i should not have read the notes on that sibling post

Screaming into the void on this one. TW for trauma talk, csa, resurfacing memories n shit.

So I come home to my parents house about once a month for around a week. It's when I'm off work and really have nowhere else to be (until now thank fucking god)

I stayed in their guest room, which was my old room when I was a kid.

So...I've been trying to leave and move to another country, and my brain, being the dissociative asshole that it is, likes to flood trauma memories when I'm in a particular mindset. Typically it's when I'm feeling "safe" as in: I'm not currently being abused or traumatized on a daily basis.

Well recently its been flooding me every time I get closer to leaving, and it floods me with these highly specific memories that all have to do with my dad.

Now like, I've been abused my whole life, in a multitude of ways, including by my dad. My major shit is with sexual abuse, always has been, probably always will be. And most of what I've got came from my neighbor.

This stuff is not.

And like...it's been in contention on more than ine occasion, because of how big the blanks are and where they fit in our personal timeline. But now it feels like someone opened the fucking floodgates because it's all I get ever now. Just him. Just stuff with him.

I'd been dreading coming home because I didn't want to interact with my parents. My mom knows about some of the abuse (though I'm beginning to believe she knows much more than she lets on) and she tends to very fucking deliberately trigger me. Specifically over CSA stuff.

It's been this cycle of remembering things and then pushing them down for a week, then they come back up again, and if I ask about it or mention certain shit from when I was in that specific age range, I get a full dose of gaslighting.

No one in my family ever really like, paid attention to me, so my memories and feelings are pretty isolated, and it's been years so it's only me and the potential perpetrators who could corroborate my story, and those people are my parents. So of course they won't.

Anyways...I'm gonna talk about the memories now.

Essentially they took place when I was 11-14(?) And for the longest time I thought they might have just been a weird dream.

I'm just standing in my door and my dad is standing in front of me, talking about how my mom is mad at him and that he loves me and loves me like he loves her. I think you know where I'm going with this :/

I have other ones too. Mostly at night. He worked night shift so he would come home at 2 or 3 in the morning, and I can't tell if it's a real memory or not but he would come in my room to do stuff.

I don't know what to make of it. I don't want it to be real, that would be pretty fucking psychologically damaging. .

But here's the fucking kicker right?

I'm trans. I was recently home for several weeks because I had gotten top surgery and I had no choice but to stay with my parents for that time. While I'm heavily incapacitated, on lots of pain drugs, and sleeping a vast majority of the day.

I'm not new to nightmares. But I don't usually talk in my sleep, or beg. The only time I remember doing so was with a friend who had startled me awake because he touched me and I said "please don't" (context being my ex bf used to SA me while I was sleeping)

Ever since I stayed there after surgery and every time I stay there now, I get unbelievably paranoid. Like, can't sleep comfortably paranoid, and especially around my parents.

I had several nightmares about being touched and stuff, and like. It's different because I'm an adult, legally and all.

My parents don't really view me or any of my siblings as adults, let alone thinking, breathing people. They view us very similarly to objects that they can surround themselves with to look pretty and control through fear, pain, and extortion. Always sort of been that way.

It's gotten particularly bad since my sister pulled her son from them because my mother physically abused him. So she directs her anger at me because she can't punish my sister. She also directs her anger at me for being trans. Idfk probably some like, ownership issue she has with my body or whatever the fuck.

Point I'm getting at is basically: I'm pretty sure my parents knew, facilitated, and covered up at least a portion, if not all of my csa. And because they are especially mad at me for being not what they want, and also costing them (inadvertently) access to their grandson— that it might not have stopped(?)

They know I have DID. They gaslight the fuck out of me until I stopped talking about it, but they know it's there, they know I forget things and repress shit, and even if I haven't, they know how to gaslight incredibly well. My mom especially.

There are blindspots in my brain that make taking advantage of that stuff especially easy.

So...I came home the other night, stayed for a couple of days with my parents. My dad stayed up with me and my brother until we went to bed. He stayed up a little longer.

But I'd gone to bed. I'd forgotten to lock the door, but I fell asleep pretty quickly. But I kept waking up. I woke up cause I heard my dad walking around the house, talking. But they were that fleeting sort of waking where it's only a few words before you roll over and go back to sleep.

I had a nightmare that he came into the room and did things. I think it was a nightmare, at least. I do t know. It didn't feel like a normal nightmare and I woke myself up asking for my mom like a little kid. And I remember...certain things...that aren't easily replicated in a dream.

I of course asked him the next day if he'd gotten up some time in the night to do something, but he said no.

I don't like talking g about this. Because it's basically speculation and speculation on a thing I so viscerally do not want to be true. I worry that I make stuff up, convince myself of a reality that doesn't exist and then react to that as though it does. Idk.

It's especially hard because the next day my mom triggered the ever loving fuck out of me and then got mad at me for shutting down the conversation because no, I in fact do not like hearing what pedophiles say to children while they hurt them. It's fucking triggering. Especially after the night previous.

She's been making constant remarks on my size or weight, most often saying I look pregnant, asking if I'm pregnant. Which is impossible, because I don't have enough sex with other people for that to even be a concern.

The one that bugged me was her remark after I'd come back home after being legitimately assaulted, she said I looked 3 months pregnant :/ which is literally impossible because I'd have had to had sex while I was fucking UNCONSCIOUS and healing from surgery.

Most of this is just rambling sorry. It's 1 am and I need to sleep but I needed to say something somewhere, sorry.

Grit angela duckworth

#Grit angela duckworth pdf

But that doesn’t mean it’s twice as important. Your increasing skill, multiplied by effort, leads to achievement. Your first bit of talent, combined with effort increases your skill level. With a certain amount (or lack) of talent, your starting points for those two “movements” then become: However, once you have it, you still need to use and apply the skill for a long time in order to actually get there. In order to achieve something, you first need the right skill to be able to even start working towards the achievement. The funny thing is, we have no reason to. Because if you said that hard work trumps talent and really believed it, you’d be right.Īfter looking at successful people across a wide range of disciplines, from politicians to athletes to writers, Angela set up a set of two equations, which simplify the way talent and effort are related, to make it clear how much more important effort is. Lesson 2: The impact effort has on achievement is exponentially greater than talent. We like to tell ourselves that we believe in hard work more than in talent. The majority of the experts ended up preferring the piece by the “natural.” The kicker is that on both occasions, the exact same recording was played. She studied that last question by giving music experts two written descriptions of a “naturally talented” and a “hard-working, striving” musician and then letting them listen to a recording of the musician performing. In 2011, Chia-Jung Tsay made a shocking discovery. But when it gets hard, when the other guy gets the promotion, when the third business idea fails, do you really hold on to that belief? Or do you maybe think, deep down, you don’t have enough talent after all? It’s what you want to believe.Īnd it’s also what 66% of people say when they’re asked this question. What’s more important: hard work or talent?” you’d probably say “hard work.” It’s what you think you believe. If I approached you on the street and said: “We’re conducting a study and would like your opinion.

#Grit angela duckworth pdf

If you want to save this summary for later, download the free PDF and read it whenever you want.ĭownload PDF Lesson 1: When we say we think hard work trumps talent, we usually just bullshit ourselves. Ready to become that soldier, that person who’s willing to go on, long after others have quit? Then let’s get gritty!

Combine small, low-level, daily goals with a larger vision to stay consistently motivated.

Effort has a much, much bigger impact on achievement than talent.

Even though we say hard work is more important than talent, we still believe the opposite deep down.

That’s Grit and that’s what you’ll learn about today in these 3 lessons: She just knew that perseverance and passion drive effort, and effort drives achievement. Angela Duckworth needs a lot of it herself, coming from a family in which her father often criticized her for her “lack of genius.” However, her work in psychology, which led her through Harvard, Oxford and the University of Pennsylvania, making her a 2013 MacArthur “Genius” Fellow – ironic? I’m sure it’s no coincidence the expression “to grit one’s teeth” lends itself to the title of this book, the word as a noun means courage, perseverance and fortitude. But then, in a moment of almost angry defiance, he grits his teeth, pulls his foot out of the mud and crawls onward. A soldier has to crawl through the mud, barbed wire around him, and due to the heavy rain, he suddenly gets stuck and can’t move. When I hear the word grit, I always have the same image in mind immediately. Listen to the audio of this summary with a free reading.fm account:

I’ve been mulling over Bernie’s behaviour post kiss but pre-Life In The Freezer. 

- “Brave New World” which, first of all, Bernie’s looking the most polished she’s ever looked in a morning. Her hair is down, she’s got a new shirt on. But other than that, she’s much calmer than Serena. 

She doesn’t bring up the kiss. Serena does.

She does however, check-in with Serena about the lift and the awkwardness, not wanting Serena to feel worried about what happened.

She immediately tries to repair a professional relationship, offering the splenic surgery not only as a point of conversation, but as a consult to show Bernie still values her as a co-lead, before finally asking her to join her in theatre.

All her actions that day are for Serena. And painfully, utterly normal. Or trying to be normal. Even the flirting over the operating table when Serena offers drinks... that’s pretty normal for then and it’s after they’ve cleared the air regarding Serena’s embarassment.

She wasn’t expecting drinks in the hospital. That was Serena’s move. She probably thought Albie’s. Hard to know what she thought of it being in the office instead.

When talking in the office: “I kissed you because I wanted to, and beyond that I wasn’t really thinking.”, “I can see how uncomfortable it’s making you...”, “You... dyed in the woll heterosexual, it’s a bit of a non-starter.”

And the kicker, when Serena asks if she wants to forget it ever happened: “I think it’s wise.” That’s not a no, is it, Bernie?

And as soon as all that is agreed, Bernie moves away from Serena, to her computer.

- “Say A Little Prayer” - aka lots of Bernie, not so much a lot of Berena. Bernie is in full work-mode. She’s pushing down anything she feels in order to get the job done and Fletch diagnosed and save his life. It goes to show how little faith Bernie has, especially in comparison to Raf’s episode journey and that he takes a different view to Bernie and ends up praying for Fletch. Bernie instead relies on process of elimination, “keep trying or we give up”, parade ground pep-talk. That works for her. Might that be applied to her latest emotional and personal problems?

Raf: I don’t understand.  ///  Bernie: Neither do I, I can only do.

Bernie arrives with an espresso shot. I don’t think she’s sleeping. And she says “Life is cruel” wayyy too casually. Something else on your mind, Bernie??

Bernie barely giving Serena two looks, where all Serena does is have her emotions written on her face and does sort of longing looks towards her. Bernie has gone into professional shut-down mode. Tunnel vision. No time for Serena, she has to be on her A game. Reminds me of when she spoke to Arthur about focusing on the job in front of you.

She’s a guided missile. MRI, chasing bloods, paging Guy, looking at scans, question Fletch: is he diabetic, what about sleep paralysis? Psychological? Spinal fracture? Do a lumbar puncture. Run to the lab. Ask Serena to do a LFT. Nerve conduction study. Plasma exchange etc etc.

“Fear doesn’t help anyone, Fletch.” 

“You have to keep a steady nerve.”

“You’re his mate, of course you’re worried. Trick is, not to let him see it.”

- Having spent the whole day teasing Ric with Serena, and being the most in-sync since they kissed, as well as some slight flirting and a “moment” talking about romance blossoming... Serena asks her for a drink in Albie’s. Bernie says “I’d murder one but not tonight. Soon though”, and just watches Serena leave before turning away.

Serena: Is it me avoiding you or you avoiding me?

When they tag team on teasing Ric, Bernie changes her stance as soon as Serena draws close. Admittedly, this could just be Jemma listening in for her cue, but screw it, I’m sticking with Bernie just being super aware now that Fletch is on the mend and the fact they haven’t been around each other in a while.

