#Post Office Recruitment 2021 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

compacflt · 1 year

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you're a legend for referencing lauren berlant and michael warner in relation to your top gun fic and I'd like to think that they would say the same!! the stories that you've created are beautiful explorations of some of the biggest questions posed in queer theory: who are we in public? who are we in private? where is the line that separates the two (spoiler: there is no way to actually separate the two, no binary) and what are the structural forces bearing down upon all of that bullshit! I for one would love to see your questions about privacy and respectability explored with rooster and ice and mav. especially considering the generational cliff between them, with the aids crisis in the background of rooster's childhood when they were all the closest, in your world. anyway! you are an incredible writer and it's been a privilege to read you work :)

thank you so much for this ask!! yes i have spent so much time thinking about this. In March i started working on a new-yorker-style interview that tried to address a bunch of these questions. Since I didn’t do wip wednesday yesterday (sorry) here’s some relevant sections of that wip related to your ask. I don’t think it’s spoilers since I’m not sure id ever post this anywhere—you can see for yourself how entertaining the writing is and it’s overly political and didactic. Just a lame hegelian dialectic where im interrogating my own characters (at least, my own interpretations of them) on their politics. And I’m not an expert on any of this stuff (currently on the slow uphill climb out of the valley of the dunning-kruger graph—trying to learn). Nor am I fact-checking it & that feels irresponsible to post For Real. so just take this post as a fun (for me) exploration of what i (20y.o., ignorant, no editorial oversight, smooth-brained) think Might be some political implications of my fics, trying to write from a lib-moderate pov (tough!)

talking points I wanted to address:

The politics of ice’s career, both internationally & domestically (some wild navy scandals happened under his “tenure” [fat Leonard most pressingly—would LOVE to know how actual TGM’s ice & mav felt about that bc it was SO FUCKING CRAZY, navy officers & admirals having wild sex parties paid for by a singapore defense contractor (the details are so fucking crazy i can’t even say them here—one anecdote involves 7th fleet officers using WWII/Korean war general macarthurs historical memorabilia during sex acts—go read about it) a couple PACFLT RDMLs were charged with actual crimes, 60 admirals (of the navys total 160 admirals) were under investigation & both my and TGM’s ice & cyclone would probably have been two of them, basically if you were a pacflt officer in the mid-2000s-2010s you were under investigation it was so fucking wild]) —and another geopolitical look at the implications of both top gun movies (reagan weighs in from beyond the grave)

Ice and mav who can’t win—they want their relationship to Not Be A Big Deal. leave us alone. We’re Normal. we’re not Weird or anything. —but can’t understand WHY their relationship is so sensational/political—yes, boys, it is a big deal, sorry!! mavericks probably the last Ace the world will ever see & ice is the secretary of the navy and they’re married, fuck yes that’s newsworthy!!!

my version of Ice acceding to SECNAV at the intersection of a couple crucial contextual moments for the navy/military as a whole: 1. Recruitment is currently fucked. This interview takes place in 2020/early 2021, and things were bad then, but the numbers just came out for the Navy this year, and hoooooly shit they are so bad. And blame is falling along partisan lines like always: Ds blame low recruitment numbers on lack of benefits etc, Rs literally i am not shitting you are mostly blaming low recruitment numbers on the military going Woke. The USN has long been seen as the most obnoxiously woke/gay (derogatory) service to conservatives & there’s a lot of political baggage that comes with having a SECNAV who, while not openly identifying as gay, is openly married to another man. especially with a recruiting crisis like this one. 2. Withdrawal from afghanistan obviously. kind of a shit way for ice to end his career ngl. It Did Not Go Super Well. 3. rising tensions in eastern europe pre RU-UA invasion in 2022, what that means for the MIC and procurement, etc. 4. The joint chiefs openly declaring they (& by extension the military as a whole) would not support trump’s coup attempt post-J6—the end of that extremely politically polarized presidency—what does it mean for the following Dem president to then have a gay secnav after that? It’s HUGE. SO no matter what, Ice as SECNAV is going to go down in history. He just wants it to be for his actions, not the fact that he’s gay.

Icemav’s relationship with their identities. We really really don’t want to be known for being gay. “Ask me what my proudest achievement is, I’ll tell you without a second of hesitation—my family. Without a doubt. But does any military man really want to be best-known for his marriage?” We want to be known for being the BEST at our jobs, which we are. We’ve earned that title! There’s so much more interesting stuff about us than who we got married to.

AND how that is a liberal-moderate-conservative median-50% meritocratic WET DREAM of an ideology. an interview like this one is a straight fluff piece pre-ice’s confirmation to secnav—it lets him prove to the moderate liberals that he’s left-leaning enough to protect social justice interests in the USN, AND prove to conservatives that he’s right-leaning enough to not let identity politics/“woke bs” get in the way of the navy’s mission of providing a lethal maritime fighting force. the merits of this ideology are up for debate.

maybe helping the conservative viewpoint of that ideology: The fact that the Kazansky-Mitchell-Bradshaw-seresin family is so not-stereotypically gay. Like, look at these four guys. 9-to-11 combat kills between them (11 in my universe where ice gets an extra 2, 9 canon confirmed) in a period of history/modern warfare when ANY air-to-air kill is/was massively historically significant. Extremely macho & tough. They present themselves about as traditionally and toxically masculine as you could possibly get. Theyve KILLED PEOPLE. They’re not “soft” by any stretch of the imagination. Physically & emotionally they ARE extremely conservative, and there’s something to be said about the politics of that too—molding yourself into the shape of what you think a man should look like, just to avoid persecution, and then performing masculinity BETTER than even the men who would want to persecute you…!

Related to your ask: the modern/young ppl inclination to make sexuality SO political and public. When asked how he could reckon with joining a DADT-ruled navy, rooster answers: “hope I could do something to destroy it before it could destroy me.” When asked why he DIDNT use any of his considerable power to influence the repeal of DADT, ice answers: “it was better than the blanket ban that came before it. And maybe I’ve always wanted neither to tell nor to be asked.” the conservative respectable opinion that your intimate relationships ought to be PRIVATE, doesn’t matter if you’re gay or straight—just do your job, and preferably do it well. yeah, don’t ask and don’t tell. It’s not anyone’s business. ice doesn’t have a philosophical problem with DADT, because he agrees sexuality should be private & secret. —is it anyone’s business? whose business is it? How much of your personal life do you owe the public if you’re a public-facing individual like the COMPACFLT or SECNAV? all good questions!!!!

#& unanswerable!#sooo fun to ignore the big ‘is the military bad’ questions in favor of the nitty gritty of policy #yes it’s bad. next!#poor ice and mav honestly. if it wasn’t such a big deal theydve been married in the 90s #its all external influencing the internal #impossible to not be products of their time #‘marshallian system’ as very niche military officer succession strategy #pete maverick mitchell #tom iceman kazansky #icemav #top gun #top gun maverick #edts notes #top gun fanfiction #sorry i probably won’t be posting as much for the next couple weeks. finals season and i am so deep in the trenches its actually not funny.#i think there’s a grammatical typo in excerpt 2. their*#and in excerpt 1 too. not really proofreading these. shrug.

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freifraufischer · 11 months

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It's been a few days since the "announcement" of the GIGA Pro Gymnastics thing and I'd like to share some research and my lengthy list of questions about this project.

Let's start by saying that there is a document floating around that is marked confidential and proprietary. It's not long, it's an info graphic and appears to be aimed at investors or recruitment. I'm not sharing it. It does inform my questions.

Who Are These People?

First of all: The officers listed are Aimee Boorman as Co-founder and Chief Events Officer. Maura Fox as Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer. LaPrise Williams as Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer. This is what I can find based on publicly available information:

The gymnastics community knows who Aimee Boorman is so I'm not going to detail her. She became a FIG Brevet judge in the last two years but is very junior. She's a category 4 judge meaning that except at the smallest FIG meets she is limited to things like being a line judge or a timing judge, this is not a slight. Everyone has to start as a cat 4 but that does mean she doesn't have a lot of experience as a judge.

Maura Fox has a linkedin which informs what I know about her. She was an executive for Time Warner leaving in 2009. Her last job there was as group vice president for consumer devices, cross platform, and strategy. She then ran her own consulting form for 10 years which her linkedin says ended in 2019. She's honestly the person I want to know the most about to take this project seriously or not. She says she's been involved in launching professional circuits in cycling and men's tennis. I'd like to find out what those ventures were to be able to assess the likelihood that this venture will survive. She then worked for some kind of media products group that I can't really get my head around for two years before going to work for GIGA. Her linked in identifies GIGA as having been founded in 2021. So they've had 2 years to build this... which frankly matches with the fact that I had heard about them recruiting potential athletes last year.

LaPrise Williams is a pediatric nurse who was the Baylor Acro and Tumbling coach for from 2011-2014. She later told the press she intended to file a Title IX complaint against the university but I have no idea how that worked out. She opened a gym in St Vincent and the Grenadines which identifies itself as the first gym in the islands. She is the Technical Director for the St Vincent and the Grenadines Gymnastics Association. Here is their facebook page. Now I'm going to put some context on the SVGGA here and I don't want anyone to think I'm disparaging them or her. There are many small federations in the world and this is one of them. It is very clearly a legitimate National Governing Body (NGB). At the moment they have no FIG licensed gymnasts in any discipline and Williams is the only FIG brevet judge from the federation in any discipline--she is a category 4 judge for WAG. The facebook activity for the fed runs:

post on June 4th of 2023 which is a repost from Williams' gym's instagram page.

on September 25, 2022 they changed their profile and header pictures

on January 25, 2020 they posted pictures of a team going to Manhatten Classic.

on June 16, 2019 a repost from an article from the Trinidad and Tobago Newsday about the Caribbean Gymnastics Championships which is very likely not a FIG sanctioned event.

All of this is to say this is a small, relatively inactive federation with limited resources and staff and I'm not entirely sure if much weight should begiven to her involvement in it for this project.

Who are the Sponsors/Who is going to pay the Athletes?

This is upfront going to be a lot of "I have no idea." Their launch material doesn't say. The document I've seen doesn't say and the fact that the thing has supposedly existed for two years without a sponsor lined up to be named at public launch is a little worrying to me.

The document describes a two tiered structure for the athletes with start fees and prize money for all (the initial start fee is $1500 to be paid to all gymnasts with GIGA paying for things like travel, hotel, meals, etc). The prize purse for the first year event is described in the low 6 figure range with mention of an All Around winner. I've seen no mention of teams so it appears to me that they're planning on this being an individual competition circuit (more thoughts on that later). I have seen no reference to insurance of any sort and the only medical related thing in the document is onsite massage, PT, and recovery aids. My major concern continues to be that these people are recruiting adult aged post-college athletes and all I can think is there will be many knees destroyed. And this is the United States... so look forward to some Go Fund Me for medical treatment in the future... It's notable that the European club leagues are all in countries with nationalized health care. Their document talks about career longevity for gymnasts but I'm not at all convinced they're promising an infrastructure for that.

There is a second section of this document that talks about headliners and the things they can negotiated for as individuals. So some gymnasts will be paid appearance fees--which I should stress I think is perfectly normal.

Why is it hard to figure out if these people want to be a professional league or a media platform?

Because they want to be both. They want hold to meets and stream content to fans as well as sell access to the athletes for fans experiences. It looks like kind of standard VIP meet and greet kind of things from what little detail I've seen... you pay money to meet the athlete for say 30 minutes with a group of other fans. I've done this kind of thing for television actors. It's fun. But it's also by it's nature not something a lot of fans can afford.

They also want to build a library of content that is essentially athlete interviews presumably the access of which they can sell in whatever the subscription package of their multimedia platform is. It's all pretty vague so we'll have to figure out what it means when their products actually launch.

