#best value auto parts

[rvautoparts]

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[bestvalueautoparts]

Best value auto parts

Maintaining and repairing vehicles is an essential aspect of vehicle ownership. When it comes to purchasing auto parts, striking the right balance between quality and affordability is crucial. Searching for the best value auto parts ensures that your vehicle operates at its peak performance while staying within your budget. In this article, we will explore some key factors to consider when seeking the best value auto parts for your beloved ride. While affordability is a significant factor, it's essential not to compromise on the quality of best value auto parts. High-quality parts ensure the safety and efficiency of your vehicle, reducing the risk of breakdowns and costly repairs in the future. Opt for reputable brands and suppliers known for their reliable and durable auto parts, even if it means paying a slightly higher price upfront. Investing in quality now will save you money and headaches in the long run. When searching for auto parts, ensure they are compatible with your specific vehicle's make and model. Using ill-fitting or incorrect best value auto partscan lead to performance issues and safety concerns. Look for online resources, such as vehicle compatibility checkers, or consult with experts at auto parts stores to confirm the right fitment for your car. Reputable best value auto parts suppliers often offer warranties on their products. A warranty provides peace of mind, assuring you that the part is free from defects and will function as expected. Additionally, a reliable return policy allows you to exchange or return the part in case it doesn't meet your requirements. Prioritize suppliers that stand behind their products with robust warranty and return policies. Before making a purchase, take the time to read customer reviews and ratings for the best value auto parts you are considering. Genuine feedback from other vehicle owners can provide valuable insights into the performance, durability, and value of the product. Look for parts with consistently positive reviews and high ratings to ensure you are getting the best value for your money. To further enhance the value of your best value auto parts purchase, keep an eye out for discounts, promotions, and special offers. Many suppliers offer periodic sales or discounts, especially during seasonal promotions. Signing up for newsletters or following social media accounts of auto parts stores can help you stay informed about these opportunities to save. When it comes to finding the best value auto parts, a balanced approach is key. Prioritize quality, compatibility, and reputable suppliers over the lowest price. Remember to consider warranties, return policies, customer reviews, and any available discounts. By investing in high-quality, compatible auto parts, you ensure the longevity and optimal performance of your vehicle, ultimately saving you time, money, and potential headaches in the long run. Happy driving!

[thisisnotthenerd]

active stat tracking for never stop blowing up: episode 3

check out the spreadsheet here

we're getting into the groove of things; everyone has at least a d8 for their highest value. we got our first d12 and our first d20 in this episode, from jennifer drips and g13 respectively. this means that they can auto-succeed on rolls under half their die value when not high stakes; for g13 that means any dc <10 tech check.

jennifer/russell currently has the best average distribution, with 6 skills blown up: 1d6, 4d8, and 1d12. vic/wendell isn't far behind, with 6 skills: 3d6, 1d8, and 2d10. on the other end of the scale, jack/paula, g13/usha, and greg/dang are specialized, with a relatively high success rate for their best skills. kingskin/liv is a bit of an outlier, with only 3 skills and a d8 to hot, but has some in-character abilities that make up for any deficit, e.g. reputation and unbelievable stunts (the grenade).

it's fun to watch how the mechanics reflect the story; it's self-evident that the more one rolls in a skill the more likely they are to blow it up. that's how we get g13's d20 in tech and jennifer's d12 in sneak. but the distributions also reflect how the character archetypes work:

jack manhattan is a hardy cop with a gun. best skill is weapons, with stunts, tough, and wits blown up as well. he doesn't need to be doing the more specialized skills, i.e. drive, tech--he's an investigator.

kingskin is a mafia don; he has people to do things for him. best skill is hot, with stunts and tough blown up as well. the fact that he doesn't have as high of die values comes down to luck, in part, but also to fewer rolls, given that he can succeed based on reputation.

greg stocks is an international spy; he has to be able to pull of the impossible and survive. best skills are stunts and tough, with weapons and wits blown up as well. he tends to prioritize his better skills in order to ensure success in the face of potential disaster.

vic ethanol is a guy whose superpower is car, but we haven't gotten him in a car for very long. best skills are tough and hot, with brawl, stunts, weapons, and drive blown up as well. he has to be more well rounded--when he's not working the specialty other skills have to come into play. he’s the only one who’s blown up in drive—i suspect as we come into the race that this will change, but vic will still be the driver of the group.

jennifer drips is a femme fatale spy. best skill is sneak, with brawl, tough, wits, hot, and weapons blown up as well. she has to be able to do it all; her strengths are split around the board so that she can get herself in and out of scrapes unscathed.

g13 is a genius hacker. best skill is tech, with stunts, sneak, and wits blown up as well. he has to be one of the best in the business to compete against the superhero types. he’s the only one to have blown up in tech, but is at a d20, and so serves as the tech specialist for the group.

paula donvalson / jack manhattan

abilities: duelist, burglar, trained (brawl)

stunts: d6

brawl: d4

tough: d6

tech: d4

weapons: d10

drive: d4

sneak: d4

wits: d6

hot: d4

liv skyler / kingskin

abilities: wealthy, menacing, demolitions

stunts: d6

brawl: d4

tough: d6

tech: d4

weapons: d4

drive: d4

sneak: d4

wits: d4

hot: d8

andy 'dang' litefoot / greg stocks

abilities: trained (brawl), trained (weapons), smokin'

stunts: d10

brawl: d4

tough: d10

tech: d4

weapons: d6

drive: d4

sneak: d4

wits: d6

hot: d4

wendell morris / vic ethanol

abilities: transporter, protector, trouble maker

stunts: d6

brawl: d8

tough: d10

tech: d4

weapons: d6

drive: d6

sneak: d4

wits: d4

hot: d10

russell feeld / jennifer drips

abilities: trained (hot), neck snapper, quick healing

stunts: d4

brawl: d8

tough: d8

tech: d4

weapons: d6

drive: d4

sneak: d12

wits: d8

hot: d8

usha rao / g13

abilities: transporter, hacker, trained (wits)

stunts: d6

brawl: d4

tough: d4

tech: d20

weapons: d4

drive: d4

sneak: d6

wits: d6

hot: d4

group abilities: la familia (stepping in for a tough roll, lending tokens at a 1:1, sharing skill dice for optimization)

[askmerriauthor]

regarding pokemon sleep, it looks like you’re just looking for things to complain about. it’s designed to be this chill thing you check on during the day and leave running at night. to play it, all you have to do is sleep and feed your pokemon. no one’s telling you you to have to be the very best at it or pressuring you into paying for stuff, let alone the game itself.

If I was just looking for things to complain about, I'd still be out here whinging over Pokemon Cafe's delightfully charming art style being absolutely wasted on a junk puzzle game instead of a full RPG or cozy slice-of-life Sim.

Regarding this post here.

Hi, I'm MerriAuthor. Apparently we haven't met because anyone who follows my blog would know that I've worked in game development well on 20 years now. I've worked across the industry from little nobody indie houses, to overseas gacha-fodder, to big ol' AAA major studios. Video games and their design are a big part of my life and, boy howdy, do I have some FEELINGS about the direction the industry as a whole has gone in as the years go by. Especially in regards to the predatory monetization of gaming and how it actively preys on children, uninformed parents, people with addictive behaviors, people with hyper-competitive personalities, and similar behavioral traits solely for the purpose of making money at their expense.

it’s designed to be this chill thing you check on during the day and leave running at night. to play it, all you have to do is sleep and feed your pokemon.

As with the previous person I spoke with on this topic, that is the base function of the game. But it's by no means the design of the game. Pokemon Sleep's entire game play rotation and marketplace are designed around encouraging the Player to interact with it as much as possible within an intentionally limited time frame. Meanwhile, the game's own time scale is such that it expects Players to log hundreds if not thousands of hours of interaction with it. Its own base gameplay loop is a weekly schedule and its shop schedule is monthly. Some Pokemon require a bare minimum of 150 hours of logged sleep to even access. Pokemon Sleep wants you to be in it for the long haul.

It's also based on collection; nearly every facet of the game is listed numerically and with a percentage value or progress bar, which are functions designed to produce urgency to complete them in the Player. Human brains don't like seeing an unfinished goal, especially one represented so overtly as an unfilled progress bar or a percentage value with a decimal. Want to have your favorite Pokemon as your napping buddy but don't want to put in a ton of effort playing the game to boost up your Snorlax's power score? Better hope it's one of the low-tier Pokemon assigned into the lower brackets of the gameplay progression, because otherwise you're never going to see it. Though you could always just fork over some cash. Nearing the end of your week with Snorlax and you're just shy of a milestone you've been aiming the entire week for? Good luck! You can pay money for that extra little boost, and once you've done it you'll resent its absence enough to want to buy it again! Do you want to level up that cutie first Charmander the game gave you at the very beginning specifically to ingrain itself with faux emotional value into your favorite Charizard? Want your Eevee to evolve into one of its most popular Eeveelutions? Want a Lucario, period? You'll need to put in hundreds of hours of consistent sleep to save up enough Sleep Points exclusively toward that goal... or you can just buy access to it immediately, through first purchasing access to the Premium Subscription! A Premium Subscription which, again, doesn't auto-cancel if you delete the app and can't be canceled through the app itself, for all you distracted parents who don't pay attention to fine print and wonder why your kid's game is running up a bill on your credit card each month after the 14-day free period - just long enough for you to have forgotten all about it in the first place. Snorlax wants a specific kind of Berry this week, but none of the helper Pokemon you recruited gather that berry, or they do and are just too low on Energy to manage it? Aren't you lucky! The shop will just sell you solutions to these problems the game itself created specifically to get you to shell out money!

no one’s telling you you to have to be the very best at it or pressuring you into paying for stuff, let alone the game itself.

Here's some screen shots from the game's own app page. Buttons to make purchases and drive interaction - the app store, sleep pass, how many dream shards you have, a prompt to buy more inventory space, your missions, your current goal, the progress meter and rarity values of your Pokemon's sleep styles, your collection and their levels, etc - are all constantly and prominently displayed. The entire first day of actual gameplay in the app is a tutorial explaining how it wants you to do more than just sleep and passively collect to the point that it literally sets a daily schedule of activity for you. The mechanics explanations are so egregiously long that the Professor character literally apologizes to the Player for being so long-winded about it. Oh, an adorable moment of self-depreciation and understanding! How humanizing and encouraging of empathy from the user, done with a cheeky wink and nod. Now that we've softened your emotional state ever so slightly, here's some more microtransaction-driven gameplay elements!

If this was really just a cute little game to idle around with for its own fun, there wouldn't be a cash shop, nor would the game require a consistent internet connection to its servers. The big thing with games like these is that they're not made for the Player's benefit or entertainment. They're made to make the parent company profits. That's it. If the Pokemon Company didn't think they'd make substantial returns on the investment of development, support, marketing, and online distribution costs to put this game out into the world, they never would have made it. That is a core reality of any product put out these days. I just spent this last week helping my studio's marketing and sales team make sales projections for one of our upcoming titles, figuring out how much we could reasonably charge our potential customers literally down to the penny. And the game we're selling isn't even a service with any kind of microtransactions or DLCs. Profits are fundamental in any studio production and, where microtransaction apps are concerned, are the core focus of why the app exists.

If you're perfectly happy with playing Pokemon Sleep as an idle "pop on every once in a while, poke for a few minutes, then forget about and never pay a cent" kind of game? Totally fine, you do you. But understand that Pokemon Sleep doesn't want you as its player and will not cater to your experience. The core gameplay of Pokemon Sleep is already designed to actively degrade into a subpar experience for those who don't pay to play and that rift will only become more pronounced as time goes by. Everything around the cash shop exists for no other reason than to encourage you to use the cash shop. Over time, the gameplay will further contort itself to drive more interaction with and reliance upon the cash shop as the app sheds its non-paying users who just tire of it and move on, instead doubling-down on the lingering, paying users who have already proven themselves a reliable stream of revenue. That is how these things always go and have always historically gone.

