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BLOOD-RED TSUNAMI MUTATES INTO SLIMY PINK SWILL – by the Lone Antifa & the Canuck Crank – revised & expanded Jan 23, 2023

The much-vaunted and feared GQP RED WAVE has quickly petered out – or more accurately, DONALDED out. The MAGAVERSE is rightly assigning much of the blame for this massive logistical failure to mob boss wannabe DON VETO TRUMPLEONE – for sponsoring so many downright bonkers extremist candidates. And adding to the Grand Q'Anon Party's misery, the DEMOCRATS have had the effrontery to increase their control of the Senate. MFF celebrates by offering two playlists about the MIDTERMS – encompassing the turmoil leading up to the vote, the election's surprising aftermath, and all the tiresome chaos triggered by a MAGAGOP-dominated Congress.

LIBTARD PROPAGANDA includes music by U2, GREEN DAY, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, ROGER WATERS, RANDY RAINBOW, OLIVIA RODRIGO, LILY ALLEN, THE INSECT TRUST, HEATHER GARDNER, JACQUEES, IMARKKEYZ, and REMIX GOD SUEDE. Comedy is abundantly supplied by STEPHEN COLBERT, SETH MEYERS, JIMMY KIMMEL, TREVOR NOAH, CHRIS CILLIZZA, JIMMY FALLON, BILL MAHER, JORDAN KLEPPER, and SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. We also include polemics from MEIDAS TOUCH, AL FRANKEN, and the LINCOLN PROJECT; and a tribute to retiring House Speaker NANCY PELOSI.

FAKE NEWS FEST presents videos from VICE NEWS, NY TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, THE GUARDIAN, and THE CIRCUS. Analyses are provided by BARACK OBAMA, RACHEL MADDOW, NICOLLE WALLACE, CHRIS HAYES, JOY REID, JUDY WOODRUFF, MEHDI HASAN, ALEX WAGNER, and ALI VELSHI. We also offer astute commentary from MARY TRUMP, MICHELLE OBAMA, BOB WOODWARD, MICHAEL MOORE, MORNING JOE, BERNIE SANDERS, MICHAEL COHEN, GEORGE CONWAY, LAWRENCE O’DONNELL, ERIC SWALWELL, and THE VIEW.

Democrat supporters have been gleefully relishing the GQP's abject humiliation – after enduring many weeks of anxiety, as boastful right-wing pundits repeatedly subjected voters to ARROGANT HYPE, touting PHANTOM VICTORIES that never materialized. Now the Dems can also bask in the spectacle of Republicans turning on GQP mastermind MOSCOW MITCH. Poor ol' Treason Turtle has been flipped onto his back, allowing the media world to watch his greasy little flippers wiggling helplessly – as he ponders where it all went wrong.

However, the closeness of so many of the midterm races underlines the fact that far too many American voters have apparently learned very little from the past six years of GQP-INDUCED CHAOS. They have evidently either ignored, rationalized, or enabled the many instances of barefaced CORRUPTION, DECEPTION, and TREASON – as well as the most heinous act of DOMESTIC TERRORISM in their nation's history. Now that the MANCHURIAN CANTALOUPE has officially declared himself a 2024 candidate, the willful ignorance of his most rabid followers could do far more damage to American democracy.

The ORANGE IMPOTUS is doing his presidential campaign for two very obvious reasons. He thinks it will protect him from PROSECUTION for his many crimes; and it also gives him a new way to run the same old LONG CON game: GRIFTING donations from his most GULLIBLE DEPLORABLES. He has been screwing them for so long that they are now happy to buy their own VASELINE. If America does not finally bring him to justice, the country will become a LAUGHINGSTOCK in the eyes of the world. But we are convinced that wiser heads will prevail, and THE DON will finally be held accountable.

While many are questioning the Attorney General's delay, they are overlooking the fact that he was a key player in the prosecution of the UNABOMBER, and the perpetrators of the OKLAHOMA CITY and ATLANTA OLYMPICS slaughters. The legendary DARK GARLAND is clearly not overly fond of DOMESTIC TERRORISTS. We suspect that he has been waiting until the end of the midterm races, to avoid being accused of partisanship. Now that the Georgia runoff election is over, Special Counsel JACK SMITH should have a free hand. We would be beyond delighted to see DOUBLE AGENT ORANGE indicted just in time for Christmas.

Meanwhile, since the MAGAPUBLICANS have regained control of Congress, they will surely pursue a sinister and vindictive agenda. They are still the seditious and fascistic PARTY OF TRUMPERY, dedicated to spreading the festering poison of their DELUSIONS. So to remind y'all of precisely what the decent folks of the DIVIDED STATES will still be up against, we invite you to check out our previous posts about Yankee politics and related matters. You'll find links to some of them in the final section; many of them have been recently updated. Finally: May God bless and protect the ONE TRUE AMERICA embodied by the ideals of LINCOLN, ROOSEVELT, EISENHOWER, and OBAMA.

LIBTARD PROPAGANDA Land Of The Free https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jV1QNw_MkfM Speaker Pelosi's Best Moments https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwijqmhJxIA Bullet The Orange Sky https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rKG-Cc9_B8 No Trump! No KKK! No Fascist USA! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSZ0KzA9e1s Pigs (Three Orange Ones) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWLBtMz5OuY Saint Paula's Victory Dance https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=277631183608496 Lock Him Up Yesterday! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdSZRkeQfnk Jordan Klepper Fingers The Pulse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBoR1slByQY Fuck You Very Much, SCOTUS! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpc40dmPlVM Herschel Walker The Science Talker https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGoEYmA2UQo Little Marco Does The MaraLardo Shuffle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYmnunO6HSo Dr Oz: The Wizard Of Lies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihRX-hXQjgo Republican Idiocracy https://www.facebook.com/Maher/videos/1114214726152859 The Red Mirage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCEjz3UGAoI Democracy Closing: Everything Must Go! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCKkknVSm_A GQP House Of Horrors https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hiymcEDS5g The Elite Trump Virus Dumpster Fire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9i1j-1En9s Large Marge The Crazy Laser Lady https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M55pW-hhQBE ----------------------------------------------------------------- Georgia Pastor Blasts Herschel Walker https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b67-2ausPVw The Donald's DumbVinci Code https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19Bst9eeu4o MAGA Threatens Us All https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuaZD2RiAfM Pelosi Attacker Could Be 2024 Nominee https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtCoKvPhbDI Finchem: QAnon Fanboy & Oath Keeper https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_Jx54KX3wA They Stole My Powerball! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Kq7IwqWPJ4 The Herschel Walker Threat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3QAP-U56Ho Time For A Change https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBRWeTVkyWE Why Is Fox News So Angry About Puppies? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVVwOnN_ZTk American Taliban: Messianic MAGA Zealots https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPbx1nCHLjo MyPillow Guy Monitoring The Midterms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23TYqgndy4U Biden: We Can't Take Democracy For Granted https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chylyyKPfhE Election Deniers May Run The 2024 Election https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEA5MRp-Xow Walker: My Resume Beats Obama's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba6Mtfy0IwM Taylor Swift Parody: 'Get Out The Vote' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YprPuC8KQ6c GQP Has Cornered The Fake Badge Market https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my6TUowJ8rI ----------------------------------------------------------------- Michael Moore Predicts Dem Midterm Victory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxObhF0-NR4 What Does Kari Lack? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5zxzkh4LGk Wait, What? Some Of Herschel's Craziest Quotes https://deadspin.com/wait-what-10-of-some-of-the-craziest-quotes-from-her-1849631288 Bill Maher: Democracy's Deathbed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKVBvooZ2c8 Michael Moore: This Is No Time To Despair https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYfbzbAx9DE Obama Stuns In Massive Arizona Rally https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rihfp6Y-_M Bernie Buries GQP In Brutal Smackdown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnIxNzkTZPA Mastriano 'Wasn't Just An Observer' On Jan 6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMWzEueIQ2g Sounding The Alarm About Dr. Oz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u7P9ZZ4hpA Pollsters Have No Fucking Idea What Will Happen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgxuiXptHMs GQP's Plan To Install One-Party Rule https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbFvOHei_P0 Country Over Party https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPbKwHpEvgg Colbert Live: Stranger Midterms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHYyxRX1aMc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUZ_0OM_ozo Trump Livid About Election Results https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLTDuQFtLgI MAGA Implodes As Red Wave Fizzles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eofsB0xsNWI ----------------------------------------------------------------- GQP Points Finger At Former Guy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noSMWMgIyCs Bill Maher: The Answer to America’s Problems https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCQ0IT2nwlA Oz Lost Because Fetterman Won https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B814bunGboc George Conway On Attacking Trump https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4UfoVqy3-4 Fox Turns On Trump Amid GQP Meltdown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejB3Tq-4E3o Mad Mikey's MAGA Raccoon Goes Bananas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jtYWa33f-E NY Post Mocks ‘Trumpty Dumpty’ On Cover https://news.yahoo.com/york-post-mocks-trumpty-dumpty-031852592.html Faux Snooze Calls Scooby Douche A Loser https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70z6FQ5Cn80 Trump Got So Mad He Started Doing Math https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zFc_j_YZOp4 New York Post Just Brutally Trolled Trump https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/16/politics/new-york-post-trump-2024-announcement/index.html How Fetterman Broke Trump’s Red Wave https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E55Whp3lkQ Waiting For God To Intervene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fThIMpQsSPs Religious Nutjobs Erupt After GQP Gets Crushed https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=1061839091150323 Someone’s The Champion Of The Midterms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klx6Yed6rnI Trump Always Blames Everyone But Himself https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BOW9c8A9lM ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fox & Friends Moves On From Donald https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/fox-friends-cold-open/NBCE388101672 Trump Unhinged As Red Sharknado Dies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iORSKhaW0ys The Don Gives Away Tiffany & The Senate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDwdD35RcLE Bannon: 'Kari Lake Is The Future' https://www.comicsands.com/bush-miller-bannon-election-denial-2658670964.html The Slow Death Of A Red Wave https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csi0WdYUzys All The Democrats Do Is Win The Senate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IP_TArmqgI Trump's Father Of The Bride Speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhl4swNijnQ GQP Knives Are Out For Moscow Mitch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6OcwLJWzbU Pompous & Circumstance From MaraLardo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TA2m7t0aHk Why CaliguDuh Wants To Run Again https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jaq7nsiU72U Trump 2024 Kicks Off From Active Crime Scene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryq6JqLl5Dg Dear GOP Chickenshits & Crazies: 'Stop It!' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3_c0cSTf5w Trump Ignites GQP Civil War & Fox Cuts Away https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r9GkkSs41k Florida Man Back By Unpopular Demand https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-71k2QJg-0o Making America Great & Glorious Again https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YSoIJ84YPQ It's Deja Boo All Over Again! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMH8K_Kj6oE Queens Man Runs For President – Again https://queenseagle.com/all/2022/11/16/queens-man-runs-for-president-again ----------------------------------------------------------------- Trump’s Bizarre 2024 Launch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoHBqzXbOY4 NY Post Can’t Memory Hole Its Trump Support https://news.yahoo.com/sorry-york-post-t-memory-211412415.html Ivanka Trump Is Gone Girl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3adKrV9zLI House GOP's Greene Goblin Problem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUoOrL0G4pA MAGA Nuts Fight Election Fraud https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glhhMnyJhw4 GOP Takes The House Without A Viking Helmet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVZf1GCzTl8 Religious Wrong Turns On Saint Donald https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5v8LNbyZ3Y It'll Be A Rough Ride In GOP's Fool House https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULefxDXcotQ How Faux Snooze Hyped The Red Wave https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEg2eXO4-kg This Werewolf Votes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YfJMHDTwIs Revenge Of The Normies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD_RB-aWgaM Kari Lake Supporters Flame Out https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=1167768860841432 Herschel's Erection Gaffe Keeps On Giving https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5UGBGALRKg Votedemic 2022: Running Off In Georgia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab1RpvWmU30 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Walker Domain Coopted For ‘Truthful’ Website https://god.dailydot.com/herschel-walker-website-troll/ Lake Is Dealt A Devastating Blow https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=1170531820337261 Jake Byrd Crashes A Walker Rally https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeKQxP8j-H4 Herschel Walker Is An American Tragedy https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/12/herschel-walker-georgia-black-americans/672373/ Herschel Fathered As Many Voters As Possible https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M50zyYn4Cnw Planned Parenthood's Customer Of The Year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84P2VhIa_8A Walker Being Honest & Transparent https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVOtgyVja2g GOP Turn On Trump – And Each Other https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9YoWYekS0Y I Love You, Herschel – You're Fired! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYvJUZR2H7Y Unlike Trump, Herschel Accepted A Reality https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWnylrt8b0k Walking Vasectomy Ad Loses His Erection https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL-QtphyteY Georgia: Final Nail In Trump’s Political Coffin? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rij0KXXRxaU MTG Exposed After Pathetic Lies https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=691127875942530 Obstructionist Sinema Plays Treacherous Game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PGSIXiswkc ----------------------------------------------------------------- Ass Onion: A Kev's Out Mystery https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWoMk7D_lxQ GOP Take The House Without A Break-In https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSeNpPZ5gF8 GOP Explodes into Absolute Chaos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfdf02hGTB8 Insurrection Apologists Unable To Certify A Vote https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WuX_52ETEM Groundhog Day: Congress Held Hostage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ_DuHqyZs8 GOP Backstabbing Is Pretty Fun To Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-DhLetLxyM Slow-Clappin' The Bejesus Out Of McCarthy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNeIUfsmEro Mamma Mia! Here He Lose Again! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ28KcV05Ns Bad Lip Reading: McCarthy Vs Gaetz https://www.themarysue.com/bad-lip-reading-spoofs-kevin-mccarthy-matt-gaetz-fight/ Chaos & A Near-Brawl In Congress https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N294x4NEZw The Real House Guys Of DC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W28w3Hv3xfI Drama Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10yRna4wF7w The Insect Trump: Redux https://vimeo.com/726699668 Rise Up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWZi2LC50bc

