#Lying and hypocrisy run in the family

[allycat75]

Hey, Ivan, is this what it looks like from the hole you keep digging?

I am sure you appreciate the green leaves, you dumb fuck!

#Getting worse by the day #People are starting to not like you just as much as you don't like you #It's a family affair #can you get a group rate on therapy because y'all need some serious help #Boundaries! #Lying and hypocrisy run in the family #i think you split your family apart #Situational ethics #Collateral damage be damned #Was it worth it?

[free-and-to-none-accountable]

Posted on September 2, 2022 by Rybyn Z.

The meeting went off the rails when I got a text and an email from one of the early elementary teachers. The managers were lying to our faces. Everyone must have gotten the same messages, because my coworkers’ voices started to rise, their tone grew angry, and they stopped respecting management’s “meeting norms.”

Our in-person school year had ended a week before, but management insisted on a virtual “follow-up” meeting. So, everyone dutifully logged on at 9:00 am. The regional director and his crony were waiting patiently. In an act worthy of Broadway, the DMV regional director, with a too-bad-so-sad tone, announced that our principal and assistant principal had “left to pursue other opportunities.” There was no one to replace them yet.

I work at a neighborhood charter school in Washington DC. Most students come from low-income or middle-income Black and Latinx families. Just a few months before I started working there, the board that owns the school switched charter management companies to a renowned national charter “turnaround” company based on the notorious Mind Trust’s model. Often credited as creating the blueprint for privatizing urban education, it helped spawn the company that now oversees my school. Mismanagement, exploitation, and hypocrisy were in the company’s DNA. Originally founded in Indianapolis (like the Mind Trust), the company grew until it spread all the way to Washington DC, where a charter market already thrives.

Staff, students, and families were already reeling from a traumatic year. So the announcement about the administration team blindsided us. While many of us did not like the principal and assistant principal—or, like myself, believe we could do without them altogether— we all agreed that they cared for the school community.

Meanwhile, the company had nearly run the school into the ground through mismanagement and financial profiteering schemes. They fired teachers while we were desperately understaffed, revoked already-earned bonuses for changing jobs, and did shady things to raise test scores. These were only the most glaring of a whole host of issues threatening to overwhelm and destroy the school.

So, we were all a little more than suspicious. The atmosphere was tense. A few staff members pressed the regional director for firm answers about our former leadership team—and received dodgy replies. One of the workers then asked, “Were they let go, or did they choose to leave?” over and over again. Eventually, the regional director paused for a few seconds, then—finally—said, “They chose to leave.”

That’s when I, and nearly everyone else, got the text message from the early elementary teacher. It was just an image thumbnail. Inside was the principal’s termination letter, sent by the director hosting the meeting.

It was too much. Under unbearable pressure, we exploded.

One of the teachers opened with a salvo about the terrible, contradictory communication and chaos. She ended with, “The 4:30 dismissal time has got to go.”

Our “offer letters” (we don’t have contracts) specified our roles and hours. We all got paid for eight hours a day while the company enforced nine-hour days—and most teachers worked longer to barely keep up with the crushing workload. All year, the workers had expressed disgust with these policies. Several times, workers took direct action against them. Most of the time, teachers just refused to do the bullshit busy work admin gave out, and the company couldn’t do much about it. Thanks, Great Resignation.

Another worker, an English Language Learner specialist, demanded to know if support staff who’d been thrown into different roles, sometimes multiple times a day, would be paid for their extra work. The director kept sidestepping our questions. He said to get paid, they needed to pull the records from the overflowing staff group chat, where people begged for classroom coverage all year. Several workers then pointed out that this group chat, owned by the former principal, was deleted. He had no answer for us, and we knew it. Even though we were on Zoom, I could feel the rage bubbling up. The school’s social worker then cut the higher-up off, “You all have come into a community dealing with immense trauma without thinking about what the community needs at all. Where is the support from this company? We only see y’all once a month!” 

This had been something that agitated everyone on the shop floor all year: the company flew a couple of rich white people into DC for two days each month, then straight back home. She laid into them for five more minutes.

As she talked, and as several teachers came off mute to support her and launch into their own tirades, I realized this was an opportunity to unite the staff and build power. I’d built up a committee in the first few months of the school year that took some direct actions. But without a proper formalized structure beyond a group chat, the committee only represented my immediate coworkers, and ultimately dissipated as understaffing at our school got worse and worse. It had felt like many workers at the school were content to take it on the chin and keep moving. That was incorrect. A deep rage extended across every grade band and role.

The task I’d struggled with was building a formal committee that met outside work hours. With the help of two external organizers from the IWW’s DC, Maryland, and Virginia Education Workers Organizing Committee and the Southern Coordinating Committee throughout the year, I accumulated the knowledge and skills I needed to do that. Here was an opportunity to apply that knowledge.

I noticed that several people had replied to the email the early elementary teacher sent, expressing anger and betrayal.

I hopped into the thread and sent a message venting my own feelings and asking if anyone wanted to form a group chat to discuss how to make a change in the workplace. Along with that, I whipped up a google form asking for contact info and platform preference—about ten people filled it out. 

Workers were still on the meeting yelling at the regional director, by the way. The meeting was supposed to end by 10:00 am. It was now 10:30. Our office assistant took the mic.

“The old logo is still on the building, the same color scheme from before, too. How is this company going to support rebranding?”

The director shifted a little bit, seemingly uncomfortable with giving us information about how the company works, “the operations team helps, but really it’s up to the school board.”

The worker shot back, “We need an action item here. You said operations, does that mean the school leadership, the board, or the company makes that decision? I’m leaving so someone else needs to connect those dots.”

She received vocal and written support from staff, and kept pressing her demand until management caved and agreed to weekly meetings with worker input.

Soon, staff members turned to berate management for abandoning us. No counselor, no substitutes, and a stream of overworked, underpaid staff members running for the door had taken their toll. Our social worker spoke out again, “We desperately need a counselor. Why do we not have a counselor?”

“It all depends on enrollment, I’m sorry to say. That’s where the funding comes from, and with the school in a deficit, we can’t afford to backfill positions.”

One of the teachers—a 20-plus-year teaching veteran not to be played around with—took her turn to criticize not just the company, but the invisible board who hired them.

“I see where they’re all coming from. We felt like the stepchild of the company, like we were never a part of it as a school community. And it feels like that with the board, too. I feel like they never see the work teachers are doing in the building. We need to let the community back into the building to see what’s going on. We need a commitment to a counselor.”

“It all depends on enrollment…”

Meanwhile, I was setting up our committee’s group chat and collaborating with coworkers to set up the infrastructure to keep ourselves together over the summer. I gathered non-work contacts. 

The same teacher responded to the director’s vague answers: “We don’t know where any of this information comes from! Why is there no money? Are we non-profit or for-profit? I know y’all probably came into DC thinking this was a hot money-making market for you with all the charter schools. But you don’t seem to realize that these other charter companies at least offer more resources. Two Rivers, DC Prep, and Friendship do that, why not y’all?”

I called the company out for doing nothing to cover the school’s deficit. Enrollment numbers had dropped over the pandemic, meaning less funding from the DC government while expenses rose. The higher-up and I got into an exchange where he tried to evade my questions, and I kept bringing up the same points. He fell back to the same “it’s up to the board, government, and enrollment,” line, so I went back on mute to allow others to speak.

Two more staff members aired grievances about being thrown into different positions with no warning. At that point, it was 11:00, and the regional director claimed he had another meeting he had to join. I wonder what he said about us afterward.

There are a couple of lessons to draw from this experience. One is that having a formal committee that represents the workplace is essential. Two, spontaneous direct actions by workers can win gains and catalyze a solid organizing committee.

During the 2021-2022 school year, my coworkers and I were able to win certain concessions from management through loosely coordinated direct actions. For example, our ex-principal imposed an attendance policy that collectively punished the staff for the late arrivals of only a few (and those workers were only late consistently because of terrible conditions). Throughout the next day, groups of workers would go down to the office to protest—spurred on by everyone else cheering them on. We won.

Even so, most of the tangible organizing only happened in my department—the 3-5th grade instructional team. Within our own circle, we were strongly critical of the principal. Eventually, one of the 3rd-grade teachers even lead us in writing up a formal complaint against them. But after consolidating a committee representing K-2, 3-5, para-educators, and food service staff, I discovered there was a significant minority of staff who loved our principal and assistant principal. The two of them being fired was what agitated them enough to take action and join the committee in the first place. Without a formal workplace-wide committee, we couldn’t see that. I had to readjust my perspective.

Our spontaneous actions made a difference. This year, we have an official eight-hour workday, more robust curriculum support, and a seemingly much more competent leadership team. Less concretely, management has tread a lot more lightly around us. It’s obvious they want to do more to control and discipline their human capital stock, but can’t because they know we might bite back, and hard.

Not only that, but the committee I formed survived the summer, has a meeting schedule, and is actively gathering contacts in preparation for one-on-one conversations as I write this. Summer whittled us down from ten to five, but I had my first one-on-one just the other day, and management has started to act like their old selves again, so I’m predicting that will change soon.

Contact the IWW today if you want to start organizing at your job. Click here to read more about Rybin Z., the author and organizer.

