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nincompoopydoo · 3 years

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DEBRIS AND MISERY

WELCOME BACK, AGENT ; PART 4 / ?

PAIRING: Loki Laufeyson x Female!Reader WORD COUNT: 2.5k SUMMARY: You're back at your desk job at the TVA, suffering the consequences of your mistakes that led to your crash on Sakaar. However, Mobius has a better job for you than doing just paperwork. A/N: I feel like this one has more platonic mobius x reader than loki x reader lol but you know, this loki is meeting her for the first time again. please leave comments, criticism or love, whatever, I love to hear from you guys who are reading this. enjoy xo gif by @alligatorlokis from this gifset WARNINGS: Swearing. Paperwork. support my writing through ko-fi💖 MASTERPOST ; MASTERLIST

The sweet musky smell almost lulls you to sleep as you skim through the case file of a Loki variant, pictures and text of monochrome glaring under the unforgiving fluorescent office lighting. It’s a harsh reminder of your mishap; a simple overlook during a mission that sent you crashing onto the wasteland of Sakaar. According to the reports as you stood on the pedestal, pleading your innocence to the judge, you were there for an estimated 600 years. Maybe more.

The thought of spending six centuries stranded on a planet sends a wave of pain through your skull—it’s overwhelming information but unsurprising. You do feel like you’ve spent 600 years on that God-forsaken planet.

Now, your once fugitive days have been replaced with the return of being trapped behind a desk and having to recount every event that took place during your time there. Word for word. You despise the TVA’s love of paperwork—it’s a fucking nightmare.

The collar of your shirt feels itchy against the back of your neck, bringing your nails to graze it furiously.

You decide to ignore Miss Minutes' cheery voice despite your agitation, your name rolling off her southern accent. It hints at her chagrin towards your disregarding nature.

"Are you even listenin' to me?"

Her voice lacks all sense of her once constant sunny disposition. You spare the projection a glance, watching her rubber-hose-like arms curve to her where you assume her hips would be. She looks at you with an expectant raised brow. You don’t say anything, keeping eye contact as you snatch an empty event report template, spinning in your swivel chair and away from the glowing tangerine clock.

With pursed lips, you swipe the scatter of mess away, revealing an orange typewriter that sits idly within the expense of your stacks of case files and your collection of vintage Earth cassettes. You hear Miss Minutes' sigh as she strides to the other end of your desk, perching on top of a dusty stack of pending paperwork.

“C’mon, it’s just a test,” the animated clock says. You spare her another look as you feed the report template into the roller forcefully. Bing! The return bar dings unceremoniously as it nearly startles Miss Minutes off the stack.

“That is exactly why I’m refusing to listen to you,” you mutter with annoyance, fingers already flying across the keyboard, punching letters onto the event summary section. The loud clickety-clack of the keys makes it impossible to hear over it. “I don’t get why I need to take a test when I clearly know everything I need to know.”

“Well, you were gone for a very long time and we just wanna test your memory on policies and procedures here at the TVA—”

“Then, why didn’t they come and get me earlier? From the moment I stepped foot on Sakaar, I did everything I could to create a Nexus event or even just a spike and you only came when? When I met Loki.”

Your eyes are now on her startled figure, clicks and clacks coming to an abrupt end. You’re upset over your arrest, the whole hoo-ha at the courtroom, and everything before that. Your behavior is nearly childish but understandable to those who express empathy. You feel like you were being used, prioritizing the capture of the Loki variant that has been causing a ruckus to the timeline. But, it is your job to protect the TVA and the sacred timeline. Although you feel that the TVA should be protecting its employees as well.

“Look, I am not taking that test and that’s my final word. Everyone knows I am capable of handling myself. Plus, I do have tons of paperwork to refresh my memory on policies and procedures if that’s what you’re worried about.”

The cartoon clock nods but with hesitation. However, you do make a fair point. Thus, with a swish and a blip, Miss Minutes disappears into thin air, and you’re left to your own devices once more.

Finally some goddamn peace.

As if the universe doesn’t loathe you enough, someone calls your name, approaching from behind you. A groan escapes from your lips, scowling at the glaring keys of the typewriter.

“What?” you spat. In a swift motion, you swivel in your seat and turn to look over your shoulder.

It’s Mobius, approaching you with sudden caution. You let your shoulder sag with relief, happy to see a familiar friendly face.

“Glad to see you’re back and still feisty.” Mobius hesitantly taps your shoulder, flashing you a small consoling smile. Your expression, however, remains unchanged. “Well, you guys did find me after all.” He spots the glimmer of melancholy in your eyes; they avert back to face the typewriter, hands resting on the keys. Mobius shoves his hand into the pockets of his brown slacks, shifting to lean against the edge of your desk. He knows to tread lightly around you after what happened. You’ve changed with wrinkles of age and crinkles of exhaustion. Sakaar must have not been kind to you.

Yet, you’re here, at your desk; alive and well.

“Hey, what’s got you all wound up?”

It’s a stupid question, really but it’s a question to show he still cares. You have every right to be upset. However, you have every right to be thankful. You would have been pruned. Desk cleared and cassettes discarded—it would be as if you never existed. Renslayer would have never given you any mercy after the act you pulled. Disobeying orders and recklessly throwing yourself into danger with the risk of bringing the whole TVA down. You’re impulsive on missions, but it’s your unrelenting determination that drives you to be one of the greatest analysts Mobius has ever seen.

You’re also a friend. A great one. And he isn’t planning on losing one.

“Please prune me, Mobius.”

Your statement comes off as intentionally sarcastic rather than truly meaningful.

“What? I always thought you adored paperwork.” Mobius hears you groan, burying your face in your hands, elbows propped up on the desk. “My back is already hurting, and I have a migraine just thinking about typing out reports of my time on Sakaar. I think it’s quite clear I adore paperwork.” Your muffled voice tinges sarcasm heavily.

Laughter erupts in his chest. He's glad that your sense of humor never changed. Then, the moment quickly passes and he senses a sudden change in the air. You turn up to look at him.

“What was my Nexus event?”

It’s abrupt, almost arbitrary but leads him to even more confusion. Mobius finds himself frowning. “You don’t know?”

You blink. “That’s the one thing they never told me.”

He shifts in his seat on the edge of your desk, blinking up to the ceiling in thought. “Well, from what I heard...it was because Loki willingly helped you. And it wasn’t for his own advantage.”

It’s your turn to frown. “Wouldn’t that be Loki's fault?”

“Apparently not. It was all you.”

You laugh in response; it comes out like a puff of air. “Well, then. That’s a first. I guess I can finally add manipulation to my list of skills. Plus, pick-pocketing weird cosmic fruits.”

Mobius laughs and taps your shoulder again.

“C’mon, take a walk with me. I’ve got a new case that I need your help with.” You shoot him a quizzical look, eyes catching sight of a thick case file in hand—must be important. “I thought I was supposed to be on desk duty.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to sit behind the desk the whole time,” he shoots back a clever answer with a raised eyebrow, beckoning you to accept his offer. Your laugh comes off as more of a snort. It’s the first one in a while. You stand on your feet, stretching your limbs as you shrug on your coat that was hung over the back of your chair.

“Plus, you’re under my supervision,” he says before turning on his heel, heading for the exit. You watch him raise a hand, his back to you, gesturing for you to follow as he pushes through the wooden door. You hum with amusement, trailing behind him.

The winding hallways feel hollow, mundane walls lacking any color of brightness the TVA tries to bring to the space when in all fairness, orange isn’t much of a fun color now that everywhere you look, there’s a tinge of tangerine somewhere. The posters that adorn the walls are your least favorite parts of the headquarters’ decorative choice. You pass one that says 'Always Watching' in big bold letters, ominously glaring at you. The words are far from comforting, almost inhumane—a jarring reminder of where you are and where you stand in the hierarchy of this bureaucratic organization.

Mobius clears his throat from beside you, pulling you out from your thoughts. In a weirdly discreet manner, he hands you the case file with an outstretched hand. You take it, eyeing him and his odd behavior, there’s an unexpected shift in the air.

Then, you glance down, reading the scrawled words on the file that reads: Variant L1130, Loki Laufeyson.

Your strides come to an abrupt end, whipping your head up to see Mobius’ sheepish smile. Your eyes are wide, and you’re shaking your head in utmost objection.

“No, no, no. No. Absolutely no—”

“C’mon, it’s just—”

“No, Mobius. Nuh-uh. I swear, if I have to deal with another Loki, I will prune myself. I literally will.”

You're shoving the file to him, as he attempts to suck it up to you like the optimistic idiot he is although he very well knows once you’ve made up your mind, you cannot be swayed. You’re stubborn, rebellious—it’s what makes you dangerous. Yet, the TVA are pessimists. It’s Mobius who truly recognizes your accompanying positive characteristics that make dealing with your spontaneous character worthwhile.

Then, coincidently emerging from the door of the locker room is Loki himself, dressed in a dress shirt, tie, and slacks—clothes and color schemes accustomed to the TVA’s dress code. Mobius can practically see the wires in your brain short-circuiting as soon as you lay eyes on the God. Your eye twitches and from that, he knows you’re about to go mayhem. It’s the mayhem that’s going to break out on him like a hurricane devouring everything and anything in its way.

“You hired him?! You hired a Loki?!”

Your voice is loud, startling Mobius and Loki as passersby stare at the commotion you’re causing. You find yourself hunching in response, shoulders sagging as if it’s supposed to help with averting the attention away from you. Still, your expression doesn’t falter, and you’re staring at Mobius like he’s nuts.

Your voice comes off as a whisper, tone still harsher than before. “Mobius, are you insane?—”

“Just, let me explain,” he cuts you off with a raised palm to you. You purse your lips, sparing a glance to Loki who seems amused by the looks of the conversation that’s turning to more of an argument because you’re directly questioning your colleague’s sanity in public. Nevertheless, you decide to hear him out.

You watch Mobius sigh at the sight of your raised brow. “We have a variant. A Loki variant that’s been killing our Minutemen and I believe it’s the same one that threw you to Sakaar. So, to hunt down a Loki, what better way than to source the help of another?”

Silence. You’re giving him that deafening silent treatment once more. You’re thinking, he can see the mechanics in your brain running like a steam engine. He observes the way your eyes flicker between him, the file, and Loki who attempts to hide his confusion of you and the whole situation.

You’re not his superior, not even close, but he’s hopeful for your approval of his plan.

You cross your arms, shifting in your stance. “Which Loki is this?” You gesture to Loki with a tilt of your head. Mobius heaves a sigh, a hand to his hip and the other waving in the air.

“He’s, uh, he’s from 2012—”

And you’re back to causing mayhem.

“2012?! Mobius! That’s the worst one yet!”

“Now, hang on just a minute—” Loki interrupts, voice tinged with bewilderment and resentment but with two sharp looks directed his way, he instantly shuts his mouth.

You and Mobius are now back to your whispered debate.

“Look, as much as I hate to admit it, the TVA’s survival all depends on catching this variant and that means our survival. He has potential for change, so much of it...You just have to trust me on this.”

Mobius makes an excellent point but you can't help but feel the queasiness rising from your stomach. It feels like bile. You begin to feel the weight of the case file in your grasp becoming heavier and heavier. It’s the thought of risky business, and you’re almost upset as to why Mobius thinks it’s such a brilliant idea to pull you into this case after the stunt you pulled.

“Care to explain why I'm involved in this? You do know I’m being scrutinized for every move I make, right?”

Following your question, he glances at Loki who seems to be growing impatient, eyes wandering around the hallway. He leans forward and lowers his voice though his pitch raises, like when he's excited about a breakthrough.

“Because I know you’re capable of getting Loki to trust you. It happened once, there’s a high chance it’ll happen again and that’s good enough for me.” He watches you blink once. Then, twice. He continues, “And you’re being scrutinized by me. So, does it really matter?”

You’re silent again but in deep thought and not out of spite. Your troubled eyes find Loki’s. He’s already staring at you and for a moment, you see an unknown glimmer in his eye, expression nearly vulnerable but in an instant, he seals it away from you and averts his gaze, busying himself with straightening his pecan brown tie. It’s a small sign that he must have heard what Mobius said to you quietly. Nothing more.

Your gaze returns to your colleague and you pull yourself together, heaving a deep sigh. “Fine, but I still think you’re insane.”

Mobius beams down at you in an almost proud manner. “Welcome back, agent.” And with a turn of a heel, he waves for Loki to follow as the three of you head down the hallway. Loki quickly catches up beside you, much to your dismay. “So, what’s your story?” he leans into you with a curious smirk. You keep your face forward, shoulder back, and chin up as you reply with a monotonous tone. “None of your business, daddy long legs.”

In your peripheral vision, you note how the God retracts in response to your reply, brows now furrowed as he glances down to his legs in an almost sheepish and innocent way.

You struggle to fight down a growing smirk.

Mobius looks over his shoulder for a moment and catches sight of you and Loki’s expression after your exchange.

It looks like the two of you would get along just fine.