FAKE NEWS FEST How Election Deniers Endanger Democracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imoAeGMS83g The Party Of Election Deniers? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTxN7mN4vEI How The GQP Sabotages Voting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An2sIQrepoI Election Denial A Major Threat https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=835471480966509 MAGApublicans Intimidating Arizona Voters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU6zqPpdraQ How Georgia Voters Really Feel About MTG https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbNAK5V-XNQ Arizona A Major Test For MAGAGQP Takeover https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71rkoltHVbQ Biden Impeachment Likely If GQP Takes House https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ekxm3187yh0 The Damage Of Election Lies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn0a-vlGJJc GQP Trying To Turn Voters Against Elections https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILnLEt1Thuo The Myth Of Crime As A Blue-State Problem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2jaMScgNsw Biden: Protecting Democracy Is The Key Issue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McDrLn5C0W8 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Drumbeat Of Election Denial https://www.facebook.com/thelincolnproject.us/videos/652158003122885 MAGA Fanatics Could Upend Fragile Democracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkAoR5Hc_8c Preserve Your Right To Throw The Bums Out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3-ch5I7Uas Shocking Allegations About Dr. Oz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX2Xr5xjK2c Election Conspiracies Disrupt The Midterms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfay4zOOBbM Threat Of Election Violence Looms Over Michigan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef3jPR4KSNc Democracy Is On The Line In 2022 & Beyond https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zpfd89-MVTQ Democrats Make Final Case Before Midterms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lIIEtygFtI The Battle Of The Ex-Presidents https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2ey0i3nKKw When True Democracy Dies, People Get Hurt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXd5WGgA0k8 Trump Rally Vs Obama Rally https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5Uw48951Es Why Democracy Is On The Ballot In 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l19PQNskZjE Voter Intimidation & Possible Violence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnTzU0Z1FsU Murdoch Knees Trump In The Balls https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/11/donald-trump-midterms-fox-news-rupert-nyp-wsj-rupert-murdoch Biden: Democracy Is Who We Are https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz9tu7wmmKo ----------------------------------------------------------------- GQP Response To Pelosi Attack Influenced Voters https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/nancy-pelosi-said-the-gop-response-to-the-attack-on-her-husband-was-disgraceful-and-people-have-told-her-it-influenced-their-vote/ar-AA143Wlm Democrats Keep Control Of The Senate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmxibAqpy34 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlkrLlHcah0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X-pAEkBmMw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx_g4NuxlGw Michael Cohen: The Don Has A Fragile Ego https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiObZSp2oDI Donald's Most Debilitating Narcissistic Injury https://www.rawstory.com/donald-mary-trump-narcissistic-injury/ Bigly Loser Label Slapped On Trump's Forehead https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkYI_gBVCQI Voters Said No To Election Deniers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQEnzUfsHlM 'Zombie Republicans' Whose Careers Revived https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj67_r4fuFg Joe To GQP: Just Say No To Crazy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj8TjkKMyKQ If You won't Concede, You’re Just A Loser https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKVcMJGKvwM Lake Supporters Demand The Military Step In https://www.comicsands.com/kari-lake-supporters-military-election-2658644402.html The Power Of A Pissed Off Generation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0gLsBCgE-s ----------------------------------------------------------------- 'Loser' Trump Blasted For MAGA Losses https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p76qQOiK14 Swalwell: Voters Rejected Violent Rhetoric https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhtooY8U7wo A Really Stinging Loss For Trumpworld https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfzJg_OxC5I Fox Surprised By Popularity Of Abortion Rights https://jezebel.com/fox-news-hilariously-reckons-with-the-popularity-of-abo-1849787946 Ted Cruz Says 'The Country Is Screwed' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhYOSSRpVB4 When Lake Wonders How She Lost Her Race https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPEpr9YzPag Liz Cheney: Republicans Need Stiffer Spines https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CrOJ_Qhbns- 'Loser' Trump Torched For Party 'Funeral' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b6OynXo2tM Does The Republican Party Need Trump? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpaYoAmNWVE 'Mr. President, Don't Run Again' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhNa7UGWFew Twice-Impeached Ex-POTUS Announces 2024 Run https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/15/donald-trump-announces-presidential-run-2024-midterms-ron-desantis Trump Candidacy Motivated By Fear Of Indictment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcUf2wZku3A Cheney Gets The Last Word After Lake's Defeat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r17tNigWXUg McCarthy’s Lack Of Courage In House GQP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i3C5RlDSX8 ---------------------------------------------------------------- GQP Wins House Control By Narrow Margin https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/opinion/republicans-house-control-midterm-elections-rcna53958 How Democrats Avoided A Red Wave https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/11/midterm-election-results-democrats-avoid-red-wave/672050/ How Trump Sabotaged Republican Midterms https://nypost.com/2022/11/09/heres-how-donald-trump-sabotaged-the-republican-midterms/ World's Angriest Guy Wants Vengeance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyHBsjSmrdk Trump Speech Was A ‘Rambling Mess’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO0obTQqWv8 2024 Launch Was The Opposite Of Exciting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks7CRtS8J2M The Real Reason Behind Trump's 2024 Run https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PyG20kfBNA The Republican Party Is In Ruins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPrLfLoJgN0 Trump Is The Most Desperate He’s Ever Been https://news.yahoo.com/voices-behind-2024-announcement-trump-031241469.html The End Of Trump? https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/the-end-of-trump-presidential-campaign-announcement-2024 Fact Checking The Gaslighter's Greatest Hits https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6WTrD-_GPo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6QNAU0rldc https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xUI-7SOBcqg https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/15/politics/fact-check-trump-announcement-speech-2024/index.html ---------------------------------------------------------------- Confidence Man: A Life Filled With Lies https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/confidence-man-shows-how-every-step-of-trump-s-life-has-been-filled-with-lies-opinion/ar-AA14dqaw Sad! Why Trump's 2024 Debut Fell Flat https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/11/trump-2024-announcement-falls-flat Now Is the Time To Fight For Kari Lake https://www.vice.com/en/article/93amn8/kari-lake-lost-arizona-far-right-voter-fraud Walker's Olympian Level Rambling Incoherence https://www.rawstory.com/herschel-walker-vampires/ The Hypocrisy Surrounding Religion & Politics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pULmOuRPCuM Megadonors Ditching POTUS Wannabe https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=1956584731213404 Religious Right Buyer's Remorse Rings Hollow https://god.dailydot.com/evangelicals-complaining-trump-used/ The Enduring Power Of Trumpism https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-enduring-power-of-trumpism Fighting Back Against Disinformation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJY7n8fMN1Y Obama Weighs In: Vampires Or Werewolves? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ-xorAxPik Warnock Wins, Bolstering Democrat Senate Majority https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/06/georgia-senate-runoff-polls-closing-raphael-warnock-herschel-walker https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/georgia-runoff-election-results-herschel-walker-raphael https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/democratic-sen-warnock-defeats-republican-walker-in-georgia-runoff/ar-AA14ZcgE ---------------------------------------------------------------- Walker Is No Kari Lake. Good For Him! https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2022/12/07/herschel-walker-proved-hes-no-kari-lake-and-good-for-him/69708816007/ Fox News Hosts 'Pissed Off' Over GOP Flops https://www.aol.com/entertainment/watch-sean-hannity-laura-ingraham-124336812.html Sinema Goes Independent, Shaking Up Senate https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/09/sinema-arizona-senate-independent-00073216 Lake Court Loss Cheered By Arizona Republican https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/kari-lake-court-loss-cheered-by-top-maricopa-republican-win-for-arizona/ar-AA15GpXm GOP Disarray On Display Over Speaker Vote https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXqlQuqMbJU 'Total Collapse Of The Republican Party' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HajeJJAz0bA GOP 'Clown Show' Implodes In Humiliation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUwhvxNU6D8 Not Bad For USA, But Damaging For GOP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00DWTheI2OY GOP Is More Ungovernable Than Ever Before https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/01/the-gop-is-more-ungovernable-than-ever-before.html Hannity Spars With Boebert Over McCarthy https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=874836980480547 Did Jan 6 Doom McCarthy's Speaker Hopes? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64182829 Hakeem Jeffries Ushers In The Next Congress https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1It5Z7dfMY GOP's Toxic Agenda Of Vengeance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx6yWEU5wPM Colbert Family Meeting With Michelle Obama https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjqujHMIStk Tribute To Good Queen Nancy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm1uIk30QL0

UNCLE SAM’S MIRACLE CURE FOR THE COMMON PEOPLE https://musemash.tumblr.com/post/660275563772215296/resistance-tribute-part-4-uncle-sams-miracle SAVAGE EPITAPHS FOR THE RELIGIOUS WRONG https://musemash.tumblr.com/post/153445482915/savage-epitaphs-for-the-religious-wrong-by-the CRUEL REQUIEMS FOR THE BIGLIEST SORE LOSER https://musemash.tumblr.com/post/663916506082623488/resistance-tribute-part-5-cruel-requiems-for-the DON VETO’S LUNACY HOLDING AMERICA HOSTAGE https://musemash.tumblr.com/post/665917596709912576/trumpery-swan-song-appendix-don-vetos-lunacy REBELLIONS FOR ALL MOODS & TASTES https://musemash.tumblr.com/post/659832377015730176/gallery-1-ani-difranco-2-bruce-cockburn-3-poly ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRITE SIDE OF WHITE https://musemash.tumblr.com/post/189367905645/always-look-on-the-brite-side-of-white-by-the THE FIRST AVENGER’S ANTIFA USA HIT PARADE https://musemash.tumblr.com/post/189391026290/resistance-tribute-part-6-the-first-avengers WHEN THE ARTS DO JUSTICE TO RESISTANCE https://musemash.tumblr.com/post/659380468858355712/resistance-tribute-part-2-when-justice-weaponizes DON’T LOOK AWAY FROM DON’T LOOK UP https://musemash.tumblr.com/post/672266539514396672/dont-look-away-from-dont-look-up-by-david-d CAPTAIN AMERICA’S PREMATURE BURIAL https://musemash.tumblr.com/post/651868087388372992/trumpery-swan-song-act-2-captain-americas ENABLING HOLOCAUST DENIAL IN AMERICA https://musemash.tumblr.com/post/674697246018797568/enabling-holocaust-denial-in-america-by-david-d THE GOOD WAR TO END ALL GOOD WARS https://musemash.tumblr.com/post/702426389939404800/the-good-war-to-end-all-good-wars-revised ATOMIC CAFE STILL OPEN FOR BUSINESS https://musemash.tumblr.com/post/659043774978244608/atomic-cafe-still-open-for-business-by-the-lone ALL-AMERICAN PATRIOT PORN IS ALIVE & DEADLY https://musemash.tumblr.com/post/37327596766/red-dawn-was-the-ultimate-expression-of-jingoistic CONFRONTING THE CORONA PERIL WITH HOPE https://musemash.tumblr.com/post/613216930403418112/multi-facet-fables-presents-our-take-on-the-corona SHOWDOWN IN SLAUGHTERHOUSE AMERICA https://musemash.tumblr.com/post/685784461019840512/the-legendary-good-guy-with-a-gun-died-peacefully OUR FUTURE’S FATE UPON THE AUCTION BLOCK https://musemash.tumblr.com/post/633017505480310784/our-futures-fate-upon-the-auction-block REBEL MUSIC FOR A MERRY MAY DAY https://musemash.tumblr.com/post/49345959815/image-gallery-1-sheet-music-for-a-joe-hill THE BIGLY YUGE IMPOTUS THEME PARK https://musemash.tumblr.com/post/632214159489220608/the-bigly-yuuuuge-impotus-theme-park-part-1 A TALE OF TWO AMERICAN DREAMS https://musemash.tumblr.com/post/627294373357486081/pictured-1-upcoming-gop-propaganda-2-billy-porter

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chamerionwrites · 3 years

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For the character ask game may I be greedy and give you three? Percy de Rolo, Jester Lavorre, Davits Draven.

PERCY DE ROLO

Why I like him: I’m on record about finding guilt one of the tastiest fictional emotions, and Percy is an all-you-can-eat buffet. So there’s that! But I think what makes him really compelling to me is that he screws up a lot but rarely in the exact same way twice; there are definite patterns he circles back to but you can see him learning from them, in a very generals-are-always-prepared-to-fight-the-last-war kind of way, which keeps him from being a static character and also feels very true to the cyclical and frustrating nature of trauma recovery.

Why I don’t: Percy at his worst is willfully cruel, which is a character trait I find very tough to take.

Favorite episode: 57/Duskmeadow. That whole interaction between him and the Raven Queen is so spookily atmospheric, and Matt and Taliesin are so focused, and it’s such a fabulous example of two characters talking straight past each other, which always makes for illuminating character moments and is particularly fascinating when one of them is a god.

Also lbr, I was always going to be into Percy’s angry faith/religion issues.

Favorite line: Taliesin is REALLY good at one-liners so there’s a lot to choose from here, but the simplicity of “I think I really miss my family” messed me up.

Favorite outfit: The mental image of him cackling maniacally in his onesie pajamas (buttflap down) after being woken out of a sound sleep to shoot bandits in the snow still kills me.

OTP: Like I said I’m not the world’s most dedicated shipper, but the slowburn with Vex was pretty glorious and it also just...felt so organic and true to the characters, they understand and balance each other so well.

BROTP: Keyleth; there’s so much emotional range between silly and supportive and challenging between these two characters, they’re very opposites-attract in some ways but under the surface more alike than they are different, and they draw out so many fascinating character moments in each other.

Honorable mention for his odd couple siblings dynamic with Grog.