Both major flirty exchanges are instigated or expanded on by Serena. Not Bernie. Bernie was looking at an iPad for the first when Serena said “Hello stranger”, and was dropping off a file for the second before retreating. Avoiding the office??

- The following week, they seem to be fully comfortable with one another. The previous night they’d gone for dinner at an Italian resteruant, which sounds to have been a whale of a time as Serena needs a pastry for the hangover. More importantly, it was Bernie’s idea: “I only suggested we go out for a quick bite after a long shift”.

So... all these weeks... Bernie making sure Serena is okay and then retreating herself, until she can find her feet in their friendship once again? What do we think?

Mutant Side of the Tracks

Basic Information

The University of South New York, or USNY, is a college about 30 minute north of New York City, and it’s one of the few universities in New York that accepts mutants and will actually allow them to attend classes and live on campus with the human students. Although, the campus is not as happy and accepting as they make themselves out to be. Even though they let mutants to attend, they make it exceptionally harder for them to get in...price-wise. 

The majority of mutants grew up in poverty since before they can even remember. There were no good jobs for mutants and the ones they could get would pay the absolute lowest they could without getting in any trouble. So, it’s harder for them to afford college and they usually worked hard to get a scholarship to help pay for most of their expenses. 

As for housing, mutants will more often be seen living in apartments or small houses with at least one roommate or more to help split the rent. The campus dorms were simply too expensive, even with the scholarships, so the mutants tended to live off campus, anywhere from five to almost twenty minutes away from campus. 

Character info:

Leonardo Hamato: Leo is a fourth year business major and he’s always been very dead set on opening up his own martial arts studio once he’s graduated. He is on the football team as a running back and is also in one of the biggest fraternities on campus. Leo doesn’t live in the frat house though. He lives by himself in a one bed/one bath apartment. He has to work a lot to afford his rent but it’s worth it so he can live by himself. He’s always had to live and share everything with his three brothers and home would usually be chaos and not very relaxing, so this apartment is definitely worth it to him. Leo works part time as a student assistant in the business department. He basically just takes a lot of phone calls, scans papers, and brings coffee to the professors if they ask for it. When it comes to parties, you usually won’t find Leo in the smoke circle like Donnie and Mikey. He’ll be drinking beer and throwing back shots. But maybe he’ll join in the smoke circle if he’s really feeling spunky.

Raphael Hamato: Raph is a fourth year physical therapy major and has been playing with the idea lately of changing it to sports management, but he’s so close to being done with his original major that he can’t bring himself to switch. Raph is also on the football team and is usually the kicker when he’s not on the defensive line. Raph lives in a two bed/one bath apartment with his friend, Casey Jones, who is on the hockey team. Raph and Casey like to throw parties in their apartment, but they tend to get out of hand pretty quickly and the cops usually end up showing up to shut it down. Raph works part time at the school gym, making sure everyone gets checked in and out as well as keeping the equipment clean and disinfected. Raph will smoke with Donnie and Mikey happily anytime, but never at parties. It just freaks him out too much with all the noise and the lights, so he’ll be with Leo taking shots. 

Donatello Hamato: Donnie is a third year biomechanical engineering major and he managed to get into school with an academic scholarship as well as a basketball scholarship, so he is also on the basketball team. The coach saw Donnie’s height and his strength and stamina at the tryouts and knew that Donnie would be great for the team. Of course, Donnie jumped at the opportunity and was overjoyed when he received a hefty academic scholarship on top of that. Even though Donnie has a busy schedule with his classes and basketball practices, he still works part time at the movie theater that’s about ten minutes away from campus. When he’s not working or studying or practicing basketball, he enjoys playing video games and smoking with his brother/roommate, Mikey. Donnie is a low-key stoner and doesn’t smoke quite as often as Mikey, but he’ll smoke just about everyday once his day is over and he can relax, but not if he has too much homework or studying to do. 

Michelangelo Hamato: Mikey is a second year art major with a minor in photography. He shares a two bed/one bath apartment with his brother, Donatello, and is a very active member of the university’s art club. Mikey has a part time job working at the local pizza place, just downtown from campus. He works in the kitchen making the pizzas and sandwiches and whatnot, but when he knows he has a serving shift coming up, he lets his brothers and friends know so they can come and visit him. Mikey is definitely the stoner of the group and whenever he gets the chance, he’ll gladly hit a bowl and just relax and work on is art assignments or just play video games or watch anime. Donnie loves to partake in the herb as well since his schedule tends to be very stressful and demanding. 

Jennifer (Jen) Dahl: Jen is a fourth year medical student and is in the pre-health courses studying Chiropractic Medicine. She’s always had problems with her back and often needed to see chiropractors. So when she was deciding her major, she remembered how much her doctors helped her with her back and decided that she wanted to help people like that too. Jen is also minoring in creative writing, so sometimes you'll find her at the cafe typing away for hours on some days. She works part time at the campus gym with Raph, so they’ve become good work buddies and good friends outside of work as well. She loves to smoke, but has been cutting back so she can focus on her school better and make better grades. 

Carol Scott: Carol is a third year architecture major with a minor in interior design. She is apart of rather large sorority, which happens to be Leo’s sister sorority, so the two know each other quite well through sorority/fraternity events and mixers. Although she is planning on leaving her sorority since the events take a lot of her time, she’s also leaving because she hasn’t been able to connect with the other girls and she feels left out the majority of the time. Her personality just doesn’t mix with theirs, and she found that out pretty quickly after joining. Carol is also good friends with Mikey since they both have a lot of art classes together and she got to meet Donnie through Mikey when she got invited to their place to smoke and hang out. Carol, like Mikey and Donnie, smokes everyday. She rarely drinks though since she has a very sensitive stomach and can’t handle a lot of alcohol. So she sticks with a small glass of wine or a hard cider when she does decide to drink. Carol works part time as a student assistant in the art department and does basically the same things as Leo does at his job. 

Juniper (June) Ferrari: June is a second year computer science major who got in on a full academic scholarship. She may not exactly act like it, but she’s very intelligent and can fix any computer that you bring to her. Her main focus is learning how to program video games and how to make software for computers so that they can run big PC games that take up a lot of space. June is a bit of a party animal and she's become pretty popular with the rest of the upperclassmen since you’ll see her in the smoke circle one minute and then in the living room or kitchen taking shots the next, and she was always fine the next day. June works part time as a waitress at the same pizza restaurant Mikey works at and she splits the rent with Jen on a small house only five minutes away from campus. 

Aurora Giovanni: Aurora is a third year psychology student and she has plans of becoming a mental health practitioner. She used to live a rather lavish life before choosing to come to college, and when her parents fell through on funding, she found her roommate, Carol. The two girls split rent on a two bed/one bath apartment and she always enjoys joining Carol in her visits to Mikey and Donnie’s apartment. Aurora works as a sales assistant at a high end clothing store in the mall about fifteen minutes away from campus. She wears very nice clothing, which usually gets her a good bit of attention, and she’s a bit of a party person like June is. You can find her either in a smoke circle or in another room taking shots. 

the ghostbusters + books

if print is dead, fiction doesn’t even EXIST anymore in egon’s world. even when he was a kid, he never read novels, as he couldn’t fathom why someone would want to spend time reading about something that wasn’t real. as an adult, most of his reading is made up of online transcripts of current academic journals, though he’s definitely not too immersed in tech to be above spending hours in the dusty library archives. 

if he absolutely had to pick a fiction genre, it’d be speculative fiction, but only theoretically–in practice, he can’t stand the hand waved or otherwise entirely made up “scientific” methods employed in these novels.

the one exception he will make is for mary shelley’s frankenstein–the skipping over of the actual technique victor used to raise the dead irritates him, but he appreciates its place as a classical ode to human achievement past the realm of the morally sound, and besides, it played a heavy role in his decision to run a… not dissimilar experiment at NYU.

his parents, who discouraged all pleasure reading, punished him severely for the copy of the book he sneaked back to his room, and would later blame shelley for leading egon down the path that eventually took him to ghostbusting.

peter reads whatever’s popular–fiction and nonfiction bestsellers line his bookcase. he claims it’s because he’s more interested in knowing what draws the american public to the books than in the books themselves, and likes to concoct elaborate and negative conclusions to this effect… but maybe deep down, he just likes things that are popular. outside of that, peter also reads all the major psychology journals (when no one is around–he can’t let anyone know he takes this shit seriously) and, more gleefully, a wide array of harlequin romances.

between the job, night school, and, well, everything else, winston doesn’t have a lot of time to do fiction reading these days, but when he does get some downtime, he really enjoys a good mystery. this particularly extends to political thrillers and spy novels–he’s got a shelf of beat up favorites that he comes back to when he really needs to unwind.

as i see it, he doesn’t really have a favorite book so much as he has favorite authors; clive cussler is coming to mind.

ray actually feels the same way as egon does re: speculative fiction, but unlike egon, he’s more than alright with other genres. in particular, ray loves fantasy, the wilder the better–when he sits down to read a novel, he wants something completely detached from reality… not that it stops him from wanting to make real life that much more fantastic when it’s through.

the one exception to his aversion to scifi is star wars, which he loves implicitly (justifiable since it’s hardly scifi, anyway). he’s read every book in he extended universe, and has very concrete opinions on mara jade.

you know those bodice rippers i mentioned peter enjoying? those are janine’s favorites. shes unironically dreamed of herself as one of the heroines in the trashiest of her books since high school, and there’s nothing she longs for more than a muscular hunk to sweep her off her feet and into the sunset.

outside of that, janine is the most well-read of any of them in the fiction department–when she gets home at night, she enjoys curling up with a nice paperback from any genre and reading until her eyes droop closed.

i’ve talked about this before in a separate post, but i love the idea of janine and winston having a book club where they support each other through through dry, jargon-heavy tomes on parapsychology in an effort to play “catch up” and have a snowball’s chance in hell at understanding what the other three are talking about all the damn time. 

when winston finally gets his PhD, janine pretends to be mad at him for “betraying their club,” but really, she was the one who often stuck around the firehouse with him, brewing coffee and reading her paperbacks while he poured over dense law textbooks, and she couldn’t be more proud.

i feel like, when he was a kid, books were a big coping mechanism for venkman. he spent a lot of time at the library just because it was free to be there and it wasn’t home, but with time this sparked a genuine love for reading that became his main form of escapism up through high school. even as an adult, he’ll sometimes lock himself in his apartment and fly through his to-read pile when he really needs to withdraw from himself.

back when they were in college, venkman had a running joke where he would describe the plot of a bad scifi novel to spengler as if it were the contents of a recent academic paper he read, just to get a good laugh out of his reaction. this escalated to the point of venkman actually fabricating a few of these so-called academic papers and spengler going so far as to write scathing responses with full intent to publish before ray finally stepped in and told him what was going on. peter had to hide out for a week to escape spengs’s wrath after that.

when he was a child, people who didn’t know egon (distant relatives, school peers forced by their parents to be nice to him despite a mutual distaste for one another, etc) would usually give him children’s books for birthdays or other special occasions, mistaking his academic disposition for bookishness. he never made an attempt to hide his displeasure with these gifts, and often used the pages as a part of some new science experiment.

think “paper mache baking soda volcano on crack,” and that’s what happened to a copy of charlie and the chocolate factory gifted to him by a well meaning great aunt.

the first job ray ever really saw for himself was becoming an author, a path that always sort of lingered at the back of his mind. opening ray’s occult was definitely tied to his lifelong fondness for books, but the real kicker came years later, when he published a successful young adult series drawing on his parapsychological knowledge after retiring from ghostbusters.

if you asked him, peter would list freud’s the interpretation of dreams as his favorite book. in reality, it’s jane eyre–don’t ask.

when janine was in high school, she spent many nights kicked back in the backseat of a friend’s car, reading a trashy paperback bought at a gas station while the others in her group got into more delinquent activities. even when they were skipping school or going road tripping, she always had a book for the ride. (looking back, she considers these nights some of the best of her life.)

winston has a great voice for reading out loud. some of his fondest memories of growing up were his mother tucking him into bed and reading him whatever she felt like: kid’s books, adult books, passages from her devotionals and from the bible. this became a tradition he passed on to his younger siblings, and looks forward to sharing with his own kids.

cliched though it might be, ray’s favorite book series is lord of the rings. (he was always especially interested in frodo and sam’s relationship… for no reason in particular, of course.) he amends this by clarifying that while there are fantasy series he likes more, he feels that lotr built the house the later authors were just living in, and he has to pay his dues.

of all the ghostbusters, though peter has been threatening to do it nearly constantly since world of the psychic got greenlit, janine is the one who ends up publishing a memoir about her time with the company. they all read it, and everyone is honestly blown away by how talented she is at writing, a skill they never really knew she possessed. janine takes this all in stride, but secretly, hearing their compliments means even more to her than the acclaim she’s receiving for the work :’)

Incredibles Sequel Ideas

Warning: possibly long and rambling.

