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itsclydebitches · 3 years ago

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You know, we’ve been continuing the conversations lately about the group’s inability to practice what they preach, what with Yang’s Raven secret and Ruby’s decision to perpetuate Ozpin’s decisions, but at least those two things are... acknowledged? Sort of. What I mean is, the story clearly thinks the Raven issue isn’t relevant. It absolutely is, but after three whole volumes and a dropped end credits scene, I think it’s pretty clear that RWBY considers it unimportant and has shuffled it off screen. Not worth your time, folks, and that in and of itself is some kind of acknowledgement: you should just let it go. Meanwhile, Ruby’s choices are frustratingly excused with a, “You’re different” speech, but at least an explanation exists, no matter how absurd. A dislike of the explanation doesn’t erase the fact that we got one. It’s still hypocritical, still stupid, still built on rewriting the themes as we go, but at least it’s something.

You know what hasn’t been dropped from the story and likewise hasn’t been given at least a shoddy excuse? Oscar’s secrets.

He (along with the rest of the group) lied to Ironwood for weeks/months about Salem and Ozpin

Then he kept the fact that Ironwood had gone off the deep end and tried to murder him quiet

Then Ozpin returned and he announced that he wouldn’t be sharing this crucial piece of info until he felt like it

Then he tops things off by, apparently, learning at some point that he had an insanely powerful weapon at his disposal and just... never brought that up

I don’t like dragging the farm boy because I love the farm boy, I spent a huge amount of time throughout Volumes 5 and 6 defending him, but he’s suffering big time from the writing flaws lately. Ruby (rightfully) gets most of the heat for lies and secrets because she’s the leader, the show’s main protagonist, and the one who actually speaks them to Ironwood, but Oscar is in his own unique trouble due to being Ozpin’s “better.” At least supposedly. I mean, I personally despise RWBY’s message that the younger generation is inherently superior to the last - “We don’t need adults” and all that - but I don’t think we can deny that such a message exists. Ozpin had his successes off screen, that extraordinary time of peace, yet when the show starts he’s in the process of a downfall. The school is taken over, he’s murdered, and two volumes later he’s literally on his knees, having what little control he retained snatched away. Who replaces him? Oscar. The young, hopeful, bright-eyed child who is now - literally, due to the merge - stepping into Ozpin’s shoes. He’s accepted by the team when Ozpin is not (even if it took way too long). He’s got the wealth of optimism when Ozpin falters. This last volume we saw him straight up go, “No, we’re not doing your escape plan, we’re doing my turn-the-villain plan.” Oscar exists to provide that contrast, the new and improved Ozpin 2.0. The story is essentially saying that Ozpin, the ancient planner, failed spectacularly, but Oscar, the young go-getter, succeeds. Oscar-as-Ozpin will do what Ozpin 1.0 failed to accomplish: helping to defeat Salem by the end of the series.

... so why is Oscar keeping so many secrets?

That’s the snag for me. That’s where RWBY’s intended message falls apart. Not because the message was never there in the first place, but because they’re writing it badly. Ozpin’s way of doing things is, according to the show, defined primarily by controlling information. Keeping things close to his chest, as he says in Volume 6. For Oscar to exist as his better, he needs to reject the actions that - again, the story says - are dangerous, hurtful, and bound to fail. We see that a little bit in his willingness to trust Hazel (which, imo, is far too much of an extreme in the opposite direction), but beyond that Oscar is acting exactly like Ozpin. He’s keeping that info close to his chest just in case Ironwood proves to be an enemy. He’s reducing a traumatic event to “a long story” so as not to upset his teammate and cause further distress in an already stressful situation. He’s deciding that there’s a time and a place for revealing Ozpin’s return and that he will wait until such a time works for him. He, apparently, has a wealth of knowledge at his disposal now, from weapons to information about the Relics, that he’s doling out only when he feels the group absolutely needs to know these things. The cane nuke is just the new moment on the train: we need to escape Salem so I’ll reveal that I have the power to do so; we need to avoid the grimm so I’ll reveal that the Relic attracts them. You get this information when I consider it relevant, not before. And as far as we know, the merge isn’t really happening yet. Oscar is no less Oscar than he was at the start of Volume 4, minus a tendency to stand straighter. That’s the lack of acknowledgement. The story isn’t saying that Oscar is getting cagey because evil Ozpin is infecting his soul, it’s positing this as normal development for him as an induvial and... ignoring the problem with that.

It’s real easy to point to Ruby as the main culprit here and critics (myself included) are absolutely right to. You really can’t do any worse than a whole volume of denouncing secrets, having Ruby parrot Ozpin’s near exact lies, and then try to hand-wave that away with, “But you’re different, Ruby.” RWBY’s moral themes shattered in that moment, but I think, beyond that hugely glaring flaw, there’s something a little subtler going on with Oscar - yet no less frustrating. The story clearly wants us to believe that Oscar is an improvement over Headmaster Ozpin, the new man (boy) who actually puts his trust in others... but who is he putting that trust in? Like the fandom’s worries that the group will eviscerate Jaune (the friend) after insta-forgiving Emerald (the enemy), it doesn’t sit right with me that Oscar is out here keeping major info from his teammates while handing out war intel to the guy torturing him in Salem’s whale. RWBY’s got its ideas of trust and forgiveness backwards and the crew doesn’t appear to realize that any excuses or explanations we might apply to Oscar will always apply to Ozpin too. Like Ruby and Ozpin, there remains a double standard at play between Oscar and Ozpin. You just can’t have this kid keeping so many things to himself now and ignore that this is the exact thing the story said was what made Ozpin the bad guy. Either acknowledge that and fix Oscar’s behavior, or acknowledge that and have the characters realize that Ozpin was right. Because without considering these choices, Oscar doesn’t actually exist as the contrast that I think RT wants him to be and the few nods to their differences - like trusting Hazel - come across as stupid decisions, not improvements. Rather than writing a kid from the next generation who is truly able to do better than the man who came before him, RWBY is writing a kid who is becoming exactly like his elder, with the exception of some incredibly foolish mistakes... all while claiming that he’s different in the way Ruby is different: just because, I guess.

#rwby #rwde #mymetas

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bbclesmis · 6 years ago

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Andrew Davies on Les Miserables: ‘I’m rescuing it from that awful musical’

Give Andrew Davies a piece of classic literature and he will show you the erotic desires and deep-rooted anxieties that lurk beneath. Think of the passions he unleashed in the nation’s living rooms when he sent Mr Darcy for a dip in his full-blooded 1995 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, or the consternation he provoked when he inserted a spot of incest into War and Peace in 2016.

Yet even to Davies, a new adaptation of Les Misérables – which he claims “will rescue Victor Hugo’s novel from the clutches of that awful musical with its doggerel lyrics” – posed a challenge. Perhaps the biggest question was how to represent the sexuality of its two principal characters: Jean Valjean, the prisoner who breaks his parole (played by Dominic West); and his nemesis, Javert (David Oyelowo) the policeman who hounds him until the end of his days.

Over tea in central London, Davies tells me that he was surprised to discover that, in Hugo’s 1862 novel, neither character mentions any sort of sexual experience, leaving the 82-year-old screenwriter wondering, at least in the case of Javert, whether it was indicative of a latent homosexuality.

“His obsession with Jean Valjean represents a kind of perverse, erotic love,” Davies says. He doesn’t stop there. In capturing the febrile atmosphere of post-Napoleonic France, he also shows how the innkeeper’s daughter Eponine (Erin Kellyman) expresses her desire for the earnest student Marius (Josh O’Connor).

“One of the best things Hugo does is to have Eponine tease Marius with her sexiness because he is a bit of a prig,” says Davies. “So I have introduced a scene where Marius, even though he is in love with Cosette [Valjean’s adopted daughter], has a wet dream about Eponine and feels rather guilty about it. I think it fits into the psychology of the book.”

Another problem that needed solving was Cosette, “a pretty nauseating character in the book”, whom Davies has made “strong and optimistic, rather than just an idealised figure who doesn’t add anything at all.” In the past, he has spoken about how he has turned the more saccharine depictions of 19th-century womanhood he has found on the page into women with the power “to disconcert men”, by injecting into them a little of his own mother’s character. I ask if she also makes her presence felt in Les Misérables. “I don’t think so. Was she like Madame Thénardier?” he wonders, referring to the sometimes violent innkeeper’s wife, here played by Olivia Colman. “No, that would be awful. Although she was quite keen on smacking people. The women in this book are not terribly complicated.”

I suggest that this might not sit well with modern viewers. “Well, I suppose Fantine goes on one hell of a journey,” says Davies, effecting a cod-American accent. “She develops a sort of animal ferocity and that is all because of how she has been treated.”

Davies’ childhood sounds rosy by comparison. No sooner had he started at his Cardiff grammar than he wrote a naughty poem about two of the modern language teachers, which went around the whole school in samizdat. He recites it for me:

He kissed her, she kissed him

back.

He took her knickers off and put

them in a sack.

She took his underpants and put

them in her bag.

He said: “Excusez-moi, but may I

have a shag?”

After that, his writing career settled into a slow burn. He studied English at University College London, then moved to Kenilworth, where he met his future wife, Diana Huntley (they have been married since 1960 and have two children) and began teaching literature at the Coventry College of Further Education. He wrote the odd TV play and a whole host of radio scripts – sadly, now all deleted. One 1972 play about wife swapping, Steph and the Single Life, received complaints from those who denounced it as “obscene, disgusting rubbish”.

More solid success came to Davies in the Eighties, most notably with his greatest original work, A Very Peculiar Practice, based on his experiences at Warwick. Heavy on existential gloom, it concluded with the campus being sold to a private American company, which turned it into a defence research base. Never has a series ended to quite such a peal of mirthless laughter and its extraordinary scheduling (9pm on BBC One) was, thinks Davies, a mistake.

At that point, it was hard to imagine that Davies would, a few years later, be the person to turn costume drama into sportive heritage TV. His Middlemarch came first, in 1994, and was followed 18 months later by Pride and Prejudice, one of the most popular TV series of all time. I wonder how he feels about Nina Raine’s forthcoming small-screen adaptation.

“I am very excited about it,” he says. Then he adds, “even though I wish her all the best, I hope it’s not as popular as my one. It gives me so much pleasure when people say, ‘I was feeling rotten and so I just went to bed and put on Pride and Prejudice’. People use it to get over bereavements – I’m better than a priest!”

This is not arrogance. Davies may be sharp, naughty and ironic, but he is embarrassed by anyone who makes a fuss over him. He worries that this month’s documentary about his work, Rewriting the Classics, is “a bit effusive”, and he seems too pragmatic to be affected by writerly insecurity. Is he sensitive?

“I am much less sensitive than I used to be. I remember being cast down when I had a play that went to Broadway,” he says, referring to 1980’s Rose, which starred Glenda Jackson as a schoolteacher and closed after only 68 performances. “Column after column was spent saying how terrible it was. I couldn’t eat solid food for a week.”

He had a similarly bruising experience with the film industry. A decade ago, Davies admitted that he was disappointed that his movie career had not been more buoyant (Bridget Jones’s Diary was a rare success). Talking to me now, however, he is more sanguine.

“And that’s because the writer is king in TV. In film, all the stories that people say, that they pay you a lot of money and treat you like s---, are true in my experience. I have been sacked from several movies without being told. You meet someone at a party and you say you are working on a picture and they’ll laugh and say, ‘No, you’re not.’ It’s not terribly nice.”

Two more Davies adaptations will be shown next year – of Austen’s fragment, Sanditon, and of Vikram Seth’s epic A Suitable Boy. He would love to adapt more 19th-century classics (Dickens’s Dombey and Son and Trollope’s The Barchester Chronicles are top of his list) but before that, we can look forward to his version of the Rabbit Angstrom novels by John Updike, an author whose perceived misogyny might not seem an obvious fit in today’s cultural climate.

“There are a lot of grim things said about Updike at the moment, but he is a wonderful observer of how we all behave,” says Davies. “I don’t think writers are there to be role models, they are there to say what the world is like from their point of view.”

If the number of irons he has in the fire makes it sound as though Davies is spreading himself too thinly, he displays an air of toughness despite his advancing years and a recent double hip replacement. “I don’t feel old. I had my one-year check-up yesterday and my surgeon pronounced that he was pleased with his work. My hips are good for another 10 years.”

As well as his prolific adapting, I wonder whether Davies has the desire to tell the story of his own life. “I really ought to,” he says. “I would like to start with my parents’ lives, in the early days of their marriage, because something went wrong there.” I ask why and Davies lowers his voice almost to a whisper. “I think it’s probably something to do with sex.”

Ben Lawrence, The Telegraph, 22 December 2018 (x)

#les mis bbc #bbc les mis #Andrew Davies #Interviews #articles

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militant-holy-knight · 5 years ago

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Dracula and the Sultan

Originally published on Frontpagemag by Mark Tapson

Always comfortable with Hollywood’s distortion of history as long as it suits their propagandistic motives, progressives and their Islamic allies are the first to try to discredit films that don’t fit their narrative. You can be sure that any film they attack on grounds of supposed “historical inaccuracy” must be uncomfortably close to the truth.

Writing in the New Statesman (and reprinted in the New Republic), Turkish writer Elest Ali asks the burning cinematic question, “Is Dracula Untold an Islamophobic movie?” She’s referring to the new Universal picture starring Luke Evans and Dominic Cooper, a fanciful epic about the actual historical source of the outlandish Dracula legend we all know and love: Vlad Tepes III, 15th century Romanian hero and legend who dared resist invasion by the feared Ottoman empire.”

