#'but you don-' 1. its a tv-14 show

[machneherald]

# i’d get on my knees and show zaun a real glorious evolution

ARCANE: LEAGUE OF LEGENDS (2021-2024) 2.06 | The Message Hidden Within the Pattern

[sewerpeaches]

The Answer to the Age Old Question:

Who is older, Donatello or Raphael?

The long answer that you didn't come here for is: it depends on the continuity. So you can find my breakdowns for each continuity here (eventually).

The short answer:

Donatello

Why?

#1. "Word of God" #2. IDW Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2011), volume 5 #3. Character/family/team dynamics #4. Aesthetics

~ 1 ~

For those unfamiliar with the term, the Word of God is "A statement regarding some ambiguous or undefined aspect of a work, the Word of God comes from someone considered to be the ultimate authority, such as the creator, director, writer or producer of a TV show / video game / film / etc."

With that in mind, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird co-created Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 1984. Unlike a fair amount of co-created series, TMNT is actually an evenly split brain-child (ie neither Eastman nor Laird seems to be any more responsible for or involved in its creation/production/etc than the other).

On August 14, 2014, Kevin Eastman stated "I'm going to take a bold step and say Donatello is older" during a Reddit AMA .

I couldn't find so much as a whiff of Peter Laird's explicit opinion on the matter (for all my searching... and there was a lot), but that also means that I never found him contradicting Kevin Eastman's statement. (More subjectively, Laird seems to have essentially directed the 2k3 run and I'll post my take on why 2k3 has peak little-brother Raph energy here (eventually))

At any rate, if you're the type of person who accepts the "Word of God" at face value, then continue no further! I, however, don't do that—hence why this is only reason 1 of 3 (4).

~ 2 ~

If you're not familiar with IDW Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2011) then read it, because it's phenomenal, it's the franchise's longest running piece of media ever and up until volume 100, original co-creator Kevin Eastman co-wrote the series and collaborated on page layouts. The much acclaimed Last Ronin, the first thing written by both Eastman and Laird since the original Mirage run, is set in the IDW-verse as its own version of SAINW.

The premise of the IDW run is that Splinter's and the Turtles' souls are reincarnated from those of a human family that lived in feudal japan (yes it sounds stupid, but it's touched on very little and is executed surprisingly well). And that means that the Turtles' corresponding human-selves are all visibly different ages (because unlike turtles, it's not so common for humans to have quadruplets).

So when we see the Turtles' human selves in volume 5...

It's clear in both appearance and mannerisms that Don is older than Raph.

They're definitely the closest in age of the siblings, but still most assuredly different ages.

Besides Raph being smaller than Don with shorter and chubbier limbs, his hairstyle also strikes me as more baby-like (kinda like the ancient version of the ponytail parent's give their 1 year olds when they don't have enough hair yet to actually do anything with). His mannerisms also lend themselves to that of a younger child—more sleepy, much more oblivious to his surroundings, and more clingy. Don's also shown to be able to stand, while Raph seems like he might not be able to yet.

~ 3 ~

This reason is subjective, which is why I've listed it last and need more space to elaborate on it. You'll find the unabridged version on my blog at some point under this tag (eventually), because I simply have Too Many Thoughts™ to contain within a post not dedicated specifically to it.

The short of it is: Donatello's character has always seemed to be designed around being second-in-charge—both in team and family contexts.

I don't think anyone would argue against the fact that Don is the go-to turtle. Doesn't matter what continuity you look at, when Leo anyone runs into a problem, they turn to Don.

You could argue that Donnie's the smart one and "so it only makes sense to turn to him to fix a problem" (and that's a bit of a catch-22 that I'll talk about in more detail in the unabridged version!). However... he's not a real person and so him being the smart one that characters always turn to when Leo falters (including Leo!) is a deliberate choice by the creators. And in the context of the The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle's very traditional operating style—with heavy emphasis on hierarchy by age, blood, etc.—it's very telling.

Were they a real family, yes, they would have developed their personalities/aptitudes mostly independently of their birth order, but given that specifically assigning children roles/ideals based on birth order is a significant player in Japanese culture (especially ancient Japanese culture which pertains to ninjitsu on which TMNT is based)... well... (I mean just look at how Splinter treats Leo).

Anyway, looking at the TMNT franchise as a whole, the advancement of the plot, in 9/10 cases, hinges on Don coming up with a solution either (1) via Leo coming up with something, pointing him in a direction, and asking "Don can you make [insane thing] work?" or (2) when Leo stalls entirely and Don has to take over. And though it's a formula, it's a formula with a million different permutations so it stays interesting.

Raph's role is to go into a berserker rage and brute force a second-wind powerup when when fighting is the only option. He's as the one who makes the first option work when Leo & Don are stuck and he has to, not the one who comes up with the second option. And, narrative-wise, it would be boring and lazy for the Turtles to only ever brute force plan A. (Happy to say I wrote this before I saw Laird say the same thing about Raph (bottom of #55))

That very distinct chain-of-command is why we get things like this, which is much more interesting and satisfying than beat-the-thing-until-it-stops:

The same follows in terms of family dynamics. Leo & Raph are simply too similar for the family to feel "balanced" if they're the two eldest brothers. There's no functionality in a family where 1 & 2 are providing nothing different or, worse, butting heads. Don holds the emotional stability of the family in the palm of his hand, largely just by existing as the buffer between Leo & Raph (we all know what happens in SAINW).

And, just from a characterization perspective, it seems much more natural for Raph to turn to Don for comfort than vice versa.

(Again, I'm gonna just... aggressively point to IDW.)

I'll go into this much more in the unabridged version, but I wanted to touch upon it here: setting Don aside for a moment, I see so many people argue for Raph being the second son based entirely upon his attitude towards Leo and ignoring everything and everyone else. It sorta drives me insane, tbh. I think it's a wildly shallow interpretation of his character.

Raph's entire hang-up is not around being second best, it's around being denied authority/autonomy in general—you know, stemming from being a mutant and being banned from doing 9/10 things he'd like to? That's why we see him fighting with Leo; Leo is the only authority he can fight (putting aside crime syndicate-type authority which he also fights obv). But more importantly, we also see him exerting as much power as he can by playfully, not cruelly bullying Mikey //glares at 2k12 (and in more source-compliant adaptations, yes, it is only Mikey that he truly messes with //glares harder at 2k12) or going off solo.

As much as I love 2k7, specifically the Leo/Raph dynamic, it's not actually a good representation of their real relationship—more of a spin-off "what if" (which Laird has also said). And 2k12 is ok plot-wise, but as far as I'm concerned it mostly fails at creating any compelling character dynamics and it crashes and burns in terms of staying true to source material. C':

~ 4 ~

Finally, I will end this post with my strongest argument for Don being second-eldest...

Sunset Aesthetic

[nx08h63bitchyobservationnerd]

arabes xnxx

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[esonetwork]

The Earth Station DCU Episode 326 – It's Just A Wednesday

New Post has been published on http://esonetwork.com/the-earth-station-dcu-episode-326-its-just-a-wednesday/

The Earth Station DCU Episode 326 – It's Just A Wednesday

This Week on Earth Station DCU! Drew Leiter and Cletus Jacobs wrap up the Red Death Storyline on The Flash. It’s just a Wednesday! Robin Dick Grayson and Supergirl go out on a date in Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #12. Black Adam tells Malik a bedtime story while he is in his coma in Black Adam #8. Clayface goes on a killing spree when he doesn’t get the part he wants in a movie in Batman – One Bad Day: Clayface #1. Eiko meets with Black Mask and the other dons, while Selina teaches the other women in prison how to be better thieves in Catwoman #52. When the body of a king is found in the rumble of Titan’s Tower, Nigthwing investigates in Nightwing #101. After going to prison, Lex Luthor turns Lexcorp into Supercorp giving his company to Superman whether he wants it or not in Superman #1. Wally comes up with a plan to destroy the Fraction’s main power source in The Flash #793. Diana and Yara Flor continue their battle against Eros in Wonder Woman #796. The battle with Fire Bull King comes to a conclusion in Lazarus Planet: Omega #1. All this plus, DC News, DC TV, Shout Outs, and much, much more!

————————

Table of Contents

0:00:00 Show Open

0:01:14 DC News

0:26:36 Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #12

0:30:50 Black Adam #8

0:34:44 Batman – One Bad Day: Clayface #1

0:44:43 Catwoman #52

0:48:40 Nightwing #101

0:55:36 Superman #1

0:59:59 The Flash #793

1:05:00 Wonder Woman #796

1:12:15 Lazarus Planet: Omega #1

1:20:56 The Flash S9 Ep5 – The Mask of the Red Death, Part 2

1:24:27 Show Close

Links

Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #12

Black Adam #8

Batman – One Bad Day: Clayface #1

Catwoman #52

Nightwing #101

Superman #1

The Flash #793

Wonder Woman #796

Lazarus Planet: Omega #1

Earth Station One Tales of the Station

Earth Station One Tales of the Station Vol. 2

The Chameleon Chronicles: Colors of Fate

The Chameleon Chronicles: Sisters of the Thorn

If you would like to leave feedback, comment on the show, or would like us to give you a shout out, please call the ESDCU feedback line at (317) 564-9133 (remember long distance charges may apply) or feel free to email us @ earthstationdcu@gmail.com

[im-totally-not-an-alien]

Final Fantasy 7 prompts # 71

1. Post AC Turks get turned into bunnies. Rufus only loves them more.

Its even funnier if the Turks go about thier duties as normal. Can you imagine being interrogated by a bunny?

2. Sephiroth gets turned into Cloud and isn't sure how to undo the transformation. AVALANCHE unwittingly invites him in, ignorant to the fact that the real Cloud was on a different continent entirely.

3. Cloud was incredibly jealous when Sephiroths attention wasn't on him.

Thankfully, the silverette didn't seem to notice

4. Cloud goes full psyco possessive over Zack the same was Sephiroth does over him. This, of course, does not sit well with the silver stalker and Zack is just there trying to keep them from stabbing eachoth-oops. Too late.

5. Time traveler Cloud, but he's a really weak poltergeist. He kept scaring people with vague ghost things until Genesis finally convinced Sephiroth and Angeal to do an Ouija board session with him.

Inspired by the idea of Cloud telling Genesis to 'fuck off' via spelling out letters on the board.

Cloud might also resort to txt speech if he gets desperate.

6. Au where Genesis was sent to check out a meteor crash site, only to discover a blond man and three silver haired children drinking mako strait from the pools.

Genesis just stared for a few seconds while these nutcases drank the mako like a dying man drinks water in an oasis.

He's later surprised by how quickly the silverettes took to Sephiroth. They were even referring to him as thier "big brother" withing five minutes of meeting.

Hes not jealous. He's not. He's more amused by Sephiroths awkward joy than anything.

Then there was the blond. "Cloud" tended to follow Angeal around like a grumpy chicabo, often staring at the mans sword. His childhood friend was overjoyed when he discovered the blonds knack for gardening. Infinite in mystery indeed.

7. "What the hell!?"

Tifa rushed over to where her boyfriend had knocked over his barstool in his haste to stand up. "Cloud?" She asked hurriedly, "are you alright?"

The blond shook his head in disbelief, "Someone prayed for rain."

Ruby colored eyes blinked owlishly, "and thats a problem, why?"

"Because they prayed to me."

8. Cloud accidentally does the one thing that terrifies Sephiroth.

The blond is baffled that something so mundane could have sway over a wannabe god

9. Time traveler Cloud is popped back into his 16 year old self body, with all his enhancements but none of his gear.

He explores the tower a bit, swiping materia (he learned from the best) and looking for a weapon.

Unfortunately for Angeal, Cloud noticed the Buster Sword on his back and just- yoinks it from its harness and takes off running. Cloud flees the tower and goes on the run, leaving the very confused commander swordless and in shock.

Several months later, Angeal is pleased to finally have his sword back and the blond in custody. He wanted to ask the blond why he would steal Buster anyway. Too bad the blond escaped soon after, stealing the sword from his right off his back- again- and even took one of the commanders potted plants, which he still couldn't wrap his head around.

