#america really does have a gun problem

[bootleg-nessie]

Rating band names based on their accuracy:

(I keep updating this list so check back later)

The Beatles: 3/10. None of these people are beetles, they’re just a bunch of fruity guys from Liverpool with matching haircuts

(Edit: changed from 0/10 to 3/10 because John Lennon beat his wife)

Pink Floyd: 4/10. There is not a single person named Floyd in the band, but some of the members do arguably look kinda pink

Nirvana: 10/10. Getting high and listening to Nirvana is roughly what I imagine actual nirvana to be like

Foo Fighters: either 0/10 or 10/10. I have never seen foo in real life so either they’re pretending to fight a problem that doesn’t exist or they’re doing an absolutely fantastic job of fighting it

The Eagles: 0/10. Same as the Beatles, there is not a single eagle in this band. The name is misleading and we have all been lied to

Queen: 6/10. Partial points for Freddie Mercury

Led Zeppelin: 0/10. I don’t think any of these guys have ever even seen a zeppelin, let alone one made of lead. A lead balloon would crash faster than my hopes and dreams

The Rolling Stones: 3/10. There is not a single stone in this band. Some points added because I’m pretty sure they rolled quite a few

U2: 0/10. Despite what the name says, I am not a member of this band

Metallica: 9/10. Naming a metal band “Metallica” is like naming your dog “doggy”

Red Hot Chili Peppers: 2/10. These guys are not chili peppers. They’re not even that hot, let alone red hot

Guns N’ Roses: 0/10. How the fuck could a gun or a flower play music

Backstreet Boys: ?/10. Depends entirely on their current given location

Simon and Garfunkel: 10/10. No notes

The Doors: 1/10. Jim Morrison is kinda shaped like a door tho

Chicago: 4/10. The number of people in this band does not come even remotely close to the population of Chicago. Points added because it originated in Chicago

Earth, wind, and fire: 2/10. This is even more innacurate than Chicago. Points added because wind instruments were often used

Def Leppard: 3/10. There is not a single leopard in this band. Some of the members are probably kinda deaf by now tho

The Beach Boys: ?/10. Accuracy depends entirely on location

The Black Eyed Peas: 6/10. Not sure what the hell an ‘eyed pea’ is but the black part is pretty accurate

Imagine Dragons: ?/10. Depends entirely on whether or not they’re thinking about dragons.

Cage the Elephant: 1/10. Why would you do that. Let the elephant go

Green Day: 0/10. They’re not even green

The Police: 0/10. There is not a single cop in this band

KISS: 5/10. I’m sure they probably kissed sometimes

The Monkees: 0/10. Are you fucking kidding me

We Butter the Bread with Butter: 8/10. I can’t verify this but I have no reason to suspect that they’d lie. Butter seems like the most logical thing to butter bread with

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard: 0/10. I got really excited about the concept of a lizard wizard only to be let down. My disappointment is immeasurable

They Might Be Giants: 5/10. I googled everyone in this band’s height, the tallest guy’s only 6’1 so I wouldn’t exactly consider him a giant. Then again, I can’t really argue because the claim was only that they MIGHT be giants

The Presidents of the United States of America: 2/10. None of these people are Joe Biden nor are any of them former presidents. This is incredibly misleading. I’m pretty sure “Lump” was written about my first girlfriend tho so I’ll give them a point or two

Gorillaz: 2/10 Not quite but we’re kinda close genetically so I’ll give them partial credit

The Killers: ?/10. I have no way of verifying if they’ve actually killed before but the fact that they’re not in prison tells me probably not

The Offspring: 10/10. These guys are definitely somebody’s offspring

Arctic Monkeys: 1/10. They are neither monkeys nor are they from the arctic

Thirty Seconds to Mars: 1/10. It takes WAY longer to get to mars than that

Beastie Boys: 8/10. They’re pretty beast on the guitar

Jimmy Eat World: 1/10. Slow the fuck down Jimmy, you’re biting off way more than you can chew

Hole: 9/10. One point deducted because I’m pretty sure they had more than one hole

Rage Against the Machine: 10/10. They did exactly that

Alice In Chains: 0/10. This is illegal. Let Alice go

The Band: 10/10. This could not possibly be more accurate

Nine Inch Nails: 1/10. I can’t find any good pictures of their feet but from what I can tell their fingernails definitely aren’t nine inches long

Bush: ?/10. Not quite sure about this one, felt uncomfortable asking

The Who: 2/10. I’m not dealing with this “Who’s On First” bullshit

Radiohead: 0/10. Not a single person in this band has a radio for a head

Queens of the Stone Age: 0/10. This band should be called “five random dudes from the modern era” but FRDFTMA is a bit of a mouthful

Soundgarden: 2/10. Sound does not grow in the garden

Sonic Youth: 5/10. They’re not exactly youth anymore but the sonic part checks out

Talking heads: 8/10. There’s more to the band than just a bunch of disembodied heads but the heads do tend to talk

The Cranberries: 0/10. Decent music but I only added them so that the Beatles and Freddie Mercury weren’t the only fruits on this list

The Wiggles: 8/10. They do tend to wiggle a lot

Blue Man Group: 10/10. Yep!

Weezer: 5/10. They all look like they definitely have asthma

Limp Bizkit: 3/10. While the visual image of baked goods playing the guitar is hilarious, Fred durst is not a biscuit. Points added because he probably has erectile dysfunction

Stone Temple Pilots: 0/10. None of these people are accredited as being licensed to pilot anything, much less an entire stone temple. Stone temples don’t need pilots anyways

Wasted Youth: 8/10. I guess it really kinda depends on how you frame it but yeah, they probably wasted a lot of it

Them Crooked Vultures: 3/10. These are people and not birds but Dave Grohl’s posture is kinda bad and John Paul Jones is so old that his neck kinda looks like a vulture’s so I added some points

Audioslave: 0/10. Slavery is illegal

Traveling Wilburys: 4/10. Sure, they traveled a lot but not a single one of those lying bastards was named Wilbury

D12: 6/12. There were only 6 people in this band

NWA: 10/10. I’m a little too white to safely comment on this one but I’d say they nailed it

Jet: 1/10. A real jet would be way too loud

Goldfinger: 0/10. Not a single person in this band has a finger made out of gold

No Doubt: ?/10. I can’t really be too sure how Gwen Stefani felt but I think it’s probably a safe assumption that she had some doubts

The White Stripes: 3/10. I bet if you stripped them down naked and made them stand shoulder to shoulder and squinted really hard they’d probably look more like white stripes

Screaming trees: 3/10. They scream occasionally

Garbage: 2/10. I think they’re being a little harsh on themselves, their music isn’t THAT bad

Butthole Surfers: 5/10. Not even gonna touch this one

Megadeth: 3/10. To be fair, some of the former members are dead but only a little amount of death, not mega death

Dead Kennedys: 2/10. Last I checked Kennedy was still dead but neither he nor his clones are members of this band

Cake: 0/10. The cake is a lie

Cracker: 8/10. Most of them are

Tool: 7/10. I don’t know much about their music but they sure look like tools

Counting Crows: ?/10. Is this what emo kids do instead of counting sheep? Accuracy depends on whatever bird they happen to be counting at the moment

Dave Matthews Band: 10/10. It certainly is

Oasis: 1/10. Their music is the opposite of an oasis

Blur: 2/10. They are not that fast

Barenaked Ladies: 0/10. If I wanted to be this disappointed I’d reestablish a connection with my biological father instead

Meat Puppets: 10/10. Technically, aren’t we all?

Live: 8/10. Apparently they still do live shows but I deducted some points because I’ve only ever heard their music on Spotify

ABBA: 9/10. I’m still not giving any points to Guns N’ Roses but that’s mostly out of spite

5 Finger Death Punch: 8/10 I guess it probably depends on how hard you hit them but this seems to be the usual amount of fingers to punch somebody with

All American Rejects: 9/10. They’re all rejects from America so I don’t really see any issue with this

T. Rex: 0/10. Even if any of these people WAS a T. Rex I don’t think their arms would be long enough to play their instruments

Free: 0/10. Unless you steal their music, in which case it becomes a 10/10

The Strokes: 3/10. To my knowledge, none of them have had a stroke but I still added a few points because the name was probably accurate for other reasons

The Smashing Pumpkins ?/10. Another thing I have no way of verifying but this seems like a waste of perfectly good pumpkins

Therapy?: ?/10. The hell are they asking me for? I don’t know their medical history

Twenty One Pilots. 0/10. There’s only two of them and neither is a licensed pilot

Finger Eleven: 0/10. Leave the poor Stranger Things girl out of this

Fall Out Boy: 9/10. I conferred with an expert on this one who confirmed that they are in fact boys who had a falling out

Cream: 8/10. Considering this was the OG supergroup I’m sure a lot of people did in fact cream when their music came out

Edit: humans aren’t fucking monkeys. Stop saying we are

[reasonsforhope]

Double dose of articles about how crime is actually plummeting

From the UK:

"Seventy-eight per cent of people in England and Wales think that crime has gone up in the last few years, according to the latest survey. But the data on actual crime shows the exact opposite.

As of 2024, violence, burglary and car crime have been declining for 30 years and by close to 90%, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) – our best indicator of true crime levels. Unlike police data, the CSEW is not subject to variations in reporting and recording.

The drop in violence includes domestic violence and other violence against women. Anti-social behaviour has similarly declined. While increased fraud and computer misuse now make up half of crime, this mainly reflects how far the rates of other crimes have fallen.

All high-income countries have experienced similar trends, and there is scientific consensus that the decline in crime is a real phenomenon.

The perception gap

So why is there such a gulf between public perception and the reality of crime trends? A regular YouGov poll asks respondents for their top three concerns from a broad set of issues. Concern about crime went from a low in 2016 (when people were more concerned with Brexit), quadrupled by 2019 and plummeted during the pandemic when people had other worries. But in the last year, the public’s concern about crime has risen again.

There are many possible explanations for this, of which the first is poor information. A study published in 1998 found that “people who watch a lot of television or who read a lot of newspapers will be exposed to a steady diet of crime stories” that does not reflect official statistics.

The old news media adage “if it bleeds, it leads” reflects how violent news stories, including crime increases and serious crimes, capture public attention. Knife crime grabs headlines in the UK, but our shock at individual incidents is testament to their rarity and our relative success in controlling violence – many gun crimes do not make the news in the US.

Most recent��terrorist attacks in the UK have featured knives (plus a thwarted Liverpool bomber), but there is little discussion of how this indicates that measures to restrict guns and bomb-making resources are effective."

-via The Conversation, May 13, 2024

And the United States:

"[The United States experienced a spike in crime rates in 2020, during the pandemic.] But in 2023, crime in America looked very different.

"At some point in 2022 — at the end of 2022 or through 2023 — there was just a tipping point where violence started to fall and it just continued to fall," said Jeff Asher, a crime analyst and co-founder of AH Datalytics.

