#And how I still think the American education system is weird | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

caesium-55 · 2 months

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—seven days. [ iii ]

pairing: max verstappen x manager! reader.

summary: as the third time world champion, max verstappen's manager, you function on the belief that whatever max verstappen wanted, max verstappen shall get. but this time, after four years of working as his manager, you can't give him what he wants anymore and that was to stay.

author's note: hi hello welcome to part three. i flunked the quiz. lemme know what you think. NOT BETA READ. NOT EDITED. this chapter kinda sux. can't believe i went through a breakup just last week and i still cant write decent post-breakup scenes.

tags: @whatamidoingwithmylife-ramdom @eugene-emt-roe @bellezaycafe @barnestatic @theseerbetweenus @wcnorris @notyouraveragemochii @lpab hope i didn't forget anyone.

masterlist.

you: *sent a link*

him: ?

him: what's this

you: benefits of crying

you: read it it's enlightening

him: some people do not cry over a breakup you know and that is totally okay

you: why crying helps.

you: 1. tears release toxins, stress hormones to be specific. it is good to let all the bad energy out.

you: 2. it aids sleep. no need for further explanation.

you: 3. crying releases oxytocin and endorphins. i know you don't know what an oxytocin or an endorphin is but they're happy chemicals.

you: 4. crying helps you receive the support you need from the people around you. EMOTIONAL VULNERABILITY is okay, max. stop treating it like an STD.

him: it feels like an std

you: pussy

you: emotional vulnerability is a thing and it's normal so stop trying to be a big strong man when you're barely holding it together.

you: you may look fine now but i know you

him: please stop

you: no

you: 5. crying has a self soothing effect. very nice actually. it activates the rest and digest system.

him: what even is that

you: the parasympathetic nervous system

him: ??

you: this is why you shouldn't have dropped out of high school

you: education is important yknow

you: youre already lacking in three forms of intelligence, academic, emotional n social intelligence

him: fuck you im smart

you: fuck you 2 and yeah you're smart but only in geography

you: you probably can't do your taxes

him: im dutch so the company's account department do it for me by default

him: the american system is just weird

you: cant argue w/ u there

you: also, 6. crying helps restore emotional balance

you: see? you need that

you: yknow now that i think abt it you should consider seeking therapy

him: what makes you think i’m not in therapy right now

you: well have you considered getting MORE therapy?

You stand in front of the body mirror, holding the Red Bull polo shirt against your body to see how it looks on you for one last time. On your right sleeve, the word MANAGER is written in bold, white text. Because that was what you were. Just a manager.

In another universe this is not the shirt that you’d be wearing. The MANAGER would have been ENGINEER. In another another universe where your family has been well-off enough to continuously send you to karting school and you would have been the one driving the fucking car by now.

You know, if Max has even tried talking to Horner and suggested that you should be moved into the engineering team, then you wouldn't be stuck wearing this god-awful polo that burned your skin every time you wore it for work. Everybody reduced you as Max’s American manager and because you are American, most of them kind of just assumed that you're dumb, you know?

Does the world even know how smart you are? That you graduated top of your class, got the best thesis award, and that you had finished your masters just this year? Did they even know that a Japanese car company wanted you on their research team? That a NASCAR team wanted you on board as one of their engineers? Does Max even know?

Fuck no. He only knows that you're the best at ironing clothes and organizing his Google calendar and memorizing his entire coffee order by heart. He knew you're good at extinguishing kitchen fires and kicking ass in YSL Opyum heels. You doubt he knows that you can do Calculus in your sleep.

You can take it if the world puts you down for your appearance. But if the world puts you down because of your intellect? That's a different story. You'll take any insult to the face but not to your intelligence.

You have four days left in Monaco so you have begun packing already. You're right, everything did fit into three suitcases. Also, you haven't told Max yet. For some reason, you’re too anxious. Which is shocking to say the least because you never ever gets anxious when it came to Max Verstappen. You wouldn't have lasted this long working alongside Max if you were a pussy.

Max Max Max Super Max Max—

“[Name] here. Need anythin’, champ?”

Hearing a sob on the other end of the line immediately activates your fight or flight response. Your eyes widen and you toss the Red Bull shirt aside. Your legs leads you to the nearly empty shoe rack stationed beside the front door, grabbing the pair of shoes at the very top of the tiny shelf and throwing them on.

“I’m comin’ there. Hang on, Max. You wait for me, okay?”

He doesn't answer, just continuing to sob and the sound absolutely breaks your heart.

You run to his penthouse at a speed that will even put the RB19 to shame. Not even bothering to knock, you barge in and yell his name in the empty halls of his penthouse. You search in the kitchen. He's not there. The living room. Not there either. The room where his simulations are. Not there. You run to his bedroom upstairs.

The door is locked. Dammit. Panic overflooded your system.

“Max, sweetheart, you there?”

No answer, but you can hear a faint sound behind the door if you press your ear against the wood. Firefighter training covered how to open a fucking door when it was locked so this once again becomes a situation where you're grateful that you did that tiring and borderline suicidal volunteer work.

Max keeps a fire extinguisher inside his penthouse as per your advice. There is one stationed in almost every room inside his house. You knew there is one inside his room and another one just at the end of the hallway. You make a quick run for it and once you have the extinguisher in your hands, you run back to his door.

“Step away from the door!” you instructed while your mind mentally calculates your payment plan as you hit the door knob with so much force, the walls tremble at your strength. You're functioning on pure adrenaline. Your instincts only yell one thing and that is: go to Max. No one and nothing in this world will keep you from him. It isn't long until his bedroom door broke down. With one last final kick, it crumbles down from its hinges and you forcefully pry it open and sprint inside.

Max tucks himself in the tiny space in the corner of his huge bedroom, his knees shoved up to his chest. A 181-cm tall man trying to make himself as small as possible.

This is it. This is the bottled-up emotions he's been storing since Abu Dhabi. You cannot say you have not anticipated this. Max is bound to explode sooner or later.

Panic attacks have made a home in Max’s body since he was a child. That's what one gets when they’re parented by someone like Jos Verstappen. He killed Max’s soul and made the boy a machine and for what? To shape a child into a man, a racer that he wanted to be but failed to become at the cost of Max's mental health and childhood.

When Max looks up with that heartbreaking look on his face, you almost crumble. Almost, because you cannot crumble. Not when Max needs you.

Sometimes, you forget what it took for Max to become the champion that he is today. A childhood sacrificed for his dominance on the tracks. A whole lot of hatred from the people to become a WDC. And now, a love lost for his third consecutive championship.

“You came,” his voice cracks towards the end.

Your eyes soften, “You called, Max. Course I’ll come.”

You barely brace yourself for the impact that is Max’s body wrapping around yours in a tight hug. The man have literally launch himself from the floor to you at sixth gear speed. You stumble backwards slightly, holding his bed for support so the both of you won't fall down.

“Max—”

“No,” he whispers and his grip on your tightens as if he's afraid that you’ll slip away if he even tried to give your lungs space to breathe. “Don't speak. Stay.”

What Max wanted, what Max would get. So you shut your mouth, shuffle slightly so he'll be in a more comfortable position and allow him take whatever he wants from you. This will be the last chance he’ll ever do it anyway because in four days time, you’re flying to Texas.

You stay for what is probably hours in that position. Crumbled together on the floor, leaning against the side of Max’s king-sized bed. Your shirt is completely damp from his tears but you cannot even bring yourself to care about it.

“Your shoes…” It's the first time Max has spoken since the start of his meltdown.

“Hm?” you turn your head and your nose nuzzles against his hair, making you scrunch it up a little. His hair is tickling your nostrils. If you lean a little forward, your lips will meet the skin of his temple.

“They’re mismatched.”

Brows furrowed, your eyes move to your feet and see that Max is right. Your shoes are indeed mismatched. On your left is one of your Adidas slides and the other is your slip-on Skechers. You ran from one building to another in mismatched shoes. Fucking embarassing.

“Ignore them.”

Silence.

“You good now?”

“No.”

“Okay,” you say. “If you want to talk, I’ll listen.”

You hear Max let out a shaky breath, “Just stay for a while. Don't leave me alone.”