There's also the consistently apt adage of "if you're not paying for the product, you are the product". Pokemon Sleep requires an internet connection any time you want to interact with the app - there is no offline mode. Further, the actual fine print in the terms of service (not the bubbly, legally-meaningless assurances put into the game text itself) addresses that it will collect and may share your device information, user ID, and app activity (ie, the schedules, timing habits, and spending habits the game itself has ingrained into its interaction with the Player) for analytics and advertising purposes, and that they're okay with sharing (ie, selling) that information to third parties without naming who those third parties are. And boy, does the game really want you to link your Google, Apple, and Facebook accounts to it as part of its core functionality! Worth keeping in mind as well is that the app requires constant access to your microphone and can pick up sounds as minor as a sheet rustling when you turn over in bed. The game's bubbly, meaningless text assures you that it doesn't save or transfer the snippets of sleep recordings it makes of you each night, but it makes absolutely no assurances whatsoever in the fine print that it's not using your microphone for other purposes. It does, however, point out that it will be making use of your phone's functions even when you're not using the app.

So, yeah, I'll just still be over here not playing Pokemon Sleep and encouraging others to do the same, as well as pay closer attention to the nature of so-called "free to play" games.

[nightfury-2001]

Something that especially bothers me about the ending of 3. Is that they want to have their sad "The dragons leaving" ending. and also have them still get to be friends.

They want you to be sad at the dragons leaving, that hiccup and everyone else might never see their best friends ever again.

But they still want their cute ending where hiccups gets get to play with toothless's kids.

They want you to be sad that hiccup misses his friend on the holidays and wants him to be there with him.

And then he comes in, eats the fish, and leaves. Or in the snoggletog log thing, are just kinda there like the dragons never left.

They really did want to have their cake and it too, and not just with the things you've mentioned.

"Hiccup and Toothless' friendship is the friendship of a lifetime and they're canonically platonic soulmates but also a big part of this film is about how Toothless' instincts and attraction to the Light Fury become more important than his bond with Hiccup. Also the only reason that Toothless didn't accept the auto-tail in GOTNF was because there wasn't a hot girl Fury around that he needed to impress. Oh and Toothless almost murders Hiccup during the reunion scene before barely recognizing him at the last second."

"The Light Fury represents the call of the wild - she's a regal, powerful, fierce creature that's untainted by humanity - but she's also the cute marketable girlfriend™ character who has pink sparkly hearts on her forehead. She couldn't have interesting markings that weren't made out of glitter because they might have looked too much like scars. Also she sounds and acts like a domestic cat."

"Toothless is a wild animal with the instincts, behaviors, and needs to match and where he truly belongs is in the wild and Hiccup needs to learn to accept that but also he's the protagonist's adorable "pet" that runs around panting and slobbering and acting like a dog but also he's this extremely intelligent being that's smarter than any real non-human animal and he has many humanlike behaviors and he can draw and understand the value of art and he can quickly understand and negotiate in a hostage situation and he has an updated design that makes him look more humanlike and emote in more humanlike ways than ever before."

[aokozaki]

The best part of the "not like other VNs/dating-sims/JRPG" type game is that they're really marketing themselves to other people who don't know a damn thing about the genre.

Class of '09 advertises an auto-mode so you don't have to press advance over and over.

Which is, y'know, a standard feature in every fucking visual novel I've ever played.

The least charitable interpretation is that the developer saw one of those "visual novel gamer worn out after 5 hours of pressing A" type memes and took it at face value.

[haxorus612]

Arknights Pull Priority Guide - Future Event Spoilers

Pull priority guide from post lucent arrowhead to delicious in dungeon collab. Ranked from highest-value operator to lowest, at the end I'll discuss which banners to prioritize.

#1: Stop playing ga cha games

#2: Odda.

brings Ho'olheyak's previously unique niche of a rapid-fire uplift to a five star package. While he's more limited in what enemies he can lift, he more than makes up for it with better uptime and splash AOE. It's rare that 5 stars get to compete directly with 6 stars. For that alone, he's absolutely worth your time. Just like ho'olheyak before him, he's got excellent synergy with one particular IS4 relic.

#3: Nymph.

so far the only applicator of the "fear" status effect, which is distinct from Degenbrecher's frighten. It's a unique status that forces enemies to walk backwards for a short time. It has a lot of potent use cases, especially against slower enemies. Like most of our entrants here, her notable skill has a reasonably low SP cost.

#4: Laios Touden.

a character fully unique to arknights from one of the manhwas, i think it's called "Dig Dug's Dungeon Dining"? It was part of the konami collaboration. Anyway, he, like odda, brings a 6-star utility to a lower rank. Frighten is a fairly powerful effect, fully canceling an enemy's auto-attacks, but on a purely-offensive operator like degenbrecher, it didn't quite have a central place on her kit. Laios has much tankier stats as a dreadnought, and his frighten has a long duration and low SP cost.

#5: Logos

What logos brings to the table is straight out of the matrix: he can slow down and potentially delete nearly any projectile with his s3. It's flashy, and when used cleverly can save you a lot of grief. However, it's hardly applicable to every situation. Some of the most dangerous ranged enemies don't use projectiles at all, and some "projectiles" ignore his skill anyway. It's certainly not universal, but when it's useful, it's fun and powerful.

#6: Ascalon

She doesn't bring anything fully unique, but what she does bring is a bit stronger and weirder than most operators before her. Like Ela, she has a skill that inflicts "accuracy reduction" on enemies, with a 50% chance for any enemy attack to miss instead of Ela's 40%. It has some distinct use cases from dodge, notably stopping certain damage-over-time effects that would result from a hit. On top of that, she can slow aerial enemies with her s2 without damaging them, which looks very funny. Overall, a useful and unique operator.

Honorable mentions: Chilchuck Tims - Unlike Folinic, who only gives herself resistance environmental effects, Chilchuck gives full immunity. He's also kind enough to share with any allies within his range. Ulpianus - Technically the first operator to be able to redeploy himself with a skill, but it's hardly different from just. Y'know. redeploying an operator normally. Can still be very useful, especially when rapidly swapping between lanes. Narantuya - Also applies accuracy reduction to enemies, but despite the infinite application time, its range and chance leaves much to be desired. Instead of a 50%, it's only 20%. Lutonada - Extremely adorable. Also, shifting utility on a defender is completely unique if you've never heard of croissant.

Which Banner Should I Pull On?

While it's easy to get caught up in the hype of a new limited banner, Logos' cool utility is barely applicable to more than a handful of sick compilations. Try to grab someone more reliable, like Laios Touden, who will scream at your enemies! With that in mind, here are my recommendations:

This banner has two of my recommended operators: Pallas' Bodyguard, and the Janitor Director Ascalon, and one of my honorable mentions, Lutonada. 3 for the price of 1 is the best deal you'll get here!

logos banner: He might not be the most widely applicable, but you can't go wrong with something that entertaining. Still, I wouldn't recommend pulling too hard. Missing out on him isn't the end of the world.

HUH??? what? why is grain buds on this banner? what's she doing down there??? omg save this child

Nyumph is also fully unique! She's got style in spades, too, nothing like those bountiful boring blue banners up above.

And with that, we've come to the end of arknights. I did think it was weird that they did end of service on their Fyodor Dostoevsky collaboration, Dungeon In Delicious, but you never really know how these things are going to go aha. Thanks for reading, hope you have a nice day!

This banner has 1 main pick, Laios, and one of my honorable mentions, chilchuck. With 2, that's greater than one, and therefore much higher value than the other banners except ascalon's where you can Definitely pull odda. Really try to pull odda from that one, i dare you. If you don't you can come to my house and break my legs. I'll even post my address under the cut:

[s10127470]

Meet the Fantastic Four (and Family)

Hey guys!

I'm back to introduce another family of the Spider-Man: Family Values universe, this time being arguably Peter's closest superhero allies.

Outfits:

Mr. Fantastic:

Real Name: Reed Richards

Age: 42

Height: 6'3

Weight: 190 lbs

Physical Appearance: Has a lean and slightly athletic build, fair skin, short brown hair with his trademark white temples, a beard, and brown eyes.

Relationship Status: Married

Causal Outfit: A black sweater with rolled-up sleeves under a blue puffer jacket, tan pants, and grey and white sneakers.

-Intelligent, imaginative, curious, kind, caring, and a little silly.

-Married to Sue and the proud father of Franklin and Valeria Richards.

-Is autistic.

-The godfather of Jo-Venn and N'Kalla.

-Serves as the team's leader.

-One of the most respected members of the superhero community, largely thanks to him and his family being the ones to start the superhero boom of the early 2010s.

-Whenever a collaboration between the geniuses is called for, you better believe he's gonna be there.

-Works part-time as a professor at Empire State University, where he teaches quantum physics.

The Invisible Woman:

Real Name: Susan Storm-Richards

Age: 39

Height: 5'8

Weight: 120 lbs

Physical Appearance: Has an hourglass figure with an well-around build and slightly curvaceous, fair skin, long blonde hair, blue lips, and blue eyes.

Relationship Status: Married

Causal Outfit: A blue long-sleeved sweatshirt, black leggings, and black and white sneakers.

-Mature, intelligent, kind, caring, understanding, and nurturing.

-First met Reed during college and got with him a few years later, shortly before the rocket incident.

-The godmother of Jo-Venn and N'Kalla.

-Serves as the team's ambassador.

-Just like her husband, she's one of the most respected members of the superhero community.

-Has a degree in archeology and anthropology.

-Works part-time as a guide and creator for The American Museum of Natural History.

The Human Torch:

Real Name: Johnny Storm

Age: 29

Height: 5'10

Weight: 170 lbs

Physical Appearance: Has a lean and athletic build, fair skin, spiky blonde hair, and blue eyes.

Relationship Status: Married

Casual Outfit: A red Hawaiian shirt with an orange flame pattern, tan pants, and red and white sneakers.

-Brash, cocky and hot headed, but also kind, caring, empathic, and loyal.

-Is MARRIED to Bobby Drake aka Iceman.

-The uncle of Franklin and Valerie.

-In spite of his brash and cocky personality, he can actually pretty responsible.

-Is the team's resident mechanic.

-Works part-time at an auto shop.

-Out of the Four, he's the closest to Peter, largely thanks to them being so close in age.

-Just like his sister and brother-in-law, he's one of the most respected members of the superhero community.

The Thing:

Real Name: Ben Grimm

Age: 43

Height: 6'8

Weight: 510 lbs

Physical Appearance: Has a broad and muscular build, rocky orange skin, and blue eyes.

Relationship Status: Married

Casual Outfit: A New York Giant jersey with a 61 on it and tan pants.

-Gruff, tough, caring and loving.

-Is married to Alicia and the proud foster father of Jo-Venn and N'Kalla.

-Is the godfather of Franklin and Valeria.

-Has been Reed's best friend since childhood.

-Serves as the team's pilot.

-Just like the rest of his family, he's one of the most respected members of the superhero community.

-Is Jewish and he's proud to show it.

-Works part-time as a pilot for United Airlines.

Franklin Richards:

Age: 11

Height: 4'5

Weight: 90 lbs

Physical Appearance: Has a slim build, fair skin, shaggy blonde hair, and blue eyes.

Relationship Status: Single

Casual Outfit:

-A jolly little fellow with an active imagination.

-Thanks to being a MUTANT, he possesses powerful reality warping and mental abilities, which accompanies his active imagination. He often bring anything he thinks of to life.

-Currently in the 6th grade.

-Looks up to and idolizes Peter.