Hint: It was spite

10. Sephiroth accidently travels to the past and wakes up to a certain blond Trooper bridal carrying him to a log cabin to escape the snow.

11. Time traveler Sephiroth carrying an unconscious Trooper Cloud to Hojos lab to recreate the experiment that made him "perfect"

Hojo is thrilled that there's two Sephiroths and a new test subject hand picked by his greatest creation.

Sephiroth also begins communicating/ sharing memories with this worlds Jenova to help keep an eye on Clouds progress and to make sure the good doctor isn't doing anything hes not supposed to.

Meanwhile, Kunsel is reporting to this world's Sephiroth about the multiple sighting of a second General...

12. Aerith and the planet trying to play matchmaker

She couldn't help herself, she always thought Tifa and Rude were cute together. Oh, and Cloud and Vincent! So romantic!

Shera and Cid weren't getting out of this unscathed either. No one is safe!

13. When the planet suggested that her champion should change his approach by "appealing to the trinitys heroic sides" she didn't mean "become the villain and force thier hand"

She shrugged it off since it was working, but was the cape really necessary?

Aka Cloud becomes an overdramatic fake villain to save the world and enjoys it much more that he thought he would. Also trolling Sephiroth and the angry red head is a lot of fun, almost as much fun as the ridiculous monologing and dramatic speeches.

He bursts out laughing when he discovered that made a TV show about them.

14. Every so often Cloud has to drink a bit of high concentrated mako to keep healthy.

Sometime people catch him doing it and freak out

(Inspired by Shinra making SOLDIERS by letting people down mako like shots)

15. Au where Cloud killed Don Corneo and became the new mafia boss. Cloud is surprisingly terrifying when he wants to be.

Bonus: Time traveler Denzel gets taken in by Kunzel and kicks Hojo in the crotch.

Sephiroth: Are you sure I can't adopt him?

Kunzel: No, he's already mine.

Genesis: Too bad. I'm his second dad now. You can't stop me.

Denzel: My dad is Cloud Strife

Cloud, who is like 15: ???

[gold-kobold]

How To Fight A Shadow

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14: Clearing the Air | 15 | 16

Two stubborn nitwits talk about their feelings.

.

IT’S STILL MONDAY FOR ME, AW YEAH BOIS-

.

.

It was rare to see the TV on without Dictatious or Nancy being its only viewers. But today, it was Blinky, Aaarrrgghh, and their brood of Trollhunters.

There was a special show on today, after all. 

It was Desmund’s idea, initially. After the almost-disaster that was Nomura’s interview, the two of them had been keeping in touch. Desmund, he wanted to give Changelings a safer platform to talk about their experiences, maybe help the general public get a deeper understanding of the struggles they faced. Surprisingly, their studio agreed to give it a shot, after receiving an unexpected amount of backlash for how the other hosts treated Nomura.

The children have been giddy about this ever since the first showing was announced for this evening.

“I just can’t believe they organized a whole set thing for it already!” Toby said. “It feels like the stuff with Nomura was just, like, yesterday.” 

“Don’t jinx this for us, T.P..” Claire teased. “This needs to become a solid thing, or I will riot.”

The children have done well dealing with all the curveballs being thrown at them. Between having to make sure there wasn’t a masked traitor among them, making sure their friends and family knew the precautions put in place, fretting over shadows that weren’t there, painful bodily changes… Well. They deserved to have something positive to look forward to together, lest it be strange magical movies about awkward British teens, or positive Changeling representation in the media.

The program had started on a good note. Both guests Desmund had with him were good-natured and eager. They were twin women, though you wouldn’t know it by looking at them. One was a young human, musn’t have been any older than 25, a brown-eyed brunette with her hair tidied up in a neat little bun, donning a solid maroon midi dress. The other was a Changeling almost twice her sister’s height, her skin like that of glistening emerald. She had wings, not much smaller than Strickler’s, and three pairs of beige horns poked out of her dark hair.

“So let me get this straight…” Desmund said, trying to suppress the grin on his face, “Horseshoes force you to change forms…”

“We call them Gaggletacks, but yes.” The Changeling confirmed.

“And you…” Desmund then pointed to the human of the pair, “only found out about your sister’s, uh, other form because of a horseback-riding accident?”

At the time, it must’ve been scary, but neither sister could hold back their laughter at the memory.

“All that time, I thought you were just scared of horses!” The human giggled, patting the shoulder of her sibling.

“I think the horse was more scared of me, to be honest.” She laughed along with her. “Thankfully, our parents weren’t around at the time... That wasn’t the most graceful of reveals, for sure.”

“Oh, I can imagine,” their host laughed too. “But you kept her secret, all that time?”

“Well, it scared me at first, of course…” The human girl’s expression stayed warm as she looked to the Changeling beside her. “... but I’ve known her all my life. She’s my sister, and some fangs and wings weren’t about to change that. I’d’ve kept her secret forever, if I had to.”

Nodding slowly, he took a moment to absorb that answer before moving onto the next question. “Now, Ms. Nomura mentioned that Changelings had to disappear from the Janus Order to fully attune to your human lives, yes?” Desmund asked, looking the Changeling’s way again. “How did that transition go for you?”

“Well, I’m not sure if just disappearing would be the best choice. The easiest way-” She paused to reconsider her words. “Well, it wasn’t really easy, but the most convincing way to leave the Janus Order was to fake your own death. That’s what I did, though making it just convincing enough was the tricky part... but, see, Gunmar and Bular, they see- they saw us as expendable. So, when one of us ‘dies’, not much effort is put into investigating it, you know? Waste of time and resources, in the big boss’s opinion.” She shrugged slightly. “The same could be said for those who simply disappear, but those who aren’t confirmed dead are usually at more risk of being discovered. Rogue Changelings can be a security risk that the Gumm-Gumms would rather not take, and…”

The TV’s droning quickly became background noise to Angor. He wasn’t paying much attention in the first place, to be honest. His mind was elsewhere. His gaze stayed on Dictatious’s empty chair, for the most part.

It’s been two days since they last spoke.

Angor Rot hadn’t intended to put off their much-needed conversation for this long. But approaching Dictatious just meant scaring him all over again. He had been giving Dictatious space thus far, in some sort of attempt to not appear threatening to the Conundrum, but that line of action wasn’t going to work long-term. 

Taking a step away from the others to collect his wandering thoughts, Angor moved into the empty kitchen instead.

Or, he thought it was empty. He soon was proven wrong, seeing NotEnrique drag a pie larger than himself out of Nancy’s fridge for snacking. He also took pause upon seeing the other troll.

“... I ain’t sharin’.” NotEnrique said flatly.

“I... wasn’t expecting you to?” Angor said, moving past him.

“Oi. Y’ain’t gonna finish watchin’ the show with us, Spooks?”

“I don’t have the focus for that right now.”

“Ahh,” A wily smirk stretched across NotEnrique’s face as he hopped down to the counter. “Preoccupied with yer lover’s spat?”

Furrowing his brows, Angor paused, glancing down at NotEnrique. “What do you mean by that?”

“... Yer kiddin’ me, right?”

A blank stare was the assassin’s only response.

“... ‘Course you’re not.” NotEnrique closed his eyes and just shrugged. He was mildly joking with that first comment, but if the guy needed it spelled out for him, whatever. “Well look, yer eye’s been on Diccy aaall the time lately, and he’s been bugged out for a while now. It’s pretty obvious something’s going on.” Opening one eye, his smirk at Angor grew as he ribbed him again. “Not t’ mention, ya both smile a lot more when yer on good terms~... It’s hard not to notice that mood shift.”

Even the little Changeling was getting on his back about this? Is he really that transparent? It’s not really NotEnrique’s business, nor should the Changeling have any reason to care...

… Well. Given how much time they’d been spending together, Angor supposed it must look fairly strange from an outsider’s perspective. 

“Just sayin’. Y’gotta rip the band-aid off eventually, y’know.”

Angor didn’t reply before NotEnrique dragged his winnings away and rejoined his peers. Just frowned to himself in quiet consideration.

The Changeling had a point, honestly. It was long overdue time he stopped putting off this issue. Tonight was as good a time as any to address it.

.

Dictatious hadn’t really been up for “watching” anything in the living room lately. Especially not when the Trollhunters were there - Where they were, Angor usually was, and where Angor was, Dictatious didn’t want to be.

Though, it was... strange, to say the least, the way he’d spoken to him last…

Dictatious didn’t know what to make of Angor’s hesitance in getting rid of him, but he wouldn’t dare test the waters when the risk is still so high.

That’s what he kept telling himself, anyway.

He shook thoughts of Angor from his head, and went back to unloading his bedding from the dryer. It was rather convenient, having their laundry machines in the same room as where he slept. There was something oddly comforting about the fabric’s warmth when taking it out.

… On second thought, he supposed the garage wasn’t really appropriately referred to as a ‘room’. 

Nancy constantly fretted about having him sleep “out here of all places”, but Dictatious really didn’t mind. The fact that she was offering any of her limited household space at all was generous enough on her part. He’d spent the last (almost) thousand years adjusting to sleeping in The Darkland’s far harsher conditions, so much so that he sometimes couldn’t even get comfortable on the mattress and opted for sleeping on the floor instead. She never seemed to understand that this was a major upgrade for him, no matter how often he’d tried to explain it. He gave up on trying to make it make sense to her after the first week.

He didn’t mind when it was cold, which had seemed to be her main worry. He was used to that. That being said, the abundance of blankets was still a nice addition to have, though.

Preoccupied with balancing his pile of fabrics and getting the dryer close, he didn’t notice when the side door into the garage had opened.

“Dictatious.”

He jumped, dropping everything, when that voice spoke his name. Still, he did his best to compose himself, and turned to face the direction it came from. 

Angor Rot raised an eyebrow. He lingered at the doorway, not coming any closer due to the other’s obvious nervousness. “Can we talk?”

His gut reaction was to say no. Angor’s mere presence was still setting off alarm bells in Dictatious’s mind. He cursed his own stupidity for allowing himself to be cornered, and despite how futile the effort would be, his eyes instinctively tried to scan their surroundings for any sort of escape route. But, of course, it’s not like he was able to see any, other than the fuzzily glowing doorway of which Angor was already in the way. Against his better judgment, Dictatious nodded slowly in response to Angor’s question.

Stepping just a little bit heavier than usual, to make sure Dictatious could tell where he was, Angor Rot entered the room. He kept his distance, and made sure to leave plenty of space between himself and both Dictatious and the door, should the Conundrum want a direct path out. Blocking off Dictatious’s only exit was obviously out of the question.

Stationing himself against the wall furthest away, Angor eyed Dictatious carefully, making sure not to miss any physical cues this time around. He kept his voice low, non-threatening, as he spoke his next question. “Have you... had much time to think about our last exchange?” 

Time. Dictatious wished he had more time to process any of this. Or, at least, more time to devise better plans to avoid this inevitable confrontation altogether. His eyes flickered to the side, but never fully drew away from Angor. “... Somewhat.” He replied in all but uncertain levels.

Squinting slightly, Angor Rot looked away himself, though not for long. When his gaze eventually fell back to the smaller troll, Angor found himself asking a question he never thought he’d have to ask anyone, albeit for different reasons than this... “Why are you so afraid of me?”

There was no point in beating around the bush, now that the problem was this apparent.

Words escaped him. Dictatious opened his mouth, closed it, fidgeted with his hands, repeat. He eventually averted his gaze, not replying at all.

Tilting his head slightly, Angor stayed quiet for some time, thinking back on the things Dictatious had said beforehand. “... You had spoken as though you thought I’d...” He paused, taking a moment to try and remember the wording Dictatious used, “... ‘do away with you’?” His neutral look shifted to more of a frown as he asked, “Do you really think I’d do that to you?”

Dictatious seemed to shrink ever so slightly, his ears falling lower with each word. He wished he could judge this situation without feeling so damned awful. Something about Angor’s voice made him doubt the fear he’d been feeling towards him even more, but that didn’t make the fear go away.

Not that it should. Dictatious has let himself be tricked before. Caution is a virtue when it comes to those who could crush you at a moment’s notice.

