Welcome! To HELL! Muhahahaha!...sorry

cats when you step on their tail: i'll admit that was rather ouchie, but given the lifetime of goodwill and trust between us, one must conclude this booboo is but a fluke.

Or that, lbr, there were school shootings before Columbine, but they didn’t get the same personalized notoriety. The 80s and 90s were full of news coverage about Black and Latine “thugs” in “gangs” whose neighbourhoods turned into literal warzones because of the war on drugs. But those victims weren’t mourned as nationwide martyrs for good Christian values; it didn’t matter that children of colour were terrified to walk to the corner store; the people who committed that violence were dismissed as lowlifes, tackled and handcuffed in shitty video quality episodes of COPS, and dragged out of the public consciousness.

School wasn’t cancelled but there were cops on campus and they went from class to class asking the teachers “if any of your students were going to do this, which of your students would do this?”

I want you to guess how many times that day I (an openly queer, neurodivergent, fat-asthmatic-bullied-unpopular goth FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD) was asked to strip down to my underwear so I could be searched in the principal’s office because my teachers said I was the one who might have enough of a grudge against the people who bullied me to blow up the school.

Nine. Nine times.

Six times with pat-downs.

You know who didn’t get searched?

The fucking football player who openly praised Nazis and later ended up spray-painting a swastika on the wall of a Jewish teacher’s classroom as a “senior prank.”

You know who called in the fucking bomb threat?

One day, my fiance’s sister goes to give Fish a treat and the cat whiffs it. Misses the treat completely and it bounces under the fridge, so she’s trying to stick her paw under to get it back.

“Oh no, Fish. You lost your snack!”

“I know I know.”

me:

I saw a post about introverted humans in Space and thought of this scenario:

Can you imagine the aliens bringing human companions on board and all of them are boisterous and loud and spilling their pack-bonding everywhere, except one?

“Introvert,” the humans whisper, and the aliens are confused because sweet stars, is it ill? Is it deficient? Is it going to die? Worse: is it going to get them all killed?

But, no. It speaks. Quietly and only when necessary, but it performs the formal greeting of “Friend” when crossing paths with crewmates, and answers all questions. It attends all meetings and functions and engagements, but it sits off to the side, sometimes reading, sometimes participating, sometimes observing. This observing causes some alarm among the aliens because is it hunting? Are they safe?

It even hides in the ventilation shafts - “For peace and quiet,” it says, when asked.

Queries are posed to the other humans: “What is “introvert”? Is it remedial? Will it infect us?“

“No,” the humans respond. “It’s normal. It’s just a trait some humans have. You’re perfectly safe.”

So the aliens continue on but it’s no unknown fact that everyone has a set of eyes on the introvert.

Pirates aren’t uncommon in these nebulae. They take anything of value: momentos, tech, food, and crew. Humans are a popular trade item on black markets - as companions, as toys, as food - and are literally worth their weight in credits.

The crew is subdued quickly, and the roster produced. The aliens fear for their humans, all eleven of them. But wait. Where’s the introvert?

It’s missing, and the pirate captain sends out five of his biggest to recover it.

The five don’t even make it to the cargo bay doors before the lights shut off. Bad news for the pirates who have bio-luminescent markings on their hides, particularly around their bare heads.

The glare of a fired photon pistol is their only warning. The number of glares matches the number of pirates, no more, no less. And when the lights come back up, there’s the introvert, sliding out of the ventilation shaft to stand in a lake of bio-luminescent blood with a supernova burning in its eyes.

It smiles at them and murmurs, “Friends” in its usual quiet tone as it cuts the captain free.

There is nothing but stunned awe as each crewmate greets in reply, “Friend.”

some people like basketball, some like soccer, some think bowser’s dick has spikes on it while others imagine it more human.

everyone has off days, and its nothing to be ashamed of. no one has a perfect track record just like no one knows if bowser’s dick is cut or uncut.