Valeria Richards:

Age: 7

Height: 3'11

Weight: 67 lbs

Physical Appearance: Has a slim build, fair skin, shoulder-length blonde hair, and blue eyes.

Relationship Status: Single

Casual Outfit:

-Surprisingly mature and intelligent for her age, along with being quite crafty and witty.

-She's really intelligent! Being almost on par with her father in that regard.

-Currently in the 2nd grade.

-Wants to the become a scientist like her father in the future.

Alicia Masters-Grimm:

Age: 40

Height: 5'5

Weight: 115.lbs

Physical Appearance: Has an hourglass figure with a well-rounded build, fair skin, strawberry blonde hair in a bob-cut, pink lips, and pale brown eyes.

Relationship Status: Married

Casual Outfit:

-Caring, sensitive, empathic, and artistic.

-Got with Ben shortly after the Fantastic Four was formed and after several years of dating, they officially tied the knot about four years ago.

-Works as a sculptor and ceramics professor at Empire State University.

-Is the godmother of Franklin and Valeria.

Jo-Venn and N'Kalla:

Ages: 8 and 10

Heights: 4'1 and 4'3

Weights: 90 lbs and 120 lbs

Physical Appearances: (Jo-Venn) Has a slim build, blue skin, black hair in the form of a Mohawk, and yellow eyes. (N'Kalla)! Has a slim build, green skin, pointy green ears, long dark green hair, and green eyes.

Relationship Status: Single

Casual Outfits:

-Were once child soldiers, being forced to constantly duel as Casino Cosmico. But thanks to the Fantastic Four, the two were freed and adopted by Ben and Alicia.

-Are brimming with curiosity about Earth and their customs.

-Whenever they get stressed, they can often let their warrior sides get out of control.

-Currently homeschooled.

Princess:

Age: Unknown

Height: 1'9

Weight: 45 lbs

Physical Appearance:

-Was a stray dog who constantly followed Ben around, much to his annoyance. But thanks to an experience involving an illusion from Miracle Man, Ben grew to become fond of her and eventually decided to adopt her.

-She's a good girl and everyone loves her.

H.E.R.B.I.E.:

Real Name: Highly Engineered Robot Built for Interdimensional Exploration

Height: 2'

Weight: 70 lbs

Physical Appearance:

-The Fantastic Four's robotic assistant build by Reed.

-Loyal and trustworthy until the end!

Iceman:

Real Name: Bobby Drake

Age: 27

Height: 5'8

Weight: 145 lbs

Physical Appearance: Has a lean and athletic build, pale skin, shaggy brown hair, and blue eyes.

Relationship Status: Married

Casual Outfit: A blue hoodie, light blue shorts, blue sandals, and a black durag.

Hero Outfit: A combination of his solo series outfit and his iconic 90s outfit. Has the same look and appearance of the solo series outfit, but uses the color scheme of the 90s outfit. Also he's completely barefooted.

-Witty, confident, fun-loving, but also kind and generous.

-One of the original five founding members of The X-Men.

-Got with Johnny during his college years, and about a year ago, they officially got married.

-Speaking of college, he was Peter's roommate, along with fellow mutant Angelica Jones aka Firestar.

-Has been a close friend to Peter since their early days as teenage heroes.

-Teaches accounting and chemistry at the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters.

-Is Irish Catholic and Jewish.

Well that's all for now!

The next family we'll be looking at are a little more on Peter's level.....

Street-level.

[jonahfisher]

STATS • CONNECTIONS • PINTEREST

GENERAL.

full name: jonah abraham fisher nicknames: jo, jojo, fish gender / pronouns: cis man, he/him age / birthday: 34, november 22nd orientations: bisexual, demiromantic previous occupation: tattoo artist, mechanic, business owner birthplace: staten island, new york status: single family: sylvia fisher (mother, deceased), mark fisher (father, unknown), judah fisher (fraternal twin), aunt wc, cousins wc strengths: artistic, creative, protective, inquisitive, loyal weaknesses: paranoid, sarcastic, gloomy, reserved, untrusting time in nyc: 34 years time at the wexley: brand new

PERSONALITY.

first and foremost, jonah thinks in pictures. his mind is a canvas and the only thing that changes is the paint or shadings that spread across it. creativity is where he thrives the most, which has always left him more reserved. he tends to drift off into his own world or observe and bank it for later. that doesn’t mean he’s not paying attention (though sometimes he isn’t) and it’s worked well that his brother has been happy to speak for him whether he wants him to or not. no matter, he’s not afraid to speak up if someone is wrong or he disagrees. he’s generally perceived as gloomy and his sardonic quips don’t help matters much. this is where he’s often contradictory to himself. he enjoys people, being around them and especially if they are like-minded in some sense. to those that he loves and/or cares about most, he is loyal to a fault, which extends to the community he was raised in. with that loyalty comes the willingness to help, which likely came from his father. he’s not the smartest bulb in the bunch but he is quite passionate about art and philosophy, not limited to conspiracy theories and things of that nature.

BIOGRAPHY.

     when sylvia fisher found out she was pregnant, she was excited to grow her family with her unsuspecting husband, mark. his shock was far from the first surprise to be had, though. first it was the discovery that she was having twins and the second, more unfortunate, was that he would be raising the boys alone. sylvia passed from complications during the surgical c-section, rare as it was but still a risk all the same. that didn’t stop mark from raising his boys to the best of his ability though. his sister stepped in to help, already having kids of her own, as mark being a staten island firefighter kept his schedule busy. 

     despite jonah’s being seven and a half minutes older than his twin judah, he hardly felt like the eldest brother. he was not as outgoing, nor as smart as him. the one resounding ability he had was input of wild ideas and half-developed plans that judah would complete, fine tune, and run with. he was his best friend growing up and honestly, still is. sure, they didn’t always see eye to eye on everything, but they could normally find some kind of compromise and their father instilled the same values in both of them. hard work, community, loyalty, and helping those who can’t help themselves. with these values they were able to finish school mostly unscathed and without burning the place down, turning into somewhat suitable adults with blind ambition that ended up working out for them in the long run.

     jonah didn’t waste time with college, higher education was not his destiny nor was it even an interest. he was already an artist, he wanted to further this talent— sharpen his skills in a mode he’d already been practicing with, tattooing. jonah got an apprenticeship with a long time artist and shop and soaked in the knowledge like a sponge. learning was much easier when it was all visual. eventually he got the idea to open up a shop of his own in the part of the city he loved. judah encouraged the idea and furthered it with the addition of an auto shop as well. which was perfect because their uncle, had left his auto-shop to his brother mark who, in turn, gave it to the boys to use to create a future for themselves in some way as long as they didn’t sell it while he was still alive. it was perfect, and together they fixed the place up to be the first (as far as they knew at least) tattoo, piercing, and auto shop in the world.

      when the outbreak happened, they had been going about their day like any other. jonah had woken up on his half of their renovated airstream and started coffee, then popped a jimmy dean breakfast sandwich in the microwave. it wasn’t until they were both already in the shop waiting for their first appointments for the day that they heard the warnings. they didn’t waste any time springing into action, jonah didn’t even take time to be smug about one of the many doomsday predictions he’d spouted off coming to fruition finally. he was already prepared. together they cleared the shop of extra vehicles and used them to help block entrance. they then locked down the shop and went out to help the community the best they could. a couple employees and a few community members locked down with them and helped them secure the building fully.

     everything had been going as good as it could under the circumstances. for months they were able to sustain themselves on the supplies they’d stocked up in storage (making a few runs for more to neighboring places when possible). judah had kept the backup generator going, maintain the solar panels on the roof, and the well their uncle had put in before they were even born gave them a water source, though they still needed to conserve it. there wasn’t as high of a risk of water contamination with factories no longer running. they’d even found a way to attach the airstream by tunnel so they had more space to sleep and privacy. but all good things must come to an end. mutiny was the means to the end. it started with one of the shop residents not liking the way things were done and once the snow was off the ground they made their move to take over. some of them still sided with the fishers, and it started a fight that ended with unnecessary violence and their safe place stolen from under their feet. 

     jonah had half a mind to start the place on fire so no one could have it, but it was judah that reminded him they could maybe return again someday. perhaps when karma (if that’s something you can believe in) pays them back. they took what they could and set out to find what was next. what they found, was a boat and later they witnessed a whole fireworks show. they kept their distance but made their way into manhattan and kept looking around until they found the wexley. it ain’t home, but they’re hoping they can hang out until they figure out what to do about getting their shop back.

HEADCANONS.

father went on to be chief of the fire station he worked at, jonah often hung around the firehouse 

got into a fair amount of trouble when he was younger, but after he became an adult the most he got in trouble for was a few physical altercations now and then

fully believes aliens exist and thinks its possible theres cryptids as well. hates the government.

believes in a lot of the 9/11 conspiracies but doesn’t talk about it much because it would bother his father

[crookedghosts]

casually making myself cry while creating Esperanza Valdez' (highly inaccurate idk) political career in the rwrb au bc escapism... only so much of this will be featured, frankly, bc this is a story about Leo/Piper/Jason and it's the only reason they need a backstory made but I adore it anyway so I'm gonna share lol:

(Pre-Early-AU) Tristan McLean is born into an affluent family in California, where his family is involved in philanthropy and Indigenous historical preservation. He's charming and easily a star in California politics, advocating for Indigenous people and the environment. Piper's mother passes early in her life, leaving Tristan as a single father, deeply devoted to raising Piper while managing the demands of his political career.

As Tristan works his time as a U.S. Senator from California, his priorities begin to shift as he struggles with balancing raising Piper with his growing political role. There is work to be done as the Aeneas/Chiron campaign pushes for BIPOC voices to be heard and represented in the late 2000s, and he is on the trail with them.

Meanwhile, Esperanza Valdez is born into a working-class Mexican-American family in a small Texas town. Her father (Leo’s grandfather) works as a skilled mechanic and runs a small auto repair shop. Esperanza grows up witnessing her father’s dedication and the tight-knit community he serves. She became known for her sharp mind and strong voice, often advocating for fair treatment and opportunities for local workers. Her natural leadership and willingness to speak up make her a community figure, even before she considers a formal career in politics.

With time, Esperanza graduates college and becomes involved in community advocacy and organizing, focusing on education access and labor rights. When she has Leo, she begins actively organizing for women's rights, particularly women's reproductive rights in Texas, as someone who is very publicly pro choice and pro family (not mutually exclusive things). Leo's abuelo is the best father figure he could ask for growing up.

2008 (Aeneas/Chiron Administration): As Esperanza gains recognition for her effective grassroots efforts, she is encouraged to run for the Texas state legislature during the Aneas/Chiron wave. Initially hesitant, she agrees, driven by the chance to make broader change in the 2010 midterms.

2012 (Aeneas/Chiron 2nd Term): Esperanza runs for Congress and wins, and her reputation grows as she fights for working-class families and educational reform while representing a diverse district in her home state of Texas. Leo, now 7, is a part of her public story (her little helper). Her career steadily grows 2012-2016.

2013-2014 : Esperanza meets Tristan McLean, a career politician known for his early success but disillusioned by the limits of the system and pivoting careers. Realizing he can be more effective in non-political advocacy, he shifts focus. They meet during initiatives promoting educational reform and child welfare. Leo and Piper, both around 8-9 and often with their parents for events, develop a quick bond.

2015: Tristan and Esperanza are married, driven by their shared values. Esperanza has been in congress for 3 years and Tristan has taken his step back to focus on family and philanthropy for the last 5. Piper gains a strong female role model in Esperanza, and Leo, 10, becomes Piper’s new stepbrother. While Tristan supports Esperanza’s career, he is cautious about Piper being too involved in politics, creating a complex family dynamic as Piper looks up to her stepmother and becomes drawn to her causes.