“Okay.”

Eventually, you manage to talk Max out of the hug. You're beginning to feel claustrophobic but you do not want to say it out right so you try to negotiate instead. That's how you and Max found yourselves inside his kitchen again. You're trying to replicate your Abuela's cheesecake, which she was known for back in Austin, and Max is…well, he's Max and he’s trying to be helpful in any way he can. If it's some other day, you'd have shoved him out of the way because you prefer working alone in the kitchen. Having eyes on you gives you anxiety. But given today’s circumstances, you do not have the heart to make Max leave so you task him with doing the little stuff like mixing things and throwing shit to the trash can nearby. And he does so splendidly.

“Thank you, by the way.”

“For what, baby?” You internally wince at your own slip of the tongue. Damn that habit of yours of calling people with affectionate call signs. Thankfully, Max seems to have not noticed it.

“For coming here.”

You shrug.

“I only did what you did for me in 2021.”

Again, your breakup with Leo was bad bad. You spent a month crying for a love lost and Max was there for you. For the most part, at least. You want him to focus on winning and winning alone that you pushed him away a lot of times but you appreciated how he was more obedient to your commands, that he held his tongue so he wouldn't piss you off even though he was not liking your words, and that he was considerate of you.

“I hope you won't go into fights though,” you chuckle. “Like I did after my breakup.”

He smiles, shaking his head lightly and you know he's recalling the memory. 2021 is a hilarious year for you, the Red Bull manager. You went viral after getting into a cat fight with a girl and a whole fist fight with her boyfriend.

You and Leo called it quits a week before Monaco and even though it had been four races since then, your heart was still in a quite fragile state at that specific race weekend. One minor inconvenience was enough to ignite a wild blaze of fire within you and nobody could extinguish the flames.

After Silverstone FP1, you were leading Max to the cool down room to brief him with Horner’s relayed instructions and someone had thrown a glass bottle towards the both of you while walking. Originally, Max was the main target of the bottle but you happened to have moved towards the line of trajectory and the bottle landed on your temple, hard enough that you stumbled upon impact.

You barely heard Max’s shocked gasp and shout of panic over the sound of glass shattering on your foot because the only thing you could register was the terrifying feeling of a thick liquid trickling down the side of your face and you didn't even need to see it to know it was blood.

The only thing you saw was red and it was on fucking sight.

Fucking Hamilton fan. Fucking Hamilton. He’s in Max’s way. He’s in your way. He’s the wall that was dividing you from your dream position in the engineering team.

You shoved the iPad you were holding to Max’s hands and marched down to the woman wearing the Merc #44 merch, swiftly jumping over the barricade and grabbing her by the collar of her pristine white Versace top.

The events that followed were too fast. You grabbed her collar. She pulled your hair. You also pulled her hair. Someone pulled her away from you. You tried to grab her, clawing her bare arms with your manicured nails. She screamed. You screamed back. You pulled out some curse words in Spanish as well because cursing her in one language alone is not enough. Her boyfriend appeared. A quick punch to your cheek. You fell to the ground.

The world stood still. There was a sting on your palm because your skin got torn from the hard surface of the concrete ground. You let a bloodcurdling war cry and your Dad would definitely be disappointed at you for using the boxing techniques he taught you for self defense purposes only to fight a guy two times your size.

Everything was a bigger blur from there. But you did remember the sensation of Max’s strong arms around you, stopping you from lunging forward again. He was saying sweet words to your ear to calm you down but your brain failed to intercept them so you could hear the words, could hear his voice, but not understand any of it. You remember Christian Horner's disappointed face that haunted you even two years later. You remembered feeling so terrified as you sat outside Christian Horner’s office waiting for the final verdict while he and Max and a few of the Red Bull higher-ups argued about your future with the team. You remembered hearing Max’s loud snarl on the other side of the mahogany door: “Did you see her face?! There was blood everywhere! On her nose, on her mouth, on the fucking side of her head!” You remembered the girl taking the case to court. You remembered fearing that you’d be sent to jail. You remembered that she lost the case because it was ruled as self defense and your injuries were grave. You remembered discovering that it was Max who used all his power and got the best lawyer to fight your case. You remembered the atmosphere in the Red Bull garage shifting when you entered it a few weeks later and everyone stared the bandages and bruises. Everyone thought one thing: of course, it would also take a monster to manage a monster like Max Verstappen. You remembered Lewis Hamilton, seven-time world champion, apologizing personally for the fight caused by his own fan. He didn't need to but he was so sincere with it that you cried when he handed you the apology flowers. God, how could you even hate this man? Your anger towards him was misplaced.

You’d been living with the guilt ever since, that you were horrifyingly violent for a day, that you were capable of killing for a day. And it could happen again. One day. God, you hoped you wouldn't have to see that day. You knew all your coworkers have been careful with angering you ever since. They're terrified of you even. Max should be, too. But then again, why would he when he already saw the horrors done by his father’s hands ever since he was a child? He was used to it.

“I won't,” he says, smiling at you. “I wouldn't want to add anymore problems for you to clean up.”

But you will not be the one cleaning it up because you resigned. You didn’t tell that to him though. Not right now. He just had a meltdown over Kelly leaving him and the news of his manager leaving him too will destroy him.

The cheesecake is a little burnt when you take it out of the oven but it actually adds more flavor to it so yeah, that's a win.

“We should drink,” you suggest.

“It’s mid-afternoon.”

“We drank at mid-afternoon yesterday,” you give him a blank stare. “With Alex and Charles, remember?”

He doesn't say anything as you make your way to his fridge and pull out two bottles of beer. Max has champagne stored somewhere but you have enough of those expensive champagnes. You need beer. Beer is good. Beer is nice. You're a beer type of person and it is time Max becomes one, too.

“I’m no scientist,” you begin, biting off the beer’s bottle cap. “But according to chemistry, alcohol is solution.”

Well, technically, edible alcohol or ethanol is not a mixture. Rather, it's a pure substance that happens to be a liquid at room temperature and typical atmospheric pressure. Pure ethanol is not a solution. Hard spirits though? That's a solution.

Beer is not a hard spirit. It's more of a fermented drink. But Max doesn't know that, though, so you don't bother explaining the science behind it.

Somewhere down the road, the two of you move to his living room. You use the Youtube app in his TV to search karaoke video and have the bestest time of your lives. You're screaming along some Daddy Yankee and El Alfa songs and Max doesn't know how to speak Spanish so he’s just vibing to it.

At 5 PM, you pull out Max’s expensive vodka bottle. Now this is the real shit. The ten bottles of beer? Those are just pregame. Max is already drunk with just those because he’s a pussy but you’re no pussy, so the only right answer is vodka! Viva la vodka or whatever.

Your throat gets tired of singing and Max gets tired from dancing, too, so you both decide to just go entertain yourselves in other ways. First, you introduced Max to beer-pong. He loses, of course. He sucks at everything not racing. Then, the two of you move onto chess. Max gives up mid-game. He cannot understand the rules. Then, lastly, you move to the billiard table Max owned. He only used it when the other guys are over and you do not even know why he bought it when he sucked at playing billiards.

“You know what Kelly said the morning before the race?” Max suddenly says and you look up at him, brow raising slightly. He’s drunk; his skin is flushed and he is all giggly and smile-y as he sits on the billiard table’s side rail and using the billiard stick as some sort of support stand to keep him from falling. You hope he won't accidentally poke himself. You're no better, too. Ten beer bottles and a few glasses of vodka. But you’re not as drunk as Max, and you still have a straight vision and you can still sink the colored balls into the pockets of the billiard table.

“Hm?”

“That it was unfair for her.”

You raise a questioning brow, “Why?”

“I bought shoes and they don't fit her.”

You blink. He laughs at himself as if he has uttered the funniest joke in the world.

“Three years of relationship gone because of a single pair of shoes,” he continues. “She wanted those shoes, too.”

Kelly….what the fuck?

“But that's okay. She….She made me open my eyes, you know? She made me realize what I truly love.”

“Racing.” It's not even a question. It's the truth.

Max stares at you, long and hard, and you look away first because you fear that if you allow yourself to stare too long, you’ll drown in those beautiful blues. This is enough heartache for the day. No need to add more.