For now my main concern is why did they announce this in June without a date or location or a format for their first competition?

Lingering Questions...

I have so many... aside from the ones I've touched on above. They talk about how this hasn't been done before. It has. The most successful attempt at launching a pro-gymnastics competition circuit was in 1997-98 in the post Atlanta Olympics hype. They used a modified NCAA code and the meets were aired on CBS. I don't need them to talk about the previous two attempts (except maybe don't claim to be the first) but I really hope they are aware of them at the very least to find out why they didn't last. I fear that they either didn't do that research or they assume because it was 20+ years ago that their multimedia platform makes them so different that it doesn't apply.

What the heck is the meet structure here? They talk a LOT about the successes of NCAA gymnastics but at least the materials I've seen seem to suggest that they don't plan on having teams. Teams are a key part of building fan support in both NCAA and the European club leagues. I still don't think you can model a US league based on those European leagues mostly because they are build on a lot of routines from junior gymnasts and this project seems to be entirely about post-NCAA age careers. That's in addition to my medical insurance and liability insurance questions.

What is USAG's involvement in this? My fear is "they don't want USAG's involvement". See the launching of new professional sports leagues in a country often depend on how much support and buy-in they have from the NGB. One of the major differences between the currently running National Women's Soccer League and earlier defunct attempts is buy-in from USA Soccer. And I promise you that US Soccer is no more popular then USAG. I'm also informed by the fact that playing conditions for a lot of NWSL teams have been pretty bad (let's not touch the sexual harassment issues within teams). One team was playing on a home field that had holes in it and couldn't afford to pay for their players shoes. Gymnastics equipment is extremely expensive. Millions of dollars just for the competition apparatus. Are these people buying it? From who? Are they going to transport it around the country? Are they going to host it in a central location so they can store the equipment locally or rent it from a specific source? So many questions.

What code of points are they using? US developmental program--you know the one whose code of points you have to buy and isn't publicly accessible without paying for it? Some modified version of the above (like NCAA)? If they're riding the coat tales of NCAA I somehow doubt they're using the FIG code which will make it somewhat harder for non-US/Canadian athletes to be involved. What difficulty expectations will there be? How are they going to handle judges? How are they going to assure fans and athletes that judging will be fair given how much money they are saying is in the prize purses and that they're setting up a two tiered "everyone" and "headliners" compensation structure?

Conclusions:

I'm highly skeptical of all of this. I'm worried about what seems to have been a premature information free public launch. Their website and materials seem amateurish to me and I just can't get my head around the idea that they launch this publicly with no sponsors named.

I'm not at all convinced that these people know how or why European club leagues work, why previous attempts at this in the US have failed, what a lot of the appeal of NCAA gymnastics is, or that they have the experience necessary to do any of this.

#giga pro gym #gymnastics

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 2 months

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By: Zack K. De Piero

Published: Dec 23, 2023

Looking for a job in today’s politicized job market?

Prepare to submit a résumé, cover letter, references — and a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Statement: A page-long explanation of how you intend to bring those three seemingly benign principles into the workplace.

DEI statements have become standard practice in academia, but a tide might be turning: UNC and UMass Boston recently un-required mandatory DEI statements for student admission, employee recruitment and faculty promotion.

Here’s hoping this sets an industry precedent — a step towards reining in DEI in every sector.

When I taught at Penn State Abington from 2018-2022 as an English professor, their obsession with DEI created a hostile work environment teeming with discrimination.

Case in point: writing faculty were subjected to a video called “White Teachers are a Problem.”

After making my opposition known, I was retaliated against.

My perceived insubordination was branded on Affirmative Action Office notices, and I was sanctioned by HR as well as on my annual performance review.

Penn State’s stance was clear: Blind loyalty is required by the DEI machine.

The premier job board across academia, HigherEdJobs, shows how deeply entrenched compulsory left-think has become.

Whether you want to teach French at SUNY Oswego, Dance at Chapman, Soil Science and Nutrient Management at Colorado State, or Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Syracuse, your prospective employer will expect a DEI statement, so prepare to bend the knee.

Even if you aspire to become the Beef Center Assistant Manager at Washington State University: Yep: DEI statement.

And these are just a few random examples posted since Thanksgiving.

It’s an epidemic.

Make no mistake, the DEI machine has always been about toeing an ideological line — never any meaningful change.

Consider the case of Dr. Tabia Lee — a former faculty member of De Anza Community College in California.

While facilitating a “Decentering Whiteness” event featuring a BLM co-founder, Lee (who’s Black) made waves by allowing students to ask unscripted follow-up questions. For doing so, her tenure was sabotaged.

Despite being “diverse,” it turns out that Lee’s actual diversity didn’t gel with De Anza’s agenda.

A commitment to actual diversity requires respecting diverse viewpoints.

But wrong-think isn’t tolerated by the DEI Industrial Complex.

Fortunately, federal law has something to say about that: neither De Anza nor Penn State has the authority to suppress Dr. Lee or my speech, nor can they discriminate on the basis of race.

That’s why she and I — supported by the nonpartisan group, the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism — are bringing lawsuits against our former employers.

Pull back this sacred academic curtain, and see the emperor’s new clothes for yourself.

In 2021, Pennsylvanian’s taxes and students’ tuition went towards workshops on microaggressions, intersectional feminism, anti-racism, and white privilege led by the Penn State Abington DEI grifters.

Its leader’s Juneteenth email directed white faculty and staff to “stop talking,” “find an accountability partner,” and “stop being afraid of your own internalized white supremacy.”

Such DEI efforts ooze with divisiveness, so yes, DEI statements are clearly a form of compelled speech, and thus, a violation of First Amendment free speech protections.

[ Dr. Tabia Lee says her tenure-track position at De Anza College in California was derailed after she failed to conform to DEI orthodoxy. ]

What’s worse, though, is the type of educational environment that DEI-ified initiatives create for students — and the culprit is the “E”: Equity.

Here’s how “equity” played out in the misguided minds of my DEI-obsessed former colleagues. A former supervisor, who endorsed the view that “reverse racism isn’t racism,” also announced that “racist structures” exist “regardless of [anybody’s] good intentions” and that “racism is in the results if the results draw a color line.”

The apparent guiding subtext here: students should be graded on the basis of race so all achieve similar outcomes.

Suppose you deflated the grades of Asian-Americans — a group that often disproportionately excels — much like Harvard deflated their acceptance rates until the Supreme Court put a stop to race-based admissions.

That’s somehow acceptable in the name of “equity?” Of course not, but disagree with enforced equity in education and in the eyes of antiracist activists, that makes you – you guessed it — a “racist.”

Alternatively, performative equity could be achieved by inflating everybody’s grades — straight A’s all around!

Harvard’s almost there: in 2020-2021, 80% of all grades were A’s, according to an October article in the Harvard Crimson.

The road to equity is paved by the soft bigotry of low expectations.

And in a world where grit, labor, and integrity win the day, academia’s obsession with “equity” breeds a “survival of the weakest” mindset.

Nevertheless, the DEI machine continues to reign supreme.

Over a five-year span, Ohio State’s DEI annual budget bloated to $20 million with nearly 200 DEI bureaucrats who cite the leftist scripture of Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo.

But before we can enter their church, us natural-born sinners must repent by issuing performative DEI statements?

Yeah. No thanks.

Paradoxically, the more elite institutions obnoxiously virtue-signal their allegiance to DEI, the less committed they are to actual diversity and inclusion — and the more they obscure actual equality in the process.

These institutions aren’t hiding what they’re doing.

Even in the throes of my lawsuit, Penn State Abington has doubled down on DEI: there’s now a sister office — the Office of Inclusive Excellence — complete with its own cabinet-level director.

Folks: this isn’t going away unless you take action.

Here’s a start: if you’re ever asked to submit a DEI statement, don’t bend the knee to their “E” — Equity.

Reframe their game, and tell them how and why you stand up for the honorable “E”: Equality.

Zack K. DePiero (Ph.D, M.Ed) teaches writing at Northampton Community College.

#Zack K. De Piero #Zack De Piero #diversity equity and inclusion #diversity #equity #inclusion #racism #neoracism #antiracism #antiracism as religion #diversity statements #DEI #DEI bureaucracy #higher education #institutional capture #ideological capture #ideological corruption #corruption of education #religion is a mental illness

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otome-mondays · 4 months

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Review: Collar x Malice 🐈‍⬛

Ok yeah I’m very late to reviewing this game, but in my defense I didn’t have a blog where I felt ok posting otome reviews until now lol. Disclaimer: 1) it has been years since I last played this game. I have my thoughts written down but this is not going to be as polished as I hope my future reviews are. 2) This game has really rough themes and topics, please don’t read if topics such as terrorism, violence, suicide, and police are triggering to you. I’d recommend looking up a full list of triggers before deciding to add Collar x Malice to your list of games. 3) Like all my reviews, this will contain spoilers. This one has spoilers for some CGs and general route spoilers!

Onto the review!

Collar x Malice takes place in the city of Shinjuku, which is currently under lockdown due to terrorism attacks from a group called Adonis. You play as a girl name Ichika Hoshino, and while you can change her name I chose to keep the default. Ichika is a rookie officer assigned to the SCRPO department. Their goal is to help keep peace among the citizens, meaning there’s little crazy action happening in her specific department. Part of the SCRPO duties are doing patrols to look out for Adonis members and maintain as much peace as can be possible when you’re in such a situation. Unfortunately, thanks to plot bad luck, Ichika is targeted by the group and they try to convince her to join. How so? That’s where the collar comes in. So Ichika gets snatched by a member and a collar is placed on her neck. Not just any collar, a collar filled with poison. How wonderful! Now, there is a slight issue because she already got a small dose and can’t move and is stranded in a church of some sort in the middle of the night. A random group of men come in and save the heroine, being given a memo from Adonis. They introduce themselves to Ichika as a small ragtag detective group looking into X-Day outside the police force. There’s 4 members, but only 3 are present. These 3–Enomoto, Sasazuka, and Yanagi—are all former cops who quit for their own reasons and have all decided to do independent work looking into X-Day. Oh right, I should explain X-Day. X-Day is a day Adonis is counting down to with monthly attacks before basically purging Shinjuku from who they think are nasty lowlifes who deserve death. Adonis has the ability to fully monitor Ichika and those around her from the collar, and they want to ultimately recruit her and if possible the ragtag investigation group. Ichika also can’t tell anybody else outside the group or they’ll kill her. So now she has to hide this information from everybody close to her. Totally not stressful at all right? As she’s deciding to join an figure out what she wants to investigate, one more problem comes in. Okazaki Kei. He’s a SP officer who, along with his subordinate, are assigned to monitor Yanagi’s group. He also seems a bit persistent on monitoring her. Oh also not to mention the other oddball in the group, Shiraishi, who seems kind of suspicious. Ultimately, she decides to investigate a certain set of cases and put an end to Adonis with help from Yanagi and friends. And that’s where the route split is, depending on how you answered the questions in the common route determines which cases and ultimately which route you play. I played this game back in 2020-2021 when everybody was supposed to be inside and in lockdown as well, and it felt really fitting at the time. I’ll add some thoughts on each route next, but if you just wanted a general plot starter and to see if I recommend it, scroll past all the character sections for the end! I’m not going to make walkthroughs as there are already plenty out there, but I will mention I relied on Otome Kitten’s walkthroughs located on her website. I’m going to review the characters in the order I played:

