#id literally never ever fuck you unless you had thousands to give me

[kissmethroughthebone]

the high school obsessive broke virgin ex hitting me up again, just to ask what i would have charged to take his v card, then suddenly turning whorephobic upon realizing he cant pay me the amount i said.

"wow you'd really hoe yourself out for 3k? you seem so desperate lol"

ok, now say it without crying.

#id literally never ever fuck you unless you had thousands to give me #wow thats such a low amount to be a hoe for fuck you #ive got a fridge of food and a purse of cash im doing fine #and he's still never gotten laid #and has 150 in his account #or even if he had more still couldnt afford me #broke men are the only ones to complain about swers because they really just want to fuck for free but cant #which was the point of me saying 3k #a specific #and his only rebuttal is crying and going #ok bud #youre the one throwing a fit in my messages over not taking ur v card out of the kindness of my heart #which youve done for years.... #and you were gonna pay #and im the desperate one? #lord you need to send some better men to earth

[regina-del-cielo]

I was thinking about Copley’s Murder Conspirancy Board (mostly to deal with the absolute rage that the scene with Andy Copley and Booker gives me because ‘UGH THESE MEN ARE SO S T U P I D’), and... I may have a Theory about it - which mostly delves into how much Booker and Copley were in actual contact with each other before the events of the movie.

TL;DR: the Murder Conspirancy Board was built with a contribution of Booker’s information, and Copley was Very Confused on the workings of the Guard’s immortality

(the Essay(TM) is under the cut)

This excellent post expounds on how these two Grieving Dumbasses Definitely Did Not Think Their Plan Through, but still what little they did plan was not done in two days. And I would like to think that Booker would have required more than One (1) Persuasive Speech to get him to potentially get his family outed and put in danger for the (tiny) chance of getting a cure for their immortality.

So they’d been in contact for a while, possibly for almost the whole ‘break year’. Copley has lost his wife two years before the movie, so when he and Booker met again he’s one year into mourning. If Andy needed a break from their jobs, I can’t imagine in what mental state Booker must have been.

Copley probably started looking into the Guard because man, that Surabaya mission was a masterpiece, and how come these guys aren’t mercenary superstars? But they’re like ghosts, and the IDs don’t really match their supposed ages... and dealing with his wife’s death made him go into a Nerd Spiral. And then he finds Booker.

So this is how I think it went: they meet again. They talk. Copley is a grieving widower, Booker goes ‘man don’t I relate’. Booker is probably drunk a lot of the time (maybe so is Copley, misery loves company and all that). They enter a positive feedback loop of sharing grief over lost loved ones. Copley probably spills that he knows something, that they’ve done great things and they have a gift obviously. Booker probably answers along the lines of ‘fuck the gift, it sucks. Didn’t save my children when they needed it’. Copley goes ‘well, medicine is much better today. What if you could do it now?’ And the rest is history.

A) Booker ‘helped’ with the Murder Conspirancy Board

We know for a fact that the Conspirancy Board contains information about the Guard ‘from the last 150 years’ which is, approximately, the time photography’s been around. And it makes sense - photos are pretty easily accessible, and Copley knows their faces. He probably scanned them from one of those fake IDs and then used a facial recognition software to find them in historical photographic archives. But we know (and by the end of the movie so does he) that the last 150 years is a nothing in their lifespan. And while going backwards Copley may have found Booker’s original birth and/or marriage records, nothing of the sort would exist for Joe, Nicky and Andy.

Despite how much we joke about the Guard’s faces being Everywhere in museums and art galleries around the world, we can assume that they wouldn’t leave so many traces of them behind. The two known art pieces representing Andy in an obviously recognizable manner, her portrait with Achilles and the Rodin, are in the cave in Val d’Argent. I don’t believe Nicky and Joe wouldn’t have similar storage places, especially for Joe’s own art. Without photographic evidence and before newspapers, trying to pinpoint the three of them across history would be harder than finding a specific needle in a haystack of needles... unless someone tells you where to look. 

When Andy enters Copley’s living room, he calls her ‘Andromache the Scythian, the eternal warrior’. But how could Copley have known that Andy’s “real” name was Andromache? It’s not on her IDs, and it’s not the top choice for a full name that has Andy as a nickname. It’s a literary name, of course it would appear through history in poems or plays or novels. And how could he have associated Nicky and Joe precisely to the Crusades with what he knows of them from the last 150 years alone? For all he knew, they could have been as old as the Punic Wars, or as young as the Battle of Lepanto. Assuming he’d actually caught on on them being together together.

Well, I think Booker told him. Maybe just a thing here or there, while Commiserating on How It Sucks being an Immortal, like ‘Andy’s been around for so long she doesn’t even remember her true age, that’s exhausting’ or ‘Joe and Nicky are ridiculous for two people whose first meeting consisted of killing each other during the fucking Crusades’. And Copley fell into another Nerd Spiral that brought him to understand that holy shit these people are much older than I thought what the fuck.

B) Copley is Very Confused on How Immortality Actually Works

Copley talks to Andy by calling her ‘eternal warrior’ and talking of her immortality as if it was some kind of gift that can somehow be transferred from one body to another (debatable, but... ok). But he’s also flabbergasted by her not healing from Booker’s shot, and later with Nile he says ‘but then why would the immortality leave?’, which is... well, it makes it sound like he thinks the immortals are some sort of Chosen Ones.

Which means that Copley knows nothing about Lykon. He had no idea that at some point the Guard will stop healing.

But why would he not know, since I just conjectured that Booker told him enough about immortality for him to pinpoint the origins of the eldest members of the Guard? Why would Booker not have told him such a central detail of their “power”? (Booker obviously knows about Lykon. We see Andy telling Nile, and you can bet that ‘is this thing permanent?’ is probably the third question Booker ever asked when he met the others. He can’t not know)

I think it’s because despite having bonded over their grief, they are approaching this ‘discovering what the fuck is up with immortality’ from two extremely different sides. 

Copley wants to know if there is some biological aspect to their immortality that may be ‘transferred’ or ‘activated’ in any random human being. He’s gotten into his head that their regenerative powers can end all diseases. Which. I could probably write another entire separate post on how this is far-fetched at best. Point being, Copley never thought his endeavour as taking the immortality from the Guard to give it to someone else. He thinks Andy and the others are going to live forever and ever.

Booker knows their immortality is not forever and ever, theoretically. He knows that at some point, in the future, he’s going to stop healing and die. But he Wants to Talk to the Manager about it, damn it. He wants his death to be a certainty he can quantify, not something that may happen in another five thousand years based on the data he’s got at his disposal. He wants to have the choice to end it tomorrow or in fifty years - if discovering what causes his immortality saves other people, well that’s an undeniable bonus, but it’s not the focus of his motivation.

Just like Booker and Copley didn’t cover all the potential ways in which Their Plan Could Go Wrong (and honestly, has Booker not learned yet just how fast they revive on average? He tells Nile that ‘big wounds take longer’, and still he revived from the grenade in three/four minutes!), I think they also didn’t Delve into their motivations for seeking that knowledge. Booker probably thought that Copley knowing of their immortality being relative was irrelevant, because of course the doctors will find something (the thing that makes them stop healing), and then he’ll die anyway, so who cares? 

And Copley... Copley was probably Convinced that the Guard was a group of superheroes that just needed to be suggested a new investment plan for using their powers, because saving individuals during wars and natural disasters is very noble and good, but come on, it’s inefficient as hell, they can do much better!

(It absolutely sends me that Copley saw the kind of accomplishments reached by the people that the Guard saved, or by their direct descendants, and STILL it didn’t occur to him that there was a pretty decent chance that sometime in the future they would save someone that would find the cure for ALS and/or other shitty diseases! HE’S LITERALLY HINDERING THEM!!!) 

#the old guard #my ponderings #james copley #sebastien le livre #my favourite Depressed French Boi #James 'Dumb of Ass' Copley #Copley is an Absolute Imbecile and I will Die on this Hill #I hope this rant makes sense I changed the order of the paragraphs a hundred times I'm sorry #just to be clear Booker didn't Completely Spill the Beans about the family to Copley otherwise the man would know about Quynh too #Copley most likely scraped at any small detail he could glean from their conversations and add it to the Nerd Spiral #Copley is a Nerd that also somehow forgot how to extrapolate results from given data #for the Guard's sake I hope his skills were hindered by his grief and he goes back to Full Operativeness once he gets some Therapy #THEY NEED SO MUCH THERAPY OMG

[sharkboygirlish]

Messy.

ONE-SHOT

Word count: 2793

Disclaimer:  One piece and all it’s characters belong to Eiichiro Oda, I just like to write about them.

