Looking for some fanfic? Most of what I have around here is POTC, but there are a few others, and you're welcome to check it out and leave feedback, critique, whatever. All I ask is you keep it civil.

Under the cut are my stories, in no particular order. I have sorted them into a few broad categories, and I've put no rating warnings in the very brief descriptions of each - each individual story/drabble has its own disclaimer, summary, rating, and the like.

( Doesn't matter if you take the red pill or the blue pill, you end up under the same cut )

I have so much I'm angry about, just "going on in this country" stuff, if anyone wants to read it later, I'll post.

No time right now.

It's pretty late so I'm not going to say much right now about DMTNT, except that I liked more parts of it than I didn't like, so I might see it again.

Tell me in the comments what you thought of it, what you liked and didn't like. Please!

SPOILERS IN COMMENTS (if anyone replies) ...

I was scrolling the hashtags for POTC the other day on Tumblr, looking for some good promo photos or meta from the upcoming fifth movie, when I came across a fairly mild attempt at inciting, about Elizabeth and Will being the most useless characters in the movies. My feelings in order of having them, which might say more about how many years it's been since the fandom wank over the first three movies, were:

1. I wouldn't say "useless," considering their actions drove the storyline right behind Barbossa's

2. There are points where each, in turn, are literally the audience's "viewpoint" character into the world inside the movie; you may not like one or both, but I would say they have usefulness

3. A moderate amount of Jack Sparrow goes a very long way, believe me - if you don't, watch the fourth movie, because as good as Sam Claflin is, Phillip just doesn't have the curbing influence over Jack's character that Will does as straight man (I admit my attitude toward Johnny has changed A LOT in the 14 years since the original hit theaters, and downward, but even then I said Jack is not a character who needs an entire movie about him)

4. Finally I got to hey, quit bashing Will, man

Hopefully if there's a resurgence in the POTC fandom online as a result of this movie - and there might not be, considering all the many franchises out there that have frankly had more consistent and better quality track records - we won't see the level of bashing and hatred that came to infuse it post-DMC. We can do without a repeat of all that.

So I suppose this will become my chief home, instead of LJ. I'm still importing comments and entries, but that should be done shortly. I will also be transferring over turningpirate.dreamwidth.org - not sure as the main site or as a backup to LJ. I haven't decided on that one yet - it's not used for personal political and social views, just fandom, so I might leave it where it is as the "home" base. At least for now.

If you knew me on LJ and want to friend me, feel free. If you're DW-only or from Tumblr and know me from either, go ahead and friend me, too.

If you don't have a DW account and you want one and to keep following me, please sign up for one. I cannot guarantee that I won't leave LJ altogether at some point. I've not really let the Russian ownership of LJ bother me as much as some others have for the last several years ... but then again, the political climate of my country hasn't been in the past several years what it is now, and Russia hasn't had such a big hand in trying to muscle into our business as a nation.

We'll see what happens ...

This won't be a long entry. It's about my friend MT. She technically has an LJ account, though I don't know if she still reads this platform; a lot of people don't. I don't mind if she reads this, I'm just observing she might not.

MT is still alive. She won't be for too much longer, according to her doctors. She's been battling cancer on and off for the past five years, roughly - I think that's right, but it's definitely been since after Congress passed the ACA, or "Obamacare," in 2010. MT hasn't had employment that provides her with health insurance, so she's either had to pay for her own care or just go without seeing a doctor, which I suspect is what she did before the ACA kicked in. At any rate, it was in full force when she was first diagnosed with cancer and she gives its funding credit for being able to get treatment and surgeries, and stay alive. "Thanks, OBAMA," indeed.

While the ACA isn't perfect, it's helped a lot of people like MT with both serious health care and preventive doctor visits, that they couldn't afford before it. And being able to access means of basic health and staying alive should be a human right we don't even think about granting. Yet in this country a lot of the same people who have hijacked Jesus Christ as the hood ornament for their political juggernaut eschew Christ's New Testament's basic principles of caring for fellow humans - especially those down on their luck - via help with obtaining nutritious food, shelter, water, clothing, and care for their bodies and minds.

It does not fail my notice that a lot of liberals who are in favor of spending taxpayer funds on these sorts of things identify as agnostic, atheist, or something other than Christian (not all of them do, of course, and maybe not even the majority - Diane, who died several years ago and was on LJ, was very liberal but also very dedicated to going to a Christian church and studying the principles of her Lord ... and then trying to carry them out as she was able). Just saying.