In cities big and small, from both coasts, violence has dropped.

"The national picture shows that murder is falling. We have data from over 200 cities showing a 12.2% decline ... in 2023 relative to 2022," Asher said, citing his own analysis of public data. He found instances of rape, robbery and aggravated assault were all down too.

Yet when you ask people about crime in the country, the perception is it's getting a lot worse.

A Gallup poll released in November found 77% of Americans believed there was more crime in the country than the year before. And 63% felt there was either a "very" or "extremely" serious crime problem — the highest in the poll's history going back to 2000.

So what's going on?

What the cities are seeing

What you see depends a lot on what you're looking at, according to Asher.

"There's never been a news story that said, 'There were no robberies yesterday, nobody really shoplifted at Walgreens,'" he said.

"Especially with murder, there's no doubt that it is falling at [a] really fast pace right now. And the only way that I find to discuss it with people is to talk about what the data says." ...

For cities like San Francisco, Baltimore and Minneapolis, there may be different factors at play [in crime declining]. And in some instances, it comes as the number of police officers declines too.

Baltimore police are chronically short of their recruitment goal, and as of last September had more than 750 vacant positions, according to a state audit report...

In Minneapolis, police staffing has plummeted. According to the Star Tribune, there are about 560 active officers — down from nearly 900 in 2019. Mannix said the 2020 police killing of George Floyd resulted in an unprecedented exodus from the department...

In Minneapolis, the city is putting more financial resources into nontraditional policing initiatives. The Department of Neighborhood Safety, which addresses violence through a public health lens, received $22 million in the 2024 budget."

-via NPR, February 12, 2024

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again no problem 11/26/2024

i don't have a good anecdote this week, i have the flu. look at my cat

listening

ty @shinygoodrock for the rec! billy bragg's the marching song of the covert. i was startled by the british accent but briefly forgot the uk's been colonizing way longer than god's favorite country, the usa

so SO cheery and so catchy! samples When The Ants Go Marching In!

Here we come with our candy and our guns And our corporate muscle marches in behind us For freedom's just another word for nothing left to sell And if you want narcotics we can get you those as well

it reminds me a lot of this poster i have framed but not hung up yet, jesse purcell's "A.G.F.T.P.O.T.U.S.O.A. (A Gift From The People Of The United States Of America)" (getcher own print at the link through justseeds)

-

reading

my favorite tinned fish newsletter is back! i like this newsletter for its dry anecdotal voice, but i coincidentally have a tin of mackerel in tomato sauce in the pantry for mackintosh name reasons. seems like the best way to have it is fairly plain with some light seasonings. the author was a senior editor at vice and has been out of work for a bit since that site's collapse, so it's good to see him back doing silly free nonsense like his tinned fish newsletter

i had Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis on hold for nearly six months so it extra hurt when i didn't particularly care for it.

like, what a premise! a beautifully written blurb that got my attention! i think i got an ad for this one on instagram. either that or it was floating around on this site.

A sharp-witted, high fantasy farce featuring killer moat squid, toxic masculinity, evil wizards and a garlic festival - all at once. Perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher, K. J. Parker and Travis Baldree. It’s bad enough waking up in a half-destroyed evil wizard’s workshop with no eyebrows, no memories, and no idea how long you have before the Dread Lord Whomever shows up to murder you horribly and then turn your skull into a goblet or something. It’s a lot worse when you realize that Dread Lord Whomever is… you. Gav isn’t really sure how he ended up with a castle full of goblins, or why he has a princess locked in a cell. All he can do is play along with his own evil plan in hopes of getting his memories back before he gets himself killed. But as he realizes that nothing – from the incredibly tasteless cloak adorned with flames to the aforementioned princess – is quite what it seems, Gav must face up to all the things the Dread Lord Gavrax has done. And he’ll have to answer the hardest question of all – who does he want to be? Dread Lord Gavrax has had better weeks.

this is a debut novel based on a friendgroup's DnD campaign, and it does show a bit. maybe you have a friend who’s freshly into improv? it gets a little wrapped up in Doing Bits. at several points i did think “i could be reading terry pratchett right now instead of enduring this bit.”

the writing itself is solid on a technical level-- there's a good balance of dialogue to description, no word choices really slammed me in the face, it flowed pretty nicely and was a fast read. flounders a bit in the middle but does pick up speed, a middling-okay pacing. if this were not a debut novel and felt a little bit more done on purpose i would be interested in talking about how the frantic lunge from plot point to plot point mirrors our protag's internal sense of self.

i do not think this rises to the level of farce, or even pastiche. it is a darkly comedic but fairly straightforward fantasy. very light PG romance elements.

so much of it is concerned with perceptions/expectations/visual tropes and then the big baddie is simply a baddie with no further interrogation. like a lot A LOT of philosophical musings on the nature of evil and the expectations thereof creating self image and morality and has unionized goblins. everything else in this book is questioned. you can’t go halfway with a deconstruction or you’re just writing more of the genre you’re trying to deconstruct. there was a scene that really clicked satisfyingly in my brain with a female sorceress, where she goes basically everyone expects me to be a bitch and a whore so let's just cut to the chase and have fun being a bitch and a whore. this alternate viewpoint of misogyny making you evil does not successfully contrast with our protag's internal calibration and view of evil but damn if that isn't the experience of being a woman in stem.

the protagonist, gav, wakes up with No memories and thereby becomes Good. or at least Better. does rozakis feel that everyone is born good and your reactions to things happening to you shape your morality? there's a reveal that one of the murders amnesiac!gav is most torn up about didn't actually happen bc his staff faked it and smuggled her out. i think this seriously undercuts the moderate amount of thinking and soulsearching and figuring out how to atone for past actions he does previously. and then it doesn’t really address any of the problems it tangled with in favor of a movie ending. it did tread a bit into therapyspeak for me. fewer shades of gray than i would have liked.

this book is also extremely heterosexual for what i expect a modern comedy fantasy to be. it neatly sidesteps the gay=/= evil conundrum but it was startling to find our protagonist with not even a curious homosexual thought.

occasionally irritating, but it was funny, except when it had to unfold some plot and forgot about being funny. this was a perfectly pleasantly written debut novel but wasn’t quite what i wanted or expected. it tries a lot of things and it’s interesting to watch the rube goldberg machine of a plot work and fail in some parts, even if it really did not carry through on its central philosophy.

-

watching

breezing through a lot of stuff bc it's easier to sleep propped up on my couch arm than in my actual bed. i usually don’t long DNFs but has to remind myself never to try Quo Vadis again. my god is that a tiresome film. and not even pretty costumes or pretty set design for the first forty minutes. whereupon i bailed. all of these were first time watches, dunno why I haven’t been reaching for comfort movies lately

-

playing

genshin update knocking it out of the park and also really reminding me of link tearsofthekingdom. also introduces a really good bird you can possess and fly around with. lots of vertical sky/coastline exploration which is so so so fun. i have done most of the things in this update inside a week bc i don't think they anticipated unemployed people like mainlining it between applying for jobs.

this girl's village has background music that reminds me of classic american westerns like bernstein or copland? heavy billy the kid ballet vibes. the music in this update is SO good im excited to yell about it in an future week when they drop the next album.

-

making

still fallow baybee. currently incubating the influenza. no longer feverish thank u nyquil

[that-one-enby-ranger]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROGER TAYLOR

It is Roger Meddows Taylor's birthday today so of course I have to make it all of yours problems and yap about it.

We've gotta start off with how talented this man is. He is the KING of drummers in my eyes and will always be. Watched a full concert today to celebrate, and I was just focusing on how fast he could move, and he wasnt always looking at the drums. And his little solo in the Montreal concert and I was staring at him and oh my gosh he can move fast. He looked tired afterwards. And his voice is amazing in its own unique way. I love it. I love listening to live songs and looking out for his baking vocals. I died everytime. My favourite song to hear live is Crazy Little Thing Called Love just because of Roger's rEaDy FreDdIe 🤠. I die every single time I hear and go insane you don't even know. His backing vocals are just *mwah* CHEF'S kiss 🤌.

And his high pitched screaming in In the Lap of the Gods is amazing. Theres a video of Roger Taylor blessing your ears for an hour and a half and it's just him screaming in that song and it really does bless your ears.

Plus he's got solo albums. And unless I'm horribly wrong, he has the most solo albums out of the entire band. I don't have a favourite album but a couple of my fav songs are The Key, Man on Fire and Strange Frontier.

He's written lots of hits and great songs including Radio Gaga, A Kind of Magic, One Vision, These are the Days of Our Lives, The Invisible Man and of course, I'm in Love With My Car.

Then there's the underrated songs that I love like Drowse, Action This Day, Ride the Wild Wind and others that I forgot and I cant be bothered to look up.

He also studied dentistry in uni. I don't know if he would have actually ended up being a dentist if he hadn't joined. But just think if he did.

THIS MAN RIGHT HERE COULD HAVE BEEN YOUR DENTIST SHOVING HIS HANDS IN YOUR MOUTH.

I just watched a video while writing this called the genius of Roger Taylor and they talked about how good he is on drums and used drum talk that even though I play drums, I haven't been playing long enough to understand, so they go into more depth on how talented he is on the drums. Its called The Genius Of Roger Taylor by Drumeo.

And you've gotta talk about his heart warming lyrics.

"With my hand on my grease gun,

Ooooo it's like a disease son."

Magical.

And what makes that even better is that sometimes during concert he would mix the lyrics around, whether on accident or purpose, I don't know, but he would say "with YOUR hand on MY grease gun." Life changing.

But seriously you wanna know some good lyrics listen to the whole of These Are The Days of Our Lives. And then try not to cry.

Moving on from talent, we gotta talk about some more amazing things about him.

He's a funny little boy. Watch some clips of him and you'll see what I mean. I don't care if you don't agree with me, I know he's a funny little boy.

"He threw my best fucking pair of maracas. Great sounding maracas, took me HOURS to steal them, and he just..." I can't write the next part without it seeming like it's a roleplay because it's a motion he makes of throwing stuff away in the air.

Anyways, it was his idea to dress up in drag for the I Want to Break Free video and that was one of his best ideas ever. Rogerina looked amazing.

What a goddess. And when I Want to Break Free got canceled in America, he would help stand up for the video and wouldnt feel ashamed that they did it and said they had a great time and it was fun.

And somewhat similarly, but more importantly, after Freddie died, and the press were being homophobic perverts and saying stuff like Freddie had it coming, or he lived a promiscuous life style, Roger (and Brian) would go on TV and stand up for Freddie and would be like "thats not true at all, you fucking pricks." That's not what they actually said. And he would then go on about how the press were massive dicks to Freddie while trying to get into his private life especially towards the end.

Hes adorable. Sweetie. My love.

"I'd like to make it.. naked 😏, and raw."