Jack-Jack is in his last year of high school and everyone expects him to follow in his family's path to become a superhero. However what he really wants to be is a fashion designer so he studies under Edna instead.

Meanwhile, a former Super who grew very angry and bitter over the treatment of Supers over the years decides to seek vengeance on the world and the Parrs have to stop them. But they need help, so Bob is forced to seek help from one of his former enemies: Bomb Voyage.

In the B-plot Dash, who is a college student and an active superhero, encounters a kind and sexy baker working at a French bakery. But as a superhero he has to deal with a brutish antihero with the power to create powerful shockwaves, so he's trying to figure out who they are and their connection to the evil Super.

Another bit of plot sees Jack-Jack gettinf his first client in his well-meaning and clumsy classmate Momoko, who was inspired to become a hero despite not being born with powers. Jack-Jack and Momoko form a partnership, with the latter testing the former's designs and the two end up finding out how to defeat the movie's villain by sheer accident.

In another twist the baker and the antihero is revealed to be one and the same (which would also categorize her as genderfluid as her antihero persona identifies as male) as well as Bomb Voyage's daughter. Dash demands to know her motives and she explains that she is trying to stop the evil Super from setting back both heroes and villains. Now understanding the full story, The whole Parr and Voyage families go to stop the evil Super. In turn the evil Super is revealed to have been a former superhero lashing out at the world for everything that happened thirty years ago, especially after her husband was killed by Syndrome's robot (which makes her an evil counterpart of Helen/Elastigirl). They fight, the evil Super is defeated, and the world has finally realized just how damaging the anti-Suoer rhetoric really is.

The post credits scene shows Syndrome's island, long since abandoned with a mysterious person going into the decrepit computer room and turning on a supercomputer. After a while a familiar face shows up on the screen, simply saying two words in a gleefully sinister tone:

"I'm Back."

Which leads to the fourth movie:

In the aftermath of the evil Super's rampage the world has to accept the inevitable return of heroes and villains.

The Parrs have to deal with the likely return of Syndrome, who continues his plots to rid the world of Supers and having Jack-Jack as his Sidekick as one final revenge against Bob.

Meanwhile the movie deeper into how supervillains had to adjust with the Super Ban and how exactly Syndrome was able to build the funds for his empire.

Mirage returns after her stint in prison for working with Syndrome (what you think the government would let her off that easy?).

Bob and Bomb Voyage has to deal with the possibility of being each other's in-laws when Dash and Bomb Voyage's daughter tease the possibility of getting married (which doesn't actually happen because they're doing it to mess with their dad's heads).

Jack-Jack and Momoko continue to be partners. Momoko faces Syndrome who is pretty much her evil foil, and Jack-Jack has to use his powers like never before to stop Syndrome.

If you're wondering what Violet is doing in all this, she works as a counselor helping non-Supers and child Supers with trauma or other mental illnesses. Her work plays a major part in deconstructing the psychological damage of racism and prejudice as the evil Super and Buddy Pines had been treated very much wrongly and ended up becoming horrible people so Violet decides to help people before their problems gets worse. There's a storyline with her helping another kid who had been in a similar situation as she was as a teen.

So we have representation: a genderfluid character (Dash's love interest) and a Japanese character (Jack-Jack's friend). What's more the romantic subplots actually benefit the characters and don't overtake the entire plot, nor do they exist solely to be someone's eye candy.

The genderfluid anti hero has to deal with conflicting loyalties and her own desire for pursue her culinary dreams; and Momoko has to deal with distrustful Supers, her own limitations, and the risk of becoming exactly like Syndrome. So the love interests (or in Momoko's case a possibly implied one) are compelling unique characters in their own right.

The kicker: Honey (Frozone's wife) finally reveals her face after so many years of being The Unseen.

The fifth movie will deal with the extended family, like Bob's parents, Helen's relatives, and cousins. The twist: one of the younger relatives want to be a supervillain instead. I don't know who the villain would be for Incredibles 5, but it would probably be a very old supervillain, or one of Syndrome's former lackeys.

N(ot)stalgia: DISCO 2.0

Something I’ve not personally seen anyone talk about with Star Trek Discovery, although I’ve no doubt many are, is the role nostalgia plays in the series. 

Sometimes at war, sometimes a crutch, sometimes reflective but mostly deconstructive; nostalgia is near constantly present within DISCO’s production. Present within the media as it is created and relayed to its audience as well as present within large portions of the audience themselves, from within their own expectations and beliefs on what Star Trek “is” (and perhaps most vocally on what the franchise “is not”). Star Trek Discovery is not all that concerned with restorative nostalgia, the series does not excessively lean on invoking comforting throw-back feelings with the intent of recreating the franchise's past tone. And then there’s season 2 episode 8 “If Memory Serves”. 

OH BOY. Oh wow. Okay.

“If Memory Serves” is a double down boot stomp of an episode that I’m sure has been turning heads for its use of interweaving, updating, and altering the classic two parter “The Menagerie” (and thus the un-aired-but-widely-known pilot episode “The Cage”) and I’m positive some misguided individual is out there referring to all this as a “reference” and yes I kind of want to die a little knowing that’s happening but I’ll struggle through. Sigh.

The first season of DISCO dug deep and did some drastic nostalgia tweaking and even (dare I say) went so far as to weaponize nostalgia and all the expectations audiences brought with them about what Star Trek “was” and “means” and “does” as a pop culture storytelling institution.  

It was a long-term re-haul of many, many aspects of the Star Trek TV franchise and it made many, many people very uncomfortable. Not me, I friggin’ dug it, but I am admittedly a contrary asshole. 

Blahblah lots of folks right now are probably thinking about Captain Lorca and for good reason - so lets look at Lorca and how he was used to snap the audience’s nostalgic Trek lens. Spoliers ahead.

Captain Lorca (played by Jason Isaacs) was revealed to be from the Mirror Universe, as in the slap-on-a-beard-and-be-mean-universe. If you know Star Trek you know the Mirror Universe.

But in the beginning, we all sat around ho-humming over Lorca’s motivations and choices. Over what we wanted to believe about him. The viewership was VERY busy interpreting Lorca and working the character into our own individual understandings on what we know and want from a Star Trek television show.

As it happens Captain Lorca is one of the most Trekkie characters ever by default of his universal origins while simultaneously being an approach to the evils of the Mirror Universe (AKA What We Don’t Want Humanity To Be™) as we’ve never seen it before.

Hating other races and being aggressive and enjoying war and breeding a society hostile towards ideas of equality, justice, cooperation, and peace are pretty straight forward no-nos. Turns out though, and this is the real kicker, that the initial unease Lorca brought onto Discovery wasn’t just (entirely) the writers getting through their sea legs but a nice long con: 

The evils of the Mirror Universe have now been expanded to psychological and emotional abuse with sexual predatory behavior and unsustainable environmental practices thrown in for good measure. Which was a much-needed update my friends.

And I say “update” but in a lot of ways it’s an insertion. A clarification. Or, as I first sated, an expansion. We could look at DISCO as re-writing Star Trek lore because that’s, ya know, what it is doing - but we can also more specifically look at DISCO as a project in nostalgic alteration.

Hey, guess what?! Spock’s sister has always been a black woman.

From our outward understanding yes, we know Michael Burnham is a ~new~ character in a ~new~ Star Trek show. None of us are confused on how any of this story telling is working. These are new stories. 

The function of these stories though? I can’t help but think the audience is pretty torn up on that front.

Something inherent in experiencing Star Trek Discovery is how the show’s narrative future hails from our actual historical past. The utopia of the original series is dated and stale and disingenuous without a nostalgic/contextual lens firmly set in place. The function of many Star Trek Discovery stories is that of a much-needed blood transfusion: Bringing new life to old withered limbs.

Does this mean that Star Trek Discovery is seeking to recontextualize Star Trek? Yes and no but mostly no in my opinion. LOL, sorry, but it’s complicated! As most nostalgia driven works are.

Nostalgic Cinema is a real subset of critical film studies and has only grown in recent years but nostalgia isn’t anything new to media or the human experience. The general consensus is that nostalgic media tries to visually replicate time periods in human history (or the markers of media from a particular time period, what Marc Le Sueur dubbed “deliberate archaism”), but primarily acts as a bridge to idolized youthful emotionality and/or simplified “truths”. 

Marc Le Sueur’s “Theory Number Five: Anatomy of Nostalgic Films: Heritage and Method” was published in 1977 and was one of the first major academic and critical looks into the role nostalgia plays in cinema and by extension our connection to and perception of art. In the 1990s Svetlana Boym and Fredric Jameson further pushed ideas of nostalgia in literature and late capitalism respectably (which of course made its way onto visual media).

Le Sueur and Boym saw nostalgia as two classifiable categories, restorative or reflective. Restorative nostalgia attempts to recapture and revitalize an imagined past while reflective nostalgia is marked by a wistful longing for what has been lost to time.

In “The Future of Nostalgia” Svetlana Boym wrote “Nostalgia inevitably reappears as a defense mechanism in a time of accelerated rhythms of life and historical upheavals.” She goes on to suggest that our attraction to nostalgia (either restorative or reflective) is often times less about actually trying to reclaim a vanished past but rather a conscious resistance to an unknown and potentially threatening future.

The bulk of nostalgic media can easily be seen to tie into Boym’s observations; most media isn’t concerned with or about the personal and effective uses of nostalgia as a lived experience/real feeling among individuals but instead more focused on a particularly stylized, sanitized, and simplified view of history. Nostalgia in media is typically a presentation on the present day's romanticized fantasy of the past, void of contradictions and unsolvable uncertainties of the focused time period's lived reality, so as to soften or even avoid the creator’s and audience’s confusing present and unknown future.

In 2005 film critic and historian Pam Cook explored nostalgia in her book “Screening the Past: Memory and Nostalgia in Cinema” which collected seventeen of her short essays from 1976 to 1999 that focus on memory, identity, and nostalgia not only within their subject matter but within Cook’s viewpoint of revisiting her own body of work. Early on Cook laid out a more optimistic outlook on nostalgia in media:

“Rather than being seen as a reactionary, regressive condition imbued with sentimentality, it can be perceived as a way of coming to terms with the past, as enabling it to be exorcised in order that society, and individuals, can move on. In other words, while not necessarily progressive in itself, nostalgia can form part of a transition to progress and modernity. The suspension of disbelief is central to this transition, as nostalgia is predicated on a dialect between longing for something idealized that has been lost, and an acknowledgement that this idealized something can never be retrieved in actuality, and can only be accessed through images.”

The Star Trek of 1966 didn’t air in a peaceful time free from social and political turmoil. In fact, the original series itself was a kind of attempt at Future Nostalgia: A projected desire for what humanity could be if we survive and make changes to the then-contemporary world the show was directly commenting on. 