2016 (Kronos v Creon): Kronos wins the presidency in the race against Helene Creon, the first female identifying presidential candidate who fought a tight race that the Valdez-McLean family fully supported. Esperanza, now a Congresswoman, becomes one of the leading progressive voices in the fight against regressive policies.

2016-2020: As Esperanza’s political career accelerates, Tristan supports her from the sidelines, using his experience to guide her through challenges but maintaining his wish for Piper to have options outside of politics. The Kronos years are in Leo and Piper's early teenage years, from age 11-15.

2018 Midterm Elections: Esperanza leads significant efforts in the 2018 midterm elections, advocating for progressive candidates and policies. At 13, Leo and Piper begin making more appearances and volunteering publicly, despite Tristan’s concerns. Esperanza’s work in the midterm campaigns pays off when she becomes the House Minority Leader, bringing her national prominence and solidifies her as a key contender for future higher office.

2020 (Chiron/Valdez vs Kronos/Typhon): Former Vice President Joe Chiron selects Esperanza as his running mate for the presidential election. She becomes Vice President after their victory, making history as the first Latina to hold the office. The family dynamic shifts as the Valdez-McLean family moves into an even bigger spotlight. Tristan takes on a quieter public profile but remains active in philanthropy, focusing on arts and environmental causes while encouraging the kids through high school, which they are finishing as the family enters the 2024 race.

2024 (Valdez/Chase vs Kronos/Typhon): Kronos can't lose enough, but the Valdez/Chase administration wins with President-Elect Esperanza Valdez as the first woman of color to hold the office. Leo and Piper, freshly starting University, become the First Son and First Daughter of the US, forming a White House Trio with Annabeth Chase, the Vice President's niece.

2027-2028 (present day in the Valgrace RWRB AU): Leo and Piper are both 23ish, finishing uni, with Annabeth already a year out and deep in the world of political analysis. The Valdez/Chase administration is running the country while running a campaign against an unknown Repu blican ticket, and shenanigans ensues.

[dailyanarchistposts]

Chapter Ten. Apocalyptic Violence

…This was a “moment of madness”—a revolutionary, romantic moment when an entire society seems to be up for grabs. In these moments, fundamental change appears irresistible; for a brief moment, “all seems possible, all within reach.” Across time, people who get caught up in moments of madness imagine that their own “radiant vision” is at hand: a workers’ paradise, a grassroots democracy, fraternité-egalité-liberté, or the Second Coming of Jesus. The utopian imagination is—suddenly, powerfully, briefly—inflamed by the immediate prospect of radical change, by visions of an apocalypse now.

—Stephen D. O’Leary describing the “Great Awakening” of the 1700s[203]

The Gilead Baptist Church outside of Detroit is on a four-lane highway called South Telegraph Road. The drive down South Telegraph Road to the church, a warehouse-like structure surrounded by black asphalt parking lots, is a depressing gauntlet of boxy, cut-rate motels with names like Melody Lane and Best Value Inn. The highway is flanked by a flat-roofed Walgreens, Blockbuster, discount liquor stores, Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Bob’s Big Boy, Sunoco and Citgo gas stations, a Ford dealership, Nails USA, the Dollar Palace, Pro Quick Lube and U-Haul. The tawdry display of cheap consumer goods, emblazoned with neon, lines both sides of the road, a dirty brown strip in the middle. It is a sad reminder that something has gone terribly wrong with America, with its inhuman disregard for beauty and balance, its obsession with speed and utilitarianism, its crass commercialism and its oversized SUVs and trucks and greasy junk food. This disdain for nature, balance and harmony is part of the deadly, numbing assault against community. Ten or fiften minutes negotiating the traffic down South Telegraph Road make the bizarre attraction of the End Times—the obliteration of this world of alienation, noise and distortion—comprehensible. The manufacturing jobs in the Detroit auto plants nearby are largely gone, outsourced to other nations with cheaper labor. The paint is flaking off the cramped two-story houses that lie in grid patterns off the highway. The plagues of alcoholism, divorce, drug abuse, poverty and domestic violence make the internal life here as depressing as the external one. And the congregation gathering today in this church waits for the final, welcome relief of the purgative of violence, the vast cleansing that will lift them up into the heavens, and leave the world they despise, the one they ruined or that was ruined for them, to be wracked by plagues and flood and fire until it, and all those they blame for the debacle of their lives, are consumed and destroyed by God. It is a theology of despair. And for many, the apocalypse can’t happen soon enough.

The guru of the End Times movement is a small, elderly, gnomelike man with his hair dyed coal black, a battery-powered earpiece and a pedantic, cold demeanor. His name is Timothy LaHaye, a Southern Baptist minister and coauthor, along with Jerry Jenkins, of the Left Behind series of Christian apocalyptic thrillers that provide the graphic details of raw mayhem and cruelty that God will unleash on all nonbelievers when Christ returns and raptures Christians into heaven. Astonishingly, the novels are among the best-selling books in America with more than 62 million in print. They have been made into movies, as well as a graphic video game in which teenagers can blow away nonbelievers and the army of the Antichrist on the streets of New York City. These books have come to express, for many in the Christian Right, the yearning they feel for the Rapture, the end of history, the end of time. Once Christ returns and believers are lifted into heaven, the Earth will, they are told, enter a period of tribulation. The tribulation will lead to a final, gruesome battle between Christ and the forces of the Antichrist, with “bodies bursting open from head to toe at every word that proceeded out of the mouth of the Lord as he spoke to the captives within Jerusalem.”[204] In the novels those Christians, who hastily converted once the righteous were lifted into the clouds, have to drive carefully to avoid hitting splayed and filleted corpses of men and women and horses. The soldiers in the army of the Antichrist, facing the warrior Christ, are defeated in the final moments as “their flesh dissolved, their eyes melted, and their tongues disintegrated.” And after pages of graphic violence, readers are told that the soldiers of the Antichrist “stood briefly as skeletons in now-baggy uniforms, then dropped in heaps of bones as the blinded horses continued to fume and rant and rave.”[205]

LaHaye and Jenkins had to distort the Bible to make all this fit—the Rapture, along with the graphic details of the end of the world and the fantastic time line, is never articulated in the Bible—but all this is solved by picking out obscure and highly figurative passages and turning them into fuzzy allegory to fit the apocalyptic vision. This stygian nightmare is, rather, a visceral and disturbing expression of how believers feel about themselves and the world. The horror of apocalyptic violence—the final aesthetic of the movement—at once frightens and thrills followers. It feeds fantasies of revenge and empowerment. It is an ominous reminder that failing to follow God’s commands will ensure their own eternal damnation. LaHaye has a checkered past that includes years working for the John Birch Society and many more peddling quack theories such as “temperament analysis,” which purports to be a system to identify predominant characteristics, strengths and weaknesses to help people make vocational, personal and marital decisions. He was previously known for books such as Spirit Controlled Temperament, Transformed Temperaments, The Male Temperament and Your Temperament: Discover Its Potential, all variants of astrology.[206] In short, before becoming the champion of a Christian America and the apocalypse he made his living as a fortune-teller. LaHaye has helped found and lead numerous right-wing groups, including the Council for National Policy, and he is not only the nation’s best-selling author, but also one of the dominionists’ most powerful propagandists.

LaHaye has come to the conference with his wife, Beverly, who founded Concerned Women of America, an antifeminist group with 540,000 women “who were committed to protecting the rights of the family through moral activism.”[207] They were the early pioneers in the Christian Right’s attack on the school textbook industry, helping to orchestrate a series of lawsuits against publishers who printed material they found offensive or anti-Christian. They sit together at a table to sign their books, and the line snakes down the corridor, with many people clutching multiple books for signatures. LaHaye, along with two other well-known apocalyptic preachers—including Gary Frazier, the glib, silver-tongued founder of the Texas-based Discovery Ministries, Inc., which leads “Walking Where Jesus Walked” tours in Israel—travels the country holding daylong End Time conferences, such as today’s event at the Gilead Baptist Church. Tickets to the event in Detroit cost $20. Frazier and LaHaye also take pilgrims to visit Israel, where they stand on the hill of Megiddo—better known as Armageddon—that in the Book of Revelation is the site of the final battle between the forces of Christ and the Antichrist. In the lobby of the church, just outside the sanctuary, a television set on a stand continuously runs one of the tapes of a “Walking Where Jesus Walked” tour next to a table filled with Frazier’s books, CDs and DVDs.

LaHaye insists that everything in the Bible is literally true. All events in the modern world are described and represented, he says, in the Bible. All has been predicted. The Bible is primarily a book of prophecies that predict the events that will take place shortly before the worldwide cataclysm. This belief relies on a curious hybrid of allegory and literal interpretation. When Revelation 9:1–11 says that monsters will appear whose faces are “like human faces,” with “hair like women’s hair,” “teeth like lions’ teeth,” “scales like iron breastplates” and “tails like scorpions and stings,” LaHaye assures us they will appear. These monsters, which will have what look like crowns of gold on their heads, will torture unbelievers for five months, although not kill them. He quotes from some of the more disturbing passages in the Book of Revelation to remind his listeners of how terrible it will be for nonbelievers: “And in those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die and death will fly from them” (Revelations 9:6).

“Everything we believe is based on the principles of this book,” LaHaye tells the group from the church pulpit, holding up his Bible.

“How do we know this is a supernatural book?” LaHaye asks. “Fulfilled prophecies prove that this was not written by men,” he says. “One thousand prophecies, as the Bible tells us, five hundred of which have already been fulfilled.”

The apocalyptic fantasy calls on believers to turn their backs on the crumbling world around them. This theology of despair is empowered by widespread poverty, violent crime, incurable diseases, global warming, war in the Middle East and the threat of nuclear war. All these events presage the longed-for obliteration of the Earth and the glorious moment of Christ’s return. In this scenario, the battle at Armageddon will be unleashed from the Antichrist’s worldwide headquarters in Babylon once the Jews again have control of Israel. The war in Iraq, along with the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, only brings the world one step closer to the end.

LaHaye, his head poking up from behind the wooden pulpit, tells the story of the origins of his series of apocalyptic books to those in the pews in front of him. He was on an airplane, he says, watching a pilot flirt with an attractive flight attendant. The pilot had a wedding ring. The flight attendant did not. He wondered what would happen if the Rapture happened at that moment. What would happen if hundreds of millions of saved Christians were raptured into heaven and the unsaved left behind, including those who were insufficient Christians, along with Muslims, Catholics and Jews? He convinced Jerry Jenkins, a former sportswriter, to help him set his vision down in a series of novels. He and Jenkins went on to imagine the Rapture and what would happen when it set loose the Tribulation and a worldwide war. In their vision, this war would be waged by a band of new believers, called the Tribulation Force, against Satan and the Antichrist. In the end, seas and rivers would turn to blood, searing heat would burn men alive, ugly boils would erupt on the skin of the disfavored, and 200 million ghostly, demonic warriors would sweep across the planet, exterminating one-third of the world’s population. Those who join forces with the Antichrist in the Left Behind series, true to LaHaye’s conspiracy theories, include the United Nations, the European Union, Russia, Iraq, all Muslims, the media, liberals, freethinkers and “international bankers.” The Antichrist, who heads the United Nations, eventually moves his headquarters to Babylon. These demonic forces battle the remaining Christian believers—those who converted after the Rapture took place, remnants of extremist American militia groups, who in the novels are warriors for Christ, and the 144,000 Jews who convert. This, through pages of dense, stilted and leaden prose, is what has captivated tens of millions of American readers. And LaHaye tells those in front of him that he believes that their generation may be the “terminal” generation. He warns his listeners to get right with God as fast as they can because there is not much time left.

Gary Frazier, with his thick head of silver hair, is the most engaging of the speakers. He has a soft Texas twang, at times a soaring eloquence and easy cadence. He begins by flashing a drawing of a monster, taken, he says, from a dream of Nebuchadnezzar that was interpreted for the king by Daniel in Second Daniel. King Nebuchadnezzar sees in his dream a statue with a head of gold, iron teeth, bronze claws, arms and chest of silver, stomach and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of iron and clay.

