and nearly kills him.

It's also worth noting that this is the first appearance of the Beast - not just Hank's codename, his mutation has now given him an animal bloodlust that he struggles to keep control of, not unlike Wolverine. This is something to keep in mind because it helps frame Hank's self-hatred, which is often brought up but not really examined as a character trait, and especially later on, it becomes clear that Hank hates himself for a good number of reasons.

For one, he makes dumb, impulsive decisions, usually with the best of intentions, and he chews himself out for one he made already, turning himself into a furry monster. For another, he hates the part of himself that wants to hurt people. To call forward many, many years into the future, Hank doesn't believe in the law of the jungle. He believes in art, and literature, and music. He believes in humanity. He desperately wants to maintain his own, and he hates his mutation because it literally makes him less human every time, it makes his impulses harder to control, it makes him dangerous - and oh, it does make him dangerous.

And here's the thing. Beast nearly kills Iron Man (or at least, he thinks he has, Mastermind is in play), and the moment he realises what he's done, he screams in anguish and runs away, hating himself. "Humans can't catch me there." He believes himself to be less than human - not because he's a mutant, but because he regressed to animal behaviour and thinks he's killed someone. What a monster, right? What a villain!

"During that fight, I saw his face up close - and got a hint of what's behind it. I saw a soul in torment - and I can't play God with that."

All right, so now we have to take a sideways trip, and go to X-Men Unlimited vol 2 #10, which depicts Hank going home to his parents right after he turned grey. It's honestly a kind of hard read, because if the Beast's rampage was his mania ramped up to eleven, this is his depression ramped up to twelve. He staggers through the streets like a ghost, unwilling to let anyone see what he looks like. "I could have been someone, Jennifer. A lonely high school kid with big, big fears and big, big dreams, I could have done something really wonderful. I could have become anyone, done almost anything. But now, Jennifer, now just look at me."

The story is called Ghost in the Graveyard, and it's aptly named because this is the moment Hank grows into who he's truly meant to be. His ego, which drove him to consume his research and nearly kill, is dead. He believes he is worthless, he believes he's fit only to flit between the waking moments of the living when they aren't looking. "What would you think of me if I was to tell you how terrified I am of everything right now, Jennifer?"

He saves his hometown, incidentally. Even while sleeping for days, depressed, barely eating, he still has enough curious spirit and intelligence to work out that the radiation coming from the bodies of people who worked in the same plant as his father has contaminated the water table, the soil, even the townsfolk. Jennifer tells him they should go to the newspapers, and he tells her he can't. He can't bear to. He can't bear to be seen. He reveals his appearance to her, and she tries to kiss him softly on the forehead, but he still can't bear it. He runs.

"Perhaps, then, a ghost is nothing more than a memory. A memory of who we once were, before we become what we must."

And this is the moment that Hank McCoy decides to run back to New York and join the Avengers.

Out of a moment of sheer despair, out of a moment of shame and guilt, out of a moment of self-hatred so deep he can barely get out of bed, he grasps onto hope, and the desire to do good, and he does it. He goes to New York, and he decides he's going to be a good man. And he is. He's a very good man.

He saves the Avengers from the Stranger at his team tryout. He becomes a master of disguise so adept he passes himself off as the President of the United States and gives a speech that makes the Squadron Supreme question their own spurious morality. He saves Henry Pym's life from a super-microbe. He's almost singlehandedly the reason that Patsy Walker becomes Hellcat, a storied superhero in her own right. He's the one who reaches out to Simon Williams, Wonder Man, former villain, and becomes his best friend in the whole world. He becomes the third mutant Avenger (technically first, depending on Wanda and Pietro's current genetic status), and the first X-Man to cross over. He becomes one of the most popular, celebrated, and beloved mutants on the planet.

Yet, he still cares enough for his friends that the moment the X-Men need him, even though they don't think to call him, he puts it all at risk. He catches the Hellfire Club's police call during the middle of the Dark Phoenix Saga, wipes the tapes, and abandons his post as a prestigious Avenger, a position Cyclops says he loves . . . to be with his original team. He's integral to them standing a chance against her, fashioning the diadem that immobilises Jean and gives Cyclops and Xavier the chance to shut away the Dark Phoenix for a short time - enough that Jean, or the Phoenix, or whatever is walking around in that story, can put together a plan to deal with herself.

He gets zapped to an alien spaceship, and the first damn thing he does is make a Wizard of Oz joke, then he calls Lilandra out for lack of due process.

Throughout the 70s and 80s, Hank becomes one of the most popular heroes in-universe, instantly recognisable and on first name terms with almost every hero. He goes through his hardships. His own mother struggles with his mutation, calling him a freak in a moment of despair, only to realise that no matter what he looks like, he's still her boy - still the man who throws himself in the direct path of Professor Power's attack to save a child.

One of my favourites is Avengers 209. Hank's girlfriend is poisoned by a Skrull, and he's forced to go back in time and fetch the two halves of the Resurrection Stone back to save her. One of the pieces is in the hands of a concentration camp prisoner in 1945, who keeps using it to try and hold on to his dead family, and Hank breaks down into sobbing tears as he begs in Yiddish for the man to please let go and be at peace. His heart breaks for a man he's never met because his pain is so mighty and so vast and it's so damned unfair.

But even when he has the Resurrection Stone in his hands, and he can use it to save Vera, he destroys it instead, rather than give it to the Skrull and risk the power being in any one man's hand. He puts his own wants and desires to the side, and hopes that another man smarter than him can save Vera, who's put in suspended animation and later saved by Daimon Hellstrom. Hank joins the Defenders at around this point, and goes through quite a bit, including quite the humbling as he realizes that he may be cock of the walk, but he's not yet a leader - or maybe never a leader.

One of the accusations I've seen aimed at Hank is that he resents Cyclops for being made leader of the X-Men, and I honestly don't see where this comes from, but it's not something I think has any truth to it. Hank almost actively avoids leadership where he can, because he knows he can't make hard decisions like who to leave behind, who to let die, who to hurt. Indeed, the one time we see him lead the X-Men, it's in Grant Morrison's New X-Men, where the strain of it causes him to break down and turn to Kick just to keep going. X-Club, a team of his creation, is barely in its infancy before he leaves, and it's pretty clear that Beast just . . . doesn't, care, about being a leader. He knows he's not good at it. He knows he can't inspire like Captain America. He knows he can't strategise like Cyclops. He knows that.

It's also at this point that Hank is called out in public for not doing enough for mutants, coasting on his celebrity and acting the clown - and he takes on the criticism. He becomes more politically active, forming an advocacy group. As we learn later on in Secret Avengers, he also becomes fast friends with a secret mutant politician by the name of Leonard Gary, and he's present at multiple meetings of Congress where Lenny blocks Senator Kelly's anti-mutant legislation. Way later on, he helps Lenny push through workers rights laws during Fear Itself, and makes sure that he can give a speech inspiring the nation at a time when they needed it most.