#iw #useful #organizing

[insufferableprotagonistpoll]

Propaganda why Dean Winchester is insufferable:

Really mean to Cas (called him a child, zero respect for him, calls him family and casts him out when the angels are looking for him), and an absolute dick to Jack (threatening to kill him CONSTANTLY)

>Was a misogynist (loved to call women skanks, bitches, hoes)

>Used gay as an insult multiple time during the show's run (idc if he's gay an homophobic, that's still insulting)

>Beat up his brother for being possessed

>Beat up his brother for losing his soul (not his brother's fault)

>Used dubious consent to get his brother possessed in a different unrelated possession incident after possession was being used (badly...this is supernatural after all) as a metaphor for SA

>Threatened to murder his brother when he was hallucinating (yay we aren't ableist)

>Locked a child up in a box

>Threatened to kill the child he locked up in a box

>Made a creepy, sexual comment about a barely-legal high school girl

>Got the woman and kid he was living with memory-wiped

misogynistic scumbag. theres also a few different times that dean finds teenagers sexy with the most recent and prominent example that i can recall being the scooby doo crossover episode in season 13 where hes super into daphne who in the version they chose for the episode is 15-16 and is interacting with her as if shes a real person cause they got magicked into the episode. he treats everyone around him like shit and the only time the narrative agrees that thats a bad thing is when he has the mark of cain put on him and hes acting no differently than he does usually its just now acknowledged that hes treating others like shit. ive been rewatching the show for shits and giggles with a friend and wow he really does not treat anyone well but i wanna focus on how he treats sam for a second cause dude's hobby seems to be ignoring what his brother wants and lying to sam about doing stuff that directly concerns him the demon blood and souless things are reasonable cause those were both Bad for sam but theyre still part of a wider pattern and the most prominent example of this being when dean tricks sam into letting gadreel possess him and actually gaslights sam about it with the whole ordeal ending when its revealed gadreel lied about who he was and while possessing sam murders a friend of theirs. his voice is just also stupid as fuck im sorry this is just petty but he just sounds like hes trying so hard to be gruff n intimidating but he just sounds like a kid pretending to be batman

Dean’s list of sins is crazy long because of how long the show ran, but the key thing for me is that post-locking Sam in the bunker (season 4 I think?), I just can’t enjoy their relationship anymore. I normally love their sibling dynamic, but Dean’s ultimate worst past-the-point-of-no-return moment for me was demonizing (pun intended) his little brother for being “addicted” to demon blood, which only happened because of a series of events that were either Dean’s or someone else’s fault, not Sam’s. I also really dislike how the fandom treats Dean like this angel (pun intended) who has done no wrong and even tries to justify the MULTIPLE times he’s beaten up and otherwise abused his little brother. Canon Dean is like the polar opposite of fanon Dean: he’s homophobic and racist (jokes about a Black man being sexually assaulted in prison), misogynistic (take a shot every time he calls a woman a slur and you’ll die of alcohol poisoning), and abusive.

Propaganda why the Tenth Doctor is insufferable:

They’re so *edgy*

That one time he committed a genocide by drowning the last children of a near-extinct species (Racnoss) because their mother was evil. The closest anyone ever got to calling him out on it was when Donna noted that his take on a *different* set of weird alien babies (the Adipose) was a lot nicer than last time.

A combination of hypocrisy, sanctimony, and an equally insufferable fanbase. And the dissonance between what he actually does and how the narrative presents it.

#dean winchester #supernatural #the tenth doctor #doctor who #insufferable protagonist poll #insufferable protagonist tournament #tournament poll

[quitealotofsodapop]

Ok but what, exactly, are their reactions to baby Yubei? We know their general opinions but when Yellow Tusk and Peng are first released, there's this baby m9nkey jsut sitting in Azure's paws. A baby moneky that is apparently Wukong's blood daughter, they he had apparently carried. Had been carrying since he sealed them to begin with they soon learn

Azure is pretty much handed baby Yuebei by MK and Mei since he was the only adult around + MK was panicking at the loss of his mentor, dads, and Sandy. Azure figures out quickly from Yuebei's smell that she's Wukong's cub - he also smells Macaque on her, which surprises and disappoints him. The hut on FFM also gives him a clearer picture - many of Wukong's maternity clothes are still lying around the house, theres baby bottles, and a little sun and moon-themed nursery. All things that point towards his two former sworn brethern no longer being the same fighters he knew back then. And even worse, the King he often cared for loving another.

Yuebei's kidnapping was an unexpected, but welcome, addition to the plan. In Azure's palm held the greatest bargaining chip in all of the Heavens - the daughter of Sun Wukong. Containing many the same powers as her birth parent, and ones undiscovered yet.

When the MKrew escape the Scroll, Wukong is snarling like a beast at Azure until he sees that tiny puff of black fur held between his claws... his face goes pale and he drops to his knees like he did to the Jade Emperor millennia ago when his mate was threatened. He instinctively submits to ensure his cub's safety. It was no great feat for Azure to trap the Monkey King back into the Scroll after that (in the show it just took a snap of his fingers). The gang are less accomodating though - MK comes charging at the Brotherhood even as his body contorts painfully from his true monkey side breaking through. Yuebei is pretty much his adoptive baby sister, and he isn't going to let some creep take her as collateral!

Like in canon, their attempts to fight the Brotherhood are in vain. MK flies away screaming for his mentor and his fellow cub. Macaque hears his distress darn near across the country and comes running.

In the immediate aftermath of their release, Peng and Yellowtusk are mega confused why there's a baby monkey in Azure's hands rn?? Until they learn that it's the child of their "traitorous" former brother. Yellow Tusk's face drops, while Peng is amused by having the perfect the hostage. The elephant is the one to point out that the baby monkey can't be allowed to be near any of the fighting less she get seriously hurt (and they lose their hostage).

Azure likely has Yuebei trapped in her own Scroll column (a strangely hefty one he notes), for the time being, and releases her when he's fianlly sitting on the throne.

I'm honestly surprised that the Brotherhood didn't have a bigger reaction to Red Son - given that they likely never knew that their bro DBK had settled down and become a family man. Then again in this au, they don't get to have much of a chance to react.

Azure: "Demon Bull King. It's been many years-" DBK, sees Azure holding Yuebei hostage: "WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH OUR GODDAUGHTER!?" *immediate boss fight ensues*

Red Son ends up not just alerting the Celestial Realm about the Brotherhood's escape, but also tracks down Macaque to tell him exactly what happened to baby Yuebei. Macaque is understandably pissed, despite him and Wukong going through a rough patch. You better believe that the Warrior is seconds from beating down that palace door himself if it means Yuebei stays safe. But he has to focus on finding MK and Wukong rn first.

Macaque does lay it in to MK for a while though, not only out of anger for his poor judgement, but to force him to see his own hypocrisy.

Macaque: "Why would you give the baby to a stranger!? Why couldn't have you waited until I got back?! Or found DBK or the Vixen!?" MK: "I panicked ok!? I just wanted my family back!" Macaque: "I though you said on Camel Ridge you didn't have a family?" MK, still crying: "YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN! I'm just some... thing dumped here. I don't even know who created me!" Macaque, angry tears: "Neither do I! Do I cry about it? No! Because I have a troop! I have a mate! And by the gods, I have cubs of my own now!" Macaque: *pulls MK into a suffocating hug* "And like it or not, that includes you too bud." MK: *starts crying harder, like a little kid again*

Eventually the second fight with the Brotherhood becomes more of trying to stop Macaque from skinning the lion then and there, at least until he hands over Yuebei. Azure given them the choice; Yuebei's life - or the Jade Emperor's.

You can imagine what they choose. Nezha can't even disagree with their choice. (Nezha: "If he lays a claw upon her head, not even the Buddha could stop what I'd do to him.").

Cue MK and Macaque dipping into SWK's Scroll column to get their Monkey King back. And for both of them to have character-shaking revelations.

And ofc back in the Celestial Realm, Azure is sitting upon his conquered throne with Yuebei on his knee. The power of the Emperor corrupting his mind to think of a world where she's his heir, and Wukong his consort, things he only dreamed of half-heartedly. These thoughts become even more frenzied as the other two uncover copies of Wukong's medical reports from Gold Star's office (shared via Lao Tzu); explaining to all three of them just how long Yuebei has been cooking for + Macaque didn't sire her. This reinenforced the corrupted Azure Emperor that Wukong was *meant* to be his Queen, otherwise, why else would Yuebei be born just shy of his release?

(Hint: It's cause Macaque came back and Wukong started trusting others again.)

Yellow Tusk is horrified by Azure's behavior, while Peng just wants to see their leader happy. The palace staff brave enough to stay (notably the Orchard Maidens) are terrified for the baby's and the world's safety.

Yuebei this whole time, is getting increasingly angry at not being able to see her parents or troop, and is about to darn near explode if the "bad kitty" doesn't let her go. Or if the "shiny birdy" doesn't stop teasing her.

#slow boiled stone egg au #lmk aus #stone egg talk #lmk yuebei #yuebei xing #sun wukong #six eared macaque #liu er mihou #shadowpeach #lmk azure lion #lmk golden winged peng #lmk yellow tusk elephant #lego monkie kid #lmk #gif warning

[seraphtrevs]

As previously threatened, here are the BrBa-only characters' love languages (BCS can be found here)

Walt - acts of service It's kind of like his entire identity! He is intensely uncomfortable with people expressing themselves with words, like when Flynn was telling the reporter how great he was. Part of that was the hypocrisy of accepting that praise was a little too much even for Walt, but in general he seems uncomfortable with mushy words. He prefers actions. But I think this is mostly outwardly directed - he's not looking for someone to do something for him, because then he would owe them. His acts of service are as much about control as they are genuine expressions of love (and it is both - I'm not on the Walt-is-incapable of love train. He loves! It's just toxic and destructive!)