With great hesitance, he gambled his luck with a tentatively-asked question in return. “Are you… saying that you wouldn’t…?”

The fact that Dictatious even had to ask was enough to sting. Angor’s teeth made an audible click as his jaw clenched. He couldn’t even ask himself why Dictatious would fear such a thing from him - not only was he a highly experienced killer himself, but Dictatious’s last point of reference for any sort of consistent “relationship” was Gunmar, of all trolls.

“Of course I wouldn’t.” He answered, making a conscious effort to quash any personal offense that might’ve been taken at the Conundrum’s inquiry. “Why do you think otherwise?”

Despite Angor’s attempts, Dictatious had become acutely aware of tonal shifts over the years, and he hesitated again when he noticed Angor’s voice become just slightly harsher. His eyes darted away again, and he shook his head, unable to answer.

“Dictatious.” Angor addressed him again, a slightly sterner note to his voice. “Tell me why.”

“I-I don’t- I’m not--” Under the pressure of Angor’s gaze, the Conundrum shuddered. But what he blurted out next, even if it was merely out of trepidation, Angor was definitely not expecting it. “I’m not useless, I swear I’m not--!”

“When have I ever called you useless?!” 

Angor hadn’t realized how suddenly he’d raised his voice until he noticed how Dictatious had flinched back in response to it. Sighing in frustration, he stepped back himself, and spoke again with his calmer tone. “... You were limiting yourself. That was something that bothered me when we met, yes. But useless?” He shook his head. “I have never thought of you as useless. Not once.”

To Dictatious, it almost sounded like Angor was offended that he would think that of him… and, to his credit, it’s true that Angor’s never really… outwardly expressed such a sentiment. In fact, it could probably be argued that he’s implied the opposite on some occasions.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized he might’ve mistaken Angor’s thoughts about him…

Angor, on the other hand, was still slightly baffled as to how Dictatious was so convinced that such an extreme action would pass.

“Even if I did want to kill you - which I don’t…” Angor continued, making sure to put emphasis on that clarification, “... do you really think the Trollhunters would let me get away with that? I’d never hear the end of it from Blinky, for one thing…”

Dictatious laughed nervously. “Oh please, you’d be doing them all a favour…” 

“... You don’t really believe that, do you?”

There was hesitance, and that hesitance turned into the lack of an answer altogether. Dictatious wrung his hands together, saying nothing, looking away.

Angor Rot could only stare a bit longer, a tiny pang of guilt gnawing at him. Just seeing Dictatious that terrified of him, so certain that Angor would do something horrible to him and thinking that nobody would even…

It was... mildly, mildly painful. He looked away, sighing under his breath, but he knew what should be done.

“I’m sorry.”

“... What?” Dictatious’s ears perked up, unsure of what they just heard, and he looked Angor’s way with an expression of pure, unadulterated disbelief. “You… You’re apologizing to me...? Whatever for?”

“For the way I handled our first spar, for one thing. My intention was to test your capabilities, but I shouldn’t have attacked you without prior training or warning.” Angor answered. He crossed his arms, his eye glancing away from Dictatious for a moment. “I didn’t realize how much stress I’d caused you this past week. I don’t know how I didn’t see your fear sooner.” With another quiet sigh, Angor shook his head. “... I know you don’t have much trust in me, and I don’t blame you for that. But... please, believe me when I say that, whatever it is you’re afraid of me doing, I don’t want to bring you harm. I’m sorry for ever making you think otherwise.” 

Dictatious blinked a few times, still not sure if he was hearing correctly. Even from someone like Blinky, he hadn’t fully expected an apology, but when he gave one, it didn’t catch Dictatious as off-guard as this. Aside from his brother, he honestly couldn’t remember the last time he’s ever been apologized to for, well… anything, let alone something like this. And from a troll like Angor…? 

He’s heard Angor express guilt. More than once, surprisingly. And this really did seem to mimic the same amount of genuinity as those other times...

... This was a trap of some sort, right? He was being set up somehow, he had to be. Angor was baiting him, wasn’t he? Lulling him into a false sense of security, waiting for Dictatious to let his guard down, or... or tricking him into saying something fallacious, or something worth sucker-punching him for...

But it didn’t feel like that. Not even slightly.

“I… er…” Drawling his words, it took the usually quick-tongued Dictatious a long time to come up with even the simplest of responses through his confusion. “... I… accept your apology…?”

The other troll was quiet for a long moment, almost as if he were expecting something more to be said… Dictatious considered speaking again, but Angor beat him to it.

“Good.” Angor Rot eventually said, nodding slowly. “That’s all I wanted to say.”

... Just like that? All the terror he’d been holding onto, all the fear that Angor was going to do something terrible to him, it had been refuted just like that?

This didn’t make any sense. Where did Angor’s rage go? Why didn’t he do anything? He was supposed to react differently than this, it’s the only thing that would’ve made sense, it’s the only thing that Dictatious could logistically anticipate, so why, why didn’t Angor do anything?

He was so caught up in his own confusion, Dictatious almost didn’t notice that Angor’s footsteps were leaving the room.

“Wait…”

Angor slowed to a stop, once more giving Dictatious his attention.

It took Dictatious a second to realize that the voice that had just spoken was his own. His hands had again started to fidget with each other, and his eyes turned off to the side as he tried to come up with the proper words for this. “... You... you once asked me why I agreed to watch over you…” 

Angor Rot stared at him a moment, then turned around and took a step back inside. “That I did.”

“It’s... I just…” The words felt like they’d just catch in his throat and never come out. Dictatious’s eyes flicked from side to side, never looking directly Angor’s way as he tried to vocalize whatever was going through his head. “To be honest, at first, I... I wasn’t really sure why, myself. There wasn’t really a logical reason to agree to such an unpleasant arrangemen-” He cut himself off, biting his tongue at the poor choice of words he just used. But it was too late to backtrack, and besides, Dictatious was fairly sure Angor hadn’t been pleased with it at first, either. Clearing his throat, he continued. “But, I think…over time, I started to realize that I... I wanted to have some sort of purpose again. You gave me that, in more ways than I initially thought.”

Wringing his many hands like he was trying to physically squash out any nervousness, Dictatious’s eyes had pointed to the ground again. “I, erm... I’m not exactly… good at expressing it, but…” Sighing, he internally scolded himself to just spit it out already. “I am grateful for the things you did for me. You’ve helped me improve with so many things, and you…” He trailed off for a few moments, a glimpse of pain showing in his features for that short time, “You... you made me feel like I could do something more than just... sit around, hiding behind others, being useless... Like I could be something more than just a waste of space, and I just..."

I threw that away. 

For some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to finish that thought out loud. Clearing his throat, he tried to get to the point instead of rambling on like he had been. “... Well, I’m…” His gaze eventually made its way back to Angor’s general direction, a look of hesitation and perhaps a touch of embarrassment on his face. “I’m sorry, too…? For, er... belittling you, I suppose...” 

To a stranger, that last part may have sounded disingenuous. But Angor knows him well enough at this point that he’s started to recognize when this strange little troll is being sincere… or, at the very least, when he’s trying to be. That was a true effort on his part, one that Angor could greatly appreciate, and by the Gods was he relieved that Dictatious was finally being open with him.

“Thank you for telling me that.” Angor replied, his voice honest with gratitude. “That means very much to me.”

Dictatious again turned his gaze away, just nodding slightly in response.

Clearing his throat, he asked, “Does this mean we can go back to training together?”

Angor hummed quietly in thought, eventually replying, “I will consider it.”

Even from this distance, Angor could see Dictatious finally let go of some of the tension he’d been carrying. For a split second, he was sure he saw a look of relief cross the Conundrum’s face before he turned away, going back to shuffling his bedding.

Satisfied with this outcome, Angor Rot finally took his leave.

Apologizing doesn’t seem like something he’s good at, by any means, but Dictatious was... trying, in his own right. This was a good start.

Angor would definitely take that.

[papermoonloveslucy]

TIME: A CLOWN WITH GLAMOUR

May 26, 1952

TIME: The Weekly News Magazine ~ Lucille Ball: Prescription for TV; a clown with glamour.  May 26, 1952.  

On Monday evenings, more than 30 million Americans do the same thing at the same time: they tune in ‘I Love Lucy’ (9 p.m. E.D.T., CBS-TV), to get a look at a round-eyed, pink-haired comedienne named Lucille Ball.

An ex-model and longtime movie star (54 films in the past 20 years), Lucille Ball is currently the biggest success in television. In six months her low-comedy antics, ranging from mild mugging to baggy-pants clowning, have dethroned such veteran TV headliners as Milton Berle and Arthur Godfrey. One of the first to see the handwriting on the TV screen was funnyman Red Skelton, himself risen to TV's top ten. Last February, when he got the award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences as the top comic of the year, Skelton walked to the microphone and said flatly: "I don't deserve this. It should go to Lucille Ball."

By this week, the four national TV rating services (Nielsen, Trendex, American Research Bureau and Videodex) were in unaccustomed agreement: each of them rated ‘I Love Lucy’ as the nation's No. 1 TV show.

Lumps & Pratfalls. The television industry is not quite sure how it happened. When Lucy went on the air last October, it seemed to be just another series devoted to family comedy, not much better or much worse than ‘Burns and Allen’, ‘The Goldbergs’, ‘The Aldrich Family’ or ‘Mama’. Like its competitors, Lucy holds a somewhat grotesque mirror up to middle-class life, and finds its humor in exaggerating the commonplace incidents of marriage, business and the home. Lucille's Cuba-born husband, Desi Arnaz, is cast as the vain, easily flattered leader of an obscure rumba band. Lucille plays his ambitious wife, bubbling with elaborate and mostly ineffectual schemes to advance his career.

But what televiewers see on their screens is the sort of cheerful rowdiness that has been rare in the U.S. since the days of the silent movies' Keystone Comedies. Lucille submits enthusiastically to being hit with pies; she falls over furniture, gets locked in home freezers, is chased by knife-wielding fanatics. Tricked out as a ballerina or a Hindu maharanee or a toothless hillbilly, she takes her assorted lumps and pratfalls with unflagging zest and good humor. Her mobile, rubbery face reflects a limitless variety of emotions, from maniacal pleasure to sepulchral gloom. Even on a flickering, pallid TV screen, her wide-set saucer eyes beam with the massed candlepower of a lighthouse on a dark night.

What is her special talent? TV men credit Lucille with an unfailing instinct for timing. Producer-Writer Jess Oppenheimer says: "For every word you write in this business, you figure you're lucky to get back 70-80% from a performer. With Lucille, you get back 140%." Broadway's Oscar (’South Pacific’) Hammerstein II, hailing Lucille's control, calls her a "broad comedienne, but one who never goes over the line." To her manager, Don Sharpe, Lucille is "close to the Chaplin school of comedy—she's got warmth and sympathy, and people believe in her, even while they're laughing at her."

Western Mirage. Lucille explains that the TV show is important because "I'm a real ham and so is Desi. We like to have an audience. We like being up on our toes." But the show also allows her some time with her ten-month-old daughter, Lucie Desirée, and for the first time in eleven years of trouping, gives her a home life with husband Desi. Says she: "I look like everybody's idea of an actress, but I feel like a housewife. I think that's what my trouble was in movies."

Actress Ball was a long time arriving at the calm waters of motherhood and housewifery. The daughter of Henry and Desirée Hunt Ball, she was born in Jamestown, N.Y. (near Buffalo) at what she calls "an early age." Pressed, she will concede that it was quite a while ago: she admits to being 40. Her father was an electrician whose job of stringing telephone wires carried him around the country. When Lucille was four, he died of typhoid in Wyandotte, Mich.