“Hey [Name],” he begins. “If I asked you to kiss me, would you do it?”

#manager!reader #max verstappen x you #max verstappen x reader #max verstappen #f1 x reader #f1 imagines #formula one #fanfic #angst #mv1 #mv33 x reader #mv33

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aroaceleovaldez · 3 months

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random question but i came across a post of yours where you talked about how mark oshiro sort of erased an aspect of nico's ADHD by making a joke about how he only liked mythomagic cards because he's gay and there are hot guys on the cards, and then TSATS also seemed to really downplay the themes of neurodivergence in the series. and it made me wonder if you have any thoughts on how the show has portrayed the demigods' ADHD and dyslexia so far? i've seen some people say that the show also downplayed it a lot, and i'm inclined to agree... which feels really weird considering that rick's own son's neurodivergence was specifically a major inspiration for him writing the series. but if i recall correctly a lot of scenes showcasing that in the first book were taken out of the show.

Oh absolutely, a lot of scenes and general discussion about adhd/dyslexia were removed in the show (and some of the disability-coding in general - i appreciate the change they made with making Chiron disabled based on his mythos rather than just using a wheelchair as a disguise, but i wish they had kept Grover's crutches in a similar manner honestly) - I've made a couple of posts discussing it: here, here, and this reblog is relevant to my opinions about the matter. There's probably some other stuff in my pjo tv crit tag.

I think the main sentiment i have regarding it - which i've seen a couple of other people mention as well - is how much the show ignores or outright removes and downplays Percy's personal struggles with his disabilities to instead emphasize Sally's experiences instead, particularly in manners of her taking out her stress on Percy - which alongside being completely antithetical to Sally's role in the books, is pretty ableist and why I continually compare show!Sally to Autism Speaks Parents. Autism Speaks tends to make an emphasis on the struggles of the parents of autistic children rather than treating autistic individuals like a person experiencing their own struggles. One of the major points of Sally's character (and later Paul) in the books is that she's an incredibly accommodating parent and works hard to make sure Percy is supported when he's struggling with his disabilities, because he's not been able to find that accommodation elsewhere. That's part of why Sally is such a great mom in particular, and is intentionally supposed to directly contrast Annabeth's home life struggles with her parents having difficulty navigating how to provide that same level of accommodation to help support her (and how Annabeth finds that accommodation at CHB instead, because that's the metaphor that CHB is supposed to represent - an appropriately accommodating system they can rely on, and then exploring how that's still a flawed system and looking at how disabled kids/demigods fall through the cracks and how to change the system to better support them).

The show also almost completely ignores Percy's ADHD/dyslexia experiences in general after the first episode. I was honestly really happy with, in the first episode, how clearly Percy's poor experiences in the American education system, particularly relating to his neurodivergence, have informed his reaction to situations such as people trying to tell him he's a demigod in coded language. It was essentially the perfect update to something i've discussed in the past here, about how the original "all demigods have adhd/dyslexia because it's secretly SUPERPOWERS" thing was presented as the basis for the series and why that teaching/parenting style fell out of favor. We see Percy in e1 acknowledge how dismissive of his struggles it is to constantly just be told he's "special" - and we even get explicit acknowledgement of how that description is used aggressively and for ostracization (from Nancy), which is extremely true to the experiences of kids who grew up with that teaching/parenting structure. But then we get to episode 2 and... all the acknowledgement of ADHD/dyslexia/etc is gone. We get at most a one-off acknowledgement from Luke that demigods are all neurodivergent and that's it. Pretty much nothing else for the entire rest of the season, save for flashback scenes that only emphasize Sally's experiences, not acknowledge Percy's. No further acknowledgement of Percy's dyslexia, or Annabeth's, or anything about their ADHD, or even Percy's completely removed PTSD (which we know for sure because of both writer commentary [see: that second post i linked about the LA Times article] and Percy's total lack of reaction to Mr. D). Nothing.

It was extremely disheartening to say the least, having such a strong start and it evaporating completely, and I fully agree with you.

#pjo #percy jackson #riordanverse #pjo tv #pjo tv crit #adhd #Anonymous #ask #long post //#ask to tag

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deathlygristly · 18 days

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I am reading the reblogs and tags on an older post that goes around the dash occasionally. It's about reading. I'm sure you've seen it - someone talks about Divergent books and 1984 and then someone reblogs it and calls 1984 rape apologism? Which is really weird?

The spousal person ordered a print of this Kate Beaton comic many years ago and he hung it up in the hallway and he told me to go look at it whenever I said my writing was bad:

http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=44

The first two panels do a fairly decent job of explaining 1984. Which is just....a really simple book. It's like wow look fascism sucks! And that's it, pretty much. Like yeah, obviously you could write papers and essays and a thesis and probably do a whole body of academic work on the particulars of it, but really it's just that Orwell thought fascism sucked. Which it does, so I don't see the problem?

Anyway I am pretty sure a lot of the people on that post come from a very different society than I do, even though the education system they say they hate is the American one. Which, hey, our education is locally funded and controlled so maybe it's just that my working class southern Appalachian rural county schools were a lot better than their schools? Or is it maybe what I've suspected before, that I graduated before No Child Left Behind?

I can't recall my English teachers ever being authoritarian to the extent so many other people claim their English teachers were. Not that I can recall that much about English or school at all, really, but I think I would remember if they marched around all "No, your essay is WRONG and only MY opinion is right!!!" all the time.

But then it's true that I don't remember it that well because I just wrote essays the night before they were due or sometimes in the classes before English if it was a class later in the day, and then I got a good grade and nice comments on it and then I got on with my life. I don't think I ever invested nearly as much emotional energy and idea of my self-worth into English class as the people on that post did. Which maybe that's why they remember it so well? Certainly it's probably a large part of why they still have Big Emotions about it.

Anyway my point is that sometimes I read how people write about their own reading and I'm like oh. This is why I shouldn't care what people say about my work that much. I clearly did not write it for these people who experience the world and fiction and the written word in a way that I cannot imagine at all and that I would have never known existed as a possibility if I hadn't read their own words about it.

Like the version of the post that gets the most reblogs ends with an essay about how in the last few decades people have come to expect characters to be "relatable" and to be like them and to think and experience things the way they do? And there's all this self-identity and irrational and false beliefs about your own moral purity involved?

If you come to my work with that sort of thing in your heart you will bounce off of it, and I have finally come to understand that the bouncing off is for the best for both of us.

If you're new here and you haven't read my stuff yet, here's the pinned post with the directory on my Simblr: Story Index.

Anyway, gotta go to bed now. It's just....I don't think I ever realized just how differently people experience fiction and books and the written word from how I experience it before. Like in the tags someone said they expected 1984 to be more Hunger Games-esque? How is that person perceiving reality? I want to live inside their brain for a bit to learn.

#long post

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rokhal · 16 days

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GR/RE7 AU fanfic: Weird Fungus

Referencing this piece of meta explaining @wazzappp's amazing All-New Ghost Rider/Resident Evil fusion AU, here is a little fic about Robbie and Gabe settling in to their little off-grid house where the BSAA stashed them after they survived Dulvey, Louisiana, and developed a cleaning compulsion (Robbie) and a sudden desire to wander away where no one can find him physically, audibly, or psychically (Gabe).

To set the scene, imagine some well-meaning BSAA agent sends Robbie this thing in their regular food delivery.

“I appreciate the gesture,” Robbie said, keeping his voice level and his eyes facing the camera of his BSAA-issued laptop, “but please don’t send us any more legs.”

The agent on the other end frizzled out into pixels and cocked her head on a two-second delay. “Legs? Oh, the, uh.” She tapped on her screen. “Jam-on serano? It’s supposed to be really good with wine.”

“Jamón, ham, the leg. With the foot, and the bones and, uh.” Robbie swallowed as he recalled opening the weekly food delivery and finding the top half of the box occupied by a skinned, cured-and-dried, but still massive animal limb, the thin flesh just below the toes still printed with rope marks. He could see the seams between every muscle. He could see its kneecap. At the opposite end, he could see the severed end of its thigh bone. “M-my brother has sensory issues. He doesn’t eat meat anymore. I won’t eat it in front of him.”