Now we move on to X-Factor, where Hank has his ups and downs, but it's significant that it starts with him being publicly discriminated against by no less than 15 universities for his visible mutation. His response? To call them a bunch of racists, strip off his clothes, and tell them to go hang. He doesn't descend into self-pity, he gets angry and embarrasses them the only way he knows how. But it's interesting, because Hank starts the series wanting to teach, and in a way, he gets to do precisely that. Enter young mutants Fire Fist, Boom Boom, Skids, Wiz Kid, Artie Maddicks, Leech, and Rictor.

Rictor is the kid that Hank becomes closest to. He teaches him to read, encourages him in learning how to use his powers, plays with him - when his intelligence is reduced by a quirk of mutation, he's still aware and good enough that he attacks someone scaring Julio. He fucks up a ton in this series, especially with Boom Boom, with him and Iceman being downright dicks to her, and there's no real excuse for it - but it's kind of important that Hank wants to learn to teach, and he has to learn. He's not immediately good at it. He softens. He gets better. In fact, in an alternate universe not dissimilar to 616, Forge remarks that no-one was quite as patient and as good a teacher as Hank.

Then we come to the 90s, where Hank is faced with his biggest challenge yet - the Legacy Virus - and his biggest moral failing yet - Threnody. Now, this is where I kinda have to call out the Cerebrocast, because there's this narrative that Hank is an Avenger narc who will sell mutants down the river at the drop of a hat, and I'm fairly certain it stems from the moment when Hank surrenders Threnody over to Sinister.

It's not a great look, tbh. I wouldn't have done it. I wouldn't touch Sinister with a thirty foot barge pole. I certainly wouldn't leave a vulnerable woman with him. But Sinister is an excellent manipulator, and he plays Hank like a fiddle here. He points out that Hank won't cross certain moral and ethical boundaries. "Admitting it, and despising the choice are the first steps toward changing the indecision that has ruled Xavier's roost of late." Sinister is very canny about playing Hank's fear of inferiority, of not being good enough to save everyone, of not living up to his potential, against him. It's also worth noting that Rogue and Iceman don't seem to disagree with Hank's decision, and while I believe he's acting as field leader here, these are not people who would let something like an 'order' stop them from doing what they feel is right.

It kills Hank to do this. He feels dirty, unwashed, like a piece of shit on humanity's shoe, for doing this. He risks Infectia's - or rather, Josephine's - powers infecting all of them with the Legacy Virus she's dying of, because he needs to do something human, something good, something compassionate, or else all he's left with is the bad. "Henry McCoy holds her, tears flowing freely, not just for the loss of another life, but for what Infectia's death has meant to him. For in granting her last wish, Hank contradicted the scientist in himself for the sake of the man."

What a villain, right?

It's also worth noting that we see Threnody again, in X-Men #34. She's lucid, in control of her powers, vibrant. "Threnody, dear lass! I am both pleased, relieved, and - I must confess - a bit surprised to see you so lucid? No offence meant, of course." "And none taken, Dr. McCoy. When we first met, I was rather a headcase, wasn't it? I want you to know, Doctor, that going with Sinister was the best thing that could have happened to me."

Hmmmmm.

"I've thought about you and worried quite a bit over the decision we made to allow Sinister to take you with him. Seeing you here and doing so well, rather uplifts my spirits - but it beggars the question, why do you stay?" "Dr. McCoy. You're sweet. But isn't this a better life than the one I had?"

HMMMMMMMM.

"Thren, I'm concerned about you. You seem to be playing a very dangerous game here. I cannot in good conscience allow you to stay here and play in this danger zone any longer." "You have no choice, Hank. There's knowledge and glory [here] . . . and I want that, too."

HMMMMM???

All right, whatever, let's keep it moving, on to the point where Hank undergoes his most drastic change yet.

It's the year 2001. Hank is on the X-Treme X-Men team, and they're searching for Destiny's diaries foretelling the future. Putting himself in harm's way to try and save Psylocke's life, telling her to go on and leave him, he's forced to watch as Vargas kills her - and poses her on top of his own fatally wounded body for the rest of the team to find. Barely hanging on to life, he sits in a Spanish hospital room, until Sage decides to take matters into her own hands.

"But despite your appearance and the name they call you I will assume you are a man and not a beast . . . and that you have a soul - !"

"He has a soul, padre. Bright and shining as the stars."

She jumpstarts the next evolution of Hank McCoy, and he becomes feline. He loses a finger on each hand. His animal instincts explode into the forefront of his brain. His hormones are blazing. His brain is on fire. He's doing the best he can to cope, but it's - hard. Yet he still finds it within himself to be there for others first of all. He mentors Beak, serving as an example of a physical mutant who's made something of himself. He tries to counsel Scott and Jean through their ailing marriage. He reaches out to Emma, and they become fast friends. Meanwhile, Genosha burns, students are killed, and Cassandra Nova rips him to pieces and picks on those fears of devolution that have been skirting in the back of his mind for decades, bringing them right back to the front of his mind.

"Remember when you looked almost human in the mirror? Then it started. The fall from man to ape, from ape to feline. Poor ugly Henry McCoy. There's no place for you in ANY mutant future. You're a devolver! Zoo animal. Stumbling backwards down the tree of life."

This, coupled with Trish Tilby's decision to break up with him over allegations of bestiality from her coworkers, shatters his psyche, and he arguably never recovers until his body changes again in All-New X-Men. He covers up his body almost all of the time, he overdresses in human clothes and uniforms that are a stark contrast to his old X-shorts, he becomes more verbose, more mature, more bipolar, more depressed, more lonely. And yet, even through all of this, with the help of his friends, especially Jean Grey, he starts to recover. He starts to become more like his old self.

In Astonishing X-Men, he even starts to show a bit more skin and fur as time goes on and he gets further away from Cassandra Nova's attack. And then it gets worse. The mutant cure. "I used to have fingers, a mouth you could kiss." Cassandra Nova, living on in his friend Emma Frost's guilt, attacks him again, and pushes him further, causing him to feast on human flesh and nearly kill students. Pushing him further down the tree of life. And not only that, but he has to come face to face with the ghost of one of his greatest failures, that should have been his greatest success.

Roll it back to 2001. Just before the whole X-Treme X-Men thing, Hank manages to piece together a Legacy Virus cure, using fragments of his own research and Moira MacTaggert's - but he immediately regards it as a failure, not because it doesn't work, but because it would require a mutant to metabolise it and kill themselves in order for it to be released into the atmosphere. Hank regards the cost of one life to be too high, and locks the cure away - but not securely enough that Colossus can't get at it and use it anyway.

Colossus dies because of Hank, and it kills him inside. When he matches the mutant cure sample to Piotr's DNA sample, it mortifies him. It shames him. It deadens him. No good deed ever goes unpunished. Even while Scott and Emma are faffing around with relationship problems, Hank is quietly wallowing because this is his fault. He killed Piotr.

Well, he didn't. But he might as well have, right? He put the 'gun' in his hand.