"1 and 3/7ths sugars please." "No one and 3/7ths 😠"

"I've just written this new one, WHICH IM REALLY EXCITED ABOUT"

"ITS PERFECT"

Just some quotes there.

Also, APPARENTLY, my sources are shit, I've only heard this once, has not been backed up, but I'm including it anyways, but apparently when Roger wasn't allowed to have Stone lions out the front of his house, he thought outside the box and put up hundreds of glow and the dark gnomes.

He also apparently had to legally fight his neighbour to keep his giant statue of Freddie Mercury he had in his backyard because the neighbour APPARENTLY thought that it was "rUiNinG tHe laNdScApe"

He kissed Brian when he was drunk.

He was called sex on legs.

Grew a beard because people kept mistaking him as a girl.

His eyes.

"There was lots of sex and drugs. Actually there wasn't that much sex and ... Well there wasn't much drugs"

There's also some lovely sad stories with him. Mainly the 300 yards and I don't feel like crying again so I'm not gonna write it out.

I'm gonna stop this here because my finger feels weird from having a plaster on it for three days and I wanna focus on more Roger videos that I've been watching in the background for about an hour now. I'm just gonna say he is shemxy.

And then you've got this:

Love him. Appreciate him. I'm gonna marry him one day, mark my words.

There is a lot more on him. This is all I've got. For now.

[adachimoe]

Adachi's Mistake

One of the things that is never explained and seemingly left intentionally vague is Adachi's mistake.

After you hear his stupid bullshit on December 7th, he invites you to come find his real self, and you find him inside the TV. While he certainly says a lot of bullshit, I think this line is actually true. Adachi not taking his job seriously (implication being to the extent of messing up) is a recurring thing in the game, so much that him preparing Namatame to be transferred is something Dojima finds out of character or too serious for him.

Some of the meta text about the game (e.g. Adachi's character profiles) also mention him being transferred due to a mistake he made. So, while he does say a lot of bullshit, I think there's some truth to his mini-rant about this.

But what's the mistake he made? Hmm. I've read a lot of interviews and other meta stuff, and... I dunno lol. It doesn't seem to be in any of the stuff I've read. It seems fun to headcanon and speculate about. Maybe he did the exact same shit he's been doing in Inaba but his old boss was less tolerant than Dojima?

It seems that when this topic comes up amongst westerners, people automatically assume Adachi shot someone? That feels more like being American and assuming every country is America lol. And if we're being painfully realistic, he's a plain clothes detective so he wouldn't be carrying a gun to begin with unless it was a situation where it was deemed necessary that he should have one. (Also, I think I've posted about this before, but if Adachi is really just a gun nut, why the heck did he even become a plain clothes detective? Uniformed officers who work in the field would be more likely to carry one.)

I also think about the situation surrounding and reaction to Abe's assassination 2 years ago. Part of why that was such a huge spectacle is because gun violence there is very different (a lot lower). It gives me the impression that "a police officer accidentally shoots someone" would've been seen as a more major thing. In contrast, Adachi believes the mistake he made was something small, and the meta descriptions written about him in booklets seem to agree with this.

As far as civil servant transfers go in general, I am an idiot and went to read up about that on some Japanese websites. They occur every year around March/April and maybe again in the fall (matches up with Adachi saying he came to Inaba in the spring). It also seems pretty normal for civil servants to get transferred every 3-5 years, though things like "causing problems" can justify why you would get transferred.

Given that it's Adachi, maybe he didn't go drinking after work with his coworkers enough times and he gave them bad vibes so he got transferred, bwaha. Though he did go to New Year's Eve parties, so maybe he was actually a bit more social than I'm thinking...?

Random: I have learned that these "unexplained events" are called "noodle incidents", and I am shocked I recognized the reference... my older brothers used to read Calvin and Hobbes!

[colorfuldonutrunaway]

I made a character sheet for one of my ocs. Took a lot of bravery to do it, but I made it.🥲 I wasn't sure how to handle the two boxes under the main picture, and I should add that this character is AroAce.🏳️‍🌈

Metrics explained here:

*Name: Peter Romanov was named purely by his mother. I would go into detail about how his patronymic works but I'm not very sure on how it works in Russian culture, so I'll keep my mouth shut. Anyways, Roman prefers to be called, well, Roman because he despises his first name for some reason.

*Nicknames: If you want to avoid a death glare, call him by Roman or Wolf.

*Race/Species: Before he became the Wolf, he was a first-generation Russian American human. After getting diagnosed with a supposedly rare fatal muscle wasting disease, he secretly began injecting himself with wolf DNA on the genetic level. This was actually working really well...until an assistant startled him during one such procedure and he injected a massive amount into his cells...and mutated into his current state. The unstable state of his cells means that every 5 days, he turns back into a human, and after five days again, he returns to the Wolf, rinse and repeat.

*Age: 30 as of 2024, being born in 1993 after his parents left Russia for the Americas.

*Gender: Born Male, identifies as such.

*Alignment: Wanting to follow the pursuit of knowledge and science for the betterment of mankind, Roman ignores the fact that he was stripped of his license to run a laboratory (after the genetics incident) and continues operating to create new inventions. Problem is, he can't patent them under his own name...

*Class/Job: As stated above, Roman shouldn't be operating a laboratory. He was banned from the high council of intellectuals and was forbidden from ever using their tools to create or invent again. That hasn't stopped him from creating a laboratory from materials gathered on the black market, hiring minions from criminal origins, and operating secretly underneath a normal Pennsylvanian town as a scientist.

*Perception and Communication: He takes advantage of his improved wolf senses to observe every detail around himself. As for communication, he's a great orator and debater, but he can get frustrated if people don't understand his high tech jargon.

*Persuasion and Mediation: He listens well and can use it to his advantage when trying to persuade someone into doing something for him and when mediating an issue between two groups. He's not the best at it, but he's good enough for most scenarios.

*Literacy and Creativity: Raised by a genius mother who noticed that her child's intellect was increasing at an abnormally fast pace, she opted to guarantee that his childhood was to be surrounded by folklore, documentaries, and educational materials. This led to a man that could be omnidisciplinary in Engineering, Robotics, programming (Python/HTML/C++), Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Genetics, mathematics, and neurology. Not surprising for an IQ that reached 300 at 16 years old. (he refuses to do actual medicine though.) He also grew up speaking English and Russian at home.

*Cooking: He can bake, but actually making original meals is kinda hard for him. Especially as the Wolf, because it's led to him just settling for any food with meat in it, even if it's raw.

*Tech Savvy: From as young as 4 years old, he was fixing phones and taking apart cars.

*Combat: Roman took martial arts classes at 16, but rarely uses what he's learned. Especially after becoming the Wolf, because now he has boosted strength that allows him to easily knock out people with a punch or throw them. Not very good with guns either.

*Survival: He learned basic survival skills from the numerous books he's read, but has never really exercised it or gone camping to hone it. As the Wolf, he does have some natural instincts that help.

*Stealth: Ugh. He's never had a reason to be stealthy as a human. This worsened when he turned into a hybrid, because his clunky, furry body is harder to hide. Being 6 ft 7 inches in Wolf form doesn't help.

*Street smarts: Roman has never known a normal childhood due to his rapidly increasing intelligence netting him media attention and breezing him through school. Therefore, he's never been able to make friends with kids his age, and his overprotective parents kept him from exploring the world, leading to his street smarts being shockingly low.

*Seduction: No...just...no.

*Luck: Not anymore or less lucky than a normal person.

*Handling Animals: When in Wolf form, it's very difficult to handle animals without them freaking out on him. In human form? Animals love him.

*Pacifying Children: He's good at distracting kids with a story or a piece of candy, but his stronger senses mean that a child crying is painful to listen to.

*Strength: Probably due to his wasting disease, he's weaker in human form, (as in, weaker than the average human), but notoriously strong as a Wolf.

*Dexterity: Pretty average. Struggles in Wolf form due to not being used to the big furry paws.

*Health: As mentioned before, weak in human form, strong and vibrant in Wolf-man form.

*Energy: Usually in the middle.

*Beauty: Considered handsome in human form. Considered cute fluffy doggo in Wolf form.

*Style: While he's usually in a lab coat, whenever he ventures into the town, he's wearing designer clothes that fit his Wolf form well.

*Hygiene: So for some reason, Wolf still has human lymph nodes in the usual spots, meaning that he also sweats from those areas. So he has to shower daily or else he develops a pretty wild smell.

*Intelligence: From the age of 2, Roman's brain suddenly developed at an insanely fast speed. Nobody knows why this happened exactly, but they had no choice to accept it as Roman began to pass classes flawlessly, finish entire novels in hours, and do complex equations by himself. He's graduated highschool by the age of 12 and helped teach college classes at the age of 15.

*Happiness: Despite his current situation, he's really good at seeing the bright side of things. Roman actually enjoys being in his Wolf form, and feels more free now that the council isn't constantly watching over his back.

*Spirituality: Raised Christian, Roman became agnostic around his pre-teens, and had stayed that way since.

*Confidence: He's very confident in his skills, but not to the point where he thinks he's infallible.

*Humor: His humor tends to vary greatly. While he doesn't make jokes himself, he does find other people's jokes and references entertaining.

*Anxiety: Like with the Happiness stat, Roman doesn't let much get to him. His Wolf affliction actually saved his life, as it stopped and partially reversed the progression of the wasting disease, leading him to be relatively positive.

*Patience: He's learned to be patient with the average person since they can't make hundreds of calculations a minute in their brain like he can, though it does have limits if he can tell if someone is intentionally trying to be an obstacle in his mission.

*Passion: Developing his love for science from his mother, Roman wants a world that is as free from suffering as humanly possible, and he will invent and create as much as he can.

*Charisma: While he gives off a cool and professional aura, his social development was still stunted by his strange childhood.

*Empathy: He can feel like other people, but he sometimes thinks that other people blow things out of proportion, or can solve their problems more easily than they think.

*Generosity: Gives to those that severely need it, doesn't give to much of anyone else.

*Wealth: How does Roman fund a laboratory and a couple dozen minions? Hacking banks obviously. He's good enough that the possibility of police discovering that it's him doing it is so unlikely it's insane, and he usually steals enough that it can pay the bills and all of his minions while still having some left over for leisurely pursuits.

*Aggression: He can be fierce when he needs to be, but prefers giving off a stoic energy usually.

*Libido: Never had much of one at all. Being aromantic asexual helps in making sure that this isn't ever an issue he needs to care about anyway.