Warning: None

Rating: T (i guess?? there’s cursing)

Author’s Note: Whale, this is the first fanfic I’ve posted on the interwebs since high school so please keep that in mind, lol. I do plan to finish it sooner than later so check back in a few days if you want to read the rest, sorry I don’t have it all done right now.  At long last it it FINISHED.

Feel free to tell me what u think! Unless it’s mean, then I ask that u keep those thoughts in ur noggin because I’m just writing these for fun not for grades.

Without further ado, here ya go.

Author’s Note pt 2: So i didn’t end up going the smut route like I originally planned, but I think it worked out better bc this one got nice and Emotional.

Summary: Zoro really shouldn’t agree to be Nami’s drinking partner if he wanted to keep their friendship from getting... Complicated.

__________________________________________

The moon was floating high in the night sky when Nami wandered onto the deck, unable to sleep even after a few hours of sketching. 

She wanted company – specifically, she wanted the company of the crew’s resident alcoholic. It only took a few minutes to find him on the lawn deck with his back against a tree and his eye closed. ‘How typical.’

Nami smiled a small, excited smile as she strode over to him and squatted between his parted legs. An unconscious sigh left her nose as she swept her gaze up and down his face. She caught herself thinking, ‘He really is easy on the eyes isn’t he.’ ....again. 

Who was she kidding? She’d been thinking the same thing every time she looked his way lately. 

Two years ago she’d been able to keep the immature crush she had on him locked tightly away but somehow - it had gotten out and was slowly consuming her entire being. 

Nami hoped he hadn’t noticed how often she invited him to drink with her because she didn’t think she could handle being rejected. So she settled for spending time alone with him whenever and however she could. 

“Hey, moss-head,” the navigator said finally, leaning in to squint at him, “Are you asleep?”

He had literally just settled down for a nice cat nap when the navigator appeared suddenly to interrupt him. ‘Damn. What the hell did she want now?’ 

Instead of answering, Zoro chose to ignore her and pretend like he was deep asleep. ‘Why won’t she go bother someone else?’

Nami started prodding his cheek with one finger to rouse him if he really was sleeping, ”Zorooo wake up, I wanna drink,” she whined and his eyelid opened instantly.

‘Why’s she so damn pretty..’ was the first thought he had when he realized that she was a lot closer than he’d anticipated. 

He mentally chastised himself after, trying to remind his id that Nami had never once indicated that she wanted to be anything other than friends and he should respect that. 

But… There was no harm in looking from time to time was there? And she was pretty. She’d always been... ‘Oh for fuck’s sake, now he sounded like Sanji. He needed to get a grip.’

“Helloooooo,” Nami waved her hand in Zoro’s face until he snapped back to reality and snatched her wrist up, pulling it away. He scowled but it wasn’t deep, and now he was refusing to look her in the eye. “What was that about, huh Zoro?”

“Nothing.” The swordsman replied perhaps a little too quickly to avoid suspicion, “Thought I heard a noise, doesn’t matter – oi, didn’t you want to do something?” 

He couldn’t remember what exactly it was. He’d been so distracted by the way her bangs framed her face and sometimes got caught in her eyelashes—’Damnit! He was doing it again.’

Nami smirked again but didn’t press the subject anymore. She’d do that later once they started drinking. “Weren’t you listening to me? You’re so rude, maybe I should find someone else to share my booze with.”

Was it a good idea to go drink with Nami when he kept catching himself thinking about feelings that he’d been suppressing for the last two years? Probably not…

But he couldn’t just decline an opportunity to get buzzed. ‘And... Maybe he wanted to get buzzed with Nami, specifically.’  

Zoro scoffed, mostly at himself. “Quit playing games, damnit, do you want me to drink with you or not?”

“You’re so stubborn,” The navigator teased with a pleased smile that made his heart beat unevenly, “I could care less if you join me, but you’re not allowed to come unless you say you’ll be nice.”

“Nami. I am older than you, quit treating me like a fucking child or I swear-”

“That’s no way to talk to a lady who’s getting you drunk for free, Roronoa Zoro. If you can’t be nice then I’ll just add the cost of everything you drink to your debt and-”

Zoro didn’t have time to ruminate over the way hearing her say his full name made him shiver because he had to shut her up before she did charge him. 

“Okay, okay. I’ll be... nice.” He hissed through gritted teeth and her answering giggle made his pulse flutter. He had to fight to keep himself from smiling. ‘What the hell was going on with him tonight? Was he sick?’

“Good boy,” she turned and started walking towards the Sunny’s aquarium bar, glancing back over her shoulder to make sure he was coming.

“Don’t push your luck, woman.” Zoro snarled to mask his confusion over the sudden need to touch her that he felt scratching at the back of his head. He really shouldn’t agree to be Nami’s drinking partner if he wanted to keep their friendship from getting... Complicated.

He knew it, but he followed her up the stairs all the same.

                                                       * * *

“Why d’you always want to drink with me anyway, witch?” Skeptical of her intentions, his narrowed eye fixed itself on Nami as she approached him holding two maroon tinted bottles. She offered one to him and he accepted it – but he didn’t let his guard down yet.

Zoro lowered his gaze to check the label out, whistling long and low when he read 23% alcohol per volume. A couple puzzle pieces clicked together in his head ‘Oh, that’s why. Because if she tried to drink this with anyone else they’d pass out after two glasses.’

“Would you believe that I just like hanging out with you?” Though her tone was teasing she was actually being genuine, she had a lot of fun with him whenever they went out.

“No–“ He paused when Nami kicked him in the shin hard enough to make him swear. Reaching down with his free hand he rubbed the sore patch of skin and glared daggers at his crewmate. “What the fuck was that for?!”

“You said you’d be nice, Zoro! So be nice or I’ll charge you a hundred thousand beris for that bottle.” Nami uncorked hers but waited to hand the corkscrew over until he behaved himself. The look he was giving her would probably frighten a small child but she didn’t flinch.

‘This was his choice.’ He reminded himself. Of his own free will he chose to get drunk with Nami instead of napping, and that meant dealing with her bossiness no matter how much he loathed it. ‘Sometimes he just wanted to grab her by the shoulders and make her shut up, there were better things her mouth could be doing anyway-‘

“Why do you keep staring at me like that, do I have a zit or something?”

Zoro sat up so fast that he banged his shoulder on the underside of the countertop. ‘What the hell was that? What the hell was wrong with him?’ He hadn’t even opened the damn bottle and he was already making himself look like an idiot.

“No,” the swordsman grumbled, wracking his brain for a believable excuse, “Just thinking about how I’ll owe you money even after I’m dead if you keep charging me for bullshit.” That made her laugh and Zoro cursed himself for how much he liked hearing it. “Don’t see how it’s funny for me, witch.”

Nami let him take the corkscrew from her, eyes crinkled with amusement while he opened his bottle. “You’ll just have to stay alive until you pay me back in full, I guess!” She trilled before taking a long, heavy drink from hers.

“Yeah?” Zoro snorted before mimicking her and downing about half of the wine in the container. It tasted disgusting, which he’d expected, but that didn’t make the bitter aftertaste any less miserable. His nose wrinkled slightly as he set the bottle down. “I bet even if I did try to pay you off you’d find a way to charge me more.”

“You make me sound so heartless,” the navigator batted her eyelashes innocently, pretending to look hurt, “Why would I ever do such a thing?”

“Hah.” He scoffed before chugging some more wine and failing to keep track of how much he was drinking each time. “Because you want to keep me on a leash since I don’t throw myself at you like that dumbass cook.”

An impish smirk crawled it’s way onto Nami’s face that made him immediately regret what he’d just said. ‘Fuck. Damnit!’

“So…” She began slowly, savoring every second that the swordsman spent avoiding direct eye contact with her, “You admit that you are one of my lap dogs?”

A muscle in his jaw flexed and he stopped drinking for one second to grunt, “That’s not what I said.”

“That’s what I heard!” Chimed Nami as she rose from her seat, stepping over to Zoro and tracing a finger under his jaw while he drained the last few drops of liquid. “I should get you a collar, so people know who to bring you to when you get lost.”

Normally he would have snapped at her for poking fun at his sense, or lack thereof, direction but he wasn’t listening to her. She’d come close enough for him to pick up her scent and maybe it was the alcohol intensifying his feelings, but it was suffocating him in a good way.

He loved the way she smelled. Tangerines from her soaps mixed with salty seawater and traces of sunscreen. A hint of orange blossom, but only when she was close to him like this. 

Zoro inhaled deeply through his nose and, without realizing it, his expression melted into something affectionate and gentle. ‘In two years she’d changed in so many different ways… but she still smelled the same. She still smelled like home.’

                                                        * * *

“What are you thinking about, Zoro?” Her voice void of it’s usual teasing tone, Nami’s curiosity was piqued by his sudden shift in demeanor. He looked soft and peaceful, like he didn’t have anything to worry about. She wanted to know why.