TAGLIST:

@lareinedususpense

@poubxlle

@mystoragehatesme

#loki #loki x reader #loki laufeyson #loki laufeyson x reader #loki imagine #loki laufeyson imagine #loki x you #loki laufeyson x you #loki series #mobius x reader #mobius #ravonna renslayer

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immaturityofthomasastruc · 3 years

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IOTA Reviews: Guiltrip

So, my week has been hell. In addition to working night and day on final essays for my classes, I've been really busy at work lately, and the second COVID vaccine shot really took a lot out of me this week. And that's not even getting into the bureaucratic nonsense that comes with applying for the MTEL which is slowly making me wonder if I actually want to teach in the first place.

But, despite all that, there was a single light of hope this week that almost made it all worth it.

STAR WARS: THE BAD BATCH, BABY!

OH MY GOD, THIS SHOW IS AMAZING! I ALWAYS LOVED THE CLONE-CENTRIC EPISODES OF THE CLONE WARS, AND NOW WE GET AN ENTIRE SHOW ABOUT AN ELITE TEAM OF THEM? KICKASS! AND IT TAKES PLACE AFTER ORDER 66 WITH GRAND MOFF TARKIN AS THE MAIN VILLAIN? SWEET MOTHER OF GEORGE LUCAS, I CAN'T WAIT! I DON'T EVEN CARE THAT THEY TRADED IN THE COOL SNIPER CLONE FOR SOME LITTLE GIRL CLONE, I ALREADY WANT TO SEE MORE THAN THE TWO EPISODES WE GOT SO FAR! GOD, I LOVE THIS SHOW!

Oh yeah, there was also a new episode of Miraculous Ladybug that aired on the same day too, I guess. It was pretty good. Hell of a lot better than the past three episodes I've sat through.

Let's get into the fifth (chronologically the eleventh) episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fourth season: Guiltrip

We start off in the middle of class where we see Marinette looking at Adrien lovingly.

Because the writers are still trying to push the Love Square on us as if they were trying to sell us some death sticks. And yes, expect a few Star Wars jokes in this review. This episode did premiere on May 4th after all.

Rose suddenly gets a headache, and asks to go to the nurse, saying that “Miss Dora” is back. While walking there with Marinette, she explains that it's a code name she gives when her head hurts and can tell Miss Bustier without letting everyone know. She probably felt a name like “Maya Grain” would just give it away.

At lunch, Juleka gets a text that really upsets her, so Marinette tries to cheer her up. Keyword being “tries”.

Okay, yes, this is referencing the previous scene, where Rose refers to a certain snack at the nurse's office she eats to recover her health whenever “Miss Dora” visits called “Mr. Coffee”, but it's just bad timing. I get Marinette has a habit of not reading the room, but why did she have to use the term “Miss Dora” when she knows what it's being used for? Sure, she doesn't know that Juleka knows, but did she really have to say “Miss Dora”? She couldn't have used any other name instead? It's like making a chemotherapy joke when you just found out someone close to you has cancer. Even putting the context aside, what is this joke's punchline supposed to be? That “Miss Dora” will visit Juleka if she eats her lunch? Even by the humor standards of this show, the joke fails spectacularly.

Marinette bumps into Adrien, and although she stutters a little with a little exaggerated body movement, she does manage to take things seriously so she can have an actual conversation with Adrien about Juleka, who wants to be alone. She explains that the text she got was from Rose, who was sent to the hospital because of her sickness, and the entire class finds out because Marinette texted everyone to come to check on Juleka.

Goddamn it, Marinette. I usually defend you for getting screwed over by the writing, but you really aren't on your A game today.

Juleka explains that Rose got this sickness when she was little, which naturally worried everyone else. To make things worse, Juleka also says Rose made her swear to not tell anyone about her to worry her. Everyone else swears to not let Rose know that they know, and the act of support is actually enough to drive away an Akuma targeted at Juleka.

Unfortunately, nobody ever said anything about being overly affectionate to Rose, so everyone in the class tries to do things for Rose like carry her bags, giving her a pillow to sit on in school, helping her take notes, letting her cut in line at lunch, and giving her apples.

All of this makes Juleka remorsefully tell Rose that she told everyone else, which worries her because she hates all the special treatment, so she goes to tell them all about her illness. While they seem to accept her, the next time she sneezes, they overreact like, uh... how can I make this joke in a tasteful way?

Rose says she's had enough with all the treatment, which makes Juleka feel guilty. In the bathroom, she gets akumatized into Reflekta (yet again) with a Sentimonster named Guiltrip. And then Reflekta immediately gets sucked into the Sentimonster, which will cause it to go out of control. Nice job, Shadowmoth.

While it might not look like much, this is easily my favorite Sentimonster by far. Granted, that's not saying much, given all we've gotten so far for Sentimonsters is bootleg Mothra, sentient candy, a robotic doll, a frog with a body count, yet another evil doppelganger, and an eye, but my point still stands. Rather than actually confront the heroes, it's basically a portal to another world where it can trap people in bubbles that represent their regrets and despair, and turn them into copies of Reflekta.

It's a really strong metaphor which reminds me of the villains from Kamen Rider Wizard, who tried to drive their victims to despair in order to turn them into monsters. Ironically, that show's main villain is also some asshole in white who was risking countless lives just to save someone close to him. In general, the area inside of Guiltrip is visually stunning, and easily the highlight of the episode. It's just so surreal, and it really sets the tone the episode's going for.

Ladybug and Cat Noir arrive on the scene, and also get sucked into the portal, seeing some of the victims before they also start to fall into despair. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but this is one of the few times where Angstdrien Depreste is thematically appropriate. Cat Noir points out that if they had simply defeated Shadowmoth by now, none of this would be happening, which is a good point. He even attempts to kill himself using his Cataclysm, but unlike RWBY, they don't try to glorify it.

This also leads to Rose managing to fight off Guiltrip's powers with her optimistic personality (so I guess you could say she's A New Hope for the heroes), inspiring Ladybug to compliment Cat Noir. While I'd normally be pissed that this is yet another way to boost his ego, it does fit in with the episode's theme of positive thinking. Well, with the exception of one line where she points out what her time as Ladybug would be like without Cat Noir...

BEING A SUPERHERO IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE FUN. Yes, there are certain benefits to being a superhero, but it is not a fun game you play when lives are on the line. Why are the writers so dedicated to validate Cat Noir's beliefs that being a hero is just a fun extracurricular activity? Has there ever been a superhero who shares a similar mentality and isn't treated like a complete jackass?

So Ladybug and Cat Noir break free of the bubbles, and after summoning her Lucky Charm, a pickaxe, Ladybug realizes she needs more positivity to break free from Guiltrip. As such, she pulls out the Pig Miraculous and gives it to Rose, who transforms into Pigella. Funny how she forgot her little headache condition when she bangs her head like a death metal singer while transforming.

The design is... wait, she's not wearing a skin-tight jumpsuit? She's actually wearing something different?

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Yeah, I really like the Pigella design. There's a good mix of pink and white, and the skirt really brings the whole thing together. It really reflects Rose's optimistic and bubbly personality.

So the three heroes find Reflekta, who has been consumed by tons of bubbles. Pigella uses her superpower, Gift, to show Reflekta what her heart wants the most right now. So it's basically a more specific version of the Fox Miraculous? In fact, what do pigs have to do with optimism?

Whatever reason, it works, which helps Reflekta to break free of Guiltrip's influence, letting Ladybug de-evilize her. But because we need to have a fight scene in this episode, the Reflekta clones start to attack the heroes, but Ladybug uses the pickaxe to climb out of Guiltrip and purify the Amok.

So Rose hands the Pig Miraculous back to Ladybug, and the episode ends with everyone treating Rose normally in class, realizing she isn't as delicate as she thinks she is.

So yeah, I really like this episode. Aside from a few stupid things Marinette said this episode, I honestly don't have a lot of problems with the episode here.

I also really like the lesson this episode is going for. It doesn't shame Rose for rejecting the help, and it doesn't shame the class for being to overprotective of Rose either. It tries to find a middle ground, which is an important lesson to learn, not just for dealing with a loved one who has an illness, but for disabled people and other kinds of situations where someone has a disadvantage. Even as much as I ragged on Marinette for the text, it's clear that she isn't the only one to blame. In fact, nobody really gets blamed for anything this episode. It's more of a misunderstanding, and both sides find a balance on how to treat Rose.

It's overall a really good episode, and the second best one so far this season. And you know what? This episode taught me the importance of staying positive, so with that in mind, maybe I shouldn't be dreading “Queen Banana” when it comes out this week.

Wait, what? It got pushed back two weeks? Oh, THANK GOD! Now I feel like dancing. And I know exactly what song to dance to...

youtube

#immaturity of thomas astruc #iota #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug salt #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #adrien agreste #cat noir #chat noir #rose lavillant #pigella #gabriel agreste #hawkmoth #hawk moth #shadowmoth #shadow moth #juleka couffaine #reflekta

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qqueenofhades · 4 years

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so i’ve been following the presidential race closely, and i’ve been a fan of bernie since the start. however, my mom says that he wouldn’t make any big changes, as he’s hard to work with, can’t make the necessary compromises. the example she used was that throughout his senate term, he’s only passed 3 bills, 2 of which were insignificant. i didn’t think of this, as this is my first time closely following an election. what are your thoughts? would a sanders presidency make any real changes?

Oh dear. You really want to get me into trouble this morning, don’t you. Which is 100% not your fault, you are smart to be thinking about all this and asking questions, and by no means do I want you to stop doing that. So I’ll try to explain this as clearly and straightforwardly as I can, and if I get hate for it, alas.

The thing about Bernie is, which certain subsets of his supporters don’t seem to quite appreciate, is that he’s a great candidate, he’s been useful in pushing the public dialogue and political climate of the Democrats further to the left, he obviously inspires a devoted following, and I agree completely with all of his policies. But there’s still a gulf – a very wide gulf – between all that, and actually putting good ideas into political practice in the (very) flawed American system of government as it currently exists. Yes, the system sucks, we know that, and it can feel outrageously frustrating when moderate candidates are offering milquetoast proposals that don’t really get at the underlying structural causes of massive, entrenched inequality, oppression, racism, sexism, etc that these bright young people have rightly identified in the world. That’s why Bernie is appealing as a candidate, and while my primary already happened on Super Tuesday, I would vote for him over Biden if that was my choice right now. But the seeming expectation that we could pick Bernie, he’d win, he’d instantly remake the entire American political system and implement all his changes, and everything would be fine again – and that if we can’t have that option, just not voting is somehow better – is, to say the least, deeply problematic.

I supported Elizabeth Warren for a number of reasons, but one of them was that while she had many progressive policies similar to or almost identical to Bernie’s, she had tangible evidence of being able to get them done (see: the CFPB), to network and form functional relationships with the Democratic establishment, to work within the existing framework of party politics, and to actually do everything she had written her plans for. To certain Bernie supporters, this made her a corporate shill, a heartless witch who wanted to personally kill poor children, an establishment hack, so on and so forth. They attacked her for running in the first place, they attacked her for challenging Bernie in debates, they attacked her for not dropping out before Super Tuesday, they attacked her for dropping out and then not immediately endorsing Sanders, they attacked her supporters, so on and so forth. I’d still vote for Sanders in a heartbeat over Biden, and I will be happy to vote for him if he gets the nomination. But when you’re treating people that way who fundamentally agree with you on all your policies, there’s something wrong.

And no, it’s not a touchy-feely “we need to hold hands and be nice and listen to each other!” respectabillity politics issue, which also gets used as a straw man. Warren was committed to Medicare for All, but she also recognized there needed to be a transition period and that a public option was a good first step (something which Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the other progressive superstar, has also said). Because she accepted any limitations, because she wanted to work in the system, because she didn’t say she’d burn down global capitalism on day 1, this made her a Very Bad Candidate, and people who otherwise agreed with her didn’t think she’d win, so they didn’t vote for her and turned it into a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’m not saying Warren didn’t have flaws. She did. She’s a politician. There were other reasons people might not have been personally drawn to her. But the flack she got for daring to run as a progressive, while also acknowledging the power of the system and that you cannot uproot these structures immediately (she also planned to use executive power to implement some of her proposals on her first day in office), while challenging Bernie… wow.

Because the thing is, Bernie isn’t going to deliver absolutely everything he promises, and that’s not necessarily his fault. No politician in the history of time ever has. If Bernie somehow does get elected, with a Democratic-controlled House and Senate: great! Then yes, he does have a decent chance of passing some planks of his legislative policy. But there are several things you have to keep in mind here, and this is not “Bernie bashing”:

1. Bernie is not, strictly speaking, a Democrat. He’s an independent, he caucuses and votes often with the Democratic party, and he’s obviously running for their presidential nomination. But he’s not part of the party apparatus, he’s proud of that fact, and this is also a selling point for his supporters: look, he’s not part of the Corrupt Establishment! The DNC obviously has deep and systematic problems and is more committed to the bureaucratic status quo than uprooting inequality in America. That’s not up for debate. But as a candidate and as a nominee for the Democratic Party, Bernie would still need to have the backing of that system. If he doesn’t have it, that makes it harder.

2. “What does that matter?” a certain kind of Bernie supporter might cry. “They’re corrupt and rigging the election for Biden! Voter suppression!”

