Untitled

Basically how I feel

[starsofarda]

@ulmondil I hope you don't mind the tag, but you are correct.

I feel that there are more who can fit together with Mae, but again. Silm fandom, I summon you.

And this is why I, a shitposter and barely a writer, need you all 💖

Meme from here.

[rafterdarkr]

why are all these modern aus for the Odyssey set in a high school. where's the retelling where Odysseus is just a guy lost in an airport who keeps missing his connecting flights home due to a comical series of delays and disgruntled airline employees

[unbearable-lightness-of-ink]

not the same airport the whole time though—they keep rebooking him but his layover always go wrong so he circles the globe airport by airport constantly being sent somewhere else that will definitely have a connecting flight home (spoiler alert it doesn't)

[queer-here-and-in-fear]

shorthands for dumbassery that i have grown to love deeply

"how dare you say we piss on the poor" in response to someone misinterpreting your post

"_ isnt gonna fuck you" for suck up behavior

"woah. should we tell everyone? should we throw a party?" for who the fuck cares

"and what if the world was made of pudding" for when would this ever matter.

"and sharks are smooth both ways" for a group of people heatedly arguing with 1 guy who is fucking with them all

".. but its about a witch in the alps finding her lost cat" for someone trying to sanitize something to the point of absurdity

[queer-here-and-in-fear]

this is prime proof that this ENTIRE WEBSITE is autistic because nowhere else would a no tags post that's just an informative list about slang get this much traction.

[queer-here-and-in-fear]

anyway more addittions

“30-50 wild hogs” for someone making ABSURD excuses for violence.

“what were YOU doing at the devils sacrament” for how do you know that without being a part of it.

“anyone in this thread smoke weed” for the shit you people are saying is so off topic this might as well be a general discussion forum

“dogs are boys and cats are girls” for ooh ur mindset did not grow past 4th grade, huh

“color theory in a childrens hospital” for bending over backwards to not agree that YEA, that thing Came Off Weird

“you are a tar pit” for someone finding any reason to respond with outrage.

“is the __ in the room with us right now?” for I Don’t Think That’s Real.

“bean soup? im allergic to beans!” for ik this doesn’t work for you, but that’s not a flaw. not everything can be for you.

“people irl: hey man hows it going” for this will Never Matter irl

[humormehorny]

“Sir this is a Wendy’s”

[k-wame]

[creature-wizard]

[Description: A divorce lawyer answering the question "do you believe in soulmates?"

He answers: I believe that whoever created the concept of soulmates should be taken into the town square and beaten to death. Or you should tell me who they are so I can send them a check for a couple of hundred thousand dollars, because they have done more to facilitate the demise of happy marriages than I could ever aspire to doing.

The concept of a soulmate to me is absolutely bizarre. To suggest that out of eight billion other people in the world, that there's just this one person, and they happen by the way to live within like the same town as you, where they went to the same university as you - what were the odds of that? And that's the only person you could ever have a happy, fulfilling relationship with. That's insane, folks. It's insane. And by the way, it's toxic. Because here's the thing: when you get married, society essentially tells you, this person, they're supposed to be your best friend, best lover, best roommate, best travel companion, best co-parent - that's a hell of a resume, guy. Like, it'd be shocking to find someone who fits all three of those things.

So what happens when you have this concept of a soulmate? And my partner, you know, they're the best co-parent, they're the best roommate, the best travel companion, but you know, they're not the best lover I ever had. Well, they mustn't be your soulmate then. That means that there's somebody out there in the eight billion people, that they would be the perfect one. And that's what the horizon that just forever recedes and keeps people constantly craving the next thing that might check all of the boxes. It's dangerous.

Look, we break in relationship, we heal in relationship. You're marrying a human being. They're just as flawed as you. They have great moments, they have awful moments, they have heroic moments, they have villainous moments. This idea that somebody out there is going to be this perfect angelic presence in your life, it is a fiction, and it is the siren song that's gonna send you right into the rocks of my office. /End Description]

[kebriones]

Rule number one for adapting greek myths is that everyone should have huge glaring flaws, there should be unavoidable fated tragedy and you should be horny for everyone.

Rule number two is that there gotta be colors and gold and patterns and nobody should have perfect teeth.

Rule number three is that if you let characters successfully defy their fate you will be fined 5 million dollers unless you have a new and exceedingly good reason for that choice.