But then we get to Abigail Brand, and man is this dynamic just Hank as hell. She's a government fist in green haired body suited form that doesn't care about your feelings, he's a blue furred idealist who constantly blames himself for everything and can do nothing but feel. They connect. Not because they're both awful people . . . but because they see in each other something that they like. For Hank, it's something base - she finds him sexually attractive, not in spite of but because of his mutation, and honestly, at this point? Being fetishised sounds kind of nice to Hank. For her?

She wants someone to keep her honest. Someone who will question her decisions. Someone who does nothing but question her decisions, in fact, because she fucked up, and she needs someone to call her out on her bullshit. Hm. Almost sounds like there's a human being behind those green shades.

More on this later.

Because we've started to reach the point where I'm told Hank's descent into villainy has started, and quite frankly, I'm not seeing it. He got sadder? He got more lonely (yes, the cat story happened, it's tragic and embarrassing, move on)? But villainous? "I always saw him as vulnerable," said Grant Morrison. "The thing about Hank McCoy is that he was always presented as the loquacious, happy-go-lucky character and then he became a little darker when [he turned into] the furry Beast, but then he became happy again in Avengers. Basically, I'm looking at this bipolar kid. It's not so much that he's a villain; he just falls into bad situations and that makes him more human."

If people mean Here Comes Tomorrow, then I invite you to read that story again and remember that Hank is only really present in maybe eight panels of that story. The rest of the time it's Sublime piloting his body, and Hank has nothing to do with it. You might as well blame anyone ever possessed by Malice for what they did while under her influence.

But anyway.

The Decimation.

What a time for mutant kind. 198 mutants left, and falling. And everyone is looking to Hank McCoy for answers. He'll do almost anything to get them . . . right? In comes Endangered Species by Mike Carey, wherein Hank scours the corners of the Earth and gets his hands dirty trying to find a way to kickstart the mutant race again. He consorts with villains, he exhumed corpses, he nearly kills a drug dealer who wants fresh MGH from him and Bishop's bodies. He's on very thin ice, and in danger of cracking. He is, quite literally, facing his darkest impulses.

Enter Dark Beast.

Now, Dark Beast has been a thing since the mid-90s, and honestly, I kind of love the guy because he's so incredibly and over the top evil - but I also kind of hate him because his very existence seems to make people think that Hank always had evil inside of him, that he was just born that way. How very Graydon Creed, to believe that evil is something people are born to be rather than something that people do or become. The truth is that Dark Beast was born into a world completely different from Hank's, and while we don't know the exact divergence point for him, X-Men Unlimited vol. 1 #10 provides us with some clues - namely, that he never knew his parents.

Hank's incredibly loving, incredibly guilty, incredibly proud parents.

The parents that Dark Beast, violent psychopath, mutant supremacist, literal killer of children and Age of Apocalypse's own Dr. Mengele . . . couldn't bring himself to kill, because they loved Hank McCoy so much, and on some level, Dark Beast recognised that. Felt afraid of it. Felt weakened by it. Felt infuriated by it. Had to kill a random passerby just to feel more like himself. Because they were just so damned good, and maybe if he'd had parents like that, maybe?

It's also worth noting that Dark Beast, both here in the 90s, and later in Endangered Species (2008), points out that Hank isn't him. "I told you when we started on this that we'd have to think the unthinkable, Henry. I knew you'd let me down. But I didn't think you'd reach your limits this quickly. [...] You're fighting for the future of your species. Did that slip your mind? It's the only fight that matters, Henry. It's the war in which nature enlists every last one of us. And you're a deserter."

Hmmm.

Where have I heard that before.

So, Hank gives up. He stops searching for a cure, because one doesn't exist - or if it does, it requires a moral sacrifice that he isn't capable of. He disappoints mutant kind, and it won't be the last time. He fails to find answers in 1906 San Francisco, he fails to keep the faith at Utopia, he fails to stop things from escalating at a demonstration and ends up captured by Osborn - and Dark Beast. What a pathetic sack of crap, right? How dare he fail. He should be more like Cyclops.

"We make the choice for ourselves. And we have to live with the consequences afterwards."

"I'll live with it."

"I said we. I need to live with it."

Hmm.

"Sometimes in war you have to do things that you hate. Things you can't even bear to think about. This is one of those times. [...] I'm not making that choice for any of you. If you have any doubts about what we're about to do, stand out of the line. No one will blame you or question you. Ever."

Hmmmmm.

"All's well that ends well, Scott?"

"Looks that way from here. Why? Something on your mind?"

"Something, yes. The fact that you decided to use the Legacy Virus before you asked me if I had a working antidote."

"Your conscience is one of the things I value about you, Hank. Really. Never stop challenging me on that."

HMMMMMMMM.

#CyclopsWasRight?

But whatever, let's keep moving on. Utopia's X-Force happens. It's bloody. It's messy. It's grim. Hank doesn't approve. Scott tries to keep him on side, but it's not easy. Eventually, it reaches a boiling point. Hank decides he can't stay anymore, because he's not effective in his current capacity. Scott doesn't need him anymore, he needs more guns and soldiers and mutants, and Hank can't make those anymore. He deserts. What a piece of shit, caring about morals at a time like this. What a traitor. Oh, it's also worth noting that before he died, Kurt found out about X-Force, and was on the verge of quitting the X-Men, just like Hank. Just a sidenote, by the way.

Now, I believe in fairness, and I don't believe in whitewashing Hank's actions, especially when he wouldn't want me to, so it's only fair to bring up the Ghost Box laser strike and the Secret Avenger nuclear bomb that Hank constructs. Clear examples of the slow erosion of his moral fibre on his way to becoming a villain.

Or he feels massively guilty, sickened, and disgusted about what he had to do, while both times, the leader that he tries his best to believe in and follow tells him not to lose sleep over it. Except, Hank does. Because that is the kind of character Hank is.

Hank McCoy is a "superheroic overcompensating altruist [...] perfectly nice people who think the universe is full of perfectly nice people." Hank McCoy is Scott Summers' "biggest brain and [his] oldest friend. Moment comes you have to take action, I'll never question it." Hank McCoy is "the most hard working, brilliant and heroic [person] I know." Hank McCoy is "a name well known in the great game of worlds. Others yous have done this before [...] simply evacuate this world, and then destroy it completely," rather than risk the destruction of two. Hank McCoy is "no killer [...] and no force, however great, could make you kill."

Hank is the man who reaches out to villains, and tries to help them. He did it with Wonder Man. He did it with Emma Frost. He did it with Infectia. Hank is the bleeding, dying heart of the X-Men. He believes in second chances. He believes in art, and literature, and music.

He doesn't believe in the law of the jungle.

I'd also like to point out, that even though he was called a traitor, and met with a frosty reception by the other X-Men when he asked for their help, he still came when they called for medical aid. He still held out hope that he and Scott would reconcile. He was one of the few people to look at the Phoenix Five and remember who they were before they got power, and believe that they could possibly control it. Even after Scott kills the Professor, even though Hank is furious with Scott, even though Scott literally says, "I've done abominable things. I don't ask for forgiveness. I don't deserve it. [...] But I'd do it all again"?

I guess you could read this a few different ways. Is Hank just pushing Scott out forcefully? Is he gentle? Is he squeezing his shoulder in a moment of what could almost be comfort? I don't know. I kinda think it's the latter. I think the best of Hank where I can.

