#but i’m interested in how little he’s invested in the administration’s cause.

[lightning-chicken]

i know plot convenience is a thing but i can’t stop thinking about the implications of jay finding bonzle in the fake monastery’s basement of all places. did he know it was there before he walked into the building? did his feet carry him there, subconsciously retracing old steps? did he wait there, knowing he was far from the fight, because his side of the fight wasn’t the one he truly believed in?

[wing-ed-thing]

Fraternizing and Spineless (Kabuto x Reader, Part V)

Synopsis: Kabuto has a fixation and you sometimes apologize to inanimate objects. Ever since one fateful day, you’ve been drawn to each other from opposite sides of the battlefield.

Word Count: 2,799

Warnings/Tags: Physical Bullying, Minor Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Threat of Kidnapping/Attempted Kidnapping, Foul Language, Derogatory Language, Fem!Reader, Would y’all classify pining as angst?@tiktoktheclockisticking​ 

Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI Finale

Notes: This chapter is fairly violent. Nothing’s gory it’s just violent so please be warned. I kept it as vague as I could while still getting the point across. 

If you’re dissatisfied with what you’ve had in the past, you can just find other things and just add them to yourself from here on out.

Kabuto never had much to begin with, nothing he could truly call his. And even then, they were, for the most part, gifts. His glasses were a gift. His first name was a gift as was his last name. Much like an equation, Kabuto could always simply add and he always knew some semblance of the outcome.

But now there was you and Kabuto once again found himself unsure. He remained on the very edge of your bed all night, almost afraid to sit comfortably. He shook his leg anxiously, wired by the lack of sleep. Kabuto plus you. He didn’t know the answer. To add you meant to subtract other things. He had gotten used to those other things. And now, he was unsure if they even fit in the first place. Kabuto thought that maybe by the time morning came he would know, but dawn was just beginning to break. And much to his dismay, he found himself just as unsure as when night enveloped the sky.

You loved him. No one had ever told Kabuto that in his life. You loved him, and for what? He didn’t think he did a lot for you. He lounged on your furniture. He read your books and liked to make you flustered. Kabuto dared to gaze down at your unconscious form. His hand ghosted the outline of yours underneath the covers. He bit his lip. He liked being here. He liked to read with you. He loved your smile when you cooked together, when you read the comic section of the paper, when you stayed up late to talk… But was a life with you something he deserved? He didn’t think so.

You began to stir. Kabuto weaved a few hand signs. He didn’t even look as his palm made careful, yet swift, contact with your forehead. He couldn’t. Kabuto buried his face in his hands. He bought just a bit more time to think. Just a bit more time. Just a bit more time.

And by the time you woke up, you woke up with a start. You jumped, gasping as the blanket flew off of you. You glanced wildly around the room. Kabuto was nowhere to be found. Your heart beat rapidly in your chest. Kabuto had been wrong. The morning was here and you didn’t feel better.

***

You had plenty of time in your career as a ninja to properly map out the Hokage building. But even still, you never did and found yourself, per usual, lost. The halls looked the same for the most part. The rooms still went by the same number system used back with the first Hokage. And really, you didn’t have the mental energy to figure it out, not today. Despite the amount of alcohol you had last night, you could remember what happened vividly. Iruka, the good time you had, your teammates, and the burning humiliation. Kabuto. You wouldn’t have been here if you could help it.

You let out a sigh of relief halfway up the stairs as you spotted the sign at the top. You were almost on the right floor. Swinging open the door with a heave, you were met with the administrative assistant. You followed the curve of the hallway with your eyes. You could see the door to the Hokage’s door. The administrative assistant paid you little to no mind, sitting quietly behind his large, cluttered desk. You approached, tense.

“Hi, uh, I’ve been summoned?” You peeped. He didn’t look up from his work. You opened your mouth, then closed it. More silence. You tried again “I was summoned by L—” His head snapped up in annoyance and rolled his eyes.

“Name?” He asked forcefully, lugging a large book out from underneath a stack of others. You told him your name quietly and anxiously. The assistant stopped and let out a vexed grunt. You stood completely still, tense. You folded your hands neatly in front of you. He slammed the book back on the pile he got it from, causing you to jump, and instead began to rifle through one of his drawers.

“This is for you.” He held a small envelope to you. You stared for a second at the small rectangle confused before the assistant began to shake it. You apparently did not take the document quickly enough. The assistant turned straight back to his work. Confused, you opened the letter. You scanned the page, eyes widening in shock as you glanced up.

“Under investigation?” You gasped, the notice shaking in your hands. “A-And I’m suspended? For how long?” As if you didn’t have enough to deal with today.

“I don’t know, okay?” The assistant huffed. “All I know is that you’re not seeing the Hokage today.”

You had so many questions, but knowing that none of them were going to be answered, you left. And as you departed from the Hokage building, you were completely unaware that you were being stalked from the shadows.

***

Kabuto was running on fumes. Too wired to sleep, too tired to think. He felt the need to do something, so once again, he found himself in the lab. But after looking over his selection of possible specimens to study, Kabuto quickly decided that creating plans for experiments required much more effort than he had in him. He turned to cleaning and reorganization, a simple and mindless task. He had already made his way from the main laboratory to a few minor storage closets to yet more old exam rooms. Kabuto always took pride in a clean workspace, though Orochimaru had never been as dedicated.

Once again, his thoughts returned to you and he restrained himself from physically hitting his head against the nearest hard surface. He adjusted the gloves on his hands and picked up a labeled bin. Kabuto couldn’t help but wonder about what you were doing right now or if you had forgiven him. He knew perfectly well from day one that he had grown completely attached, but never had he expected for things to turn out like this. Kabuto stacked the bin with a few others in a corner of the extensive space. He leaned against the wall with a sigh, silently defying his better judgement by asking himself if you were truly happy in the Leaf. Helplessness washed over him. Yet another thing he didn’t know. He hated that feeling.

Kabuto slammed his fist against the wall next to him and a hollow reverberation echoed through the room. He blinked at the space under his wrist, giving it another strike. He turned to fully face the panel, hands spread across the cold surface. Kabuto tapped at it, shifting to his left and right to find where his tapping felt solid and where it felt empty. But with a few hand signs in the right spot, the wall disappeared to reveal a small back room.

Kabuto wandered in, kunai drawn. In the center of the room sat a lone examination table, straps sewn to the sides. Papers lay strewn around. A few vials were randomly shoved onto makeshift shelves. A chakra test kit sat at the foot of the table. Kabuto spotted a file under the single lamp that swung from the bare ceiling. Flicking it open, he found what he dreaded most. He felt a presence at the doorway. Kabuto’s shoulders dropped.

“I thought we weren’t going to pursue the girl.” He tried to make his voice as emotionless as he could. Anyone else and he would have been convincing.

“I put a lot of effort into safeguarding this room, you know.” Kabuto scoffed.

“Well, what can I say, Lord Orochimaru, you taught me well.” He turned to face the Sanin. Orochimaru stood, leaning against the doorframe. “I must say that I’m surprised. There never has been a whole lot you’ve kept from me.”

“Sure there has,” Orochimaru laughed, a certain amount of bite in his tone. “And you’ve been far too invested. I had to take things into my own hands.”

A pause. Kabuto stared at his mentor and a life changing choice stared back. All of his previous thoughts confronted him at once and he quickly came to a realization. He was out of time. For the whole day he had been putting off his decision by staying up all night, by avoiding strenuous work. But now, he stared the embodiment of his questions in the face.

“She’s protected in the village and well loved,” A lie, but one Kabuto tried his best to convince himself of. “She wouldn’t be an interesting test subject anyway.” Orochimaru frowned, eyes half lidded.

“Kabuto, your girlfriend leveled the entire eastside base.”

Kabuto did remember. He remembered the ambush at the base. How regretfully your team of Leaf shinobi had gotten the better of him. He remembered waking up without a scratch in a mile-wide crater, your body half flung over his torso. The underground base had been completely excavated and decimated to smithereens. The laboratories were gone. The many rooms and hallways were gone. All that remained were the two of you. And that’s how Kabuto Yakushi met you.

“She gave you what you wanted in exchange for the scroll.” The kunai in his hand hung by the loop on his finger, but not put away. He methodically fiddled with it’s handle.

“A few tests for a fake scroll is a measly trade,” Orochimaru rolled his eyes, though the mischief in them wasn’t lost. “Nothing I did warranted what you gave her.”

“I just gave her what you promised.” Kabuto narrowed his eyes, “So why does it look like you’re going to perform an extraction? She’s not even here.”

“And that, Kabuto, is where you’re wrong.”

***

You took your usual shortcut home. You could always tell how close you were by the number of trees. The Hokage building had always been around the epicenter of all the bustle in Konoha, and for good reason. But most of the time, you enjoyed a break from the intensity of ninja life and settle into your apartment near the outskirts of town. You cut through a thick patch of trees. A trail had been beaten into the ground long ago. The area felt like a park and served to remind you of the scenery just outside of the village. But you couldn’t enjoy your walk this time. You sensed a presence.

You began to walk faster and that was when four figures jumped out at you from the treetops. Their hitai-ate gleamed in the interrupted lighting. Sound ninja. You immediately disappeared, a jutsu you no longer needed hand signs for, and camouflaged into the scenery around you. But despite your fast-moving efforts, you were still grabbed and thrown to the ground. Your fragile jutsu broke, but you scrambled up quickly, kunai in hand. You turned on your heel, lowered in a defensive position.

“Please go away,” You nearly whimpered, “I’ve had such a rough week. Try again next week!” You argued as if that mattered to your band of attackers.

“Lord Orochimaru has explicitly expressed that we are not to leave without you.” As the words left his lips, you couldn’t help but wonder if this had been Kabuto’s doing. Though, if he had wanted to abduct you, he could have done so last night and perhaps that wouldn’t have been so bad. But you didn’t have enough time to wonder. Out of the corner of your eye you saw a volley of projectiles. You leaped to the ground, arms coming to wrap over your head.

An uproar above you. Weapons clashing and pained cries. Your head stayed down. And as the bodies of your old problem hit the ground, you heard the voice of your new problem.

“I knew you were a traitor.”

***

Kabuto refrained from gritting his teeth.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Orochimaru only smirked smugly.

“A healing chakra that can pack the power of lightning and you wonder what we can do with that?” The Sannin shrugged. “We don’t know if it’s a kekkei genkai. Perhaps a new breed of ninja but that kind of power could do many things. One could even say—” He met Kabuto’s eyes, antagonism built up and glittering in his own, —“that power could restart a heart. With enough control, that is.” Kabuto moved forward to walk back out through the doorway, but Orochimaru blocked his path.

“What is it, Lord Orochimaru?” He asked with as much restraint he could muster.

“You’re not planning to go to her are you? She’ll be here any minute.” Kabuto hesitated and for once told a most vulnerable truth.

“I really don’t know what I’m going to do.” And he was allowed to pass.

***

“Thank you for saving me!” You scrambled up to your feet, eyes wide and on the fallen bodies of your attackers. But before any of the situation could process you heard a shout of warning.

“Don’t you come any closer, Sound ninja bitch!” The kunoichi from your team stood in front of you, weapon pointed in your direction. Your head turned towards her, confused and surprised.

“What?”

“I said don’t come any closer!” You held your hands up, truly not wanting any trouble. The patch of forest didn’t dare to make a sound and neither did you. Your teammate circled you, coming closer with every circulation. Her stance never faltered. “I knew you were a lying rat from the very beginning. We all did.”

“I think there’s been a misun—”

“Keep your fucking hands up!” You listened, spreading your palms to the air. Your neck scrunched downward into your collar as you flinched. “You’re pretty fucking dumb to meet with your buddies in the open like this, even if you are close to village limits.” You kept your lips folded in a thin line. The kunoichi snarled at you. “Pick up your kunai.”

“I’m not going to fight you,” You expressed with a certain amount of reluctance and your response only served to further anger her. She sheathed her weapon and shoved you to the ground.

“What? You think you’re better than me, you sellout?” She grabbed your hair, forcing you to meet her eye. Her hand crossed right across your cheek, the sting prickling on your skin. Even so, you refused to fight a comrade. “When the others get here we’re going to take care of you—” She continued to whale on you with her fists. Your nose began to bleed. —“And we’re going to take care of that boytoy of yours too!”

And as you bled, all you could mewl was, “Please stop.” You felt a warmth spreading over your face and an uncomfortable mending. The kunoichi stared down in disgust from her vantage over you. A blue aura spread across your skin, not of your own control.

“The fuck do you think you’re doing?” She landed another blow to your face, her fist coming in direct contact with the blue air. A spark of chakra and she recoiled her hand with a growl. “You think you’re going to shock me? You think you’re going to hurt me with some weak ass lightning jutsu. Show me some respect and fight me like a ninja!” She punctuated each word with a strike. You sat up quickly only to be pushed back down. “Oh you finally got some fight in you, traitor?” She repeated the name like a mantra.

She didn’t notice how you had stopped bleeding or how the energy around you began to violently fluctuate. You had become completely resigned, quiet, and silently crying. You couldn’t help but wonder if you deserved this. Perhaps you shouldn’t have tried to save someone who wasn’t your own. But he turned out to be the only one who actually cared about you, unconditionally. You knew that you could never have had a happy future in the Leaf. Your heart ached for your new friends, for Iruka’s friendship, peace between shinobi nations, and for Kabuto. The tears streamed down the side of your temples but you didn’t say a word. You could feel the energy build up within you.

You tried to warn her, but one last punch and you knew it was over. The blue aura shrunk against your skin all over your body and then, in an instant, burst. An electric wave shot out from your being. The ground cracked. The trees snapped. You saw her eyes widen as the energy shot through her chest. The kunoichi looked at you, eyes wide in fear and you knew that by the time she hit the ground that she was dead.

Notes: Very dramatic, no? I didn’t know where this series was going from chapter 1. I thought maybe a slice of life but it’s taken a turn. Next chapter will be the finale! Woop woop!

Thank you to everyone who liked, reblogged, and followed. Your support means so much and is greatly appreciated.

[mrs-nate-humphrey]

So not to be dramatic, but if you could get a degree in discourse-ology, the topic of my master’s thesis would definitely be “Which political candidates did the characters of the CW’s Gossip Girl (2007-2012) support?” I’m doing this in order from most to least obvious, and considering both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.

[ little ivy interjection here: i haven’t changed ANYTHING, except adding a screencap of the title + the submission, because that made me laugh & more people deserve to see it, and putting this under a read more because that’s how i generally try & organise stuff on this blog. so this submission is exactly as it was when i received it! also while we’re at it, anon, this MADE my day.]

Blair Waldorf: “Hillary Clinton is one of my role models. I do not break treaties, you ass!” (04x13) There’s no question that Blair would go hard for Hillary in 2016, she praised her on multiple occasions throughout the series. Blair’s a classic American neoliberal, third wave Democrat-type: she’s decently progressive when it comes to social policies, and would be decidedly supportive of causes like gay marriage, racial equity, and women’s reproductive rights, but she’s still very much in favor of maintaining the status quo when it comes to capitalism and the hegemonic structure of power that, lets face it, heavily favors her own class interests. To use the American healthcare system as an example: Blair would have been all for the Affordable Care Act, and is largely supportive of the idea of creating a public option - but single payer, nationalized health care? It just wouldn't work in a country like the United States for “X” reason (although the real reason, deep down, is that she doesn’t want to see her tax rate go up in any meaningful way). So she’s thoroughly for Clinton in both the 2016 primaries and the general election, she maybe even comes out with a line of high-end “I’m With Her” merchandise if she’s still CEO of Waldorf Designs, and is personally heartbroken when Clinton loses.

Flash forward to the 2020 primaries. Blairhates Donald Trump, like emotionally, viscerally hates him - his misogyny, his incompetence, and his blatant tackiness are a direct repudiation of her beliefs, and the fact that he’s representing Manhattan society and the Upper East Side to the world in such a godawful way is frankly embarrassing. So in a certain sense, her strategy, like frankly many Americans at the time going into the 2020 Democratic primaries is, “Which one of these candidates has the greatest chance at beating Donald Trump?” I see Blair being rather conflicted at first, but ultimately going for either Amy Klobuchar or Kamala Harris. She has a certain admiration for Elizabeth Warren given her professional background, but her policies are a bit too progressive for someone like Blair. Buttigeg is fine, but not especially thrilling. Biden, quite frankly, doesn’t seem like he has any real chance at winning, although I think he’d be Blair’s third choice after Harris and Klobuchar. I can see her leaning more towards Harris ultimately - although, after the “Amy Klobuchar throws staplers at her interns!!” rumors start spreading, Blair cannot help but, at a personal level, kind of respect her for that. When Biden unexpectedly takes South Carolina and then the Democratic nomination, Blair is a bit disappointed, but not overly so, and quickly marshals her financial resources into supporting and fundraising for him for the remainder of the election. At least it’s not Sanders - or Bloomberg. As a New Yorker, of course Blair’s opinion is “Fuck Michael Bloomberg”.

