#arguing w conservatives was so fun

[gen-z-culture-is]

Gen z culture is getting really excited for class debate day because you get to argue with the super conservative kid with the MAGA sticker on his computer

#submission #gen z #culture #politics tw #trump tw #MAGA tw #i loved these days in hs #arguing w conservatives was so fun #mod sean

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

hi there! love your work! i recently had a prof say that all zoos (USA) are bad (so we shouldn't support them) and sanctuaries are better because using animals for entertainment is morally wrong, most zoo profits dont go to conservation, and conservation efforts are bandaid solutions to capitalism destroying animal habitats, so the real solution is to return the land to indigenous stewards to manage/rewild. i didn't disagree with the last bit, but the argument as a whole felt a little off to me for a reason i couldnt put my finger on. am i off base here? just feeling really unsure about the whole thing.

You're not wrong! There's a mix of reality and personal opinions in those statements, and it's definitely something worth critically examining. A quick fact-check of what they said for you:

All US zoos are bad

There's a massive range of quality of zoological facilities within the US (and around the world). Some are stellar and some are not, and it's really just not accurate to lump them all under the same umbrella for almost any purpose. Unless, of course, your issue isn't with animal welfare, and it's philosophical, which is what it sound like in #2...

2. Using animals for entertainment is morally wrong.

This is one of my favorite things to talk about w/r/t how we exhibit animals. Entertainment has become equated with exploitation and implicit low welfare in the last couple decades, and so you get a lot of people saying using animals for entertainment is wrong. But those same folk will say that they enjoy seeing animals in other contexts, and they think that's okay. Where's the line between enjoying something and being entertained by it? What makes something one and not the other? Also, we know that people learn better from from situations which are enjoyable/entertaining - even just a fun teacher who jokes around vs a dry lecture - so how can that only be a problem when it's used to make viewing animals more impactful? I wrote a whole piece on this a while back (linked here) if you want to dig into this more. Some zoos (and accrediting groups) are shying away from "entertainment" type branding - shows are demos now, for instance - and others are leaning into "edutainment" that's done with good welfare and communicates actual education messaging. In short, this is a personal philosophical belief, and you're right to question if you agree. (Even if you decide you do think that too! It's always good to question why someone is arguing what they believe about animal use, and how they came to believe it).

3. Sanctuaries are better than zoos.

There's two reasons I think he's misinformed here. First, almost all exotic animal sanctuaries in the US are licensed exhibitors - just like zoos! I only know of a couple that don't exhibit to the public at all. It's an important part of their revenue stream, because gate take helps support paying for animal care. Also anything you see from a sanctuary on Youtube, Facebook, or TikTok? Also exhibition! They just message about it differently, and often have a different ethos about how they exhibit (e.g. tours to reduce stress instead of letting people wander, doing conservation or rescue messaging instead of just display). Second... look, most people assume that the word "sanctuary" means a facility is intrinsically more ethical than a zoo, and therefore they must be a good place. In reality, many sanctuaries get much less public and regulatory scrutiny (at the state level) than most zoos. There are good sanctuaries out there, but there are also sanctuaries where stuff goes on that would absolutely be unacceptable at zoos, and it slides because of the assumption that sanctuaries are inherently more moral and ethical and care for their animals better.

4. Most zoo profits don't go to conservation

This is correct! Direct conservation funding is often a small part of the money a zoo makes. However, that's because money goes to things like facility maintenance, new construction, paying salaries, etc. If zoos put all the money they made back into conservation programs, practically, they wouldn't have the funding to continue to operate. The question that I'd suggest asking instead is "where are they putting money into conservation" and "are they doing conservation work or just throwing money at something to display the logo of the program." Also, it's worth keeping in mind that a lot of what zoos do to support conservation isn't necessarily financial. Many facilities contribute "in-kind", by doing things like sending staff to assist with programs or teach specific skills, or by donating things like vehicles and equipment. Research zoos do also seriously contributes to in-situ programs, and breeding programs for re-introduction like the scimitar-horned oryx and the black-footed ferret are also conservation. Could many of the big urban facilities with huge budgets do more? Yes. But looking just at dollars spent on conservation programs is disingenuous and inaccurate.

5. Conservation efforts are band-aid solutions to capitalism destroying habitats / Returning the land to indigenous peoples to manage/rewild is the real solution to conservation issues

This is a little outside my scope so I'm going to only address the part that I know. First off, like, there's no One True Answer to conservation issues. That's reductionist and inaccurate. Conservation really is a human issue, though, and it often has to involve solving human problems that lead to negative results for animals. There's definitely an issue with what some people call "parachute conservation" where Westerners swoop in and try to tell people living in range countries how to best manage their animals and natural resources without recognizing their perspectives, needs, or what drives their behavior towards those animals. That's not just a zoo issue - that's an issue with a ton of traditional Western conservation work. And there is progress towards fixing it! In the zoo world, I've been very impressed with the work out of The Living Desert, where their conservation people spend a lot of time overseas teaching people in range countries to evaluate and improve their own conservation programs, so they can assess efficacy and also have data to apply for grants, etc. They provide support when asked, rather than trying to tell people who live with these animals regularly what to do. One of my favorite programs that TLD collaborates with (they don't try to run it!) is a group called the Black Mambas that reduces poaching by supporting entire communities to reduce the desperation for food/income, educating kids about animals, and running all-female patrols staffed by community members.

Overall, it sounds like your professor's view of zoos is really informed by their personal moral perspective, and possibly reinforced by a lot of the misinformation / misleading messaging that exists about the industry and about conservation work. They do have some specifics right, but not necessarily the context to inform why things are like that. It was a good catch to question the mix of information and approach it critically.

#zoo industry #zoo information #philosophy around zoos and what they do #conservation #zoo questions

[qqueenofhades]

For me w socmed its like. Everyone acts like its this hugely necessary public utility where your presence and "engagement" is MANDATORY, like your face your name your historical takes for the communal lederboard, and its like. Ok yes facebook insta twitter and tik tok HAVE starved real reporting institutions etc at this point, but its also like. All the people for all those years screeching abt tweets and acting like twitter was this hugely relevant public square were largely working IN media!!! So its like ofc it was hugely important to them, but for me?? I didnt need to see endless puff-piece articles ginning up clap backs on twitter from 2015 onward. I dont have an account!! It didnt enter my life!! Until all these people manifested twitter as this essentially public utility. AND NONE OF IT!!!!! is necessary!!!!!! Or required!!!!! To live life!!! But increasingly they're making it harder and harder for that to be true. And its like. You Could Just Log Off. For the love of god!!!!!!!!!

I think that for this, as usual, we can blame Facebook, who made it MANDATORY to have your real name/picture and interact on the internet as your "real life" self (whatever that means). And yes, there is some limited amount of value in that since the 90s were consumed with the "Scary Internet Where Scary Unknown People Are Scary," but the idea that it will make people more responsible has turned out to be total BS. Instead, people WILL post the most heinous and reprehensible shit under their own names on Facebook/Twitter, and it has empowered them to do more of that/build monetized followings out of being totally vile turdburglars, rather than less. Because it turns out that when you build a machine that rewards the rats for being awful, it incentivizes them to be MORE awful, so yeah. That whole "using your real name promotes accountability!!!" turns out to be a total lie, and, uh. Meta/Facebook just got fined €1.2 BILLION (approximately $1.3 billion) in Ireland for breaching EU data privacy rules, so it's not like they did anything good with it.

And like... no. None of it IS necessary. Sure, it can be lots of fun, it plays to the inherent self-absorption of most people (often too much so, truly), it's a good way to keep in contact with casual acquaintainces/extended family/people you don't see often, and etc etc. But we don't NEED any of it. There are other communication tools that humans have used successfully for millennia, and especially since the owners of social media have consistently pushed a platform that prioritizes any kind of engagement at any cost, where facts, truth, and/or the basic framework of democracy and civic society doesn't matter against the almighty pursuit of profit, I'm really not sure at this point that there's any way to argue that it hasn't been corrosively destructive. Even if you do use it and take some value out of it, you still have to acknowledge that it exists in this horribly distorted paradigm in so many ways.

Social media is not going away, obviously, and attempts to regulate it often tend to veer too far into "destroy the internet" territory, especially as conservatives want to gut Section 230 and liberals haven't figured out how to meaningfully moderate it without signing onto bills that give a lot of room to deliberate bad actors. (SCOTUS did recently decline to dismantle Section 230, so things are staying the way they are, for now.) So... yeah. We still have to figure out how to live with it and to find some way to make it overall a useful tool again, rather than just a boundlessly destructive one.

#anonymous #ask

[spiralcass]

NEW X-MEN: THE ANIMATED SERIES - SEASON 1, EPISODE 11

We open in the school’s gymnasium, where Dani, Karma, Nightcrawler, Beast, and Northstar are decorating for the school’s winter dance, while Dazzler and her band are getting set up on the stage. The boys are all using their powers to speed things up, while Dani is hanging streamers with her bow and arrows. Karma thinks they’re all just showing off. 

Dani just hopes the kids all have fun tonight. What the kids have been undertaking these past three months has been experimental and so different from when they were students (Northstar quick to butt in and mention he got a REAL education and was never a student here), and it can’t have been an easy adjustment for a lot of them. She knows adjusting to becoming a teacher hasn’t been easy for her. 

Xuan mentions she was already working as a librarian before she got Jean’s call, so it wasn’t too much of a change for her, but the others are inclined to agree. It’s been more fun than they’ve thought though, Kurt and Beast by virtue of having found kids they can share their passions with, Nightcrawler mentioning a girl named Pixie as someone with a great deal of enthusiasm for the thespian arts, while Beast think Ms. Washington has the potential to be the next great Mutant scientist. They turn their attention to Northstar, who just says he’s been happy to help a kid in a way he wasn’t expecting to. 

Dazzler then calls over to them, double-checking how much time they’ll have after the dance’s king and queen are announced. 

Beast gives them an answer, while Xuan and Jean-Paul note how outdated this tradition is. 

NORTHSTAR: “It could be a king and a king.” 

KARMA: “Or a queen and a queen.” 

Dani agrees with them in concept, but come on, they’ve been paying attention to the kids. Are they really gonna act like they don’t already know who’s gonna win? 

The others laugh, unable to argue. 

BEAST: “Well, I suppose they’ll be having a more fun night than everyone else then.” He smiles wistfully. “Oh, to be a boy again.” 

We cut to a little boy sitting in a modest kitchen, wheeling a toy truck back and forth across a table. We then see his mother, a conservatively dressed woman with a cross around her neck, preparing dinner.  

After a few moments of peace, both of them turn in horror as a gun clocks. 

WOMAN: “W…William?” 

Stryker, several years younger than he is in the present, stands before his wife and child with a gun raised, his hands shaking, and his eyes bulging and vomiting tears. 

STRYKER: “Marcy…Jason…God rest your souls.” 

Stryker repeatedly shoots his wife and child, killing them. He drops the gun before he himself drops to his knees. He looks down, away from the site he just made, and screams. 

But eventually, he breaths. 

STRYKER: “Be gone, demons.” 

In the present, Stryker stands tall, entirely cold and composed, dressed in ornate robes as opposed to his usual suit. He has faced many setbacks, but he has persisted. And now, with the new tools God has blessed him with, it is finally time to end his war with the X-Men. 

As we pan out, we see he stands in a massive factory - one packed with Sentinels. 

 In the Institute, Julian, (wearing a fancy shirt with an especially douchey collar) and Sofia are playing ping-pong, using their powers to maneuver their paddles instead of their hands. 

JULIAN: “It’s a shame this school doesn’t have a ping-pong team. You’d kill at it and I’d get to see you moving around in a cute uniform.” 

SOFIA: “Are my leotards and training costume not enough for you?” 

JULIAN: “With you beautiful, enough is never enough.” 

As Sofia blushes, more sheepishly than usual, Julian grabs his paddle with his hand to catch Sofia off guard and score a point. 

SOFIA: “You lousy cheater!” 

JULIAN: “Oh come on, you know I’d never cheat on you.” 

Sofia clenches her fists. 

As Sofia’s winds retrieve the ball, a panicked Brian runs in, shouting that the two of them need to get outside immediately. Something’s happening to Mercury and Dust and he’s not sure what. 

The three rush outside to find Cessily and Sooraya congealed in their liquid and sand forms, stretching out and expanding. Students all around them are watching with concern. 

They’re horrified, with Sofia asking why Brian got them instead of the X-Men. They need real help! 

Julian tells her not to worry, and says he’s got this. He lights up and begins using his telekinesis on the girls…and starts using them to spell out letters, the amorphous blob of the girls not only gaining definition, but becoming beautiful as the metal coasts the sand to create a metallic sand print, as Cessily and Sooraya’s faces appear on them, giggling. As Sofia questions what the Hell’s going on, Julian says they can finish the rest. 

Sofia’s jaw drops as the girls reach their final form, their merged bodies spelling out, “Sofia, will you go to the dance with me?” 

As Sofia stands speechless, Brian rests an arm on Julian’s shoulder as he faces her, and the crowd lets out an echo of “Awww”s. Julian tells her he’s tired of all the flirting. They both obviously like each other, so they should just be together. And the dance is the perfect place to make it official. 