Lucille spent her childhood in Jamestown (1920 pop. 38,917), but managed to see very little of it. Mostly, she inhabited a dream world peopled by glamorous alter egos. Sometimes she imagined herself to be a young lady of great poise named Sassafrassa, who combined the best features of Pearl White, Mabel Normand and Pola Negri. Another make-believe identity was Madeline, a beauteous cowgirl who emerged from the pages of Zane Grey's melodramatic novel, ‘The Light of Western Stars’. To get authentic background for Madeline, young Lucille corresponded with the chambers of commerce of Butte and Anaconda, Mont. She read and reread their publicity handouts until she felt she knew more about Montana than the people who lived there. It was the powerful spirit of Madeline that caused her for many years to claim Butte, Mont., as her birthplace. Only in the most recent edition of Who's Who did she finally, grudgingly admit to being born in Jamestown, N.Y.

Horrses to Warter. While she lived there, Lucille did her best to rid Jamestown of dullness. Sometimes she gilded reality by imagining that the family chicken coop was her palace ("The chickens would become my armies"). She remembers that she was always unmanageable in the spring. "I'd leave the classroom for a drink of water and never come back. I'd start walking toward what I thought was New York City and keep going until someone brought me home."

By the time she left high school at 14, she had staged virtually a one-man performance of ‘Charley's Aunt’ ("I played the lead, directed it, cast it, sold the tickets, printed the posters, and hauled furniture to the school for scenery and props"). In a Masonic musical revue, she put so much passion into an Apache dance that she threw one arm out of its socket. Jamestown citizens still remember her explosive personality with wonder: it took quite a while for the dust to settle in Jamestown when Lucille finally left for Manhattan at the age of 15.

Probably because of the dreamy mental state induced by Sassafrassa and Madeline, Lucille is not too clear about dates, events and people. In New York,

she headed straight for John Murray Anderson's dramatic school. At the sound of her voice ("I used to say 'horrses' and 'warter' "), her teacher clapped hands to his forehead. Anderson tactfully told Lucille's mother that her daughter should try another line of work. Lucille made a stab at being a secretary and a drugstore soda jerk, but found both occupations dull. She answered chorus calls for Broadway musicals with a marked lack of success. When she even lost a job in the chorus of the third road company of ‘Rio Rita’, a Ziegfeld aide told her: "It's no use, Montana. You're not meant for show business. Go home."

Periodically, Lucille did go home to Jamestown. But she returned again and again to the assault on New York. She managed to get into the chorus of ‘Stepping Stones’, and held on until the choreographer announced that she wanted only girls who could do toe work ("I couldn't even do heel work"). Lucille turned to modeling, progressed from the wholesale garment houses through department stores to the comparative eminence of Hattie Carnegie. She still has a warm feeling for people in the garment trade, because "they're the nearest thing to show business in the outside world. They're temperamental and jealous. I like them." She had a great many admirers. One of them, Britain's actor Hugh Sinclair, says: "She disarmed you. You saw this wonderful, glamorous creature, and in five minutes she had you roaring with laughter. She was gay, warmhearted and absolutely genuine."

As a model, Lucille called herself Diane Belmont, choosing her name in honor of Belmont Park Race Track, where fashion shows are sometimes staged. But it was another few years before Lucille finally got her break. She was walking up Broadway past the Palace Theater when she met agent Sylvia Hahlo coming down from the Goldwyn office. Sylvia grabbed her and cried breathlessly: "How would you like to go to California? They're sending a bunch of poster girls there for six weeks for a picture. One of the girls' mothers has refused to let her go."

$50 to $ 1,500. The movie was ‘Roman Scandals’, starring Eddie Cantor, and it was six months instead of six weeks in the making. Lucille was grimly determined to keep her foot in the Hollywood door. She got a succession of bit parts in such movies as ‘Moulin Rouge’ and ‘The Affairs of Cellini’, worked for three months with the roughhouse comics known as The Three Stooges ("It was one continuous bath of Vichy water and lemon meringue pie").

When RKO picked up her contract, she gradually emerged as a queen of B pictures, then began making program movies with comics Jack Oakie, Joe Penner and the Marx Brothers (’Room Service’). Her salary rose from $50 a week to $1,500 and her hair, already turned blonde from its original brown, now became a brilliant but indescribable shade that has been variously called ‘shocking pink' and 'strawberry orange.' While she was in ‘Dance, Girl, Dance’, and being hailed by Director Erich Pommer as a new 'find' (by then,

she had been playing in movies for six years), she met a brash, boyish young Cuban named Desi Arnaz.

Gold Initials. Desi had come to Hollywood to make the movie version of the Broadway hit, Too Many Girls. Taking one look at luscious (5 ft. 7 in., 130 Ibs.) Lucille, who was wearing a sweater and skirt, he cried: "Thass a honk o' woman!" and asked: "How would you like to learn the rumba, baby?" He took her for a ride in his blue convertible, with the gold initials on the door, and she shudderingly recalls that the only time the speedometer dipped below 100 m.p.h. was when he rounded a curve. On the way home, Desi hit a bump and, as Lucille tells it, a fender flew off. He simply flicked the ash from his Cuban cigarillo and sped on.

Lucille was as dazzled by his full name (Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y De Acha III) as by his history. The only child of a prosperous Cuban politician who had been mayor of Santiago and a member of the Cuban Senate, Desi had fled to Miami with his mother during the revolution of 1933. His father, a supporter of President Machado, was put in jail, and the Arnaz possessions disappeared in the revolution.

After six months, Desi's father was released from jail and rejoined his family in Miami, where he went into the export-import business. Desi, who was 16, enrolled in St. Patrick's High School (his closest friend was Al Capone's son Albert), and got a part-time job cleaning canary cages for a firm which sold birds to local drugstores. He soon found steadier work as a guitarist in a four-piece band incongruously called the Siboney Sextette. The critics agreed on Desi's meager musical gifts. "He was always off-beat," says theater owner Carlos Montalban. "But he's an awfully nice guy—a clean-cut Latin."

Conga Line. Whatever Desi had, it was something the public liked. He began beating a conga drum in Miami and soon nightclub audiences, from Florida to New York, were forming conga lines behind him. His good looks and unquenchable good humor interested producer George Abbott, who was searching for a Latin type to play a leading role in ‘Too Many Girls’. "Can you act?" asked Abbott. "Act?" answered Desi, expansively. "All my life, I act."

The courtship of Desi and Lucille was predictably stormy. Says a friend: "He's very jealous. She's very jealous—they're both very jealous." They were married in 1940, while Desi was leading his orchestra at the Roxy in New York and Lucille was between pictures in Hollywood. She flew in from the coast; they got up at 5 a.m. and drove to Connecticut, where they were married by a justice of the peace. Since they had no apartment, Desi compromised by carrying his bride across the threshold of his dressing room at the Roxy. Hollywood offered odds that the marriage would not last six weeks.

The marriage lasted better than six weeks, but after four years trouble blew. Desi kept moving about the country with his band, and Lucille, when not making pictures, mostly sat home alone. Their marriage was drifting on the rocks, and only World War II averted immediate shipwreck. Desi refused a commission in the Cuban army and was drafted into the U.S. infantry. He was moved on to Special Services, and spent much of the war shepherding USO troupes from one base to another.

In 1944, Lucille filed suit for divorce. She won an interlocutory decree but never got around to filing for her final papers. The reason: she and Desi were in the midst of a new reconciliation. But all the old difficulties remained. Lucille would sit night after night at the clubs where Desi's band was playing, but that resulted in rings under her eyes rather than a new intimacy. She tried cutting down on her movie work by starring in a CBS radio show called ‘My Favorite Husband’, and Desi also took a flyer at radio. They worked out a vaudeville act and toured U.S. theaters with their new routines.

Lucille credits Desi with being the one who was willing to take a chance on TV. "He's a Cuban," she says, "and all Cubans gamble. They'll bet you which way the tide is going and give you first pick." But it was a real gamble. Movie exhibitors do not look kindly upon movie stars who desert to the enemy. If the show flopped, Lucille would have no place to crawl back to. They told CBS that they would give television a try only if both of them could be on the same show. At first, they wanted to play themselves. They compromised by turning Desi into Ricky Ricardo, a struggling young bandleader, and letting Lucille fulfill her lifelong ambition of playing a housewife.

The decision to film the show also made CBS bigwigs uneasy. It would cost four times as much as a live show, and the only interested sponsor, Philip Morris, wasn't prepared to go that high. Again there was a compromise. Desi and Lucille agreed to take a smaller salary in return for producing the show and keeping title to the films.

Real Plumbing. Long years in the practical business of orchestra leading had given Desi considerable organizing ability and business sense. He set up Desilu Productions (Desi president, Lucille vice president), and leased a sound stage from an independent Los Angeles studio. Because Lucille was ‘dead' without an audience, a side wall of the studio was knocked out to make a street entrance, and seats installed for an audience of 300. When a show is ready for the cameras, the audience laughter is picked up on overhead microphones and used in the final print.

Though ‘I Love Lucy’ is filmed, it is more like a play than a movie. All of the lines and action are memorized and, whenever possible, the show is played straight through from beginning to end, and not shot in a number of unrelated scenes. The action takes place on four sets; two of them represent the Ricardos' Manhattan apartment, a third shows the nightclub where Ricky's band plays and the fourth is used for any other scenes called for by the script. Says Desi proudly: "We have real furniture, real plumbing, and a real kitchen where we serve real food. Even the plants are really growing; they're not phony."

Desilu Productions hired a pair of veteran troupers, William Frawley and Vivian Vance, to play the family next door and serve as foils and friends for Desi and Lucille. Academy Award-winning Karl (’The Good Earth’) Freund supervises the three cameras, and Director Marc Daniels (soon to be replaced by Bill Asher) gives Lucy its rattling pace. The writers—Jess Oppenheimer, Bill Carroll and Madalyn Pugh—turn out scripts that do not impose too much on the audience's credulity and are reasonably free of clichés. The writers are held in an esteem not common in TV. Lucille bombards Jess Oppenheimer with photographs flatteringly inscribed to "the Boss Man," and Desi has presented him with a statuette of a baseball player and a punning tribute, "To the man behind the ball."

"Wanta Play Cards?" Desi and Lucille live an unpretentious life on a five-acre ranch in the San Fernando Valley. The only Hollywood note is a kidney-shaped swimming pool, and the most recent addition to the house (a wing devoted to daughter Lucie and her nurse) cost $22,000—more than the house and land cost originally. Neither Desi nor Lucille has ever been socially ambitious, and their friends are the same ones they have known for years. Both Desi's mother (now divorced from Arnaz Sr., who still lives in Miami) and Lucille's Mom live nearby.

At home, Lucille, who collects stray cats and dogs, is an amateur painter ("I use oils because it's easier to correct mistakes than with water colors"), and generally considers herself a lazy, lounging homebody. She is fascinated by Desi's boundless energy.' He spends weekends fishing on his 34-foot cabin cruiser, Desilu; plays violent tennis; likes to cook elaborate dishes. Says Lucille: "Everything is fine with him all the time. Wanta play cards? Fine. Play games? Fine. go for a swim? Great." There's only one problem: "Desi is a great thermostat sneaker-upper and I'm a thermostat sneaker-downer. Cold is the one thing that isn't great with him."

Sex & Chic. Though life has grown noticeably more placid for Desi and Lucille, it promises more money than they ever made before. Desilu Productions has already branched out beyond ‘I Love Lucy’. It is filming TV commercials for Red Skelton, and is at work on a new TV series, ‘Our Miss Brooks’, starring Eve Arden. Three of the best 30-minute Lucy shows are being put together in a package and will be experimentally released to movie theaters in the U.S. and Latin America. This year, ‘I Love Lucy’ has grossed about $1,000,000, and sponsor Philip Morris has signed a contract for 39 more shows beginning this fall. All of the old Lucy films can be sold again as new TV stations go on the air (eventually there will be 2,053 TV transmitters in the U.S., compared to today's 108).

In reaching the TV top, Lucille's telegenic good looks may be almost as important as her talent for comedy. She is sultry-voiced, sexy, and wears chic clothes with all the aplomb of a trained model and showgirl. Letters from her feminine fans show as much interest in Lucille's fashions as in her slapstick. Most successful comediennes (e.g., Imogene Coca, Fanny Brice, Beatrice Lillie) have made comic capital out of their physical appearance. Lucille belongs to a rare comic aristocracy: the clown with glamour.

