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6knotty6thotty6 · 3 years

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So a couple of months ago, I saw a YouTube video that was an audio recording of season 5, episode 6 of Bojack Horseman, “Free Churro.” In the episode, the main character, Bojack Horseman, spends 20 minutes giving a eulogy at his mother’s funeral. There’s one big problem though, his mother was an abusive bitch. His eulogy is him trying to contemplate what she meant by her drying words, “I see you,” and whether or not she loved him. As someone who has a dead parent who was abusive, this is probably my favorite episode of any show ever for how much it helped me understand my feelings. The comments section is filled with people sharing their pain with their abusive families, but one comment stood out to me above all the others by how raw and relatable it was. This comment was by a YouTuber named Moonstruck. At the bottom of this post is a link to her channel. Please support her. After reading this, she deserves a million subscribers. Also please watch Bojack Horseman. (I corrected some of the grammatical errors to make it easier to read)

Disclaimer: Child abuse, bullying, trauma, and mental health:

Moonstruck:

This is a great monologue, but one part of it, in particular, really caught my attention was the 'grand gesture' bit.

When I was a kid, I read this book called "Chicken Soup for the Soul." There's a shitload of them. I don't remember which particular one it was. I hated the whole series because it's just someone profiting off a bunch of other people's stories rather than trying to write their own, in my opinion.

Anyway.

This one story that I remember, the ONLY one I remembered, was sent in by a little girl. She wrote about how her father never told her that he loved her. He never once, in her whole life, said the words "I love you." I don't remember her mom being mentioned, maybe she was dead; it doesn't matter. The point is her dad was basically an emotionless asshole. Well, one day, this girl gets sick. Really sick. Possibly on her deathbed sick. She wrote that one day she woke up to find a necklace sitting on her nightstand that had a pendant that looked like her dog. She said she held it to her heart and cried because that necklace said all the things her father never had.

I thought, "What a load of bullshit."

A cheap trinket doesn't make up for years and years of emotional neglect. Anyone can buy a thing and toss it your way. Hell, he didn't even hand it to her himself, just left it there for her to find if/when she woke up, then left her alone again to possibly die.

A lot of people say that actions speak louder than words, in cases like political protests and shit. While that's true, scenarios that this that girl are different. Gifts can never replace the words, "I love you."

When I was a kid, my father never told me he loved me. My mother didn't either, but she's a whole other kettle of fish. I would say 'my biological mother or father,' but I never got adopted ones, so who gives a shit. Anyway. My father was rarely around, and when he was, he just spent the entire time fighting with my mother and leaving again. He would do and say anything that could get him to spend less time in the house with her. With us. I can't blame him. If I could've left during those times, I would have. I tried more than once. I even earned the nickname 'runaway' from a family friend because of it.

I was told that I was worthless as early as I could understand words. I don't know what it is about me that set my mother off, but she HATED me. I was always told how expensive I was to keep alive and how I wasn't worth it. If I dared ask for anything, she would remind me how much she spent just to keep me from starving to death and that it was too much already. On the rare occasion I was given something, it was so she could use it as a threat. She was like, "Sure, you can have that toy horse since we got your sister a real one, but you better behave or we'll give it to her and let her break it." Or "Oh, fine, we can keep this dog as a FAMILY pet (NOT YOURS), but if you do something we don't like, we'll take it away and kill it."

Oh, yeah. I have a sister. She’s cut from the same cloth as our mother. I don't consider any of them family anymore. She was two years older than me. She was the "we should have stopped while we were ahead" kid. Anything she wanted, she got.

"Mom, can I have an award-winning horse and expensive dressage lessons?"

"Sure!"

"Mom, can I have a car?"

"No problem!"

"Mom, can you pay for my ballet lessons?"

"Absolutely!"

She was the golden child. The one that could do no wrong and wasn't a mistake. Even after she totaled her car, got arrested for an underage DUI, and got pregnant three times in high school, she was still the good one. I never even asked to go to school dances, parties, or go out with the one friend I had. My sister liked to see me in pain. She'd tell our mom that I did things just to get me in trouble. Whether it involved blaming me for things she did or fabricating stuff, she'd say whatever it took to get my mother to beat me while she watched and laughed. Oh, yeah, our mom was BIG on physical punishment. I've been whipped with everything from a riding crop, a wooden paddle, spoons, and especially belts. Anything that was close at hand when my mother got irritated, I've been hit with it.

At one point, my sister had three tall, beautiful show-worthy horses. I was allowed to keep a sickly old pony for all of a week before she was taken away, then I'd get called ungrateful for asking why we had to get rid of HER instead of one of the horses. Even though my mother said it cost too much to keep them all. With horses being obviously too rich for my blood, I asked for something cheaper, and for once, I got it. I was given a baby goat that one of our neighbors' goats had abandoned for being too weak, and they didn't have time to raise. I loved that goat. I bottle raised him, and named him Ben. He was my best friend for a while. When he grew up, he got so big that I was able to stand on his back to grab tree branches and pull them down so he could eat the leaves. I walked him on a leash like a dog every day. I loved him so much. My mother had me enter him in a show, and we won ninth place! I was thrilled to have something to show against my sister's collection of dressage show ribbons. I finally had proof that I could do something right! Sure, the prize money was taken away from me, but I still had Ben.

But Ben didn't come home with me after the show. It turns out he was sold to a slaughterhouse because that show was for meat goats. I didn't know until he was already gone. Of course, my mother punished me for being upset and even forced me to write a thank-you card to the people who bought his meat.

My mother was always like that. Anything I loved was used as a threat. I eventually accepted that loving anything was a waste of time. I learned to detach myself from my feelings, and I got really good at it. I can completely turn off my emotional reaction to anything. One time I had to put down one of the egg-laying hens at work that got too sick to save, and I felt nothing while bringing down the ax. When I lost out on a job that could have changed my life, I told myself how stupid it was to hope for anything good. Any positive emotion I felt got me punished, so I learned to feel nothing at all. To this day, I still have trouble feeling things, even when I want to. I'm taking pills now, and they help, sometimes.

