crone islander

Last night was good. I mean, it was work, so there was still some bullshit, but I wasn’t overly upset or physically ill, so that’s cool.

The shitbag supervisor got fired. 😁 Taking his place is an EMT who has worked for the company for a while, knows what she’s doing, and hasn’t even caught any felony charges ever! I bet she hasn’t threatened anyone or done any coke, either, but nobody is background checked so who knows. Anyway, Ms Southern Supervisor is cool, and she’s been working in the Big City lately because staffing issues. I am not complaining.

Chief keeps coming to work. He needs to stop that. Nothing personal, I really like him, but he’s a fire inspector. In Colorado. Which is on fire. So he’s putting in absolutely stupid overtime at his real job, driving all over the state, working weekends, and then he comes to our station to dispatch ambulances instead of resting. MY DUDE. Please. Go home. Drink a beer. Rest. I don’t care about your shift obligations. Tell the Mini Boss to kick rocks. It’s fire season. (It’s actually fire season year round now, but it’s “five major wildfires and assholes are still shooting off fireworks” season)

Makenna came in with a surprise this morning. It wasn’t cookies! (It’s usually cookies. She’s an amazing baker.) It was HER DOG, a Golden Retriever who loves everyone and wasn’t barking and has good recall and doesn’t even eat trash! I could never take Momo to work.

Humans are messy, we live under systems that try to control how we live, there's people in power who hurt us and oppress us, there's inequality, injustices...the world, it can sometimes suck.

But then, I look around and there is my loved ones who make me laugh even when my heart hurts, i feel the deep breaths i take which are provided by the trees around me, the coffees which have a taste that make every morning worth it, the people who presist to do good and be kind even when everything is against them, the animals whom find shelter in the natural world and what it provides them, my treasured cats and my gentle dogs who shower me with so much hope and comfort.

There is the books i read that are written by other people with so much soul and personal touch, the art that expose vulnarbilities in ways that no emotion can fully express, the movies and series which are made by a collaboration of humans who care about craft and stories that are being told. The melodies and lyrics that create a sound that thousands connect too. The communities that are found by said mediums, the bonds that are made.

There's so much love in this world. Mothers and fathers who love their children. Children who have dysfyuncitional families and found warmth elsewhere, outside of blood. There's a people who love their dog. Their cat. Their hamster. Their fish. There is teachers who care for their students, there is grandmas who love their grandchildren, granpas who love their sons and daughters. People who love so much despite loss, their love poured in so many laughter and wails. There are people who find ways to love each other, who find community, despite systems that try to oppress them.

There are many families, acquaintances, friends, couples, and many many strangers who will choose to love, who will offer a hand instead of turning away. To create instead of destroy, to hope instead of surrender.

So thats why I reject the ending in Go3 that erases this essence and message that made the show worth it. Crowley and Azirraphale loved earth! They loved humans and our unpredictable nature. They were delighted by shared meals, treasured music and books, cared for animals, and protected spaces that people had poured love into creating.

Aziraphale found warmth in his bookshop. Crowley found fascination in the plants he grew. And most importantly, an angel and a demon, gained free will by finding love with each other. They chose each other, again and again, over the expectations of Heaven and Hell.

Aziraphale and Crowley were constantly fighting for a life to simply live. To be an us. To spend time together without fear, to love each other openly and without shame. They were meant to deconstruct the beliefs they had been taught and defy the systems that demanded the opposite of what they truly wanted.

Their love for Earth and for each other is what made this story matter. Crowley would never have chosen to destroy the universe instead of finding a way to save the world he had spent six thousand years falling in love with. He would have fought for it, just as he always had. He would have searched for another way, questioned every impossible solution, and refused to accept that destruction was the only answer.

And he would have chosen to live beside the angel he had loved for centuries.

Because that was always the point. Crowley and Aziraphale weren't trying to become heroes. They weren't searching for power or purpose beyond themselves. All they really wanted was something beautifully ordinary. Breakfasts, bookshops, greenery, rainy afternoons, lunches at the Ritz, late night car drives, sunsets, music, and watching humanity continue to surprise them.