Spoilers Ahead

Okazaki Kei 🏃‍♂️

So I decided to start with this route because honestly I was the most interested in Okazaki out of all the characters. I spent way too much time trying to see route order recommendations and I saw enough people say that his wasn’t big on lore so it’s ok if you do his route first. I also had the interesting challenge of otome being even more of a niche genre in the west than it is now so I struggled to find resources on the game. Now that could also be me struggling in general with technology sometimes lol. Okazaki here is kinda the odd guy out of the group. He isn’t investigating X-Day incidents with Yanagi and Co, but rather he’s keeping an eye on them with his junior partner Yoshinari Hideaki. The case we’re exploring in this route is the July case, and then we start investigating the November case. Nobody’s been investigating this specifically in Yanagi’s group, so Ichika is all on her own with understanding what happened. Okazaki decides he’s going to help for seemingly no reason, which does help her solve the incidents since she doesn’t have much experience. Without going into more details for spoiler reasons, Okazaki is a very sad character and honestly I love how well written he is. His route doesn’t go too much into the overarching story of the game and is also very isolated from the other characters. This is most likely due to how he’s not in the same group as the others and he’s not privy to how they are as people but rather their general actions and behaviors. This route is a really good starting out point! 9/10

Enomoto Mineo 🪭

Enomoto is highly recommend as a starting route by most people and I can totally see why! Even if you’re not a fan of genki style characters, he is a very enjoyable one. Enomoto is the youngest of the love interests and is a former Field Ops 2 officer. His mentor was a victim of one of the X-Day attacks, and because of that he ultimately left the force and joined up with Yanagi to investigate those specific incidents. On Enomoto’s route, we are investigating the April-May case, also the very first countdown to X-Day attack. Enomoto and Ichika really do start out kinda rocky as investigative partners, and slowly get to know and trust each other. I also think that Enomoto is a very well written character, and his route has some of the best writing for lots of side characters. I do have a couple gripes, such as his main tragic ending not being anywhere near tragic as…oh I don’t know…BAD ENDING NUMBER 4. That one actually caused me emotional pain. Anyways, his route can easily spoil who the leader of Adonis is to anybody who isn’t as clueless as I am (genuinely was focused on solving other mysteries to the universe). Like Okazaki, his route is very much an introductory route and is another great one to start with! Either play this one or Okazaki’s first and then play the other. 8/10

Sasazuka Takeru 🍩

Alright now for Sasazuka’s review. This was an interesting route, and honestly pretty good middle of the game route. I’m going to be honest and say I wasn’t super interesting in playing through his route, but I really came to love Sasazuka as a character while playing it. So let’s get into some details. Sasazuka is a former cyber crimes officer and he’s also our tsundere character. Now, he’s the type of tsundere that’s honestly very much verbally aggressive and it’s a very hard start for Ichika and Sasazuka. Like every other love interest and character in general it seems in this game, the man has severe trauma. His route has you exploring the June and August cases, starting with the August case. This route we learn a lot more about Adonis and why they’re doing what they are doing. Yet again, Collar x Malice is wining an award for great character writing in my brain. I really do like how Sasazuka is written and how he starts recovering and healing from his trauma. Now as for endings, like Enomoto he suffers from a mediocre tragic ending and also not great bad endings. His best ending is definitely the good ending, but who’s surprised about that. Definitely play this game 3rd though, it makes the most sense story wise. 8/10

Shiraishi Kageyuki 🐱

And here’s the controversial one. I cannot begin to explain how much I love this route. This is such a wild route and at first I totally hated Shiraishi but by the end he ended up being one of my favorite characters ever. I’d say Shiraishi’s route is like pseudo-yandere route? Or at least that was how it was described in some of the few posts I saw before playing and that immediately made me concerned. It honestly is a really good route and I wouldn’t personally classify it as a yandere route. This one goes over so much in universe lore and uncovers a lot of secrets, so please don’t play this before the other 3 routes above. Shiraishi’s route is also one of two that have to be unlocked, so even if you wanted to start with his you won’t be able to. To unlock Shiraishi’s route, all you have to do is finish one of the first three routes. I don’t think you have to get the good ending, but you do have to get either the good ending or tragic ending for it to count if that is the case. Now Shiraishi’s route goes over the September-October case. Out of all the cases you explore, I think this one was the saddest with the June case being a close second. Shiraishi is the only one in Yanagi’s group to still be working with the police as Director of the Field Ops department. Because of this, Ichika is very suspicious of him at first and thinks he’s potentially a double agent. I’d say he is easily the most traumatized one out of all the characters. He has a very intense love-hate relationship with Ichika even as colleagues, but they figure out how to communicate with each other. Now, a lot of people talk about how his good ending isn’t truly a good ending to them or a larger discussion of what makes an ending a good ending. This route has amazing writing, and the good ending is a part that proves it. Warning, it is very bittersweet but it is the best result based off of everything that happens. Now the tragic ending…I once again do not have words to express how I felt reading that. That ending is so twisted and I love those types of endings for bad endings. Honestly, this is probably the best route in the game even if he’s not my favorite LI. 9.5/10

Yanagi Aiji 🚬

Alright, final route time. Now, if you want to play Yanagi’s route and fully see the world of Collar x Malice and answers to all the questions, you’re going to have to wait a while. You will not only have to finish all the other routes, but you specifically have to have obtained all the good endings. If you’re like me, this will take a while because you want to see all the endings. If you’re not, congrats it will take you slightly less time! So Yanagi here is basically marketed as that “true route” but not really. He has his own prologue, he has the longest route, and he’s only unlocked after playing through the other routes. I hate to say this but Yanagi’s route was the most boring one to me. I love Yanagi as a character, but I do not really like him as a love interest…which is unfortunate because he is the most stable one. But, as with all the other routes and boys, he definitely is well written and has a well written story. His route definitely focuses more on solving X-Day and definitively ending Adonis and the terrorism attacks. Because of this, you’re not getting much romance. Sorry to all the Yanagi fans. Yanagi, as the little leader of the group, is investigating all of them. At this point, you already understand and have solved the cases in previous routes so now we just have to figure out who is behind X-Day and Adonis and why they are so freaking weird. As is the pattern, Yanagi is also a traumatized man. We love to see it. Anyways, he also has some growth and development from confronting his trauma in his route. Thankfully, unlike Enomoto and Sasazuka, he has both a great good ending and tragic ending. I’m not going into detail on either because major spoilers. 8.5/10

Overall Thoughts 🐈‍⬛

Collar x Malice is a great entry point into Otomate titles or otome as a genre. It has has some unique features like trigger mode, investigation mode, and then an occasional map mode for the station Ichika works at. I didn’t mention it above, but this game also has great side characters including Ichika’s little brother who does play a huge role in the story. If you’re looking for a recommended route order, mine is going to be Enomoto/Okazaki -> Sasazuka -> Shiraishi -> Yanagi. As for which route to play first, either pick who you’re more interested in OR pick whether you want to learn more about the characters or Adonis. If you want to experience the characters first, start with Enomoto. If you want to see more of an intro to Adonis first, pick Okazaki. My rating of this game is going to be a 9/10! It’s truly an enjoyable experience!

EDIT: I am adding in my LI and route rankings! This one is really hard for me, because I genuinely liked them all.

Route: Shiraishi > Okazaki > Yanagi > Enomoto > Sasazuka

LI: Okazaki > Shiraishi > Enomoto > Sasazuka > Yanagi

Resources 📝

I obviously pulled my information about the game mostly from the game itself. The CGs are also from the game. Now for people’s thoughts on the game, I looked at the otomegames subreddit, Blerdy Otome, and Otome Kitten. I also followed Otome Kitten’s walkthroughs. I highly recommend looking into these places of the internet for otome content and also more perspectives on the game!

#otome mondays #collar x malice #minor spoilers #cg spoilers

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ukrfeminism · 1 year

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2 minute read

The Government has issued new guidance warning teachers to be aware of “incel” ideology in schools and colleges, amid fears that the subculture poses a growing threat to national security.

The Department for Education (DfE) has published new advice urging education staff to be aware of the evolving risks of radicalisation among young people, including the first explicit mention of involuntary celibates (incels) as a potential terror threat.

It said that some children, young people and adult learners “may appear engaged with, or have adopted, a mixed, unclear or unstable ideology that supports extreme violence,” including “involuntary celibates who direct their anger mainly at women”.

The guidance also urged teachers to be aware of children and young people who showed signs of Islamist extremism, right-wing and left-wing extremism, and those who appeared “obsessed with massacre, for example, high-school shootings”.

It warned of the growing risk of online radicalisation, telling teachers that “the internet and social media make spreading divisive and hateful narratives to millions of people easy… Education settings need to be aware of the risks and talk to children, young people and adult learners about staying safe online.”

The Government has also recruited a specialist support officer to provide “training sessions on topics such as online radicalisation, gaming and extremism, and incels”, which it said have been accessed by thousands of staff from education providers, i can reveal.

It comes amid growing concerns about the risk of domestic terrorism in the UK posed by incels, after five people were shot and killed in Plymouth last year by 22-year-old Jake Davison, who reportedly shared misogynistic views on incel forums.

The incel movement is a growing online subculture in which a misogynistic worldview is promoted by individuals who blame women for their lack of sexual activity.

Prevent, part of the UK’s counter-terror programme, does not publish statistics related directly to incels, which are categorised as a “mixed, unstable or unclear (MUU)” ideology. However, the latest official statistics show that more than half of referrals to Prevent in the year to March 2021 were related to individuals showing signs of MUU ideologies.

Almost a third of cases that were escalated to the UK’s Channel programme, which provides tailored support to people deemed vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism, were indivuals categorised as MUU.

An independent report by the UK’s Commission for Publishing Extremism last year found that there has been “a rise in extreme misogynistic hate speech in the UK, mainly perpetrated by incels”.

It called on the Government to extend the “stirring up of hatred offences, as part of hate crime legislation, to include sex”, noting that “this would help protect against the rising incel threat”.

Research published on Sunday by the University of Exeter said that the so-called “incelosphere” is a “community of angry, belligerent and unapologetic” men that poses a “clear and present danger” to women and an “emerging threat to children”.

It found that users on the leading incel forum posted about rape every 29 minutes and the forum’s rules were changed six months ago to accommodate paedophilia.

None of the past four education secretaries have commented on the growing threat posed by incels. Gavin Williamson, who stepped down as education secretary in 2021, was understood to have been keen for teachers to be able to tackle the risks from incel culture through the relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) curriculum within schools.

However, some schools have begun providing specialised lessons on murky ideologies such as inceldom amid fears that they cannot be addressed in RSHE alone.

The Skinners’ School in Kent held a parents’ information evening on “incel culture”, sexism and consent earlier this year alongside two other local schools.

Meanwhile, Salford council has also begun running “incel awareness courses” for school and other professionals, with dozens from across Greater Manchester attending each month.

ialso found safeguarding newsletters sent out to primary school children across the country, warning students to be cautious of the growing incel movement and to steer clear of incel forums on sites such as Reddit, 4chan and Parler.

One primary school in Stoke has even begun teaching staff to be aware of misogynistic language used by incels, including the words “Chad” – which refers toa stereotypical Alpha male – and “femoid” – a derogatory term used to suggest that women are subhuman.

In Scotland, where education is a devolved issue, teachers have also begun undergoing training to recognise signs of young people being radicalised by incel ideas, including video seminars in “incel ideology and how it can present both on and offline”.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “Education settings play a crucial role in helping pupils understand the world around them, both through the RSHE curriculum – which allows for a school-led approach on teaching pupils about a range of current issues – but also through their safeguarding duties, supporting staff to identify young people that may be at risk of radicalisation.

“Our recently published non-statutory guidance helps schools identify and address extremist views by providing different examples of extreme ideologies, including involuntary celibate (incel) concerns.

“Guidance around such ideologies has previously been shared to help statutory partners recognise broader radicalisation concerns.”