Star Trek’s original series today, as media that has survived and gained weight within the American pop cultural landscape, certainly feels warm, inviting, and reflective of an America long gone and shattered - and that’s because, now, it is. 

Time moves forward and warps and bends our media and our experiences to media and the most warped and most bendy of all are those storytelling institutions that outlive and outlast the era and people who first created and first experienced it. 

Recreating Star Trek visually, tonally, and thematically would be straight nostalgic vampirism and is obviously not what DISCO is doing. But that doesn’t mean Star Trek Discovery is not not a nostalgic piece even though it looks, feels, and is thematically different than the 1966 original show.

Real quick, let’s get back to this week’s episode, “If Memory Serves”!

... Honestly though, do I need to connect these dots? We all get it right? We’re all on board with this entire thing from the name of the episode, to its direct use and alterations of the original series, and then the not-so-subtle reveal that the season’s big plot point, the Red Angel, is a time traveler re-writing history. Like. We get it, right?

This is where Discovery has yet again doubled down on its storytelling functionality; this is Spock y’all. This is Pike. This is for real happening. Michael has helped shape the Spock character we will see later on in the “future” (our collective past).

And while we’re here, check out Mr. Spock! The Spock of Discovery is not dripping with nostalgic slime, he’s sharp and clean to an almost shocking degree. The series makes little effort in acting as though we should have a pre-determined fondness for the character outside of his relationship to Michael. Which is absolutely NUTS. But in a good way, in my opinion! 

The search for Spock (lawl) within Discovery has been on a surface level the literal search for the character within the narrative space of this new series. They gotta find that dude.

The search for Spock within Discovery has also been a form of re-defining the character not through audience expectation of What They Know and Remember but What They Don’t Know and Have No Basis For.

And the series accomplished it within the framework of places, characters, and events that are old, new, the same, and different all at once. I believe that’s a lot of intentional wibbly wobbly timey wimey paratextual stuff taking precedence for the sake of promoting a new view on Star Trek’s (and our own) past, primarily for the sake of moving beyond it. 

I don’t think it’s just ‘haha, reference!’ that the first shots we see of Vina (an original series character) in Star Trek Discovery’s “If Memory Serves” is that of her high heeled glass slippers. It’s jarring and weird and even laughable. Vina’s hair and makeup are also deliberate archaisms within the series the character is currently in, airing in the year it is. It reminded me of another nostalgia ridden TV series that would often implement a similar absurdist approach towards viewer nostalgia.

Mad Men had a lot of fun presenting a visually accurate but sterile version of the past not so as to suggest things were better in the 1960s but so that the series could better magnify (and even exasperate) American disillusionment.

One of my favorite examples of nostalgic absurdity in Mad Men is when Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) stands in a crowded office building jokingly pointing a gun at unflinching women.

What's the goal of having Pete do this? Is it to show we were... better then? We were more innocent? Is this deeply inappropriate "joke" suddenly OK because it's 1960, or is it even within context creepy, horrifying, and in incredible bad taste? Do we need the characters to recognize the absurdity of Pete's actions for us to validate them as absurd or are we being invited to make that evaluation ourselves in the here and now outside of the character's reality?

What Pete does is creepy and weird if the characters acknowledge it or not just as much as it is, admittedly, darkly humorous for the audience to witness at all.

But that's because it's not really a set up for comparing and contrasting how much we as a country have lost or gained in the wake of mass shootings but rather that of an audience being able to recognize a total D-bag, even through time.

Pete and his gun aren't a direct focus of the show's nostalgia but they are certainly a product of it and a bit of the point is that Pete gets away with doing what he does because it's a story, yeah, but PRIMARILY due to the audience assumption of "well, it was the 1960s". Its within that suspension of disbelief living at the core of all the many absurdist moments that make up Mad Men where the series bit by bit wedges in its most critical theme: Nostalgia is bullshit.

Through its intentional juxtaposition of accurately ‘recreating’ the past and high co-dependency on its contemporary audience’s views, Mad Men suggests that the best we can do as a society, as a country, is see the similarities between the past and now and decide what is worth keeping, progressing, or discarding entirely. The series delights in uncomfortably positioning the audience to view the weird ass shit it's characters do (littering, chain smoking, drinking and driving, slapping women's butts, letting children play with plastic bags over their heads to name a basic few), not so as to suggest that the past was "better" than today but so as to highlight the ways that we as a society have already deemed the past to be inefficient, ineffective, and cruel.

The series uses the same audience awareness principle to highlight the ways in which nostalgia cannot hide nor brighten our shortcomings and continued failures. There are just as many (if not more) moments in the series that are not presented as contrasting absurdity but comparative harrowing familiarity; those areas of our cultural makeup we have not adequately progressed or left behind.

Sure, in the 1960s everyone could smoke everywhere (very ew, look how far we’ve come) but women still had to internally balance if they could afford looking like a humorless bitch when confronting workplace sexual harassment (haha, whoops!). 

America’s past in Mad Men is terrifying and weird as well as frustratingly still present, as smoke soaked into our current attitudes and culture. What America’s past isn’t in Mad Men is purely seductive nostalgia for the sake of simplifying the present.

Le Sueur, Boym, and Cook all propagate that the cinematic image/use of nostalgia is that of double exposure, two images projected onto an audience’s perception and experience (1. contemporary recreation 2. of the past) - and that sure as hell makes up the building blocks of Discovery even though we’re all cognitively aware every aspect of the series is new and it takes place “in the future”. Discovery uses the franchise’s past as an adaptive functional mirror with which to compare and contrast our contemporary reality rather than merely repeating experiences and ideas reflective of a time long gone.

Vina’s shoes, her entire aesthetic down to her backstory aren’t just counter to the tone and aesthetic of Discovery but to the sensibilities of the contemporary audience; we are all very aware that Vina hasn’t literally been plucked out of 1966 and plopped into this new series. Again, none of us are confused on how any of this story telling is working. We’re aware these are new stories. But what is the function of Vina in this new story? What is the purpose of all the unease her presence brings into “If Memory Serves”?

Vina, way back in 1966, was written to choose a life of illusion among aliens siphoning her memories and emotions rather than accept and become a part of the present. The Keeper tells Pike, “She has an illusion and you have reality. May you find your way as pleasant” as they once again cover up Vina’s hunched back and scarred face with youthful and desirable 1960s beauty standards. As we all know Pike himself will go on later to choose this exact fate. He will succumb to the same choice.

“When dreams become more important than reality, you give up travel, building, creating," Vina tells us of the Talosians in “The Cage”, episode zero of Star Trek. “You even forget how to repair the machines left behind by your ancestors. You just sit living and reliving other lives left behind in the thought records.”

I’m having a serious and very real Look-Into-The-Camera-Moment here my friends. We’re all on board, yeah? Are the dots sufficiently and fully aligned? God I hope so. “If Memory Serves” is pulling a helluva fine “To Serve Man” word play pals:

If our memories perform our duties and live our lives for us, we become trapped. Discovery’s purpose for pulling in original series characters, and these characters in particular and all the narrative context sliding along in with them, is to suggest that we (and the franchise itself) need to move past our attachments to the original series and its rusty ideas and simplistic hopes for the future.  

Vina and Pike are already lost causes, we know this. We gain power in knowing this. The re-framing of these characters as being more tragic than romantic, with Discovery reflecting their longing as kinda creepy and disconnected with Vina more siren than innocent the series can push past the past and grab on to a new understanding of this classic episode’s elements and what it can mean for us watching Star Trek made in 2019.

A purely DISCO inversion of all this is poor Dr. Culber who has a complete lack of emotional connection to the past, who can remember moments and events but can’t make them give off any feelings of relevancy or incorporate them into who he is as a person. Culber is just as trapped as Vina and what Pike will (possibly?) become. The inch by inch nature of his recovery will depend on, as a pissed off Burnham tells the Talosians, if he can learn to “survive another way.”��

Yeah. That might be some thematic intent we’ve picked up on skip. We’re legit through the looking glass now huh? Up is down and down is up and nostalgia ain’t what it used to be! Hype.      

As such, in its own way, Discovery is fairly critical of Star Trek and by extension a bulk of its audience and their personal reasons and motivations for tuning in. It makes a lot of sense that Lorca and “If Memory Serves” among many other production choices and aspects chafe some viewers. 

I’m of the opinion that the shiny pristine nostalgic pedestal sculpture that is STAR TREK should be filed and chipped and shaved and grated here and there just as much as more contemporary substance should be added and stuffed back into it. 

What’s the goddamn point of any of this if not to further progress the bar of reflecting and projecting the human experience onto a future better than that one envisioned in 1966? In 1987? In 1993? And, at the end of the day, isn’t THAT more authentically “Star Trek” than simply an episodic narrative structure, glitter effect transporters, and a captain’s log? 

Top 10 Worst of Sue Murphy *STRONG CRITICISM*

F is for Family is a very divisive show that has garnered a lot of attention on the internet, whether its the bitter and crass nature of the show itself, the dysfunctionality of the Murphy family, or the jarring one-liners and temper of the main character, that only a stand-up comedian like Bill Burr can provide. However, while this show gets nothing but an obscene amount of praise, especially over its outspoken protagonist, not much is said regarding the main female of the house who invokes a lot of emotional drama: Sue Murphy, who quite honestly is far from pleasant and approachable. We all have stress in our lives. However, Sue's methods of handling them, along with sheer amount of obsession, neglect, hostility, and miscommunication with just the people in her house, is enough to keep anyone awake for weeks, especially with a show written as real as this. This is a top 10 list of Sue's worst moments in each episode throughout the first three seasons up to this point (with some exceptions). Before anyone in this rabid "show-can-do-no-wrong" subreddit/fanbase bites my head off or "puts me through da fuckin' wall", it's important to read this quote from a popular YouTuber: "Rather than insulting these people, maybe try to understand the perspective and say why you disagree. This kind of reaction to negativity and critique needs to stop. There is nothing wrong with negativity. Negativity, especially in criticism is a necessity. You cannot have positivity without negativity. Bother are in balance, and one without the other is unnatural. You cannot live your life without negativity or negative opinions towards something. It's completely natural. Not only that, but living in a world where everything is treated as if they have no flaws is misguided. That's not how things are. So when a product comes along, it should be scrutinized with negativity and positivity."

Unlike Watchmojo or any regular top ten video, I will not include full paragraph analysis for each bad Sue moment. This will be kept as brief as possible. Also, these aren't rankings for the episodes themselves (since other characters do horrible and questionable things). With that said, let's move on to this top 10 list.