Earth, even with its corrupt systems, doesn't need to stop existing. It needs to exist despite them. That's why there is so much love and so much kindness—emotions that stir people to challenge injustice instead of surrendering to it. To rebuild instead of erase.

The world has never been beautiful because it was perfect. It is beautiful because, despite everything that is broken, people continue to love. They continue to make art, plant gardens, rescue animals, raise children, protect one another, and dream of something better.

Aziraphale and Crowley's characters represent exactly that hope. They show that people are not defined by the systems they are born into, but by the choices they make.

An angel and a demon, raised to believe they were destined to stand on opposite sides forever, discovered that they could be destined for each other instead. That the lines they had been taught to never cross were never as important as the bond they built by choosing one another, day after day, century after century.

I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study

after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines

et voila

Text of tweet under the cut because it is loooong.

But... Stochastic Parrots.

- People who exercise a lot get knee injuries from overdoing it

- People who only exercise occasionally get knee injuries from being unprepared for the exertion

- People who don’t exercise get knee injuries from being out of shape

140 MILLION YEARS BACK.

If you don't know how far that is, that's basically the start of the cretaceous. Let me simplify that for you even further. Chimpanzees and humans seperated, what, 5 or 6 million years ago?

This is basically like if humans could hybridise with THESE THINGS.

This is the sort of thing that should be impossible. They used those eggs to be ABSOLUTELY 100% SURE NOTHING WOULD HAPPEN.

And then THEY GOT FISH OUT OF IT.

Like. You can quite clearly understand why they didn't think anything would happen. WE ARE MORE RELATED TO BLUE WHALES THAN THESE THINGS.

THE AMERICAN PADDLEFISH AND THE STURGEON ARE SO COMPLETELY UNRELATED THAT THIS IS NOT PLAYING GOD. IF ANYTHING THIS IS AN ACT OF GOD.

THE SCIENTISTS HAD NO BLAME IN THIS BECAUSE NOTHING LIKE THIS HAD EVER HAPPENED BEFORE

THESE THINGS, FOR HYBRIDS, HAD A REALLY HIGH SURVIVAL RATING. LIKE 70% OF THEM SURVIVED.

To put that into perspective, getting a blue whale and a squirrel and trying to hybridise them is more sensible, and that wouldn't produce anything but getting you banned from science. Most animals that aren't plants can barely hybridise two degrees away from each other.

BUT THESE TWO ENTIRELY UNRELATED FISH create PERFECTLY HEALTHY HYBRIDS.

And this is a Russian Sturgeon:

(glances at fish)

I was not originally invited to speak, but heard last minute that someone else had fallen ill and was giving up their slot, and begged white organizers through the grape vine to let me speak as a Salvadoran migrant and union steward who came to the US at age 7.

I have long been soured of going to so many rallies and felt alienated that they were allegedly for or about my people, but that no one had thought people /like/ me exist - we are still here! There are migrants in your work spaces and neighborhoods and organizations, we have stories and labor songs and speeches to share, we are marxists and labor organizers and have reasons to speak out too.

But seldom if ever do you hear our music or faces or voices near the banners. Instead of Tigres Del Norte we heard Bella Ciao, and none of the singers knew the Italian words or bothered to even translate them, so they sang nanananananana, instead of the powerful lyrics that maybe meant something once to someone somewhere. Instead of Somos Más Americanos we heard Don’t Worry, Be Happy.

Instead of a Salvadoran woman who wanted to speak to the American union workers about the Banana workers unions, we heard from a dozen white people about democracy, and justice, and the constitution, and no one was warned about what would happen if they marched down the street from the park to the ICE facility. They fully expected everyone to come back and complete the second half of the rally.

Instead, marchers with their dogs and children were tear-gassed to hell and back the second they dared get close to the facility, maybe at best 1/3rd of the marchers returned while the rest were bottlenecked towards ICE. There was little to no water to treat the untrained protestors. I returned to the rally quickly realizing I could not get caught up at ICE, knowing who I am and what awaits me.