The BSAA agent made a note. “We can accommodate special dietary needs if you let us know. Is there anything specific you would prefer?”

Robbie fought the urge to tear at his hair. “Um. Tomato soup? Like, regular tomato soup, not gazpacho? Macaroni noodles. Some kind of cheese that doesn’t get all stringy as soon as it cools down. Frijoles, you know, normal refried beans? He likes those but not the ones that come swimming in the weird broth. Um, fish is okay—as long as it doesn’t have heads or bones in it. Potatoes are good. Eggs are good.”

“There’s some stores near the military base that cater to Americans,” the agent offered, and Robbie died a little inside. “I’ll see if we can order through there. How about vegetables?”

“His garden is growing really good. We’re good for vegetables.”

“Wow.” Robbie wondered if he’d said something wrong as the agent made another note. “Very nice, I’m glad you two are settling in.”

Not much of an option, being on house-arrest, Robbie thought. “Thanks.”

“Are you excited to start classes?”

Robbie knew this script, a back-and-forth he’d muddled through with a half-dozen social workers back in LA. “Very much. I value my education and I will complete my assignments independently and on time.”

She chuckled. Robbie wondered if he’d said something wrong. “You know, this is the real world, not high school. You can ask for help if you need it. Have you picked a major yet?”

The BSAA hadn’t asked before enrolling Robbie in the University of Barcelona’s undergraduate correspondence program, anymore than they’d asked Gabe before signing him up for remote learning with the local equivalent to middle school. “Pick?” he asked hesitantly.

“I think you’ve still got a few weeks to think about it, and you can always change majors, but, yeah, you might want to contact their guidance department if you’re not sure what courses to sign up for.” Now it was Robbie’s turn to make a note. “Chris will be over today, you can try asking him.”

“Oh.” Mr. Redfield’s visits were always on short notice, but Robbie usually had more than a matter of hours to mentally prepare himself. “Uh. We also need more bleach, please.”

“You just got two liters last month,” the agent said. “You know it’s bad for the septic system?”

Robbie kept his face blank, open. “It’s for cleaning. I’m not pouring it in the drains.”

“You know you’re supposed to dilute it?” the agent pressed him.

“One to ten,” Robbie recited, realizing as he said it that he’d managed to use about five gallons of disinfectant in a single month. He may have a problem. “I’m keeping the kitchen clean. The counters and the refrigerator. And both bathrooms. The grout. Under the lid for the cistern. Door handles.”

“Okay, okay.” Robbie winced; two okays was never okay. “I’ll send you more bleach. And some gloves.”

“Thank-you.”

“You sleeping alright?”

Loaded question. Robbie’s eyes flicked involuntarily to the BSAA-issued Alexa perched on a high shelf in the kitchen. “I’m sleeping.”

“Bad dreams?” The agent’s image pixelated again before stabilizing, and Robbie took advantage of the brief signal disruption to press his face hard into both palms. He could control himself during the day but of course their bugs heard it when he woke up screaming.

“Yeah.”

“You want to talk about it?”

Robbie doubted she would take no for an answer and doubted his own ability to prevaricate. He shrugged. “Louisiana. Dinner table with Momm—Mrs. Baker, and her husband and Eveline.” That was an odd feature of his recurring nightmares: he identified Mr. and Mrs. Baker in his thoughts as Mommy and Daddy, and his fear of them was twisted together with familiarity, even gratitude. “They had my body chopped up in pots.”

The agent made a sympathetic noise. “They tried to eat you?”

“Could be worse,” Robbie said, shrugging again. At least the people they ate didn’t turn into fanged piles of black sludge and stagger around their decaying home for eternity. “I think I’m just…” He glanced around the study: empty, except for the big table and the bookshelf full of Spanish novels that had proved embarrassingly challenging. “I’m, like—in my dreams I’m looking down at myself in the pot and Mm-Mrs. Baker tells me to eat up. I mean. They didn’t have any real food.” He crossed his arms and dug his nails into his own elbows, fighting vertigo. “It was all rotten. No cans left. The animals were all dead.”

“You’re worried about what your brother went through,” the agent said, and Robbie straightened.

“No.” He held his breath, grasping for some plausible argument. They killed dogs that ate people, didn’t they? The BSAA’s hold on their lives now was absolute. “They only had him a few months. I, I mean. It’s my dreams. Making things up.”

“Any problems with your medication? You have the list of side effects to watch for?”

“No.” It was a daily BSAA-issued pill. The first day on his antifungal, Robbie threw up black mold into the toilet until he passed out and slept for ten hours. Better out than in, he’d figured. The next day, and every day since, had been fine. “I mean, no side effects. We’re okay.” A bird warbled and piped from outside, loud and close. Robbie hadn’t left any windows open overnight. He straightened and turned, just as he heard the side door click shut. “Gabe?”

“Should we cut this short?” the agent asked, helpful for once, and Robbie nodded.

“I appreciate it. It’s probably nothing.” He ended the call and checked the dining room, where Gabe often read or watched laggy videos on his own BSAA-issued laptop, and Gabe’s room, where a cornucopia of superhero collectibles spilled from the bed to the floor and a faint (illusory, had to be) scent of mildew lingered despite Robbie’s vigorous daily whole-house cleaning schedule. “Gabe?” He must be outside. Robbie tried to calm himself. Just because Gabe had left the house, didn’t mean he was going to wander over the hills and disappear for two days. Again.

He stepped over the threshold, out from the hundred-year-old walls of his new home and into the alien wilderness: hot sun and rocky hills, no sound but the wind in his ears and birds chattering in the spicy-sweet desert shrubs. He squinted downhill, to the south: shrubs, cliffs, the Mediterranean sea glittering up at him. He peered west: shrubs, hills, the distant remains of a shattered stone fort and the faintly visible danger signs surrounding a radioactive ghost town. He checked north: shrubs, gravel driveway that carved switchbacks over the hills until it disappeared over the horizon, still no Gabe. Assuming that it had been Gabe shutting the door behind him and not the wind, he’d only left the house a few minutes ago; he couldn’t have run out of Robbie’s sight that fast. He might be crouched down to examine some plant or insect, or he might be hiding. (It was still so strange to see Gabe doing these things: running, climbing, hiding. The goddamn study had never even suggested their treatment would do anything for Gabe’s physical limitations, just save his life. When he’d first found Gabe in the Baker house, strong and agile and trying his best to stab him to death, he’d thought Gabe was literally possessed by a demon. The little girl’s mental influence was gone; the abilities she’d given Gabe remained.) He circled around to the east side of the house, reassuring himself that he could always run back inside and climb out onto the roof to get a bird’s eye view (Gabe could just crouch down below some fragrant desert bush and almost disappear), and then all the air rushed out of his lungs with a strange little wheeze when he saw Gabe hunched over and kicking something in the garden.

“Hey, Bud.” Gabe hated being snuck up on after Louisiana, and honestly, so did Robbie. (Gabe could sneak up on him now.) Robbie picked his way through the sprawling jungle of the vegetable garden: beans twining up gnarled bushes and driftwood stakes, tomato vines heavy with fruit stretched out over the sandy ground between lush bunches of lettuce, mellow paprika peppers blazing like Christmas lights from leafy stems. Most of Gabe’s plants, he’d started by planting left-over stems and seeds from their weekly meal prep shipment directly into the dirt with a handful of rotting food-scraps, and they never failed to sprout with a few days of watering. Robbie found himself happy to eat these home-grown vegetables; watching Gabe mulch and water them as they unfurled their leaves and their flowers set into fruit made them more trustworthy, somehow, than the bitter green things sold chopped up in bags at the grocery store. If he’d known growing his own food was this easy, he’d have dug up a roadside strip back in Los Angeles years ago.

Normally there were bees buzzing around the pepper and tomato blossoms, but Gabe’s kicking had scared them off. Robbie approached slowly as Gabe grabbed his digging stick. He hated the tingle of fear down his spine. He had to concentrate to keep from grabbing the scar on his left forearm, reminding himself as he so often did that Gabe was a physically normal kid now. Normal kids could be violent. It didn’t mean anything was wrong. It didn’t mean this wasn’t Gabe.

