#but its so blatantly grooming in retrospect

[creator-chaos]

Seeing Kirio's backstory in the anime for the first time: hahaha, wow, what a wonderful "sob story" bait-and-switch! Absolutely wild, I love a horrible horny villain!

Reading Kirio's backstory after catching up with the manga, where themes of fascism, education, and the role youth play in determining the future have become clear: HEY DO YOU THINK BAAL GIVING THIS CHILD A LITERAL COLLAR MEANS ANYTHING

[theangrypokemaniac]

Then Ambipom showed up, and the little miss wasn't half so bad in retrospect.

I never felt too keen on Aipom. It was okay but that inane grin possessed a sinister edge, like Tony Blair after the '97 election.

Bloody hell, what's that?

Yer tail's got more fingers than you!

Nasty thing this freak:

• Teeth like bathroom tiles.

• Grimace about as reassuring as an escaped mental patient peering in the window.

• Chevron nose implying a porcine snout.

• Tail ends like silicon knockers, each sporting a trio of red-raw teats.

• Screechy, gurgling cackle.

• Bobbing up and down, heaving, like a Steamboat Willie reject.

It's the voice mainly. The cheap attempt rolled out by The Pokémon Company ruins much of it for me.

Aipom began Sinnoh as Ash's Pokémon, but so enamoured was she of the whole Contest palaver, and with no chance of joining whilst still in his custody, the decision was made to trade her for Buizel.

I repeat: she left Ash, whom she clearly cared about, given the hat antics, because Contests were a wondrous jewel in her eyes.

It did then anyway. The boss-eyed ugliness is more of an issue now.

It was all going so swimmingly. Dawn and Ambipom made a grand team, sticking it to Ursula and Gabite good and proper.

That is, until she made the mistake of entering a table tennis event.

Really? To this we are reduced?

Remember that. It's important for later.

His name is O.

It is not. That's blatantly an alias for ulterior motives.

What's he up to, sneaking about under a pseudonym of evident fabrication?

O? Yer couldn't even think up a proper sobriquet for this devilish creep?

It's all Barry's fault, the bitch.

I consider folk who fanny hither and thither, referring to themselves by initials only, to be insufferably pretentious.

T.A.P. won't have it on this blog.

Dawn progresses with ease, thoroughly thrashing opponents, for Ambipom reveals herself to be quite the skilled operator.

With no fingers, no wrists, and no joints. Just the palms.

As if!

How can Shiftry be a champion? Look at it, man!

Alright, it's not so severe a drawback as Oddish, who had No Bloody Arms, but it ain't much of an improvement.

It's got no bloody hands!

Yet they come up against real competition at the close, for O and Shiftry are legends of the art.

It's a master ping-pong player... with No Bloody Hands?!

You're 'avin me on here!

What's it meant to do, slap away with a frond?

How?! There's no bloody bones in them there leaves!

Can't have a cup of tea with them, can yer?!

What a surprise, Dawn loses in the final.

Something else to fail at then?

Oh come on love, can't you do anything right?

Then O guilt trips her. Apparently the shrieking simian is a natural talent, but her deadweight presence is cramping its style.

Charming.

Ambipom is given the choice: spotlight and seals or bats and balls. She picks the latter.

Each time the ball approaches, either it'll just bend the foliage, or, when aflame, burn a hole right through, and Shiftry would go up like a woollen nightgown!

Of course she does. The compelling story arc of twenty minutes could lead only to this conclusion.

Aipom gives up entering Contests, a career she adored, in preference for a thing no one knew existed before this single episode, even if it means parting from all of her friends forever.

Perfectly logical thought process there.

Two options:

1. Contests are crap. They look all flash at a distance but it's a soulless procedure.

Ambipom twigged this early on, jumping ship at the first opportunity to escape a lifetime of feudal drudgery under Dawn's baronial whip hand.

O claims to run his own ping-pong school, because in these parts that's how people fill the empty hours waiting for death.

Bizarrely it's situated in Vermilion City.

I know. It's on a entirely different continent to Dawn, as if they don't want her visiting.

