#reminder to you gun fetishists

[thedevilscarnival]

Karin for the character ask game :)

yesssss thank you >:3

This thing got really, really long, so her character analysis will go under a cut. F&H's writing is just that good LMAO

Sooo, Miss Sauer... She's quite the gal, isn't she? I adore her, really. You take a person who sees so much injustice in the world and wants to do something about it, but, due to her upbringing and the fact she hasn't truly experienced hardship in her life... (yes she was kidnapped, but she had a relatively normal childhood despite The Dread of being raised on ransom) She does. Not know how things work. At all. Karin's the type of girl to chastise the powers that be and then use said powers to her advantage when they benefit her and not realize that's what she's doing. Her civilians arrest dialogue where she says she'll relish in the player being sent to Bohemia's notoriously inhumane prisons sticks out to me a LOT.

But she genuinely loves people. She loves people so fucking much and puts herself through absolute hell to "save" them. Unfortunately, she's gotta put people into boxes of "deserving" and "not deserving" or she'll go god damn insane. So she's biased, people fall through the cracks, and despite it being her worst fear there is a reason journalists like her are called "vultures".

Anyway, rant aside, ships. I enjoy Karin/Olivia because Karin needs to be dominated by someone she initially thought she'd need to protect. Go have your worldview shattered by the freaky gun fetishist who has terrible bdsm etiquette and masquerades as a Normal Girl to hide her pent up envious rage of her sister. Karin/Levi also appeals to me, but more in a way where they'd REALLY enable each other but not realize that's what's happening. Levi'd 100% fall into her Valkyrie complex and I love examining when characters go wonky.

I don't care for Daarin though. It can be good (and I've seen it be very good! Ao3 user Bobsledhostage's fic "Remaining Routine" is an excellent example of how that type of mutual spite-filled codependency can work), but a combination of it being... so common, and Karin's genuine hatred of Daan being flattened down to a "haha the wife hates her husband isn't it funny???" type beat has left me soured on it. But this game has phenomenal writing and literally every single character dynamic has potential so its a very minor, and very fandom heavy misgiving.

I'll die on my hill that Karin's not a natural blonde. It makes insane amounts of thematic sense for her character and is one of the few ways I'll be interested by Daarin, with Daan once again gravitating to a brash, black haired woman who steps all over his boundaries.

Let's see, let's see... Fanfictions... Well. I am. currently, in the process of writing a Karin/Olivia sm*t fic, but that's been on the backburner for a couple of. Months. By this point. But know it does exist. And it is emotional.

She's loud bird to me. If she were a Pokémon she'd be a yellow Squawkabilly, or perhaps a Mandibuzz if I wanted to be really evil.

I believe that's it. I love Karin a lot. I really, really do. She's an amazing character from an amazing game who reminds me so much of myself when i was 14 it's physically painful.

I hope she finds more empathy in the world.

#fear and hunger #fear and hunger termina #karin #karin sauer #karin fear and hunger #character analysis #ask meme #korro.response #rubsjuice

[beesofink]

Buddy they ain't real, calm tf down

If you don't wanna see that shit just block the tag

Listen, maybe you mean well, but the "They aren't real" advice is HORRIBLE.

Yes. They are fictional. But that doesn't mean it isn't problematic. Fiction is influenced by reality, and more often than not fiction can influence reality. Let me use an example. However, a major trigger warning for H@zbin H0tel, and mentions of r@pe. I'm not saying Ribbun is r@pey, but those two things are still mentioned in this.

Let's say that a victim of abuse watches something. And that material winds up glorifying the abuse they go through. This would reinforce that what they're going through is "okay" and "normal", and could also retraumatize them if they got out of that relationship. And before anyone says "but shouldn't they know?"

1. A victim is usually taught that what they're going through is "normal" and shouldn't be questioned.

2. "Shouldn't they know?" Unintentionally or not, is victim blaming. The fault is always on the abuser, not the victim.

Let me use a popular animated example of this: Valentino from Hazbin Hotel.

I wish I never had to mention him, but this is important. For anyone who doesn't know, he is a r@pist who abuses Angel Dust. While it could've been WONDERFUL representation of abuse in the adult industry, it is often:

- Sexualized and shown without warning (A r@pe fetishist storyboarded the scene and Vivziepop, who fetishes r@pe herself as seen on her old Zoophobia channel if you look at the playlists wrote it).

- Joked about it in a horrible manner (Vivziepop made the "the visuals the ¢ums with it" joke when advertising "Poison", a song about being r@ped. Also while this is a different character, Sir Pentious was dragged into a room to get r@ped, while he was drunk and crying out for help. As you'd expect from Vivzie, she made this a joke.)

Those are only 2 of the MANY things that are done wrong in Hazbin Hotel. I won't go into a full on rant on how terribly it's done, since:

1. It's been talked about a lot on Twitter already.

2. This is about Ribbun and the glorification of abuse, not Hazbin Hotel.

The reason I bring up Hazbin Hotel for this is because it led to a lot of victims being retraumatized and horrified. While yes, some were fine with it, Vivziepop not putting in a warning was atrocious of her. And even if there was a warning, it was still executed in an awful and disgusting way.

If you want links for proof, I'll be happy to provide them.

So what I'm saying is, even if it *is* fictional, it can cause issues, such as normalization of abuse in one's mind or retraumatizing someone. Ribbun would be one of those ships, because Jax pulls things at Gangle's expense, and like I said in my original post on this, even pulls a gun on her at one point. It would NOT be a healthy relationship, and therefore shouldn't be treated as one. I'm not saying "never write these relationships", I'm saying "if you're going to write a relationship like this, do so in a manner that properly shows why it's bad and how it hurts the victim." And before anyone else says "But what about enemies to lovers?", it is still shipping a relationship that in the original and is therefore inherently, abusive.

However, you are right about the tag thing. I don't know why I didn't think about it at first. Though there is a chance I have, and my memory is just fuzzy. Either way, thank you for the reminder on that.

#tw hazbin hotel #important #tdac #the amazing digital circus #tw rape #rape #tw abuse #abuse #glorified abuse #glorified abuse tw #gangle #jax #tadc gangle #tadc jax #tadc

[mercurryblack]

Chapter 7: Lillian

The team gets ready for their respective dates... or lack thereof.

❃❃❃

“Ugh. We get a night off, and I’m stuck with an essay.”

Though the crime scene investigation had been a drag, in Cait’s opinion, their current situation sucked even more. They hungered for something exciting to happen— hell, a pissed-off Onikuma could crash through their door right then and there, and it would be a pleasant reprieve from the drudgery of a Grimm Studies report. Fighting was always preferable over writing.

Who cared about the variations in Grimm anatomy and physiology based on their habitat, anyway? One looked like an elephant, one looked like a wooly mammoth.

Either way, Cait had set themselves up for a boring night in, and was left silent and grouchy.

“How are you guys planning to spend your day-offs?” Hattie asked the Armilde twins as she slumped back against her pillow. Her small tophat remained firmly on her head, still lopsided.

Silently, Cait tried and failed to recount the last time they’d ever seen her without it.

“I have a charity event to go to,” Amaryllis replied, adjusting a clip-on silver earring onto her right earlobe.

“Oooh, that sounds exciting!” Hattie said, sitting up. “Can I come? Can I come?” 

“Sure! More people there means more funds for the cause. Plus, it’s public, so everyone in Mistral’s pretty much automatically invited.” Amaryllis paused, looking at her Scroll. “…You do still have that nice blue dress of yours from the dance, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” Hattie replied.

Amaryllis nodded. “You might want to consider throwing that on, since it’s a kinda formal event, but otherwise you’re welcome to tag along.”

“Yay!” Hattie squealed, clapping her hands. “Thank you, Ammy! You going with anyone else?”

“Hector Wulfric. The event’s organized by his family, actually.” Amaryllis answered. A smile crept onto her face while she planned how she was going to spend the evening with her boyfriend. 

“Oh.” Hattie said, immediately deflating. “In that case, never mind. I don’t wanna play third wheel.” She took a seat again on the end of her bed. “How about Lilly? What’s she gonna do tonight?”

Lillian wasn’t there to answer. She’d been in the bathroom for a good half hour, brushing her teeth to a complete and almost blinding white.

“She’s going on a date with… what was it, sweet guns? No, wait, she called her tha— Oh, I remember. Sweet buns.” Amaryllis recounted, barely stifling a giggle.

“Who now? Is she that same girl Lillian mentioned yesterday?” Hattie asked in the same moment as Lillian emerged from the bathroom.

“Hush, you.” Lillian said, having overheard them. “For the millionth time, Am, her name is Rosario— and yes, Hattie, she’s the same one I mentioned last night.” She explained.

“Remind me how it went, again? Was it, ‘I got a couple of “sweet buns” right here, and they’ve already got your name on ‘em.’” Amaryllis put her hands firmly on her rear and swung her butt in a circle. She wiggled repetitively, mocking a tease she had observed from Rosario.

Lillian turned to give Amaryllis an especially evil glare. “You know what, Am? You’re a pain in my ass.”

“Yeah, okay.” Amaryllis adopted a placating tone, though the mischievous glint in her eye remained. “But am I a pain in your sweet bu—?” She began, continuing her gluteal choreography.

With a snarl, Lillian grabbed one of Amaryllis’ good leather boots from the floor and hurled it at her sister. It collided with the top of the redhead’s cranium, and she let out a strangled yelp.

“Ow, ow, ow...” Rubbing the top of her head, Amaryllis snapped back, “I swear to god, Lilly, if you messed up my hair…”

Hattie giggled in the background, though she lacked context on exactly what Amaryllis was making fun about— something about sweet buns, but that was all she could make out. Her stomach growled at the thought of the tasty pastry.

“Okay, okay, it’s time to stop. Both of you had your laughs.” Lillian said, as she grabbed her drawstring bag and threw it over her shoulder. “And sorry, Hattie, but I got no extra room tonight. As roaringly as I think you two would get along, I think it’s about time I spend some alone time with my girlfriend.” She coughed.

“Mmm.” Hattie mumbled in response. Though downtrodden by the absence of her teammates for the night, she knew that it was neither of their responsibilities to take her along with them— after all, they still had their private lives. “…Lillian?”

“Yes?” Lillian asked, straightening her cropped hoodie around her midriff.

“Your girlfriend’s the same one with the pastry shop, isn’t she?” Hattie asked.

“Same one.”

Hattie puffed her lips out. “Will you bring back some pastries when you’re done with your date, pleeeease?”

“Sure, I think that could be arranged.” Lillian laughed. “Okay, I should be on my way by now— I don’t want to keep Rosa waiting.”

Amaryllis “I’m going as well— I’ve still got to pick up my dress.” She turned to Hattie and Cait for a moment. “Oh, and you two eat some dinner later, okay? Hattie, if you really have nothing else to do, it’d be really nice of you to help Cait finish their paper. Afterward, maybe you two can come down to the charity ball.” She said invitingly.

Hattie’s eyes lit up again. “Hey, maybe we could! What do you think, Cait?”

Cait didn’t make any effort to face the twins, instead opting to wave a hand to them while facing the window. “Yeah.” They replied listlessly.

“…Okay then. We’ll see you later.” With that, Lillian and Amaryllis turned and exited the dorm room.

***

As Amaryllis and Lillian walked through Haven’s low-lit and empty dormitory halls, they continued to talk about each other’s plans for the evening.

“So... where are you taking Rosario?” Amaryllis inquired in an innocent tone.

“We’re heading down to the cliffs. I heard there are some nice spots over there for a late picnic.” Lillian answered flatly, looking straight ahead without breaking her stride.

“Cliffs. How very romantic.” Amaryllis drawled.

“Yeah, yeah. How about you and Hector, got anything hot and heavy planned for tonight? I heard something about you picking up a dress. I smell something fishy here.” Lillian turned to face Amaryllis, wiggling an eyebrow.

“Ew, don’t even go there. This outfit is for tonight’s event, and tonight’s event only. I’ll change clothes after I go to the salon to get my hair and face done up, and I gotta hit that first since it’s already getting pretty late.” Amaryllis hesitated. “And as far as I know, the only thing that’ll be getting hot tonight is my face from nervousness. Hector said his dad’s going to be there, and he wants me to meet him.”

“Heh. I know the feeling.” Lillian chuckled.