‘Ah, fuck.’ What was he supposed to tell her? That he was thinking about how good she smelled? ‘Yeah right.’ Zoro was quiet for a while, mulling over his words until he came up with an explanation that didn’t sound as creepy – but also wasn’t a lie.

“I guess..” he finally murmured, his gaze shifting to meet hers, “It’s just been a while and… I was thinking about how nice it feels to be back here, with everyone…” a brief pause then he added, “I missed you guys.” ‘Look at him being all gushy and emotional, this wine really was something else.’ Zoro reached to brush his fingertips by her temple, catching a stray lock of hair and tucking it behind her ear, “I missed you.”

When had Zoro ever been this honest with her about the way he felt? Never was the answer, but now he seemed to trust her well enough to know she wouldn’t spill his secrets. Nami took his face in both of her hands, surprising him, and pulled his head down so she could kiss his forehead. “I missed you too, Zoro.”

Something about hearing her say that she’d missed him too broke a dam in his chest that he’d been trying to keep together for two years. Hormoness flooded through his bloodstream quicker than Zoro could even process them and before he knew it he was practically throwing his arms around Nami’s waist and crushing her against his chest.

“Nami—” he pressed his face into her neck to hide the tears that he couldn’t hold back anymore. Sober he might have cared about losing it like this around her but she was here and… ‘He just – needed to hold her.’ Hold her and smell her and feel how real she was because she had almost been taken from him.

‘He’d barely begun to process what he had been through on Thriller Bark when they were attacked in Sabaody. If he tried to think back on it his memories would get hazy and his bones would ache from their very cores. He knew what had happened but it’s like his brain was protecting him from understanding how close to death he’d come. Then – to be torn away from the people he loved with all of his heart? Who he had just nearly killed himself to protect?

It had ripped him apart and rubbed salt into every wound. And it fucking hurt. The same kind of pain he felt when he saw Kuina dead on the floor of their dojo. He was scared, he was furious, he was devastated – all over again but this time it was so much worse. So, so much worse.

That was why he had trained so hard over the last two years. Because he couldn’t bear the grief that came with loving them so deeply – so he got stronger. And stronger. And stronger. No matter the cost to his body, he would become powerful enough to defeat anyone who crossed them. Then… He would never have to feel the agony that he did when he first woke up on Kuraigana Island ever again.

Taking on all of Luffy’s suffering in Thriller Bark had been the most physically painful experience of his entire life – but that was nothing compared to how much it hurt to think that his friends were gone forever, that he hadn’t been able to protect them.

Training made it easy not to think about what had happened -- but now he was home, and they were safe - and he was realizing just how close he’d come to losing all of them. At once. And he could do nothing to stop it.’

Startled by him grabbing her, Nami was prepared to give the pirate a good smack if he was getting handsy but… He started trembling. ‘Was he not feeling well?’ Her mouth opened to form the question then stopped. His breathing hitched while his entire body jerked and she realized…

‘Zoro was crying.’

Roronoa Zoro, who prided himself on his strength, was sobbing wretchedly into her neck. ‘He must have been holding this in since Sabaody.’ Nami’s heart ached for him and his stupid pride that forced him to torture himself instead of letting him cry like he needed to. She’d been expecting him to crash at some point, how couldn’t he? Even someone as strong as Zoro was still a human being.

One of her arms cradled his head while the other wound round his shoulders, her fingers combing gently through his hair. “Oh you sweet, sweet boy…” she spoke in the tone that Bellemere used to use when Nami and Nojiko were frightened by a passing thunderstorm. It always calmed her, maybe it would calm Zoro, too.

‘Quit fucking crying you loser you’re supposed to be a man.’ But he couldn’t, he literally could not stop because he was trying to. “I wasn’t strong enough,” his voice quivered at the edges and he hated it. ‘He was definitely never going to drink this kind of wine again ever. Not if it turned him into a blubbering mess like this every time.’

“Shhh, no. No. Don’t you dare try to blame yourself for what happened. Hey, look at me.” Nami urged his head off her shoulder and cupped his face in both of her palms, “None of us were strong enough, okay? Not even Luffy.” Each tear that fell she tenderly swept away with the pad of her thumb. The corner of her mouth turned up as she assured him, “But we are strong enough now. We can take care of each other. Nothing is ever going to tear us apart again, Zoro.”

‘She was right. Of course, she was right. He needed to have faith in his crewmates and his captain. They could do anything as long as they had each other.’ His breathing slowly evened out as he focused on anchoring himself back to reality. He wasn’t in Sabaody or Kuraigana – he was on the Sunny. In the bar, with Nami who had grown so much since he last saw her. The look in his eye softened like it had before his breakdown.

“You’re staring at me again, Zoro.” The navigator teased, her hands falling to rest on his shoulders. He hadn’t let go of her yet but she didn’t mind, he could hold on to her for as long as he needed.

A ghost of his usual smirk passed across his face. “Sorry, Nami…” Zoro took a little risk by leaning in to press a chaste but lingering kiss to her cheek, then traced a path with the edge of his nose to her ear, murmuring, “Wine makes me a little… Messy.”

#zona #zonami #zoro x nami #zona one-shots #zoro nami fanfiction #zonalove #zoro x nami fanfic

[coldalbion]

Favour of the Gods

So, I wasn’t going to say anything about my recent experiences here, but then I saw all the utter shite @lady-feral has been getting over the last few days, and well, I think it may actually be worth mentioning. As background, I’ve been part of my local Heathen moot since its inception. It’s actually a regional one, meandering gently across the NW of the UK, so that all its members can get to one or two. Its purpose is for Heathens to get together, to chat and get to know each other - just generally be able to spend some time around other Heathens, and exchange knowledge if you’re new. We maintain a Facebook group for comms purposes, so we often get people wanting to join who we haven’t met first and have to make a judgement call based on FB profile. etc. I was recently made a co-mod, because the founder and chief moderator was on holiday. We’re friends, have been for years, and he trusts my judgement. I’m also a cripple - I have Cerebral Palsy, use a wheelchair, and recently had to have half my foot amputated after it ulcerated for Some Reason.

Recently, we had a guy join, and it soon came out that he identified as Folkish.

Now, as a rule, that’s potentially a Red Flag. I say potentially, because sometimes someone doesn’t know it descends from Völkisch and associated movements. Sometimes they are just new, unaware of the toxic stew of racism, nineteenth century Romantic Nationalism, and pseudoscience. Unaware of that word implies, in many quarters. So we have two choices, being as our group requires that:  you respect the right of other group-members to be Heathen, regardless of sexuality, gender, or ethnicity or 'race'.

1. We can instaban  and potentially alienate, isolate, or drive further into the Folkish Realms, someone who might not know what’s dodgy about such things. 

2. We can enquire about this person’s belief, where they’re coming from, and give them enough rope to hang themselves - and in the process, watch for those who might ‘Like’  or post agreement with the ever-present post courting the very thinnest edge of respectability - or even those over it, posted when the mods are busy.

As a rule, we choose 2, for our FB group. It’s better they reveal their colours online than in person. Others might handle such a thing in another way, and that’s fine too. To cut a long story short, this person eventually launched into a classic anti semitic rant, not to mention mention a whole bunch of pseudoscience. (That creaking sound you hear is the sound of someone hanging themselves on the provided rope.)   What has this got to do with the crap @lady-feral is getting? Well, I got a message from said arsehole - changing my message nickname to “Fake Heathen” and then informing me he was glad that the gods “[D]id not favour me in this life :D” I assume he meant this as some sort of You’re not Heathen, because the gods hate you so much they allowed you to be crippled implication? I don’t know - it was confusing, because he’s obviously not read the Havamal, which pretty much suggests it’s better to be crippled, than, y’know, dead.

When you’ve got a combat veteran getting shit for activism from armchair warriors who think War and Warriors are Great, either because she believes in a world where things could be better for minorities and that Fascism and White Supremacy are ridiculous and dangerous and should be resisted, or because she happens to be a woman? (Multiple sources suggest the Allfather was-as-a-woman on various occasions, just fyi.) When you’ve got a disabled person being told the gods did not favour them, despite surviving things that kill thousands every year, having a loving family, partner, and just enough to live comfortably, in a place they own? When that person could have died - and in fact pretty much did, but came the fuck back? You begin to understand that for some of these folks will always  move the goalposts. You will never ever be right, or a proper/real Heathen unless you’re exactly like them. The things about you they dislike, that they are disgusted by so badly that they want you gone unless you fit their cookie cutter mould? If you’re OK, if you gain continued life when you should be dead? That threatens the fact that they’re the favoured ones. If you, the supposedly degenerate, the vile  continue to prosper?  To face your wyrd  head on, and grin and smile, despite its bindings? What would that say about them? It might suggest that they were not supreme, favoured. That their vaunted, non-existent, genetic purity, is not enough?  Because those other-than-them still exist, and despite the attempts to eliminate or cow those folks, we still exist. We remain and that bothers the shit out of them. Because an industrialised war machine couldn’t stop us; it could slaughter thousands, millions of us, even, but still we remain.