Jesse - words of affirmation Jesse's face lights up every time Walt says something even vaguely approving to him. He also reacts very negatively to being told he's stupid - he takes words to heart. I'm sure his parents let him know pretty often how much of a disappointment he was to them, so he needs reassurance of his worth. Too bad no one gives it to him :(

Skyler - quality time Skyler was big on having Hank and Marie over often. She made sure her family ate their meals together. Which is why it was so painful to her when Walt withdrew from their lives - she wants time with him, which she believes she is running out of because of the cancer, and all of a sudden he's gone all the time?

Hank and Marie - gifts From Marie's shoplifting to Hank's minerals, they are both people who clearly enjoy stuff. Marie in particular places a lot of feeling in objects - like the diamond baby tiara was such a silly gift, but you could tell she just felt so much love for her sister and her sister's baby that she had to get something spectacular to show it, even if she had to steal it. Skyler is not a gifts person at all so she is just exasperated by the gesture even before she knew it was stolen

Flynn - quality time He also just wants time with his dad. He's really close to Hank because Hank takes a big interest in him and is seemingly always taking him out and enjoying his company. I disagree that Walt was a terrible father before BrBa - he and Flynn seem to have a pretty good relationship - I don't think Flynn was lying when he wrote this. So just like for Skyler, Walt's sudden disappearance from their lives post-diagnosis really hurt him

#breaking bad #walter white #jesse pinkman #hank schrader #marie schrader #skyler white #flynn white

[starguardianniom]

The trauma of Marinette

So regarding the trauma of Marinette in Derision, I have a few things to say to that.

I sympathize with her, that was horrible to live through that.

Still shouldn't excuse all the stalking toward Adrien she did during the show. Being hurt doesn't and shouldn't make her entitled to disregard entirely another person's entire personal and private life, period, just because she doesn't want to have a repeat of said traumatic experience.

It just makes her look self-righteous, like she got hurt by an idiot before, so the next guy will get his entire life laid out before her eyes so she can make sure she won't get hurt again, nevermind what said guy might have to say about it, he doesn't get a say about it period because he doesn't need to know. Like, seriously?

Marinette is the first to get pissed at her private life being disrespected in any way, so that she goes and cheerfully and proudly boast about how she knows everything about Adrien when she can barely talk to him without wanting to run away half the time in embarassment is just pure hypocrisy. She got scarred by Kim and Chloé, doesn't make her right to go violate Adrien's privacy because of her traumatic experience.

Especially since said traumatic experience could have been avoided in the first place if she had listened to Socqueline, she admits it herself when Socqueline finds her after the fiasco.

She got blinded by love and didn't listen to other people.

Sounds like she didn't learn her lesson, cause she keeps getting blinded by her love and keeps not listening to people over the course of the show, which leads to tons of problems that she could have avoided if she actually learned her lesson in the first place back then.

But basically Derision shows that what Marinette learned in her experience with Kim was that the next time she would fall in love, she would stalk the boy obsessively to unhealthy and creepy degrees, instead of listening to her head and others more when they have concerns over it instead of just going blind and deaf with her heart.

She didn't learn the right lesson at that time.

I mean, she does a lot of stuff in the show that results in things going worse sometimes for her because she still hasn't learned that lesson the first time around. She lied to a lot of people, she hurted some people enough to get them akumatized over it, she manipulated people into letting her do stuff or go to places just because of Adrien, she pretended to be someone else a couple of times, she abused her powers, tons of stuff, a lot for Adrien or involving him in some ways, that he'll probably never know about, and never asked her to do. Like her fights with Lila and Kagami, her lying to her parents and making them lose what was supposed to be a family vacation that they have been saving since she was born to go to Shangai for her great uncle's birthday, then ditching him on his birthday to go stalk Adrien just because she was angry that she didn't know that he was going there at the last minute. Or accidently or deliberately ruining his photo shoots (in Simple Man she was really trying to screw up his fake wings to get an excuse to talk to him again). It's really is problematic, troubling, and past many points, she should have gone to some serious therapy. Because, yikes.

No matter how traumatix an experience was, this will never excuse the idea that stalking someone to hell and back is right in any way.

#ml leaks #ml bible spoilers #ml season 5 spoilers #ml salt #ml bible leak #marinette dupain cheng #marinette salt

[this-acuteneurosis]

What's your opinion on Padme's death? On the one hand, I am intrigued at the idea of love unbalancing Padme and Anakin - the parallel of Anakin burning himself alive in his rage and Padme drowning herself in her misery is very poetic ngl. On the other hand, I just sincerely doubt that a broken heart could kill Former Queen Padme "There’s always a choice! To live in fear – is no life at all" Amidala

My opinion on Padmé's death (and really her whole character) is I have written 450K words of what may end up being upwards of 800K of fic about Padmé being allowed to Do Her Fucking Job with her daughter and her staff of strong and capable female friends/associates, and with Padmé growing and changing as a person and facing her own failings and hypocrisies.

My opinion on Padmé's death is Padmé was a prop in the story of the fall of the Republic and Anakin Skywalker. She was silenced meta-textually and ignored textually. She entered the story as a self-actualized leader learning hard truths and making tough decisions and pushing back against people (esp men) that tried to tell her what to do, and was dragged into a vapid position of malicious compliance and inaction. The story tried to take Anakin's whole, "Are you an angel?" bit and cast her in that archetype. But like, not a cool, righteous, furious angel. No no. She's delicate and pretty and increasingly ineffectual in each movie she stars in.

My opinion on Padmé's death is that the prequels, at the time they were done, were supposed to take us to exactly where the OT picks up in many ways. RotS was supposed to end at a point where we weren't left wondering how Luke and Leia were where they were in ANH. The kids are separated, their parents are gone, there are "no" Jedi left, Obi-Wan and Yoda are already in exile, determined to do nothing.

Apparently Padmé has to die because we can't have a Padmé who's going to fight tooth and nail to retain a semblance of integrity in the Imperial Senate. We can't have a Padmé who tries to rally the remaining political leaders of the Separatists now that Dooku is dead and there's a side not run by a Sith Lord. We can't have a Padmé who is actually a founding member of the rebellion. Who helps track down the remaining Jedi and offers sanctuary on her home planet. Who actually stops walking Anakin's path with him and still makes him confront what he's lost with his decisions. We can't have a Padmé who still chooses to leave her children in someone else's care because she wants them to be safe and actually even if she cares about family a lot, that doesn't immediately make her good mother material.

My opinion on Padmé's death is that Padmé dying is a tidy story device to take us from point A to point B without loose ends, and yes it did make me cry the first time I watched RotS. But no, I do not buy the stupid "she died of a broken heart" bullshit. Have you met Padmé? She doesn't take betrayal lying down. She takes you to court, and if that doesn't work, she comes at you with a blaster. "Died of a broken heart." Bah!

#my soapbox meta #I did like fialleril's suggestion in Double Agent Vader that Palpatine stole Padmé's life force #to prevent Anakin dying #makes sense to me in a for want of a nail way #and was extra vicious and mean #I'd even accept Palpatine stealing Padmé's life to save himself from that whole lightning mess #if we must kill her #which we don't have to #at all #guys

[selfless1978]

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next>

Confrontation

How convenient. He saved her the trouble of hunting him down.

She had saved him for last, mainly because she didn't really know what to do with him. What could she do to get her revenge on this slug she had once loved? Vicky wasn't sure just yet, but she would be damned if she let this chance slip past her to snag an easy mark.

The engine of the bike revved up in the garage of the highly secure office building, wheelied, and then sped out into the night. The helmet hiding determined features. Soon. Soon her revenge would be complete and she could focus on more important things. Her children being one of them.

I've given up On society Up on my family Up on your social disease

Vicky pulled her bike to a stop a couple blocks away and dismounted. After she removed her helmet and set it carefully on the bike, she studied the building. It honestly wasn't much of a place. One of those cheap run down motels you take hookers to. She snorted in disgust. God her ex was so damn pathetic.

Still, she was mildly surprised that he booked something this far out of the city. He came here on vacation after all. Maybe this was all he could afford with his cheating, lying ass. wouldn't surprise her one bit.

I've given up On the industry Up on democracy Done with all your hypocrisy

A familiar figure stepped out of the front door....with another woman. Vicky saw red. He couldn't help her with their children but he could afford to take this tramp out on vacations? He hadn't even done that with her!

That settled things in her mind. He might not live after all. Vicky pulled up her mask and ran silently towards him. Making sure to stay in the shadows of the crappy street lights.

All of the chaos And all of the lies I hate it

There was a snarl under her mask as she drew closer. The pure fury at his transgressions rapidly pushing her good sense to the side.

Then, she was suddenly snapped back to reality and skidded to a stop.

I'm wasting here Can anyone Wash it all away?

Leonardo straightened from his crouched landing from the roof above. His eyes calmly watching her. "Well met, Vicky."

I'm waiting here For anyone To wash it all away

She literally hissed at him, the fury in her eyes now aimed at this interfering reptile. How did he.... Nevermind. He wouldn't get in her way. "Go away. This doesn't concern you."

"I'm afraid I can't let you do this."

"You should be afraid." Vicky laughed bitterly and mockingly. "How long did it take you to dig yourself out?"

He didn't say anything. Just kept watching her as he drew his katana. Leo full well knew she wasn't going to go down without a fight. But he wasn't here just to fight either.

Wash it all away!

They charged each other at the same time. Silent until their swords met with a metallic clash. Vicky's brown eyes glaring their hate over the blades. "Going to try and preach to me some more?"

"No." Leo's voice was calm as he pushed her back. "What good would it do?"