3. Pause for a deep sigh. Yes. There were long lines in many precincts on Super Tuesday. But voters for all candidates had to stand in them anyway. We’ve already discussed how some Sanders supporters treated Warren and her supporters, the ideologically closest candidate to them in the race. If your entire political ethos involves yelling at people and calling them names on the internet, that’s… not really sustainable as an outreach program and getting them into the hard work of day-to-day coalition building. I say this because I WANT to see progressive politics succeed and actually get put into practice, not just narrowly refined tighter and tighter into a certain tiny subset of Pure Beliefs that never amount to a hill of beans in anyone’s lives. You can have the greatest policies possible, but if you never acknowledge or accept any way to DO SOMETHING about them… really, is that a political ethos based on action and compassion or not? I’m voting for Sanders if he gets the nomination, and I’d vote for him if my primary was still upcoming and my first choice (Warren) was out. But I’m pretty fed up at how some camps on that side have been acting, and I am already a progressive. This… isn’t going to help build support beyond people who are already all in for Bernie. People who you will need to win an election.

4. The usual response here is often to blow off moderates and undecided voters and other people who are apparently just too dumb to see what’s going on. Yes! It is frustrating that half of America still wants to vote for Donald Goddamn Trump! But you’re still not winning an election and getting rid of him that way!

5. Bernie does, in fact, have a thin legislative track record, which may or may not matter if he actually becomes president. America has forgotten that the president is not SUPPOSED to make policy like a king, even though the function of the executive branch has been wildly expanded and bloated since W’s (and honestly, Reagan’s) day. The LEGISLATIVE branch, i.e. the House and Senate, is supposed to make policies, and the president EXECUTES them. That is his/her (ha, if only) JOB. But Bernie doesn’t have the kind of connections in the House/Senate that would help him efficiently mobilize policies, at least on his own initiative. Bills and amendments are slow, boring work. They require committee meetings, drafts, multiple readings, changes, deletions, hearings, final passage, etc. Ironically, the person Bernie could probably most count on in the Senate would be… Elizabeth Warren. And she’d obviously help him out, no matter what the rabid Bernie bros think, but it shows that party establishment politics, no matter how distasteful, are part of getting anything done.

6. Bernie’s plans to pay for some of his big policy proposals, such as student loan debt relief (which I am obviously very into) and Medicare for All, involve, according to him, levying a big new tax on Wall Street and the one percent. Passing a major new tax platform that RAISES taxes is always like pulling teeth. That would require passage in the House and Senate. Cool, let’s say the Democrats control both. Are all of them, especially the moderate ones or senators from red-leaning states, going to vote for it? Probably. But it’s not guaranteed. If you’re funding public policy by raising taxes (the one thing the American public has notably hated since 1773) it’s going to be HARD WORK. Let’s say that takes a year to pass. Let’s also guess that a President Sanders would lose either the House or the Senate in the 2022 midterm elections, because sitting presidents almost invariably do. Obama had two years to enact some of his policy proposals. Then came 2010 and the Tea Party, and it was, as a deliberate and ongoing GOP choice, gridlock central.

7. You think the Republicans obstructed OBAMA? Centrist corporate Democrat Obama, whose policies were solidly in line with the American establishment, but who happened to have brown skin and a funny name? You ain’t seen NOTHING compared to what they would do to a President Sanders. And as we said, even if the Democrats take Congressional control in 2020, they would invariably lose at least one branch in 2022. We are already figuring in at least a year for Bernie to somehow get his tax plan through. The billionaires are mad. They pour money like crazy into GOP candidates. Welp.

8. So this leaves us… maybe 12-16 months for Bernie to try to enact all his policy reforms, while being deliberately outside of the Democratic party establishment, while having to work with the House and Senate in a way he hasn’t really done before, and accepting limitations on his policies and his political ability, also not something he has really shown an aptitude for.

9. So what? Bernie supporters demand. Are you saying don’t vote for Bernie, it’s hopeless! CORPORATE SHILL!

10. No. Not what I am saying at all. Obviously a Sanders presidency would be light years, LIGHT FUCKING YEARS, better than what we’ve got in there right now. But Sanders (and also Biden) are in their late 70s and have underlying health problems. The likelihood that either of them would serve two full terms is… slim. Obama is two decades younger and we saw how much the presidency aged him. I feel like they’re both flawed candidates in different ways, and my deepest fear is that neither of them can beat Trump, that the Democrats by trying to go for Biden, an Establishment Centrist Old White Man, think they’re playing to a “middle” that doesn’t really exist, and that either progressives or moderates will feel left out in the cold if Biden or Sanders win the nomination. The candidate will have to do the post-convention “pivot,” i.e. trying to appeal to those of their party’s voters who didn’t choose them in the primary, but is Sanders going to do that? His whole platform and the reason his supporters love him is that he doesn’t compromise. Which again, great for ideology, but runs into problems with consistent and actual implementation.

At the end of all this, the takeaway is this: yes, vote for Bernie if you believe in him! But also have a realistic idea of what he will be up against! There is simply no way that he’s going to sweep into office, even if he does get elected, and magically whisk away all the parts of America that we hate. He would have maybe two years to ram through most of his policies, it requires a legislative skill set he hasn’t honed, it rests on passing a major tax package that would be deeply unpopular and cause him to get pummelled in the 2022 midterms, and he has made a career out of operating as the lone wolf. Once again, it’s not a question of whether the current system sucks. We know that it does. But it still exists, and one candidate, no matter how much we agree with him, is not going to change that. He would hopefully manage to pass some of his major policy initiatives. But pretending that there would be no opposition, that it would all be magically fine, and that everyone who DOES raise a note of caution is a cowardly defeatist, a secret capitalist pig, a fake progressive, a secret Trumper (and we’re not the ones threatening to vote for Trump or not at all if our fave doesn’t get the nomination) or whatever else is… not helpful.

Ultimately, if we do get stuck with Biden, we have to hold our noses and vote for him anyway. If we can hold the House and flip the Senate, they can make progressive legislation and Biden is very likely to sign it anyway. The presidential system is not SUPPOSED to rest purely on the personal beliefs of the president, like an absolutist monarch – there was a pretty famous war about it back in the eighteenth century. Biden has displayed no initiative to act like Trump and be a megalomaniacal fascist overlord. We need to take a step AWAY from the insanity that is the current administration, we need to get back to NORMAL, before we can keep going left. Which is what we want! But it happens in stages, if it happens at all, and pretending that it doesn’t, that the only options are the Whole Revolution Now or Nothing, is never, NEVER going to work. And yes, Biden’s positions are generally pretty eye-rolling and I’ll be annoyed if I have to vote for him. But I’ll still do it, because he is NOT equivalent to Trump. Biden got the Violence Against Women Act (which the GOP-controlled Senate notably just failed to reauthorize) funded and passed. Trump has been accused of sexual assault by… what, 22 women? RBG isn’t likely to last another four years. The circuit courts have already been stacked with young, wildly unqualified, hard-right John Birch Society-type judges who will hold their posts for at least 40 years, and this has a direct impact on the kind of cases that are reviewed, confirmed, or struck down even before they get to the Supreme Court. Climate change, the end. There is too much at stake to fuck this up for the sake of Not Getting Everything Now.

As a final note, the Russian propaganda/troll machine has made it clear that they’re posing as Bernie supporters who insist that if Bernie doesn’t win, you shouldn’t vote. They know Bernie supporters are already voicing and disseminating that argument themselves, and they’re going to inflame it as much as possible. So that’s something to keep in mind.

#politics for ts #long post #aroace-space-case #ask

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leaveharmony · 3 years

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I feel ppl might appreciate the ongoing saga of The Stupid Bitch Who Threw Away Her High School Diploma, as related by my mother.

So mum works at a high school, as I'm sure I've mentioned. When current students need course changes or the like she's the one who arranges them, etc, administrative stuff; but she's also the one people call when they need their transcripts (for applying for university, etc.) and on a rarer occasion, when former students need a new diploma because something's happened to the old one).

Now, most of the time in the later two groups, people who contact her are a little sheepish/apologetic about it.

Enter The Stupid Bitch Who Threw Away Her High School Diploma.

It starts with contact: Stupid Bitch has a flowery explanation ready; she was "de-cluttering" during lockdown, improving her space, Letting Go of unnecessary items...and apparently, the single piece of paper that was her high school diploma constituted "clutter" so unbearable it had to go. Only problem? Stupid Bitch just applied for a job that requires a look at her high school diploma.

So, mum dutifully gets in touch with the board office, because obviously they don't keep stacks of the things from decades past laying around - did I mention Stupid Bitch attended high school 40+ years ago? - and they tell her of course there aren't stacks of diplomas laying around THERE from that far back either. The only reason this matters is, the signature of the presiding bureaucrat would be wrong, and thus might require some explanation as Stupid Bitch was applying for a job with it. Can't just make one up and assume it'd be fine, no, mum was legally obligated to ask if a mismatched replica would be OK. So she does! Adding in the explanation and an note RE this is not terribly uncommon, which is why as students are leaving now, they get a reminder to hang onto their original diplomas because they probably won't be able to replicate them perfectly if something happens.

Mum gets a reply. As long as the Official is Qualified, says Stupid Bitch, she does not care one whit who signs the diploma, and of course remember that Time is of the Essence. Mum shrugs, signs off on it with the board, and starts working on the hilariously outdated transcript they sent ahead, since Stupid Bitch needs that, too. Of course, we're talking about marks from courses, and course codes, dated from coming up on a half century ago, and the codes are UNACCOMPANIED BY ANY KIND OF EXPLANATION as to what the classes actually were, so the transcript reads like incomprehensible gibberish. Mum's maybe a quarter done deadass looking up what they were from dusty archived information so she can correct/expand it because my mother doesn't halfass her job...when she gets a second email.

And Furthermore, Stupid Bitch says, she appreciates neither my mother's "Personal anecdote" nor her Unprofessional Tone, because Stupid Bitch is a Retired Professional and should be addressed thusly, and all she is asking for is a display of the competence she expects from another educated professional (and remember, time is of the essence).

This was the first I heard of Stupid Bitch, because I came out to the living room to find out why mum was laughing so hard I could hear her in my room.

TIME BEING OF THE ESSENCE, my diligent mother thought, she wouldn't want to delay things any further, abandoned the extra work on the transcript and sent it as-is.

The diploma itself has gone on a merry circuit of the area; the first attempted delivery found the guy trying the school doors JUST after the custodian locked them, as is his habit, a half hour early. Figuring this was not a woman they wanted further contact with, the principal gamely drove to the board office himself to pick it up...only to find that it was "out on the truck" and couldn't be recalled, so it's anyone's guess where the damned thing is NOW.

Today, mum gets another email from the board: a forwarded email with an apologetic note. It seems they, too, had heard from Stupid Bitch again...who received the transcript they had sent...only to find that IT HAD HER BIRTHDAY LISTED WRONG.

They had "incorrectly delineated" her date of birth on the transcript, said Stupid Bitch, who must have really busted out the thesaurus for that one. "Please impress upon your colleagues the need for Accuracy."

Did I mention the job Stupid Bitch is applying for is with the OPP? Honestly I can’t imagine a better place for her than at the f’n cop shop.

At this point in the story I had actual tears of laughter in my eyes because the lengths this chick is going to to prove she's not a goddamn fucking moron who deliberately threw away her high school diploma with $10 words and rants about how well respected she is while educational professionals laugh at her audacity across half the province is the most entertaining thing I've heard all week.

I suggested that yes - print out and send the version with the corrected birthdate...but photocopy it first, and put a single hair down the entire length of the page before you do it, so there's a line across the whole thing nobody could possibly fail to notice.

The absolute kicker is that Stupid Bitch actually attended high school WITH my mother, who probably wouldn't have even remembered this if Trashed Diploma Karen hadn't acted like such a royal cunt.

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withinthescripts · 6 years

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Season 3, Reel 2: August 13, 1953

[tape recorder turns on]

Amy, call Dr. Jefferson and get me an appointment on Thursday or Friday early morning.

Vivi and I found an injured cat and we’d like to get it fixed. Fixed meaning “spayed”, but I suppose also meaning “repaired”. See if Dr. Jefferson can repair and spay our new cat.

Also, pick up a square fabric about 30 x 30 centimeters, something orange, preferably patterned, an argyle or stencil print, as well as some dark thread, maroon or violet. Once you did that, fold the square into a bandana and embroider the name “Constance” onto the back part of the bandana. We named the cat Constance. Also Amy, can you print that name in script? In cursive where each letter elegantly sweeps onto the next. Don’t fret if you can’t do that, just do it in print, I guess. Thanks.

Letter from the office of Michael Witten on the 13th of August, 1953 to Ursula Lindholm, Director of Communications, Department of Global Trade, European office. Dear Director Lindholm. Thank you for your reply to my question about personnel restructuring. Your concerns about my “poking around” are valid, but rest assured that this is not an inquisition or a judgment, simply curiosity. Amy, don’t write “poking around”, say uh, say “inquiries”. Always mean what you say, but rarely say what you mean.

It is a brave new and unincorporated world out there, and we’re all doing our best to set about a new, less destructive course while implementing an entirely novel set of rules. If you and your office are finding success in reorganization, I certainly wanna know about it. We are not business, Director Lindholm, we are government. We are a truism, a monolith, many roots of the same tree. This is not competition, but collaboration. That being said, I apologize if I pressed too hard into your business and the goings on of your new Regional Director of Trade, Karen Roberts. Karen and I know each other peripherally through Global Secretary of Trade, Vishwathi Ramadoss, my direct supervisor.