Nevertheless, she, and we, persisted. 

And still they beat us, still they try to kill us. Still they surge with the momentary high of destroying the things, the symbols, the people  they hate. “This is our world, our faith, our country.” they proclaim as they kick, they punch, they smash. It makes them to feel good to exert their power, gives them agency, because they feel outnumbered. But the rush fades, the adrenalin drops. They look and see another target, and another and another. So they take a knife, a gun, a bomb and they kill many, knowing they’ll be caught, caged, or more probably killed. They dream, they beg, for their life to be filled with that agency, for their last moments to be making some sort of change.

They don’t want to be their ordinary selves, because their ordinary selves could be run over by a bus. They could die on the toilet for fucks sake, a stroke, an aneurysm, a heart attack. Cheek pressing tile, watching the dark unfurl amidst the pain, wondering what it was all for. Or, perhaps even worse, they could survive the stroke, become crippled, need a wheelchair, require someone to wipe their arse. They could become one of us.

We are a reminder of what could be, what wyrd  might deal them. Might bind them tight as a weaver can. They dream of the onrush, perhaps desire Valhalla, or a martyrs heaven. Because it’s the same impulse that drove the Crusaders, the same that drives Daesh - filled with the rush, Us against Them. And truly, they feel alone, lost without it. 

Of course, a byproduct of such things, of any tight knit group is access to shared resources - the Templars grew rich enough to be a bank, PMC’s profit in warzones the world over and Daesh gains funding from drugs, from selling off stolen antiquities   

Money and power, weapons and land and numbers, exclusion and castigation. All ways to demonstrate agency when others have none, to demonstrate the favour of god(s), the apparent superiority of their group, their Way over another. (Except gods, especially Heathen ones, are notoriously fickle  according to the lore - Odin’s heroes are often deserted mid-battle. One Eye’s spear flies over both sets of combatants, after all. Whatever happens, he wins.)

Both sides, Them, and Us, are defined by the other. Those who claim superiority are constantly measuring themselves against those they deem inferior. Even if they exterminated, removed, or exiled themselves from the realm of their so-called inferiors? Then they would not be superior - merely all there was, to rise or fall on their own merits, their own ability or lack thereof to navigate whatever structures were in place - they would make their own scapegoats, would find others to blame, even within themselves.

Those they hate, fear, are disgusted by, are well used to the limitations, the way wyrd - that weaving of consequence, of action and reaction - might render the path you’re on crooked. Yet still we prosper - still some of us know the onrush of poetry and song, of word from word giving word from us. Some of us are bound noose-tight, the limitations of our life allowing us a joy, a surging fury that infuses everything in our life. Perhaps this a god’s favour? To have joy despite being the the thing that so many fear, despite being the horrible reminder of what may be dealt to us, by a universe that is not, nor will it ever be, ours to control. I know that I cannot control any hate slung my way after this. If and when any comes my way, I’ll shrug. If this gets reblogged, mocked and torn to pieces, so be it. If people choose to do that, if it makes them feel better, so be it. If leaving a reply gives you the rush of a need satisfied, or an urge to troll go for it.  I really have had worse, and I’m still here. If you want to join the myriad people who’ve pointed and laughed, mocked, thrown stones both literal and metaphorical, be aware that this is nothing clever, that you’re not distinguishing yourself from anyone. You’re literally nothing new. I remain. I’m here and now, and the fact is, some of you who hate me for what I am? Some of you may become like me. I look forward to the day when you finally bring yourself to look in the mirror and see me there too, waiting.

[hoetron]

Tagged by my best bro @fluffytheasianpanda :,)) finger guns rachacha lets get banging shall we?

✍ TATTOOS…  if you count water base tattoos then yes those were nice

😷 SURGERIES…   ...does this experience count as a surgery? once when i was 5/6 there was this torn out patch of skin on the underside of my foot, like the skin was literally hanging off from my foot and i had to be sent to the hospital to get it sewn up. not a fun experience but walking around in crutches was p fun if not for the fact i was too short

🏥 BROKEN BONES…  nope and honestly dont want to experience

🔫 SHOT A GUN…  nerf guns

😕 QUIT A JOB…  god what id give to quit seocial anxiety

✈️ FLOWN ON A PLANE… ive actually been overseas quite a few times! went to most of the countries in southeast asia, japan when i was young a few times, and now im living in australia so i fly back to singapore(myhomecountry) in holidays and interstate travelling too lmao

🚙💨 DRIVEN 100MPH…  me, a 13 yeard old, holding up a license saying im 16

🚁 RODE IN A HELICOPTER…  nopE it looks and sounds like itd be a fun ride but id  be too scared rip

⛑ GONE ZIP LINING.. like flying fox? then YES ITS SO FUN

🍼 WATCHED SOMEONE GIVE BIRTH…  nahh

🏈 BEEN TO AN NFL GAME…  ajdkahksdj nope into football

🍁 BEEN TO CANADA…  gOD I WISH BUT Itd probably be too cold for me (jenny if i ever do visit please prepare a thousands of coats for me there)

🚑 RIDDEN IN AN AMBULANCE…  uuu cant remember if in the foot incident i mentioned earlier i was taken to the hospital via the teachers car or the ambulance

🏦 VISITED WASHINGTON D.C…  i havent been to america before...

🌞 VISITED FLORIDA…  never been to america before

🗻 VISITED COLORADO…  ^^^^^^^^^^^

🎉 VISITED MEXICO …  i literally never went out of the australasia and east and southeast asia zone

🎲 VISITED VEGAS…  si ghs nope

🍔 EATEN ALONE AT A RESTAURANT…  nAH I LITERALLY HERMIT AT HOME UNLESS GOING OUT WITH FRIENDS/FAMILY

🎤 SANG KARAOKE…  experienced my first karaoke last year when reuniting with my old school friends it was lit as hell

🐶 HAD A PET(S)…  had a hamster when i was a wee babe so cant remember much of it, apparently it died. Had two rabbits called cotton and floppy and uh. according to my brother i kinda squashed one of them under the couch. HEY I WAS LIKE 6/7 OKAY I MAKE MISTAKES and anyways they both died and now i have a cat :,))) whos still living btw btw

🎿 BEEN DOWNHILL SKIING…  what the fuck is snow

🎼 ABILITY TO READ MUSIC…  for like one year and then i stopped

🚵 RODE A MOTORCYCLE…  no pe

🏇 RODE A HORSE…  during camp last year!! my horse was a stubborn horse called elmo who didnt want to listen to my directions :,)

🏥 STAYED IN A HOSPITAL…  nahh

💉DONATED BLOOD…  probably too young rip

🏕 SLEPT OUTSIDE…  used to do this all the time on the balcony of my old house. mosquitoes arent a fun thing to experience

🚗 DRIVEN A STICK SHIFT…  ??? whats that

🚓 RODE IN A POLICE CAR…  im inNOCENT NO

😇 GRANDKIDS…  lance keith hunk shiro pidge allura coran, you were named after the seven most bravest people i know

🚤 DRIVEN A BOAT…  didnt drive one exactly but rode in one

🐌 EATEN ESCARGOT…  dont touch me with that shit

👽 SEEN A UFO…  there was a ufo in E.T

🚢 BEEN ON A CRUISE…  ;;;no;;

⛽️ RUN OUT OF GAS…  me, a 13 year old, holding up my ‘i am 16 and therefore can drive’ license up higher

🍣 EATEN SUSHI…  unagi sushi are the best okay

👻 SEEN A GHOST…  i am boo hoo the fool

#fluffytheasianpanda #raedy to talk shit

[aquarianlights]