"Thank god, Hank. You're alive. I was lost. I thought I killed y - "

Hank is still a man that Scott Summers wants to be alive, because Hank is good. Yeah, he can be FUCKING ANNOYING, and he can be hypocritical, and he can be an asshole, and he can be flawed, and he can be a nuisance, and he can be insufferable, but he is good.

Enter Brian Michael Bendis.

This is the point where Hank's character wrecks and arguably never recovers, to be honest. It's not just the small details. It's not just stupid things, like 17 year old Hank apparently being a medical doctor, or modern day super genius ultra mechanic Hank being incapable of putting a motorcycle back together for the sake of a joke. It's not even the egregious things, like Uncanny X-Men #600 and All-New X-Men #25 being a double header of literally everyone in the universe kicking Beast in the shins because Bendis wanted to write teenage Jean Grey as just the worst. It's just a fundamental misunderstanding of the character.

"Somewhere along the way you convinced yourself that your brilliance allows you the right to do whatever you want whenever you want to do it."

I'm sorry, fucking what?

If you're this far deep in this thesis - and it is a thesis, and I don't apologize for that - do you think this is the same character? This man who is obsessed with consequences, obsessed with guilt, obsessed with being perfect, obsessed with controlling himself, obsessed with morality . . . is convinced that he can do whatever he wants whenever he wants to do it? He learned this lesson 40 years ago! Beast is not like this!

Now, Bendis' Beast might be like this. But I have to ask you, reader, who presumably frequents comic book boards, or Reddit, or Tumblr tags, or Twitter . . . is Bendis the guy you go to for thoughtful, evocative, well considered characterisation? Is he on the level of Mark Waid, or Al Ewing, or Jonathan Hickman, or Grant Morrison, or Louise Simonson, or Marjorie Liu, or Rainbow Rowell, or Kelly Sue DeConnick? Is he known for respecting what came before and creating a throughline of character and continuity?

No, he fuckin' aint.

He's known for Bendis-speak. He's known for ignoring continuity. He's known for big shake-ups of established status quos that often leave characters in the doghouse for decades. Yeah, he can write some good comics, but I just - why is this man's characterisation of Beast considered the definitive one? Is the voice that shouts the loudest really the most articulate? Go ask a fan of the Scarlet Witch, or X-23, or Jon Kent, or GOTG fans about his entire run on that comic.

Beast wrecks here, and he never recovers. He loses his entire character development track about his mutation because it got changed. He loses his entire dynamic with Abigail. Everything good about 00s Beast is just gone, and there's nothing left to replace it but failure. Not really. Every now and then, someone tried to steer him back on the right path, get back to a more thoughtful, less dipshit Hank McCoy. A+X #12 by Christos Gage, and Uncanny Avengers by Jim Zub, both try the same trick, 4 years apart, having Hank reunite with his best friend Simon Williams and drink, and reflect on what's happened.

Each time, there's another crossover event that Hank has to answer for, because now Beast is the designated load. It happened in All-New X-Men, it happened in Black Vortex, it happened in IvX. It was just easy. He was never a guy with a massive fanbase, and all the casual fans filtered away as domino after domino falls. Every time, HOW DID I BECOME THIS?

Iunno. No-one seems to give enough of a fuck to answer the question. The real answer is that the writers need plot to happen, and, well.

Who cares if Beast is ruined? Well, I think Matthew Rosenberg cared a fair bit. I think Max Bemis cared quite a lot. I care, probably too much.

There are tons of little fun appearances here and there, mostly scattered across other books, that are more reminiscent of the Hank that used to be. Mariko Tamaki, in her last X-23 run, used him really nicely, having him take pictures of Laura and Gabby bonding, helping Laura run down immoral scientists (HA!), being a big man with a bigger bow tie. Being "the nerd I trust, so I like having him around," says Laura.

Hmm.

Well.

I have two points left to make. One? It is a stone cold, actual fact that we go from warm, intelligent, thoughtful, loved Beast, to Percy's narcissistic, cold, and genocidal war criminal in the space of maybe ten issues. The change was not gradual, it was abrupt. Read almost any comic prior to Krakoa featuring Beast in it, and he does not sound or act the same. Read the dialogue for X-Force #1 through 9, and tell me you can really tell that that's Beast.

Tell me that's the Hank McCoy that loves his human parents.

There's a reason everyone was speculating for the longest time that it was Dark Beast, or something else was afoot, because he sounds wrong. There's no jokes, no warmth, no charm, no energy. He's a slow, lifeless cadaver of a character, plodding along his course to become a Bond villain.

Two? There was a story to be told here. Hank has definitely toed the line a good few times before. Crossed it less times, but he did. Each time, it cost him. Each time, it hurt him. Each time, it left a scar upon his soul. Each time, maybe it got a little easier, but I don't genuinely think that's the case. I think that Hank McCoy is the kind of guy for whom it never gets easier to hurt people. The building blocks were there for a story where that man has to keep doing it, again and again, cutting away pieces of himself, because it's what Krakoa needs.

But that story would require sympathy, and I don't think that Ben Percy, "People who think that Beast is loveable have only read a small selection of comics," really has any sympathy for Beast. I think he finds him annoying. I think he finds him contemptible, and up himself. I think that Ben Percy believes that Beast is cold-hearted, cruel, endlessly self-justifying, unfunny, shortsighted, and overall, a bastard. I don't believe that was ever the case.

It makes me sad that the fandom believes that was ever the case.

His character was assassinated. It was assassinated back in 2013, and it's been being assassinated every month since 2019. The version of Beast that existed from 1981 to 2012 will be gone, dead - literally killed - when the classic version of him comes back at the end of X-Force. I liked the 1981-2012 version a lot. The version from 2012 to 2018, I liked a lot less. The version from 2019 onwards?

Don't go off vibes. Read the panels. Tell me what you think. Is that the same character?

Now we come to the end of my thesis. I feel like I've covered most of the main points here, but TL;DR?

Ben Percy's Beast doesn't work as a continuation of Hank's character, because his version of the character is an idiot. He is cruel, unfunny, lacking in any humanity, inherently evil, moustache twirling, disrespectful. He is without nuance. He is Mister Sinister in a blue fur coat without any of the camp.

The fact that people will go on Twitter or Reddit and say that they prefer this Beast over the old one makes me want to fucking spit because fuck you. Fuck you that you think that this travesty, this half-formed mish mash of Bond villain tropes and fat shaming stereotypes, is in any way better than what we had. Grow up. Read better comics. I hope to god you mature, because fuck, man.

Ben Percy's Beast doesn't work as a villain, either, because he's simultaneously incompetent, and yet constantly given karma houdinis that have no basis in his ability, only in the plot. Any semblance of grounding in the idea of 'necessary evils' is so fucking amateurish and put to paper with no real belief in it. Percy just thinks Beast is an asshole, it's as simple as that.

And you know what makes me feel vindicated? You know what makes me laugh?