I'll add more later, but I'm tired and it's getting late.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s2 episode 3 thoughts

here we go! this episode is titled "blood" which did not bode well for me, the girl who hates blood. but i am dedicated and pushed through in the name of our mission.

we open at a post office. sometimes, i think it would be fun to work in a post office.

but alas! our postman has received a paper cut. he licks it up which... can't be hygienic.

and then he immediately gets fired :( this is sooooo unfair

when he returns to his post his machine reads "KILL"!!! my first thought was that this was gonna be a little shop of horrors style thing where an inanimate object tastes blood and Likes it (Which is sort of what happened? but mostly not really)

((side note: need to see mulder and scully take on audrey two))

so it seems that the people are either being told by machines to do some killing or all the members of the town are experiencing collective hallucination...

mulder arrives. i was distracted by his fluffy hair. from the notes: "his hair is fluffy. he isn't saying much at this crime scene but his hair is fluffy"

! MULDER LORE REVEAL ! he played right field! (this was brought up when the policeman mentioned the suspect was on the softball team)

back to our post office friend, who is near a child with a random nosebleed whilst getting some money, and now the ATM is telling him to kill people

mulder points out that these are spree killings and not serial ones <-okay human embodiment of the nerd emoji.

it's a totally normal report on the crimes, no spooky stuff involved, and scully is reading it... until he mentions UFOs and she says to herself "i was wondering when you'd get to that" LMAOOOOO she knows him too well

we see a woman being lured into a dark garage by a mechanic and i thought i knew where this was going but i DIDN'T because SHE gets paranoid and the machine tells her the guy is gonna get her and she freaks out and STABS HIM

mulder arrives to the crime scene with a really funny looking camera. can anyone provide me more information about this camera? i'm curious

anyway, he shows up at the house of the woman who killed the mechanic, and we see another example of his bountiful social skills when he asks to come in and she says "i'm late for work" and he just barges in and says "you can blame me". i love this man so bad it's actually a problem. he WILL get inside of ur house.

but her microwave is telling her to kill him and she pulls out a knife and STABS him and i was yelling NOOOOOOOO! and then the cop he was with shoots her and VERY QUICKLY we get a cutscene to....

SCULLY AUTOPSY TIME!!!!!!

she thinks there's some sort of chemical that is making the people do this

we also see poor wet meow meow mulder's bandaged arm :(

back to the ex-postman, who is seeking new gainful employment at a supermarket in which there are guns for sale in the back, another reminder that this show is set in america. he starts to see evil things in the TV but resists (and it might be related to the blood drive at the store but? it's a little unclear tbh)

mulder running scene! getting his cardio in! the man is dripping in sweat! he sees a guy toss some stuff in a yard and it's... dead bugs?

so who does he take the bugs to? well, the weirdos who previously were consulted for another case: the conspirators at the lone gunman! famous for the one guy hitting on scully and ripping up her twenty dollar bill

so we're back to these freaks and he says he didn't see their latest issue because "it arrived the same day as my subscription to Celebrity Skin"

now, i had an educated guess here based on name alone, but needed to confirm what this "celebrity skin" truly was. a search brings you to an album by the band Hole, and i was like omg!!! we're gonna get an insight into his canon music taste!!!! there is nothing more i LOVE than learning a character's favorite artists <3

but, this cannot be... for the show takes place before 1998, when the album was released... so i dig further

chat, as expected, it is a porn mag. seems to have involved some unethical stuff. mulder: ur a sick man.

the even sicker man who previously hit on scully was like "where's your little friend?" and he counters with "she wouldn't come. she was too afraid of her love for you" and the weirdo responds with "she's tasty"

now i want you to buckle your seat belts for what mulder says next. buckled? secured? sat? everyone is in a safe position? okay. he says:

"you know, it's men like you that give perversion a bad name"

HELLO? hey. hi! quick question <3 what does that mean. mulder a freak confirmed????

(i mean i guess we DID already know he fucked phoebe on arthur conan doyle's grave, which is going to stick in my head forever, but. don't make it worse. sometimes he's such a Man)

anyway the weirdos at the lone gunman think it's related to pesticides. and then mulder asks to borrow their night vision goggles and the weirdest of weirdos is like "only if you give me scully's number!"

cutscene to him using the night goggles

(mulder, if you gave that creep her number, i will NEVER forgive you. so keep that in mind)

he's sitting in a field and it looks so natural, like he really belongs there. bring back sitting in fields. but then he breaks into the orchard and gets sprayed by some pesticides and thoroughly knocked on his ass

mulder's yelling at some guy to take responsibility for the pesticides that he thinks are killing people... a moral crusader serving on the front lines...

scully's here now, btw. she took his blood. which had to be a strange experience. and then she mentions that she FLEW 300 MILES in the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT to come take his blood?

holy shit, mulder. she did that for you and you've been so broody and angsty lately and maybe even gave some dick her phone number. holy shit mulder, do not blow this. you cannot afford to blow this. she is soooo good to you.

anyway, he's seeing the same evil messages in technology the killers were now so that's a bummer

mulder proposes that this is some sort of subliminal messaging thing that is being activated by the fear-inducing pesticides and the cop gets pissed and leaves, to which he says "he's probably one of those people that thinks Elvis is dead"

so that's the SECOND line in this show about him being an elvis truther and i'm starting to think it's not a joke

back to the ex-postman. people are coming to his door to take blood and test for the chemicals in the pesticides and he's going bonkers. he's seeing "KILL" in his calculator, which is how you know things are rough. his watch even beeps and says "KILL" which i think would make a very very very very funny gif if anyone has that.

well, all of a sudden he's missing so the agents go to his house and knock. until.

scully realizes the door is open and just. lets herself in. i was laughing SO hard here. these bitches WILL get into your house. they will NOT wait for an invitation. truly a sign of soulmatism.

ex-postman was running running and they're like omg where is heeeeee he's gonna hurt people!!! scully is once again proving her genius status by saying that if it's a paranoia case, then all these guys in police uniforms need to get out of view.

(there's also this shot where mulder is like. smoldering. and she's behind him and man. height difference content i really really do love you and your work <3)

our crazed ex-postman climbs a tower at a college and is gonna start shooting but he's also hallucinating and laughing maniacally which i described in my notes as "entering his joker era"

mulder runs up and prevents a shootout using some handy jujitsu. neeeeed to see if this man is a black belt. for character driven purposes.

but he says that he knows the guy can't stop and overall it's an eerie situation because you can tell the pesticides are still in his brain as well. and his arm is bleeding again and this makes the other guy go into overdrive.

um. okay.

crisis averted...?

well, you sure would like to think that, wouldn't you? but the episode ends with mulder calling scully, and then HE sees more evil stuff in his phone! and it fades to blackness as her voice is heard through the speaker...

(i love that she knew it was him immediately. despite the silence. and that her train of thought went from "it's scully" to "mulder is it you?" to "mulder, what's wrong?" talk about a connection!)

hope he doesn't do anything too impulsive...

in conclusion: my very surface level interpretation of this episode was that it was warning us to not be controlled by technology, which i'm sure felt more relevant back in the day. but now that i have to click "don't sell my data" when i browse flavors of soup for sale online, i think we might just no longer be the target audience. or maybe it's even more relevant! an argument could be made both ways.

down with pesticides, though! i can get behind that! when's the last time you saw a bee? bring them back!

[hightownquccn]

POSSIBLE SIDEBLOG CREATION

Please VOTE on which one you think would be fun to play with.

Adding a little more description that I have thought out in my head. Some is canon from MCU/comics and some is the twist I want to put on the character for my portrayals*.

Agent ???. ( I still have no name for him ) former SHIELD agent. best friend of Sharon Carter. or so he likes to claim. computer genius. skinny white boy. flirt. bisexual. he's annoying but really a sweetheart. not big on field work. but he can hack.

( ? (name undecided) is a former agent of SHIELD now mini-Tony Stark minus the suit and superhero status. Coming up through the academy he somehow befriended a woman by the name of Sharon Carter when they were put on an undercover assignment together. He was mostly just the support but made a few appearances in his undercover roll when needed to support Sharon aka 'Emily'.

A bit of a nerdy genius all he has ever wanted was to feel wanted and valuable. He was loyal to SHIELD until it fell thanks to HYDRA infiltrating and finally revealing themselves. With the fall of SHIELD, he used his knowledge to freelance and made a name for himself. He has been known to take on projects to help the likes of former SHIELD-loyal agents. He is very anti-HYDRA. )

Alex. "Dove". literature professor. musician. Inhuman. pain manipulator. Guatamalan/naturalized American.

( Original mini description that may be tweaked: Alex received his nickname of Dove from his mother in what almost feels like a different time. She used to call him her little pacifist. Now a lot older ( and not necessarily a whole lot wiser ) he still holds that peace should be tried before war.

After terrogenesis, Alex discovered he now has the power to cause pain in others. It goes against a lot of what his parents taught him growing up and what he believes in...but he isn't an idiot. Sometimes if you have a gun in your face or pointed at a loved one you need to act. So as much as he hates his powers he does try and avoid it if at all possible. Known for his aversion to violence many have begun calling him the Dove. )

Steve Rogers. captain america. the first avenger. the little guy. the man out of time.

( Steve is a World War II veteran, a founding member of the Avengers, and Earth's first known superhero. Rogers grew up suffering from numerous health problems, and upon the United States' entry into World War II, he was rejected from serving in the United States Army despite several attempts to enlist. Rogers ultimately volunteered for Project Rebirth, where he was the only recipient of the Super Soldier Serum. 

Fighting in the war, he served his country before supposedly sacrificing himself in a plane crash. Decades later he was awoken from his sleep and begins to readjust to modern life. Cap is needed once again and he picked up the mantel again, joining The Avengers. He served with his fellow members for a time before eventually post The Snap 2.0 retiring. He has passed the mantel on to a man formerly known as Falcon, Sam Wilson. Now he is trying to figure out what to do with his life. )

Amora of Asgard. The Enchantress. asgardian. formerly exiled to Midgard by the Allfather. seductress. intelligent.

( Parentage unknown. While still in adolescence, she ran away to the land of the Norns and apprenticed herself to Karnilla, one of the most powerful sorceresses in all the Asgardian dimension. There she studied all the basic arts of Asgardian magic until Karnilla expelled her for being too undisciplined. She picked up further mystical skills from seducing other Asgardian mages and wizards. In time, Amora became one of the more powerful magic-wielders in Asgard, with her magical arsenal focused on (but not limited to) charming and mind-controlling people. Her by-then well-renowned beauty did not hinder in this.

Amora has always had an obsession with Thor. She has been used as a weapon by the Allfather to try and distract Thor from his love of the human, Jane Foster. But she has also done things unsanctioned by the royalty of Asgard. During one of her many attempts to make the God of Thunder hers she is caught and sentenced by the Allfather to Midgard. While there she took up the name of Sylvie Lushton. Stripped of her powers she is/was stuck in the realm until Thor is banished as well. When Loki appears they strike a deal and she regained her powers. )

KEY NOTES*

I would not play Steve as having gone back in time to rejoin Peggy. He stayed in his current timeline and lives in New York.

I play Amora as having 'Sylvie Lushton' as her mortal name in tribute to the two different women that had the title of Enchantress in the comics.