10. This is Not Good - Out of these current 26 episodes, there have been some minor moments. But it's this episode that highlights Sue's neglect and sets the tone that erupts into a fierce conflict. 9. Punch Drunk - While Sue has major hostility towards Chet and Frank for not siding with her judgement, what really takes the cake is when she coldly blows off Maureen, who was only voicing a complaint about her father. 8. Paul Lynde to Block - Sue's mood in general over the summer heat, and Frank and Kevin's arguing. But the real kicker is her brief exchange with Bill over bug spray, shortly before she meets the new neighbors. 7. Landing the Plane - Sue's bitterness at the beginning of the episode, as well her treatment towards a random bystander while drunk from her sorrows of having her idea stolen. 6. F is for Fixing It - Sue's mood throughout the whole episode, as she puts pressure on Frank to resolve their marriage. 5. Bill Murphy's Day Off - Frank and Sue's first explosive argument, where they both say negative about Bill behind his back. 4. The Stinger - Sue's outburst in this episode is what provoked me to create this list. She kicks Bill out the house and sends Maureen to her room, just so she can have the whole living room to herself, only to threaten everyone she invited over (and even Maureen) to by her product. Selfish bitch! I wish I could just barge in there, call her out on her shit, and snatch and toss away that carton of ice cream she has the nerve to triumphantly eat. And I'll gladly take on any SJWs who object. 3. Pray Away - Sue was frosty throughout the entire episode (no peaceful moments there), but flips out when Frank sincerely expresses his source of anger. 2. Fight Night - I'm not sure what things were like at the beginning, the things go SOUTH between Frank and Sue the minute they're called into the Maureen's classroom. 1. A Girl Named Sue - Do I even need to explain why this is number one. It's that one scene alone, and I do not want to recount it. Dishonorable Mentions: -The Bleedin in Sweden - When the new television is broken, Sue intentionally guilts the children over Frank's outburst in the store. After Kevin takes the fall, she zeroes in on Bill and scolds him for it when he comes clean. Even though Frank is kind to him at the end, Sue says NOTHING. -Saturday, Bloody Saturday - At the beginning, Sue scolds Kevin for his bad grades, and stops a fight between Bill and Maureen, by threatening to go insane. -The Trough - While Kevin rightfully gets called out for not doing his homework and keeping his promise, it doesn't paint Sue in a positive light. However, Sue shows her scary side once again (exclaiming that she wished she was never married), when she runs into Ginny, who eats all her time in the rest of the day she was going to spend with Maureen (who was dragged along with her). Whether Sue actually had Maureen in mind or just brought her along as a prop to quell her own insecurities is debatable. This also the matter that Sue almost  returns home in rage to chew out Frank (after Maureen mention that he has exclaimed that same thing before). -F is for Halloween - Sue's silently storms off when she finds out about the message Sue left. This is not in the top 10, because she's gone throughout the rest of the episode until the end. -O Holy Moly Night - Sue's hostility in this episode is subdued, but still prominent at the beginning. Directly after the fire incident, all Sue can do is just sit at the table and glare at Bill, while Frank chews him out. When Bill mention's that he knows about their bedroom argument, he catches their attention for a brief second, but when Maureen mentions that Major is missing, and they go right back to giving Bill hostility. The drama that scarred Bill and led to the fire in the first place, is never elaborated on past that, and Bill is made an altar boy off-screen by Frank and/or Sue. Other than that Sue simply prepares for the holiday season, up until the Fitzsimmons' call out the entire family and Sue sends them running with a bat and drops her first f-strike. -Heavy Sledding - While Sue is relatively tame throughout the whole episode, the biggest upset is when she screams at a 9-year old who called her family loser, and then throws her cigarette in his face. The fact that she even smokes at this point, strongly implies that this is a very unpleasant woman. -S4E10? - Considering what this show is how it does not deviate from the worst possible scenarios, Sue going in labor will go as well as you would expect it to, and it wouldn't be like any labor scenario that's ever happened in pop culture (and real-life).

----------BONUS DISCUSSION----------

Less Volatile Behavior (a.k.a. the remaining episodes): -The Liar's Club - Didn't watch -Night Shift - Sue's only disdain was over lettuce, before getting wrapped up with her first invention brainstorm -Breaking Bill - Sue had a bad day at work, only to see Frank arguing with Kevin in public. Other than that, she didn't do anything else. -Are You Ready For Summer? - Didn't watch. Sounded like an already involved episode as it is. Apparently, she "wasn't any better than Frank" at the parade. -Frank the Father - Sue gone for most of the day, rooting for Maureen at the Hobo Jojo Show, and expresses disappointment and disgust when she sees Frank and Kevin arguing as she returns home. She then mutters under her breath whether or not its her fault or the family. Needless to say, it's her. -It's In His Blood - Sue is distraught over losing the recently build baby room due to not having a permit. She also pays zero attention to Kevin when he actually tries to get advice from them over a serious matter. The rest of her activity consist of trying to get Nguyen-Nguyen to seek help and Frank's anger over Chet. -Mr. Murphy's Wild Ride - Now this one is quite mixed. Sue actually wishes Kevin a happy birthday, but this is likely due to her being gung-ho that receive "positive feedback" over the Forkoontula. One could argue that she defended Bill, when Marie accuses him of being a liar, when he takes the blame for Phillip pushing Anthony (only for Phillip to admit it anyway). However, she probably used this as a segway to call Marie out on her lie, when she finds out she threw her invention away in the garbage can. To Sue's credit, she does realize how harmful her invention is and gives one of the rarest and sincerest apologies that she/Laura Dern can deliver (a total 180 from the previous episode and earlier, excluding the part where Maureen isn't taken into account, but leagues better than the one she co-gives to Bill when he calls both his parents out). However, this scene shows us just how bad Sue's listening skills are, as she misinterprets two things. First, she thinks that her friends were only fearful towards her invention and not herself and the way she acted. Second, she thinks they actually like her invention, despite the "few flaws". -Summer Vacation - After Frank drives away both Sue's parents and their children, they almost have another argument. Fortunately indigestion kicks in, and they have a good laugh together. -Battle of the Sexes - Sue seems to express no real hostility, but not much sincerity. -Bill Murphy's Night Off - Sue spend the bulk of the episode searching for Bill while worried sick, finally learns how neglectful both her and Frank are as parents, and decides that being parents is their most important priority. We can only hope and pray that they (especially Sue) actually follow through with that promise (the right way), and not just scream at and punish them more, while "being their parents". ----------CONCLUSION----------

Sue has bad bipolar disorder, and needs serious psychological help as well as anger management. The sad thing about all of this is that she's the only female in this series who any real depth and sense of morality and sensitivity, and its the beautiful ones (combined with over-the-top movie star voice acting) that get under our skin and tug the emotional appeal cord. But point being, no one can make a big dramatic stink like Sue, and may god help the innocent party around her (as oppose to those who screw her over in the first place). At this point, in order to redeem her character just somewhat, the whole family need to bring enough up to speed and discuss/clarify all the miscommunications that happen during their neglect this third season alone. And yes, a plot-focused clip show (A CLIP SHOW)/recap episode would be gladly welcomed here. Sure some people would whine about them re-showing clips from previous episodes, but people in this particular fanbase binge each season in repeat anyway. Oh, and being pregnant doesn't give you the right to snap at others, especially over seemingly minor infractions. Sometimes I wonder if Sue is in Philip's kill book (the one character who has hidden unstable malice, regardless of age and gender). 

The Fundamental Attribution Error

Tw: dying? About a year or so ago I worked at a different store for the same company and came across a plethora of unusual characters. (still do but no one has ever beat the customers that I experienced there) There was this one lady who came to pick up a prescription, and unfortunately it was out of stock. She was furious and threw a major tantrum and cursed out everyone and just made a huge scene because that she needed the medication. I thought this lady was fucking psycho. The kicker is that the person ahead of her got the last of that medication. Originally I thought it wasn’t that serious because we were getting more of the medication tomorrow, but then she broke down and revealed that her husband was dying and that she really needed the medication. There wasn’t anything we could do but recommend other pharmacies in the area, but it broke my heart. I’ll admit. It was wrong for me to judge her and I often questioned why I did but it wasn’t until I took psychology last semester that I realized what happened. The Fundamental Attribution Error is basically our mistake of explaining someone’s behavior as part of their personality or their disposition rather than what external factors might be in play (I’m probably explaining this wrong but I only took psychology for one semester). This doesn’t mean that every customer is excused for acting like a douchebag (yes Susan I’m referring to you who threatened to climb over the counter and grab your prescription because we wouldn’t waive your $1 copay i saw that you had $40 + in your wallet!!!) but knowing this has made me cautious.

AU 001  —  EXTREMIS

DETAILS:

post  i.ron  man  3,  deviates  from  timeline  after  this  point

pepper’s  extremis  virus  isn’t  able  to  be  removed,  as  too  much  time  has  passed;  meaning  she  now  lives  with  it

open  verse // headcanon  based

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OVERVIEW:

—  PEPPER  WAS  TAKEN  BY  ALDRICH  KILLIAN,  as  part  of  his  plans.  she  always  knew  her  relationship  with  tony  would  put  her  danger,  it  had  been  something  she  had  decided  was  worth  the  risk  a  while  ago.  what  she  hadn’t  expected  was  her  own  past  to  play  a  role  in  this  too.  a  personal  trophy;  that’s  what  had  been  the  real  kicker  for  killian.  his  own  private  victory  for  finally  getting  pepper  after  her  refusals  of  him  in  the  past  &  her  ultimately  winding  up  with  his  personal  enemy:  tony.  

—  HER  BODY  WAS  MUTATED  AGAINST  HER  WILL; everything  burned  & every  molecule  in  her  body  screamed  in  pain  as  her  dna  was  rewritten  by  the  virus.  it  was  so  blinding  & maddening  that  there  was  a  moment  where  she  hoped  her  body  rejected  it  —  hoping  she  died  just  to  make  it  stop;  but  it  did.  her  body  modified  to  killian’s  desires.  the  trophy  he  dreamed  of.   everything  still  burned,  but  it  no  longer  hurt    — it  was  part  of  her  now.  she  was  the  heat.

—  SHE  WAS  SCARED  TO  TOUCH  HIM,  scared  to  burn  him,  but  tony  promised  as  he  pulled  her  close  in  the  aftermath  of  the  destruction  ( she  had  done  a  lot  of  this,  holy  hell  that  had  been  her !  );  promised  to  make  her  better.  god,  did  he  try  to  do  so.  over &  over  again,  countless  tests  & examinations.  many  close  calls.  eventually  realising  with  grim  defeat  that  the  virus  had  been  in  her  too  long  &  now  it  was  a  permanent  part  of  her.  all  they  could  do  now  was  try  to  adapt.

—  STABILIZING  WAS  TOP  PRIORITY.  any  immediate  & dangerous  side  effects  controlled  &  stopped.  the  real  danger  was  pepper  herself.  learning  to  control  it;  which  was  difficult  as  it  was  something  she  never  wanted  in  the  first  place.  the  very  idea  of  her  condition  making  her  feel  violated  &  used.  feelings  which  only  upset  her,  which  made  her  lose  control,  which  frightened  her…  only  to  make  it  worse.  

TIMELINE:

iron man 3:  pepper  is  given  extremis,  her  body  accepts  the  change  &  mutates  because  of  it.  the  process  is  unable  to  be  reversed

age of ultron:  pepper  is  learning  to  try  to  control  her  abilities  but  struggles  with  the  mental  aspects  of  the  ordeal.  she  almost  overheats,  endangering  herself  & others  around  her  when  news  starts  reporting  on  events  happening  in  sokovia.   stress  from  tony’s  life  physically  harmful  to  her  (  not  to  mention  how  it  was  that  life  that  caused  her  to  end  up  with  way  ),  prompts  pepper  to  take  some  time  for  herself.  leaving  tony  to  focus  on  her  own  issues  &  problems,  needing  to  become  less ( literally  ) volatile

civil  war:  pepper  takes  leave  from  her  position  at si for  awhile,  moving  into  her  own  place  &  with  assistance  learning  to  contain  her  abilities  &  suppress  them.  she  watches  the  drama  with  the  accords  from  afar,  knowing  only  what  the  official  statements  &  news  coverage  shared  for  awhile.  slowly  reaching  out  to  tony  upon  news  of  rhodey’s  injury.  slowly  easing  back  into  old  rhythms,  .

until infinity war:  pepper  occasionally  has  flare  ups,  but  she  has  become  very  good  at  living  a  normal  life &  suppressing  her  extremis  abilities.  therapy &  good  supports  from  friends  & medical  teams  have ��given  her  the  ability  to  find  her  footing  with  tony  &  his  lifestyle,  along  with  resume  her  duties  at  SI.

infinity war  & beyond:  after  the  loss  of  tony,  half  the  population  &  society  on  the  verge  of  collapse.  she  had  to  do  something.  it’d  be  selfish  of  her  to  do  nothing,  & most  people  didn’t  have  the  abilities  she  had.  the  first  thing  she  uncovered  was  the  suit.  someone  that  had  been  made  as  a  precaution,  or  perhaps  just  for  fun.  pepper  couldn’t  say  for  sure  &  tony  wasn’t  there  to  ask.  so  she  begins  to  use  the  suit,  donning  the  name  rescue:  the  iron  woman  but  after  a  suit  failure,  pepper  is  forced  to  tap  into  her  abilities.  forced  to  conquer  her  fears  of  the  extremis  powers  &  use  them  for  good.  the  suit  gets  repaired  &  undergoes  modifications  to  adapt  to  her  abilities.  