Marvel really don't give a fuck about this version of Beast. They really just do not care and I get the distinct impression people can't wait for it to roll back. Don't believe me?

How come Nightcrawler is apparently gossiping with Hank in issues of She-Hulk that take place in the Krakoan era?

How come Hank is still appearing in Avengers and X-Men variant covers as his traditional, heroic self?

How come Marvel Age #1000, a self-styled "CELEBRATION OF THE MARVEL AGE OF COMICS," had an X-Men story that was about the O5 - and yet, really, it was about Jean and Scott falling in love, with Hank on the sidelines, gently nudging Jean in the right direction?

How come no-one appears to give a fuck that Beast, one of the pillars of the superhero community, killed a small country?

In-universe, there is no explanation. This is 'Blade begging Captain America and the Avengers to help kill all the vampires' level of disconnect. It makes everyone involved look like a goddamn psychopath.

Out of universe, it's because no-one is interested in this story. If writers other than Ben Percy wanted a villainous Hank McCoy, they would just use Dark Beast, because he's substantially more entertaining and charismatic and enjoyable as a villain than Percy's edgelord Beast.

Ben Percy is 44 years old, allegedly. I wouldn't know that, judging by the level of maturity with which he handles his villains. If he intended to write a mutant Henry Kissinger, then he failed, because Kissinger was pure evil, but he also, you know, made sense.

Percy's Beast is trash.

I write him on this blog with substantially more care and thought put into his character than Ben Percy ever could. Because even though I'm not the one getting paid to do so, I'm the one putting in the work to make it make emotional sense. There's a story there. There's a compelling character there. If only Ben would have put the fucking work in.

Thank you for your question. :)

#outofmuffins #ask #hank mccoy #henry mccoy #x-force #ben percy #genocide tw #body horror tw #holocaust tw #shoah tw #If you can think of other tags I should apply please lmk. #Sometimes I just get so angry. #Writers have a responsibility towards these characters. #They have a responsibility to respect them and treat them well. #No I don't ascribe to the idea that you should always put the toys back in the box. You can absolutely change them. #Just idk do it good?? #I get paid peanuts for electronic retail work and I put more effort into that than Ben Percy did this. #BECAUSE THIS COULD HAVE BEEN SO GOOD. #IT COULD HAVE BEEN SO TRAGIC. #IT COULD HAVE BEEN TITANIC AND THE BEST HANK MCCOY STORY. #Instead it's the worst one by a country mile. #vinial453

[theworldisabrokenbonebutitishome]

Kang Yo Han is the walking embodiment of I'm Not Okay (I Promise) and relates to Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge far more than is healthy. In this essay I will-

#twabbbiih's edit #tdj #the devil judge #tw blood #kang yohan #kang yo han #a character study via legendary emo classic Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge #I put so much effort into this I really fucking hope the fandom enjoys it #I know I don't exactly go here in a big way but guys please #girl does a tdj rewatch for the fun of it and spirals so far into making bad edits she has to try and figure out how to just get the text #from an album cover to make a mock one like some unhinged loser who barely knows how editing software works #you guys have NO IDEA #I spent an entire night pestering mid-n0vember about how this album is perfect for KYH 2 years ago and so finally I did something about it #to the end has especially been rattling around my brain for WAY TOO LONG because that is not a house or home to KYH #it's a constant reminder of the people he's lost and the horrors he suffered due to the utter shithead that was his father #ive been debating between 2 edits i did for that song for two nights and I've ended up picking the more literal one because I didn't want #too many close up images of peoples faces for this. but just know there is a file on this laptop of kyh crying while hes literally haunted #by memories of his father #I really did try to use a shot from the knife scene for the album cover because it would have been SO GOOD as a mirror to the original albu #however my editing skills are not good enough to make the background less distracting and I'm working with not HD images so it looked worse #so a moments silence for what could have been #no one asked but its 2am and that means oversharing so #Interlude absolutely had to be the on a line by itself because despite everything else going on with KYH keeping Elijah save is Rule One #it's supposed to kind of overshadow everything else because keeping her safe and unaware of Certain Things absolutely does for him #whether it actually translates is a different matter #kgo being on his knees (yet again) is what swung it for that picture otherwise it would have been kyh looking on as jae hee grabs her

[vulpinesaint]

animated fox characters will trans a young child's gender in a Second

#staring up at fox robin hood on the screen going :O #great posts from tumblr user vulpinesaint #watching zootopia just a liiiiitttttllllleeee too old for it and putting so much effort into trying not to like nick wilde #fox maid marian is a classic obvi. Thee feminine icon #i'm like if fox robin hood and maid marian had a kid. does that track #IN TERMS OF GENDER. I SHOULD SAY #'i'm feminine on my mom's side and masculine on my dad's' but with those characters specifically #anthropomorphized fox character gender just always hits different. idk what it is. #i absolutely know what it is it's the sharp angles and edge of trickery. but that's all just the way of the world (foxes) #fox character from the bad guys is also good 👍 #more kids' movies with fox characters need to come out. i'll start a kin list that doesn't just have dean winchester on it #honorable mention to tod fox and the hound! haven't watched that movie since i was absolutely teeny and do not remember it #but he's so shaped. 10/10. poetry blog pfp #valentine notes #none of this is new information to anyone who knows me i'm sure. however i'm just now putting it all together so you all get to hear it #'bracken you're so obsessed with foxes how could you forget that you were obsessed with robin hood' i. am bad at remembering things

[grabyourpillow]

"Tbf I wasn't sure if the exosercheides was a subspecies of the choneidontes or the masoclasts, so I just approximated their characteristics based on the brachosires, since they are basically genetical cousins. I should have gotten the details of the bony landmarks right except for the 17th and 18th osteicule, which I headcanoned a bit higher than normal. Onstructists plz don't come at me... If you see any blatant factual errors, plz tell me I'll correct it right away ^-^" <- This is what you people who do research for your fanart or fanfics sound liketo me btw

#like. what are you talking about. you could have told me “it works like that because it works like that” and I would have believed you. #but i truly admire the dedication and effort you put in your work. #this is not to say that it doesn't show!!! it absolutely does. everything feels more cohesive and thought through. #it's just to say that... that one detail you are grinding your teeth about not 100% getting right? no one will notice. except you. #art

[starbuck]

the fact that they could have had Nacho fake-seduce Lalo to further gain his trust without changing ANYTHING plot-wise and they DIDN’T is the biggest missed opportunity i have ever seen and it’s gonna keep me up at night for years

