Light: It Goes Lonely And Alone

vaspider:

dreamsteddie:

The BEST thing they did with Lucas’s character in season four was making him want to be popular without making him suddenly a dick or making him ‘lose sight’ of 'what’s important,’ ie his friends.

He makes it so clear that he is doing this for all of them, and he never stops reaching out. When he finds out they’re in danger, he literally runs god knows how far or how long to find them. He never resents Max for pulling away and he doesn’t try to bring the potential drama with his friends into the Upside Down.

I love him so much 😭

The thing is… I fully don’t think he even “wants to be popular” per se. I think he just wants to play basketball and have both his current friends and his basketball friends. It’s everybody else who puts all kinds of value judgments on that. He just wants to play basketball and get on with his teammates. It’s other people who bring their popularity damage to that.

So in S4 E1 (The Hellfire Club), Lucas has this to say to Mike and Dustin re: the scheduling conflict:

Lucas: “If I get in good with these guys, I’ll be in the popular crowd, and then you guys will be too.”

“Look, I’m tired of being bullied. I’m tired of girls laughing at us. I’m tired of feeling like a loser. We came to high school wanting things to be different. Right? So now we have that chance. I skip tonight, that’s all out the window. So I’m asking you guys, as a friend, just talk to Eddie. Get him to move Hellfire. Come to my game. Please.”

He wasn’t in particularly close with the basketball team - the championship game was, by his own metric, a calculated move to get ahead socially as a means of protection. One of the things the show started out handling fairly well in S1 and S2 imo was how Lucas’s race sets him apart in Hawkins from even the rest of The Party. (Bullies calling him “midnight” in S1, the Venkman vs Winston Halloween costume fight between him and Mike in S2, and then Billy’s overt racism towards him in S2). By season 3 (probably as a function of the show’s rising popularity 👀👀), that aspect of his character arc is pretty much struck from the scripts. The writers had a prime opportunity to address it again in S4 with Lucas’s difference in approach to high school social politics than Mike or Dustin but they got riiiiiight up to the line and (imo) chickened out.

Yes, he likes playing basketball, but the team are not really his friends. He overtly lies to them about his involvement in Hellfire, pawning it off as his sister’s hobby. He doesn’t try to convince the team of Eddie’s innocence through his own involvement, which would indicate he has true camaraderie to leverage. Hell, the rest of the team doesn’t know Lucas well enough to call his bluff until they obtain yearbook club photos that implicate him.

Out of the entire Party, Lucas is the most pragmatic - one could argue that this is a skill he’s honed over the years as a Black kid in a predominantly white town. Same for being the least trusting member. He hasn’t been insulated from the ugly realities of society the way Mike and Dustin, and to a lesser extent Will, have been even though all four of them have been outcasts together. Lucas explains that he’s making moves to protect himself (and hopefully his friends) and, in one of their less than stellar moments, Mike and Dustin refuse to meet him halfway by giving the world’s most half-assed attempt to get Eddie to move the campaign.

IMO given everything we learn about Eddie in *just* that episode, Dustin and Mike could have absolutely made a compelling case to postpone using Eddie’s own “Munson Doctrine” as the rationale and gotten him to move it while earning his respect but they wanted Eddie’s approval more than they wanted to support Lucas at his game, but that’s not the point

Forgive me, I literally finished rewatching S4 earlier this week.

leebrontide:

splendentgoddess:

splendentgoddess:

FOR PARENTS OF YOUNG KIDS IN THE US!

Someone over on bluesky posted this and I figured I’d better repost it here. It’s the pre-RFK 2025 vaccination schedule for babies and young children, ya know, just in case it mysteriously disappears. Save this and give it to your child’s pediatrician; tell them this is the schedule you want your child on.

Got a hold of the older children/teen and adult versions of this chart.
Vaccines for everyone!

You all may be sick of me banging on this drum but I got whooping cough in my mid/late 20s because I had no idea I needed an adult booster and I coughed so hard I broke my rib. And guess what? Then I got to keep coughing that hard, but now with a broken rib.