“‘Here’s what it means,’” Frazier quotes Daniel as saying. “‘You, Nebuchadnezzar, are the head. That’s the Babylonian Empire. You rule over the whole world, but there’ll come a second empire behind you,’ and historically, we know now as we look back, that was the Medo-Persian Empire.” Frazier explains that the stomach and thighs of bronze are the Hellenistic Empire. The two legs of iron, he says, represent the Roman Empire.

“You see what God did was in this simple dream of Daniel, God set the boundaries, the parameters, that there would never be more than four world empires in the entire history of time,” Frazier explains. “It would be the Babylonians defeated by the Medes and the Persians, who were then later defeated by the Greeks, who were defeated by Rome, but the interesting part is found in the two feet and the ten toes of part iron and part plate.”

He tells the congregation that the 10 toes stand for ethnically mixed cultures that will unite and rise up to dominate the world before the Rapture. He describes this empire as the European Union, or what he says is a revived form of the Roman Empire. This final empire will be destroyed by God to usher in the 1,000-year reign of Christ.

Frazier says the final chapter in human history started in 1948 with the foundation of the state of Israel, something predicted by the Bible. Less noticed but equally important, he tells the crowd, was the 1948 Benelux Conference that brought together Holland, Luxembourg and Belgium. This too, he says, fulfilled biblical prophecy. Just as God had to restore Jews to the land of Israel before the End Times, so too did God have “to raise Europe back up in order to bring to pass this revived form of the ancient Roman Empire.”

He explains that while each of the other empires fell, Rome “has never gone away,” his voice dipping ominously. Instead of falling to an outside invader, Rome “collapsed,” “imploded,” due to its own “degradation and perversion.” “You see, there’s never been a society in the history of the world that has openly accepted and embraced homosexuality and lesbianism that has survived,” he explains, because while homosexuals and lesbians may not reproduce, “they are busy recruiting.”

“We’re seeing the shaping, the rebirthing, the revising of the ancient Roman Empire that will ultimately be the world power,” Frazier says of the European Union, the figure of the metallic man with the iron legs on the screen behind him.

He explains that Europe, because it has so few Bible-believing Christians, will not see large sections of its population lifted to heaven in the Rapture. The United States, however, will be devastated when tens of millions of its Christians disappear, including half of the military. America will suddenly become “a Third World” power, and Europe, ruled by the Antichrist, will dominate the planet.

“These prophecies were never given to scare us but to prepare us for the second coming of Jesus Christ,” he says.

The second sign of the End Times, he says, will be the rise of radical Islam. This too, he says, is predicted in the Bible.

“Now,” he says, “I realize that we’re living in a community that has a large Arab constituency. I want you to know something as I begin this portion of this particular message. Not all Muslims are terrorists. I want you to know that. But I also want you to know that to date every terrorist has been a Muslim. Hello? I want you also to know that the scripture’s clear on a couple of things, and I’m going to say some things today in the next few moments that may be construed as being intolerant. I want you to understand that. I’ve been called that on more than one occasion. And if you get mad at me about it, you’ll get over it, all right?

“In the days following 9/11,” Frazier says, “I heard our leadership say that we’re not at war with the religion of Islam, that there were Islamic radicals who had taken over the religion and they’re the ones we have a problem with. Folks, I’m here to tell you right now, I want to apologize to you on behalf of our president and our political leadership because they lied to us. We are at war with the religion of Islam, and it is not a handful of radical Islamists who are taking over the religion and hijacking it.”

He speaks about the child martyrs in the war between Iran and Iraq, in which the Iranian clerics sent young boys into the minefields to clear the way for troops and returned their remains, Frazier says, in urns to their families.

“Can you explain to me how in the West that we would understand a person who would strap dynamite upon themselves and blow themselves up along with innocent men and women and children with the promise that they would have seventy brown-haired—I mean blond-haired, blue-eyed—virgins for their unlimited sexual pleasure in this place called paradise? And the parents of that person then throw a party celebrating the destruction of their child. You want to tell me you understand that kind of mentality?

“Islam,” Frazier says dramatically, “is a satanic religion.”

He tells the crowd that his honesty and candor have brought him threats. He insists he has Muslim friends and that some Muslims who live in America love this country. But he warns about “a second kind of Muslim” who is in America for “the wrong reasons.”

These Muslims want to export their religion and achieve their goal of “world domination,” he explains.

“You show me a country that is dominated by Muslims, and I’ll show you a country where people are dying, where there are no freedoms or rights, and people being persecuted on a daily basis,” he says. “God help us if they ever were to get in control, in charge here in the United States of America.”

He warns of Muslim “sleeper cells” waiting to carry out new terrorist attacks. He illustrates his point with a hypothetical story about a Muslim doctor forced to accept a nefarious mission or receive the heads of his three children in a box.

Frazier stops, pauses and slowly scans the crowd, which sits silently, expectantly for his next sentence.

“I thank God for our men and women who are fighting over there because if they weren’t fighting there, we’d be fighting right here in the streets of America. I’m convinced of that,” he says, and the sanctuary erupts in loud applause.

Once the Antichrist takes power, the second temple in Jerusalem will be rebuilt. Followers of the Antichrist will be branded on their hands and foreheads with “the mark of the Beast,” which Frazier says could well be “biochips” implanted under the skin. It will be impossible to buy and sell in the new world without this mark. Those who convert to Christ will receive “the mark of the Father” on their foreheads, but they will become outcasts and persecuted in the Antichrist’s worldwide empire. Most will be martyred and killed.

“Do you see this?” he asks. “We’re the first generation that’s ever had the possibility of this happening in our lives.

“Does that apply to you?” he asks. “Do you have to be concerned about taking the mark? Absolutely not. You can’t have but one mark. You’re safe if you already have it—the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses away my sin and yours.”

He goes on to say that the loved ones of many in this room, who are not saved, will be branded with the mark of the Beast because they will be left behind.

America, according to Frazier, LaHaye and many other leaders in the movement, is being ruled by evil, clandestine organizations that hide behind the veneer of liberal, democratic groups. These clandestine forces seek to destroy Christians. They spread their demonic, secular-humanist ideology through front groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood, the Trilateral Commission and “the major TV networks, high-profile newspapers and news-magazines,” the U.S. State Department, major foundations (Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford), the United Nations, “the left wing of the Democratic Party,” Harvard, Yale “and 2,000 other colleges and universities.”

America must repent, Frazier tells his audience. It must ask God to cleanse the moral stains that infect the nation and its godless inhabitants. The nation must swiftly dismantle the barriers between church and state and bring God back into the schools, the government, the media, the entertainment industry, the workplace, the courts and the home. Time is running out. If America, as a nation, does not get right with God very soon, it will face terrible retribution. The sins that have befallen America, the moral license, the high rates of premarital sex, homosexuality, abortion, pornography, the adultery and the greed and lust that have beset the country must be stamped out. America must become submissive and heed God’s prophets or be destroyed. If the Christians in this room fail, if they do not wipe out vice, sin and corruption, if they do not establish a Christian America soon, God will begin to carry out acts of vengeance.

Frazier ends the conference with a call for those in the room to commit or recommit their souls to Christ.

“This afternoon as we bring our time together to a close, it’s not about being a Baptist; we went through that earlier. It is not about being a Methodist, or charismatic, or Assembly of God or an Episcopalian,” he says softly. “It is about knowing in your soul.”

He asks those before him if they are sure that if Christ appeared today they would go to heaven.

“I’m not trying to trick you,” he implores the bowed heads. “I’m trying to reason with you. For you see, one day the life that you and I know will be over. So I just wonder, is there a stirring in your heart? Am I speaking to you? Is He calling your name? He is. He is knocking on the door of your life? The door handle is on the other side. Where does it open? You have to open it. How do you do that? Well, the way I did it years ago was to call on the name of the Lord, and I prayed. I’m going to ask you this afternoon if there is a stirring in your heart.” He prays:

“Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I’m a sinner, and right now as an act of my own free will, I agree with You that I have sinned, and I want to ask You to forgive me of the sin that separates me from You. Come into my life; save my soul—and right now, with heads bowed and eyes closed, I just wonder if any of you have prayed that prayer. Here is what I’m going to ask you to do: Will you lift your head and look at me and make eye contact with me? I just want to see your face. No one is looking around. If you prayed that prayer, here is what I’m going to ask you to do—will you lift your head and look at me and make eye contact with me? I just want to see your face. No one is looking around. If you prayed that prayer and you really mean it then just lift your head, look at me so I can see your…God bless you, God bless you…I can’t really see the balcony because of the angle here, but if you are in the balcony will you slip your hand up for just a moment…God bless you, God bless you, yep, yeah, God bless you…you…you…and God bless you back there.”

Several people in the pews begin weeping softly.

Frazier tells them God has taken their sins away.

“And now when God looks at you, he doesn’t see your sins, your mistakes, He sees the blood of Jesus that washed your sin away,” he intones.

He invites all those who raised their hands or looked him in the eye to stand and come down to the front of the church. A couple dozen people slowly make their way past those in the pews to walk down the aisles to the front. Frazier gathers them around him in a tight circle. As the group forms, several church members wearing tags that say “counselor” silently enter the sanctuary through the double doors at the back. They wait, hands folded in front of them, to pray with the new converts, to tell them they need to come to church and to offer to help guide them toward new life.

Frazier thanks God for looking past the congregation’s sins.

He tells the small group in front of him not to go back to their friends or family, not to retrieve their belongings from the pews.

“We are going to ask you to walk right back to that door,” he says, pointing to where the counselors with the name tags are waiting to receive the group. “Would you all just step right through that door? And while they are going, folks, can we just do what the angels in heaven are doing?”

He starts to clap. The crowd follows his lead. The men and women file down the aisle as the crowd applauds, each being met by an individual counselor who takes their arm and guides them to a secluded corner in the lobby. The process begins.

What I watch reminds me of a lazy spring afternoon nearly 25 years ago, when Dr. James Luther Adams, my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School, told us that when we were his age—he was then close to 80—we would all be fighting the “Christian fascists.”

The warning came at the moment Pat Robertson and other radio and televangelists began speaking about a new political religion that would direct its efforts at taking control of all institutions, including mainstream denominations and the government. Its stated goal was to use the United States to create a global Christian empire. It was hard, at the time, to take such fantastic rhetoric seriously, especially given the buffoonish quality of leaders in the Christian Right who expounded it. But Adams warned us against the blindness caused by intellectual snobbery. The Nazis, he said, were not going to return with swastikas and brown shirts. Their ideological inheritors in America had found a mask for fascism in patriotism and the pages of the Bible.

Adams was not a man to use the word “fascist” lightly. He was in Germany in 1935 and 1936 and worked with the underground anti-Nazi church, known as the Confessing Church, with dissidents such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Adams was eventually detained and interrogated by the Gestapo, who suggested he might want to consider returning to the United States. It was a suggestion he followed. He left on a night train with framed portraits of Adolf Hitler placed over the contents inside his suitcase to hide the rolls of home movie film he took of the so-called German Christian Church, which was pro-Nazi, and the few individuals who defied them, including the theologians Karl Barth and Albert Schweitzer. The ruse worked. The border police lifted the tops of the suitcases, saw the portraits of the Führer and closed them up again. I watched hours of the grainy black-and-white films as he narrated in his apartment in Cambridge.