#keep me up at night making up AUs where it DID happen - of course! #honestly - in a sense - it’s a blessing cuz now we can just make up Whatever We Want #but it’s still just like. they set it up SO perfectly and for WHAT?????? #agonizing. #like. yeah it IS funny that Nacho puts in as little effort as humanly possible and effectively seduces Lalo anyway #but i just think it could have been Significantly more fucked up in a very fun way if they’d pushed it a little further #that’s all i’m saying #like. AU where the situation in 5.10 isn’t that Nacho has to get Lalo out of the way to facilitate the assassination but that he has to #keep him from going anywhere #so - as a last ditch attempt at this - he kisses him and Lalo (none-the-wiser) is like !!!!!!!!!! #and they wind up fucking before Nacho sneaks off and lets the assassins in #has anyone written that?? that feels like low-hanging lacho fruit #and you’d get the bonus of the EXTREMELY sexy ‘betrayed with a kiss’ imagery… #like. yeah Nacho is Jesus but he’s ALSO Judas - he’s multifaceted #and personally i think they should have committed to it #i mean i know that eating Lalo’s cooking and drinking his liquor is symbolically equivalent to fucking him #but we could have had BOTH!!!!!!! #there is absolutely no reason that we couldn’t have had both #i may write that honestly… regardless of what anyone else has or has not written #i have a Vision now #and i cannot rest until it is fulfilled #bcs #better call saul

[rohirric-hunter]

Okay so there is one glitch that occasionally crops up in the unhinged lotr mobile game that interferes with gameplay: the Mordor Engineer/Rókma has an attack where he throws an explosive at an enemy, which damages that enemy and adjacent enemies. Now, normally this isn't an issue, since when facing off against him he's typically my absolute first priority to take down, specifically because this attack is so devastating.

However, it's also devastating in an unintended way; occasionally he will somehow miss with this attack, the projectile will fly off the screen, and then the battle will be locked. Everyone will just stand there. No more enemies will attack and the player will not have the option to take their turn. You can't even retreat. The only way to get out of this is to force quit the game and load it up again.

#unhinged lotr mobile game saga #like i said usually i take this guy down before he has a chance to get this attack off #but ive been struggling with one of the daily challenges #because one of them has this guy on a team with boromir and faramir #and when boromir and faramir are on the same team boromir is your priority #you need to take him down absolutely as soon as humanly possible #or he and faramir will execute a combo move that theres just no coming back from #like legit they have oneshotted multiple heroes on my team from full health with this combo move before #so essentially i need to somehow be able to take down boromir and rokma before either of them can get to their special attacks #so. uh. in one turn #OR i could just wait until they fix the rokma bug #devious idea tho: the rokma thing happens even when autobattling #maybe i should put some effort into unlocking him and put him on my arena defense team #no that would be extremely poor sportsmanship #very tempting tho #probably get the bug fixed faster #i actually do have one more thing i can try #i think one of the isengard heroes has an ability that can block special attacks for a turn #have to use it on rokma as im not sure if the combo starts with boromir or faramir #and faramir is basically untouchable until youve taken down all his allies anyway #anyway #it is really funny to see it happen tho

[jvzebel-x]

"only other Hawaiians ever make me feel not Hawaiian enough--"

"Hawaiians from the islands are racist--"

"Hawaiians from the mainland have REAL aloha spirit everyone up here is just Hawaiian, no matter how much blood you got--"

okay but you understand that every single portion of what you just said is rooted in colonialism&the attempted murder of our people+culture, right. like you GET why kānaka from the islands have to be so protective of things as they are on the frontlines watching both our culture&our land get chunked for the proft of those who have no right to any of it, right. like you KNOW that hawaiian homelands requires a 50% blood quota to even get on the list&a 25% quota from anyone you leave that land to post mortem, &that the list is STILL decades long because the vast majority of the homeless kānaka back home MEET that requirement, right-- that the homeless demographic in the islands has the largest percentage of us left in one grouping in the world&it isn't surprising the families who maintained a higher blood percentage are also too poor to leave the islands even while dying on the streets, right. like you are CAPABLE of conceptualizing what all of that would do when confronted with someone from the diaspora who "doesn't understand why the aloha spirit is dead in the islands". right. like you can SEE&HEAR how it sounds when you say the nonhawaiian people&legacy of the colonizers that tried to obliterate your ancestors are the only ones who make you feel hawaiian now that they as a group have successfully taken up the primary position on what makes a good hawaiian. right. like you KNOW why there's even a push to properly exemplify kānaka maoli after literally hundreds of years of our people having to save us from cultural obliteration, &that the push to be a "real hawaiian" definitely didn't start with us, the people who you are trying to reconnect to&identify with. right.

like, i get feeling like the expectations are too high-- there isn't any right way to be kānaka, &there are most definitely kānaka who are shitty about that-- but coming back with, "BUT THE HAOLES VALIDATE MY HAWAIIAN-NESS" is just fucking WILD, like i don't know how to explain to you the haoles thinking they have a right to validate fucking anything in relation to us&our struggle&our people is just...

blood doesn't matter, but obviously not in the way you seem to think, lmao.

#OOF these conversations never get any easier. #my heart BLEEDS for the family that deny themselves like this but im constantly having to accept that im not the right person to help lmao. #i absolutely know what its like to not be hawaiian enough lmao. from both other hawaiians AND haoles. #my thing is that while it may be more insulting to have blood be shitty what exactly do you think you as a person are saying #when you take more issue w that than w haoles thinking they have a right to gauge your relation to blood&culture? #why is THEIR ignorance something to be handwaved but from US&OUR expectations its a deadly sin #that justifies throwing us all under the bus&turning your back on the ppl you claim to be apart of? #of COURSE the haoles think your '''aloha spirit' is the real kine its the kine that accepts THEM w no expectations LMAO. #of COURSE the haoles think youre a '''good''' hawaiian-- are you NOT EMBARASSED about that? #like how can you possibly be so fucking deaf to the words coming out of your mouth i dont fucking understand. #arguing w US is more productive than learning from your kin&hearing what we have to say??? okay. #... for context someone i know was arguing that glofiying the murder of cooke contributes to savage stereotypes #associate w us&ultimately makes things more decisive by encouraging the idea that we're violent to any foreigners #&'''well i felt foreign the first time i went to see the islands bc thats how ppl made me feel&it wasnt fun for me''' #okay but why didnt you grow up where you were supposed to-- on those islands. #okay but why do you feel separated at all from a culture&ppl that are being forced more&more into the diaspora. #okay but why did you need to reconnect to us at all bc it wasnt any KANAKA who decided to fracture us all like this. #maybe instead of focusing on your own personal bad feelings you could put in a modicum of effort into understanding your kin #instead of rushing back to the open&loving haole arms who accept you as a REAL hawaiian bc us mean kanaks are being racist. :'(

[roaringroa]

reverting back to my 13yo self

#by this i mean using kpop idols to motivate me to do stuff lol #when i was 13 i used a pic of snsd seohyun being mad watching a student sleep in class as my ipod homescreen #and wrote “seohyun would be disappointed in you” so i would not use my ipo during class #and now i'm 20 printing a pic of le sserafim sakura with something she said during an interview at the bottom #she said “effort is a shield to protect yourself” #i sometimes have trouble putting effort in things cause i fear doing my best and it not being good enough #i absolutely hate that i do this like me not applying myself to things is probably number one source of my anxiety #cause it turns out that because of not putting in effort things are rarely good enough for me since i know that i could do better #so i just get more frustrated and angry at myself #so this quote really resonated with me: putting effort into things is a shield from my own (and others) criticism #if i know that i did my best then i can't keep blaming myself for whatever shortcomings there may be #maybe it's a bit silly to print it out with a pic of sakura and put it in my wall #but i wanted that quote to be somwhere i'm looking at frequently so i can be reminded of it and the pic serves to drive my eyes to it #plus i don't mind being silly it's what we humans are made to be #my post