[creatingblackcharacters]

And I'm not saying every story with a Black character has to be the most serious, most deeply researched thing on the planet. I'm really not. Basic respect in depiction isn't a bonus, it's an expectation.

But what I am often saying is that the Stakes to Mess It Up for a one chapter slice of life coffeeshop AU are gonna be quite different from a historical fiction Western set in 1856 Kansas, and it is your responsibility as an author to 1) understand that, and 2) make sure that you are doing the best you can to treat that character- and by proxy, your Black audience- with respect, every time. It is never the wrong answer to educate yourself in preparation!

[markodragic]

my sister works in a nursery (in scotland for context) and today a kid came up to her and said "can you put on 'release my wee da'? I want to dance" and my sister was like ?? what the fuck is 'release my wee da', so the kid sang a line of it. turns out, feliz navidad

[markodragic]

release my wee da everyone ⛄🎄🎅

[crystalcrossing-remade-deactiva]

shit man tomorrow is christmas eve i swear yesterday was June 2010

[allegedly-human]

As is tradition in tumblr culture the locals unearth the corpse of a long deceased figure and drag it across the streets merrily, laughing at what is preserved of the person’s words. This custom, seen as morbid in other cultures, is instead done gleefully and with an unmatched enthusiasm

[sandersstudies]

I don’t like seeing “hard-working” conflated with hustle culture or overwork. Some of my friends are working hard just to function and stay alive. Some of them are working hard to set boundaries and find peace. Some of them are working hard at hobbies and things that bring them joy. They’re all still hard-working even if they’re not working in the conventional sense.

[hollowedskin]

So the funniest difference between me and kiddo's previous foster mother is that she was telling me I've gotta call ahead and make sure all the staff at the hairdressers know kiddo is trans so they don't misgender him, and make sure they know he's a foster kid so they understand why it's me taking him and not his real mum and all that, and I've just said nah that's not how you do it.

I go to the barber, I say "my son would like a haircut", they do not question me about whether he is my son on either point. This has worked perfectly so far. You just don't give anyone a reason to question you? If I say he is my son it is so unbelievably rude for someone else to go "um are you sure?".

But yesterday the barbers apprentice looked at him and asked if he is getting a woman's cut, and instead of arcing up and explaining trans theory and respect for kiddos gender to someone who I knew heard me the first time and had clocked him, I just channeled the spirit of a Christian Mother In The Toy Aisle and said "well, he is a boy so no, he will have a boys cut".

Shuts down bullshit immediately! Nobody wants to be yelled at by someone's Karen mother! Kiddo does not hear this little pricks opinion on trans people or get humiliated by being outed in the barbers. You do not have to tell people all your intimate details! You certainly do not have to tell people all your kids intimate details either, especially if you think they'll be a target.

[zetabrarian]

Taking the phrase "virtue signaling" away and putting it on a high shelf.

You guys know that virtue signaling is only a problem because the signal is a lie, right? You realize the problem with virtual signaling isn't because it's signaling but because it promises something it fails to deliver on, right?

Queer flag stickers in a store window aren't virtue signaling unless they are also failing to make a safe environment for queer customers and employees.

You guys have decided "communicating one's values is bad," and that's extremely fucking stupid.

[memewhore]

[collidedscope]

the “bad guys” in hallmark movies end up always being the most respectful men ever.

because they will find out their girlfriend of 3 years (that they were about to propose to) went off to a random farm in minnesota, hours away from were the two of them built a life together, and she decided to just… stay there without even consulting him.

and then he decides to take a trip to make sure she’s okay, because this is generally alarming behavior, and then sees that she literally fell in love with her ex within one (1) week- and he wasn’t there, but you can TELL that they’ve made out a couple times.

and then she just strings him along for a few days, until fucking christmas eve, when she just breaks up with him and is like “i know we used to have the same values, but i’ve never loved you. mark makes me happier than you ever did. and you ONLY care about work, whereas i like christmas and fun, like a Good Person.”

and then, after finding out his entire relationship was a lie and he had his life turned upside down in a week and he got dumped on christmas, this guy’s just like “ok yeah that makes sense. i only wish you the best of happiness with mark. i hope you guys build a great life together in christmastreefarmville. thank you for everything.”