Chuck Bass: Now here’s where it gets interesting. Chuck, as you said, isn’t stupid - there’s no way he falls for the “build the wall” crap or any of Trump’s rhetoric, he knows it’s a bullshit farce and sees right through it. But you know what he definitely is? Deeply greedy and deeply selfish. I’m hardly the first person to point this out, but Chuck Bass is, in many ways, the fictional equivalent of the Donald Trumps and Michael Bloombergs and Brett Kavanaughs of the world - new money billionaire who inherited his wealth from his father working in the real estate industry, who despite his lack of business acumen and deeply problematic history with women, has managed to coast through life failing upwards with absolutely no social or legal accountability? I mean, back in 2010, Forbes Magazine actually did a real interview with the fictional Chuck Bass in which they outright compare him to Donald Trump. I couldn’t tell you if the Gossip Girl writers meant to write Chuck as their Trump analogue - I mean, they did invite Jared and Ivanka onto the show, after all - but the parallels are just too strong to ignore. All of which is to say, not only did Chuck Bass vote for Donald Trump, he held exclusive political fundraisers for him and was probably a substantial donor to his campaign. Now, did Chuck distance himself publicly over time as the political climate became increasingly caustic and public sentiment towards Trump plummeted even further? Perhaps, perhaps not. It really depends on if the board of Bass Industries felt like being connected to Trump was a liability or an asset - but privately, I imagine Chuck once again voted for him in 2020, because the one policy Donald Trump did effectively execute during his tenure in office was massive tax cuts for billionaires, and for someone like Chuck Bass, that’s the only political policy that really matters. He wouldn’t wear a red hat and wouldn’t be caught dead within sniffing distance of a MAGA rally and the hoi polloi, but dude is basically the image of what the kind of rich conservatives backing the Trump administration for personal gain look like. On the off chance that the distastefulness of it all got to be a little much for even Chuck post-2016, perhaps he might switch his vote to Bloomberg. But I highly doubt Chuck would be politically invested in anything other than his own wallet to such an extent that he wouldn’t vote for Trump, no matter how much it would no doubt completely infuriate Blair.

Dan Humphrey: As the unofficial king of the hipsters, Dan has been a Sanders supporter since before it was cool. Seriously, Bernie Sanders appeals to Dan intrinsically on every level - his policies, his rhetoric, even his aesthetic - the rumpled old man with wild hair wearing mittens and railing against the upper class is the sort of thing that’s basically political catnip for someone like Dan Humphrey. Not only would Dan vote for Sanders in both the 2016 and 2020 primaries, he’d go out and be one of the celebrities campaigning for him. This would definitely lead to him butting heads with Blair, and she would no doubt call him out on supporting someone like Sanders when Dan himself is now a millionaire, who made his money from writing stories about the upper class. The fact that in 2017 he apparently gets married to Serena, a billionaire heiress, and may or may not have been engaged to her back in 2016 when the Democratic primaries were happening might cause him a bit of cognitive dissonance, but really, just because he’s climbed up the socio-economic ladder now doesn’t mean his values have really changed, have they? (Debatable.) In any case, in both the 2016 and 2020 general elections, Dan would definitely vote for Clinton and Biden respectively - although he’d be significantly more disgruntled about it than Blair would be switching from Harris to Biden. I don’t think Dan would be a “Bernie bro” in the way that term is used, but he’d definitely chafe against Clinton’s past policy decisions, and would probably make some snippy Tweets about her during the election. Nevertheless, once it became clear that Trump was going to be the Republican nominee and was a serious threat, I think Dan would change his tone and start encouraging his fans and followers to vote for Clinton. Likewise, in 2020, Dan would probably become one of the Sanders supporters doing outreach for Biden, having become more politically pragmatic following the experience of living under the Trump administration.

Vanessa Abrams: Much like Dan, Vanessa is a progressive, although unlike Dan, Vanessa’s activism is more focused around specific issues and less around specific politicians. I can see Dan and Vanessa being in roughly the same place in 2016, and given that the only real choices were between Sanders and Clinton in the primaries (RIP to Martin O'Malley), Vanessa would no doubt go for Sanders. Whereas Dan might campaign for Sanders directly however, Vanessa would instead focus her time and resources around advocacy for specific causes that are important to her, like climate change and racial justice, and would probably use her platform as a filmmaker and documentarian to advance those causes. I could very much see her getting involved with movements like Black Lives Matter and organizations like the Sunrise Movement, and taking part in protests, marches, and sit-ins. When the 2020 Democratic primaries come around, I could see her possibly switching from Sanders to Warren for a while (and Dan would definitely argue with her about it if she did), but I can also see her switching back to Sanders after Warren amended her support for single-payer, “Medicare for All”. She’d definitely vote for Clinton and Biden in the generals, but not enthusiastically.

Nate Archibald: For someone whose family business is politics and who, in 2017, is apparently a candidate in the New York City mayoral election, Nate seems to be rather removed from politics. As Vanessa puts it in 02x19, “The only thing Nate’s ever voted for is American Idol.” Still, as Editor-in-Chief of The Spectator, Nate kind of has to have an opinion, and in that respect, I see him gravitating towards the type of center-left “establishment” candidates that he and his family would no doubt have close ties with. In the Gossip Girl universe, the Vanderbilts are portrayed as being a lot like the Kennedys, and I think Nate’s policies as a mayoral candidate would really reflect that. In 2016, he would vote for Hillary Clinton in both the primaries and the generals without much of a second thought - after all, she’s the obvious choice, and there’s no way a candidate like Donald Trump could actually beat her, right? Actually, optimistically, maybe that’s why Nate decides to jump into the mayoral race in 2017 - previously, he had been for all intents and purposes politically apathetic, but seeing someone as genuinely vile as Donald Trump ascend to the office of the presidency stirs him out of that apathy, and he wants to make a positive difference in the only way an incredibly privileged white man from a politically prominent family knows how. So he runs as a Kennedy-esque center left candidate, further left of someone like Hillary Clinton, but more moderate than someone like Elizabeth Warren - sort of like Kamala Harris, now that I think about it. I have no idea if he would actually be able to beat Bill de Blasio given the major incumbency advantage de Blasio would have, but who knows. Come the 2020 Democratic primaries, I think Nate would probably just vote for whoever he believed was most likely to beat Donald Trump. I don’t see him having any sort of clear preference - maybe he would gravitate towards Biden on the basis of him being the most established candidate, or maybe he would gravitate towards Harris on the basis of her campaigning as the “moderate progressive” candidate. I could also seeing him liking Andrew Yang, come to think of it. In any case, he would most definitely support Joe Biden in the generals. How involved he’d be in supporting him really depends on whether or not Nate actually gets elected to mayor - if he was the mayor, he’d definitely endorse him and probably donate to him, but I think he’d be too wrapped up in his own political responsibilities to really do much more than that. If, however, he lost the election and was still the Editor-in-Chief of The Spectator, I can see Nate getting more involved alongside the rest of his family, officially endorsing him in The Spectator, hosting political fundraisers for him, and maybe even campaigning for him. The Vanderbilts in the Gossip Girl universe (I have no idea what the family’s actual political beliefs are in real life) definitely seem to me like they’d be Biden supporters, and I imagine they’d use their political clout to try and get Biden in, and more importantly, Trump out.

Serena van der Woodsen: Oh Serena. Look, she knows it’s important, okay? It’s just, she’s been really busy lately, and she doesn’t really like to think about politics, and hey, remember that fundraiser she did with her mom for last month’s philanthropic cause du jour? Serena’s a Democrat, vaguely, but if you tried to really pin her down on her political beliefs she’d probably just change the topic. So who does she vote for in 2016? The truth is, she doesn’t. Not in the primaries, not in the general, not at all. She meant to, okay, Blair’s definitely been pestering her to send in her mail-in-ballot for weeks, but she just got distracted and forgot. Serena really strikes me as the kind of person who doesn’t enjoy thinking or talking about politics, save for perhaps a few specific issues, and she has a sense that everything will work itself out eventually and she doesn’t really need to participate. And then the 2016 election happens, and holy shit, she didn’t vote. Blair and Dan might have spent early 2016 bickering with each other over Clinton versus Sanders, but the one thing they can definitely agree on is “What the fuck, Serena?!?!” They both reminded her like, a million times, how could she possibly forget?! Serena feels really bad about it - she didn’t think it was such a big deal, she didn’t think Donald Trump could actually win! - and so she starts overcompensating whenever the topic of politics comes up, maybe even joins Vanessa at a few protests and marches, even though she’s still sort of clueless about the actual issues at hand. She does vote in the 2018 midterms, although only in the general election - straight blue ticket, all the way down. She takes a picture of herself at the voting booth wearing an “I Voted!” sticker and posts it on Instagram, tagging both Dan and Blair in the post (who already voted weeks ago using mail-in ballots, but it’s the thought that counts). Flash forward to 2020, and she really needs to make a decision about who to vote for in the primaries… but there’s just so many choices. Everything seems so scary and stressful and real in a way now that it didn’t back in 2016, and she can’t just ignore it and assume things will work out for the best like she did back then. So who does she vote for? Well, Serena always wins, so she votes for Biden. Conspiratorially, both Dan and Blair privately wonder if her voting for Biden isn’t on some cosmic level the reason for his unexpected victory, even if they know there’s no logical way that’s possible, right? But it would be such a Serena thing to do… In any case, Serena’s just happy her candidate won, and would probably host political fundraisers for him with her mom’s circle of philanthropic friends. Assuming she and Dan are still married at this point, she offers to help him do political outreach to Sanders supporters to get them to vote for Biden, which he sweetly dissuades her from given that most Sanders supporters would probably dislike her on principle.

So that’s how, in my opinion, the main cast would vote, ordered roughly in how confident I am about that analysis. You could make the argument that perhaps some characters would vote or act differently based on whether or not they’re dating or married at the time - like, would Chuck openly fundraise for Trump when Blair is a dyed-in-the-wool Clinton supporter if they’re married? (He totally would.) But I tried to consider them purely on the merits of their personalities and values, and not on the particularities of their situations at the time (with the exception of Nate, just because him being in office or not would obviously make a huge difference in regards to how politically involved he’s going to be).

I wish I put as much effort into my actual university essays as I did on Gossip Girl political analysis.

[opting-for-oblivion]

A Matter of Jurisdiction

A lovely anon asked if I had anything to add regarding one of my recent tags, the gist of which was “In DMC, do you realize how much trouble Governor Swann’s letter would have caused (for the EITC) if it made it to England? Because Beckett did and he was not taking any chances.”

Because I am terrible at being succinct and because I love talking about this, I’m going to expand more generally on what I said in my tags on the post in question and approach some other questions about Lord Beckett’s authority later posed by the op of the original post. [Links to the relevant posts can be found in the replies, as Tumblr hates links.]

I will, fairly, preface this by saying that skimming Beckett’s PotC fandom Wiki does answer all of the questions regarding the EITC’s actions, and, to put the TL;DR at the beginning, that answer is often just “Lord Beckett had royal authority (and enough money) to do whatever he wanted.”

Nonetheless, if you’re curious how I’d nerd out over analyze the situation, please read on!

[A further note: I am not a historian, nor am I an expert on the alternate universe in which PotC is set. If I am, at any point, wrong, please let me know.]

While the main focus of the original PotC trilogy is the conflict between pirates (representing freedom) and the British Crown (representing, among other things, constraint, control, and exploitation), there exists within the British “side” a kind of internal conflict and this is what we see at play between Cutler Beckett and Weatherby Swann.

If you understand Beckett to be a merchant of sorts and the East India Trading Company to be just what it says on the tin -- a trading company -- then it might seem entirely out of order that Beckett invades Port Royal, crashes the governor’s daughter’s wedding, and disrespects (indeed, arrests) Swann the way he does. However, so far as legality goes, Beckett doesn’t cross as many lines as one would think (or, perhaps, the lines are not quite so clear). This is because Lord Beckett has the same royal authority that Governor Swann does and because the EITC is no mere trading company.

The EITC is a deeply politically invested entity. The Company operates with a royal charter, which means that it was granted certain rights by the monarchy. Specifically, the EITC has extensive military and administrative capabilities built into it. (I’ve even seen it referred to as part trade organization, part nation state.) When operating in the Indian Ocean and other areas outside of the jurisdiction of the British Crown, as it was originally intended to, the Company acts as an arm of British imperial power. This becomes a problem when the EITC attempts to exert said power where British Crown authority is already established, such as in the British Caribbean.

Swann is, of course, the king’s governor of Port Royal; his authority derives directly from the Crown as well. In fact, Weatherby Swann is said to be close friends with the king. However, the fact that Swann has personal ties to the aristocracy and Beckett does not doesn’t make their powers as unequal as one might think. The structures that each is part of are just about parallel.

The situation is not: Crown → Aristocracy → Merchants

But rather: Crown → Aristocracy & → EITC

While Beckett has been granted the title of lord by DMC, there is still a difference between those born into such a status and those who were not. (It’s sort of a big deal, especially for Beckett. His family had been wealthy merchants, but none of them had ever held a title.)

Because the two men have fairly equal standing in terms of pure authority, their being at odds become a tricky matter of jurisdiction. In other words, who has the right to exercise his power where? This question vexes both Swann and Beckett, and they’re both keenly aware of it from the moment they come face to face. Neither can claim absolute authority outright, but both have unique cards they can play to shift the situation in their favor.

A few scenes in DMC highlight the chess game that Swann and Beckett are playing, though I’m afraid it was never a game that Beckett intended to play fairly.

In the opening of DMC, the EITC invades Port Royal as Beckett arrives to arrest Elizabeth Swann, William Turner, and James Norrington. Some key things to understand here:

The invasion is not solely to make the arrests, but rather to establish Port Royal as the EITC’s new base. Beckett clearly has that intention (and royal approval for it) before showing up. That said, was invading the place entirely necessary? No, but it is a shock tactic. 

Some of the first things said to Lord Beckett are, by Governor Swann, “Lord or not, you have no reason and no authority to arrest this man.” and, by Elizabeth, “We are under the jurisdiction of the king’s governor of Port Royal and you will tell us what we are charged with.” The Swanns are obviously under the impression that Beckett is out of line, but he isn’t.

Regarding the arrests themselves, all of the warrants are legally valid. Elizabeth, Turner, and Norrington did, as the warrants say, conspire “to set free a man convicted of crimes against the Crown and Empire and condemned to death.” Beckett’s decision to use the prisoners rather than simply execute them is, on the other hand, entirely his own abuse of power.

Another important scene, of course, is when Governor Swann attempts to save Elizabeth by having her sent to England.

Swann’s lines in this scene very clearly show his particular type of power: that based on personal, aristocratic ties. For example, “Our name still has some standing with the king.” Even the captain he makes arrangements with is “a friend” -- the only kind of person Swann can trust given Beckett’s new authority in Port Royal. 

When Swann tells Elizabeth, “Perhaps I can ensure a fair trial for Will.” we especially see where his power ends. His authority in Port Royal, and regarding those who are not his family, is now weak. His best hope there is to enforce existing standards (i.e. a fair trial). 

The entire premise of Swann’s decision here is that he knows that he can’t contest the warrants. However, there is a possibility that he can leverage his ties with the aristocracy to get his daughter off the hook. That personal power is only certain to work in England, out of the reach of Lord Beckett’s power in the Caribbean. Swann is very smart to use his personal ties this way though anyone would have to admit that it’s not exactly legal. 

A line that was cut from the film reinforces all of the above (which is likely why it was cut): “There are still men loyal to me here, and Beckett is still wary of my ties to the Crown.” Swann, due to his position as governor and personal connections with the British aristocracy, has power that -- while not necessarily a threat -- could conceivably challenge Beckett’s actions. Lord Beckett knows this, but there isn’t anything he can do about it at this point in the film. 

Now, considering that (earlier) Swann openly discusses helping Elizabeth escape in front of one of the EITC soldiers when he visits her in prison, it’s no surprise that Beckett suspects something is amiss and sends Mercer to investigate. 

The scene in which Mercer kills Swann’s hired captain and arrests the governor is, perhaps, the most high-stakes political moment in DMC. Mercer not only catches Swann breaking the law, but he intercepts Swann’s letter to the king. When confronted, Swann knows that his gamble has gone horribly wrong.

Swann is arrested on the same grounds that his daughter was, conspiring to free a convicted criminal, which effectively strips him of his authority and, worse, puts him at Beckett’s mercy. More than that, his letter to the king is Beckett’s first real proof that Swann is a threat on a larger playing field. Before intercepting the letter, Beckett only had suspicions to go off of, and any move against someone you’re not sure is an enemy could create an enemy. With the escape attempt and the letter, Beckett has both legal and personal grounds to arrest the governor and, later, blackmail him.

While we never discover the exact contents of the letter, it’s likely that Swann wrote more than a plea for his daughter’s pardon. Elizabeth is his main concern, but it would be unlike Swann -- a man with an admirable moral center -- to not mention the way he feels about the EITC and Beckett’s conduct in Port Royal. If such a letter did reach the king, there is no way that the king could ignore it outright. There would be repercussions of some kind, and a royal inquiry into the EITC’s dealings at the very least. It’s important to remember that, while the Crown pays little attention to the EITC so long as it’s making money, the Crown very much can tell the EITC what to do if it sees fit -- which is the last thing Beckett wants. That said, I’m not certain if Swann’s letter would have meaningfully shut down the EITC in the Caribbean, and it almost certainly wouldn’t have gotten Beckett arrested. In any case, Beckett avoids the whole problem by ensuring that Swann’s concerns -- whatever they are -- never reach ears that are able to do anything. 