I've had several suicide attempts. I keep a box of razor blades in my desk just to have them close. I got a tattoo of a heart with rainbows on my wrist. Partially for LGBT solidarity, but mostly to remind myself that there is still beauty in the world. I still struggle with wonder if I actually believe it or not.

I've tried so hard to be a good kid. I never partied, never drank, never smoked even when the chances were there, and I would have greatly loved anything to make the pain stop or even just dull it a little bit. I was in the gifted and talented program at school and was able to graduate at fifteen. For a while, I was sent to a children's home where I was passed around to many people I didn't know, including a clown who I may or may not have actually been related to, until I eventually wound up out here where I am now. It's all pretty hazy, and the details get scrambled.

It's been 10 years since I've had contact with my mother and sister. I can't even keep in touch with the one friend I had, even after I lived with her. She's tried to reach out to me, but I just… can't. I try, but I can't. Sometimes, I can almost pretend that my past wasn't real. It's just a hazy fog that isn't really there. I want to believe that if I don't allow something, or someone, who was part of that past, someone tangible and real, into my life again, then the fog will go away. This is why I can't do it. I know I'm a terrible friend. Ariel, if you're reading this, I'm sorry. You're better off without me in your life anyway.

I typed all of this out because sometimes, about fifty dollars or so shows up in my PayPal from my father's email address. I don't know if it's from him or from her using his email, but it doesn't matter either way. The point is I know my mother is the one sending the money.

I know my mother likes to think she's a good person. She went to church every Sunday, and probably still does. She organized a lot of church events and participated in every church function. I had to be an altar server for several years until I aged out of it and was in the choir. She kept going to that church even after the priest got drunk, called me many horrible names in front of everyone, and was revealed to be a pedophile that raped a little boy at gunpoint. She probably still goes to that same church and organizes things. She likes being in charge. She likes having people look at her and say, "That there is a good person."

But are you, though, Mom? Are you really a good person? Were you a good person when you hit me? When you lied to me? When you laughed with my sister about how much I got hurt for things I didn't do? Were you a good person every time you told me you'd kill my cat or leave my dog at the pound? Were you a good person when you sold Ben to be eaten, knowing that I loved him? Were you a good person when you made me read "A child called It" and told me that you'd start doing the things in that book to me if I didn't behave? Were you a good person every time you told my father I was a liar whenever I tried to tell him what you were doing to me? Were you a good person when you told me I wasn't worth the cost of being alive? Were you?

Fuck you, Mom! Keep your fucking money! A necklace on the nightstand isn't enough. A trinket can't heal years and years and years of abuse and hurt. You can't hide these scars under dollar bills. I hope you die alone. I know I probably will, but I don't even care anymore. I lost the ability to care thanks to you. You can't make up for the things you did and the things you didn't say now. Too little, too late!

#child abuse #abuse #domestic abuse #family #survivor #YouTube #bojack horseman #forgive #mom #mother #friend #friends #story #personal #chicken soup for the soul #free churro #monolouge #father #dad

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elizaviento · 6 years

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Protect & Serve

Okay. @lolliequinn gave me the inspiration for this Cop Rick x Reader fic that’s been brewing in my head for the last few days. This first chapter contains a good bit of the Reader’s back story and, yes, this will be another multi-chapter affair. (Although, it won’t be nearly as long as Assimilation. You’re welcome, lol.) Anyway, without further delay--

Protect & Serve (part 1)

(Cop Rick x Reader)

SFW (for now, but not for long)

(FYI: Additional chapters of Protect & Serve can be found in the Rick Fic Masterpost link in my blog description. Or, you can click the #protect & serve tag in this post, within my blog, to access additional chapters.)

*****

I met my first Morty a year and a half ago. I had been brought in to assist with an initial evaluation at the group home he was assigned to three weeks after his entire family had disappeared. The exact circumstances that led to the disappearance were hazy at best and all anyone could seem to get from the poor boy is that his grandfather was the ultimate culprit. Every other detail Morty begrudgingly divulged seemed ripped from a fever dream; talk of portals, interdimensional travel, alien worlds, alternate realities, infinite versions of not only himself but of nearly every person in existence. Yeah, I had seen more than my share of cheesy science fiction films, but none were ever as descriptive or – dare I say – believable as what poured from Morty Smith’s mouth.

Eventually, he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and was put on so many medications that he soon became just a shell of a boy. I continued to see him on a regular schedule; no less than once a week. When he wasn’t drugged up into a near catatonic state, he seemed happy to see me. I would try my best to get to the truth of what happened to him and his family, but he would either constantly change the subject or tell the same story he’d asserted time and time again. After several months of this, I changed my tactic and just tried to be a friend to him. I would show up to our weekly appointments with games, candy and junk food and spend our allotted hour trying my best to go over his personal goals which consisted of relaxation techniques, educational milestones and socialization. He was a sweet boy and I felt him growing on me as the months passed. And, even though his trauma was severe, I could see the curious, fun loving side of him hiding just underneath.

Then, one day, he was gone.

I’d arrived to the group home at the same day and time as I usually did, expecting to see him either in his room or in the common area playing video games. But, when I checked in with the receptionist, she told me to take a seat and the director of the home would be by to fetch me shortly.

“I’m sorry to be the one to inform you, but Morty Smith was claimed by a relative last week, right after your last visit,” the director said when we were securely behind the closed door of his office.

“How is that possible? It says in his chart that he has no other family. He’s essentially an orphan.” I opened his chart and began scanning through the information for what felt like the millionth time since he’d been assigned to me just shy of 6 months earlier.

“A man showed up claiming to be his grandfather’s twin brother. After searching through family records, we confirmed his story.”

“Okay,” I replied, pinching the bridge of my nose. “But that still doesn’t explain how this man was able to just take Morty and stroll away with him. Morty was court ordered to this home. There would have to be another court hearing to determine if that man was even fit to care for Morty, given his serious diagnosis!” I was beginning to raise my voice in ire as I continued to explain my position. There was no way any of this could be possible just from a legal standpoint alone, not to mention an ethical standpoint.