Sofia questions why he’s asking her like THIS. 

JULIAN: “What? Too much? We were talking it over, thinking I should ask you out in a “Mutant” way, and this was what we came up with.” 

Cessily and Sooraya untangle themselves and retake their humanoid forms. Honestly, they just wanted to see if they COULD pull that off. Cessily scratches the back of her head, admitting she was the one who needed Julian’s help, while Soo could do it all on her own. 

Brian then enthusiastically reminds Sofia she still hasn’t answered. 

JULIAN: “Don’t rush her, man. But you will go with me, right?” 

Sofia struggles to answer. Everyone’s faces, especially Julian’s, fall, as Sofia starts tearing up. 

SOFIA: “I’m sorry!” 

Sofia blows her friends away with a single, powerful wind, before flying off. 

Everyone is concerned and, for once in his life, Julian is speechless. 

Cyclops is working in his office when there’s a knock on the door. When he doesn’t respond and just keeps working, Emma walks in anyway. Without even looking up from his computer, Scott tells her this better be about business. 

EMMA: “Actually, I was going to ask you and Jean to skip the dance so your dreariness didn’t bring down the children’s mood, but it seems you’ve already taken it upon yourself to stay preoccupied.” 

Scott ignores her. 

EMMA: “Fine, yes, if you’re going to keep being a baby, I have intel.” 

As Scott may recall, in her less noble days, she and Shaw were two of the main bankrollers of companies producing Sentinels, death machines designed only for killing Mutants. Of course, this is one of her many regrets, but she didn’t burn every bridge she had there. She just received a tip that a Chinese manufacturer recently fulfilled an order for over two dozen Sentinels. And, of course, a quick look into this revealed that Cassandra Nova was the recipient.  

Scott slams his fist down. It's bad enough they’ve let the Purifier situation drag on as long as they have, but for this mad woman to go around thinking she’s Xavier’s twin sister as she’s causing all this pain is just insulting. Emma questions his disbelief regarding the info Jean picked up from Nova’s mind, but Scott tells her flatly that if Xavier had a sister, he’d know. 

In any case, Scott has another reason to be frustrated: they’re understaffed. Kitty’s off visiting her dad on Genosha, Jean and Storm are providing relief in Kenya, Sunspot is doing "something" about rebuilding his family business, and Laura may be part of the team now, but she's still a student first, and he doesn't want to deny her her first dance. 

Emma thinks it's no problem. The two of them will handle things themselves. Scott can obliterate the Sentinels before they go online, and, even if Nova happens to be present, with the knowledge Nova had removed it from them previously, Emma was able to forge new mental defenses. 

EMMA: "Who knows? Maybe we can even talk about what's really on your mind on the way."

Emma walks out, saying she'll meet him in the hangar bay in 20 minutes, before Scott can even respond. 

In the weight room, Brian tries talking to Julian as he works out his anger on a punching bag. None of Brian's attempts to change the subject work. Julian just doesn't get it! What's Sofia's problem?! 

As Julian takes a moment to stop and breathe, Brian tells him he's really sorry it didn't work out, but maybe this is for the best. He has other people who care about him. Maybe he could go with one of them. 

BRIAN: "Maybe you'd wanna go with me."

Julian's eyes widen before he punches the bag again, this time using his TK to knock it off its chain and smash it. 

JULIAN: "Get real, Brian."

Julian grabs his towel, leaving behind a heartbroken Brian as he sulks off. 

In Sofia and Noriko's room, Sofia is buried under her blankets and Nori is trying to get her out of there.

NORIKO: "Come on, Princess, I saw how much you paid for your dress, and I'm not letting that be a waste just because you made the best decision of your life and said no to Keller. What's up?"

Sofia blows the covers partially off herself, still crying. She likes Julian. She likes him a lot. But she's also scared. Back at the Massachusetts Academy, she nearly killed a man in her rage. And on Halloween, she saw, she felt, her worst fear: becoming like her father. 

NORIKO: "Please don't tell me you're scared you'll hurt the jerk."

SOFIA: "No. I would never hurt him. I fear that the less kind parts of him would bring out the worst in myself. A boyfriend is different from a friend. I cannot risk him influencing me in that way."

Noriko sits down next to her. She's sorry she's dealing with this. For what it's worth, she was the one who talked her down from killing Shaw, and she still can't even imagine her turning out like her dick of a dad. And if Keller isn't the biggest dick of all time, he'll understand if she tells him this. Either way, she owes herself the fun of going to the dance, date or no. Do it for her. Do it for her followers. 

Sofia cracks a small smile as she wipes her eyes. 

SOFIA: "I'm trying not to call them "followers" anymore. The perfect cute nickname could boost engagement by multiples." 

NORIKO: "There's my ridiculous girl!"

In the Blackbird, Scott is piloting, while Emma is filing her nails. With Scott clearly not listening, Emma is yammering on about some of the most debacherous times she had back in the Hellfire Club, clearly intentionally trying to get a reaction out of the stone faced hero. Eventually, she’s successful, with Scott shouting at her that even if she doesn’t respect him or his wishes, she should at least be mentally preparing herself for battle. 

Emma stops filing her nails and looks at Scott. 

EMMA: “Where do you see yourself in ten years?” 

SCOTT: “I’m sorry?” 

EMMA: “Ten years. Where do you see yourself? I envision myself laying on a stunning beach, mojito in hand, reading the trashiest romance novel I can get my hands on as I look out at the sea with the knowledge that I’ve eliminated all threats to Mutantkind.” 

Scott, ignoring the absurdity of what she just said, asks what this has to do with anything. Emma tells him that if he knows where he’s going to wind up, with complete faith it will happen, then he has nothing to worry about going into a battle, because he can be sure he’ll make it through alive. 

SCOTT: “That’s not how that works.” 

EMMA: “For normal people, maybe. You’re a soldier who’s been fighting all forms of monsters, gods, and otherwise evil beings, yours truly included, since you were 16. You’ve faced endless hardships. You’re not about to die breaking toys you’ve smashed a million times.” 

There’s a pause. 

SCOTT: “Tell you what: I’ll say where I see myself in ten years if you tell me a single hardship you’ve faced since you were 16. And things that happened while you were a supervillain don’t count.” 

EMMA: “How dare you.” 

SCOTT: “How dare YOU imply I should think like you as if we’re in any way the same. You’re right about everything I’ve been through. And you’ve seen even more firsthand. You were a rich Boston girl born with a silver spoon in her mouth, the most privileged life imaginable, and you joined Hellfire less than a year after finishing college. All of your struggles have been of your own making. Unless you want to tell me I’m wrong.” 

Emma finally shuts up, facing forward with an icy stare. 

SCOTT: “That’s what I thought.” 

Laura stands in her room, dressed in a black button-down shirt and black pants, nervously looking in a mirror. James tells her to breathe. She has nothing to worry about. 

That doesn’t help Laura though. She turns around and asks what if Sofia says no. 

JAMES: “Allow me to rephrase: You’re Wolverine. You’re not allowed to be afraid anymore.” 

While Laura remains anxious, James tells her he’s seen the two getting closer through their sessions with him and Scott, Laura’s saved and/or tried to avenge Sofia on multiple occasions, and he heard she already said no to Julian. With how all-over each other those two are, what other reason could there be besides her heart belonging elsewhere? 

Laura finally stands tall and confident. On her way out, James tells her not to forget the rose he got for her to give. 

JAMES: “It’s classic. Trust me. Sure I can’t convince you to comb your hair?” 

Laura just blows a strand of it out of her face before walking off. 

Laura knocks on Sofia and Noriko’s door. Sofia answers, dressed in a slinky black ballgown and elbow legnth gloves. Laura is in awe. Sofia tells Laura that she looks simple, but still extremely handsome, to which Laura blurts out a proposal about the two of them maybe going to the dance together, sticking the rose in Sofia’s face. 

LAURA: “Oh, um, you look beautiful.” 

Sofia is taken completely off guard. 

SOFIA: “Laura…this is very sweet, but I’m not…” 

Sofia trails off as she looks into Laura’s big green eyes and rapidly flashes back to her in Mojo’s prison with Julian, her being shot, her nearly killing Shaw, and the end of her nightmare. 

Sofia smiles. 

SOFIA: “I’d love to go with you, Laura.” 

Sofia takes the rose. The two just stand there awkwardly. 

LAURA: “Um…what do we do now?” 

SOFIA: “You could tell me what time you’ll drop by to escort me to the gym.” 

LAURA: “Right. Good idea.” 

While she’s being stoic and awkward, Laura’s hands are flapping. 

We cut to the inside of the sentinel factory, the interior guarded by Purfiers. Emma telepathically informs Scott of how many there are and where they’re positioned. 

Cyclops proceeds to blast down the factory’s entrance, running in and taking down every single guard through a combination of quick, efficient, and well-times optic blasts, and martial arts. 

Emma gives Scott a slow clap as she casually struts in and teases him by saying how sexy that was, stomping down on a barely concious Purifier’s head with her high-heel to knock him out. Before Scott can refute this, Stryker makes his presence known, stepping down a staircase toward the two, acknowledging that the strength given to them by Satan is indeed impressive. And that is what makes them as frightening as they are, beyond merely those who consort with him. 

Scott readies himself to attack as he tells Stryker the only ones they’re a threat to are those who’d try to kill them. Stryker sighs and pulls his hand out of his pocket, revealing he’s holding a dead man’s switch. If he lets go of the button he’s holding down, bombs inside the Sentinels will go off, kill them all, and wipe out everything else in a 15-mile radius. Scott questions what he wants. 

STRYKER: “I did not have the chance to truly engage with Mrs. Summers. The lord spoke with her, personally. A greater honor than she deserved. Still, I wish to speak to you, Cyclops. Man to man. Before the end times for Mutantkind arrive, I want to make you see that I am not a monster, but a righteous servant. I want you to admit that I am doing what is best for you all.” 

Scott scowls at him, not having any other option for the moment but to listen. 

In the cafeteria, Noriko, Cessily, and Sooraya are eating together. Nori and Cess are commiserating over the fact that no one's asked either of them out. Nori tells Soo she's lucky: she might not have a date because she'll only date other Muslims, while they KNOW they don't have dates because they're losers. Sooraya rolls her eyes at this, while Surge and Mercury curse their gauntlets and mercury form, respectively. 

MERCURY: "Have you had dates before?"

SURGE: "A couple. You're Ms. Cheerleader though, so I'm guessing you've got a lot more experience with, well…"

Noriko sticks her thumb in her mouth and pushes it in and out rapidly, laughing after a couple seconds. 

SOORAYA: "What is wrong with you?"

Nori kicks her feet up on the table. 

NORIKO: "Absolutely nothing."

"Hey, Cessily!"

The girls' attention is drawn to Roxy as she jogs over to their table. Cessily instantly shrinks as she approaches, becoming slightly more liquid than usual. 

CESSILY: "Roxy. Hi. You…know who I am?"

ROXY: "Girl, you're part of the squad that has half its members constantly getting into trouble with the X-Men. Everyone knows who you are. Some of us also think you're cursed."

Roxy goes on to say that's not why she's here. She's been watching Cessily, not in a creepy way, she thinks she's really cool, and she wants to take her to the dance. 

Cessily is excitedly and wiggly over the fact that Roxy Freaking Washington wants to go out with her and instantly says yes. 

CESSILY: "Bye, Surge!"

Cess leaps up, hooks her arm around Roxy's, and walks off with her. 

Noriko sighs. 

NORIKO: "Well Soo, just you and me."

Dust proceeds to fly off without another word. 

SURGE "You guys suck."

Noriko falls out of her chair. 

Cyclops walks deeper into the factor with Stryker, who desired privacy away from Emma. He tells him that he wasn’t always a reverend. He has raised to be a man of God, but after an unpleasant childhood, he lost his faith. He became a soldier, serving his country instead of his lord. A childish mistake, but he doesn’t regret the “good” he did. 

STRYKER: “And when I was finished serving overseas…I fell in love.” 

We flashback to the events Stryker describes, as he tells Scott how he met his beloved Marcy after moving into the apartment across the hall from her, and they instantly fell in love. She was a good, Christian woman, she was brilliant, and she could make him smile. They were inseparable and, for the first time in his life, he was truly happy. 

It wasn’t long before they were married and had their first child, Jason. Marcy had helped him regain his faith, and he’d found a new purpose in working at his local church. Things should have been perfect.

 STRYKER: “But then…they fell victim to the same curse you have.” 

Back at the school, the dance has begun! Laura is extremely stiff and uncomfortable as she walks Sofia, who’s hanging off her arm, into the gym. Sofia tells her to relax and that tonight is just about having fun. 

LAURA: “Right. Yes. Fun. I can have that now.” 

 Bling!, dressed in a full tuxedo, is cool as a cucumber as she twirls Cessily around on the dance floor, the infatuated Mercury being metaphorical and somewhat literal putty in her hands. 

Brian is sulking in a corner drinking punch. A poorly dressed kid with glasses and short brown hair walks up to him and asks if he’s got room for one more in the loser corner. Brian shrugs. 