[monsteraddict1]

Chapter 5

This is a long ass chapter. Srry in advance

I was fucking squished in the car. I could feel both men squeezing me as they breathed. I was just praying wherever we were going was not too far from here.

As we left the base two other cars followed behind us.

It was a short drive into the colorful village. Honestly it was a beautiful place but I heard stories from Jackie on why her uncle left. I loved listening about her family and all the drama in it.

"White truck, four armed in the back." Soap's gruff Scottish voice rang through my left ear. I felt him shift for his gun. Alejandro turned around.

"Hey- tranquilo. Easy. That's normal here. Guns on the street is jurisdiction of the police."

"Where are the police?" Ghost's english accent vibrated through my right ear.

"Well. Las Almas has a very serious problem. There are few here who uphold the law. And many of those who resist corruption... Disappear." Alejandro responded.

"What about the military?" Soap questioned. His voice like a growl.

Does this whole team smoke?

"Well, because we are well trained, soldiers are recruited by the narcos."

  "Why not you?" Ghost's voice was gruff.

  Are we playing 21 questions??

  "We grew up here." Alejandro looked at Rudy. "They call us Los Vaqueros... cowboys. We love this place. And we will die fighting for it."

  I looked out of the right window to see a huge cathedral. As we continued to drive there were a bunch of men in masks and holding guns.

  Soap looked over at Ghost, who was already staring at Soap.

  "Kids, guns and Ballons... that's a new one." Soap spoke.

  "Narcos use generosity to win over the people."

  "Even the children?"

  "Especially the children." Rudy spoke in english.

  The car slowed down as the three of us in the back seat saw white sheets covering two bodies. I cringed at the sight.

  "What's on those sheets?"

  Alejandro rolled down the window. "Narcomantas..."

  "Cartel cloths." Rudy clarified.

  "Messages from El sin nombre. Warnings, marking territory." He paused for a beat. "Our streets are laced with death."

  I felt sick. Like physically sick. I will never even have the full story of how they grew up but it looked horrible.

  "Who's Sin Nombre?" Ghost asks yet another question. It took all the power in me not to correct him. I didn't want him to be more annoyed with me than he already seemed to be.

  "El sin Nombre. The nameless." Alejandro corrected. "The leader of the las Almas cartel."

  "Where can we find him?" Soap had a hard expression on his face.

  "You can't. No one knows who he is. But he is everywhere. And this is a challenge... but Los Vaqueros like challenges."

  "With your mask. You will fit in well here, Ghost." Rudy mused. I couldn’t help but smile at that.

  "Oye, tranquilo." Alejandro snickered. "Checkpoint. It's the army. Turn right. We will go around."

  "Why?" All these fucking men do is ask questions.

  "Some troops are in the pocket of El Sin Nombre. Like I told you. He is everywhere... cartel is hiding Hassan in the village across the river. Let's hope he's still there."

  Why the fuck did my aunt send me here. This is my second fucking mission and I'm pared with British people and my best friend's hot uncle and his funny best friend. Did she forget I have no experience?

  "You ready, (y/n)" Alejandro turned his head.

  "I'm fucked if I'm not." He just laughed at my words.

  We continued driving out of the village.

  "So Kate sent you? Why did you join exactly?" Soap asked YET ANOTHER question. I felt like I was tweaking with every question he asked.

  "It's private." I replied. I didn't want to sound like a spoiled teenager and say, 'oh I just absolutely needed a vacation. That's why I'm here to murder people and get the missals back to America!' It doesn't really sound the best.

  "So the CIA shit runs in the family?"

  "Sure."

  "What do you mean 'sure'?"

  "Well she's not my blood aunt. But I guess we are similar in ways. She's too smart though. Which is why I'm military not CIA." I joked a bit which earned a laugh from Soap.

"Aye, there's a reason I'm behind a gun and not a computer screen." Soap smiled. His smile was contagious and I couldn't help but mimic his grin.

"You're behind one occasionally." Ghost piped in. It wasn't as rude as he normally sounded. I could tell they were good friends though.

  "I just can't believe Lasswell is your aunt." Alejandro looked back at me.

  "She doesn't like to talk about her family." I crossed my arms to save space. "Which, knowing my step mother. I understand."

  "She didn't sound too pleasant when you were on the phone with her when you were over here last." Rudy joined in.

  God she called me every day! Asking when I'd be home and to be super careful because it's extremely dangerous in Mexico. It's dangerous here in Las Almas. Not where Jackie's family is.

"She was so annoying." I grumbled.

  "So you moved in with Lasswell?" Ghost asked.

  "Yeah. When I was seventeen."

  "Was your mum just eager to get you out of the house?" Soap laughed and looked down at my squished form.

  "Oh yes. Very." I replied, not wanting to go into detail of my life story. Not when I could get shot within the next five minutes.

  We continued to drive then we slowly came to a stop near a forested area. When the car stopped we all piled out.

  "Team leaders, circle up on me..." Alejandro commanded.

  "Copy, Colonel." Rudy followed behind him.

  I stood next to Soap as I watched.

  "Weapons hot, Vaqueros."

  "Let's move." Said one of the soldiers. They walked off, gun in hand.

  The five of us stood in a circle. Gear of and guns loaded. It was clear this town was abandoned.

  "Where are they hiding Hassan?" Soap asked.

  "White two story building, back of town." Alejandro gestured to the back of town.

  My aunt wasn't lying when she said getting trained quickly. I'm actually getting thrown into all of this.

  We quickly started moving. I stayed behind Soap. He was wearing a tan bullet proof vest with SAS on the back of it.

“You seem nervous, rookie.” Ghost let out a small chuckle.

“Sorry I don’t have twenty years of experience.” I snapped slightly.

Maybe I was too nervous. Speaking to a Lieutenant like that.

“I’m not that old.”

  We stopped in front of a black painted wooden gate. A stone wall surrounded the town.

  "All victors, stand by... Tres dos uno ejecutar ejecutar!" Alejandro gave the command and Ghost pushed the gate open with force. "Movimiento claro."

  "Civilians?" Soap asked.

  "Gone. Cartel took over. It's a hideout now."

  "Good place to keep Hassan." Soap thought aloud.

  "Next Gate Soap."

  We approached the next gate when we could hear shouting in the distance. "Las ratas se dirigen hacia ti! Puedo oírlos en el camino!"

  "Movimiento! Contacto- todos los Victors se mudan!"

  "Chicos! Aquí vienen! Vamos a la mierda!" They yelled. My heart and stomach dropped. And there is nothing I could do about it.

  "Copy. Twos moving!" Rudy's voice came over the coms.

  "They're down. Push up." Alejandro's voice was gruff.

  "Prepárate!" The cartel shouted. And I knew it was for their men but I couldn't help but take the advice as well. I took a deep breath and tried to relax. Key word... tried.

  We continued pushing through the town then once we turned the corner bullets flew past my head. I stood a little behind Soap and got a few shots in. Not 100% sure if I was really hitting the cartel members.

  Once we got a few of them we continued through the dirt streets. Shooting at any of the men that shot at us.

  "Clear." Soap looked around.

  "Secure the house. Then we will go for Hassan."

  We moved closer to the door to the house. I checked my back and made eye contact with Ghost. I quickly moved my head back forward.

  "Cuidado con todas las ventanas y puertas... están entrando..." I heard one of them whisper through the wall.

  "Cartel will move him fast." Soap brought up in his husky voice.

  "Then we move faster." Alejandro mused. "Take the door." Soap slowly pushed the door open. "Heads up, they're ready."

  We slowly walked into the house and the second we did we heard someone yell. "El hijo de puta!"

  The second Soap entered the hallway he shot what I assumed to be the man who screamed before.

  "Doorway, right side." Alejandro instructed. Soap did as he said but didn't find anything. "Hassan could be anywhere..."

  We probably walked two feet before bullets were flying through the door. The wood was chipped and in the wall from the force of the bullet. Soap threw in a grenade and we all took a few steps back. Except for Ghost. Who I conveniently backed up into.

  "Sorry." I muttered and took two steps forward to get out of his way.

  There was a loud boom and a flash of yellow light. I didn't even want to look into the room.

  Soap kicked the door open but I looked the other way. "Room clear."

  "Nice work, Hermano."

  "No sign of Hassan."

  "Not yet."

  Soap entered the room to make sure it was actually clear and we continued walking.

  "Keep clearing, Sargent." Ghost's low English accent rang through my brain from behind me.

  "Clear. What happened to the families here?"

  "The cartel brings violence. So they leave." Alejandro informed. We walked to the back door and I stood out of the way. "Ready to move." Soap went to open the door then the colonel put his hand on the door. "Stand by. Victor dos, this is uno- uno. Despliega humo. Nos estamos mudando." He spoke over the coms.

  I looked out the window and saw smoke form outside.

  "Where's your family, Alejandro?" Soap looked at him.

  "I keep that a secret, hermano... to protect them." Alejandro looked back at Soap.

  Martin does not want protection. He wants to be just like his father on the field.

  "We have concealment." Ghost spoke as he looked out the window.  I looked at him as he spoke. He looked back down at me. "Ready, private?"

  "I don't have a choice."

  He chuckled slightly at that. "No. You don't."

"Let's move." Alejandro stood up. "On me, Soap." He opened the door and we all followed behind. The white two story house was right in front of us. "This is where they were hiding Hassan. Expect resistance. Todos los equipos, establezcan la contención. Preparación para la violación."

  One of his men shot open the door and kicked it in. As we entered we were immediately met with resistance. I aimed my gun for his head and pulled the trigger. The bullet whizzed past Soap and Alejandro right into the cartel member's head. Soap walked straight ahead and got a guy hiding behind a blue door.

  The house itself was cute. It reminded me of Alejandro's, with bright yellow walls and the doors having a painted trim. There was a painting of the mountains and a bunch of house plants. It was very homey and warm.

  "Clear! No Hassan." Alejandro spoke through the com.

  "Second deck." Ghost replied.

   "Sí. Vamos. Let's move upstairs and get Hassan."

  I followed behind Soap. "You think he's actually up there?"

  "Fuckin' better be." Soap responded without looking at me.

  "Holding at the stairs." Alejandro spoke as we heard another gunshot.  Soap and I turned to find the staircase. We slowly crept our way up the red tiled stairs. "If Hassan is here, he is in this room." Alejandro whispered as we made it to the second floor.

  Soap and I walked in first and started getting shot at. We fired back but there was no sign of Hassan.

  "You two secure the room. I'll cover." Alejandro instructed as Soap and I walked around the room.

  "We got Hassan cornered. Get in there." Ghost said as we made it to another painted door.

  Soap kicked it in. "Clear. No Hassan."

  "Todos los vencedores, apuntan a construir de forma segura. Negativo en Hassan."

  "Entendido que." Rudy responded to Alejandro from the coms.