Just popping in to tell you that you are gorgeous as fuck

Oh goodness. Hahaha. Wow, thank you so much! I wish that were true in my eyes. I have accepted the fact that other people can somehow think I am attractive, but I just can’t wrap my head around why someone would think that or how someone could think that about me. In my eyes, I am the most hideous, fat person on this planet. I have come to terms with the fact that I am ugly, like I mentioned in my post on that one picture, but I cannot accept the fact that I am ridiculously overweight and fucking obese. I hate myself so damn much because of my weight. I even avoid going out in public because of my weight and how ugly I look and feel. I can fool people with my selfies, though. With the right angle, the right lighting, the right filter, and the right camera. . .I can look pretty attractive. But it’s all an illusion. That’s why selfies are great. They can make your fantasy of being a beautiful, slim, flawless, model-worthy person a reality. But if you met me in real life? You’d run the other direction. Haha. I’m really hard on the eyes. My pictures are eye candy, I will admit, but my real life image? Very hard to look at. I have a very fat, obese, short, stubby, ugly body. . .and my face is too round and chubby and I have no neck or chin to speak of (which I want to get cosmetic surgery for when I can afford it) coz I inherited that from my fucking mother. I have a major, odd overbite on my top row of teeth because instead of sucking my thumb as a little boy, I sucked my two fingers (ring and middle), which caused my teeth to bulge out, one a little more than the other. Hoping to get that fixed with invisalign as soon as I can afford it. I have always had super clear skin, but lately my picking problem has become unbearable and I am ripping the skin off of different places and now I have all these red marks on my face and permanent scarring in some places because of that issue I have. And concealer doesn’t cover it that well no matter how much I put on. And then the pigmentation of my skin is disgusting because I am a pasty, white, lobster-person. My skin turns red at even the slightest bit of heat. And I have a pigmentation issue on my right cheek bone where there is a circle that is always red that concealer won’t cover. My eyes are way way WAY too big for my face (as everyone can probably tell). I’m certain people probably make fun of me for how big my eyes are behind my back. My hair is beautiful in colour, but ugly in style. My nose is huge and always red at the tip because, again, I am a white, pasty, lobster person. (Seriously, why did I have to be born white? UGH) My eyebrows are way way way too thick and they make me look perpetually angry. I have a bad case of resting bitch face and bored-to-tears face even when I’m excited about something. My smile is the most hideous and scary thing you will ever see; especially if it’s a teeth-showing smile. I have a baby face so I get mistaken for a teenager/high schooler quite often which is absolutely insulting. I have even had someone tell me my actual ID was a fake ID because they couldn’t fathom the fact that I was born in ‘92. I constantly have such dark circles under my eyes that it looks like I have two black eyes due to my insomnia and my sleeping pills not working anymore. My chin protrudes and it’s ugly. My lips are fucking HUGE and ugh god they’re disgusting. My teeth are somewhat yellow-ish because of all the tea and coffee I drink and because of the lack of money to go to the dentist (my insurance does not cover dental and never has...white teeth are a product of wealth, not how well you take care of them). My breath always smells horrible because I am anorexic and anorexia makes you have bad breath (still not sure why. I just know it’s the cause.). No matter how much I brush or how many times I rinse with mouth wash or how many mints I pop throughout the day, I’m pretty sure my breath still smells and I don’t know how anyone can stand to be around me. My face is pretty expressionless and I don’t make good expressions which makes me miserable and boring to other people. My laugh is fucking obnoxious because I laugh really loudly and it’s more of a maniacal cackle than anything. . .unless I’m giggling, then I sound like a fucking seal. If I don’t shave between my eyebrows for like 6 months or more, I get a small, practically invisible unibrow which is totally noticeable to me but normally not to other people. My nose is constantly wet and dripping because I have such bad allergies. My eyes are fucking bright blueish-grey, sometimes fully grey, so it’s super easy to tell when I’m on drugs because you can see my pupils turn to pinpoints or, if I’m on something trippy, you can see them dilate like crazy. Which, as someone who does drugs every day of his life, that’s an absolute curse, mate. I have TMJ so my jaw goes click click click every time I open and close it. I have a SUPER TINY mouth and a very thick tongue. Which is an awful combination. I can’t decide whether my forehead is too big or too small. And the creases of my eyes are practically right on top of my eyes because of how huge my eyes are. And glasses are always way too big for my face because I have such a tiny head. My nonexistent neck is super thick and makes me seem like I have a bazillion chins no matter how skinny I get. When I was down in the 90 lb range, the fact that I don’t have a neck/chin really fucking got to me because even at that weight, it still looks like I have a million chins. I can’t escape it without surgery to physically move my throat back where it is for normal people. Which, I’m not even sure if that can be done, but I will pay a plastic surgeon my whole goddamn life savings to fix that for me. I just don’t have the money right now and won’t anytime soon because I’m sure it will cost thousands upon thousands of dollars up-front. Uhhhh.....what else.....well, that’s just my head. From my neck up. You don’t even wanna get me started on my body. I could go on for hours because of how fat I am.

But. . .it’s really, really, REALLY nice to get messages like these. I never know if people are just mocking me and lying to me and laughing at my expense when I respond with gratitude, kinda like a “HAHA He’s so gullible!!!” sorta thing. That’s what I usually suspect is going on when people compliment me like this.

But I’ve been trying REALLY REALLY REALLY hard to just accept the compliments as truth and believe that people are being honest with me and aren’t just making fun of me and being sarcastic. So. . .if you’re serious, which I am going to force myself to assume you are, I really fucking appreciate this. Like....SO much. I have nonexistent self esteem. Like...zero. Maybe even negative numbers for my self esteem. I doubt you will ever encounter a person with lower self esteem than me. So to have people boost my ego with things like this means the world to me. It makes me feel like...maybe...maybe I can go out in public. Because I don’t go out in public because of how ugly and fat I am. I dread going out in public because of that. When I was like 105lbs or less, I was so fucking happy and I felt like I could go out in public whenever I wanted! It was incredible!!! Having thin privilege is.......wow, it’s life changing. I don’t think people with thin privilege even realize how great they have it. Honestly, being skinny would take away my depression, cure my anxiety, and all of my self destructive habits and suicidal ideations would just...fade away! They did when I was 105 and less. So anyone who says that weight does not control your happiness is a fucking liar when it comes to me, myself, and I. Because weight does, indeed, control my happiness, personally. While I’m fat and obese like I have been most of my life, it causes so much depression and anxiety and makes me want to kill myself solely because I am fat. I can deal with being ugly like I am, but I cannot deal with being fat like this. I can’t handle it.

And I can’t exercise at all because it could give me a heart attack and kill me due to my costochondritis. So I can’t even do that to help lose weight. So I’m just.....constantly starving myself and munching on dried mango slices when I’m hungry and drinking lots and lots of water and nothing else. A lot of people say that starving yourself will make you gain weight and it actually does in majority of people, but for some reason. . .starvation works on my body. Starvation is the one thing that will make me lose weight. And it’s really my only option at this point. Yeah, I could go into hypoglycemic shock or a hypoglycemic coma, but that’s a chance I’m willing to take if I could just be skinny.

Like I said. . .I have come to terms with the fact I am ugly. That is never going to change no matter what I do. But my weight? That is something I can change if I keep up the starvation and don’t break. Which, I have gotten very good at over the years since I was a little kid. The drugs help curb my appetite, too. The reason I started doing certain drugs was actually to curb my appetite. Nothing else. I didn’t want them to get high or for fun or anything like that---I just wanted them so I could lose weight. And they sure are helping. I fucking love drugs.

I would do anything to be skinny and have thin privilege. Literally anything. I will die trying if I have to. I would rather die an early death while skinny than live a long life while fat.

Ahhhh, I got so off topic there. I’m sorry. Weight and my appearance has just been prevalent in my mind since I came across those three old pictures I just reblogged from my selfie tag. So I just. . .had to vent and get that out there. I’m so sorry. But venting really helps me. A lot. So. . .saying all that really just helped me calm down and stop crying and beating myself up over all of it. So. . .even if you don’t read all this, if someone does read it, thank you. Thank you for listening.

And, nonny. . .thank you so much for your wonderful compliment. You just made me feel SO damn good about myself. And it really means a lot to me because I have this scratch on the skin above my upper lip on the right side that I have been clawing at for hours now and I have opened up a whole damn hole in my skin and now it’s turned into a massive red spot of ugliness and it’s probably not going to heal for a long time no matter how much of this prescription healing gel I put on it. The gel is like a super version of neosporin. My mom had it when she had her mastectomy for breast cancer. They took fat from her stomach to make her a new breast and she had some crazy, sick scar from that. Huge scar. So they gave her this gel that you put on the incision site to make it heal faster. And it really works. So she gave the remainder of it to me and I’m putting it on that area like every two seconds, but then I get the urge to claw at it and I do and then it just starts bleeding and gets bigger and worse and worse. And I just can’t seem to stop myself. If there is an area of my skin that isn’t perfectly smooth and flat, I will claw at it until it’s bleeding and until I feel that it’s flat or concave that will heal into flatness. Can’t even tell you how many circular shaped scars I have from ripping off little swollen bite areas from insects. Two circular dots are on my face and it makes me feel so fucking ugly. And now I have this huge red mark on my upper lip and it’s killing me to look at myself because I can’t do anything to hide it and I basically never want to go out in public again. . .my picking problem has made me 50x uglier than I already am and it REALLY gets to me. I physically can’t go out in public because of my looks and weight without a fuckton of valium or ativan in me.