Elest Ali recently saw the film in Turkey with a friend who declared, “That film was very anti-Muslim.” “What else is new?” she replies – because we all know how openly bigoted Hollywood currently is toward Muslims, am I right? Ali decided to write about her issue with the movie’s “historical accuracy, and contemporary significance.” Non-spoiler alert: she denounces it as Islamophobic, the kneejerk, go-to accusation leveled at anything and anyone that doesn’t shine a flattering light on Islam or Muslims (see Affleck, Ben).

“Hollywood is no genius when it comes to accurate representation,” she begins, and I couldn’t agree more. From the “Bush lied, people died” message of Matt Damon’s The Green Zone, to the ahistorical moral equivalency of the Crusades epic Kingdom of Heaven, to the lies about Ronald Reagan and race in Lee Daniels’ The Butler, Hollywood rewrites history to ensure that its dramatic version becomes history in the popular imagination.

But Dracula Untold doesn’t suit Ali’s biases, so she casts the suspicion of bigotry over it. “In the current climate of global political tension and escalating Islamophobia,” she asks, without considering Islam’s responsibility for the former or providing any evidence of the latter, “what political statement does Dracula Untold make in pitting our vampire hero against the armies of Mehmet II?” Probably no political statement at all was intended by the filmmakers, but in any case it wasn’t the statement Ali wanted to see.

She suggests that in Vlad’s time (which she oddly labels “the Age of Enlightenment,” a period that was at least two centuries distant), Islam was an “appealing,” “fast-spreading faith” that was “glamorized” by “wealthy, cultivated Muslim travelers” in Europe, seducing large numbers of European converts. In fact, Islam has always spread not because its appeal is irresistible (except to barbarous killers like today’s ISIS sympathizers), but through the coercive power of the sword. She feels that the movie’s use of the word “Turk” to characterize the glamorous, cultivated, multicultural Ottomans is a subtle historical slur, “an attempt to tribalize the Islamic faith and associate it with foreign, potentially threatening powers, which were the common enemy.” Well, in the time and place in which the movie is set, the Islamic Ottoman empire was a threatening foreign power. For that matter, Turkey today is a threatening foreign power.

“I’ll fill you in on some more history,” Ali continues condescendingly before proceeding to whitewash the imperialist Sultan Mehmet II, while dismissing Vlad as “progenitor of the vampire myth.” She claims that Vlad’s father, the Prince of Wallachia (essentially present-day Romania), “willingly offered” the Sultan his two sons in return for helping him keep the throne against his enemies. This is laughably false. Vlad the elder was seized and his sons Vlad III and Radu the Handsome were taken as hostages to ensure the father’s fealty as a vassal of the Sultan. Young Vlad was a “guest” of the Sultan for six years; meanwhile, according to biographers Radu Florescu and Raymond McNally in Dracula: Prince of Many Faces, the beautiful young Radu initially did his best to resist Mehmet’s sexual advances before eventually succumbing and becoming his lover and a Janissary general. Ali doesn’t mention Mehmet’s bisexuality or Vlad’s fierce refusal to convert to Islam.

Ali continues in her imaginary take on history: When Vlad later “started wreaking carnage across the Balkans, Mehmet II dispatched Radu to quell his brother’s blood-thirst.” Wrong. Vlad was well aware that Mehmet fancied himself a conqueror on the scale of Caesar, Alexander, and Hannibal. Mehmet’s ambition was to bring all of Europe into his imperialistic fold, and Vlad was determined to make Wallachia the tip of the spear of Christian European resistance to Islam. He began by sending a very defiant message to the Sultan: he took Mehmet’s emissaries, who came demanding an overdue payment of the jizya, and nailed their turbans to their heads.

“Vlad’s insurrection was not dissimilar to the terror tactics of the so-called Islamic State,” Ali claims in her ongoing attempt to demonize him (as an aside, the Islamic State is not “so-called”; it is the name that those butchers have proudly given themselves). She is not at all incorrect about Vlad’s terror tactics – details of his widespread cruelty make your hair stand on end – but what she does not acknowledge is that Vlad learned such merciless tactics from the Ottomans while he was their hostage as a boy. He learned them well enough that when Mehmet himself marched upon Wallachia to seize it, he was so horrified to be greeted by a forest of 20,000 impaled Ottoman soldiers that he had to be talked out of turning tail back home.

Ali complains that Vlad waged a campaign of guerilla attacks against Mehmet’s larger army, including dressing his men in Ottoman uniforms and using his fluent Turkish to slip into the enemy’s camps. She says this as if unaware that the warlord prophet Muhammad himself taught that “war is deception.” Vlad would have made Muhammad proud.

Ultimately, his hated brother Radu was victorious and Vlad was offered sanctuary by his ally Matthew Corvinus and his clan. “But frankly,” writes Ali, “they’d also had enough of his grizzly antics, so they imprisoned him on charges of treason. True story,” she says, as if we should take her word for it. In fact, Vlad was falsely charged with treason for political reasons; Matthew later allied with Vlad to help him retrieve the Wallachian throne from a Turkish prince. True story.

“Vilification of Islam has reached such heights,” Elest Ali whines, without acknowledging the many obvious reasons why Islam itself might be to blame for that, “that even when the Sultan is cast opposite history’s bloodiest-psycho-tyrant, it’s Dracula who emerges as the tragic hero.” Vlad the Impaler – not the fictional Dracula – certainly earned his nickname, but he is by no means history’s “bloodiest-psycho-tyrant.” That honorific could go to any number of modern monsters such as, say, Ismail Enver Pasha, one of the principal architects of Turkey’s Armenian Genocide. But don’t hold your breath waiting for Hollywood to dramatize the truth about that.

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papillon82fluttersby · 6 years ago

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SPARKLE SPARKLE! This is my gift to @awashsquid – I chose the “Harumichi rewrite of a fairytale” prompt. Words are not my strength but I’ve figured out a little scenario to go along with the picture. Please find it in your heart to be indulgent, these are merely bare bones, far from a ‘real fic.’ Hopefully you’ll be able to recognize the tale it’s based on!

Haruka shares a flat with “Evil Roommates” Ami and Makoto – a harsh moniker maybe but Haruka can’t help it. She just doesn’t get along with them, they’re constantly at odds about every little thing in the flat – but alas funds are low and Haruka is unable to look for another place to live. Ami works as an IT consultant for various firms, mainly in the security field; Mako works at a catering company – the two are old time friends, they’ve known each other since school/college. As for Haruka, she works as a mechanic in a local garage.

One day, Haruka hears about this big fancy party that will be held in a few days at a big company, and Haruka reaaaaally wants to go because ~reasons~ (maybe the company has a special exhibit reserved for the guests, say a top-of-the-line racing car, that Haruka is dying to see). However the entrance is on invitation only, and Haruka has no chance in hell getting in.

Imagine her surprise the next day when she learns that Ami has been hired to help with the surveillance and security at the party. Haruka asks her to please, please somehow hack into the system and get Haruka an invitation, but Ami flatly refuses (evil, right?)

The day after that, Haruka learns that Mako’s company has been hired to do the catering at the party, and she begs Mako to please get her an in as a waitress or a kitchen aide – anything! – but Mako refuses (eeeeeeeevil).

After being turned down by both Evil Roommate #1 and Evil Roommate #2, Haruka complains about how unfair her life is over drinks with her buddy “Fairy Godmother” Minako. Ami, Mako and Mina were all school friends, and Haruka met Mina when she visited Ami and Mako in their shared flat one day. Surprisingly given Haruka’s animosity to Ami and Mako, Haruka and Mina hit it off real quick and became fast friends. Mina owes her “Fairy Godmother” moniker to her uncanny ability to procure anything to anyone (for a price of course!). Haruka only has the vaguest notion of what that entails but obviously Mina has contacts in both the high and low stratas of society.

Anyhow, Haruka is unhappy about her lot and Minako wants to help her. Mina does some “magic” and a few days later, lo and behold, Haruka is provided with both an invitation to the party and a fancy suit, along with a caveat: Mina is adamant that Haruka leaves the party by midnight, Mina doesn’t give an explanation but she’s very insistent. Only too happy at the prospect of attending at all, Haruka agrees.

Haruka dons her new fancy suit, subrepticely “borrows” a sweet sports car that a rich customer left at the garage for some minor repair work – might as well travel in style! She makes sure to put the car key on her own favorite keyring so as not to lose it – and gets to the party with no trouble. She enjoys the party and meets a lovely lady by the name of Michiru, the daughter of the company’s director. They are smitten with each other, flirt and dance together, and generally have a great time.

At five to midnight, Haruka realizes what time it is and remembers Minako’s warning. She stammers some excuses at Michiru and hurries away, followed by a nonplussed Michiru, quite a bit affronted at Haruka’s abrupt departure. Just as midnight strikes, there is a power outage in the building, everything turns dark, people start shouting and panicking, and Michiru loses Haruka in the commotion. When Michiru finally gets outside Haruka is long gone – but, there on the ground by the door, she notices a set of keys on a ridiculous keyring, an improbable ball of yellow fluff with big swirly eyes.

Cut to Haruka, who, her keys lost, has no choice but to walk home – a sad conclusion to the night.

Next morning, Michiru hears about a theft that occurred in the building where the party was held, and remembers Haruka’s shifty behavior just before the power outage, thus suspecting Haruka to be involved in the theft. Never one to dirty her hands with menial tasks, Michiru brings the set of keys to her trusted second-in-command, one Rei Hino, and explains the situation, tasking Rei with finding the owner of the keyring.

From the keys, Rei figures out the make and model of the car and scouts all the car rentals and garages of the area. After an exhausting day(s) traipsing all around the city, pissed and tired, Rei approaches the last garage on her list. Before even reaching it, a few numbers down the street, Rei notices a chicken nugget place featuring a bright yellow logo and proudly advertising itself as ‘Whorl Chicken!’ Most tellingly, there’s a basket full of promotional keyrings by the door. Certain she’s found the right place, Rei notes down the address of the nearby garage and reports back to Michiru.

A few days later, Haruka is working under a car in the garage. She’s been having a rotten few days ever since the party, whining at Minako about this enchanting siren she met and lost at the party, and all her troubles with the car owner due to the lost key. As Haruka is burrowed under the car she’s working on, she hears a ‘clink’ like something falling on the ground. She grabs at it blindly and recognizes the lost keyring. She pulls out from under the car, all covered with grease, only to discover Michiru towering over.

Explanations ensue. Between the two of them, they figure out that Ami, Mako and Mina were all involved in the theft. Michiru decides not to cause trouble for them by denouncing them because she wants to stick it to her family, whom she despises.

Eventually, Haruka and Michiru go on a date and they live happily ever after – or close enough!

So, congratulations if you managed to make it through all this nonsense! I couldn’t put all of these elements in a drawing so I thought this was the best compromise but WORDS ARE HARD.

Couldn’t find a way to include it in the drabble above, but Mina got Haruka’s invitation to the party through Rei, who wasn’t in with the plotting but knew Mina beforehand and owed her a favor. I also haven’t mentioned Usagi but she’s there somewhere, probably running Rei mad!

As a last note, credit for the Whorl Chicken design goes to the ever talented @moonwhing!

#sparkle sparkle #my art #sailor moon #harumichi #haruka tenoh #michiru kaioh #gift exchange #awashsquid

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higuchimon · 6 years ago

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[fanfic] The King’s General: Chapter 9

Lucemon flew as fast as he could toward his new home. He hadn’t lied all that much. He did visit the library, read everything that he hadn’t managed to read the first time around, and it was there that he’d found what he intended to put to use now.

Taiki hadn’t stopped breathing yet, though each movement remained slow and swallow, a bit staggered. Lucemon knew that he needed to hurry to get there before it was too late.

What a treasure I’ll have. There was a bond between Kudou Taiki and the members of Xros Heart, one that would last all their lives. So what information he’d been able to dig up concerning Xros Leaders, the Generals, and those who worked with them said.

Only one thing could break that bond and Lucemon rejoiced that he’d taken the first step towards severing it: he’d killed Taiki.

Taiki wouldn’t stay dead, though. Lucemon wanted something more than just a dead General. His nature led him to corrupt and destroy everything within his reach, and Taiki wasn’t any exception.

Besides, the look on Shoutmon’s face once he saw the new Taiki would be far, far too fascinating to turn down.

There! His retreat unfolded itself before him, a glorious castle of shining white crystal. Far more suitable to someone of his stature than that pathetic place of Shoutmon’s ever would be.

Under other circumstances he might well have just landed at the bottom floor and escorted Taiki in like that. He’d planned just so if Taiki accepted his offer of a flight. He would have next offered to show Taiki where he lived, and once they were here, and far away from anyone else, the knife would’ve gone between his ribs.

But Taiki had to refuse him, turn away from him.

Lucemon hated being rejected. Lucemon couldn’t stand being rejected. So he did what came naturally to him.

Now, he carried Taiki in through one of the upper windows, open to the sun and wind, and settled him down on the pristine white marble altar there. Taiki’s eyelids fluttered, his eyes beneath glazed and shot through with pain. Lucemon patted him on the shoulder with one blood-stained hand.

“You don’t need to be afraid. This won’t take much longer and you’ll feel much better afterward.”

Taiki tried to say something. Lucemon wasn’t certain of what it was, and was even less certain that he cared. He would have to complete the ritual before there was any chance that Shoutmon or one of his servants could find their way here.