The director just blinked at me and gave the same speech he’d given seconds earlier. It was like he was in some type of trance and any countering argument or insistence of further information was swiftly knocked down.

“Fine.” I conceded, standing from my chair to prepare to leave. “Then I have no choice but to report this to the state’s child protective services. I have a duty to Morty as his case worker to make sure he is cared for and safe and I have not been given the proper assurances or required documentation. I’m also going to note in my report that you, personally, have neglected your professional duties as the director of this facility.” And, with that, I left.

When I made it to the sanctuary of my car, I couldn’t stop the tears that stung my eyes and leaked down my cheeks. It was a blessing but also a curse that I had a personal conviction to care for children such as Morty. I didn’t know if I would ever find out what happened to him, but I swore to myself – and to him – that I would try my best.

However, when I finally got home that evening, I was shocked to find him sitting on my living room couch.

“Morty! What the hell?!” I screamed, startled. I dropped my bags on the floor to quickly closed the distance between us, kneeling directly in front of him. How did he get in here? How did he even know where I lived?

The first thing that struck me is that he looked… different. He had put on weight – no longer the bone thin boy who hardly ate during meal times – and was dressed in a suit and tie. His hair was slicked back and he no longer sported dark circles under his eyes. He looked like a normal teenage boy dressed up for a junior high school dance.

He didn’t speak. At least, not at first. He only placed a hand on my shoulder with a calm smile and turned his head in the direction of my dining room where a man sat in one of the chairs. He was dressed in some type of guard uniform and looked eerily familiar.

“What’s going on here, Morty? I was at the group home today and they said you were released to your grandfather’s twin brother.” And, that’s when it hit me. The man sitting in my dining room looked identical to the photos I’d seen in Morty’s file of his grandfather, Rick Sanchez. “Is that him?” I asked. Then, leaning closer and lowering my voice - “Or is that Rick?”

Regardless of how discrete I had tried to be, the man had obviously heard me as he quickly rose from his seat and began to approach Morty and I. Instinctively, I shifted my crouched position so that my body was completely in front of Morty, attempting to shield him from any harm the man may try to inflict.

“It’s okay,” I heard Morty say from behind me, placing his hand on my shoulder once again. He sounded calm and lucid which immediately took me aback. “I’m not the Morty you think I am. But, I’ve been watching you and I’m very impressed with the dedication you’ve shown to the Morty of this dimension. We could really use someone with your type of character on the Citadel to help other wayward Mortys.”

At this point, I was completely speechless and felt my stomach drop to my toes. Morty – my Morty – had spoken of the Citadel many times during his, what I assumed to be, psychotic ramblings. Could it have all been true? No, it couldn’t be…

The man dressed in the guard uniform was now standing directly in front of me and was offering his leather gloved hand. Seemingly running on autopilot, I took it and allowed him to pull me to my feet and slightly away from Morty. Then, I heard the flush of a toilet and whipped my head toward my bathroom as it opened to reveal Morty – another Morty. This one was dressed in a white button down oxford shirt and black slacks and was carrying a briefcase. Around his neck, there was an ID badge that read –

Morty Smith N-1519 – Personal Assistant to the President

“Mr. President –” the other Morty began, glancing at his watch, “– we need to get back soon. You have a speech in two hours and you must prepare.”

Morty – President Morty? – nodded and turned his attention back to me. “The Morty from this dimension is fine, by the way. We took him to the Citadel last week. You’re more than welcome to see him, if you decide to join us. So, what do you say?”

--------------------

A year later, I found myself standing outside of a run down, abandoned building in the middle of what the locals called ‘Morty Town’, waiting for my mandated and mandatory Citadel Police Department escort. As I flipped through the files of each Morty suspected to be squatting in the building, my mind began to wonder back to that night, when my life was flipped upside down. As I stood here now, I didn’t regret my decision to move to the Citadel. It was actually very easy to leave my old life behind considering most of my family lived on the other side of the country and I didn’t have many friends to speak of since I was a self proclaimed workaholic. Once I had agreed, President Morty gave me two weeks to settle things in my home dimension before sending his assistant and the guard back to fetch me. He then gave me an additional two weeks to acclimate myself to Citadel life, which was decidedly more difficult.

Mortys and Ricks. Ricks and Mortys. Everywhere.

I’d never met a Rick before that night in my apartment. But, being thrown into an entire space station full of them was very unsettling. Mostly because they were all exactly alike but incredibly different. It was an oxymoron of there ever was one and I fumbled through the nuances of daily life among them.

Getting used to the throngs of Mortys was just as difficult, which is something I should have expected. Thousand and thousands of 14 year old boys stuck in the middle of space with almost no females – of course it was an adjustment, to say least. Despite the constant giggling, red faces and awkward flirting, most of them were joys to work with – except for the ones that weren’t. But, those were different stories in and of themselves and the main reason I was recruited and voluntarily gave up my life on earth to come here.

I was suddenly pulled from my thoughts when I heard the crunch of tires on the gravel covered asphalt and turned my body to face the police cruiser as it approached and parked just behind my car.

“Hello, Officer Sanchez,” I greeted with a smile as he stepped out of the cruiser and adjusted his utility belt. He gave me a small smile in return as he strolled toward me with his hands in his pockets.

“Just call me –”

“Just call you Rick,” I cut in, smiling wider. We played this game almost every time he was required to meet me for what was mandated as a ‘risky’ assignment and somehow, it hadn’t gotten old. At least, not for me.

“One cream, no sugar,” I said, plucking a cup of coffee from the drink holder on the roof of my car to hand to him.

“Uh, thanks. You didn’t have to –”

“I know,” I acknowledged, cutting him off again. I seemed to do that an awful lot and it sent a frustrated blush to my cheeks every time. “Just consider it a ‘thank you’, okay? I know it’s your job to come assist me with these visits but I appreciate it nonetheless.”