Julian looks like he’s having the time of his life as he dances with a recurring background girl. 

Noriko is working the punch table with Dani, venting about how she expects it from humans, but how could everyone here be so shallow as to not ask her out just because of her gauntlets? What other reason could there POSSIBLY be for her to not get asked out?! 

DANI, smiling knowingly: “No idea, Surge. No idea.” 

Dust, who isn’t dressed up at all, is welcoming Kitty, Storm, and Jean home. Storm picks up on how uncomfortable Sooraya already is here, and offers to take her outside, while Kitty heads out onto the dance floor to show these kids what real dancing looks like, and Jean contacts Scott telepathically to ask him how the mission is going. Being stuck alone with Emma can’t be fun. 

In the factory, Scott responds to her that Emma would be preferable to who he’s stuck with right now. 

Stryker continues to spin Scott his story. He was just living his ideal, suburban life, happily removed from the violence of his past, when something horrible happened: his son’s hands turned purple. They immediately took him to the doctor, only for their tests to reveal that he had a “so-called X-gene”. The doctor prattled on upon the fake science he knew, but Stryker as a clergyman knew better; he knew that “Mutants” were just humans who’d been touched by the devil and tainted with his evil. 

STRYKER: “I wasn’t sure what to do, Cyclops. I was terrified. Not for myself, but for my poor boy, and the danger his existence now put my beloved wife in. I prayed for him, oh, how I prayed for him, but that didn’t let me sleep better each night. On the rare occasion I actually could fall asleep, my dreams were haunted by the terrors of what my son, my Jason, could one day do.” 

Stryker clenches his fists and tears up. 

STRYKER: “And then, a couple weeks later, my wife sneezed. And bubbles came out. Bubbles, Cyclops! Human beings do not sneeze bubbles!” He slams his fist down on a safety railing. “Before then, she’d agreed with all my words. She’d agreed with my concern for our son. But now that she was one of them, one of you, she told me that I was wrong, and that she felt completely normal; she said that nothing was wrong with her or Jason. That…that was when I knew my wife was gone. That was when I knew how being a Mutant twisted the mind.” 

Stryker grins manically as tears stream down his face. 

STRYKER: “Don’t you see, Cyclops? I had no choice!” 

CYCLOPS: “No choice to do what?” 

STRYKER: “To save them! To grant them salvation, and keep them from spreading sin everywhere they went! Marcy was a holy woman! It’s what she would have wanted!” 

This is enough to even mildly surprise Scott. 

CYCLOPS: “You killed them.” 

We flashback quickly to the murders. 

STRYKER: “Yes. And if their souls managed to reach Heaven, I know that they are grateful. I know that they are looking down on me, rooting for me to do the same to all of you. And I know that, soon, all of you will be grateful to me as well.” 

Scott scowls at Stryker as the reverend nods. 

At the dance, Kitty and Kurt are engaged in an intense dance battle, the two taunting each other as Kitty phases through Kurt and Kurt teleports onto her shoulders. They’re arguing over who’s the best dancer here, but all the kids watching them find them both to be extremely cringe. 

PIXIE: “So not tidy.” 

Sofia and Laura are dancing together, and it’s by far the happiest and most at ease Laura we’ve ever seen. Sofia smiles at her and tells her she likes this side of her. 

LAURA: “Being here…being with you…I’m not miserable all the time.” 

Sofia giggles, apologizing again for that past interaction. She really is glad she said yes to coming with her tonight; she’s having a lot of fun. 

SOFIA: “Would you mind getting me some punch?” 

Laura eagerly gets right to it, but, thanks to her hearing, she picks up on Sofia sighing. Turning her head around, she catches Sofia witsfully watching Julian and his date. 

NORI: “You alright, Laura?” 

Laura crushes the cup of punch she’d just gotten in her hand. It doesn’t take long for Noriko to notice why. 

NORIKO: “Oh, that son of a…” 

Noriko super speeds off, causing the punchbowl to spill all over Danielle. 

All Laura says is “Sorry” in a gravely tone before walking off, Dani cursing under her breath.  

In the corner, Brian and the other kid are on their phones. Cessily, in a panic, comes running up to them, asking if they’ve seen Roxy. She said she was going to the bathroom 20 minutes ago and hasn’t come back. 

BRIAN: “Uh, have you tried looking in the bathroom, Cess?” 

CESSILY: “Obviously! Oh god, you don’t think she’d ditch me, do you?” 

NERDY KID: “Of course she would. It’s what “cool girls” like her are best at.” 

Cessily runs off in a panic. 

Brian tells him that wasn’t cool, but the kid just tells him it’s the way it is. The primitive social ladders which define high school, which define life, haven’t changed in over a hundred years. 

Brian tells him this school isn’t like that, but the nerdy kid then questions why Julian didn’t agree to go out with him. 

BRIAN: “How do you–” 

“You’re the freak squad. People talk.” 

BRIAN, even more depressed: “Maybe he’s just straight.” 

“Or maybe he sees you as a convenient friend and follower, even if he doesn’t acknowledge you as the same species.”

The nerdy kid pulls up something on his phone. 

“You should check out my blog. It’s all about this. Quentinquire.org.” 

Scott asks Stryker what exactly it is he wants here. The leader of the X-Men’s approval to genocide his race? Stryker shakes his head. No, no, no. That’s not it. He knows he’ll never “approve”. He just wants him to understand. He wants him to see that, at the end of the day, he’s helping them. He knows he is. 

We flashback one final time to right after the Stryker killed his family. Traumatized and on the floor, Stryker’s hands shook, but that didn’t stop him from putting his gun to head, intent on shooting himself. But then, God spoke to him. He thanked him for his selfless deed. He had proven himself worthy of leading his crusade on Earth. 

In the present, as sweat drips down Stryker’s face, Scott smirks. 

SCOTT: “No. That’s not what you want. You’ve already tried to hurt and kill countless Mutants. You don’t care what I think about that.” Scott steps toward Stryker, reverend holding up the dead man’s switch as he cringes and backs away. “You murdered your wife and child based on your faith. And you’re only alive now because you heard God’s voice. But my wife kicked your god’s ass. And now you’re wondering if you’ve been played.” 

STRYKER: “No! No, you’re wrong! I know the God I serve!” 

SCOTT: “No. You don’t. That’s why you want to hear me approve of your crimes. Because if I don’t? Then you may just be a crazy man who killed his family and got played by a telepath.” 

STRYKER: “Quiet!!!” 

SCOTT: “Or what? You’ll kill us both? Not doing anything to change my mind.” 

Stryker shouts at Scott again, holding up the dead man’s switch. Scott tells him it’s time to end this, but not by blowing himself up. He can’t speak for any god, but he’s sure if they could ask Marcy and Jason what they’d want him to do, they’d say to turn himself in. 

Scott slowly moves closer to Stryker, hoping to disarm him…but Stryker’s grin returns as he catches Scott off guard, dropping the dead man’s switch and striking him across the face with the hand which had been holding it. 

Scott panics as Stryker cackles. Scott sighs that it wasn’t real, but Stryker corrects him: it wasn’t set to blow up any bombs in the Sentinels; it was set to activate the Sentinels. 

The factory starts rumbling, Scott and Stryker grabbing the railing to keep their balance, and the booming sounds of the sentinels turning on echo through the whole building. 

EMMA, telepathically: “Mr. Summers, we have a little problem.” 

SCOTT, telepathically: “I know. I’m on my way.” 

Scott turns around to run off to help Emma, but, out of the corner of his eye, he notices Stryker pulling out a gun, reacting just in time to blast it out of his hands. Even still Stryker makes it clear that if Cyclops won’t give him what he wants, then he will kill him personally, while his sentinels kill his white witch. 

At the school, Dazzler finishes a song. As everyone applauds, Jean gets up on stage, hyping her up, and telling everyone the night isn’t over yet, but it is almost time to announce the dance’s king and queen. First though, she wants to make a quick speech. Jean’s speech primarily takes place in the background as we cut to other events, but we do hear enough clearly to get that the general idea of the speech is about how everyone here may come from different walks of life, but they’re united in the thing that makes them special and, in spite of their differences, she’s gotten to see them all come together as friends and classmates this semester. 

JEAN: “As long as we all stick together, we have nothing to fear.” 

While this speech is going on, Sofia finds Laura, having been worried where she went. Laura tells her not to act like she cares. She knows who Sofia really wishes she were here with. 

Sofia hangs her head. 

SOFIA: “I’m sorry.” 

Elsewhere in the gym, Noriko shoves Julian, asking his date, Preview , to give them some privacy. Julian asks what Ashida’s problem is, with her getting in his face and shouting at him that he’s such an idiot. He’s been chasing after Sofia all semester, and now he’s just giving up? 

Julian shoves her away. Sofia said no, and, yeah, he hates that, but he’s not gonna dwell on it. It is what it is. She wanted to go with Laura, not him, and he’s happy for her. Besides, what does Noriko care? Shouldn’t she be happy they aren’t getting together? 

Noriko swears in Japanese before slamming her hands on the sides of Julian’s head. 

NORIKO: “Julian Keller, read my lips: Sofia doesn’t like girls!” 

JULIAN: “Wh…what?” 

NORIKO: “She wanted to go with you, you dumbass. She’s only here with Laura because she’s afraid you may bring out the worst in her, and because she’s too sweet to say “No” to Laura’s puppy eyes.” 

JULIAN: “They are pretty big.” 

Noriko slaps him, and points over at Sofia and Laura. 

NORIKO: “Do they look like they’re having a good time? Are you having a good time? No. So now that you know what her problem is, fix it!” 

Julian knocks Nori back with his TK, growling at her to stay out of this, before hanging his head and sighing. He’s just not sure what he’s supposed to do. 

“Whatever you have to.” 

Brian walks up to the two. 

BRIAN: “That’s what Ms. Frost is always telling us about getting what we want, right?” 

JULIAN: “Brian…” 

BRIAN: “Hey, don’t worry about earlier. It’s chill. People like you and Sofia? You deserve each other. So go get her.” 

Julian continues to hang his head, before finally picking it up and donning his cocky shithead smirk. 

JULIAN: “Okay. I have an idea. Where’s Cess? She’s not gonna want to miss this.” 

We cut to Cessily, alone, crying in her room. 

In the factory, Scott and Emma struggle against Stryker and the sentinels, respectively, as Stryker proves to be more than a match for Cyclops in hand-to-hand combat, while Emma, despite her multiple, incredible powers, is overwhelmed by the murder machines thanks to their great number and refusal to stay down. 

STRYKER: “Do you think I want to be doing this?! I was happy! I was at peace! But then your ilk came into my life, and when God called upon me, I had no choice but to answer!” 

Eventually, Stryker manages to remove Scott’s visor, and without his optic blasts, the fight completely turns in Stryker’s favor. He gets Cyclops pinned on the floor, and just starts whaling on him, bloodying his fists with each strike across Scott’s face. He tried to make him see reason! He tried to respect him as the leader of his people and offer him peace in death! But just like Marcy, he’s too far gone for that. 

Unable to open his eyes without killing Stryker, and unable to get the reverand off of him, Scott is seemingly helpless. He’s too weak. 

STRYKER: “Come on, Cyclops! Stop holding back! Show me the demon inside you! Confess your sins before the Representative of God!” 

Scott only clenches his eyes shut further. No matter what, he cannot open them. 

EMMA, telepathically: “My father was a monster and my mother was a drunk.” 

SCOTT, telepathically: “Huh?” 

EMMA: “You wanted to know what hardships I’ve faced since I was 16. My horrid parents plagued me until I was 17 and broke away from them. Likewise my older sister, who was born without a heart, my younger sister, who’s never been anything but trouble, and my high school tormentors, all of whom sought to make sure each and every day of my life was a living Hell. The only bright spots in my life before I left that house were my brother, and the knowledge which came only after my X-gene developed fully that it was why, if nothing else, I’d been able to live as my true self. Winston Frost hated Mutants, but there were people he hated more.” 

As this conversation goes on, Scott continues to get beaten, and Emma continues her hopeless battle against the sentinels, doing everything she can to survive and keep them at bay. Interspersed with this, we flashback to what Emma is describing. 

EMMA: “I was offered inheritance of the entire family fortune after finishing high school, but I refused to be tied to that man any longer. It was freeing, but the end result was four years of scrubbing toilets and taking any other menial, backbreaking jobs I could get to pay my way through college. And even after graduation, with my family having disowned me, I was nothing but another girl with a business degree and no connections. So I had to get creative…” 

The flashback we see is one of a 21 year-old Emma stripping beautifully before an audiance. 

EMMA: “I’d tried my hand at stripping before and I’d failed miserably. But with how I’d trained my telepathy, tricking drooling men into believing I was the most incredible performer they’d ever seen was hardly a challenge. Of course, one man was able to see through my illusion. 

Backstage, Emma is smashed face first into a mirror. 

We cut back to the present. 

EMMA: “But that’s a story for another time.” 

Scott questions why she’s telling him all of this. She answers that she was simply doing what he requested in exchange for answering her question. 