Headcanon: Percy makes quite a few asides that lead me to suspect the De Rolo family was ultimately loving but more than a little dysfunctional, and that he might be a bit of an emotional mess even without the Briarwoods, and that this probably makes the grieving process harder because it’s really difficult to confront complicated feelings about your family without feeling like a bad person when what happened to them was so cruel and unfair.

Unpopular opinion: Percy doesn’t have a skewed sense of ethics at all; he has a very keen and coherent sense of right and wrong which he frequently chooses to ignore thanks to a combo of ruthless pragmatism, hubris, and self-destructive I-am-in-blood-stepped-in-so-far self-loathing.

A wish: It’s an impossible wish, but I would love to have been a fly on the wall for his first appearance in the pre-stream homegame; the cast’s reactions to his last name alone must have been priceless.

Please never happen: Much as I love Vox Machina, I think their story wrapped up very satisfyingly and I’m glad Matt is trying to keep links between the two campaigns pretty minimal and organic.

5 words to describe him: A MOUNTAIN OF CONTROL ISSUES (that’s it, that’s the tweet).

My nickname: The stupidest smart boy in Taldorei.

JESTER LAVORRE

Why I like her: She sees quite a bit more than she lets on, in an incredibly gentle and nonjudgmental way. Also powerful people continually underestimate her and then she either (1) forcefully befriends them or (2) kicks their ass, and it’s delightful every time.

Laura’s also just very good at subtle development, and figuring her characters out is rewarding in a puzzle-solving sort of way.

Why I don’t: Jester is the kind of very bubbly and well-intentioned but slightly nosy person who would drive me a tiny bit bonkers IRL, because on occasion she walks all over people’s boundaries with the sort of utter lack of malice that leaves you feeling like the asshole if you get angry about it.

Favorite episode: Predictable answer perhaps but the cupcake + hag episode (93/Misery Loves Company) was just…*chef’s kiss.*

Favorite line: Every single time she uses the Sending spell.

Favorite outfit: That green cloak from the art after they went to Xhorhas.

OTP: File this under “I’m just not much of a shipper and thus open to all possibilities as long as there’s interesting character payoff.”

BROTP: I love her relationships with each member of the Nein, for different reasons, but the combo of caring and pure chaos that is Jester + Veth is a favorite.

Headcanon: She grew up sleeping in a big bed and she sprawls in her sleep, which would be annoying in the dome except that all her friends think she’s adorable.

Unpopular opinion: Tbh I’m not immersed enough in CR2 fandom to know what’s unpopular? But I do think it’s easy to miss how deliberate she can be; Jester is a very spontaneous and playful character overall but that doesn’t mean her actions don’t have calculated intent, which is a very tricky balance to get a read on sometimes.

A wish: Serious answer: I really want the narrative to directly address her (fascinatingly Vex-like, even though they’re such different characters in so many ways) compulsion to hide her sad feelings for the sake of everybody else’s emotional welfare.

Funny answer: I desperately want her to annoy and/or unsettle Trent via Sending, he’s just so easy to hate and she’s such a charming troll.

Please never happen: ...I’m kind of darkly curious to see it because the M9 would be SHATTERED and we all know that I live for character development under extremely angsty duress, but I would also be shattered if Jester died, so.

5 words to describe her: Wise, sheltered, mischievous, lonely, disarming

My nickname: I just call her Jester.

DAVITS DRAVEN

Why I like him: Narratively speaking his existence (and the intra-Alliance ideological conflict that runs through Rogue One) makes the Rebellion more grounded and interesting. I also think it’s fairly clear that his motivations aren’t too far off from what Jyn says at the council meeting - “If you give way to an enemy this evil with this much power, you condemn the galaxy to an eternity of submission” - and when viewed in that light he’s abrasive but pretty sympathetic.

Why I don’t: He’s that guy who pretends to let you win an argument and then goes right on doing what he was planning to do all along behind your back, which...listen I don’t even find his decision about Galen Erso unsympathetic, but what an asshole. (Also, headcanon time but I like to project my distaste for the Republic’s Clone Wars empire-in-all-but-name shenanigans on him.)

Favorite scene: Always and forever the “You find him, you kill him” exchange on the tarmac between him and Cassian - it’s such a stakes-raising moment for the plot overall, and the character dynamic between him and Cassian there is fascinating to me.

Favorite line: Tbh I think my favorite “lines” from Draven are actually wordless; he has a lot of physical personality as a character, and if you have any interest in my detail-obsessed writing notes you should ask me sometime about his body language.

Outfit: He only has the one. What with being part of a desperate underdog resistance odds are reasonable that this might be true (or close to it) even in-universe?

OTP: Draven/His Conscience, dubious consent (sorry but this really is the most honest answer to this question lmao).

BROTP: I like to think he and Mon Mothma know each other pretty well. They feel that way, in the film - lots of wordless sideways meetings of the eyes. In my head Mothma is very insightful about people, and Draven is very observant, and they’ve spent several decades doing this desperate underground resistance thing together, so at times it might be a prickly chagrined kind of closeness but they Get each other without a whole lot of explanation required and when they’re on the same page they make a very effective team.

I think I’m just broadly fascinated by the foxhole camaraderie that has to exist between a lot of the Alliance’s leaders. There’s years’ worth of very intense experiences shared by a very limited number of other people there, and it has to make for some odd but ultimately close relationships.

Headcanon: In much the same way that Cassian reads very clearly to me as a man simmering with profound and powerful anger at pretty much all times (though it’s mostly contained by a combo of reserve, weariness, and a scrupulous desire to be a Good Person), Draven reads very clearly to me as a man who’s terrified. I think that in all probability he doesn’t feel a whole lot of that fear on a day-to-day basis, because it’s walled off behind really good compartmentalization skills and a pragmatic personality. Underneath though? Whew. In the film his defining trait is boresight urgency driven by awareness that he’s working under a ticking clock, and...that’s fear! That kind of tunnel vision is characteristic of someone who’s either very driven or very frightened or both. Meanwhile offscreen canon says that back in Republic days he worked with a lot of the people who now form the backbone of the Empire and that some of his drive stems from knowing and damn well dreading what they’re capable of, which makes a lot of sense. Also it’s in the nature of his job to be up-to-date on all the worst news and excruciatingly well-informed about all the gory details, so y’know. I think Draven probably has a lot of very justified reasons to be plagued by a Sense Of Overpowering Dread, and while he likely doesn’t confront it head-on very often there’s a locked box in a dusty file cabinet in the back corner of his mental attic that’s labeled Here Be Dragons and some of his decision-making in the film is probably a product of that.

Unpopular Opinion: I think he and Cassian semi-frequently clash, but in that unspoken, familial way that’s essentially invisible to anyone who doesn’t speak their insular emotional dialect, and hidden and complicated even further by the fact that (1) they’re a couple of spies for whom secrecy and subtlety are deeply ingrained survival skills and (2) neither of them is prepared to admit - even to himself on most days - that their relationship goes beyond that of subordinate and commanding officer.

Basically I think probably 90% of any given conversation between those two characters is wordless, and the silences sometimes get heated but the words almost never do.

A wish: I’ve said it before but I have a weak spot for the narrative sparks that inevitably fly when you shove unlikely characters into close proximity and extreme circumstances and force them to rely on each other for survival. There are any number of characters that I think would be fun to do this to, but among them are Jyn and Draven; between their own personalities, being on the same side of a war, close relationships with Cassian and the enormous dad-murder elephant in the room they have the makings of a very complicated and uncomfortable character dynamic. Jyn is probably never going to like him (and she’s justified!) but I feel like they could agree wholeheartedly on some very basic principles such “my own survival,” “Cassian’s well-being” and/or “ruining the Empire’s day” and the resulting strained teamwork would be fascinating.

Also, imagining the probable life expectancy of anyone who really got on the wrong side of Jyn “canonically twelve ounces of whoop-ass” Erso and General “canonically will not hesitate” Draven is darkly hilarious to me.

Oh-god-please-never-happen: I’m completely uninterested in any version of this character that isn’t at least a little bit bastardous (or any version that’s one-dimensionally villainous, for that matter).

Five words that describe him: Driven, cynical, stubborn, impatient, calculating

My nickname: Terrible garbage man (affectionate)

#/#//#///#////#/////#ask box #my posts #critical role #cr c1 #cr c2 #star wars #rogue one #davits draven

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berry-muffin · 5 years

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Joseph Stern and Amnesty Lodge.

I drew the one with Jake Coolice like two months ago, while re-listening to TAZ Amnesty and it was mentioned that Joseph had what he called a delightful conversation with Jake. And then I decided to draw him interacting with other (named) residents of Amnesty Lodge, but I kept getting distracted by other stuff and I only did the last one earlier today.

The first one is set during the hunt for the Water. Jake is regaling Joseph with grand tales of all the stunts he’s pulled so far.

The second one happens not long after Mama gets out of the hospital. Joseph saw how everyone was worried about Mama not taking care of her foot, so he’s distracting her with conversation to make her rest a bit every day.

Numbers three through five happen in the two months between the hunt for the Water and the hunt for the Tree.

Moira mentioned once during the hunt for the Water how Joseph was ‘breathing down her neck’ except that doesn’t really sound like him since throughout the campaign he was always very polite to everyone. I’ve seen someone say that maybe he’s interested in music, but too awkward to approach Moira about it and I liked that idea. I didn’t feel like having him play any instrument though so instead I made him like singing and ballroom dancing.

In the next one Aubrey shows Joseph some of her magic tricks and then the conversation goes to which mythology phases they had as children (Aubrey was the Egyptian mythology kid while Joseph was the Norse mythology kid).

In early December, after the hunt for Dr. Harris Bonkers – because every series with a pet has to have an episode in which said pet goes on a solo adventure and people who were supposed to look after it got distracted and lost it and now need to find it before its owner comes back (and that person is Dani, but she gets help from Jake, Barclay and Joseph), it has to happen, I don’t make the rules – so in early December, Joseph helps Dani repot some plants.

The last one is set immediately after the hunt for the Tree, after Joseph comes back form town where he was helping with the whole sinkhole situation. When he returned, he was hoping they remembered to leave the front door open for him. What he did not expect was that Barclay would still be up and welcome him back with hot chocolate. They end up just talking till the early hours of the morning.

#the adventure zone #taz amnesty #agent stern #joseph stern #jake coolice #mama #madeline cobb #moira #aubrey little #dr harris bonkers #dr. harris bonkers #dani #barclay #taz fanart #my stuff #mine: taz

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liesonthefloordramatically · 3 years

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A wild 2020 recap post appears!

Stuff I made this year:

Fiction: This was the most I’ve ever written in a year--58k just of stuff on AO3. By pretty much all measures, disjoint is the best thing I wrote this year. It’s bonkers long (more than twice the length of my previous longest fic on AO3) and extremely sad, so posting it at the start of lockdown was sure A Choice. Honorable mention to the seventh day of the seventh month, which I am very fond of even if it was not as beloved by my readership.

Playlists: Some favorites: I’m a little bit scared of what comes after (a playlist for being sweaty about the concept of the afterlife), The Chariot (a playlist for my Stand Up character), CYCLICAL TIME CYCLICAL TIME (what it says on the tin), the slant of the sun (a playlist of songs about different times of day), disjoint (a playlist for the fic), feels like home (oh, you know).

RPGs: We ran superqueeroes twice! I also submitted Queer and Together at the End of the World to Golden Cobra! I wrote a supplement for Sleepaway!

Other stuff: Presented at a conference! Finished a dissertation chapter! Guest lectured twice! Had basically everything I was working on in the first three months of the year cancelled in the course of 48 hours! Made a truly frightening amount of sourdough bread! Chaired a committee! Survived this year!

Media I enjoyed this year:

Books: Leagues and Legends and The Locked Tomb both brought me a lot of joy this year.

TTRPG: Okay, so I counted and I’ve played nine different games this year (one of which was Blades in the Dark, which I’ve played quite a lot of, but all the others were new). Sleepaway wins for this year; please play Sleepaway. Honorable mention to Sexy Battle Wizards, which I have run twice and was utterly delightful both times.

Video games: “Queenie, a video game section????” you exclaim. Yes, it’s true, under lockdown the roommates and I started playing video games together, so I’ve actually played (well, yelled encouragement at whoever was driving) a bunch of games this year! Mutazione was absolutely hands down the best (friendship! gardening! shamanism! exploration of trauma!), with Sunless Skies in second. Honorable mentions to Deltarune, Oxenfree, Spacewalk, and Night in the Woods.

Manga/comics: JJL................................

Fanfic: God, okay, there are so many, but, in no particular order: everything written for our Sleepaway campaign, rip to orpheus but i’m different (Hadestown), I don’t live today (JJBA), Impatient to Be Free (Les Mis), Mercy and Augustine’s Cake Simulator! (The Locked Tomb), women want me. fish fear me (FFXV), your name, safe in their mouth (MDZS), Out of the Bin and Into Your Heart (MDZS), dialect (JJBA), plan all your moves in advance (Evil Dead), for now, this (TGCF; I actually wanna rec like everything this author has written), New York and London, 1880-2010 (JJBA), the soft animal (MDZS), a landscape in miniature (TGCF), full speed, got my heart on my sleeve (TGCF), and many, many more but this is honestly getting pretty long already...

Films: I watched Knives Out and Parasite in theatres in January and they were really representative of the energy of this year.

TV: Tian Guan Ci Fu. It’s good y’all.

Podcasts: My podcast list grows ever longer... Favorite this year: The Penumbra Podcast, with honorable mentions to Within the Wires, Rusty Quill Gaming, and Unseen. A special “fascinated by this conceptually but haven’t heard enough to have a developed opinion” nod to In Strange Woods.