He only nodded in response as he took the cup from my outstretched hand, his fingers lightly brushing mine in the process. Immediately, my neck and cheeks flushed anew.

Damn it.

As much as I hated to admit it, I had been harboring a crush on Officer Sanchez for most of the year I’d been here. The first time I found out that I was required to take a police escort on ‘risky’ visits, I had been offended. I was a seasoned professional at that point and knew how to take care of myself in iffy situations. I had even taken self defense classes and carried mace on me at all times. I tried arguing this point with my boss - another Rick - and even went to President Morty myself, but it was hopeless.

“You’re the best we’ve got. Most of the Mortys trust you but you know first hand that some of them have been traumatized well beyond trusting anyone. This is for your own safety.” He then left me standing in the waiting room outside his office, frustrated and determined to make miserable any officer who was unlucky enough to be stuck with me. What an absolute brat I had been.

“What – what do we got?” Rick asked me, taking a sip of his coffee and leaning casually against the side of my car.

“Um – looks like four Mortys are squatting in this building. All of them are presumed to have been caught up in the unsanctioned Pocket Mortys ring and are most likely still chipped,” I replied, flipping through the files to try to familiarize myself with each Morty’s individual look.

“Yep,” he agreed, placing the coffee back on the hood of my car to check his utility belt. He pulled out a taser and handed it to me. “Take this.”

“Rick, you know I can’t –”

“Just – just take it,” he interrupted, grabbing my hand and thrusting the weapon into my open palm.

I relented with a sigh and shoved it in the back pocket of my jeans before pulling an elastic band from the opposite pocket. I then proceeded to tie my hair up into a tight bun, remove my earrings and other jewelry, and pull the belt from the loops of my jeans. I’d worked with troubled kids long enough to know that the first rule of thumb is to never give them something to grab on to.

After throwing the jewelry and belt into my car, I took a huge gulp from my coffee and dumped the remainder on the asphalt.

“Ready?” he asked, removing his sunglasses and tucking them into his pocket so I could finally see his breathtaking brown eyes.

“Yeah. Let’s get this over with.”

To be continued...

P.S. Thanks for reading! I think this will be a fun journey. :)

#rick and morty #rick sanchez x reader #rick sanchez #fanfiction #cop rick #cop rick x reader #protect & serve

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chickorita305 · 3 years

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Election Day is Nigh

It’s unavoidable: Election Night is coming.

The news tonight is running several news stories related to things in the election. As I type this, my dad is listening to the local news headlines, including one that says the governor of Oregon, Kate Brown, is preemptively putting the National Guard on call for potential violence on Election Night. Upon looking it up an OPB article about it ("Oregon Gov. Kate Brown will declare emergency, ready National Guard ahead of election" on their website), I find that these National Guard troops will only be stationed around "the Portland area," if they are deployed at all, in part as a way to discourage people from discouraging voters to drop off their ballots. With the civil unrest and nightly protests that have been occurring in Portland since the start of the George Floyd protests on May 28, 2020, and the clarification in the OPB article that this could provide authorities with special permission to use crowd-control tactics that have otherwise been banned due to the backlash from their use in those protests, I can only imagine how poorly this will go over with the residents of Portland.

Despite the high tensions in Portland, and the Donald Trump rallies that have been held in the city and around the state, most polls project Oregon to be very likely to give their electoral votes to Joe Biden. As a state that has given their electoral votes to the Democratic nominee for president in the past 8 election cycles (a tradition that dates back to 1988 and which may have been influenced by the influx of people to Oregon due to companies like Intel moving their headquarters to the state), it is not unusual for polls to be projecting Oregon as in "safe Biden" territory, as websites like 270towin.org have phrased it. As someone hoping for the end to the Trump presidency, this projection seems both accurate and comforting. However, my concern, and the concern for most people anxiously watching the election as my family and friends have been doing, is not with Oregon.

Our concern dates back to the 2016 presidential election cycle, when then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton faced off against soon-to-be-president Donald Trump. The polls back then were projecting a win for Hillary Clinton.

To people like myself, this seemed like a foregone conclusion: Hillary Clinton had years experience in politics, having served in several different capacities for the federal government. She lead delegations, served in the US Senate, and had been First Lady and Secretary of State throughout her career. Donald Trump, meanwhile, had built his career being known by putting his name on brands and making appearances in shows like The Apprentice, where his tagline quote was "You're fired!" It is true that Hillary Clinton was known to be out of touch with the youth, something that was often shown in her awkward uses of the slang of the day and popular trends such as the Nae-Nae. However, when compared to Donald Trump's platform, which he had built out of exclusion, disparaging people who did not agree with him or fact-checked his statements publicly, and reactionary policies, Clinton's out-of-touch image did not deter me.

There are a number of instances just during the days of Trump's first campaign that should have disqualified his bid for the presidency in any prudent voter's mind. Donald Trump mocked people with disabilities when he mocked the appearance of a reporter on the autism spectrum after the reporter, Serge Kovaleski, called Trump out for creating and spreading a lie that a "large Arab population" celebrated as the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were hit. He called people coming over the border from Mexico, people who he lumped together as "Mexicans" despite the fact that more Mexicans were moving to Mexico from the US than vice versa after the Great Recession of 2008 according to the Pew Research Center ("More Mexicans Leaving Than Coming to the U.S." from 2015 on their website) and the fact that, by the time Donald Trump was running, the majority of undocumented immigrants crossing that border were from other Central American nations than Mexico, rapists, criminals, and drug-dealers. He was a big contributor to the spread of interest in claims that former president Barrack Obama was actually a citizen of Kenya, a conspiracy theory often referred to as "Birtherism" that has racist undertones for relying on the fact that Obama's father was born in Kenya and had British and Kenyan citizenship. His comment spoken and recorded in 2005 in a trailer with Billy Bush where he claims that he could do anything to women, including "grab them by the pussy," since women would let him do anything came to light and ignited backlash that later found prominence in the #MeToo movement and was incorporated into the 2017 Women's March with the appearance of knitted Pussyhats.