[teashoesandhair]

An AU where two Hallmark Christmas Bad Guys are both getting flights back to New York after being dumped by their respective Smalltown Blonde Girlfriends, and they bond over their shared experiences and fall in love in the departures lounge

[ghostcasket]

@teashoesandhair your wish is my command :)

Probably, Levi should be more upset.

Probably he is still in shock. Right? He looks out of his taxi window (it's not technically a taxi, just some guy named Corey who offered him a ride to the airport, because Uber doesn't operate in fucking Tinyville, Bumfuck Middle-Of-Nowhere, Utah) and tracks water droplets racing each other down the glass, because of course it's raining, and his bad knee is killing him. 

Levi sniffs and rubs at his eyes and then pulls out his phone and books a ticket back to New York, wincing as four hundred and twenty-six dollars are deducted from his bank account. 

And, like, he should definitely be more upset.

He just got broken up with. He was engaged, for God's sake. A four-year relationship… over. Just like that. 

Corey says, "Ten minutes to the station." 

Probably he'll be more upset once he's home. When he starts packing up Anika's stuff into boxes so she can come collect them after New Year's. He'll have to do all that processing and he'll put away all the pictures that are up and probably he'll remember all the good times they had together and flashes of their relationship will play out in slow motion in his mind. Like a movie montage.

Levi catches his reflection in the passenger side window and starts, pulling his thumb out of his mouth. He hadn't even noticed he'd started biting the nail.

Corey drops him off at the train station and he books a ticket to Salt Lake City and Levi wants to tip him for the ride but when he turns back the car's gone, and it's started snowing again.

He re-wraps his scarf so it covers his ears and turns back. He has to jog—ow ow ow—to catch his train.

Once arrived at the airport, Levi's gotten over being baffled and has started being mildly pissed. 

You're obsessed with work, Anika told him. You barely make time for us anymore. Yeah, he'd had to pull some long hours for the last few months, but for good reason—he'd been working towards a huge promotion and a raise and he thought she'd be happy for him.

He'd gotten the promotion, by the way. Editor in chief. He'd tried calling her first, a whole bunch of times, and then she hadn't picked up, so he'd decided Well, fuck it, and flew out to Doodootown, Utah to break the news himself.

He thought it would be nice. Spend the few remaining days before Christmas with Anika and her family in their hometown, then flying back home for Christmas and New Year's and starting 2023 off with renewed vigour and excitement. 

Then, of course, Anika told him that she wouldn't be flying back with him for Christmas. Or at all. 

Which, well. Okay. 

She didn't even congratulate him.

He checks in, and the lady at the desk asks him whether he wants to drop off his carry-on luggage for free, since the plane is very full, and Levi shrugs and says okay and watches his suitcase disappear behind black rubber flaps.

His flight leaves in four hours. 

Levi decides to pay the extra fee so he can stay in the fancy lounge, because he thinks he probably deserves that at this point. It's quiet here, though, so he orders a tea and claims a table over by the window, stretching out his right leg with a contented sigh. 

There's an empty table in front of him, but at the next one sits a man who looks so miserable it's impressive.

The man is slouched in his chair, dark hair mussed and suit a little ruffled. The cuffs of his slacks are damp, and so are his knees. He's leaning his head against the window, eyes closed, holding a bloody tissue to his nose. A purple bruise is starting to form on his cheekbone.

Levi stares.

Damn. And he thought he was having a rough day. 

Should he say something? Probably not, right. Like, that would be weird, right? 

Then he notices the small, black velvet ring box the man is fiddling with and it's like all the air's punched right out of his lungs.

Damn. 

Levi looks down and takes a sip of his tea, then hisses and curses under his breath because it's still way too hot and he's an idiot. 

When he looks up again, the man is eyeing him with mild amusement.

And there are a hundred thousand ways that Levi could have handled the situation, but before he can think about ways to not embarrass himself further he hears himself say, "Ouch. Haha."

Somebody please shoot him. 

The man raises an eyebrow. Levi gives an awkward cough, then takes another sip of tea and somehow feels betrayed when it burns his tongue again.

"Maybe you should give it a second," the man says. 

"Maybe," Levi says, "I should." His ears are burning. 

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas plays over the speakers. 

Levi desperately wants to ask about the ring box. And the bloody nose. And whether there's a correlation. But then again it is so definitely not his business, so he just stares down at his tea and watches steam rise. 

There's a sharp sigh from across the table. "She said no." 