He almost wished that he were responsible for the Digimon going to the human world. That would’ve made for a splendid distraction to keep the so-called king and his pesky pawns from finding him before it was too late.

I’ll just have to settle for them not knowing where we are and not being able to find us before I’m done.

He moved around the altar to where he stored his tools, lighting deathly white candles and letting his favored incense waft through the room. Those weren’t necessary for what he intended to do but they would set the atmosphere the way he wanted it and that put him in the correct frame of mind.

Carefully he pressed his fingers against Taiki’s pulse, pleased to see it had almost stuttered to a halt. Only a few more moments remained. He glanced outside; they were still in the depths of night. In fact, the time was almost right. Even with the last minute change of plans, Taiki would breath his last at almost the stroke of midnight.

Lucemon raised the blood-soaked blade, letting it gleam in starlight and moonlight, reaching outward to grasp a firm mental hold of the data that made up the world and made up Kudou Taiki. He could feel that last data trying to slip away and he tightened his grip, not letting it fade.

If anyone had been able to hear him, it wasn’t likely they would understand him, unless they spoke the hidden language of demons. Perhaps Lilithmon could have or even Bagramon or Dark Knightmon. But none of them were there at the moment.

Though in truth, Lucemon thought that he’d sensed Bagramon still existing somewhere in the cosmos. He hadn’t been able to pin down where or how or why, but every now and then, there would be the vaguest of sensations that the old fool existed somewhere.

Perhaps he and his future companion would seek him out one day, once Shoutmon and his pretensions to kingship were no more. Lucemon quite looked forward to that day, regardless of what else he did.

The words continued to flow from him, the energy created and strengthened by them and by Taiki’s lifeblood spilling weaving together with them.

As the midnight hour unfolded, Lucemon spoke the final words of binding and erasing and changing. Once he did, a thick cocoon of deep violet threads wrapped around Taiki, who hadn’t breathed in nearly a minute. Lucemon ran his bloody fingers through Taiki’s hair.

You won’t be gone long. Don’t be afraid. And when you come back, you’ll be just what I want you to be.

A human would have done this differently. At least in their world, they would have. Humans would call this a deletion and a rewrite, or even a simple reprogramming, to get a new program in a different look that would do what the programmer wanted to do.

Lucemon called it death because he’d killed Taiki and he called it a rebirth because he’d rewoven all of the data and code involved in Taiki’s existence in the Digital World to be what he wanted Taiki to be. No longer human, at least not down at his core. There would be a few memories left, but Lucemon did all that he could to make certain those didn’t rise very often.

He’ll need a new name. This was a form of evolution, perhaps, and that definitely required a new name. He considered a few before an idea sparked and he smiled. Oh, perfect. Absolutely perfect.

Taiki remained in the cocoon, not moving, not a single breath of life in him. It would take time until he emerged, Lucemon knew. All of the books he’d researched indicated it could take up to a day and a night for the new programming to take hold. Perhaps he should patrol the area, if only to take up time until then.

No. I’ll stay here. Lucemon knew that sooner or later, Shoutmon and his army would turn up, either heading directly here or just floundering randomly in search of him and Taiki. He refused to let Taiki out from under his watch until after he’d emerged from the cocoon. He wanted to see the new beauty of what he’d created in that first moment of birth regardless. It would be magnificent. He didn’t doubt that at all.

What would be even better would be if Shoutmon arrived when Taiki emerged. Now that would be something to look forward to. The look on his face when Shoutmon realized that his General didn’t exist anymore and Lucemon had a new ally, companion, consort...

No. Not Kudou Taiki, not anymore.

Lucemon anticipated the birth of Omrimon.

To Be Continued

Notes: “Omri” means either ‘life’ or ‘servant’ in Hebrew, and was also the name of a king in the Old Testament, who was denounced as being wicked. According to Behind The Name, anyway. Thought it was a good name for Lucemon to pick for reprogrammed Taiki.

#fanfic #higuchimon writes #digimon xros wars #kudou taiki #chapters: the king's general

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rahkshirock · 6 years ago

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here we go again rewriting a 6 year old game

so if i were writing me3 some things would be added: for example, our “big” antagonist, introduced in me2 and now physically present in me3, is Harbinger

who really isn't present in me3′s writing

instead we get the backstory of the reapers told to us by the space hallucination child (who sucks) and the leviathans (who could, but don’t, not suck)

in me3 as it is, the reapers are like the geth; machines that turned against their masters. but since its implied that the geth are an uncommon occurrence in the cycles and that the reapers are interested in turning them into servants, this doesn't add up at all

furthermore it would mean that harbinger, the “first reaper” is completely synthetic or that the leviathans came up with the harvest and completed it all on their own the first time, which also doesn't add up.

instead, i propose another option: the first reapers were gestalt beings that a species once willingly uploaded all of themselves into. this “first reaper” bears no distinguishing marks, and is not special compared to the rest. this first species (or community of many species) of the cycle created the predecessor to the mass relays, attempted to uplift various developing species to full sentience, and were generally really cool

and then stars began to explode.

when biotic fields interfere with one another, they detonate, ripping apart any matter within them. now imagining this happening to an entire galaxy.

this occurrence could not be stopped, but it was exacerbated by wild and chaotic prolonged use of biotics by trillions of individuals across hundreds of worlds.

the first, “prime” reapers were each the summit of their species’ growth: each a nation, like the geth they would reach consensus before any action, and their use of biotics was fairly minimal, used only communally to power their starship shells.

as such, these beings would actively encourage entire peoples to do the same: millions becoming one glorious being that would do the minimal amount of harm to those around them

except what is good for one species is not good for all of them, and many refused this operation

seeing no other option, the reapers begin the first cycle: as their stars slowly detonate under the strain, the reapers begin to forceably convert or annihilate those who wouldn't obey.

in order to wage this first war, they turned eventually to a few species that weren’t really followed up on in me proper very well:

the thorian is one of several species (including the rachni and the leviathans) that can touch another’s mind. I'm going to posit that a creature like the thorian, in order to have evolved, must have had billions of years of evolution behind it, with billions of individuals, and its line stretches all the way back to the original reapers, who studied the leviathan (an intelegent but entirely aquatic species that could dominate humanoid life to be its slaves) and the thorian (who needed a nanite spore infection to do the same) and used this technology to unite not only the peoples they were attepting to conquer, but to steel themselves for the task ahead: to indoctrinate THEMSELVES with the surety of their purpose, in order to never waver from their task. (the thorians themselves were used to create the husk nanites and eventually the implants that allow direct control, before being annihilated. this is an ongoing battle for the reapers, and the last one would eventually be destroyed by commander shepard on feros.

So where does Harbinger fit into this if he isn't the first reaper? well quite simply the reapers are, millions of years later, devoid of their culture and original purpose. their once beautiful shells are converted to weapons of terror and war. the reapers have boiled the harvest down to a science: just before stars are projected to explode, the reapers come and pacify. their network of relays has been perfected to encourage upcoming species to culturally develop on specified paths.

but there is a weapon that has passed down, cycle to cycle like a torch for millions of years: a weapon that will use the relays as a conduit to eliminate the reapers entirely in one fell swoop. a species comes to power one cycle that might just pull it off: they were warned of the reapers thousands of years in advance, whereupon they begin to create the crucible, their method being to pillage every planet they can find for the resources. they are ruthless in their task and eventually succeed. they build the crucible in its entirety, with one small problem. they have also found buried dragon’s teeth, and records of the reaper wars. They also begin to run experiments on indoctrination; a useful tool in the “right” hands

They begin to see their stars die

and they fall in line with the reaper’s mandate before the harvest begins.

they begin to harvest their own people, and to construct their own reaper.

when the reapers emerge from dark space, they find their work already done, and their new leader sends the control signal.

see, the reaper’s mandate includes the unspoken assumption that the gestalt of millions of minds is the highest form of life, and that all sentient beings deserve the chance to be one. Harbinger though introduces the idea of slaves; if a species is unable to be uplifted, they would begin to assist in the next cycle. the keepers are the first of these species, and the collectors the most recent.

the crucible would continue to be passed down, improved, untouched by the modifications harbinger made to it, until another species attempts the same thing

how do you communicate this story over the course of the story? well its simple: you have the collectors return as an enemy faction, and you discover cerberus’ plans for humanity. even after their base is destroyed, as a last desperate action the cerberus infiltrates the crucible and installs the control module. at the very end, after overcoming the illusive man, you can chose to either destroy the reapers, or control them. (fuck synthesis) with harbinger hovering right there staring at you: humanity in its eyes has earned its spot at the dinner table: join me it says, and you can become a god (if you are a renegade)

alternately, if you didn’t assemble enough war assets, in order to destroy the reapers you have a boss fight where you try to make it to the switch while harbinger desperately tries to rip the station apart around you, whereupon the station self-destructs and you die but the reapers are all destroyed.

or, if you have all the war assets you can reasonably get (and multiplayer should NOT factor into this) you can kill Harbinger right then and there. after you kill him, the new control signal dies, and the reapers are not only vulnerable to destruction or control, (and you live, no matter what) but doubt. you can denounce them, their crusade, and the fucking horse they rode in on. remind them of the peoples they once were. show them the entire galaxy willingly united under one cause for one purpose.

and without firing another shot, the reapers surrender or self destruct, seemingly at random, and those that survive begin to build a better future

and as a last note you notice that the geth don't use biotics? I think they know whats up. I think both they and the quarians would both have ideas on how to regulate the biotic rip-field, allowing individual people to be free and use superpowers, using a galaxy wide system of dampening nodes. you can make up whatever: just show that the base problem is fixed and that the reapers could have been fixing it the whole time if their mandate of utter despair hadn't blinded them tho the possibility of FIXING THE DAMN PROBLEM.

alright I'm gonna go play citadel now! see ya!

#mass effect 3 #mass effect

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thelastgherkin · 7 years ago

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Trial and Error - Annotated!

Exclusively available at TFNation 2017, this comic provides a much-needed narrative conclusion to Transformers Animated!

Under Sentinel Magnus’s faltering leadership, Cybertron is a powder keg… and the trial of Megatron might just be what causes it to blow! While Optimus Prime does what he can on the surface, Sari heads underground on a quest for her origins! What she finds might hold the key to saving Cybertron… if she, Bulkhead, and Bumblebee can survive what lurks in the depths!

As of the 25 December 2019, TRIAL AND ERROR is available to download, for free, from TFNation’s website!

Synopsis

CHAPTER ONE: LOOSE ENDS

With the AllSpark returned to Cybertron, Alpha Trion explains that it must be returned to its source, the Well of All Sparks, in order to restore its ability to birth new life to Cybertron. For this mission, and for her connection to the AllSpark, he chooses Sari, to be accompanied by Bumblebee and Bulkhead. The three journey under Cybertron’s surface, where Bulkhead discovers a mural relating the AllSpark’s mythic origins: it rose out of the Well and breathed life into the planet. Its container was forged by a mysterious hammer that fell out of the sky - one that would come to the symbol and weapon of the Autobot leader. This Magnus Hammer made the Autobots powerful enough that they created a universe-spanning empire. The team are attacked by Inferno and Antagony, new Predacon experiments in league with Blackarachnia and Waspinator! Last seen on a primitive planet, Blackarachnia used leftover transwarp energy inside Waspinator to signal for a Decepticon ship to return them to Cybertron. Blackarachnia seeks to dissect Sari and learn the secrets of organic technology so she can change Cybertron’s destiny forever! Fleeing the Predacons, Sari, Bumblebee, and Bulkhead come face to face with the Well of All Spark’s automated defences… the Centurion droids!

Meanwhile, Sentinel Magnus gloats to Optimus Prime that he plans to make Megatron’s war trial a public affair to boost Cybertronian morale. Optimus is concerned that the trial would be a perfect place for a Decepticon ambush, but Sentinel attempts to allay his fears by showing Optimus his custom-built Powermaster armour, hinting that he has more surprises in store… As does Megatron, who requests Optimus as his defence attorney! Optimus accepts, saying that his presence is the only way to stop Sentinel turning the trial into a circus. Elsewhere, Sentinel himself is surprised by the news - especially as it derails his own plans for the trial, plotted in co-operation with a sinister ally…

CHAPTER TWO: THE SECRET ORIGIN OF SARI SUMDAC

The trial at Jekka Amphitheatre begins in earnest as Team Athenia bring in Megatron’s disembodied head! Megatron confides in Optimus that the Prime’s moral code will ensure proper due process. Alpha Trion lists Megatron’s many crimes, and when Megatron pleads innocence, Sentinel loudly denounces Megatron in an attempt to showboat for the crowd. The witnesses for the prosecution - Blitzwing, Shockwave and Lugnut - zealously confirm Megatron’s plans for global domination. Even with the trial being a dead cert, Optimus introduces the only witness for the defence: Megatron himself. The Decepticon leader’s proclamations of returning Cybertron to its golden age at the heart of an empire sway the audience - an audience too young to remember the horrors of the war; an audience disillusioned by Sentinel’s restrictive leadership. Optimus realises too late that Megatron’s plan was to radicalise this audience with a few well-chosen words, with Optimus himself given a front-row seat for Megatron’s final victory! With a riot about to break out, matters are complicated further by the arrival of Strika and Team Chaar! Sentinel makes a run for the Powermaster armour, but his motor relays are disabled by Scalpel. Optimus overhears the immobilised Sentinel that this wasn’t the way things were meant to go. Elsewhere, in Omega Supreme, Ratchet observes the fight onscreen while tending to a comatose Ultra Magnus. Team Chaar’s absent member, Cyclonus, stalks the ship with a mission to offline the fallen leader - permanently! Then, at the trial, Strika orders the installation of Megatron’s head to his all-new marauder body!