Music: Due to losing my commute, I didn’t really listen to many full albums this year, so a lot of my listening trends seem super fragmented. According to Spotify, my top song for this year was “The Ghost on the Shore” by Lord Huron. Top album was probably 夏草が邪魔をする. Weirdly, it’s really hard for me to think of top songs/artists this year--looking at my Spotify playlist it’s a mix of songs on writing playlists (or on playlists that folks made for our Sleepaway campaign) and then songs that I just obsessively looped for a few days. It was a weird year.

and finally…

Not so good stuff that happened this year:

y’all do I even need to include this section

I will say that when I was little I expected to be married and have kids by 2020 (I had Big Plans for this year) so this has just been like. a wildly surreal year in every dimension. I was gonna write a blog post about it but writing is hard and feeling emotions silently and never having to shape them into something that can be conveyed with human language is easy (sorry to any future historians hoping to read my blog as a primary source)

Anyway, あけおめ！！！良いお年を！！！

#Queenie actually says something on this blog #I'd appreciate it if people didn't reblog this; thanks #a wild annual recap appears

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multimask · 4 years

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I love chatting with my players about D&D things generally unrelated to our campaign. Some of it is tweaking and looking at character sheets for back up or general standby characters. Some of it is discussing magic systems and how magic works in various settings. Some of it is discussing absolute bonkers characters and breaking all of the rules to see what can be done.

It’s all amazing and so much fun to hear

Plus one of my players is slowly finding his footing with spellcasters through both his main character in my campaign and also a number of other side characters he’s been making, and seeing his face light up in realizing how the magic works is a delight. There’s some casting nonsense going on, and it’s amazing

#isa babble #text #i runs dnd #it's amazing #and i love hanging out with my players outside of sessions #whether it's staying late after sessions #or meeting up during the week #i love it so freaking much

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britesparc · 5 years

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Weekend Top Ten #388

Top Ten Things Tim Burton’s Batman Films Did Right

Thirty years ago, give or take, the first Tim Burton Batman movie was released in cinemas (according to Google, its UK release date was 11th August 1989). Everyone knows the story; it was a phenomenon, a marketing juggernaut, a hit probably beyond what anyone was reasonably expecting. I was too young to understand or appreciate what was going on, but for twenty years or more the image of Batman in the public consciousness was intertwined with Adam West and pop-art frivolity. Suddenly superheroes were “dark” and “grown-up”; suddenly we had multi-million-dollar-grossing properties, franchises, and studios rummaging through their back catalogues of acquired IPs to land the next four-quadrant hit. Throughout the rest of the nineties we got a slew of pulp comic adaptations – The Spirit, The Phantom, Dick Tracy – before the tangled web of Marvel licenses became slightly easier to unpick, and we segued into the millennium on the backs of Blade, X-Men, and Spider-Man. Flash-forward to a super-successful Batman reboot, then we hit the MCU with Iron Man, and we all know where that goes. And it all began with Batman!

Except, of course, that’s not quite the whole story. Studios were trying to adapt superheroes and comic books for a number of years, not least because Richard Donner’s Superman had been such a huge hit a decade before Batman. And the Batman films themselves began to deteriorate in quality pretty rapidly. Plus, when viewed from the distance of a couple of decades or more, the supposed dark, gritty, adult storytelling in Burton’s films quickly evaporates. They’re just as camp, silly, and nonsensical as the 1960s show, they’re just visually darker and with more dry ice. Characters strut around in PVC bodysuits; the plots make little to no sense; characterisation is secondary to archetype; and Batman himself is quite divorced from his comic incarnation, killing enemies often capriciously and being much less of a martial artist or detective than he appeared on the page (in fact, Adam West’s Batman does a lot more old-school deducing than any of the cinematic Batmen).

I think a lot of people of my generation, who grew up with Adam West, went through a period of disowning the series because it was light, bright, campy and, essentially, for children; then we grow up and appreciate it all the more for being those things, and also for being a pure and delightful distillation of one aspect of the comics (seriously, there’s nothing in the series that’s not plausibly from a 1950s Batman comic). And I think the same is true of Burton’s films. for all their importance in terms of “legitimising” superhero movies, they have come in for a lot of legitimate criticism, and in the aftermath of Christopher Nolan’s superlative trilogy they began to look very old-fashioned and a much poorer representation of the character. But then, again, we all grow up a little bit and can look back on them as a version of Batman that’s just as valid; they don’t have to be perfect, they don’t have to be definitive, but we can enjoy them for what they are: macabre delights, camp gothic comedies, delightfully stylised adventure stories. They might lack the visual pizazz of a Nolan fight scene or, well, anything in any MCU movie, but they’re very much of a type, even if that type was aped, imitated, and parodied for a full decade following Batman’s release. There’s much to love about Burton’s two bites of the Bat-cherry, and here – at last – I will list my ten favourite aspects of the films (that’s both films, Batman and Batman Returns).

Tim Burton’s Batman isn’t quite my Batman (but, for the record, neither is Christopher Nolan’s), but whatever other criticisms I may have of the films, here are ten things that Burton and his collaborators got absolutely right.

Great Design: seriously, from an aesthetic point of view, they’re gorgeous. The beautiful Anton Furst Gotham, all gothic towers and industrial pipework, is a thing of beauty, and in terms of live-action the design of all of Batman’s vehicles and gadgets has never been bettered. It gives Batman, and his world, a gorgeously distinctive style all its own.

Wonderful Toys: it’s not just the design of the Batmobile and Batwing that impresses (big, bulbous round bits, sweeping curves, spiky wings); its how they’re used. Burton really revels in the gadgets, making Batman a serious tech-head with all manner of grappling hooks, hidden bombs, and secret doo-dahs to give him an upper hand in a fight. It makes up for the wooden combat (a ninja Michael Keaton is not), suggesting this Batman is a smarter fighter than a physical one. Plus all those gadgets could get turned into literal wonderful toys. Ker-ching.

He is the Night: Adam West’s Batman ran around during the day, in light grey spandex with a bright blue cape. Michael Keaton’s Batman only ever came out at night, dressed entirely in thick black body armour, and usually managed to be enveloped in smoke. From his first appearance, beating up two muggers on a Gotham rooftop, he is a threatening, scary, sinister presence. It totally sold the idea of Batman as part-urban legend, part-monster. Burton is fascinated with freaks, and in making his Batman freaky, he made him iconic.

You Wanna Get Nuts?: added to this was Michael Keaton’s performance as Bruce Wayne. Controversial casting due to his comedy background and, frankly, lack of an intimidating physique, he nevertheless utterly convinced. Grimly robotic as Batman, he presented a charming but secretive Bruce Wayne, one who was kind and heartfelt in private, but also serious, determined, and very, very smart. But he also excellently portrayed a dark anger beneath the surface, a mania that Bruce clearly had under control, but which he used to fuel his campaign, and which he allowed out in the divisive but (in my opinion) utterly brilliant “Let’s get nuts!” scene. To this date, the definitive screen Bruce Wayne.

Dance with the Devil: The counterpoint to this was Jack Nicholson’s Joker. Cashing a phenomenal cheque for his troubles, he nevertheless delivered; his Joker is wild, over-the-top, cartoonish but also terrifying. In my late teens I was turned off by the performance, feeling it a pantomime and not reflective of the quiet menace and casual cruelty of, say, Mark Hamill’s Joker; but now I see the majesty of it. You need someone this big to be a believable threat to Batman. No wonder that, with Joker dead, they essentially had to have three villains to replace him in the sequel.

Family: Bruce’s relationship with Alfred is one of the cornerstones of the comic, but really only existed in that capacity since the mid-80s and Year One (which established Alfred as having raised Bruce following his parents’ deaths). So in many ways the very close familial relationship in Batman is a watershed, and certainly the first time many people would have seen that depicted. Michael Gough’s Alfred is benign, charming, very witty, and utterly capable as a co-conspirator. One of the few people to stick around through the Schumacher years, he maintained stability even when everything else was going (rubber) tits up.

Meow: I’ve mostly focussed on Batman here, but by jeebies Batman Returns has a lot going for it too. Max Shreck, the Penguin, “mistletoe is deadly if you eat it”… but pride of place goes to Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman. An utterly bonkers origin but a perfectly pitched character, she was a credible threat, a believable love interest, and an anti-hero worth rooting for, in a tour-de-force performance. Also came along at just the right time for me to experience puberty. If you’re interested. Plus – and this can’t be overstated – she put a live bird into her mouth. For real. I mean, Christ.

Believably Unreal: I used to criticise Batman for being unrealistic, just as campy in its own way as the ‘60s show. But that’s missing the point. It’s a stylised world, clearly not our own thanks to the Furst-stylings. And Burton uses that to his advantage. The gothic stylings help sell the idea of a retro-futuristic rocket-car barrelling through city streets; the mishmash of 80s technology and 40s aesthetics gives us carte blanche for a zoot-suited Joker and his tracksuited henchmen to tear up a museum to a Prince soundtrack. It’s a world where Max Shreck, looking like Christopher Walken was electrocuted in a flour factory, can believably run a campaign to get Penguin elected mayor, even after he nearly bites someone’s nose off. It’s crazy but it works.

Believably Corrupt: despite the craziness and unreality, the first Batman at least does have a strong dose of realism running through it. The gangsters may be straight out of the 40s but they’ve adopted the gritty grimness of the intervening decades, with slobby cop Eckhart representing corrupt law enforcement. Basically, despite the surrealism on display, the sense of Gotham as a criminal cesspool is very well realised, and extends to such a high level that the only realistic way to combat any of it is for a sad rich man to dress up as Dracula and drive a rocket-car at a clown.

The Score: I’ve saved this for last because, despite everything, Danny Elfman’s Batman theme is clearly the greatest and strongest legacy of the Burton era. Don’t come at me with your “dinner-dinner-dinner-dinner-Batman” nonsense. Elfman’s Batman score is sublime. Like John Williams’ Superman theme, it’s iconic, it’s distinctive, and as far as I’m concerned it’s what the character should sound like. I have absolutely no time for directors who think you should ever make a Batman film with different music. It’s as intrinsically linked with the character as the Star Wars theme is with, well, Star Wars. It’s perfect and beautiful and the love-love-love the fact that they stuck it in the Animated Series too.

Whelp, there we are. The ten best things about Burton’s two Batman movies. I barely spoke about the subsequent films because, well, they’re both crap. No, seriously, they’re bad films. Even Batman Forever. Don’t start.

#top ten #batman #1989 #tim burton #Michael Keaton #batman returns #comics #movies

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cookiefonster666 · 5 years

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Thoughts on the Homestuck Epilogues (Tumblr Edition)

I predicted the future!

Might as well adapt this Blogspot post I made about a week ago into Tumblr form, why not. With a few minor changes. I don’t like using Tumblr but I figure it’s a good additional platform to share my surprisingly positive views on the Homestuck Epilogues.

The epilogues have a lot of controversial content, most of which I avoid talking about here.

BRIEF SUMMARY

4/20, read through Meat: epilogues pretty good

4/20, started Candy: what the fuck

4/21, stopped: aaaaaaaaughhhhh bluh i hate everything

4/24-ish, continued Candy: epilogues alright i guess also i am sad now

4/27-ish, finished: I LOVE HOMESTUCK

BRIEF-ISH SUMMARY

Meat was a wild ride that started as cool plot stuff and things that make you go "OH FUCK", continued as basically chapters 7-9 of Detective Pony (which I naturally enjoyed a lot), and ended as a mess of sheer chaos and destruction. My thought process ended as, "oh duh, this is the bad ending, candy must be the good ending". I was in for quite the nasty surprise.

I quit reading Candy just a few pages in. It didn't take long for it to suddenly become the weirdest fanfiction ever. Frustrated, I started skipping and searching through later parts and got rather salty when it turned out both sides were the "bad ending". I saw firsthand what vfromhomestuck meant by "clear your whole week": this is not something most people can just read in one sitting. Then I recovered a few days and read Candy in earnest, in a somewhat anachronous order and with many parts read multiple times. Slowly, I started to hope that the epilogues would be followed up with a true happy ending for real this time. I may or may not have written a snippet of some form of fanfiction paving the way for a happy ending.

Once I finally accomplished the equivalent of reading Candy as intended, I got hit HARD with feels. I accepted that the epilogues have many issues but as a whole (not just the sum of parts) are an absolute masterwork, sometimes because of those issues. It didn't take me long to realize the brilliant duality either. Meat is a side-splitting metafictional farce that (for me at least) is impossible to treat as anything resembling a story of people doing things. Candy is a tale of FEELS, and I don't use the word FEELS lightly. FEELS means I almost cried, like I did when I watched the Futurama episode Luck of the Fryrish.

DETECTIVE PONY AND METAFICTION

Before I move on and talk about the CHARACTERS, I'm going to discuss the meat epilogue's resemblance to sonnetstuck's Detective Pony. I love everything about Detective Pony, more than almost anything else in existence. My abnormal love for that godlike fanwork probably skewed my perception of Meat a bit. Starting from page 17, Dirk takes over the narration then fights over it with god tier Calliope; both do rather questionable deeds and Dirk was hit hard by fans as a result. Seeing other fans react towards that character with such hostility gave me a very distinct feeling of "what, am I missing something?" Dirk's takeover felt like a lengthy work of comedy to me; a story that never strips away from the fact that it's fiction, in a vein near identical to that of Detective Pony. I like to think I am in the right for perceiving that arc this way, because I think everyone who has read Homestuck should read Detective Pony. One of the epilogue authors read Detective Pony after writing the epilogues and was struck by it; I take this accidental mirroring of (post-)canon as proof that sonnetstuck understands Hussie's ways through and through. I like to think I have a solid understanding of Hussie's ways by now, but this guy is on a whole new level.