  Alejandro let out a deep sigh. One of frustration and exhaustion. "They must've moved him."

  "When?" Soap asked. I looked out the window and saw a few dead cartel members.

  "Recently."

  "Quds Force. That's his flag." Ghost pointed to the desk. It was littered in books and paper.

  "He was here."

  "Alejandro's intel was good." I could hear Soap smile.

  "Comandante! El ejército está llegando!" Rudy yelled in a panic.

  Shit.

[where1endandyoubeg1n]

money rock is definitely the most divisive season of schoolhouse rock. chances are you haven't seen it if you don't have the series on dvd or didn't tune into disney to watch, but the people who have seen it seem to hold a similar opinion.

on one hand, there's songs like tax man max and the check's in the mail that are top 10 material for songs in the whole series(which is ironic since they're both the most outdated in the season). a lot of them have very distinct instrumentals that hold an even wider array of instruments than songs of the original series- a good example is the steel pan drum in this for that. they really toy with fun musical genres, such as a bossa nova/elevator music vibe in 7.50 once a week that features a strange but catchy cowbell breakdown, or the showtuney feel of tax man max, or the country twang that adds some nice spice to dollars and sense. they were really willing to stretch their horizions a bit here, and that's also obvious with their experiments with the schoolhouse rock artstyle. you have the ones that stay faithful, like this for that, tyrannosaurus debt, and tax man max, but some slight departures that feel true to the originals yet very fresh. 7.50 once a week and where the money goes are stellar examples of that. the character design is still very shr, but the lines are cleaner and the animation is a little more adventerous due to their slightly bigger budget. becky sue of dollars and sense as well as her animals on the farm are good examples: still obviously schoolhouse rock, but a little more stylized in a different direction. then there's walking on wall street and the check's in the mail, which have extremely distinct animation that barely harkens to old schoolhouse rock. it's choppy, lineweight is played with lots, and character designs take larger departures from the old seasons. and it looks stellar. especially in the latter. everything feels fresh but familiar.

however, it's not without it's drawbacks. there's more forgettable songs than a normal schoolhouse rock season; i watched all the episodes in a big blend when i was little(i owned the dvd, hah) and couldn't tell the difference between old and new shr since i was a dumb lil baby. however, i could hum at least a few motifs or mention at least a couple interesting moments in the animation for every single song in every season. except this one. the only ones i could give you more than one thing on were dollars and sense(obviously, since that one was the big episode of the season), 7.50 once a week, and walking on wall street. and as much as i sing the praises of tax man max, it is the only shr episode i watched when i was younger and as of a month ago, before i rewatched, i could tell you nothing on. gun to my head i could at least remember the tuba opening to where the money goes or the first chorus to the check's in the mail, but i wiped tax man max from my memory. it's just not a sticky season, and i think that just comes down to the fact that it's teaching money. it's literally called money rock. those lessons have to be taught far more straightforward than any of the other subjects. it's very tough stretch it into anything really cool or revolutionary, a problem similar to a few songs in america rock. you can't personify the concept with a character like bill or verb or the prepositions, and you're hard-pressed to be able to twist and morph the concept like in telegraph line or conjunction junction. tyrannosaurus debt does it well enough with equating national debt to a dinosaur monster eating the money, but there's not too much wiggle room. this is little fault of the creators and just comes with the subject matter, however it negatively impacts the season. some instrumentals are also really bland, too. tyrannosaurus debt is a big offender, and while the steel pan drum in this for that is cool for a few seconds, it gets unimpressive quickly. the characters also aren't super memorable. like, i've not seen people putting the caveman from this for that or lester the investor from walking on wall street on a pedestal like lots of other characters(though becky sue and tax man max are icons). sometimes they get a little boring.

in conclusion: i yapped for about 30 minutes? holy crap. this is a long post. anyways, money rock good(but not great). feel free to tell me what you think.

[thebindingofpillo]

when it comes to characters such as lazarus, do you think anyone could trust him with any sort of firearm? or like, does any character know how to use weapons? Esau, Lazarus, Samson, Judas, Eve, (and maybe Eden) look like they know how.

Oh boy now this is an interesting question mhmmm… First we need to keep in mind that my story doesn’t really take place in America. I didn’t really want my AU to take place in a *real* country, I intentionally kept it vague, so that people could fill in the blanks themselves. Reincarnation can take place wherever you want! But since I’m more familiar with Italian legislation, some of it might seep into my setting. Which means: guns are rare and difficult to obtain.

Funnily enough, I have an inside joke with my friend that Isaac owns at least one gun. The boy got tired of all the supernatural bullshit so now he’s fighting back.

With that being said: realistically, I think the only one with some expertise with guns would be Cain. He’s very old, he’s seen a lot of stuff, went through a lot of shit, and knowing how to protect oneself when faced with adversity is really important. He’s probably more used to older stuff tho, I can’t really see him with a high-tech automatic rifle. Maybe a tommy gun lmao. I don’t think he killed anyone else besides Abel tho, he doesn’t really want to go through that again.

As for the others you mentioned… Lazarus and guns seems like a terrible combination, knowing his chronic bad luck that thing would go off on him all the time. And while he can’t really die, accidentally shooting himself isn’t really something I’d wish upon him lol.

Judas would not trust himself with guns. At all. He’s already got some pretty strong self-destructive tendencies and Azazel would never allow a gun in their house. Judas has a problem with offing himself in every life, and Azazel always tries his damn best for it not to happen. He’s failed every single time, but that doesn’t deter him. He’s already pretty on edge with Judas living in a normal house with normal dangerous things (like knives) adding a gun to the equation would make Azazel explode immediately so that’s a big no no.

Esau strikes me as the type of guy who would know about weapons/guns but wouldn’t own them? Idk he doesn’t really seems like the type… Jacob might have an interest in Medieval weapons tho, he’s enough of a nerd for that. He probably tried to rope Esau into some historical reenactments but his brother wasn’t really having it. I can see Jacob taking on something like medieval fencing if he wasn’t disabled. Also Lazarus would make fun of him lol.

Samson wouldn’t really know his way around a gun or any other weapon, so he would be a danger to himself and others. Big no no.

Eve might know something about guns? Maybe her father was a cop, or a hunter. I could see that… tbf I didn’t really think about Eve’s parents, maybe this could be interesting! I can definitely see baby Eve looking at her dad cleaning and assembling his guns. The only gun she uses is the tattoo gun in her shop lol.

Maggy strikes me as a blunt force trauma girlie, she should have a warhammer. Or a crowbar, as a treat.

Lilith can’t see, so she wouldn’t even get close to a gun, or any type of weapon. Too risky.

Bethany is a wee baby, her defense mechanism is just curling up in a ball and hoping for the best.

OKAY now onto Eden and Azazel. They do absolutely know how to use weapons. Every angel has a weapon (usually a sword, Azazel and Eden both had swords) every angel is a warrior of God, and fighting demons is part of their purpose. So yeah, both Eden and Azazel (who used to be an angel) know their way around weapons, Azazel was quite the skilled warrior, and even used to create his own! When he first started living amongst humans he learned how to be a blacksmith and goldsmith, and he was really good at it. Azazel’s weapon is currently under archangel Michael’s care, and Eden lost theirs lol. As for guns, Azazel isn’t too fond of them and Eden wouldn’t really need them anyway even if they technically know how to fire one (they’re a Cherub, and Cherubim are omniscient).

Apollyon, being an angel, also knows how to fight but never ever had to in the billions and billions of years he existed. His main weapon is a spear that doubles as the Key for the Abyss.

[jacksoldsideblog]

On the loss of the worker class and the lack of hypocrisy in Project Mayhem

"What," he says, "what will you wish you'd done before you died?"

...

My job, I say. I wish I'd quit my job.

...

The mechanic starts talking, and it's pure Tyler Durden. 

"I see the strongest and the smartest men who have ever lived," he says, his face outlined against the stars in the driver's window, "and these men are pumping gas and waiting tables." 

The drop of his forehead, his brow, the slope of his nose, his eyelashes and the curve of his eyes, the plastic profile of his mouth, talking, these are all outlined in black against the stars. 

"If we could put these men in training camps and finish raising them. 

"All a gun does is focus an explosion in one direction. 

"You have a class of young strong men and women, and they want to give their lives to something. Advertising has these people chasing cars and clothes they don't need. Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they don't really need. 

"We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression. 

"We have to show these men and women freedom by enslaving them, and show them courage by frightening them. 

"Napoleon bragged that he could train men to sacrifice their lives for a scrap of ribbon. 

"Imagine, when we call a strike and everyone refuses to work until we redistribute the wealth of the world. 

"Imagine hunting elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center.

"What you said about your job," the mechanic says, "did you really mean it?"

.

Chapters 18-19, Fight Club.

Well known, probably, for the facetious nature of stating there’s no war in the generation in the 90s as having no war when the Gulf war ‘ended’ in ‘91, and in ‘03 we’d be back in Iraq. Also known well for its inclusion in the movie. 

But like, what’s actually being said there, when you get past that?

You have: The working class of America was emaciated as jobs flew overseas and were rerouted to prison ‘labor’, rapidly deindustrializing the country and leaving those left behind to be shoved into bullshit jobs to create a consumer managerial class, a fangless servile underclass without real power to affect the day to day of society, and a very, very small remaining working class. People who once would have been integral to the function of society are now further alienated and reduced to consumers in a deindustrialized feedlot. All that’s left is the hopelessness, which everyone can see is a cataclysmic disease. A problem that has to be solved. You have such a severe loss of power, such strong alienation that fight club develops as a way to grasp even a sense of control and purpose.

You have: Men especially have been promised war and hard times as the catalyst for their own purpose, but now this generation has seen war, has seen hard times, and none of those promises are stacking up. The poisoning and bombing of civilians in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, doesn’t quite match with the image of righteously dying to end nazism. There is no sudden government program buying up the labor of the beleaguered man down on his luck, to create massive publics works projects and revitalize the surrounding world and economy, a la the New Deal. The propagandized images of the past have been tarnished. There is an acute sense of lack of purpose, lack of value. There is an acute sense of something needing to shift, something massive.

You have: a manufactured rejection of the working class, a debridement of labor, a world in which salary has no relation to the importance or effort of the work you do; there is no value.

He says, imagine; the American people revitalized to the power and importance of before. Strong and undistracted, no longer pacified by petty admittance to jobs with no purpose, no longer accepting of their devaluation, no longer allowing their importance in the world the predicted value of their ad-influenceable leanings. 

Imagine; you’re afraid of history, you cannot imagine crafting a better world, anyone with a concrete plan has been gunned down and removed from power and all you’re left with is limpdicked fools who sit around waiting for a miracle to happen. Imagine you can only see destroying this one and hoping what rises from the ashes will be better as the answer. 

He's an accelerationist; make everything worse, so bad, hit bottom so all you can do is rise. 