Levi's head snaps up, ready to defend himself, because it's not like he actually asked, but then the guy looks so tired and bitter that he immediately deflates and feels both like an asshole and an idiot.

"I'm sorry," he offers, which still feels lame but better than whatever he had going on before.

The guy gives a wry smile. "Gonna, you know. Return this. She, uh, said no to the whole relationship. So."

Ah. 

"I'm sorry," he says, running a hand over his face, "I don't mean to dump all this on you."

"Oh, no, it's okay," Levi says quickly, and then before he can think about it too much, he adds, "I get it."

The other guy looks immediately doubtful. 

Levi bites the inside of his cheek. "Four years," he says with a shrug. "Engaged and everything." He gives a thumbs down and blows a raspberry. 

"Aw, shit, dude," he says, sitting up straight. He removes the tissue from his face, and seeing as he's no longer bleeding, stuffs it in his pocket. "That sucks."

Levi shrugs again, suddenly weirdly self-conscious. He traces the rim of his teacup with a finger. "Yeah, well. I didn't get beat up about it." There's a moment of silence, then he sneaks another glance. "Levi, by the way."

A corner of the guy's mouth twitches. "Xavier Ortega." 

Levi gives a half-hearted salute. "Fuckin', enchanté. Or whatever."

Again, Xavier almost smiles. Levi thinks—Levi thinks he'd like to see Xavier smile. Properly. 

And then he thinks, What. 

No, he's just—Xavier just looks like he could do with a cheer-up. That's it. And, well, so could he, really. They're both in similar boats. Although it looks like Xavier got the shorter end of the straw here, Levi thinks, considering his ruined suit and, you know, face. Still a nice face, though. Symmetrical. Strong cheekbones. Dark eyebrows over dark eyes and a straight nose and—whatever. 

Whatever.

He just got broken up with. 

God, why's he trying to justify this to himself? Why is he feeling weird about this? He's not even gay. And even if he—even if he was, it's not gay to acknowledge that a guy is good-looking. 

But, like, it's fine. He's not—whatever.

Xavier has a split lip, he notices now that the tissue's not hiding half his face. "Got you good, huh?" 

Xavier rolls his eyes. He looks away for a moment, hesitating, then stands up and pulls the chair from the table between them, spinning it around and flopping back down at Levi's table. 

Levi thinks he must look quite surprised, because Xavier says, "I mean, this is easier for conversation purposes. Unless you're fine with the yelling across tables situation—"

"No, no," Levi protests. "No, you're right, this is—easier." He clears his throat and says, "So, what was her name?" before mentally kicking himself, but Xavier just looks at him weird.

"Well, her name is Chloe. We just broke up, she didn't die."

Levi nods, puckering his lips. Right, yeah. Yes. "Is she… nice?"

"Well, she cheated on me."

"Ha," Levi says with no humour. "Samesies."

Xavier lets out a dry chuckle at this, then rubs at his eyes. "Wow. Happy Christmas to us, right?" 

Levi raises his teacup and gives a ghost toast. "Merry Christmas to us." He downs his tea, which is at a palatable temperature now, then says, "Do you want a drink?" 

-

So Chloe and Xavier had been together for almost five years. The whole story is… disturbingly similar to Levi's whole deal, actually. Chloe decides, two weeks before Christmas, to take a trip back to her hometown, gets pissed when Xavier can't just take ten days off work to come with her, goes anyway on her sister's advice, meets up with her childhood nemesis who turns out not to be so bad after all and also cleaned up unfair nice, and then when Xavier went after her because hey, she hadn't been answering his texts and he was planning to pop the question over the holidays, she decided to dump him.

"She looked me in the face," Xavier says, head in hands, "and told me she was happier there than she'd ever been with me." He looks up and runs his fingers through his hair. "And I mean, sure, we'd had our rough patches, but, you know. We were gonna work it out."

Levi hums. "Yeah, no. I get it."

"So I said, Are you fucking serious right now, and I guess I raised my voice a bit, and then Mr Goddamn Farm Guy comes storming out and squares up to me and I don't even know who this dude is, and I tell him to get out of my face, and he fucking decks me. Like, completely unprompted."

"Rough," Levi says solemnly. 

"Yeah," Xavier says, exasperated. "And he didn't even apologise."

Levi whistles low. It's quiet for a moment while they both nurse their drinks, then Xavier vaguely gestures at him and says, "So what's your Christmas Tragedy?"