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jcmarchi · 4 months

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Artistic Devotion – A Journey Through Horror And Success With Red Candle Games

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/artistic-devotion-a-journey-through-horror-and-success-with-red-candle-games/

Artistic Devotion – A Journey Through Horror And Success With Red Candle Games

Scaring players has helped put the small team at Red Candle Games on the map. Its first two titles, Detention and Devotion, impressed and terrified fans with frighteningly strong horror chops, but the team is leaving that behind to tackle something completely different in Nine Sols. This side-scrolling action platformer blends sci-fi with Chinese mythology and is Red Candle’s most ambitious project yet. This significant step forward affords an opportunity to look back on the studio’s young history, so we spoke with co-founder Vincent Yang to learn about how a small band of gamers in Taiwan formed one of the industry’s most promising – and, at one time, controversial – indie studios.

Red Candle Games began in 2014 when designer Coffee Yao was developing a prototype for Detention. The side-scrolling horror game features two students exploring a haunted high school in 1960s Taiwan, incorporating local cultural references rarely seen in games. These elements drew the attention of Henry and Light Wang during an indie developer meetup in Taipei. According to Yang, Detention impressed the Wangs enough for them to join the project. As the game grew in scope, the three recruited help from mutual friends – Doy Chiang, Hans Chen, and Yang himself – bumping the yet-to-be-named team to six members by late 2015. After working remotely on Detention for a period, the group decided a physical office was necessary, which led to the official formation of Red Candle Games.

Detention was released on Steam in January 2017 and was well-received by critics and players. The game has since been ported to multiple platforms and even adapted into a live-action film in 2019 (it premiered in the U.S. in 2021). Additionally, Netflix and Taiwan’s Public Television Service released a Detention TV show in 2020 – though with a different story from the movie.

Devotion

Red Candle followed this success with Devotion, an atmospheric first-person horror game set within a haunted apartment. Moving from 2D to 3D development is a big design shift, but Yang believes regularly changing gears like this is necessary to maintain fan interest.

“Because in this ever-changing and competitive gaming market, we often find it difficult to impress the players by applying the same techniques repeatedly, which pushes us to keep delivering new and innovative ideas,” Yang says. “This, in turn, changes the way we make games.”

After over two years of work, Devotion arrived on Steam in February 2019 to heaps of praise from the lucky players who managed to get their hands on it. But only two days after its launch, the game riled up controversy among Chinese players thanks to a piece of in-game art mocking China’s president, Xi Jinping, by calling him Winnie the Pooh, referencing an internet meme that unfavorably compares the leader’s appearance to the character. China and Taiwan have a tense relationship, so the resulting backlash from the country’s players and the government was severe enough to force Red Candle to pull Devotion from sale. The game’s Chinese publisher even lost its business license.

Red Candle Games’ founders, (left to right): Doy Chiang, Hans Chen, Coffee Yao, Vincent Yang, Henry Wang, and Light Wang

To the dismay of horror enthusiasts, Devotion remained delisted for over two years. Inklings of hope would occasionally arise, such as PC storefront GOG announcing plans to re-sell the game before it immediately back-peddled due to vaguely defined player complaints. Fortunately, Red Candle finally began re-selling Devotion directly through its website in March 2021, bringing its tumultuous journey to an end. Red Candle could move forward. “As a team, we felt relieved, as if a heavy weight was lifted from our shoulders,” says Yang.

Moving forward meant stepping away from horror to do something different. Enter Nine Sols, which Red Candle started working on a few months before Devotion’s original launch. Yang says the game originates from a concept he envisioned years prior based on the story of Hou Yi. In Chinese mythology, Hou Yi is a legendary archer who used his bow to rescue the country from plagues and saved the moon during an eclipse, among other supernatural feats. Yang proposed reworking this story into a science fiction tale, an idea that intrigued his teammates.

Nine Sols unfolds in the realm of New Kunlun, a sanctuary for humans created by nine god-like rulers. However, the population is unaware of New Kunlun’s sinister true purpose. That changes when a child awakens Yi, a cat-like hero that history has forgotten. Yi embarks on a quest to slay the nine rulers and free New Kunlun. The adventure sports a manga-inspired hand-drawn art direction blending cyberpunk/sci-fi with Chinese fantasy and Taoism. Gameplaywise, Nine Sols is a fast-paced 2D Metroidvania with Souls-like combat, as players hack apart enemies using Yi’s sword and parry attacks in a manner directly influenced by Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

The project is a gamble, as the team leaves its comfort zone to make its first action platformer. Yang says with its art assets, gameplay mechanics, levels, animations, and 12-15 hour length, Nine Sols is the studio’s biggest title yet. But the team needed to do something different to avoid feeling burned out on horror while also taking advantage of the flexibility its team size affords.

Red Candle Games’ upcoming Nine Sols pays homage to the Chinese myth of Hou Yi, and features a manga-inspired art style

“Being an indie developer, in a way, makes us more versatile and gives us more room to be creative, meaning we have the privilege to experiment on different topics and gameplay,” Yang says. “It’s then reasonable that we want to leverage that versatility and explore other possibilities wherever we have the chance.”

Nine Sols is Red Candle’s first action game, but it’s leveraging its narrative chops to craft what Yang hopes will be a compelling story filled with rich lore to create what he describes as “a new kind of action platformer” – one with equal emphasis on engaging gameplay and storytelling.

Detention

Nine Sols also marks the team’s most serious attempt at penetrating the Western market. Detention and Devotion, despite their success, still appeal to relatively niche audiences. On the other hand, Nine Sols combines two very popular subgenres, and Yang hopes that results in the game making the biggest splash possible overseas and putting the studio on more people’s radars.

Nine Sols is currently slated to launch in Q1 2024, but curious players can play a free Steam demo. Depending on its success, the title could be a launch pad for other experiences that don’t focus exclusively on frightening players.

“If given the opportunity, I think we’d love to explore other genres in the future,” says Yang. “Deep down, we are simply a group of game creators who love all kinds of games. So as long as we ensure the product we produce will have guaranteed quality and doesn’t disappoint our current and future supporters, I find no reasons for us to be locked into the horror genre.”

As for Red Candle’s future, Yang believes maintaining its small size has its benefits. Since Devotion’s launch, only three new employees have joined, while one has left, meaning the studio has grown from 11 to 13 full-time staff members. While he’s happy with the advantages of running a small team – smoother communication and more room to experiment – he’s not opposed to expanding the studio’s size if needed. “I envision us as a resilient team that can embrace and adapts to any possible changes regardless of our size,” Yang says.

Nine Sols is the biggest test yet for the studio, eschewing almost everything that brought it success in an attempt to broaden its appeal by tackling a competitive genre. But Red Candle Games has proven its ability, resiliency, and versatility over its relatively young existence. We’re excited to see how it continues to delight – or terrify – its fans going forward.

This article originally appeared in Issue 356 of Game Informer

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governmentjobsworld · 1 year

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கோயம்புத்தூர் மாவட்ட சமூக நல்வாழ்வு துறையில் தேர்வே இல்லாமல் வேலை..!

கோயம்புத்தூர் மாவட்ட சமூக நல்வாழ்வு துறையில் தேர்வே இல்லாமல் வேலை..! #govtjobs #upsc #ssc #currentaffairs #gk #ssccgl #ias #jobs #governmentjobs

கோயம்புத்தூர் மாவட்ட சமூக நல்வாழ்வு துறையின் பின் வரும் Case Worker பணிகள் நிரப்புவதற்கான அறிவிப்பு வெளியாகியுள்ளன. தமிழ்நாடு அரசு இந்த அதிகாரப்பூர்வ அறிவிப்பினை வெளியிட்டுள்ளது. சமூக நல்வாழ்வு துறை பணிக்கு விண்ணப்பிக்க ஆர்வமுள்ளவர்கள் 07/12/2022 முதல் 15/12/2022க்குல் அஞ்சல் மூலமாக விண்ணப்பிக்கவும். இப்பணிக்கு விண்ணப்பிக்கும் நபர்கள் விண்ணப்பிக்கும் முன்பு கீழ்க்கண்ட கல்வித் தகுதி , வயது விவரம்…

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#coimbatore social welfare office recruitment 2021 #district social welfare job responsibility #district social welfare kokrajhar #district social welfare office #district social welfare officer #district social welfare officer salary #district social welfare recruitment 2022 #DSWO Coimbatore Recruitment 2022 Apply Case Worker Posts #e district social welfare application status #office assistant #social welfare application status #social welfare department recruitment 2020 #social welfare officer

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96thdayofrage · 2 years

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‘We Can No Longer Look Away’: House Passes New Domestic Terrorism Bill In the Wake of Buffalo Shooting

New York prosecutors received more time to build their case against the Buffalo suspect on Thursday as a grand jury indicted him for first-degree murder in the killing of 10 Black people at an Upstate supermarket Saturday.

Payton Gendron, who has been dubbed “the most hated man in the country,” could also be facing state and federal hate crime charges.

Since the killings, national and state politicians have sprung into action, pushing policies to combat domestic terrorism.

Despite overwhelming opposition from Republicans, House Democrats passed a bill on Wednesday that targets domestic terrorism.

Supporters say the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act would prevent future shootings like Saturday’s massacre and allow the U.S. Department of Justice to respond more “effectively” to domestic terrorism.

Critics argue it focuses only on white supremacy offenses and gives the DOJ the ability to infringe on constitutional rights. All but one GOP House member voted against the measure Wednesday, including U.S. Rep. Chris Jacobs of Buffalo.

“We cannot allow our country to turn a blind eye to white supremacist vigilantes. Their hatred impacts all of us,” House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn said during floor debate. “While the gunman in Buffalo was aiming for people who looked like me, others who did not look like me fell victim to this evil act.”

The federal measure changes the current law enforcement outlook on domestic terrorism to add a special focus on racially motivated offenses. It creates an office in the DOJ, FBI and Department of Homeland Security to monitor, investigate and prosecute domestic terrorism.

The bill would require mandatory training in identifying and combating white supremacism, including stopping “domestic terrorists from infiltrating law-enforcement agencies” and the military. The federal agencies would also be required to publish biannual reports on the level of threat supremacists pose to the nation.

“This legislation will provide federal agencies with necessary tools to ensure that peace and justice prevail,” Clyburn said.

Critics of the act argue that there are already existing laws that address terrorist activity in America. They also believed that by focusing on just one type of domestic terrorism, the measure would divert funds from other terrorist threats.

“This legislation expands the federal bureaucracy, it ignores new and evolving terrorist threats, and it makes it more difficult for law enforcement to recruit and retain qualified candidates,” GOP Rep. Guy Reschenthaler of Pennsylvania said.

Another version of the bill, introduced by the Senate in response to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol in 2021, had a more all-encompassing definition, opponents argue. However, the 2021 measure was criticized by civil rights groups for creating an opening for the federal government to surveil minority communities.

As a result, the sponsors added a provision to safeguard people from being surveilled just for taking part in a protest as well as a “mandatory civil liberties check on investigations,” as the Washington Post characterizes the tweak to the bill.

The act was initially introduced in 2017, and it passed the House unanimously in 2020 but stalled in the Senate.

In January 2021, the DOJ issued a warning about domestic terrorism, which it said had been amplified by the Capitol riot.

“Information suggests that some ideologically-motivated violent extremists with objections to the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition, as well as other perceived grievances fueled by false narratives, could continue to mobilize to incite or commit violence,” officials said in the DOJ’s National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin.

The bullet cited “long-standing racial and ethnic tension” that drove the 2019 shooting in El Paso, Texas, which killed 23 people and injured 23 others. The Buffalo shooting on Saturday also injured three people. The shooter, Gendron, wrote online that he targeted the area because of its large Black population.

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland and DHS Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas told Congress last July that the greatest domestic threat facing the country came from “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists,” reports show.

Conservative editors at the National Review magazine argue the federal measure would make conservative policies like gun rights and free expression subject to DOJ investigations under the guise of white supremacy.