EXTREMIS  DETAILS

easily  spotted  through  thermal  imaging

higher  internal  temperature,  leaving  risk  over  overheating  which  could  lead  to  a  thermal  explosion  & shock wave  that  would  kill  user  &  those  immediately  surrounding

pupils  glow  when  using  abilities

internal  temperatures  can  be  controlled  with  conscious  effort,  but  strong  emotions ( fear,  rage, etc  ) can  cause  a  slip  in  that  control

if  accepted  into  the  body,  the  extremis  virus  has  regenerative  abilities  both  physically  &  psychological  damage  ( however,  attacks  to  major  organs  are  still  fatal )

superior  strength

superior  reflexes

higher  resilience

users  with  great  control  over  their  abilities  can  control  & conduct  their  heat  to  specific  areas  of  their  bodies (e.g.:  hands )  &  in  some  cases  even  breath  fire

they  can  also  conduct  heat  or  electricity  through  other  objects

Teacher "Lost" my returned textbook.

I'm not sure if this is the case for all schools, but where I went to high school, you were responsible for paying for any lost or damaged textbooks.

About a month before my graduation, I received a notice from the school that I apparently had never turned in a Psychology textbook from the previous semester. Coincidentally (or not), my psychology teacher, Mr. W, was my only instructor from all my years in school that I knew absolutely despised me.

I'll be honest; I kinda deserved him hating me. I had a major case of senioritus and I wasn't trying to hide it. Mr. W taught his class exclusively via lectures and slideshows gathered from the textbook; ergo, reading the textbook on my own schedule at home gave me the same information that I could have learned if I payed attention during his boring as hell monologues. Coupled with my psychology class being held directly after lunch plus a part-time job and extracurriculars, I used Mr. W's class as nap-time.

I easily passed out during psych 3 times a week, every week, and there were weeks where I slept all 5 days. I even started carrying a big fuzzy jacket to use as a pillow. He f*cking hated it.

I don't exactly blame him, but there was literally no consequence for me. School policy only allowed for a student to be removed from class if they were causing a distraction. I did all my homework and got As and Bs on all my tests, ended the class with an A. I totally understand that he must have been irritated that a student could literally sleep in his class all the time and still receive an A, but I attribute it to his monotonous yet easy class structure.

I could never conclusively prove that he maliciously marked my textbook as missing as opposed to sheer incompetence, but I know I turned it in. It was during lunch with some students retaking a test and he was a real tool about it because I interrupted some phone call he was having on his lunch break to give it to him.

In order to graduate, I had to fork over $70 bucks for an ancient textbook that I absolutely turned in. I was pretty damn pissed, but I thought there was nothing I could really do about it.

About a week after I sent the money in, I tell this whole saga to one of my friend's mom, a librarian at the local fancy-schmansy private school. When she hears Mr. W's name, she immediately bursts out laughing.

Turns out Mr. W was in the middle of a pretty nasty divorce. and his soon to be ex wife was a teacher at the fancy-schmansy school and a rather close work-friend of my friend's mom.

They were getting a divorce because she wanted children, and he didn't, and the kicker; instead of, you know, talking to his wife about it he went a got a secret vasectomy.

I spent the last 3 weeks of high school spreading that story around the best I could, figuring it was the least I could do considering I had to pay 70 f*cking dollars for absolutely nothing. I ended up graduating and feeling like I had at least created somewhat of a hassle for him while I was there.

I didn't think about this textbook drama for a couple years (I graduated in 2014), but the other day I was talking to kid who is a current freshman at my high school; we were talking about the teachers and when Mr. W was mentioned in passing, she said "I heard he had a secret vasectomy". Y'all, a (true) rumor that I started in 2014 is still being passed around. I feel like this is the epitome of petty and I feel quite accomplished.

I have no idea if Mr. W is even aware that this rumor is being discussed, but I like to think he does and is aware that it originated with me.

(source) (story by QueenLorne) 

Obscure meme kalliste/allura? i dunno if you wanna do an ask for the two of them

What convenience store food would be their go-to at a 7-11 (Fantasy or otherwise)?

Kalliste is the type of kid who puts about four packets of brown sugar poptarts in the bottom of the shopping cart and feigns surprise when Icio asks her how did all these poptarts get here. But she’ll still grin in success as Icio lets her keep them because deep down they’re a pushover.

Allura just skips past all the snack food and goes to get ten klondike bars and just walk away with them. She always has to get wrangled back by Juniper because yes, it sucks that you can’t just take stuff, but you’re going to get arrested if you try to steal ice cream.

Who is their drinking buddy? If they don’t drink, which drunk friend would they watch over?

They don’t age at the same rate as the other kids on the ship, so they become of age a lot faster than Ravi, but by the time both are of age, they would probably be drinking with their new parents Icio and Juniper. When Kalliste and Leda get to around the same age, they would def be drinking buddies and get into all kinds of trouble together.

Who would be their go-to character in Clue?

They both over fight over Mrs. White because they like her little maid hat, but in the end Kalliste gets Professor Plum and Allura gets Mrs. Peacock because Icio can’t stand their daughters fighting and picks Mrs. White for themself.

If they ever had to go to college, what major would they pick?

Kalliste would pick Psychology and Law double major with the hope of being a prosecutor.

Allura would do Ethnic Studies, she likes arguing and helping different species get their rights.

Do they have a signature color(s)?

Not really, but both tend to wear a lot of various shades of brown. Now that they have more access to clothes, they’re trying on different styles and colors. Allura finds that she likes pinks and blues, while Kalliste doesn’t really care what she puts on since she can’t see it anyway, but Allura likes her in blacks, purples, and whites.

What would be their favorite vine?

Kalliste’s is “Road work ahead? Uh, yeah I sure hope it does.”

Allura’s is the classic “Bagel boys, babababa bagel boys, babababa bagel boys! With cream cheese!”

If they had a social media account, what would it be about?

Kalliste’s twitter is conspiracy theories about the other crewmembers. Highlights include “I smelled Psyche and she smelled like Ciri. Does that mean Psyche is also shaped like a human with human skin?” and “I think Castor’s species is a rock. He is angry and loud and doesn’t move when I tell him it’s breakfast.” Her instagram is picture of her sneaking up and scaring other crewmembers. Highlights of those include coming up behind Castor while he was stabbing his feelings away and jumping on him, making him scream.

Who would they invite to be their best man/maid of honor at their wedding?

Each other without a doubt. But they would also let Ravi and Crumb be their flower boy and Ring Bear, respectively. None of the kids know that it is a Ring Bearer, and not an actual bear who holds the rings.

Alternatively, who’s best man/maid of honor would they be?

Each other, but also Ravi would invite them to his wedding as his maids of honor along with Crumb and Psyche because there can be many maids of honor. Also Juni would want her daughters to say nice things about her so she’d invite them to be her maids of honor.

What would be the title of their sex tape/mixtape?

Kalliste’s mixtape is “Snuck into Your Heart”

Allura’s is “Knife to Meet You”

If there was no prejudice, what time period/place would they love to visit?

They would both have fun running around as 90s kids, staying out til 10 running around and playing with beanie babies.

What three words would they use to describe themself?

Crafty, Untrusting, and Loyal

What three words would their friends/family use to describe them?

Curious, Brave, and Protective by Ciri; Cute, clever, and innocent by Castor; “Little Ass Kickers” by Juni; “My beautiful snids” by Icio

What nicknames do they have? Any particular stories behind them?

Kalliste has “Liste”, “Lili” (pronounced Lee-lee), given to her by her dad before he died.

Allura just has “Lulu”, which was given by Autumn.

Do they consider themself a good person? Why or why not?

Not really, they both they’ve done things that their parents would disapprove of just to survive, and although it makes them sad, they know they can’t change the past.

If they were a cryptid, what would they be?

They would both be a Wendigo, perfectionist and very tired, but ultimately a romantic who wants to be free of worries.

What is the one thing they wish they could’ve said to a loved one, but never did?

Kalliste wishes she could say a proper goodbye to her parents before they were killed and say that she was sorry for being so skittish and shy.

Allura wishes she could have told Autumn how much she appreciated her in the time that they spent with her.

What would they tell their ten year old self?

Kalliste would say “Hold on to Autumn and appreciate to the best of your ability. She didn’t mean to leave you alone.”

Allura’s ten right now but if she was five she’d tell herself “Love Kalliste as hard as you can, because eventually she’ll be your only family left”

Who would be on their team in an all out prank war? Who would they be against?

Kalliste and Allura are a package deal, but they’d choose Ravi, Icio, and Juniper, and would probably be against Castor.

Can they drive a car? Are they good at it? (If cars don’t exist, would they be able to drive if they existed?)

Neither can drive, but that wouldn’t stop them from trying to drive one. Sure, they’re not tall enough to reach the pedals, but Kalliste’s got the brakes and gas and Allura steers.

Tell the story behind their most stupid injury/scar.

Kalliste has a scar on her cheek after the first time she tried to break into an apartment on Scylla and didn’t realize that someone put a dresser up against the window and tripped and fell, cutting her cheek on it. It was then decided that Allura would make sure to know the layout of the room before either of them went inside.

Allura once cut her hand open when she was trying to make tea for Kalliste when she was sick with the plague, and was too busy trying to make sure that Kalliste was okay that she didn’t know that she was slicing her hand and not a lemon. Whenever they argue, Allura holds out her hand and says “This was for you.”

What word(s) would they freeze up at if someone said it to them?

Any type of “stupid kid” or “useless” rhetoric, but they also get dangerously quiet whenever someone brings up OmniBorn Technologies

Who is someone that they don’t talk to much, but would probably get along with?

Nivviah and the snabies would adore each other. Nivviah is always a fan of kids and completely understands where they came from and why they have a hard time trusting people. Kalliste and Allura think that Nivviah is absolutely brave and a hero like the ones they read about.

Have they ever done something they think is unforgivable?

No, they both believe that although they have done bad things like stealing, they are not completely at fault and it was out of necessity, not hatred.

What type of soda would be their favorite?

Kalliste is a fan of orange cream soda, while Allura likes Shirley Temples (or Sprite if that’s not available)

What do they want more than anything?

They both just want a family.

What is their fatal flaw?

Kalliste does not trust absolutely anyone. Given her heightened sense of smell and hearing, if she senses even the smallest difference in someone’s physiology, it will set off alarm bells. Because of this, she can act cold and closed off in an attempt to protect both herself and Allura, and it takes a lot of coaxing to get her to fully trust you.

Allura is the definition of “young, scrappy, and hungry”. She will fight and claw her way to make sure that she and Kalliste aren’t forgotten and doesn’t really think about a situation before running into it, and will try to fight anything in her way. In her and Kalliste’s fight or flight response, Kalliste is the flight, Allura is the fight.

What Greek God would they be most like?

Kalliste would be Nemesis, the goddess of revenge, retribution, and justice.

Allura would be Eris, the goddess of strife, chaos, and discord.

Who do they looks the most up to?

Both used to look up to Autumn as she rescued them from the Genesian experimentation facility, but now that they’ve been living on the Freedom Vessel, look up to Juniper since she’s been taking care of them while Icio was missing.