Levi gives a lopsided grin. "Well. Anika goes home to Middle Of Nowhere, Utah, 'cause she said she wasn't feeling great. Wants me to go with her, I can't 'cause I'm pulling long hours for an upcoming promotion, she's pissed. When she gets back there she rekindles things with her ex—"

"Augh," Xavier says. "Brutal."

"—and last I heard the plan was for them to start a combination bakery and tearoom together. So." Levi grits his teeth. "Hope that works out for them."

Xavier looks at him over his glass, then, after a moment of careful silence, says, "You're allowed to be mad at her, you know."

"Fuck her," Levi says immediately. "Like, seriously. Why even get engaged to me if she was so miserable? Just break up with me instead of, fuckin', cheating, and then acting like I'm insane for going to check on her after she just ignores all my calls and texts and goddamn emails. We were going to get married in February, for fuck's sake. Fuck her." He presses the palms of his hands against his eyes til he sees stars. 

There it is. The upset. Figures that it's the saying it out loud that really drives home how betrayed Levi feels. Especially when he's talking to someone whom he doesn't have to explain it to, because Xavier gets it. Xavier gets it better than anyone ever will, probably. 

It's not quite the movie montage Levi had been preparing for. Rather, what Levi remembers now are all the moments that Anika said things that cut, or did things that bruised. How she'd roll her eyes when Levi got so excited he got the wiggles. How she refused to entertain the idea of getting a dog, even after he begged. How she'd get annoyed with him when his knee acted up and told him to suck it up and stop being such a crybaby. How she'd give him the cold shoulder when she was upset with him and he couldn't read her mind about it and let it build until she exploded out of nowhere. 

Little things that didn't seem like such a big deal in the time, but that added up to something like a balm for the sharp sting of betrayal.

Because that's what it is, at its core. That's why Levi is angry.

More betrayal than heartbreak.

And even though it will hurt for a while still, there's something that tastes oddly like relief at the centre of his chest, cool and welcome like a breeze on a suffocating July afternoon.

Xavier stays silent. After a moment Levi blinks hard and opens his eyes and finds Xavier looking at him strangely. 

"Yeah," he says quietly. "Fuck 'em." 

Levi's stomach squeezes.

He glances wildly around, trying to find anything to look at that isn't Xavier's face, and settles for the screen hanging from the ceiling that displays flight information. 

"Oh, look at that," he says. "I should get to my gate." 

"Right," Xavier agrees quickly. "Yeah, of course, so should I." He picks up his leather briefcase. "Where are you going, by the way?"

Levi laughs. "How wild would it be if we were on the same flight, huh?" He stands up and winces, ignoring Xavier's questioning look. "New York City. The 9:15. You?"

Xavier's eyebrows shoot up. Levi's jaw drops. "You're fucking kidding."

They make their way over to gate B9 mostly in silence, a general air of What the fuck is happening hanging between them. Not quite uncomfortable, but definitely baffled. 

"So this is weird, right," Levi says, dropping into a boarding zone chair. "Like, really weird."

"Right," Xavier says softly. Then, eyes trained on the huge Christmas tree and determinedly not looking at Levi, he adds, "Cool, though."

Levi is—Levi is a little speechless. "Yeah." He feels kind of floaty. He can't stop looking at Xavier's ears, because the tips have gone red. "Yeah. Pretty cool."

God. Fuck.

-

Their seats aren't next to each other, because that would have been crossing the line from freaky coincidence into absolutely fucking insane, but Levi pulls some strings and switches seats with the nice lady who’s next to Xavier, because it’s an exit row seat with more leg room and he has a bad knee. He tries not to look too pleased with himself as he sits down. 

Xavier gives him a look. “So do you actually have a bad knee, or…”

Levi slaps a scandalised hand to his chest. “I can’t believe you’d accuse me of such a thing. You think I’d lie about being disabled?” 

“I don’t know you that well.” 

“And here I thought we had something.” Levi sighs. “I broke my kneecap when I was a teenager. Never healed right.” 

“Ah. Sports? Don’t tell me you were a football kid.” 

Levi doesn’t know why he feels suddenly bashful. He always feels kind of stupid telling people how he got his injury; the reactions usually range somewhere between mild disapproval and straight up judgment. “Uh, no. Parkour. Actually.” 

Xavier’s eyebrows vanish into his hairline. 