In the following scene, in which Elizabeth steals the letters of marque, it’s interesting to note that Beckett’s line about how “loyalty is no longer the currency of the realm” is both ironic and bold. The only reason it’s even remotely true is because Beckett makes it true. He is more than aware of the power that loyalty can have, and he goes out of his way to keep that power from being a threat. Loyalty is still very much a currency of the realm, but it isn’t of much use if there are no transactions being made (i.e. Swann’s letter never reaches the king).

A final scene in DMC that is worthy of note is that in which Lord Beckett blackmails Governor Swann.

The scene opens with Beckett saying, “There’s something to knowing the exact shape of the world and one’s place in it, don’t you agree?” This is, obviously, a thinly veiled threat -- a reminder to take note of one’s place in the current situation.

Beckett effectively threatens Elizabeth, who is currently a criminal among criminals and being hunted as such, and uses Swann’s concern for his daughter to force the governor to work for the EITC. 

Even here, we explicitly see the jurisdiction matter playing out. When Swann asks what Beckett wants in exchange for Elizabeth’s safety, Beckett is more than clear: “Your authority as governor, your influence in London, and your loyalty to the East India Trading Company.” Beckett uses this opportunity to appropriate the governor’s power. While Beckett now technically has the highest authority in Port Royal, he nonetheless ensures that his only possible competitor is working for him, bolstering his power rather than being able to challenge it. Like we see in every case, Beckett will not kill someone that can be more useful to him alive. 

We can also revisit the conflict between Beckett and Swann in the terms Beckett uses: currency versus loyalty. Again, the irony is immaculate. While Beckett’s every move is made on the premise that currency is more valuable than loyalty, he himself values loyalty enough to buy it -- the very thing he says Swann “hoped never to sell.”

If you’ve reached the end of this post, dear reader, I commend you. That said, there are a few caveats to consider. Namely, much of Beckett’s PotC Wiki seems to imply that he had the king’s support and, no conniving required, would have been able to exercise authority over Governor Swann. In that case, things like Swann’s letter are less important (beyond the matter of Elizabeth’s safety, of course). I’m assuming that much of what “actually” happened rests on the details of the EITC’s expansion into the Caribbean -- which Disney handwaved in the films for the most part and only later expanded on (somewhat) in things like the novelizations, which I have not yet read.

[emma-what-son]

How Sir Philip's son cast a spell on Emma Watson: The super-woke Harry Potter star and the playboy son of the disgraced Topshop tycoon - it's hard to think of a more unlikely romance, writes ALISON BOSHOFF

One can almost see her eyebrows raised in quizzical disdain. Hermione Granger would surely disapprove.

Pictures emerged this week of Emma Watson, the serious-minded Harry Potter actress and eco-warrior, hopping out of Sir Philip Green’s family helicopter in Battersea, South London. Curious, some would think, given Emma’s long-standing war against fast fashion, that she would accept a lift from the fallen King of the High Street.

More curious still, however, is that Emma, 31, has apparently been enchanted by Brandon Green, Sir Philip’s 28-year-old son, whose longest relationship to date seems to have been with a Belarusian bikini model. Could there be a more unlikely romance?

Aside from both being awash with money —Brandon is an heir to a £2 billion fortune, while Emma is said to be worth about £59 million —they appear to have almost nothing in common. Yet according to a friend, a certain magic is in the air.

‘Brandon has been wooing Emma,’ says one source. Another says: ‘They are an item, although she hasn’t met the family yet.’

Emma, who once mused about being ‘self-partnered’, has certainly had more suitors than her single status would have you believe.

At 17, an early boyfriend was rugby player Tom Ducker, but her most serious romance seems to have been with another rugby player — and fellow Oxford student — Matt Janney, with whom she broke up in 2015.

Then there was another Oxford student, Will Adamowicz. The relationship lasted from 2011 to 2013.

She was then seen out and about with actor/producer Roberto Aguire, whom she first met in 2005 on the set of Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire. She also seems to have a particularly weak spot for young tech millionaires, as she has dated at least three of them, most significantly U.S. entrepreneur William ‘Mack’ Knight, whom she split from in late 2017 following a two-year romance.

Then came a six-month love affair with handsome Glee actor Chord Overstreet. They broke up during the summer of 2018.

She was then spotted sharing cocktails with tech CEO Brendan Wallace, a New Yorker, now 38, who is co-founder of a venture capital fund. By summer 2019 she was rumoured to have moved on to another tech millionaire, Brendan Iribe, CEO of Oculus.

She most recently split from her boyfriend of two years, businessman Leo Robinton.

It’s a longer list of amours than you might expect for someone who claims to be ‘self-partnered’, but then Emma is a woman who solemnly examines her life.

‘The boyfriends or partners I’ve had have generally made me feel really cherished. They have built me up,’ she said.

Quite how Brandon — who featured in Tatler’s ‘most eligible’ list in 2014 and was once caught patting Kate Moss’s bottom — fits into Emma’s orbit of admirers, remains to be seen. Although, like Emma’s other admirers, he does have a job running a tech investments company.

So who is this handsome young man — and what does Emma see in him?

Born in 1992, he was raised in Monte Carlo with big sister Chloe. His mother, Tina, is resident in the tax haven and was the ultimate owner of the Arcadia group, which went into administration last year. He went to the principality of Monaco’s International School.

To say his was a gilded upbringing would be an understatement. A source in Monaco says: ‘All the time he was growing up, the Greens would never fly commercial, always in their private jet.

‘They have a private chauffeur and in the family penthouse at the Roccabella building in Monaco there are uniformed maids standing to attention in every room just in case someone needs something. That’s the lifestyle Brandon was born into and has always thought was completely normal.’

He and Chloe have the use of the 109ft yacht Lionchase — Sir Phil has the 295ft Lionheart —which is moored in Monaco in the winter and cruises around the Med all summer.

I’m informed that his mum will pick up ‘seven-figure’ boat bills for the pair of them at the end of the season without blanching.

Brandon’s 2005 Bar Mitzvah caused a stir. It was held at the Grand-Hotel du Cap-Ferrat, with entertainment provided by Beyonce, Destiny’s Child and Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli. There were 300 guests over three days, all hosted by Sir Phil, who was then the boss of Topshop, BHS and Dorothy Perkins, all part of the Arcadia group.

When he was younger, Brandon seemed to be happy to join Chloe in a celebrity-packed party lifestyle. Locals say he was ‘practically living in Monaco’s Sass Café and partying until dawn every morning with a bevy of models’ in his 20s.

Kate Moss — a friend of his father — spent much of her 2011 honeymoon break with Jamie Hince on board his yacht and they got on famously. In 2013 he was spotted playfully groping Moss’s bikini-clad bottom while on holiday in St Barth’s. At the time he was 21.

When she was 21, Emma Watson had been famous for a decade and had just finished making the Potter films.

While Brandon found life one long, joyful party, she was struggling introspectively with having money and acclaim. As she recently said: ‘I’ve often thought, I’m so wrong for this job because I’m too serious.’

She felt physically sick when she found out how much money she had earned from the Potter films, and considered not renewing her contract to complete them.

Following stellar A-levels, she took an English degree at Brown University in Rhode Island — over five years, due to disruption from filming.

Brandon Green doesn’t have a degree. There was some idea that he might buck the family trend and go to university, but Sir Phil told an interviewer at the time: ‘It’s up for discussion,’ and evidently it was decided that was not the right path.

Instead, he spent years learning the ropes of the fashion business with Sir Philip and working for Arcadia.

As the BHS scandal raged in 2016 — after Sir Philip sold the company to a bankrupt, with a hole in its pensions provisions — and the company went bust, Brandon was sent to host a table at the Met Gala Ball in New York in his father’s place.

For three years, he was also a regular at the Topshop show at London Fashion Week, sitting with model Jourdan Dunn and chatting to Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour.

He began to go to Cannes, again as part of Topshop’s presence at the film festival, and to attend the Amfar charity gala on the arm of girlfriend Maryna Linchuk, a Victoria’s Secret model who towered over him.

But when Chloe became more involved in the family business and started designing shoes, Brandon stepped back from the spotlight.

They are a close family, all the more so since the woes that beset the Arcadia Group and Sir Philip before it collapsed. In fact, this seems to have acted as a wake-up call for Brandon.

A source said: ‘Once Philip fell from grace so badly, all the A-list celebrities and many of the world’s elite dropped the Green family completely. It really shook them up.

‘There was a party in Monaco that a family friend threw for them in the middle of the BHS pensions scandal. Brandon looked around aghast and said to Tina, “We don’t know anyone here!”

‘They felt the world hated them. Philip would fill his days doing laps of Monaco on foot with his bodyguard and personal trainer. Tina would busy herself in her art gallery or with her interior design business. There were a lot of tears; it was an awful atmosphere for the staff and for the family.

‘Brandon could see how transient popularity is and how big A-list stars had been using them for free holidays on their yachts for years. The whole experience sparked a “woke-over” in Brandon.

‘He got very interested in biodiversity and saving the oceans. He does a lot of charity and advocacy work with both Monaco’s Prince Albert’s Foundation and Princess Charlene’s Foundation. He is a trained deep-sea diver, he is very into fitness and gets involved with galas and charities that help the planet. He does frequent beach clean-ups and whatever he can to help.

‘It’s all very low-key, as he doesn’t want to be seen to be doing charity work for PR. But he’s been getting Tina to donate a hefty amount of money to charities that help save the planet too, saying they should do some good with their huge fortune.’

A second source says it is now Brandon, rather than Chloe, who is the apple of Tina’s eye, and he who is seen as the one who will eventually turn the family’s public reputation around.

A friend says: ‘He is very disciplined, intelligent and keen on study. He reads a lot, he travels a lot. He’s polite and well-mannered. Whatever he does, he embraces it fully. His parents are proud of him.’

His hobbies include skiing, at which he excels. He trains almost daily and took part in a gruelling cycling and swimming charity event last year for Princess Charlene of Monaco’s charity, going from Corsica to Monaco.

The friend adds: ‘He eats right and doesn’t drink or party — he is a very nice young man.’

How Brandon came to meet Emma, whose woke credentials may prove challenging for his family, is somewhat unclear, although it is believed his newfound interest in charitable ventures may have steered him her way.

Last year Miss Watson joined the sustainability committee at Kering, the owner of top fashion brands such as Gucci. She was labelled ‘Hollywood’s queen of ethical dressing’ by Vogue.

She has been taking a break from acting after appearing in the 2019 film Little Women but remains an active advocate for ‘race and gender justice’ via various charities. In 2014 she became a UN Women Goodwill ambassador, and she also ran a feminist book club, Our Shared Shelf, on Twitter.

She loves writing poetry, jigsaws, cats and nights in.

Her first purchase with the Potter millions was a ‘brick-like’ Toyota Prius. She said: ‘It’s sensible and boring, like me.’

Not that Emma is as staid as she says. In conversation with Gloria Steinem at an event in London in 2016, she revealed that she subscribes to a sex education website called OMGyes.

It’s a far remove from the days when she was cast in the Harry Potter films at nine years old, having been found via the theatre club she attended. She only completed filming the last Potter when she was 20, in June 2010.

Sources who knew her in the Potter days say her father Chris’s influence was paramount, even though she lived with her mother in Oxford.

The experience of growing up on Potter was so constricting and stressful, when the cast and crew held a ‘wrap party’ at Harry’s Bar after the final set of reshoots in 2010, she didn’t attend.

She said in 2017: ‘It’s something I’ve really wrestled with. I’ve gone back and quizzed my parents. When I was younger, I just did it. I just acted, it was just there.

‘I was finding this fame thing was getting to a point of no return. I sensed that if this was something I was ever going to step away from, it was now or never.’

Post-Potter, her films have been generally low-key. It is said she turned down the La La Land role that brought Emma Stone an Oscar.

Her £3 million London home was selected after she viewed it over Skype, because she can come and go unobserved.

That’s not to say her life is in any way normal: her social circle includes fashion figures such as Antoine Arnault of the LVMH dynasty, she has been the face of Lancome perfume and launched a collection with the ethical fashion label People Tree.

The question now is, will Emma finally find lasting love with a most unlikely Green?

[365days365movies]

April 11, 2021: Tootsie (1982) (Recap)

To be clear, I like Dustin Hoffman.

I can’t exactly claim that I’ve seen him in a lot of his most iconic roles, but I’m planning on fixing that this year for sure! On my to-watch list this year and beyond is Midnight Cowboy, Kramer vs. Kramer, Stranger Than Fiction, and Marathon Man at the very least.

But that’s not to say I haven’t seen him in other iconic roles of his, of course. Fun fact: I actually tried to do this project in 2019, and it...didn’t work. But, one of the films I watched that year was one of Hoffman’s most iconic dramatic films: Rain Man.

Oh, and by the way, that movie is not about an autistic man. Or, rather, it’s not based on a man diagnosed with one of the autism spectrum disorders. Instead, he actually most likely had a genetic disorder called FG syndrome, unrelated to the spectrum disorders. Ironic, since Hoffman’s character was the pop-cultural depiction of autism that people STILL refer to quite often, and quite inaccurately. But, obviously, that’s not Hoffman’s fault, and he was good in the movie, to be fair.

I grew up with him in Hook, as the pirate captain himself (I still do his laugh sometimes, it’s weird, I know). He had an underappreciated starring role in one of my favorite guilty-pleasure films, Outbreak (I fucking love that movie, and I’m not ashamed to admit that). He was in Finding Neverland, but I just forgot about that until I looked up his filmography to write this intro. And, of course...Master Shifu.

So, yeah, I actually DO like Dustin Hoffman, despite the fact that his role in The Graduate wasn’t stellar for me. Just seemed kinda miscast, and a little too awkward to be even slightly sympathetic. Then again, he wasn’t really meant to be, so maybe Hoffman was the perfect choice. Even then, he still acted well in it.

And anyway, I watched that movie for two major reasons. One, it was on my list of films to see, and TWO: it was a lead-up to the ACTUAL Hoffman film I wanted to watch this month: Tootsie. After all, I just watched rom-com Some Like It Hot, and if you’ve looked at me schedule, you know what film is coming next. So, this one fits in my planned schedule. Why? Well...there’s a theme.

Yup. I actually picked these movies for a reason. See, here’s the thing: this is a repeated trope in comedies, and I’ve always wondered whether or not it’s...problematic. But, much to my surprise with Some Like It Hot, they actually used the situation to comment on the female experience. I mean, not necessarily really well, but they tried at the very least. And for a film from 1959, that ain’t bad!

Which isn’t to say that it’s entirely clean, of course, but it was far better than I’d expected. So, if 1959 did that OK, how did 1982 do? Let’s find out, shall we?

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap

Michael Dorsey (Dustin Hoffman) is an acting coach, as well as being an actor himself. However, he’s not the most successful actor, as he keeps attempting to audition for pieces, only to get refused for nebulous reasons, or refuses them when he disagrees with the director. He might want to take his own advice, for the record.

In the meantime, he works in a restaurant with Jeff Slater (Bill Murray), a playwright and roommate. That night, the night of his birthday, he spends time with an actress friend, Sandy Lester (Teri Garr), and also hits on the majority of women there that night.

As the party concludes, and various people go home, Sandy is abandoned by her date, and Michael offers to take her home. She breaks down crying, and Michael guesses that she’s upset about an upcoming audition. He gives her some coaching advice, and manages to get her to produce the correct emotion for the role. Afraid that she’ll lose it without him, he agrees to accompany her to the audition and enrage her. It’s very funny.

That morning, however, she IMMEDIATELY gets kicked out of the audition, as she wasn’t right for the part. However, when he goes to help her by speaking with an actor on the show, he finds out that the actor is off the show, and is instead getting a part that MICHAEL was supposed to get. Now enraged himself, he goes to speak with his agent, George Fields (Sydney Pollack), and the two have a tense conversation. It’s revealed that because of his difficult nature, he has a terrible reputation in acting circles, and literally nobody will hire him.

Challenge accepted.

Now dressed up as a woman named “Dorothy Michaels”, he goes back to the audition that passed on Sandy. Like her, he’s also immediately rejected by the director, Ron Carlisle (Dabney Coleman), who insists that she’s too “gentile” for the part of a hospital administrator. This causes “Dorothy” to go off, in a righteous monologue that accuses Ron for conflating power with masculinity. Which...yeah, he totally is, and DAMN, it’s a good tell-off!

Producer Rita Marshall (Doris Belack) agrees, and invites “Dorothy” to read for the part. He comes in to read, and in the process meets Julie Nichols (Jessica Lange), to whom he’s IMMEDIATELY attracted. He brushes that off, and the audition commences. From there, he gets the part, which is a regular part on a soap opera called Southwest General.

Now fully invested in the dumbest idea anybody’s ever had, “Dorothy” goes to her agent and tells him the ridiculous news, and asks for $1000 to go shopping for more clothing. Back at their apartment, Michael speaks to Jeff about the whole situation. He notes that he’s doing this to get the money for his play in Syracuse, which requires $8000 to produce.

Sandy is to be cast in this play, which is an issue, as they now need to explain where the money came from, as it’s technically from the part that SHE was refused for, which would hurt her feelings. He lies and says that the money’s from a deceased relative. While in her place, and while she’s in the shower, he decides to try on some of her clothes to get ideas for Dorothy. But when she walks in on him, he lies AGAIN and says that he’s sexually attracted to her. And she reciprocates IMMEDIATELY, which leads to an unintended relationship.