With all of these instances, the polls predicting his demise, and the experience of the Democratic presidential candidate after what seemed to me a leap forward in leadership domestically under a Democratic president for 8 years, it seemed clear to me that Donald Trump was destined to lose. Men like him didn't win offices like the presidency. In my world, fostered by fictional stories from a young age of strong women who worked hard and proved their place at the table with their competence and forged in the faith that the citizens of a nation cared more for uplifting each other than focusing on their own short-term, personal, material gain or the fear-mongering for the need of a strong military against a hazy, foreign (read: Middle Eastern) enemy in the minds of those that had lived through the attacks of 9/11, there could only be one choice. I went to bed that night believing that I would wake up to the news of the first woman elected to be President of the United States.

The world that I had believed myself to be living in proved to be just as fictitious as the stories that had nurtured them. I woke up the next day in my maternal grandmother's house, a comfortable 3-bedroom attached house an hour north of London, England, to the sobering news that Donald Trump had won enough electoral votes to take the election. Over the course of the week, when it became clear that Hillary Clinton had won the majority of votes cast, a sense that the presidency had been stolen was born among left-leaning voters. On that first day in a post-Trump win, however, I wasn't thinking of that. I was roiling with confusion as to how my fellow Americans could believe that a vote for Trump would be in anyone's best interest and struggling with a sense of grief as to what this would mean for the next 4 years to come.

It turns out that there are many Americans who do not place themselves into the shoes of the people who struggle to make a living for themselves and their families. A more forgiving interpretation might be that many Americans were not convinced that a Clinton presidency would provide the security that a Trump one would, though I have always questioned with how much veracity the people claiming this truly believe it to have. I had also underestimated the power with which then-director of the FBI James Comey's "October Surprise" (that is, his announcement that the FBI had "learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation [Clinton's handling of sensitive information that pertained to Benghazi, which had Trump rallying his supporters to chant "lock her up" in reference to Hillary Clinton].") would have in the minds of voters.

Perhaps more importantly, I had ignored how deeply unpopular Hillary Clinton was as a political figure. I had several friends and family members with whom I had talked about the presidential candidates, among whom many had expressed a dislike for Clinton whether or not they saw Donald Trump as a good alternative. That sentiment was widespread across the United States: In a 2016 Gallup poll ending the week of November 6, Hillary Clinton's favorability rating was 40% to Trump's 35%, while their unfavorability ratings were 52% and 61% respectively ("Trump and Clinton Finish With Historically Poor Images" on Gallup's news webpage). Stuck between a Democratic candidate from an established political family facing yet another scandal and a Republican one that preached the need for undoing all the policies of the past eight years, many voters chose the one they felt was at least better than the other candidate or, in many cases, didn't show up to the polls at all.

We know now that there was foreign interference in the 2016 US presidential election. It showed up in divisive memes online that hardened people's political stances and disrupted conversations that the right and left were having, polarizing our communities. It showed up in the discouragements of people, such as those in key swing states and BIPOC, to vote by convincing people that voting for officials never changed anything. It showed up in the access that Russian actors gained to voter registration and personal information in some circumstances. And it was Russian hacking of the Clinton campaign that lead to the leaking of tens of thousands of e-mails to WikiLeaks that would later become the October Surprise that James Comey would unleash near the Election Day of 2016. Much of this worked in Trump's favor to win the election.

Today, every news caster, website, or pundit that talks about poll numbers includes a disclaimer to the effect that "polls are not infallible" and stresses that "although the poll numbers are in Biden's favor, there is still a path for Trump to victory in this race." Behind these disclaimers are the memory of the 2016 presidential election. YouTube channel TLDR News US, which has reported on US national issues since June 2019, has made this a topic for more than one video on their channel. Their two videos "Can You Trust Polling Data? Is Biden Really Set to Win the Presidency" from August 11, 2020 and "If Polls Were Wrong in 2016, Can We Trust Them in 2020? Why Polls are More Reliable" from October 28, 2020 have been viewed for a total of 185,085 views as of November 2, 2020, with the majority of those views (specifically, 143, 683 of them) accounted for in the last 5 days for that latter video. Having watched these videos to help myself understand the reliability of the polls, I know first-hand how the anxiety of the election results drives people like me to search out information like this.

As we go into Election Day, this anxiety comes with me. While our election results will likely not be fully accounted for until all ballots can be counted, something that is unlikely to happen until later in November due to the record number of voters casting their ballots early through mail-in ballots and early voting events to avoid crowding the polls on Election Day and/or avoid the long lines typical of the day. While there is evidence that Trump has already decided to declare himself the victor on Election Night if the initial numbers look to be in his favor, polls are showing that Biden still has a lead in most states and could potentially deliver a crushing defeat through the electoral college...while also showing potential outcomes where Trump wins enough electoral votes to secure a second term of his presidency.

Tonight, I have more hope for the chances of a Biden presidency with the guidance of Kamala Harris than I do fear that Donald Trump will win the presidency again. What frightens me is that the fear that is there is so much heavier than the hope. It is not without recognition of the fact that any presidency will be flawed with overseas policy that aims to undermine the self-determination of people or acknowledgement of the fact that the presidency can only mean so much when the rest of the government is at odds with it that I watch this election with dreadful anticipation.

Only time will tell if the polls this election cycle are just as misguided as the 2016 election polls were, and whether I am hopeful or despondent about the path that the White House will take for the next four years. Time that has passed so slowly and yet come all too quickly.

#election day 2020 #us politics #2020 election #political #musings #rants

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hcmj · 6 years

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HCMJ’s Favorite Albums of 2017!

Listen to a mix featuring these albums here: HCMJ’s 2017 End Of Year Mix

Honorable Mentions:

Carla dal Forno - The Garden

GFOTY - GFOTYBUCKS

ミスト M Y S T - 緑の目

Nmesh - Pharma

Black Marble - It’s Immaterial

Leyland Kirby - We, so tired of all the darkness in our lives

世界は80年代に終了しました - People Lead Such Busy Lives

Virtual Vice - Sanctuary Runner

Golden Living Room - Autoscopy

DESIRE - STAQQ OVERFLO

20) World War - Soundsystem

Distorted Redrum rhythms dripping with gabbery, housey, bounceable goodness. Every moment is more relentless than the last, with strange electronic and sometimes nightmarish sound elements effortlessly woven into the complicated crescendos that comprise each track.