The magazine argues the bill is strictly political. It would not give investigators additional powers nor create new criminal offenses or lists of designated domestic terrorist groups, reports show.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat for New York, announced plans to introduce the measure in the Senate next week. Republicans are expected to block it, according to reports. Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois was the only Republican House member who voted in favor of the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act Wednesday.

On the state level, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul issued an executive order in “direct response” to the Buffalo shooting that creates a domestic terrorism unit in the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services.

“This is a wake-up call, and here in New York, we are taking strong steps to directly address this deadly threat,” Hochul said in a statement Wednesday.

The unit will work similarly to the proposed federal unit — accessing threat levels and creating a process to identify threats. The state unit will also disburse funds to local agencies for threat assessment and using “social media to intervene in the radicalization process.”

“How many more lives have to be needlessly taken for us before we face the truth?” she said during a Manhattan press conference. “We can no longer look away, and we’re not just going to call it out.”

Under the order, the state’s domestic terrorism unit must also educate law enforcement, mental health professionals and school officials on “the recent uptick” in violent extremism and radicalization, Hochul’s office said.

The order also directs the New York State Police to launch a unit to track home-grown violent extremism through social media. It also calls on every county in New York to review current strategies for combatting domestic terrorism.

Gendron returns to court on June 9 for a felony hearing, which would determine if the case goes to trial. Erie County District Attorney John Flynn said more charges might come pending further action from the grand jury.

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beileil · 8 months

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I am super curious to hear about the HDA chapter where Garou appears! <3

(In regards to WIP ask post)

Yeah no of course definitely sure buddy. I'm also curious to know how this chapter is going to go. I can definitely help with that. Let me just dust off this doc that I last touched in *checks timestamp* September 2021.

So for the uninitiated, Hero Detective Agency is my 1940s private detective AU where each chapter tends to follow a "case of the week" type formula. Other than Saitama (detective) and Genos (his assistant), most characters only appear in one chapter, though sometimes they get foreshadowed before their official appearance. Garou will not be showing up until Chapter 9, but fun fact: He was the "hooligan" that Golden Ball mentions picked a fight with him outside the bar prior to the events of Chapter 3. (My notes for the Garou chapter are so old that originally Spring Mustachio and Golden Ball were going to be cops in Chapter 9 before I gave them bigger roles owning the pawn shop in Chapter 3.)

I'm a little...shakier on fine points of how Chapter 9 is going to go plot-wise, but the premise is extremely similar to the hero hunter arc of the manga if you replace "pro hero" with "cop". Basically, Garou's been going around attacking police officers in City Z. (Motive currently undecided. I'm debating how much I want to get into the "corruption in the law" angle or whether that's way too much I want to go into politically lol.) Saitama takes a personal interest in the case after Mumen Rider, his old partner, gets attacked. He starts investigating on his own until...

Bang, who is the now retired former police chief at the precinct Saitama worked at before he started HDA, asks Saitama to find Garou and put a stop to his cop hunting. Bang's purposely going beneath the law/under the table/however you want to put it by asking Saitama, a private detective, for help instead of giving over any of the info he has to the police. To put it frankly, Bang Does Not Trust Them. Bang still runs a dojo in this fic, though I'm undecided if Garou will still go through with the whole "beating up all his classmates" thing or just run away. In any case, Bang thinks of Garou as something like a wayward son and would very much prefer he not get locked up in jail...or worse.

Probably disappointingly for you (sorry!), Garou won't physically appear until near the end of the chapter. Since the fic is almost exclusively from Saitama's perspective, we don't meet Garou until Saitama does. Actually, until Bang shows up, Saitama doesn't even know Garou's identity! So it's almost going to be more of a "tracking down a serial killer" kind of feel--following after the chaos left in his trail, trying to glean what he can find out from victims, making guesses about Garou's personality and motives (definitely will be a fun encounter with Tareo which throws a lot of his assumptions for a loop!)--which hopefully builds up nicely to a big showdown with Garou himself.

I don't have snippets that are like, a good sharing size? But I can offer you some fun previews and/or trivia about the chapter:

The chapter name is tentatively The Case of the Human Monster.

Eartha Kitt's I Want To Be Evil will be on the playlist.

There is a funny scene with Glasses that I totally forgot I wrote. Re-reading it actually gave me pretty bad imposter syndrome. As I do every time I laugh at something clever that I, apparently, wrote myself but do not remember.

Badd gets aged up a few years so I could make him a rookie cop. He makes a joke that if he was "a few years younger" that he, Genos, and Garou could have all been friends and formed a Shitty Teen Squad.

Watchdog Man is in charge of the precinct's K-9 squad.

Bang tries to recruit Saitama to his dojo, and when that doesn't work, he tries Genos.

Garou calls Saitama a dick. Like in the '40s slang for private detective kind of way. But I still giggled writing it, because I am 12 years old.

Thank you for the ask! I've been struggling real hard with writers block on HDA in particular. But it's still fun to talk about different aspects of the story and things like this help me remember why I wrote it in the first place!

#wip #fanfic ask game #hero detective agency #phew there's one down

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newstfionline · 11 months

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Wednesday, May 31, 2023

Thousands evacuate from Nova Scotia wildfires (AP) Wildfires in Canada’s Atlantic coast province of Nova Scotia have caused thousands to evacuate. The Halifax Regional Municipality said late Monday that preliminary estimates indicate approximately 200 homes or structures have been damaged, based on initial visual inspections by first responders. Halifax deputy fire Chief David Meldrum said an estimated 14,000 people were told to flee their homes, most of which are about a 30-minute drive northwest of downtown Halifax.

Police agencies are desperate to hire. But they say few want the job. (Washington Post) The San Francisco Police Department is down more than 600 officers, almost 30 percent of its allotment. Phoenix needs about 500 more officers to be fully staffed. The D.C. police force is smaller than it has been in 50 years, despite troubling gun violence and carjackings, as officers leave faster than they can be replaced. Police departments across the country are struggling to fill their ranks, creating what many current and former officials say is a staffing emergency that threatens public safety. They cite an exodus of veteran officers amid new police accountability measures that followed the 2020 murder of George Floyd, increased hostility from the communities they police, and criminal justice laws that seek to reduce the number of people in jail. Advocates for police reform see the moment as an opportunity to hire a new generation of officers and reimagine policing. But as agencies seek fresh recruits, they are getting fewer qualified applicants than in past years—leading some to make the risky move of lowering the bar for hiring to fill their ranks.

Gun violence rages with at least 20 mass shootings recorded over Memorial Day Weekend (USA Today) Gun violence erupted across the U.S. over Memorial Day weekend: At least 20 mass shootings left 16 people dead and over 80 injured. The Gun Violence Archive, which tracks mass shootings, logged 20 incidents in which at least four people were injured or killed, not including shooters, from Friday afternoon through Monday night. The bloodshed started with a spree in Arizona, where a 20-year-old man was accused of killing four people and injuring one in five different shootings in the Phoenix area. Over the next three days, people were killed and injured in Virginia, Mississippi, New Mexico, Illinois and more. And Monday evening, as Memorial Day revelers in Hollywood Beach, Florida, celebrated the holiday, nine people were injured by gunfire along a boardwalk.

Drought-struck Barcelona quenches thirst with costly desalination (AP) Where once the population of Barcelona drank mostly from its rivers and wells, Spain’s second city now relies upon a labyrinth-like mesh of green, blue and purple pipes inside an industrial plant to keep it from going thirsty amid a prolonged drought. Water is pumped from two kilometers (1.2 miles) into the Mediterranean Sea to where the Llobregat desalination plant sits on an isolated stretch of beach. After journeying through several cleaning and filtering systems it reaches its final stop: the twisting and turning multi-colored channels that squeeze every drop of water free of its salt. Barely used after being built in 2009, Europe’s largest desalination plant for drinking water is running at full throttle to help the greater Barcelona area and some five million people adapt to the impact of climate change, which has contributed to the drying up of southern Europe’s fresh water reserves through heat waves and drought. In April 2021, before the drought, rivers provided 63% of Barcelona’s drinking water, wells provided 34% and desalination just 3%. Two years later desalination makes up 33% of Barcelona’s drinking water, while wells provide 23% and its shrinking rivers just 19%, according to Barcelona’s municipal water company.

Paranoid atmosphere (Washington Post) Parishioners have denounced Russian priests who advocated peace instead of victory in the war on Ukraine. Teachers lost their jobs after children tattled that they opposed the war. Neighbors who bore some trivial grudge for years have snitched on longtime foes. Workers rat on one another to their bosses or directly to the police or the FSB, the Federal Security Service. This is the hostile, paranoid atmosphere of Russians at war with Ukraine and with one another. As Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime cracks down on critics of the war and other political dissenters, citizens are policing one another in an echo of the darkest years of Joseph Stalin’s repression, triggering investigations, criminal charges, prosecutions and dismissals from work. In March last year, Putin called on the nation to purge itself by spitting out traitors “like gnats.” Since the invasion began, at least 19,718 people have been arrested for their opposition to the war, according to legal rights group OVD-Info, with criminal cases launched against 584 people, and administrative cases mounted against 6,839. Many others faced intimidation or harassment from the authorities, lost jobs, or had relatives targeted, the organization said.

Russia says drones damage Moscow buildings in pre-dawn attack (AP) Russian air defenses stopped eight drones converging on Moscow, officials said Tuesday, in an attack that authorities blamed on Ukraine. The attack caused “insignificant damage” to several buildings, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. Two people received medical attention for unspecified injuries but did not need hospitalization, he said. The attacks have raised questions about the effectiveness of Russia’s air defense systems. A senior Russian lawmaker, Andrei Kartapolov, told Russian business news site RBC that “we have a very big country and there will always be a loophole where the drone can fly around the areas where air defense systems are located.”

30 international peacekeepers injured in fierce clashes with ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo (AP) The NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo, KFOR, on Tuesday raised the number of its troops injured in fierce clashes with ethnic Serbs to 30. The Serbs had tried to take over the offices of one of the municipalities in northern Kosovo where ethnic Albanian mayors took up their posts last week. A statement said that 11 Italian soldiers and 19 Hungarian ones “sustained multiple injuries, including fractures and burns from improvized explosive incendiary devices.” Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic spent the night with his troops on the border with Kosovo. They were placed on the highest state of alert on his orders last week. Vucic said 52 Serbs were injured in the clashes, three seriously. Kosovo and Serbia have been foes for decades, with Belgrade refusing to recognize Kosovo’s 2008 sovereignty.

Erdogan continues divisive rhetoric following victory (Washington Post) President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sang and smiled, reveling in the applause of the supporters he addressed Sunday after the toughest election of his long career. In victory, though, instead of soothing the nation, he lashed out at a familiar set of villains, in remarks that may set the tone for his next term. He was dismissive of his opponent, Kemal Kilicdaroglu. “Bye, bye to Mr. Kemal,” he said. And he ruled out any release for an imprisoned Kurdish political leader, calling him a “terrorist.” As the country moved on from the election, Erdogan would not easily abandon the bitter rhetoric, analysts said, setting Turkey on a divisive and turbulent course for the foreseeable future, even as Erdogan juggled a need to stabilize the economy as well as Turkey’s often stormy relations with allies in the West. In fact, “I think he is going to harden” his rhetoric, said Berk Esen, a professor of political science at Istanbul’s Sabanci University. “We are going to see him adopt a very polarizing discourse using ethno-religious themes” to maintain his “winning coalition” of voters. The value of the Turkish lira sunk to a record low on Tuesday, just days after Erdogan entrenched his authority into a third decade.