If they had to pick between their best friend or significant other, who would they pick?

Since they both only had each other for such a long time, they would probably pick each other over anyone, especially Allura towards Kalliste, but if Kalliste was tired of having to become the “mom” at only 12 and had a significant other, she might be tempted to pick them over Allura if she knew that Allura still had someone to watch over her.

Bro Diallo, why are white folk esp white men even other race groups that aint white so concerned about black men male parts? To murderous obsession? This true in past and present. These whites even say folk cool with interracial sex is a cuck. You understand this crazy and dumb shit of these white folk?

Murderous indeed, it’s been reported that every single recorded case of Lynching between 1888 and 1930 there was sexual assault, severe mutilation of the genitals, and castration of victims (and we know there were many cased before and after that that were not recorded, lynching lasted up to the 1960s...it’s still happens today). Also, this was not limited to Black men and our genitals, Black women and Black children also suffered the same fate with targeted by White Pathological Aggression.  

Dr. Francis Cress Welsing theorized that the White man’s obsession with Black men’s genitals was rooted in the “fear of genetic annihilation” posed by Black men.  FCW asserted that when White people determined that the product of Black and White reproduction produced a Black child instead of a White child they decided to construct economic, military, and cultural norms that forbade or greatly reduced the potential for Black and White reproduction with the greatest emphasis on copulation between Black males and White Females. FCW augured that the ritual mutilation and murder of Black men, which came to be called lynching was established to reinforce all of this.  

Now, I don’t think FCW and her analysis is totally without merit, but there’s a major aspect of White history and behavior that she failed to fully suss out, in my humble opinion; mainly that Whites have always had a morbid obsession with Sex & Death! Sigmund Freud called this the Eros (Sex/Life) and Thanatos (Death/Violence) Theory; it’s some crazy White shit, but it takes one to know one I guess.On this Eros/Thanatos shit, FCW did state that Western Culture/Mentality was the only Culture evolved in an arctic climate (the Inuits and other Polar Races migrated to the arctic but evolved their culture and mentality in more clement regions); and that experience still shapes the Western Mentality and Culture today. Because Whites lived in a region that was so harsh, life required death and death meant life.  Meaning that if a child was born (life), that meant more death, more food, more struggle, more hardship, they had to kill more; Sex required Death.  If a person died, then that was more life for the survivors, Death allowed for more Pleasure.  FCW goes into more detail; but that’s it in a nutshell, on how Whites come to so closely tie Sex&Death or Sex&Violence together.  

This area of history, sociology, and psychology of course is dismissed outright, cuz you can’t question or critique the dominate Race in such a way.  Dr. Welsing and others, like Dr. Bobby E. Wright or Dr. Marimba Ani, who have tried to understand White Omincidal (Sexual) Violence and other Western Psychopathic behaviors are marginalized and called crack pots. Here’s the kicker: White Sexual Aggression did not start with big Black dick or large Black bootys, nor did it remain there.  Before the “Age of Exploration” when Whites spread across the globe like a malignant tumor through a body, they had centuries of practice sexually assaulting and mutilating each other. From the Greeks to the British Monarchs; Europe had a long tradition of such actions.  European cultures had not only techniques, but invented many sexual torture and mutilation devices, which the brought to the New World.  Before they even got around to kidnapping and bringing Africans to the Americas the Puritans, Conquistadors, the Dutch, and other White invaders were already sexually abusing and mutilating the Natives.  Everything the Whites did to Africans (Asians, and Native Americans) they had perfected on each other over centuries; from warfare to systematic rape to ritual mutilation and murder!  

The late Dick Gregory reminded us to stop asserting that White commit atrocities against us “because we Black,” he said “they do the shit they do because they are White.” I have no doubt that if Africans (and all other non-White went extinct today), or if we liberated ourselves and erected strong barriers to White Aggression tomorrow, they would once aging turn their aggression inward; cuz it ain’t really about us, it’s all about them, it’s all on them; we are not as special to Whites as we too often think we are. 

I'm proud of myself

So... Idk y I'm making this post... But here goes nothing... Tl/dr at the end..

So, flashback a few months and you would have probably seen me hiding from the world in my room. At the time, I felt as if the world was too much and in a way, I was able to relate to all those pics about how 'the world is scary as an adult, and thus I wanna be a kid again'.

I was in college studying econs, a new language (French), and 2 psy subjects l, in which one of them was driving me mad. I would now say it was just due to the way I overthinked my assignments, coursework and tests, and how I mismanaged my time due to finding everything burdening and thus pushing it aside to deal with them when I'm ready, and guess what?

I never allocated time for them. And so they piled up and I panicked until one day, I was running late for one of my classes. My mom was yelling at me, I was trying to put on my pants, and it just happened. I knew how to get away from it all. I would just drop out.

It seemed so simple. Just stay in my room and don't open the door. Then it would all somehow magically go away. So, I stopped yelling back at my mom to inform her that I'm coming. I shut my door, locked it, took of my clothes, and just laid on my bed, staring at the ceiling as my room got brighter as it was in the morning.

And then the hell ensued. You see, I have done this all before, skip a few classes and what not. But that was in school, which is kinda free in my country. But this is college. My parents worked so hard to ensure we had the money to go to uni and this is what I'm doing. And yes, I was a very spoilt brat.

My mom first started to make sure that I really know how much $$ I'm pouring down the drain. Then she called my dad, who said this may only happen for 1 day as he knew last night I was awake on my laptop (I was watching code geass.. Although I do remember watching it when I was a child... So I guess it's rewatching), so I would have been tired (which I was... So this could be one of the reasons)

You see, while I did say this may have a way I "escape from it all", at the time, my plan was to skip a few days of uni and catch up. Which certainly wasn't the case. So like old times sake, everytime I went down, I got my usual lecture on how I'm wasting my life (told in a sad tone), how others are working so hard to try and get a life as good as mine (told in a frustrated tone), and how my "friends" were missing me (which I don't even have... Wut??), by my mother.

But the real kicker is that I just did not catch up at all. I just thought I'll do it later. And again, that never happened. After 3 days, which was the normal amount of days I would skip continuously, my mom kinda realise that I ain't gonna head beck to uni.

So, I don't really remember the sequence of events, but it went a little something like this.

1) my mom called up the uni to try and figure out what happened (like if there was bullying or anything... Idk... I didn't even know she called until later on)

2) my mom started to find if there is a place she can dump my sorry ass at (I think I'll elaborate on this topic later on)

3) she started to see if she can block only my electronics from the house wifi (cos the in Internet is always the root cause of all "youth deviance"

4) "pled" with me/tell me how she hates me for doing this

5) everyone branding me a freeloader

6) stop letting me have any food/eating up all the leftovers so I would not have anything to eat anymore if I sneak downstairs to eat late at night when they are asleep

7) keep reminding me about how my parents won't live long (they are very old and both have health conditions which have also been passed down onto me and my sister [.. Yay])

So, you may say this is normal for family to do this to guide you back to go to uni. But not for me. I still do not know the rules in Malaysia and if how my parents were planning to boot me out was legal. But they were getting there alright. Now at the beginning of last year, I got my phone replaced with a new one, and this new phone already had Instagram downloaded. So I started to go back into Instagram. I would post regularly and such (like the post underneath this is).

But during this time, I felt so ashamed that I decided to hide the fact that I have stopped going to uni from my school friends. I only posted food related pics such as the one from deepavalli. I even deleted the posting I made about the invitation I got to go to a ceremony (?) for getting on the deans list during my 2nd semester (I'll elaborate on this topic later).

But after some time, I kinda got uses to it. My mom gave me a deadline that if I did not continue next sam (the sam that has just passed), she was kicking me out. I started to find places to stay and work opportunities. And that was when it kicked in. There isn't really any good future of you don't have at least a degree in Malaysia. Like you can barely find anything. Many jobs that pay less are often given to kids who are still in school for a part time job, or they don't pay enough for you to survive if you are to live on your own, till you would need to get a few part time jobs, or go to the dark side (underground stuff... Something that idk how to get to). So basically I'm screwed.

And then a few days later, I found a song back fom the mid 2000's. It was a song about a child dying (the song is called "Terlalu Istimewa"). It just got me thi King about how everyone's gonna go, and throughout my parents last few years, do I really want them to have to wonder what is going to happen to their failure of a daughter? I went to my parents bedroom when my mom was in it alone, and I told her the golden words she was wanting to hear for some time (I forgot what exactly I said though).

"I think I'll go back to uni"

Of course I knew what all is gonna happen. At the time I thought my grades were gonna be flopped as I definitely f'ing failed. But to my surprise, my mom said that she will call in and see when we can see the head of my course. She said they already prepared for this and that it is all going to be well.

Remember when I said my mom wanted to send me somewhere. This is where the truth is unfolded. So I was diagnosed with asperger's syndrome when I was 13 in 2012. She had sent me to a home for 2 months when I did a similar shenanigan in 2015. But it costed my family a lot so they brought me back home. Till this day I still do not quite comprehend what my syndrome is (eventhough I'm majoring in bloody psychology), and how I was diagnosed with it.

So why is this important, you may ask. Because I was literally DYING when she told me that she had "explained" to the lecturer (the head of the department is also my lecturer... And I'm getting her again next semester). I just wanted a metroid to hit earth and kill me. I don't like it when people say "oh this person has something wrong with them" and etc. I feel as if they look down on me (but not y'all on Tumblr as you dont see me in real life). When I registered to join my uni, I specifically told my mom to never, ever mention about it. In fact, I found it quite hilarious that someone like me is studying psychology.

But the fact that she has told that made me so scared. I just wanted to hide under my blankets for the rest of existence. But then again, I'm gonna turn 20 soon, so I better act my age (this year I'm turning 20... All this time I felt as if if I still had a 1 in front of my age, I was still young... But I'm now gonna turn 20, a quarter of the average human life expectancy is over 😭😭😭).

So I went in the next day and got found out that mom was ready for my lil' shitty "tantrum" and stopped me 1/2 way, so she dropped me out of the subjects instead of making me fail them for not finishing my assignments and such. She also got back some of the tuition fees. My lecturer did not judge me that much (but let's see this coming semester), and I did not bump into my group mates (we have a lot of group assignments... So yeah... I let the down a lot).

So now that all of that is out of the way, you may be wondering what happened this sam. Well, let's say I was really bloody scared during the first few days as I thought I was going to bump into my old group mates and such. That was not the case of course. Other than the librarian exclaiming that I skipped 1/2 the sam out loud to a few kids, nothing else happened. I retook the psychology subject that gave me a hard time last sam, rekindled a few friendships that drifted apart due to time, and kinda mended back my relationship with my mom.

Some of my group mates this year seemed a little tough to deal with, but hey, it ain't a group project without someone (or in my case, some people) slacking off. I had to do some spoonfeeding to some of my group mates eventhough I too was lost at some parts, but I can vow that when people say teaching others help you comprehend the topic better, it is true but can only be done if you have patience and good blood pressure.

But of course there were also some stuff that ticked me off. I would often claim myself to be a lazy, procrastinating perfectionist. This is because I'm very lazy and I always want to show the best, I mean who doesn't. So when it came to the deans list this that was mentioned earlier, I wanted to go. But for my 3rd sam, I got out of the deans list for not maintaining my cgpa. In fact I only got in due to getting a 3.52 for my cgpa (to get in you need a 3.5), so I was already ashamed for that. I did not feel as if I was worthy of it I guess. So when I came back this sam, I was determined to get back in.

But as things got tough and I say the nice GPA slipping away from me with every orang and red grade I got (not godd grades to get), I felt myself returning back tk my old ways. Sleeping late doing nothing. There was even a lime in which I skipped a class, but I lied and told mom it was cancelled. She bought the lie as usual. It was at that moment I realised that many other uni students were like me. You can see that the new students always aim for high grades but the seniors just aim to pass the subjects. I know that is a crappy attitude to have, but my sister was also able to graduate just be receiving the passing grades all the way. I realised that this is the way we need to be in order to survive. And it is not wrong.