Now, where does he see himself in ten years? Is he going to die here? Can he see himself leading Mutantkind to a brighter tomorrow? And is he willing to do whatever it takes to make that a reality? 

EMMA: “I’m already doing everything I can. Our fates, all our fates, are in your hands now, Mr. Summers. What are you going to–?”

Emma is cut off, finally being shot down and neutralized. 

Panic and rage takeover Scott’s bloody mess of a face. Stryker cackles. 

STRYKER: “This is pathetic! You are a monster! Quit acting so self-righteous and act like one! Show me your true eyes, show me the eyes of the beast, and let me face their evil head on before I finish this, and move on to exterminating your entire damned–”

Stryker is cut off as the sound cuts off, a tear drips down Scott’s cheek, Stryker’s malicious smirk shifts toward peaceful relief, and while we can’t hear him, Scott screams, and red consumes the screen. 

Emma is about to be finished off as the sound of Cyclops’ full power echoes through the factory, before the man himself arrives on the scene, a wave of red energy eviserating every last sentinel. 

Emma is in absolute awe as she watches this display of power. And for another reason. 

When all that’s left of the walking death camps is scrap metal, Scott closes his eyes, takes deep breaths, and puts his visor back on. 

He hops down to the lower level to offer Emma a hand. 

EMMA: “Thank you…Mr. Summers. That was something I wasn’t aware you had inside you. Where is Stryker?” 

Scott hangs his head and clenches his fists. 

Emma smirks. 

EMMA: “Please, darling, don’t tell me you feel bad about this. If there was any man who deserved this fate, it was him.” 

CYCLOPS: “That’s the thing.” 

Scott looks up and scowls at Emma. 

CYCLOPS: “I feel great.” 

Emma’s smirk becomes a more gentle smile as she places a hand on the side of his face. 

CYCLOPS: “We should get home.” 

EMMA: “We should. My hero needs his reward after all.” 

Scott brushes her off and stomps away. 

Back in her room, Cessily is still crying. She’s still alone, until someone knocks on her door. She goes to answer, and on the other side is Bling!. Cessily questions if laughing at her with her friends wasn’t enough and now she wants to laugh at her face to face…before Roxy steps aside so she doesn’t vomit all over Cessily. 

Cessily asks if she’s okay, and Roxy nervously  laughs. Turns out she got food poisoning earlier, and when she realized she wasn’t gonna be alright for a while, she ran off on her own so Cessily didn’t find out. 

ROXY: “I…didn’t want you to think I wasn’t cool.” 

But, Cessily had been texting Dust, Roxy ran into her, and, when she found out Cessily was crying, she knew she had to apologize. She’s so sorry she left. This was stupid. 

Cessily laughs. Yes. It was. And a massive bitch move. But the dumbest part is thinking she wouldn’t think she’s cool just because she ate a bad egg or something. She’s Roxy freaking Washington! Did she not notice how she was all over her all night? 

CESSILY: “I just was so worried, even before you ditched me, that you wouldn’t like me. No one’s like me that way since, you know…” 

Roxy smirks, taking Cessily’s hands. 

ROXY: “Since you became a girl of metal? Cessily Kincaid, I’ve been looking for another one of those since I was nine years-old.” 

CESSILY: “R…really?” 

ROXY: “Really. And if you’ll let me take you back to the gym for the last couple dances, I’d love to show you how sorry I am, and how much I’ve been waiting for you.” 

Cessily’s face squirms with uncertainty, before she ultimately squees, running off with Roxy. 

CESSILY: “Never ditch me again!” 

ROXY: “Count on it.” 

As Jean finishes her speech and is about to announce the king and queen of the dance, Julian flies onto the stage and takes the mic. 

JULIAN: “Everyone listen up!” 

JEAN, telepathically: “Mr. Keller, what do you think you’re doing?” 

JULIAN, telepathically: “Come on, you’re about to crown me king, aren’t you? Call it starting my speech early.” 

Jean sighs and shakes her head. 

JEAN, telepathically: “Proceed.” 

While Noriko and Brian are looking at him hoping he pulls this off, Sofia and Laura are concerned and confused. 

Julian tells everyone that knows they’ve been watching him and his squad these past few months. And why wouldn’t they? They’re obviously the best Mutants here! Their kickass TA is already an X-Man, and there’s no one scarier - in a good way. 

Laura snort laughs. 

Sooraya doesn’t even like fighting, but she could take anyone here! Cessily has more spirit than anyone he’s ever met! 

Cessily and Roxy walk in as he’s saying this. 

ROXY: “Uh, what’s going on here?” 

CESSILY, smiling: “Julian being Julian.” 

And Brian? Brian is the best friend a guy could ever ask for. 

Brian smiles with acceptance, as Julian then says that Noriko may be a loser, but they care about her anyway, prompting Nori to flip him off. 

JULIAN: “And Sofia? Well, we ALL love her, right? Let’s hear it!” 

Sofia is bashful as the whole gym cheers her on. 

JULIAN: “That’s right! You know all who the best of the best are! That’s why you’re about to put crowns on our heads! And that’s why, before we graduate, the two of us are going to be X-Men!” 

The whole gym continues to cheer as Sofia starts to both soak it in, and realize what Julian is doing. 

Julian says he knows Sofia has doubts about herself, about him, but the only future he sees for them is kicking ass together and saving the day as the best heroes this world’s ever seen. He knows he’s a jerk, but she knows he’s more than that. And he’s seen her at worst, and can still only see her as perfection. 

JULIAN: “Come on, Beautiful. Give it a chance. Please.” 

Everyone is cheering on Sofia to get up there, and the look on Sofia’s face makes it clear Julian’s words have reached her. Even still…

LAURA: “Go.” Sofia turns to her with remorse.  “I’ve been hurt worse before.” 

As Laura hangs her head, Sofia gives her a big hug. 

SOFIA: “I am sorry I cannot feel how you want me to feel, but I do care about you Laura. A lot.” Sofia pulls back. “I’m taking you shopping over break. You need less black in your closet.” 

LAURA: “That…sounds awful. But okay.” 

With Laura at peace, Sofia flies toward the stage. Julian is holding his arms out open for her, but she slaps him. 

SOFIA, smirking: “No more big, public displays of affection like this. They’re already tiring.” 

JULIAN laughs. “Deal.” 

The two take hold of each other and share their first kiss, the cheers reaching their peak, as Jean seizes the moment to properly announce them as the dance’s king and queen. 

Inspired by the moment, Mercury kisses Bling! Both girls are sufficiently awkward about it and giggle. 

As the dancing resumes, Julian and Sofia finally get to dance, and Mercury and Bling! pick up where they left off. 

Laura is left all alone, watching Julian and Sofia, but…

BRIAN: “Who needs the hets, right?” 

Brian, smirking, offers a hand to Laura. 

Laura shrugs with a smirk of her own. 

Brian and Laura take the dance floor together. 

Noriko sighs, happy she was at least able to help her friend, but she’s still got no one. 

Then, a short, porcupine looking kid named Quill walks up to her and asks if she’d want to dance. 

Nori takes the kid’s hand and makes clear she’s leading. 

We pan away from the dance with everyone at peace. 

In the middle of the night, Scott and Emma arrive back at the institute, having missed the dance, with everyone having gone to sleep. Scott told Jean they were on their way home, and the mission was completed, but he didn’t give the important details. 

Emma asks if he’ll be taking credit for his noble deed tonight, or if he’d like her to “take the blame”, so “pure, holy Jean” doesn’t get mad at him. 

Scott says there was nothing “noble” about what he did. He’s going to make clear to Jean that he knows that, and hope she forgives him given the circumstances. The fact that it made him feel so good, making sure that monster would never hurt anyone again, is wrong. 

EMMA: “Feelings are never “wrong”, Mr. Summers. They’re who we are. Good or bad, you can embrace those feelings, or you can repress them because an old man who groomed you to be his weapon told you how to feel.” 

SCOTT: “I’ve told you not to insult Xavier.” 

EMMA: “And I’ve told you I can see right through you. I’ve told you I know there’s someone so much more real underneath that stiff facade of yours. Tonight, I got a glimpse of that man. And I’ll be damned if I don’t get to thank him.” 

SCOTT: “Emma, you–”

Emma cuts Scott off, grabbing the sides of his head and kissing him. Just like when Mystique kissed him disguised as Emma, he kisses back for a moment before pushing her away. Only this time, he’s not falling over, he has Emma excitedly grinning at him and tossing off her cape…and he knows what he needs. 

Scott pulls Emma into his arms and passionately makes out with her. 

We cut to the next morning. Scott and Emma are in Emma’s bed, passed out, naked and tied up in silk sheets. 

Out in the hall, Jean is looking for Scott. She can sense him somewhere around here. 

JEAN: “Are you making me breakfast again you big sweetie?” 

Jean knocks on Emma’s door, asking what happened last night and if she knows why Scott didn’t come to bed after getting home. 

As she asks, Scott and Emma wake up, the former in horror at what he’s done, and Emma moaning and squirming around in pleasure. 

JEAN: “...Scott?” 

Jean forces Emma’s door open and sees the two in bed together. 

EMMA: “Oh! Hello Jean, darling. Care to join us?” 

SCOTT: “Jean…I…let me explain. I…”

As Scott struggles to find the right words, Jean sheds a tear. And as the tear goes down her cheek, it becomes a flame. 

Jean screams at the top of her lungs as the full Phoenix aura emerges around her, and she psychically shuts down Scott and Emma’s brains, rendering them both catatonic. 

Outside the school, a small group of the remaining Purifers burst onto the front lawn, determined to avenge their fallen leader. 

As they charge forward, the door is opened by Jean. 

PURIFER: “Die, demon!” 

Every Purifer present tries to shoot her down with their machine guns, but Jean stops every single bullet, dropping them to the ground. 

Jean tilts her head to the left. In an instant, all of the present Purifers explode, leaving only blood and gore behind. Jean flies off as she screeches like the Phoenix. 

#new x-men: the animated series #new x-men #academy x #scott summers #jean grey #Emma Frost #Ororo Munroe #Kitty Pryde #Roberto Da Costa #Laura Kinney #Sofia Mantega #Julian Keller #Noriko Ashida #Sooraya Qadir #Cessily Kincaid #Brian Cruz

[ofeileen]

hi hi ! i'm m (she/her) and i'm super excited to introduce you to eileen roh! she's a new muse but im looking forward to writing with u all and developing her further :') i've got the sparknotes summary of her under the read more but hit the like or msg me if you'd like to plot! i have discord if you prefer plotting there as well

₊˙ ◌ ⁎˚ ﹒﹙kim doyeon. cis female. she/her.﹚guess who was almost late for their shift at barracuda inc again?? that’s right, it was eileen roh! it’s a wonder their job as a tattoo artist isn’t in jeopardy. the 24 year old has been working at sunset galleria for one year, and is well known for their carefree nature. on bad days, they can be rather volatile, though. when the mall is dead at night, they can usually be found playing drunk mini golf with friends at glogolf, but don’t tell their boss!

STATS / WANTED PLOTS / TATTOO WORK REF

EARLY LIFE

born and raised in new york city! feb 8th, 1999 (aquarius sun, scropio moon and capricorn rising)

her childhood was pretty fun for the most part except for her mom's strict parenting style. she was the kind to always nitpick how eileen acted and scolded her for getting hurt instead of comforting her

her parents dreams of raising a family in america were soon crushed when they started arguing and falling out of love. they decided to separate with her dad leaving and filed for divorce when eileen was 12

eileen is fond of her dad but def felt a bit betrayed by him. her mom turned very bitter at her own life and not long after moved them back to her hometown in daegu when eileen was 14

MOVING TO DAEGU & FAMILY (mentions of death tw, verbal abuse tw)

ofc eileen was not happy to be leaving her life in new york and it didn't help that her maternal grandparents were even more conservative than her mom was. they often misunderstood each other and not just cus of the language barrier

adjusting to her life in korea was difficult and she bore resentment towards her mom. she started smoking in highschool and was generally a rebellious kid (which ofc led to more fights w her family)

she played soccer to vent out her frustration but it wasn't until her family agreed to let her do a summer program back in new york that she rly fell into visual art. she was enthralled by the medium and decided that it was something she was going to do

u guessed it, her mom and grandparents were against it and eileen acted out by getting her first tattoo & more piercings. she rly wanted to do uni in the states but just couldn't afford it so she applied to a fine arts program at busan arts college

at this point her relationship w family was very rocky but she started not giving a shit abt what hurtful words they threw at her. however, art school was stressful and it was after her second year of college that she found a love for tattoo artistry. this led her to dropping out and pursuing an apprenticeship at a small shop

dropping out was truly the icing on the cake for her family and at the same time, her grandfather had passed after dealing with some health issues. her life a mess, she started isolating herself from friends. the only solace she found was with her partner at the time that stood with her through the thick of it

CAREER

at first her apprenticeship was going great but soon it became a bit of a disagreement on rates & schedule and she found the studio to be disorganized

after learning about barracuda through someone that she regarded as a mentor, she got the job there and has been working at sunset galleria for a year! they let her do her own thing and the pay is good so she's pretty happy about it

eileen’s art style mainly consists of abstract fine line work, high contrast tattoos, cyber sigilism, and mild horror inspired work. she doesn’t repeat any flashes so each piece is one of a kind and loves doing freehand stuff as well!

she has dreams of travelling and being a guest tattoo artist around the world and opening up her own studio one day but that's a future goal - she's got student debt to pay!