Chinese police clash with protesters over plans to demolish mosque (Washington Post) Residents of a majority-Muslim town in southwestern China clashed with police over the weekend as they tried to stop the demolition of a domed roof from a centuries-old mosque, part of the Chinese Communist Party’s expanding effort to control religion. The incident appeared to be related to a court judgment from 2020 that ruled some of the mosque’s most recent renovations were illegal, and ordered demolition. With a history that may stretch as far back as the 13th century, the Najiaying Mosque was expanded many times over the years to add buildings, as well as four minarets and a domed roof. In 2019, part of the structure was listed as a protected cultural relic. In recent years, however, Communist Party restrictions on the pious have escalated sharply. The country’s top leader, Xi Jinping, has demanded absolute political loyalty of faith communities and the “Sinicization” of religion. Surveillance of religious leaders has also intensified. A nationwide database of officially approved Islamic, Protestant and Catholic religious teachers was launched this month. The campaign has focused on Islam and Christianity because of the party’s deep-seated fear of faith being a vector for foreign influence.

North Korea says it will launch its first military spy satellite in June (AP) North Korea said Tuesday it would launch its first military spy satellite in June and described space-based reconnaissance as crucial for monitoring the United States’ “reckless” military exercises with South Korea. The statement came a day after North Korea notified Japan’s coast guard that the launch, sometime between May 31 and June 11, might affect waters in the Yellow Sea, East China Sea and east of the Philippines’ Luzon Island. Japan’s defense minister warned its forces to shoot down the satellite or debris, if any entered Japanese territory, and its coast guard issued a safety warning for ships that would be in the affected seas during the expected launch, citing a risk of falling debris. While North Korea’s rivals have condemned the country’s planned launch as a banned test of ballistic missile technology, it’s less clear whether the satellite itself is advanced enough to support the North’s stated goals of tracking and monitoring U.S. and South Korean military activities in real time.

Celebrations in Jordan ahead of kingdom’s first major royal wedding in years (AP) Several thousand cheering and flag-waving Jordanians packed a sports stadium for a free concert in the capital of Amman as part of celebrations leading up the kingdom’s first major royal wedding in years. Crown Prince Hussein, 28, is to marry Saudi architect Rajwa Alseif, 29, on Thursday at Zahran Palace in downtown Amman, the same wedding venue previously chosen by the prince’s father, King Abdullah II, and his grandfather, the late King Hussein. The nuptials come after a rough patch for the royals, including a public rift between the king and his half-brother, and are seen as a way of shoring up public support at a time of persistent economic difficulties.

Racers chase cheese wheel down a hill in chaotic UK race (AP) The big cheese of extreme U.K. sports events is back. Hundreds of spectators gathered Monday to watch dozens of reckless racers chase a 7-pound (3 kilogram) wheel of Double Gloucester cheese down the near-vertical Cooper’s Hill, near Gloucester in southwest England. The first racer to finish behind the fast-rolling cheese gets to keep it. The cheese-rolling race has been held at Cooper’s Hill, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of London, since at least 1826, and the sport of cheese-rolling is believed to be much older. Few competitors manage to stay on their feet all the way down the 200-yard (180 meter) hill, and this year several had to be helped, limping, from the course. Matt Crolla, 28, from Manchester in northwestern England, won the first of several men’s races. Asked how he had prepared, he told reporters: “I don’t think you can train for it, can you? It’s just being an idiot.” Delaney Irving managed to cross the finish line first to win the women’s competition, even after having been knocked unconscious. Irving, 19, said the race was “good … now that I remember it.”

#headlines #news

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historyhermann · 1 year

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"Star Wars Resistance": Diversity Shines Through in a Galaxy Far, Far Away

What if a spy became a mechanic as "cover" for his espionage, but he was terrible at both jobs? Star Wars Resistance answers that question. This series follows the adventures of Kaz, the friends he meets along the way, and the challenges he and his friends face. Whether people are out to get them or they're facing rough and tumble situations, it's an animated series like no other- not even other Star Wars series.

Reprinted from The Geekiary, my History Hermann WordPress blog, and Wayback Machine. This was the nineteenth article I wrote for The Geekiary. This post was originally published on December 12, 2021. I wasn't sure the opening image was going to fly since The Geekiary, in terms of images that can be added to articles, is a bit prudish. But, it was accepted!

Star Wars Resistance is the creation of Dave Filoni, a director, screenwriter, actor, producer, and animator, best known for his work on animated series in the Star Wars franchise. Star Wars Resistance is a 3D animated action and sci-fi comedy that pulls you in from the first episode. It lasted for two seasons, with relatable characters and exciting adventures.

As a warning, this recommendation discusses some spoilers for Star Wars Resistance.

Yeager, Kaz, and Neeku on the Colossus

Star Wars Resistance centers around a pilot named Kazuda "Kaz" Xiono (voiced by Christopher Sean), who is recruited by Resistance commander Poe Dameron (voiced by Oscar Issac) to spy on the villainous First Order. He is taken in by Jarek Yaeger (voiced by Scott Lawrence), the owner of Yeager's Repairs, a mechanics shop on the refueling station Colossus. While there, he meets a talented technician named Neeku Vozo (voiced by Josh Brener) and an aspiring pilot Tamara 'Tam' Ryvora (voiced by Suzie McGrath), who are part of the same shop.

While staying on the Colossus, Kaz meets a variety of interesting characters. One is Hype Fazon (voiced by Donald Faison). Hype is the leader of Ace Squadron, the fighter unit protecting the station. There's also a pilot named Torra Doza (voiced by Myrna Velasco), Station Captain Imanuel Doza (voiced by Jason Hightower), and a space pirate spy named Synara San (voiced by Nazneen Contractor).

With the help of these new friends, he faces a high-ranking First Order officer, Commander Pyre (voiced by Liam McIntyre), and the First Order Security Bureau agent Tierny (voiced by Sumalee Montano). Over the course of the series, Kaz changes from an awkward kid to someone more confident in himself- and a somewhat more skilled mechanic.

Other recurring characters include Orka (voiced by Bobby Moynihan) and Flix (voiced by Jim Rash) who run the Office of Acquisitions aboard the station, tavern keeper Aunt Z (voiced by Tovah Feldshuh), pilot Freya Fenris (voiced by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn), space pirate captain Kragan Gorr (voiced by Gary Anthony Williams), space pirate Drell (voiced by David Shaughnessy), and pilot Jace Rucklin (voiced by Elijah Wood). Astromech droids like R1-J5 and BB-8 help characters when needed, whether fighting enemies, receiving messages, unlocking doors, assisting in piloting ships, or gathering information. Others such as 4D-M1N help in a command capacity.

Star Wars Resistance stands out due to its diverse cast in contrast to the overwhelming Whiteness of Star Wars films, apart from well-known characters like Lando Calrissian, who was first voiced by Billy Dee Williams and later by Donald Glover, Samuel J. Jackson's Mace Windu, and John Boyega's Finn. McGrath is a British actress with Jamaican and British roots, with her British accent strongly shining through in her voice acting as Tam. Faison and Lawrence are Black men. Montano has Filipino, Thai, Chinese, and German ancestry. Velasco comes from a big Mexican family and Contractor is of Indian descent. Sean, on the other hand, has Japanese, Irish, Spanish and German roots.

In an April 2019 interview, Velasco described herself as a "Mexican girl from L.A." She was amazed by the fandom's reaction to Torra, noting that unlike other series, Star Wars Resistance shows what characters do in day-to-day life. The series itself is set before the newest trilogy of Star Wars films. Torra could be argued to be Mexican-inspired or Mexican-code as Velasco voiced a Latine character named Carla Delgado in Elena of Avalor and Jessica Cruz in DC Super Hero Girls, who is of Mexican and Honduran descent.

Many of the voice actors have experience in the field, especially in all-ages animated series, but Star Wars Resistance is the first animated role for McGrath. She has said that in voicing Tam, she felt like she was in London's East End, due to the melting pot on the Colossus. She also described Tam as fun to play and said there is an "element of a young urban, Londoner" in the character.

In this anime-inspired animated series, Tam is more than a "feisty mechanic". She's a hard worker who wants to become a racer, a rule-follower who has a strong moral compass. This is challenged in the second season of Star Wars Resistance when the Colossus is revealed to be a space ship and Tam, feeling betrayed by Yeager and Kaz for not disclosing their ties to the Resistance, decides to join the First Order.

McGrath described Tam's decision as giving her the ability to be a pilot. There are challenges as she goes from being a mechanic to a soldier. Even so, she keeps her morality and her heart. Tierney, another brown-skinned character, is able to manipulate Tam to stay in the First Order by playing to her insecurities, using her as an asset to try and take down the Colossus.

Slowly over the second season Tam begins to change her mind about the First Order, even helping out Kaz and Neeku when they didn't realize it, even as both still have hope in her. Rucklin, who is still angry at Kaz for destroying his star fighter, tries to tell Tam to stay the course. Related to this is Griff Halloran explaining why he left the Empire, under which Doza was his commanding officer, in the episode "The New World". To him, fighting for the Empire wasn't worth it in the end.

As for Kaz and Neeku, they generally believe in Tam, while Yeager sees her as turning her back on them and joining the other side. Kaz even agrees with Yeager that they would have to take her out. In the first part of the Season 2 finale, she is horrified to see the destroyers firing on the people of Aeos while Rucklin remains loyal. In the second part, she tells Tierney that Yeager gave her a family, unlike the First Order, and she wants to be with her chosen family instead of space Nazis.

While the first season of Star Wars Resistance takes place on Colossus where the characters have to face off the Warbirds, a gang of space pirates, the First Order and its military occupation of the platform, the second season raises the stakes. The Colossus is on the run from the First Order, barely escaping space battles before jumping to hyperspace. The platform remains a home for a gaggle of people and a found family for others, like the stowaways Kel (voiced by Antony Del Rio) and Eila (voiced by Nikki Soohoo) and Torra, the daughter of Captain Doza. In the process, they right off mutinous space pirates, save Resistance recruits, and Tam continues to have doubts about her role in the First Order, even after moving up the ranks.

The villains of Star Wars Resistance are starkly painted as evil without reproach. Stormtroopers are shown saluting the destruction of Kaz's homeworld and nearby planets, killing "countless innocents who called the system home." The First Order itself is clearly depicted as a fascist military junta. They were based on the idea of Nazis who fled to Argentina after World War II reforming into a group, admiring the work of the Galactic Empire. The First Order have been described as fascist but smarter than one would expect, ruling through fear rather than love. They're the equivalent of neo-Nazis or what some have called "space Nazis." General Hux, leader of the First Order, is modeled after Hitler.

There is an interesting contrast between the individuality emphasized on the Colossus and in the Resistance, and the First Order's mentality that the individual does not matter. Tam herself tries to mix those ideologies together, although it makes her superiors angry. While Pyre isn't happy when Tam literally saves those on the bridge of the Star Destroyer from being hit by a bomb fired by Kaz, she is promoted to second squadron commander by Tierny, to which she smiles and salutes. However, she shows doubts in firing on unarmed transport shuttles, while Tierny continues to have faith in Tam.

This makes it no surprise that Tam disagrees with Rucklin, a clear toady of the First Order, who shoots down a shuttle full of Resistance recruits. We even see Kylo Ren demanding that all Resistance cells be crushed, getting annoyed at Tierny for her "failures" and saying they don't "tolerate the weak." He is the only character to be shown using the Force in the whole series, in contrast to other Filoni productions which feature Jedi or Sith. There is no sympathy for these characters. After a Star Destroyer explodes in the final episode, with countless First Order troops aboard, including Rucklin, not one person bats an eye about the deaths of these soldiers.

The music of Star Wars Resistance is composed by Michael Tavera, a Latine composer who did music for Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters, The Awesomes, and many other shows. The series music is based on themes by John Williams. Every episode begins with an uplifting instrumental opening track. The series features other music set to the mood of the animation. However, the show's comedy is more prevalent than the music at times. It is mostly manifested by Kaz, often a goofball, and Neeku, who is very nerdy and has good chemistry with Kaz.