After a moment of questioning silence, Levi shrugs. “I misjudged the distance between ledges. Fractured my kneecap. But I was stupid and an idiot, also, so I didn’t wait for it to fully heal before going back out, and now I am a human weather antennae.” 

“Huh.” Levi would say Xavier looks almost impressed. Mostly sort of exasperated, though. “You know what, now that you say it, I feel like that checks out.” 

Levi narrows his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“I don’t know, maybe you look like the type who would break his kneecap doing parkour.”

“And what kind of type is that?” Levi is halfway to miffed and sort of offended, but then Xavier grins wide and he forgets to be annoyed. 

“You tell me.” 

It sounds too much like an invitation to be a coincidence. 

Levi can’t remember the last time he spent so many hours talking uninterrupted. Or, well, talking to someone who was actually listening to him and actively engaging in conversation. Someone who was interested in him. 

Levi can’t remember the last time he enjoyed talking to someone this much. 

He cracks a joke that makes Xavier laugh softly, and the noise goes straight through his spinal cord like an electric shock, and then it becomes a game, a challenge, trying to make Xavier laugh like that again. 

Xavier shows him pictures of his dog, a wonderfully fluffy brown-and-grey mutt named Captain, and Levi thinks he might actually pass away over how cute he is. 

“I always wanted a dog,” he says after cooing over a picture of Captain showing his belly for ten minutes. “Like, really bad. I want a dog so bad. But Anika doesn’t, so it never happened.” 

“Well,” Xavier says loftily, “Nothing’s stopping you now, is there?” 

That is an excellent point. Levi tells him so. 

Then he starts thinking about how nice it will be to have the apartment to himself for a while, and then he feels guilty for being relieved about it, about Anika not being there, and then he ponders how weird it’ll be to be alone for Christmas. 

Levi's never been alone for Christmas before. 

His family lives in Alberta, and he can't really afford another short notice round flight, and anyway the plan this year had been just him and Anika, and they'd had a reservation for brunch on Christmas day, and Levi thinks he should probably cancel that, and that's just a fucking bummer.

After a moment of thinky silence, Levi quietly asks, "What are you gonna do for Christmas?" 

Xavier blows out a long breath. "I don't know. I think I'll try to see my sisters. They live a state over, though, and it's all very last minute, I—we—were supposed to spend it at Chloe's, and I'm not big on Christmas celebrations myself, you know, my family's culturally Jewish, so… I'm not sure."

Most of the rest of the flight is quiet, and a little sad, but also nice, and when the seatbelt light flicks on and the crew announces the imminent descent Levi can't help but feel a pang of disappointment.

The plane lands. Impatience in the cabin spikes; everyone wants to get home, it's the holidays, it's cold. Levi gets up and winces, catches Xavier's eye as he reaches for his bag and hands it to him. 

Xavier is gonna call a cab. Levi is as well. 

They're standing outside.

Levi shoves his hands in his pockets. 

"Well," Xavier says.

"Right."

"It was nice meeting you, Levi. The circumstances were… less than ideal, maybe, but…" 

Levi looks at him. A purple bruise is blossoming on his cheekbone, crawling up around his eye. The tip of his nose is red from the cold. His eyes are dark but if he pays very close attention he can tell where the iris ends and the pupil begins. 

And okay. Okay.

He might be a little gay.

"But nice," he whispers.

Xavier smiles, looks down. Is it—would it be totally weird to ask for his number?

But then Xavier's cab is there, and he tips an imaginary hat at Levi before turning away. He hands the driver his luggage.

The sharp stab of panic between his ribs takes Levi totally by surprise. As does the fact that when he blinks he's closed the distance between him and the cab and is holding onto the door.

Xavier looks at him, eyebrows raised.

Levi didn't plan this far ahead, or at all. He blinks, feeling rather sheepish, then when Xavier's eyebrows start disappearing into his hairline he blusters, all at once, "So I have a brunch reservation. On Christmas Day. I was, you know, supposed to go with Anika, but, you know. And it would suck to have to cancel. And it doesn't have to be weird, or anything, we're just two guys being dudes, getting brunch." He snaps his mouth shut, absolutely horrified. What the fuck was that?

Xavier's mouth parts a little. 

God. Shitballs. Fuck. Abort. "But that would be weird, right? You know what, never mind, it's fine, forget I said anything, it's—"

"Levi," Xavier says, exasperated. He covers his face with his hands. Then he says, muffled, "Yeah, okay. That sounds nice. I'd like that." 