She knew full well that her sister had never met Hector’s family before— both her and the Wulfric lad had seemed secretive about the whole relationship, though they had been dating for well over a year by now. She also was versed in the experience of having to meet a special someone’s family for the first time, and a sweaty face didn’t even start to describe it.

Honestly, it felt more like a jolt of terror up the spine, followed by the sensation of one’s stomach falling right into their feet.

“Don’t worry, Am. They’ll love you.” Lillian reassured her sister. Smirking, she continued, “Just don’t tell them that the reason their beloved son is head-over-heels for you is because of those lumps of fat glued to the front of your ribcage.”

Amaryllis flushed red, crossing her arms over her chest. “Oh, shut up. I’ll have you know that Hector loves all the fat in my body, regardless of its exact location.”

“Yeah?” Lillian retorted. “Tell that to the two loves of his life: peanut butter and jelly.” She teased as she pointed her thumb at Amaryllis’ chest. “…Or was it butter, and I can’t believe it’s not butter?”

“Please. His nicknames for my breasts are much more creative than that.” Amaryllis countered.

A pause.

“So you admit that he has nicknames for them, huh?”

Blushing a brighter shade of red, Amaryllis huffed and walked as fast as she could, overtaking Lillian. She was becoming increasingly annoyed with her sister, not because of what she was saying, but because she had no good retorts up her sleeve to retaliate with.

“Bye, sis. Have fun with your boob fetishist of a boyfriend.” Lillian waved, a guileless smirk plastered on her face.

“You have a nice date too… sweet buns fetishist!” For one last time, Amaryllis turned around to face Lillian and performed the corresponding taunt.

Turning around, she nearly walked right into a green-haired, pink-eyed girl with a toothbrush sticking out of her mouth, who had obviously been witness to her previous action. Unmoving, she apparently appeared to still be processing it.

After a moment’s pause, the girl blinked, snorted a small laugh and grinned. “Yeah, Sweet buns, all right.” She cracked, holding the toothbrush out of her mouth to speak.

Hiding her face with her arm from embarrassment, Amaryllis ran past the girl and out the entrance of the dormitory. Lillian and the girl watched with amusement as she fled.

“Hey.” The girl said, turning back to face Lillian.

“Hey.” Lillian replied, sparing a second’s eye contact as she walked past. She vaguely recognized her as one of the first-years.

With that brief acknowledgement, they both continued on their separate ways, in opposite directions along the hall.

#team llac #team llac fic #cait miya #harriet lazuli #amaryllis armilde #lillian armilde #team npir #nanako amaranth #neopoliitan #fanfic #fan fiction #rwby fan fiction #rwby oc #rwbyoc #rwby

[migleefulmoments]

"Hahaha. A friend pointed this out. W online shops too!" What does this even mean?! I don't know anyone in 2020 who doesn't online shop besides my 80 year old grandparents because they refuse to learn how to use a computer 😂 I don't get how Will, a 30 something year old man, online shopping is worthy enough for Abby to comment on it. I'm sure Chris does it too. And Darren.

On Nov 5, Darren wrote this post and the cc fandom lost their shit.    

They decided that organizing 10 costumes for multiple events in two different states for two different people was not worthy of acknowledgment- especially since they wore several purchased costumes. They spent the next 30-ish days mocking her “online shopping skills” like the petty idiots they are and now they bring it up two months later. 

Anonymous asked: this is funny, C posted a photo of beard, D posted photos with the beard. Almost like they were sitting next to each other and saying “ok ok I will say this”

ajw720 answered: The only difference, C controls his SM and the bearding, D does not, but they knew the Halloween post was coming when C posted his belated b-day wishes (not that he acknowledged they were late).  

It really is, if you can remove the very human, tragic element, like a script for a really bad D Movie.  C posts “Happy Birthday, Babe!” a day after the man’s actual b-day and “D” praises his fake bride for MAKING TEN costumes.  Sure praise her if she actually designed them and sat with her sewing machine.  No, she went online and ordered things (I doubt she even went to a store).   And 3 couple costumes were cheap frankly.  The only thought was how narcissistic she could be in their execution (as @flowersintheattic254pointed out even the Mario costume had  a reason, it was a reminder of Japan and the fake encagement by referring to the ad that paid for their trip there).

And seriously how are people not questioning that she spent the entirety of her month picking TEN costumes?  Who has time for this?  I know, i know, a person whose only role in life is to play fake plus one.

I am just so tired by D in particular being utterly dragged down by the useless dead weight by his side and his team’s sole ambition to promote her and make her sound like a decent person.  

If they wanted to praise her, maybe they should have forced her to participate in the zero waste initiative instead of sitting drinking by the pool or have her volunteer to help young girls who have been kicked out of their homes, or have been raped.  Or pick any cause and truly volunteer her time to promote it.  If she is not going to actually get a job and pursue a career, please force her to do something that is actually of value and contribute something good to the world. But to praise her for picking TEN costumes?  

Praise that comes from a man who this year alone won three awards, is starring in a show he created and wrote the music for, has his first big movie premiere this week, is exec producer and star of a huge show on N/etflix, just announced his starring role with 2 A++ lists actors next spring on Broadway, celebrated the 5th anniversary of the festival he created, volunteered his time for the zero waste initiative, performed at several charity events, and was just yesterday name limited series actor of the decade.  Where is the praise for him from his “bride”?  He at least deserves it.

How do they not see how ridiculous it is for someone with D’s accomplishments in 2019 alone praise a person for purchasing TEN costumes for Halloween?  And stans, how do you accept that this is right or normal.  You really know nothing about him and have such little respect for him as a person if you continue to accept the character his idiotic team has created on his behalf.  It is so far from the person he is and that he generally holds himself out to be when given the opportunity.  

This isn’t about being a “gay fetishist” or “hating woman” this is about wanting for D to be fairly and accurately represented and no longer forced to participate in this stupid, life sucking game to promote a person that contributes absolutely nothing to the world.  If you want to have a strong female role model, there are so many, i’ve talked about a few in the past few days (thus far Nancy, Lea, and Phoebe) and will continue to do so, but please stop worshiping a person whose sole reason you are speaking about her is her connection to D, even if you refuse to accept it is fake.  

klainecentric Finished reading the funniest ig story of the day, the qween being praised for sitting in front of either a sewing machine or computer...bravo your majesty qween....your my hero well done.👏👏. And all I can think of is how irrelevant the statement D made about being an emotional horder, being a very private person and finally D saying he's lazy when it comes to social media, I'm internally screaming in frustration because yeah we know D wouldn't have written a post praising that lazy good for nothing waste of space but he's coming across as a lier and it's extremely damaging to his character as a person. I absolutely hate lying and every time another "private" moment is posted to the world is another small piece that's chipped away from what D has originally stated about privacy. PBB, nobody cares about your cheap arse highly flammable costumes you buy online, did you forget about your piano baby adult strip club. I'm sure there are still plenty of people out there you can hire to rub and flaunt their flanges all over the beer taps, why don't you keep busy on that instead. If you want to make costumes, I'm sure you can sew some mighty fine titty tassels together. It'll be cheap nasty, sound familiar.

souly So, let me get this straight. We should all praise a person for going online, looking up different costumes in online stores, putting those in their shopping basket and hitting “buy”? Because I do that at least once a week with other stuff. Do I get praised for that now? Pretty please? I’m doing good work there and buy a lot of stuff, therefore I must be the best person ever!

notes-from-nowhere You’re my Queen. Please, love me.

souly

(I think I got it right. I’m getting the hang of what said person is doing. Wheee! ;))

notes-from-nowhere You nailed it 🤣

ajw720 Yesterday I got a delivery of car food. And instead of his usual seafood mix up greats, I got him shrimp flavor. I’m awesome!!!!!

souly Oh, hey! I think we should all take pictures of whatever we bought online during the week or month and make individual posts on all of our social media accounts about it. Because, you know…

cassie1022 I picked up stuff I ordered online at Target and PetSmart. Does that count? Should I receive accolades because my cat will have fresh litter to do her business on?

souly Only if you post the pictures to prove it! ;)

ajw720 As soon as I get home. Pictures forthcoming. Shrimp cat treats and I also got a burgundy blanket for my new comforter!!! Life goals!!!!!!!!!!!

souly Okay, so, let’s see… What did I buy online during the past month that can be shared as pictures? Some things are gifts, so I obviously can’t post anything about those yet. But I think these here are safe.

Let’s start with one of my fav new shirts. (Excuse the grainy quality. I had to quickly edit it for privacy reasons. :p And yes, that’s a butterfly mirror.)

The rest are behind the cut to save your dash from drowning in too many pictures. ;)

cheekyface72 You’re my queen from now on…

ajw720 I think emmy/sag/gg/CC winner DC should write a post @soulypraising your awesome, amazing, unparalleled online shopping skills!  You earned that praise.  That cat toy is particularly spectacular.

*********************

Just A Taste of M’s Amazing Online Shopping Skills that are worthy of such Praise

ajw720

Super Mario with inflatable Dragon $54.66 (x)

Princess Peach $78.99 (x)

chrisdarebashfulsmiles. i can’t

flowersintheattic254. When you add the fact that the wedding was sponsored so heavily, and her history of outfits I think it shows Mi@rren is something that’s always been done very much ‘on the cheap’.

From work vacays (honeymoon included), RC ‘glue gun’ looks, thrift shoes and subsidized weddings.

It’s BUDGET BEARDING!!!

leka-1998. It’s not worth more than this, that’s for sure.

notes-from-nowhere  We are so ungrateful. She worked hard to find the gloves.

I bet she had to click on another link to find them. She deserves another accolade.

ajw720 @flowersintheattic254 Budget Bearding!  I LOVE It! (and something tells me D’s SW costume in particular was far cheaper than either of these).

souly That Snow White dress can be found for about $25 in a ton of online shops. I stumbled upon it even before Halloween way too many times. 😂

@notes-from-nowhere The plush question mark block can be found in a couple online stores like this one. She simply glued it onto some gloves - or asked L to do it with that glue gun of hers.

flowersintheattic254 Well funnily enough I think we may have confirmation that 🚽🚽 glued on the puppies so I guess YES to the question mark block too!!!

cassie1022 They can’t even glue things properly. Why am I not surprised?

leka-1998

SW

So, so amazing. Bow to the kween and her not so helpful helper.

************************************

There are lots more...I figured enough of your brain cells died reading the ones I posted.  On Nov 30 she is STiLL bringing it up”

Anonymous asked:

Whenever I see miarren gifset they always use the same quote underneath (the rolling the windows down quote) and at first I rolled my eyes and thought uh not that quote again, and I can't believe it took me this long to realise it's because there is literally no other quote that can be construed as loving. You can hardly put down "she's a big girl" whenever you make a set of gifs with M beaming and D looking like someone murdered the dog he's allergic to.

ajw720: And I love the Emmy quote as it was an absolute reference to his character who was a psychopath. Pretty telling if you ask me. But that reference is over their heads.

And pretty much the only one. Guess saying he’s a ball and chain kind of guy isn’t romantic. They can’t even take pooping exes as he clearly steered the conversation away from her. Lovely lady of many moons? Nah she sounds like a stranger. Saying nothing changes after marriage? Sounds boring. It’s a struggle. But hey she’s an excellent online shopper that he done got hitched to!!!

[aridara]

name a country with a population higher than 100m where gun control worked.. you can’t. almost all of your examples of countries where gun control worked are focusing on tiny western or northern European countries, some of which have less population than American cities, and completely ignore how huge of a failure gun control in pretty much anywhere else in the world. if gun control won’t solve anything in Brazil, a country with only 30 million less people than USA, it won’t work in the USA

First, explain why population size magically makes a difference. If you can’t, then your objection (”name a country with a population higher than 100m where gun control worked”) gets instantly erased.

Second: economic crises and political instability means higher violent crime rates. This is a fact that gun fetishists actively refuse to learn, given that I have been forced to remind them a thousand times already. One more reason to ignore gun fetishists when they talk about violent crime rates, then, since they’re so willingly ignorant about how violent crime rates work.

[impurelilac]

Requiem of a Shattered Flower

Cogito, ergo sum

Can it be more generic than that? I don’t know, although I won’t disagree that for a simple sentence, it carries a lot of meaning. 