Unlike other Star Wars series such as Star Wars: The Clone Wars, romance is not a big part of the series apart from Captain Doza trying to protect his daughter, and his attempts to meet his wife, Venisa (voiced by Tasia Velenza). Kaz seems to have a crush on two women, Torra and Synara, and they may have crushes on him, especially in the case of Torra. However, they never kiss and their relationships never move beyond them being friends. In some ways, this allows the series to avoid falling into predictable romantic themes and plotlines that too many animations embody, often in a heterosexual manner rather than a queer one.

There are even recurring LGBTQ characters: Orka and Flix. Both are gay and are in a romantic relationship. This is only hinted throughout the series, but was confirmed by Justin Ridge, an executive producer of Star Wars Resistance who said they are "absolutely a gay couple and we're proud of that." Moynihan, who voices Orka, also said that Orka and Flix "love each other" and are his "favorite little couple" and hoped the characters return in the future. However, some criticize this portrayal as being too subtle and say it should be more overt.

Flix and Orka are among the small number of LGBTQ characters in Star Wars animated series. Cassie Cryar and Ione Marcy, who appeared in one episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, were revealed by Lucasfilm creative executive Pablo Hidalgo as "written as a couple in a relationship." Some accounts like Star Wars Queer Watch on Twitter track LGBTQ content in Star Wars. The latter noted the lack of LGBTQ characters in animated series, like Star Wars: The Bad Batch, which Filoni is also creator of, although they have a headcanon that Omega is trans or intersex.

Tam and Tierney on a First Order ship

Filoni has been involved with many other series besides Star Wars Resistance. He co-created Star Wars Rebels, storyboarded Star Wars Forces of Destiny, was a development artist, supervising director, writer, and producer for Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and is an executive producer, director and writer of The Mandalorian. He was also a storyboarder on countless series and voiced various Star Wars characters in the aforementioned series, like Bo Keevil in Star Wars Resistance.

Star Wars Resistance was well received by critics, some calling it "primed with potential," having a "brighter, more colorful palette" than other series, and an animation style which stands out among the traditionally computer generated animations for other Star Wars series. As a result, the series was nominated for Primetime Emmy Awards in 2019 and 2020 in the Outstanding Children's Program category, and won the Saturn Awards prize for the Best Animated Series category in 2019.

The second season plotline of Star Wars Resistance which has Tam joining the First Order reminded me, in some ways, of Cassandra being manipulated by the Enchanted Blue Fairy in the third season of Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure, also known as Tangled: The Series. I wish that Star Wars Resistance had been extended into another season and had an order of 60 episodes like Tangled, instead of 40 episodes spread across two seasons (21 episodes in the first season and 19 episodes in the second).

Specifically, I would have liked to see Tam's struggle to find a place in the First Order expanded. Maybe she could have become totally be immersed in the ideology to the shock of the protagonists, like having her oversee the destruction of a system of planets by the Starkiller Base, a la Ash turning evil in Final Space. Maybe Tam wouldn't be redeemed in the end, as this series did or as Tangled did with Cassandra. Or perhaps they could have stuck with the existing storyline and had another season about Tam readjusting to the Colossus and having to face the First Order.

Even though it would have required some reworking, it could have been interesting to have Kaz as a female character instead a male character, as many of the Star Wars series have male leads while female characters are relegated to supporting or secondary roles, and at certain points, this series played into that, unfortunately.

Although we do not know all the behind the scenes of Star Wars Resistance, Filoni and other executive producers, Athena Portillo, Justin Ridge, and Brandon Auman, told CBR that they had always planned to tell a story that was was two seasons long, developing a roadmap from the beginning for the series. Even so, Portillo and Ridge confirmed that they are willing to revisit the series in the future. This means that Star Wars Resistance is not like Final Space which was unceremoniously cancelled by Warner executives. It also means that anger from some fans and split opinions on the show had nothing to do with the show's length, which is a positive. In the end, the series aired from October 7, 2018 to January 26, 2020, with both seasons available on Disney+ after February 2020.

Personally, I enjoyed Star Wars Resistance more than Filoni's other productions like Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which often seems like it comes out of the pages of a military history book or the war stories of soldiers in a battlefield, apart from the final episodes of the series, or even Star Wars Bad Batch. It was much more enjoyable than The Mandalorian, a series for which I sat through the first episode and was thoroughly unsatisfied with what I saw. It seemed like a shoot-em-up western that resembled a tired, boring Clint Eastwood film at times.

Star Wars Resistance also has more diversity in its cast than recent shows like Masters of the Universe: Revelation or Tangled. The latter series has a brown-skinned characters like Andra, voiced by Tiffany Smith, a multiracial actress, and features Black actors like Kevin Michael Richardson, Tony Todd, Phil LaMarr, Cree Summer, Dennis Haysbert, and Method Man, and a Latine man of Mexican descent, Danny Trejo. The former series has dark-skinned characters like Lance Strongbow (voiced by James Monroe Iglehart) and Adira (voiced by Kelly Hu). However, both of those series have White-majority casts.

With Star Wars Resistance currently at the end of its series order, now is the time to watch it on Disney+, Disney Now, or elsewhere. It's a great choice for a weekend binge session.

#star wars #star wars resistance #dave filoni #bad batch #the bad batch #sw tbb #tbb #omega #fan theories #first order #tangled #star wars the clone wars #sw tcw #black characters

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placeinthemiddleofnowhere · 1 year

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I posted 1,199 times in 2022

That's 654 more posts than 2021!

135 posts created (11%)

1,064 posts reblogged (89%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@ithinkwehitametaphor

@buckyhoney

@mariamariquinha

@cheesybadgers

@justanotherblonde23

I tagged 295 of my posts in 2022

#the corinthian - 14 posts

#lou's gifs - 12 posts

#boyd holbrook - 11 posts

#bishop losa - 10 posts

#bring me a dream - 10 posts

#jon bernthal - 10 posts

#mayans mc - 9 posts

#ficmas - 9 posts

#sandman fanfiction - 8 posts

#the sandman - 8 posts

My Top Posts in 2022:

Princess

Pairing: Simon "Ghost" Riley x Female!Reader

Warnings: Angst, Smut (18+), spanking, fingering, PinV, choking, brat taming, slight bit of name calling (slightly dubious to have sex with someone after rescuing them from a kidnapping but we'll ignore that)

Summary: Reader is the daughter of a prolific genral who's been kidnapped while she was trying to party it up with her friends. Ghost and Soap are recruited to rescue her, and soon find out that reader's attitude might be more of a challenge than the gang they're trying to rescue her from.

(No use of y/n)

A/N: I can't get Ghost out of my head and tbh I kinda feel like he'd be so good at dealing with your bratty nonsense if he had to.

- 👑-

You were sure you were going to die.

Not because your family didn’t have the money, not because there weren’t enough resources to save you, or even because of your own natural pessimistic tendencies. No. You were sure you were going to die because your father had made it abundantly clear long ago that you didn’t matter to him.

You weren’t a man. You couldn't carry his title on and you’d grown up learning that that was mostly all he cared for. His legacy. It was one of the few things that cold man spoke of fondly, always lighting up at the mention of your brothers but never you. And as a result you’d grown up living for even the smallest chance at spiting him for it. You partied and drank and slept around with boys that made even your friends curl their lips at you sometimes.

So, you were pretty sure that once your kidnappers realised that, that could only mean one thing. One of those big guns they were carrying was going to end up pointed right in your face then…bang.

It was enough to leave you disoriented, you weren't taking in much. Not that there was much to take note of. Your eyes were shoddily covered over with a scrap of harsh, scratchy cloth and you could only see little slivers of things here and there. Your hands were duct taped to the arms of an office chair and your mouth was similarly covered so as to prevent anymore screams and curses.

You watched sets of boots as they echoed around the frigid room, and saw gun barrels and machetes, men roving across a scuffed up concrete floor. You didn’t catch anything that made you want to see more. Especially when you heard the taunts they slung at you in their thick accents.

“Don’t worry precious, I’m sure a spoiled little rich girl like you will get a good ransom, you’ll be home soon.”

“Bet you’re used to guys with big guns like this, daddy’s men must love you.”

“She’s a cute little thing, we should have some fun with her before we send her back.”

“I’ve heard she likes to have lots of fun, bet we’d slip right into her, fucking american girls.”

If the blindfold came off then that would only mean one thing. They were going to make good on the salacious threats they were now casually slinging your way. The fantasies they were now trading back and forth as they returned to speaking their own language. That was a small mercy at least. Not having to hear about how the last few moments of your life would go.

You could feel your body shaking like an addict in withdrawal and your poor heart was leaping around in your chest like a caught frog. It didn’t help that you were riling yourself up either, imagining what the newspapers would say. Flashing up in your mind like something out of an old batman episode with a blaring brass section accompanying them.

Daughter of a notable general killed in shock kidnapping

Holiday in Cancun turned nightmare as General’s daughter taken in the night

You couldn't even be sure if you were still in Mexico. For all you knew you were in all those other countries that you’d been too busy crafting a reputation to learn about in school. What were they again? Guatemala, Cuba? You were sure those were somewhere close by. Funny the things the mind distracts itself with when you’re stuck tightly in a chair surrounded by leering wolves.

If only you hadn’t been drawn in by that tattooed man with the big arms. If only you’d been a good girl and enjoyed your holiday and stuck close to your friends instead of going out on the hunt for attention from bad men covered in tattoos and cologne that smelt like bad decisions. You could practically hear your father’s growly voice echoing through your mind.

Stupid little girl.

He’d been saying that for as long as you had memories of him. He’d be satisfied now, you lamented. You’d proved him right in the end, he’d always said your lifestyle would catch up with you and you’d be wishing that you’d just behaved for once sooner or later.

At the very least, you figured, you wouldn’t have to hear him say I told you so.

- 👑-

You weren't sure how much time had passed. It could’ve been a few minutes, or it could’ve been hours, but as your breathing grew more ragged behind the tape you knew you were experiencing the last few precious moments you had left.

The men were sounding more and more pissed off as they rattled off curses to each other, filling the room with sharp hisses. They weren’t getting the results they wanted. They’d even removed the tape at some point and had you screaming out for a video, but apparently that wasn’t getting them anywhere either. They got tired with your cries and slapped an even thicker strip back in place.

You were starting to cry, feeling the stiff cloth go damp against your skin and irritating it further. It was so thick and itchy over your eyes, you wanted nothing more than to pull it off. You needed to see, needed to breathe. You were panicking. You needed out, you needed air, you needed to feel safe again.

See the full post

340 notes - Posted November 19, 2022

Bring me a dream

Part 3: Vanilla Marshmallow

Status: Ongoing

Masterlist

Pairing: The Corinthian x F!Reader

Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI, smut, horror elements, manipulation

A/N: ok i think I got everyone tagged that wanted to be, but if not please don’t take it as a mark against you! Just message and let me know to add you ☺️ enjoy everyone!

-🍰-

Perhaps it was the thought of your sweet face, or maybe it was the flashback of you making him “pinky promise”; or it was some combination of those things and others that was making Corinthian feel bad about the dead person in front of him. He stared back at the hollow eye sockets with a grimace, holding the cooling body close to himself and brushing its dark hair away from the trickling blood. What was he going to do?

Of course he had no intention of actually stopping his illicit activities, those were a part of his life’s rich tapestry. Naturally he said what he could so that you would give him a chance, but now he was genuinely beginning to feel like he should at least dial back. He tilted his head at the corpse and arched his back, coming to lie back against the soft, thread rich sheets and letting the body slump off of the bed.