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19) Curved Light - Quartzsite

It’s rare to find a synth album that isn’t endlessly droning or cheekily nostalgic. Quartzsite utilizes slow-attack expansive pads alongside stabby knob turners without falling into the tropes that have been turned over time and time again over the last decade. Subtle but fast tempo percussive elements ticking beneath pure white pads and icy synthfalls of pure crystal.

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18) Geo Metro - Ravage2099

Fellow Philadelphia artist Geo Metro dropped this dense debut on Tiger Blood Tapes earlier this year. His shows are always foggy headthumpers with mind melting realtime sampling, deep drones, dancing rhythmic enigmas and astral melodies. None of this was lost in translation to magnetic tape, the bubbling pulse of beyond - a spiritual guide.

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17) Disasteradio - Sweatshop

Another incredible performance I was fortunate to witness this year was Eyeliner AKA Disasteradio. His on stage MIDI splicing with its gravity-increasing, vocoded, show-stopping finale was exhilarating and inspiring. All of that energy, bombast, and humor can be found on Sweatshop. There’s also a high level of musicianship - touching upon 90′s FM video game music, new wave DEVO synthpop, and moments like “Unleash The Free TV Revolt” which echo Daft Punk vocoder jams. Playful and reflective of what childhood in the early 90′s actually felt like.

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16) x.y.r. - Labyrinth

x.y.r. could keep putting albums out like this every year until I die and I would still count them among my favorites. No one does lo-fi synth music the way he does - his unique musical character pulses and wanders in this fuzzy maze.

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15) Computer Graphics - Lo-Fi

This collection of hazy house jams was a lens back through time. Flashbacks of downloading strange electronic artists off LimeWire in the early 00′s, sinking endless frustrated hours into PixelJunk Eden, and now dancing around my house with Computer Graphics bumping. It’s just as dreamy and hypnotic as you’d hope.

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14) Nico Niquo - In A Silent Way

Taking a step away from the “darkwebwave” of 2015′s Epitaph, Nico Niquo explores more expansive snow plains on In A Silent Way. Gone are the stabbing vocal samples an occasional swirling rhythmic patterning - in their place is Eno-esque slow burners with that rise and fall like the breaths of a sleeping frost giant against moments of purity and silence.

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13) Arca - Arca

Arca’s 3rd full length is thick and operatic. Like haunted ballroom music with a broken falsetto whispering in your ear, being engulfed in underwater explosions, or watching the credits roll on your own life. It’s sometimes oppressively stark, sometimes intimately vulnerable, and always entrancing. I was initially pulled in by the video premiere for the masterpiece “Desafio.”

VIDEO STREAM

12) Nyoi Plunger - Poiret Status

Playful and full of detail, twisted and bent as it’s pulled into a black hole and spit out again. Poiret Status is always teetering on the edge of a nightmare. Strange voices laugh and coo, like being trapped in a realm ruled by the manifestation of fear, or a dance hall where your very physicality is distorted, warped, and twisted as time becomes unhinged and there’s nothing left to hold onto.

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11) The Caretaker - Everywhere at the end of time - Stages 2 & 3

Discovering Leyland Kirby’s work was a turning point in my life. Over the last decade release after release of both haunted ballroom music as The Caretaker and reflective synth/piano music as himself have becomes markers for the years of my life. This year we received the next two stages of the dementia simulation of Everywhere at the end of time. The flowers have wilted, and the darkening mind is displayed with a poignant beauty.

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10) TVVIN_PINEZ_M4LL - orz

More than half a decade after the wave rose and fell, torch bearers continue to twist the pop of the past to express new ideas and add their emotional mark to the blockchain of internet music. In the case of the prolific TVVIN_PINEZ_M4LL, orz uses vaporwave techniques and traditions as a framework for an emotionally radiant, deeply personal love story. Bursting with raw emotion and feelings of NUWRLD.

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09) Various - Even Further

It feels weird putting a remix compilation on one of these lists, but the Zoom Lens label tribute to Infinity Shred is one of those rare moments when a compilation isn’t just a total mishmash of whatever happened to be thrown into the pot. A fitting showcase of the LA label’s diverse palette of sound, from Berserk ost aping to widescreen chiptune bliss - heavy beats and the brightest black leather darkness that is worthy of Infinity Shred’s cinematic scope.

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08) FIRE-TOOLZ - INTERBEING

Metal-screeches in empty halls drip over post-eccojam synth operas, spastic crystalline outbursts, and high-tempo-high-energy half pipe spaceship rides with broken bits of sound and a cyberpunk sheen. Songs completely split open with massive bombardments of noise and an endless layering of digital artifacts. A labyrinth of glitched out modernity.

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07) Koeosaeme - Sonorant

Fast and full of neck-breaking spins, Sonorant alongside Nyoi Plunger’s Poiret Status were two of the most forward-looking albums I heard this year. With the endless tiny pattering of a billion bits of music playing up against unnatural arrangements of bizarre rhythmic breaks and supernatural harmony. Part sound sculpture part audio apocalypse.

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06) Piper Spray - r.i.p.

When pieces of you die and slowly fall away, they leave a trail of memories in their wake. Piper Spray, one of my favorite artists of the last decade, has been prolific and mysterious - even elusive. His entire body of work has since been deleted from his bandcamp and only this retrospective release that looks back at the last 7 years of his output and life in 6 tracks remains. Full of noise, pain, frustration - with a touch of sorrow and sweetness we are given once last glimpse into the nostalgia for a place we’ve never known. His music has been my constant companion on my own personal journey these last 7 years. RIP Piper Spray.