Who am I? It would be simple to make an introduction after that. But then we ignore the entire weight of the question itself. 

I’ll try to answer atleast for your sake, as I am the one making the choice to violate the status quo.

To really understand this post, I feel I need to split it into two parts:

Whom am I?

and

Why do I write?

Some context could probably help however. First off I am not a skilled writer, I won’t claim that I am nor pretend to be. That is not to deny however my dream to create something, eventually. However I feel that the topic of creation will need a post for itself and doesn’t really belong here. It is also late in the night where I am, so errors should be expected. Before I also continue, I should warn that this most likely, like probably most of my post will have trigger warnings. I can atleast say that this one will deal with some slight NSFW and depression. However I will do my best to properly catalogue and present them at the start of future posts.

Why does a flower have a soul?

I can’t answer that. I am sorry.

However I can answer some things. I was born in the waning years of the 20th century, the year was 1998. The family I belonged to was upper working class or lower middle class, I am still not really sure where I belong or if I put too much effort in valuing “class”. My upbringing was fairly secure due to this, it was safe and I felt safe. That meant a lot I to my younger self even if I didn’t reflect upon it. My whole life was centered around the small village I grow up in, surrounded by the forests of Småland in southern Sweden.

Well it used to be my whole life, but now I live and study in Uppsala. 6 hours from where I lived most of my life. The understanding of being alone was one of the first things that changed for me. That isn’t to say some good things have come from the move here.

But honestly what have I just said about myself there? I told you about physical events, historical places and maybe some interests of mine But is there anything of worth amongst this text? Probably nothing crucial for now.

What has become my most defining feature of the last few years is the tiny mistake that some doctor made at my birth. Even if I don’t really feel like this, its the easiest way to explain. I never got to chose, like nobody really, to be born a boy. The difference between me and most others is that like some people I started having thoughts about being something that should be impossible. I wanted to be the “opposite” gender.

So there you have it. I am trans. I still feel kinda disgusted by myself saying it out loud, it feels like a cry for sympathy when I feel undeserving of it. But it is part of the reason why I am writing this. I will most likely even have another post eventually dealing with this topic aswell.

Besides having a life filled with self doubt, self loathing and confusion, there are some bright spots. Video Games, the greatest of escapist tools and my friend since childhood have always been there. Literature, the ability to experience a million varying lives, point of views and thoughts in the form paper and alphabet or of less worth in my eyes, that of a television screen. The last major interest I have is in drawing, as a child I loved it and despite being disillusioned, I once more started taking it seriously around 5 - 6 years ago.

Ultimately I suppose I should make a mention of what my interests on an intellectual level are. Primarily its the topics of History and Philosophy. Currently I am studying at the bachelor Historian programme in Uppsala and have for most of my life had an interest in history, but it really started when I got several good grades in it around the age of 15. Enough bragging though.

Philosophy on the other hand like politics are more side interests. I am a socialist humanitarian, I usually like to refer to myself as a communist though. I don’t really fit within the ideas the Cold War held (that I distance myself from) and in a sense I have my own form even though its kinda naive to think like that. 

Equality and Democracy, would be my core pieces of politics however. Ultimately also my hope for humanity to one day break out of this cradle and mature into a civilization that can survive in the boundless void that surrounds us. However that is mostly idealistic stupidity on my part, atleast I think it is but hope is needed.

Discussing equality leads to another part of my situation I need to clarify here and will become a topic for the future. That is the fact that I am a virgin BDSM fetishist and overall rather perverted despite never showing this outwards and generally being around people that kinkshame me. I hate the fact that I am like this, I loathe myself to unhealthy degrees and have a feeling of being impure, aka part of the reason why I choose my username but it is not the only one. My weird orientation for your information is that of a Panromantic Lesbian. Hopefully it makes sense.

As you most likely notice my style of writing has changed. I think it depends on emotion and now my rage at young militant anarchists is bleeding over here. I won’t develop on that now and I don’t object to the anarchist ideology even if I don’t share it but I know all too well a lot of naive and ignorant anarchists that believe everything will be solved through the use of guns. 

The Sin that Broke the Status Quo

As I write this, I am listening to the amazing song called Sins of the Father with Donna Burke. In so many ways it, like always can sum up my emotions. The melodrama that most people will probably find annoying after a few more posts, the longing for a new world and change whilst also reminding of the old. 

Enough of that however. I have now written some about myself. It ended up a mess but I am content with leaving it like that. Now we come to why?

Why do I write here?

To be quite frankly, I want a place to put my emotions in a self perspective without it being a conversation. I want somewhere to share my thoughts and feelings and I hope to atleast eventually know what others think.

A friend of mine with a blog of her own got me to do this. Even though the idea has been there before. Its always hard  bringing myself to write, but I felt a need for this. 

Even if my life have undergone severe upheaval and change in the last month, I remain in a status quo of an unchanging world. My depression varies in severity and for the most part although I have friends and family, I remain alone. 

I dream of creation, of making something that I can call my own. But so far this has never come to fruition. Honestly, what do I expect from this? I have no idea, people will probably not even read it. Regardless of what, i’ll keep the hope atleast that this can give some meaning and help me end the limbo I am suffering from. 

Status Quo, is what I have called this limbo in this text. I hope that me reaching out in this form might be the beginning of breaking that Limbo, but maybe that is hoping too much. I really don’t know how far between these posts will be but I will try to be regular. 

If someone out there actually reads this.

Thanks.

#self reflection #thoughts #melodramatic #blog #introduction #firstpost #natureoflife #transgender #selfbiography #i hate this

[ghostbustermelanieking]

snow in april (chapter 2 of 8)

one

warning for depictions of death and ptsd.

The dreams returned, even though Scully was right on the other side of the bed. He woke up gasping her name and was relieved to see her right there, on her side with her hair falling across her face. His pulse was elevated and he collapsed against the pillows, trying to settle his breathing. He could hear Scully telling him to breathe deeply and so he tried that, reaching out to touch her cheek. He crawled across the mattress and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead.

White light was streaming in from between the curtains. He shifted a little and saw snow on the ground. A lot of snow, covering the ground like a massive lumpy quilt.

“Scully,” he whispered. “Hey, Scully, it snowed.”

“Mm, go back to sleep, Mulder,” she grumbled into the pillows. “I'm tired. I haven't slept well in months.”

Oh, Scully. He leaned down to kiss her cheek. “It snowed. A lot. Several inches, I think; maybe a foot. Don't you think that's unusual weather?”

“That's nice,” she said, eyes still closed. She tugged the comforter up over her head, tenting both of them in darkness. “I'm sure we'll have plenty of moments like this in this next eighteen years, though, so I'm going back to sleep, okay?”

He sighed, kissing her again. “I'm going to go make coffee.”

“See if they have decaf,” she muttered into the pillow. Damn it, he thought; he'd forgotten. This was going to take some practice.

He tested his domesticity (rusty from his days of dating - dating, was that the right word? - Scully), and made a pot of coffee and a cup of tea (they didn't have decaf). He considered the benefits of going for a run, and then reconsidered the possibility of either scaring Scully or just plain pissing her off (she'd say he wasn't healthy enough), or the possibility that he'd have another flashback while he was gone. He sat on the couch and flipped through a Dennis Lehane novel until Scully staggered out of the bedroom, clad in his Knicks t-shirt. “Decaf?” she asked hopefully.

Mulder shook his head, getting to his feet and trailing into the kitchen area. “Tea. I'll heat it up.”

“What heathens.” She sighed and threw open the refrigerator. “No decaf and no… food in general.”

Mulder turned to look at the general emptiness of the fridge. “I guess you have to bring your own,” he offered helplessly.

“We should have gotten eggs or something,” Scully said, frustrated, as she threw the refrigerator door closed. “There's nothing to eat and the baby is hungry.”

“I can go to town and get you something,” Mulder said, sipping a cup of the crappy instant coffee. He winced at the bitter tang; did everything taste worse since he'd come back? The hasty sandwiches they'd bought from the store deli had sat like a rock in his stomach, and the hospital food hadn't been any better, of course.

Scully leaned against the fridge, pulling at the sleeves of her sweater. “Mulder, no; the roads will be horrible.”

“Eighteen years in New England, Scully; I know a thing or two about snowy roads.” He took another sip and grimaced, dumped the clumpy coffee down the sink.

“Mountain roads,” she said. “They're probably not salted, and there's at least one side of the road that's a drop, usually. It's too dangerous.”

“You need food, though.” He opened the cabinet investigatively and pulled out a container of stale Oreos, offering it to her. “Unless you want some expired cookies for breakfast.”

She grinned playfully. “I was thinking more along the lines of seeing if the neighbors can lend us something for now. It's April, I'm sure the snow will be melted soon and we can go get you checked out.” Her brow furrowed and she motioned him closer, bringing her head to his forehead. “Speaking of, how do you feel? Any more blackouts?”

“No,” he started, and then reconsidered. “Not… exactly.”

A panicked look came over her face, and her fingers froze against his hair. “What do you mean, not exactly? Mulder…”

“No more blackouts,” he said quickly. “Actually… flashbacks. To my abduction.”

“Flashbacks?”

“Like I'm back there.” He swallowed unevenly. Did you ever experience anything like that? he was ready to ask her before he remembered that she didn't remember anything from her abduction.

Scully looked horrified. “Oh, Mulder.” She reached up to touch him on his cheek, where the scars were fading.

“It's fine,” he added quickly. “I'm sure they'll fade eventually. It's probably just a temporary effect…”

“I never should've let you leave the hospital,” she said softly, pulling at the hem of her shirt.

For some unknown reason, this irritated him to no end. “I'm fine,” he said pointedly, even though he loathed those words when they came from her mouth. “Really. I'll be okay in a couple of days.”

“We should let a doctor make that judgement.”

“You're a doctor, aren't you?” He slid the stale Oreos back into the cabinet and headed for the door, grabbing his shoes and coat.

“Mulder? Where are you going?”

She was sad and worried and he was a terrible person but he was tired of hospitals, tired of the whole damn thing. “I'm going to the neighbors and see if they'll lend us an egg or two,” he said, letting the door bang shut. He'd apologize when he got back, attempt to make her breakfast without burning it. He just needed a moment to cool off. Some fresh fucking air to clear his head.

The driveway was gravel under the snow and twisted off into the woods. He'd have to either walk all the way around or cross the river to get to the nearest cabin, and based on his tendency for flashbacks when he was alone he figured the driveway was a safer bet, because at least the driveway didn’t run the risk of falling into cold, running water. (Hypothermia is a bitch, he'd said to Scully after Antarctica, and she'd rolled her eyes and smiled, looking down at the cotton blanket over her lap in embarrassment. She looked down a lot when she smiled, like she'd been caught off-guard and was embarrassed. He loved that about her.)

The snow crunched under his feet. He could feel his brain edging on an unbidden memory - flashes of pinched alien faces and blades and brief moments of pain - and he clenched his jaw in determination and kept going up the slippery snow. His foot skidded sharply under him and he swore and shot his arm out towards the treeline, palm scraping against the bark and steadying him.

He made it to the cabin across the river without going into a flashback, but he wasn't entirely sure how. He felt like he was crumbling at the seams. He leaned heavily against the side of the house. It was all coming back in waves, heavy and crushing like the ocean.

Get eggs, go home, apologize to Scully, he instructed himself, and mounted the stairs to the cabin on shaky legs. He started to knock on the door, but it swing inward unbidden at the pressure from his fist; unlocked and slightly ajar.

Mulder shivered; the entire situation reminded him of the beginning of a horror movie, he could practically hear the suspenseful music. Goddamnit, why had he taken his gun to Oregon; unless the aliens had a lost and found, he'd never get it back now. He should've brought Scully's. “Hello?” he called, trying to sound like a friendly, polite neighbor. (Which his own neighbors could attest to the fact that he wasn't.) He pushed the door open a little wider, and froze.

A man and a woman were sprawled on the kitchen floor, the man lying on top of the woman as if trying to shield her, his face buried into her neck. The woman was on her side, her face facing the wall. Neither of them moved.  

Mulder felt something thunk in the pit of his stomach. There was no blood or gore, nothing too sickening, but he still had a terrible feeling. He knew the telltale signs of death. He drew closer silently, unable to ask them if they were okay; the words were thick and closing his throat. His shoes squeaked on the tile.