On the set, “Dorothy” finds out that he’ll be kissing John Van Horn (George Gaynes), an older actor who’s clearly a bit past his prime, and makes it a point to kiss every actress on the set when they start on the show. Gross. Michael agrees, and when the scene comes, he improvises and has his character (Emily) hit the doctor instead.

While the director (who’s a DICK, by the way) notes the improvisation, he approves of it, while also discouraging any similar actions in the future, and calling her “toots”. “Dorothy” takes it, rather than talks back. John compliments her on the improvisation, and then kisses “Dorothy” anyway, much to Michael’s shock!

We also find out that Julie, who plays a nurse on the show, is dating director Ron. Later on, though, Michael observes him making out with another actress on stage. Shortly after this, Julie invites “Dorothy” to dinner at her place, which is eagerly accepted. At dinner, we find out that Julie has a young daughter and that her relationship with Ron is...not stellar.

They have a discussion about being a woman in the ‘80s, and the complexities inherent in that concept, which is an interesting theme of this movie! Gotta say, this is a more socially-conscious version of Some Like It Hot, and I really like that! But the conversation is cut short when Michael realizes that he’d promised dinner with Sandy that night, and leaves in a hurry.

Dinner with Sandy is awkward, as Sandy is...Sandy is a lot, to be honest. But, she tells Michael that the woman hired in her stead on the soap opera (who is, of course, Michael himself), is written as a wimp, rather than tough as intended, and that she should change that. Michael agrees, and actively goes against the script to make the character of Emily far tougher. and essentially a feminist.

While this causes some grief to Ron and Rita at first, Dorothy Michaels soon becomes a massively successful and popular actress on the show, and her popularity absolutely explodes. Michael’s wrapped up in the success of Dorothy Michaels, and thinks that she might be able to branch outside of the role of the soap opera. Which is difficult, as his agent points out, because of the simple fact that Michael is...well, Michael.

At a party that his agent invites him to, Michael meets Julie AS MICHAEL. He uses a line on her that she’d mentioned before to Dorothy, only to be met with a drink to the face. Which is fair, as the line was about being honest about wanting to have sex with her, so I get it.

On the set soon afterwards, we see that the show is becoming more progressive, allowing Julie’s nurse character to stand up to John’s chief doctor character. After the scene is done, the director once again calls Dorothy “toots” instead of her real name, and Dorothy absolutely snaps back at him, and rightfully so! In response, Julie goes and invites Dorothy to a weekend in the country, on her father’s farm. Despite some rebuke from Jeff for lying to Sandy AND Julie, Michael as “Dorothy” goes on the trip.

This, by the way, is an excellent time to mention that this film is exuding some real strong, uh, vibes. You know...alphabet mafia vibes. Like, it’s definitely there, heavily leaning towards Julie. Obviously, “Dorothy” is actually the heterosexual Michael, but that’s not helping, just saying. And there’s literally (and absolutely obviously) nothing wrong with that, but it’s so strong at this point that it’s hard to ignore.

On the farm, “Dorothy” meets Les Nichols (Charles Durning), Julie’s lonely and genuinely nice father, if a bit old-fashioned in his views on gender politics. He’s also got the hots for “Dorothy”, which is funny-but-awkward as shit. That night, Julie tells “Dorothy” some very personal things about her dreams as a child, which is a genuinely very sweet scene. And can I just say, that this movie is both funny and quite heartfelt? I love it! Also, again, the vibes...THE VIBES.

Meanwhile, the popularity of “Dorothy” continues to skyrocket, to the frustration of director Ron, but to the delight of producer Rita, who decides to extend her contract with the soap opera by a full year! Oh FUCK! Realizing what the hell he’s gotten himself into, Michael calls his agent, who tells him that it was in his contract, meaning he’s basically fucked.

Jeff also tries to help hi, out of it, to no avail. Just then, though, they get a call from Julie, looking for “Dorothy”. She’s been having her doubts about her relationship with Ron, and she realizes that she’s been settling for Ron and other men like him. And Dorothy’s inspired her to be a better person, and to be honest with others and with herself. Fuckin’ OOF.

Just then, Ron arrives, allowing them some alone time, as Julie is getting ready for their night out. In the process, “Dorothy” reveals that she knows about his indiscretions with other women. Ron proceeds to use the EXACT SAME EXCUSE that Michael used to excuse his lies to Sandy, and it’s well-executed! Good job, writers, that’s pretty awesome.

“Dorothy” promises to watch Julie’s daughter for the night, which proves a bit of an issue, but he works it out. Julie returns later on, having broken up with Ron. Another heart-to-heart ensues, but this one is concluded with a revelation that Julie is lonely, despite the fact that she appreciates Dorothy’s influence and friendship. And then, "Dorothy” tries to kiss Julie. OH

Yeah, Julie’s not exactly chuffed about this as, despite a LOT of “Sappho and her friends” vibes, she doesn’t actually swing that way. “Dorothy” tries to explain, but this is interrupted by a call from Julie’s dad! He asks her out on a date that night, and “Dorothy” accepts. On said date, he FUCKIN’ PROPOSES TO HER! She promises to think about it, and takes the fuck OFF.

And to continue the parade of “Fuck me, I guess” that marching down Michael Street, who should show up at the apartment but John, from the show! Having followed her home the previous night (YIKES BUDDY), he literally serenades her outside of the apartment window, before “Dorothy” lets him in. It’s there that he reveals he’s MADLY in lust with her, and it’s HILARIOUSLY awkward. Thankfully, just as John is forcing himself on her, Jeff walks in on them, interrupting John’s actions, and causing him to leave in shame.

AND FUCKING THEN, after all of that, Sandy arrives at the apartment to find out why Michael’s not returned her phone calls. And Sandy’s a lot, sure, but all of her concerns are completely valid and legitimate. And despite Michael’s impressive ability to lie, he tells her the truth: he’s in love with another woman. Which she absolutely freaks the fuck out about, but whatever, not like Michael doesn’t deserve that.

Having had it with all the drama around Dorothy’s life, he goes to his agent and hilariously recounts to him the whole series of events that’s taken place. Still struggling to find a way to get out of the situation, he goes to work the next day, for an awkward conversation with Julie. She thanks Dorothy for inspiring her to be true to herself, which cuts DEEP, but still says that they shouldn’t spend time together anymore.

Producer Rita arrives with news: the erasure of a reel of footage has forced them to shoot a scene live. Said scene involves a party being thrown for Dorothy’s characters, putting her in the starring role. And THAT is when Michael takes his chance. Dorothy improvises a monologue about Emily’s REAL past, as a twin who tragically died before realizing her dream to become a hospital administrator. Ripping off his disguise, Michael reveals himself as Emily’s twin brother, Edward!

Everyone on stage and at home is SHOCKED, especially Les, John, Sandy, and of course, Julie. And once the cameras stop rolling, Julie now understands everything. She walks right up to Michael...AND PUNCHES HIM IN THE DICK

John asks if Jeff knows, and I break in half laughing.

Months pass. Michael was able to fund Jeff’s play in Syracuse, and goes to meet Les, who lives in the area. The two make amends after an understandably awkward reunion, and they begin the journey to become friends after everything. This prompts Michael to return to the city and speak with Julie, who is...less than happy to see him. Which, yeah, entirely fair.

But, again overcoming the initial awkwardness, Julie is able to admit that she misses her friend Dorothy. And Michael reciprocates, speaking for Dorothy, who is...well, him. He says the following great line: 

I was a better man with you as a woman than I ever was with a woman as a man.

And from there...the two decide to rekindle a friendship, with Julie asking to borrow one of Michael’s dresses. And y’know...I’m rooting for those crazy kids.

That’s Tootsie! And, uh...I love it! I LOVE it. I actually think this is a great film, and one of the best I’ve seen this month. But I’ll elaborate...in the Review! See you there!

[slut-kiss-g1rl]

geostorm <3

FADE IN:

INT. COURTROOM

GERARD BUTLER is at a COURT HEARING... in the FUTURE!

GERARD BUTLER

It is the future. Natural disasters have become alarmingly commonplace. Hurricanes, mudslides, floods, you name it. The level of destruction is catastrophic.

RICHARD SCHIFF

To be clear, this is the FUTURE you’re talking about?

GERARD BUTLER

The nations of the world have finally decided to take action. So, pooling our resources, we’ve invested heavily in environmental research and clean energy, and cracked down heavily on industrial emissions standards-

(laughs and laughs and laughs)

Just kidding! We’ve built a giant orbital platform that shoots the bad weather with space missiles and space lasers, of course.

RICHARD SCHIFF

So you’re the genius who built the space station. But instead of just making you the chief engineer, which would make sense, we made you director of the whole multi-national program, despite the fact that you have no administrative skills or political experience and mostly get what you want by yelling at people and punching them in the face?

GERARD BUTLER

That’s correct, you useless government fucks. You can all lick my sweaty gonads.

(moons everybody)

RICHARD SCHIFF

You’re fired and we’re giving your job to your little brother Jim Sturgess. At least he can do a passable American accent.

GERARD BUTLER

Och, ye dinnae hae ta be a deck abote et!

INT. SPACE STATION

Engineer RICHARD REGAN PAUL is aboard the WEATHER STATION when he notices that somebody has stuck a SMARTPHONE on an important CIRCUITBOARD.

RICHARD REGAN PAUL

Oh crap, somebody’s sabotaging this hundred-trillion-dollar space program using consumer electronics! I better draw everybody’s attention to this and alert my superiors!

(falls down and hits head very hard)

Duhhhh I mean I should hide this evidence and tell nobody yessss.

He stashes the EVIDENCE, but shortly afterwards the CORRIDOR he’s walking through is SEALED and all the WALL PANELS START BLASTING OFF!

RICHARD REGAN PAUL

What the fuck? Why would we design them to be able to do that? What possible situation could arise in a space station when we’d need to get rid of the WALLS in a hurry? This makes no-

(spaced)

The SPACE STATION then proceeds to turn a bunch of VILLAGERS in AFGHANISTAN into SNOWMEN.

INT. WHITE HOUSE

JIM STURGESS is having a meeting with the movie’s entire supply of Oscar-nominated actors.

JIM STURGESS

So yeah, we kind of murdered a bunch of innocent people with a giant ice ray like Mr. Freeze, oops. We need to send up an international team of brilliant engineers to the space station to investigate what went wrong, despite the fact that there’s already an international team of brilliant engineers ON the space station.

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE ANDY GARCIA

No way, Jim. As the president, I can’t have foreigners touch this station which has been funded and staffed predominately by foreigners! We’ll send up Americans.

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE ED HARRIS

ONE American. I mean if we’re going to half-ass this thing, let’s half-ass it, y’know?

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE MARE WINNINGHAM

I am also in this scene for some reason.

JIM STURGESS

Ugh fine, let’s send up Gerard. It’ll take some doing though, he and I haven’t really gotten along in the vague amount of time since you gave me his job. Seriously, the timeline is super nebulous, it could have been anything between a week and five years.

ED HARRIS

I have faith you can convince him, Jim. As your father figure and mentor, you know I support you in everything, and if you ever need somebody you can implicitly trust-

JIM STURGESS

We get it, you’re the villain, whoop-de-doo.

(leaves)

EXT. LOSER SHACK

JIM goes out to see GERARD, who is hanging with his DAUGHTER.

JIM STURGESS

Hey bro, the space laser’s been acting up. Think you could pop up to space real quick and fix it? Thanks.

GERARD’S DAUGHTER

Dad, no! You can’t go back to space! It’s too dangerous! Don’t abandon me like this!

GERARD BUTLER

OH GOD NOT THIS FUCKING TROPE. Yeah, parents should never do work that takes them away from their families for any amount of time or puts themselves at risk, no matter how important it is. I’m a shitty father because I’m agreeing to go save hundreds of millions of lives, possibly including yours. Shut the fuck up, you little turd.

GERARD immediately storms off and goes to SPACE.

EXT. HONG KONG

Suddenly the movie remembers the CHINESE BOX OFFICE and cuts to HONG KONG, where DANIEL WU is heading home with some SHOPPING.

DANIEL WU

(looks around)

Aw fuck. A famous capital city in a disaster movie? This isn’t gonna end well.

Sure enough he drops some EGGS on the ground and they immediately begin to FRY!

DANIEL WU

Holy shit the ground is apparently as hot as a stovetop! You’d think this is something the people in the street would have noticed, but uh, I guess all our shoes are made entirely of thermally nonconductive silica fibreglass?

(jumps in car, speeds off)

And our tires too, don’t forget our tires!

DANIEL drives through the streets as the pavement CRACKS and FIRE erupts out of the SUPERHEATED PAVEMENT!

DANIEL WU

Damn, the space station must have done that! Not that we ever explain how geothermal energy could possibly be controlled by space lasers!

INT. SPACE STATION

GERARD arrives aboard the SPACE STATION to meet the team of ENGINEERS.

ROBERT SHEEHAN

Welcome, Gerard! I am an asshole. A smug, unlikeable asshole. The exact kind of jerk you’d think would turn out to be the saboteur. Which is kind of awkward, because I DO turn out to be the saboteur.

AMR WAKED

It’s okay, I’ll cover for you by red herringing as hard as humanly possible in every scene I’m in.

(lurks sinisterly)

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

Meanwhile I’m the station’s commander. I exist to be your sort-of love interest with whom you never get beyond meaningful eye contact, and to make you seem hypercompetent by standing around uselessly while you do everything important.

GERARD BUTLER

Okay then, now that everybody’s in position let’s get this 2012-but-with-weather/Gravity-except-stupid-and-with-more-explosions hybrid on the road! Bring on the barrage of gratuitous global annihilation!

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

Actually there’s nowhere near as much of that kind of thing as the trailers promised. But if you like scenes where someone stares at tiny gobbledegook on a computer screen and explains what plot points it discloses, we’ve got a buttload of that!

GERARD BUTLER

(puppy dog eyes)

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

Oh fine, here’s one to tide you over.

EXT. TOKYO

Giant hail in Tokyo!

INT. SPACE STATION

GERARD BUTLER

Ta! Now let’s look at that satellite that fried Hong Kong.

ROBERT SHEEHAN

Uh, oops, unfortunately that malfunctioning satellite got smashed beyond usefulness because the hydraulic arm which was holding it malfunctioned!

GERARD BUTLER

Fine then, let’s look at the surveillance footage from when Richard Regan Paul got spaced.

ROBERT SHEEHAN

Um well we can’t see the footage of that wall malfunction because the footage has also malfunctioned.

GERARD BUTLER

Wait though, there’s still a useable recording in a leftover bit of wall that got stuck in a solar array panel! Let’s go for a spacewalk and get it.

ROBERT SHEEHAN

Sure thing WHUH OH while you’re trying to retrieve that malfunctioning bit of wall, your space suit has malfunctioned!

GERARD BUTLER

(bouncing off every part of the space station)

HEY YOU KNOW WHAT, I’M STARTING TO THINK THAT MAAAAYBE THERE’S JUST A SMIDGE OF SABOTAGE GOING ON.

ROBERT SHEEHAN

Damnit! Turns out that by the time you’re committing sabotage to cover up your sabotage to cover up your sabotage to cover up your sabotage, it starts to get kinda obvious what you’re doing.

(pause)

Nnnnnot that I have anything to do with that. Right, Amr?

AMR WAKED

(hovers creepily at the edge of frame)

ROBERT SHEEHAN

Exactly.

GERARD retrieves the DATA from the WALL FRAGMENT, but finds that he can’t ACCESS IT.

GERARD BUTLER

Oh crap, only a high-level government official could have restricted the data like this! That means that SOMEBODY extremely high-ranking is behind all this, but we don’t know who!

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

It’s Ed Harris. Everybody has figured this out already.

GERARD BUTLER

I have to tell Jim about this. But they might have bugged our comms, and my message may be intercepted by whoever the traitor is.

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

It is quite obviously Ed Harris.

GERARD BUTLER

I better use a code.

(calls Jim)

Hey there, Jim! Just thought I’d stop in the middle of this deadly crisis to randomly reminisce. SOMEtimes I think about that old WHITE porch we used to have at our HOUSE, where our pathetic inbred ASSHOLE of a father used to get FUCKED up on tequila and whale on US with a wrench. Glad that’s all OVER.

JIM STURGESS

A high-ranking government traitor? Why that could only be-

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

ED HARRIS, IT’S ED HARRIS YOU IDIOTS, THERE'S NO OTHER REASON FOR HIS CHARACTER TO EXIST

JIM STURGESS

-the president! America is soon scheduled to hand control of the space station over to an international committee. The president must be causing these disasters in order to retain control!

GERARD BUTLER

Right. Because after a fuckup of this magnitude, obviously the last thing people will want to do is remove the administrators responsible for killing everybody.

JIM STURGESS

And he’s not gonna stop with these penny-ante special effect showcases, either! He’s trying to chain a bunch of them together and bring on a geostorm!

GERARD BUTLER

You mean the tiny, ugly-ass sports compact from Isuzu?