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05) Euglossine - Sharp Time

It wasn’t until I was lucky enough to play a show with Stany Bebe AKA Euglossine that I discovered to my amazement that the majority of the sounds on this album were performed on MIDI guitar. The sound blips and pan flutes expressed with metronomic precision on a real guitar having its note data interpreted by a MIDI conversion box. Mind blowing musicianship and sprawling melodic composition.

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04) Giant Claw - Soft Channel

I couldn’t stop listening to Soft Channel this year! The culmination of everything that has come before and a wide leap into the future. Orchestral fragmentation in a thick rainbow of sound that breathes and pulses - the sound design is mind blowing, frantic and brilliantly produced. It’s a crisp and meticulously designed new height.

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03) Marcus Fjellström - Skelektikon

It’s hard to believe it’s been 7 years since Marcus Fjellström’s Schattenspieler was listed as my favorite album of 2010 (on the inaugural annotated list!). Now, all these years later, we were finally treated with a proper followup - and tragically lost Fjellström himself. Skelektikon is a remarkable swansong, picking up where Schattenspieler left off - diving deeper into the anxiety ridden halls of darkness. Larger orchestral arrangements pop up, tape flutter constantly threatening to snap the dread to a sudden end. There’s is a sometimes darkly romantic turn to its harmonic movements however - a humanizing touch that makes the ghosts that much more terrifying.

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02) Sour Gout - I S O L A T E

It doesn’t matter how you get there, only how good the ideas are. I S O L A T E may be built out of a collection of new age and incidental music samples, but its collages give a sense of a deep personal expression. Saccharin guitar, C418-esque piano phrases, and blankets of emotional vulnerability eventually fall into the uneasy loneliness of the 15 minute title track. The empty soul that was once full, bordering on brooding but very soft to lay in. I found myself keeping this one on loop for hours at a time.

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01) Machine Girl - ...BECAUSE I’M YOUNG ARROGANT AND HATE EVERYTHING YOU STAND FOR

Machine Girl puts on a really incredible/brutal show - and the recorded version of that experience loses none of the warped maelstrom of sound that makes them so viscerally intense. Heavy industrial punk with face smashing breakdowns peppering every track - like moments of floating in violence as you’re torn apart by passing gravity wells. Disillusioned anger with the musical chops and temperament of someone who grew up listening to Phantasy Star Online music - it was my favorite album of 2017!

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chaosflight · 6 years

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nightmare log 1

okay so i’m going to start logging these fucking nightmares

tw: violence mention ghost mention blood mention death mention

from what i can remember, it started off like any of the other bizarre dreams i’ve had this past week and a half, kinda hazy and kinda trying to tell a story, but mostly in a way that was all supposed to be subtext if it were a film. it’s divided kinda into five parts, the first being the longest

the first part was the most coherent. it was almost like it was based off my favorite older film, the ghost and mrs. muir, where there was a lady who was alive and a fella who was not, except it was a trick. they were both dead, ghosts to each other, repeating their lives over and over with these sorts of hints at each other. the actual dream (i guess all that information was subtext) starts as she’s seeking him out in all the places she’s met him. i guess that those things are always consistent? and their memories of each other always remain, no matter how many times they relive their already over lives. she looks for him in her room, by the treeline, in the garden, and lastly by the fire pit.

the first time she does this, she only sees charcoal sketchy shadows of him, and can’t interact. the second time, she does interact with him, but something is changed, somehow. she spoke to him, but he didn’t interact with her at all, like he was ignoring her. She saw him from her bedroom in the fire pit, and went out to meet him since he wasn’t in the room, but he ran away from her by the trees, and in the garden, he was entertaining guests and couldn’t respond in his timeline. so she had this small soliloquy that was supposed to be for him, about how she loves him so much, “like the wood in this pit, i want to be consumed. but then the fire sets in, and the burns are too great” and then one more line, but she cut out. i couldn’t hear her, because somehow she was now a charchoal ghost too, and we were at the fire pit instead of the garden, and she burned up and disappeared.

then it flips over to him being the one ‘alive’, and he sees her from his bedroom by the fire, chases her immediately down to the garden, where the party is going, but all his guests are half ghosty and half there, so he ignores them. She asks him to follow, i think? and then suddenly they’re at the fire pit, and she’s a charcoal ghost burning in long forgotten embers, and the guy hears her message, but again the only thing i can hear is those two lines, and then she’s cut off. but, instead of disappearing, he steps into the fire with her, and says something like, ‘let us burn together, then’, and then they both become ghosts squared??? it’s implied that they died, again, or that perhaps their actual deaths were suicide by ghost or something.

they turn into human outlines, holding eac h other’s hands, neither one in any way distinguishable from the other, and fly away down a street. this is the end of part one.

the dream then takes a wild turn into some kinda commentary on goofy? where goofy and his son are ghosts, and he’s kinda teaching his son about his history, but idk enough about it for it to be a factually realistic dream, so it very quickly veers into the third part:

we’re in our garage and we somehow had to fight for the legal ownership of the content of our garage? like our stuff had all been there so long that the government somehow was allowed to possess it. it’s worth noting that while the garage is implied to be the same one as the house we live in now, it starts out as actually the SIZE of the house in the dream. there’s a lot of shit in there. it’s also implied that i’m closer to my thirties, maybe even exactly ten years older, and it’s been a hot second since we’ve seen any of this stuff and it’s apparently really important.

anyway, we’ve got literal construction equipment in the garage (bc it’s grown) to pull our shit down from these massive piles they’ve developed into, and as we move things we start discovering stuff, and this part goes pretty par for the course as far as growing architecture and mountains of petty trash being sorted can go.

we’re halfway through when we discover my section. there’s tvs and cameras. oh my god, so many cameras. i take so long reminiscing over them all that the rest of my family goes to lunch, i guess? i’m alone, anyway, and the garage is somehow smaller again, but still pretty fucking huge. There’s this one. this one camera, that seems important, but i can’t remember how, but i want to go show mom and dad this particular one, maybe bc it’s the first? my first video camera? and as i’m walking back to show them, be all like ‘hey lookit this fucking relic lol’ i’m looking at the memory. there’s nothing on it, which is weird bc i never delete shit. that’s a real life thing, i just do not delete things. so i figured, hey, maybe it’s broken, so i open it up, turn the camera and the view finder around so i can selfie but see myself, and FUCKING SLENDERMAN IS IN MY CAMERA

i turn around, and he’s right there. i fucking bolt. he was putting out some FUCK OFF vibes. i’m running further into the garage though, instead of into the house like i wanted in the first place, and that’s where it changes again?