He didn't see until he got close: the woman's eyes were blank. Unseeing. Their chests were still.

Mulder felt the burn of bile in his throat and swallowed it back. He would not vomit. He was a goddamn FBI agent; he'd seen crime scenes twenty times more violent than this. He'd been in the brains of a hundred killers; he'd seen a death fetishist stand over the woman he loved. He would not vomit. He felt for the pulse of the woman, then the man. Silence. Cold, dead skin. Scully's autopsy terms flew through his brain. (Who had autopsied him?) He had shielded Scully this way once, on a scummy shower floor years ago while the PTA prepared to sacrifice them to the devil. They’d almost died. He had died, and come back, and faked his death and come back and then. And then.

He stumbled to the door, shoving it open clumsily. The step was covered in snow and he stumbled out on it, the cold biting into his face and jolting him awake. “Scully,” he called, and his voice was too quiet. The wind wouldn't carry it. (Scully, Scully, please, he'd screamed on the ship and she couldn't hear him.) “Scully!” he shouted, his voice cracking echoing over the half-frozen river.

The back door slammed open, and Scully appeared on the screen porch, still in only his Knicks t-shirt. “Mulder?” she called back, terrified. The wind rustled the hem of the t-shirt around her thighs. “”What’s wrong?”

His throat still burned. “Call the police,” he shouted raspily. “Our neighbors are dead.”

He couldn't see her expression from here, but he could see her nod and disappear into the house. He would stay with the dead bodies, he owed it to them. They lay prone and stiff on the kitchen floor. He paced in circles around them, trying to get back into his FBI agent stance - what has happened here, who could've done this?

(Who had found him, was it Scully? Had she looked into his eyes and seen nothing? Who had closed his eyes? Did she drop the first handful of dirt? He thought he could hear her sobs if he closed his eyes.)

He vomited into the sink and rinsed it out before going out on the porch. He stood in the cold, edges of his jacket flapping in the wind. He tried not to cry.

---

Two police cars with chains on the wheels and a sirenless ambulance came almost a half hour later. Scully had shown up a few minutes after he'd told her to call the police in warmer clothes, her phone dangling from her fingers. He brushed the snow from the front step despite her protest and the two of them sat down side by side on the chilled stone. He didn't touch her, didn't know what to say, but their shoulders brushed each time she moved and the small contact was comforting.

A couple of officers and EMTs trailed inside while a female officer interviewed them on the front step. “Deputy Mari Haswell,” she introduced herself, extending her hand. “You're FBI, right?”

“Yes,” Scully said politely, shaking her hand. “I'm Agent Dana Scully, and this is Agent Fox Mulder.” Mulder nodded, shaking Deputy Haswell’s hand as well, and fumbled for his badge in his jacket before he remembered he hadn't seen it since his return. "Mulder doesn't have his badge, I can vouch for him,” Scully explained, presenting her badge. “We're kind of… off-duty.”

Haswell’s eyes flicked down towards Scully's abdomen for a split second like she understood before looking back at them. “That's fine,” she said. “We'll take care of everything, why don't you just tell me what happened?”

“I was the one who found the bodies,” Mulder said.

Haswell scribbled on her pad. “How did you come across the victims?”

“We didn't have anything for breakfast in our cabin - the, uh, the cabin over there - so I came over to see if we could borrow a couple eggs or something. But when I knocked on the door, it swung open on its own.” There was the flash sound of the photographer behind them; he shivered. “The bodies were in the kitchen where I left them. I took their pulse, on their necks, and I rinsed out the sink - I, um, I got sick after I saw the bodies - but I didn't touch anything otherwise. I called to Scully, and she called you guys right away.” It embarrassed him to admit he had thrown up and it probably showed; he could feel his face growing hot. Neither of the women commented on it, though; Scully's fingers brushed over his palm in a comforting gesture.

Haswell nodded as he talked, the pen bobbing over the notepad. “Had you had any contact with them prior to this?”

“No, we just got here last night,” Scully said.

“Did you hear anything last night or this morning? Any strange sounds, screams?” Her voice was almost a monotone, like she’d asked these things a million times.

“No,” Mulder said.

“No,” Scully confirmed. “We both slept heavily last night.”

Haswell nodded. “Well, I think you're okay to go. But call us if you remember anything else, and we'll call you if we have any more questions. Phone numbers?”

Scully rattled off her number - Mulder wasn't certain if he could actually remember his cell phone number, but it didn't matter because he didn't have a cell phone anymore, not since the abduction. Besides, he was focused on something else. Haswell seemed almost… disinterested. Like this was something normal that happened. Definitely not how he expected a small-town cop to respond to the death of two tourists. “Do you know the identity of the victims?” he asked, curious.

“Not yet,” Haswell said, tucking the notepad into her pocket.

He remembered the pale, unmarked skin of the victims. Rigor mortis. And no visible cause of death, despite the man shielding the woman. Or had it been some kind of dying comfort? The way their bodies were arranged suggested some kind of attack, but no visible cause of death. “Do you have any ideas about cause of death?”

“The coroner will figure it out,” Haswell said. “Thank you for your help, Agents.”

“Of course,” Scully said. Her hand curled around his elbow to motion him down the driveway, and he followed quietly. He smelled something suspicious in all this; it seemed like the familiarity of small town cops trying to hide something, but he sensed it wasn’t the time to bring it up.

As they went down the driveway, shoes crunching in the snow, the EMTs rolled out two stretchers with black body bags. Scully's hand held his elbow tighter and she leaned into him, just a little bit. He couldn't take his eyes off of them, the slow descent into the ambulance over the snow. His stomach twisted and he tried to keep the memories from drudging up, closing his eyes against it all.

---

They still didn't have any food, but Mulder didn't feel much like eating. Scully sat on the couch beside him and dug her fingernails into the sticky flap of the Oreo box. “Want one?” she asked Mulder, and he shook his head. She twisted one in half, exposing the soft white cream.

“Mulder, are you okay?” she asked. Her hand landed on his knee, comfortingly, and squeezed.

He nodded. The woman's blank gaze flashed behind his eyes. He swallowed hard. “Sad… about those people,” he said.

She nodded, said, “Yeah,” and didn't look at him. She broke one of the halves in two and black cookie dust coated her fingers.

Mulder reached for the remote and tried to flip on the TV. The screen stayed dark.

“You're thinking about it, aren't you?” Scully said. “The crime scene.”

He had a habit of doing something or other like this, concocting scenarios in the back of his mind, trying to piece together the puzzle. He'd felt a personal connection to crime scenes ever since Samantha (since his father, since his mother, since Scully), but this felt different. He'd been on the other side, had felt whatever the victims were feeling. And now he was back.

“There were no footprints,” he said.

Scully squeezed his knee again and he turned to look at her. “Leading up to the house?”

“Yeah,” he said. “None. Which means the murderer must've come during the night and the snow covered up his footprints. Rigor mortis had set in.”

“Maybe it wasn't a murder,” Scully said. “Natural causes, or a double suicide of some sort.”

“Did you see the way the bodies were? He was shielding her from something.”

She broke an Oreo in half matter-of-factly - if it was even possible to break an Oreo matter-of-factly, but if anyone could do it, it was Scully. “Or he wanted to hold her in their last moments.”

“Come on, Scully,” Mulder said petulantly. “Even you, Dr. Skeptismo, has to  admit that something is amiss here.”

“Nice Friends reference,” she said wryly, and in the moment he couldn’t even believe he’d managed to make some kind of joke. He suddenly remembered watching that episode in her hotel room on a case; he’d called her Dr. Skeptismo for a week (see, Scully, because you’re a doctor and you’re skeptical).

“Thought you'd enjoy it,” he said instead of that.

She grinned. “Mulder, I'll admit that the whole thing is strange. And I wouldn't dismiss the theory of murder. But I don't think it's an X-File.”

“I didn't say it was an X-File.”

“You didn't have to.”

He muttered something disagreeable under his breath.

Scully's palm pressed against his knee. “Mulder, I know it's tempting. But you… you just got back. You should take a step back, let the local cops do their job. Rest, recuperate.”

Mulder was not in the habit of taking a step back, and Scully knew this - based on her tone alone, she did, she sounded like she didn't really believe he would. Mulder went back to trying to flip on the TV, his thumb hitting the little red button stubbornly. He didn't know what he could say in the moment.

“Mulder…” she tried.

“It's fine, Scully,” he said, somewhat gruffly. “Although I'm guessing we'll need to go out sooner or later, for food. I don't think it's a good idea to go to another neighbor's house.”

She laughed halfheartedly. “You're right. And we need to get you to the doctor.”

He considered telling her he was fine, reconsidered. He didn't want to get in another fight. So he didn't say anything instead, scuffed his overlong fingernails over his pants, nodded, staring at the blank TV.

She was quiet too; maybe she didn't know what to say either. She tipped her head against his shoulder for a second, nestling her soft hair against his chin before she pulled away, squeezed his knee again and got up, trailing into the bathroom. The shower came on in the next few seconds. Mulder sat on the couch and watched the silent black TV. He tried not to think about the bodies, but the woman's eyes kept coming back to him. They seemed as empty and fathomless as the blank screen before him.

---

Scully showered and dried her hair before she went out to check the roads. Mulder followed her down there, damp coat flapping around him. “You know, I can drive myself,” he said. “No need to put yourself at risk, or the little boy.” Her head jerked a little in surprise. “Or little girl,” he amended. Scully smiled, smoothing her hand over his abdomen. “Boy? Or girl?”

“I'm coming with you, Mulder,” she said. “No arguments. Although I do appreciate the concern. The baby does, too.”

“I can't help but notice your studious avoidance of my question.”

They'd reached the road. Scully surveyed it, chewing on her lip. “It looks okay, I guess,” she said finally. “What do you think, Massachusetts?”

He chuckled. “I think it'll be fine. But I'm driving; no arguments.”

She nudged his shoulder. “Reclaiming your big macho manhood, huh?”

He grinned; he'd almost forgotten that case. “It's evident that your little feet can reach the pedals.”

She giggled, brushing her thumb against his. “I should drive, though,” she said. “If you black out, that'd be worse for both of us.”

He hadn't thought of that. “Maybe you should just stay here,” he said uneasily.

“Don't be ridiculous, Mulder, c’mon.” She curled her thumb around his and motioned him towards the car.

They drove into town precariously, Scully hunched over the wheel in concentration. The town was about a fifteen minute drive; it took them thirty. Scully was trying to breathe easily. In some moment of weakness when they were rounding a curve, Mulder reached out and curled a hand around her stomach, like he could protect the baby. They both breathed a sigh of relief as they rolled into town.

The few small streets of town had a few people mingling around on them, but it still seemed empty. The doctor's clinic was small and nearly empty, with just a sniffly kid playing with the bead maze. Scully was talking to the receptionist. “I'm Dr. Scully, Mr. Mulder's primary physician,” she was saying. “He’s not been feeling well, and I think it might be related to recent trauma he’s suffered. Can I make a phone call to transfer his files here?”

“Phone lines are down,” the receptionist said in a bored tone, barely looking up from her Solitaire.

Scully blinked in surprise. “What? Will they be fixed soon?”

“Ma'am, the snowstorm disabled all of our phone and cable lines and the mechanic cannot handle the scale of the mess,” the woman snapped irritably, adjusting her glasses. “If you're Mr. Mulder's doctor, why can't you examine him yourself? What's the issue?”

“It's an extensive issue,” Scully said, just as irritably. “And we're on vacation time right now. I don't have the materials I'd need to conduct an exam.”

“Sir?” the receptionist said sharply, and Mulder startled, turning to look at her. “Would you two like me to put you down for a check-up? You could relay the medical history to Dr. Henderson, Dr. Scully.”

Mulder nodded. “That would be good, thank you,” Scully said, traces of annoyance still in her voice. She filled out his form automatically when the receptionist slid it under the window before she motioned him towards the line of hard chairs. “How do you feel now?” she asked, checking his temperature with the back of her hand. “Any dizziness, flashbacks?”

“I'm okay, really,” he said. “The flashbacks only happen when I'm alone.”

Her face softened. “Mulder,” she said softly, reaching for his hand.

“How are you going to explain all this to the doctors?” he said, changing the subject. Maybe if he could convince her that this was a bad idea, she'd let him leave. “They'll never believe you.”