Meanwhile, at the Well of All Sparks, Sari defends her friends from the Centurions’ attack by using the AllSpark container as a shield, correctly reasoning that the Centurions would not attack something birthed from the Well. Sari, Bumblebee and Bulkhead head into the Well chamber while the Centurions hold off the Predacons. Sari drops the AllSpark into the Well. Prowl’s ghost appears, telling Sari that it’s time for her reward: the answer she seeks. Prowl tells them that the AllSpark is a collective consciousness that exists across time and space, showing the three Autobots visions of their past, present and future adventures. Prowl reveals that it was the AllSpark that placed her protoform in Sumdac’s lab, with the intention that Sari grew to be an avatar for its power and to bridge the worlds of human and Transformer. Sari became the AllSpark’s agent, then the conduit for its power, and as Prowl fades back into the ether, he tells her that it has one last job for her…

CHAPTER THREE: MEGATRON MUST BE DESTROYED!

Megatron’s new body makes short work of Team Athenia in all three of its modes. Just as the Autobots are outnumbered, a loud BOOM interrupts the fight, and the skirmish between Sari, Bumblebee, Bulkhead, the Predacons, and the Centurions erupts into the amphitheatre. Using the AllSpark’s omnipotence, Sari makes use of the the vision-granting ability demonstrated by Prowl to reveal Sentinel’s secret deal with Strika: he allows her entry into the trial so she can assassinate Megatron and wrest control of the Decepticons and lead them away from Cybertron (or so she claims); in return, Sentinel would be seen as a hero by the Autobots. In reality, Sentinel’s plan was to use the Powermaster armour to defeat Team Chaar, and Strika intended to free Megatron, not kill him. Additionally, Strika was in league with Blackarachnia, who provided Megatron’s new body. But one thing Megatron did not count on… was POWERMASTER OPTIMUS PRIME!

Megatron quickly offers Optimus a place at his side in a new Decepticon empire, forsaking the corrupt Autobot government. Optimus tells Megatron that the Autobots will never bow to a tyrant and threatens to put Megatron down for good! The battle begins in earnest between the Autobots and Centurions, and the Decepticons and Predacons. Sari flees the battle - and Blackarachnia’s clutches - making it to Omega Supreme just in time to prevent Cyclonus from offlining Ultra Magnus. Ratchet starts to put up a fight using his electromagnets. Sari turns her hand into a replica of her AllSpark Key and boosts the power of Ratchet’s magnets, allowing him to eject Cyclonus from the ship… And something stirs in Ultra Magnus…Sari returns to the battle, where the Autobots and Centurions have overpowered the Decepticons. Saying she finally knows her destiny, she imbues Powermaster Optimus and the Magnus Hammer with AllSpark energy. Optimus quips that with the power of the AllSpark and the symbol of Cybertronian leadership, he now possesses everything Megatron ever wanted — and gives it to him, re-severing Megatron’s head!

Some time later, Optimus tells Ultra Magnus’s unconscious form about the battle’s aftermath. The remaining Decepticons were rounded up and forced to work in the Nucelon mines as punishment. Megatron’s still-living head was placed into solitary confinement. The AllSpark visions Sari showed to the amphitheatre convinced the angry mob that Megatron wasn’t what he led them to believe. Sari has volunteered to be the link to the AllSpark as it starts to bring a new breed of Cybertronians to life, with help from Professor Sumdac and the interim Magnus, Alpha Trion. Sentinel has been demoted to a repair bot, off fixing space bridges with the Headmaster Jrs. Optimus quietly admits that, despite some public demand for himself to become Magnus, he’s not yet ready for that responsibility… but he eagerly accepted Sentinel’s old post in the new Elite Guard, vowing to help Cybertron’s government regain the public’s trust. Optimus bids Magnus farewell… and the older bot regains consciousness, weakly telling Optimus that he was wrong.“Being a hero… is in your programming, after all.”

Featured characters

Characters in italic text appear only in flashbacks or visions. (Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

“It’s the moment all of Cybertron has been waiting for! Sentinel Magnus presents... the Scourge of Cybertron... the Great Slag-Maker... Megatron on trial! By the grace of Sentinel Magnus, this once-in-a-lifetime event is open to public viewing! Watch live as the great Sentinel Magnus himself leads the prosecution against the infamous Leader of the Decepticons! This Doxosol at the Jekka Amphitheatre! Protoforms watch for free!” - Sunday Sunday Sunday.

Sentinel Magnus: “If you ask me, the kindest thing would be to unplug Ultra Magnus... let the old coot join the Well of All Sparks with some dignity!” Optimus Prime: “Which would just so happen to leave you in charge of Cybertron, of course.” (Sentinel does a wild take.)

“I can’t wait to find out how you’re made!” “You... you could do that?” “Of course! Once I slice you open and learn all your secrets... I’ll be able to rewrite the destiny of our entire race!” - Sari looks for answers in all the wrong places with Blackarachnia.

“This is why Megatron wanted me to “defend” him... Innocent or guilty, win or lose... this is his final victory... and he’s made sure I have a front row seat.” - Megatron radicalises the populous just to get back at Optimus.

“No Decepticon’d get the drop on me!” - Ratchet fails a perception check as Cyclonus sneaks up on him.

“Two fusion cannons. “Triple-changing land and air alternate modes. “Prodigious strength! “Yes, this new body will do nicely!” - Megatron sells a toy we will never be able to buy.

“The Autobots may have been let down by their leadership, but they don’t seek a Tyrant... and I’d rather be a humble repair bot than a demagogue with delusions of grandeur. You’re nothing but a thug with a big gun and an empty ideology, Megatron... and this time... I’m going to put you down for good.” - Powermaster Optimus Prime brings it.

“So you think it better to fight and die -- but death is all the future brings! I have seen it!” [...] “You want to talk about the future, pal? I’ve seen the future too... and it looks a lot like me!” - Cyclonus is shut down by Sari.

“Heh. You know, it’s funny, Megatron. I’m holding the symbol of the leader of Cybertron... and the power of the AllSpark. It’s everything you ever wanted, Megatron. Everything Sentinel ever wanted... Everything that... might have been mine, someday... in another life. You want this so bad, Megatron?!” “Wait--” “THEN YOU CAN HAVE IT!” - Optimus gives Megatron what he wants.

“It looks like... I was wrong... Being a hero... is in your programming, after all.” - Ultra Magnus takes us home.

Notes

Continuity notes

Arcee is Sari’s teacher, as in “The Return of Blurr”.

Omega Supreme is being used as spark support for Ultra Magnus, who has been comatose since “Where Is Thy Sting?”

Optimus tips his helmet as he did in “Career Day”.

The Stunticons are imprisoned after their prison break-in attempt from “The Stunti-Con Job”. This issue’s iteration of Team Chaar also originates from that story.

Blackarachnia’s new colouration, Predacon symbol, and cronies Inferno and Antagony were all previously established in The Complete AllSpark Almanac.

Ransack, Jackpot and Scrounge are troublemakers of various degrees who first appeared in “Moving Violations”.

Blackarachnia and Waspinator being stranded on a primitive, alien world occurred during “Predacons Rising”.

Megatron quips that he barely even knows Optimus’s name - which is true, as he only spoke it for the first time during “Endgame, Part II”, the final episode of Animated!

Prowl’s ghost reappears, having previously been seen in “Endgame, Part II”.

Previous adventures shown to Sari by the AllSpark feature a number of returning characters, but a few visions reference specific stories: - The street races from “Velocity”. - The Society of Ultimate Villainy from “SUV: Society of Ultimate Villainy”. Kremzeek from “The Return of Blurr”. - Rodimus Prime succumbing to Cosmic Rust from “TransWarped”. - The Space Barnacle monster from “Nature Calls”.

Potential future adventures as glimpsed in the AllSpark include: - Bumblebee seemingly joining the Elite Guard, as per his 2008 toy release Elite Guard Bumblebee. - The Constructicons forming Devastator, first referenced in The AllSpark Almanac II. - An encounter with mirror universe versions of Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, and Sari, as mentioned in The AllSpark Almanac Addendum.

Rodimus and Oil Slick exchange barbs about their previous encounter in “TransWarped”.

Shockwave rejoined Megatron’s forces in “This Is Why I Hate Machines”, and must have learned about Project Powermaster before then.

Sari replicates an AllSpark Key, after the Macguffin was drained in “TransWarped”.

Sentinel’s new crew includes Siren, Nightbeat, and Hosehead, having apparently graduated from Arcee’s class since “The Return of Blurr”.

Ultra Magnus’ final line bookends something he said aaaaaall the way back in “Transform and Roll Out, Part 1”: “And Prime, don’t try to be a hero. It’s not in your programming.”

Transformers references

The Jekka Amphitheatre originated in the Marvel UK story “Deadly Games!”

Durabyllium steel is a super strong metal devised by Bob Budiansky, mentioned in Nosecone’s original toy bio and the Marvel US story “Command Performances!”

The particle beam cannon is a weapon typically associated with G1 Galvatron.

Electronic paint is an espionage technology previously used in Animated by Wasp and Shockwave; here, it foreshadows that the obviously Sentinel-coloured armour is to combine with Optimus.

Blitzwing’s character caption box introduces him as a “three-in-one villain”, referring to a 1994 commercial for G2 Dreadwing and Smokescreen.

The Magnus Hammer falling from the sky is a nod to an obscure and bizarre bit of lore from the toy bio of Roadbuster Ultra Magnus: that the hammer was forged by aliens!

PC Magnus looks out over an empire of planets illuminated by the Autobot insignia, calling to mind the appearance of Antilla from the G1 cartoon episode “Cosmic Rust”.

Bumblebee is startled by a techno-organic rat designed after Beast Wars Uprising character Labrat (himself repurposed from a redeco of Transmetal Rattrap).

The device containing Megatron’s message for Optimus resembles the communicubes first seen in “Target: 2006”.

Bulkhead’s line, “Sorry. My bad,” quotes a line of his from “Blast from the Past”, later immortalised in toy form as one of the sound clips from his Leader Class toy.

Blackarachnia’s new colours are, of course, based on her Beast Wars counterpart.

A Beast Wars twofer! Blackarachnia’s character caption box calls her “hot, poisonous, and deadly”, as in “The Agenda (Part III)”. Waspinator’s mentions that he “has plans”, a quote originally from “Other Voices, Part 2” (and later reprised in “Nemesis Part 1” and “Predacons Rising”).

One page later and Inferno’s and Antagony’s character caption boxes reference the Beast Wars incarnation of the former. Inferno’s is the rallying cry “For the Royalty!”, used frequently throughout his appearances, and Antagony’s is “pain is her friend”, a paraphrase from “Coming of the Fuzors (Part 1)”.

A plethora of references to the G1 cartoon’s “The Key to Vector Sigma” two-parter await at the Well of All Sparks: the Centurion droids are patterned after the G1 drones of the same name; the dome around the Well resembles Vector Sigma itself; and the doorway to the dome is designed to look like the titular Key. Additionally, the torches either side of the doorway are based on the Matrix Flame from “Target: 2006”.

Megatron’s public war trial is certainly reminiscent of IDW Megatron’s trial, first chronicled in “World, Shut Your Mouth Part 1: Towards Peace”.

Sari’s stasis pod features a Maximal insignia…!

The process of attaching Megatron’s head to his new body is named “Operation: Doomshot”, after G1 Megatron’s Titan Master partner.

Sky-Byte speaks a haiku, like his RID counterpart.

Upon gaining a Hannibal Lecter face guard like Beast Machines Megatron, this Megatron lets out a jubilant “yeeeess!”

Cyclonus speaks in Furmanisms, including “REAP THE WHIRLWIND” and “FIGHT AND DIE”.

Optimus notes that in another life, he may have been the Autobots’ leader. If you don’t know what that references, get out of here.

Nucleon is a power source originating from the Marvel comic, usually associated with Action Masters.

Megatron’s prison guards are obscure characters Sparkride and Horsepower, seen briefly in “First (and Second) in Flight”.

Season Four

Several elements and episode proposals for Animated’s unmade Season 4 influenced Trial and Error’s plot:

“The Trial of Megatron” was to feature, naturally, Megatron’s trial, as well as Sari’s search for her origins.

“AllSpark-alypse Now!” was to feature Prowl’s ghost, tied to the remaining AllSpark fragments.

The brief appearance of the mirror universe Autobots references “Mirror, Mirror”.

“Megatron Must Be Destroyed!” lends its title to Trial and Error’s third chapter.

Blackarachnia’s growing army of Predacons also originates from this proposal.

Megatron’s Marauder body and Powermaster Optimus Prime were unmade toy concepts.

At least one point from the planned Season 4 is outright defied: Ultra Magnus returns to consciousness rather than going offline.

Real-life references

A “THWAP” sound effect, relating to Blackarachnia’s web, is rendered in the same typeface and style as the logo to the 1994 Spider-Man cartoon series.

The new Centurion droid design features a head crest, as seen on Galea helmets worn by Ancient Roman soldiers.

Rattletrap’s powdered wig is required court dress in several Commonwealth countries.

Bumblebee calls the Predacons the “Monster Squad”, name-checking the 1987 horror comedy.

Other trivia

Vector Prime, calling himself Vector Prima-Vectorum, introduces this issue, saying that it is but one possible conclusion to the Animated cartoon.