So. . .hearing this from a stranger. . .some anonymous. . .it means the world to me. It means that someone, somewhere out there in this world, could walk past me and think “Wow. He’s so handsome.” or something like that. It gives me hope that maybe one day.....ONE DAY......someone might actually think that in real life when I don’t have all the right angles, filters, right lighting, right pose, etc etc etc...If someone were to say this to me in person when I was in my natural environment without all the selfie gimmicks? I think I would legitimately pass out. Haha. I’ve never been the gorgeous one. . .I hate going out with most of my friends sometimes because they are a million, bazillion times hotter than me.

I’m hoping the HRT will change how I look and how my body is. I hope it will slim me down and strengthen my facial structure. The doctor said it probably won’t have any affect on my face, but I have seen FTM and MTF people who have before and after pictures and their faces look super different. So I’m just fucking praying to all the omnipotent, noncorporeal, fate-controlling aliens in the universe that it does exactly that. I would kill to look like anyone other than me.

I have never seen an ugly fat person before. The only ugly fat person I have seen is me. Fat and skinny are both beautiful. And fat is not a derogatory term. People seem to assume that just because I think I’M fat and that makes me ugly, I somehow think that they must be ugly due to their weight, too??? And that just doesn’t make any fucking sense to me when people come to me with the “Well if you xxx pounds and I’m xxx pounds, then what does that make me in your eyes? A fucking obese monster?” LIKE NO, FAM. IT DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY. The only fucking way I think about fat being ugly is on ME. PERSONALLY. I am the only one that my logic about weight applies to. And people just don’t seem to understand that and it pisses me off. I’m anorexic and I have bad body dysmorphia. So, I mean, fucking SUE ME FOR EXPRESSING MY OPINION OF MYSELF AND MYSELF ALONE. Just because I think I’m fat at 128 lbs does not mean I think someone at twice my size or four times my size is ugly due to their weight. I am attracted to all sorts of people. And Callie in Grey’s Anatomy is the exact body type I am attracted to. She’s not conventionally skinny like most people. . .yet, that is the number one body I am attracted to. I’m not usually attracted to skinny people because they make me out-of-my-mind angry and vengeful because I want to BE them and because they usually take their thin privilege for granted or aren’t even aware that they have it and MAN that pisses me off. They usually have no idea how good they have it. Ugh, fuck. I have experienced what it was like to have thin privilege. I was practically fucking worshiped. Even though I lost all my weight for very unhealthy reasons and I was the most unhealthy I had ever been in my life and I was the sickest I’ve ever been physically, everyone would still see me for the first time in a while and be like “OH MY GOD. KILLIAN. LOOK AT HOW SKINNY YOU ARE. CONGRATULATIONS. YOU LOOK GORGEOUS OH MY GOD!!!” and they would just continuously praise me for being skinny. I would get asked out on dates and invited to all these high end exclusive parties simply because I was skinny. And guys and some girls were absolutely all over me. I remember walking into a gas station to ask for direction and there was a line of guys waiting for the cash register and when I walked in, they all turned around and did a double take and literally scanned me up and down with their eyes and they all got this kind of devious smirk and one of them even put his hand around my waist and they were just absolutely marveling at how gorgeous I was. Purely because I was skinny. I could get into clubs and bars so easily when I was skinny. The second I gained the weight back? Everyone that had loved me when I was skinny abandoned me with the absolute weakest excuses. No one paid attention to me anymore. I started getting looks of disgust again. Started getting the stares.......you know the stares, right? The ones that say “Wow, I’m so glad I’m not as fat as him!” Stuff like that. My mistress even gave me a special session when I lost all the weight because she was so proud of me. . .despite the fact I lost in a very unhealthy way and for very bad reasons and despite the fact that I was physically sicker than I had ever been. IT DIDN’T SEEM TO MATTER TO ANYONE HOW SICK I WAS and how unhealthy I was and how I was basically dying from extreme starvation and dehydration. All anyone cared about was that I was skinny and my body looked ideal. So I know what thin privilege feels like. . .it gives you the confidence to leave the house whenever you want to. It gives you an ego boost like no other because clothes actually look GOOD on you. It makes people love you like crazy and lust for you. It helps you get in to basically anywhere you want and it helps you get past so many rules and laws and shit just because you’re skinny. You can fucking get away with anything when you’re skinny. I learned that easily when I was tiny. The second I gained it all back, though? It was like I was barred from everywhere and all of my friends and people who were lusting after me just fucking left.

I mean, yes, I’ve had tons of people tell me I’m attractive. Some irl and most online. I have had people tell me I’m gorgeous and alluring and that my eyes are mesmerizing and that they could gaze into them all day. But it’s always so hard for me to believe. . .because of my weight. Not even because I am ugly. . . but simply because of my obesity.

But I’m trying. I’m really trying. I can’t thank you enough for this message. You just gave me an opportunity to vent and get all my crazy emotions out like I really, really needed to. I was gonna keep it all inside for the night and let it eat me alive and destroy me, but. . .now I feel SO MUCH BETTER after being able to rant like that. You just did more for me than raise my self esteem and give me a little ego boost and make me smile and giggle and make me feel really, REALLY good about myself. . .you just helped me to get through a particularly tough state of mind that would have caused me to pop so many more pills and possibly accidentally overdose. You just seriously saved me by sending me this simple compliment.

I can’t thank you enough. There are no words to express my gratitude to you. You just made my whole night turn from miserable and self-loathing. . .to absolutely wonderful and self-affirming. c: You’re a wonderful human being and I’m so so so glad you took the time to type up this message. I’m sorry I had to vent like that, but I just HAD to get it out. You are the best. Ily. Thank you so so so fucking much. I would kill to hug you tight right now.

Also, I haven’t gotten a compliment on my looks on tumblr in a good while now, so this was very refreshing. I used to get compliments on my looks all the time. . .now I barely get any. So this was a nice change of pace. c: Thank you, again. I wish I had the words to express my gratitude, but no words would be able to formulate how extremely thankful I am to you.

[furynewsnetwork]

Quoting old movies is fun, particularly when they involve surreality.  Government functions are almost entirely surreal, but quoting them is rarely fun … unless Trump is somehow involved.  Love him or loathe him or something in between, he’s brought fun quotes back to self-governance.  And with them come the witch hunts.

There are ways to tell if someone is a witch.  What do you do with witches?

Burn them!

And what do you burn apart from witches?

Republican officiocrats who work for a loathably abrasive New York democrat twitter freak holding the White House as a republican that the Deep State Swamp is desperate to delegitimize because he’s declared war on it.  In other words: more witches.

Never mind that Medusa sold foreign policy futures to foreign government agents in the guise of contributions to her and Cuckold Bill’s charitable foundation.  The real issue is that members of the Trump campaign met with Russian government provocateurs who − wink wink nudge nudge, your wife’s a goer − had “information” on Medusa that would “bring down” her campaign.

Therefore, he’s made of wood.

And this contact wasn’t disclosed on the security questionnaire, which means he lied.  The only reason you lie about something this substantial is to hide the truth.

Therefore, he weighs as much as a duck.

The officiocrat’s security questionnaire was amended four times, and now contains hundreds more foreign contacts.

Therefore …?  A WITCH!! BURN HIM!!

Time the fuck out.  Has anyone ever completed one of those security clearance questionnaires?  I have.  Multiple times.  I’ve held a clearance for most of the time since 1980 when I joined the Air Force.  It is form SF86, in case anyone wants to follow along.  It can be found online.  Giving answers that can be construed as lies by those wishing to do so is trivially easy, for the form was devised by bureaucrats and their legion of loyyers.

The current version [as of 2014] is 157 pages long in its raw form on paper, including instructions and multiple release of liability and signature pages.  Paper applications are no longer accepted; it is now completed online requiring a government login ID and irrationally long gibberish password that cannot be remembered and must never be written down.  You will be calling the toll free help desk repeatedly to have your password reset.

You may not advance to the next section of the form until the current section is completely answered.  Unless you are fresh from the womb, you will have scores of addenda and explanation pages to add information.  These addenda are needed for families larger than you and two parents and one sibling, for any travel farther afield than the local Walmart, and for anything you’ve done more complex than buying a stick of gum.  God forbid you have a relative − to include in-laws − born in a foreign country.  I have such an in-law.

But still, I’m an incredibly boring individual with a relatively small family and no social or civic affiliations to speak of.  I’m a libertarian and thus have no meaningful political affiliation, either.  One investigator in the 90s looked at me and my paperwork and said, “Ah … N J.”  I quizzed, “N J?”  He replied, “Non-joiner.”

My most recent clearance application ended up being 380+ pages long.  …Not including instructions and signature pages.  It took me over five weeks to complete.