"None!" She snarled at him.

"Didn't think so."

Their blades met again. This time it was a flurry of clashes hitting so violently together that, just as last time, sparks flew all around them. If Leo had any doubts of her skill since their last meeting, they were quickly thrown out.

The biggest difference between this time and the last, was that he thought he understood her reasoning a bit better. In a way, he could sympathize with her. After reading her files, he also felt strangely disappointed at the world around them. After all, hadn't it intruded in his grieving period to bring this woman to his attention?

Vicky backflipped and landed on the roof of a car. Her long coat billowing out around her and flared down to rest around her as she locked those hard eyes on him.

Leo twirled a katana absentmindedly as he walked around the car. His eyes never leaving hers. "What if I told you, I can offer you something better than this life?"

She looked at him incredulously. "You can't be fucking serious." She began to laugh, genuinely laugh. "Oh, please. I'm not falling for that horseshit."

He didn't think she would, but he had to try. Her refusal only made him more determined.

I've given up On the media Feeds my hysteria Sick of living down on my knees

Vicky suddenly lunged at him. This time she led with thrown kunai, which he barely had time to slap out of the way before she was on him with another flurry.

She was definitely a quick one.

The tall woman fought with her anger and pain giving her strength. Unlike Raph's outbursts which usually got him into trouble, Vicky tightly controlled it, using it to her advantage. She was fearless as they fought. Leo was allowed not room for mistake. Despite being backed into a corner, she kept her wits about her and managed to evade his every attempt to pin her.

I've given up On morality Feeds my brutality Fuck what you think about me

For a moment, she gained the upper hand and managed to land a few cuts on his arms. Though nothing serious, it was enough to make the turtle retreat a few steps and regroup.

All of the chaos And all of the lies I hate it

The sneer reformed under her mask. He was just as weak as the system he fought for. Seeming so smug and righteous. Full of shit is what he was. Full of self smug, over lording things over her, shit!

I'm wasting here Can anyone Wash it all away?

He remained calm and focused. Leo could appreciate her skills much more now that he was better prepared for her. She had been trained well by who ever was her trainer. He wondered briefly about her seeming miraculous attributes before he pushed his curiosity to the side and refocused.

The fight was going mostly as he had hoped it would, with him leading her away from the street, away from the hotel, and into a more secluded place. Despite his insistence of dealing with her, he also didn't want innocent bystanders to get hurt. It was a very delicate balance he was forced to juggle at the moment. He genuinely wanted to help this woman stop her rampage but had so much more he also had to consider.

I'm waiting here For anyone To wash it all away

His ice blue eyes never showed any hate or malice towards her. Only a calm determination. Something he didn't know was beginning to unnerve her just a little.

But it was a start.

Wash it all away!

Vicky had to stomp hard on her feelings as she fought this seeming unshakable creature. She didn't see any of that angry annoyance from their first meeting. He was much more controlled now. It was like she was fighting a completely different individual.

Whatever. She still wouldn't just bow down to him either.

I won't change for you And I can't take the pain There's nothing you can do And there's nothing you can say

They broke apart, each stepping back a few paces to catch their breath. She eyed him full of hate while he gazed at her with something in his eyes she couldn't quite explain.

Compassion? Understanding?

For a brief moment, she began to doubt herself and her goals.

She violently shook those thoughts out of her mind before she charged in with a low scream full of her hate of the world around her.

I've given up On everything Up on everything Up on everything!

Her burst of renewed energy overwhelmed him for a moment and she was able to get the upper hand. Forcing him to roll back on his heels as he stood his ground, upsetting his balance. She brought her foot up in a roundhouse kick aimed at his head.

And he caught it....

Even though he was backed against a wall and off balance, he caught her foot.

He was the first individual since she had started her war on the world to actually get a hold of her.

Vicky felt a brief rush of panic. She forgot about hand to hand altogether and pulled out her sidearm, her intent to blast the offending arm.

And just as quick, he let go and spun out of the way as the bullet slammed into the wall where he had been just an instance before.

She had missed? This close to him!?

Vicky quickly gathered herself and spun to face him again. And he was just standing there, calmly watching her. A knowing, small half smile on his face.

He had managed to unnerve her, and he knew it.

Vicky's confidence was finally shaken.

I'm wasting here Can anyone Wash it all away?

The woman abruptly turned away from him and ran.

I'm waiting here For anyone To wash it all away

Leo didn't make any move to follow as he sheathed his katana. His eyes thoughtful as she fled.

Wash it all away!

Not long after, he heard her Motorcycle fire to life and tires squealing as she sped away.

I'm wasting here With everyone Just wash it all away

Vicky was shaking as she drove away, constantly looking in her mirrors to he if there was any pursuit.

There was none.

For some reason, this unnerved her more.

I'm waiting here For anyone To wash it all away

Leo reached a hand up to his earpiece and spoke a single worded question.

"Donnie?"

Wash it all away!

'Affirmative'

Wash it all away!

Only then did Leonardo allow a smile to form on his face.

@raphsweapondealer @raisin-shell @turtle-babe83 @avery73

#Youtube #Evil Vicky

[hologramcowboy]

Also, here is the scan I mentioned few weeks back when an Anon wrote in to say Elta was a pagan. As I wrote in my response, she did indeed teach Sunday school classes when she was dating Riley. Interesting to note how her mom says Danneel never compromised but looking back on her career most of her roles were naked or sex centered especially her early ones. Hypocrisy must run in the family, I suppose Elta had to inherit her manipulative lying from somewhere.

A real religious girl could never do the roles or photoshoots Danneel did so even her religious interests were nothing more than a means to an end. She wanted to have a certain image to land someone like Riley, she did. She manipulate him and then after he gave her everything and was her to marry her, she cheated on him with Jensen and then suddenly left the home they shared. Another interesting thing to note is that there isn't even a mention of a Thank You towards Riley's mom who was, in fact, the one responsible for Elta breaking into showbiz.

#anti danneel

[gossipgirloff1]

Everyone is obsessed with the idea that Kelly has access to maxs account but don’t you think she might unfollow all those naked girls accounts if she did 😂

Also of course she has nannie’s every rich person on the planet has a nanny, what exactly is she going to do when she’s on a photoshoot or at one of the races leave the kid by herself, it’s really not uncommon to have a nanny in that world.

To the other point again of course her posts with max or with max and p get more likes is that really surprising? She gets called an attention seeker for posting max when another anon just came on here and said about kika we don’t care about you just show Pierre, so you literally can’t win either way

I don’t know her as a person maybe she’s awful or maybe she’s lovely but it’s so weird how anons come on and act like they know everything about a person or a situation that they’ve never even come close to meeting.

//

Hi the original anon here that you are referencing to!

The thing is she had access to his account. Max confirmed that. Sophie confirmed that. When max and Kelly got together and confirmed their relationship Kelly was being harassed a lot (I am not condoning what happened to her and it is absolutely correct of her to report and block those pages) but Kelly went on a blocking spree on maxs account as well. She blocked fan pages of his with his account that had nothing to do with the bullying. People went so far and texted Sophie to figure out why they were blocked and she said to text Kelly for that. They texted Kelly and ta da ✨ got unblocked.

And max said it in an interview recently that Kelly has access. But please if she would unfollow those accounts now people would know she was the one to do it and comment on her page about that. That’s attention she doesn’t want.

And the nanny thing. It’s not a problem for me that she has nannies. That’s NOT my issue. My issue is she is denying that she has them. She denies it every time. She does for years. And they take them on holiday too. There are photographs. A lot of them. My issue is her LYING ABOUT IT!

That’s why people keep mention and asking where p is because if Kelly is gone, daniil is gone, max is gone and none of their families is provenly in Monaco, who is watching her? A four year old all alone in an apartment without proper toddler proof?

Kelly wants to look like the huge influencer that needs no man or name or being the [blank] of somebody. Kelly is not. She pays gossip magazines to write articles about her and they keep calling her “the Brazilian super model” sorry? If I hear Brazilian super model I think of Gisele Bündchen or adriana Lima. Not Kelly piquet. Show me where she walks runways recently? Do people know her for herself? Absolutely not. And all the articles she has written mention her in the title and maybe 3 sentences. Then it is about the MEN in her life.

Everything I mention is provable. And again my problem is with her lying and her hypocrisy. Oh and her being a racist.

You are so right anon ❤️

But i want to say something i think Max’s social media accounts are run by his pr team and i don’t think pr teams risk allowing Kelly to block these people because it gives Max a bad look

Do we have any solid proof about the blocking situation ?

#f1 gossip #kelly piquet gossip #max verstappen gossip

[porcelaintoybox23]

I need this out of my system because I saw art and I now ship Adam9s. Philosophizing on humanity and YorHa. Spoilers up to the beginning of ending C route.

***

“You’re just machines! You—you—”

Adam kneels down and looks at him with something akin to pity. There’s nothing crazed in those eyes this time.

“You’re heartless and she’s gone because of you!” His voice cracks on a sob. “Everyone is gone.”

Adam places a hand on his head. He runs his fingers through 9s’s hair and his hand slips down to cup his cheek.

“You know that isn’t true. YorHa attacked the machines based on lies. You killed thousands. They had families, feelings, just like you. This delineation you arbitrarily draw between android and machines is to keep yourself cocooned from the hypocrisy.”

The hand moves to his blindfold and loosens it. He closes his eyes.

“You’re experiencing the pain you’ve inflicted on others. You feel hate, sadness, love, and loss. Killing us won’t fix anything.”

No—

“2b wouldn’t want this.”