Back in day Ash and Brock almost died trying to reach said settlement. It ain't easy even for them.

Oh Vermilion City! Of course it is! I remember it so well now from Electric Shock Showdown.

Lieutenant Surge loves a game of ping-pong! Him and Raichu batter fragile Pidgey and Rattata all day then unwind with a bit of back-and-forth paddle-whacking.

He's at every hour under the sun with the Fishing Guru and Fan Club Chairman.

2. The writers responsible are baggy-arsed oafs and this is the most inept exit in the show.

Yeah, and I bet O's vehicle is the one hiding Mew.

Ah! That's the explanation I've waited for!

Disembarking from the Saint Anne? It's the first place you go when in town.

Captain, calm thy sick, and Sailors, put down those women of ill repute. There's pongs to be pinged.

A likely scenario as ever I did see.

Or is it?

Well, well, well. This tissue of lies is unravelling before me.

• Calls himself O?

• Has such a mundane, yet ludicrous profession?

• Works with a disabled Pokémon incapable of the very action for which it is famed?

• Professes to own an establishment we know from past experience isn't there?

• Enters the aforesaid competition, immediately targeting his favoured prey?

• Grooms Ambipom with flattery, adding a reduction in status by beating her, inspiring a useful hunger for better?

• Emotionally manipulates a young girl into surrendering her Pokémon?

• Shows no remorse in removing an animal from her family?

• Travels thousands of miles from home, keen to avoid recognition by fellow countrymen?

• Supposed base happens to be in a city difficult to access for Dawn?

• Oh, and a port town to boot, stamping ground of smugglers passing illegal goods, like exotic pets and contraband?

• Disappears on a bus, never to be seen again?

The evidence is piling up!

He ain't no ping-pong player! He's scouting for specimens for his animal research lab!

Ambipom's gonna get stuffed and placed in a cabinet for snotty students to study!

Hey, science man. Anything's justified in its name. The future's now thanks to it.

Thumbs up from Pope Clemont.

Could be worse. Could be talentless twat Damien Hirst picking up creatures to bisect in a vat of formaldehyde for the pleasure of a lot of beard-stroking bourgeoisie.

If I were Ash I'd be well aggrieved at the entire situation.

You give away yer best chimp, assuming it'll be safe with a friend, and she gifts it to the vivisectionist!

Oi bitch, yer wanna take the shirt off his back too?

You should've handed it to Jessie when asked. She never would've done such a thing.

She cares.

She just dumps all hers in the tender embrace of H.Q. and forgets.

Might be dead now. Much better.

What is it about Sinnoh? Chimchar gets grief, and Aipom's headed for China's cruelty-free wet markets.

From Poffin to coffin: aye-aye-aye.

Mmm-mmm: Mashed Ape coming to a dinner plate near you.

I tell yer, shameless spanking of monkeys going on all over.

But lo, the somewhat misnamed Galar region is set in Vermilion City!

Obviously Ambipom will be at Chloë's for a cup of tea and a banana on a regular basis.

Yep, definitely will happen. No doubt about it. We're due a remake of Diamond and Pearl after all.

Should that come to fruition, any old excuse to promote it on screen will do.

I'm handing yer that loose story strand, Game Freak!

Any time now. The first day Ash was in town he raced to the famous ping-pong school round the corner.

He couldn't resist, not when he hadn't bothered to visit in three previous generations.

It's coming. It will. Just wait a minute.

...

That's right, you wave goodbye. That's the last we'll be seeing of 'er outside of a packed lunch with mustard.

No? Again I give you two options:

1. What choo expecting canon coherence from this shower for?

I keep telling yer: when a new era begins it erases all that has gone before. That's why they explain the concept of Pokémon EVERY SINGLE BLOODY TIME.

2. It is consistent, and Ambipom can't return as her skin's decorating a fine Gucci handbag.

Plus the rest of her made a top-notch tin of dog food.