Gabe side-stepped to hide what he’d been kicking from Robbie, shoving dirt over it with his well-worn stick. Robbie still saw a flash of something red, fleshy. He swallowed. “What is that?”

Gabe dropped his stick and rubbed his face in the crook of his elbow, breath hitching. Robbie stepped closer and saw that the red meaty object was not, to his profound relief, an animal. He wasn’t sure what it was: narrow, spongy, bruised and moist from Gabe’s shoe, with dark gray parts and a tapering red stripe on each of its wedge-shaped segments, looking like a dog’s mouth or one of those bizarre tropical flowers that only blooms every hundred years. “Weird fungus,” Gabe managed.

Robbie knelt down to look at it. He’d never seen a wild mushroom before; he didn’t expect them to be so big, or to be shaped like an open mouth. The colors were a bit like the red and white mushrooms in cartoons, though. “Is it poisonous?”

Gabe shook his head. “It helps the vegetables,” he choked out. “But, I. I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry, I’m sorry you got nightmares. I didn’t mean to.”

Robbie covered his mouth. This was his fault; he hadn’t checked that Gabe was in his room before his call with the BSAA agent. He had to get it through his head that Gabe could move quickly and quietly now, that this was their normal. “I’m so sorry you heard that,” he said. That wouldn’t undo that Gabe had heard that. “Buddy. Gabe.” He reached up for a hug, and Gabe hesitated, staring at his left arm. “That’s just a dream. That’s just my brain trying to make sense of things that make me unhappy, and I’m unhappy about what the Bakers and, and Eveline did to you. Not anything you did. Okay?” Gabe sniffled and rubbed his face again, and Robbie kept his arms open, waiting. “I’m so proud of you for making it out of there. For surviving. I’ll never blame you for anything you had to do to survive.”

Gabe stared down at the stomped remains of the mushroom. “I’m not creepy?”

“No, never. You’re my little bro,” Robbie assured him, and Gabe sat down and flung himself against Robbie’s side. “Why’d you kill the mushroom?”

“Cause it gave you my nightmares,” Gave mumbled. He must mean, nightmares about me, an accurate deduction that would make Dr. DaCosta back home intensely proud of his social reasoning skills, except that Robbie had never seen this mushroom before. Robbie figured that before Gabe smashed it, it must have been nightmarish to look at, in a Hot Topic sort of way. “It’s creepy.”

“I think it looks cool,” Robbie remarked. Spain was full of cool things, now that he had the time and safety to sit back and contemplate them: bugs. Seaweed and weird critters that washed up on the beach. Flowers. Birds that sang—he’d thought their reputation for “singing” was an exaggeration, but it turned out that birds actually do sing. An infinite carpet of stars stretching out overhead, pinks and blues and yellows and so many tiny white lights that the black night might as well have been splashed with foam. And now, huge mushrooms that looked like toothy mouths. “You said it helps the garden, right? I’m not scared of mushrooms that aren’t poisonous.”

“Sure you’re not,” Gabe muttered.

“I’m not scared of mushrooms outside the house,” Robbie qualified. “Will the vegetables be okay?”

Gabe looked up and bit his lip. “Maybe. If I water more. They can’t use the seawater.”

“I’ll calculate how much we can spare from the cistern without running low,” Robbie offered. “We can take shorter showers.”

“I’ll just grow another one.” Gabe poked at the fragments of mushroom with his shoe.

“You can do that?” Robbie had heard that mushrooms were easy to grow with a kit, but he’d never seen it done. He felt a swell of pride at the gardening knowledge Gabe had absorbed from his tablet so quickly.

“It’s really easy,” Gabe said. “But. You gotta tell me if you get my dreams again. Okay?”

“Okay.” Robbie hugged him tighter. “I won’t take your dreams.”

“I don’t think you can do that.” A bee circled overhead and landed on a bean flower. They watched as it nudged its whole head inside the petals, wings and legs fluttering industriously.

#robbie reyes #gabe reyes #ghost rider re7 au #all new ghost rider #fanfiction #my fanfic

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wilwheaton · 2 years

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As you had a private tutor, did you find it was easier or harder to learn the material compared to when you were in school? re: going at your specific pace, being able to adjust lessons to your needs and interests, having time to go deeper into things you were curious about.

It worked for me. I felt well educated and grounded in basic facts when I graduated. What I didn't know is that I was a product of the American education system, which does not teach accurate history or civics. So I learned all the same lies and myths that we are now fighting to stop our children and grandchildren from learning.

My teacher was amazing. She really looked after me, helped guide and mentor me. She helped me in the places I struggled, especially math, and encouraged me to follow my own curiosity wherever it took me when we were learning something that interested me. I owe her more than I can properly express.

For all the good that came from that, I was still lonely and isolated. I still didn't know how to relate to kids my own age (just like Wesley) or how to just be normal around other people. The brief time I was in public high school was a nightmare. I was bullied endlessly, and not a single person stood up for me, ever. I don't feel like I missed anything from high school, beyond maybe making friends there (who knows if that was even possible? I was so weird and sad and anxious and afraid, I didn't really bring a lot to the table). But to this day, I miss and regret not attending classes in college, or fully committing to pursuing higher education. I don't know how to take notes. I don't know how to study for a test. I don't know how to even BE in a lecture hall. I've worked hard to teach myself with videos and audiobooks and actual books, and so on. I've done a pretty good job, I think.

But I know that I missed out on EVERYTHING that makes being in college cool, and the only reason was the complete lack of support I had at home. My parents didn't care, and I was in such a bad place emotionally, I couldn't do it on my own. That's a bummer for me.

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communistkenobi · 1 year

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The complement of the "no pity for the poor" complex is the overemphasis given to the education of people within the political sections of our inter-views. The frequent reference to this topic is the more significant since it does not appear in the interview schedule. Nobody will deny the desirability of political education. It is hard to overlook, however, that the ideal of education often serves as a rationalization for social privileges. People who do not want to confess to antidemocratic leanings prefer to take the stand that democracy would be all right if only people were educated and more "mature." This condition, naturally, would here and now exclude from political activities those who, on account of their economic situation, need most urgently a social change. This, of course, is never stated in so many words. If, however, as once happened, an overtly fascist man speaks in favor of the abolition of the poll tax in the South, and wants to replace it by an "intelligence test," there is little doubt about the ultimate purpose. The adulation of "education" occurs quite frequently among uneducated people perhaps because, for some reason beyond the scope of the present study, education has come to be a kind of a panacea in American ideology. None of our subjects ever takes the trouble of defining to what the mysterious "education" should refer: whether it pertains to the general educational level or whether some special kind of political education is envisaged and how it should be carried out.

The education complex is not confined to high or medium scorers but seems to be more frequent with them than with low scorers.

Everyone talks about education! It’s so weird. It’s one of those things I agree with on paper (people in North America are alarmingly, laughably politically ignorant, and broad educational programs to address that would improve political discourse by a lot), but the way “educational programs” gets deployed rhetorically, especially by liberals but also by left wing people, usually sounds deranged to me? I’m thinking of the suggestion of putting right wingers into educational gulags. A step above that is mandatory HR anti-discrimination training at work, but that is especially useless in non-unionised workplaces (ie, most workplaces). University seems to act as something of a corrective measure against the inadequacy of primary and secondary education in north america, but 1) that just reproduces class divisions, and 2) college-educated people are, by virtue of their class position, especially susceptible to fascism, so whatever political power education has is still subservient to class interests.

But despite all of that I still think universal political education is a good thing and would improve society. An informed electorate can be trusted with their government or whatever the quote was. Maybe that’s liberal idealistic horseshit in that particular configuration but like idk I think you quickly spiral into anti-intellectualism if you write off any educational solutions offered as a way to reduce right wing thought in society. If you take seriously the claim that communism is scientific I don’t think you can also believe that education is not valuable. If there was a policy platform that aimed to comprehensively overhaul the education system in order to provide every person with the equivalent of a liberal arts undergraduate degree for free, I would say that is a fantastic idea and would endorse that - even beyond the economic opportunities it would open up for people, I think there is inherent value in being educated about the world. But I don’t know how much that would actually reduce the amount of conservatives in the country, or to what degree it would reduce a person’s susceptibility to fascism

#the authoritarian personality

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beardedmrbean · 20 days

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Wait Omar have a daughter?