[arcticdementor]

I think I've had discussions w/enough Boomer-tier Trump supporters who believe the 2020 election was fraudulent to extract a general theory about their perspective. It is also the perspective of most of the people at the Capitol on 1/6, and probably even Trump himself. 

…

Here are the facts - actual, confirmed facts - that shape their perspective: 1) The FBI/etc spied on the 2016 Trump campaign using evidence manufactured by the Clinton campaign. We now know that all involved knew it was fake from Day 1 (see: Brennan's July 2016 memo, etc). 3/x

These are Tea Party people. The types who give their kids a pocket Constitution for their birthday and have Founding Fathers memes in their bios. The intel community spying on a presidential campaign using fake evidence (incl forged documents) is a big deal to them. 4/x

Everyone involved lied about their involvement as long as they could. We only learned the DNC paid for the manufactured evidence because of a court order. Comey denied on TV knowing the DNC paid for it, when we have emails from a year earlier proving that he knew. 5/x

This was true with everyone, from CIA Dir Brennan & Adam Schiff - who were on TV saying they'd seen clear evidence of collusion w/Russia, while admitting under oath behind closed doors that they hadn't - all the way down the line. In the end we learned that it was ALL fake. 6/x

At first, many Trump ppl were worried there must be some collusion, because every media & intel agency wouldn't make it up out of nothing. When it was clear that they had made it up, people expected a reckoning, and shed many illusions about their gov't when it didn't happen. 7/x

We know as fact: a) The Steele dossier was the sole evidence used to justify spying on the Trump campaign, b) The FBI knew the Steele dossier was a DNC op, c) Steele's source told the FBI the info was unserious, d) they did not inform the court of any of this and kept spying. 8/x

Trump supporters know the collusion case front and back. They went from worrying the collusion must be real, to suspecting it might be fake, to realizing it was a scam, then watched as every institution - agencies, the press, Congress, academia - gaslit them for another year. 9/x

Worse, collusion was used to scare people away from working in the administration. They knew their entire lives would be investigated. Many quit because they were being bankrupted by legal fees. The DoJ, press, & gov't destroyed lives and actively subverted an elected admin. 10/x

This is where people whose political identity was largely defined by a naive belief in what they learned in Civics class began to see the outline of a Regime that crossed all institutional boundaries. Because it had stepped out of the shadows to unite against an interloper. 11/x

GOP propaganda still has many of them thinking in terms of partisan binaries, but A LOT of Trump supporters see that the Regime is not partisan. They all know that the same institutions would have taken opposite sides if it was a Tulsi Gabbard vs Jeb Bush election. 12/x

It's hard to describe to people on the left (who are used to thinking of gov't as a conspiracy... Watergate, COINTELPRO, WMD, etc) how shocking & disillusioning this was for people who encourage their sons to enlist in the Army, and hate ppl who don't stand for the Anthem. 13/x

They could have managed the shock if it only involved the government. But the behavior of the corporate press is really what radicalized them. They hate journalists more than they hate any politician or gov't official, because they feel most betrayed by them. 14/x

The idea that the press is driven by ratings/sensationalism became untenable. If that were true, they'd be all over the Epstein story. The corporate press is the propaganda arm of the Regime they now see in outline. Nothing anyone says will ever make them unsee that, period. 15/x

This is profoundly disorienting. Many of them don't know for certain whether ballots were faked in November 2020, but they know for absolute certain that the press, the FBI, etc would lie to them if there was. They have every reason to believe that, and it's probably true. 16/x

They watched the press behave like animals for four years. Tens of millions of people will always see Kavanaugh as a gang rapist, based on nothing, because of CNN. And CNN seems proud of that. They led a lynch mob against a high school kid. They cheered on a summer of riots. 17/x

They always claimed the media had liberal bias, fine, whatever. They still thought the press would admit truth if they were cornered. Now they don't. It's a different thing to watch them invent stories whole cloth in order to destroy regular lives and spark mass violence. 18/x

Time Mag told us that during the 2020 riots, there were weekly conference calls involving, among others, leaders of the protests, the local officials who refused to stop them, and media people who framed them for political effect. In Ukraine we call that a color revolution.

…

Then you get the Hunter laptop scandal. Big Tech ran a full-on censorship campaign against a major newspaper to protect a political candidate. Period. Everyone knows it, all of the Tech companies now admit it was a "mistake" - but, ya know, the election's over, so who cares?

…

Think back: Stories about Trump being pissed on by Russian prostitutes and blackmailed by Putin were promoted as fact, and the only evidence was a document paid for by his opposition and disavowed by its source. The NY Post was banned for reporting on true information. 24/x

The reaction of Trump ppl to all this was not, "no fair!" That's how they felt about Romney's "binders of women" in 2012. This is different. Now they see, correctly, that every institution is captured by ppl who will use any means to exclude them from the political process. 25/x

And yet they showed up in record numbers to vote. He got 13m more votes than in 2016, 10m more than Clinton got! As election night dragged on, they allowed themselves some hope. But when the four critical swing states (and only those states) went dark at midnight, they knew.

…

Media & Tech did everything to make things worse. Everything about the election was strange - the changes to procedure, unprecedented mail-in voting, the delays, etc - but rather than admit that and make everything transparent, they banned discussion of it (even in DMs!). 28/x

Everyone knows that, just as Don Jr's laptop would've been the story of the century, if everything about the election dispute was the same, except the parties were reversed, suspicions about the outcome would've been Taken Very Seriously. See 2016 for proof. 29/x

Even the courts' refusal of the case gets nowhere w/them, because of how the opposition embraced mass political violence. They'll say, w/good reason: What judge will stick his neck out for Trump knowing he'll be destroyed in the media as a violent mob burns down his house? 30/x

It's a fact, according to Time Magazine, that mass riots were planned in cities across the country if Trump won. Sure, they were "protests", but they were planned by the same people as during the summer, and everyone knows what it would have meant. Judges have families, too. 31/x

Forget the ballot conspiracies. It's a fact that governors used COVID to unconstitutionally alter election procedures (the Constitution states that only legislatures can do so) to help Biden to make up for a massive enthusiasm gap by gaming the mail-in ballot system. 32/x

They knew it was unconstitutional, it's right there in plain English. But they knew the cases wouldn't see court until after the election. And what judge will toss millions of ballots because a governor broke the rules? The threat of mass riots wasn't implied, it was direct. 33/x

a) The entrenched bureaucracy & security state subverted Trump from Day 1, b) The press is part of the operation, c) Election rules were changed, d) Big Tech censors opposition, e) Political violence is legitimized & encouraged, f) Trump is banned from social media. 34/x

They were led down some rabbit holes, but they are absolutely right that their gov't is monopolized by a Regime that believes they are beneath representation, and will observe no limits to keep them getting it. Trump fans should be happy he lost; it might've kept him alive. /end

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: Jeb Bishop

Photo by Peter Gannushkin

Trombonist Jeb Bishop lives in Boston, where he is an essential contributor to the local improvising music community. But he has been active, locally and internationally, on various scenes since the 1980s, when he played various instruments for a handful of rock bands in North Carolina. Between 1992 and 2012, he was an essential participant in Chicago’s revenant improvisational music community, during which time he established enduring relationships with Weasel Walter, Fred Lonberg-Holm and Ken Vandermark. After a few years back in North Carolina, he relocated to Boston, but since the 1990s he has also spent considerable time playing with European musicians. Jeb Bishop Centrifugal Trio (Astral Spirits), his most recording as a leader, is a completely improvised session with a German rhythm section of which Bill Meyer wrote, “The trio’s music is freely improvised, but their shared commitment to linear development and bold expression makes it sound like one very solid set of composed tunes.” Bishop has also made great records in the past year with Clucas / Bishop / Smith / Crane, Blonk / Bishop / Smith / Walter, and Cutout.

Here’s a selection of things I’ve been paying attention to, or returning to, since the beginning of the COVID era:

Buddhist Chant: A Recorded Survey Of Actual Temple Rituals — (Lyrichord LLST 7118)

Two-LP set of recordings of chants from Buddhist temple services in Kyoto. Beautiful graphic design. I’m not sure what it means for me, in my living room in Boston, to listen to something like this so removed from its functional role in a completely different cultural setting. But I like to put the track “Chanting of Morning Services” on in the morning while having tea. The accelerating bell ringing at the beginning of that track always reminds me of the guitar at the beginning of “Liars Beware” by Richard Hell and the Voidoids.

Sonny Rollins/Don Cherry/Bob Cranshaw/Billy Higgins — Complete Live at the Village Gate 1962 (Solar)

Music from the year I was born — a minor fixation of mine. In a certain mood, I feel like you could raise the same question (see #1) about this. A project for the upcoming winter is to do some detailed side-by-side listening to this and the Miles Davis Live at the Plugged Nickel box. My sense right now is that the dramatic contrasts in this are more pronounced than in the Miles box. There’s something about both of them that makes me think of the musicians as dramatis personae and the music as a constantly unfolding stage production. For years I’ve been trying to find the key to emulating Don Cherry’s approach to soloing in this kind of context, but I don’t feel any closer to figuring it out. As Steve Lacy says about Cherry in Derek Bailey’s book Improvisation: “His playing was really free.”

Mia Dyberg Trio — “Ticket!” (Clean Feed)

Mia Dyberg and I played together as part of a group during an evening of improvisation in Berlin in late September 2019. I got this CD from her then and have been listening to it on and off since. I like it when people find a way to make shorter, focused tracks in this music (this one has 14 tracks), maybe because I am not good at that. I also like the sense of development over the course of this CD.

Assata Shakur — Assata: An Autobiography(Lawrence Hill Books)

The cops and FBI tried to do to Assata Shakur what they did to Fred Hampton: murder her for being a radical Black political activist. Fortunately they didn’t succeed. But this book is about much more than that – it’s a wonderfully written story of an American life from early childhood on. There’s focused, justified rage at the injustice of our racist society, but there is also a sense of hope, beauty, and even humor.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder — Berlin Alexanderplatz

A lockdown winter is a great time to catch up on Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 14-part made-for-TV epic. The last episode is a mind-bending feature film all by itself.

Farida Amadou — 00:29:10:02 (19 mars productions)

00:29:10:02 by Farida Amadou

I got to see Belgian bass guitarist Farida Amadou play several sets in September 2019, at festivals in Antwerp and Mulhouse. Her recent solo release is raw and fascinating.

Tashi Dorji — Stateless (Drag City)

Stateless by Tashi Dorji

This is every bit as great as everyone is saying. If you’ll excuse the humblebrag, I’m proud to have helped put together the program of Dorji playing solo, followed by Paal Nilssen-Love’s Large Unit, for a show at King’s in Raleigh NC, when we were living down there a few years ago.

Werner Herzog — Herzog on Herzog: Conversations with Paul Cronin (Faber and Faber)

300 pages of interviews with the director. Some amazing stories and provocative thoughts about his craft (he dislikes being called an artist)

Eliot Cardinaux / Our Hearts as Thieves — “What the Wildflower Witnessed”

I met pianist/poet Eliot Cardinaux not long after moving to Boston. We did some playing together and, since he was living around the corner at the time, some good listening/talking sessions. I’ll confess that combining poetry and improvised music usually raises a red flag for me, which makes me admire all the more the strength of the solutions Eliot has found. I think his success at it comes down to the fact that his sense of how and when to deploy poetry in a musical situation is governed by his improviser’s sense of form, timing, and timbre. (His liner notes to Our Hearts as Thieves also address the question.)

Anyway, these two CDs and Around the Faded Sun, a collection of poetry (some of which shows up on the CDs,) are, taken together, a wonderful showcase for his work, or introduction to it. Our Hearts as Thieves is a really distinctive set of free improvisation, while A Living Past features his compositions, looking back in a way to his previous involvement with some part of the NYC jazz community. These recordings feature bassist Asger Thomsen, who also appears on the Mia Dyberg Trio CD.

[mercheswan]

Dig a Little Deeper

Thanks for the tag @impractical-matters ❤️. Sorry I didn’t do it sooner, last week I went to the beach with my family and I didn’t pack the computer. To do this type of long tag games I need it 😅

1. do you prefer writing with a black pen or a blue pen? I use blue pen 90% of the times.