PERSONALILTY

she's pretty easygoing but def the type to rely on friends to set up plans (she most always says yes but lacks the effort to initiate plans/bad at keeping up with friends)

silently affectionate like she'd get you a cake bc it's your fav flavor but you would only find out she's allergic to the green food coloring in it after you're halfway thru eating. def an acts of service gal

pretty opinionated esp when it comes to her family or when someone's very traditional. she's open-minded but will make her opinion heard (def talks back to elders if they're being rude lol)

despite their complicated relationship, she can't bring herself to hate her mom or fully close her off. at times she pities her. after all, having her grandparents as parents? she kinda gets why she is the way she is. her relationship with her dad is distant but she wishes it was better (last she heard he's in a steady new relationship)

bisexual + demiromantic (meaning she rly has to feel a strong connection with someone before developing any romantic feelings)

always listening to music, and always sketching new tattoo flashes. has picked up pottery as a hobby as of late! loves going out drinking with friends. her stats page has some more tidbits about her!

PLOTS

i have some wanted connections up on her page but also love love brainstorming together and doing interconnecting plots (so if ur muse has any imp relationships lmk cus i love hearing about them and interweaving them into their dynamics!) ok im super excited to read abt ur muses & write with you all thank you for reading all this!!!

#sunsetintro #phew.. she's here!!! #i said summary but then wrote a lot sdjfkdhf

[vulpixelates]

private practice is such a horrible fucking show lmao

i was not prepared for how weirdly conservative it is compared to grey's anatomy? especially given that it's set in fucking los angeles, you'd think it would be even more at least like white liberal.

but no. there are anti-abortion episodes, ones where they do NOT do enough to argue against the idea that vaccinations cause autism (literally had to skip this episode bc it was so horrifying but apparently a kid dies over it), RAMPANT disgusting misogyny (tho that's typical for early shondaland shows and honestly even recent ones), and RECENTLY (as of where i am in season 3) THEY ARE PRACTICING EUGENICS and the only argument against it is from the anti-abortion catholic who just thinks it's bad bc god makes you how you are or whatever. it's truly terrible

and on top of that. it doesn't even have the same trashy vibes that make grey's enjoyable to watch. grey's anatomy is, arguably, not a great show and suffers from a LOT of faults but like. it's fucking fun to watch. private practice is. not fun to watch

literally the only reason i'm still sticking with it is because i wanted to see amelia shepherd's arc in it but y'know. really testing my limit of tolerance for the horrifyingness of 00's tv oaiwjefaoiewf

also, the casting of addison's father (stephen collins from 7th heaven) did NOT age well and it's so fucking hard to watch him being a romantic interest to a character w SA trauma. torture. i hate it

#ik no one cares but i need to rant #delete later probably #negative #*dykeposting

[bibatbrat]

TMA Season 2

Ooooo spooky 👻

Jon said I am back at work before my doctor said it was ok and I am SO fucking scared

What If There Was A Band That Was So Fucking Bad

ACAB but I fucking love Basira and Daisy. Sue me.

I also love GERTRUDEEEE

It’s so fucking funny that Michael Crew tried to use Boneturner’s Tale to help him, it didn’t work, and then he’s like “oh well i’ll just take it to the library i guess”

The New Door feels very much like Hive and I love it

Gerard saving Andrea Numis from the Lonely by telling her to remember her mother when he’s on vacation right after being acquitted for his mom’s murder…. Gives me feelings

Tim canon bisexual 💙💜💖

Elias being a pothead in college is true character depth and development 10/10

Alexander Scaplehorn (the tax guy) is so fucking funny. Man cares so much about preventing money laundering that he survives the supernatural 🙏

Trevor the vampire killer canonically homophobic 😔

Jon finding out that Martin was lying about his qualifications and being so relieved bc 1) Martin probably did not kill Gertrude and 2) turns out that Martin is not an incompetent idiot, just a dropout

Not going to lie, I think I could’ve hacked it on Daedalus, but that’s just me

But also letting a private company shoot you into space to do isolation experiments is so incredibly dumb and Mr. Chilcott should’ve known better tbh

Agnes Montague saving Ronald Sinclair from Hilltop House via a searing kiss on the cheek… truly who is doing it like her?

We love a workplace intervention

The Buried coffin eats a cop so shoutout to the Buried I guess

Mary Keay and Gertrude have such a fun dynamic and I would kill for just a whole season of the two of them tbh

I think Binary might be my fave episode of this season. The statement itself is delightfully horrible, and the Tim/Jon fight at the end just makes it *chefs kiss* perfect

Jack Barnabas’s statement drives me crazy. Him saying he doesn’t think he has a destiny and Agnes saying, “That must be nice.” Him asking for a kiss and her crying after she gives it to him. Him losing everything after it, even though she dies.

The Book of the Dead is such a good concept.

A Long Way Down makes me sad ☹️ I’m a sucker for brother stories

The Kind Mother is fucked up. The aspect of Lucy having not even gotten along with her mother before NotThem replaced her makes me crazy

Jon is so fucking dumb. He listens to the statement about NotThem getting trapped in the table and is like “obviously I need to destroy this table” 😔

Jon telling Tim and Martin to take the next couple of days off fucks me up, especially after the time he spends listening to Sasha’s voice recordings. He doesn’t want to lose anyone else!!!

Tim and Martin going after him though 🥺

Also, oh my God, Tim and Martin just being silent for a full twenty seconds after the recording of Martin’s poetry gets played… truly awkward enough to make you forget about your friend who is maybe being hunted/killed

John worrying about conserving the tape to record himself being hunted and maybe killed… sir, that’s the Eye at work

Tim and Martin arguing about Tim being a dick and fighting all the time with John and Martin just wanting them to all be one big happy hostage family…. 🥺🥺🥺 they care about each other and I am dying

I fucking love the “taunt you into revealing your position” trope. NotThem telling Jon about how it hurt Sasha when she erased her and him yelling at them to shut up… yes!!!

NotThem about to kill Jon and him just whispering and apologizing over and over and over to Martin, Sasha, and Tim aghhhh

<rdj voice> there was a sewer man

Jurgen Leitner really lived in their basement huh

Leitner being a parallel to the Archivist and Jon being so disgusted w the way he uses and discards his assistants to horrible fates… sure hope that doesn’t come back to bite him in the future lol

“An angry goth” yo that’s my booooooy

Leitner is like, “I diagnose you with Voyuerism” and Jon is like, “This is so scary and I am gay and need to go cry brb”

Leitner talking to the recorder and telling Gertrude that she would’ve liked Jon 🥺

Elias said hello I am here to be evil and we have no choice but to stan

(Alternatively I am really glad I wasn’t on here during the peak bc Elias would’ve gotten sooooo annoying, but now I can enjoy my funny little murder man w no consequences 😈)

He <redacted> that old man 😳

Tim and Martin not seeing anything other than the body and just IMMEDIATELY assuming that Jon clubbed someone to death in his own office… can we get an F in the chat 😔

It’s 👁👄👁 time baby

#j listens to tma #tma #liveblogging

[protagonistheavy]

Aaaand the title of most disappointing episode of King of the Hill quickly goes to season 2 episode 6 "Husky Bobby." An episode in which Bobby first discovers the confidence of wearing plus-sized clothes that properly fit him, and subsequently discovers that he has a passion and knack for modeling, immediately becoming financially successful in the field. Of course, traditional Hank wants to discourage him from that career, refusing to take him to modeling sessions and outright removing him from the middle of photoshoots. Bobby insists he walk the runway of a plus-sized boys fashion show even as it begins without him and Hank is dragging him away, until a group of teenagers arrive to interrupt the show by throwing donuts at everyone. Bobby thanks Hank for his foresight of the humiliation he would have received, and Hank's lesson for us is that sometimes a father just knows what's best (w/ the joke that mothers are well-meaning but usually wrong, which ends the episode with Peggy affirming she has a "higher lifetime average of being right").

Wow what a shitty way to end what has otherwise been one of the funniest and more charming episodes. Do I even need to say it? Fatphobia and queerphobia blatantly being represented as normal encouraged traits that make for better personal well-being; you can be proud of being fat (unstated: or queer) but you shouldn't show it (literally what Hank says outright mid-episode). I know King of the Hill walks an awkward line between conservative and liberal humor -- it pokes fun of conservative lifestyles and thinking while also enjoying some digs against liberal politics to appeal to that very same conservative audience -- but its messaging per episode generally sides on being more openminded and accepting.

It really stands out that this theme is just plainly written... wrong. Any viewer should realistically be on Bobby's side the whole way through, wanting him to achieve success with his passions. If you replaced plus-sized modeling with any other activity, the story arc would be the same: you'd want for Bobby to prove it to his dad that he's happier being proud of himself and accepting who he is. Beat for beat, it goes exactly as you would expect it go, even down to the moment where Bobby admits he should give up, walks for the exit, Hank says "Bobby... wait," as if to say, "Go out there and do your best," .....................but instead, it goes with the gag, "let's put this poncho over you to cover you up on our way out." Hank proceeds to remove Bobby as they watch the donut chaos break out; Bobby states he "feels good" about not having been down there, and says "I feel like [Hank] could get me out of anything :)" This dialogue is so comically unnatural, entirely because this isnt how the emotional arc should go! It's disturbing that the message here unironically is, "You shouldn't be proud of being fat or queer-coded because teenagers will bully you." What a terrible message for adults, the target audience of King of the Hill after all -- how many parents watched this with their kids and nodded solemnly, hoping this embarrassed the gay out of their children?

It almost feels like an outright incorrect ending because of how jagged the final few minutes of the episode are. Not only do you get odd dialogue from Bobby, but even the argument with Peggy has a strange tone that feels contrary to how Peggy acted the whole rest of the episode. The show even gives Bobby a really strong line when arguing to go on the runway: "Is that it? Are you afraid I'll be embarrassed, dad? Or are you afraid you'll be embarrassed?" This is the last line he says before turning to the director and handing in his hat, saying he won't do the show since his dad won't let him. It's disturbing how the writing is on-point up until this exact moment, when it decides to go hard on the gag "Hank is right anyway" and then also proves that yeah, apparently he is right.

Here's a real King of the Hill ending to fix this episode, for free, from me. Ahem.

Bobby turns to the director to give up on the show. Hank: "Bobby, wait... [hands him the sailor boy hat] Go out there and make your dad proud." Bobby goes first on the runway and wows the audience, Peggy and Hank watch and cheer for him rowdily as if it's a football game. The teenagers arrive and try to humiliate the models by throwing donuts; Hank takes a stand against the teenagers, threatens to kick their asses or call the police, gets them to disperse. Though Bobby is grateful for his dad's defense, Hank's threats/actions also get him comically in trouble with the fashion production crew, forcing Bobby to quit modeling and return the show to its status quo, though ultimately he's happy to simply have found a new passion and confidence in wearing clothes that fit.

There you go, a positive ending that keeps the charm of the show, doesn't validate bigotry, supports self-expression and ones pursuit of arts, while also retaining lightheartedness, whimsy, comedy, and the return to status quo. Creativity was plainly not the problem in the drafting room, unwise writers were.

This episode was so funny otherwise. Even when the jokes were blatantly poking fun at fat people or queer expression, having a body-positivity perspective still allowed some of that humor to shine through, since often the jokes didn't hinge on humiliating a fat person -- more just making light of the awkward nature of plus-sized clothing and male modeling, the irony that by conventional standards, Bobby is ugly, but by the standards of plus-sized fashion, he's iconic and outright successful. The writers also made the decision of presenting much of the modeling as weirdly semi-sexual, which I just... don't think is an accurate representation of actual boy-aged models lol? I mean, idk what magazines or ads the writers are basing any of this on, I'm gonna take a guess and suggest they referenced no real-life modeling careers in this field, and just made the bigoted assumption that, surely, boy-aged models are actually being used for some gay sex thing. From the very beginning, unfortunately, the writers were dead-set on being homophobic, and I guess the fatphobia just came naturally afterwards.

Can't understate how funny this episode is though. My favorite gag is a car ride home after an interrupted photoshoot where Hank cuts each person off before they can talk, with Luanne saying "but you don't know what I was gonna say...!" Hank and Bobby proceed to argue more, and after saying nothing else, Luanna ends the scene with "My hair is stuck in the door..." Jesus. Christ. Perfect comedic timing, perfect thing for Luanna to have to say, perfect visual gag of the slight zoom-out to reveal her hair flapping outside the car. Maybe this isn't actually THAT funny but god it hit me right on the mark.

Now you know why "most disappointing" is not an exaggeration.

[tastydregs]

The Slatest Jun 7: Wow, Jack Smith Has Been Busy Lately!

It’s more fun via email (promise). This article first appeared in our Slatest evening newsletter, which seeks to surface the best pieces published across Slate’s digital and audio journalism. We publish it there to help you cut to the chase at the end of each day. To get it in your inbox, along with more of the best work we published that day, sign up below.