Karen, I believe, testified against Secretary Ramadoss during preliminary hearings about domestic espionage in Vancouver last year, even though there were no fucking documents to suggest any of the allegations were true, Ursula, and even if they were, the things Secretary Ramadoss could have revealed about Karen, if there were any domestic spying on businesses, would have destroyed her career. Secretary Ramadoss was using computational machines to record basic data on commerce. It’s just numbers to help with global trade, which is Vishwathi Ramadoss’ fucking job over the whole fucking planet. So yeah, I’m a bit goddamned concerned about Karen Roberts.

Amy, obviously delete all of that, just cut it after the part where I said that I knew Karen. But seriously, Vishwathi was organizing data into charts about a birthplace, age, gender and known health records. The Pacific Northwest pissed themselves that Vishwathi was keeping notes on parents’ names. Oh, what if the citizens find out and try to reconnect with their parents? We don’t allow parents anymore – spare me, she only wrote down the parents’ names in cases where people were direct descendants of the last generation, so they’d already know. It was everything over nothing!

By the way, were you not able to find any of the files from our work in Vancouver? Where was I?

If my tone was aggressive, then I apologize. Ursula, it was not my intent, I would never wanna make a colleague feel less than on equal ground. As I understand it, Karen Roberts relocated the entire Western European Labor Department into the Communications Office. Congratulations on the increased resources! I hope you got a raise.

I wish there were a way to suggest this a joke. Ursula doesn’t seem to have any sense of humor. Her letter was what, two sentences? I’m surprised she didn’t carve it directly into a block of ice.

Amy, can you just draw a smilie face after my last comment? I’m not kidding.

But most of my questions went unanswered. Perhaps you’re pressed for time and if so, please let me know my best approach to Karen Roberts herself. She hasn’t returned my calls or letters. First, what is to become of regulatory protections for workers? The North and Baltic Seas are filled with fishing ships, there are mines and textile factories all over the continent. Who is protecting workers from abuse if the entire region has no labor department? You can’t build a society without a well treated work force.

Second, Karen Roberts owned the largest construction firm along the Gulf of Mexico. Upon taking a government job, did she sell her interests in KR Development, Inc.? Calls to her Houston office suggest to me she has not. This is a violation of the new society ethics bylaws for bureaucrats. If she still owns any part of KR while administering all of Europe’s trade, then this is in direct conflict with our new society’s core values for governmental leadership. This is not a threat, but a fact. Also, it is a threat.

Don’t write that part. Uh, no, write it but then draw another smilie face. That was definitely a joke, no threats in letters Amy, you know that.

I especially encourage you to look into the matter of weapons development along the old Mexican border. Karen’s factories were former arms manufacturing sites. Of course, KR Development now makes its business dismantling war machines for use in new, non-military construction. They have their slogan “swords to ploughshares”, of course. But in my working with Karen on previous North American reconstruction projects, there were persistent rumours that southern militias were being armed by weapons still being manufactured by KR. I have no physical evidence of this and I would never share it publicly, but the European people will not be happy if some journalist finds this proof. My North American people will certainly not be happy, which will make me even more unhappy, and Global Secretary of Trade Vishwathi Ramadoss will be the least happy of us all.

Of course, my staff member Amy Castillo was not able to dig up anything about current weapons production, and if she cannot find anything then I’m sure no one can. You didn’t, right Amy?

So perhaps we have no worries at all. I merely encourage you to do your own research into your new head of trade. Please keep me informed on this matter.

Finally, I was told someone from your office has shut down the production of a play called “Last Night We Were the Wind” at the Olympia in Dublin. I don’t mean to suggest that you are practicing censorship, but the account I heard had to do with the playwright Neve Connolly’s open critique of the new society, that your office found the play, quote, “grotesquely retrospect”. I understand that art can be disruptive and provocative, and we are all trying to build public and global confidence in our new society, but this is why a department of labor or culture exists, to work with artist to find the right message. Amy, underline “right”.

It should be a friendly discourse between government and author, not an indifferent one, as is the way with the “last” generation, nor as in this alleged case, an authoritarian one. Plus we’re only one year removed from the Removal of Nations Act, which forced England to finally cede imperial claims over Ireland, so I’m not sure a London office shutting down a play in Dublin goes over too well. There may be no more borders, but there are a fucking lot of feelings. A-amy, streamline that. Perhaps there were other problems related to labor or finances I’m unaware of, but please do enlighten me on the reasons for silencing a young artist.

Thank you for your time and input. Despite my uh pointed questions, please know that I’m only interested in learning more about what has been effective for your region. Life is nothing if not for learning.

Sincerely, Michael Witten, Director of et cetera et cetera.

[tape recorder turns off] [ads] [tape recorder turns on]

Amy, on second thought, if you can’t embroider a nice cursive script, please just find a tailor or something to teach you. I dunno, figure it out. I’m positive you can figure it out. I think you said you were learning pottery or woodworking? I should remember these things. It was something crafty, so you’ll pick this up in no time.

I hope you realize how much I appreciate your work, Amy. I’m aware that I can be abrupt, and I probably don’t acknowledge your efforts enough, but believe me, they are appreciated. When I worked as Head of the Midwest Region before I took this job, I knew the location of every file, every book, every paperclip in my office. I had to, I had a secretary oh god, Kevin Prince. He was dreadful. I had to edit every letter he transcribed, double check his document organization. I even listened in on some of the phone calls I told him to make. I liked how confident I was in every detail of what I did, but I got home at nine or ten PM most nights. Vivian was not happy eating alone. I felt like I was stacking teacups, each a different size every day, one on top of the other, each one taking more time than the last. Carefully looking at direction, curve, weight, keeping the center vertical… I knew it wouldn’t take long for it all to collapse. But then by miracle, I was selected to take over this office, and here you were.

And you’re everything Kevin was not. Organized and detailed, on time. My first boss at the Textile Distribution Center in Sioux City gave me only one rule: “if you receive an order, ship it.” It’s a deceptively difficult rule. I know almost no one including myself who can follow this 100 per cent of the time. If you receive an order, ship it.

I know we don’t work in shipping and fulfilment here, Amy, but everything I ask of you, you do immediately and effectively. I don’t know where anything is or how you have it all filed, but I’m home by six every night. And when I ask you to dig up old records on some project or meeting, I’ve got a tidy stack on my desk at the end of the day. Except Vancouver. I’m assuming those were lost or we just never had them?

I used to think leadership was managing every aspect of an underling’s work, but I realize leadership is quietly accepting that people will do everything correctly and allowing them to figure out when they’re wrong. Or you’re just really remarkable. Either way, Vivian appreciates you more than you know. We should have you over for dinner some night. We’ve worked together for how many years now? Why hasn’t this happened? Let’s make this happen.

Letter from of the office of Michael Witten on the 18th of August 1953 to Bernice Jones, Minister for Culture, North American region.

Dear Bernice, it was fantastic having you and Miguel for dinner this weekend. I always enjoy your company and Vivi and I truly loved the wine you brought. We never had a marble wine before. So crisp and smooth, but with a sweet nose, like someone eating a passion fruit next to you while you touch cold marble swatches. And please thank Miguel for the wonderful gift of music. I’m listening to the record right now*, Vivi has turned me on to jazz. I don’t know if I enjoy it, but I uh appreciate it. It’s like music but with a puzzle in it. Apparently there are some jazz clubs right here in Chicago.

* there’s no music in the background

You mentioned your youth arts initiatives in Oaxaca and I was intrigued. While the Department of Global Trade does not directly oversee artistic funding, we certainly oversee global trade, whatever you think that last word means. Perhaps there’s room for a collaboration here between our offices. As you know, Vivi is an avid collector of modern art. You noted with a touch of awe the original Claudia Atieno in our den, and I’ve never seen Vivi light up quite like that. [chuckles] With all the accountants and lawyers who come through our doors, you can imagine how rare it is to find a dinner guest who can recognize the care and attention Vivi puts into her collection.

After your visit, Vivi and I discussed how we can do more to help young artists. Or forget young, artists in general. Why single out only the inexperienced? What of those in between training and fame who need our help most? Of course we donate and make purchases where we can, but money only goes so far.

You may need to burn this letter after I tell you this, but our department is swimming in money. I can’t put resources toward a North American gallery or opera or (-) [0:16:30], but I could certainly put money toward a global artistic exchange. Can you imagine teaching the Cahto language in (Canberra), or singing Mariachi in Marrakesh, or performing Neve Connolly in London? I think the people of London would adore such a dynamic new writer.

Connolly is controversial, yes, what with her depictions of traditional family roles and the challenge this presents the new generations of people raised to reject the tribalism of family. But she’s a brilliant young playwright. You know her work, she was brought to speak at Tulane last year through a grant from your office.

The Palladium in London is dark right now. The West End is starving for theatre. We could produce a Neve Connolly play there with a North American production team and Dublin actors. I’m not sure if you’ve read her play “The Topaz Window”, but it’s truly a masterpiece. It centers around an extraordinary painting of mysterious origin that begins to drive a wedge between a previously close family. I won’t spoil it, but the denouement is truly shocking.

Anyway, if someone were to stage that, I’m sure we could commission a well regarded artist to provide the painting in question, maybe even Claudia Atieno herself. I know an art collector named Archie McPherson who would get us in touch with her.

This is truly cultural and global trade, I’m positive our European offices will be pleased. No, make that “delighted”, Amy.

I’ll have my secretary Amy send you a full proposal and budget within a week. I look forward to discussing this with you soon, give my love to Miguel, all the best, Mikey.

[tape recorder turns on]

Amy, write a letter to Vishwathi. 20th August, 1953.

Dear Secretary Ramadoss, I’m pleased to hear you agree with me about the European trade offices. I, too, was alarmed to hear that Karen Roberts had disbanded her labor department, but not surprised. As you saw in my memorandum, she has a long history of disrespect towards workers, going back to her time in Houston. My contact, Ursula Lindholm in the Communications offices in Europe, is reluctant to share many details with me, so I’m hoping to make new connections with the European Trade Department employees. A former colleague of mine from my old job in St. Louis, Leena Mäkinen is living in Helsinki. She would be interested in a move to the Oslo offices. Would you be willing to write a recommendation for her? I think Leena could provide some information that Ursula is certainly unwilling to share. Not a spy, really but a um… You know, scratch that, let’s not be dramatic.

I know you do not know her, and I do not want to seem flippant about professional ethics, but as you once told me, act first, argue semantics later. The staff and I hope you can visit Chicago again soon. Fall is beautiful here, we’ll take you to the lake. Also the Field Museum finally reopened last month. They only recovered a quarter of their collection from the Great Reckoning, but many museums were far lass fortunate.

Amy, remove the paragraphs mentioning Leena Mäkinen from this letter. I think it’s better not to involve the secretary in this. Let’s go with this.

Perhaps you can use your influence to find out whether Karen has sold off her interest in KR development, and what they plan on doing to manage labor, now that they’ve gutted the department. Thank you again for your attention in this manner. Sincerely, Michael Witten, North America.

[tape recorder turns off]

Jeffrey Cranor: Within the Wires is a production of Night Vale Presents. It is written by Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson, with original music by Mary Epworth. Find more of Mary’s music at maryepworth.com. The voice of Michael Witten is Lee LeBreton. You can support our show and get exclusive episodes and other cool things at patreon.com/withinthewires.

OK, our time is done. It’s you time now. Time to head to happy hour after a long day of work at the [yoga tournament], to enjoy a pint of [tamarin sauce] with your friend [Jean Valjean].

#within the wires #within the wires transcripts #season 3 #season 3 reel 2 #august 13 1953 #long post

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fdhfjdafdajfa · 6 years

Text

PLEASE SIGNAL BOOST: I need to raise money for myself and a friend, both currently homeless.

THE SHORT VERSION:

-I am in India without access to my money due to a pickpocketing and bank-related technicalities.

-I am without housing due to repeated, egregious, explicit discrimination. This has depleted most of my funds and I relocated to Calcutta due to air quality, low cost of living, and beef.

-At the same time, a close friend and her partner (located in Delhi and Paris, respectively) have brought to my attention a friend of theirs who is literally being physically restrained in an abusive marriage. We are talking black eyes and bruises. It's a horrific situation but I need her also because she speaks Bengali. So the house hunting process is stalled until she escapes.

-I am staying at an airbnb very close to her place. Even after we manage to get her physically removed there'a more stuff we have to do like filing a police report etc. The airbnb is expensive by Calcutta standards, but it's cheaper than rent anywhere I've lived in the USA.

-I need money for two reasons: to pay the deposit on our flat, and to keep me alive until I can sort things out with the bank, which may not be possible until after I move into a permanent place.

THE SHORTER VERSION:

-Idiot foreigner and victim of ongoing battering need rescue funds so we don't die.

PLEASE SIGNAL BOOST THIS

Paypal here.

https://www.paypal.me/pcoolpearl

Further details under cut.