2. would you prefer to live in the country or in the city? City 100000000%. I can’t help it... the countryside and me do not get along well haha

3. if you could learn a new skill, what would it be? I would to know how to play an instrument. Guitar or piano.

4. do you drink your tea/coffee with sugar? Oh! I drink sugar with tea yes 😊. (Yep, I wrote it right 😂)

5. what was your favorite book as a child? Ohh I was never a big fan of reading, but I loved a book series called Lilli the Witch (in Spanish the girl’s name was Kika, I’ve just discovered that she had a different name in every country and I’m looking at my books with a sad and betrayed face haha. Why did you lie to me about your name Kika! Why!?)

6. do you prefer baths or showers? Oh I remember the moment my parents told me that I was old enough to take showers haha. I hated them! And now I don’t recall the last time I took a bath, I alway shower because it’s faster.

7. if you could be a mythical creature, which one would you be? I would like to be a witch, because I like the idea of being able to do magic.

8. paper or electronic books? I can do both. If it’s to study and memorise them I need them in paper though.

9. what is your favorite item of clothing? Dark blue jeans.

10. do you like your name? would you like to change it? I love my name. It’s my mom’s name and when I have a baby girl I would like to call her Mercedes too. It’s kinda a tradition in my family.

11. who is a mentor to you? Oh... well at the moment, I guess it would be my private tutor for the Judge exam. He is the one who controls that I study and who prepares me to pass the exam.

12. would you like to be famous? if so, what for? I do haha, I guess everyone does in some way. I would love to live the celebrity life, like a singer or an actress... but I don’t think I’m very talented for that so... 😂.

Maybe I would like to be “famous” when I become a judge because of one of my sentences. Like doing something meaningfull that could change something for the better because of it, I don’t know...

13. are you a restless sleeper? Yep haha I have trouble sleeping. I have always had.

14. do you consider yourself to be a romantic person? In a way... the problem is that I’m not very affectionate. I don’t usually do hugs and holding hands and stuff like that haha. So I guess I can look like a cold person from the outside, but deep inside I do want a love story that fills me, and someone to share my life with.

15. which element best represents you? Water. It can be cold or hot, calm or agressive. I don’t know I have always liked water more than the rest.

16. who do you want to be closer to? I guess my family, I’m very close to them, my family is my everything, they are the people I love the most in the world.

17. do you miss someone at the moment? I really don’t, I’m lucky to be able to talk or visit the people who mean the most to me.

18. tell us about an early childhood memory. I remember playing with my little brother in the living room. We have two big sofas and we used to take the cushions that they had and create a fort with them. Playing also the floor is lava and jumping form one sofa to the other.

19. what is the strangest thing you have eaten?  Cocodrile, Zebra and Kangaroo.

20. what are you most thankful for? My family.

21. do you like spicy food? Nop. I hate it haha

22. have you ever met someone famous? Well... I have met famous people in Spain, like some reality TV people and also Politicians and Judges from the Spainish Suprem Court.

I also when to a CD signing of Ashley Tisdale (I’m a big fan of High School Músical 😂), i managed to get a photo with her. And I do have a CD signed of Miley Cyrus and her father.

23. do you keep a diary or journal? No, I tried once but didn’t last a week.

24. do you prefer to use pen or pencil? It depends. If it’s to take notes on the side of a book, it has to be pencil. If it’s to write in a paper, I use pen.

25. what is your star sign? Gemini

26. do you like your cereal crunchy or soggy? Crunchy!

27. what would you want your legacy to be? As I said in Q12, in the profesional department I would like to be recognised as a judge who helped make my country a little bit more fair.

I also want to be a mother someday, I would want my children to remember me fondly.

28. do you like reading? What was the last book you read? As my life consist on memorising and readings laws all the time, I don’t really read novels, only fanfiction 😂🤷🏻‍♀️

29. how do you show someone you love them? I tell them or do things for them, try to help them in any way I can.

30. do you like ice in your drinks? Yesss

31. what are you afraid of? Spiders. Like... terrified.

32. what is your favorite scent? Vanilla

33. do you address older people by their name or surname? In Spain we use (or at least I do) the word “Usted”. In English the word “you”, can be translated in Spanish as “Tú” which is informal or “Usted” which is formal and commonly used to address older people.

We also use the word “Don” if it’s a male or “Doña” if it’s a woman, followed by the name (ex: Don Fernando) to adress people in a more formal way. I used to call my college teachers using the Don/Doña + Name formula 😂.

34. if money was not a factor, how would you live your life? I would buy a big house. I would stop studying and create a law firm (I would still want to do something and help people with their legal issues)

But I would live the good life... hahah traveling, buying expensive things... 💁🏻‍♀️

35. do you prefer swimming in pools or the ocean? In pools. I’m not afraid of water but I can see that the ocean it’s more dangerous than a pool.

36. what would you do if you found $50 in the ground? It depends. If I know the person who lot then I would return it. If I don’t I would keep them haha

37. have you ever seen a shooting star? did you make a wish? I don’t think I have... ive seen rainbows... 🤷🏻‍♀️🌈

38. what is one thing you would want to teach your children? I don’t know... I would tech them to be responsible and good people.

39. if you had to have a tattoo, what would it be and where would you get it? I don’t like tattoos for me, so it would be something very little in the feet haha

40. what can you hear now? The shower. My brother is in it and my room is near to it.

41. where do you feel the safest? In my house.

42. what is one thing you want to overcome/conquer? I want to be a little bit less shy... like try and get out more and do more plans so si can meet new people.

43. if you could travel back to any era, what would it be? Umm. Ancient Rome, I have studied it a lot in School and in College (we study roman law because it’s the base from Spanish and many European countries’s law) and I have always been fascinated by it.

44. what is your most used emoji? 😊

45. describe yourself using one word. Honest

46. what do you regret the most? I don’t really regret anything to the point of being very sad that I didn’t do something. Maybe... not fighting to keep a friendship, but the other part didn’t fight either so...

47. last movie you saw? Ironman 2!

48. last tv show you watched? The Vampire Diaries.

49. invent a word and its meaning. Rebozeision - Action that consist of, while being in bed, covering with a blanket creating a burrito with you in it, and rolling from one side to the bed to the other. Usually done in the mornings, while trying to accept the fact that you have to get up.

I tag @sunel0 @msmischief101 @thiamislove18 (ignore it if you don’t want to or have already done it!) and whoever wants to do it! ✌🏻

[copperhawks]

Asexual Constant and why he means the World to me: Part 1

Constant didn’t see why that made a difference. How were Sav and Don’s heart troubles any different from Constant’s heart troubles when Daine was missing, or when he saw Sav sad for their dead parents, or when he felt lonely and lost? All those things hurt his heart. They were big too, they mattered too.

There are a few signs early on that Constant is asexual/aromantic/aspec, but in chapters 18 and 19, this becomes pretty explicit.

First, is this piece of internal musing from Constant in chapter 18.

Daine tells him that Sav often gets really mean when he’s “heartsore” and Constant can’t understand why. He says that HE doesn’t get mean while he’s “heartsore” so why would Sav. All Daine offers is that it’s “different.”

And to be honest, even without the asexuality, Constant’s RIGHT. There are obviously differences in how platonic love, familial love, and romantic love express themselves and how they effect people and their relationships. But the INTENSITY of each love can be entirely equal. The love you feel for your mother, your best friend, and your romantic partner can all be the exact same level of intensity.

Sav’s meanness when he’s heartsore over Don isn’t explicitly due to it being of a romantic nature. It’s far more complex than that, relating to how his relationship to Don even came about, what their relationship was outside to it becoming romantic, and what it’s become since both of those relationships ended. It has a lot more to do with what Sav thinks of himself and how his relationships to Don have shaped that. His relationship to Don is COMPLICATED, to say the least, even before the green hair and unsuccessful exile. His meanness over it stems from that complexity, not just because it’s romantic.

Constant’s confusion over is just so intensely relatable to someone who grew up not really getting the whole Thing over romance, at least in real life. I had no problems watching rom coms and reading books with romance in them and got really excited when two characters who were clearly feeling feelings for each other finally were allowed to kiss. But in real life? Was I supposed to be DOING something to acquire those feelings or were they just supposed to come to me? Were the feelings I had when I was around my friends potentially romantic or not? Had I ever felt it and I just didn’t know what it was, so it had passed me by?

Figuring out you’re ace, for me, meant living in a world of constant (ha) confusion for a while and just... having to play act for a while until a few things came across my attention on social media and helped me understand what asexuality even meant and the variations that came within it etc etc.

Asexuality isn’t a thing that’s really ever DISCUSSED and it certainly never made its way into media I had available growing up as a child. I read Tamora Pierce books where everyone had a love interest they got together with at the end and possibly multiple love interests within one series. The one person who didn’t end up with someone still had crushes she could identify as crushes and slept with one of them before she was 18, all experiences I couldn’t really say that I had. So even though Kel has now been WOG’d as aroace, when I first read her series, she still fell into the same molds as the other Pierce characters had. And I mean, I didn’t have the WORDS to even be able to headcanon her as asexual/aromantic back then, so it just seemed progressive for her not to end up with anyone by the end of the novel, but that we were supposed to assume that, within a few years, she probably would, once she found the right person.

At no point does she have thoughts like the ones Constant expresses above, at least, not that I can remember. She doesn’t really question sex or romance, though she arguably has somewhat less of it than Alanna or Daine did during their books.

And it’s CONSTANT that gets me.

Hard.

Because wow do those words hit home for me. He’s not naive, or ignorant, he just... doesn’t get it. Because he doesn’t feel the same way, he can’t feel the DIFFERENCE between the different loves he’s felt for various people in his life. One is not arguably stronger than another unless he just... knows them a little better or has spent more time with them. But he’d probably say that he loves Daine and Sav equally even though, from what we know of Sav and Daine’s early lives, he’s probably spent far more time with Daine than he has with Sav.

And I just... when this chapter was published and I read those words, I think I melted. I felt like crying a little. I feel like crying now as I write this and this is gonna become a whole ass rambling essay about why I love asexual Constant so much.

I’ve seen a few pieces of media as I’ve gotten older that include asexual characters explicitly (the Shadowhunters TV show and the book Belle Revolte are two that immediately come to mind) but it’s by no means a long list and aside from Shadowhunters, none of them are mainstream. I hope that some kid somewhere was watching the episode where Raphael Santiago confesses that he’s asexual and the woman he’s in a relationship with (who is NOT asexual) listens politely and accepts him for who he is and gives him a hug at the end. They break up eventually, but it’s not because of his asexuality. I hope that kid heard Raphael Santiago talk about how he felt and went “oh wow, that’s exactly how I feel, it’s A REAL THING.” I wish I’d been able to BE that kid.

Asexuality is becoming more widely known among the LGBTQ+ community and within online fandoms and it’s not hard to find headcanons that see characters from popular media as ace/aro/aroace/aspec. And it is showing up in some queer YA media (see earlier example of Belle Revolte as well as Samantha Shannon’s Bone Season series). And that’s GREAT, it’s so awesome to see knowledge of this sexuality becoming more commonplace because it means more and more exposure to people who might not otherwise have a way to figure out what their feelings even MEAN.

Constant is not alone, by any means. But I think it almost means MORE to me that he’s an original character than if one of the canon characters had been made into an aspec character (which is a completely valid choice!), partially because... I didn’t expect it. At all. I didn’t expect to click the link for Chapter 18 and see my own mid to late teen years reflected back at me in one short paragraph. I didn’t expect to see it in a 14 year old boy whose main passion in life is hawks.

Constant and I don’t necessarily share a LOT in common: I do not have a passion for hawks (though I think they are wonderful and beautiful animals), both of my parents are very much alive and I know that they love me, I am not a younger child, I was not born to a specific responsibility of leadership I know I’ll one day have to take over.

But in this, we are reflections of each other. In a way I don’t know that I had ever felt reflected by a character before. He makes me cry. A lot.

Dee, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to thank you enough for Constant. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to truly adequately explain what he means to me. But thank you. He means the world to me.