Oh. 

"Are you—are you sure?" 

He must sound really incredulous, because Xavier snorts. "Yeah, I'm sure." 

Slowly, Levi grins. "Okay."

"Okay." They stand there for a moment, and then Xavier's eyes go wide and he says, "Wait, I should—hold on." He digs in his pocket and pulls out his wallet, hesitates, then pulls out a small rectangular object and holds it out.

Levi's grin goes lopsided. "Xavier Ortega. Are you handing me your business card right now?"

To his credit, Xavier looks away sheepishly. "My phone number's on there."

Levi accepts the card, hoping passionately that Xavier doesn't notice his hand is shaking. "Okay. I'll text you, then."

"Okay," Xavier says. Then, tentatively, "See you soon, then?"

Levi takes a deep breath and steps back, cheeks burning, and probably not just because of the bite of winter chill. Something in his stomach twinges, and he says, "Yeah. See you soon." 

[otherside-picnic]

people will invent a category of people youre allowed to want to kill without trial, recorse, or remorse, and then when you say "hey inventing a category like that will just get minorities and other political enemies of the state categorized as that and killed" said people will immediately try to put you in the category

[twoblondesmaybemore]

Bonus points if the only requirement for being in that category is thinking a specific way, making accusations impossible to disprove for certain!

[bogkeep]

anecdote i think about often is my mom telling me how back at the family farm way back when, there was a pair of polish guys helping out over the winter (probably through the wwoof program or something similar, it's how my mom came to norway, too). they took a liking to a norwegian equivalent of nutella (either nugatti or hapå, can't remember which) and started eating absolutely bonkers quantities of it. they had to buy more and larger containers of it to keep up with their ravenous hunger for chocolatey spread. when it was their time to leave, they each got their big bucket of it to take home with them.

they stayed in touch, and much later the polish guys admitted to not understanding how they could eat so much nugatti. they had barely made a dent in their souvenir buckets for all the time that had passed. as it turns out, when you're toiling outside in the arctic winter, the body Craves the sugar to keep up with the phsyical demand. it makes sense right!!! turns out bodies crave things for a reason and it's not a personal failing!!!

[earhartsease]

and not just sugar! these spreads have protein from the nuts too

we wrote that blithely and then looked up the ingredients of HaPå and this is not nutella, it's not even chocolate - just literally caramelised sugar and milk - so yes, for polish wwoofers it's the kendal mint cake of norwegian spreads

"still has less fat and more protein than other sweet spreads" too

[elodieunderglass]

the locking-in mixture is contained in the sugar

[yume-fanfare]

i think it's really fun when a rly specific trope is super popular in one particular medium but in other ones it's just totally unheard of. it's the time knife. visual novel players are suuuuper used to death games but many others encountered them for the first time in squid games. the other day my mom showed me all excited the summary of a super original novel she found and it was about a girl who got reincarnated as the main character in her favorite fantasy book

[paperjoshi]

what the fuck is a time knife

[bramblepatch]

[strawberrylovely]

[cross-entropy-dollthing-deactiv]

Wake up. Go to work. Pass by moron neighbours' ring doorbell cameras automatically connected to amazon sidewalk exchanging data freely within cameras that automatically zoom in on you. Get yelled at by someone over a ring camera's speaker for loitering in one spot for a little too long while looking out at the sunrise. Get to work. Get yelled by the manager for clocking in precisely 1 minute late. Get stalked by the manager and yelled at for taking too many bathroom breaks or for going 2 minutes over my 10 minute lunch break. Clock out. Go home. Check tumblr and see that strangers have amassed google docs detailing my friends' posting habits in an attempt to triangulate their locations, dozens of tgirls I knew terminated by targeted harassment campaigns. See my own self shared to who knows how many ultra-reactionary blogs run by labour aristocrats intent on securing their own class position at the expense of me and my friends. Check bsky, I'm not actually allowed to see anything on my feed because the laws where I live require me to enter in my state ID to use the site. Check the news. Random Venezuelan fishermen, mere dots in the sea, attacked and murdered by the USA for the purpose of provoking a response which can "justify" a full invasion, identified using the most advanced surveillance and detection technology in the world.

This is what a surveillance state really looks like, constructed at the grass-roots, corporate, and state levels to protect and advance imperialism and its capitalist base and patriarchy, especially in its current rabidly transmisogynistic form.