Special prosecutor Jack Smith seems to be nearing the finish line on his two federal probes into Trump’s alleged misconduct—one looking at his mishandling of classified documents, the other at potential 2020 election interference. And as Smith wraps up, there’s been a whole slew of stories coming out with details on what his team has been looking at in its investigation. Having a hard time keeping track? Shirin Ali has a guide to the latest developments.

Plus: Trump’s response to Alvin Bragg’s indictment tells us something about how he’ll probably respond to other indictments in the future, Norman L. Eisen and Trevor W. Morrison write.

Hope for debt relief?

Later this month, the Supreme Court will issue its decision on whether the Biden administration’s student debt relief program can go forward. But Congress just upended the legal case against relief, Alex Rowell argues.

Plus: To push back against the Supreme Court’s dysfunction, liberals have to realize something that conservatives figured out a long time ago, Michael Waldman says. He spoke to Dahlia Lithwick about the growing need for reform, and how Congress can do something about it.

And speaking of Supreme Court dysfunction: The second episode of Slow Burn looks at how race-based admissions shaped Clarence Thomas.

It’s Christie Time

Chris Christie in 2014. Reuters

Chris Christie is entering the presidential race, and Jim Newell, for one, is glad about it. If nothing else, Christie is going to liven things up around here, probably! He may have joined the race as no more than a Trump-seeking missile, Newell writes, but at least he’s got nothing to lose.

Country cousins

The Trump-era fascination with the politics of rural America just won’t die! Steven Conn reviews a new book that wants to lay the fault for our rural-urban divide at city people’s feet, and finds it “hopelessly muddled.”

Royal circus

The Royal family is freaked out by Prince Harry’s court testimony. Maybe it should be! Heather Schwedel explains why.

An ominous orange haze

Angela Weiss/Getty Images

What should you do if you’re living in part of the Northeast that’s covered with wildfire smoke right now? Writing from the West Coast, Meg Duff has some advice, both practical and emotional, from someone who’s been through this kind of thing before. She recommends air filters, masks, calming tea—and no major life decisions.

Plus: We’ve rounded up some striking images of how bad the sky looked today.

ProbleMATTic

If you’ve been seeing the name “Matt Rife” all over your Twitter timeline and have no idea who that is, you’re not alone. Nadira Goffe has a beginner’s guide to the zillennial comedian whose tour tickets are impossible to get, and whether he is, in fact, “ProbleMATTic.”

A grim merger

Top-tier golf is now permanently in bed with the Saudi government. Alex Kirshner walks us through how it happened.

Today, Slate is… COLLECTING AND ANALYZING DIGITAL DETRITUS*

…much like the federal criminal investigators in James Comey’s first crime novel (and, well, his real life). Read Ankush Khardori’s review to find out how bad it is.

Thanks so much for reading! We’ll see you tomorrow.

[aahsoka]

whyd my cousin make a post comparing wearing a mask to having a gun.

it was a meme comic where someone in a mask goes ‘wear a mask even if you dont need it’ and someone else goes ‘like a gun’ and the masked person frowns.

like sorry?? thats not the gotcha argument you think it is? Those things arent even the same, or being compared? At all??

because, arguably, a gun doesn’t actually keep anyone safer and is likely more dangerous for the owner and a mask genuinely can keep others safe....also one is a weapon.....we arent out here comparing knives to masks?? Gonna take my sword out and fight the virus???????

Also no one was telling you to give up your gun to wear a mask. Most people are fighting for stricter gun control not doing away with guns entirely. So you would still be able to own one if you’re responsible & you can still do things like go to a shooting range or go hunting? I’m tired.

#Bleh #jordan talks #when a majority of ur family is conservative u just unfollow all of them on facebook #I have time to like....argue with my dad but thats it #my mom is like ‘confused but has the spirit’ so shes easy to talk to abt things #my sister too.....shes like torn between making fun of me for caring about people and genuinely caring about people herself #my youngest brother is a child and i desparately am trying not to let some of my parents bad ideas root too deeply #like that its bad to cry......hes 10...... #my other brother agrees w my dad a lot but hes also a young adult and still has space to learn #and hes kind and helpful so its easy to appeal to him #like they want whats good for others sometimes they just dont know what that looks like #afraid my dad is getting Too embroiled in fox news however #he tells me he also watches CNN for a different viewpoint but im like #pls consume news that isnt just those two channels???? lol

[arc-misadventures]

R63 NNN: Jeanne(to Pyrros)

Oh, now this should be fun!

NNN : PY2

Nora enters her dorm room to find her friend, Pyrros face planting his bed, groaning out tiredly ay his misfortune.

Nora: You winning there, Py-Py!

Pyrros: Barely…

Nora: So, who was it this time? Coco, Weiss… Glynda?!

Pyrros: Emerald…

Nora: Who?

Pyrros: Emerald Sustari, she’s from Haven Academy, tried using her semblance on me.

Nora: Oh, what’s her semblance?

Pyrros: She can conjure up illusions that look so real, that you think they are. To a point that is. She can’t change what you smell, just what you see, and to some extents hear, so it was pretty obvious that it wasn’t really her.

Nora: Her?

Pyrros; N-Nothing. It doesn’t matter.

Nora: Yeah, and you don’t recognize the smell of peaches when they walk by you.

Pyrros: Oh, shut up…

Nora: Hehehe~! So, you sure this whole, NNN challenge is a good idea?

Pyrros: Why not, Its not like I have a reason to… to… Ahem, anyway… Uhh…

Nora: How many has this been anyway; ten, twelve?

Pyrros: Uhh… lets see… First there was, Yang in the bikini.

Nora: So tight in all the right places…

Pyrros: Then there was, Blake, and the… the script…

Nora: 1/10, would not nut to.

Pyrros: I have to agree which is an uncomfortable thought… Then their was, Weiss and the maid outfit…

Nora: Too conservative, not enough sex appeal.

Pyrros: Then, Ruby tried… key word tried…

Nora: She fainted. In like a minute after trying to talk to you.

Pyrros: That’s what you get when you loose a bet to, Yang…

Nora: After that was… Velvet?

Pyrros: Yeah, Velvet. That outfit did not look good on her… I think it was the colours.

Nora: Bunny girl doesn’t work in the outfit, who knew?

Pyrros: Then there was Cinder… That was unnerving… Honestly, I still have no idea what happened then.

Nora: Subs, can’t dom…

Pyrros: …

Pyrros: Anyway… Next was, Coco, which surprised me…

Nora: Such a strong and confident girl, being such a utter blushing mess… Twas quite weird…

Pyrros: No, it’s because I thought she was a lesbian.

Nora: She is, how come she hasn’t hopped her bunny then?

Pyrros: Anyway, after that was that, Arslan which really surprised me.

Nora: Because of how forceful she was?

Pyrros: No, because I thought she hated me. She would challenge me to matches all the time back in, Argus.

Nora: That’s because she’s a Tsundere.

Pyrros: A what?

Nora: A… Forget it, it would take too long to explain…

Pyrros: Okay…? Uhh… Do… Do you count…?

Nora: Mmm… No, you just happened to walk on me while I was getting into the shower. No attempts at flirting at all.

Pyrros: Sorry about that…

Nora: Aww, don’t worry about it; We’ll call it even for all the times I peaked on you when you went into the shower.

Pyrros: Wait, you what?!

Nora: So the last one was, Emerald… That makes… Nine, in the span of two weeks, Ten if you count, Yang’s second attempt to seduce you.

Pyrros: Oh gods… I really want to forget that one…

Nora: I don’t! That was…!

Pyrros: Don’t! Don’t bring that up! Please…

Nora: Spoil sport… So, None girls have come on to you, and all have failed. So sad.

Pyrros: I hope, November ends soon, I can’t handle this. I’ve had people flirt with me before, but never like this before! Ugh… it’s exhausting…

Nora: Oh~?

Pyrros: What is that sound…? I don’t like that sound!

Nora: Is it really bad that all these girls are flirting with you, or is it bad because she isn’t flirting with you~?

Pyrros: I-I don’t know who you’re talking about…

Nora: Like hell you do, pretty boy. You know exactly who I’m speaking of…

Pyrros: Stop it.

Nora: Relax, I haven’t done anything; besides, she would barely have to lift a finger to get you to break.

Pyrros: W-What are you…?

Jeanne: Hi, guys! Am I interrupting something?

Pyrros: Nothing, you’re not interrupting anything.

Jeanne: Oh, okay! So, what were you talking about?

Nora: We were talking about all the failed attempts the girls have done to make, Pyrros fail, triple N.

Jeanne: Another one; Who was it this time?

Nora: Emerald Sustari.

Jeanne: Emerald… That makes what, ten?

Pyrros: Nine!

Nora: We’re not talking about, Yang’s second attempt.

Jeanne: Fair, that one was… weird. Nice cake though, need to ask her where she got it. So, you doing okay, Pyrros?

Pyrros: Huw? Oh, I’m okay. Just a little tired of all of it, but I’m okay.

Jeanne: Oh that’s good to hear then!

Nora: Hmm… Jeanne, can you do something for me?

Jeanne: Sure, what is it?

Nora: Can I have a smile, that one that radiates sunshine, and happiness?

Jeanne: I don’t have a smile like that.

PN: Yes you do.

Jeanne: Oh… Okay then… one smile coming…?!

Nora: Wait! Not at me, but at, Pyrros.

Jeanne: Oh… Sure~!

Nora: Ahh there it…?! Ahh the light, it burns?! How does it do that?! And, why is you hair shinning?!

Jeanne: Its not doing that!

Nora: Then why can’t I see anything?!

Jeanne: Because you closed your eyes…

Nora: Oh… That’s why… Still shines like the sun though.

Jeanne: It does not!

Nora: Does to!

Jeanne: It does not! Tell her, Pyrros, tell her my hair doesn’t shine! Pyrros…?

Pyrros: …

Jeanne: Pyrros!

Pyrros: Huw, what?!

Jeanne: You okay, you froze on us?

Pyrros: Oh, I’m okay… I-I’m just going to take a shower now… A nice long, cold shower… Okay, bye!

Jeanne: Uhh, bye…?

Nora: Oh, so close, so close…

Jeanne: Uhh… What happened?

Nora: Nothing you need to worry about… Yet.

Jeanne: Y-Yet…?

#rwby #jaune arc #weiss schnee #yang xiao long #blake belladonna #nora valkyrie #pyrrha nikos #ruby rose #coco adel #velvet scarlatina #emerald sustrai #cinder fall #arslan altan #glynda goodwitch #jaune x pyrrha #pyrrha x jaune #rwby arkos #fem jaune

[a-little-slice-of-fandom]

In derry girls, what did you think of the episode where clare came out? Im irish (republic) and gay so i love that it was included, but some of the language used makes me uncomfortable i guess? I get that NI in the 90s wasnt very accepting but the directors have said that they already portrayed it through rose coloured glasses so having michelle say d*ke feels unnecessary. I love the show though and can certainly look past it! I was just interested in what you thought :)))

Hey anon!

Personally I love this episode of Derry Girls! In fact it’s probably my favourite episodes. I already liked Clare as a character throughout the series, probably because I relate to her a bit too much, so to have her be revealed as gay was just like the icing on the cake. Good representation for northern Irish characters are few and far between, and gay northern Irish characters are basically non existent. Derry Girls was this hit TV show that provided many with the first chance to see themselves represented meaningfully on TV, and that includes myself.

However, I think there’s a lot of really important stuff in this episode that people either don’t notice or just don’t really talk about, which I do understand because Derry Girls is, at the end of the day, a comedy and it’s much more fun to quote characters like Aunt Sarah saying “you cannot move for lesbians these days” than to think about the darker side of Northern Ireland.

(T/W for homophobia discussion!!!)

(Also this sort of turned into a ramble about acceptance by the end of the post but I just have a lot of feelings on what Derry girls represents and I feel like non northern Irish viewers maybe don’t catch onto that because they don’t have the necessary context)

Derry Girls, as a show, is so interesting and personal to me because it manages to perfectly strike the balance between presenting Northern Ireland as a deeply flawed and divided country, but also presenting it as a place where people can be happy and live their lives to the fullest despite the ever present danger of the troubles. And that’s a genuinely refreshing portrayal of N.I that we usually don’t get. However I’d argue that if Derry Girls doesn’t at least try and illustrate, to some extent, the causal and very rampant homophobia of northern Ireland then it runs the risk of romanticising Northern Ireland at the time, which I think is incredibly dangerous. I do think that the show is intentionally more digestible and does filter things through rose tinted glasses, however I’d argue that simply glossing over the homophobia would have actually been a bit disrespectful to the queer history of Northern Ireland and could erase the experiences and struggles of the LGBTQ community in N.I, both then and now. If the show doesn’t acknowledge that things were shitty then we paint an inaccurate picture of what it was like, and arguably still is like, to be gay in Northern Ireland. And considering that Derry Girls is one of the very few good depictions of Northern Ireland, it’s incredibly important that it’s an honest depiction.