[lunarlegend]

ANYWAY

it doesn't matter, because the whole time i was suffering in that situation, Ignis (a much better chef than any of the people at that restaurant) was waiting for me on the other side

#that's why i say FFXV represents me learning to love myself #because the whole time i was in the restaurant industry i carried myself as an absolute door mat #and was subjected to all sorts of abuse as a result #because i cared way more about being 'normal' than being true to myself #which meant depriving myself of the things that brought me joy and putting all my effort into my job & coworkers #so i could be 'liked' and have a social circle #except most of those people took advantage of me and i was never good enough no matter what i did #it wasn't until i got out that i made the conscious decision to 'let myself' be autistic again #which is what led to me discovering FFXV and is how i found Ignis #a character who i have a lot in common with & who has suffered in some of the same ways i have #i honestly feel like the universe gifted me with Ignis as a sign to live the rest of my life as myself #and my self-confidence & sense of self-worth have grown MAGNITUDES as a result

[unproduciblesmackdown]

speaking of “what else is new” the eternal genre of Takes available online or off through any platform that go like “this hangup / issue people can have can impede the success of like, connection & relationships & other aspects of someone’s life” like oh groundbreaking insight, go on. & then the conclusion is just “And That’s Bad” generally through like, criticizing any hypothetical individuals in a “have you considered that that’s bad? have you considered stopping? why haven’t you? sounds like a lack of Individual Responsibility...and maybe...You Suck??” vein like oh, again, groundbreaking. and it’s fast easy & free [sense of righteousness] i guess b/c it’s like oh i’m just helping, are you saying it’s Good / Better to have to struggle with / be impeded by xyz issues hmm? and like “here i am up on the cross >:)” satisfaction if anyone’s disagreeing lol like not only am i correct but ppl Hate it so it’s gotta be cutting edge, rather than it’s like, this is the most basic, well-trodden ground possible here. people hear about the notion of Ableism, resent the idea this might be a complicated thing to engage with requiring effort (but will also complain that idk it’s not serious b/c oh alllll people want to do is unreasonably issue a list of frowned upon language. like yes that’s all that exists and it must be frivolous vs being if nothing else an exercise in asking someone to shift their perspective / framework around taken for granted ideas) and then be like “well enough is enough (hasn’t done anything) i think this has gone too far & have we considered that it sucks to be depressed?? what about the people Dealing with other people dealing with issues who are doing everything right by being Not Mentally Ill but burdened or punished by the mental illness of others. not Their responsibility” like yes if we keep this in the realm of Individual Responsibility Apolitical Vibing then we can just call it a day. what does anyone expect the “absolutely demolishing these hypothetical Complacent mentally ill people, one issue at a time until everyone learns they should strive to be normal” to accomplish here. like oh enough, nay, Too Much consideration of Supporting anyone out here. i think it’s time we turned to voicing Disapproval & even moral judgment condemnation of these hypothetical individuals. can’t argue with that unless, what, you Want people to have problems? you think it’s good and right to potentially harm other people / make interpersonal relationships more difficult??? sounds like someone has some growing up to do 9_9 lmfao like again. just visionary & groundbreaking insights which is why this approach has kept being continuously reinvented here & everywhere else this whole time. like how would this relevantly / helpfully apply to the Reality of anyone’s situation on any side of anything. vs like well at least some people will be mad about This one, good posting

#ppl going ''hmm what a hugely complex topic tied to all other aspects of our lives...which'd be Resolved if everyone had My Common Sense'' #take it back on this site by a decade like ppl going ''trans people on tumblr are so unreasonable'' & ''tumblr's so Anti Recovery'' #the catchphrase of like. idfk ''recovering'' to a state of being nt i guess. b/c that's The Way & how it works for absolutely everyone #like of course there's gonna be idk Takes abt how to hypothetically Support ppl's struggles that'd be deemed Mental Health Issues which are #in turn at least Potentially counterproductive / unfounded/misguided but like. well throw the whole matter out then right #forget everyone in turn having to struggle through ongoing efforts to support Other People in this realm & plenty of others; theoretically #just say it Sucks of people to make other people deal with / be negatively affected by their Issues & who could disagree? toxicity gang?? #or even just the vague implication that if it's Extra Effort put on Normal People who are acting correctly then that's bad too #cue any ideas that like. if friends are too much effort in [pick any way you could interpret that] it's Bad #or really if they're Any effort it can be seen as bad. you Are a romcom protagonist & friends Are unconditional nonstop backup #i think if going ''have you considered that you suck'' at people hard enough would bestow w/e concept of perf Mental Health uponst them #then we'd've been all set by now...and does everyone really think that the like. call it mainstream ideas abt Good Relationships and/or #Good Communication are universal & objective & immutable & everyone agrees on those standards already right now #and like. A Post doesn't have to be something someone thinks applies to everyone / isn't abt their personal experiences but #the way plenty of shit is phrased in posts Pwning the concept of someone being Too Anxious or sm shit you Know it's meant to be general lol #and even then of course it doesn't have to be like ''any random post must be dedicated to real; specific support or it's worthless'' #but people clearly also like. are like yep this is on principle; ideally this will Affect people & they'll Get Right #(i mean probably it's more just about their own satisfaction in feeling totally justified while Also getting inevitable negative reaction) #but also like you know what. someone's Issues may not be contained within the realm of what either You *or* They can control #that like all issues of what provides ppl material support / meets their material needs are matters of Mental Health Support or what have u #like pointing out that shit like healthcare & housing & accessibility are matters of suicide prevention... #like yeah of course individual responsibility is relevant in everything but there's broader concepts of Responsibility beyond that #only addressing the individual responsibility in any matter is the flattest easiest shit you can do. why else is it so popular lol #and going ''but have we tried ascribing personal failures / inferiority into ppl struggling w/issues????'' yes. we have & continue to do so #like 95% of my life including now i am beset every day w/someone who absolute Won't take personal responsibility ever & yea it sucks #but i'm not like. making that ''wow this sucks a ton'' experience my like Worldview lmfao this isn't now my Personal Policy abt shit #going ''have we considered that anything but deliberately punishing Mental Illness just Enables/Encourages their destructive vibes??'' yes. #''well if everyone just accepted their Personal Responsibility in all ways this & any other matter would be completely resolved forever??'' #then by that framework if anyone goes ''well that's not quite it'' you can go ''sounds like someone isn't accepting their Responsibility'' #checkmate Individuals...

[dna-d2]

ALRIGHT YOU KNOW WHAT I'M NOT DONE YELLING ABOUT POKEMON

WHY IN THE HELL DO NINTENDO/THE POKEMON ADVENTURES GUYS HATE DIAMOND/PEARL/PLATINUM SO MUCH?????