When I got back a chorus of smiling white faces sang a silly song like a Christmas carol with their heads bobbling, reading the lyrics from some handed out papers. White people with upside down flags cheered. Then a black woman in overalls abruptly got on the mic and said “Well thank you everyone but we have to close the program early because people are getting tear-gassed, please get home to safety righty away,” - and I swore I couldn’t believe my ears.

They had brought us all here, marched all these people down to the ICE facility, and expected us all to march back without encountering teargas? And then when some people had made it back they had them sing a little jingle but turned the one migrant away? I begged them to let me speak for the three minutes I had allotted, noting that I had put myself in serious danger to come out here today. That I needed to be heard just this once, and that all the white people had their fair turn to say many unrelated things, and to sing many unrelated songs.

She said, “you don’t understand, there are children down here,” and I had to say “you don’t understand, there are children in the camps.”

And she tried again, “yes but the gas is spreading,” and I said “yes we have been down here being gassed for six months, don’t you understand?”

She blinked twice and told me they just had to break down. I watched from the sidelines as they continued to blare Caribbean Blue and smooth jazz while people filtered out, stood around talking, chatting - finally I said, “please let me speak, you still have speakers going, it’s been 20 minutes,” and the DJ, a white elderly man in a sweater vest who had a strict “only the classics” policy that seems to actually mean “no hip hop and no curse words,” - barked at me that he had to break down and to help him take down his canopy. I am no maid, so I did not listen. He then turned to my comrades and told them to take his canopy down, which they did not. Then turned to his two other labor organizers who were not paying attention, and they took a leg of the canopy and moved it somewhere without breaking it down.

And one looked at me and said quietly, “it’s okay, take that bullhorn no one will notice,” and we took it and ran.

And we ran to a firetruck which I climbed, and I gave the speech, which was in fact more than 3 minutes, sorry not sorry, to a crowd of workers who were slowly pouring out from the ice facility, some stopping, some going, some who heard me, some who didn’t. And I gave it there and it was the only speech most of these people will ever hear from a migrant in all of this, and I think that is tragic. But I firmly believe that had I not given it, had I not climbed the truck, had I not taken the mic, some people would have never heard this story at all. And I think very much you should hear it. And I hope you will share it, if you have the chance. And I hope I get to tell it again, someday, to people who actually listen, to the masses who came to actually support immigrants, and not just to the dredges after they’ve been gassed and are running for shelter while I’m coughing myself.

This is what I had to say.

Olivia: I came to the United States when I was 7 years old. And I became a citizen when I was 20. But I am on this stage to ask: if you will give me 3 minutes of your time, *cough* I will give you 300 years of American History that has been taken from you.

There are five crops that changed the world as we know it. Bananas. Coffee. Tobacco. Sugar. And Cotton.

First grown by slaves in the New World, these crops all happened to also grow in a little bean-shaped country that my parents lived in near the Caribbean called Cuzcatlan, ‘The Land of Precious Things.’ It would be renamed El Salvador in the 1800’s. 

But the precious things remained after the name changed. And the people were captured, and they were forced to work for pennies on the dollar to dredge the precious things from the soil, and the sea, and the mountains, and the sand. Cuzcatlan was not precious just to us, you see. It was coveted by the Americans. And once they saw our jewels, they would never be satisfied again. 

The people suffered. And how we suffered! Dying in the fields, raped by their masters, buried in the shining black volcanic sands, their blood fertilizing the crops.

Of Bananas. Coffee. Sugar. Cotton. And Tobacco.

Until one day, the people of Cuzcatlan said, ‘We can bear it no more.’ And they broke their shovels in half, and they plunged the stems into their masters, and they rode through the streets on their masters’ Spanish horses, and they cried out that Cuzcatlan would no longer belong to the American companies that demanded their precious things without paying precious prices. Perhaps, soon, those business leaders would learn to negotiate for the labor and crops they so needed.

And the Americans? The Americans could not stand it! They would not abide such a story be told. And so you never heard it! The American companies, and all of their corporate masters came down on Cuzcatlan, with a fury seldom seen before. They killed everyone.

Instead, you heard a story about “Communists” and “Terrorists” in Central America, spreading a disease that would destroy your country and families. You heard a story that we have no good will towards you. That we wanted you to starve, that we were lazy, and formed gangs, and were lawless, and wore weapons to sell you drugs and fund terrorism. 