So: accelerate. Take the average wage slave, already stripped of true individuality in favor of corporate signage, already stripped of power, and push them farther. Imagine, you think, only will everyone be strong if they finally accept that they are weak. Become the opposite of free. Join a cult. Become nothing and no one. Manifest the death cult already intrinsic in society. Become the nexus of all of society’s ills. Push people into such inhumanity that they will inevitably revolt against you and learn the true value of themselves in the world. 

And try to collapse society. Accelerate the fall of finance. Hasten the destruction of society so it can blossom again.

So yeah, it’s like… I think Project Mayhem’s hypocrisies are on purpose, really. Self improvement is masturbation if you’re never going to actually make a difference. Self destruction is the only thing that will allow you to reach even a moment of perfection. Destroy what you were, let go, fucking take action for once, unfreeze, DO something. Project Mayhem is an advanced version of fight club; it promises actualization through destruction. It isn’t like, some happenstance thing that results in Tyler making the space monkeys what they are. 

I think it’s moreso simply the manifestation of the accelerationist aspect of Tyler’s anarchist, nihilist ideals. And like those two, it’s also a criticism. The monkeys do not drag themselves free. They still await orders. It is a failed, ill planned philosophy of a rabid dog.

[we-are-inevitable]

Give me something from the restaurant au, any scene you really want to write <33

this is a little cheating because i’ve had this written for a while, but: here’s a little snip!

———

“Alright, great! So, that’s a number four, medium well, no mayo. For your side, do you want fries or a side salad, Sir?”

“What kind of fuckin’ question is that? It’s a burger. What kind of hippy-ass place serves a side salad with a burger?”

David Jacobs loves his job.

He does. This job, waiting tables at an expensive burger joint in the heart of Manhattan, is admittedly one of the better ones he’s had. Sure, he gets his fair share of shitty customers- like this rough and tumble wannabe cowboy, who no doubt got roped into his wife’s vacation to the Big Apple- but you get shitty customers everywhere. At every single restaurant he’s worked at, of which there are many, he’s had bad tables. Eight tops that only give him a meesely five dollars for a tip, macho guys who like pointing out that David’s ears are pierced and therefore he must be one of those queers, moms that bitch about how long food takes to get to the table even though he’s just sent the order in five minutes ago… Shitty customers are everywhere.

And David loves his job.

So, he nods, and smiles, and lets out his practiced-to-perfection laugh. “I know, right?” He says, looking the man in the eye. “Side salads at a burger restaurant? It doesn’t make any sense, but it’s policy to ask anyway. I’ll get that order in for you guys here in just a second, and it’ll be out shortly.”

The man with the bushy mustache and beer gut seems satisfied now that David has proven he’s not a hippy-ass who likes side salads, and he gives him a grunt of acknowledgement. David takes the menus, smiles at the table, and walks straight to the iPad in the corner next to the bar to send the order to the kitchen.

He’s just about to press the send button when he hears a voice to his side, high pitched and squeaky, say, “What kind of hippy-ass, liberal-ass, blue state, gay-ass restaurant serves a side salad with a burger? Do I look like one of them queers? Yeehaw, America, I wanna fuck my gun.”

David rolls his eyes as a laugh rips from his chest. He glances to the side and sees Albert there behind the bar, slinging a towel over his shoulder; Al has this cocky little smirk on his face, matching the awful southern accent he had just tried to do. So far, Albert is the first friend David has made here— he just started at this restaurant about two weeks ago, and Al latched onto him by his second day— and David is always thankful that the hostesses put him in the section closest to the bar. Albert makes the lunch rush bearable.

It takes David a second to stop giggling, but as his laughter dies down, he reaches over the bar and slaps Albert’s shoulder. “Fucking hell, I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who had to hear that. If I survive this table without shooting myself, you owe me a beer.”

“What’s his problem, anyway?” Albert asks, leaning with his palms against the cool mahogany of the bar. “Stick up his ass?”

“Wife dragged him to New York,” David responds, placing the menus from the table underneath the iPad stand, and he makes a note to let Smalls and Spot know that the menus in the back are ready to be brought up to the hostess stand. “The entire time I’m trying to take his fucking order, he’s all like, ugh, I hate this, these burgers better not be for pansies, this better be good like Texas burgers, and I’m just waiting there, like, okay, just give me your goddamn order already. I wanted to die, Albert.”

Albert snickers, then glances to the side and straightens up. “Well, don’t go dyin’ yet, Jacobs. You just got here, and I like you, so if you leave, I’ll have to kill you.” He grins again, then nods his head to the left. “Your four top on twelve looks like they’re ready for the check.”

David nods and taps the bar twice. “Thank fuck,” He says under his breath, and shoots Albert a tight, closed mouth grin. “I’ll be back to ruin your shift later.”

“Can’t wait.”

From then on, the rush takes over. Closing checks, pre-bussing tables, running food— it’s a madhouse in the restaurant for about two hours. David knew it would be. Pulitzer’s is conveniently located just a few blocks from Times Square, so the weekend rush is always awfully full of tourists, and it may suck in the moment, but David really likes it. It’s kind of fun, actually; in the few minutes of downtime he has on this job, he makes conversations with his tables, hears their stories. He gets to know them, even if he’s just a fleeting little nobody in the grand scheme of their trips.

At the steakhouse he used to serve in, he got to be part of a few proposals, which were always stressful but incredibly rewarding at the same time. Unlike a lot of his coworkers, he actually loves having little kids sat in his section, and as a professional big brother he enjoys joking around and listening to them babble on about whatever their mind deems important at that age. He talks to tourists about their travels, gives recommendations for hidden gems around the city, and makes them feel at home for the thirty to forty-five minutes he’s taking care of them for. It’s the least he can do, honestly.

And, well. The tips are always better when you add a personal touch.

That’s what this is about, right? The tips. The money. Working for pennies is bad enough, but working for tips is a game. You have to choose the right action, say the right words. Morph yourself into someone you’re not. Pretend you don’t like side salads and form an alliance with the mustachioed cowboy from Texas. Play up how many times you go to synagogue to please the Jewish grandma who comes in with the grandkids. Talk politics with republicans and hide the rainbow pin on your shirt collar.

David has experience at this. It doesn’t make him any less bitter.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

New Rule: Whoa, Canada | Real Time with Bill Maher

And finally, New Rule. If we want to save our country, we should follow the advice good liberals have given for decades and learn from other countries.

Especially those beacons of progressivism like Canada, England, and Scandinavia, and I agree we should, as long as we're honest about the lessons we're learning. And as long as we're up to date on the current data. Such as, the unemployment rate in the US is 3.8 percent. And in Canada, it's 6.1. And of the 15 North American cities with the worst air pollution, 14 are in Canada.

I'm not citing these stats because I have it out for Canada. I love Canada, and its people, and always have, but I hate zombie lies. Zombie lies. That's when things change but what people say about them doesn't. Yes, for decades, places like Vancouver, and Amsterdam, and Stockholm seemed idyllic, because everything was free and all the energy we needed was produced by riding a bike to your job at the windmill. Canada was where all the treasured goals of liberalism worked perfectly. It was like NPR come to life but with poutine.

Canada was the Statue of Liberty with a low-maintenance haircut and cross-country skis. A giant idealized blue state with single-payer health care, gun control, and abortion on polite demand. Canada was where every woke White college kid, wearing pajama pants outdoors who'd had it up to here with America's racist patriarchy, dreamt of living someday. I mean, besides Gaza.

There's only one problem with thinking everything's better in Canada. It's not. Not anymore anyway. Last year, Canada added 1.3 million people, which is a lot in one year. The equivalent of the US adding 11 million migrants in one year. And now, they are experiencing a housing crisis even worse than ours. And we're sleeping in tents. The median price of a home here is 346 grand, in Canada, converted to US dollars, it's 487. If Barbie moved to Winnipeg, she wouldn't be able to afford her dream house and Ken would be working at Tim Hortons. And because of mortgage debt, Canada has the highest debt to GDP ratio of any G7 nation. I don't know what that means, but it sounds bad.

So does their vaunted health care system, which ranks dead last among high income countries in access to primary health care and ability to see a doctor in a day or two. And it's not for lack of spending. Of the 30 countries with universal coverage, Canada spends over 13 percent of its economy on it, which is a lot of money for free health care.

Look, I'm not saying Canada still isn't a great country. It is, but those aren't paradise numbers. If Canada was an apartment, the lead feature might be "America adjacent." And if America was a rental car, Canada would be "America or similar."

And again, honestly, Canada, I'm not saying any of this 'cause I enjoy it. I don't, 'cause I've always enjoyed you. But I need to cite you as a cautionary tale to help my country. And the moral of that tale is, "Yes, you can move too far left." And when you do, you wind up pushing the people in the middle to the right. At its worst, Canada is what American voters think happens when there's no one putting a check on extreme wokeness.

Like the saga of Canadian shop teacher, Kayla Lemieux, whose pronouns are she/her and those. Kayla is now back to being a guy named Kerry, but two years ago when "they" showed up to teach children, the progressive high school "they" taught at said that they-- They, the school, not the person. Really? You couldn't have found another word? We were using that one. Anyway, okay. They were committed to a safe environment for gender expression. Safe for who? What about the children? What about the equipment in that shop class?

You know, there was once a weirdo D-list movie producer in the '60s named Russ Meyer who made low-budget B movies like Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! And Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Always featuring women who look like this. His movies played in porn houses and were featured in Hustler and Playboy. Okay, fine, but who says, "No, when it comes to huge, ridiculous tits, let's save that for the kids."

And this is why people vote for Trump. They say in politics, liberals are the gas pedal and conservatives are the brakes, and I'm generally with the gas pedal, but not if we're driving off a cliff.

On the trans issue, America is no ands, ifs, or buts about it, absolutely alone in the world now. An outlier country. Last month, England's National Health Service announced that there's "not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness" of puberty blockers for third graders, and that they were going to stop fumbling around with children's privates, because that's Prince Andrew's job.

So too with all the other good place countries in direct opposition to America's choice to affirm children's wishes on switching gender, no matter the age or psychiatric history. The Far Left, which always like to use, "Well, Europe does it." Yeah, no, that doesn't work on this one anymore.

Or on immigration. Sweden opened its borders to over a million and a half immigrants since 2010. And now 20 percent of its citizens are foreign-born and its education system is tanking, and it has Europe's highest rate of gangland killings. And one result is that the far-right parties are in the government now there for the first time.

To which liberals say, "Blaming immigrants for the rising crime rate is racist." Yeah, but is it true? Of course, it's true. It's not a coincidence. The quality of life went down after the Somali gangs started a drug turf war using hand grenades.

Calling it "racist" doesn't solve the problem. It hands future elections to someone who will solve the problem, and who, I promise, you're not going to like.

==

For the record, I've said literally all of this, including making the comparison of flying off a cliff if you rely entirely on the gas pedal. Just saying.