She squeezed his fingers. Her jaw was clenched again. “I'm worried about you, Mulder. Especially the blacking out.”

“Maybe it wasn't blacking out,” he said. “Maybe it was some kind of…  autopilot. Or maybe… maybe there was something else that forced me to come here.”

The beads on the maze clattered under the little girl's finger. Scully said, “You're in X-Files mode again, Mulder.”

“Well, can you blame me? You have to admit something is off, about this whole thing,” he said. “If I'd really blacked out, we would've crashed; there's no way we would've stayed on the road. And my subconscious wouldn't bring me to Calvert Pass because I'd never heard of it before. The unusual climate, the bodies… they were murdered, Scully, I can feel it, but there wasn't a mark on their bodies. Something is going on here.”

Scully swallowed, not looking at him. “You're looking too far into it, Mulder.” Her hand slipped out of his. “You just got back; you need to rest.”

“You never believe me,” he said quietly, childishly hurt. He wasn't sure what prompted it; she always countered his beliefs, it was their thing. But he felt hurt the way he had the last time they were in North Carolina. I just think I've earned the benefit of the doubt here. Fuck, maybe it was the state. Fucking North Carolina; it had taken his leg and his lungs and pulled him down into the ground twice now, almost taken Scully away from him. He hated the state.

“That's not true,” Scully said softly. Her hands pressed into her thighs.

“When have you believed me?”

"You don't know,” she said, quietly but fiercely. “You don’t.”

They were saved from having to say more by the opening of the door in the back. Deputy Haswell came out then, scanning the doctor's office until her eyes landed on the little girl. “Haven't called you back yet, Ly?” she asked.

The little girl shook her head, sniffling. “Think I'm next,” she said thickly. “Then these people.” She jabbed a finger at the two of them.

Haswell looked up. “Agents,” she said with some surprise.

“Deputy Haswell,” Scully said somewhat pleasantly. Her voice shook only a little; she was good at hiding her anger.

“Everything all right?” Haswell didn't sound particularly suspicious, but she was watching them curiously.

Mulder decided to try and explain. “I'm just feeling a little under the weather, and I wanted to come and check it out,” he said, shifting in his seat. “You off-duty so fast?” (I can be a suspicious law enforcement officer, too, he taunted her in his head.)

“We have the morgue in the back and our normal coroner is snowed in. I'm trying to get in touch with a replacement,” Haswell said. “My daughter had a cold so I brought her in to get checked out.”

“Two birds with one stone,” the little girl said cheerfully, clearing repeating something her mother had said. She turned to face them, wiping her nose with the back of her wrist. “I'm Lyla. Who are you?”

“I'm Dana, and this is… Mulder,” Scully said in her Talking To Kids voice. It was suddenly impossible not to notice her extended abdomen. “We're... passing through town.”

Lyla arched an eyebrow. “Actually, they're the FBI agents I told Anna about, sweetie,” Haswell said. “The ones who helped me out this morning?”

“Oh!” She leaned towards Scully in excitement. “Are you gonna have a baby?” she asked in a confidential whisper.

“Mm-hmm,” Scully said lightly. Like the entire statement didn't turn the world on its side. Lyla looked fascinated, staring at her stomach like it was some kind of foreign species. Me too, kid, thought Mulder.

The door opened and the nurse called Lyla Haswell. In the moment that they were looking away, Mulder turned to look at Scully, a silent question in his eyes. He might’ve been pleading a little. Her expression was unreadable for a second before she closed her eyes and nodded. “Deputy Haswell?”

Haswell turned back towards them, a questioning look on her face. “I'm a pathologist,” Scully said. “I can autopsy the bodies.”

Haswell looked uncertain for a moment; she licked her lips, considering. “I wouldn't want to trouble you.”

Mulder's shoe bumped up against hers. “It wouldn't be any trouble,” Scully said. “Really. I'd be glad to do it right after Mulder sees the doctor.”

Haswell swallowed, nodded, folding her hands in front of her. “That works fine, it gives me a chance to go to my daughter's appointment.”

“Mommy, come on,” Lyla said, tugging her hand. “They're waiting.” Haswell thanked Scully again before walking to the back with her daughter.

Mulder felt vaguely embarrassed for everything that had happened, their argument before Haswell appeared. “Owe you one, Scully,” he said.

“You don't owe me anything, Mulder,” she mumbled.

It wasn't true; he owed her everything. He was an asshole who didn't deserve her. He wouldn't even have asked her to do the autopsies if it hadn't been for the images behind his eyes. These bodies - these people - that needed his help. He gulped. He wanted to apologize but he didn't know what for.

---

Scully didn't tell the doctor the whole story and he didn't offer any information of his own. (What was he supposed to say, Hey, doc, so I was buried for three months and now I'm back and plagued with torturous memories, can you help with that?) She just said he'd been having flashbacks to traumatic experiences, blacked out once. She didn't mention the part where he blankly drove them to a town they'd never heard of without fault.

The doctor took a sample for a blood test, and Scully went on to do the autopsies. Mulder waited in the chair beside the exam table. The ship flashed behind his eyelids and he stumbled to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face. There wasn't any pain, this time, but the rush of images was intense. He held his hands under the cold stream of water until they faded and tried to breathe steadily before slinking back to the room.

In the end, the result was the same: perfect health. Just fine and dandy, Mulder wanted to snap. But that doesn't help me any.

“Your girlfriend said you'd been through a lot,” the doctor said, hands in his pockets.

“She's not my girlfriend,” Mulder said, and regretted it instantly.

Dr. Henderson shifted uncomfortably. “Oh, well… out of curiosity, was it a near death experience?”

How the hell did he know? Mulder thought. “Something like that.”

Dr. Henderson pulled out a card and passed it to him. “Dr. Terrence Calvert. He's a NDE counselor in the area. He can help with getting past these experiences, trauma, PTSD.”

He was a psychologist, why did the idea of going to one sound terrible? And what town with a population of under a thousand had a near death experience specified psychologist? “NDE counselor, huh,” he said, turning the card over and over in his hand. The edges bit into the pads of his fingers. “Pretty unique thing for such a small town.”

“It attracts a lot of attention, people come from all over the world to talk to Dr. Calvert. His family founded the town, actually,” the doctor said with that same chest-pride people have in their hometown.

“Calvert Pass,” Mulder noted.

“Yes.” Dr. Henderson fidgeted with his name tag. “Your symptoms sound more like PTSD than another health issue. Except for the blackout, but I think that can be attributed to needing more rest. You said you came from Annapolis? You need to rest as much as possible. And I really would consider talking to Dr. Calvert, Mr. Mulder.”

Mulder swallowed, slipping the car in his pocket. “I'll think about it,” he said.

Something seemed off, he noted as he left the back to go to the waiting room. This entire thing seemed to be twisted in a strange way. The town, the weather, the bodies. Haswell’s unusual behavior at the crime scene and again here. It screamed X-File to him, and as pissed as Scully was going to be, he suspected she'd find something that would change her mind in the autopsies. (Not that he wanted her to full-on investigate, not with the baby, but she'd be someone to bounce thoughts off of, at least, it’d be somewhat like old times.) Besides that, he missed work, missed the rhythm of theories and stakeouts and hotel rooms and arrests and reports (fucking reports, he'd gone off in the deep end). His life had been the X-Files and now it was the X-Files and Scully. (And the kid, he thought, dangerously.) And he had one but not the other so he might as well try for both.

And outside of all that, he felt some strange connection to the victims. The woman; he'd looked into her blank eyes and seen something familiar. They'd all three been dead, and now he was back and they weren't - he felt like he owed it to them to get them justice. Some small thing he could do.

He sat down in the waiting room, flipping through magazines he wasn't reading. Elevator music crackled over the speakers. Lyla Haswell lay on the floor coloring, a coat that must’ve been her mom’s draped over her like a blanket. “Are you real sick?” she asked Mulder in a thick voice.

Mulder blinked in surprise. “Yeah, I’m okay,” he told her. He remembered, once again, that he was going to be a father.

The door opened then and Scully came out. Her expression was unreadable, but she looked at him expectantly.

“Perfect health,” Mulder said. “Same as in Maryland.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “It doesn't explain the blackout, but at least you're physically okay,” she said. The other thing went unspoken: emotionally…

He pulled the card out. “Doc suggested I see the local counselor.”

“That's not a bad idea, Mulder,” Scully said. “Although we could probably find one closer to home…”

“A near death experience counselor, specifically,” he said, passing it to her as she drew closer. “Descendant of the town founder.”

She raised an eyebrow as she studied the card. “That's unusual.”

“Definitely.” It was the kind of unusual that was practically their M.O.

“Although…” she added, slowly, licking her lower lip. “It's really not be a bad idea to see him. You've been through a lot, Mulder, and…”

“What about the autopsies?” he interrupted her. It might’ve been rude, but he was building a theory in his mind and the counselor fit in, somehow.

She looked slightly hurt, but explained without a falter. “Cara and Kyle Roberts, Haswell told me. Both of their hearts were stopped.”

“Stopped? How?”

Scully bit her lip, picking at a cuticle. “That's the thing…” she said uncertainly. “I don't know. There were no signs of poisons or anything else that could induce heart failure. And I don't think it was a heart attack.”

“So you're saying…”

She sighed, brushing her hands over her trench coat. “I don't know, Mulder. I think… I think their hearts were stopped manually somehow. I don't see any signs of natural cause, but none of murder either…”

He shook his head, firmly.

“Mulder? What are you thinking?”

“I have some thoughts,” he told her.

#xf fanfic #i wrote this

[evilelitest2]

100 Days of Trump: 1/100, Assassins, the Mind of the Alt Right

“Everybody’s got the Right to be Happy, don’t be mad, life’s not as bad a it seems.  If you keep your goal in sight, you can climb to any height.  Everybody’s Got a Right to their Dreams” 

So again, this is my response to my nation’s madness, to try to understand the insanity and explain WTF just happened, how did something like this ever come to pass?  So I am going to recommend 100 things that can help people understand what is going and how to fight it.  First and more importantly, the single most important thing to understand Trump, is the Musical Assassins by Stephen Songheim

You can listen to the soundtrack here  The music is good, with a lot to recommend but I want to talk about the psychology of madness that is its core tenant.  

   The play is about a strange fantasy realm where all of the presidential assassins live together, from John Wilkes Booth to Lee Harvey Oswald, they hang out, justify, and rationalize their actions.  The play is about the psychology of people who take violence, and trying to understand the people who think that killing the president will solve their problems.  And very quickly it becomes apparent that to understand assassins, you need to understand American culture as a whole.   That Giuseppe Zangara’s belief that killing President Roosevelt would cure his stomach illness or Samuel Byck who tried to hit Nixon with a plane in a Santa costume isn’t just the demented psychosis of demented madmen, but is part of American culture as a whole.  The play notes that  Presidential assassins aren’t political activists or agents of rival factions, but instead individual nutters who take it upon them selves to kill the president.  These universally white and overwhelmingly male figures mostly don’t have a coherent political ideology or frame of principles, but instead more of a vague emotional bag of insecurities and demented psychosis writ large.  The musical is set in a nightmarish Carnival, where the assassins desperately compete for “The Prize” of the American dream, and national renown serves as the rationalization for violence.  

Sound familiar?  Well its the theme of the Trump Campaign, here this is basically their theme song 

   All of the assassins (except Booth who plays the role of lucifer in the tale) are in various degrees losers, the social maladjusted, the failed dreamers, left over forgotten people, but critically they all buy into the idea of the American Dream.  Even as they consistently fail to do anything productive with their own lives, they idealize the American dream worshiping the notion that anybody can one day become President of the United States.  These are people born with privilege, but for various reasons are unable to reep the full benefits of that privilege, and feeling betrayed they lash out.  Conspiracy theorists, radicals, and racists, at their heart these people are pathetically lonely, and reminds you of nothing so much as MRAs or the Alt Right. I mean isn’t this just the Manosphere in a nutshell?