In her 20’s?

Is the college student her stepdaughter because I that Omar was in her late 20’s.

Also yes a daughter of a high profile politician is totally homeless. Omg heard that time Obama eldest try to hide the fact she was the daughter of a former president for her film career…even though she was 25 director who film got into a film festival?

Dear god anyone can smell the nepotism from that age alone. And oh lord how my community fanatical (well many still do) treated the Obamas when they were in office

Wait isn’t IIhan Omar a Somali immigrant? Don’t Somali have a Muslim terrorists issue too? Or am I being racist?

And you guys are supporting the hamas who would have thrown rocks or shoot you for being LBGT

The greatest trick 9/11 did was allow Muslim activists hide their brutal colonialism and act like relatation from other religion groups was because they were racist. Not saying I’m enjoying the dead kids form bombing.

But it weird how I learn about the Ottoman Empire and the janssisaes from 2011 historical fiction game rather than my own education system

She's 41, born in Somalia so can't be president, came in as a refugee in 95, daughter that's in the news is 21, you'd think given her history she'd appreciate life in America more, but instead she acts incredibly entitled.

She lost her campus housing for a few days, she was suspended and that means everything, not that she'll accept responsibility.

Did not know that about Malia, hmmmm

Malia Obama has been labeled a ‘nepo baby’ after presenting her directorial debut

And I imagine people are calling the folks saying that racist,

"Though the 25-year-old filmmaker released the movie under the stage name Malia Ann"

Ya that'll cover it till someone sees a picture.

Emilio Estevez did that starting out, not sure if casting directors recognized him but he mad a run of it before saying ya ok I'm Martin Sheen's kid, Malia would have to do everything blind for that to work odds are her identity leaked very quickly.

Wait isn’t IIhan Omar a Somali immigrant? Don’t Somali have a Muslim terrorists issue too? Or am I being racist?

Went over all but the last bit there, and it's a geographical issue not a race issue so not racist at all, also

Also there's

This section is basically middle east came to Africa, Ethiopia has Eritrea blocking their access to the water ever since it broke away too.

And you guys are supporting the hamas who would have thrown rocks or shoot you for being LBGT

The term "Pinkwashing" was created to express why it's totally different when they support a country or region that would kill them for existing while complaining about the toy section at Target being gendered in the same breath.

More "white man's burden/noble savage" thinking, remember they've also got people in there defending the rape and murder that happened on 10/7, if you see someone saying 'by any means necessary', that means they're ok with gang raping Israeli women and children and any other atrocity you can think of, at least if you want to take them at their word that it really is ANY means.

I didn't say it, they did, and the people that do say it need to convince me they aren't ok with it now. Thankfully nobody I know has gone that route.

They voted as a solid red block for the most part till then, not that I blame them for switching parties then, problem is the portions of the community that are more fundamental than Omar's group is. Might be shocked how many American Muslims hate her because of various reasons most having to do with her not being their kind of Muslim.

But it weird how I learn about the Ottoman Empire and the janssisaes from 2011 historical fiction game rather than my own education system

Ya, I didn't even get that I just started reading one day and managed to plow through dozens and dozens of wiki pages, oddly it all started with the question

"Why did Constantinople get the works" because I knew it was more people's business than the Turks.

youtube

TMBG have a official video, but I like the tiny toons one better

#zoomer huey anon

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missjanjie · 27 days

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Need some advice from someone not invested in the situation,so don't mind the vent:

My mother is hell-bent on my returning to complete a degree programme that I was in when I was a teenager (17 or so). Here's the thing though. I was so unhappy doing this programme that I couldn't even go to class without getting anxious or wanting to throw up. Grades-wise, I was fine, I suppose(the pass mark for this particular degree was a B, so 60%). But I grew to hate the programme itself because my anxiety was through the roof.

So, my Registrar saw the state I was in and suggested that I take a break and do an unassociated(heh) Associate Degree till I got myself together mentally. As of currently, I'm the top student in that particular Associate Degree and having a great time(and my anxiety's practically non-existent).

Here's the issues though. My mother hates that I've "downgraded" myself by doing an Associate Degree and continues to insist that I was "tricked" into doing it by the Registrar(who was genuinely trying to help). So,to fix my supposed "mistake", I should immediately return to the original Bachelor's Degree I was doing and complete it (despite the visceral trauma it caused me) because "everyone else in your age group has Master's Degrees and PHDs and you have nothing to show" (I'm 22).

But the thing is, why not get a Bachelor's Degree in a different subject area? I'm not opposed to higher education at all,but she's so fixated on the original Bachelor's Degree (in STEM) that I was doing that she can't let it go. She brings it up every chance she gets. I could be drinking a glass of water and she'll find a way to bring it up. Going so far as to say that it's what God wants me to do(I'm sure God wouldn't want me actively having panic attacks while doing what He supposedly wants me to do, but I digress).

So,yeah. What do I do? Where do I even go from here? If I make suggestions about an alternate path,she'll either ignore me, talk over me or segway into talking about my original Bachelor's Degree programme and how I should be graduating right now.

(Sorry for the long rant. Kinda don't have anyone to get my feelings out to IRL.)

unless you live in a weird mensa cult I don’t think people your age have masters/phd’s. people my age don’t have phd’s and only those in specific fields (usually teaching or social work) have masters and im 28.

also i have a little anecdote that while may not provide answers, can offer some perspective. when i was in college i took a feminist studies course and in that class was a 72 year old woman. i initially assumed she was just auditing the class (ie taking it for fun) but she explained to me that she was finishing her degree. i asked her what made her decide then and she told me “sure, i couldve gone back ten years ago or even twenty years ago. but that wasn’t where my journey was taking me.” point being, your journey is yours alone

there isn’t really anything you can do about your mom if you still live with her or are otherwise financially dependent on her except stay the course until you’re able to get out on your own or something like that. im assuming you’re not american based on some spelling, so i don’t really know the university system there so i could be off base

#gen asks #long post

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qqueenofhades · 1 year

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Hi!! Sleep deprived anon here

So the thing about my history professor is that while he teaches us about what happened, he’s going very little into WHY it happened or what happened as an effect. And yeah, I get that it’s an overview and one small unit in the whole of a year-long course, but it would be nice if we went a little more in depth with everything.

My main issue, though, is that he refuses to actually take a political stance on anything, by which I mean, he’ll only talk about exactly what communism is from a poli sci perspective and won’t actually talk about why communism doesn’t work out, because saying that communism doesn’t work out would be the same thing as saying that communism is bad/problematic/harmful/etc etc etc and that would be letting us know his political views and potentially influencing us.

He says he doesn’t want to influence us in our politics and wants us to be able to make a decision about what we believe ourselves, but somehow expects us to do that with what is, in my opinion, an incomplete education.

Which ties into my point last night about learning more about the late stages of the Soviet Union from the lighthouse au than I have from… two months on this unit so far, I believe? because the political state at the time is a BIG plot factor and something you discuss a lot, and you’ve laid out what it was like and what was going on so much more clearly and in so much more depth than my history professor ever could have, while still (to the extent that’s possible by two characters biased very different directions at the start) maintaining a fairly neutral and scholarly voice on the topic, if that makes sense.

(He’s also the “before we had tiktok we had drunk Boris Yeltsin” guy, so…)

Okay, first: thank you, again. This is very heartening for me to hear. One of my not-so-secret fanfic agendas is to teach at least a little history along the way (i.e. with DVLA, AITWW, Lighthouse AU, etc.), or make it relatively painless to learn since it comes with a heaping helping of pining gay idiots. So yes.

Second, I agree that that is a.... weird, to say the least, way for your actual professor to teach it. It sounds like he subscribes to the school of thought wherein you should just deliver the information in an objective vacuum and never make any attempt to contextualize, explain, critique, or otherwise teach you what to do with it, and that is... odd. I don't know if you go to school in one of the red states wherein history education has become excessively politicized -- if so, it might explain some of his caution, but still! That's not useful!