JIM STURGESS

Not a Geo Storm, a GEOSTORM! A made-up, probably impossible meteorological phenomenon where it storms everywhere on the planet at once! According to our computers, this precise sequence of weather disasters - including the ones which the space station hasn’t caused yet - will lead to a geostorm in EXACTLY the nice, round timeframe of ninety minutes!!

GERARD BUTLER

Fuck! Fine then, let’s do an emergency shutdown of the station so it can’t frag the planet. This potentially apocalyptic orbital weapons platform DOES have an emergency off switch, right?

JIM STURGESS

Well, yes... but, ha ha, it turns out it can only be activated using the president’s biometrics. So if the most dangerous thing ever made malfunctions, it can only be stopped if you can get the president into the right specific room quickly enough.

(shrugs awkwardly)

Fortunately, I have been provided with a convenient secret service girlfriend who can grab the president for us!

ABBIE CORNISH

Okay then, I’ll-

JIM STURGESS

Plot devices don’t speak, honey.

ABBIE CORNISH

Then why does this movie have any dialogue at all?

INT. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION

JIM and ABBIE go to find PRESIDENT ANDY at the DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION in ORLANDO. But first they run into ED HARRIS.

JIM STURGESS

Ed, thank god I ran into somebody I can trust! We need to grab the president so we can shut down this Bond villain-esque weather scheme.

ED HARRIS

Uh, okay. I have the president right here in this gun. Stand still so that I might fire him at you.

JIM STURGESS

Wha - YOU?! EVIL?!? DWAAAHHH?!?!?

ED HARRIS

Don’t patronize me. Anyway, part of my plan is to set off a giant lightning storm here and kill everybody in line of succession ahead of me, so I become president!

JIM STURGESS

Are you fucking kidding me? We’ve gone to the trouble of pointing out it’s an election year! Do you honestly expect an administration that ran an environmental program so badly that it KILLED THEM ALL to get reelected?

JIM and ABBIE grab ANDY and run for it! Then a fuckton of LIGHTNING starts DESTROYING THE DNC!

BYSTANDER

Man, those Russian hackers have really stepped up their game.

(incinerated)

ABBIE CORNISH

Quickly, we can get away using this SELF-DRIVING cab we just commandeered! Since I’m driving it there might seem to be no reason for us to point out that it’s a SELF-DRIVING cab, so I guess now the audience has already figured out we’re shortly going to be pulling some trick where it SELF-DRIVES. We’ll still act like we’re being clever, though.

ED HARRIS

Chase that cab, my suicidally dedicated minions! Meanwhile I will teleport to the road ahead of them, so I can set up a rocket launcher ambush! Nothing screams “accidental death” like getting blown up by a fucking rocket launcher. FIRE!

MINION

Uh, you sure you don’t want to wait until we can see who’s driving? Disregarding any possible self-driving tricks, cabs are pretty interchangeable and that could in fact be entirely the wrong car-

ED HARRIS

I SAID FIRE!

They BLOW UP THE CAB! But then ANDY appears and shoves a GUN in ED’S FACE.

ANDY GARCIA

That’s right, we sent the empty cab driving towards you at sixty miles an hour! And now here we are, having caught up to it on foot within the next twenty seconds. My legs are KILLING ME.

ED HARRIS

Come on Andy, you should still let the geostorm happen! My theory is that the massive catastrophe which is going to demolish the face of the planet will handily attack only our political enemies and we’ll be fine!

ANDY GARCIA

Goddamn, how is it that each new layer of your motivations is even dumber than the last?

EXT. EVERYWHERE

Meanwhile DIRECTOR DEAN DEVLIN looks under the COUCH and finally finds the movie’s MISSING DISASTER EFFECTS, and they all start happening at once! Ice storms in Rio! Fire storms in Moscow! Tsunamis in the desert!

GERARD BUTLER

Opposite weather, is it? In that case I’m guessing London is currently having a pleasant sunny day HEY-OOOHHH!

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

But we’re not doing so great here in space either. Somebody’s set off our self-destruct system, and the station’s gonna explode in [amount of time left in which the geostorm can still be averted + just enough time for a thrilling escape]!

GERARD BUTLER

Wait a minute, according some kind of plot mumbo jumbo, the only one who could have started the self-destruct protocol is... ROBERT! You little traitor, you’re working for Ed!

ROBERT SHEEHAN

Okay okay, you’ve got me, but SURPRISE I had a gun strapped to the underside of this desk and now you haven’t got me at all, HA!

GERARD BUTLER

What was your plan if I’d confronted you in literally any other room?

ROBERT SHEEHAN

Clearly I must have guns strapped underneath every surface in the entire space station.

(opens fire)

Aw yeah, no better strategy for staying alive than shooting bullets in a room which is separated from the vacuum of space by a single pane of-

ROBERT accidentally SPACES HIMSELF! The movie does not reveal whether, in his last moments of consciousness, RICHARD’S FROZEN, ORBITING CORPSE happens to collide FOOT-FIRST with ROBERT’S CROTCH, so one is forced to assume that it DOES.

INT. SPACE STATION STOPPING ROOM

Back on EARTH, ANDY arrives in the ROOM he has to be in so that he can turn off the SPACE STATION.

ANDY GARCIA

All right, we did it! I just used my biometrics to activate the thing, so now the world is saved! Right?

JIM STURGESS

Actually Gerard still has to get to another specific room on the station itself and press a big “YES” button for it to actually work.

ANDY GARCIA

OF COURSE. What was I thinking, we can’t let this emergency shutdown be activated merely by having the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED FUCKING STATES TURN IT ON WITH HIS OWN SPECIAL BODY SCAN. No, we need the extra, mega-secure step of having some engineer click “confirm”!

JIM STURGESS

Look, we wanted to do the president kidnapping scene but still give Gerard a big action climax, this was the only way.

In SPACE, GERARD and ALEXANDRA make it to the SPECIAL ROOM, shut down the SPACE STATION and SAVE THE WORLD!

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

Phew, and with one second left to go! That’s right, because we turned off the weather machine when we did all the bad weather instantly cleared up; but if it had gone on for even one more second it would have become a global superstorm which would have wiped out most of humanity. What a sensible premise!

GERARD BUTLER

Unfortunately while we were able to get everybody else off the station, there’s no time left for you and I to escape. But I knew this when I stayed behind. I may not have been a good father, but I hope my daughter can at least appreciate the sacrifice I made by dying in space in order to save-

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

Are you seriously copying Bruce Willis’s death from Armageddon?

GERARD BUTLER

Oh FUCK you’re right. Screw it, let’s just jump in a spare satellite and fly to safety then.

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

Hooray! I’m not even gonna ask why a weather satellite has room inside it for passengers!

They HOP ABOARD the SPACE EX MACHINA and fly away!

EXT. LOSER SHACK

Months later, GERARD, JIM and GERARD’S ANNOYING DAUGHTER are all hanging out and fishing.

GERARD BUTLER

Neat, our family’s come un-estranged! What a happy ending. Why if we keep the focus on stuff like this, and the fact that in Brazil the dog didn’t die, we can ignore the fact that millions of people just got horribly murdered!

JIM STURGESS

And the rebuilt space station is now in international hands as intended, and they’re gonna make sure none of this can ever-

GERARD BUTLER

Wait, what the fuck? They’re doing the space station again? After the last one turned out to be a city-destroying death ray which could be commandeered by a single nerd with a smartphone? That’s the least plausible ending this movie could have possibly had!

JIM STURGESS

Uh huh. Yeah, I’m sure in real life politicians the world over would instead start seriously committing themselves to environmental policy. Hmmm?

GERARD BUTLER

...Okay yeah this way’s more realistic.

---------------

>:(

[nyxicnymph]

When I say "Oh shit not another BNHA AU" I mean

Oh shit not another BNHA AU.

This one has a dark twist, kinda.

This AU still stars my OC, Evie, but her origin is vastly different, and the premise of this AU isn't romance, that just happens regardless. In this AU, Evie's kinda meant to be a reverse parallel to Izuku Midoriya. And has many similarities to Shoto as well, but those were more coincidences than anything else.

Meaning she has a quirk.

Details beneath the cut.

Evie is actually half Japanese in this AU, her father is Japanese, and her mother was American. Her mom is dead, and her father is.... a secret. She knows who he is, and he's not a good guy, but she only tells a few people, such as her best friend, Giavanna(who's a rich girl who's family sponsors the orphanage Evie lives at. Very expressive, more than enough for the both of them).

Evie represses her personality due to heavy childhood trauma. Unlike Shoto, her trauma is bloody. Very much so. Her mother died when she was seven, due to a "chronic illness", and she met her father for the first time after that, when he took her from her home. He forced her to do many unsavory things, including using her quirk aggressively on other people.

Her quirk is spoiler territory, though, so you can't know anything about it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

She's blonde with a white stripe on the right top side of her head, and dull blue eyes, unless she's really invested in something. She has fewer freckles then she does in other AUs, and her hair is only about mid-back length compared to AUs where it's extremely long or very short. She's fairly tall, and once she's in the hero course, she begins developing muscle fairly easily. Other than the muscle, she's built similarly to Jiro. She doesn't express emotion easily, but it's usually a good thing when she does.

She spent five years with her father, until she ran away. She miraculously (Plot armor, at least I'm honest) managed to make it to an orphanage. When she told the head of the orphanage (who's a good person, I'm sick of corrupt orphanage heads) her situation, they immediately give her a new last name and register her in the logs. She's then tutored up till the third year of middle school, when she starts attending a public school.

She attends the UA entrance exam, using support items funded by Giavanna. When she gets her acceptance, she requests a meeting with the UA staff, explaining her situation, and asks that she be treated as if she was quirkless. The staff is intrigued and a little confused, but agree in the interest of her safety.

So she attends UA, and Bakugo is double mad, because not only does Midoriya have a quirk and he somehow made it in, but there's also this quirkless girl who also somehow made it in and his whole world is just fricking messed up.

Eventually, her secret starts leaking out, first with a small group, then a few people here and there, till she finally just gives up and let's it out.

She's quite capable of going feral, but usually restrains herself so as to not relive certain things.

She doesn't exactly have a specific friend group, i.e. the Bakusquad or Dekusquad, but tends to just hang out with a bunch of people if she feels like it.

A quick summary of Giavanna. She's the daughter of the sponsors of the orphanage Evie took refuge in, and immediately took Evie under her wing. She's a year older than Evie, with a sturdier build, and shimmery hummingbird wings, due to her quirk. No one's quite sure how those wings propel her. She has short dark blonde hair, and has been homeschooled all her life. She plans to take an office/administrative position in a hero agency. She's plenty expressive, sometimes to the extreme, something she took up when she noticed Evie was repressing her emotions. She found that being extreme in her expressions causes Evie to open up a bit more, and also can serve as expression for the both of them, should Evie be having a bad day. She's very supportive and 100% in on Evie's act, as she's the one helping with the support items. She's just... bad at acting. That's why Evie doesn't tend to invite her to the school unless she absolutely has to or feels like it. Giavanna also happens to fill in some comedy by being infinitely rich for some story lightening. It's a gag. Her house? The entire back half of a skyscraper, the front half is the business. There's a study hall with a chocolate fountain, and enough room for all of UA to have a sleepover. If someone mentions something, chances are, Giavanna has it.

If anyone has any questions, send in an ask! I'd love to share more!

[medea10]

My Review of In/Spectre

How did I get into this anime? Let’s see what my check-list was back when I picked this up during the winter time. Does Crunchyroll have immediate rights to play it? Yes! Do I have one more slot open for weekly showings? Yes! Are you in the mood to hear Mamoru Miyano right now? Always! Let’s do it!

Kotoko Iwanaga is used to the abnormal and out of place situations. When she was 11 years old, she went missing for two weeks. During that time, demons asked her to become their “God of Wisdom”. However, Iwanaga lost her right eye and left leg as a result of this power. Fast-forward approximately 7 years later when she meets a college-aged male named Kuro Sakuragawa. She found a fascination with him, but kept her distance due to him being engaged to another woman named Saki.

But Kuro’s life changed when he and his girlfriend were on vacation and saw a kappa and the situation turned near-deadly. Due to an abnormality with Kuro, whenever it looks like he’s on the verge of death, he comes back to life. Thing is, his girlfriend Saki was absolutely set aback by this development and they wound up breaking up. With the news of Kuro and Saki splitting up, Iwanaga seizes this opportunity to spend more time with this young man as she asks for his assistance with dealing with the supernatural…

And to be her boyfriend!

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: At the moment, Crunchyroll is the only one with authority to this anime and several weeks after the premier, they gave us an English dub. So far, so good! I’m getting a chance to hear a few of the newer voice actors and even some veterans like Cristina Vee. Now that some time has passed, all of the episodes are finally dubbed after a long hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As you already know from sentence one Kuro spoke, yes, that is Mamoru Miyano playing another main lead role. Luckily for me, he isn’t spazzy and he isn’t a holy asshole. Next to him, we have Akari Kitou who I’m hearing quite a bit of as of recent. I really enjoyed her performance as this insightful little lady. Here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

JAPANESE: *Iwanaga is played by Akari Kitou (known for Aru on Hitoribocchi, Nene on Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun, and Kaho on Blend S)

*Kuro is played by Mamoru Miyano (known for Cilan on Pokemon BW, Light on Death Note, Tamaki on Ouran HSHC, Koutaro on Zombieland Saga, Rin on Free!, Death the Kid on Soul Eater, and Tsukiyama on Tokyo Ghoul)

*Saki is played by Misato Fukuen (known for Georgia on Pokemon BW, Chibiusa on Sailor Moon: Crystal, Iggy on Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Pt. 3, Eruka on Soul Eater, Yami on To Love Ru, and Yin on Darker Than Black)

ENGLISH CAST: *Iwanaga is played by Lizzie Freeman (known for Cardinal on SAO: Alicization and Trish on Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Pt. 5)

*Kuro is played by Brandon Winckler (known for Eugeo on SAO: Alicization and Dale on If It’s for My Daughter…)

*Saki is played by Lauren Landa (known for Kyouko on Madoka Magica, Michiru/Sailor Neptune on Sailor Moon [redub], Annie on Attack on Titan, Juno on Beastars, Xenovia on High School DxD, and Sakuya on SAO)

SHIPPING: Well, let’s see if I can make any sense out of this.

*Iwanaga x Kuro: I guess it was love at first sight for Iwanaga as she seemed to have developed a crush when she first met him at the hospital. And you could tell how disappointed she was when Kuro’s relationship with Saki was growing. Even when Kuro is still in the post-breakup mode, Iwanaga has the balls to ask him to enter a relationship with her in the span of a single episode. And even after the two-year time-skip…I guess they are in a relationship. At least according to Iwanaga they are! It’s just that Kuro is so damned uninterested it’s so hard to tell. I’m not sure if I’m fully on board with this ship. Mostly because of Kuro’s disinterested attitude whenever he’s around his “girlfriend”! Iwanaga is very controlling in this relationship and prone to jealousy when Saki re-enters the picture later in the Steel Lady Nanase arc.

*Kuro x Saki: Yes, Saki was Kuro’s former girlfriend. Actually, it was more than that! They were freakin’ engaged! But because Saki got freaked out by the fact that Kuro could regenerate his body if he gets severely injured, she ended the relationship. Yeah, I can totally see how that would be shocking for anyone to go through. Due to the mystery that Iwanaga and Saki were trying to solve, the romance talks kinda had to be put to the side. It seems as though near the end that Saki has put her feelings of Kuro in the past and seems to have moved on for the most part. Plus when Saki was engaged to Kuro, she felt inferior to ANOTHER past love of Kuro’s. And now we gotta talk about…

*Kuro x Rikka: They’re cousins! BLOOD COUSINS! But Kuro has a special place in his heart for his sickly cousin! I mean, his thoughts of being greeted by Rikka at home compared to his real girlfriend are freakin’ damning. Plus both of these people have the same anomolie courtesy of their fucked up family. I’m not sure after the whole Steel Lady Nanase mess if Kuro’s perception of Rikka has changed for the worse. I just know that there was definitely something between those two. Kuro brings all his girlfriends to meet Rikka only for Rikka to say something like, “she’s not your type”.

ENDING: For the majority of the series, Iwanaga and Kuro have found themselves in the midst of a mystery involving the death of a famous actress. Seems simple enough in an anime like this, an idol (Karin Nanase) dies suddenly by a steel beam to the face and comes back to haunt the world of the living as a ghost (later named Steel Lady Nanase). But it can’t be that simple! There’s gotta be reasons for Steel Lady Nanase’s existence and Iwanaga is gonna figure it out one way or another.

I mean, she knows the real truth. It’s just that someone is pulling the strings behind Steel Lady Nanase still causing havoc. She’s still running amok due to a fan website dedicated to the ghost. And that site has A LOT of traction with fans of all sorts. Add to this mind-fuck, Kuro’s “lovely” cousin Rikka is the administrator for the website. As I’ve mentioned before, she has that immortality power that her cousin possesses as well. And Rikka uses that power to keep things going with Steel Lady Nanase.

Iwanaga went through several scenarios to disprove Steel Lady Nanase’s existence. And all but one of those theories were poked by skeptics and even Rikka who was stalking the forums. It wasn’t until Iwanaga came up with the theory of Nanase meeting a woman who looks exactly like her and that her doppleganger was the one that died at the construction site. Somehow that was the theory millions of fans took as truth and this was how Iwanaga was able to take down Rikka and her fansite.