The AllSpark Matrix transforms to become a backpack for Sari. Writer Chris McFeely initially forgot that it was too large for Sari to carry in a satchel, and the transformation was suggested by artist Ed Pirrie.

Omega Supreme is in alt mode for the present day sequences of this story, only appearing in robot mode in flashback.

Given “Labrat” is encountered in Blackarachnia’s underground domain, and her modus operandi involves cross-mutating Transformers with animals, there is the potential for “Labrat” to be one of her experiments. This is not touched upon in the comic, however.

The ship that picked up Blackarachnia and Waspinator is implied to contain Team Chaar; Blackarachnia designed them a new body for Megatron in exchange for passage to Cybertron.

The Centurion droids were redesigned by Josh Perez.

The full jury lineup is covered up by word balloons, as revealed by McFeely on twitter. The only characters obscured here and not later seen in the comic are Erector and Flareup.

“White Glyph Redeco” is seen among the trial’s audience; Glyph was drawn in the crowd by Herzpalter despite her presence in the jury, and recoloured to prevent a continuity error, as revealed on twitter.

The three Decepticons explicitly shown to be alive and working in the Nucleon mines are Waspinator, Lugnut and Strika.

Generics

Artist Herzpalter confirmed the following robots to be newly-designed generics. (Numbers correspond to their initial order of appearance.)

"Transformers Animated - Trial and Error” was produced exclusively for TFNation 2017. It was written by Chris McFeely and Jim Sorenson. Its artists were Ed Pirrie, Herzspalter, and Gavin Spence. Letters and Vector Prima-Vectorum illustration by Andrew Turnbull. Cover art by Josh Perez. This comic was produced not-for-profit, with all proceeds going to Mary’s Meals.

#Transformers #Transformers Animated #TFA #TFNation #Sari Sumdac #Optimus Prime #Megatron

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andrewromanoyahoo · 8 years ago

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Trump’s other Steve: Stephen Miller’s rocket ride to power in the White House

yahoo

Did you see the photograph released earlier this month of Donald Trump glowering at the camera from behind a secluded, scholarly Mar-a-Lago reception desk as he touches the fat tip of a Sharpie to legal pad tilted to conceal the words that are, or are not, there?

If you did, and if the image convinced you that Trump was, in fact, writing his own inaugural address, as he claimed, we have some bad news for you: Trump did not write his inaugural address.

Instead, the speech was written by a skinny, balding, previously obscure 31-year-old former Capitol Hill aide named Stephen Miller.

Normally this information would be of little importance to anyone outside the Beltway. Presidents have been outsourcing their speechwriting duties since James Madison and Alexander Hamilton helped George Washington compose his farewell address in the late 1700s, and modern presidents — including Barack Obama, who is considered more literary than most — typically employ whole teams of writers to put words in their mouths.

But speeches aren’t the only things Miller is writing for Trump. According to a recent Politico report, Miller — now Trump’s senior White House adviser for policy — is also penning the president’s executive orders, including the divisive ban on immigrants and travelers from seven majority-Muslim countries that triggered worldwide chaos over the weekend.

What’s more, Miller — along with former Breitbart CEO turned chief Trump strategist Steve Bannon — is writing these unilateral decrees without consulting lawyers from the affected agencies or lawmakers on Capitol Hill, “stoking fears,” as Politico put it, that “the White House is creating the appearance of real momentum with flawed orders that might be unworkable, unenforceable or even illegal.”

Questioned Monday evening on MSNBC about the decision by acting Attorney General Sally Yates not to defend the entry ban, Miller responded piously: “It’s sad that our politics has come so politicized.”

This is new territory.

And so now, given that Stephen Miller is, for all intents and purposes, rewriting the laws of the United States of America — even though Miller is not a lawyer, or an elected official, or even particularly experienced in governance — it’s probably worth knowing a little more about him.

Stephen Miller at a Donald Trump campaign rally in Bangor, Maine. (Photo: Brian Snyder/Reuters)

Here’s a quick primer.

Miller reached out to Trump shortly after the Manhattan mogul announced his presidential run in June 2015; he officially joined the Trump campaign as a senior adviser in January 2016. He soon became Trump’s top policy guy and sole speechwriter. (Trump famously improvised most of his campaign speeches.)

How did Miller crack Trump’s inner circle? Likely by reminding Trump of himself. It’s not just that the two men both subscribe to a far-right, anti-immigration, anti-free-trade nationalism. It’s that they are both inveterate self-promoters — provocateurs skilled at attracting attention, building their brands and gratifying their own egos by courting controversy.

Miller started his gadfly act early. Raised in a Jewish and Democratic family in the toniest section of ultraliberal Santa Monica, Calif., he was inspired — in part by a copy of National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre’s 1994 book, “Guns, Crime, and Freedom” and in part by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 — to reject his parents’ politics while still in high school, “resolv[ing] to challenge the campus indoctrination machine” instead.

Young and aggressive, Miller saw leftist, peacenik, multicultural conspiracies everywhere. He railed against his school’s Spanish-language announcements, claiming that such concessions only served to hold Hispanics back. “Latino students recall Miller telling them dismissively that they would do better to work on their English language skills rather than spend their time forming clubs based on ethnicity,” the Los Angeles Times recently reported. “Some called him racist.”

Miller went on to complain, in a column titled “Political Correctness Out of Control,” about the availability of condoms on the Santa Monica High School campus. He took issue with the administration’s acceptance of gays and lesbians, later writing that “just in case your son or daughter decides at their tender age that they are gay, we have a club … that will gladly help foster their homosexuality.” He griped that his fellow students weren’t being required to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, or to learn how heroic their predecessors were. Maybe American soldiers shouldn’t have killed Indians? Miller asked, sarcastically. “Or, better yet,” he continued, “we could have lived with the Indians, learning how to finger paint and make tepees, excusing their scalping of frontiersmen as part of their culture.”

“For many people, the things [Miller] would say and do were offensive heresies,” Ari Rosmarin, former editor of the school newspaper and now a New York attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Los Angeles Times. “He loved playing that role, loved drawing people’s outrage. He loved the performance.”

“He would take the opposing position and almost shock people,” said one acquaintance. “He would sort of chuckle and enjoy that.”

Miller also realized early on that Santa Monica High School was too small a stage for him. So, as Politico’s Julia Ioffe has pointed out, Miller didn’t just invite button-pushing Southern California arch-conservative David Horowitz to speak on campus; he immediately claimed that the administration had denied his request, then documented the injustice in Horowitz’s publication, FrontPage Magazine. While still a teenager, Miller reached out to conservative talk radio personality Larry Elder, becoming a regular guest on Elder’s show and inspiring listeners from around the country to call the Santa Monica High switchboard to complain about liberal bias run amok. Shortly after graduation, Miller published a column titled “How I Changed My Left-Wing High School.”

“Stephen Miller, 17 years old, just graduated from Santa Monica High School,” read his bio at the bottom. “Since his Junior year in High School, he has been a guest on local and national radio over thirty times.”

Miller continued to provoke — and promote his own provocations — at Duke University. His microphone was a biweekly column in the Duke newspaper called “Miller Time,” which Miller used as “a way to court angry reaction and put himself at the center of major campus controversies,” according to Ioffe:

He wrote that interacting with the population outside the campus was overrated. “Durham isn’t a petting zoo,” he chided. “The residents won’t get lonely or irritable if we don’t play with them.” He was a strong supporter of the war in Iraq and called Ted Kennedy a “traitor” for criticizing American use of torture. He went after professors for being registered Democrats. He blamed 9/11 on “politically correct domestic security” and unenforced immigration laws. He wrote about black students’ racial “paranoia” and their mistaken understanding of where true racism resides. The problem is not rich, conservative white people, he wrote. It’s “Democrats [who] continue to fuel the destructive vision of a powerful, racist white oppressor from which they need to protect black voters in order to keep their lock on that vote.” He wrote that “worshipping at the altar of multiculturalism” undermines American culture and ignores the fact “we have shared with the world the cultural value of individualism and liberty, a value rooted in our unique and glorious history of settlers, pioneers and frontiersman [sic].” Although he identified himself as “a practicing Jew,” he lamented the “War on Christmas,” saying “you’d probably find more Christmas decorations at your local mosque.” Maya Angelou, in Miller’s mind, was “a leftist” full of “racial paranoia” who shouldn’t be allowed to give the opening address at the start of the school year. In a column called “Sorry, Feminists,” he wrote that the gender pay gap was actually because of women working fewer hours and choosing lower-paying professions. “Women already have equal rights in this country,” he wrote. “Sorry, feminists. Hate to break this good news to you.” (“It’s not chauvinism,” he signed off. “It’s chivalry.”)

Miller “very much knew the impact of his work, and he planned and plotted,” a fellow Duke Chronicle alumnus told Politico. “He was very businesslike about it. … It smacked of architecture, like he intentionally provoked people, and it worked for him because he was making a name for himself.”

Stephen Miller departs after attending meetings with President Trump at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla. (Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

According to Richard Spencer, the white nationalist alt-right founder, he and Miller met each other and clicked as members the Duke Conservative Union (DCU). In October, Spencer told Mother Jones that “Miller helped him with fundraising and promotion for an on-campus debate on immigration policy that Spencer organized in 2007 featuring influential white nationalist Peter Brimelow.” Another former member of the DCU confirmed to Mother Jones that Miller and Spencer worked together on the event. At meetings of the Conservative Union, Miller “denounced multiculturalism and expressed concerns that immigrants from non-European countries were not assimilating,” a former DCU president told the magazine.

“It’s funny no one’s picked up on the Stephen Miller connection,” Spencer said. “I knew him very well when I was at Duke. But I am kind of glad no one’s talked about this because I don’t want to harm Trump.”

(“I have absolutely no relationship with Mr. Spencer,” Miller wrote in an email to Mother Jones. “I completely repudiate his views, and his claims are 100 percent false.”)

After appearing on “The O’Reilly Factor” and the “Nancy Grace” show to defend the white Duke lacrosse players who were falsely accused in 2006 of raping a black stripper — “Being a white, male lacrosse player was all it took,” he wrote at the time — Miller went to Washington. He first worked as a press secretary for Republican Reps. Michele Bachmann and John Shadegg before landing with Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2009. (Horowitz recommended Miller for the job.) Miller soon became Sessions’ right-hand man, “providing,” as Tucker Carlson told Politico, “the intellectual architecture for a [nationalist] insurgency against the Republican Party.”

“When I was in Sessions’ office, this movement for nation-state populism, the intellectual framework for that was being formed,” Miller explained in the same story, noting that he fought to kill the Gang of Eight immigration bill in 2013. “A big part of my day was being in touch with the people who were the key players in that. … We saw ourselves as a kind of think tank for immigration issues and linking that to the larger questions of globalism and populism.”

Always the media-savvy operator, Miller developed a symbiotic relationship with Bannon’s Breitbart — “the platform for the alt-right,” as Bannon himself once put it. Miller fed the site scoops; the site promoted Miller’s media appearances. “Stephen Miller is a jewel,” Bannon said in June, before signing on with Trump. “We try to get as many of his TV things as we can. Some of them have been epic.”

On the Trump campaign, Miller transferred his talents to the stump, often serving as the candidate’s warm-up act. “Everybody who stands against Donald Trump are the people who have been running the country into the ground, who have been controlling the levers of power,” Miller would shout. “They’re the people who are responsible for our open borders, for our shrinking middle class, for our terrible trade deals. Everything that is wrong with this country today, the people who are opposed to Donald Trump are responsible for!” No other speechwriter has ever taken on such a role at rallies. It was yet another example of how much influence someone can amass, in Trump World, if the boss decides he likes you.

Now that Bannon and Miller are ensconced in the West Wing — Trump lovingly refers to them as “my two Steves” — their influence seems limitless. For instance, Bannon and Miller not only devised Trump’s controversial travel ban; Miller in particular spent Saturday directing how it would be implemented, overruling Homeland Security officials and insisting, according to reports, that green card holders would also be barred from entering the country unless granted waivers on a case-by-case basis. On the same day, Miller “effectively ran the National Security Council principals meeting” — an unprecedented move. In terms of policy, Miller — who knows his way around Capitol Hill and remains close to Sessions, Trump’s attorney general nominee — is probably even better positioned than Bannon to steer Trump in his desired direction, even though he’s a less familiar boogeyman among liberals.

“You could not get where we are today with this movement if it didn’t have a center of gravity that was intellectually coherent,” Bannon himself said in June. “Stephen Miller was at the cutting edge of that.”

Read more from Yahoo News:

Trump defends travel ban amid fierce backlash

ACLU raises more than $10M since immigration order signed

Where will Trump’s aides draw the line on lies?

#_revsp:Yahoo! News #_lmsid:a077000000CFoGyAAL #_author:Andrew Romano #_uuid:8baa0658-1643-36a9-aff7-1a50ff1e7fdf

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itsfinancethings · 4 years ago

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(MOSCOW) — A majority of Russians approved amendments to Russia’s constitution in a weeklong vote ending Wednesday, allowing President Vladimir Putin to hold power until 2036, although the balloting was tarnished by widespread reports of pressure on voters and other irregularities.

With most of the nation’s polls closed and 15% of precincts counted, 71% voted for the changes, according to election officials.

For the first time in Russia, polls were kept open for a week to bolster turnout without increasing crowds casting ballots amid the coronavirus pandemic — a provision that Kremlin critics denounced as an extra tool to manipulate the outcome.