This is because you can't study the USSR, especially the late-stage USSR, without studying its collapse. That's like, one of the seminal major world events/end of the Cold War/end of the initial entire post-WWII paradigm. It has major implications for post-Soviet and modern Russian history (which is obviously, to say the least, important to understand right now), and for post-Cold War American and Western history. You don't need to start every class session with a lecture on why Communism Is Bad, but you do need to do more than recite the information and nothing else. Like, a reasonably good encyclopedia article could do that, and any scholarly monograph would likewise engage in more thoughtful and detailed critique!

Basically, "I can't teach in any detail why communism didn't work because that would mean I think communism is bad" is, to put it mildly, intensely baffling to me as an intellectual/pedagogical stance, and is certainly not going to produce students who are conversant with the actual practice of history, the practice of critical thinking, or indeed, the ultimate failures of the USSR as a geopolitical entity. Like... how do you NOT contextualize a system in any meaningful empirical way, such as how the idea of Marxism-Leninism was embedded into the particular historical setting of post-Bolshevik Russia and eventually the USSR??? Are you only reduced to talking about "communism" in some abstract way that has nothing to do with the actual particulars of the situation??? Why?? WHY???

Anyway: yes, my rant aside, the lighthouse AU obviously does go into detail on all that, and try to place it in both a personal human and a general historical context. I'm deeply flattered, again, that a fic I wrote and posted on AO3 for free and for fun is teaching more than your actual university course, but also. @ your professor: Turn on your location, I just wanna talk.

#anonymous #ask #history #soviet history #lighthouse au

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marvelmaniac715 · 1 year

Text

Chucky got Andy’s letter, and he’s written a response. Consider this a diss track, because Chucky was not holding back when he wrote this, but hopefully you’ll enjoy it.

————————————————————-

Andy (actually, you know what? You full named me at the end of your letter, so I’m gonna do the same) Andrew,

I got your letter. When I first read it I laughed. Oh I’m sorry, is my laughter ‘spine-chilling’? Then you’re really gonna be pissed that I recorded my first reaction to your letter on tape and attached it to this letter… oops. Every point you made was laughably stupid, so I’m going to tackle them one by one and tell you exactly why and how you’re wrong.

Starting with your lack of a proper education, that’s the fault of the American legal system, I am not a lawyer or a judge, you can’t blame that on me. Plus, your writing was fine, why were you complaining?

Secondly, I’m fully aware of how I fucked you up, I take a great deal of pride in this fact. And why did you google me? That seems kinda creepy, almost stalkerish, why are you looking at pictures of me as a kid and saying I was cute? That part was weird. The comparison between me and you was also weird, we’re nothing alike. I didn’t intend to ‘end up in a home’, that was just what happened because I was underage when my parents died. Also, I’m psychopathic, not psychotic, there’s a difference. I should know, I was diagnosed by your therapist.

You spent a great deal of the letter (essentially) whining about how I ruined your life. Let me put your fears to rest, you aren’t worth that much in the grand scheme of things. Sure, if I’ve got time, I’ll try to kill you, but I don’t go around thinking about you on a daily basis, that’s just a you thing, and it needs to stop because it’s borderline creepy. At least your mom isn’t so vocal about my impact on her life, you should follow her example, I’m actually more likely to notice you the more of a fuss you make.

It sucks that you’ve got daddy issues, but you need to understand something. You. Are. Not. My. Son. I don’t see you as my kid and you definitely shouldn’t see me as your father. I’ve already got a kid (two, it’s complicated) why would I want you? We aren’t ‘kindred spirits’, we aren’t alike, I try to distance myself from you as much as possible. I have no ‘fondness’ for you, it’s all in your head. Also, I knew you when you were six, you didn’t have the strength or the guts to pull any of the shit you said you’d do if you could go back in time.

Are you feeling sad by this point? Are you crying? Maybe you’re angry because of what I’m saying? Or maybe you’re scared, because I’m still ‘out there’? Well, it’s currently 12:30 on Tuesday 15th April, that’s the next day you have therapy, right? In room 23? You’ll be happy to know that I’m currently standing outside that door with a knife. Because we have so much history, I’ll give you a five minute head start, how does that sound? I’ll see you real soon pal, hei di ho.

Your friend till the end,

Charles Lee Ray

#chucky #chucky series #childs play #charles lee ray #dr mixter #andy barclay #karen barclay #glen ray #glenda ray #horror #light angst #fanfiction

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nongnaos · 1 year

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Win is a third year (Junior) so he's about 20-21. Depending on the semester, he could be 21 at most.

View is supposed to be in high school so 17-18. Same for him, it's a new school year so I think he's 17. In addition to his uniform indicating that he's definitely in highschool still (short sleeved light pink dress shirt + the shorts).

Wan is supposed to have already graduated so at the very least 23+ (I think I read somewhere that he's in his mid to late twenties so that would put him 25+ which would make more sense given how Win called him a "grown ass man" and it'd be weird to call your older brother whose older than you by no more than 2 years a "grown ass man" when you're so close in age, so 25+ seems more plausible, in my opinion.)

I could be completely off, since I'm basing this on an American education system...

If I were religious I'd say you were doing the lords work THANK YOU

I hate nothing more than trying to figure out ages based on education systems bc they all seem so different all the time. Especially with translations, like if they say "in grade 4" I assume they have translated it for a US grade 4, in which case I still have to find out what age that is anyway 😂 (Even just in Ireland it's difficult bc a lot of kids are finishing secondary school at like 19 now but I was barely 17 when I finished. There was a girl in my class who was 16 for the first few weeks of college, which in retrospect feels insane. Like she wouldn'tbe able to legally drink until 3rd year. Wild.)

I feel like this all does make sense, I couldn't tell how much of View's personality was acting cutesy for his favourite brother vs actually being young. But alternatively, Wan does seem older which makes sense if the actor is 27. They really do feel like they have an age gap between them all! Thanks again for letting me know!

#they have about the same age gap as me and my brothers and its very funny to see #between us #asks #i think i was mostly thrown by View bc he seems SO innocent to me #but for me two people close to me died when I was 17 so its was this awful time of transitioning between school and college #and also experiencing grief properly for the first time so i was a mess #now im 30 and still a mess 🤷‍♂️ call that living the Wan life 😎#i love nothing more than putting a question in the tags and someone being like 'i will help you' thank u i luv u 💖 💛#also i spent about 10 minutes going 'but i thought he was in first year not third??' and then realised i was thinking of team #holding my brain in my hands going 'nice work u tit' and shaking it

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tearsofcalamity · 4 days

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lowkey! don't know what it means to transfer to a bachelor's program i googled it and still couldn't connect the dots to my country's educational system so the clown nose for me! but whatever it means i wish luck & courage the only 2 things you need in uni really. as for me, end of the semester means Shit, I've Been Bullshitting Around For A Whole 5 Months, And Now I Kinda Need To Get 4 Assignments Done, Pick Up The Textbooks I Should've Gotten 3 Months Ago, And Figure Out What Fucking Classes I'm Even Enrolled In For Exams. so double clown nose.

btw i think i might rlly need to get back to hsr bc who is boothill!!! why are we fucking a robot (?)!! why's his name that!!???

ooh sorry!! lemme explain a bit!! I'm american and we and some other countries use a degree program so like it goes associate's degree which usually takes like 2 years, bachelor's degree which takes like 4, and master's which can take a varying amount of years depending on what subject it's for!

I'm currently in community college which usually focuses on associate's degrees. I've been in my program for 2 years so I'm graduating with a business administration and economics degree in just a week after finals :) then I'll be transferring to a new college that has bachelor's degrees available, because my current one doesn't have bachelor's only associate's. but I'll only be going to the new college for 2 years because technically I already "completed" the requirements for the first 2 years. it's a little weird/complex sorry for the rant!! I hope that kinda made sense!

I AM WISHING YOU LUCK & COURAGE AS WELL!! I'm also wishing you ease in all those tasks ;;; that sounds like a lot but I'm sure you can get through it!! final stretch!!!