You specifically asked about Michelle, but I think it’s important to talk about Michelle and Erin in relation to one another, and how they are both products of their time and of a deeply homophobic society.

(Now I’m going to briefly discuss Michelle’s use of the d-slur here however I just want to acknowledge that I’m probably not the best person to talk about this since it’s a lesbian specific slur and I’m not a lesbian. I welcome any additions to this post!)

I think Michelle sort of represents the overt and “loud” homophobia that’s present in our society. Michelle saying the d-slur is far from the first homophobic thing she says. I mean It’s literally a running gag in series one that she calls James “gay” constantly. And the sad thing is that Michelle’s off handed comments throughout the series are incredibly realistic to what you’d hear in Northern Ireland even today. I remember the f-slur being chanted during break time at my primary school, without anyone fully understanding what that word meant. Michelle is a representation of the homophobia that’s deeply ingrained into N.I to the point where it’s not even thought about or even seen as an issue. I mean...no one ever really talks about Michelle’s comments. Now whether or not they had to include her saying a slur specifically to illustrate the homophobia of N.I is not for me to say. You could change that sentence in the script and I think the point of Michelle representing “loud” and homophobia would still stand.

On the other hand...I think Erin represents the much more insidious and “quiet” homophobia.

Firstly, she has no issue with capitalising off a very personal essay for her own gain, shrugs off any protests that this might be wrong and doesn’t consider how her actions may hurt the writer of this piece (who is later revealed to be Clare).

Even the language she uses is a bit uncomfortable, saying that “a real life lesbian walks among us”. Are lesbians wild animals or mythical creatures? That seems to be what Erin is implying here. Plus Erin tries to make it out to others such as Sister Michael that she’s doing this because she genuinely believes in equal rights and wishes to stick up for the LGBT community, but when Clare actually tries to come out Erin is clearly confused and she reacts very badly. I mean, Erin literally says she doesn’t want Clare to come out and demands she get back in the closet, and you can see how hurt Clare is by this reaction. And this scene is kind of played for laughs and I think that straight viewers probably found Erin’s reaction quite funny...but this scene hit way too close to home for me. It’s the classic “I have nothing against gay people, but I’d just rather I didn’t have a gay friend/child/co-worker because they make me uncomfortable” that’s way too common in Northern Ireland. It’s the idea that people can present themselves as liberal and open minded, but when finally confronted with something that doesn’t fit their narrative, their societal conditioning kicks in.

As a queer woman, it was never Michelle’s causal homophobia that made me uncomfortable, it was Erin’s reaction...because it hit way too close to home. It’s a perfect representation of the “quiet” homophobia that’s still a massive issue in Northern Ireland today.

(Also the context of when Derry Girls was released is super important! Series one of Derry Girls was released in 2018...but Gay marriage wasn’t actually legalised in Northern Ireland until January of 2020 and even then it was quite contested by conservatives. Now I’m not saying there’s social commentary here but that’s absolutely what I’m saying.)

Now I’m not saying that Michelle or Erin themselves are homophobic, nor am I saying that they’re bad people. I think that they are teenagers that have absorbed a lot of homophobic rhetoric due to the time and the society that they live in. Although Erin’s reaction to Clare trying to come out was painful to watch because it felt so real, I don’t think her reaction was malicious. Erin is a teenager who has grown up in a homophobic society and now doesn’t really know how to react to this new reality and probably didn’t realise how hurtful she was being to Clare. (This isn’t me trying to excuse her reaction, again I am part of the LGBT community and I’ve experienced that exact same reaction from people, it’s me trying to understand Erin’s reaction). Erin and Michelle have both absorbed rhetoric from their deeply homophobic society, and unfortunately this rhetoric continues.

Plus I just want to comment on this idea of acceptance and change in Derry Girls. Derry Girls is set in the time of great change in Northern Ireland, where people were sort of starting to accept that people are allowed to be British or Irish or both. But this process was messy and it wasn’t instantaneous. And the acceptance of the LGBTQ community in Northern Ireland was the exact same. It didn’t just happen overnight. It was a slow and messy process of change, of people re-evaluating their previous beliefs and being given the chance to grow as people and to learn how to accept others. That’s not to say people haven’t made mistakes in the past, because they have, but they’re willing to take the steps to change. I‘ve always thought the LGBTQ subplot of Derry Girls is sort of a parallel to the overall process of change in Northern Ireland in a political sense. And I think that flies over so many people’s heads because they don’t have that context of the political situation in N.I.

(And this theme of acceptance is seen again in the series finale of series 2 with James! ✨ Thematic consistency ✨ )

Because at the end of the day, Clare is accepted by the group. In fact, we see both the teenagers and the adults actively take steps to make her feel loved, welcome and accepted. My favourite moment will always be Granda Joe saying “you’re a very talented people” to Clare in the most earnest voice. Clare is still loved by her friends and although they don’t exactly know what they’re doing, they do try and show their support for her. They absolutely make mistakes, and they did hurt Clare, but they’re trying and I think that stands for a lot, especially at the time.

And I think all of what I discussed was absolutely necessary to Derry Girls. Derry Girls might be a somewhat rose tinted portrayal of Derry in the troubles, but it never tries to romanticise the situation that the teenagers were in (because no one should be romanticising the troubles). I think that this stance of portraying the harsh reality of homophobia in N.I is equally important to the narrative of Derry Girls. I see my own experiences in Clare, despite the fact it’s 30 years later, so if they didn’t at least attempt to show the homophobia in Ireland it would have felt disingenuous and too “perfect”. Again, I’m not saying that Michelle using the d slur was the right way to go about showing the “loud” homophobia of Northern Ireland. That’s not my decision to make. However, just because Derry Girls is making efforts to present Northern Ireland in a more digestible way to audiences (especially non northern Irish audiences) doesn’t mean they shouldn’t also acknowledge the reality of Northern Ireland at the time.

(This all kind of makes it sound like I want Clare to get hate crimed which I obviously do not want. I think the way that Derry Girls showed the issues in Northern Ireland were perfect and very much necessary, minus the use of the d-slur specifically which wasn’t necessary to the plot.)

Anyway thank you so much for the ask anon! This was much more rambly than my usual posts but I just really have a lot of opinions on Derry girls because it does mean a lot to me and it often does hit close to home.

#derry girls #michelle mallon #erin quinn #clare devlin #enya discusses: derry girls #long post

[crazygaysex]

incomprehensible conjecture and rambling about sunny/rcg under the cut! idk man I got 1 hour of sleep in the past 24 or wataver and my brain is an abandoned swamp Good Nigte

i certainly am not arguing that mac Absolutely Isnt a stereotype of a predatory gay man/self-hating homophobe or whatevr. i wont argue the homophobe one at all really,not great even if they rectified it and further tried to make up for it or whatever w mac finds his pride (which i love, regardless). but honestly i dont think the predatory complaint really makes a whole lot of legitimate sense considering every charatcer on the show is Extremely predatory in their own right. if he wasnt i’d be irritated to be honest. i do agree w wat mcelhenney said something like that its cool that they decided to acknowledge he was gay without changing him fundamentally as a person; he still needs to fit into the show or watever. like idk he’s not Ideal Gay Rep ofc but he’s awesome still. To Me. I like when character’s sexuality can be an improtant acknowledged facet of them but doesnt overtake the rest of te narrative! It never occurred to me that his behavior toward dennis would be seen as predatory ina stereotypical way seeing as how their relationship dynamic is so fckign bizarre. charlie has the same level of dogged cluelessness about the obj of his affection’s true feelings, so it didnt occur to me to see mac touching dennis’ knee or stuff of that variety as being any different ig or as making fun of queers or watevr. if i am wrong/misunderstanding i apologize. i have never considered mac from that perspective before.

honestly i kinda get the complaints. i’ve never rly thought rcg all have 10000% pure intentions with the insensitive kind of humor they are into, no matter their loophole justifications for shit. sometimes i almost believe their reasoning and do basically understand but it still seems flimsy when you considers stuff like the blackface stuff which is indeed kind of funny at times mainly bc the joke is the absurdity of it all, like mac in the shower with the brown dripping off him like he’s melting; it’s not funny at the expense of black ppl but more so at the expense of how goddam stupid and unaware mac is. i havent seen the blackface/brownface ones in years sos i dont have a whole lot to say excepe they seemed to be clearly against using blackface as the moral while still using it to get laughs. so. really honestly i don’t know that it’s Liderally Ever edgy white people’s call to use something like blackface regardless of context, regardless of their obvious intent? i dunno i have tried to find Black ppls opinions online a couple times but struggled to find any tangible results. the only other thing i have to say with ym white person words is that i think it’s stupid that the streamig companies take down all insensitive episodes like theyre trying to brush them under the rug and pretend it never happened in wake of a changing political climate. i get it, but kinda just seems like corporate scrambling ie disney getting ridof all of song of the south but still profiting from splash mountain eprhaps. something seems dodgy to me about pretending it doesnt exist anymore just to cover their asses. i understand the sentiment i guess but i dont think that’s really the main goal of the BLM movement, to purge streaming services of any questionable/racially insensitive/Fully Racist material; there’s surely more important things at the top of the lists besids Good Branding . im not sure if that makes sense

also a lot of episodes the joke is the blatant but somehow woefully oblivious homoerotic overtones present between the guys, like a Lot of the time. it is very funny though is the thing and a lot of thm are my favorites. i dunno. i also thought hte pooping transgender bit was pretty funny mainly cause it was absurd. i think maybe because i have my own what i think are reaosnable and empathetic views about certain stuff like queer shit it doesnt necessarily occur to me that they are trying to make fun of queer people.. like people make fun of conservative fans for having completely missed the point of it all being satire, and wat if i am being tricked to into assuming rcg has kind intentions and isnt trying to make fun of queer people just cause the thought didnt occur to me? instead of taking all the gay subtext serious- WHICh i Do, i should probably be more aware that to rcg it is just a bit and not really that deep. but mac and dennis were totally fucjing in s5 canonically. anwyays like aside from the carmen shit which is handled So Fuckign Bad and it makes me so upset cause i actually love carmen they were just very clearly not bothered with actually representing trans people accurately. so in the bathroom one if even fuckin dee reynolds is like, saying a trans woman in a woman’s bathroom is obviously normal.. it seems like they’d rectified some of their previous Very flawed rhetoric surrounding trans women (ie the whole “u slept with me when i was still a man” line. makes me cringe a bit ebery time)u get wat i mean?? not that it atones for it obviously. i love carmen she desreved better

butreallt i dont have any like. Pure Faith in rcg to be super accountable or honest about their intentions or to have the most accurate or agreeable beliefs or whataver. theyre just fucking about really because they can without any lashback. and people i think like being able to laugh at offensive shit thru scenarios which supposedly distance you from bigots/evil people and make u feel better about yourself watching these dumbass evil people talk slime. when like. glenn yelling supposedly arabic-sounding gibberish for example: it is funny in this context not just cause it’s wildly inappropriate and absurd but also because there’s prob significant amt of people who actually dont have an issue with it who could watch it and not have that takeaway whatsoever. i dont kno wt im talking about anymore btu honestly if youre trying to watch a show that isnt rife throughout with controversial/offensive/insensitive language and story beats, i dont know why you would try to stomach it with sunny. like for gods sake they used blackface more than once! i dunno man

#x #iasip #i need to go to slepep now

[dreamilymysticdeer]

L O L unpopular opinion but why do so many people crush on Draco Malfoy ? Like?? He is a BAD PERSON.

He is slightly different in the books and movies

In the books he is nasty and has no personality other than that

In the movies they make him kind of funny and dramatic.... but in a THIS BOY IS A TOTAL WIMP kind of way...?

Like yall think he’s a bAd boY? He’s a bad person not a bad boy. He’s nasty but he is a W I M P WIMP WIMP

He is either calling people slurs or crying and whining over something. He’s L I T E R A L LY right wing.

And let me juuuust say if Draco Malfoy was never asked to kill someone himself, he wouldn’t have cared if people were dying he would have sat back on Voldemort’s side without doing the “work”

For example, when Cedric Diggory dies, in the books Draco makes fun of it to Harry om the train home. He literally makes jokes about a dead boy in his year. Who he didn’t even know. So Dumbledore, who Draco openly disliked ? You best believe if someone else had been asked to kill him, Draco would have laughed and joked about it when Dumbledore died, and probably used it as an excuse to wind up Harry.

He also makes fun of Harry’s dead mum and dad to Harry’s face :/

He says rePEATEDLY in the books that he wants Hermione to be the first to die whenever there is something GoiNg oN. Then like ?? The Whole two time in the series that Draco could kill someone but dOeSnT, doesn’t mean he’s suddenly good, it means he’s a nasty prick who’s to scared to do killing himself but would happily have someone else do it for him.

Draco malfoy is ONE HUNDRED PERCENT the type of boy Y’ALL WOULD HATE AT SCHOOL like HATE and argue with in classes. Not in a flirty way in a I genuinely am repulsed by this person way. He’s literally an INCEL ??? EsPECIALLY if Draco wasn’t played by someone conventionally attractive (and white) y’all wouldn’t be interested.