That said, the meat epilogue gets a bit carried away with metafiction to the point of making me think, "god when will things go back to normal". Towards the end of Detective Pony, Dirk goes through an existential crisis followed by a powerful revelation, and then resolves to do whatever it takes to erase his abominable creation. But the meat epilogue ends with (both figurative and literal) crashing and burning; no ultimate redemption for our poor Strider. Homestuck doesn't usually have much of a problem with getting carried away with stupid nonsense; maybe a few rare occasions in cases like Hussie's self-insert scenes. But getting carried away is a major criticism I have with cool and new web comic. I love that comic to death, but the parts that take a long time to dwell on the cool and new characters being creepy or weird are a chore to go through. o (the author of CaNWC) seems to have improved in that regard; the cool and new trolls' arc is much more to-the-point with such nonsense.

Meat getting carried away with metafiction is a major cause of my initial burnout shortly after starting Candy. I was sick of this mass dump of metafiction and expected Candy to be a refreshing change of pace. Haha, if only. My fault for reading Meat first. At night I sometimes ponder in envy of the parallel universe me that started with Candy. Actually I don't do that, I just thought it was a funny thing to say. Though I have on more than a few occasions sat in bed fantasizing about how awesome my life probably is in some parallel universe. What point was I making again? Oh whatever, it doesn't matter. I guess I should write a similar overview of Candy's narrative nature. Here goes:

LUCK OF THE FRYRISH AND SADSTUCK

Sad things are sad.

^ There, that's my candy overview. How hard was that?

With the two summaries out of the way, I figure the best way to dump out my residual thoughts on the epilogues is going character by character. I won't do every character, mostly just the ones who played large roles and were already characters in Homestuck proper. I'm sorting these characters in tiers of how well I think the epilogues handle them, mostly from worst to best.

N-TIER

N is not the lowest tier; it's the tier that cannot be ranked. N stands for two things here: "Not Applicable" and "Narrators". Naturally enough, two characters fit into that tier.

Dirk Strider: I've already talked about this guy quite a bit. I have a fondness for Dirk's character and I think his dialogue and narration in meat do a good job portraying some ascended, ultimate version of his character without straying from his voice, the tone that makes him Dirk. That said, I'm a bit peeved that "normal Dirk", the one iteration of Dirk Strider that isn't total bonkers and just wants his friends to be happy, doesn't exist in this story. In Candy, Rose suddenly loses the memories of her alternate selves, but for some reason Dirk keeps those memories and soon after commits suicide; he's left out of the picture until Candy's postscript, which I guess is a reasonable balance considering his indulgence throughout Meat. But why is only one of the succulently verbose Strilondes let off the hook? Some readers imagine Dave as the comic's protagonist and Dirk as the antagonist; I've toyed with that idea myself and can see it symbolized, but it just feels so wrong to me. Maybe the authors did too good a job writing Dirk for me to be complacent with such a shift in role. His conversations with Rose were just as delightful as I had hoped and they aren't weighed down too much in light of his shift in role, at least not for me.

Alt Calliope: The narrative rival to Dirk, as I mentioned previously. I'm not totally sure what to say about her, other than that one could see her as a counterpart to let's say Anna Harley; a necessary piece in the Detective Pony analogy. Alt Calliope's narrative arguments with Dirk were hilarious and that's all there is to say on the matter.

G-TIER

I'm lucky Gamzee's name starts with a G, because this means I can give him a tier of his own worse than F. As an individual arc that is; he'd get a much higher rating when taken as part of a whole.

Gamzee Makara: Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I despised reading every word that came out of this guy's mouth as soon as his """redemption arc""" started. But I can clearly tell that was the point and that the suffering that is reading his words has a much greater purpose. Before you deem me a masochist or the kind that insists everything is "bad on purpose", know that I am neither of those things but really do mean what I say here. Gamzee's role in Candy draws tension between individuality and the whole. Reading this guy's hogwash is suffering in and of itself, but ultimately it serves a role of showing us how fucked up the world of Candy is and helps the reader experience John's existential crisis with him.

F-TIER

As before, these tiers are strictly about character arcs in isolation and not the big picture. This tier is home to none other than the legendary...

Jane Crocker: Boy did I predict the future on that one. A bit like Dirk, I would've liked it more if in only one epilogue did sweet innocent little Jane become such a monster. No way in hell am I going to run through the asshole things she does; it's a load of sensitive topics I'm not comfortable discussing in any capacity. Instead, I'll say that if I had to choose only one epilogue where Jane ran through her crazy presidential campaign it would be Candy; as with Gamzee's arc, this campaign serves well as a part of John's existential crisis. What's weird here is that in Candy she originally cancelled all this, but later ended up basically doing it anyway with Dirk gone. I can imagine Jane going back to normal in Meat, maybe? Or in the hypothetical "true ending" I discussed prior.

D-TIER

Better known as "meh" tier. Mostly the characters that don't do much and I wished did more.

Meenah Peixes: Needed more screen time, god damn it. She survives the Furthest Ring apocalypse, nabs the Ring of Life, then makes her way to Candy Earth and joins Karkat in the rebellion. Maybe it makes sense that her and Karkat teaming up in war is relegated to the background, to show how far the shouty guy has come in comparison to everyone else. I'll come back to this point when I talked about Karkat.

Roxy Lalonde: Doesn't do too much in either side, but does go through some touchy topics I'm not sure what to think about; I'm most certainly not ready to talk about those topics now. And regardless, Roxy's role in the epilogues is better discussed when I talk about John and Terezi a few tiers up.

Calliope: Doesn't do all that much either, full circle to being the exposition alien with mysterious morality. I'm actually pretty OK with that. Certainly beats out the slog of endless "ur pretty" conversations. Calliope pretty much fades into the background on both sides, which is sad but fitting.

(About pronouns: I'll keep referring to Roxy and Calliope as "she" unless I find reason to talk about the little those two do in Meat. I just avoided using pronouns in those paragraphs above.)

C-TIER

Better known as "meh" tier, but with a more positive "meh" than before. It's the "meh" that indicates lukewarm satisfaction rather than annoyance at mediocrity.

Jade Harley: Really should be on a lower tier, because she did dick squat other than being horny and painfully oblivious to all the nonsense going on. But I'm a sucker for Jade being "Jade" and was happy to see even a trace of that early in Meat. As before, I'll avoid the controversial topics surrounding Jade in the epilogues, aside from pointing out that this post reads very different now.

Karkat Vantas: This guy's a bit of an odd spot. His leadership role is addressed in the absolute last way I expected. Could've gotten more attention from the story I suppose, but damn if his character arc didn't get the most triumphant return imaginable.

Kanaya Maryam: I touched upon Rose and Kanaya's relationship when I discussed the "buddy system" in my first epilogues post and I still stand by what I said there. Her strong attachment to Rose is integrated well into Meat without seeming like fluff or defining her entire character, because she actually does other things there too. In Candy they remain a stable happy relationship and I guess I'm cool with that.

Aradia Megido: Role is the same as ever and I'm fine with that. Death fangirl who works for predestination and has ambiguous morality. Her arc with alt Calliope ends with a cliffhanger that is easily the biggest reason to hope for a follow-up to the epilogues; if such a follow-up were to happen, I really look forward to hearing more from Aradia.

Sollux Captor: Sollux is by nature the other guy, that's an immutable fact of life. He doesn't do much other than snarking at whoever's nearby and I can't imagine it any other way.

Jake English: If not for a scene near the end of Candy, I'd put Jake at D-tier. Through all of Meat and most of Candy, Jake's role is one of the oddest spots of all and it's pretty hard to pinpoint what the authors were going for, lest I dabble in controversial topics some more. But Jake's scene with John near the end of Candy is uniquely touching and makes the most out of his role as a second John. He moves in with John, bringing his son Tavros with him, and encourages John to reconcile with his former wife and make amends of sorts, ultimately giving a small portion of the cast a pseudo-happy ending. That whole part of Candy made me tear up.

Talking about the really GOOD parts is a perfect point for me to move on to...

B-TIER

Stuff that didn't make it into A-Tier, which I've reserved for what struck me HARD.

Dave Strider: In both epilogues, Dave's behavior generally seems based on how he acted in Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 5, which is actually a LOT better than it sounds and hell if I know why that is. Dave's rants about politics and sexuality now have a charm I can't quite describe. His absurd fixation specifically on the economy matches shockingly well with the nature of Homestuck. The three-way romance between him, Karkat, and Jade goes in very different directions on either side, which I'll discuss a bit later. The epilogues even made Dave x Karkat an actually decent ship, how crazy is that??? The writers deserve a big badge of honor for doing that. Not sure what to say about specific things, but Dave was really well-written in an unexpected way.

Rose Lalonde: Again not sure what to say about anything in specific. Just really enjoyed reading Rose on both sides of the story. Shoutout to the heartwarming moment with John near the end.

A-TIER

Oh boy. Oh boy. Time for the big guns.

Vriska Serket: My mind hurts to process just how good Vriska's appearance in Candy was, after leaving the Furthest Ring and landing on Earth. First she talks with John rather aggravated, then she brutally murders Gamzee, then she sits down and has an honest talk with her ectobiological clone raised by Rose and Kanaya, and in the end gets in touch with Terezi which leads to a cliffhanger. The story somehow created the PERFECT balance of sincere reflections and typical Vriska flavor, which was deeply lacking in A6A6I5 with its horrific polar opposite versions of Vriska. Two Vriskas converse once again late in Candy and this time it's incredibly endearing and almost feels like an apology for the controversial Vriska/Vriska encounter back then. I accept the apology with open arms. Why is everything always so wonderful?

John Egbert: <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3. WHY IS EVERYTHING ALWAYS SO WONDERFUL? John gets a deep meaningful existential crisis arc in both epilogues; both cases I easily latched onto and found a bit of myself in. I absolutely loved seeing him and Terezi interact as a duo of people with some perception of canonicity; I'll get back to that point soon enough. John's marriage to Roxy not working out is a testament to both his issues with canon and Roxy's issues dealing with harsh situations. Roxy latches onto John and their son as a huge carefree pushover and he doesn't like that at all. And that's actually cool with me because John x Terezi is better in every way, as the epilogues made me realize. If that wasn't enough, the end of Candy spoils our little hearts by having John reconcile with Roxy anyway and give hope for a better future. Though a part of me does want to see a true happy ending where John and Roxy date with their delightful dynamic from their first interactions, I'm beyond pleased with the epilogues' handling of John either way. Swaying deep into some rather sad territory while remaining 100% faithful to his character that I've always loved so much.

Terezi Pyrope: FUCK YES FUCK YES FUCK YES FUCK YES FUCK YES. Every scene with Terezi in the epilogues was so goddamn awesome. Her interactions with John were such a blast to read, with exactly the mix of humor and touching aspects that make both of the big John/girl ships what they are. How did the authors pull it off, making deeply emotional scenes without ever sacrificing that goofy Terezi flavor???

S-TIER

S in rating systems these days is way misused in my eyes. Normally A is meant to be the highest rating and S is used for the very rare absolutely exceptional case A doesn't do justice. But now you see shit like SS, SSS, SSSS everywhere like one S isn't the ultimate badge of honor? S is a rating I'd gladly give Detective Pony and may or may not give cool and new web comic. Same goes for my very favorite Futurama episodes. I'd give a few of Neil Cicierega's works that rating if I'm feeling up to it. In this post, I've reserved the S rating for:

Barack Obama: THE BEST PART OF THE EPILOGUES, HANDS DOWN. His conversation with Dave near the end of Candy is perfect in every way, it really transcends words. Humor, emotional touching, plot revelations, and straight up "Homestuck feel" are blended into the most delicious melting pot imaginable. When Dave confesses that he might be gay and explains troubles in his three-way romance, Obama responds with a truly inspiring speech about identity that raises an excellent point about the differences between the epilogues involving aspects of people that may seem immutable to some. I think Obama's speech leaves a powerful message I never expected Homestuck of all things to convey so well. I hope readers take that speech's message into account, though I know many will probably be a bit naive about it.

If you refuse to read the epilogues at all costs, then I implore you to read Dave and Obama's conversation anyway. You won't be disappointed.

CONCLUSION

epilogues good

that’s all there is to say on the matter

though if you don’t like them that’s also fine

#homestuck #homestuck epilogues #epilogues #epilogues spoilers #homestuck epilogues spoilers #i predicted the future #i love john egbert #i love terezi pyrope #i maybe love vriska serket???#obama obama obama #johnrezi #yes good

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sockablock · 6 years

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Guys. GUYS! GUYS!!! I’m always so blown away by how incredible and supportive you all are, but when I started this blog in March, I never expected to become a part of such a lovely community. My 20-ish little AO3 fics have over 48,000 hits (which is BONKERS) and now there are 2,500 of you delightful bastards following me here!! I know I’ll never be able express how grateful I am for all you guys, but by god I’m about to do my best:

tl;dr, it’s fic request time ᕕ(ツ)ᕗ

If y’all have been around for a while, you’ll probably remember the last time I did this! In Round 2, the spirit is the same. Feel free to send in your own prompts/pairings, or use this list again! I’ve also found a rockin’ Tarot Card Prompt Post if you need a little more inspiration.

I will fill every single person’s request, no strings attached, with a drabble (anywhere from 300-2k words) so long as they are submitted between today (10/10) and 10/14 @11:59 BST. No exceptions!! (Unless I super DUPER like your request, but those will be fulfilled last.)

Rules:

You can submit as many prompts as you’d like!

Buuut, I will only fill one per person (I nearly died last time y’all)

I will take requests from either campaign!

Pleeease try to keep it simple! (If you send me a paragraph detailing a very specific outline, I definitely won’t do it)

Along those lines, try to have a specific scene in mind? If it’s too open-ended, that’ll make for a hard drabble (but I’ll definitely try!)

I won’t write nsfw (I am extremely bad at it and y’all don’t deserve that)

Things like pillow talk, bathhouse scenes, that’s totally fine!

I will not do romantic pairings for Nott (no judgement, it’s just a personal preference)

Please don’t send me prompts I’ve already done! If you do, I’ll still try my best, but it won’t be as fun for you or me!