He saw in the Christian Right, long before we did, disturbing similarities with the German Christian Church and the Nazi Party, similarities, he said that would, in the event of prolonged social instability, catastrophe or national crisis, see American fascists, under the guise of Christianity, rise to dismantle the open society. He despaired of liberals, who he said, as in Nazi Germany, mouthed empty platitudes about dialogue and inclusiveness that made them ineffectual and impotent. Liberals, he said, did not understand the power and allure of evil or the cold reality of how the world worked. His long discussions with church leaders and theologians in Nazi Germany—some of whom collaborated with the regime, some of whom resisted and most of whom remained silent—were the defining experiences of his life. He was preoccupied with how liberal democracies, which could never hope to compete with the fantastic, utopian promises of personal and collective salvation offered by totalitarian movements, could resist. Adams was a close friend of the theologian Paul Tillich, a vocal opponent of the Nazis who in 1933 became the first non-Jewish professor barred from German universities and soon went into exile. Tillich, he reminded us, taught that the role of the church was in society, that the depth of its commitment and faith were measured by its engagement with politics and culture. It was this engagement that alone gave faith its vibrancy and worth. Tillich did not retreat from the looming crisis around him. He spoke out against the intolerance and hatred preached by the Nazis before they came to power. And Tillich angrily chastised those in the church who, preoccupied with narrow Christian piety, were passive. He thundered against this complacency and begged Christians to begin to “take time seriously.”

Adams had seen how the mask of religion hides irreligion. He reminded us that “our world is full to bursting with faiths, each contending for allegiance.” He told us that Hitler claimed to teach the meaning of faith. Mussolini used to shout, “Believe, follow, and act,” and told his followers that fascism, before being a party, had been a religion. Human history is not the struggle between religion and irreligion, Adams said. “It is veritably a battle of faiths, a battle of the gods who claim human allegiance.”

Democracy is not, as these Christo-fascists claim, the enemy of faith. Democracy keeps religious faith in the private sphere, ensuring that all believers have an equal measure of protection and practice mutual tolerance. Democracy sets no religious ideal. It simply ensures coexistence. It permits the individual to avoid being subsumed by the crowd—the chief goal of totalitarianism, which seeks to tell all citizens what to believe, how to behave and how to speak. The call to obliterate the public and the private wall that keeps faith the prerogative of the individual means the obliteration of democracy. Once this wall between church and state, or party and state, is torn down, there is an open and subtle warfare against love, which in an open society is another exclusive prerogative of the individual. In the totalitarian world, there are those worthy of love and those unworthy of it. In the totalitarian world, the private sphere becomes the concern of the state. This final restriction of the freedom to love—the freedom of a Christian to love a Muslim or the freedom to love those branded by the state as the enemy—heralds the death of the open society. The promises of Christian harmony, unity, happiness—in short a utopia—held forth by the dominionists have a seductive quality that will never be countered by the tepid offerings of democrats, who at best can offer citizens the opportunity to seek their own happiness and construct their own meaning.

We must, Adams also told us, watch closely what these new fascists accused their opponents of planning. For radical movements expose their own intentions and goals by tarring their enemies with their own nefarious motives. These movements assume that those they attack are, like themselves, also hiding their true agenda, also plotting to silence and eradicate opponents. This common form of “projection” was, on a smaller scale, on display during the Florida recount in 2000. The Republicans accused Al Gore of attempting to steal the election through court fiat, the very theft being secretly orchestrated by the Republicans. Richard Hofstadter was one of the first to grasp the role of projection in “The Paranoid Style in American Politics”:

It is hard to resist the conclusion that this enemy is on many counts the projection of the self; both the ideal and the unacceptable aspects of the self are attributed to him. The enemy may be the cosmopolitan intellectual, but the paranoid will outdo him in the apparatus of scholarship, even of pedantry. Secret organizations set up to combat secret organizations give the same flattery. The Ku Klux Klan imitated Catholicism to the point of donning priestly vestments, developing an elaborate ritual and an equally elaborate hierarchy. The John Birch Society emulates Communist cells and quasi-secret operation through “front” groups and preaches a ruthless prosecution of the ideological war along lines very similar to those it finds in the Communist enemy. Spokesmen of the various fundamentalist anti-Communist “crusades” openly express their admiration for the dedication and discipline the Communist cause calls forth.[208]

Adams, like Bonhoeffer, did not believe that those who would fight effectively in coming times of turmoil, a fight that for him was an integral part of the biblical message, would arise from the institutional church or the liberal, secular elite. His critique of the prominent research universities, along with the media, was withering. These institutions—self-absorbed, compromised by their close relationship with government and corporations, given enough of the pie to be complacent—were unwilling to deal with the fundamental moral questions and inequities of the age. They had no stomach for a battle that might cost them their prestige and comfort. He saw how easily the German universities had been Nazified. He told me, I suspect only half in jest, that if the Nazis took over America, “60 percent of the Harvard faculty would begin their lectures with the Nazi salute.” He had seen academics at the University of Heidelberg, including the philosopher Martin Heidegger, raise their arms stiffly to students before class. Adams also reminded us that American intellectuals and industrialists openly flirted with fascism in the 1930s. Mussolini’s “corporatism,” which created an unchecked industrial and business aristocracy, appealed to many American industrialists at the time, who saw it as an effective counterweight to Roosevelt’s New Deal. In July 1934, Fortune magazine lavished praise on the Italian dictator for his defanging of labor unions and his empowerment of industrialists at the expense of workers. And Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel It Can’t Happen Here told the story of a conservative politician, “Buzz” Windrip, backed by a nationally syndicated radio host, Bishop Peter Paul Prang, who is elected president and becomes a dictator to save the nation from welfare cheats, sex, crime and a liberal press.

The New York Times in 1944 asked Vice President Henry Wallace to answer the questions: What is a fascist? How many fascists have we? How dangerous are they? The Vice President’s answers were published on April 9, 1944, as the war against the Axis powers and Japan was drawing to a close. He wrote:

The really dangerous American fascist…is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power. They claim to be superpatriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjugation.[209]

Adams knew that resentments and bigotry lurk below the surface of all democratic societies and can be roused, under the right conditions, to promote a creed that calls for the destruction of democracy. What is evil about these systems of intolerance and persecution is not the foot soldiers who carry out the crimes, but the organization that mobilizes and unleashes these dark passions. He worried that such a movement was, late in his life, again on the march. It was more sophisticated than in the past, more cleverly packaged, and this time without serious opposition. The hatreds were again being stoked. The labor unions and progressives who had been able to battle back in the 1930s were spent forces. The despair of tens of millions of Americans, unable to find manufacturing jobs or work that offered fair wages and benefits, would lead them, he knew, into the arms of these fanatical preachers. The rage of those abandoned by the economy, the fears and concerns of a beleaguered and insecure middle class, and the numbing isolation that comes with the loss of community, would be the kindling for a dangerous mass movement. If these dispossessed were not reincorporated into mainstream society, if they eventually lost all hope of finding good, stable jobs and opportunities for themselves and their children—in short, the promise of a brighter future—the specter of American fascism would beset the nation. This despair, this loss of hope, this denial of a future, led the desperate into the arms of those who promised miracles and dreams of apocalyptic glory. Adams had seen it once. He knew what it looked like. He feared it was coming again.

Toward the close of the Second World War, Adams was asked to give a lecture about the Nazi faith to a large group of U.S. Army officers preparing for service in the occupation army in Germany. He described the views expressed by the officers at the meeting as “an orgy of self-righteousness.” Bigotry, in all its forms, had to be vigorously fought. He was not going to let this opportunity escape him. Adams wrote later:

This self-righteousness, I decided, ought somehow to be checked. Otherwise I might succeed only in strengthening the morale of a bumptious hundred-percent “Americanism,” and that was not the faith we were supposed to be fighting for. Toward the end of the lecture I recapitulated the ideas of the Nazi “faith,” stressing the Nazi belief in the superiority of the Teutons and in the inferiority of other “races.” I also reminded the officers of similar attitudes to be observed in America, not only among the lunatic and subversive groups but also among respectable Americans in the army of democracy. Then I asked these Army officers to pose one or two questions to be answered by each man in his own conscience. First: “Is there any essential difference between your attitude toward the Negro and the Jew, and the Nazi attitude toward other ‘races’—not the difference in brutality but a difference in basic philosophy?” “If there is an essential difference,” I said, “then the American soldier might logically become a defender of the Four Freedoms [freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear], but if there is no essential difference between your race philosophy and that of the Nazis, a second question should be posed: “What are you fighting for?” I blush when I think of some of the responses I received. I was immediately besieged with questions like these: “Do you think we should marry the nigger?” “Aren’t Negroes a naturally indolent and dirty race?” “Haven’t you been in business, and don’t you know that every Jew is a kike?” Questions like these came back to me for over an hour. I simply repeated my question again and again: “How do you distinguish between yourself and a Nazi?” Seldom have I witnessed such agony of spirit in a public place. Many of these Americans who could not distinguish between themselves and Nazis came from “religious” homes, or they claimed to be representatives (or even leaders) of the American faith. Apparently their faith was quite different from the faith behind the Four Freedoms. On the other hand, many of them no doubt would have disclaimed possessing anything they would call faith, yet all of them, whatever their answers to these questions, spoke the faith that was in them, and for many of them it was a trust in white, gentile supremacy—faith in the blood.[210]

Adams, finally, told us to watch closely what the Christian Right did to homosexuals. The Nazis had used “values” to launch state repression of opponents. Hitler, days after he took power in 1933, imposed a ban on all homosexual and lesbian organizations. He ordered raids on places where homosexuals gathered, culminating in the ransacking of the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin and the permanent exile of its director, Magnus Hirschfeld. Thousands of volumes from the institute’s library were tossed into a bonfire. The stripping of gay and lesbian Germans of their civil rights was largely cheered by the German churches. But this campaign legitimized tactics, outside the law, that would soon be employed against others. Adams said that homosexuals would also be the first “social deviants” singled out and disempowered by the Christian Right. We would be the next.

Those arrayed against American democracy are waiting for a moment to strike, a national crisis that will allow them to shred the Constitution in the name of national security and strength. And those in the movement often speak about such a moment with gleeful anticipation. Howard Phillips, a right-wing strategist who helped Jerry Falwell create the Moral Majority, has warned Christians to be ready. “My friends, it is time to leave the ‘political Titanic’ on which the conservative movement has for too long booked passage,” he told the Council for National Policy. “Instead, it is our task to build an ark so that we can and will be ready to renew and restore our nation and our culture when God brings the tides to flood.”[211]

Debate with the radical Christian Right is useless. We cannot reach this movement. It does not want a dialogue. It is a movement based on emotion and cares nothing for rational thought and discussion. It is not mollified because John Kerry prays or Jimmy Carter teaches Sunday school. Naive attempts to reach out to the movement, to assure them that we, too, are Christian or we, too, care about moral values, are doomed. This movement is bent on our destruction. The attempts by many liberals to make peace would be humorous if the stakes were not so deadly. These dominionists hate the liberal, enlightened world formed by the Constitution, a world they blame for the debacle of their lives. They have one goal—its destruction.