People who fetishist the idea of guns, capitalistic progress, and above all machismo, but  at their heart they are failures at all that they strive for, and whose ranting underlies a sense of insecurity and loss.  These people aren’t intellectuals, instead they find the resents of an ideology and cling to it as driftwood, they make a Cargo Cult out of American values and using it as a security blanket for their own feeling of inadequacy.  And in this bubble of loneliness, entitlement, narcissism and above all shame, which quickly turns to resentment.  And over time, that turns to violence, and they become so myopic they no longer even realize that their actions hurt other people, that such ideas have rhetoric.  Above all, these people truly believe themselves to be the underdogs, that they are the persecuted fighting against an America that owes them a prize.   Where the American dream is unbridled optimism, they are what happens when you combine it with a kitch sort of nihilism which as inspired people from the Columbine Shooters to Dylan Roof.  Trump is the what happens when people understand the problems with the system enough to become disillusions but lack the emotional and intellectual maturity to comprehend it properly

listen to this bit of a man quite articulately understanding the problems with the two party system and then come to the exact wrong conclusions of how to respond to it

There is a lot to like in the Musical in how it talks about the Two Party System, Nice Guy Syndrome, Gun Culture and much more, but I just want to leave on this exchange.  The Assassins plead with Lee Harvey Oswald to kill JFK and he says “People will hate me” and Booth says “Yes they will hate you, they will hate you with a passion that is unimaginable.  Imagine it, people will have strong feelings about you, people will care about Lee Harvey Oswald”  The musical isn’t about endorsing them, in fact it is a very strong condemnation of that mindset, but why I recommend it, is because it is through this that you can understand the type of mindset that votes for Trump.  But it is more than just the Right, because some of the Assassins are actually more leftist, its about misdirected rage and frustration being channeled into unhealthy channels by those who have internally given up on everything except the American dream, if you want a primer on how not to respond to a dying political system, this is it. 

   Which brings up the other reason why this musical is important, cause with the least popular president in history now in power, a lot of people are talking about killing him, and I just want to make this clear, that is not how you respond to a broken political system.  All that will do is create a left wing form of what we see in assassins, a naive optimism mixed with absolute disillusionment, the same mentality of bitterness and rage that lashes out in destructive violence and it doesn’t work.  It just weakens the political system and buys into their structure, the right’s narrative, and harms the country as a collective whole. The left is going through some hard times now, there is a way to fight power in the US rather than feeding into the toxic narrative of personal vengeance somehow solving complicated problems.  It didn’t for help Leon Czolgosz, it certainly isn’t going to help us now

For really, what better sums up the Election of Donald Trump than this?

#100 Days of Trump #Assassins (musical) #stephen songheim #Alt Right #dylann roof #john wilkes booth #lee harvey oswald #john hinckley jr. #giuseppe zangara #Emma Goldman #leon czolgosz #Donald Trump

[gossipgirl2019-blog]

You Don't Need to Stand By Your Man

New Post has been published on http://gr8gossip.xyz/you-dont-need-to-stand-by-your-man/

You Don't Need to Stand By Your Man

This month, after CBS President Les Moonves was ousted from the network following extensive reporting that revealed his history of alleged sexual harassment, abuse and misuse of power, his wife took a stand. Julie Chen, a long-time news anchor and T.V. presenter on CBS, best known for The Talk and Big Brother, closed out the latest episode of the latter series with the goodbye of, ‘I’m Julie Chen Moonves’. She had never previously referred to herself as such, and given the timing of the sudden declaration of her relationship status, it was tough not to read into the message being sent. At a time when her husband faced immensely serious accusations, Chen did not need to say more on her stance on the matter than the newly public double-barrelled version of her surname. There’s no stronger way to take a side on the issue without having to actually comment on it than by taking his name. Chen later repeated this callout on the following week’s episode, just in case there were those who questioned her loyalties. Trade publications and Big Brother gossip sites are now referring to her as ‘Julie Chen Moonves’. She will remain with the show until 2019 but has stepped down from The Talk.

What surprised me most about this moment, other than the startling callousness of it, was how so many people responded to it with positivity. Sure, they weren’t pro-Les Moonves or anything, but they sure did admire how Julie Chen was taking a stand for her man. She was doing the good wifely duty and sticking by her husband through thick and thin. Not only was she remaining by his side but she was letting the world know through her job at the network who let her husband go in the first place. Wasn’t that admirable? You had to respect how she kept a graceful demeanour throughout, not letting anyone know of her inevitable pain. Good on her, right?

I hate this mentality. I really do.

This bafflingly archaic mindset reminded me of the recent death of Mac Miller and how so much of the media and internet could only process this tragic loss of life through the lens of blaming a woman. Miller’s ex, singer Ariana Grande, had broken up with him earlier in the year and quickly found herself engaged to SNL comedian Pete Davidson. She had already dealt with criticism that she’d ‘moved on too fast’ and sent Miller to a dark place when news broke of a car crash and DUI he’d been charged with shortly after the split. Grande rightly pointed out that it wasn’t her or any woman’s job to be a minder for their spouse, much less one dealing with the scourge of addiction. Yet that didn’t stop the same cries of condemnation she faced upon news of Miller’s death from a suspected overdose. It was all her fault, the crowds said, a narrative pushed by professional woman haters TMZ, whose report on Miller’s death insinuated a direct connection between Miller’s death and Grande leaving him. She exacerbated his addiction by leaving him and moving on too quickly. If she’d stood by her man, none of this would have happened.

These are two obviously different circumstances but similar mindsets remain in place for each stance. The ideal as pushed by sexism remains in place – stand by your man – but the differences highlight how it’s an expectation that can never truly be achieved.

Patriarchy consistently moves the goalposts for what is and is not acceptable behaviour for women, particularly in relation to the misdeeds of men. Ultimately, we are still ridiculously fetishistic of that hallowed image of the obedient wife. She doesn’t have to be pregnant and barefoot anymore but ideally she is silent, an implicit accessory or shield to misogyny. It’s all okay as long as his wife sticks by him, because how can he be sexist when he’s married? Women’s own pain or struggles, especially when dealing with partners who are going through tough times or have committed terrible deeds, are always secondary in this context. Preferably, they shouldn’t complain at all. As Hannah Gadsby noted in Nanette, we prize men’s reputations over women’s lives time and time again.

In this impossible war, women are the root of all problems whether to stand by their men or not. If they leave their husbands or partners, for example, because they’ve been accused of sexual misconduct then they’re jumping the gun to respond too quickly or betraying their partner’s trust or are too selfish to ride out the storm. If they do stay, they’re complicit in his crimes and have betrayed all women everywhere. Women who leave addicts are blamed for driving them to ruin but are also the enablers of the problem at hand. Any time a famous man struggles for any reason, it won’t take you long to find people blaming his wife or girlfriend. She doesn’t need to do or say anything to be the source of the world’s ills. After all, it’s her job to suffer.

We see this narrative frequently with the spouses of famous men but the same mentality applies to everyone else: There is a deified assumption that the wives, girlfriends or partners of ‘geniuses’ must stand by him through thick and thin because that is merely the price one pays for such majesty. Geniuses, at least white male ones given that label, are expected to be ‘dark’ on some level, be it through struggles with addiction, mental illness, stress, anxiety, or just being a good old-fashioned douchebag. The ways such things are treated as beautiful side-effects of talent is its own horrid issue, but what is especially insidious is how the ‘stand by your man’ mentality forced upon women in these relationships makes them pseudo-mothers and carers. Suddenly, it’s their job to keep troubled men on the straight and narrow, but don’t do too much because then you’re just enabling the problem and driving them to their graves.

We do not talk enough about the emotional labour that primarily weighs heavily upon the shoulders of women. These expectations demand toxic versions of loyalty, security and support from those of us who cannot ever live up to these lofty fantasies, especially as they pertain to men. They want women to have nothing for themselves, nor do they want women to live for themselves: We are all seen as substitute mothers, nothing more.

I have the utmost respect for women who love, live with and support their spouses during times of mental health issues, addictions and medical stress. It is an oft-unspoken kind of work that does not get its due, and one that deserves more financial and emotional backing than it gets. However, we cannot expect this of all women, and even less so when the wives, partners and girlfriends of abusive men choose to get out. We cannot romanticise that dynamic, especially when our society offers nothing in the way of real structural support for those dealing with the grind. Besides, there’s a huge difference between supporting men with troubles and being the public cheerleader for an accused sexual predator. Julie Chen Moonves is not brave, and for the record, if your partner is accused of preying on young women for sex, you’re free to get the fuck out of there.

Kayleigh is a features writer for Pajiba. You can follow her on Twitter.

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[fashiontrendin-blog]

How Far Would You Go For Baby-Soft Feet? One Man’s Harrowing Journey

http://fashion-trendin.com/how-far-would-you-go-for-baby-soft-feet-one-mans-harrowing-journey/

How Far Would You Go For Baby-Soft Feet? One Man’s Harrowing Journey

On June 6, 1944, Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy, sustaining heavy casualties from a deluge of rifle, machine gun and artillery fire as they advanced through barbed wire and landmines to deliver the backbreaking blow to the Nazi troops occupying western Europe. The civilian mind boggles at the courage required to run headlong into such peril. Seventy-four years later, on June 6, 2018, I applied a set of “Baby Foot” Exfoliation Foot Peel booties to my slightly callused feet.

If you haven’t heard of this product, it does for feet what fires do for forests: clears out the dry and dead things in a terrifying manner to allow for the growth of the fresh and new. And now they make it FOR MEN!

Here’s how you do it:

Remove any toenail polish.

Soak your feet in water to allow for maximum gel penetration.

Stick your feet into the gel filled booties, secure with provided tape, put socks on over the booties.

Sit somewhere for an hour. The gel contains a relatively gentle acid that penetrates the top layers of skin cells, beckoning the dead and the dying: “I am the reaper from beyond the veil. The bell is rung, it tolls for thee. Loosen your grip and come with me.”

Take the booties off and wash your feet gently with soap and water.

Soak your feet in water daily to activate the peeling process. Peeling begins within three to seven days and can continue for up to two weeks.

Don’t pick at your feet. No, I said don’t! Oh, come on. What is wrong with you? Have you ever resisted an impulse in your life? Can’t you at least just scrub them gently with a warm, wet washcloth?

When the purge has ended, enjoy your beautiful, nubile tootsies!

The (only) differences in the FOR MEN version are that the packaging is darker, which is tough and cool like Batman, and the purging gel stored in the plastic booties is vaguely mint-scented as opposed to vaguely lavender-scented. This is good because I have spent the entirety of my time on earth knowing that, as a man, it is my duty to grunt and punch my way through life and if I catch a whiff of lavender and like it, I will crumble.

You are about to see some “before” images of my feet. I don’t know about you, but I have never taken very good care of my feet. They take such good care of me, though! They carry me down gangways onto airplanes that take me on adventures; they instinctively reach out when I drop my phone to soften its journey to the ground; and sometimes, if I stare at them long enough, they start to look like hands. So versatile! But I barely even wash them. I just assume they’ll get the cleansing they need from the excess shampoo and soap that runs down my legs in the shower. I call this “trickle down washonomics” and folks, it ain’t working for my lower limbs. I’ve had a mild (occasionally moderate) case of athlete’s foot for five years that I’ve never effectively banished, because why would I attend to a small, fixable problem when I am busy not attending to larger, also fixable problems? My point is, I was excited when I found out about Baby Foot because sometimes we all need a fresh start.

It may not be pretty to constantly have a thick layer of dead skin in a constant state of flakery, but at least I always have something to do!

I hope the awkward positioning of my foot selfies is evidence enough that no, I definitely have not responded to the fetishists’ requests in my DMs.

You’ve heard of hot dogs or legs. Now get ready for…

…heel or raw chicken wing?

See what I mean about the hands thing?

In the interest of breaking down arbitrary performative gender barriers, my plan is to put a man’s foot peel on one foot and a lady’s on the other. You’re all invited to the 2019 awarding of my Nobel Prize.

This is my last commentary on this topic because frankly it isn’t interesting: the man boot has black lettering, the lady boot red.

My hypothesis: In the Baby Foot corporate office, someone pointed out that the primary users were women, so they released a FOR MEN version, which is exactly the same save for minor packaging distinctions. As I mentioned before, they’re vaguely scented, but the dominant aroma is that of rubbing alcohol. You only keep these on for an hour, and after you wash, your feet smell like soap. The product is unisex so grab whatever’s on the shelf for a person you know with gross feet.

The instructions advise you to put socks on over the booties. I was skeptical but complied, and could feel the reason why: it tightens the booty, forcing greater intimacy between foot and gel.