ON THE PICKPOCKETING AND BANK ISSUES:

-I was pickpocketed in the market about two months ago. That's life. It happens. Welcome to India. Some idiot got like 200 rupees so that's great for them but I had to cancel all my bank cards. Not really much I could do. I just got home and realised my wallet wasn't there anymore.

-Delhi does not have a functional mailing system at all. This means that the banks were more or less at a loss for how to get the cards at me. This is part of why I relocated to Calcutta. That's Bank Account A. The easy one, but also the far smaller one.

-But as for the larger and more consequential Bank Account B, which contains easily enough money for me to live off of in Calcutta for quite some time, they do not have any kind of policy for what to do in the event that someone ever manages to escape the land of the free and the home of the brave. This is the one tied to my social security payments, and is where all my money lives.

-So when I called Social Security they did that thing they do where they try to play gotcha with inconsistencies in your story. In my case I had already tried to get a replacement card weeks earlier, for reasons unrelated. "If it didn't get there weeks ago, wouldn't you have called weeks ago?" "What the fuck? No, I didn't solve any of the problems so why would I have called again and wasted my fucking time on this fucking phone line for no reason, again?" This was after a good 15 mins or so of this kind of grilling, which I find especially grating now after almost a year of living in countries where nobody can lie for shit and so there'a no point in every single fucking person pretending they're a TV detective whose purpose in life is to stop Moriarty from abusing welfare benefits. "If you're going to raise your voice at me, what I'm going to do is I'm going to place a security hold on your account and you'll need to verify your identity." Let me reiterate that she stated explicitly that this was in retaliation for raising my voice and not due to any real suspicion about my identity. In later calls to Social Security it would be revealed that she could

have easily seen on her computer that the card never got to me. That is information very easily verifiable by the World's Greatest Goddamn Detective over there.

-So the next person I called sent me on a wild goose chase to the American Embassy to pick up a form called a Memorandum of Understanding. Judging that the very limited funds I'd had stockpiled in my dresser was not best spent on an auto ride, I walked nearly an hour from the metro station to the embassy. There was a dust storm in this period and I read later that over a hundred people fucking died in it, but I just kept walking towards it because that's where the embassy was. Also I'd never seen a dust storm in my life and had no idea what it was or why the sky was pink.

-When I got there they told me straight up that 1. they don't do mail pickup, which is why the card hadn't gotten to me, and 2. they don't do memorandums of understanding. They offered to send me a different form for 50 USD. "Can't you borrow it?" they asked. "That's not a reasonable thing to say to someone who lives in India," I said straight up. "That's not a real amount of money that people in India have." That's American for "fuck off". So they wrote me a different letter in an attempt to verify my identity. I send this in with my only other forms of identification: my passport and an expired driver's license from Washington state. Waited 3 business days as instructed.

-They told me they can't use these because of issues relating to my legal name change a couple years ago. Social Security had not been updated as regards the change. "I have my birth certificate and my court certification for the name change, and I can fax those in."

-"What you'll have to do is go to you social security office in person--" "Look, I'm gonna cut you off there. You can see my current address right? Read that off to me. What city is that in." "New Delhi." "That's right, New Delhi. What country is that in? Great. So can, can you tell me where my local Social Security office is here in India?" She could not tell me where my local social security office was in India. There aren't any. That's why she couldn't tell me that. But again, no protocol for this situation and if an American bureaucrat breaks their protocol I'm 90% sure Obama's legally allowed to kill them.

-What I'll need to do is a complicated process involving appointing Americans to act as proxies to go in and file paperwork on my behalf. There are other ideas, but none of them are more sure or less complicated, and they all require me to have a permanent address.

ON WHY I DO NOT HAVE A PERMANENT ADDRESS:

-Those close to me know that I have had a hell of a time finding housing in India. It's not all that bad for an Indian to find housing and when my Indian friends have tried they've consistently been able to find me something in a few hours. But that something is living alone. Which 1. is depressing and 2. is tactically disadvantageous when you don't speak the language of a country because how you will tell the food panda guy where to go...

-So I moved in with an Indian girl who seemed nice enough, and her sister who seemed if anything even nicer. This was about a week before I was pickpocketed as described above.

-In India there's this big thing about vegetarianism where it's a highly important in determining one's role in caste hierarchy. Unfortunately for me I do not give a shit and think the caste system is dumb and scrambled myself some eggs. The disgust my caste Hindu roommates displayed towards me from that point on was palpable. Within another week they were asking me to leave. They got the landlord on their side fairly easily because that's how the caste system works and I was given less than a week to vacate. (To my knowledge there is no law like in USA saying they can't do that.) (Also if you're going to try to argue with me about how caste works shut up, I don't care, not the time.)

-The next day I would eat a straight-up poisoned "cheeseburger" and be sick for the following two weeks.

-Regardless of this I managed to miraculously line up a living arrangement with a Muslim roommate who expressed her approval of my award-winning omelettes and stated a willingness to go with me on beef crawls. (It's technically illegal in Delhi but if you know where to get it you can.)

-But it took about two weeks for the landlord to run my papers. I'm not sure why. Previous landlords had it done in 20 minutes. Most of my information about the landlord comes from this roommate, who is not a reliable narrator for reasons which will be explored shortly.

-During this period of 2 weeks, I, with alarming competence, managed to collect money from various friends and places to pay the deposit. I left my boxes of things at the old apartment and couch surfed around Delhi for like a week and a half while this was pending.

-To be honest I don't know what the fuck this roommate's problem was. She was just not a good person. She'd previously agreed to help me cash the contents of my paypal account through having it transferred to her bank, but now she was saying that if she stepped outside even for a second in this heat due to fasting.

-"Then you should not be fasting," I said, matter-of-factly. Look. Islamic law is my literal, actual field of study. You can't really pull one over on me as regards it. This is the ruling accepted by everyone who's not a goddamn lunatic. She didn't buy it though. Because she was lying. The next day she went to her cousin's house and somehow managed not to perish in the heat. Also, she'd previously explained to me how you can call the bankers to your house in India and do work that way. Then she tells me I am paying rent for the entire month despite moving in on like the 20th. "That's how it works everywhere in India," she told me. Wrong again, because this was literally the fifth house I'd moved into and none of them were like that.

-I now believe that this was something she made up on the spot because everything she would say for the remainder of our relationship would be.

-At this point my sense of stranger danger is going fucking haywire and I know I don't want to live with this person. I announce that I will leave in a matter of days. This was a GOOD decision.

-Citing "feeling unsafe" because I had raised my voice in an earlier argument, she invited her brother's sister-in-law(?) basically to troll me on etiquette because "people do not yell in India" which I actually laughed at because, not to claim expertise in a foreign culture, but ya-huh. "Not us," she clarified, "we are women from good families." Ah. A gender and caste thing. "What do you mean good families? My dad's in jail," I said, a statement about 20% likely to be true; I don't fucking know. I'd already agreed to vacate anyway. Anyway then she looked at me like I stabbed a cat in front of her.

-For the record, I didn't stab anything. But that night my roommate (Abaa) would invite her ex-boyfriend to stay the night. The next day he'd investigate a few of the claims Abaa had made.

-"Don't you agree this is a little threatening? Throwing boxes at her..." "What?" I asked. "Throwing boxes?" "She said you threw that box at her," he said, pointing to a container made of thin tin or aluminum which had been full of popcorn when I bought it. The tin drum was sitting on my desk, undented, full of medications and things. "I didn't do that," I said, truthfully. "She also said you grabbed a kitchen knife and tried to stab her." "What? And you believe this?" "She is my friend. I have to believe her." God bless this guy but he was not regarding me as one would regard someone who had just tried to STAB a friend of his. Also the kitchen knives sucked and would not have been practical stabbing implements; if I were going to attack someone surely the better choice would be the brass punchers I carry on my person at all times.

-She also called the police on me twice. I don't know what she was claiming, it was never explained to me. But both times they basically told her to chill, this isn't an ethno-state.

-Even on the way to the train station to Calcutta she's calling my cab driver trying to get him to turn around so she can yell at me over misplacing the key to the apartment. She texts me this:

In her defence, I had accidentally taken the key, but still, not done, man. She blocked me after saying that so I couldn't arrange a way to get the key back. I guess she wasn't from such a great family after all.

TO CALCUTTA:

-Rent in Calcutta is about a quarter as expensive as in Delhi. Also, Delhi is kind of an overcrowded polluted place where people go to be slaves to capital and die of smoke inhalation and indigestion. The "cheeseburger" gave me my worst case but I pretty much never didn't have indigestion there. Also it's like 45 degrees every day with an Air Quality Index of like 350. So I felt pretty good about going to Calcutta where beef is legal and there's an active art scene and I have almost as many friends as in Delhi and AQI rarely tops 50 and everybody's a communist.

-On the train ride over, a very close friend and her boyfriend (who live in Delhi and Paris, respectively) alert me to a friend of theirs who is in a physically abusive marriage. She needs help escaping. After that, the two of us should get a flat together. They think it'll be good for her to live with me because I'm an abuse survivor who is strong and independent and has experience in DV counseling. Truthfully, they're right. And I didn't stop needing an Indian roommate or anything. So I enthusiastically agree.

-The place that had agreed to host me for my first stretch in Calcutta until I get a permanent place has two complications. One, to get to where my new roommate lives, I need to pay 500 rupees for a 1 hour uber ride, or I can ride the train for 3 hours. Secondly, and perhaps more pressingly, the family I was staying with were forced to vacate because the father's debtors had threatened to kidnap his daughter.

-So I get an airbnb about a block from where my new roommate lives so that she can head over easily when she gets the chance. That is where I am now. It's a little over ₹600 a night. I'm pretty much stuck here until she manages to escape and we manage to get a place, although I have other people working on it as well. Frankly this suits me fine. I'm tired. I've had basically no downtime in like two months. The food here'a fucking fantastic. If I can spend a few days just stuffing my face with ₹40 beef biryani and momos and gain back the weight I lost by having indigestion for six straight months then fuck me up.

Compounding issues is the fact that my computer broke. Fortunately it's under warranty but I had to type this on an mp3 player and it took two hours good night.

ON MONEY:

I need some. If I raise €50, I'll be fine. If I raise €100, I'll be comfortable. Assuming the Apple store doesn't blindside me tomorrow. I'm really hoping for €60 or more.

PLEASE SIGNAL BOOST

PAYPAL HERE

https://www.paypal.me/pcoolpearl

#ramadan #laylat al qadr #zakat #sadaqah #signal boost

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vagrantblvrd · 7 years

Text

Begin to Howl (1/1)

Summary: If Geoff thinks Ryan's going to be a stabilizing influence on his favorite group of lunatics, he's a goddamn fool.

Notes: This started out as a Battle Buddies AU and mutated on me. /o\

AO3

If Geoff thinks Ryan's going to be a stabilizing influence on his favorite group of lunatics, he's a goddamn fool.

“Hey, Ryan,” Geoff says, off-hand and super casual. “Shut the fuck up.”

Ryan rolls his eyes and studies the dossiers Geoff's thrown down in front of him. Jones, Free, and the newest Lost Boy to make it to the agency, Dooley.

“Look,” Ryan says, kicking back in his chair to look Geoff right in his beady little eyes. “I'm just telling you the truth.”

He's worked for Geoff going on years now. Handling a lot of the behind the scenes shit Jack doesn't have the time to deal with on top of his own duties, and Geoff just straight out lacks the patience or skills for.

Things no one likes doing but still needs to be done if they want things running smoothly. Or you know. Smooth-ish.

Ryan hasn't been in the field for a while now, but he keeps up with his certifications because he's not an idiot and they've all made enemies over the years. Have reasons why getting sloppy, becoming complacent with their lot in life is liable to get them killed messily sooner or later.

And now Geoff wants him to become team leader for three of his most unpredictable people who have a tendency to land the more problematic missions.

Whether it's because Control thinks they're the most qualified agents to tackle said missions or are taking bets as to how long their luck can hold out, even Ryan isn't sure.

Lunatics or not, they're some of the most adaptable bastards Ryan's seen walk through the agency's doors in a long time. Between Michael's solid performance and ability to keep a level head in the worst situations despite the occasional...flareup where his temper is concerned. Gavin's...unique way of looking at the world, and Jeremy's combination of skills and sheer determination they make a solid team.

Unfortunately, their special blend of skills and personalities have forged them into a unit most team leaders aren't prepared to handle. They've gone through several senior agents in the past year, ever since Geoff pulled himself from field duty citing personal issues after a mission went wrong and nearly got them all killed. Moved up into an administrative role in the agency that's killing him by inches.

Geoff loves those idiots, and he's not willing to send them into the kind of missions they're suited for unless he knows they have a team leader he can trust them with. Someone who won't try to stifle them, force them to operate by the book when they're hardly what you'd call model agents. Not the sort to stick to the plan when a better option makes itself available.

“Michael's mellowed with time,” Geoff says, ticking factors off his fingers he thinks will sway Ryan to his side. “Gavin's...well. Gavin's learned a new appreciation for not being a complete dumbass, and Jeremy - “

Ryan steeples his hands as he leans back in his chair. Smiles, big and wide and waits for Geoff to finish that sentence in a way that doesn't make Jeremy sound like the agency's up-and-coming head maniac.

Geoff sighs, dropping his hand and looking the very picture of a broken man leading a tiny army of the disturbingly unhinged.