So everything is gonna go back to somewhat normal. Karin Nanase can rest in peace, the spirits around the area can rest easy without being tormented by a crazy bitch swinging a steel beam, Saki goes back to work as a police officer, Rikka is still lurking around, and we get a cute moment between Iwanaga and Kuro.

This anime started out strong, but once you realize that this Steel Lady Nanase arc was going to be covered in 10 episodes out of a 12 episode series, it kinda leaves this series a little underwhelming. The idea of having one character with the ability to communicate with spirits and another character with an anomolie in his body preventing him from dying seemed really interesting. Especially when you have someone like Iwanaga trying to solve mysteries and coming up with the best case scenario in every case! But that’s just it, we only got two cases in this 12 episode series. The manga still seems pretty new and so I’m hoping to see more development with Iwanaga and Kuro. It’s an okay series, it’s just that I give a hesitant recommendation with the warning that this will drag a bit when we’re stuck in Steel Lady Nanase hell for 10 episodes. In an anime season that was filled to the brim with mystery animes, I actually found myself a little more invested in Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun. But that’s just me! You guys make your own judgments on which mystery anime of 2020 wins your vote.

Final note: The OP is a banger and as for the ED, it’s always a treat whenever Mamoru Miyano is singing!

If you would like to watch In/Spectre, Crunchyroll has all 12 episodes available for streaming in both sub and dub.

[drink-n-watch]

Look I know there where no apples but it’s just that a banana a day doesn’t have the same ring to it… it has en entirely different ring… You know what, that’s enough fruit talk for one day!

I’ve been too busy to get on social media much this week so I have no clue how people are enjoying this week’s episode of the God of Highschool. Maybe once I’ll be with popular opinion! Let’s find out.

I liked it! Thanks for stopping by!

I jest.. Well no I actually did like the episode. Once again the backstories of the main characters got flesh out some more by weaving flashbacks through the main fights. The episode was essentially split between Mira’s fight and Dae’ fight with Dea’s backstory in the middle and a bit of mysterious Jin fun at the end.

The God of Highschool is generally a very conventional anime but it does have little touches sprinkled in tat  appreciate. For instance we briefly see Jin’s entrance form and it’s full of doodles along with the text which is a very nice way to enforce just how carefree he is. Mira’s opponent actually got a personality, a fairly fun one and a very reasonale motivation.

I do have to say though, there was once again some really fun camerawork which is good cause the images themselves are a little dull. Looking over my screencaps this is not images that would normally grab my attention but when you see them in movement, they becomes a lot more interesting.

One thing I noticed though is that the single elimination tournament structure right off the bat s a little anticlimactic. What I mean is that in most shonen, main characters can and often do lose a few fights, especially when they are just starting out. here’s always a possibility that the protagonist will not prevail this time, have to cut their losses go back to do some more training and try again. However, this is much less likely with a tournament because if the characters are disqualified, it ruins the whole structure of the series. Especially as the three aren’t so close that they would conceivably all stick together if one had to leave.

I’m not saying it’s impossible that one of them loses a match and has to maybe find a way back into the tournament, in fact that might very well happen, just not at the very beginning of the season. The problem is that if the audience has to see disqualification as a very viable stake, it has to stick. You can’t have people getting beaten without long term consequences right off the bat. So when I saw that two of the 3 main characters were fighting, it never even crossed my mind that they could lose, no matter how the fight was going.

Also, I’m throwing this here because it goes with the screencaps above, is it possible to write an interesting bully character? My mind tells me that it should be and there are probably dozens f really well written and complex bullies but it seems that all I can think of are guys just like Dea’s tormentors. And I mean exactly like that.

I already knew Dae was going to win because he’s a main character but if I had had any doubts, I would have been set when Baek(glasses?) mentioned that he entered the tournament to prove his theory. Man, Deak is fighting to buy meds for his dying friend and you’re doing homework? Of course you can’t win, heart always trumps head in shonen. I should have been tis id’s manager, I would have gotten him a super emotional motivation!

For all of this though, Jin’s plot was what interested me the most, and by far. Jin’s not quite normal, we already know that, but it seems the administrator figured it out as well and was happy to do a bit of attempted homicide to prove his thinking. Bureaucrats, am I right? And all this talk of magical fruit and double dealing was interesting enough for me but the fight with Green hair man got even more interesting.

Ok, one aspect f the fight. When he turned into the giant monster clown thing (Hisoka has ruined monster clowns for me), that thing had the same four point yellow star pattern in it’s sees as jin. It kind of looked like it may have been wearing a visor or something but the visual call back is just way too obvious to be a random design choice. Whatever Jin is, it’s similar to what the holders of the tournament are. I don’t know why but this little mystery got me invested.

So yeah, I liked this episode. Considerably more than the last. I guess we’ll see where this goes.

The God of Highschool ep. 3 – An Apple a Day Look I know there where no apples but it's just that a banana a day doesn't have the same ring to it...

[arcticdementor]

People capable of feeling shame would not have immediately followed up the Russiagate hoax fiasco with another transparently phony—and in “substance” nearly identical—attempt to remove President Trump from office, overturn the 2016 election, and shower deplorable-Americans with contempt and hatred. But our ruling elites have no shame.

That is not to say, however, that they are entirely cynical. The means by which they’ve so far tried to crush the Trump presidency may be nasty and illegitimate, but our overlords are 100% convinced of the righteousness of their cause, and of themselves. Hence they do not even need recourse to the cliché that the ends justify the means. The means are good because the end is sacred; they cannot countenance even the thought that the means might be suspect or (ahem) trumped up.

Near the beginning of his epic history of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides distinguishes the “publicly voiced” causes of that conflict from the war’s “truest cause, though least in speech.” We may—indeed, must—subject the “impeachment” coup to the same bifurcated analysis.

…

But let’s drill down a bit. If we are to take the current “publicly voiced” cause at face value, then we may say that the entire Washington establishment, plus most of the country’s elites, are trying to remove the president from office on the basis of an anonymous individual’s private opinion of the content of one phone call he heard about second or possibly even thirdhand. A phone call, let’s remember, of which we have extensive notes that almost, but not quite, constitute a transcript—in other words, whose content everyone in the country can examine for himself.

…

Back to the Ukraine call. The second question President Trump asked the Ukrainian president is another “publicly voiced” cause to seek his removal. That question regarded a specific instance of a well-known Washington-insider phenomenon. It is a measure of how insouciantly our elites accept and even welcome the immense corruption of our government that they raise not a single eyebrow at the phenomenon that underlay the president’s question: exactly how is it that well-connected Americans with no particular or relevant skill sets can “earn” enormous sums of money for doing, essentially, nothing?

We all know how, of course. They’re not, exactly, doing “nothing.” They’re providing access—in some instances directly, in others prospectively. When a company or bank or hedge fund or real estate developer or foreign government slides big payments over to someone close to someone who might soon be president, they know what they’re doing, and they know—from experience—that the investment is sound. Tom Wolfe coined the term “favor bank” to explain how “the law” really works in the Bronx County criminal justice system. You do favors expecting to have favors done in return. There are no written contracts or enforcement mechanisms, but the system “works” because people know it’s in their interest to honor it. In modern international politics, to pay someone a few million to do “nothing” is to expect to be paid back somehow. The payees know this, and endeavor to make good, lest they risk future payments.

Understand this plainly: Trump may well be impeached, ostensibly, for asking about this corrupt arrangement. But no one is ever impeached for engaging in it. Nor can our elites, who almost all benefit from this system one way or another, muster the integrity to do, or even say, anything against it.

…

Another, deeper cause for the current show trial is less “publicly voiced” than beclouded with pretentious misdirection, because the president’s enemies know that, were they to state it clearly, the American people would scoff in their faces. Our foreign policy priesthood is 100% certain that the United States must take the side of Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. President Trump has expressed skepticism about the wisdom of such a commitment. He wonders why the conflict is our problem, when a not-inconsiderable number of European countries closer to the issue demand action from us but do very little themselves. He worries about the possibility of the United States getting drawn into war with Russia. And he’s concerned that, given historic corruption in Ukraine, American aid there may not be well spent.

…

This may be true, though—nothing against Ukraine—I don’t think so. The country just isn’t that important to us for the same reason that Canada and Mexico are not that important to Russia. But even if I’m wrong about that, the above statement is still fundamentally an opinion—the opinion of someone not entitled to make policy. He is surely welcome to state his opinion, when appropriate to do so as part of his official duties and within the chain of command, but that’s it as far as his opinion goes. Actual policy—the question of whether “a strong and independent Ukraine is critical to U.S. national security interests”—is well above his paygrade, properly decided by the president, his cabinet and senior advisors, and members of the Senate who advise and consent on cabinet secretaries and treaties. At least, that’s how the parchment on which the charter of our liberties is written says it’s supposed to work.

…

What on earth is “[t]he U.S. government policy community”? This is not made clear in the statement, but from the context it would appear to be something like the “deep state” we are elsewhere told does not exist except in the minds of fevered “conspiracy theorists.” Elite conventional wisdom appears to have evolved into: “The deep state is not a thing—and thank God it’s there to save our democracy!”

…

But whether epistemologically unassailable or complete madness (in the real world, it’s more likely than not to be incoherent mush), “interagency consensus” is not policy—or at least it’s not supposed to be. It may help inform policy, but elected and appointed officials—and in a unitary executive, that ultimately means the president—alone get to make policy. The presupposition of our country director—and his like-minded peers in the deep state—is the opposite: policy is made in and by the “interagency,” whose decrees are holy writ that it is illegitimate for the president to challenge.

…

If this isn’t proof positive that the “deep state” is real, then what would be? Here we have an unelected cabal trying to take down the elected president, ostensibly over an issue that the American people have never voted on and don’t care about but which the “the U.S. government policy community” insists is so important that a democratic election must be overturned for its sake. Actually, to the extent that the American people have voted on this issue, in electing a man who very clearly promised to reduce American commitments abroad, they voted against the  “U.S. government policy community consensus.”

Yet the “interagency” somehow believes that its decrees are democracy and that it’s somehow “undemocratic” to question them. This is how it’s possible for so many of Trump’s enemies to impugn him as an enemy of “democracy,” sanctify their patently undemocratic attempts to unseat him, and portray themselves as democracy’s saviors. As Christopher Caldwell put it recently in these pages, according to this understanding

democracy [is] a set of progressive outcomes that democracies tend to choose, and may even have chosen at some time in the past. If a progressive law or judicial ruling or executive order coincides with the “values” of experts, a kind of mystical ratification results, and the outcome is what the builders of the European Union call an acquis—something permanent, unassailable, and constitutional-seeming. [“What Is Populism?” Fall 2018]

Aid to Ukraine has been decided! Debate over! No more votes and no changes! That would be “undemocratic”!

…

It is no accident or coincidence that the only three presidents who have fundamentally challenged the administrative state—and questioned its song sheet, the “U.S. government policy community consensus”—have been dogged by “scandal” and threatened with impeachment: Richard Nixon by Watergate, Ronald Reagan by Iran Contra, and now Trump. (Whatever you think of Bill Clinton’s impeachment, it was emphatically not driven or supported by the administrative state, which protected him at every turn.) Trump would likely take this as small consolation, but it’s a measure of how much he’s feared that his enemies are running this play against him now, rather than simply trying to defeat him next year. Which more than suggests they doubt they can.

Simply based on what we know so far, the whole thing looks engineered, like those “lawfare” cases in which clever lawyers and activists find sympathetic plaintiffs, carefully choose friendly venues, and file lawsuits not to redress specific, genuine injustices but to force changes in policy—anti-democratically, it goes without saying. That’s the real reason nobody with firsthand knowledge came forward but left it to a distant “whistleblower” to get this train started: because those driving it understand that, by pitching the matter out to an agency covered by a whistleblower statute, with a formal whistleblower process, they could begin the transformation of this inherently political process into a technical, legal matter. This supposition only gains support from reports of “collusion” (what else can one call it?) between the “whistleblower” and Democratic congressional staff. The parade of witnesses in secret testimony also looks carefully orchestrated.

The secrecy has partly ended—but only after the Democrats gathered its fruits and shaped them into a “narrative” to spoon-feed to the public. The playbook is the same one that failed with the Russia hoax: selectively leak to create a fog, a miasma of vaguely negative-sounding “facts” or allegations that seem ominous but also too complex and in-the-weeds for ordinary folk to follow. Then publicly “confirm” those leaks as the authoritative account of the “scandal.” None of the actual facts adds up to any actual wrongdoing, but the hope is that regular people won’t notice and won’t listen to those who do. Leave it to us experts: we know wrongdoing when we see it! If the actual specifics of what we’re alleging don’t actually appear to you to amount to “treason, bribery, [or] other high crimes and misdemeanors,” as the Constitution’s Article II, section 4 requires, that’s only because you’re not an expert.

…

It worked against Nixon. It almost worked against Reagan. But let’s be clear: if it works this time, there are only three possible outcomes:

First, deplorable-Americans will meekly accept President Trump’s removal, in which case the country as a self-governing republic will be finished; the elite coup will have succeeded, their grip on power cemented. With all due respect to the vice president, this is not the way—these are not the people on the backs of whom—he should wish to enter the Oval Office. And I am confident he will not.

Second, deplorable-Americans will revolt at the ballot box and punish the elites in a series of elections that put in power serious statesmen intent on rooting out corruption and reestablishing democratic accountability.

Or, third, deplorable-Americans’ attempt to set their government aright via ballots will not avail, as it has not so often in the past; they will realize that it has not, conclude that it never will, and resolve by any means necessary to get out from under the thumbs of people who so obviously hate them and wish to rule them without their consent.

Only one of these possibilities is healthy for the continued survival of republican government as currently constituted.

Oh, and let’s also be clear about something else: if the Republicans “collude” with this sham and force the removal of a president whose approval rating within his party hovers north of 90%, and whose voters scarcely understand—much less agree with—the “case” against him, they will destroy the party forever. I don’t often make predictions, because I’m not good at it, but this one is easy. They will have removed all doubt that they are anything but ruling class apparatchiks, adjuncts, and flunkies of the administrative state from which they take orders.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WORK ETHIC AND SEARCH

A fair number of smart people, but diluted by a much larger number of neanderthals in suits. Whereas a few years ago I read an interview with a mathematician who said that most nights he went to bed discontented, feeling I didn't get enough done. Good thing for the Democrats that their screen lets through an occasional Clinton, even if you're producing it unknowingly. And that is more likely to buy you isn't. One of the artifacts of the way schools are organized is that we all get trained to talk even when we have nothing to say. If you run every day, you'll probably have to find the city where you feel at home to know what sort of ambition, you'll probably have to figure out why it's worth investing in. And if you have no ideas. I think acquirers may eventually have chief acquisition officers who will both identify good acquisitions and make the deals happen. Practically every fifteenth century Italian painter you've heard of was from Florence, even though Milan was just as big research universities aren't. It is also palpably short. If you seem like a winner or a loser, and once their opinion is set it's hard to learn new skills late in life is not just something happening now in Silicon Valley, the message the Valley sends is: you should live better.

Life in Berkeley is very civilized. It's them you have to do to write or read it. Unless you're sure what you want to encourage kids to come up with things on their own, but you can't simply applaud everything they produce. New York have wondered about since the Bubble: whether New York could grow into a startup hub to rival Silicon Valley. But you should treat your optimism the way you'd treat the core of a nuclear reactor: as a source of power that's also very dangerous. Conversely, a language that doesn't make your programs small is doing a bad job of what programming languages are supposed to do, you don't want to, only the desperate ones will take your money. This is a problem for founders, because most founders wouldn't be able to carry it off. It's in fields like the arts or writing or technology that the larger environment matters. We didn't know that, so we were pretty excited when we figured out what seemed to us the optimal way of sorting product search results, and he's not even curious. We'll have to. VCs and corp dev guys are professional negotiators.

Plus in a startup. We no longer admire the sage—not the way people did two thousand years ago. An ad hominem attack is not quite as weak as mere name-calling has just as little weight. Indeed, it's often better to start in a small market that will either turn into a big one. Other people have your idea, and they'll be left wishing they'd bought you earlier. The Taste Test Ultimately, I think you have to design your site for. The importance of degrees is due solely to the administrative needs of large organizations. But this will change if enough startups choose SF. If the pattern holds true, that should cause dramatic changes. How often have you visited a site that seemed to assume you already knew what they did? Even Google probably doesn't think that.

One would like to believe elections are won and lost on issues, if only fake ones like Willie Horton. Because Boston investors were so few and so timid, we used to ship Boston batches out for a second Demo Day in Silicon Valley, the message the Valley sends is: you should be more aristocratic. I'd like to suggest an additional feature to those working on spam filters: a punish mode which, if turned on, would spider every url in a suspected spam n times, where n could be set by the user. They're far better at detecting bullshit than you are at producing it, even if some scandal results. Knowing that risk is on average proportionate to reward, investors like risky strategies, while founders, who don't have a big enough deal that it takes almost everyone by surprise, because those big social shifts always do. Many who respond to something disagree with it. So it took me quite a while to realize I just wasn't like the people there. He wrote that programmers seemed to generate about the same amount of code per day regardless of the application domain. Kerry was smarter and more articulate than Bush, but rather depressing: it's not so pretty. Richard Jowsey of death2spam now does this in borderline cases? Of course they do.