I was a big fan of Leandra’s pregnancy feet, and this reminded me of them. I now completely understand what it’s like to be pregnant with twins. I sat for an hour and watched YouTube, then took off the booties and washed my feet. Here’s the “after” shot:

Don’t they look so much prettier?

If you said yes, consider yourself BAMBOOZLED. There’s no real after to see yet. This is an illusion called “styling,” where I used lighting and backdrop techniques combined with a seductive pose to make the product (my feet) look more appealing. If you read the instructions I included earlier, Baby Foot takes five to seven days to start peeling and another week after that to finish.

Mine looked like this after four days:

Yum! Buttery, flaky crust!

This was the result of me sitting at my computer attending to my empire while absentmindedly rubbing my bare feet together for 5-10 minutes. Before embarking on your own Baby Foot journey, make sure you:

Have a cordless, easily accessible, fully-charged vacuum cleaner ready at all times.

Sleep with socks on.

Don’t wear sandals to Trader Joe’s — you will feel obligated to explain to everyone behind you in line that you’re doing this for Man Repeller, your feet aren’t normally like this, there’s no need to make retching noises hey where are you going ma’am you can’t just leave your cart there!

Still going strong a week later!

11 days later, no more peeling! And my toes finally fell off, as promised.

JK, they’re still here. These are my “after” pics. They don’t look as pristine as they could because I spent Father’s Day weekend playing badminton barefoot and tending to a late night bonfire while wearing Birkenstocks. I will not apologize for a weekend well spent with the people I love most on this earth, but I am sorry for the poorly timed foot abuse — please take me at my word that the blemishes you see are from splinter wounds, clingy sap, dirt and soot. But the peeling is done, the parts that were visibly flaking before I did Baby Foot are doing so no longer, and my feet feel smooth and velvety. I honestly can’t remember the last time they felt like this. I also feel motivated to henceforth take better care of them — like when I clean and organize the apartment and proclaim, “Now that it’s clean, I’m keeping it that way!” But I dream.

This is a fun product, but plan ahead. If you have some important event where your feet will be showing — like if you’re on an Olympic beach volleyball team or whatever — do this at least two weeks before your competition. The peeling is fun at first but becomes burdensome. It just accelerates a process your body is constantly doing already. If you have athlete’s foot or a fungus issue, which is common and please don’t feel badly about it, treat it first with antifungal cream. (Talk to your doctor and all that before you start doing anything I say, by the way.) For me, Baby Foot was a good way to get rid of the unflattering remnants after the cause had been handled.

You’ve reached the end of my review, which means you’ve looked at a bunch of pictures of my feet. Congratulations, weirdo! Now let’s talk about all of this in the comments!

Illustration by Madeline Montoya.

[alettereveryday-blog1]

May 12, 2018

Dear Mr. Trump,

 This is my 478th letter to you. I will be writing you a letter every day of your presidency. The purpose of this letter is to remind you that your words, actions, and decisions impact millions of Americans such as myself. This is not a game. Let’s talk about something you don’t understand but need to.

Gun control NOW! It has been 87 days since Parkland. Well-adjusted individuals don't arm themselves to the teeth and go on shooting sprees. People set on doing others in can choose from among a variety of means to accomplish the task. An occasional gun-toting bystander may, by chance, be able to take out a mass shooter before the latter has finished. Indeed, it is by no means certain that gun control measures would have prevented any of the mass killings that have become the new normal. Here, though, is the unseen fallacy employed by the Second Amendment fetishists. To constitute sound, life-preserving legislation, restrictions on the availability of guns and ammunition needn't prevent all gun-related carnage.

An analogy: knowing full well that murders will inevitably occur in a nation of 300 million people, we nonetheless adopt homicide laws and punish violators we manage to apprehend. If, instead, we were to reason — as gun control opponents would have us do with gun restrictions — that homicide laws are inappropriate since they are not perfect deterrents, we'd be stepping over dead bodies as we stroll down the sidewalk.

The best that homicide law or gun restrictions or any prohibition against harmful conduct can do is deter some of the people who would otherwise engage in the prohibited conduct. In fact, though, even a modest measure, like banning the semi-automatic attack rifles used in many of this decade's mass shootings, would, over time, save any number of innocent lives.

The gun lobby's emphasis of the imperfection of gun restrictions is an example of what in formal logic is called a "red herring" argument, in which the speaker's argument deflects attention from the issue at hand. In this case, the issue at hand is whether gun control measures are likely to save some — but not all — of the many lives now lost through gunfire, and the "red herring" is the assertion of the NRA and other opponents of restrictions that many lives will still be lost.

Though they hold truth, the tired arguments trotted out after mass murders like the one in Parkland to maintain the easy availability of attack weapons are pretexts to preserve the age-old accoutrement that makes men feel like men. Through a rhetorical sleight of hand, the incomplete prevention of gun deaths through tighter restrictions has become an argument to do nothing.

Whatever the fate of efforts to impose stiffer gun restrictions, it's time to pull the curtain back on the serious illogic of the gun-control opponents.

You have the ability to make the world and America a better place. Do not throw away your shot. Your actions touch millions of lives. Every day, I will share a topic that deserves your attention – and your respect.

A concerned citizen,

PLB

[literateape]

American Shithole #6 — Gifts

By Eric Wilson

While I would’ve loved to wield this week’s column like Gungnir, Odin’s mighty spear, viciously skewering Jared Kushner in a hit piece I look forward to writing with murderous delight — I must instead address my error. I have never been so damn happy to be wrong, in that we as a nation are still talking about gun violence this week; a week that began for me rather serendipitously, with a bit of laughter and reinvigorated spirit.

When my good friend and confidant burst into my room Monday morning — worried that she’d heard noises she later described as a terrifying mashup of hyena laughter and banshee wail — I  was surprised. She just doesn’t do that.

She ran in — she had this terribly worried look on her face — and she hurriedly asked me what was wrong. I hadn’t realized at all that I’d made such an unusual racket, but the truth is, just at that moment I had read this quote from the president, that by now I’m certain everyone in the world has seen:

"I really believe I'd run in there even if I didn't have a weapon."

This was the president opining on what he would do, given the likely occurrence he encounters an active shooter scenario — you know, while he's out aimlessly roaming the DC school districts without his secret service security detail. I’m sure you’ve seen it. Bantu tribesman have seen it. The news of this utterance also resulted in my neural network reaching maximum absurdity density, apparently.

“Do you know what you just sounded like?” she asked me.

“No.”

I had no idea what I was doing, my brain went into lockdown and my mouth just started sputtering nonsense. Although in retrospect, I imagine the response a mixture of exasperation and surprise, like a deflating airbag releasing some sort of wheezing, primordial groan.

I remember thinking to myself:

Are you telling me the fucking Eagle Whisperer is going to storm the castle?

That sanguine orange fuck wouldn’t rush into a dorm room to save a Hot Pocket from a spork-wielding stoner.

That factory reject, septuagenarian pluto-sloth couldn’t rush up half a flight of steps without risking an embarrassing outcropping of bone spurs.

That clumsy buttered muffin of a man couldn’t launch an assault on his own navel lint without an assembly of military brass pointing him in the right direction.

Yet still somehow it’s going to be this cool cat under pressure right here that is going to save the day, eh? Yeah, right.

I made my way into the kitchen for coffee, still concerned about this week’s column, not yet fully aware of the gift I had been given. Mid-brew it struck me that my friend had no idea what gift she had given me either — she’s probably unfamiliar with what a “gift” even means in improv vernacular. I had struggled last week with the topic of gun violence, and knew I had to struggle with the subject again this week, and she just stormed into my room and rained a gift on me.

Thank you, BG.

I was reminded to be patient, and to embrace the absurdity. I also realized over the weekend that I shouldn’t shy away from the inherent humorlessness of the subject matter. Instead, I should just work harder. I would like to keep America’s efforts on gun legislation part of the focus, in order to help these kids get the change they deserve.

In the future, American Shithole will feature periodic updates as an addendum, consisting of highlights in recent gun legislation efforts. These postscripts will generally focus on what the kids are doing (probably going to school), what actions and legislation our representatives in government are (or are not) proposing, what private interests groups are up to, and what we all can do to support these truly heroic American children.

I am aware that the efforts of the NRA in the coming weeks will likely stymie substantive progress, and that news surrounding these young activists will die down, but we don’t have to make it easy. Corporations are taking action, and different battle lines are being drawn. GOP donors are withdrawing support. The cracks are showing, now more than ever.

I am also aware that no one in this administration cares about these kids. I mean, look at Stephen Miller here for fuck’s sake, showing us all — just how plain tuckered out child safety meetings can make an already sleepy-eyed American Nazi.

These kids for me, are a bit like when America arrived on the WWII stage. They bring an energy; difficult to harness or manage. One borne of stubborn youth. Last week? I felt like fat, old Churchill, tired and war-weary, complaining about my woes, this administration and the NRA are obviously Fascist Germany in this scenario — and then these kids show up like the Americans during the darkest days of modern Europe; and those Americans changed the destiny of the world.

Just sayin', these kids are those Americans.

Unfortunately, we haven’t seen how truly awful the NRA is prepared to be. These are the people that sanction calling child survivors of our most recent mass shooting tragedy — children whose actions speak to the very heart of the meaning of the word “courage” — calling them “crisis actors” without a shred of respect for what these brave young Americans had just been through.

These heroic kids have inconceivably received multiple death threats. Right-wing NRA gun fetishists are threatening to murder American children.

Are you fucking kidding me with this bullshit behavior, conservative America? It is as if you are attempting to fast track the evolution of the perfect American asshole. Congratulations, almost there!

What kind of an organization counts as members those willing to threaten the lives of children? Murdering children for ideological reasons should sound exactly like terrorism to sane people. It sounds like terrorism to me.

If a foreign organization were discovered to have maintained a stranglehold on American legislation by owning a political party outright, forcing decades of life-threatening policy for all Americans — we would go to war. The same behavior from an American organization should sound like treason to reasonable people. It sounds like treason to me.

The NRA is a treasonous terrorist organization.

That said, my dad is a member — one of their actual liberal, progressive cardholders — and he has informed me that about half of the NRA are as bad as I have made them out to be.

So we need to get to work on the sane half, if they do indeed exist. We need to talk  some sense all the way to the polls. Blue wave in November or not, it is all hands on deck in any confrontation with the NRA.

This last week has been an emotional one for me. It’s been very emotional I imagine, for most of us. I struggle now to express this deepest sense of gratitude that I feel toward these brave students. Their courage in the face of terrible adversity and horrifying opposition has provided an influx of faith in humanity, and a renewed interest in impaling baddies.

I’ve been adrift for long stretches this last year. The Trump Effect left some of us feeling dead in the water, at times. It’s difficult some days to motivate the crew, when the sails of democracy hang in tatters from splintered masts. The normalizing of all this has yet to break the spell of incredulity.

I know it’s corny, I don’t care that it’s corny; these brave kids are the FUCKING WIND.

They shouldn’t have to be the wind — kids shouldn’t be teaching the adults a thing or two about courage. They certainly shouldn’t be in the position where they find themselves having to stand up to death threats from feckless, gun-worshiping halfwits bereft of moral character, mere days after surviving yet another school shooting. They shouldn’t have to deal with cowardice from the smoldering trash heap of the American right-wing ideological dumpster fire.

But they are, with aplomb even, and my heavens do I admire their poise. I feel a renewed energy, passion and righteous fucking anger coursing through my veins! I feel like I could run a marathon, and then another right after. That is their gift.

So I thank you, brave children, I thank you for the suffusion of energy this movement for sanity so desperately needed. A replenishing of the mana, as it were. I look forward to following your activism and reporting on your valiant efforts with great enthusiasm! You absolutely crushed it last week. Bravo!

Rally around these courageous spirits, my friends, now and in the future. Shelter these budding national treasures. Blanket their vulnerability to the worst elements in our country — the seething Randian sycophants and greedy peddlers in weaponry and other war profiteers. Breathe the life they have given us back into their sails. Tell them what they mean to you. These children have given us a gift, and it is one we should not squander.