9s swings at him, but his hand is caught easily.

“Fuck you!” His chest heaves with barely contained sobs. What does he know? He’s a machine, they don’t feel grief, they can only replicate, nothing but pale imitations—god, who is he lying to? The machine trying in vain to save his brother, the forest soldiers protecting a child, Eve’s self-immolation. How many of them had families, mothers, siblings, partners? What makes their feeling less real than his?

Adam pulls him into a hug. Pushes 9s’s face into his shoulder. “There’s a lot of human literature about cycles and unending vengeance. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.”

The first thing Adam experienced was being attacked and stabbed. The first emotion he learned was hostility and hatred. Did they create the monster in the copied city?

“I’m—I’m sorry.” Tears fall from his eyes and into the sleeve of Adam’s shirt.

“If revenge is something you so desperately seek, then find the machine who created the virus. Innocent people shouldn’t have to suffer.”

***

I’m making a characterization leap here, but I think Adam would chill the fuck out after death. How is he alive here, IDK. How did a bunch of machines pop him out?

#nier automata #9s #nier adam #adam9s #don’t think adam is good here I’m leaning toward slight manipulation #it is absolutely insane to me that instead of just letting them live normal lives YorHa made them kill innocent machines for a lie

[rondo-of-blog]

It's My Blog, I Can Do A Post About A Country Song If I Want To

I'm a big fan of Glen Campbell. I only discovered his work last year, but a lot of it hits a particular moody spot that all my favorite country music does. His performance in his Bloodline album has brought me to tears and helped me through so many tough times.

Tonight I wanna share some thoughts I had about his version of It's A Sin When You Love Somebody from his 1974 album Reunion: The Songs Of Jimmy Webb.

First, a little background. I was raised in the Southern Baptist Christian Church and only got out prior to my sixteenth birthday, which felt like forever but in the grand scheme of things was only a small part of my life in the long run.

During that time, it was impressed upon me the 'sin' of Queerness (homosexuality, sodomy, whatever dry old and stigmatizing words they liked to use for it) and how important it was for me to reject it.

Now, I struggled with that for many years. I just couldn't wrap my head around why it would be so wrong for two people who share a gender to love each other like two people who don't, or why the heck a loving god would even care enough to get upset about it (or worse, as the religious side of my family would have it, condemn Queer people to death as a swift and oh-so-'righteous' punishment for their sin.)

So you can imagine the baggage that a song title like "It's A Sin When You Love Somebody" would carry with it for me. But I've listened to enough of Campbell's music to give this one a shot.

Just as soon as the song begins, a tension is established with the intensity of the instrumentation - evoking visions of holy judgment and scorn, contrasting the guitar that carries with it a tone that almost sounds as if it pleads for mercy.

Campbell's vocals follow shortly after, and this is where I mention how much I adore these lyrics. The first verse goes as follows,

Now the Lord, he'll forgive you for cheating.

And the Lord, he'll forgive you if you lie.

Yes he'll forgive, and he'll help you to live, but he sure frowns down soundly on you and I.

In an instant, we have the core of the song. Cheating and lying are both sinful acts, but ones that God would forgive... unlike, apparently, what the singer and his love have together.

It masterfully illustrates the contradiction of a loving yet vengeful god, whose favor can be gained by some but is unreachable to the singer. Then we have the first time the chorus plays out,

It must be a sin when you love somebody.

Damned if you don't, twice damned if you do.

It must be a sin when you love somebody.

As much as I'm loving you.

All but the final line is sung by Glen Campbell with the accompaniment of a really beautiful choir, with the final line pulling back to just being Glen's voice.

The church-like quality to the choir and its abandonment of Glen at the end as he emphasizes his love for his lover tragically-reinforces the conclusion of the chorus, with that tension from the beginning of the song returning and removing the comforting and beautiful sound of the church choir.

When the second verse begins, we get yet more emphasis on the apparent hypocrisy of this Lord. Not with righteous indignation, but with a sort of resignation.

Now the Lord, he's known for his kindness.

He's always willing to set a sinner free.

He'll save your soul, and he'll make you whole.

But I don't see no angels comin' down, shinin' their light on you and me.

Time and again, the song makes a stark contrast to the love this Lord shares with others that he pointedly withholds from the singer and his love. Their souls are implicitly not saved, and can supposedly not be whole without this Lord's love.

That brings us to the second and final chorus.

Every line is the same as it was last time, though each word is given that much more weight after the second verse's reinforcement of the message, but something changes at the end.

The church-like choir sings as beautifully as it did during the first chorus, but they leave once again for the final line - along with much of the rest of the instrumentation, almost as though we had traveled from Heaven to a lonesome purgatory.

One final time, Campbell sings the all-important second part to this song's statement that it must be a sin if you love somebody...

As much... as I'm loving you...

His voice echoes beautifully in the silence, accompanied only by his guitar. Before the choir returns, Campbell vocally resolves the chorus on a note that has no fear in it. There's no trepidation in his voice, not even in the face of Hell's inferno, only love for his lover.

With the choir returning to fade the song out with a lovely descending "Ooo," the song concludes. Notice anything?

Never, at any point in the song, does the singer ask forgiveness for his love. We get reminders of God's kindness, God's forgiveness, but Campbell never repents for loving the one he loves. Instead, he accepts his fate and doesn't apologize for it.

When I first listened to this song, it brought me to tears. It hit a note in my heart so close to home it almost broke.

Going back to my childhood, I spent many years being so sure I was absolutely going to Hell. I believed there was no amount of repentance that could wash away the sin of who I was, how I couldn't fit into the norms of cisheteronormative society, but that didn't stop me from trying over and over.

It would be many years before I stopped believing, and what followed after was an acceptance I have held onto for dear life ever since. An acceptance that, when I die, I'll be happy with how I chose to live and that's all that really matters.

I won't worry about Heaven or Hell or whichever one of the two I'd end up in if they're even real, because since I left Christianity I've actually been living my life in a way I could truly believe in. I've found the truest love I've ever known, in the years since, and if it takes me to Hell?

I'm okay with that too.

#glen campbell #jimmy webb #country music #lgbtqiap+ reading of a song that probably didn't intend it

[quotesfrommyreading]

Nowadays, less violence is required to misinform the public: There have been no mass arrests in Putin’s Russia on the scale used in Stalin’s Russia. Perhaps there don’t need to be, because Russian state-run television, the primary source of information for most Russians, is more entertaining, more sophisticated, more stylish than programs on the crackly radios of Stalin’s era. Social media is far more addictive and absorbing than the badly printed newspapers of that era, too. Professional trolls and influencers can shape online conversation in ways that are helpful to the Kremlin, and with far less effort than in the past.

The modern Russian state has also set the bar lower. Instead of offering its citizens a vision of utopia, it wants them to be cynical and passive; whether they actually believe what the state tells them is irrelevant. Although Soviet leaders lied, they tried to make their falsehoods seem real. They got angry when anyone accused them of lying, and they produced fake “evidence” or counterarguments. In Putin’s Russia, politicians and television personalities play a different game, one that we in America know from the political campaigns of Donald Trump. They lie constantly, blatantly, obviously. But if you accuse them of lying, they don’t bother to offer counterarguments. When Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine in 2014, the Russian government reacted not only with a denial, but with multiple stories, plausible and implausible: The Ukrainian army was responsible, or the CIA was, or it was a nefarious plot in which 298 dead people were placed on a plane in order to fake a crash and discredit Russia. This constant stream of falsehoods produces not outrage, but apathy. Given so many explanations, how can you know whether anything is ever true? What if nothing is ever true?

Instead of promoting a Communist paradise, modern Russian propaganda has for the past decade focused on enemies. Russians are told very little about what happens in their own towns or cities. As a result, they aren’t forced, as Soviet citizens once were, to confront the gap between reality and fiction. Instead, they are told constantly about places they don’t know and have mostly never seen: America, France and Britain, Sweden and Poland—places filled with degeneracy, hypocrisy, and “Russophobia.” A study of Russian television from 2014 to 2017 found that negative news about Europe appeared on the three main Russian channels, all state-controlled, an average of 18 times a day. Some of the stories were invented (the German government is forcibly taking children away from straight families and giving them to gay couples), but even true stories were picked to support the idea that daily life in Europe is frightening and chaotic, Europeans are weak and immoral, the European Union is aggressive and interventionist.

If anything, the portrayal of America has been worse. U.S. citizens who rarely think about Russia would be stunned to learn how much time Russian state television devotes to the American people, American politics, even American culture wars. In March, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, displayed an alarmingly intimate acquaintance with Twitter arguments about J. K. Rowling and her views on transgender rights at a press conference. It’s hard to imagine any American politician, or indeed almost any American, talking about a popular Russian political controversy with the same fluency. But that’s because no American politician lives and breathes the ups and downs of Russian partisan arguments in the same way that the Russian president lives and breathes the battles that take place on American cable networks and on social media—battles in which his professional trolls and proxies compete and take sides, promoting whatever they think will be divisive and polarizing.

Within the ever-changing drama of anger and fear that unfolds every night on the Russian evening news, Ukraine has long played a special role. In Russian propaganda, Ukraine is a fake country, one without history or legitimacy, a place that is, in the words of Putin himself, nothing more than the “southwest” of Russia, an inalienable part of Russia’s “history, culture and spiritual space.” Worse, Putin says, this fake state has been weaponized by the degenerate, dying Western powers into a hostile “anti-Russia.” The Russian president has described Ukraine as “fully controlled from the outside” and as “a colony with a puppet regime.” He invaded Ukraine, he has said, in order to defend Russia “from those who have taken Ukraine hostage and are trying to use it against our country and our people.”