Please get your boosters.

(via burnbrighterthanever)

ms-blossom:

lleyksie:

too many catnip mice, too little time.

(via vaspider)

ao3cassandraic:

synnthamonsugar:

synnthamonsugar:

Embrace your divine feminine energy by taking part in traditional women’s hobbies & interests like experimenting with radioactive materials, developing mathematics, programming computers, piloting aircraft and practicing marksmanship.

If this is the post of mine that blows up, I won’t be mad

I’m doing my part!

(via feralrookie)

storybookprincess:

exactly a year ago today, i walked into my local animal shelter with one goal in mind. being a self-confessed sucker, i had gone to the shelter’s website earlier in the week & identified the cat who had been there the longest — a black adult kitty whose stay was 3 ½ months & counting — and i was not leaving without her

jiji, as i would come to name her, was finishing up ringworm treatment & was thus in isolation away from the other shelter cats. the staff informed me that while she was safe to be adopted out, their shelter policy was that she had to be the last cat i saw that day to avoid any risk of spreading the infection. i assured them that that wasn’t an issue for me — i was here for one cat and one cat only

they repeatedly asked if i was sure about this — i really didn’t at least want to look at any other cats?? my answer didn’t change. yes, i’m sure. i’m here for jiji. no one else.

and so after a bit of paperwork and some wrangling to get her into the cat carrier, jiji came home with me

i quickly learned, however, that the reason jiji had been at the shelter for over three months was that she was, to put it mildly, an asshole. she had been a stray for some time, given birth to kittens very young, and generally had had a rough go of it, so her disposition was understandable, but the fact remained. she was an asshole. upon our first meeting in the shelter, she grabbed onto my foot and started bunny kicking my shoe with gusto. she stole my food as i was eating it. she scratched me so frequently that a coworker noticed & expressed concern.

however, up until this point, i’ve left out a critical detail of the story. a year ago today, possessed by some sort of temporary cat-induced mania, i didn’t adopt one cat. i adopted two.

on the same day, from a totally different shelter, i also adopted a tiny little one eyed kitten named ramona. how i ended up with ramona is another story for another day — the important part is that she was very young and very small, and she joined my hardened stray in my postage stamp sized apartment approximately one hour later

i did my absolute best to follow the standard protocol for introducing cats to each other. i tried to keep ramona in my bedroom and jiji in the living room and to introduce them slowly

but the separation lasted about two days, however, because jiji, my asshole former street cat who viewed my limbs as her favorite scratching posts, took one look at this scruffy little one eyed thing, asked “is anyone going to be this kitten’s mom?”

and didn’t wait for an answer

I love my nieces so much!! Jijicaht and Wamona were made to heal each other 💖

Happy Gotcha Day to The Dingbats!

stra-tek:

(via onedamnminuteadmiral)

dykespirk:

watching the aos movies is so unbelievable bc you really can’t overstate how badly chris pine’s jim wants spock. it’s a soul-deep desire to suck his dick. it actually becomes comedic at certain points

(via onedamnminuteadmiral)

nephritebabie:

the cycle of life

(via ne-o-mi)

batmanisagatewaydrug:

hello fellow non-Black tumblr users. welcome to my saw trap. if you’d like to leave, please name one (1) Black woman author who is not Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, bell hooks, Octavia Butler, or N.K. Jemisin. bonus points if she’s published a book in the last five years.

queeranarchism:

theunitofcaring:

saying “you are a burden on society” is just such a weird framing of priorities

It’s like saying “wow, think how much better gas mileage your car would get if you weren’t sitting in it” or “think how dry that umbrella would be if you weren’t holding it in between you and the rainstorm”.

the things we create? they’re for us. they are meant to carry us. they are meant to protect us. we are meant to hold them up to keep us dry. 

why do we even have a society if not to take care of each other?

(via leftwiththeriver)

anartificialsatellite:

I just think it’s possible to think certain things can be bad, bad, very bad and still think that the response to them needs to be handled in a particular manner that aligns with ones values and principles.