I read a WaPo article yesterday analyzing the CBO report on the GOP ACA replacement proposal, called the AHCA (I suspect the similarity of acronyms is entirely intended, to confuse GOP voters who actually rely on ACA but were too fucking stupid after 6 years of exhaustive news coverage to know "ACA" and "Obamacare" are the same thing, and voted against Obamacare because it had Black Devil's name attached to it ... and yes, I think even the congenitally and willfully stupid both deserve publicly funded health care just as I or anyone else does). It outlined the facts of the report, as well as comments from both Republican and Democrat lawmakers regarding it.

What struck and bothered me was the almost gleeful response Paul Ryan and others on the right of the GOP were having to the news about the "cost savings" projected over 10 years if it is enacted. Totally ignored was the millions of people who would lose health coverage. Totally ignored was the fact these "savings" would mostly be going to people who don't need tax cuts, in the form of tax cuts - the wealthy. Totally ignored was any sense of morality or ethics or public service AT ALL.

Look, I know there are people who don't work because they don't want to, and they milk the welfare system, while we're all out scraping and clawing to earn a buck. I also know those are nowhere NEAR the majority of human beings, or Americans, and I'm willing to finance a small percentage of those people in exchange for being able to provide humanity to everyone. It sure would've been nice if more voters and lawmakers would have felt that way over a decade ago, when I was working three jobs and none of them provided health coverage, and I couldn't afford the $600 a month for COBRA so I just didn't go to the doctor for many years.

MT told me earlier this year that she was largely at peace with death. She also joked (joked? serious? I don't know) that it's good she's dying now, since the Republicans seem hellbent on taking away any sort of health coverage anyway that she would need going forward if she were live past the time her doctors have surmised for her. So, for this and for many other things I've had to watch over the past few decades, especially the last two ... if you're a Republican reading this and you voted especially for these cocksuckers in November: FUCK. YOU.

Hello darkness, my old friend. I thought you were banished in late 2008, when my fellow white voters proved they might be xenophobes, they might still be racists, but at least they were cognizant enough of basic economics to be frightened by any more years of warmongering, wealthy-enhancing Republican policies leading to another crash like the one that September, that they were willing to give a nearly unknown black man a chance at the wheel.

Speaking of said man, judging by the photos that've come out, I have never been as happy to go on vacation as the Obamas. That man dropped back to his mid-40s in those photos; I swear his hair wasn't even gray anymore. (Never take my favorable judgments to mean that I think he's perfect. There are things I feel like he could've fought harder for and things he continued or started that I didn't care for, but the difference between someone like him and a Dubya or a Trump or a Nixon is I felt like he was making an effort to do the best he could for the country as a whole. Ditto with Joe Biden, who I've actually developed more respect for in the past decade than I had in the mid-2000s, to be honest.)

So much now just seems like ... well, insult to injury. Doesn't it? Trump and his cronies/handlers/masters (because I can't figure out WHAT Bannon and Conway are to him, to be blunt) just come across as working as hard as they can, as fast as they can, to fuck over the ideals of equality and liberty and justice. And the Republicans in Congress are fairly coming all over themselves to help. My Republican senator's voicemail catches his messages these days. I can still reach my Democrat one and House rep, of course, but I'm not sure how much good it does to preach to the choir when the choir is the voting minority.

Let's see what the latest is. Transgender people are being kicked out of the public restroom of their choosing. It almost makes me want to go use a men's room just to see what happens, except men's rooms are usually grosser than women's (there was a time when I was still ignorant enough to make trans jokes about 20-some years ago, and also worked at Taco Bell and had to clean the restrooms, when I would've cracked wise that the reason so many men wanted to identify as female was to avoid going into the men's room). I remember having to cover events as a journalist 17 years ago and regularly being at the same things as this one transgender reporter for another publication, and nearly every time having to use the bathroom while she did as well. I didn't know enough at the time to use "she" and "her" properly, and I still wasn't bothered by being in the same room with her/him/her (as I switchingly called her) while I adjusted my bra or washed my hands. She was usually trying to figure out makeup or fuss with her scarf and didn't give a damn about looking at me anyway.

I mean, shit son. I would tell people who are uncomfortable with the idea of being in a public bathroom with someone who has or had different genitals at some point, stop thinking about things you've no right to anyway, and the problem disappears. You're welcome.