I’m serious about that time frame. I’ll announce an extension if it comes to that, but the volume last time almost broke me

This is for my followers, so please be following me if you submit! I won’t check, but I trust y’all

Also, I have a ko-fi! You don’t need to donate to submit anything, and there won’t be any special treatment, but by god I will love you for it

I’ll try to have these finished by the end of the month, though no guarantees (since college is a bitch). I love all of you guys so so so so much, and again, I seriously can’t say thank you enough. Y’all rock, and I can’t wait to see what you come up with!!

💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

#HERE WE GO #come at me you guys #also seriously i love yall so much #2.5k fic request #jay speaks #critical role #fic #fanfiction #cr2 #send me prompts!#ask jay #critrole #critfic #the mighty nein #vox machina #ficlet #writing

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sambaker123 · 3 years

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‘Tony Blair grins for his photograph as he holds up his smartphone to take a selfie. He's delighted with himself and what he's done. Behind him, black smoke and hellish flames bloom over an arid landscape. To many people, this grotesquely comic moment says it all – only Blair would think that's a good photo opportunity.He did not, of course. This is not a real scene. Such is the reputation of the former prime minister and winner of three general elections that it somehow needs saying that he did not actually pose for a selfie in front of a blazing oilfield in Iraq.What he did do is pose with his phone, apparently taking his own picture, at a photo opportunity with a group of naval cadets during the 2005 general election campaign. Political artists Peter Kennard and Cat Phillipps were combing through scores of pictures from the Guardian when they came across this slightly bonkers-looking portrait of a politician on campaign and realised it was just what they needed in their quest for a picture that told the truth about the Iraq war. "It was born out of two years of hard work to pull down the propaganda machine," say the artists. Using Photoshop they replaced the innocuous cadets with an apocalypse of fire. A satirical icon was born.’ https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/oct/15/tony-blair-selfie-photo-op-imperial-war-museum

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ifuckinglovestvincent · 7 years

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St. Vincent Is Telling You Everything

“I told you more than I would tell my own mother.”

September 10, 2017, 10:34 a.m. By Laura Snapes | BuzzFeed Contributor Reporting From New York, New York Annie Clark was reconfiguring some older material for her upcoming tour when she realized how alien it felt to play it. She could adapt the arrangements to her harsher new sound — the sleazy, acid aesthetic of Masseduction, her upcoming fifth solo record as St. Vincent — but the writing’s proggy complexity was cockblocking the emotion. “In so many ways, I thought I was being completely transparent and brave in every record, only to realize that they are very oblique,” Clark told BuzzFeed News. She cackled and looked delighted. “Who knew! I had no idea.” Clark is much too self-aware for this to be completely true. But the difference between her polite, guarded Texan past and confrontational present is colossal. When I first interviewed Clark in 2009, she nervously pressed her pendant against her lips and face, leaving a red lipstick pox on her insane cheekbones. By 2014’s St. Vincent, Clark’s public persona would be imperious. But these days, she’s a playful freak who revels in showing the tightness of her grip, a disposition aided by long, straight eyebrows that dance like Memphis squiggles. In late July, she appeared in the lobby of New York City’s Marlton Hotel, her temporary home during the making of Masseduction. She had come from pilates — which she likes because it makes her sing better and “come a lot harder” — and disappeared to change out of her leopard-print gym shorts. When I mentioned a recent paparazzi photo of her looking like a sexy detective in another skintight leopard-patterned getup, she asked twice, with predatory delight, whether I’d looked at her camel toe. (No! Okay, maybe!) The only time her control slipped was when the hotel’s stereo started playing “Who,” a knotty song from the album she made with David Byrne, and she shriveled like a salted snail at hearing her own voice. Self-possession like hers is often interpreted as pretentious, or pathological. But over time, the confidence that the younger, anxious Clark had to fake has become bracingly real. You can hear it in Masseduction, a record of pop fluidity and queer possibility. It’s the best thing she’s ever done, and there are no bad St. Vincent records. It’s partly harsh, heady, erotic synth-pop visions steered by her diamond-sharp guitar, and while Clark has written plenty of ballads, there have never been any as brutal and gorgeous as these. Its lurch between apocalypse and ecstasy mirrors how it felt to be kicked in the head by the past couple years. In a way, Clark was right about the obscurity of her past work, filled with archetypes and distanced observations — emotions through a stained-glass window. If not a clear pane, then Masseduction is at least a peep show on heartache, fucking, addiction, destitution, and suicide. And her relatively new life as a very public figure, thanks to relationships with Cara Delevingne and Kristen Stewart, gives it an extra frisson. Tabloids will rush to find the former, the famed British supermodel, on an album littered with wasted bodies, especially on “Young Lover,” where Clark finds someone overdosed in the bathtub. She recounts the night with terror but also arrestingly ugly indignation. “Oh, so what / Your mother did a number / So I get gloves of rubber / To clean up the spill,” she sneers. “Scenario has to rhyme, babe,” is all Clark said about its veracity. She was bemused at being asked to explain the lyrics. To her, this record is butt-naked. “I told you everything,” she stressed. “I told you more than I would tell my own mother. It’s right there.”

Annie Clark Nedda Afsari Masseduction started out with three tenets: It would feature programmed beats and pedal steel guitar, and examine power and seduction. “What does power look like, who wields it, how do they wield it — emotionally, sexually, financially?” Clark ticked off her fingers. The album was properly born over a creative first-date dinner with Jack Antonoff, the Bleachers frontman who also recently produced and wrote with Lorde and Taylor Swift. Clark was looking for a teammate; they told each other everything that was going wrong in their lives and decided that total oblivion was the only way out of their heads. “It wasn’t, ‘Hey, let’s make a record together, that’ll be fun,’” Antonoff told me. “It was, ‘Let’s absolutely go all the way and find the absolute best thing that exists here,’ which is really the only way to work on things.” That grit is Clark’s MO. Until recently, she claimed to have taken approximately 36 hours off in between returning from touring 2011’s Strange Mercy and starting work on 2014’s St. Vincent. The concerts for the latter were bonkers, starting the run as avant-garde, meticulously choreographed deconstructions of a traditional rock show, and ending it with exorcisms that entailed Clark crumpling down a 10-foot pink plywood pyramid like a drunken horse. She often stole objects from the crowd: a pair of crutches, someone’s dinner. The spectacle of her murdering the thing she’d trained for was addictive.

St. Vincent during the 2015 Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival. Frazer Harrison / Getty Images “Touring became a blood sport for me. I mean, I was born with a whip anyway, and touring became this self-flagellating exercise,” she said, clenching her jaw and lashing each shoulder with an imaginary strap. “And I was seeking that kind of physical exhaustion; I was seeking the pain.” She doesn’t know why, and she’s okay not knowing why, though eventually she did accept that her relationship to touring was a form of delirium. On the new album’s “Sugarboy,” a dystopian, post-Moroder disco banger, she describes herself as a “casualty hanging on from the balcony.” (She literally climbed rafters in some theaters, kicking away security guards.) This hysteria is one of the reasons she considers Masseduction her saddest record. “I lost my mind, I lost people, I gained people, I stopped touring,” Clark said of that period between 2014 and 2017. “It was just a lot of a lot, you know.” After the St. Vincent tour dates ended, Clark had to learn to construct and value life away from the road — she had been on tour since age 16, when she worked as an assistant for her aunt and uncle’s jazz group. “And I still love that,” she said of touring, “but it’s more like a component of my life now rather than…my life.” Back home she indulged in a “period of bacchanalia,” and briefly got into self-medicating, an experience she turned into the lunatic track “Pills”: Imagine the Stepford Wives lost in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory (Kamasi Washington guests on saxophone; Delevingne sings on the chorus). She’s transfixed by the forces that can swallow us — “You know, drugs, sex, and rock ‘n’ roll,” she winked. “So corny. Kill me! Kill me dead!” Though sometimes she uses those themes to dress up more mundane relationship dynamics. “Savior” explores the unhealthiness of mutual projection through a funny S&M parable involving nurses and nuns and our tediously prosaic concepts of kink: “You put me in a teacher’s little denim skirt,” Clark moans on the song. “Ruler and desk so I can make it hurt / But I keep you on your best behavior / Honey, I can’t be your savior.” The album’s self-destructive dynamic comes out on the title track — “I can’t turn off what turns me on,” she wails over twisted guitar — and her protagonists never stop annihilating each other for their own benefit, whether for carnal kicks, or for the mothers who “milk their young” in the song “Los Ageless.”

The album cover for Masseduction. Loma Vista Recordings And then there’s the heartbreaking “Happy Birthday Johnny,” which sounds like a snowflake but crushes like an anvil. It calls back to the title track of her 2007 debut Marry Me, about “John” who’s “a rock with a heart like a socket I can plug into at will”; and to “Prince Johnny,” the decadent downtown royal from St. Vincent. She said she feels compassion and hopelessness for his self-destruction, but can’t judge because she’s just like him. Maybe he’s also a cipher for the way humans use each other — Clark flatly refused to talk about him. “One thing I have learned in six records and 10 years is that I’m not obliged to answer any questions — a lesson I more or less only recently learned.” She stared into the bar, fixing a grim expression through her orange aviators. “Next question.” At any rate, the song is a whole story. Once conspirators, her and Johnny’s literal fire-starting days are behind them, and now he lives on the street, calling up Clark at New Year’s for “dough to get something to eat.” She demurs, and he calls her a queenly miser who’s sold out for fame. “But if they only knew the real version of me / Only you know the secrets, the swamp, and the fear,” she pleads. It is deeply tragic, being shamed — perhaps rightly — by the person who once understood your shame. Antonoff theorized that she’s mourning a past on the record. On the forthcoming Fear the Future Tour (named after a new song, and to resemble a Jenny Holzer maxim), Clark said she probably won’t be flinging herself around stages as much because “I think I’m emotionally throwing myself around a lot more.”

A still from St. Vincent’s “New York” music video. Alex Da Carte In late July, Tiffany & Co. announced Clark as one of the faces of its fall advertising campaign. Diamonds and waspy Americana are a weirdly prim contrast to the freaky propaganda aesthetic that Clark is calling “manic panic” — the Masseduction album cover is a photo of a nice ass in a leopard-print thong bodysuit. But like any savvy propagandist, Clark’s image will be everywhere this year. Having directed a short film, The Birthday Party, as part of the horror anthology XX, she’s now due to direct a feature-length, female-led adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray. (“The most rich text I have ever read: transgression, modernity, society, repressed queerness.”) There’s also a multimedia performance as part of October’s Red Bull Music Academy in Los Angeles, and an upcoming art exhibition in New York. A coffee table book. Essays. (She calls art “a fountain of youth” that’s given her everything and everyone in her life, hence her urge to make everything.) And that’s just the exposure she has control over. Celebrities like to pretend that their success is the result of some cosmic fluke, but Clark has said quite openly that the best part of becoming more famous thanks to her love life is “just getting the opportunity to do more work in different fields,” which nobody ever admits! (Though her 2015 Grammy for Best Alternative Album and overwhelming critical acclaim probably helped, too.)

St. Vincent, Zoe Kravitz, and Zosia Mamet at the Tiffany & Co.-presented Whitney Biennial VIP Opening in March 2017 in New York. Mike Coppola / Getty Images One of Clark’s best-known songs, 2014’s “Digital Witness,” is about social media voyeurism. “I wonder if, in the future, privacy will be something that only the 1 percent can afford,” she told Rolling Stone that year, which now seems beautifully naive. From the second she and Delevingne were spotted together at the 2015 BRIT Awards, the UK’s pervy yet ever-scandalized tabloid media went nuts that their hottest young model was dating a woman, and pursued them so staunchly that the couple once took revenge by firing water pistols at the paparazzi. “She really is so famous!” Clark said of Delevingne, feigning hammy disbelief at the attention they received. “That shouldn’t have been shocking to me, but it was shocking to me in the sense that she’s such a sweet, really, deeply kind, unspoiled person. She has more compassion in her little finger than—” She waved her hand around her torso with a grim laugh. (The pair reportedly split last fall, but Clark would only say they were “never not close.”) Clark’s self-assurance helped her to perceive the tabloid aggression and celebrity weirdness as baffling rather than distorting. She was too classy to run with my suggestion that attending that Taylor Swift 4th of July party must’ve been an interesting anthropological study. “That was, I think, in the midst of a game of Celebrity,” she said of a photo of her wearing the same stars ’n’ stripes onesie as Gigi Hadid, Karlie Kloss, and Ruby Rose. She took a long pause. “I was very bad at it!”