In truth, Putin invaded Ukraine in order to turn it into a colony with a puppet regime himself, because he cannot conceive of it ever being anything else. His KGB-influenced imagination does not allow for the possibility of authentic politics, grassroots movements, even public opinion. In Putin’s language, and in the language of most Russian television commentators, the Ukrainians have no agency. They can’t make choices for themselves. They can’t elect a government for themselves. They aren’t even human—they are “Nazis.” And so, like the kulaks before them, they can be eliminated with no remorse.

  —  Ukraine and the Words That Lead to Mass Murder

#anne applebaum #ukraine and the words that lead to mass murder #current events #history #politics #russian politics #sociology #psychology #communism #warfare #totalitarianism #journalism #internet #social media #propaganda #holodomor #russo-ukrainian war #2022 russian invasion of ukraine #malaysia airlines flight 17 #russia #ukraine #vladimir putin #kulaks

[parcequecestnotreprojeeeet]

Hi, it’s me, Fanfic Anon #2. Based on everyone’s convos about the Papotin's trailer and Brigitte’s potential response, I wrote this piece. I’m looking forward to his whole answer because the snippet we already got is making me melt even if I’m super angry that someone actually asked that. I’ll probably write something after the interview on Saturday, but for the moment …

(PS - to the Anon mentioning the Elle interview, the quote from Brigitte was: “And by the way, Emmanuel was never in my class. Any fool who claims that I used to read his poems and his homework is lying.”)

She was having a great time watching this interview from her spot safely back in the corner with the cameras and the editor’s bank. While she loves her husband, and is happy to support him in whatever way he needs her, including being there for every major TV interview, some of them were a lot more boring than this one.

But that joy came to a crashing halt when she heard him read out the question (could it even be called that?) passed to him on a sheet of paper: “He is the president, he must set a good example, not marry his teacher.”

She couldn’t breathe. Once again, she could feel the hard, judgment filled stares of everyone around her, could hear the phantom ghosts of the years in Amiens parroting their venom over and over in her head until she wanted to run, to hide. It was a trauma that never really went away, for no matter how much the passage of time had dulled their words and the feelings, one snide remark, one snarky comment, one question like this brought it all back to the surface.

“I never taught him!” she wanted to scream. “He was never in my class!” But she knew that just like those comments had been received previously, no one would listen. No one cared about the truth, about the reality.

For his part across the room and surrounded by others who were a mix of shocked at the audacity of the question or giving approving glances to the contents, he was stewing with rage.

“Set a good example,” he wanted to scoff. Where was this outrage when Hollande fled like a coward from his mistress’ apartment with his silly little jacket and helmet on his silly little motorbike? Or when Sarkosy divorced and remarried within a year - his first year in office? Or how about all the secret families housed at the Élysée? Or affairs that kept the President from actually governing?

But he, a man who has loved and has been faithful to one remarkable woman his whole life, a man who has lived a fairytale (at least, that’s how he would describe it), he gets told he’s the bad example?

He is half a mind to lay into the sexism and ageism underlying the question, or to point out that hypocrisy in blatant cutting words. Another part of him wants to launch into a soliloquy extolling everything he loves about his wife (even if that would take ages) just so someone would maybe finally understand just how of a no-brainer it was for him to fall in love with her. There’s even a small part of him that just wants to call it quits right now and storm out of the interview. He can’t keep putting her through this, can’t keep watching people tear them apart, tear her apart.

But he knows he can’t do any of that. So instead, he settles on the most obvious truth he can think of, the simplest way to express the complexity of his feelings, the depth of his love. “Love is something that is stronger than you, and it transcends you.”

His love for his wife is, was, and will always be stronger than him, just like he knows her love for him is, was, and will always be stronger than her. It’s why, 15 years of marriage later, 2 presidential elections and 5 and a half years in office, 7 grandkids, kids’ weddings and divorces, and happiness and heartbreak, but not in equal measure, they are still together, still as in love now as they ever were, despite whatever stupid comments anyone else makes. Their love is stronger than everything (see - a fairytale).

She can hear him responding despite the buzzing in her ears, knows he’s talking about love, his love for her, she can just hear that word love over the din in her head. It’s enough to keep her grounded for now, return her back to reality where there’s still more questions to go and a lunch afterwards.

After the interview, they second they unmike him he is at her side, whispering, “are you okay?”

Smiling softly at him, she replied, “do you love me?”

“Of course I love you,” he answered her instantly, forcefully.

“Then I’ll be okay,” she stated simply, slipping her hand into his with a gentle squeeze. “As long as you love me, I’ll always be okay.”

Helloooo fanfic anon #2! ❤️

This piece was really beautiful! At some point, I almost forgot I was reading a fanfic and not actually my thoughts... or even their own thoughts!

It’s interesting how we all seem to have reacted the same way with that particular question on the teasing video... really really curious about the all thing.

Thank you so much, fanfic Anon #2! ❤️❤️❤️

#fanfic #fanfic anon 2

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

A former longtime girlfriend of Republican senatorial candidate Herschel Walker has come forward to detail a violent episode with the football star, who she believes is “unstable” and has “little to no control” over his mental state when he is not in treatment.

The woman, Dallas resident Cheryl Parsa, described an intimate and tumultuous five-year relationship with Walker in the 2000s, beginning shortly after his divorce and continuing for a year after the publication of his 2008 memoir about his struggle with dissociative identity disorder (DID), once known as multiple personality disorder.

Parsa, who has composed a book-length manuscript about her relationship with Walker, says she is speaking out because she is disturbed by Walker’s behavior on the campaign trail, which she claims exhibits telltale flare-ups of the disorder she tried to help him manage for half a decade.

“He’s a pathological liar. Absolutely. But it’s more than that,” Parsa, who last had regular contact with Walker in 2019, told The Daily Beast. “He knows how to manipulate his disease, in order to manipulate people, while at times being simultaneously completely out of control.” She said that when she was with Walker, he used his diagnosis as an “alibi” to “justify lying, cheating, and ultimately destroying families.”

Parsa provided a detailed account of a 2005 incident that turned violent after she caught Walker with another woman at his Dallas condo. She said Walker grew enraged, put his hands on her chest and neck, and swung his fist at her. “I thought he was going to beat me,” she recalled, and fled in fear.

Cheryl Parsa and Herschel Walker at a 2005 charity bike ride event. — Courtesy of Cheryl Parsa/Photos by Tiffany Williams

Parsa is one of five women who were romantically involved with Walker who spoke to The Daily Beast for this article. All of them described a habit of lying and infidelity—including one woman who claimed she had an affair with Walker while he was married in the 1990s. All five women said they were willing to speak to expose the behavior of the man they now see running for Senate.

The Daily Beast sent a Walker campaign spokesperson detailed questions for this article. The spokesperson declined to comment.

This is the first time in the campaign that a woman has gone on the record with accusations against Walker. His candidacy, however, has been dogged by other allegations of domestic violence, specifically from a 2008 interview with his ex-wife that resurfaced ahead of his announcement last August.

Parsa’s story comes at a critical moment for Walker, who finds himself in a fight for his political life. Though his campaign was plagued by accusations of serial lies, violent threats, secret children, anti-abortion hypocrisy, and general incoherence, Walker finished only 35,000 votes behind Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) in Georgia’s general election in November. Neither candidate cracked 50%, which set the stage for a runoff to decide the winner on Dec. 6.

“He is not well,” Parsa said. “And I say that as someone who knows exactly what this looks like, because I have lived through it and seen what it does to him and to other people. He cannot be a senator. He cannot have control over a state when he has little to no control of his mind.”

Walker has openly discussed his experience with dissociative identity disorder, most extensively in his 2008 memoir, Breaking Free. He claims to have vanquished his DID; a campaign advertisement this October said he had “overcome” his mental illness, and that same month he said in his only debate with Warnock that he is not under treatment. But DID specialists say the disorder is difficult to control.

Dr. Paul Appelbaum, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University who has not treated Walker, told The Daily Beast that DID is a real but extremely rare disorder, typically treated through intense, regular therapy.

“There’s no medication that treats DID. The treatment of choice is psychotherapy, which typically extends over years,” Appelbaum said, noting that periods of stress can exacerbate the condition. One of the “fundamental principles” of that treatment, he noted, is accountability, “to get the patient to take responsibility for the actions of all of those personalities.”

“In that sense, DID should not be used as an excuse for behavior,” Appelbaum said.

Dr. Veronica Fiske, a New York City psychiatrist who specializes in DID, told The Daily Beast that while the disorder is “not exactly curable,” it can be managed with treatment.

“I don’t think a lot of people have any control over it, and I don’t know someone who would say they don’t need therapy anymore,” Fiske said.

Cheryl Parsa and Herschel Walker at a charity event in 2006.— Courtesy of Cheryl Parsa/Photo by Linda Werner

Parsa said that, at Walker’s request, she attended several sessions with his therapist, Dr. Jerry Mungadze, beginning in 2005. Mungadze, a controversial Dallas-based “conversion” therapist and self-identifying DID specialist with a PhD in counselor education, began treating Walker after he left the NFL in 1997 and checked himself into a California behavioral hospital.

Not long after he entered therapy, Walker and his first wife, Cindy Deangelis Grossman, divorced. She later went public with claims of domestic violence, telling ABC News in 2008 that Walker once held a gun to her head and said he was going “blow my brains out.” (Walker doesn’t deny the allegation but says he does not remember it.)