A massive propaganda campaign and the opposition’s failure to mount a coordinated challenge helped Putin get the result he wanted, but the plebiscite could end up eroding his position because of the unconventional methods used to boost participation and the dubious legal basis for the balloting.

Read more: ‘A Bloodless Revolution.’ Putin’s Plan to Rewrite Russia’s Constitution Could Allow Him to Lead for Years to Come

On Russia’s easternmost Chukchi Peninsula, nine hours ahead of Moscow, officials quickly announced full preliminary results showing 80% of voters supported the amendments, and in other parts of the Far East, they said over 70% of voters backed the changes.

Kremlin critics and independent election observers questioned official figures.

“We look at neighboring regions, and anomalies are obvious — there are regions where the turnout is artificially [boosted], there are regions where it is more or less real,” Grigory Melkonyants, co-chair of the independent election monitoring group Golos, told The Associated Press.

Alexei Druzhinin—Kremlin Pool Photo/APRussian President Vladimir Putin shows his passport to a member of an election commission as he arrives to take part in voting at a polling station in Moscow, on July 1, 2020.

Putin voted at a Moscow polling station, dutifully showing his passport to the election worker. His face was uncovered, unlike most of the other voters who were offered free masks at the entrance

The vote completes a convoluted saga that began in January, when Putin first proposed the constitutional changes. He offered to broaden the powers of parliament and redistribute authority among the branches of government, stoking speculation he might seek to become parliamentary speaker or chairman of the State Council when his presidential term ends in 2024.

His intentions became clear only hours before a vote in parliament, when legislator Valentina Tereshkova, a Soviet-era cosmonaut who was the first woman in space in 1963, proposed letting him run two more times. The amendments, which also emphasize the primacy of Russian law over international norms, outlaw same-sex marriages and mention “a belief in God” as a core value, were quickly passed by the Kremlin-controlled legislature.

Putin, who has been in power for more than two decades — longer than any other Kremlin leader since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin — said he would decide later whether to run again in 2024. He argued that resetting the term count was necessary to keep his lieutenants focused on their work instead of “darting their eyes in search for possible successors.”

Analyst Gleb Pavlovsky, a former Kremlin political consultant, said Putin’s push to hold the vote despite the fact that Russia has thousands of new coronavirus infections each day reflected his potential vulnerabilities.

“Putin lacks confidence in his inner circle and he’s worried about the future,” Pavlovsky said. “He wants an irrefutable proof of public support.”

Even though the parliament’s approval was enough to make it law, the 67-year-old Russian president put his constitutional plan to voters to showcase his broad support and add a democratic veneer to the changes. But then the coronavirus pandemic engulfed Russia, forcing him to postpone the April 22 plebiscite.

Read more: Where’s Putin? Russia’s President Stays Out of Sight as Coronavirus Hits Economy

The delay made Putin’s campaign blitz lose momentum and left his constitutional reform plan hanging as the damage from the virus mounted and public discontent grew. Plummeting incomes and rising unemployment during the outbreak have dented his approval ratings, which sank to 59%, the lowest level since he came to power, according to the Levada Center, Russia’s top independent pollster.

Moscow-based political analyst Ekaterina Schulmann said the Kremlin had faced a difficult dilemma: Holding the vote sooner would have brought accusations of jeopardizing public health for political ends, while delaying it raised the risks of defeat. “Holding it in the autumn would have been too risky,” she said.

In Moscow, several activists briefly lay on Red Square, forming the number “2036” with their bodies in protest before police stopped them. Some others in Moscow and St. Petersburg staged one-person pickets and police didn’t intervene.

Dimitar Dilkoff—AFP/Getty ImagesA man holds a piece of cloth reading “No to amendments to the Constitution” as he protests in downtown Moscow on July 1, 2020.

Authorities mounted a sweeping effort to persuade teachers, doctors, workers at public sector enterprises and others who are paid by the state to cast ballots. Reports surfaced from across the vast country of managers coercing people to vote.

The Kremlin has used other tactics to boost turnout and support for the amendments. Prizes ranging from gift certificates to cars and apartments were offered as an encouragement, voters with Russian passports from eastern Ukraine were bused across the border to vote, and two regions with large number of voters — Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod — allowed electronic balloting.

In Moscow, some journalists and activists said they were able to cast their ballots both online and in person in a bid to show the lack of safeguards against manipulations. Kremlin critics and independent monitors also pointed out that the relentless pressure on voters coupled with new opportunities for manipulations from a week of early voting when ballot boxes stood unattended at night eroded the standards of voting to a striking new low.

In addition to that, the early voting sanctioned by election officials but not reflected in law further eroded the ballot’s validity.

Many criticized the Kremlin for lumping more than 200 proposed amendments together in one package without giving voters a chance to differentiate among them.

“I voted against the new amendments to the constitution because it all looks like a circus,” said Yelena Zorkina, 45, after voting in St. Petersburg. “How can people vote for the whole thing if they agree with some amendments but disagree with the others?”

Putin supporters were not discouraged by being unable to vote separately on the proposed changes. Taisia Fyodorova, a 69-year-old retiree in St. Petersburg, said she voted yes “because I trust our government and the president.”

In a frantic effort to get the vote, polling station workers set up ballot boxes in courtyards and playgrounds, on tree stumps and even in car trunks — unlikely settings derided on social media that made it impossible to ensure a clean vote.

In Moscow, there were reports of unusually high numbers of at-home voters, with hundreds visited by election workers in a matter of hours, along with multiple complaints from monitors that paperwork documenting the turnout was being concealed from them.

At the same time, monitoring the vote became more challenging due to hygiene requirements and more arcane rules for election observers.

The Golos monitoring group pointed out at unusual differences between neighboring regions: in the Siberian republic of Tyva over 73% voted in the first five days, while in the neighboring Irkutsk region, turnout was about 22% and in the neighboring republic of Altai, it was under 33%.

“These differences can be explained only by forcing people to vote in certain areas or by rigging,” Golos said.

Observers warned that the new dubious methods used by authorities to boost turnout, combined with numerous bureaucratic hurdles that hindered independent monitoring, would undermine the legitimacy of the vote.

“There is a big question about the results of this vote,” Melkonyants said, adding that its outcome “can’t really bear any legal standing.”

—-

Irina Titova in St. Petersburg contributed.

#IFTTT #Blogger

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funnel-webbed-au · 2 years ago

Text

The Fools/The Family

Syntax dropped his pencil as the robot that carried his claws attached itself to his back. A soft, guttural hiss escaped the half-spider as he bore his fangs, then wiped a bead of sweat off of his cheek. The pain from when the needles slid in never ceased to catch him off guard, no matter how many times he endured it. As the scientist sighed, he couldn't help but remember the first time those needles had slid in and penetrated his spinal column, binding and readjusting part of it so violently that it knocked him out for a few minutes.

The ironic part was that it was his machine. Perhaps he should have seen the signs, her megalomania being the largest red flag. He was too trusting, even now as the cynical, walled-off individual he'd become over the years. Syntax hissed.

He'd been a fool. Her fool.

That thought alone had him pacing in his laboratory before he barked an order at the AI to scramble the passwords of his blast doors. The sigh of relief that came to him afterwards would have been audible to anyone within a car's length of him.

Syntax leaned against one of his walls, then slid down it until he landed in a small heap, legs pulled against his chest ever so gently. He couldn't aggravate the scars there, after all. That sting wasn't something he could forget.

It felt like his mind was full of static. For all he knew, it likely was. The buzz in his ears reminded him of flies that hadn't been caught yet, of ambient voices who said too much for him to parse what they were saying, what they meant.

Why had he trusted her? He should have known she would use him, like they always do. It's always his talent that's important and never him. He was sick of it, but it wasn't like there was anything he could do, or so he thought. His claws curled around himself, ready for a cocoon. He needed a nap anyway, and maybe he could sleep off this dread, sleep off this grief.

He was interrupted by Maratus's monotone voice as the artificial intelligence spoke, penetrating the silence and giving him much needed reprieve from his own demons. Right, yes, he had more important things to worry about than anyone else's opinions. They didn't matter, they shouldn't matter.

"Huntsman has deposited a bowl of pho on the gift table outside." Maratus announced, and the thought of a hot meal brought Syntax to his feet. As he unlocked the blast door that separated his lab from the rest of the nest, and the world at large, the scent of beef hit him like a ton of bricks... and he couldn't help but smile.

[Flashback.] Huntsman knocked on the blast door to Syntax's lab. The spider hadn't come out for dinner, which had the stronger spider antsy. Syntax almost never missed dinner. When the door opened, the larger spider entered slowly, carefully. He didn't want to mess up anything that the scientist had left out; he knew he'd get an earful for that at best.

Huntsman paused. Why was Mac lying there like that? He was curled up and uncomfortable, and those tears looked like they'd recently started. Hunter sighed and went to kneel in front of his sibling, then chose his words carefully. Sure, he did care... but he didn't want the other spider to know that. He'd never believe in his sincerity. Both of them were closed off, and justifiably so.

"What do you want for dinner, Mac?" Hunter spoke softly, his voice barely above a whisper in the quiet of Syntax's lab. He'd seen the signs. The other spider had been shivering ever so slightly, goggles over his eyes in case any bright lights came on unannounced. Hunter knew how Mac reacted to too much going on at once.

The younger spider sighed softly, then reached for his tablet so he could pull up an old photo. A dinner long past, but something Hunter could definitely make if he decided to. He likely would, for the other's sake.

"Pho. Got it. You just sit tight here, Mac. I'll return with food in the next hour... it's lucky I saved so much spare broth, eh?" Huntsman chucked gently as he ruffled Mac's hair.

[End of flashback.]

"Send one of the robots to deliver one of the stuffed toys I sewed last week. Make sure to leave a note on it, Maratus." Syntax instructed the AI of his workshop lab, and soon enough, the letter and the plush were sent to Huntsman.

A soft smile distorted the former lumberjack's face as he read the note attached to the small plush. It was a sweet note, truly, but the colors of the plush spider were what really got him: Jade, amethyst, gray, and black. Both of their colors.

"Syntax, you sap." Hunter chuckled as he took the plush to bed with him... one of his most closely guarded secrets. He had several similar plushies in his room, and never went to bed without one of them. The last words he spoke before he fell asleep were almost too quiet for himself to hear... and yet...

"...you're a good kid, Mac."

#[Tech Support - Mac - Syntax]#[Nightmare - Memories We'd Rather Forget - Lore Drop]#[Frayed and Grayed - Knox- Huntsman]#[Dream - Memories We Hold Close - Lore Drop]#[To Be Denounced - I might rewrite this later.]#[The Crystal Dragon - Mod Riley]#[Arc Two - Toxic Winds - Post-Canon]