#Jared Kushner #active shooter scenario #NRA #Stephen Miller #bravery #high school heroes

[houstonlocalus-blog]

It’s Okay to Hate Guns

Photo: Lucio Saverio Eastman

  I’ve written a fair amount about gun control over the years, and it’s always led to arguments. One of the “gotcha” lines that always seemed to get thrown at me was “you just hate guns!” Sadly, this line usually ended up working on me. Call it years of watching liberals immediately surrender ground in the face of shouted, often mindless opposition in order to de-escalate a situation and find common ground to avoid taking its toll on my conversational habits. Or call it the implied toxic masculine insult that not being all-aboard with the gun world is hitting me in the gut and making me try to prove my manhood with tales of childhood hunting excursions. Whatever it was, it worked. Accuse me of hating guns, and I’d buckle like a belt. Most people I know who support gun control do as well.

  But you know what? I do. I do hate guns. Is it okay to hate guns? Why wouldn’t it be okay to hate guns?

  There is some firearm-specific stuff to deal with here, but let’s go general first. Guns are inanimate objects. They do not have feelings or personalities. Guns do not care if I like them, loathe them or masturbate screaming their name. Hating guns is functionally identical to hating broccoli, or Firefly, or yard work. That bearing arms is a constitutionally protected thing does not mean I have to like that actual thing. The 21st amendment says I can drink, but if I say I hate gin (and I do), no one takes it as some sort of political statement.

  I wrote a bit a while back about how consumer culture can become harmful if you make it a core part of your identity. This can happen with comics, sports, video games and definitely guns. If you think guns haven’t created a consumer culture, I advise you to hit the magazine rack at Barnes and Noble some time. The sheer number of gun-centric publications is absolutely staggering.

  When you invest in that level of fandom, when what you consume becomes who you are, then criticism or an expression of distaste around the thing you are consuming becomes a personal attack. The sentence “I hate guns” sounds more and more like “I hate you.” I’ve run across it dozens, maybe hundreds of times in my years as a media critic. You meet these angry people in the comments section who have traded consumption for part of their souls. It’s not healthy.

  So, yes, in a general sense, it is fine to hate guns, and in a sane country that expression would be met with, “well, I like guns,” and we’d all just move on with our day. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work in America any more, and it has mostly to do with the fact that gun ownership has passed from a consumer culture into straight up fetishism.

  The number of people who own guns in this country is the lowest it’s been in 40 years. However, gun purchasing is at an all-time high. The conclusion is that less people own guns, but those that do own guns own more of them. It’s the stockpiling effect, something that usually happens in the wake of the Shooting of the Week as fetishists scramble to buy more in case the major disarmament the gun manufacturers endlessly warn about as a marketing ploy actually comes to fruition. Remember when folks were filling their fridges with Blue Bell ice cream in the wake of the listeria scare even though it might actually kill them to eat it? Same exact thing.

  I can understand owning guns. My dad has a 30.06 for deer, a shotgun for ducks, and some handgun or other because rural Texas is full of coyotes and meth heads with poor impulse control. As he gets older, I worry about that handgun sometimes (suicide runs in my family), but he keeps his heat locked and unloaded in a safe and therefore safe from his grandkids. I think even the staunchest gun control advocates can agree my father and others like him are operating in a responsible manner.

  My dad ain’t the problem. The fetishists are. People converting gun ownership into a simulated ethnic identity is beyond gross, and it leads to terrible results. Maybe you heard about another one of those hoaxes where trolls posing as antifa groups tricked a bunch of conservatives into demonstrating against the removal of a confederate monument? It happened recently at Gettysburg, and of course someone brought their openly carried gun because something-something freedom. Just as typically, said yo-yo rested the pole of his American flag on his holster and shot himself in the freaking leg.

  Here’s one from Sulphur Springs where a man in church shot himself in the foot. Here’s a woman from Mecosta County, MI that shot herself in the hip at Walmart. This dude from Cleveland managed to shoot himself and another person. I could go on. These people all had CCW’s and that so-called “responsibility” that I’m continuously told is taught to those with such a vaunted license.

  I hate their stupid guns. I hate them because guns are marketed specifically to those who feel disempowered, and as a cure for that, owning one becomes a shiny symbol of strength and freedom. The supposed common sense is to hate the careless owner, but in this day and age I have a lot of sympathy for people seeking ports in the storm. I don’t hate gun owners for falling into a trap of vice. And yes, I think compulsive gun ownership is a vice. Check out this Reddit thread to see why.

  But I do blame the NRA and the manufacturers and their lobbyists for selling something so dangerous as a combination of power fantasy and fashion accessory. I used to like guns before they became this line in the sand. I used to see guns and think about hunting with my dad and my Uncle Bob. Now I just think about death and weakness. I hate them for the same reason I hate the smell of cheap beer. It reminds me of broken people in crappy parts of town grasping at straws and destroying themselves.

  That is a perfectly valid opinion to have. Hating a hazardous product being marketed to people without any regard to how it’s ultimately used isn’t just legit. It’s normal.

It’s Okay to Hate Guns this is a repost

[alettereveryday-blog1]

May 11, 2018

Dear Mr. Trump,

 This is my 477th letter to you. I will be writing you a letter every day of your presidency. The purpose of this letter is to remind you that your words, actions, and decisions impact millions of Americans such as myself. This is not a game. Let’s talk about something you don’t understand but need to.

Gun control NOW! It has been 86 days since Parkland. Well-adjusted individuals don't arm themselves to the teeth and go on shooting sprees. People set on doing others in can choose from among a variety of means to accomplish the task. An occasional gun-toting bystander may, by chance, be able to take out a mass shooter before the latter has finished. Indeed, it is by no means certain that gun control measures would have prevented any of the mass killings that have become the new normal. Here, though, is the unseen fallacy employed by the Second Amendment fetishists. To constitute sound, life-preserving legislation, restrictions on the availability of guns and ammunition needn't prevent all gun-related carnage.

An analogy: knowing full well that murders will inevitably occur in a nation of 300 million people, we nonetheless adopt homicide laws and punish violators we manage to apprehend. If, instead, we were to reason — as gun control opponents would have us do with gun restrictions — that homicide laws are inappropriate since they are not perfect deterrents, we'd be stepping over dead bodies as we stroll down the sidewalk.

The best that homicide law or gun restrictions or any prohibition against harmful conduct can do is deter some of the people who would otherwise engage in the prohibited conduct. In fact, though, even a modest measure, like banning the semi-automatic attack rifles used in many of this decade's mass shootings, would, over time, save any number of innocent lives.

The gun lobby's emphasis of the imperfection of gun restrictions is an example of what in formal logic is called a "red herring" argument, in which the speaker's argument deflects attention from the issue at hand. In this case, the issue at hand is whether gun control measures are likely to save some — but not all — of the many lives now lost through gunfire, and the "red herring" is the assertion of the NRA and other opponents of restrictions that many lives will still be lost.

Though they hold truth, the tired arguments trotted out after mass murders like the one in Parkland to maintain the easy availability of attack weapons are pretexts to preserve the age-old accoutrement that makes men feel like men. Through a rhetorical sleight of hand, the incomplete prevention of gun deaths through tighter restrictions has become an argument to do nothing.

Whatever the fate of efforts to impose stiffer gun restrictions, it's time to pull the curtain back on the serious illogic of the gun-control opponents.

You have the ability to make the world and America a better place. Do not throw away your shot. Your actions touch millions of lives. Every day, I will share a topic that deserves your attention – and your respect.

A concerned citizen, PLB

[alettereveryday-blog1]

May 9, 2018

Dear Mr. Trump,

 This is my 475th letter to you. I will be writing you a letter every day of your presidency. The purpose of this letter is to remind you that your words, actions, and decisions impact millions of Americans such as myself. This is not a game. Let’s talk about something you don’t understand but need to.

Gun control NOW! It has been 84 days since Parkland. Well-adjusted individuals don't arm themselves to the teeth and go on shooting sprees. People set on doing others in can choose from among a variety of means to accomplish the task. An occasional gun-toting bystander may, by chance, be able to take out a mass shooter before the latter has finished. Indeed, it is by no means certain that gun control measures would have prevented any of the mass killings that have become the new normal. Here, though, is the unseen fallacy employed by the Second Amendment fetishists. To constitute sound, life-preserving legislation, restrictions on the availability of guns and ammunition needn't prevent all gun-related carnage.

An analogy: knowing full well that murders will inevitably occur in a nation of 300 million people, we nonetheless adopt homicide laws and punish violators we manage to apprehend. If, instead, we were to reason — as gun control opponents would have us do with gun restrictions — that homicide laws are inappropriate since they are not perfect deterrents, we'd be stepping over dead bodies as we stroll down the sidewalk.

The best that homicide law or gun restrictions or any prohibition against harmful conduct can do is deter some of the people who would otherwise engage in the prohibited conduct. In fact, though, even a modest measure, like banning the semi-automatic attack rifles used in many of this decade's mass shootings, would, over time, save any number of innocent lives.

The gun lobby's emphasis of the imperfection of gun restrictions is an example of what in formal logic is called a "red herring" argument, in which the speaker's argument deflects attention from the issue at hand. In this case, the issue at hand is whether gun control measures are likely to save some — but not all — of the many lives now lost through gunfire, and the "red herring" is the assertion of the NRA and other opponents of restrictions that many lives will still be lost.

Though they hold truth, the tired arguments trotted out after mass murders like the one in Parkland to maintain the easy availability of attack weapons are pretexts to preserve the age-old accoutrement that makes men feel like men. Through a rhetorical sleight of hand, the incomplete prevention of gun deaths through tighter restrictions has become an argument to do nothing.

Whatever the fate of efforts to impose stiffer gun restrictions, it's time to pull the curtain back on the serious illogic of the gun-control opponents.

You have the ability to make the world and America a better place. Do not throw away your shot. Your actions touch millions of lives. Every day, I will share a topic that deserves your attention – and your respect.

A concerned citizen, PLB

[alettereveryday-blog1]

May 8, 2018

Dear Mr. Trump,

 This is my 474th letter to you. I will be writing you a letter every day of your presidency. The purpose of this letter is to remind you that your words, actions, and decisions impact millions of Americans such as myself. This is not a game. Let’s talk about something you don’t understand but need to.

Gun control NOW! It has been 83 days since Parkland. Well-adjusted individuals don't arm themselves to the teeth and go on shooting sprees. People set on doing others in can choose from among a variety of means to accomplish the task. An occasional gun-toting bystander may, by chance, be able to take out a mass shooter before the latter has finished. Indeed, it is by no means certain that gun control measures would have prevented any of the mass killings that have become the new normal. Here, though, is the unseen fallacy employed by the Second Amendment fetishists. To constitute sound, life-preserving legislation, restrictions on the availability of guns and ammunition needn't prevent all gun-related carnage.

An analogy: knowing full well that murders will inevitably occur in a nation of 300 million people, we nonetheless adopt homicide laws and punish violators we manage to apprehend. If, instead, we were to reason — as gun control opponents would have us do with gun restrictions — that homicide laws are inappropriate since they are not perfect deterrents, we'd be stepping over dead bodies as we stroll down the sidewalk.

The best that homicide law or gun restrictions or any prohibition against harmful conduct can do is deter some of the people who would otherwise engage in the prohibited conduct. In fact, though, even a modest measure, like banning the semi-automatic attack rifles used in many of this decade's mass shootings, would, over time, save any number of innocent lives.

The gun lobby's emphasis of the imperfection of gun restrictions is an example of what in formal logic is called a "red herring" argument, in which the speaker's argument deflects attention from the issue at hand. In this case, the issue at hand is whether gun control measures are likely to save some — but not all — of the many lives now lost through gunfire, and the "red herring" is the assertion of the NRA and other opponents of restrictions that many lives will still be lost.

Though they hold truth, the tired arguments trotted out after mass murders like the one in Parkland to maintain the easy availability of attack weapons are pretexts to preserve the age-old accoutrement that makes men feel like men. Through a rhetorical sleight of hand, the incomplete prevention of gun deaths through tighter restrictions has become an argument to do nothing.

Whatever the fate of efforts to impose stiffer gun restrictions, it's time to pull the curtain back on the serious illogic of the gun-control opponents.

You have the ability to make the world and America a better place. Do not throw away your shot. Your actions touch millions of lives. Every day, I will share a topic that deserves your attention – and your respect.

A concerned citizen, PLB