The online form has pull-down menus for standard fill-in-the-blanks.  But just try explaining where your father-in-law came from.  He’s been living in the US since the age of 9, but was born in a village in Yugoslavia to German parents.  He spent the first 7 years of his life in Nazi, and then Soviet, prison camps.  The online form no longer lists Yugoslavia as a legitimate nation [I used Angola, since it was listed first and I was not about to dignify their inept system], nor does it accept his home town.  The village itself was obliterated de facto by the Wehrmacht and de jure by the follow-on Tito government.  After the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the specific location may be in Serbia, or Bosnia, or Slovakia, no one is quite sure.  Not that it matters anyway; it’s gone.  His naturalization document lists a naturalization center in the US no longer in existence and therefore not in the pull down list.  His naturalization is identified by a certificate number using a layout no longer recognized as valid − not enough digits.  My father-in-law is just generally suspicious, I suppose.

Explaining this one fairly trivial matter that I covered in one paragraph took − I recall − 15 additional pages on the SF86.  Maybe more.  One’s eyes tend to glaze over after a certain amount of useless necessity.  In any event, it took 15 pages too many.

But then comes the sections of the questionnaire that has caused Trump teammates so much trouble, and which would cause me the same trouble were I a republican party officiocrat instead of a mere libertarian DoD data analyst: section 19, about halfway through form SF86, “foreign contacts”.

I have been on eleven cruises, and I’ve met literally thousands of foreigners.  Most were wearing name tags, and many of those who weren’t told me their names.  I wrote down none of them.  With the exception of maybe a half dozen, I couldn’t tell you much more about them than their first name, sometimes not even that.  There is Pedro [last name unknown], the effusively friendly manager-slash-head waiter of a little cantina [forgot the name] on the second floor over a souvenir shop [forgot the name] on the main tourist drag [forgot the name] of San Miguel on the island of Cozumel.  We visit the place for lunch every time we’re there.  Pedro’s head is shaped like a bowling ball, if that helps the investigators any.

There is Major Tom [last name unknown], the unofficial greeter for the nation of Belize, and head of the Belize City Chamber of Commerce.  He runs several tourist excursion operations, including one we took our first time there.  He used to be in the Belizi army − hence his title of Major.  He looks like a young Ricardo Montalban, or did the last time I saw him.

There is Ngede [last name unknown], our Indonesian head waiter on not one but two cruises, on two different ships … and what are the odds?  Highly suspicious if I were a republican officiocrat.  He has his First Night patter down: the nearest any English-speaker can ever come to pronouncing his name is “g’day”, so just say G’day.  He has an advanced degree in engineering, but works as a waiter on US cruises because at $10 a day plus tips he makes more than an engineer in Indonesia. …where you have to be politically connected [i.e., the correct race, the correct tribe and the correct religion, none of which includes him] in order to get a job that pays more than twenty-five cents an hour.  He is now considered extremely wealthy among his countrymen … at least on his time off when he goes back home.  He showed us how to make a rat out of a linen napkin.

There’s the guy on Cayman who runs Moby Dick’s − the stingray encounter excursion.  His name is Richard something, and he’s from England.  He charges almost $100 American for a thirty minute boat ride and a bucket of squid to twenty folks at a time to feed the stingrays tamed by generations of hand-feeding on a sandbar in the sound.  Wouldn’t know him on sight.  He was thoroughly unremarkable, apart from being well-tanned.

On the ship, I try to find one of the bars with a particularly attractive bartender and get my glass of before-dinner wine or after-dinner drambuie from her.  The last two cruises these bartenders were in the form of a cutey from Ukraine, and a hotsy from Brazil.  I impressed the Ukrainian by knowing how to say please [pazhalsta], thank you [spaseeba], goodbye [da svedanya] and I’m bored [mnya skuchnya] in Russian.  I made my bartender from Ipanema laugh by butchering the words to Mas Que Nada.  I have long forgotten their names.

But by far, the most memorable foreign contact I had was a little boy, maybe four years old. He was paying close attention to the cracks in the sidewalk while walking with his mother, an attractive twenty-something, and older brother, maybe seven years old.  This was down one of the back streets of San Miguel on Cozumel.  I was searching for a cheap cantina serving actual Mexican tacos.  The older brother was in navy blue shorts, starched white shirt, and a solid black tie.  His shoes were polished black.  He was going to school, and mom was walking him there.  I was approaching them on the sidewalk, and as we neared I smiled and said, “Hola.”  Mom smiled back, and the older brother looked puzzled.  Both said “Hola.”  The four year old boy, though, looked up from the cracks under his feet, directly at me.  He pointed and announced, in surprise, “Mama!  Gringo!”

His mother was mortified, and stammered a Spanish apology interlaced with scolds directed to her child.  I laughed and told her “De nada.”  I still laugh when I replay it.  But that was it; that was the entire foreign contact.  I never quizzed them for their names.  Were I a republican officiocrat I’d be required to.

Section 19 of form SF86 requires full names, addresses, dates and places of birth, employer[s], all nicknames, not to mention affiliations, and purposes, and outcomes of all foreign contacts.  Per instructions, it limits the contacts required to be disclosed to those of “close and continuing” nature, but one’s definitions of “close” and “continuing” are extremely subjective, and might well rely on political partisanship.  Very few of the items under foreign contacts allow for the option of declaring “I don’t know”.  “I don’t remember” is not permitted at all.

As someone who’s had a clearance for over thirty years and a Top Secret clearance for all but my four years in the Air Force, I know exactly what they’re trying to get at here.  They want to know if a clearance candidate has ever encountered any foreigner who went out of his way to indicate that he was trying to dig for information about things he shouldn’t be digging for.  “Has any foreigner you’ve ever encountered asked you nosy questions about what you do, who you do it for, or otherwise acted like a spy?  If yes, list as many details as possible.”

That’s what they’re trying to ask, but they don’t.  Instead, they require that anyone wanting a security clearance from the US government act like a spy themselves every time they encounter a foreigner, by getting full names, addresses, dates of birth, employers, the foreigners’ affiliations and purposes for existing … none of which anyone ever does.  You don’t go on a cruise with a notebook and stubby pencil demanding the names of every vendor hawking his souvenirs upon every passer-by.

“Come in! Come in! We have condition air.  Feel all cool and cold while buy your pretty wife a necklace, eh?”

Not until I know your full name, date of birth, nationality, who you work for, and what civic groups you participate in.

… yeah, not gonna happen.  As a result, almost everyone filling out this form leaves these things out.  And no one cares that you leave these things out.  …unless you’re a republican officiocrat working for an outsider president that everyone loathes because he’s harsh, abrasive and an outsider who’s declared war on the Deep State Swamp which creates − among other things − obscenely obstreperous national security clearance questionnaires.

Section 20 of form SF86 inquires after “foreign activities”; subsection A deals with foreign holdings, of which I have zippo.  Oh, drat.  I have a self-directed IRA which has mutual funds which hold foreign stocks and bonds.  Subsection A is trying to find out if I have meaningful holdings.  Never mind that “meaningful” is arbitrarily and subjectively determinable itself.  Ah, the hell with it; “No”.

“Do I own, or plan to own, property in a foreign country.”  Yes, I plan to retire to Mexico.  I like Mexico.

“Give the date of purchase, or planned purchase.  Where do you plan to purchase property, and what price are you paying for it?”  What? The hell?  I veered off onto one of the “explanation” pages with the following:  Listen, guys, if you think I can give you the speculative date and speculative location and speculative price of a speculative purchase of a retirement home for a speculative retirement and have this information mean a single god damn, then you must think I have a crystal ball.  If I had a crystal ball I’d be using it for personal enrichment and wouldn’t need a job which requires a clearance.  I plan to retire in Mexico, at some point, don’t know where, when, or how, but a guy can dream.  That’s all I’m saying about it.

I’m not going to describe the other 5 pages of this subsection.  Needless to say, it’s more of the same useless necessity.  Each item must be answered; “I don’t know” is not usually accepted.

Subsection B: foreign business, professional or government contacts.  Uh oh.  I’ve had literally hundreds of contacts with foreign government agents. … that I know about.  Knowing the nature of government, I’ve probably had dozens more government contacts that I don’t know about.  Eleven cruises, multiple port calls each cruise, encountering customs agents, port security wonks, police − in Limon Costa Rica, we were trying to find an outlet for the local coffee so I could bring home a few pounds of whole beans.  Had a conversation with dos policia who knew bupkus English.  With my formal Spanish lessons ending in 7th grade forty years prior, and my informal Spanish picked up in bits and pieces [Dos cervezas, por favor.  Muy Frijo.  Donde es el baño?] … my wife reports it was an amusing conversation to watch, and it would undoubtedly have been fun to participate in had I not been hung over.

