I Should Be Working Right Now

Don't even try signing up for Artfight if you're Jewish. I posted something totally unpolitical on their Discord where I got the star in my handle and promptly got banned for genocide denial. I didn't post anything political on that server, my Art Fight profile, and nothing "discriminatory or hateful" anywhere else.

Sokka in the background: yeah except for that time in high school when you kicked the shit out of Zuko’s dad

aang: violence is unproductive, and the antithesis of —

sokka, talking over him: because watching Zuko’s dad get his shit rocked by teen Caillou definitely made ME feel good. and if you do something that makes people happy, doesn’t that mean it’s a good thing?

Ozai: *does something characteristically shitty within Aang’s field of vision*

Aang:

the rest of the gaang watching Aang judo flip Ozai over a table:

Aang, sweating: oh wow crazy how that happens isn’t it? Technology is amazing

Gyatso: It was from your school. They were calling to tell me that you’ve been assigned after school detention for the next month because you beat up a grown man on campus today. Would you like to tell me your side of the story?

Aang: it was Zuko’s dad and he deserved it

Gyatso, who had a speech about the perils of succumbing to violence prepared but who also knows all about what a dirtbag Ozai is bc of his weekly brunches w Iroh:

me: I mean, the overlap is so obvious that people already make jokes about it - the narrative of redemption and transformation through suffering, constant divine tests of moral worthiness… giving Goku your energy for a spirit bomb is genuinely just the power of prayer.

me: wait hang on this actually ticks all the anthropological boxes of ‘what needs are an organized faith supposed to fulfill’ - the emphasis on protection and brotherhood becomes a hospitality network with ingroup signals, mutual obligation, and a ritual template of feasting and training. The stories themselves have culture-heroes and villains who provide a moral framework for communities. The running theme of “people who announce that they are the strongest and put on airs are Bad Guys” acts as a check against petty tyrants trying to establish a hierarchy: you do not get to decide your reputation, you must let your deeds speak for you.

me: there would be regular debates and arguments between ‘originalists’ (ki is an innate but dormant power that must be unlocked through effort and discipline) and ‘Ultra Instinctivists’ (ki is a zen-like state, it’s what remains when all distractions have been removed)

remember everyone...

thursday watch: the conditions for thursday are here, but a thursday incident has not yet been confirmed

Private Equity: Pestilence (they are parasites that voraciously strip the value out of a healthy business until it withers and dies)

Workforce Optimization: Famine (cutting hours and employees until the business is starved of staff, barely functioning)

Anyway.

It has been very pleasant out. We had the windows cracked and left them cracked when we went to work. This has never been an issue before.

My darling spouse was working on a job in a small town about a mile from our place. He was getting some stuff from the work van when he sees a large white dog prancing along.

"Huh." He thinks. "That looks an awful lot like.....TYR WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE."

Tyr, delighted that she has Found Father, bounds up happily and gets in the work van to give face kisses.

"GIRL NO WHAT." Kev says, scrambling to go let the client know that he has to take the fucking criminal back home real quick.

Turns out she discovered that a window can be shoved open with a determined snoot, and a window screen is not as strong as 80 pounds of muscular dog. And went for an adventure.

I got a call at this point while I was doing payroll.

"BABE WE NEED TO BABY GATE ALL THE FUCKING WINDOWS." My spouse says.

"....okay??" I say, and then get the story. I swore a bunch.