“He fucking reminds me of you,” Geoff says, and they both know that's a bad thing. A very bad thing because Ryan had been a great agent, back in the day, if a bit...creative about the way he'd interpret orders. “Makes me wish I still drank.”

Ryan levels a look at Geoff, who makes a face in return. Eyes rolling as he drops into the chair across from Ryan.

“Fuck you, fine. I don't, but goddamn that kid. Being on a team with Gavin just makes things worse.”

And that -

Yeah, no.

Gavin's a bad influence on just about anyone he comes into contact with. Part of the reason he'd been partnered with Michael almost from the get-go.

Geoff had taken one look at that gawky, scrawny kid fresh off a plane from England and realized he was trouble. Thought pairing him with someone like Michael who showed the kind of basic common sense the agency lacked in spades would be a good idea.

Five years on and they're inseparable. Michael's snapping and snarling and yelling now tinged with overwhelming fondness and affection instead of raw anger. Gavin willingly letting Michael take the lead, all too often a quiet little shadow at his back with sharp eyes and such a clever, clever mind.

Goddamn instigator, and always Michael there to step in if (when) he gets in over his head, and now there's Jeremy. Good-natured and more than capable of keeping up with both of them, and Ryan knows for a fact he's the brains behind half the messes those idiots get themselves into lately.

And now Geoff wants him to take charge of these little bastards, lead them into hostile situations and get them back home again in one piece or as close to it as he can manage. Thinks Ryan could – not bring them to heel, God no - but at least fake it well enough the bureaucrats would be appeased.

Lord knows the agency isn't exactly known for their restraint, but they're valuable to the right people and so far those people have managed to stay in power. Protecting them from people who have no idea what it's like all the way down here where things get messy, ugly.

“Fuck you, no,” Ryan says with feeling. “I've done my time out there, same as you, Geoff. Like hell you're getting me out there with those idiots under my command.”

Ryan says the words with confidence, so, so certain, but Geoff.

Geoff gives him this tired little smile. The same one he'd given Ryan all those months ago when Ryan asked him if he was sure retiring from fieldwork was what he really wanted.

And Ryan -

“Give it a month,” Geoff says, and it's like some bizarre role-reversal going on here that sparks a bit of genuine anger deep down in Ryan because they're Geoff's team, not his. Not Ryan's in any way that matters, and Geoff knows it. “See what happens.”

========

The hell of it is, Ryan knows them, Geoff's idiots.

He was there when each of them came to the agency. Was still taking part in missions with his own team, going out there and doing a little bit of good in between all the wrong.

Coming back to HQ to debrief. Seeing the agency shrinks and bleeding out all the ugly things he'd seen and done on the floor of their pristine offices and feeling like he never got it all out. That there was always something that clung on, sinking its hooks into him and refusing to let go until he asked (all but begged) to be pulled from field duty.

Found himself a desk down in one of the sub-basements and set up shop, built himself a little kingdom down there that had feelers in every department of the agency. Fed him intel on every little thing that happened within its walls and gave it all over to Geoff and Jack because they were the only ones he's ever trusted with any of it.

Ryan was there when Jack and Geoff brought Michael in. This quiet, watchful kid putting up with no-one's bullshit, and it had made him a few enemies in the early days. Morons who didn't last long at the agency through their own idiocy and small-mindedness.

He took note of Gavin when he came in on Burnie's heels, wide-eyed and full of questions. Always poking and prodding and everywhere all the goddamn time. Making friends and enemies all in the same breath, and seemingly unaware of the effect he had on people.

Ryan never heard the full story concerning Jeremy. Just remembers seeing him almost literally stumble through the agency's doors pulled along by Gavin with Geoff strolling just ahead of them, this look on Geoff's face like he knew something no one else did about this quiet, surprisingly well-mannered kid.

And, oh, hadn't he shaken things up, Jeremy.

Looked like a quiet one, eyes sharp and inquisitive. Friendly enough smile on his face, and always ready with a joke or some terrible pun. Self-deprecating and something endearing in that humble-aw-shucks way he has to him, but it was as much of an act as Gavin's stupidity.

Hid the way that mind of his worked, slick and tricky as Gavin's – worse, sometimes – and the kind of skills and abilities to back all of that up. Solidness to him that Gavin lacked, feet planted firmly on the ground and eyes looking skyward, little smirk pulling at his lips.

Ryan knows them, has seen the shit they get up to when they're around HQ too long without a mission to burn that restless energy out of them. (May have, although there's no surviving proof, lent a hand a time or two over the years.)

He feels their focus snap to him the moment he walks into the briefing room set aside for their use.

Sees the way Michael's eyes narrow ever so slightly. The way Gavin looks up from his phone, head cocked, faint smile playing on his lips. Jeremy lifting his head, feet kicked up in front of him on the briefing room able, Aviators hiding his eyes from sight.

Like walking up to a pack of half-feral dogs, wary and suspicious and ready to tear into him the moment he makes a wrong move.

Geoff Ramsey's boys, his Lads.

Three of the most terrifying agents to work for the agency since its inception a decade and a half ago. Since fucking Geoff Ramsey and his original team, back in the day.

“What the hell did you do to Senior Agent Marshall?” Ryan asks, because he's met nothing but dead-ends every time he goes searching for answers.

And that's not something that should happen, given what happened to the bastard. (Every little bit deserved because Marshall had been the worst kind of agent, but that's not the kind of sentiment Ryan should have according to the agency's handbook.)

Marshall had been lazy and arrogant, giving the kinds of orders that would have gotten lesser agents killed and just smart enough to hide his incompetence from his superiors. The people who should have caught it before it went as far as it did.

Before it landed Michael and Jeremy in the infirmary with broken bones and holes in them the size and shape of bullets. Gavin the only one of them still standing (on a technicality) with Control scrambling to figure out what had gone wrong. Geoff and Jack both in DC for budgetary meetings, and Marshall trying to pin the blame on the Lads. Citing their past track records, tendency to go off-book, throw a little flair in there, their collective penchant for fiery explosions.

In retrospect, Marshall's luckier than he knows to have gotten off so lightly, considering.

Gavin's got a mean streak in him that doesn't surface all that often, but when someone threatens what's important to him? You'd better pray to whatever higher being you hold dear someone can rein him in. (Unfortunate for Marshall, then, that his incompetence had removed his two best bets of getting out of the situation unscathed. So very, very unfortunate.)

Michael settles back in his chair, slow smirk pulling at his mouth. Gavin's eyes brightening as he sets his phone down and sits up, and Jeremy barks out a laugh as he pulls the Aviators off, smirk on his face to mirror Michael's.

“I don't know what you're on about,” Michael says in that atrocious parody of a British accent he tends to adopt from time to time, taking the lead on this the way he always does.

Ryan locks eyes with him, and Michael just looks back. This sort of vicious satisfaction in his eyes, and Ryan finds he can't fault him for it. Not when Marshall had put his entire team at risk, and if it's one thing the Lads are, it's loyal.

To their team first, the agency second, everyone else never.

Ryan sighs, feels that strange tug of affection for these idiots he's always felt somewhere in the vicinity where his heart should be. (Rumors says he lost it years ago on a mission gone bad. Defective body armor, and the lucky shot that heralded the rise of the Mad King with his little kingdom down on sub-basement D because the agency's rumor mill is ever so creative.)

“Sure, okay,” Ryan says, and tosses down mission folders on the table by Jeremy's feet. Flips a little USB drive over to Gavin who plucks it neatly out of the air. “We've got a mission.”

Ryan pauses, looking at each of them in turn. Highly trained and skilled agents who have years of field experience under their belts.

“It would be nice,” he says, “if I knew you trusted me, but I'll settle for knowing you'll listen to me out there.”

He likes these idiots, doesn't want to be the one leading them to their deaths.

Michael cracks his neck, eyes sliding towards Gavin who looks down at the USB drive in his hands. Turning it over and over as he thinks. Jeremy drops his feet to the floor and sits up, shoulders squared, and Ryan?

He waits.

Waits, because Michael's the one to take the lead when someone comes in to challenge the order of things here. The way things work with this team since Geoff retired from fieldwork. To put himself out there, loud and brash and stubborn down to his core.

Gavin, though.

He handles things like this, brokers little deals. Arrangements and understandings.

This odd mix of harmlessness and a charming sort of enthusiasm to him that pulls people’s eyes away from Michael and Jeremy to focus on him. Have them making the mistake of thinking the Lads are anything but dangerous.

After a moment Gavin looks up at Ryan and smiles, small and crooked and real.

“I think if anyone's earned that much here aside from Geoff and Jack, Ryan, it's you,” he says.

Ryan looks at him. At Michael and Jeremy and it's -

Well, it's not quite like being kicked in the ribs because Ryan knows that feeling a little too well, but it's close enough. Realizes, seeing the way these idiots are willing to put what little trust they have to give over these days to him, Geoff knew exactly what he was doing when he went to Ryan.

========

Unsurprisingly, their first mission in the field as a team doesn't go exactly as planned.

“Jesus Christ,” Ryan says, staring in awe at the flaming wreckage that used to be a nice little mountain villa belonging to the head of a drug cartel.

”Mission accomplished,” Michael says flatly, Jeremy's delighted laughter in the background. ”We could use a pick-up.”

Ryan slides a look towards Gavin sitting in the pilot's seat of their borrowed helicopter and isn't all that surprised by the manic grin on his face.

“You heard him,” Ryan says, wondering how the hell he's supposed to explain this to Control.

This was supposed to be a nice little shakedown mission for them, figure out how to work as a team. Get to know one another's quirks and idiosyncrasies, and -

Technically – technically – it's working because Ryan is now well acquainted with the fact that sending Michael and Jeremy off on their own is a bad idea. Probably shouldn't have done it, but God knows what would have happened if he'd sent Gavin with Michael or Jeremy.

Gavin coos as something explodes on the east side of the villa belonging to the cartel leader. Michael and Jeremy were supposed to take out quietly while Ryan and Gavin dealt with the cargo planes at the little airstrip hidden up in the mountains.

It's pretty as all hell, so Ryan will give him that, but it's also just a wee bit noticeable.

There's already chatter on cartel's radio frequency they're tapped into, and it's going to be a challenge getting out of here in one piece.

And Ryan.

He tried, to get Geoff to see reason when he handed the Lads over to him expecting Ryan to be a stabilizing influence on them, he really did, because – well.

There's a significant part of Ryan that's duly impressed with Michael and Jeremy for wreaking more havoc than he and Gavin did, and they're in a gunship kitted out with a gatling gun firing explosive rounds.

Incredible, really.

========

“Congratulations,” Geoff says, kicking back in the chair across from Ryan. Smug as hell and radiating this exhausting sort of glee. “I heard the mission was a success.”

Ryan scowls at Geoff and wishes for a brief, fleeting moment he actually drank.

“Sometimes I really don’t like you.”

Geoff cackles that goddamn hyena laugh of his as he sets down a six-pack of Diet Coke on Ryan's desk.

“Shut the fuck up, you love me,” he says, making gimme gestures for Ryan's laptop and the report he's been working on for half the night. “Now let me show you how to bullshit Control when it comes to what those little bastards do in the field.”

Ryan looks at Geoff, thinks I'm never going to make it a month with these lunatics, and hands his laptop over because Geoff knows him too damn well. Knows Ryan's been waiting on a team like this.

“Fucking seriously, Geoff,” Ryan says, reaching for a can of Diet Coke, something settling in him at Geoff's crooked grin. “Sometimes I really don't like you.”

Continents

#vagrant fic #ah fic #i have no impulse control #idk how to tag this

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blog575738202 · 7 years

Link

WASHINGTON ― As President Donald Trump entered his second 100 days in office, he described an example of his common-sense leadership: New U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, he decreed, would not use high-tech electromagnetic catapults that only “Albert Einstein” could understand, but would go back to old-fashioned steam power.

“You’re going to goddamned steam,” he told Time magazine.

So what did the Navy do with this plain-spoken directive from the commander-in-chief?

When Trump visited Norfolk, Virginia, some weeks later to commission the new supercarrier Gerald Ford, she was outfitted with high-tech electromagnetic catapults to launch planes off the deck. So will every other new carrier in that class. In fact, the Navy didn’t even bother asking for a study to explore the costs of retrofitting the Gerald Ford to use steam.

It seemed less an act of defiance than an assumption that Trump couldn’t possibly be serious about ordering an expensive and time-consuming redesign of a major weapons system with very little background knowledge ― and in the context of a media interview.

“They ignored it,” Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University, said with a laugh. “The United States federal government is now just shrugging at and ignoring some of his statements.”

It’s a shrug that is becoming more common in the Trump presidency. Agency heads and lower-level bureaucrats appear to have concluded that the combination of Trump’s impulsive nature and short attention span means that the president’s sometimes random commands can – and should – be safely ignored.

“His attention span is so short that what he said one hour, he doesn’t even remember the next hour,” Brinkley said.

That “ignore-what-he-says” attitude may become particularly important as the U.S. deals with a nuclear-armed North Korea. Just hours after Trump’s ad-libbed “fire and fury” statement on Tuesday appeared to escalate the conflict, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson gave far more measured remarks to reporters traveling with him.