They make what's in my opinion the best Arc/Protagonists in the manga, then proceed to NEVER HAVE ANY OF THEM SHOW UP OR EVEN BE TALKED ABOUT EVER AGAIN

Then a couple years back they started selling Collector's Editions of the manga, which I bought. Only they STOPPED SELLING THEM JUST BEFORE THEY WOULD'VE DONE D/P/P. They put out Emerald and just CALLED IT THERE, THE BASTARDS

Then they release the ABSOLUTE ABOMINATIONS that were Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl, which were SO BAD that they just

THEY JUST ENTIRELY SKIPPED THAT ARC IN THE MANGA. Which was LITERALLY THE ONLY REASON I WANTED THE REMAKES (Well that and the Distortion World, which they ALSO DIDN'T ADD TO THE GAMES DID THEY??? GOD THESE GAMES SUCKED)

Does Gamefreak have some sort of vendetta against Gen 4 or something?? Do they hate me personally???

Because at this point it REALLY feels like they might hate me personally

Why can't I have my boys back?? Why can't I be happy???

#“Speaking of pokemon...” #I just miss them #I just want more of their stupid jokes #I loved their stupid jokes #I wanted to get the Collector's Edition specifically so I could read the official translations of their stupid jokes #But they never released it #I'm probably gonna buy the box set #But I bet my life heart and soul that the moment I do #They're gonna release the next volume of the Collector's Edition #Because like I said #They hate me #And I'm starting to hate them #And I WILL absolutely hate them if they fuck up the potentially upcoming Black/White/Black 2/White 2 remakes #They're some of the best games in the series #And all they have to do is make it GOOD #It's NOT THAT DIFFICULT #Just put the same energy into it that you did into HG/SS #Or OR/AS #Any effort at all #Whatever #I'm done #pokemon #pokemon special #pokemon diamond #pokemon pearl #pokemon platinum #pokemon adventures

[sophiamcdougall]

I am never going to complain about Greek Duolingo again

I mean, I am. But still.

So, as some of you know, my family has been coming to this tiny Greek seaside village for several years. Just over a week ago I came out here with my mum, under the impression that early September, after the height of the summer heat, would be a good time to have a holiday. ANYWAY Storm Daniel had other ideas about that. Locally things are improving (I'm actually really pissed off about the disaster-porn tone of most English-language media coverage, but that's another post). The power is back on, there's running water most of the time, and though the latter is not drinkable, a truck from the government came and handled out free bottled water yesterday. But we are currently kind of stuck. Can't do tourist things. Can't go home. There aren't any local flights out until Saturday and the road to Thessaloniki is still closed.

So this evening, feeling kind of aimless and depressed, I go down to the nearest beach with a couple of binbags and start cleaning up in an effort to at least do something positive. I always try to do this at least once out here and obviously, after the storm, there's a lot more plastic and rubbish than usual.

At some point I find this large, round bit of metal - some kind of machinery part, I think -- that's too big for the bag, so I take it to the bins on its own, leaving the rubbish bag on the beach. And when I come back for it, something among the stones beside it moves.

Specifically, it pulls its head sharply inside its shell

So, meanwhile I've been trying to learn some Greek with the help of Duolingo.

I currently have a 33-day streak and... I have questions. Shouldn't I be able to use the past or future tenses by now? Shouldn't I be able to say "x is like y"? I can't do those things. But one thing I absolutely can say all day long is έχω μια χελώνα : I have a turtle.

This is far from the limit of Duolingo Greek's turtle-related content. "An obsession with turtles" is my mother's characterisation. I can inform you that the turtle is not a bird, and, improbably, that the turtle is drinking milk. I can introduce you to a turtle in company with a horse and an elephant. As far as Duolingo is concerned, it really is turtles all the way down.

Now this, you may be able to see, is not a turtle. It has claws rather than flippers. It is a tortoise. I know there are wild tortoises in Greece: my aunt once rescued a pair of them shagging in the middle of the road -- but that was up in the mountains. I've even seen one myself, but it was also on a road and very dead.

I am 95% certain they don't belong on beaches. There's nothing for it to eat, except, unfortunately, a lot of plastic. Even if it gets off the beach it will immediately find itself on a road where it could get hit by a car. I'm pretty sure it must have been washed down by the floodwater and has been just sitting there, dazed, ever since.

Now obviously the first thing I want to do on encountering this unusual animal is to go and tell my mummy, so I do. The tortoise immediately brightens her day. She agrees that the tortoise is not happy on the beach and needs to be taken somewhere safe. it gets surprisingly wriggly when picked up so we put it in a carrier bag with some grapes and cucumber and go looking for somewhere to rehome it.

We find a path leading up between the houses towards a likely-looking field, but before we get very far a dog in a yard goes berserk and a man's head pops over a fence and demands to know what we're doing. He does this in English, as evidently we're just that obviously tourists.

"I found a tortoise on the beach!" I explain. "We want to find somewhere to put it."

"A what," he asks.

"It's like a, you know," I begin and then to my astonishment I find myself saying... "μια χελώνα"

"Oh! A turtle!" he says.

"But from the land. δεν είναι χελώνα", [it is not a turtle,] I say, as I am worried he will tell me to put it back near the sea where I found it. As it turns out it actually IS a χελώνα, Greek does not distinguish between turtles and tortoises, but I don't know that; I can't even name the days of the week or identify any colours other than pink yet, give me a break.

The man's entire demeanour changes and thaws. He does not worry about my turtle-that-is-not-a-turtle conundrum. He knows where οι χελώνες come from and where η χελώνα μας belongs. He leads us through a gate into a courtyard area.

"[somethingsomething] μια χελώνα," he explains to the assembled onlookers, of whom there are, suddenly, a surprising number.

"ΜΙΑ ΧΕΛΩΝΑ!!!" crows the throng of delighted small children, who are, suddenly, everywhere.

"μια χελώνα!" I agree, accepting that at least for current purposes, that is what it is.

"Μπορούμε να δούμε τη χελώνα σας; [can we see your turtle?]" asks an adorable little girl, shyly, and I understand??

The children fucking love looking at the χελώνα and showing it to them is kind of magical?

I finally put the tortoise down on the grass of this wild area off to the side of the courtyard, and marvel aloud that it is weird that I barely know any Greek except how to say μια χε��ώνα.

"I think she will soon run off," a kind lady called Aspasia assures me, seeing I remain slightly anxious about its fate. "I don't know why I'm saying 'she'. I suppose because χελώνα is feminine in Greek."

"Yes! I know that!" I exclaim, thrilled.

"Well done!" she says. And also she asks if we are OK for drinking water after the storm and if we need any help with anything and is just generally incredibly lovely and now we know more of the neighbours!

So "μια χελώνα" has just become, by a long way, my most-used and most understood and all-around most conversationally successful phrase in Greek. So I guess I have to admit I was wrong to doubt Duolingo's wisdom: it is correct to be obsessed with turtles. And I concede that prior to learning how to count to ten or to distinguish right from left, the simple ability to yell the word TURTLE over and over again is, it turns out, a crucial element of the responsible traveller's social skills.

(I am pretty fluent in Italian and turtles haven't come up in conversation even once?)

#story time