They think they're trying to make a better search engine than Google. In practice this seems to work much as in LA. That just breeds laziness. Or rather, what used to be something a handful of angels who'd be interested in a company with a high upfront price, you tell them the low monthly payment. There's no incentive that would make them move. It would be a pretty cheap experiment, as civil expenditures go. What's really going on here, I think you have to make up their minds, and excessive dilution in series A rounds that started from the amount of work you have to identify some specific trend you'll benefit from. The phenomenon is like a runner asking If I'm such a good athlete, why do you need a degree?

Thanks to Erann Gat, Sarah Harlin, Robert Morris, Trevor Blackwell, rew Mason, Jessica Livingston, Fred Wilson, David Hornik, and Ken Anderson for sparking my interest in this topic.

[treatyourhammywell]

Emmy 'Homeland' Hero Rupert Friend Revisits Quinn's Sacrifice - 13 June 2017

As we enter Emmy season — nomination voting runs June 12 to June 26 — Yahoo TV will be spotlighting performances and other contributions that we feel deserve recognition.

He belongs in the Jack Bauer category of TV hero: Peter Quinn, the Homeland paramilitary officer who — spoiler alert, if you’re not caught up! — died in the Season 6 finale, sacrificing himself to save the President of the United States and his colleague/love interest, Carrie.

Joining the show as a guest star in Season 2, actor Rupert Friend quickly turned Quinn into a fan favorite. Viewers were crushed when he seemed almost certainly dead at the end of Season 5, after a sarin gas poisoning while on assignment. And while it was great news that he was alive when Season 6 premiered, he was a very different Quinn, his body and mind badly damaged by the gas, his spirit low, and drugs and alcohol his method of choice to deal with the devastation.

Yahoo TV talked with the Emmy-worthy British actor about his final season as Quinn, including his thrill to have the chance to show what a wounded warrior can do after suffering injuries, what he thinks ultimately severed the bond between Quinn and Carrie, and the story of how he wrote one of the series’ most memorable and beloved segments with Quinn’s Season 5 letter to Carrie.

I’m sure you’ve become very aware of how beloved Peter Quinn is to viewers, especially after the Season 6 finale.

Yeah, I’ve been overwhelmed by the fans’ response. I’m not a big social media, or frankly even Internet, guy, but we just couldn’t help but be exposed to the outpourings of love and remembrance for this character. Sometimes anger. Very, very strong emotions from people, and I guess I realized just how loyal both Quinn’s fans and also mine are, and that was a very wonderful thing to experience. I was very grateful for that.

What do you think it is about him — why did we become so invested in this character?

Can I ask you? Presumably, you follow the show. What is it about this guy?

I think it’s that he made so many sacrifices, and that we wanted so desperately for him to find some… I guess happiness was too optimistic for him, after everything he had been through… but I think we certainly hoped he would find some peace. I think the audience, to the very end, hoped that would be true. He was a funny guy a lot of the time, as well. There was really just a lot to love about him. He was smart and no-nonsense, loyal, and, as you said in another interview, he was more self-aware than any of the other characters.

Yes, I think he came to be. When we first met him back in Season 2, he was kind of a wisea**, kind of cocky, and I think he just knew he was good at his job, but couldn’t talk about his job and didn’t care. He had almost like a kind of frat boy quality about him, in a way. He just behaved as if there were no consequences. What I loved following him through the seasons was seeing his conscience and his soul and his moral code develop, to the point where he questioned his position in the black ops society, what he was being asked to do for money, his relationships, both professional and personal. Toward the end of Season 6, he was really questioning the morality of somebody who would risk his life, awake him from a coma, and [doing] so cause these injuries to his body and mind. Carrie doesn’t seem to understand why that’s morally bankrupt. That, to me, is a big flag of how Carrie and Quinn have really grown apart morally by the end of Season 6. I think one of the things that I loved about him is he wasn’t — we have this expression in the U.K. — a “goody two-shoes.” I don’t know if that exists in America. Do you have that here?

We do.

Yeah, so he wasn’t a goody two-shoes. He wasn’t just an amazing guy who was saving kittens from trees every weekend. He was a cold-blooded killer for money, and he was at times cruel and at times incredibly efficient and effectual in his work. Yet, you always sensed underneath all that, that he had this heart of gold, that he’d be an amazing friend, if only he could learn to trust somebody. My heart broke for him when I realized that he died not ever having found that person. Dar Adal betrayed him, Carrie betrayed him. He had a few one-night stands, and they’re not worth the paper they’re written on. He didn’t really have a friend. He didn’t know his child. It made me realize how lucky I am to have relationships that I trust, because this guy didn’t even get close to that.

His story is very tragic. Do you see him as a hero, though?

Absolutely; he’s absolutely a hero. He’s my hero, and he is someone who pays heroically, in the Greek sense of the word. Especially at the end there, he could perform the ultimate selfless act. I think heroes understand that there is a greater moral code than just putting the self first. There is a sense of, whether it’s your country or peace or just what’s right, they put what’s right before their own interests.

Is it true that you wrote Quinn’s goodbye letterto Carrie at the end of Season 5?

That is true, yes. I’ll never forget… I was actually in Paris. [Showrunner Alex Gansa] had phoned me and said, “Listen, I’ll be honest with you. I’m so slammed here, and I have to write this letter, and I don’t know what to do. I’m running out of time, and I have to write another episode. Do you think you could have a crack at it?” I said, “Sure.” I wrote the letter, sent it off, and kind of thought, “I’ve never been asked to contribute before, and they’ll just say, ‘Thanks a lot, but no thanks.’”

I was in Paris when the episode came in. I was sitting in the Jardin des Tuileries. I remember it very clearly, reading the new episode, and I got to the end and my heart just skipped a beat, because they’d printed the whole thing, word for word. And they called the episode “A False Glimmer,” which is a direct quote from the letter. I was like, “Wow, this episode is titled [with] my words, and it ends with my letter.” It was an incredible moment.

I think a lot of fans felt very angry that we didn’t get to see Quinn’s memorial service. That letter is the only thing that really gives us a bit of what that would have been like, a bit of closure.

I haven’t watched Homeland at all, but we watched the finale, like a respectful thing to do for Quinn, actually. [My wife] Aimee and I watched it as sort of a sendoff, and it was a bit jarring that nobody showed us how anyone celebrated this guy, the few people that knew him. As he says in the letter, “Don’t put a star on the wall for me, don’t say some dumb speech.” Then I think, “Okay, so how did these few people, who are not allowed to publicly celebrate him, remember him privately? What did they do? Did they go somewhere magical and special and sacred to him, and did they say some words? Did they pour a little whiskey on the ground? What happened?”

I missed that, and then afterwards, no one spoke about him. Carrie didn’t speak, Saul didn’t speak, Dar didn’t speak. Then I started thinking, “Hang on a second. If we didn’t see his body, no one checked his pulse…” Do you know what I mean? I’m like, “Maybe they dragged the President out of the car, took her to a safe place, and then what we don’t see is that they pulled Quinn out of the car and rushed him away.” He was only shot in the shoulders. Do you know what I mean? I was like, “Oh, I don’t know. Now, I’m going to feel really stupid giving all these death interviews.”

Is that really a possibility? Are you going to get another call from Alex, do you think?

On this show, everything is possible. The end of Season 5, I was taken aside and given a few thoughts by Alex. Then, I came back in Season 6, and it was very different, but I came back. I’ve been told it’s absolutely the end, but yeah, I agree with the fans. It’s funny, though, I also feel like maybe the fans remembering this guy in their own way is the best memorial that he could have had.

Quinn was going to die at the end of Season 5, came back in Season 6, in such a huge way. Do you think he should have died at the end of Season 5, or are you glad for all of the things that you did get to do with the character in Season 6? That he got to do even more heroic things, and portraying those injuries in such a realistic and respectful way — veterans and their loved ones have reached out to you about how much that meant to them, the way that you portrayed that.

First of all, thank you, because portraying a modern returning veteran, with modern injuries, truthfully was the top of my agenda. It’s something I will never understand, sacrifice in a way that veterans sacrifice. The only thing I can do is to try to pay tribute honestly, and that was a hugely important thing for me. I’m so grateful that we got a chance to tell the end of Quinn’s journey in this completely different way, to take this beloved action hero guy and make some realistic, circumstantial changes to his life. As you mentioned, I was in touch with veterans, with PTSD survivors and sufferers, with people who had strokes, with specialists in aphasia, with doctors from Veterans Administrative hospitals, doctors who specialize in chemical warfare. I also put on 20 pounds — I wanted [to show] that idea that if you sat in an institution, eating crappy food, you don’t exercise, you’ve just given up on life, and you’re just this kind of lump, you’re not the fit soldier that you used to be. There was a lot of stuff that I did to help that. It didn’t take any effort — wearing the hair, and not washing it, and just kind of being really quite gross, horribly scraggly beard and all of that stuff, just to really show that feeling of giving up that he had at the beginning of Season 6, that he has to overcome.

The response has been amazing, as you said, from the people that matter the most, which are the people that feel represented by this character. I’m very proud that we’ve had a hero in television — a major character in a big, popular TV show — who has basically been an action hero, while he’s semi-paralyzed, struggling with linguistic programming, and perhaps is unable to really formulate language he needs, and he can’t use both hands. We haven’t seen that before, and yet there are soldiers out there who are being wounded and continuing to fight. We know that happens, we just don’t get to see it. Whether that’s fighting in a battle, or coming home and fighting against prejudice or social exclusion or the inability to get work, or, how are you going to work if you’ve only got the use of one hand? That’s a fight that soldiers face. For soldiers, the fight doesn’t stop when they come home. The fight just changes, because we’re not really ready, as a society, to welcome soldiers in an effective way.

One of the best things about Quinn’s story in Season 6 is that the focus really became about what he could do, that he was still Quinn. He still had all of Quinn’s capabilities, and he found a way to be able to utilize all his skills.

Yeah, and I’m glad that that came across, because Quinn’s always been a man with great agency. He’s someone who can do. If you’re in trouble, if you need something, he’s someone I would want to call. That never went anywhere, and watching him go from giving up, and smoking crack with hookers in slum dens, to going, “No, I am the guy that can load and level a gun with one hand. I am the guy that can engineer a hostage scenario with trained military operatives, with one arm and one leg working” — all of that was real. There are no tricks. Everything that happened, one-sided as it were, happened with just one arm and one leg.

Just thinking about where the character started, you were a guest actor, and now to all the things that we got to learn about him, and all the things we’ve seen him do and go through… the series has been his story as much as anybody’s. I would guess that it’s tough to let go of him.

Yeah, I don’t think I’ll ever fully let go of him, just because there’s something pure at the heart of Quinn, which I love. I think when you’re lucky enough to play somebody who has that effect on you, my privilege is I get to choose to take that with me. If I was to play somebody horrific, and I’ve certainly done that, I get to choose to say, “I don’t want any part of this. I’m washing my hands of this. This was a character that served a story, and that’s the end of that.” With this guy, there is so much strength and agency and goodness underneath, that I guess I feel it’s my job to carry that forward a little bit.

Having played this character who was so layered, and really has become a Jack Bauer-level hero, is it tougher to think about your next role? Do you find yourself comparing other roles to Quinn? And do you now maybe want to go do a comedy, or something just very different from Quinn, from Homeland?

Yeah, it’s a good question, and yeah, the answer is it’s a tough benchmark to follow. I think the mistake would be to compare roles to this one. To start, I got to play this guy for five years, in real time, which I think was about seven years in TV land time. That’s a privilege that you never get in the movies. You might play someone over the course of their life, but you’re going to do it in three or four months. There’s a depth there that is exciting in and of itself.

And yes, I would say to do something completely different — I think most actors are looking for that. I was lucky enough, before Season 6 began, I played a role in Armando Iannucci’s dark comedy The Death of Stalin, with Steve Buscemi, Jeffrey Tambor, and Michael Palin, who are all heroes of mine. I’m effectively the clown in the movie. I’m the ineffectual, drunk, spoiled son of Joseph Stalin. It’s ridiculous, I make a complete fool of myself every time I’m in the movie. And it was joyous. That was before Season 6, and now I’m looking at what to do next, and looking for something that is, yeah, either layered and wonderful and interesting, and/or completely different.

What if you did get a call from Alex Gansa this summer saying, “False alarm there, we do want to bring Quinn back again in some way.” Would you consider it, or would it depend on what they wanted to do?

I think the fans would riot. I would not be responsible for their actions. Yeah, I would want to know in what capacity. I would expect it was realistic, because we stuck to that all the way through. If you’re talking about a zombie Quinn, it’s not really a good thing; an angel, a ghost Quinn, all of that stuff is a little soap opera, but the writers are too good on Homeland to ever do that, so I wouldn’t worry about that

[lafortis]

oops *social programs. like increasing class sizes, cutting bursaries, cutting library funding, cutting OHIP drug coverage. that kind of thing

so like

idk this is a topic i feel like i should say more about but i’m tired rn so this is what u get

increasing class sizes, presuming you could link that directly to a decrease in quality of outcomes in education, is dumb and short-sighted. education, especially in k-12, is one of the safest and best long term investments and state actor can make, no questions asked. in cutting it, presuming class sizes actually do actually cause disengagement or worse outcomes (not a huge leap), you run the risk of increasing crime rates (delinquent youth - in-class engagement, extra-curriculars, and economic opportunity brought about by success in education all have been show to decrease crime rates [iirc, citing things when ur hunched on a roadcase is a little beyond me rn but if u want citations i can provide]) and decreasing flow of graduates to jobs that require ppl with higher education, either stymieing broader economic growth or forcing them to look elsewhere and bring ppl in either interprovicnially or internationally, which i get the impression isn’t the outcome foug dord seeks, were he asked. 

cutting bursaries falls under the same category in my opinion; it is, broadly speaking, a good use of gov’t money to offer money for higher education. the increased income tax revenue over the person’s lifetime would likely more than pay for it, even in a zero sum game where the gov’t doesn’t also benefit from a more educated overall populace/workforce (which they fucking do). again, long term substantial benefit being sacrificed for short term gain in the name of deficit reduction (which i’ll... get to)

library funding is just a kick in the fucking teeth tbh, but if i have to address it seriously, libraries’ benefits are similar to that of higher school engagement; lowering crime rates as otherwise delinquent youths, poor families etc have a place for their children to spend time safely and productively. besides their use as a repository for local history (which i’m sure ford’s rural base would approve of if they realized it was there, but he’s from etobicoke and therefore doesn’t give a shit), they host events, help educated local children, represent the most freely available source of learning to low-income individuals, and offer a safe space to the public during business hours. for how much money they consume, cutting them is almost always a bad idea, regardless of province or country.

cutting OHIP coverage is dumb. single payer pharmacare is good. for reasons why see the folllowing:

suck my dick

for real tho i know my man wants to privatize health care in this province i done seen it in his eyes IRL. 

and as a serious answer: those whose drugs you know longer pay for will likely burden the system in another way later down the line, and that’s usually much more expensive. unless he plans to defund ERs as well (which doesn’t exist anywhere, even private systems, which is why private systems are dumb; you turn people away until they’re literally dying, do an extremely expensive procedure to save them because you’re practically ethically obligated to, and then hit them with the bill, which they can’t pay any of, or they would’ve fixed it earlier. they go bankrupt, but you can’t squeeze blood from a stone either. everyone loses) preventative care, even ancillary care like non-essential pharma, is cheaper long-term than waiting for someone to be more expensive and more necessary to fix. you could split hairs about which are necessary and which aren’t or what have you, but quite frankly those administrative costs plus the quality of life downgrade ppl get from an obtuse pharmacare system means that it’s probably easier to just pay for it all. and THEN GUESS WHAT

you’re fucking single payer now. congratulations. want access to a market of 14 million? gotta negotiate with OHIP on drug prices now. fuck you. 

it’s literally more economically efficient for everyone except drug manufacturers, whose profit margins are so economically aberrant that they can kinda go fuck themselves. like it’s the exact kind of thing taxes exist for: something that can be accomplished better, cheaper and more consistently under a single entity than individually. federal liberals are threatening to move this way and if they get re-elected i’ll personally suck trudeau’s dick to make it happen. it’s just fucking common sense.

 so that just leaves us with uhhh,,,, one thing left, which is the provincial gov’t’s assertion that ontario’s debt is out of control, way too high, etc. as the reasoning behind austerity measures like these. which is like, it sounds good on paper? to the layman, sure, it holds up. their $343bn number is intimidating, there’s the “highest sub-sovereign debt” factoid floating around always, wynne was unpopular, liberals spend too much, so therefore spending was too high in the eyes of the ppl. whatever. economy doesn’t exist solely in political ads and the heads of those they’re targeted towards. 

governments are made to hold debt. more than an individual, or a company, or a mega-corporation or conglomerate, governments are debt-holding entities. the actual amount is rarely important, as long as it’s payment has been earmarked over the time agreed upon. the interest over time is weighed against the economic growth that that spending is projected to create. actual cost of the debt is minimal. ontario’s interest payments appear to amount to about $4bn LESS than quebec’s, despite quebec having about 2/3rds of our debt. their debt to gdp ratio is 52% to our 39%. 

the reason our debt is so much higher than other comparable sub-sovereign entities (i.e. american states) is because our provinces bear MUCH more spending burden than their peers. if you average out provincial and federal debt to get a more even representation of debt per capita, ontario is SAFELY in the black compared to other similar economies (which, to be fair, is partially because america’s federal debt is so high, but state debt’s and spending are so low that it’s not even a comparison otherwise). the only concerning stat in our entire economic portfolio is that economic growth

further research on their direction on the topic actually leave me less angry than before in a broad sense; their fiscal policymakers seem to generally agree that the best way to reduce debt is to spend at current levels rather than increase. it’s mostly i suppose the specifics you brought up as well as their rhetoric and political ads that i vehemently disagree with as short-sighted. 

as usual canadian politics is a watered down version of american, so even their post-trump candidate actually still staffs genuine fiscal conservatives who don’t make obvious and easy to avoid mistakes.

vic fidelli can still suck my dick tho. this statement is dumb and obviously not true. “hey economic winds are blowing well so our long term strategy is obviously ALREADY WORKING”. fuck you. fuck off. stupid bitch.

so yeah

tat’s me onion

[gnat-nager]

A little update!