“We have a very active, ongoing diplomatic effort, most of which is behind the scenes because that’s where diplomacy is most effective, Tillerson said Wednesday as his Air Force jet flew homeward high over the Indonesian island of Borneo. “I think what the president was just reaffirming is the United States has the capability to fully defend itself with any attack, will defend our allies, and we will do so. So the American people should sleep well at night.”

About That Transgender Military Ban...

Just six months into his term, Trump is finding resistance to his ideas not only from a Republican Congress ― which is ignoring his insistence that it return immediately to a health care bill before doing anything else ― but from some of his own executive agencies.

“I’m not talking about so-called ‘deep state’ bureaucrats,” wrote Jack Goldsmith, a former Justice Department and Defense Department lawyer in the George W. Bush administration. “I’m talking about senior officials in the Justice Department and the military and intelligence and foreign affairs agencies. And they are not just ignoring or contradicting him in private. They are doing so in public for all the world to see.”

Trump’s White House did not respond to queries about the aircraft catapult, or more generally about administration officials ignoring his directives.

But examples are rapidly accumulating.

Trump frequently calls the idea of Russian interference on his behalf in last year’s election a “hoax” invented by Democrats. Leaders of the U.S. intelligence agencies, including those appointed by Trump, like Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and CIA Director Mike Pompeo, say the intelligence community’s analysis that Russia tried to help Trump win is correct.

Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions, angered the president by recusing himself from the FBI’s investigation of possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. More recently, Sessions has resisted Trump’s public ridicule and shaming, and has refused to resign his post – and in so doing has protected the special counsel now running that investigation, as Trump cannot independently fire that person.

Sessions’ deputy, Rod Rosenstein, rejected Trump’s recent call for a renewed investigation into Trump’s Democratic opponent last year, Hillary Clinton. “The president has not directed us to investigate particular people. That wouldn’t be right. That’s not the way we operate,” Rosenstein told Fox News.

Vice President Mike Pence, United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and Defense Secretary James Mattis frequently deliver foreign policy statements at odds with Trump’s comments. Pence and Mattis guaranteed NATO allies of the United States’ commitment to the treaty obligations, even while Trump was projecting ambivalence. Haley reaffirmed U.S. commitment to a two-state solution in Israel and Palestine right after Trump said he didn’t really care how it sorted out.

Mattis’ Defense Department, meanwhile, seems to have taken the lead in flouting Trump. Mattis personally said torture doesn’t work, although Trump insisted it does. He stated that the United States would not be seizing oil from Iraq, even after Trump suggested it was still an option.

More recently, apart from disregarding the presidential command for steam, Mattis’ Pentagon has ignored Trump’s tweets last month banning transgender people from the military. “What you saw in the form of a tweet was representative of an announcement. That doesn’t result in any immediate policy changes for us. We will await formal direction,” said Pentagon spokesman and Navy Capt. Jeff Davis.

Coast Guard Commandant Paul Zukunft went one step further, saying recently he would not carry out the directive, period. “Very small numbers, but all of them are doing meaningful Coast Guard work today,” he said.

Norm Ornstein, with the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, said experts in the various agencies are left with no choice when presented with unreasonable demands. “We’ve never had a president like this. We’ve never had a president with no knowledge base. Who’s not interested in developing a knowledge base. With no impulse control,” Ornstein said.

In the case of the aircraft carrier catapult, the electromagnetic version has been under development for years. It can launch everything from lightweight drones to heavy fighters while adjusting the acceleration force applied, easing stress on the airframes. It will require far less maintenance than steam, which the Navy has relied on for more than a half-century.

Trump did not appear to understand these benefits when he spoke to Time’s reporters. “Digital. They have digital,” he said, apparently describing how the electromagnetic catapult is computer-controlled. “What is digital? And it’s very complicated. You have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out.”

Angry Presidents, ‘Crazy Orders’

Trump, of course, is not the first president to deal with an executive branch that does not bend to his every whim.

Harry Truman reportedly laughed that successor Dwight Eisenhower, who during World War II had commanded all Allied forces in northwest Europe, was used to people following his orders, but that’s not how it worked with the presidency.

More recently, and perhaps more on point, Richard Nixon would routinely order his top White House aides to carry out bizarre and sometimes illegal orders, including at one point the bombing of the Brookings Institution to create a diversion allowing the theft of damaging documents. The aides, including some who history painted as villains following the Watergate investigation, protected the country by ignoring those orders, Ornstein said.

“It’s not the first time we’ve seen crazy orders given by a president angry that things didn’t work the way the president wanted them to,” Ornstein said.

Brinkley, the presidential historian, said Nixon’s top aides and Cabinet members actually took things a step further in his final year, as the Watergate probe and impeachment drew closer. Worried about his mental stability and his alcohol consumption, they essentially set up a system that required sign-off by the chief of staff and the defense secretary for the authorization of military strikes, he said.

“It was sort of extralegal,” Brinkley said, but operated on the premise that the United States was too important to let Nixon destroy it. “The whole issue became containing Nixon.”

Brinkley said Trump’s presidency has close parallels with the Nixon era. Now, like then, career public servants and military leaders appear to be siding with the law and the Constitution against Trump’s impulses.

“His tweets are just being seen as a weird aberration of popular culture, not to be taken as directives,” Brinkley said. “It’s unfortunate when a president behaves that way, but anyone in the military and the CIA have to understand what’s rational and what’s not rational. They’ve got to keep the world’s largest economy and the only real superpower safe.”

#Huffington Post

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akafuckyou-blog · 7 years

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AKA Sign On The Dotted Line || Self

a self para in which jessica makes a decision about registering once and for all.

3:00 PM, and the clock radio began blaring. Cheesy intro music, and then a news anchor started speaking. ‘Good afternoon! We’ll dive right in with the topic on everyone’s mind today: it’s official Registration Day, fol—‘

Jessica crushed the alarm clock with one hand before the end of that sentence.

She groaned, rolling away from the electric carnage. Her head was pounding, but at least her stomach was empty. Nothing in it to throw up. A half-empty bottle and her phone were on the pillow next to her head. She’d fallen asleep drinking and texting Trish. About her stupidest idea, according to her sister.

But she wasn’t sure that was true.

Jessica sighed irritably as she dragged herself out of bed. Grabbed the bottle before walking out of the room, because admitting a problem wasn’t the same thing as doing something about it.

And she had enough to deal with today.

The shower was hot, the scalding water leaving harsh red marks along her skin. But she hardly noticed. She was thinking about the night before, about the long week, month, years she’d had. Last night she’d dreamt of pens and men in suits grabbing at her and capes tightening around her throat until she couldn’t breathe. Natasha’s voice was ringing in her ears. Bruce’s texts. Clint’s. Pietro’s. The word choice over and over and over. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Snart’s bruised face, his bleeding lip. I made my choice, she’d said to him.

And she had.

Whether it was the right one or not, that much remained to be seen.

She left her phone lying on her pillow.

The building was like every other goddamn government skyscraper. Huge, gray, and imposing. More like a monument than a functioning building. She hadn’t expected it to be this quiet. A few people trickled in and out, but not as many as there should’ve been. Some of them were obviously not… entirely human. But most, Christ, most of them looked normal. You could walk by them on the street and have no idea what they were. Like her.

Some of them walked through the doors with their head held high. Proud. Others kept their eyes low to the ground, never looking up. She stood across the street, wondering, how would she look when she walked inside? How would she look when she walked back out?

Responsibility. That word was floating around her brain, too. Like a mantra to replace the street names. Choice, Responsibility, Responsibility, Choice.

Her choices. Her responsibility.

Nyssa had been trying to teach her to think before she acted, but Jessica couldn’t do that. Not today. Today, she had to be herself. Had to plunge in, dart across the street, slam the doors open before she could stop.

The woman at the desk jumped when she slammed the heavy glass doors open. “Can I help you?” she called coolly, flashing a professional smile. A fake one.

The lobby was littered with people. They glanced up at her when she walked in, but most went back to staring at the forms in their laps. Some of them wrote with ease, looked like they were just waiting at a doctor’s office. Others were biting their nails, fidgeting, tapping their pens against the paper. She couldn’t help but scan for a familiar face, for Natasha or Barry – but she only saw strangers.

“Miss?” the receptionist called again. “Can I help you?”

Jessica crossed the room, avoiding the lingering, too-curious stares, and leaned on the desk. “I’m here for the… I need to register,” she said, her voice quieter than she’d expected. Steady, but quiet.

The woman raised a brow, looked her up and down, then turned to her computer. “Name?” she asked, in a voice that was almost bored.

“Jessica. Jessica Jones,” she answered. Her hands tightened around the edge of the desk.

“Species?”

Jessica gave her a long look, but the receptionist kept her eyes on the screen. Leaned back in her chair like this was nothing, like this was a normal occurrence for her. Maybe after today it was.

“Human,” she said finally, resisting the urge to scoff.

The woman’s hands clacked along the keyboard. “You’re not in the system,” she said. “Apart from a few police records. Not the usual ones we expect with –” Her eyes flicked to Jessica, gazed at her over the rim of her glasses. “Your kind.”

Jessica just gaped at her. “Look, lady, I just wanna get this over with, can we –”

“Powers?” the woman asked, cutting her off. Jessica glanced over her shoulder. Most people were minding their own damn business, but some of them were listening. She could tell from how their pens had stilled against their own forms.

“That’s the government’s business,” she said flatly. “Not yours.”

The receptionist laughed lightly. “Oh, honey,” she cooed. The sound grated against Jessica’s skin, like sandpaper soaked in acid. Like a chemical burn. “After you sign these…” she said, leaning over and grabbing a thick stack of paper. “It’s everyone’s business.”

She dropped the papers onto the desk. Jessica’s eyes darted between them and the woman, glaring. She wanted to grab the stack and rip it in half, wanted to grab the desk and throw it across the room, break windows, smash holes into the walls until this woman was begging her to stop –

But she didn’t. Couldn’t.

She had the control here. Right?

She snatched up the papers, ripped a pen from the nearby cup. Knew she should just walk away, get this done, take responsibility for what she was and what she’d done. But the woman’s smug smile was burning into her skin, the way she stared at Jessica left her feeling like she was some exhibit in a zoo, or some sideshow circus act.

“Fuck you,” she snapped, before stalking off. She heard at least one person in the room let out a low chuckle.

The forms were long. Bureaucratic. Complicated.

Christ, she regretted this already.

They wanted specifics. Name, age, height, weight. How old she was when her abilities manifested. How much control she had over them. Did she have an alias or secret identity? Was she part of a team? Had she ever been a vigilante? How much could she lift? How fast could she run? Could she fly? Turn invisible? How had she used her ‘abilities’ in the past?

It went on. And on.

She bullshitted most of it. Didn’t have the answers they’d wanted – knew she was strong, but how strong? Does it goddamn matter? she couldn’t help but think. They wanted her to rate herself on a thousand different scales, answer dozens after dozens of true or false questions. She tried to answer them quickly, because after a while, they started to sound like the conversations she’d had with Kilgrave. I have to know everything about you, he’d whispered that first night.

But question 112 made her pause.

‘Is anyone else aware of your superhuman/enhanced/meta/inhuman abilities? If so, whom? Please provide all relevant information, name, address, relationship, etc.’

Jessica gripped the pen so tightly it snapped in her hand. She reached into her bag to grab another, hand bumping against her flask.

Christ, she wanted a drink. Wanted to rip these forms into shreds, until their bullshit questions had turned into confetti.

But she was here now. She had made her choice.

No, she wrote. Because her choice wouldn’t fuck up anyone else’s life. She wasn’t going to tell them about Trish. Or Bruce. Or Natasha. Or Malcolm, Claire, Luke, Robyn, Hogarth, or even goddamn motherfucking Snart. This wasn’t their problem to deal with. It was hers.

Choice, Responsibility. Responsibility, Choice.

After what felt like hours, with the room waxing and waning around her as people came and went, she was finally done.

She set the stack of forms on the desk. The receptionist picked it up, flicked through it with a glazed look in her eye. Like she was skimming a goddamn magazine. Jessica couldn’t be here anymore, couldn’t look at her, she needed to find the nearest bar and drown herself, because she’d always made a better alcoholic than a hero.

But as she turned to walk away, the receptionist tutted. “You forgot one thing, dear,” she said, her voice sickly sweet. Saccharine. Manipulative. Jessica turned around slowly, her heart pounding, one hand clenched tightly around the strap of her bag.

“What?” she snapped. “Need me to piss in a cup too, or something?”

The woman shook her head, still smiling bemusedly. “Nothing like that,” she assured her. She flipped to the last page, tapped the bottom of the paper. “You just need to sign here,” she said. “One last time. Signature and initials, if you please.”

Jessica swallowed hard. Noted how it wasn’t phrased as a question or a request. But given, like an order.

Birch Street. Higgins Drive, she thought as she strode slowly back to the desk. She grabbed another pen, placed it against the dotted line, but hesitated. Her fingers were frozen.

She remembered everything she’d said about the act. About how it was wrong to force people into feeling guilty for trying to help. To expose them. To rip their secrets away and plaster them in the public, all in the name of some goddamn greater good.

But for a second – it had felt like this was right. Like it mattered if she chose to walk into this building. If she took responsibility.