The domestic violence accusations have clouded Walker’s campaign. His adult son, Christian Walker, claimed in October that his father repeatedly threatened to kill him and his mother, forcing them to move “six times in six months,” and her 2008 allegation appeared in an anti-Walker attack ad this summer.

Walker responded to the “dirty” attack ad in a video statement, saying his political opponents “dug up an old video and took it out of context.” He added, “My opponents think they’re hurting me, but I am glad they did this ad.” And while Walker hasn’t directly addressed the veracity of his son’s allegations, he tweeted a response, saying, “I LOVE my son no matter what.”

According to Parsa, Mungadze and Walker seemed to work like a team, playing off each other—with Walker leaning on his diagnosis, and Mungadze allegedly casting her in a “savior” role as “the only person who could get through” to Walker.

“Jerry told me that he had treated dozens of people with DID, but that Herschel’s was ‘the worst case I’d ever seen.’ He said the only thing worse than having DID is Herschel Walker having DID,” Parsa said.

The Daily Beast reached out repeatedly to Mungadze. He would not comment about Walker, citing doctor-patient confidentiality, though he has previously spoken to the press about Walker’s violent behavior in his office. Mungadze did not deny Parsa’s claims about their own private interactions.

Cheryl Parsa and Herschel Walker celebrating her birthday at Walker's house in Dallas. — Courtesy of Cheryl Parsa/Photo by Linda Werner

Parsa said Walker’s general claim in his book was true: His mind had over the years given rise to several distinct personalities—Walker calls them “alters”—which he had subconsciously created to deal with a repeated childhood trauma.

“He created someone to go to school, someone else to play football, another to be a father, to be a businessman, to be a boyfriend,” she said.

Citing her own experience, along with what both Walker and Mungadze told her, Parsa said most of Walker’s alters weren’t fully developed personalities. (He had “about 20,” she estimates; Walker’s memoir counts “as many as twelve.”) The majority, she said, were childlike, volatile, and only loosely aware of reality. Some weren’t even aware of each other, she said, and were “highly sensitive and frightened.”

“He has all these people there inside him, competing all the time,” she said, likening his mind to an unruly classroom. “It’s chaotic and unpredictable.”

(Fiske, who has not treated Walker, said it is “quite common” for DID patients to have childlike personalities. The goal of therapy, she said, is to “get the parts communicating with each other” and integrate them into a whole.)

According to Parsa, Mungadze said the next level up in the “pyramid” of Walker’s mind were the businessmen and family men, and at the top was “Herschel.” She said one of Walker’s alters once told her “there were three ‘Herschels,’” boasting that “Jerry didn’t even know it.”

“In my opinion, no one really knows Herschel,” Parsa said.

Mungadze, Parsa said, had warned her that Walker had “little to no control” over which of his alters ran the show.

“I would watch him change in front of my eyes, multiple times in a single conversation. It was terrifying,” she said. He would deteriorate with stress and conflict, she said.

She said she believes the campaign has inflamed his condition.

“I am once again witnessing the child alters who cannot construct a complete sentence on the national stage, now speaking out on issues like gun violence and environmental issues,” Parsa said, referring to two moments during the campaign where Walker’s incoherence went viral. “Personally, it is so sad to watch, and even more scary for our country.”

Walker’s memoir assigns roles to the various aspects of his personality, each named after their essence—e.g., the Enforcer, the Hero, the Consoler, the Judge, the General, the Daredevil. He explains distinct identities in detail, and Parsa said that he and Mungadze also shared those details with her.

Parsa, who today runs an independent high-end commercial and residential interior design business, provided evidence of an intimate, sustained relationship with Walker, which she describes as “loving.” She first spoke with The Daily Beast in July, and decided to go on the record with her story after watching Walker deny two women who in October accused him of urging them to have abortions.

Along with her manuscript—which she says she wrote over several years, based on contemporaneous notes and journal entries—her documentation comprised cards, business plans, gifts, and an array of photos, including pictures of a charity bike team they started together and Christmas celebrations with their families, featuring Walker’s son Christian. Their romance was also corroborated by four people close to Parsa, including one of Walker’s former romantic partners.

In the beginning, Parsa said, she missed the clues that all was not well. She first chalked up Walker’s inconsistencies and disappearances to his work schedule and the nature of his celebrity, but he became increasingly deceptive and unpredictable, she said.

Parsa recalled a fight one night in 2005, when she first confirmed her suspicions that Walker—who she said would sometimes disappear for weeks at a time—was cheating on her. He had invited her earlier that day to his condo for a motorcycle ride, but when she arrived that evening, she claims, she found another woman on the bike—wearing Parsa’s helmet. Walker had previously acknowledged a relationship with this woman, Parsa said, but claimed repeatedly to have ended it.

When Parsa confronted Walker, she said, the soft-spoken gentleman that she had grown to love vanished. He grew rageful and physically intimidating, she said, yelling at her repeatedly, “You want to see a man? I’ll show you a man!” He pressed his forehead against hers, she said.

“His massive hands were on my chest and throat,” Parsa said. “I thought he was going to beat me.”

Then, she said, “I saw a fist flying toward me. As I ducked down, he hit the wall beside my head and staggered backwards toward the bedroom, saying, ‘COME ON! I’M GONNA SHOW YOU WHAT A MAN IS!’ And I heard him from the bedroom beating himself up against the wall repeatedly and with force.”

The other woman was sitting on the couch the whole time, Parsa said, trying unsuccessfully to calm Walker as he “punished himself.”

Parsa fled the condo, rattled. Afraid for her safety, she said, she didn’t go home, where Walker might find her. Instead, she decided to take Walker’s earlier advice to speak to Mungadze and visited his office soon thereafter. That’s when, she says, Mungadze first told her the extent of Walker’s disorder, and cast her in the savior role—a move Parsa says incentivized her to continue the relationship against her instincts.

The Daily Beast corroborated Parsa’s story through a person close to her, whom she told about the above events at the time.

According to Parsa, Walker’s temper could be precarious. She recalled other “frightful moments” when Walker, in another mental state, demonstrated anger and instability, and she said he exhibited an unsettling interest in serial killers.

Complicating matters, she said, Walker often carried a gun, which he would sometimes play with in front of her. It made her uneasy. Parsa knew about a few threats Walker had made in the past—not just with his ex-wife, but also his memoir’s account of an incident in which he wanted to shoot a delivery man.

She also recalled a third instance, as described to her by Mungadze, in which Walker took his doctor, his ex-wife, and another woman hostage. Walker, Parsa said, was threatening to kill everyone in the room and himself, until Mungadze talked him into letting the women go and called the police. Mungadze recounted this story in a 2011 Playboy article (“That incident ended with him hitting the door and breaking his fist”) but did not mention the third woman—the same woman who had worn Parsa’s motorcycle helmet. A person with knowledge of the events corroborated Parsa’s account.

Knowing all that, Walker’s gun habit put her on edge, she said.

Once, Parsa recalled, Walker pulled a handgun during a trip they’d taken together to a food industry trade show. When she asked why he’d brought it, she said, Walker tried to reassure her by saying he was an FBI agent and used to play Russian roulette—a suicide game he has claimed to have played more than half a dozen times.

Parsa said that Mungadze once told her he believed Walker himself was “gentle,” but had “people in him that are capable of killing.”

Walker, it appears, would not disagree.

“I’ve got personalities that do a lot of things,” he told Sports Spectrum in 2013, including “a guy who wanted to kill someone. That’s why I needed treatment.”

(Appelbaum, the Columbia professor, said DID “is not typically associated with violent behavior,” and that there is “no evidence” people with the diagnosis are likely to be more violent.

“DID is not the totality of a person’s behavior; it’s one component,” explained Appelbaum, who chairs the steering committee for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. He said we all have “pre-existing modes of behavior,” which determine to a significant degree how we react to our conditions.

“So, DID in someone prone to lying and antisocial acts will be associated with lying and antisocial acts,” he said.)

At the time of the incident at the condo, Walker had been in treatment for several years. But Parsa says she soon came to feel manipulated by both Mundgaze and Walker, as she felt the lines between Walker’s central persona and the facets of his disorder increasingly blurred.

Walker, she said, leaned into his illness to “avoid accountability for his actions.” Far from the difficult but sometimes beneficial challenge portrayed in his book, to Parsa the diagnosis appeared more like a firewall that Walker used to shield himself from blame—for everything from the violent episode she described to his infidelity.

Parsa said her romance with Walker lasted from 2004 to 2009, followed by a few years of friendship. That relationship also overlapped with other girlfriends, including Walker’s current wife, Julie Blanchard.

Parsa claims Walker had multiple cellphones, in part to help him keep his girlfriends straight. He frequently changed numbers, she said, recounting that at one point another girlfriend told her she asked Walker to disconnect his “girlfriend phone” after a suspicious extended trip.

Four ex-girlfriends in addition to Parsa spoke with The Daily Beast for this article. All described Walker as unstable. All said he called them, “My Dear.” And all but one of them said that, to some degree, they fear him.

Their stories reveal another side of Walker.

The college football legend has long evangelized his Christian faith while cultivating a public image as a wholesome family man, including during the campaign. In reality, these four women say, Walker lied to them habitually, vowing his undying devotion in order to secure their trust and love while secretly seeing other women. He made these same promises to different women at the same time, they say, including after he published his 2008 memoir.

Walker often points to Breaking Free as an inflection point for an internal metamorphosis. In its pages, Walker and two co-authors recount some of his struggles with DID and write at length about his Christian faith, a narrative that portrays Walker emerging on the other side of hardship as a new and fully integrated person.