ALSO YESSS!!! PLEASE get back into hsr I'll go and put an image of him down here but boothill's a galaxy ranger which is a faction in hsr that follows the hunt and is basically a vigilante group. he's a dashing cyborg cowboy w a silky smooth voice <3 <3 <3 his backstory is VERY sad too. he just appeared in the recent update BUT he's been leaked for a while I think since back in like january ish (?) I ADORE HIM AND I DIDNT THINK I WOULD SOOOO IT SUCKS CAUSE IM GONNA NEED TO SPEND MONEY ON PULLING HIM LOL

also I should note he cant swear LOL he got his translation implant fucked with so every curse word is replaced w something safe like fuck = fudge, son of a bitch = son of a nice lady etc.

also also! his name is a reference to cemeteries made for gunslingers in the 19th/20th centuries of western america. it's a reference to how they "died with their boots on" hence the name boot hill

here he is oughghghghgh <3 <3 <3

#always a delight talking to u anonnie <3 #thank u for the ask!!#I hope uni goes all good!!! please feel free to keep talkin abt it if u ever wanna #ALSO GET INTO HSR AGAINNNN LETS TALK BOOTHILL LOL #I like him in the same way I like wrio #in that I originally didnt care #but then once he came out #OUGH #katze's secret corner #anon #katze rambles

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indielowercase · 4 months

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white trans woman refusing to discuss the nuance of race. being a white woman means they still have privilege over even cis black men and other men of color. when they refuse to consider that in these conversations that thats racism. openly talking about how they hate all men including other queer men/masc folks, men of color, disabled men all men who face bigotry at the hands of society makes them a bigot

being trans doesnt erase their whiteness and the only people i see using tme/tma have been racist white trans people funny how the trans women of color i know never use those terms and how its extremely common that those terms are used to harm and harass trans masc/men especially those who are not white and how trans men and yes even cis men still face misogyny at the hands of society. it goes hand in hand with homophobia. the tme/tma binary is also transphobic to people who are intersex and non binary

transmisogyny exists and is terrible and the solution isnt being horrible to other trans people who have different experiences cause again thats a very white and usually american way of thinking cause god forbid other cultures and how they deal with things exist

ok i'm back from sleep and work

so this is opinion, not proof. you haven't given me anything i could use to confirm this for myself. while i understand why you'd want to send these on anon, all that together makes me considerably less likely to take you on your word.

with just the info provided and gleaning from conversations i've read, it sounds like you're discussing her individual privilege over another individual in discussion on tumblr. this doesn't tell me anything about the actual interaction. saying a white trans woman has privilege over a black cis man is uhhhhhhhh questionable at best we'll say. she may have been racist, the other party may have been misogynist towards her. neither may have happened and one, the other, or both could have just been assholes. i have no idea.

your personal interactions with people aren't the only ones that happen, online or otherwise. i've seen very thoughtful discussions of tme/tma as tools in certain contexts to discuss structural (not individual) oppression of trans women that doesn't happen on a larger scale or systemically to people who are not trans women. then again i've seen it listed alongside other identity markers in people's bios (always tme not tma tho), which makes me feel weird because it's like saying "antiblackness exempt" instead of your race so like there's that. it's useful as a description of transmisogyny specifically but not as like an identity category that's fucking weird but that's also not how i've seen it used the majority of the time (this may be a personal experience difference between us)

i haven't seen it used as a cudgel against trans men. i have seen trans men use it in discussion while trying to claim transmisogyny effects them too (always within the context of discussion of transmisandry) which is something i don't understand at all. i'm a trans man in a pink collar job and while the pay gap for a man working in elementary education (me) or as a nurse (not me) effects any man working in that field, i think it would be weird and inaccurate to say we experience misogyny because of that. this sounds nitpicky but being effected by it vs being the target/experiencing a particular bigotry or structural bias feels like an important distinction to me. the structural forces of bigotry are used as a method of social control, yes, much like homophobia and racism. it's a tool used to make sure "we" aren't too much like "them" because being "them" is bad (because we treat them badly and also their identity category is incapable of doing anything outside of what we prescribe to it.)

or, put another way, white people aren't structurally effected by anti-asian racism because kids at comedian john mulaney's elementary school were racist to him because they thought he looked asian.

nothing here aligns with any terf ideas. someone saying they hate men does not a terf make. if you mean gender essentialist please say so instead.

i would like to say, you're damn right the solution isn't to be horrible to other trans people.

#anon #sorry for bringing up john mulaney that just felt succinct #pretty much all online hate i've gotten for being trans has assumed i'm a trans woman and immediately brought up my hypothetical genitals #that does not mean i have ongoing structural experience of transmisogyny #really not sure what to do with that last part those seem like broader ideas that need more space than we might have in this ask discussion

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the1975attheirverybest · 9 months

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Can I just say you are very smart and know Matty pretty well. Everytime he posts something and I get confused about what he means exactly (maybe it’s the language barrière, maybe it’s because sometimes he actually doesn’t make sense) I always come to your blog to read your thoughts. It helps me understand!

That being said, I’m still a bit confused. I think to be ‘officially’ catholic you not to be baptized etc. Like my mom was catholic raised and baptized and everything but she had herself written out (apparently that’s a thing) by the time she learned more about the sexual abuse within the catholic church. But she still says she was catholic raised ‘cause that’s just how it is. But that doesn’t mean she IS catholic. Isn’t that what he means?? Like it’s not that he IS catholic, his roots are just based in Catholicism??

(I just feel that Matty would written himself out of the church to in light of everything he stands for so it feels weird that he says he is catholic. Not that it would be a problem if he actually is, or anyone for that matter)

Awww, thank you for your very kind words and for being here and being part of the discussion 🥹🥹🩷🩷🩷

Yes! You are very right and I think what you say here is part of what he means.

So, let’s put it this way: for every religion, there is “theology” and there is “culture” right? Cuz usually religions will have advice for you on how to live your life. What’s good and what’s bad. How to dress, how to behave, etc. right? These practices become part of the culture of a country or community and participating in stuff like that gives oneself an identity. Yes? For a lot of atheists, they don’t believe in the “theology” ( there’s a god, there’s heaven, there’s hell etc) but the culture affects who they are and where they came from. I think when Matty calms himself Irish catholic, he’s speaking about the culture.

A, VERY VERYYY brief history of Irish Catholicism here (everyone!: please, please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. Especially Irish folks or Irish catholic folks):

Irish Catholicism is an ethnoreligion. That’s when the culture is part ethnicity (in this case Irish) and part religion (Catholicism). This matters because built into Irish catholic culture is an important history. Ireland was colonized by Britain. As you can imagine, when colonizers try to oppress people, they do it through religion and religious practices (among other things like language, culture, food, education etc). And this affected Irish culture deeply.

So, when Matty says that he is catholic he doesn’t mean that he used to be religious and now isn’t. I don’t THINK Denise or Tim were particularly religious? So I don’t think they raised him on a particular belief system. Could be wrong.

BUT, I think He’s more referring to the ethnicity and religious identity of his Irish family roots. Even for a lot of non-practicing Irish Catholics, when they say that they are Irish Catholic, they’re referring to their countries culture and how their ancestors who were catholic dealt with British colonialism and formed cultural practices around it.

Let me use this an an apology. It’s like when someone asks me where I am from. I’ll say Boston but then I’ll say “I’m actually Arab American so my family is originally from the Middle East, etc). Matty would say he’s from Northwest England but originally Irish catholic.

Because his stance on religion has to do with how politicians use it to oppress people, the fact that Irish Catholics were oppressed by British colonialism is an important part of his family history and it’s cultural practices that he holds onto. Even if he’s not a practicing catholic. It’s still part of who he is and it’s still informing a lot of how he views religion. Just like I’m still Arab even though I don’t live in the Middle East. It’s still a part of me and how I think about myself.

IN SHORT: he doesn’t believe in Catholicism as a religion, but his cultural identity is rooted in it and is important to him and how he thinks about religion. So even if he doesn’t believe in god he’s still counting the ethnicity snd religious ancestry.

Does that make sense? Sorry I’m just now waking up. So this may not be the most eloquent answer. Also again if I got anything wrong .

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