“Almost done,” the receptionist prompted, tapping the paper again.

Jessica nodded blankly, like she had whenever he gave her another command.

Shit. What had she done?

She signed her name as fast as she could. Tossed the pen aside like it had burned her, then bolted from the building.

#aka self #aka sign

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unfortunately-a-fangirl · 4 years

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Whats up my bodacious totally awesome and reliable allies and followers. i have come down from the fucking high mount of freemont to deliver unto you my 3 braincell’s plan to fix the united states of america because who doesn’t love amerticam?

Alright baby. What’s the principle issue with the united states? The Poor are getting poorer, the Rich are getting richer, the intermediate are losing their fucking minds going one of the two ways and socialism is on the rise to tear the system asunder in a glorious revolution of scarlet (oh god oh fuck mr lenin don’t kill me). So what’s the big deal with REVOLUTION!! ? Simple! I don’t think the system’s broken. I mean this bastard of a country is like a 2 legged horse holy fuck it shouldn’t be living but it managed to get this far. So how do we fix the system? Do we tear it apart for scrap to build the new system? fuck naw man the Idea of Capitalist Democracy can work if it’s carefully watched over. What’s the problem? Well it all goes back to this bitch-ass motherfucker named Eisenhower. He ERASED the Latin American democratic movement to protect banana farmers and DEMOLISHED the idea of a seperate Military-Industrial Complex from the Government and its policies. The result is something i think is called the iron triangle, where Lobbyists, Bureaucrats, and Polticans all work in eachothers best intrests rather than government’s main goals so let’s BACK THE FUCK UP and consider for one second what the fuck is government. The function of government is not to serve itself, nor to work to better the ruling elite, but rather to serve the will of the governed. Or so sayeth John Locke. The Man who said- and im paraphrasing- “If a law doesn’t make you gay, be gay and do crime”. The consent of the governed isn’t merely the legitimacy of government, but also a responsibility of government. The fundemental issue is that the government has wiggled itself out of the responsibility that it is built on. Now you might say “but almighty lord what the fuck is this all about won’t all government try to wiggle out of the will of the people”? Of course! People with power hate being restricted so the natural conclusion is to eliminate the people pulling you down. So how do we solve this? We speak up. In 1900, the world was a fucking mess. JP Morgan owned your money, John Rockefeller owned your gas, Vanderbilt owned your train, Carnigie owned the steel in your home. Everything was owned by massive corporations that funded the government to do whatever the fuck corporations and the ultra-wealthy wanted. So how did we wiggle out? Through god-emperor daddy teddy “big stick” roosevelt. He DEMOLISHED megacorps of his era and scared off those that were aiming to be like Standard Oil. The issue is that people forgot. Standard Oil was broken up by the Sherman Anti-trust Act. Its primary focus is to ensure the long-term competition of the market. How do we ensure that people follow these examples? First off, we have to break up companies like Disney, Alphabet, Amazon, etc. These corporations will threaten the long-term survival of the People’s voice in government if permitted to exist as is. How do we ensure they don’t return? We make the wage of politicians directly proportional to the median wage of the citizens of their jurisdiction and ensure they can’t weasel out of it with special privileges. No healthcare without paying? No government benefits for you by virtue of your public service. Pay for your own healthcare goddamn it. Your wage is too low? Raise the average american’s wage. If a politican’s livelyhood is tied directly tied to the livelyhood of the average american’s they are forced to act in a way to the average american’s benefit. So here’s the short version of the plan. 1. Vote for Politicians who oppose big businesses and legitimately support the people. If they don’t exist, try running for office! 2. Break up the biggest conglomerates. Disney most importantly. Copyright cannot be dictated by one company because they decree it. 3. Introduce legislation to prevent corporations from grooming political candidates. Limits on “donations”, campaigns being payed for by the government. Ensuring no CEOs or high-ranking Executives get into office. Their interests are opposed to the average American’s. 4. Tie the wages and benefits of a politician to the wages and benefits of the median american. This rules out outliers like the top 1% of Americans, as it is the center American as opposed to the average of all Americans. 5. Modify voting districts to ensure that Gerrymandering cannot easily occur to reverse the polarization that has occurred of late. If more political opinions are mixed, the result is a more moderate viewpoint prevailing. 6. Make these changes permanent. If these changes are loose and permit those subject to it will seek to undo these changes. Thus rendering any changes moot. Tis what my opinions are and i send it unto you. yeehaw me lads.

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babaleshy · 5 years

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I know I haven’t touched this thing for a while but whatever. I’m gonna rant. Yes, it’s about my folks. Yes, they are Trump supporters. No, I still can’t move out because my husband and I cannot afford it nor is there any jobs in the area that pay enough for us to move out.

On with the rant (plus, like, a mental health update which I will do first).

Going to get re-evaluated for ADHD because as much as I loved seeing Mark for counseling, he wanted to simply focus on my struggles, hence why I was diagnosed with EFD. He was great, helpful, all that. Just... There’s other stuff going on with all of these signs pointing to ADHD, and I actually forget that sometimes symptoms outside of executive functioning issues can get in the way because my depression makes me forget shit.

On top of this, Paulnetta (my new counselor) has referred me to a couple of places to go and get tested for dyslexia and other learning disabilities. What has kept me from getting tested the past couple of months is that my ID expired back in April and I fucking forgot about it. I’m going to the DMV tomorrow to get my ID renewed but will have to wait for it to appear in the mail, now, because of bureaucratic bullshit. Once I get my ID, I can finally get tested for a learning disability and FINALLY apply for goddamn Medicaid.

I’m getting mighty sick of what my parents are pulling. I’ll start with my mom since there’s not TOO much bullshit to bitch about with her like there is with my dad.

My mom still won’t engage much with me in conversation about anything I want to talk about. But the moment she decides to talk, she immediately changes the topic to her favorite country singer or something about horses. I don’t hate horses as in the animal, but looking at anything involving horses has me feeling rage because of her. She keeps getting old horses (never surpassing 3 horses) that aren’t really able to be ridden, wanting a few for companionship so no one feels alone when my mom rides the only one that is capable of being ridden. Horses are social animals. I get this. All fine and well. But my mother does the ABSOLUTE FUCKING BARE MINIMUM care for these animals. They’re healthy and doing okay mentally, but she has yet to ride since I moved back that I can remember. SHE SPENT WHO KNOWS HOW MUCH MONEY ON A ROUND PEN AND SHE STILL HASN’T RIDDEN THE HORSE SHE WANTS TO RIDE. She just sits on the couch on her phone AND tablet watching livestreams of her favorite country singer who has developed this cult surrounding the pledge of allegiance while being on FB interacting with other horse owners. My mom seems to like the aesthetic of the western/country/farm lifestyle without actually LIVING it, and I’m betting it’s because she’s too old and tired from working 6 days a week at a minimum wage job she’s been at since the mid 90s and refused to consider looking for another because she knows people who work there and shop there (small business hardware store). On top of all of this, she refuses to listen to any other radio station unless it’s country, so that plays on constant in the living room for the dog when my parents aren’t home, or she has it on in the truck and wonders why I have my earbuds in. She BLASTS anything she and my dad watch, which includes but is not limited to things like Last Man Standing, NCIS, faux news, and pseudo-hillbilly shit shows from the 60s and 70s on YouTube.

This woman did not interact with me on my terms in the past unless it was something she was interested in. If I distracted her from her soap operas or baseball/football games, she got pissed. As an adult? If she does interact with me, it’s because it involves the topic of money. My mom IMMEDIATELY gets pissed at me when I inquire about our financial situation. I don’t complain, I’m not nosy as fuck, I just wanna know “hey, can I get some help getting thirty-something bucks worth of lumber so I can build shelves for my room since I have no income?” Nope, the topic bothers my mom too much. I don’t even think she listens to me talk to her when she doesn’t participate in conversation because she is just... ADDICTED to FB. Like, hopelessly fucking addicted. And she used to get on my ass about being on MY computer too much in high school! (circa 2005-2007)

And now, onto the dumpster fire that is my father.

The bastard is having us live in a meatlocker. The air is so cold and so dry here that my skin is very dry, my nose is CONSTANTLY running and bleeding, and I’m too cold to do ANYTHING most of the time, including sitting at my desk to do anything from art to surfing the web! He uses his breathing issues as an excuse, but it was never this cold in the summer last year or any years prior. He says it’s to keep the humidity down. By the same damn excuse, because we do NOT have a working ventilation fan, and opening the bathroom window (which faces the street) would expose us and give us no privacy, my dad HAS THE HAIR DRYER RUNNING BY THE BATHROOM SINK WHILE HE SHOWERS. His logic? “The heat will cause the moisture to evaporate!” Not kidding. But he’s huffing and wheezing by the time he’s done in the bathroom. And he won’t listen to me when I tell him just how wrong he is.

The bitter old bastard has whatever they’re watching on blast in the living room. He re-clutters whatever I de-clutter. He tries picking fights with my husband by purposefully trying to engage him in topics my husband doesn’t want to talk about to get my husband to react a certain way (never works because my husband caught on real fast). This is all my dad trying to “establish dominance” or some bullshit like that. He’s flaunting the fact that he can be a piece of shit all he wants to us, and if we put up enough of a fight, he can kick us out. He’s also hoping (and he’s used a similar logic on other shit before in the past) that he pisses us off enough to move out, because he thinks we can move out whenever we want. This guy has not been in the real world since ‘95 or ‘96, and before that, hadn’t had to look for a job since the ‘70s, hadn’t had to look for another place to live since the ‘90s. He has no idea how expensive rent is, how shit the job opportunities are around here, how it’s impossible to find a decent paying job and be expected to make rent while being able to feed one’s self, etc. He is so detached from reality that he’s trying to delude himself that shit still works like it did in the 70s.

I had to make up a lie that I get car sick unless I have my music. The reality of it is that my dad stresses me out so much I fear him bringing up a topic we both know I won’t be able to keep my mouth shut on to where he will then stress me out, threaten my life, and then tell me he threatened my life “just so I would shut up.” So, dad believing that I get car sick without my music, he claims it’s a “problem with the middle ear,” which is a thing with some people, so I’m playing along with that. Gives me an excuse to not listen to my mom’s piece of shit radio station in the truck on those VERY DAMN FEW times she takes me somewhere (seriously, unless it’s to work, seeing a local country concert, or seeing her sister, my mom doesn’t wanna leave the house) and not have to explain to her why I bury my head in my own music when she won’t fucking talk to me about shit I wanna talk about, shit I’ve wanted to talk about since childhood but she doesn’t fucking care. She tried so hard to get me to be like her, wanting to live on a farm, but it failed. She knows it failed. So she doesn’t wanna talk unless it’s about the lifestyle she always wanted.

And this is the weird part, they have views and shit that would make you go “that’s not very typical of a Trump supporter” so because they’re “not so bad” to other moderates or right-wingers, I don’t have a right to complain. My parents know evolution is a thing (yet are climate change deniers), have no problem with me being a Pagan or practicing witchcraft (but will talk shit about Muslims), think that Halloween is too kiddified and the fun is sucked out of it (but there’s a “war on xmas”), and thought I spent way too much time in my room on my computer in high school (but they rarely leave their own internet devices in the living room; dad just has a computer but refuses to touch social media and hates modern technology despite being hopelessly addicted to YouTube). Like...?

Here’s what’s sad...

When my parents first got together and had me, they were a loving married couple with a kid. My brother came along, things were still smooth sailing. Dad gets hurt and we’re plunged into inescapable poverty and all of a sudden dad ignores me, mom ignores me, only interaction is breakfast, dinner, and screaming and belittling. That’s it. There was still favorites, and because the favorite died, it’s like I don’t matter that much to them, especially since I didn’t turn out anything special like they’d hoped for. They won’t own up to their mistakes, they conveniently ignore that half the time growing up I was yelled at for lack of social interaction outside of forced interaction with my brother and having ADHD and anxiety. In fact, I still can’t tell if they’re the cause of my anxiety or if I was born with it because of how young I was when the complete one-eighty with them happened.

And yet they still act like they’ll be wealthy someday, so they support the rich getting tax cuts and worship the cheetoh in office. I think they banked on me and my brother becoming successful and wealthy after high school that they continued to avoid admitting they’re stuck in poverty. Now they think they’ll eventually get wealthy with the fucking royalties on the oil (spoilers: no, lol, they’re kinda getting screwed actually but won’t admit it) or hitting the lottery.

Dad presses all of these money-making ideas onto me, ideas I don’t care about or don’t like, and won’t do it himself. He won’t even write stories to have them published because that would mean he’d have a hobby. Too much work. He even said the whole reason why he got a job at the steel mill was so he didn’t have to think. He literally claimed he’d rather have someone think for him and admitted that he’s proud to be ignorant of technology. No, I’m not kidding.

So my husband and I are forced to live with these two assholes, whose marriage is barely held together (they barely interact with one another, and when they do, half the time one is pissed at the other) and only keep the marriage going because divorce is expensive and at least they’re not as bad as their exes (mom had her jaw broken by an ex, dad was nearly killed by an ex).

Once they move north, we’ll be going with them, attend Kent State, and get the fuck out of Ohio. And I’m never looking back.

#personal #rant #needed to get this off my chest

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