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orendrasingh · 4 years ago

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White lynch mobs in America murdered at least 4,467 people between 1883 and 1941, hanging, burning, dismembering, garroting and blowtorching their victims. Their violence was widespread but not indiscriminate: About 3,300 of the lynched were black, according to the most recent count by sociologists Charles Seguin and David Rigby. The remaining dead were white, Mexican, of Mexican descent, Native American, Chinese or Japanese. Such numbers, based on verifiable newspaper reports, represent a minimum. The full human toll of racial lynching may remain ever beyond reach.Religion was no barrier for these white murderers, as I’ve discovered in my research on Christianity and lynch mobs in the Reconstruction-era South. White preachers incited racial violence, joined the Ku Klux Klan and lynched black people. Sometimes, the victim was a pastor. Buttressing white supremacyWhen considering American racial terror, the first question to answer is not how a lynch mob could kill a man of the cloth but why white lynch mobs killed at all. The typical answer from Southern apologists was that only black men who raped white women were targeted. In this view, lynching was “popular justice” – the response of an aggrieved community to a heinous crime.Journalists like Ida B. Wells and early sociologists like Monroe Work saw through that smokescreen, finding that only about 20% to 25% of lynching victims were alleged rapists. About 3% were women. Some were children. Black people were lynched for murder or assault, or on suspicion that they committed those crimes. They could also be lynched for looking at a white woman or for bumping the shoulder of a white woman. Some were killed for being near or related to someone accused of the aforementioned offenses.Identifying the dead is supremely difficult work. As sociologists Amy Kate Bailey and Stewart Tolnay argue persuasively in their 2015 book “Lynched,” very little is known about lynching victims beyond their gender and race. But by cross-referencing news reports with census data, scholars and civil rights organizations are uncovering more details.One might expect that mobs seeking to destabilize the black community would focus on the successful and the influential – people like preachers or prominent business owners. Instead, lynching disproportionately targeted lower-status black people – individuals society would not protect, like the agricultural worker Sam Hose of Georgia and men like Henry Smith, a Texas handyman accused of raping and killing a three-year-old girl. The rope and the pyre snuffed out primarily the socially marginal: the unemployed, the unmarried, the precarious – often not the prominent – who expressed any discontentment with racial caste.That’s because lynching was a form of social control. By killing workers with few connections who could be economically replaced – and doing so in brutal, public ways that struck terror into black communities – lynching kept white supremacy on track. Fight from the front linesSo black ministers weren’t often lynching victims, but they could be targeted if they got in the way. I.T. Burgess, a preacher in Putnam County, Florida, was hanged in 1894 after being accused of planning to instigate a revolt, according to a May 30, 1894, story in the Atlanta Constitution newspaper. Later that year, in December, the Constitution also reported, Lucius Turner, a preacher near West Point, Georgia, was shot by two brothers for apparently writing an insulting note to their sister. Ida B. Wells wrote in her 1895 editorial “A Red Record” about Reverend King, a minister in Paris, Texas, who was beaten with a Winchester Rifle and placed on a train out of town. His offense, he said, was being the only person in Lamar County to speak against the horrific 1893 lynching of the handyman Henry Smith. In each of these cases, the victim’s profession was ancillary to their lynching. But preaching was not incidental to black pastors’ resistance to lynching. My dissertation research shows black pastors across the U.S. spoke out against racial violence during its worst period, despite the clear danger that it put them in. Many, like the Washington, D.C., Presbyterian pastor Francis Grimke, preached to their congregations about racial violence. Grimke argued for comprehensive anti-racist education as a way to undermine the narratives that led to lynching.Other pastors wrote furiously about anti-black violence. Charles Price Jones, the founder of the Church of God (Holiness) in Mississippi, for example, wrote poetry affirming the African heritage of black Americans. Sutton Griggs, a black Baptist pastor from Texas, wrote novels that were, in reality, thinly veiled political treatises. Pastors wrote articles against lynching in their own denominational newspapers. By any means necessarySome white pastors decried racial terror, too. But others used the pulpit to instigate violence. On June 21, 1903, the white pastor of Olivet Presbyterian church in Delaware used his religious leadership to incite a lynching. Preaching to a crowd of 3,000 gathered in downtown Wilmington, Reverend Robert A. Elwood urged the jury in the trial of George White – a black farm laborer accused of raping and killing a 17-year-old white girl, Helen Bishop – to pronounce White guilty speedily. Otherwise, Elwood continued, according to a June 23, 1903 New York Times article, White should be lynched. He cited the Biblical text 1 Corinthians 5:13, which orders Christians to “expel the wicked person from among you.” “The responsibility for lynching would be yours for delaying the execution of the law,” Elwood thundered, exhorting the jury.George White was dragged out of jail the next day, bound and burned alive in front of 2,000 people. The following Sunday, a black pastor named Montrose W. Thornton discussed the week’s barbarities with his own congregation in Wilmington. He urged self-defense.“There is but one part left for the persecuted negro when charged with crime and when innocent. Be a law unto yourself,” he told his parishioners. “Die in your tracks, perhaps drinking the blood of your pursuer.” Newspapers around the country denounced both sermons. An editorial in the Washington Star said both pastors had “contributed to the worst passions of the mob.”By inciting lynching and advocating for self defense, the editors judged, Elwood and Thornton had “brought the pulpit into disrepute.” [You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors. You can get our highlights each weekend.]This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * Lynching memorial shows women were victims, too * Maryland has created a truth commission on lynchings – can it deliver? * An editor and his newspaper helped build white supremacy in GeorgiaMalcolm Brian Foley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.]] George Floyd protests aren't just anti-racist – they are anti-authoritarianThe massive protests that erupted across the United States – and beyond – after the police killing of George Floyd are billed as anti-racist mobilizations, and that they are. Demonstrators are denouncing police violence in minority communities and demanding that officers who abuse their power be held accountable. But I see something more in this wave of American protests, too. As a sociologist specializing in Latin America’s human rights movements and policing, I see a pro-democracy movement of the sort much common south of the border. The Latin Americanization of United StatesNormally, U.S. protests have little in common with Latin America’s. Demonstrations in the U.S. are usually characterized by pragmatic, specific goals like protecting abortion access or defending gun rights. They reflect, for the most part, an enduring faith in the constitution and democratic progress. American protests are rarely nationwide, and even more rarely persist for weeks.Latin America protests, on the other hand, are often sustained movements with ambitious goals. They seek regime change or an entirely new constitutional order. Take Venezuela, for example. There, millions have been protesting the autocratic President Nicolás Maduro for years, despite brutal suppression by police and the military – though the opposition has not yet succeeded in ousting him. Even Chile, a relatively stable democracy, in 2019 faced massive anti-inequality demonstrations demanding, among other things, that the country rewrite its dictatorship-era constitution.Today’s U.S. demonstrations call to mind this kind of Latin American anti-authoritarian movement. Americans’ famed faith in democracy has been eroding under Trump, a leader who, as a recent article in the Journal of Democracy noted, is “increasingly willing to break down institutional safeguards and disregard the rights of critics and minorities.” There is growing concern that voter suppression, especially targeting minority voters, will undermine the 2020 election. An ongoing study by sociologist Dana Fisher from the University of Maryland found that of hundreds of protesters in multiple cities, “people participating in the recent protests are extremely dissatisfied with the state of democracy.” Just 4% of respondents said they were “satisfied with democracy,” the author reported.And these demonstrations are spreading across the country, say protest researchers Lara Putnam, Jeremy Pressman and Erica Chenoweth – including into small, largely white towns with deeply conservative politics. In terms of nationwide participation, they have eclipsed the women’s marches of January 2017. Undemocratic tendenciesFor Latin Americans, much about the United States has become familiar since Trump took office that January. We recognize the strongman president, the politicizing of democratic institutions like the Justice Department, the open political corruption, partisanship on the Supreme Court and the president’s reverence for military leaders. As if to complete the Latin Americanization of this once archetypal democracy, Trump even deployed troops to suppress civilian protesters – something that’s almost never done in the United States.Washington has historically had few qualms, however, about using its military to influence Latin American politics and society. From the 1960s through the 1980s, authoritarian military governments ruled Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and beyond, with overt and covert U.S. support.Democracy retook Latin America by the last quarter of the 20th century, but the region’s recovery from authoritarianism is far from finished. My research on civil-military relations is part of a large body of academic literature showing that military forces remain a latent presence behind Latin America’s democratically elected governments. The scholar Cynthia Enloe calls this the “ideology of militarism.”From Nicaragua to Venezuela and Bolivia, many elected governments in the region have devolved into essentially authoritarian regimes. Their populist leaders use quasi-constitutional methods like plebiscites, voter suppression and constitutional amendments to strengthen their power. These undemocratic tendencies explain Latin America’s regular, sustained waves of massive anti-authoritarian protests. In a similar way, Trump’s undemocratic tendencies explain some of the energy driving these young, multiracial crowds on American streets today. According to University of Maryland researcher Dana Fischer, 45% of white protesters surveyed said Trump motivated them to march, compared to 32% of black people. Police violencePolice brutality is another underlying shared feature between American and Latin American protest movements.As Black Americans have long recognized, police brutality is an instrument of authoritarian repression. In some Latin American countries, police routinely execute those they determine to be gang members, drug traffickers or common criminals and face no consequences. We call it police vigilantism.Brazil is home to one of the world’s most lethal police forces. Last year, police in the state of Rio de Janeiro killed a record 1,810 people. The victims are predominantly young black and brown men from poor neighborhoods. In comparison, local police in the United States – which has about 100 million more people than Brazil – killed 1,004 people nationwide in 2019, according to a Washington Post analysis. Half of them were people of color aged 18 to 44. Most were male. The raw numbers may be lower, but I’m struck by the similarity of the victims and the rationale behind the killings – as well as the impunity that usually follows police shootings.I believe it is the overlap of continued police violence with the broader authoritarian creep in the U.S. that explains this unusual mass protest movement. Millions of Americans are taking to the streets for the same reasons as their Latin American counterparts – to fight for their lives, and for their democracy.[You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors. You can get our highlights each weekend.]This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * Latest legal hurdle to removing Confederate statues in Virginia: The wishes of their long-dead white donors * Marcus Rashford, Black Lives Matter and a British premier who is out of his leagueLilian Bobea a mandate holder at the Working Group on the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of people to self-determination.

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dallasareaopinion · 5 years ago

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It’s a good day to get excommunicated.

Happy New Year everyone, and well it is the 8th day of Christmas so Merry Christmas.

So what gives, why today do I seem to throw my faith away?

Today is the day I ask the world for a new name. The word God has become so cheapened by society that God is losing influence over us at an astounding rate.

And why now all of a sudden do I think the word God is overused and has lost touch with our real creator. I mean we have had false Gods, mythological Gods, people will say wow that girl looks like a goddess all throughout history. And we have had societies lose their moral compasses before, decline, yet mankind comes back and the belief in an all-powerful creator comes back to lead the reemergence of new societies and countries.

Christianity has survived many tumultuous events and still the Bible written in the 4th-century guides Christianity today. Yes, there have been some rewrites to change some practices yet generally, the same message and stories remain.

The Scrolls have survived and the belief of one God continues even though the believers of Judaism have been scattered throughout the world.

Some people will tell us the end is at hand and the second coming of Christ is right around the corner. And that started in the first century. The story has changed, but just ask around sooner or later someone will tell you you do not have much time and must repent.

I do not know much about Islam, Hinduism, Buddism, and other religions yet there are always some teachings that will lead you to a better world. Now I do know Islam believes in the same monotheist God Christianity and Judaism does, I just don’t know enough to comment on their interpretation.

Yet with all this talk of God, what God has taught us doesn’t exist on the planet anymore. Okay, I exaggerate, but our moral decline around the world is plainly obvious.

So am I losing my faith? No. Actually, I have spent this Christmas season trying to follow more of the practice of my religion to reinstill faith back in me. And yes if you put me above a burning pit and say if I renounce my faith I won’t be dropped into the fire. I am a weak enough human being I will probably denounce, who knows I might be strong enough to state what I believe as I drop to my death. As a human though I must confess that is much to ask. Any human that says they would thoroughly die dropped into a burning pit and not renounce their faith is either a true saint or I would never trust them with anything. Most honest people know that kind of moment would test any person’s faith.

The real issue started when people started saying President Trump was the chosen one. This scares me at a new level. There have been false gods before. Why should some nutjob spouting this nonsense scare me such? I don’t know, but it sure does and at a very high level. Maybe because we can transmit nonsense around the world in nanoseconds. Or maybe because the people who are agreeing or making the argument are potentially my neighbors or co-workers.

They have removed the concept of God from rational thinking. You cannot now in the 21st century think for one moment that Trump has any semblance of acting in a manner that God would choose him. And choose him to do what? One argument I read was that God uses all of us including Judas so Trump could be the chosen one. Uh, no. Judas was in a unique situation and he eventually committed suicide for his actions. Everyone else God has chosen tends to have a higher purpose. Sometimes it doesn’t materialize right away, but in general, the person themself exhibited some degree of humanity.

President Trump doesn’t even come close to showing himself as an instrument of God. I am not a believer in the rapture theory. The second coming will not be what we expect or makeup. We have no idea and wasting our time trying to convince people of this is so short-sighted. Our goal is to teach God to others so they can build their own relationship and let the relationship grow.

Everything else cheapens God and weakens God. We have no idea about the extent of the power of God. Anyone that says they do, run. Run away very fast. Truth is we are devoid of any real concept of the power of God.

Our creator created life. Think about what it takes for you to read this post, make a decision about if you agree/disagree, like/dislike, and if you want to respond. You cannot sit there and think life is a fluke. We are created and our life is a gift. The above is just one aspect of free will. You like, you dislike, but you decide. You decide about God, following God, how you follow, what religion you may decide to use to follow God. All this exists, but it does not answer to who is God.

And these arguments could go on for centuries, and as you know they already have been down that path. So this is why I think we need a new name for God. Everything about what makes God wonderful has been lost by all the people who weaken the absolute truth of God by using the name God for their own immoral purposes. I am just tired of trying to sort through the madness to get to the truth.

And realistically this argument is just a symptom of a much larger problem. “A rose is a rose by any other name.” Or something like that, I am too lazy to go internet searching to make sure I got it right, yet it says enough to make the point. The name God isn’t the problem, the lack of the understanding that we have lost touch with God is the problem. So many people scream they have a relationship with God, yet their actions show something completely different and this includes the people saying President Trump is the chosen one.

I cannot sit idly by and watch God be cheapened so if I change the name I can continue my relationship with a being I do not understand, comprehend, fail as a human for such, ask forgiveness, have no understanding the depth of love given to me when life was given to me, cry to, ask favors of, helplessly plead for others, and yet strangely understand that because this life was given to me and others I need to do better, treat others better, take care of what is given better, follow what is truly taught, attempt to make the decision to choose right over wrong, try to teach this to my children and others, and most importantly have a relationship with so I can make my feeble attempts to be what is wanted from me or asked of me whether I know what that is or not.

I have my will, my choices, yet deep down I know I must listen to a voice that cannot be heard to find what is right. Unfortunately, the word God has taken away what is God. And nowadays it seems it is worse than any part of history that I have read. Am I right or am I wrong? Who knows, yet I see we are missing something on this planet that should be blatantly obvious.

Some people prefer science, some say science disproves God, some say God is more important than science, yet all miss the point we are created so we must accept both till there may come a time when the entire truth of the universe is revealed to us. Until then we must keep our minds open, God is not a fairy sky monster, tyrant, hippie, commie, magician, or whatever. God created us on this dynamic planet and for some reason, we have to go with the flow and choose love over hate. Yeah, some 1960′s song or something...no.

Anyway, people will argue till the end of time, but till then we are stuck with a name that no one appreciates anymore because of what everyone else decides not what our creator decides. And yep there isn’t any religion on planet Earth that wants to change the typeset so God please forgive us all.

Cheers and have a blessed, peaceful, and prosperous New Year.