[porterdavis]

[pfaugh]

From "They Thought They Were Free" by Milton Mayer (1966)

A chemical engineer by profession, he was a man of whom, before I knew him, I had been told, “He is one of those rare birds among Germans—a European.” One day, when we had become very friendly, I said to him, “Tell me now—how was the world lost?”

“That,” he said, “is easy to tell, much easier than you may suppose. The world was lost one day in 1935, here in Germany. It was I who lost it, and I will tell you how.

“I was employed in a defense plant (a war plant, of course, but they were always called defense plants). That was the year of the National Defense Law, the law of ‘total conscription.’ Under the law I was required to take the oath of fidelity. I said I would not; I opposed it in conscience. I was given twenty-four hours to ‘think it over.’ In those twenty-four hours I lost the world.”

“Yes?” I said.

“You see, refusal would have meant the loss of my job, of course, not prison or anything like that. (Later on, the penalty was worse, but this was only 1935.) But losing my job would have meant that I could not get another. Wherever I went I should be asked why I left the job I had, and, when I said why, I should certainly have been refused employment. Nobody would hire a ‘Bolshevik.’ Of course I was not a Bolshevik, but you understand what I mean.”

“Yes,” I said.

“I tried not to think of myself or my family. We might have got out of the country, in any case, and I could have got a job in industry or education somewhere else.

“What I tried to think of was the people to whom I might be of some help later on, if things got worse (as I believed they would). I had a wide friendship in scientific and academic circles, including many Jews, and ‘Aryans,’ too, who might be in trouble. If I took the oath and held my job, I might be of help, somehow, as things went on. If I refused to take the oath, I would certainly be useless to my friends, even if I remained in the country. I myself would be in their situation.

“The next day, after ‘thinking it over,’ I said I would take the oath with the mental reservation that, by the words with which the oath began, ‘Ich schwöre bei Gott, I swear by God,’ I understood that no human being and no government had the right to override my conscience. My mental reservations did not interest the official who administered the oath. He said, ‘Do you take the oath?’ and I took it. That day the world was lost, and it was I who lost it”

That feels like a good, self-contained thing. But if I haven't lost you yet, there's some more afterwards that I think is about as relevant.

“Do I understand,” I said, “that you think that you should not have taken the oath?”

“Yes.”

“But,” I said, “you did save many lives later on. You were of greater use to your friends than you ever dreamed you might be.” (My friend’s apartment was, until his arrest and imprisonment in 1943, a hideout for fugitives.

...

“Of course I must explain. First of all, there is the problem of the lesser evil. Taking the oath was not so evil as being unable to help my friends later on would have been. But the evil of the oath was certain and immediate, and the helping of my friends was in the future and therefore uncertain. I had to commit a positive evil, there and then, in the hope of a possible good later on. The good outweighed the evil; but the good was only a hope, the evil a fact.”

“But,” I said, “the hope was realized. You were able to help your friends.”

“Yes,” he said, “but you must concede that the hope might not have been realized—either for reasons beyond my control or because I became afraid later on or even because I was afraid all the time and was simply fooling myself when I took the oath in the first place.

...

Shall we say, just to be safe, that three million innocent people were killed all together?”

I nodded.

“And how many innocent lives would you like to say I saved?”

“You would know better than I,” I said.

“Well,” said he, “perhaps five, or ten, one doesn’t know. But shall we say a hundred, or a thousand, just to be safe?”

I nodded.

“And it would be better to have saved all three million, instead of only a hundred, or a thousand?” “Of course.” “There, then, is my point. If I had refused to take the oath of fidelity, I would have saved all three million.”

..

“I don’t understand.”

“You are an American,” he said again, smiling. “I will explain. There I was, in 1935, a perfect example of the kind of person who, with all his advantages in birth, in education, and in position, rules (or might easily rule) in any country. If I had refused to take the oath in 1935, it would have meant that thousands and thousands like me, all over Germany, were refusing to take it. Their refusal would have heartened millions. Thus the regime would have been overthrown, or, indeed, would never have come to power in the first place. The fact that I was not prepared to resist, in 1935, meant that all the thousands, hundreds of thousands, like me in Germany were also unprepared, and each one of these hundreds of thousands was, like me, a man of great influence or of great potential influence. Thus the world was lost.”