I know if my mom were to hear me say this she would be disappointed and I k ow many of you would be saying "you need to be the best person you can be" etc. But honestly if it means breaking down like that again, then no. I do not wanna make other people worry about me and such if it means I can't always be the best so be it. If it means I would not need to always be worrying if the way my sentence could be better and such instead of "having fun" etc, then yes, I would gladly give it all up. Honestly, I feel as if going to uni has made me a different person. I felt so self-conscious and it made me feel like shit.

But I guess what I'm trying to convey is that if you feel like the world is too burdening, don't f'ing kill yourself (like some weirdos tell you to on Tumblr [srsly, you would rather get rid of porn instead of the real cancerous negative on this platform... I see that your priorities are as straight as ever Tumblr]). Instead try to find something to inspire you, or maybe if you are not a bloody social pariah like me, you may find friend to support you. And always remember, there are others who have it worst that you. So STOP BEING A F'ING CRYBABY, GET OUT FROM UNDERNEATH YOUR BLOODY COMFORTERS, AND REJOIN THE REAL World. Cos guess what, no one is gonna spoonfeed you and take care of you till the bloody end. You need to stand up for yourself cos this world is a disgusting and cruel place.

Tl/dr: I stopped going to uni, found some inspiration to go back. Then things got tough again, I stopped caring, bacame a husk of who I turned into since entering the competitive world of uni, and now I have found happiness.

Indecent Composure

Originally Published on June 29, 2014 on Eichy Says

Prudishness is making a comeback. And, at the same time, it's quickly going out-of-style.

In recent weeks, social media had been abuzz with the antics of Quintin L. Murphy, a graduating senior at Jack Britt High School in Fayetteville, North Carolina.  During his graduation ceremony, Murphy stripped down to nothing but a leopard-print Speedo as a prank upon accepting his diploma on-stage.

A police officer escorted him off the grounds, which I can understand.  His hijinks were funny and harmless, but not exactly "dignified" in the view of folks who treated the ceremony as a serious occasion.

The real kicker, however, was when Cumberland School District Superintendent Frank Till publicly announced that Murphy would not be receiving his diploma.  He will still technically be allowed to graduate, but his actual high school diploma is being indefinitely withheld.

So what's the problem, you may ask? It's just a symbolic piece of paper...and he's still considered a legitimate high school graduate.  Maybe so...but you could just as easily argue that the graduation ceremony itself was purely symbolic, as well – and that the parents or spectators who were so drastically offended by Murphy's prank should just "get over it."

Such puritanical actions from administrative-level mouthpieces are nothing new.

Also in North Carolina, Central Davidson High School (in the city of Lexington) graduating senior Violet Redwine was kicked off-campus during her last day of school (as a graduating senior), after school officials measured her dress and claimed it was violating the school's dress code by half an inch too short above the knees.

Normally, I wouldn't have a problem with a public school enforcing a reasonable dress code for students – except that, in Redwine's case, she had already worn that same dress to school on five previous occasions throughout the year.

If a school is going to enforce its dress code, it should do so all year round – not simply on "Senior Day" in order to make an example out of a student

Even though Redwine went home to change into different clothing (after they'd instructed her to), when she returned to the school she was then told that she'd receive detention for "tardiness."  Her parents advised their daughter to just stay home for the rest of the day.  And, as a gesture of support, Redwine's mother, Amy, wore that exact same dress to her daughter's graduation ceremony (while Violet donned a traditional-cap-and-gown).

Is it any coincidence that this "Violent Redwine Incident" occurred barely one week after the much-publicized "Quintin Murphy Incident" – only three counties apart?

Getting kicked out of one's last day of school – or being removed from one's graduation ceremony – might appear to be minor sanctions, in the greater scheme of things.  But it can lead to greater abuses of power from those in authority positions, as it clearly has in the past.

Earlier this year, fifteen-year-old Christian Adamek committed suicide after being publicly castigated by school officials in the aftermath of his September 27 streaking prank at Sparkman High School in Huntsville, Alabama.

As could be expected, Adamek faced disciplinary action from the school.  But all of that should have been handled completely in private.

Principal Mike Campbell gave a public interview where he stated that Adamek's behavior could result in the teenager having to register as a sex offender.  Campbell also confirmed for local media that the school district had recommended Adamek undergo a judicial hearing with the Madison County court system to explore any further formal charges that could have been filed against the teen.  

Yet, in the same interview, Campbell acknowledged how teens usually streak due to "losing a bet" or showing "school spirit."  The principal then followed that acknowledgment with the vague statement pertaining to how Adamek's conduct was "much more than a mere prank" and "totally different, something not related to that at all."

So if Campbell "wasn't at liberty" to divulge these super-secret details of this other awful and unspoken-of crime that Adamek allegedly committed, then why bother to give the interview at all?  If Adamek's prank was supposedly "much more than that" and posed such a great threat to public safety, then doesn't Campbell have a responsibility to inform the public about what mysterious-and-dastardly deed the adolescent did?

Or, if that wasn't really the case (regarding Adamek's offense), then why would Campbell agree to appearing in front of a news crew in the first place?  Why not just handle everything privately, within school walls (or, if the case legitimately warranted it, within the confines of juvenile court)?

The answer is clearly that Campbell, and probably his masters (and cronies) within the school administration, wanted to make an example out of the kid.

According to Adamek's sister, Danielle, her brother was facing expulsion for his prank.  Adamek also had a history of depression.  When an online petition called for Campbell's resignation, its creator was pressured by Adamek's parents to remove the petition from the Internet.  I would bet anything that Daniel and Angela Adamek made this request because the Adamek family was still grieving from their son's tragic death, and they very likely just didn't want to deal with anymore negative publicity.

However, all of this "media-scrubbing" and "backpedaling" being done to protect Campbell doesn't change the reality that Campbell's public statements could have very prominently contributed to the young man ultimately deciding to hang himself, rather than enduring a potential onslaught of legal excoriation (especially if he was suffering from depression or any other psychological conditions).  We'll never know, because Adamek took his own life – and more discrete steps could have been taken to prevent such a horrible outcome.

This is not to suggest there should never be consequences to one's actions.  Although I personally see nothing wrong with (non-aggressive forms of) public nudity, there were still more reasonable punishments that could have been doled out to Adamek.  

Community service.  Paying a monetary fine.  Having some extracurricular privileges revoked.  Or even making restitution for any property damage that was inflicted during the prank – although I'm assuming there was no actual property damage...otherwise, Principal Campbell would have bothered to explicitly mention that during his haphazard interviews with the local media.  Right?

What probably happened was that Campbell clumsily shot his mouth off in front of news cameras, out of some sense of prudishness and/or self-righteous indignation. It wouldn't surprise me if Campbell thought he was "protecting" the school's reputation by making an example out of Christian Adamek in order to discourage other students from engaging in similar pranks in the future.

And then, when those actions backfired (following Adamek's tragic suicide), the school administration "circled the wagons" in order to protect Campbell (who, they probably realized, had mishandled the situation in a premature, tactless fashion).

Is it any wonder why people have such cynical views toward bureaucratic school administrations and teacher's unions? Not that a majority of teachers or faculty members in the school district necessarily agreed with Campbell's verbal diarrhea...but it just goes to show how authority figures – be they in education or law enforcement – will jump to "protect their own," yet, allow justice for the "common people" to fall by the wayside.

Six years ago, the notorious "Pumpkin Run" in Boulder, Colorado made national headlines when twelve university students were arbitrarily arrested for "public indecency." The ritual involved local residents (usually college-aged) running naked with carved-out pumpkins over their heads as a way of blowing off steam around Halloween.

Silly and juvenile?  Sure – but relatively harmless, especially since it was done at night when young children were likely to be indoors or asleep (not that the nude human body, by itself, is something of which we should be teaching children to feel ashamed).

However, then-"Pumpkin Runner" Eric Rasmussen expressed, after his arrest, how he could understand the consequences for this mass prank resulting in community service or a monetary fine to the city.  But certainly not being forced to register as a sex offender.

Yet, more than 150 people participated in the "Pumpkin Run" that year...and only a dozen of them were randomly selected by local police for arrest.  Again, an inconsistent process where nonviolent citizens are "made an example out of"...in order to promote puritan "values."

In 2009, Boulder police chief Mark Beckner openly announced his intention to shut down future "Pumpkin Runs" indefinitely, even though the activity had been ignored by local authorities for the better part of a decade. He lambasted this event as a "free-for-all" that was getting out-of-hand.  

While some people would argue that Beckner was merely "doing his job," he clearly wasn't – since the tradition was nothing new, and police hadn't made "indecent exposure" arrests during the "Pumpkin Run's" previous ten year history. Even then-Mayor Matt Applebaum, who still vowed to support Beckner and Boulder's police department, admitted, "I'm a little old for it, but it could be pretty cool to be running around with a pumpkin on your head and not much else."

And Boulder has also hosted an annual Naked Bike Ride to promote energy independence.  So nudity in town, for select occasions, already had a precedent.

But the intent of sex offender laws is to stop those who engage in either sexual assault, the propositioning of minors, or full-fledged child molestation.  Colorado state law deems it to be a Class 1 misdemeanor for citizens to expose their genitals with perverse intent or under circumstances "likely to cause affront or alarm."

Yet, any intelligent person can see the difference, in terms of both intent and effect, between someone who sexually preys upon an innocent child versus someone who's blowing off steam by running around naked after dark.

Beckner was caving into the "complaints" of Boulder-area prudes by placing sex offender charges on the table against "Pumpkin Runners," rather than simply recommending community service or a monetary fine.  By fostering an environment where the punishment clearly doesn't fit the "crime," Beckner proved himself to be emblematic of precisely what is wrong with American society and our priorities as a culture.

Much like the University of Michigan's now-extinct "Naked Mile" (where arrested participants were also forced to register as sex offenders, under Michigan state law), the "Pumpkin Run" has basically faded from existence.  By abusing the sex offender registry – forcing nonviolent and non-predatory offenders to be included in it, when that clearly was never the intent of the registry – these fearless community "protectors" are trivializing those crimes perpetrated against victims of sexual abuse or sexual assault.

Campbell, Till, Beckner, and their ilk will claim they are simply following the letter of the law, and that their actions are supposedly being done to "protect" schools and neighborhoods. They feel that "bringing down the hammer" in this manner will ultimately dissuade others from engaging in raunchy pranks, and prevent their respective jurisdictions from gaining shameful reputations.  I'm sure they've convinced themselves that they are also preventing copious acts of assault, vandalism, and child abuse in the process.

What they are doing is actually resulting in the opposite – misplacing their wrath toward fun-loving pranksters, rather than directing it at actual rapists and pedophiles who continue to lurk unfettered in the shadows.

At the end of the day, I believe their underlying goal is to preserve systems of patronage and maintain bureaucratic privilege.  By keeping "us reckless whippersnappers" in our place, they hope to cultivate a Victorian-style "Nanny State" where people become subdued and sexually-repressed.

There's no doubt in my mind that such a "Nanny State" would foster an environment where federal, state, and local governments "encourage" (both officially and informally) the promotion of theocratic, overly-judgmental, culturally-conservative "values."

Anyone who doesn't want to endure (which, I truly believe, would be a majority of Americans) such a restrictive culture should speak out against bullies such as Campbell and Breckner – calling them out and "shaming" them for their mismanagement of discipline or law enforcement.

Maybe if they received a taste of their own medicine, they (and other like-minded authority figures who seek to maintain similar privilege statuses for themselves) would learn to get their priorities straight...rather than grandstanding as a method of pandering to a myriad of Culture Warriors.