We also have the protesters removed from the Dakota Access pipeline site. My sister showed me a photo last night of the ground there set fire; it was the saddest thing I've seen in a while. Just the whole situation is incredibly sad and frustrating. Here we have the same thing that's going on almost with Keystone XL - a very few people stand to make a profit from it, so it's being sold falsely as a job-maker and money-maker for the wider populace. What's really going to happen is either/both of them ARE going to leak or burst or be damaged at some point and WILL contaminate the ground and water and wildlife being attempted to be protected, and the owners will not be charged nearly enough as a fine to punish them or make them want to close up shop and remove it. That's what sad; the frustrating part is knowing all this and watching it unfold at the hands of crooks and opportunists put in power by 60-some-odd million of the dumbest motherfuckers I have the misfortune to call my fellow citizens. I have, in my life, known many conservatives and for most of my life I was able to get along with them despite our differing opinions and tastes; even when Dubya was in office, while I was angry with them, I could still get along and find common grounds.

Now? I have lost all patience, all care, and all give-a-damn. I'm nearly 45 and I'm through with making nice and giving people the benefit of the doubt. You didn't vote for Trump because you're racist and you did it in spite of him being a racist pig? Too bad; you're a goddamn racist. Own the title. You voted for Trump but you say you wish he'd stop tweeting because he says stupid shit? THAT'S BECAUSE HE THINKS THAT EXACT STUPID SHIT AND ACTS ACCORDINGLY - if you only have a problem with what he says out loud but not with the thought and non-speech actions that stem from that reasoning, you are a useless cunt. Pretty much the only way I get along with people I have to, that I know vote Republican no matter what these days, is by not discussing politics. At ALL. My boss and I don't talk about it (which is pretty odd for newspaper editors, but I assure you it IS doable), for instance.

The one thing that heartens me is that loud people are giving lawmakers an earful, and that there ARE Trump voters who are too ashamed to gloat or even admit to it. I work with an entire office of them. Now, not everybody where I work voted for him. I know this. But the ones I'm reasonably sure did so, have not said one word at least within my hearing range. I don't know if they're ashamed or if they're just not getting exactly what they expected out of him, or they're afraid of being lynched by the rest of us, or what. Whatever it is, I'm good with their self-censure - I hope they keep their goddamn mouths shut about him forever.

So today, Nukie - or "Assclown," as I like to call him - decreed we're going to spend our own money to build a wall between us and Mexico. It matters not that we've been experiencing net loss immigration for years, nor that a wall isn't going to be enough to keep out dedicated invaders, and that it's going to cost a king's ransom and tear up more land that the fence from years ago didn't reach.

Anyone else who had to admit as bad a loss to another country as he's experienced (a former Mexican president literally said the country is not going to pay for that fucking wall) would be suffering for it ... well, anyone else who happened to be brown, or female, or possibly just Democrat. The Republicans have NEVER had to abide by the same rules they impose on everyone else. The last one in that office just started up two wars easy as you please; this one will rob low-income women and other poor people of health care to build a wall that will no doubt enrich his coffers and those of a few friends.

This one will rob the environment of funding to finance whatever government compliance is needed to construct two unwanted and dangerous tar sand pipelines that only benefit a foreign country and provide the U.S. absolutely NOTHING in return - no product, no profit, no strategic advantage.

This one will choke off the flow of publicly-funded information and research so he can vet the data himself ahead of time and carefully control the release of alternate facts to make himself look better ... mainly because he can't get over the fact he will never be as widely beloved as his predecessor, or even as much as that unpopular harridan who used to send emails through her work address about her daughter's wedding plans.

I mean, shit, son. His wife doesn't seem to even like him very much, and two of his children look like they'd rather be anywhere else when in his orbit.

Ah, Nukie. Such naked insecurity on full public display could possibly be either fascinating or sympathy-inducing on a regular guy. You, though; without your family money and now your office, you're just a suburban mom's easily-unlocked gun cabinet away from being a school shooter.

It's a dark day in American history, but I'm looking fabulous in my all-black ensemble which inclues a sparkly trio of cats on my chest (courtesy of my dad's girlfriend as a Christmas gift). I may be pissed off, but there's no reason to look poorly doing it.

I'm committed to only checking the newsfeed two or three times today. I don't think it's realistic to ask people to not look at ALL, because I want to know if there's real news going on in the world, but I'm going to endeavor not to give Nuclear Cheeto more clicks and hits today. Because attention is what he craves and I've no desire to facilitate THAT.

I bought myself a small breakfast burrito and TWO small iced coffees at BK this morning; it's going to be a LONG day. Fortunately I have a job to keep me busy; unfortunately, it's in news, so I can't escape the day's events entirely. I have, however, so far overseen several weeks of news stories following the election, some of which have been about Cheeto, and am glad to say I think they've been fair (meaning, not filled with effusive praise, some quoting people with real concerns about him - which in the professional circles I run, is hard to come by for any Republican). I'm doing my small part for journalism in the Age of Lies.

So, what are you all wearing? Are you staying away from social media mentions of Cheeto?