(via edenfenixblogs)

gerrysherry:

shooting-stars-andsatellites:

gerrysherry:

shooting-stars-andsatellites:

gerrysherry:

shooting-stars-andsatellites:

edenfenixblogs:

chutzpahchesed:

place that literally makes bagels: we can’t work in conjunction with the JCC running a charity event for their food pantry because it might look like a “political statement” sry

he then apologized, but this whole thing is the epitome of how deranged people have become.

so as a reminder, the bagel 🥯:

Date: 3/9/25

Note: Anyone blaming Isaac’s bagels for their actions is missing the point entirely. This didn’t happen because Isaac’s is bad or cowardly. This happened because antisemitic sentiment is so high that existing in and around Jewish spaces in any way has become politicized. This is not a sustainable way for any of us to live. And those people creating such an antisemitic environment do not want to sustain the lives of Jews. They want to make being Jewish an inherent evil that gets us all killed. Can y’all even see the knots you’re twisting yourselves in to call us evil?

This is literally my local bagel place and this shit has been just a taste of what it’s been like to live as a Jew- regardless of one’s expression of one’s own beliefs- in the Research Triangle for a year and a half now. I’m fucking tired y'all.

unc has been a fucking nightmare where they said the students imprisoned for trying to build a jew free encampments are the real hostages and those kept by hamas could die

I called the lawyer the SIDEWALK CHALK (children ass protest) asked to harass, I left a voicemail that he better convict them of serious time partislly because less people that want to kill but also to spite the sidewalk chalker specifically

Mishpacha, I mean this with the utmost sincerity and good faith because I am actually staff at UNC (albeit away from the undergraduate population): what are you talking about, and do you have a source for this?

I know a professor got pushed down the stairs of the library during one of the protests after arguing with demonstrators. I know we were all told to go home early on spring LDOC due to an arson threat on a Jewish frat house. I had seen some sidewalk chalk stuff that definitely moved into blood libel territory. I know the encampment was broken up by police. But what you’re saying is news to me.

(Granted, I have not been in the loop as much because once I saw that Jews were only welcome in the campus protests when they were ten toes down for all of SJP’s messaging, I made the decision to direct my energy and attention elsewhere. So, I could be missing something.)

This shit right here

It was in a park near my house. I always assumed they were HELD IN JAIL on the charges

So, some of them took plea deals and got community service, but all the remaining charges were dropped:

District attorney dismisses remaining charges from April 30 pro-Palestine protest

Police officers made 39 arrests following the Gaza Solidarity Encampment in April on Polk Place. District Attorney Jeff Nieman dismissed the

District attorney dismisses remaining charges from April 30 pro-Palestine protest -

I’m of the opinion that the chalk you had a picture of asking people to call the DA on behalf of the charged students doesn’t constitute condoning/encouraging harassment. The DA is a public figure and the public has a right to contact them to express their wishes (assuming such contact does not constitute making threats), as they are an elected official. That’s just my two cents. (I’m also of the mind that getting the cops involved in the first place over taking a flag down was both a moral and tactical failing, but that’s just my opinion.)

What about the first assertion re: “Jew-free” encampments? I’ve heard of stuff approaching that/implicitly excluding Jewish students who aren’t in total agreement with SJP/other org.’s platforms, but not at UNC.

Like, yes, being on campus during this definitely had me on edge and feeling unwelcome/needing to be very careful about how I moved among the rest of the university even though I agree with the main planks* of the protest. And that sucked. It is exhausting. But I also think it’s important from a *purely strategic* point of view that Jews who are critical of some of the tactics and messaging of the protests need to provide concrete support for any allegations of wrongdoing/crossing lines on the part of the protestors. Otherwise it’s just giving the current fascist regime more leverage to do authoritarian shit and further fracturing our ability to have our concerns and critiques taken seriously.

(*The planks to which I’m referring are that the US is aiding and abetting Israeli military crimes against humanity and all that shit should stop.)

really?!