this fourth part features a co-worker of mine, who i like to call mike wazowski, bc his first name is mike. and it’s like a goddamn rick and morty scenario, where i’m morty and he’s rick, and we’re being brought before an alternate universe xenomorph queen that’s being held captive/protected by some unnamed government agency. except the queen is male? somehow thats important, except it’s literally never important again. anyway, he’s enormous. imagine the scale of a regular xenomorph to a standard queen, and that’s the scale of a regular queen to this AU queen. he’s big.

we’re in handcuffs, and i’m kind of unresponsive. my mind is not in my bod. i watch the whole sequence from very far away in this big white room where it’s all taking place. the people who’ve got us captured/escorting us present the queen with another xenomorph, . wait, no, there was a big buff angry lady first, who was yelling at us for upsetting the queen, and then pompously strode forward to apologize for this awful thing we did, and he fucking killed her and ate her. he used one giant gross finger to impale her and then he ate her. it was horrifiying, even from my fortunate distance.

THEN the rest of the guys present the queen with another xenomorph, which he then similarly eats, although more like a spider eats stuff. he shot out his secondary mouth, and it clamped onto the other xeno’s back, and it shrivelled up and. yeah. while he’s doing that, he’s telepathically scolding us for ‘dealing with such a blight’. and mike’s like ‘yeah, great going christina’, even though i’m fuckin catatonic. i think he knew i could still hear him?? idk.

the queen then continues to explain that we’ve opened some something, and that this Greatere Monster is now going to do it’s very best to fucking wreck our whole dimension, which apparently includes several universes? i’m not sure that’s how string theory works but queeny mcmurder seemed pretty fucking sure. and then the dream switches.

this is part five. it’s the worst, for me, personally.

it starts with what’s obviously a recording, but i’m viewing it like I AM the camera, but i’m also IN the recording. and me and these people are walking around a little kids playground. everything is normal except this one installation. it’s a big, pointy, metal mess of barely recognizable imagery. it’s like if slendy and a xeno had a baby, and it’s skeleton was shifting through three different planes and someone took a photo and then lovingly rendered it in cast iron for all to play with.

it was so weird. it was so alive, even as a statue. i walked through it, around it, we all did, and it was so eerie. it was a thing that Should Not Exist. it seemed like it could come alive at any moment and just. destroy everything.

and then suddenly i wasn’t in the recording, and i wasn’t a camera anymore, and i was. trapped. inside it’s body. the same skeletal, misshapen metal abomination was holding me, gently, but also not at all. like it didn’t want to break me, but it would not let me leave. i cried, so much. i’d been there so long. there was no light, only touch, and the only thing there was to touch was horror itself. i wasn’t on earth, or in space, and space didn’t seem to matter. neither did time, except that it just kept happening, the same insufferable moment happening forever, like a scream that never dies.

the thing spoke to me. it’s voice was impossible to describe. it was grating like tin or steel, but it was also soft and smooth, whispery. it seemed to be deafening, but it was also like a sigh. i felt so many mouths against my face and shoulders as it spoke to me. not all of them were human or even animalistic as anything i could name on earth. i got impressions of what it was trying to tell me, but i didn’t know exactly what it wanted, except for me to stay there, forever in that impossible moment.

sometimes there would be these.. animals? that would come near, when the thing slept. it turned back into metal, and i was trapped in it’s frozen body, trying to wiggle out. they were like rabbits, kind of hunched over and they moved haltingly. they talked, and i could tell what they were saying. they whispered, so jealously, ‘you’re living our dream’ over and over, ‘what you’re experiencing would be paradise to us!’ and then they would bite at my fingers and make them bleed, but the damage never lasted, i always healed from whatever they did to me, only the THING could really hurt me.

and if it woke up when they were there, it would tear them apart, and i’d get drenched in their blood and their screams would get trapped in my head. they were so happy to die by this awful thing that wouldn’t let me go.

towards the end of the dream, what really felt like decades of being in that unseeing place, i was trying to hold together some hope i’d get out, and i remembered. i remembered i love to sing, and that i always believed that singing could scare away wicked things, or at least make me feel better. so, still bawling because i was so fucking terrified, i tried to sing.

and then i woke up. not all the way. but i was definitely away that i was in my bed, and so, so stiff. like i hadn’t moved all night. one leg under the cover, one leg out, and face down in the pillow, just like i like it. i mentally recapped everything that happened in the dream to the best of my ability, and i feel like i’ve got an accurate summation of everything. it doesn’t capture the feelings, though. the ghost story was wistful and sad, the goofy bit was supposed to be a continuation of that sense of.. losing out on something, the garage part was the spooky preamble to the paralyzingly terrifying fifth part, and the fourth part was... just really ominous.

the weirdest part to me is how stiff i am all over, but i somehow managed to get my leg out of my enormous comforter, and how my hair is super fucked up, even though, again, i was incredibly still all night. i’m probably just scaring myself at this point, but it did freak me out.

so some real life things to mention: i’ve been asking for a video camera for christmas bc i want to start a video diary, and my phone is just. unreliable.

mike is usually a pretty snarky guy, and we closed the store together last night, so that’s probably why he made an appearance.

i stayed up super late last night recording stuff, and it was super dark and super quiet by then, so i was kind of freaking myself out before i went to bed anyway.

i did not have any wine or sleep aid last night, so my parents telling me it’s one or both of those things, HA!! i also didn’t eat anything when i came home, so it’s not that either.

i love slender man stories and the aliens franchise a lot, but i’ve never really been super scared of them before.

okay, that’s it.

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