Do I have to list these government contacts, to include full name, nationality, government agency and rank or title, date[s] and purpose of contact and all “offers” made?  I do if I’m a republican offiocrat working for the aforementioned outsider president loathed by the Deep State Swamp.  Does el policia pointing me at a bodega which sells coffee beans constitute an “offer”?  If I’m a republican officiocrat, yes.

Additionally, I’ve undoubtedly run across government agents burrowed into excursion outfits watching for illicit activities − you know what those Americans are like when they get closer to the source of their recreational drugs.  Many Americans attempt to score their own while visiting drug exporting nations, and their arrogant self-absorption is a direct contributor to the unsolved murders of dozens of us a year.  But do I know they are undercover government agents?  No I do not.  Does it matter?  Do I have to list them as well, even though I don’t know who they are?  Only if I’m that republican officiocrat.

There are another 7 pages of this subsection that I won’t go into.  All items must be answered; almost none apply.  “I don’t know” is only acceptable for a small portion of the items.

Subsection C: foreign travel.  Once again: eleven cruises.

Specific dates [which I no longer know] for each nation visited.  And for each nation describe once again the information previously inquired after in section 19.  This was the section that was trying to, but did not, ask, “did any foreigner get too nosy about things that are none of his business?”

It had taken me three weeks to get to this part of form SF86.  I’d long ago exceeded my tolerance for bureaucratic impertinence, and used one of the many “explanation” pages to freeform the following paraphrased blowback: Lookit, my wife and I have taken one cruise a year between 2004 and 2012, and one year we took two when we had both our parents along.  You have much more access to the dates of our cruises than we do at this point; all I can tell you is that they were usually in May.  We’ve met thousands of foreigners, and over a hundred foreign government weenies, and not one of them was any more forward than to pester us about emptying our wallets in their particular store.  No one asked what I do, or who I do it for, and no one especially asked if I had any government secrets to give out.  The only thing any of them wanted was my business.

I bawled out the apparatchik in the Deep State Swamp with irreverent, impetuous scold.  And once again, does this matter?  The answer is, once again: only if I am a republican officiocrat working for the well-loathed outsider New York democrat holding the White House as a republican and who declared war on the Deep State Swamp.

The nature of government bureaucracy is to evolve into an endless stream of gotchas.  It is these gotchas that are levied against anyone chosen to be the witch du jour.  You would have to be blind or a partisan shill to fail or refuse to see who is being gotchaed at the moment.  The republican officiocrat was doing opposition research during the presidential campaign, and was contacted about gaining opposition candidate spice.  He showed up to get the spice and met two Russians, neither of whom said, “Hey!  I’m with Moscow and work for Putin!” thus cluing him into it being a government contact.  The meeting was short, and the subject was not juicy gossip about Medusa; it was about US sanctions that resulted in Moscow curtailing Russian adoptions to the US.  The meeting was abandoned and none of the players ever met again.

Section 19 of SF86 requires − per instructions − “close and continuing” contact with foreign nationals to be disclosed.  A single meeting with a female Russian loyyer and her [from all accounts] silent partner is neither “close” nor “continuing”.  Unless, of course, you have it in for the republican officiocrat and the well-loathed guy he works for.  Therefore … a witch.

In contrast, the encounters with my bartender from Ipanema, occurring each day of the cruise before dinner for a glass of wine, and after dinner for a glass of drambuie was, in comparison, intimate and perpetual.  Even though I no longer remember her name − it was five years ago now − I learned much more about her than any republican officiocrat ever knew about the two Russians.

But it doesn’t matter because I’m not a republican officiocrat working for a New York democrat playing a republican president on twitter, and who declared war on all the jealously self-important bureaucrats who spend their days constructing 157 page long gotchas with which they can play king for a day.

King?  Pffft.  We didn’t vote for them.

You don’t vote for kings.

How’d they get to be kings then?

The Deep State of the Swamp, arm clad in the purest shimmering samite held aloft Regulation, signifying by authoritarian providence that they, the bureaucrats, should rule this land.

Listen, mysterious functionaries lying in ambush distributing arbitrary rules is no basis for a system of government.  Supreme executive power derives from broad support of the masses, not from some farcical procedural ceremony.

I fart in your general direction.

Ni.

You’ll be dead in a minute.

BU-U-U-URN him!!

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[ghost-cheeks]

I’ve been working at the bank for like two months now and I think it’s safe to say I hate it lol. I mean, I like PARTS of it, but the actual work itself bores me to tears haha. But I don’t think I’d want to go back to the book store full time unless it was a legitimate full time position and not “part time but we give you 40 hours anyway.”

Cus like…

Pros of working at the bank:

predictable schedule. I always get Sundays off and get about 50% of Saturdays off. If I have to work Saturday, I’m home by 1:30pm.

I get home by no later than 5:30p on weekdays and 6:30p on Fridays. This means I can actually make real dinners and spend time with my fam the way I want to.

It’s literally five minutes driving time from my house. I could walk there in like 20 if I wanted to. I am never allowed to complain about my commute.

I genuinely like my co-workers. We are all roughly the same age and click pretty well (imo). Even us new folks fit in. I have a great rapport with them.

I get health insurance. And holidays off. And life insurance. And guaranteed paid weeks vacation. Like… Standard. Simply because I’m officially full time and that is AWESOME.

However con’s of working at the bank:

Like most of my other retail jobs, people treat me like shit. Especially older rich folks who have hundreds of thousands of dollars and get upset that I asked for an ID with a “small” check of $1000 they want me to cash.

I sit…all the time. My job requires me to write a lot, and I, for some reason only the gods know, don’t like writing and standing up. So I don’t get a lot of physical exercise and I’m worried it’s going to affect my health. I’m gonna get unhealthy real quick if I don’t work extra hard to keep active.

This is not a 9-5 job. This is generally an 8-4:30 or 8-5:30 job. If you’re unlucky to get drive in on Fridays, you’re at work from 8am till 6:30 pm. That’s ten hours of sitting at work. Like, that’s something they conveniently left out of the interview process. Good thing I found the Gutenberg online library and can sneakily read during horribly long stretches of down time.

It’s a BANK. I never had any intention of working at a bank when I was younger and I’m kind of disappointed in myself for being this desperate for a full-time gig.

But compared to the book store, it isn’t all that bad because:

Cons of working at the book store:

The shittiest fucking schedule you ever did see. I’d do nights anywhere from 2p-10:30p or even 6p-2p. Then have to be in at like 10 or 11 the next day. Consistent days off? Never! Sundays? You bet your ass I was there. Holidays? Yep. Every holiday all day every day.

Upper management did not. Give. A shit. It’s a big box store and thus its all about memberships and pushing collecting emails so we can spam people with coupons and let them know books they don’t even read are on sale. Understaffed? Oh well. Have projects you need to do? Too bad, you can’t do ANY sort of recovery until after 6pm. Our managers try, but there’s only so much they can do.

I get zero benefits, I get paid so much less than at the bank, and I get like half the hours even though I work so much harder than most of the full time folks.

But it isn’t all that horrible and doom and gloom...

Pros of working at the book store:

Okay, its a book store. I survive on books. I get a hell of a discount.

People who are at a book store generally WANT to be there. You don’t think “awwe fuck, I gotta run to the book store today.” well… Generally. So most folks I talk to are REALLY NICE and at least have the tact to say “nah just browsing thank.” and I know most of the regulars in the cafe so I have their drinks halfway made before they even get to my counter.

I was the de facto event lady. I set up and basically ran a lot of our special events. Lego releases, book signings… our goddamn Pokémon 20th anniversary event went so damn smooth because I was literally the only one in the store who played the card game.

I was their gofer. Need something reorganized in the toys and games and hobby sections? Comics? I’m yo gal; I know where every toy and collectible went, what series things belonged to, all that shit. I knew the stuff most people didn’t regarding tech and comics and nerd stuff. Even fiction, romance and sci-fi. I knew what I was doing.

I’m on my feet all day and am able to stay relatively healthy because I’m moving, and my fitbit loves when I work there. Honestly, I jog in the store going from one end to the other.

So like, do I want to go back to the book store? Kind of. Only if it had more to offer in terms of wage raises, increase my hours–-fuck, even give me full time maybe??– and stop trying to push member cards and shit. I know I’d do better at an independent book store, but I live around college towns and indie stores generally hire college kids.

It’s just tough. And I mean, I’m working on trying to get dog training experience, so I’ve contemplated going back to the pet store since they’re looking for a trainer… But that would be a HUGE step backwards. Hopefully I hear back from a woman I’ve been emailing about apprenticeship at her farm and can get started on that ASAP.   Until something better comes along I’ll stay where I am.

#For myself #List time #Cut for your dashboards