I just assumed the reason they were arrested was thst sjp “take over a hall, take hostages and try to kill jews” mania had spread to UNC too and never did my research

thanks for the callout

My two cents is that if you’re inciting hate crimes with your words then yoy should be in jail as much people who committed the crime

And if your method of freeing Palestine is pushing a Professor down stairs then unless I vocally dissavow that I am complicit in your attempted murder

again my opinion

sorry for being ignorant

Sorry, didn’t mean to frame it as a callout. Just wanted to compare notes on what I’ve seen versus what others have seen/express my opinions.

I agree with you to an extent- but the incitement to hate crime portion has to be clearly defined otherwise we risk falling into the trap of “speech out of line with what those in power want is hate speech.”

The professor thing shook me up ngl- I would hazard a guess as the offspring of two former federal prosecutors that “attempted murder” would be a stretch and the charge would more likely be assault or battery. Still I agree with you it’s a shitty thing to do (granted I wasn’t there so idk what the lead up to it looked like) and certainly does nothing to help actual Palestinians.

The professor and the arson threat were the only definable acts of violence I am aware of as a UNC staff member. That doesn’t mean that the environment has been generally hospitable to Jews (unless they are vocally toeing the line set by SJP) but I fear the fascists in the government rn have been seizing on, like, the Hamilton Hall janitors getting trapped and harassed at Columbia and the call at one of the UC schools (I think UCLA) to remove Hillel from campus to frame this as much more physically violent than it actually has been.

Thanks for being willing to listen to a fellow Triangle Jew- this honestly made me less tired than I had been feeling since I saw the Isaac’s story break local containment 💖

No need to apologize, mishpacha- being willing to accommodate new data in your perspective should be celebrated + praised. None of us get it right 100% of the time.

If you ever want a seder or Shabbat buddy and the Durham-Chapel Hill corridor isn’t too much of a schlep, DM me and we can meet for coffee to discuss particulars!

gerrysherry:

shooting-stars-andsatellites:

gerrysherry:

shooting-stars-andsatellites:

edenfenixblogs:

chutzpahchesed:

place that literally makes bagels: we can’t work in conjunction with the JCC running a charity event for their food pantry because it might look like a “political statement” sry

he then apologized, but this whole thing is the epitome of how deranged people have become.

so as a reminder, the bagel 🥯:

Date: 3/9/25

Note: Anyone blaming Isaac’s bagels for their actions is missing the point entirely. This didn’t happen because Isaac’s is bad or cowardly. This happened because antisemitic sentiment is so high that existing in and around Jewish spaces in any way has become politicized. This is not a sustainable way for any of us to live. And those people creating such an antisemitic environment do not want to sustain the lives of Jews. They want to make being Jewish an inherent evil that gets us all killed. Can y’all even see the knots you’re twisting yourselves in to call us evil?

This is literally my local bagel place and this shit has been just a taste of what it’s been like to live as a Jew- regardless of one’s expression of one’s own beliefs- in the Research Triangle for a year and a half now. I’m fucking tired y'all.

unc has been a fucking nightmare where they said the students imprisoned for trying to build a jew free encampments are the real hostages and those kept by hamas could die

I called the lawyer the SIDEWALK CHALK (children ass protest) asked to harass, I left a voicemail that he better convict them of serious time partislly because less people that want to kill but also to spite the sidewalk chalker specifically

Mishpacha, I mean this with the utmost sincerity and good faith because I am actually staff at UNC (albeit away from the undergraduate population): what are you talking about, and do you have a source for this?

I know a professor got pushed down the stairs of the library during one of the protests after arguing with demonstrators. I know we were all told to go home early on spring LDOC due to an arson threat on a Jewish frat house. I had seen some sidewalk chalk stuff that definitely moved into blood libel territory. I know the encampment was broken up by police. But what you’re saying is news to me.

(Granted, I have not been in the loop as much because once I saw that Jews were only welcome in the campus protests when they were ten toes down for all of SJP’s messaging, I made the decision to direct my energy and attention elsewhere. So, I could be missing something.)