From left: Cara Delevingne and Annie Clark Schiller Graphics But she was disturbed by dangerous high-speed car chases from paparazzi in pursuit of photos of the couple; she thinks the gossip industrial complex relates to a wider societal disparity. “The biggest problem was that the value system of it is all based on aspiration,” she said with genuine concern. “It’s wealth aspiration, fame aspiration. But if the government, if the world was just generally a more compassionate, empathetic place, people wouldn’t be aspiring to…that. They would be more fulfilled with their own lives if the wealth gap in general wasn’t so insane.” Admittedly, it was hard not to want to look at them, in matching sharp suits and laser-cut Burberry, queering the archetype of the male rock star dating the young supermodel, watching the context around an established artist mutate in front of you. There is the kind of halfway-benign personal invasion where paparazzi follow you and your girlfriend around an airport. But then there is the kind where the never-not-creepy Daily Mail doorsteps your older sister at home in Texas and calls up your well-meaning uncle to sandbag him into revealing that your father went to prison in 2010 for participating in multimillion-dollar stock fraud. Although it is grotesque to treat the paper’s muckraking as a puzzle piece, it did illuminate part of the story behind Strange Mercy, which Clark had — understandably — only ever vaguely attributed to an overwhelming period of loss. “Suitcase of cash in the back of my stick shift,” she sang on “Year of the Tiger.” “I had to be the best of the bourgeoisie / Now my kingdom for a cup of coffee.” (She cowrote the song with her mother, Sharon, who split from Clark’s father when she was three.) “Everybody has their personal tragedies and their crosses to bear,” Clark said in a clipped tone. She calls her father’s 12-year prison sentence “a horrible tragedy. On so many different levels. So absolutely heartbreaking.” She — an adult — could handle it. But her younger half- and stepsiblings on her father’s side are still teenagers. “And I specifically would never talk about that or have ever mentioned that in a myriad of questions about Strange Mercy because it seems like an incredible betrayal of my family. But most specifically, my youngest siblings who are innocent children. They were kiddos.” She described the Daily Mail story as “faux concern,” and reiterated that the paper couldn’t find any dirt on her, no matter how outrageously they tried. “I’m not ashamed of my family,” she said. Then I asked her whether her father going to prison had spun her own moral compass, or made her reconsider any values of right and wrong that he may have instilled in her. She was momentarily confused, and then let rip a massive, absurd, demonstrative laugh. She kept going. “I love my father,” she said eventually, still tickled. “I love my father very much, as any child loves their parent. He’s very intelligent and erudite and a good writer and incredibly well read, and those are all things that I value and I’m glad that he instilled in me.” She paused, and kept on laughing. In the run-up to announcing Masseduction, Clark was Instagramming absurdist junket-styled videos, in which she wears a hot pink skirt and a transparent rubber top the color of ash, and takes questions from an off-screen interviewer. Her answers were scripted by the musician and comedian Carrie Brownstein, who is also her ex-girlfriend. One video poses the question of whether Annie Clark and St. Vincent are the same person. She pauses to consider. “Honestly, you’d have to ask her.” What’s it like being a woman in music? “Good question,” she muses, as the camera zooms to her black and yellow fingernails, which spell out “FUCK OFFF.” These films might factor into her upcoming tour, but the answers were also written for journalists. Earlier in July, in London, Clark found alternative ways to conduct interviews for hours at a time. She invited some female journalists to get massages with her (too weird with men, even though she was face-down on the table the whole time, avoiding eye contact). Other writers were invited into a 10-by-10-foot pink wooden box that was constructed in a North London studio especially for the occasion. Her interrogators had to duck through a low door to enter the blacklit space. “Not full-on crawl, because that’s a little heavy-handed,” she clarified. Inside, she looped a pedal steel recording and lit a Diptyque candle that struggled to mask the paint fumes.

St. Vincent / Via Instagram If anyone asked her an obvious question — like where the name St. Vincent came from — she planned to play prerecorded answers and “check my email, or stretch, or zone out for a second,” she said, sounding almost disappointed that she didn’t get a chance to enact her schemes. She insisted she wasn’t being antagonistic. But sitting opposite Annie Clark for two hours is often intimidating enough without the added fear that she’s about to make fun of you to your face: It is a gigantic power play! “Oh, deeply so,” she said, affecting a wryly elegant tone. “But then also not at all because I was the insane person stuck in a box for eight hours!” If critics and fans are bored of this sort of thing — see Arcade Fire’s recent album campaign — they are clearly not as tired as the artists who have to smile politely at writers who don’t know how to use Google. Plus, Arcade Fire’s hijinks felt cynical; Clark’s feels like a rejection of the idea that women artists are meant to be relatable, having endured a career’s worth of inane juxtapositions between her pretty face and gnarly shredding like it means anything. The point, she said, was that putting ourselves in a totally different, slightly strange context can produce interesting results. (She and I were meant to do Pilates together — before an oversold class spared me the indignity.) Why not make everything thoughtful and curated? If the stakes are already high, why not aim even higher and put yourself in extreme circumstances to see what happens? If Clark has done two things for the cerebral indie-rock world that she’s long outstripped, it’s teach about sex (thank god), and expose its low-risk complacency for a con.

Nedda Afsari Of course, in some people’s eyes, this makes her a phony, a manipulator. Earlier this year, legendary cultural critic Greil Marcus wrote an admirably dim-witted column for Pitchfork where he compared Clark to the slippery Father John Misty, aka Josh Tillman, claiming that they “perform as artists of such pretentiousness you couldn’t possibly figure out how to talk to them. … There’s no way to address a saint: To be a saint you have to be dead … Such characters allow themselves to appear as if touched by God, which is what they’re selling, and laugh at you if you’re so square not to know who they really are: to join their club.” If Marcus had read any of the million interviews that Clark is parodying in her high-concept clips, he would know the name is rooted in humiliation and squalor — the hospital where Dylan Thomas died — rather than divine aspiration. “And I have never, nor would I ever, put the kind of trapdoors and booby traps in my music to make the listener feel dumb,” Clark told me in response to Marcus’s theories. “I have enough hubris not to kill myself, but I actually have such a deep respect for the listener that I have never tried to pander. Songs and arrangements were complex and convoluted at times, but they were sincere attempts at connecting.” She hoped there will be no mistaking her intent with her new record, which “is so first-person and sad.” But if anyone does, she knows it’s not her job to correct them.

A still from the “New York” music video. Alex Da Carte A still from the “New York” music video. If you want to use Masseduction as a treasure map, then this is what it tells us about Annie Clark’s personal life. She experienced a complicated kind of heartbreak. Sometimes that makes her crazy and neurotic: “I won’t cry wolf in the kitchen,” she swears on woozy opener “Hang on Me,” but threatens to jump off her roof “just to punish you” on the vengeful, cracked opera of “Smoking Section,” the last song. Sometimes a mental safety net stretches out when she might otherwise get hurt. “Slip my hand from your hand / Leave you dancing with a ghost,” she sings on “Slow Disco,” the most tender song she’s ever written. “Don’t it beat a slow dance to death?” a forlorn and disembodied voice repeats as it fades out. Her world is changing, and that’s unsettling. “Too few of our old crew left on Astor,” she sings on “New York,” a song about lost heroes. On “Fear the Future,” she belts the title as the song reaches a pyrotechnic cataclysm that sounds like a truckload of fireworks being dumped inside a volcano. But if you respond in kind to Clark’s vulnerability, then these are the more meaningful revelations that we can take from Masseduction into our lives: Relatability is a crock, and sincerity doesn’t take a single form. “I refuse to seem less threatening, if that’s how I’m perceived,” said Clark. “Ultimate freedom is not caring whether you are liked, because you are making something you really love and believe in.” On Masseduction Clark tells us that all the good forms of desire — love, sex, art — are self-destructive. But at their best, they create just that little bit more than they consume, and can eventually alchemize anxiety into total power.

#I’ve gotta try that Pilates #st vincent #annie clark #Laura snapes #interviews

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arkvark2 · 7 years

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Thank you anon for the url to the Reddit thread. Great read. I don’t know how to directly link to specific post, so I’ll copy and paste this:

This has been some of the weirdest twilight zone shit. Ten years ago I was quite far left. The political compass test most recently puts me as a moderate(near center) left libertarian.

I learned a bit more about some of the happenings in the world, and became quite anti-feminist where I had previously considered myself a moderate feminist ally. Became a huge fan of a lot of skeptic and anti-feminist youtubers such as Karen Straughan and the other folks at Honey Badger Radio, Sargon of Akkad, Skeptorr, TL;DR, 6oodfella, Kraut and Tea, Harmful Opinions, Vee Munroe, Terrence Popp, and a bunch of others.

A couple years later GamerGate happened, I was there from the original MundaneMatt video before the hashtag was a thing, and I found my eyes opened to a lot of shit I hadn't previously considered. It became evident that a lot more backroom dealing than I had previously thought possible was happening, and the new media was lying. Through that I discovered people like Milo and found I had a lot of commonality with the emerging libertarian right.

BLM happened, and I saw police officers, a group I've never much trusted or liked on the whole, being slandered and mistreated by the media and subsequently by the public. I watched several hour-long streams from Internet Aristocrat/Mister Metokur showing BLM protesters attacking innocent people, throwing bricks at the police, and generally acting like a bunch of complete shitstains. When I found myself on various social networks and public forums in the strange(to me) position of defending police officers from increasingly vitriolic and hyperbolic attacks, using actual facts that were being dismissed because people didn't like those facts, I had people calling me a far-righter and accusing me of being a redneck and other right-wing stereotypes. I even had people start calling me a nazi, which is something that never bothered me much, being a shitposter on 4chan since early 2006. The whole thing served to solidify to me that the media hadn't been truthful for a very long time now and that the left was sinking deeper and deeper into ideological insanity as the progressives took over.

And then the migrant crisis. Oh boy. Europe descending into spurts of chaos, mass crime on the rise, sex crimes on the rise, media censorship, political censorship, Islamic terror attacks happening every fucking week. The EU imposing all of it upon member nations, trying to call it "the new normal".

And then Brexit happened, and to my great delight the people of the UK made the right decision and told the EU to fuck off. Leftists predictably called for a reversal of the vote, showing that democracy only matters to them when it goes their way.

And then came Donald Trump, the most improbable Candidate for US president I could ever even think of. Listening from here in Canada to some of the things he said during his campaign, (especially following the biggest mistake my fellow Canadians ever made in electing King Cuck Trudeau the biggest cunt on the planet and the only person I've ever found myself thinking "I'd like to kill him with a large rock to the side of his head" about) was interesting. The man talks without a filter. No thought for political correctness. He just says whatever the fuck he wants. I love it! During his campaign he took "journalists" to task for their lies. He verbally slapped around his opponents. It was fucking wonderful to watch. The left, predictably, reacted with hyperbole and an unthinking obedience to the media. Then the Podesta leaks and project veritas happened. Proof upon proof that the DNC had bought and paid for huge swathes of the news media. And the left saw that information, and ignored it until they could blame it on someone else(muh Russian haxors). Then the riots. Then BLM making inroads into Canada(fucking really?). More protests, more riots. Not just a bunch of inner city fucktards chimping out but feminists and other middle class leftists too. Everyone with about as much real information as my toilet bowl after burrito night. Watching the US descend into absolute insanity all because "THAT MAN THERE SAID THINGS I FIND OFFENSIVE." has been absolutely fucking bonkers.

And then, with the deck stacked against him, the news media clawing at his heels, slander and all manner of ridiculous accusations piling against him, the leftists flipping shit in every major city, that middle aged, brusque talking, absolutely improbable candidate won. The madman actually did it. And predictably, the left immediately doubled down on the crazy. And they still are. And for once, a politician is actually doing what he fucking said he would instead of everything BUT that. And they're still angry.

This has been the weirdest several years I can think of. I've taken up political and social positions I never thought I would. I've found common ground with the religious, and lost it with the irreligious. I've had great and intellectual conversations with right wingers and found it largely impossible to do so with left wingers. I've lost friends, gained enormous amounts of knowledge, and seen the absolute depravity of the world around me being slowly beaten back by logic and reason and people in general just being sick and fucking tired of the bullshit.

What a fucking ride!

#donald trump #right wing #libertarian #religion #leftist #anon

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thisdaynews · 4 years

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The House Democrat Taking On Silicon Valley

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/the-house-democrat-taking-on-silicon-valley/

The House Democrat Taking On Silicon Valley

Cicilline is an unlikely leader of a bipartisan coalition. He’s a feisty combatant for the left on Fox News and a pugnacious tweeter. That morning, he had written on Twitter that the Republicans at the impeachment hearings were asking questions that were “absolutely bonkers,” adding, “I’m half-expecting to hear them bring up the grassy knoll or jet fuel melting steel beams next.” This month, during the debate over Iran, he wrote that there are “real questions about whether the president knows what he’s doing.” But for his Silicon Valley investigation, he’s drawn unexpected allies to his side, not just Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, the Wisconsin moderate who is his Republican counterpart on the subcommittee, but top Judiciary Republican Doug Collins and Rep. Matt Gaetz, both fervent Trump allies who have harangued Cicilline and his Democratic colleagues over impeachment.

“I’m very encouraged that we might be able to unite the populist right and the populist left,” Gaetz said in the early days of Cicilline’s investigation. He still counts himself a supporter of the effort.

Perhaps one reason for the strange bedfellows is Cicilline’s willingness to take on his fellow Democrats, as well as Republicans, for abdicating their responsibility—in his view—to rein in the Big Four over the past two decades. The party in Shaw was to celebrate the release of Matt Stoller’s bookGoliath, which grew out of a widely discussedAtlanticarticle about how corporate Democrats “killed their populist soul.” Giving speeches alongside Cicilline at the event were Faiz Shakir, Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign manager; and Rohit Chopra, a Democratic Federal Trade Commission commissioner who has strongly criticized his own agency for what he sees as its inadequate approach to Silicon Valley. Cicilline called Stoller, a staunch proponent of more stringent antitrust enforcement, “an inspiration,” and thanked him for telling such an “important story.”

But Cicilline has also drawn allies because his investigation is regarded as scrupulous and serious, something Congress does not always have a reputation for these days.

As the investigation has rolled along, Cicilline’s questions have gotten more precise.

Why, exactly, did Facebook decide to cut off Twitter’s Vine video app’s access to its data caches?

What percentage, exactly, of Google searches point users to sites Google owns?

How, exactly, does Amazon decide which vendors get featured its prime real estate “buy boxes”?

Who, exactly, inside Apple can listen to the things we say to Siri?

And so people are watching closely to see where David Cicilline’s high-tech investigation ends up, which he says he expects to happen sometime in the next few months. Will it do anything to reset how Washington copes with Silicon Valley? Or will it turn out like much of the anger being directed at the Big Four by political leaders: a loud, attention-getting exercise that only underscores how little Washington has done to check the enormously profitable and powerful tech industry?