Alvin Toffler wrote that if you don’t have a strategy you end up being part of someone else’s strategy. There are isolated groups and individuals who, at some cost, are fighting back. The nonviolent protests of the Reverend Mel White’s Soulforce outside of Christian universities and service academies that discriminate against gays and lesbians are, according to the ideas of theologians such as Adams and Tillich, acts of faith. The clergy and rabbis who have banded together in Ohio to challenge the tax-exempt status of the megachurches that promote “Christian” candidates are performing an act of faith. The rulings of independent judges—such as the Republican-appointed Judge John E. Jones III in Dover, Pennsylvania—who have prohibited the teaching of creationism in public schools because it is not science, are acts of faith. Cardinal Roger Mahony, the head of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the nation’s largest, has called on Catholics to be prepared to defy the laws now being considered in Congress and backed by the Christian Right that make it a felony to shield or protect or offer support to illegal immigrants. Such civil disobedience would be an act of faith. The hate-crimes legislation now stalled in Congress because of bitter opposition from the Christian Right must be made law. Its passage would be an act of faith. Programs to protect or establish community, to direct federal and state assistance to those truly left behind, those trapped in America’s urban ghettos and blighted former manufacturing towns, are acts of faith. And the valiant struggle by former Vice President Al Gore and others to wake us up to the impending catastrophe that will beset us if we do not curb global warming is an act of faith. The accelerated rate of global warming could, within a decade, bring about epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves. To face this challenge, to do something about it, is to embrace a theology of hope, of life. To do nothing, to paint these ecological catastrophes as messages from an angry God rather than the folly of humankind, to believe blithely that global warming is a fiction and God alone determines human fate, is to accept this theology of despair, this radical evil. There are battles, big and small, that we can join. Many of them are being waged nearby, at our local school board. So much of maintaining a democracy is simply about showing up, and Adams felt that none of us had a right to profess our faith without this daily involvement in the life and well-being of our community, our nation and the planet Earth. “Repeatedly,” Adams told us, “I heard anti-Nazis say, ‘If only 1,000 of us in the late twenties had combined in heroic resistance, we could have stopped Hitler.’”

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain ends with Huck facing the moral dilemma we now face: whether to pay homage to a false moral code, one which has become law, or to damn ourselves in the eyes of many by opposing it. Here is Huck, faced with the choice of turning in his friend and escaped slave Jim, or living in defiance:

So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn’t know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I’ll go and write the letter—and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote: Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send. Huck Finn. I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn’t do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking—thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me, all the time in the day, and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking, and singing, and laughing. But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had Apocalyptic Violence in the world, and the only one he’s got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper. It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: “All right, then, I’ll go to hell”—and tore it up.[212]

The radical Christian Right calls for exclusion, cruelty and intolerance in the name of God. Its members do not commit evil for evil’s sake. They commit evil to make a better world. To attain this better world, they believe, some must suffer and be silenced, and at the end of time all those who oppose them must be destroyed. The worst suffering in human history has been carried out by those who preach such grand, utopian visions, those who seek to implant by force their narrow, particular version of goodness. This is true for all doctrines of personal salvation, from Christianity to ethnic nationalism to communism to fascism. Dreams of a universal good create hells of persecution, suffering and slaughter. No human being could ever be virtuous enough to attain such dreams, and the Earth has swallowed millions of hapless victims in the vain pursuit of a new heaven and a new Earth. Ironically, it is idealism that leads radical fundamentalists to strip human beings of their dignity and their sanctity and turn them into abstractions. Yet it is only by holding on to the sanctity of each individual, each human life, only by placing our faith in tiny, unheroic acts of compassion and kindness, that we survive as a community and as individual human beings. These small acts of kindness are deeply feared and subversive to these idealists, as the Russian novelist Vasily Grossman wrote in Life and Fate.

I have seen that it is not man who is impotent in the struggle against evil, but the power of evil that is impotent in the struggle against man. The powerlessness of kindness, of senseless kindness, is the secret of its immortality. It can never be conquered. The more stupid, the more senseless, the more helpless it may seem, the vaster it is. Evil is impotent before it. The prophets, religious teachers, reformers, social and political leaders are impotent before it. This dumb, blind love is man’s meaning. Human history is not the battle of good struggling to overcome evil. It is a battle fought by a great evil struggling to crush a small kernel of human kindness. But if what is human in human beings has not been destroyed even now, then evil will never conquer.[213]

Plato and Aristotle defended slavery and often attacked Athenian democracy, but this does not mean they should not be read for their deep and penetrating insights into political systems and ethics. Sigmund Freud understood little about love, viewed religion as infantile regression and viewed nearly every human motive through the lens of human sexuality, but at the same time Freud gave us one of the most powerful windows into and vocabularies for the workings of the subconscious. The Bible was written by numerous people over hundreds of years with wide and often varying concerns, some of which were and are morally indefensible. Within its pages, however, lie powerful passages that help illuminate our lives and our place before the mystery of human existence. I, too, struggle, like the writers of the Bible, to understand. I, too, often get it wrong. But it is the honesty and rigor of the search, the doubts and reverses, the mistakes and regrets, the ability to stand up again and keep trying that ultimately express faith. This humility before the unknowable, the acceptance that there is much we will never understand, makes possible self-criticism, self-awareness, self-possession and self-reflection. They make possible compassion and acts of kindness. They allow us to see ourselves in the stranger, to reach out in solidarity to those who travel with us on this dusty, brief and often lonely road of life. This honesty and humility make possible a diverse and tolerant human community. They sustain life and, in the midst of it all, impart hope.

I do not deny the right of Christian radicals to be, to believe and worship as they choose. But I will not engage in a dialogue with those who deny my right to be, who delegitimize my faith and denounce my struggle before God as worthless. All dialogue must include respect and tolerance for the beliefs, worth and dignity of others, including those outside the nation and the faith. When this respect is denied, this clash of ideologies ceases to be merely a difference of opinion and becomes a fight for survival. This movement seeks, in the name of Christianity and American democracy, to destroy that which it claims to defend. I do not believe that America will inevitably become a fascist state or that the Christian Right is the Nazi Party. But I do believe that the radical Christian Right is a sworn and potent enemy of the open society. Its ideology bears within it the tenets of a Christian fascism. In the event of a crisis, in the event of another catastrophic terrorist attack, an economic meltdown or huge environmental disaster, the movement stands poised to manipulate fear and chaos ruthlessly and reshape America in ways that have not been seen since the nation’s founding. All Americans—not only those of faith—who care about our open society must learn to speak about this movement with a new vocabulary, to give up passivity, to challenge aggressively this movement’s deluded appropriation of Christianity and to do everything possible to defend tolerance. The attacks by this movement on the rights and beliefs of Muslims, Jews, immigrants, gays, lesbians, women, scholars, scientists, those they dismiss as “nominal Christians,” and those they brand with the curse of “secular humanist” are an attack on all of us, on our values, our freedoms and ultimately our democracy. Tolerance is a virtue, but tolerance coupled with passivity is a vice.

[dutchannanas]

Episode 7 My thoughts 💭

Riiiight, death match time!

I'm a bit slow. So all the leaders should pick a better rapper in order to survive? And if they want to get rid of a shitty rapper, they should pick someone worse than themselves? That is what I'm hearing.

WAIT I'm confused. I'll just shut up and watch. OH it depends on how well you did at the Block Tournament. That makes sense.

Khan isn't planning on sacrificing Loopy meanwhile Loopy would sacrifice himself for his team every time lol

Reddy is also saving Haon basically.

Kaogaii what are you doing???? Is his father's instincts kicking in???

CHABOOM WHAT ARE YOU DOING

WHY WOULD YOU PICK MARV AND NOT DOUBLE DOWN

Goodbye Gamma

Cocona and two guys who never performed

Block 1 and Block 5 didn't pick any elimination candidates because they survived everything in the previous episode.

DAMN only 8 out of 16 will survive!

WHAT

Oh I get it now

So the leaders will have a 1 on 1 battle. Before they begin, they have to submit a card with the name of one of the elimination candidates. So if Hippie Kunda for example wins and she picked Gamma, Gamma will survive.

~

Hello everyone, OP here. From this moment until 1 hour 1 minute of the show, I forgot to save my writing on my phone. I have no one to blame but myself. Should I start over again and re-watch the past 40 minutes?

I have decided to continue watching like nothing happened. I'll finish the episode as usual but afterwards I'll think again about what to do. After all, there is still 1,5 hour left... I'll change to my laptop because auto-save TT

OP again. I'll just skip this part. I even forgot to upload this T^T

~

Alright Hippie Kunda vs Kaogaii. O'Domar survives and the rapper who goes home is- what the fuck? Gamma? I had a gut feeling. I hope next time he goes on a show, he'll do better.

Last battle! Kaogaii should go again, right? I'm confused, what is this show trying to foreshadow? I applauded behind my screen for Hippie Kunda, it must suck for her because she just lost. I'm proud of her for working hard! Oh! Instead of giving a shitty performance, he didn't rap at all. He was planning on eliminating Koala. I think it's Koala because he's the one who's edited out. I forgot about him lmao. Thanks to the K-hiphop sub-reddit for proving information!

So everyone tried their best to save their teammates, only Kaogaii used this opportunity to eliminate a rapper on purpose.

Loopy, Reddy and Haon... their hearts are too big for their bodies.

What will happen to Block 7? Will there be drama? Reddy showed a more confident performance than Chaboom both times. It is what it is. Owen in Block 5? Will they accept him? Either way, if Owen wants to win then, yes I agree that staying in Block 7 is a bad idea. Something has to change.

Block 8 is just 3 people now. They should make a big change to in order to survive. Ahw, I want to give all of them a hug :((

Jack Daniel's ad time

Owen looks like a tomato hahaha

Loopy and Owen... It was very touching to watch. I have been avoiding this but ever since the two of them were announced to participate, I was hoping for a mkit rain reunion. I didn't express it, worried I'd jinx it or something. I feel so nostalgic right now, it's unbelievable, I discovered them 5 years ago...

Oh shit. Daniel Jikal decided to withdraw from the show. I respect his decision.

Khundi Panda is now leader of Block 5. Not gonna lie, I thought he was already the leader, not JP. I forgot. Owen and DD join Block 5!

lmao Kaogaii tried to recruit Since and now Since is trying to recruit Kaogaii.

Kaogaii is so entertaining XD

SINCE IS GOING TO BLOCK 6?? Wow I thought she was a loyal person but it seems like she values winning more. I don't mind, the longer she survives, the more I get to watch her perform. I do hope that outside of Rap:Pulic, Since and Punchnello drop a song together. I really enjoy the two of them on stage. Block 6 is looking stronger. Skyminhyuk is now the leader of Block 4, instead of Punchnello. Hippie K and Drain K join Block 4 and Block 8 dissolves.

JTong is joining Block 2!! Even though he left, Block 1 is still a strong block. Chaboom is moving to Block 3. Foggyatthebottom moves to Block 2 and just like that, Block 7 closes down. Double Down changes teams again is now in Block 1. Osun is joining Block 5. Where did that come from? Damn, he gets to be the leader too. Nice deal. Oh Osun~ you broke Haon's heart :( Kind of a dick move to change blocks without saying anything.

~

It is time for a new mission. Changing Blocks has come to an end. Third Block Match. Block competition. First match, Block 5 vs 4. Second match, Block 3 vs 6. Third match, Block 1 vs 2. Oh shit we're already starting the fight! The preview for the next episode looks promising, it'll be lots of fun!

[kevinsreviewcatalogue]

Review: Stream (2024)

Stream (2024)

Not rated

<Originally posted at https://kevinsreviewcatalogue.blogspot.com/2024/10/review-stream-2024.html>

Score: 2 out of 5

Stream is a fairly forgettable, ho-hum movie, but one that would've made for a great video game. Specifically, it would've been a great modern-day remake of Manhunt, the classic and infamous 2003 survival horror game by Rockstar Games, the makers of the Grand Theft Auto series, in which you play as a death row inmate who is spared execution only to be forced into a snuff film operation. That, or it would've made for a great asymmetric multiplayer horror game in the mold of Dead by Daylight in which multiple people play as both the killers and their victims, with the former side scoring points by killing and the latter side doing so by surviving and escaping. It's rather appropriate, too, given that the film's basic premise concerns a shadowy criminal organization that has trapped a bunch of ordinary vacationers in a hotel to be hunted down by a group of masked slashers, the entire thing filmed and livestreamed for the enjoyment of sickos around the world. Not only is this quite similar to the plot of Manhunt, it also revolves heavily around the world of online streaming, something that is now part and parcel of video game culture, including one major character being an adolescent boy who streams himself playing video games.