This shit right here

It was in a park near my house. I always assumed they were HELD IN JAIL on the charges

So, some of them took plea deals and got community service, but all the remaining charges were dropped:

I’m of the opinion that the chalk you had a picture of asking people to call the DA on behalf of the charged students doesn’t constitute condoning/encouraging harassment. The DA is a public figure and the public has a right to contact them to express their wishes (assuming such contact does not constitute making threats), as they are an elected official. That’s just my two cents. (I’m also of the mind that getting the cops involved in the first place over taking a flag down was both a moral and tactical failing, but that’s just my opinion.)

What about the first assertion re: “Jew-free” encampments? I’ve heard of stuff approaching that/implicitly excluding Jewish students who aren’t in total agreement with SJP/other org.’s platforms, but not at UNC.

Like, yes, being on campus during this definitely had me on edge and feeling unwelcome/needing to be very careful about how I moved among the rest of the university even though I agree with the main planks* of the protest. And that sucked. It is exhausting. But I also think it’s important from a *purely strategic* point of view that Jews who are critical of some of the tactics and messaging of the protests need to provide concrete support for any allegations of wrongdoing/crossing lines on the part of the protestors. Otherwise it’s just giving the current fascist regime more leverage to do authoritarian shit and further fracturing our ability to have our concerns and critiques taken seriously.

(*The planks to which I’m referring are that the US is aiding and abetting Israeli military crimes against humanity and all that shit should stop.)

quasi-normalcy:

voltaspistol:

Not an invitation to cocoon yourself in a self-care bubble for four years, but a reminder to the 24/7 worriers that you can literally write “To Do on Monday: Worry about ________” on a post-it note and stop worrying about it for one day while you recharge.

Another point: Both your mental health and your ability to resist will be improved by finding a community. A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved. And apes together strong.

(via historicity-was-already-taken)

gerrysherry:

shooting-stars-andsatellites:

edenfenixblogs:

chutzpahchesed:

place that literally makes bagels: we can’t work in conjunction with the JCC running a charity event for their food pantry because it might look like a “political statement” sry

he then apologized, but this whole thing is the epitome of how deranged people have become.

so as a reminder, the bagel 🥯:

Date: 3/9/25

Note: Anyone blaming Isaac’s bagels for their actions is missing the point entirely. This didn’t happen because Isaac’s is bad or cowardly. This happened because antisemitic sentiment is so high that existing in and around Jewish spaces in any way has become politicized. This is not a sustainable way for any of us to live. And those people creating such an antisemitic environment do not want to sustain the lives of Jews. They want to make being Jewish an inherent evil that gets us all killed. Can y’all even see the knots you’re twisting yourselves in to call us evil?

This is literally my local bagel place and this shit has been just a taste of what it’s been like to live as a Jew- regardless of one’s expression of one’s own beliefs- in the Research Triangle for a year and a half now. I’m fucking tired y'all.

unc has been a fucking nightmare where they said the students imprisoned for trying to build a jew free encampments are the real hostages and those kept by hamas could die

I called the lawyer the SIDEWALK CHALK (children ass protest) asked to harass, I left a voicemail that he better convict them of serious time partislly because less people that want to kill but also to spite the sidewalk chalker specifically

Mishpacha, I mean this with the utmost sincerity and good faith because I am actually staff at UNC (albeit away from the undergraduate population): what are you talking about, and do you have a source for this?

I know a professor got pushed down the stairs of the library during one of the protests after arguing with demonstrators. I know we were all told to go home early on spring LDOC due to an arson threat on a Jewish frat house. I had seen some sidewalk chalk stuff that definitely moved into blood libel territory. I know the encampment was broken up by police. But what you’re saying is news to me.

(Granted, I have not been in the loop as much because once I saw that Jews were only welcome in the campus protests when they were ten toes down for all of SJP’s messaging, I made the decision to direct my energy and attention elsewhere. So, I could be missing something.)