The book does acknowledge that Walker had an extramarital affair in the 1990s, which it attributes to his mental state before he sought treatment. But Walker’s claims about his sexual purity after he published the book defy belief.

The following year, now several years into treatment, Walker was again juggling a number of women—resulting in one son born out of wedlock in 2009 and an abortion later that year with another woman, who three years later gave birth to another son by Walker. One of the other women he was seeing at the time is now his wife.

In 2010, two years after Breaking Free published, Walker told radio host Howard Stern he’d only had sex with two women. By that time, he had fathered three children with three women and reportedly paid for abortions for at least two other partners.

Still, after releasing the book, Walker became a public advocate for psychological treatment. And he styled himself a “champion for mental health” while campaigning. He focused those efforts largely on using his status as a sports hero to connect with members of the military, frequently encouraging troops at bases around the country that there was no shame in seeking help.

The ex-girlfriends who spoke with The Daily Beast said Walker lied and cheated so frequently that they suspected he sometimes used military base visits as cover to get away and see another woman.

One of these women said she had an affair with Walker in the late ’90s, but ended it when it became clear he was not in fact separated from his wife, as he had claimed. But the publication of the memoir struck her as a sign of emotional growth, she said, and inspired her to reconnect with him. She then described a 2008 visit where they had sex at his Dallas condo.

“It was dark because the lights were out, but the place was lit up like a landing strip, with baby monitors all down the hall,” this woman said. “He told me he was taking care of his son and not to wake him up.” Christian Walker would have been around 9 years old at the time.

That night, she said, Walker chided her for ending the affair, saying “You left me when I needed you most.”

“He offered to help my schizophrenic sister with some counseling and didn’t come through,” she continued. “When we discussed his DID I told him my sister was clinically schizophrenic, and he said, ‘Well, if you ever need anybody to chat with her just let me know.’ He was always trying to reassure me that he could do something more. I told him when he was ready to talk to her to just let me know.”

He never did, she said, even after she prompted him multiple times. “He’s a fucking asshole,” the woman said.

The woman said she hasn’t slept with Walker since 2013, but claimed he tried to connect with her romantically as recently as 2019, when he called from a White House event for the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition to arrange a rendezvous. She acknowledged that she had always been “protective and sympathetic” towards Walker, largely due to his condition. But that changed this year as he stepped up his attacks on abortion, and the mother of his youngest son revealed in October that he had urged her to terminate two pregnancies.

“He knows right from wrong and he has wronged all of us. He has been deceptive, hypocritical, disingenuous, a liar, a cheater, and adulterer,” she said. “The list goes on and on.”

The women all provided evidence of their relationships with Walker, with all but one of those relationships lasting at least three years. All the women said they at some point learned they were not his only love interest.

Like Parsa, the other women recalled Walker as a sweet-talking charmer, a positive and sometimes childlike idealist who frequently declared his perpetual love for them alone—and asked theirs in return.

“He got me at a low point in my life,” said one woman, who lives in New England. The others echoed the sentiment, all recalling being in positions of emotional vulnerability when Walker first charmed them.

“I was coming out of a bad divorce, and he knew that. The man has no conscience,” she said.

“He was proclaiming his love for everybody, all of us, all the time,” the woman continued. “But it was like everything that you believed, like truly believed, it was just like none of it’s true.”

“One year, he had three Christmases,” she recalled. “He was with Cheryl [Parsa] Christmas Eve, [another woman] Christmas Day, and he flew to see me on the 26th.” (Parsa, who knows both women, confirmed the account; the third woman declined to comment for this story.)

This woman provided a three-page handwritten letter Walker left for her after he showed up at her house in New England unannounced.

“I didn’t want him in my house, so he chose to sleep in my car. He slept four nights in my Lexus in my garage,” she said, explaining that at the time she had recently learned Walker had proposed to another woman.

But Walker—who had also asked this New England woman to marry him—denied he was engaged, reasoning that “he had only bought [the other woman] a ring and it was nothing,” she said.

In his letter, he wrote, “I would love for you and the kids to share what [Christian Walker] and I have, share in our life.” He signed off saying, “I love you and always will. No games, no playing, no women, no men, no exs [sic] just a loving relationship of family and honesty. Two people make a relationship. I’m one. Do you want to be the other?”

They had been dating for three months, she said.

A second woman who came forward in October, going by “Jane Doe,” accused Walker in a press conference of pressuring her to have an abortion during their extramarital affair in 1993, noting that Walker would also send her letters declaring his undying love, and occasionally got her tickets for the family box during Cowboys home games. The woman who rekindled her affair with Walker in 2008 told The Daily Beast she also sat in that box, where players’ families identified her as his “girlfriend.”

A person who worked from 1996-97 as a front desk supervisor at a Dallas hotel on the same street as Cowboys headquarters told The Daily Beast that Walker had secretly enlisted him to use his credit card on file to check him into rooms for his “agent” four or five days a month for a period of about a year.

“He would call me at the hotel, request to be checked into a room and leave the key hidden near the room to be retrieved by [women he would meet there],” said the worker, who provided proof of his employment at the hotel. “I witnessed two different women during this time retrieve the key that I hid. [O]ne time he called stating the key wasn’t located and to bring it personally to a female.”

“In one instance, he was on camera arriving in a karate uniform before knocking on the door and entering,” the person said. “I surmised that was his alibi to leave his home.”

The woman who reconnected with Walker in 2008 recalled extramarital encounters with Walker at this hotel at the time.

All the women interviewed for this article share common traits. They’re all fiercely independent, many with successful business careers. And they’re also close to Walker’s age, with one exception—a woman who is now 39.

That woman revealed to The Daily Beast in October that Walker, now 61, had reimbursed her for an abortion in 2009. Three years later, she gave birth to Walker’s youngest son, claiming Walker asked her to have another abortion instead. After the child was born, she said, Walker—who has repeatedly blasted absentee fathers in the Black community—refused to play an active parenting role and has not seen this son in person since January 2016. He lied about the existence of this son to his own campaign staff earlier this year, The Daily Beast reported.

Asked how this pattern of behavior stacks up against Walker’s claims to have “overcome” his disorder, Parsa shrugged.

“People have always wanted something from him. Run the ball. Sign this. I need money for fill-in-the-blank,” Parsa said. “But there is no help for him. He is a mentally ill and unstable man. Period.”

Walker, it appears, disagrees. He says he is “healed.”

In a 2012 speech to soldiers at Fort Bragg, Walker counseled an audience of active-duty soldiers not to be afraid to ask for help with things you can’t fix on your own.

“Before, I was in the darkness. Before, I probably wouldn’t be here, ’cause I can guarantee you one thing: If I’m not going to a hospital, I would have killed my wife. If I’m not going to a hospital, I wouldn’t stand here before you today,” he said. “Don’t put off tomorrow what you can do today.”

Today, Walker claims he is not in need of treatment.

During his one and only debate with Warnock, with three weeks to go until the general election, Walker was asked whether he was actively tending to his disorder. He demurred.

“I continue to get help if I need help, but I don’t need any help,” he said. “I’m doing well.”

#us politics #news #2022 midterms #2022 elections #2022 #run off election #georgia #herschel walker #sen. raphael warnock #the daily beast #domestic violence #dissasociative identity disorder #did #multiple personality disorder #Cheryl Parsa #christian walker #Breaking Free #Dr. Paul Appelbaum #Dr. Veronica Fiske #Dr. Jerry Mungadze #nfl #dallas cowboys #Cindy Deangelis Grossman #republican hypocrisy #republican family values #abortions #russian roulette #Sports Spectrum #Julie Blanchard #conservative christianity

[alethiaii]

Dude right??? The fucking hypocrisy of them/Maria??? Judging Joel for doing what he did to survive (and also to take care of Tommy the whole time?? It’s not like Joel was doing it for fun.) while they murder and leave peoples dead bodies lying around to scare people off?? How tf does that make you a better person than Joel?

Maria annoyed me so freaking much in the show. Her and Tommy definitely get off on being the leaders, they love the freaking power trip it gives them. I cannot stand these 2 and I wish other people would see how shitty they are lol

I wouldn't say they get off on being leaders because Tommy ain't leading shit really, it's Maria who's on this council (I am yet to stop laughing at the writing choice which is clearly Neil's about how people in Jackson are communists who democratically elect people on the council...as someone who lives in a post communist country, the entertainment is endless because those two just don't coexist but whatever) so she's definitely not the only one making decisions.

Also shoveling shit on Joel for what he did in the past is just hypocritical to me because I'm willing to bet there's a good chunk of people living inside Jackson's walls who have done the same thing, in lesser or greater degree but have done their best to put that behind them and try and function again as a part of more sensible society. That's really all you need to 'get that redemption'.

I am not annoyed by Maria as much as she gives me vibes (in the game as well let's be clear) that don't really sit well with me and I would more than likely second guess deciding to live in Jackson. There is also the question of sustainability when it comes to 'being off the grid' because really it just ain't doable in a long run. You must communicate with other people, perhaps some other settlements and trade because you don't have everything.

It's a nice idea because you're less likely to be attacked by raiders but I'm pretty sure unless one of the 'people who tried us' successfully infiltrates Jackson to spring the gates open so they can raid the pretty big settlement, the bodies they leave around are clear sign of 'fuck around and find out'. There's no need to live in radio darkness and to keep potential family members out on the account of being 'wrong sort of people'.

Someone is always going to be the wrong sort of people to someone else, especially in an a post apocalyptic setting.

#nina answers #nina is on her tlou bullshit