[monotonous-minutia]

My super long autobiographical essay recounting the harrowing tale of my experience with my favorite opera

So I think it’s about time the world knows the story of my experience with Don Carlo, specifically, the Met 2010 production that will be streaming Thursday night. It’s a long story and some of it is ridiculous and half the time people don’t believe me when I tell them about it, but if you’re interested in my nerdy ramblings, read on.

On February 27th, 2010, my dad turned on the radio in the living room thinking noon would be a good time to hear the news. Instead of the NPR news anchors, however, we heard the sound of a tenor singing, a strong orchestral accompaniment, and the sounds of a live audience reacting.

“It’s an opera!” I said. (For curious parties, it was La Boheme.)

I was 14. I was a nerd. I was in love.

Up until that point I’d heard a few operas (Zauberflote, Barbiere, Carmen, Nozze) because my mom randomly brought them home from the library. From the moment I first heard the opening chords to the Zauberflote overture, I was madly, ridiculously, insufferably in love.

Tuning in at noon on Saturdays became my new favorite thing. “Live from the Met” broadcast a live performance each week of one of the Met’s shows. I loved not only hearing the operas, but the commentary as well. I learned so much about the genre, as well as history, music theory, literary criticism, acting, and the life of a singer. I dedicated an entire journal to writing notes on what I heard each week. Yes, I was that nerd.

I found out the hard way that operas have seasons. One sad day in May I tuned into NPR at noon and, tragically, the voices of news anchors met my ears.

I wasn’t always able to listen to the entire opera each week, because I had four cats and three annoying brothers to take care of. (Two of the brothers were older than me. Figure that.) I’d missed the announcement that the season was over.

So I waited all summer. I was still listening to operas, but I missed the hosts and the interviews. Plus, I didn’t have access to the Internet, so finding new operas on my own meant relying on my library’s tiny collection. Hearing them on the radio let me hear a new one every week.

After several boring months, I finally heard the news that the first opera of the broadcast season was going to be on December 18th. The opera? Don Carlo.

Two important facts to know right now. 1) There are many different versions of this opera. 2) The opera can be up to 4 hours long.

The one I heard on this day, December 18th, 2010, was the “five-act Italian version with the shortened first act.” About 3.5 hours long, it begins with an exhilarating fanfare that does a terrible job of telling us what the opera is going to be like. Listening to that music--the burst of horns and strings--I actually cried because I was so excited.

I told you. Nerd.

The story of Don Carlo is really complex, but if you’re taking the time to read this and have come this far you probably know at least a bit about it. Because I wasn’t able to sit and listen to the whole thing, just bits and pieces, the day ended with me knowing the following things.

1) Carlo is a prince who is in love with Elizabeth, who then gets betrothed to his father.

2) Carlo’s best friend (Rodrigo) is a baritone which automatically made him more interesting than the lead, and was also a revolutionary who was so firey he was in danger with someone called the Grand Inquisitor

3) Princess Eboli loves Carlo and is enraged when she finds out he’s in love with his mother and Rodrigo almost stabs her

4) Carlo tries to stop some Flemmish people from being burned at the stake but is stopped himself when Rodrigo takes his sword.

And that’s where I left off.

Again, no Internet access, so I wasn’t able to look up a summary and find the ending. So I waited around for days wondering what happened next. I was especially concerned about Carlo and Rodrigo’s relationship, which was (and still is) my favorite part of the opera.

On Christmas I got a book that was full of detailed summaries of famous operas. The good news: Don Carlo was considered famous. The bad news: I read that my favorite character died and spent the next hour or so locked in my room trying unsuccessfully not to cry.

I got a few operas for Christmas as well, so when I decided I had to see or hear Don Carlo in its entirety, it got put at the bottom of the list, because I’m borderline OCD (seriously, my diagnosis is literally “borderline OCD”) and couldn’t mess up the order of things. Since I was also listening to the Saturday operas, as well as taking a lot of time to process each on my list as it came along, it was almost spring before I finally got to Don Carlo.

In the meantime, I couldn’t get the opera out of my head. For one thing, as anyone who’s seen it knows, it’s the kind of opera that just grabs you and won’t let you go. For another, in a bizarre series of events, it literally popped up almost everywhere I looked. Open to a random page in my opera book? See a reference to Don Carlo. Tune into the  “Live from the Met” broadcasts? Somebody mentions Don Carlo. Grab the closest volume from a 7-book collection of Schiller plays? It’s the one that has Don Carlo. Find a random copy of the Met’s opera magazine on the free table at the library? It’s the issue that has the review for, and a dozen glorious pictures of, the Don Carlo performance I’d heard on the radio. I looked at those pictures a lot. Finally I had faces to match the voices of the singers I’d heard.

In a crazy coincidence, it was the first week in April of 2011 that the next event occurred. I engaged in some poor planning and finally checked out a CD recording of Don Carlo the day before our yearly family trip. I didn’t have any time to listen to it and I knew it was going to bother me the entire week.

We took the 13-hour drive to visit my grandparents, and at my mom’s parents’ house, somebody randomly turned on the TV. My grandparents watch a lot of PBS so that’s what was on. And what was on?

The Met’s 2010 production of Don Carlo.

I died about a million times.

It took me a while to figure out what it was; I hadn’t heard it all the way through yet, so the music wasn’t familiar to me. But after watching for a minute, I realized that the actors all looked familiar to me. I was watching Simon Keenlyside as Rodrigo hand Marina Poplavskaya’s Elizabetta a letter. When she opened it and read the name “Carlo,” my head exploded.

What are the odds that when someone randomly turned the TV on that the opera I’d been dying to see just happened to be on? And not only the same opera, but the exact same production I’d listened to live four months ago?

Of course I couldn’t watch the whole thing because we had family stuff to do, which was probably okay in the long run, because I can’t imagine people’s reactions if I started bawling watching Rodrigo die, which may very well (as in totally) would have happened.

Life goes on. I listened to the Don Carlo CD and cried, got a DVD of the Met’s 1986 Don Carlo and cried, looked at the pictures in my magazine and cried. The broadcast season of “Live from the Met” ended and I cried. I was a very emotional teen. (Keep in mind I was home-schooled by agoraphobic parents and literally had no friends. The radio was my friend.)

Two years later I was in college. Sophomore year I started spending breaks on campus to avoid my abusive family. I still didn’t have any friends, but I did finally have access to the Internet, in addition to listening to the Saturday operas whenever I didn’t have homework. I had also watched the Royal Opera House’s version of the same Don Carlo production, which someone had posted on YouTube. This was back when YouTube still had a time limit on videos that were posted, so the opera was broken into about forty pieces and none of them were listed in order. I probably spent more time piecing the thing together than actually watching it.

On a day during sophomore winter break, I was particularly bored. I decided to listen to the advice of the Met hosts and signed up for the 7-day free trial of Met Opera on Demand, their version of Netflix.

And of course the first opera that popped up on the screen was Don Carlo.

I died another million times.

I watched it twice in the span of 24 hours. I may have taken some screen shots. I felt like a criminal, but I also felt like I deserved it at this point. This whole thing was just bizarre and I couldn’t be happier that I was finally seeing the production of the opera that had been following me around for the past four years.

About a year later I took a study abroad trip to Germany. And because I was in Germany, I had to see an opera, of course. We had one free weekend during the month-long trip, and while my classmates were off getting high in Amsterdam, I took a train to Frankfurt to see the opera that just so happened to be playing at the house that Saturday.

Which opera, you ask?

I think you can guess by now.

[freckly-lix]

Answer all skz questions

1. Who’s your bias and why? jisung because he's one of the rare people who can manage to put a smile on my face n make me laugh so effortlessly

2. Favorite line? (vocal line, rap line, maknae line, ageyo line, etc) omg this is so hard but i'd say rap line cuz im a hoe for rappers

3. What song got you into stray kids? i actually have been with skz since the beginning of 3racha so there isn't really a song that got me into them we've been walking together!~

4. Favorite title track? i'd say district 9

5. Favorite non-title track? oh gosh there are too many i can't even choose but my current fav is sunshine

6. Favorite m/v? i'd say M.I.A

7. Who’s bias wrecker(s)? i'd say Minho and felix

8. Which member would you like as your best friend? Minho

9. Which member is the most similar to you? Jisung

10. Which members you would want to see in a sub-unit? jeongin, jisung,felix

11. Favorite album? cle:Levanter

12. Favorite skz mini show? (the 9th, skz talker, skz player, etc) skz talker

13. Favorite vocalist? seungmin for sure hands down he's a king

14. Favorite rapper? Jisung

15. Favorite dancer? hyunjin

16. Favorite song from [cle:Levanter]? its a tie between Booster & Sunshine

17. Favorite live stage(s)?(Music show, awards show, tv performances..)

I am you ballad ver at seoul music awards 28th

18. Favorite [Jisung] look(s)? jisung's look in double knot

19. Favorite friendship? chan and felix

20. What would you tell your bias if you could? you worked hard,you're our pride and i'm proud of you for working hard to be who you are today~

21. Favorite photoshoot? THE STAR shoot was totally my fav

22. Recommend some of your fave songs! 3rd eye, on track, hero's soup, 3racha's don quioxte, TMT,glow, 0325 and 4419.

23. Favorite [jisung] iconic moments? oh gosh his performance on masked singer!!

24. Favorite era? Awkward silence

25. Favorite choreography?

My side choreo

26. Which member is underrated in your opinion? in my opinion i'd say jeongin

27. Which member has the best smile? changbin

28. Favorite [hyunjin] fancam(s)? question fancam 191123 District9 : Unlock

29. Favorite hair color on [felix]? red hair was the besttt

30. Make me choose! (jeongin or felix) jeongin

[hiraethwyl]

1. Dogs or Cats?

Both? Both. Both are good. Ok I LIKE both, but I have more of a cat personality. I adore how enthusiastically loving dogs can be, but they can be a little *too* enthusiastic for me sometimes.

2. YouTube celebrities or normal celebrities?

I dont.. I don’t really care either way honestly. Sorry, not my thing.

3. If you could live anywhere, where would that be?

Temporary or forever? I would love to live in Japan for a while. 

4. Disney or DreamWorks?  

Studio Ghibli. (I’m stealing pocket-panda’s answer here)

5. Favorite childhood TV show?

Pirates of Dark Water. That’ll age me lol.

6. The movie(s) you’re looking forward to most in 2020.

I dont actually know whats coming out. I don’t really keep up with movies. I’m kind of disconnected.

7. Favorite book you read in 2019?

The Gift of Fear. Its uh.. also the only book I’ve read, outside of textbooks. But its a neat read.

8. Marvel or DC?

Probably Marvel.

9. If you choose Marvel: favorite member of the X-Men? If you choose DC: favorite Justice League member?

Nightcrawler.

10. Night or Day?

Nighttime. I’m pretty sure my circadian rhythm is set at a wonky dial naturally.

11. Favourite Pokemon?  

I never really got into pokemon but I’m gonna say Sylveon because it has part of my chosen name in it lol.

12. Top 5 bands

I dont know about top 5, but here are some I’m enjoying atm: Johny Hollow, The Glitch mob, panic at the disco, foo fighters, apocalyptica

13. Top 10 books

I’m gonna be honest I’m really too lazy to fill out ten books. Some are Tolkien, The dragonlance series, Shannara series, the Temeraire books (although i havent finished them), I’m sure there are more I’m forgetting.

14. Top 4 movies

Heres 4 in no order, The last unicorn, Legend, Secret of NIMH (In fact all of Don Bluth’s movies) and Sword in the Stone.

15. America or Europe?

Europe. Never been there, would be fun to visit.

16. Tumblr or Twitter?

Tumblr.

17. Pro-choice or Pro-life?

Pro-choice.

18. Favorite YouTuber?

Probably the guy from Crime Pays but Botany Doesnt. lol  (  LINK just watch him you’ll understand.)      Also Jason from Modern History TV’s youtube channel. Or Chef Jon. Or Emmymadeinjapan. I dont have tv so I watch youtube ok.

19. Favorite author?

No idea.