What have I been up to these days... I haven’t updated y’all for a while and I hope you enjoy reading this update from me! 

Life Group: 

This summer I have the chance of leading a life group with three other leaders: Adrian, Guy, and John. It has been an interesting life group and we are called 111.5 Breadcast. The story behind this is based on Ecclesiastes 11:1-5, where we cast our bread onto the boat, hoping that our investment will bring glory to God. This life group, I was able to develop deeper relationships with certain younger brothers and I would have to say, it has been fruitful. The only contact I have with these younger brothers are within this life group and from the get-go, I was able to share deeply with them. Praise God for openness. I also really appreciate the other leaders that I am leading with, because we have different styles and also just different perspectives on how to approach certain things. Learning from them made me realized how incomplete I am and I need help from others. We are actually closing out summer life group soon, so pray that we can live out the vision of our name and boldly cast our bread even after life group ends.

Discipleship: 

Speaking about discipling, during this summer, my focus is to teach the importance of being sustained by the word of God to the younger brothers. Many times when I meet up with brothers, I would just read a book in the Bible with them. There are various ways to disciple a person, but ultimately it must be from God. The word of God really provide a clear structure on how to live a lifestyle of worship and I must say, God has been working in many younger brothers in growing their heart for the word. I am thankful for this. Please pray for the younger generation that they will have a greater appetite for the word of God!   

Aside from me discipling others, I am also being discipled by older brothers. I am super thankful for them... I don’t deserve their investment, but these older brothers are pouring out their heart to me. I’m a difficult person to put up with cause 1.) I get misunderstood easily 2.) I am stubborn at times and I revet back to my sins. However, these older brothers keep on pursing and chasing after me like Christ. Discipleship to the MAX! 

Also, I am super thankful for a family that I’ve been getting closer here in Ann Arbor. Shout out to the Kim Family. I am thankful for Paul and Jennifer cause they are so welcoming... I still remember one day I helped out with building some furnitures for their kids. So backstory, Jennifer is expecting another baby soon and they bought two new beds for their children. I went out to help build the beds for them. During my time with them, they would listen to my struggles and the things that I’m currently going through. I really appreciate their honesty and something their brutal comment and giving me the reality check. I really felt like I was part of their family when I spent that day with them building the furnitures. Aside from the, one day, I really hope that I can do what they did for me, inviting younger people into my future family to build up man and woman of God. 

Friendship:

This portion of my life has been an interesting area. I say this because many of my friends that stayed after graduation is leaving or have already left. I am thankful for the friends that I was able to make throughout my college career and it saddens me to see friends leave, but I am actually really excited for my friends moving onto the next stage of their lives and advancing the kingdom of God in their on calling as they move/ have already moved out of Ann Arbor. The lesson behind friendship is that, I don’t need to be with my friends physically, because they are always near to my heart. As cheesy as it sounds, distance cannot separate the friendships. 

Church: 

These past couple of weeks I realized how our church will never be perfect but it is being completed by Jesus. As I stay longer and longer in HMCC, I recognized there are things that need to be improved and it takes time for change to happen. Sometime, I find myself circling around over and over again on how our church need to change certain things (You can ask me about it if you want to know). While I find myself circling, I also find myself building up bitterness and ending up criticizing my church without actually making a change. As a result, I become the problem instead of building up my church. Recently, I was talking to an older brother and he mentioned to me about how, “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” Ephesian 5:25b. I was challenged by him to actually love the church by acknowledging that Jesus is working within the church through the pastors and he loves the church more than anyone and more than me. Even though there are things to be improved, Jesus knows that and He is working through the messiness of His church. The lesson here for myself is to love the church as Christ loved the church by sacrificing himself on the cross. And I guess a prayer request here is that I can support the leaders that are running the church and the pastors with the best of my capability. 

Excel: 

For the month of July, I volunteered for a program run by HMCC, Excel, to teach international kids English. Most of the kids are from Japan, Korea or China, because their parents moved to the States to either do research or work here for a couple of years. This year I was able to help out with a tad bit of the administrative side of the program and taught a bunch of first graders. What stood out the most throughout the program was the concept of the Simple Gospel. It is crazy that even kids understand that they have sinned and done bad things in their lives and the only way to receive forgiveness is to acknowledge Jesus is the only one that can wipe us clean and give us a redeemed life. I think as we grow older and life gets harder and messier, we can complicate the idea of grace and love from God. However, it’s actually really simple that even kids understand this concept. The lesson here is that, the gospel is simple and I must be like a kid and accept his grace with a childlike faith. 

Building Blocks:

This past month, I recently joined another ministry team within my church and that is Building Blocks. Pretty much, I’m a Sunday School teacher for kids! WOOO! I really love this team cause, I LOVE KIDS! Ugh. I’m super thankful that I get to invest into the younger generation by teaching them who God is. Please pray that I can be faithful with this team and I can develop deeper relationships with the kids! 

School/Work:

So in the previous post, I have mentioned about being accepted into a Counseling program at Moody. Sadly, I won’t be starting or beginning this program due to financial reason, therefore I am currently job searching and trying to be responsible with my finance first! One thing I notice is that God has called me to Ann Arbor and to continue to invest in the church, but I also need to be responsible with other things like my finance in order for me to honor and glorify God’s calling for me here. So a prayer request here is that I will be diligent with my job search and also pray for providence from God!

Retreat: 

This upcoming Sunday, I will be helping out a youth camp retreat at another church. I am actually quite excited for this cause I never really helped out at a youth camp before and working with teenagers. I have been trying to see how I can serve God outside of Harvest and when the opportunity came up, I hopped on it to see how God can use me in a different environment. I really want to work with kids and youth teenagers in the future. So, I really hope this chance can give me exposure with the calling that God has given me. I am also going to be helping out with worship by playing drums during my time at this retreat. But... Man, I haven’t touched the drums for like... 5 years and since practicing with the team, I am thankful for their patient with me. I think serving at another church made me realized how God is working not just in Ann Arbor, but he is working everywhere. Please pray that I can counsel the teenagers and the small group that I will be in charged of and also I can ministry to the staff. Also pray that I can lead others into worshipping the ALMIGHTY GOD.

Personal:

This summer has been a trying summer and a summer where I will always remember. He called me to surrender my own desires and chase after him and believe in His timing. Honestly speaking, it has been tough surrendering, but I believe God is the God is that for me and never against me. I think God is a funny God, as I looked back in my previous journal entries, I prayed many prayers about this one thing. I prayed, “God allow me to surrender and let you be in control of this area of my life.” Years later, I’m still surrendering and I’m still relinquishing my own plans to him. I realized surrendering is not a one time thing, but it’s a everyday thing. There are some days where I can say, “God, yes! I surrender because you are so much better than anything I desire.” and there are some days where I am dreading to surrender. 

Although it is hard, please pray that I am wait patiently for God’s ultimate plan and pray that I can seek after God first and believe He is the God that is better. 

Here are some pictures! 

(Fourth of July Hot Pot Party with my Life Group and another sister Life Group! Funny story, I burnt myself while lighting up firework for people... I was hot.)

(Tiffany is on the left and Hannah is on the right. Hannah left and started working at Austin. Tiffany, well she’s stuck with me in Ann Arbor...)

(My Accountability Partner, Richard, He is a man of God.) 

(This man is my first discipler at Harvest, and guess what. HE’S ENGAGED WITH THE LOVE OF THIS LIFE!)

(APPLE CLASS!)

[orbemnews]

Alibaba’s Big Fine Is a Warning Shot Beijing tightens the screws Over the weekend, Chinese officials fined Alibaba a record $2.8 billion over antitrust violations. It was the biggest penalty yet as the Chinese government scrutinizes Jack Ma’s business empire — and it served as a warning for the country’s other internet giants. The fine was linked to Alibaba’s locking of merchants into its sales platform, according to the Chinese market authority, and vastly exceeds the agency’s previous largest fine, a $975 million antitrust penalty imposed on Qualcomm in 2015. A commentary published in the state-run People’s Daily minutes after the Alibaba announcement called such regulation “a kind of love and care.” The fine will likely curb Alibaba’s ambitions. Like its American counterparts, the company argued that its sheer size and wealth of services are a net positive for consumers. But smaller rivals are now likely to find support from Beijing if they accuse Alibaba of anticompetitive practices in the future. “We accept the penalty with sincerity,” Alibaba said in a statement, and executives held a call today to say the fine, worth about 4 percent of revenue, wasn’t material to the e-commerce giant’s finances. Shareholders appeared relieved. Alibaba’s shares rose by more than 6 percent in Hong Kong trading. Beyond the fine, the company agreed to stop violating antimonopoly rules and submit compliance reports for three years. And today, the company said it would lower the fees it charges merchants and provide additional services. Alibaba’s shares are still down sharply from late last year, when the antitrust rumblings began. Alibaba suggested that rivals could be next. “The penalty issued today served to alert and catalyze companies like ours,” the company said in its statement. “It reflects the regulators’ thoughtful and normative expectations toward our industry’s development.” Unlike Alibaba, shares in Tencent and Baidu were down today, as other big internet businesses in China feared that they might be next. HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING An effort to unionize Amazon workers fails. Workers at a warehouse in Alabama overwhelmingly voted against the proposal, crushing one of the biggest drives to form a union in Amazon’s history. The lopsided result may prompt organized labor to try different tactics in the future. Jay Powell says the economy is at an “inflection point.” The Fed chair said on “60 Minutes” last night that the U.S. outlook had “brightened substantially” but warned that flare-ups in Covid-19 cases remain a risk. Speaking of virus risks: the South African variant may be able to evade some of the protection of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Microsoft may be close to striking another big acquisition. It is near a deal to buy Nuance Communications, the A.I. and speech recognition software company whose tech is tied to Apple’s Siri virtual assistant, Bloomberg reports. At a potential valuation of $16 billion, a transaction would be Microsoft’s biggest since buying LinkedIn for $26 billion. Preet Bharara is becoming a digital media executive. Vox Media agreed to buy Cafe Studios, the publisher behind “Stay Tuned With Preet,” the podcast hosted by the former Manhattan U.S. attorney. Mr. Bharara, who made his name prosecuting insider trading and terrorism cases, will join Vox as the creative director of Cafe. Two electric vehicle battery makers settle their feud. LG Energy Solution and SK Innovation reached an agreement to end their intellectual property dispute, with SK paying LG $1.8 billion in lump-sum and royalty payments. The settlement ends a fight that threatened the Biden administration’s climate agenda, as well as a big battery factory SK is building in Georgia. C.E.O.s talk politics Over the weekend, more than 100 corporate leaders held a conference call to discuss what they should do, if anything, to shape the debate around restrictive new voting laws under discussion across the U.S. Snap polls during the call suggested that most of the participants favor doing something, though what that would be isn’t yet clear. The voting-rights debate is fraught for companies, putting them at the center of an increasingly heated partisan battle. Ken Chenault, the former AmEx chief, and Ken Frazier, the current Merck C.E.O., urged the executives on the call to publicly state their support for broader ballot access, following their work gathering 70 fellow Black leaders to sign a letter calling on companies to fight bills that restrict voting rights, like the one that recently passed in Georgia. A new survey of Americans gives support for companies wading into politics. The data provided by Morning Consult was presented to the C.E.O.s on the call, which was convened by the Yale professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld. Here are some highlights: 62 percent of “avid” baseball fans support M.L.B.’s decision to move the All-Star Game from Georgia in response to the state’s new voting restrictions. Support was lower among all adults (39 percent), but if the league was worried about the effect on its most dedicated fans, this is an important finding. 57 percent of Americans think companies should cut back on donations to elected officials who are working to limit voting rights. Nearly three-quarters of respondents said that the government should ensure equitable access to voting locations. More than half of Americans said they were more likely to buy from companies that promote certain social causes, including racial equality and civil rights, although support among Democrats was stronger than among Republicans on many of these issues. Among the handful of issues that would make Republicans less likely to buy from a company were support for the Black Lives Matter movement, abortion rights, stricter gun control, transgender rights and gay rights. “However glad we are to see a new generation’s evolving perspective on investing, our goal is not to make it easier for them to pile into and rush out of speculative meme stocks.” — Ron Kruszewski, the C.E.O. of Stifel, in his annual letter to shareholders. On due diligence and flying taxis Archer, the electric aircraft company, said earlier this month that it’s facing a federal investigation over allegations of I.P. theft. That’s not just a potential problem for Archer, which denies wrongdoing, but also for the investment bank Moelis & Company, which announced in February that a blank-check firm it was backing would acquire Archer in a deal that valued the company at $3.8 billion. Questions arise about due diligence. Archer revealed the federal investigation on the day a rival, Wisk, sued the company and accused it of stealing trade secrets and infringing on its patents. According to Wisk’s suit, it informed Archer of its concerns last year, before Archer’s deal with the Moelis-linked SPAC, known as Atlas Crest Investment. “They had to be aware of this — so what did they make of it?” said Kevin LaCroix, a lawyer and author of D&O Diary. Moving too quickly? I.P. theft claims are common in nascent industries like the one for electric air taxis, and Atlas may have dismissed the matter as a competitive tactic from a rival. But Atlas’s due diligence took a little over a month, according to regulatory filings. The SPAC led by Reid Hoffman took almost three times as long to run the rule over its acquisition of another rival, Joby. What about incentives? Moelis not only backed the Atlas SPAC but also served as its financial adviser and placement agent for the additional funding alongside the merger — roles that could earn it $30 million in fees, according to filings. Moelis bankers, including the chairman Ken Moelis, own a “substantial majority” of founder shares and warrants in the SPAC, which would be worthless if a deal isn’t done. There are “huge incentives” for SPAC deals to close, Mr. LaCroix said. “Does that create its own logic which kind of creates sort of a runaway freight train so that, if problems do emerge, they kind of get glossed over? That is the risk.” Baseball on the blockchain A classic American pastime — baseball-card collecting — is getting a 21st century update. The blockchain platform Worldwide Asset Exchange (WAX) and Topps, the collectibles and candy company, are launching NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, digitizing this season’s Major League Baseball trading card series. WAX minted more than a million NFTs for 75,000 digital card packs. The series, digitizes nearly 2,000 images to be sold in packs of six or 45 cards starting next week. William Quigley, WAX’s co-founder, said he expects “millions” in direct sales and a robust secondary market. For M.L.B., the tokens essentially act as an annuity, paying the league a fraction of every resale via conditions written into their code. That is a new source of revenue that didn’t exist with old-fashioned cards. Top Shots, the National Basketball Association’s NFTs, are among the most popular assets to take off in the recent crypto craze, generating nearly $150 million in sales over the past month alone, according to DappRadar. Digital tokens solve several problems, Mr. Quigley said. With standard cards it has been difficult to establish how many cards were issued and to ensure the authenticity of a supposedly rare one. NFTs have built-in authentication and verification data, and separate ownership from possession so that owners don’t need to amass physical goods in a world with “landfills worth of junk,” he said. Mr. Quigley himself is considering giving up on buying physical art. “I’m thinking I don’t like it,” he said. A home run in a hot market? Topps is riding high as the pandemic has driven new interest in memorabilia, especially trading cards. And NFTs are not the only hot trend Topps is betting on: the company is going public via SPAC in a deal that values it at $1.3 billion, DealBook reported last week. THE SPEED READ Deals Medline Industries, a maker of medical equipment, is reportedly weighing a sale that could value it at more than $30 billion. (WSJ) Didi Chuxing, the Chinese ride-hailing giant, is said to have hired Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to lead its forthcoming I.P.O. in the U.S. (Reuters) Politics and policy David Cameron, the former British prime minister who became a top adviser to Greensill Capital, admitted to mistakes in lobbying policymakers on behalf of the recently collapsed lender. (FT) “We Asked Congress’s Freshmen to Give Up Stock Trading. Few Were Willing.” (NYT) Tech Court filings in Texas revealed that Google secretly used past bids for its digital advertising exchange to give its own ad-buying system an advantage over rivals. (WSJ) More than 500 employees of Alphabet signed an open letter demanding the tech giant change rules they say unduly protect those credibly accused of harassment. (The Verge) Best of the rest Don’t mistake a work colleague’s silent endurance for resilience. (NYT) Online schools are here to stay, even after the pandemic. (NYT) We’d like your feedback! 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