“Gonna have to hide that now,” he said to himself, running a hand through his tousled hair. “Never had to do that before…”

His naked thighs tangled in a blood stained white throw, burrowing him closer into the warmth of the bed. He could’ve lain there all night, staring up at the ceiling and into the emptiness there, contemplating you. There was a softness that grew inside his chest as he thought of you. A need that tingled through him as the blood that remained on his bare skin seemed to scratch at him.

He needed to wash off his sins.

The bed was slicked with crimson, evidence of his failed promise. He glanced at the glasses on the bedside table and stared back at himself in the reflection, considering his toothy eyes and solemn lips. His cheeks were trickling with blood that looked like tears. Was this what Morpheus envisioned when he was created? He often wondered about that.

Corinthian trailed his thoughts toward the entrapped endless and smiled. thinking of him caged and seething often brought a grin curling to his lips. It had upset him to know just how much you revered Morpheus upon talking to you more. You’d denied yourself the pleasures of the human realm, waiting so loyally in the dreaming, it was unfathomable. Beyond his comprehension. There was so much to gain from life, so many experiences to live.

He intended to make sure that you experienced them all. He wanted to claim it all for himself anew, seeing what the human realm had to offer for a dream. What would you do? How will the world change you? He couldn’t wait to see. It made his heart flutter thinking of all of the possibilities.

All he had to do was hide that poor wretch sprawled on the floor and he could drive back to the city and go meet you at daybreak. A thought that had him sighing into the pillow, moving his hands so that they trailed down past his stomach. He had some time before the darkness would dissolve and until then, well, he intended on having some fun to himself before he had to restrain himself once more.

Not for much longer, he hoped.

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380 notes - Posted August 29, 2022

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405 notes - Posted February 6, 2022

Bring me a dream

Part 2: Cherry Cheescake

Status: Ongoing

Masterlist

Pairing: The Corinthian x F!Reader

Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI, smut, horror elements, manipulation

-🍰-

You spent all day on a knife edge. You couldn’t take your mind off of the ‘date’ you were to go on that night. At least, that was what you’d told Casey when she asked why you were flitting around the kitchen, baking all manner of different tray bakes and cakes. Your human companion was less than pleased that her kitchen was rendered unusable for breakfast before her work, but you didn’t have the mental capacity to think about that.

“Oh my god, will you stop already!”

You looked up from the messily iced cupcake you’d been working on and faced your roommate, looking into her incensed green eyes. Your hands shook for a second, continuing to pipe out icing until finally Casey reached out and snatched the bag from you. It left you standing like a hamster with your hands still in position, staring ahead into the abyss.

“What’s up with you? This should be exciting! You’ve never even talked about fancying a single man or woman, or anyone since I’ve known you and now the minute you go on a date you’re acting like you’re in a TV heartbreak!” she said, half laughing, half looking ready to strangle you.

You sighed and looked around at the floury mess you’d left all over the room and at the numerous treats you’d made, finally registering the extent of your work that day. You couldn’t believe what you’d done. You wondered for a second where you’d get the time to give them away, until you realised that her presence meant that she was back from work. Time was creeping on you faster than you'd realised and you were going to need to prepare to go out soon. Shit.

“O-oh well I um- I’ve never been on a date before,” you said truthfully, looking back at Casey as she started to clear up your damage.

She stopped in her tracks just as she began to take your mixing bowls over to the sink and whirled back around. Her eyes were as wide as an owl’s. Now you were beginning to think that your excuse wasn’t the best cover up.

“You’ve never been on a date?” she echoed.

You nodded and rubbed the back of your neck, already regretting your idea so much more. It was obvious she was invested now. Invested in your date with the Corinthian, oh gods, what were you going to do? You didn’t want to get all dolled up for him, you didn't want to indulge him in any way really, but the look on Casey’s face now was the ‘you’re not getting out of this without a makeover’ look.

“Hold on, before you get any ideas-” you tried.

“Oh I have so many ideas!” She interrupted. “ We need to start getting you ready now, we need to prepare you. Right, you go get in the shower then I can do your hair and bring up first date topics- oh and then we can-”

You zoned out while she rambled on about her schemes, lost in your own despair. Her head was filled with roses and your’s was occupied by those dark soulless shades and fox-like smile. You were going for a date with the devil and she was acting like you were meeting prince charming and getting ready for a life in a castle. It made your lips turn like you’d just eaten sour candy.

You knew better than to argue with Casey, however. Once she got on one of her tirades you’d never be able to stop her, especially not while she looked so full of childlike excitement. Who were you to ruin her dreams of preparing her friend for her first date?

-🍰-

You looked like something out of a magazine. Your eye makeup was perfectly applied and glittered like a fairy had flown over you, your cheeks were glimmering with highlighter and your lips were pink and glossy. Kissable, she had said. As if you were going to allow him to kiss you. Ha!

You stood in the doorway, glaring at the thought of the nightmare you were going to meet. Only for a second though. Casey turned back around to face you and continued to rattle off her first date rules, while you stared off into the distance. Somehow, you didn’t think you were going to need to use them. Instead of listening, you played with the skirt of your white cotton dress and admired your pretty pink nails.

“Are you even listening to me?” Casey snapped.

“Oh- yes! I’ll let you know as soon as I’m there and I’ll call you if anything happens,” you said dutifully, gesturing away with your hand.

“That’s not what I was-”

“Actually, you know what, I really should be going! Don’t want to be late,” you interrupted, finally growing tired of humouring her.

With a squeal of good luck being shouted out to you, you closed the door and rushed down the stairs of your apartment toward the exit. You stood in the lobby for a second, feeling as if your breath was being stolen from your lungs. You didn’t want to have to go to the club, you didn’t even know if he’d be there yet, he hadn’t been so prudent as to give you a time. It made you wonder if he’d make you sit there all night for him.

Think of the humans, you said to yourself over and over like a mantra. You whispered it at first until you got into the cab you’d called, and even then, you took to recycling it in your head instead. You had to protect these beings' lives with your own, no matter what fiendish plans the Corinthian had in store for you.

“You look real pretty tonight, miss,” the driver said, eyeing you appreciatively in his mirror. “Somethin’ special on?”

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472 notes - Posted August 21, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Bring me a dream

Part 1: Strawberry Daiquiri

Status: Ongoing

Masterlist

Pairing: The Corinthian x F!Reader

Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI, smut, horror elements, manipulation

A/N: This part is more of an introduction so nothing really to warn about here, but The Corinthian is pretty creepy so I'll add anything else on that I think needs to be there as I go!

Summary

The corinthian has been enjoying his time away from Lord Morpheus (that is, his forced imprisonment of course). Being free has been a dream. However, when he meets another from the land of the dreaming, he realises the exciting potential to corrupt one of his masters sweet creations. And so he decides he has to have her for himself...

-🍰-

The moment he caught sight of you, of your sweet face and soft nature, he felt compelled to have you. To possess you. To corrupt you completely. Knowing what you were was just the icing on the cake really.

Had you been just any being he’d have felt a pull, but knowing that you were one of his master’s dreams only ramped up his terrible desire all the more. Especially when you were so beloved by dream, his little baker, the girl that could completely change a human’s emotions with just a bite of something sweet.

The Corinthian had wandered alone for such a long time, he’d almost forgotten there were others out there. Other dreams and other nightmares. He’d been unimpeded by his master for so long, living by way of his own twisted whims that when he saw you it reminded him of a world outside of his own. Reminded him of a place he detested so wholly he wanted to rip apart like a daisy. He desired to tear the petals off one by one and scatter the pollen like ashes.

And what better way to do that than to take you and bend you to his will. At least that was what he’d intended on anyway.

You were out in a booming city club with one of the humans you’d befriended only a few months after you’d left the dreaming. A decision you’d not made lightly. You’d watched so many others abandon hope while you’d held on so resolutely, had been so sure that Lord Morpheus would return that you couldn’t let yourself disappoint him. Until finally the lonely crumbling expanse had turned you away with a heavy heart.

You couldn’t bring yourself to watch the last walls of the palace tumble down, and so you’d come to earth like many other dreams in search of somewhere less lonely. Somewhere alive. And you’d found that in the city. It was odd at first, speaking with the beings you had only interacted with in their sleep, conversing with them and getting to experience every part of them and their confusing natures. You’d thought them frightening and, in some cases, cruel at first when you’d just arrived, but soon you came to realise how multifaceted they could be. it only made you love them all the more.

You were watching Casey now as she attempted to flirt with some man from another group, and smiling fondly to yourself as you often did. She was awful at it. She fumbled with her words and awkwardly played with her straw, stealing glances at the stocky man and trying to tell him jokes. She’d grown up insecure, carried her lack of confidence into her twenties like a backpack she couldn’t take off. She was more than the little red head girl hiding in the corner with her frumpy hand-me downs that she believed herself to be, she was the first human to show you kindness.

It comforted you to know that she would be returning home with you that night and delight in one of your signature bakes. Perhaps a big gooey brownie that would inexplicably dry her tears and put a smile on her face, or maybe a richly iced cupcake that would fill her heart with sprinkles of joy and laughter. She wouldn’t go home with some man that wouldn’t appreciate her tinkling laughter and hand-knitted creations. Wouldn’t be led away from you. She needed you. At least that’s what you told yourself every time you would spirit her away from nightclubs and back to your shared kitchen.

“Thinking about somethin’ sweet, sugar?”

A southern drawl broke you out of your thoughts and had you craning your head up into the strobing darkness. You’d been leaning your head in your hand, looking far into the distance but once you met the sculpted face peeking out of the shadows you felt more alert than ever. You felt a chill working it’s way down your spine when you stared into the soulless lenses of his midnight black shades. You tried to place him in your mind, but you couldn’t think of any solid. Only an instinct telling you that he was trouble.

“W-What do you want?” You uttered quickly, hands shaking as they clutched the leather of your seat.

You weren't sure who he was, but you knew for definite that he was a nightmare. There was a dark aura expelling from his pores despite his clean pressed suit jacket and charming smile. You didn’t trust him one bit.

“Now now, sugar, no need to be like that. I just wanted to offer you a drink. After all it’s not often I come across a dream like you,” he’d said so smoothly you could imagine him wink. “Can I sit?”

You were about to protest, you’d opened your mouth and were about to unleash hell before he placed a glass of bright red liquid in front of you. You frowned at it and then looked back at him, catching him gracefully sloping into the seat next to you. Who was this man? Who did he think he was to come and disturb your night.

You looked down at your drink finally and looked at it suspiciously, running your finger up and down the condensation covered glass. What was it? Was it something sinister? You inspected it all over,there was a sugary cherry pierced onto the drooping straw and a little sparkly umbrella that twirled around in the ice that could barely be seen through the dark crimson liquid. It smelt fruity to you, and probably sickly sweet to most humans. Maybe you could give it a taste…

“It’s a strawberry daiquiri. Sweet drink for a sweet dream,” the man drawled.

You tensed as he called you out again. Did he know who you were? If he did then he had you at a disadvantage and you didn’t care for that one bit. The man was too slithery to hold power like that and you knew all this had to be some kind of manipulation, but to what end? It’s not like he could hurt you, you thought to yourself. You can’t kill a dream.

“You never answered my question,” you said finally, taking the straw in your fingers. “What do you want?”

You took a tentative sip of the drink and found yourself holding back a moan at how good it was. It was ice cool and had several shots of extra syrup, too much for a human palette, though it was perfect for you. How did he know? Your eyes drew back to him and that equally sweet smile of his, running your eyes across his soft pink lips. If only you knew who he was.

“I want some company, sugar. Nothin’ sinister, I just saw you and thought you’d like a conversation…I don’t know about you, but I don’t run into dreams often,” he said smoothly, sitting back in his chair and relaxing into the booth.

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639 notes - Posted August 17, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #Wow #yeah that tracks

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