And yet, despite this simple but golden premise, solid production values, sweet kills, cool killers, and Jeffrey Combs hamming it up as the villain, it just ultimately didn't come together as a good movie. The problems all came down to the story, which was overlong, took half the movie to get going, was so paper-thin with its satire of streaming that I can barely call it half-hearted in that regard, and was filled with throwaway characters who contributed nothing, existed only to die in creative ways, and had me muttering the Eight Deadly Words -- "I don't care what happens to these people" -- by the halfway point. This is a movie that people only paid any attention to in the first place because it was produced by Damien Leone and the rest of his crew from the Terrifier films, even though his creative involvement was limited to the admittedly cool special effects work. The best comparison I can think of is to the first film in The Purge series, a movie that had a very interesting premise that turned out to be ripe for a franchise but unfortunately blew the execution on the first go-around. I'd love to see a sequel that fixes all the problems that this film has, but I can't recommend it on its own merits.

Of the many characters we get among the people being hunted for sport, the only ones who get any focus beyond just serving as more bodies for the pile are the Keenan family, who serve as our protagonists, and Dave Burham, an older gentleman who turns out to be a detective investigating the people behind the carnage. Traveling through on their way to an amusement park, the Keenans consist of the father Roy, the mother Elaine, the rebellious teenage daughter Taylor, and the adolescent streamer son Kevin, and to be honest, I couldn't bring myself to care about any of them. Roy is a fairly flat hero, Kevin is little more than a prop, Elaine exists only to add another entry to the list of characters Danielle Harris has played in horror movies who get killed off brutally, and Taylor's motivations switch on a dime, at one point hating her parents and running away with a French guy she met at the hotel only to get cold feet and a sudden pang of "but I still love my family!" for no reason except to justify her returning to the film (and to create suspicion around the French guy that goes nowhere). As for Burham, he's blatantly telegraphed as a guy with a hidden agenda so early on that the big twist that he's actually part of the game not only wasn't a surprise, it ruined the film's attempts to create suspicion around the other people in the hotel. The actors were all acceptable, but they were saddled with such worthless nothing characters that their efforts were wasted.

What's more, the film asks me to spend an hour with these worthless nothings before it actually gets to the goods. I get what this movie was trying to go for here, focusing on the victims so that we care more about them once they start dropping. This was, after all, produced by the guys behind Terrifier, a series that only really came to life when the second film paired its memorable villain up with an equally memorable heroine to fight him. The thing is, Sienna Shaw was a legitimately great character in her own right, and the Keenans are not Sienna Shaw. They're depicted in the first half as a cliché of a suburban family that hates each other, and in the second half as bumbling idiots barring the brief moments when they get sudden, inexplicable bursts of hyper-competence (like, how did Roy know to take that opportunity presented by one of the hidden cameras being busted?). The movie was too dumb for too long to get me to care about its protagonists, which would've been acceptable had this movie gone for the requisite "twenty minutes with jerks" that horror movies usually use to give us the lay of the land before the mayhem starts, but not when its failed attempts at character development take up half the movie.

Where this film came alive was when it focused on the other half of the equation, the killers and the mysterious organization that's responsible for everything. Jeffrey Combs was clearly enjoying himself as Mr. Lockwood, the man who runs the whole operation and is clearly getting into it, at first posing as the hotel's owner to the guests before showing his true colors halfway in. A number of scenes in the first half revolved around Lockwood and his band of killers taking out the hotel's staff, rigging the place up for their murder spree, and facing a number of unforeseen problems that they have to work around, like one employee calling in sick and somebody else showing up in his place, or a drunken guest accidentally breaking one of their cameras. The killers themselves don't get to do much beyond wear cool masks and hack people up, but that is precisely what they do, and it is awesome. Each killer, identified only by a number, has a unique look, with Player 1 being a modern "hoodie" slasher, Player 2 channeling a lot of Art the Clown in his theatrics and body language (fitting, since he's played by David Howard Thornton under the mask), Player 3 being the token woman among them as a hot chick with a sadistic streak and a similar theatricality to 2 (who's shown to be her brother), and Player 4 being a hulking brute reminiscent of Jason Voorhees. The idea of a bunch of killers running around in a competition with each other, like a sick version of American Gladiators, was this film's big twist on the slasher formula, and it served as justification for a bunch of bloody and creative kills, the highlight being when Players 2 and 3 play a game of tic-tac-toe with a knife on some poor sucker's torso. They're winning extra points for style, you see, so simple stabbings just won't do. This movie should've focused on them, with the victims as merely supporting characters and minor antagonists, since the things it teased about the inner workings of this organization were far more interesting than the boring stories of the people they were hunting. The ending teased a whole ton of sequel ideas, as well as Tony Todd as another ringleader for this blood-soaked circus, all ideas that I think would've made a far better movie than the one we got.

The Bottom Line

Stream is a movie that doesn't know what its best qualities are. Instead of focusing on its cool killers and made-for-a-video-game concept, it spent way too long focusing on protagonists who were as dull as dishwater and who I couldn't wait to see meet their ends just to get them out of my face.

[scrumptiousstuffs]

Dangerous Romance Episode 1

The newest GMMTV Thai BL has dropped and starring Perth X Chimon, this enemies to lovers trope is set in high school. And so far, I’m liking it.

The first episode highlights the societal, economic and class differences between our 2 main characters (and their group of friends).

We open with Sailom, played by the ever talented Chimon working hard in his part time job, while still maintaining his scholarship attending what appears to be quite a prestigious school (with a lot of the children being sent in expensive looking cars!) - and despite the financial hardship, you can see the cheeky side of Sailom (the way he answered the customer from the car wash shop 😂😂😂). I also love the small details (like how worn out his school shirt is compared to his schoolmates), again highlighting his financial situation. He has 2 loyal friends - both also on scholarships - Auto (Euro Thanaset) who is obsessed with an idol girl group, his mother working in the school canteen means he is always ready to feed Sailom when the latter is short of money. Then we have Guy (Marc Pahun!! So glad you are back on screen!), likely on a football scholarship? - alway ready to back up his friends.

Contrast with Kanghan, rich and unfortunately a bully. Clearly used to getting his own way, and being the top dog in school (anyone reminded of the F4 series?). He has the teachers wrapped around his fingers and nobody in school dares to go against him. But you can also see he has a soft spot for his grandma and Pimfah (beautiful View!!!! So glad to see her again!). And while his cronies (Max played by JJ, Nawa played by Pawin) shipped them together - Kanghan and Pimfah appears more to be close childhood friends who understand each other (I may of course be proven wrong as the series progress!)

Conflict arises when Auto got tangled up with Kanghan gang by agreeing to help them do a group project for money, but the plan went pear-shaped with Auto ultimately being beaten up. And that’s when the tug and war start between Sailom and Kanghan.

While Sailom tried to do the right thing by reporting the bullying, their homeschool teacher is not buying it (also Kanghan definitely has the teachers wrapped around his fingers) - “it’s just boys playing around. Now apologise and make up with Kanghan.”

It’s start a petty war from Kanghan’s side - throwing water/a shoe to Sailom, cutting up his bag/homeworks and harassing him at his side job

But, Sailom gives back just as good - he has some of the best line in this episode 😂😂😂

“Do you want to be a hero?” Kanghan

“Why, do you want to be my heroine?” Sailom

“There’s 2 type of people, the car owner and the car washers.” Kanghan (while slyly putting a credit card in Sailom’s pocket to get him in trouble) before Sailom slyly putting it back in the former pocket “There’s 2 type of people, a smart one and the person thinking he is smart.” Sailom

The episode ended with Auto being used to lure Sailom for essentially a beat up session in front of everyone (While Guy being locked up to stop him from interfering).

And again, despite Kanghan trying to humiliate Sailom by declaring he will forgive everything if Sailom kisses Auto - Sailom flipped the narrative and kissed Kanghan in front of the crowd (🤌👏👏👏) - now that’s a genius move by Sailom (or it could idiotic but we’ll see in next week episode 🫣)

The first round of Sailom vs Kanghan goes to Sailom. He is smart, sassy and not phased by Kanghan and his groupies. Yes, it’s frustrating and troublesome, but Sailom knows the value of patience. He is also aware of his lower socioeconomic status - and how to circumvent around it. Whether or not he will remain patience as Kanghan intensify his attacks (or if the trailer is to believed when loan sharks comes knocking and his brother get into trouble) will be interesting to see.

Kanghan despite being a bully clearly has a soft spot for his family and close friends. And there seems to be a barrier with his father - on the surface his father seems encouraging but also not?- “I want you to concentrate in school, have fun and hang out with your friends. Don’t need to do run for school president, it’s not fun etc etc.”

You can see his face fell when he heard his dad say the above (also, this is the first time I heard an Asian parent not wanting their children to strive for the best 😂😅) - so, I’m not that surprised why Kanghan just go on with his days cruising, as there is no expectations from his dad..and he seems at loss what to do with his future.

Will be interesting to see how their relationship unfolds as the series progresses!!!

18/08/2023

[him-12345678]

What Makes a Junk Car Valuable? Key Factors That Impact Price

If you have a junk car, it might surprise you to learn that it still has value. Whether it's seen better days or doesn’t run anymore, your junk car could be worth more than you think. Various factors determine how much a junk car is worth, from its make and model to the demand for its parts. Here, we'll explore the key factors that impact the value of junk cars and how selling its components—like the engine—can offer a profitable alternative.

1. Condition of the Engine and Other Parts

The engine is often the most valuable part of any vehicle, even one that’s no longer roadworthy. Engines that are still functional or can be refurbished can be especially valuable. Companies like Engine Xperts specialize in high-quality used engines, showing the demand for reliable replacement parts. If your car’s engine is in good shape, you might consider selling it separately to maximize your return.

2. Make, Model, and Year

The make, model, and year of your car can significantly impact its value. Certain brands are in higher demand for parts, especially if the model is rare or has a reputation for reliability. For instance, engines from popular brands like Toyota, Ford, and Honda are often sought after due to their reputation for durability. On the other hand, newer vehicles often have parts that are worth more because they align with current technology and safety standards.

3. Market Demand for Parts

The market for used auto parts is dynamic, with certain parts more in demand depending on the season or industry trends. For example, if there’s a shortage of certain car parts, this can drive up prices. Junk cars with parts that fit many vehicle models or are difficult to find are generally more valuable. High-demand parts include transmissions, alternators, and, of course, engines.

4. Weight and Metal Value

Even if a junk car has no functioning parts, its scrap metal value can add up. Steel, aluminum, and other metals are always in demand, and the value of these metals fluctuates with the market. Junkyards pay by weight, so a larger vehicle like an SUV or truck will typically fetch a higher price.

5. Location and Transport

Location can affect a junk car’s value. For instance, some buyers might offer more if the car is close to them to reduce transport costs. If you’re willing to deliver the car to a junkyard or a buyer, this can sometimes increase your offer.

6. Current Scrap Market Prices

The scrap metal market constantly fluctuates, meaning the value of your junk car can vary depending on when you decide to sell. Keeping an eye on scrap metal prices can help you determine the best time to sell if you’re looking to maximize your profit from a car that’s mostly valuable as scrap.

Selling Parts Separately vs. Selling the Whole Car

If you’re looking to make the most out of a junk car, consider selling its individual parts. Engines, transmissions, and other essential components are often more valuable sold separately than as part of a whole car. This approach may take more time, but it can offer a better return.

For those interested in quality engines or looking for used car engines, Engine Xperts offers an extensive range of inspected, certified engines that meet high standards of performance and reliability.

Conclusion

While it might be tempting to sell a junk car as a whole for convenience, understanding the factors that impact its value can help you make a more informed decision. Whether through selling parts like the engine or scrapping it entirely, even the most rundown vehicle can still offer value.