20. Tea or Coffee?

Neither.

21. OTP?

Do mine count? Cause Im mostly invested in my own. I dont care how selfish that sounds lmao

22. Do you play an instrument/sing?

I play basically anything in the trumpet brass section variant. Trumpet, french horn, flugelhorn (that is fun to say), a little bit of trombone. And I could play violin and cello once upon a time. Beginner level for those though.

TAGGED BY: @pocket-panda  ty

TAGGING: @yshai-tia @phantom-xiv @roses-and-grimoires @milja-svarturANybody else, i cant remember all the urls.

[calorieworkouts]

15 Tips on How to Lose that Muffin Top

There are lots of suggestions on exactly how to shed your muffin top however they are all based around the same principle, in order to shed the roll of fat around your waistline that is escaping over the top of your denims or trousers you need to drop weight. The method to shed weight is to melt even more calories than you consume and to do this you need to exercise and look at what you eat.

I have provided a couple of suggestions that might help you, they vary from what training to do to just how to remain motivated.

First of all you need to recognize that you can not identify lower fat removal, if you want to lose your muffin leading after that by following these suggestions you will however the fat might come off of various other areas of your body. It all depends upon just how your body shops its fat, often the initial place fat goes is the last location it comes off of. No quantity of problems or planks is going to obtain rid of just the fat round your stomach, all you will certainly be doing is reinforcing the muscular tissues which are hidden by the fat, once you lose the fat you will see the difficult job you put in.

1.Keep a Food Journal

Work out the number of calories you are taking in. Everyday for a week write down what you consume as well as consume, right down the exact quantity you eat and drink too ie. If you have 1 chocolate chip biscuit and 1 oatmeal biscuit after that compose that down don't just compose 2 biscuits as each will certainly have a various amount of calories. At the end of the week include everything up as well as split it by 7 as well as you will certainly have your daily standard calorie intake. You might be surprised by the distinction in what you assumed you were eating as well as what you are in fact eating.

Compare that to the estimated ordinary daily calorie requirement which is 2000 for females as well as 2500 for males, this is just a price quote and will certainly depend upon your age, weight, height, body composition and also degrees of activity.

If you are consuming much more calories than you need after that these will be become fat. To shed 1lb of fat in 1 week you require to burn 3500 calories, that's 500 calories per day.

2. Don't just stop eating

Reduce your calories and you will reduce weight, but do not simply dramatically lower your calorie intake as this will have the opposite end result of what you desire as your body will certainly enter into malnourishment mode as well as will store every little thing you place in it as it will not understand when it will certainly next get the gas it requires. You need to ensure you have a healthy well balanced diet plan so that your body obtains whatever it needs to operate appropriately and also be efficient at burning that fat off.

3. Exercise

You knew that was going to be there really did not you. Cardio is the very best method to lose fat but don't simply jog long and steady for 60mins. Press harder do interval training for 25mins, alternating in between 1 min high strength - really push yourself after that do 1 min moderate intensity however 1 minutes high strength, maintain rotating until you have finished your exercise session. Interval training is a recognized approach of melting fat faster and quicker.

4. Weight training

Build muscle and also shed fat even when you are refraining anything. Increased muscular tissue mass means boosted metabolism so it can operate at melting that fat also when you are loosening up. Plus once you have lost the muffin top you will certainly be entrusted nice toned and also strong muscle mass from exercising with those weights. A combination of cardio as well as weight training will certainly have you blowing up away that fat a great deal faster than cardio alone.

5. Melt more calories throughout your regular day

There are different methods you can aid burn those calories. At the office, if you have stairways then take them, not the elevator. Can you cycle or stroll to function? If you take public transportation after that leave a quit previously and also stroll the rest of the way. Required to talk with someone in the workplace, go and see them rather of making use of the telephone. Relax far from your desk, go for a short brisk walk.

6. Intermittent Fasting (IF)

IF is when you quick for a collection quantity of time, this could be 24 hrs or 16 hrs. If you quickly for 1 day two times a week you will certainly be taking in 30% much less calories which will certainly cause weight management. This is not a diet plan as well as due to the fact that you are routinely consuming on your non rapid days and also in between the rapid days your metabolic rate wont reduce, this only occurs if your are fasting or limiting your calories for extensive periods of time such as days and weeks, due to the fact that you are just not eating 2 days each week as well as not on successive days this will not happen.

7. Drink water

Water itself will not assist you drop weight but if you consume alcohol a glass before a dish it will certainly make you feel fuller quicker and also because of this you will certainly consume less food. Sometime when we are dehydrated we blunder the signs as feeling hungry. Drinking water is also key to keeping your body functioning properly.

8. The biggest tip of them all is Action

Yes activity is what is going to obtain you losing that weight, as quickly as you comprise your mind you intend to lose weight as well as remove that muffin leading after that you have to action it, obtain the round rolling. Make an objective and afterwards function to achieve it, there is no very easy means to drop weight, it originates from putting in the time and also initiative.

9. Inspiration

Sometimes the best means to encourage individuals are to see images of others that have accomplished their objective and shed weight, Look online for photos of individuals who have figures you would like, make sure you choose a healthy and balanced realistic individual. Don't fail to remember that a great deal of versions and stars are photo shopped for publications and also image shoots. Select a person who is comparable in age, height as well as frame dimension as on your own, as if you are 5ft2 and also mid twenties don't choose a photo of a 6ft 18 years of age model, it is unrealistic and also will only leave you really feeling disappointed. There are great deals of real individuals that show their before and after photo, considering these program you it is possible. Take your very own picture so you can check out the development you make as your body begins to alter the method it looks when you begin to eat health and wellness as well as exercise.

10. Ditch those scales

Don' t reply on the ranges to show you just how much you have progressed. Take body dimensions as muscle evaluates greater than fat (well not truly but muscles is denser than fat so 1 pound of lean muscle will use up a lot smaller sized space on your body than 1lb of fat) so if you are getting muscle mass and losing fat there could not be as much modification on the ranges and this could lead to you obtaining de inspired. With dimensions you will see your body form is transforming as those cm/inches come off.

11. Join a class

Try spinning or circuit training. These tasks will obtain you melting fat quick, they have actually the included benefit of having other individuals there to help motivate you as well as press you further than you might push on your own if you are working out alone.

12. Find an exercise buddy

If there are two of you that have the exact same goals after that you can assist to motivate each various other, it is more challenging to say no to going running if another person is depending on you to select them.

13. Snack on low GI foods.

Low glycemic index foods will leave you really feeling fuller for longer so you wont be getting to for those sugary deals with to provide you an increase of energy.

14. Beware just how much juice you drink

I know a few of you favor drinking juice to water yet fruit juices can be high in calories and will not be assisting you remove that muffin top. Enjoy out for any soda beverages as these are extremely high in sugar and can be quiting you fro losing those pounds.

15. Reward yourself

When you have actually gotten to among your objectives eg lost cms/inches or lbs then award on your own. It is ALRIGHT to have a chocolate bar or a pair of biscuits etc yet only in moderation and as a treat not as an everyday staple in your diet plan. If you attain your primary goal buy on your own a new item of apparel. It is great to have your major goal and afterwards smaller sized objectives so that you can keep yourself inspired For example your primary goal may be to shed 10lbs, a smaller goal will be a tipping rock to achieving your main goal so could be an objective to visit the gym 3 days a week and so on.

Just a number of other points I would love to add.

1lb to 2lbs weekly is a healthy as well as practical quantity of weight to lose so don't be disheartened if you do not see big decrease in numbers like on the TV show The Most significant Loser.

Fat cells never ever disappear, they can either diminish or they can increase in number so if you do not stay up to date with a healthy and balanced and also balanced diet plan there is a chance that you can place the fat right back on really easily, it will certainly simply go straight to the currently existing cells as well as they will certainly expand as well as if you place on even more weight than before after that brand-new fat cells will be formed. This is the why when you wish to drop weight it is better attained through an adjustment in way of living and also not crash diet regimens which are unhealthy and also see individuals place the weight back on again as quickly as they quit the diet.

[sulietsexual]

Tagged by @sayidjarrahs ❤️❤️❤️

Pick 5 shows, then answer the following questions. don’t cheat. tag 10 (or however many) peeps.

Angel

Mad Men

That 70s Show

The Originals

The 100

1. who is your favorite character in 2?

Don Draper but Joan Holloway comes a very close second.

2. who is your least favorite character in 1?

Eve, ugh, she’s so useless!

3. what is your favorite episode of 4?

I haven’t gotten to know this series as well as the others on the list, but as of right now, From Cradle To Grave (the Season 1 finale). It’s an amazing episode, full of angst and drama and death and the final moments of it are heartbreakingly beautiful as everyone works together to keep Hope safe and Klaus gives his daughter to Rebekah to look after. It’s the first real glimpse of the man Klaus will become due to his daughter’s influence.

4. what is your favorite season of 5?

Toss up between Season 1 (because everything was new, things weren’t as bleak and there were episodes which were actually light and fun) and Season 5 (because I really love the new storyline, I like that it restores some of the lightness after the bleakness and violence of Seasons 3 and 4 and the finale is awesome).

5. who is your favorite couple in 3?

Jackie & Hyde (hey we had the same answer!) but I do also really love early-seasons Eric & Donna.

6. who is your favorite couple in 2?

I don’t really have any ships in Mad Men (mostly because I feel that practically every woman on the show deserves better than the man she’s with) but I do enjoy Joan and Roger’s dynamic.

7. what is your favorite episode of 1?

Not Fade Away. Best finale ever and just a gorgeous episode.

8. what is your favorite episode of 5?

Twilight’s Last Gleaming, the first episode which showed the goodness of humanity and how survival can mean self-sacrifice instead of violence against others.

9. what is your favorite season of 2?

Probably Season 2 or Season 4. Season 2 is great because the characters are fully established by then and we get to watch them grow and change and a lot happens towards the end, with Betty finally discovering Don’s infidelity. But I also love Season 4 because I love watching the start of SCDP and how everyone is growing into their new roles and adjusting to the new business (plus Betty has finally escaped her miserable marriage, so it’s nice to see her with someone who treats her well). 

10. how long have you watched 1?

Oh god, for over fifteen years. I came in at the tail-end of AtS but have loved it since I first watched.

11. how did you become interested in 3?

I honestly can’t remember, I’ve been watching it for so long! I think I just turned on the tv one day and it was on and it sucked me in because it was so funny and engaging (also, I have a bit of a 70s fetish, I love media set in that decade).

12. who is your favorite actor in 4?

Everyone on this show is pretty awesome, but my absolute favourite is Joseph Morgan, who makes Klaus so multi-faceted.

13. which do you prefer, 1, 2, or 5?

Always Angel.

14. which show have you seen more episodes of, 1 or 3 ?

That 70s Show, but only because it has more episodes.

15. if you could be anyone from 4, who would you be?

Rebekah.

16. would a crossover between 3 and 4 work?

Lol, oh dear, I imagine all the characters from That 70s Show would be dead within minutes (although, knowing Rebekah, she’d probably develop a crush on Hyde after he’s nice to her for two seconds). But that crossover would be unpleasant for the Wisconsin gang!

17. pair two characters in 1 who would make an unlikely but strangely okay couple.

I literally only just thought this up in the moment right now, but Alonnah Gunn and Connor could be very interesting ... both young teens brought up in unstable and dangerous environments, plus Alonnah is very dominant and strong and Connor seems to like that in women.

18. overall, which show has the better storyline, 3 or 5?

Gah, it’s kind of hard to compare them, one is a dystopian survival drama the other is a teen sitcom. So I think The 100 wins, but only because its genre allows for a more cohesive and ongoing storyline.

19. which has the better theme music, 2 or 4?

Mad Men but The Originals doesn’t have a theme. That being said, I think even if it did, Mad Men would still win, have you heard that theme? It’s amazing!

Tagging @we-pay-for-everything, @atwoods, @zavens, @marshmallow-the-vampire-slayer, @shadesalvarez, @stevesharington, @jamalexlee, @diannaofthemyscira, @mrbinglee, @paigezakharenko and anyone who wants to do it!