But you never heard the story of Cuzcatlan, because it was a sad story, and sad stories do not sell fruit, and coffee, and cigarettes!

No, they came to my country, and they wiped out entire villages. The Archbishop, Don Remar - er, Don Romero, himself, was shot by the military during his Sunday Mass, for having dared to wonder whether the workers deserved some mercy. Assassinated for having dared to wonder, and he was left bleeding on the pulpit, even as worshippers bowed their heads. 

EVERYBODY was KILLED. 

EVERYBODY! The women, with their children still in their arms. Anyone looking for cover; people who found cover, people who didn’t. People who worked, and people who had no jobs. Communists. Catholics. Those who didn’t know how to read, those who didn’t know what labor rights were. Simple folks. Smart folks. 

And they didn’t stop there. They went through the countryside, and they killed everyone they thought was hiding labor organizers or communists sympathizers. Banana union men and women, who they labeled terrorists. And in one village, we still only speak about in whispers, called “El Mozote.” The Americans tied women and children to trees, and they threw their babies in the air, and they shot them. Everyone was killed, to send one message, and that is: “A union is a threat to the American Empire. Not one union man or woman will hide in your village, or any other. And if you hid one here, now or ever, you will never breathe to hide one again."

And I tell you this because I am you from the future. You and I, all of you, are very much alike. You worked very hard to buy the precious things you have from the ground, the sky, the water, and the aether. You all wrote stories, you filed insurance policies, you taught children, you rung people up, you made sure whatever sorry system they had worked, not because you believed in it, not because you wanted it, but because it was all you could do. 

And in exchange, they offered you cheap bananas. Coffee. Sugar. Tobacco. Bananas.

But I will tell you a secret. They were never cheap. They were precious. And so are you. 

And they stole you, and they stole us, and they stole it all, and they told you: if you look the other way, you get to be satisfied and at least well-fed. But who can afford the luxuries of cigarettes or vapes or groceries anymore? Even that is being taken from you. And even if you have them, your food or your small pleasures won’t satisfy you. Not more than knowing the truth about Cuzcatlan, not more than knowing the truth about El Salvador. Today, where our precious land once stood, they built a concentration camp called CECOT. And not just for our precious things, our people, but yours. Your citizens, your dissenters, your unwanted disappeared into the hole that America built. 

And what will we do when they start building incinerators at the camps? What will you do when they open up mass graves? 

For our people, the most precious gift of all: do not take my warning lightly. The story of Cuzcatlan is not just from the past. It is from the future. The workers face the same enemy, and the enemy never had your interest in mind. From the moment they had you, the plan was to have a worker. From the moment you existed, it was to create another soldier against the people of Cuzcatlan and the rest of the world. You were a commodity to them. 

But we have written you a new future. One in which we no longer point guns at each other. One in which our billionaires fear the land of precious people from learning they are no longer precious things. 

Turn to me now! And tell me you will not forget the last three minutes. You will never again be ignorant of this story. And you will not let it happen here. You will close the camps. You will destroy ICE.

Spectator: Yeah! Olivia: You would rather have seasonal bananas or never see one again than have it covered in blood. 

Spectators: That’s right! Yeah! 

Olivia: You would rather trade fairly with other union workers than kill your fellow man, wouldn’t you? 

Spectators: Yes! Olivia: Tell me you love me, and that our fates are tied! Tell me you’ll stop them from dragging me down from this place, and I’ll never let them do to you what they did to us. I promise. El pueblo unido…

Spectator: JAMÀS SERÀ VENCIDO!

Olivia: Nunca será vencido. Amen.

I know I stuttered a bit, as I had just been gassed, as it took place not but 400 feet maybe from the Portland ICE facility.

One correction among many tiny ones:

“You worked very hard to /ply/ the precious things you have from the ground, the sky, the water, and the aether.” - And that work, it is very precious.

It's time for the passing year!

✨🌟✨Happy new year!!✨🌟✨

Wishing you the best as always, health and success for you through 2026!