***

Unlike the Federal Trade Commission,Cicilline can’t issue fines. Unlike the Justice Department, he can’t bring criminal charges. He can’t single-handedly pass new laws. He needs the blessing of his committee chairman, New York’s Jerry Nadler, just to issue subpoenas. What he can do, and has done, is to convene high-profile hearings, inscribe evidence extracted from the tech companies into the public record, and turn his office into a safe space for those frightened by the Big Four. But that doesn’t mean that Silicon Valley’s critics haven’t invested a great deal of hope in what David Cicilline does next.

“It’s been decades since Congress has undertaken an investigation into a sector like this. You have to go back and look at the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s,” said Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, an advocacy group fighting against economic concentration that has emerged as one of the most prominent critics of the tech industry in Washington. Mitchell testified before Cicilline’s subcommittee in July.

Anyone who recalls the widespread mockery of the questions posed to Mark Zuckerberg when he testified before a couple Senate committees in 2018 knows that this isn’t even a dirty secret in Washington: Nobody, from lawmakers to regulators to reporters, really and truly understands how companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple, work, day in and day out. So Cicilline says he wants to lift the hood, and then describe in intricate detail to the rest of Washington exactly how the engines of Silicon Valley work.

And that, the thinking goes, could lead to changes in the country’s long-standing antitrust laws or compel competition regulators to act.

Cicilline has held five public hearings so far, but those close tothe probe say that he and his staff are also doing crucial behind-the-scenes work with companies that fear testifying in an open hearing room and whose grievances could serve as key evidence in future legal cases against the Big Four.

One top executive from a tech-sector firm would discuss Cicilline’s inquiry only anonymously, writing in an email: “We are greatly encouraged by the Chairman’s work, and the expertise of his staff. To ensure the investigation has the maximum impact, we hope he will provide strong and specific protection against retaliation for companies that have the courage to come forward.” (The Big Four companies all say they don’t engage in such retribution.)

As Cicilline sees it, Washington has been too deferential to tech for too long. He describes himself as seriously underwhelmed, for example, by the FTC’s July settlement with Facebook over data privacy complaints, including the $5 billion fine he and other critics have called largely inconsequential for a company of Facebook’s enormous resources.

Even so, the investigation needn’t be antagonistic, Cicilline insists. He got on the phone with top tech company executives, including Apple’s Tim Cook, back when he started his investigation, he says, just so their firms’ first experience with the subcommittee wouldn’t be at the other end of a subpoena or document request.

Still, he says, the relationship between Washington and Silicon Valley does need to change.

“These big technology companies have sort of been the golden boy or girl of the American economy,” says Cicilline, sitting at the head of a conference table in his second-floor Rayburn House Office Building office in July. An Apple Watch was strapped to his left wrist.

To Cicilline’s left sat Slade Bond, a long-time Judiciary Committee staffer who serves as the subcommittee’s chief counsel. Absent was Lina Khan, a lawyer who wrote a landmark 2017Yale Law Journalarticle called “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox” and is perhaps the closest thing to a rock star in the tech-meets-antitrust world. She often sits behind Cicilline at hearings. Her hiring in March was taken as a sign by many in the antitrust world that Cicilline was serious about wielding his new powers.

***

“This smell is not the normal smell of this office,”says Cicilline by way of greeting, at the start of an interview. He’d just sprayed himself for poison ivy. “That’s what happens when you do your own yardwork,” he says. “I don’t recommend it.”

Compactly built, deeply tanned and typically clad in conservative suits paired with a colorful tie, Cicilline has the vibe of the hard-charging lawyer he was before he entered politics. Born in 1961 in Providence, Rhode Island, with a father who was a lawyer who represented East Coast mafioso, Cicilline attended Brown University—where he started up a chapter of College Democrats with John F. Kennedy, Jr., before heading south to D.C. to attend Georgetown University’s law school.

In 2002, he was elected mayor of Providence, the first openlygay mayor of a U.S. state capital. He served until 2010, when, this being New England, his fortunes were shaped by another Kennedy: Patrick, Sen. Ted Kennedy’s youngest, who announced that he was retiring from his Rhode Island seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Cicilline ran and won a close race.

And in the decade since, Cicilline has climbed the Democratic ladder. He now holds a post in the Democratic House leadership, as chairman of his party’s policy and communications committee.

He has a sharp edge, and on cable news or the hearing room dais, he can come across as impatient with ambiguity, disdainful of those who disagree with him—whether it’s a witness before him or a TV host. “Maria, that’s just not true!” he once shouted at Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo to contest a point on tax policy. To an Amazon attorney in July he thundered, “I remind you sir, you’re under oath.”

But again and again, in interviews with colleagues, friends and former staffers, Cicilline is described as charming, funny, caring, generous, warm, trustworthy, thoughtful, the life of the party. Ciciline has “a delightful personality,” said Rep. Annie Kuster, a New Hampshire Democrat. “Most people [in Congress] are either very serious and, frankly, kind of grumpy, or they swing to the gadfly—always cheerful but never really digging in,” Kuster said. “David has struck a balance that I admire and try to emulate, of being friendly but doing serious work.”

When in Washington, Kuster, Cicilline and several other members of Congress stay in an apartment building in Washington’s Navy Yard neighborhood, where Cicilline held a recent debate-watching party, with about five dozen attendees. He is, Kuster said, “reliable on the potluck.”

Cicilline came into office nearly ten years ago with little real background, or interest, in tech or antitrust, as he now admits. He joined the subcommittee when, he says, Nadler told him to try something new. When he started doing the homework on economic concentration, he started to appreciate the stakes of having a handful of big companies dominating Silicon Valley.

As for any more personal experience with the perceived threat posed by the Big Four, Cicilline points to this: His path to the mayor’s office was smoothed, as a 41-year-old member of the statehouse, by the corruption conviction of Mayor Buddy Cianci, whose misdeeds were documented by theProvidence Journal.

Like other local newspapers, theProvidence Journalhas struggled of late, a decline that Cicilline and others attribute, at least in part, to what the “digital duopoly” of Facebook and Google has done to the journalism business, sucking up advertising dollars that, the thinking goes, should go instead to publications like theProJo.

“This is about access to trustworthy and reliable news and information,” says Cicilline in his office. “If we lose that, I think we put our democracy in real peril.”

***

Baked into Cicilline’s criticismof Washington’s failure to, as he sees it, establish any sort of guardrails during Silicon Valley’s historic rise into an economic, political, and social powerhouse is the fact that while much of it was happening, Democrats were in charge.

It’s a critique heard in some segments of the left of late, where some critics argue that the Obama administration was distracted when it came to tech, whether by Silicon Valley’s fundraising prowess, or a genuine belief in the information revolution as a force for enormous good, or the rise of ISIS, or the Great Recession, or the prospect of future job offers out west. White House press secretary Jay Carney joined Amazon after leaving the White House, senior presidential adviser David Plouffe went to Uber, and other administration officials ended up in places like Facebook, Airbnb and Square.

Elizabeth Warren now leads a small but vocal coalition of Democrats who argue that the time has come, right now, to break up companies like Facebook, an argument that hasn’t been heard much in the tech industry since the 1990s-era antitrust investigation of Microsoft. Other Democrats, though rattled by everything from Cambridge Analytica’s role in the 2016 presidential election to online shopping’s apparent effect on Main Street, aren’t ready to go that far. Some even suggest that naming and shaming companies you don’t like before the end of a congressional or agency investigation sounds very much like something Donald Trump would do.

And Trump, to be sure, has done just that, issuing mostly unsubstantiated claims that the Big Four are endemically biased against conservatives in ways that are manifested in their products. Those thoughts are also voiced by some of the Republican caucus’ most vocal members, like Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Ted Cruz of Texas. But the libertarian wing of the right recoils at the idea of Washington interfering with the free market, or, shudder, rewriting the country’s antitrust laws to target companies that politicians don’t like. And that thinking influences a broad swath of Republicans who are wary of Silicon Valley for its power and cultural influence but blanch at the idea of Congress jumping to the conclusion that this or that private company is irredeemable.

Cicilline—who argues that the break-up talk is getting ahead of things—has largely managed to maintain this fragile coalition, which agrees that Silicon Valley’s power is worrisome but sharply disagrees on what, if anything, to do about it. So far.

“He’s asking important questions to try to get a sense of what the real issues are,” says Justin Brookman, an Obama-era FTC official who is now the director of consumer privacy and technology policy atConsumer Reports. “It’s not as simple as, ‘Let’s break them up all.’ It’s a bit more involved than that.”

Near the start of December, reports started circulating that Warren was drafting legislation to ban so-called mega mergers involving multibillion-dollar companies—and that she was working on it with Cicilline. The news called into question Cicilline’s insistence that he would propose antitrust reform laws, if any, only after he completed his investigation.

Asked about the reported collaboration, Cicilline said he and Warren haven’t had direct talks on any such bill, but left open the possibility that his staff and hers might have had informal discussions.

The rumors of Cicilline’s would-be alliance with Warren didn’t publicly cost him any members of his ad hoc coalition, but the odds are good that the weeks or months until he wraps his investigation will involve not just hearings and document requests but a careful navigation of the political minefield before him.

If Cicilline manages to hold together the coalition he’s assembled while also reaching some politically palatable but powerful conclusions—that, for example, regulators have been left no choice but to crack down on personal-data-based business models, or that Congress has been compelled by events to overhaul the country’s antitrust laws—Cicilline has the chance to leave a lasting mark on Washington.

That’s exactly what his critics are afraid of.

***

“You can’t just ignore factsthat don’t prove your presupposed conclusions. That’s not how ‘investigations’ work,” says Carl Szabo. “Especially from theJudiciaryCommittee? We should be better than that.”

On a warm Friday in October, sun streamed in the window of Szabo’s K Street offices, decorated with thick books on telecommunications law, a LEGO R2-D2 and framed mock patent applications of heavy machinery from the “Star Wars” universe. Szabo is the outspoken vice president and top lawyer for Silicon Valley’s most aggressivelobbying presence in Washington: a group called NetChoice, which counts Facebook and Google among its members.

Szabo’s job is to say what the tech companies don’t want to be seen saying themselves, which, in this case, is that Cicilline is unfairly targeting them. That he isn’t after going after bad corporate behavior but simply taking scalps from some of the highest profile companies in the world. That, despite his declarations that he is keeping an open mind, the result of his investigation is a foregone conclusion. Cicilline, the argument goes, is convinced there’s no competition left in the tech industry. Says Szabo,ever heard of TikTok?

Cicilline’s investigation won’t add up to much of anything, Szabo insists, because there’s notherethere. The worry, though, is that he adds his powerful voice to the “cacophony of people complaining about technology”—many of whom, Szabo argues, are motivated, somewhat perversely, by the desire to get their name in headlines smack up against mentions of Facebook, Google and the rest. “I think the whole reason we’re even talking about these groups is because of SEO,” or search engine optimization, Szabo said.

And Cicilline has sometimes given ammunition to those who believe that he’s in it for the headlines and that he’s being vindictive when he’s not enjoying it all a bit too much.

During his investigation’s second hearing, in July, he got into a back-and-forth with a witness from Amazon, associate general counsel Nate Sutton, over how the company uses the shopping data it collects to decide its own product offerings. “You do collect enormous data about what products are popular, what’s selling, where they’re selling,” Cicilline said. “You’re saying you don’t use that in any way to promote Amazon products?”

Sutton attempted to testify that offering house brands is a common practice among retailers, and, what’s more, that Amazon uses data only in the aggregate to inform its retail decisions, not insights gleaned from individual sellers. This is when Cicilline demanded a clarification and declared, “I remind you sir, you’re under oath.”

Days later, Cicilline sent a letter to Sutton’s boss at Amazon saying he was “troubled” by the lawyer’s testimony. Nor did Sutton’s fellow witnesses, from the rest of the Big Four, get off easy. Cicilline’s chiding note to Facebook said that company’s witness “claimed he was unfamiliar with basic facts” about the business.

Cicilline returned to the topicin mid-September, when he fired off letters to the companies asking scores of questions about their operations. The letter to Amazon had 158 separate requests for information, including on its contested use of seller data.

While waiting for answers, Cicilline tweeted out a news story detailing Amazon’s tweaking of its search algorithm to benefit its own offerings, adding, “Lying to Congress is a serious crime with serious consequences”—an unusually combative move during an open investigation.

Cicilline can be said to have won the round—eventually. When Amazon responded to Cicilline’s information request, its technical answers were interpreted by some to award the points to the congressman. Read a CNBC story on the matter, “Amazon admits to Congress that it uses ‘aggregated’ data from third-party sellers to come up with its own products.”

***

Ciciline has said his investigationis on track to wrap early this year. One possible outcome:The report it produces ends up so hard-hitting that it alienates centrists—including the Republicans rounding out his bipartisan coalition. With Washington so utterly divided, that would make his subcommittee’s work easy to dismiss as yet one more exercise in partisan point-scoring. The news cycle would move on nearly instantaneously, and with it the rest of Congress.

Another possible, even likely, outcome: that his investigation keeps its bipartisanship while avoiding a call for sweeping reforms, and thusalsogets ignored in a political landscape that doesn’t register anything other than full-volume declarations of misdoings. The news cycle would move on nearly instantaneously, and with it the rest of Congress.

Or, Cicilline’s subcommittee could write the most exquisite report, laying out a path forward for the future of technology in the United States that strikes a perfect balance of preserving the public good while fostering innovation—and it gets ignored by a Senate that has shown little interest in rethinking antitrust rules and which is at the moment utterly consumed by the fight over whether Donald Trump should be removed from office.

All that makes Cicilline’s chances for fundamentally revamping the country’s antitrust laws or resetting regulators’ approach to Silicon Valley slim. But as Cicilline sees it, it’s too important a battle to stop waging.

For years, says Cicilline, people in Washington like him let Silicon Valley run wild. “I think they’ve been more familiar with letting them go, letting them flourish—just sitting back and watching,” he says. “I think we’ve reached a point now where we have a responsibility to do more than that.”

#Foreign #Politics #Silicon #Valley

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