Like you think Ron is too rude for Hermione but would have her eith Draco ? WHAT IS IT WITH YOU PEOPLE AND RIGHT WING CONSERVATIVE INCEL BULLYS AHHEUEBDJDNAJXUSJDUXISJBDE

#draco malfoy #draco pov #anti draco malfoy #draco malfoy hate club #draco malfoy is scum #draco #harry potter #hermione granger #ron weasley #severus snape #slytherin #hogwarts #dumbledore #harry potter canon #harry potter headcanon #draco malfoy is bad

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

What do you think Napoleon would feel about the Le Pens? Like I know he’d hate their guts but the extent 👀

God fuck the Le Pens. I feel dirty thinking about them. (Though weirdly funny that Marine kicked her dad out of FN. Like you know you’re too deep down the rabbit hole of fuckery when Marine kicks you out. [and yeah, of course it’s all part of her image cleaning up gimmick. Wherein I’m sure she thinks the same as him, but is trying to “soften” the image of the party. And, based on the last election, it’s working. So that’s horrifying.]) All this to say: fuck the Le Pens; white supremacy etc. 

Anyway - assuming we’re still going for “Napoleon from 1815 woke up August 22, 2020″ base for our thought experiments here. 

Overall, yeah he’d think them short sighted, idiotic, and would probably have some elegant-yet-crude insults for them in Corsican. Let us take a brief, and not at all comprehensive, stroll down the Le Pens (and FN by default)’s terrible policies. Then I can scrub my brain out because they are absolutely foul people. 

behind a cut because it’s long. 

Economics: First off, Napoleon and I are the same in that we neither know anything about economics. He did not have a firm grasp on how the economy worked. Which I sympathise with, because it seems very fake and made up. 

Anyway, he did a lot of modernization, raised taxes, created a lot of public works programs to stimulate the economy and improve connectivity (gotta build all the roads and canals. Actually though, as a public infrastructure keener, I support this). He did lay the foundation for the centralized bank of France. (Something Biddle would get all hot and bothered over. Nothing sexier than centralized banks.)

Napoleon also introduced a whole loan system for businesses to try and keep them afloat and improve local industry. He was keen on protecting property rights, um, tried to regulate the currency to protect it against inflation. Idk, he did other things that I’m not going to get into. 

Comparing Napoleon’s hot economic takes from 1815 to 2020? A bit hard. So I’m going to guestimate on this. 

I think, once he understood how the world functions now, he would be pro-globalization and the various free trade agreements that are in place (CETA, PCAs etc). He might disagree with details therein, but the broad philosophy is one I think he’d support. 

I don’t know if he would be pro-single currency. I suspect he might be anti-the Euro, while still supporting the broad intents of the EU. 

He would support a strong public sector - so government controlled postal service, utilities, schools etc. In that, and the anti-Euro view, he would align with Marine, at least. Not sure about her POS father. 

No idea what his views on the Havana Charter would be. Probably mixed. 

EU: I’ve touched on this before, I think Napoleon would be pro-EU, over all. He’d just think France should be the hegemonic power. Why isn’t France making all the decisions? This is dumb. Who does Germany think they are? Etc. Therefore, he would disagree with the Le Pens who think the EU is the anti-christ and the cause of everything bad that ever happened in France (I exaggerate, but they do blame the EU for a lot of things so you know, it’s not that much of a stretch).

Immigration: This is where they would diverge significantly. Like apples and moldy toast kind of different. I’ve touched on Napoleon’s immigration policy before, so I’m not going to wade into it again. But yeah, needless to say Napoleon would be like “let everyone come. They want to come to France? They are French. More is better. The end.” 

The only thing is, he was very pro-assimilation. Not really into the “patchwork quilt” approach to the philosophy (and implementation) of multiculturalism. Which, to be fair, is a very modern view and not something I would expect anyone from 1815 to agree with, or consider a general good approach to dynamic, multicultural societies. 

But yeah, the Le Pens whole moratorium on immigration, hatred of anyone foreign, that would be an anathema to Napoleon. He would vehemently disagree with that stance. Napoleon believed alloys were stronger. You took different people, boiled them down, and melded them into a unified French identity. That was his Hot Take on the matter. Again, pro-assimilation, which is an inherently conservative stance by 21st century standards, but a very average stance by early 19th century standards. His immigration and citizenship views were overall liberal for the time. 

Indeed, the whole creation of a unified French identity was in its infancy during his life. He contributed heavily to it, but for his lifetime, identity was strongly linguistic and regional. You’re Gascon before you’re French, you’re Basque before you’re either French or Spanish, that sort of thing. 

And of course, his views on this were heavily informed by his own experience and identity as a Frenchman and how it was received, or not, by his own people, as well as other monarchs and countries. (Tsar Alexander liked to brag that he spoke better French than the Emperor of France. And I believe the Times once called Napoleon a “Mediterranean mongrel.” Charming. So, he had a fun and exciting adventure in European class, ethnic and racial politics of the early 19th century.)

Napoleon would also disagree with the Le Pens that citizenship and nationality are indivisible. He was into the whole “if you decide you are French then you are French, no matter which side of the Rhine you were born on”. 

Secularism: They’d actually probably mostly agree on this. In that religion has no part or place in government and there should be a clear and strong separation of church and state. 

The banning of religious clothing, though, I don’t think Napoleon would support that. I would argue that he’d think it infringed on personal rights too much, and he was keen on protecting those. Like, his policy towards integrating France’s Jewish population was to try and assimilate them, yes, because he viewed everything as being consumed by the monolith that was the French Empire. But he wasn’t like “no wearing a tallit or kippah.”

Abortion: Guys, Napoleon is a culturally Catholic man from 1815 who thought women’s crowing jewel were her children and that France really needed to increase its overall population. I think we can all figure out what his views on abortion would be. Marine is pro-legality of abortion, but she personally is like “it’s eViL and a serious MoRaL IsSuE” etc. 

Gay Rights: Napoleon’s whole political approach was to bring in the people on the margins and normalize them (assimilate; one of us, one of us) as a means to increase the base of the population who would support him. As he viewed marriage as a strictly secular, civil ceremony, and not a religious one, there could be a possibility of slowly talking him around to it. That said, he also viewed marriage as a declaration of intent to make many babies (for his army). I don’t think he’d be pro-queer couples adopting, no matter what. So, who knows. 

That said, he wasn’t like “lock up the gays”. And as gay marriage is established in France currently, I don’t know if he’d be pro-abolition since it’s mostly a popular/accepted law and he was all about that sweet, sweet public approval rating. 

So if he came around to it, it wouldn’t be for altruistic reasons. At the same time, he wouldn’t be like “make it illegal”. He was very “w/e just show up to work on time Cambaceres, jesus.” (Cambaceres: It’s midnight, sire. This isn’t normal work hours. Napoleon: SAYS WHO???) 

Women in Politics: Well he’s obviously 100% against that. Ladies belong at home with the bebes. Le Pens, obviously, aren’t. Though Jean, I think, is like Trump where he’s pro his daughter being in politics (until she chucked him out of FN), but he would expect his wife to be a Proper Housewife. That weird conservative man thing about the role of wives and daughters. 

-

There’s my fly-over guestimation of Napoleon v Le Pens

It’s very, very hard to figure out what Napoleon, a man born in 1769 and died in 1821, would think about politics, economics and society in 2020. I tried to gauged based on his broad, philosophical views and how he acted as ruler. But he was also someone who was very analytical and would be capable of understanding the world as it is today and the realities that are in place. He might find them off putting or bizarre (ladies as heads of states?? what about your children??) but he was an imminently pragmatic man who would look at a situation and go “alright, this is the reality of the system and society I am now in” and would adjust himself accordingly. 

In the end, trying to figure out how a man from 1815 would react to today’s politics is very difficult, if not outright impossible. His understanding of what liberal meant, what conservative meant, etc. were so different to our understanding that I would never place him in one camp. He had changing, dynamic views, and that would be reflected in his understanding of politics in 2020. 

Overall, I think he would disagree with a lot of the stances of the Le Pens. Would he hate them? No. Because Napoleon didn’t really hate people based on their political views. He saw too much of the Revolution to go for extreme personal reactions to political stances; also he was too much a pragmatist and understood that you never know who might be an ally in the future. 

Napoleon might look down on the Le Pens, he might find them personally disgusting, he might view them as stupid (honestly, he’d probably just think they’re dumb and quickly move on), but he wouldn’t hate them. 

-

Because this is tumblr, I must now declare my political stance because I was too calm in most of that assessment. 

1. Fuck the Le Pens & Front Nationale 

2. Nationalism is spooky and I am always suspect when it comes up in political discourse in the year of our lord 2020 

3. I am bi and non-binary, which isn’t actually a political stance (or a personality), but tumblr is Like That so I thought I’d include it. 

4. I support: lgbtq rights; trans rights; universal health care; easy and open access to education; improved access to education at primary school levels (because that’s a huge impact on people); ACAB; separation of church and state; prison reform/some form of abolishment - I’m still thinking through my views on this and how it should be approached; land back; Aboriginal and Treaty Rights; immigration; no more kids in cages jesus christ; don’t drink bleach; democracy is good, punch fascists etc. etc. 

#and by spooky I mean that I think nationalism is a plague on all our houses #napoleon bonaparte #napoleon #spicy fucking ask #I really don't want dumb comments or asks as a result of this #fingers crossed #ask #reply #anon #napoleon in the modern day

[theheaterishotjournals]

10/14/2020

Today at work I got my shit done. Then hung out with my coworkers repairing a 34.5kV CB and that was fun, joking around with them. Talked to Jared about fishing. Worked with Angel on a crossword puzzle, we did well. I was too tired and, after asking Nevi, decided not to take the OT and just went home. 

Daniel had made some crazy chicken, short ribs, and sweet peppers, all grilled. They were delicious! Then I, sigh. Talked to Ashwara and argued ‘cause I ain’t fucking voting for Biden. And he was like, that’s our political system now. And I was like, so I should be ok with voting for the OTHER rapist? Like, fuck the DNC. This system is broken. I’m focusing locally. And he’s like, you can do both. And I’m like, yeah, I am, with 3rd party. And then he was like, that’s worse. How? How are democrats any better when they keep pushing towards more and more conservative candidates?

I get so tired reading the news, especially reading Amy Coney Barret or w/e the fuck her name is and her desire to be a legitimate piece of shit. No birth control, reverse gay marriage, she’s down with voter suppression. Everything I read about her is hell. Reading about the environment is hell. Don’t talk to me like I didn’t fucking consider all this shit we’ve said EVERY YEAR. Vote blue no matter what, vote blue no matter what. You don’t want to fight? Fine, idgaf, why are you giving a fuck about what I’m doing? We all have our ways. I wanna go and risk my life ‘cause I don’t care about it. I’m sick of people telling me what to do and I’m sick of the DNC saying, hey. We’re the better choice. You know you have no choice. You want Trump? 

Your vote isn’t going to change the DNC. So voting for Biden will? Like, what the fuck are you fucking saying? Fuck you. Fuck America. I love this country, I wanna see it get better but it sure as fuck wanna subjugate me. I love getting to live in CA and going to an Armenian neighborhood and get some kebabs, then the Korean neighborhood for some cold spicy noodles, then taco stands on every corner. 

Don’t even get me fucking started on Harris. Forcing MTF trans people to stay in men’s prison. Is down with ICE. Biden has said ON HIS PLATFORM to give more money to the police? REALLY? IN THIS CLIMATE? 

I am shit at memorizing stuff. I don’t remember all the stuff I read and researched that made me go, fuck this. Just because my recall is shit, doesn’t make me a fucking idiot. I am. But not for that reason!

How can you say ACAB and unironically vote for Biden and Harris? How? 

Man I gotta stop talking about this shit. It’s making me mad. 

Mad means I’m scared. Means I need to do something about it. I need to volunteer for a political org. I just gotta find a grassroot. CA liberals are fucking clueless but. Just me getting angry ain’t doing shit. I gotta find time but. Mental health first. I guess. 

On another note, I started recording a let’s play of Yakuza 6 for my buddy Alex. It was a nightmare listening to it. My awful jokes. My awful everything. But I’m still happy I did it. I uploaded it and I will link it to her when I can. 

Anyways. Yeah. I’m fucking mad. I’m living in hell and they tell me to vote not for old white man rapist 1st place winner but old white man rapist 2nd place winner. 

I wish I didn’t get so mad at Ashwara but fuck. It’s too late. And I don’t disagree with what I said. I’m flipping mad and treating me like I’m being irrational is fucking insulting. After worrying day in and day out and doing all this research. I was fucking fuming. 

Deep breath. 

We cool, we cool. 

self love time ~~~~~~

I am mindful of the home I live in and how it provides a safe and peaceful haven for me and my family. I feel grateful for...

My bed. My cats. Daniel. Working shower and toilet. Nice kitchen. Backyard to grow shit. Laundry hook up. Being near Asian food. 

internet access so I can talk to my friends. 

I love my friends so much. They all live so far from me. Japan, Virginia, Canada, Mexico. God. I daydream about hanging out with them in my living room and playing video games then cooking dinner together. But they’re happy where they are and I’m happy for them and I love them. I hope we can hang out someday.