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marymosley · 6 years ago

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How Trump Could Still Gut The Mueller Report

Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on a significant potential barrier to the release of the Special Counsel report — once it is given by Robert Mueller to Attorney General Bill Barr. There is a striking contrast between the level of cooperation shown in relation to the Special Counsel investigation versus congressional investigation. In the latter context, the White House instructed witnesses not to answer questions on the basis that privilege might be claimed (an improper practice in my view). This would seem to suggest that the Trump team is treating communications with the Special Counsel as internal Executive Branch disclosures — and thus not a waiver of privilege. If that is the case, Barr could be heading into a world of difficulty. If the White House invokes, the Justice Department has traditionally defended those claims of executive privilege in court. That could mean a report that is heavily redacted. Unlike classified material which can be given to Congress under seal, grand jury information or executive privileged information cannot be given to Congress absent a court order or waiver, respectively.

This weekend Trump said that he supported the vote of Congress to demand the public release of the report. He told his followers that he told members to vote for the resolution and “Play along with the game!” It is not clear what that game is given the blocking of vote in the Senate by Lindsey Graham. Moreover, it does not state that Trump will waive all executive privilege as discussed in this earlier column.

Here is the column:

President Donald Trump again wrote in all-caps this week, lashing out at special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation as “illegal & conflicted” and declaring “there should be no Mueller Report.” Of course, Mueller’s investigation is entirely legal. Moreover, as reflected in the 420-0 House vote this week, there is overwhelming, bipartisan support for making the report public.

Indeed, everyone seems to want the report released: Democrats, Republicans, even Attorney General Bill Barr. The one person who may not be on board is Trump — and that could prove a very serious problem for Barr.

Trump appears, again, to be dangerously taking his own counsel. While he seems genuinely infuriated about the investigation, he played the largest part in bringing it about.

At the start of his administration, some of us opposed the appointment of a special counsel as unnecessary and unsupported by hard evidence. That changed with the firing of former FBI Director James Comey in the midst of the Russia investigation and Trump’s public attacks on the investigation. Trump’s advisers reportedly warned him this was a bone-headed, self-destructive act; the only holdout reportedly was son-in-law Jared Kushner, who thought it would shorten the investigation. The result was catastrophic and plunged the administration into the current quagmire.

Trump could, once more, prolong this controversy by continuing to “counterpunch” himself into a deeper and deeper hole. There still is no compelling evidence of collusion. Moreover, everyone is telling him to release the report as fully and quickly as possible.

This brings us to William Barr’s problem.

During his confirmation hearing, Democrats repeatedly pressed him to guarantee that the report would be released. As I testified at his confirmation, Barr could not ethically give that guarantee; various laws governing classified evidence, grand jury information and privacy information require redactions.

The biggest issue, however, could be executive privilege. The power to assert executive privilege rests primarily with the White House. It is the president’s privilege to assert, and the Justice Department’s obligation to defend such assertions.

Two types of privilege can arise in this context. First, there is deliberative-process privilege governing the executive branch’s decision-making. This privilege, however, is routinely trumped in cases involving government abuse or misconduct.

The more difficult privilege is “presidential communications.” Recognized in 1974 in United States v. Nixon, the Supreme Court noted that “the presidential communications privilege is more difficult to surmount.” Unlike the deliberative-process privilege that “disappears altogether when there is any reason to believe government misconduct occurred,” the presidential communications privilege is harder to overcome, “even when there are allegations of misconduct by high-level officials.”

The assumption of many is that executive privilege has been waived largely since the Trump administration allowed many current and former White House staff to speak with Mueller. To the extent that such information was shared with Congress, such a waiver may have occurred. However, the White House can argue that speaking with Mueller is not a waiver. Unlike earlier independent counsels like Kenneth Starr, Mueller is a special counsel — and, as such, he’s part of the Justice Department, which is part of the executive branch.

In other words, having the White House counsel speak with the special counsel is basically the executive branch speaking to itself.

Notably, while Trump allowed White House officials to speak freely with Mueller, the White House was far less free with Congress — including, inappropriately, having officials refuse to answer questions on the possibility of a later privilege assertion.

Trump therefore could assert executive privilege over information derived from presidential communications. And that would put Barr in a very difficult spot. Indeed, a report without presidential communications could leave little more than a husk of the original. More importantly, it could leave Barr with little choice in the matter.

With sketchy past opinions on the scope of these privileges, executive assertions can be difficult questions. Historically, the Justice Department has left such questions to the courts absent a compromise with Congress. The Obama administration made some very dubious privilege claims but the Justice Department defended those assertions in Congress and the courts. Absent a clear waiver, it would be a sharp departure from past practice for Barr to override a White House privilege assertion.

If Trump asserts executive privilege to all communications with Mueller that were not also made to Congress, Barr likely will feel duty-bound to defend those assertions. Barr is no Sally Yates, who, as acting attorney general, refused to defend Trump’s first immigration order. It was a highly improper order and warranted her firing by Trump. Barr will defend a properly asserted presidential privilege, and he will comply with any order of a court on the merits of such an assertion.

So where does that leave us?

Option 1: Under federal law, Barr could confine his disclosure to a short summary. Thus, if no criminal acts by the president or his campaign were uncovered, Barr could describe the scope of the investigation and give the ultimate findings. After all, members of Congress widely condemned Comey for his public discussion of Hillary Clinton’s “grossly negligent” actions after he decided not to charge her. Barr could say he will not repeat Comey’s grandstanding.

But Barr would be wrong in taking such a position. A special counsel investigation is not a criminal investigation; it has fact-finding and reporting components that are supposed to force transparency. Mueller was mandated to find the truth, not just chargeable offenses. The public has a right to see that evidence, since these allegations go to the very heart of our democratic process.

Option 2: The most likely option will be to write a summary and attach the redacted report, or rewrite the report into a unified report from Barr to Congress that removes statutorily and constitutionally protected information. Barr also could give Congress a sealed version of the report containing classified information. However, he cannot give Congress a report with grand jury information (called Rule 6e material) without a court order. More importantly, he cannot disclose privileged information to Congress.

The preference would be a redacted copy with blacked-out sections to show how much of the original report has been withheld. The only logistical question is whether Barr will issue a summary while the report is being scrubbed, or issue a summary pending the release of such a public report. There also is the question of whether Barr will allow the White House to submit a response with his submission to Congress — an accommodation (and possible delay) that would be best to avoid.

The second option is the more likely for Barr, but much depends on Trump. Trump could move to higher ground by declaring that, while he still views the investigation as a “witch hunt,” he would waive all remaining privilege assertions for the purposes of this report so that the public can reach its own conclusions. If he did that, he could argue that, while he continually denounced the investigation and the investigators, he never actually took obstructive steps like firing Mueller, silencing witnesses or withholding the final report.

That is not the approach of a counterpuncher — but it is the approach of a president.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.

How Trump Could Still Gut The Mueller Report published first on https://immigrationlawyerto.tumblr.com/

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funnel-webbed-au · 2 years ago

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Morning Flowers

Lian sat up and stretched as the morning rays shone through the window of her room, then shook the sleeping Deity as her side. While he stirred and grumbled, Lady Lian only chuckled; she knew he wasn't exactly a morning person, and the bright light shining through the curtains didn't help.

"Oh, for fuck's sake... why is always so bright in here, I'm gonna get another headache." Nezha rolled over and covered his face with a pillow to escape the light. That comment caused the lady of the house to fall off of her bed, cackling before she rose to her feet with a soft, fond sigh.

Lian went to the drapes, as she knew for damn sure that neither of them liked the light, but there would still be plenty to work with even once the drapes were closed. As the light in the room dimmed, Nezha sat up and stretched, the crop top he slept in on full display. He didn't even bother to keep up his usual formality, moving straight into his morning stretch routine.

He breathed a sigh of relief as the lights dulled, then opened his eyes so they could adjust. A smile came over the freshly crowned Yang as Lady Lian rested her head on his shoulder. Her hugs, her caresses, he never got enough of it. Casual intimacy had always been something he was fond of... and something he encouraged, too.

Lian blushed and giggled as the lotus deity she'd come to hold so dear coated her face in kisses. It wasn't a rare ritual anymore, and that, she was thankful for. He'd once been so stiff, but the more he came to know her, the more he grew attached to her.

There were so many words that felt right at the same time, and yet couldn't fully express the depth of the bond they shared. Lian pressed her forehead against the raven's, even as he purred quietly. She was a member of a very special group of people, the people that made him feel whole... love was always the right word. He loved her, he loved his mentor, he loved the bitter, spiteful wolf Demon who'd been living in that palace for centuries. Love was a broad, powerful word with many expressions, many types.

A smattering of kisses, all over his cheek and jaw, was his quick reward, followed by soft scratches around his ears and chin. He raised his head as a smile split his face, along with blush. Gods, he never got enough of her tender touches, much less Erlang's care. There really was nothing like the love of his father and beloved flower.

"Ah-! Lady Lian, you honor me." He couldn't help the soft laughter that escaped him. She never got enough of his purrs and his snickers. She'd come to treasure him as much as he treasured her.

Nezha got dressed when Lian let go, but didn't let her leave his side without a brief nuzzle before he disappeared into his closet. He emerged minutes later in his favorite fuchsia button-up dress shirt and deep teal jeans. His chain belt was always a good compliment to his favorite outfit.

Lian came out of the restroom shortly afterwards, clad in her favorite floral dress, the edges of it curled like lotus petals. It really honored the lotus Deity she spent so much time with that she themed herself after his favorite flowers, though he knew it was simply coincidence. She loved the same flowers he did.

Nezha's soft purrs of contentment brought a bright smile to the puffy haired woman. She offered another hug, and he took her up on it, grabbing her with all of the excitement of the wonderful young man he'd always be.

"We should go greet Erlang, don't you think?" Nezha nodded after Lian spoke, then let go of her. It was time for their morning routine, after all, and he had to give his beloved father a hug. He'd come so far in recent centuries, he'd found a new home. It was beautiful, and he hoped he'd get to keep this forever.

#[Dream - Memories We Hold Close - Lore Drop]#[Once Bitten and Twice Shy - Sydney - Nezha]#[For Whom The Flowers Bloom - Lady Lian - Lian Lanhua (OC)]#[To Be Denounced - I might rewrite this later.]#[The Crystal Dragon - Mod Riley]#[Arc One - Binding Ties - Before Canon]

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funnel-webbed-au · 1 year ago

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All's Fair in Love and War

Her lips on his.

It was all that he needed to snap out of the stress-induced coma, but the sight of her vivid fuchsia eyes made his heart skip a beat. The heat in his cheeks faded as quickly as it had come as the vines around his wrists finally registered in his head.

The love of his life had tied him up, and that harsh glare gave away just how much rage boiled within her. Although she rarely let her reborn features show, Lian wanted to scare him now. Her silky, frond-like horns and venom-laced claws truly gave the spider a run for his money. He should have known that mantises were prone to killing their mates... but why hadn't she yet?

"Tell me where my brother is, Pierre." Her voice cut through his ears with its harshness, and the spider flinched from those words. She wasn't going to budge, was she? She'd never understand the fate that had befallen one of the men she loved the most. Pierre took a deep breath, his jade green eyes falling shut for fear of how she may react.

"He's at the spider lair. Don't go after him, Lian, whoever he was, he isn't that person now. He hallucinates, and his haunting screams at night can keep us all awake. His lair is covered in venom-laced webs and filled with chemical weaponry. He fights us on a daily basis, he is not safe to be around. Whoever he used to be, whoever you knew him as, he is not that man anymore, and trying to save him is too risky for all parties involved."

Lian hardly budged, even as Syntax cautiously opened his eyes, one after the other. His mate's expression told him she wasn't backing down, no matter the danger. Even if it meant she would receive horrendous chemical burns and claw marks on her body, she would do damn near anything for her brother.

Even chain up her lover and interrogate him until she got what she wanted: Information.

As the vines withdrew, Syntax sighed and staggered to his feet, only to be pushed against the wall by his partner. Her eyes drilled into his, a warning of what might be to come if he kept such important information from her again. A shiver ran down the spider's spine, but color returned to his face when she loosened her grip on his collar.

"I'm going after him. Don't try to stop me, Pierre, Nezha's my brother, and I'd sooner die than let anything happen to him. We've been all we've really had for centuries, longer than you've been alive. Do me a favor and keep your head down. Don't let Stella know I'm coming."

Pierre released a deep sigh. She really wasn't going to listen to him, but what kind of a partner was he if he didn't trust her abilities? He knew she was a powerful Deity, and could fend for herself if necessary, but she also didn't take care of herself like she should have.

"...fine. I won't stop you. Under one condition. Allow me to place a microchip under your skin. I've specifically tailored it to check for an adrenaline response as well as track your location. It's meant to alert me if you're in any danger." The tech spider swallowed, folding his claws behind his back. He'd always felt small one way or another, and it was worse now than it had been in a while. She was 6'4. It was hard not to be scared of her when she was angry.

To his surprise, Lian exhaled and relaxed.

"Whatever you need to feel better about it, darling. I'm... sorry for snapping at you like that." The nature Deity rubbed her arm as her horn-like antennae disappeared, along with her wrath. She hated having to put him in such a terrifying position, but it was that or not know where the hell her brother was or if he was safe.

Syntax slid the chip underneath her skin once he'd retrieved it, then breathed off the stress from the events prior. She wasn't going to tear him open, to defile his currently pristine body. No, he was safe. She wasn't going to hurt him.

Lian looked away when she realized how severely she'd scared her mate. Her recklessness, it had hurt them both. She wished she hadn't jumped the gun like that, but it was what it was.

There wasn't any turning back now.

#[tech support - mac - syntax]#[for whom the flowers bloom - lady lian - lian lanhua (oc)]#[to be denounced - i might rewrite this later.]#[Arc Two - Toxic Winds - Post-Canon]

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