When Trump takes office again, and he will, people will act stunned and ask, "how could this have ever happened?"

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

by David Hume Kennerly

* * *

PLEASE DON’T THANK ME FOR MY SERVICE THIS VETERAN’S DAY

NOV 11, 2023

Please don't thank me for my "service." I was in the military, not the "Service." Service is doing something good. Service is what the person does who fixes your car. When the word "service" is applied to the military, it helps to justify violence as a method for conflict resolution. Like "defending our freedom," or "bringing democracy," the word "service" is used to lower the barriers of aggression. The military solution to conflict is death and destruction. That's not "service." Call it what it is - the military. If you have to hurt someone to solve a problem, you are the Problem. -- Arnold Stieber, US Army Veteran, 1970

I have absolutely no problem understanding exactly what Mr. Stieber wrote above, “back in the day,” with the white-hot heat of youth and the thorough pissed-offness of someone who had seen the side of life nobody ever wants to see. It’s the attitude I came home with from that same war, five years before he did.

I’ve never really gotten used to the new tradition of the past 30 years, for civilians - on discovering they are in the presence of someone who served in the military, - to say “Thank you for your service.” I have very mixed emotions about that. On the one hand, it’s nice that maybe a fourth of them have a clue why they’re saying what they are, that it isn’t merely the mouthing of polite words. On the other hand, I’m not sure why anyone would want to thank someone who served in the war I served in, or the ones that followed.

The war in Vietnam made everything in America worse. For just one thing, it harmed the economy when the government adopted a policy of both “guns” and “butter,” which led to the severe inflation of the 1970s, which gave companies looking for any way to reduce costs to start taking a hard line on employee compensation, which leaves us in the condition where the average American working stiff now makes less in terms of buying power than they did 50 years ago, I don’t know about you, but I’m not up to thanking anyone for that.

Of course, thinking further on this leads one to the obvious conclusion that it wasn’t the kids who got drafted who did any of that. They weren’t sitting in the halls of government thinking about how to distract the citizenry from the fact that this particular imperial war was going bad in all ways, and coming up with the idea of keeping taxes down in a period of increased government spending for things that go “BOOM!” while making sure they could get that new car every three years like they always did. Those decisions are the ones that led to the situation I mentioned above. Made by guys who mostly never got shot at, even in the war they did serve in.

In my experience during my time in the Navy and the years after knowing other vets and working with them, there were very few of us who “wanted” to go to war. Most of my fellow sailors were in the Navy because they figured joining the Navy and getting trained for a good job and “seeing the world” beat the daylights out of being in the Army, so much so it was worth a couple extra years over the two years a draftee served. Ditto the Air Force. Even the Marines were forced to start taking draftees after 1966, when they ran low on guys who believed what John Wayne told them in “Sands of Iwo Jima.”

As close as anyone got to “wanting” to go was when those of us who had joined before the war received the first orders sending us to the war. As my friend Phil Caputo wrote in “A Rumor of War” (a “Vietnam book” you should read), when he learned he and his fellow Marines were headed to DaNang in South Vietnam in 1965, “I thought to myself that when it was over and I went home, I’d be able to look my Tarawa-veteran father in the eye.” I know many others - including me, son of the guy who survived the Kamikazes - the sons of the “greatest generation” who had grown up with all the stories about our father’s “good war,” who “played war” with the cast-off gear from that war, who had similar thoughts.

Vietnam was the last war fought with draftees, and you can bet your bottom dollar today’s leaders will never go back to that system. The draft made everyone think about the war, whether they had to worry about getting drafted out of whatever working class job they had (or didn’t have); even the kids with student deferments had to think about the war when they didn’t work hard enough to keep their grades up and maintain their 2-S status. Mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters and friends all had to worry about someone they knew and loved going off to that war. Whether they “supported the president” or came to understand that the war wasn’t worth the loss of that life they knew and loved, they came in the middle of the night to hate the war. And eventually that made itself known in politics. The makers of war became constrained in the war they could make by the lack of support from those who gave them their jobs with their votes.

I’ll tell you something. After I came back, I did all I could to end that draft. But I would be very happy to see it brought back today.

No deferments. The sons and daughters of the rich serve right alongside the sons and daughters of the poor - like they did in World War II. It’ll make the entitled little shits into something better. And it really does unify - it’s hard to hate people you know by name.

But mostly I’m in favor of that because it makes it almost impossible for “They” to decide to fight a 20 year war in Afghanistan, or Iraq. They can’t do it because too many people will be paying attention. And getting pissed off at them. And voting.

But no, for exactly the reasons I am for the draft, the “all-volunteer” army is here to stay. You can’t fight 20-year wars in hellholes nobody knows without it. That way, only about 1-2 percent of the population ever has to think about the war - the kids who join up because they don’t have a future that looks better than what the military offers, their families, their friends - not a big enough group that if they got upset they could muster any political changes, unlike all those folks 50 years ago.

Most of all, if you’re going to thank me or any of us for our service, don’t try to honor us as “heroes.” For one thing, most of us aren’t, and for another, if you haven’t been in the military you really have no idea what being a hero in that context actually is.

It’s not what you think it is.

An old Navy Chief once explained “being a hero” to me: “When you’re so terrified that your brain is so frozen you can’t think, and you’ve pissed your pants and shit your drawers, and you just know you’re going to die, and you still do your job - THAT is being a hero.”

Not the definition too many in our society nowadays want to hear.

“But, Tom,” you say, “don’t you write all these best-selling books about wars and heroes? You must really love war to think about it so much.”

If you have gotten anything even remotely like that from reading any of my books, you really need to reconsider that decision not to take that remedial course in reading comprehension.

Yes, I do honor those out there in the mud and the blood and the ooze. And I appreciate knowing the ones who were out there in the mud and the blood and the ooze and survived to come back to the world of the living. That’s because their willingness to do that has a lot to do with why there is that world of the living to come back to.

Or at least that’s true in the World War II books. That’s the last war that could be divided into the Good Guys and the Bad Guys.

Except it kind of can’t. I’ve known too many guys who served on “the other side” who are just as nice - if not nicer - than anyone I have met from “the good side.”

In fact some of them must be better than anyone who served on this side. That’s a small list. But every guy who served in Vietnam and then had the opportunity to later meet the people they were trying to kill at the time, has met people who have been willing to forgive them for My Lai and Agent Orange and Rolling Thunder and all the rest of it, and offer friendship. And the ones on that side who I have been privileged to meet are definitely honorable men.

A late friend of mine who was a leading ace in “the good war” once told me when we were at a convention of those guys and the honored guests at the event were the guys who they’d been out to kill: “The secret nobody knows is, we always thought the guys we were fighting were the only ones who knew what we were going through. We actually thought we were closer to them than to the other people who were on our side.” I’ve heard similar sentiments from former infantrymen as well as former fliers, so it’s not some “guild of the elite” or “honorable brotherhood.”

Although it probably is an “honorable brotherhood.” The brotherhood of people who were willing to do what it took to defend what they loved - and believe it or not that even applies to the Germans; most of them knew as much about the “larger issues” going on, the terrible things, as any young guy in the US military did in the war I fought. And when they did find out, they were shocked too. The people who did the terrible things tried to keep them secret from everyone else, because they knew they were doing terrible things.

My friend Jim Wright, who’s become well-known in social media in recent years for some straight-shooting talk from a retired Chief Warrant Officer, wrote:

“Mostly we veterans are just people who came when called and did our best under terrible circumstances.”

I’ll end with a quote from a guy who did know what it took to do all that stuff:

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”

― Dwight D. Eisenhower, Soldier, General, President

[TCinLa :: Thats Another Fine Mess]

[moshywoosh]

Open Season's Problem

Make no mistake about it, the movie “Open Season” is really open season on hunters.

The animated feature currently playing takes aim at hunters who take aim at animals and sums up the rest of the gun-toting population as buffoons.

This is a propaganda film designed to plant the idea in the minds of America’s children that animals are more or less cuddly good guys and hunters are bad guys.

Before a non-hunting co-worker took his kindergarten-aged daughter to see the movie, I asked him to watch how the hunters were portrayed. He reported that the hunters were shown in a stereotypical manner — as yahoos who slobbered, drove pickups and spoke with Southern accents.

Shaw (voiced by Gary Sinise), the ultimate dingbat, is indeed a bloodthirsty, law-breaking, fanatical poacher. In short, someone any respectable hunter would disavow and turn over to the conservation police faster than turning over a flapjack in a frying pan. I expected the animals to be cute, gooey caricatures that would make me cringe. But Boog, the grizzly bear with an identity crisis (Martin Lawrence), was quite tolerable. His unwanted deer sidekick Elliot (Ashton Kutcher), is a mass of insecurities that make him annoying, but who occasionally displays a standup comic’s wit.

“Open Season” is for kids who have no powers of discernment, but the script is for adults who have to chaperone them. So there definitely are chuckles. Even Shaw gets to mouth off cleverly once. During a yelling match with a female park ranger whom he calls “Girl Scout,” he says, “Put me down for a box of thin mints.”

Boog was a cub rescued in the wild and raised by Ranger Beth. He lives in her garage, has his own Teddy Bear and knows he has a good deal getting three squares a day and watching TV. Elliot leads Boog into mischief, and reluctantly, Ranger Beth relocates Boog to the mountains to begin a normal life as a wild bear, minus the room service. (The shifts back and forth between unrealistic fantasy and occasional common-sense environmental policy can leave you dizzy, and it’s not the way animals would actually be rehabilitated.)

Boog is a bear who has no affinity for the woods and no idea how to use his growling, intimidating size and super strength to protect himself or his friends. All he wants to do is go home to his Marriott-like garage space.

Wild man Shaw, determined to plug Elliot and Boog, is in the way and wreaks catastrophe wherever he goes. He was nuts from the get-go and is completely looney-tunes by the end of the flick. He has spent a lifetime operating on the assumption that man is at the top of the food chain and now he envisions an animal conspiracy, with pets “as double agents,” seeking to take over the world.

Legal hunting season opens and hunters from the Yellowstone-area-like town of Timberline head to the woods, where they raise tents, light campfires and begin hunting. They are met by an animal rebellion that features Boog, Elliot, skunks, deer, squirrels, rabbits, beavers and anything else that is around.

The hunters are routed and the animals live happily ever after in the forest, which Boog realizes is his true home. The unexplained, strangest part of “Open Season” is its apparent disdain for rabbits. It is indeed curious that rabbits are treated as disposable trash. What’s up with that?

Of course, not for one second does an honest, nature-loving outdoorsman appear on the screen. Not one sentence is uttered explaining how hunters love the woods, use the meat from their kills to feed their families or are conservationists whose hunting prevents species overpopulation.

And it never mentions that grizzly bears often eat other animals.

Oh, well, it won’t be long until new movies are released and it will be closed season on “Open Season.”

@ilovescaredysquirrel2