[berniesrevolution]

In the heyday of the internet message board, let’s say in the 1990s, a certain species of idiot materialized. He was male, aggressively pedantic, self-professedly logical, committed to the hard sciences, prone to starting sentences with “actually,” and almost always devoted to the notion that his disbelief in God imbued him with intellectual superiority. This archetype’s golden years were the 2000s, a decade that saw George W. Bush’s politicized creationism and the use of web forums peak in unison. Once that decade ended, the internet tired of his antics and made him central to a series of in-jokes —“neckbeard” described his less-than-stellar grooming habits; and his hat of choice, the fedora, became the butt of innumerable jokes during Obama’s first term. No longer needed or tolerated, this misunderstood paragon of Enlightenment-core values began a journey that brought him to the worst possible destination: the Republican Party.

The Bush years provided militant atheists and amateur debate enthusiasts adequate fodder for their performative condescension. It seems almost quaint in retrospect, but newish, performative Christianity was being lab-tested at the time. Bush himself was a born-again Christian who cited a vision from God when justifying the disastrous invasion of Iraq, and his leadership inspired zealots across the country to up the ante. In 2001, Jerry Falwell, who had recently accused the show Teletubbies of “modeling the gay lifestyle” to children, blamed 9/11 on pagans and abortionists. In 2003, Judge Roy Moore installed a 5000-pound Ten Commandments monument outside the Alabama Supreme Court, refused to comply with court orders to take it down, and was eventually removed from office as a result.

The Bush presidency was a fantastic moment in which to be a self-satisfied dork with a penchant for explaining things to people.

Richard Dawkins’s 2006 The God Delusion and Christopher Hitchens’s 2007 God Is Not Great each sold millions of copies, and Bill Maher’s Religulous was the highest grossing documentary of 2008. South Park lampooned Mormons, and internet trolls declared war on easy targets like the Westboro Baptist Church and the Church of Scientology. Until his disbarment in 2008, gamers mobilized to stop evangelical lawyer Jack Thompson from filing frivolous obscenity lawsuits against the makers of Grand Theft Auto. Atheists invented a religion around the “Flying Spaghetti Monster,” and demanded it be given equal weight in textbooks, to satirize the teaching of intelligent design in public schools. This subculture was dubbed “New Atheism.” It had a nice jaunt.

Once Bush left office, the promoters of “intelligent design” curricula retreated from the public sphere, and millennials asserted themselves as the least religious generation to date; the group that had coalesced around the practice logically refuting creationists needed new targets. One of the targets they chose was women. Militant atheism had always been male-dominated, but it took several years and a sea change in American politics for the sexism within its ranks to fully bloom. In 2011, skeptic blogger Rebecca Watson described in a YouTube video how a male fellow attendee of an atheist conference had followed her into an elevator at 4 a.m. in order to ask her on a date—behavior that, understandably, made her uncomfortable. The community erupted into what was later remembered as “Elevatorgate.” A forum was created to harass Watson, and Richard Dawkins himself wrote a comment telling her to “stop whining” because she had it better than victims of honor killings and female genital mutilation.

This dynamic played out again and again. In 2012, the popular atheist vlogger Thunderf00t (real name Phil Mason) aimed his sights at Watson in a video titled “Why ‘Feminism’ is poisoning Atheism,” thereby reigniting the previous year’s controversy. This time it took off, leading him to create several follow-up videos accusing women of destroying the paradise that was New Atheism for their own gain. In 2013, Mason inaugurated his “FEMINISM vs. FACTS” series of videos, which attacked Anita Sarkeesian, a feminist video game critic who was then receiving an onslaught of harassment and violent threats for daring to analyze Super Mario Bros. This sort of idiocy, combined, again, with the growing popularity of jibes associating outspoken atheists with fedoras, neckbeards, and virginity, led to an exodus of liberals and leftists from the “atheist” tent. Those who remained for the most part lacked in social skills and self-awareness, and the results were disastrous.

New Atheism and the Gamergate movement of 2014—which sicced vicious online mobs on female journalists and game designers based on spurious allegations of media corruption—overlapped in several ways. They were both male-dominated, the latter almost exclusively so, and they both festered on nerd-oriented internet forums. Both movements resented women and minorities who asserted themselves within those spaces, ostensibly because it provided an unimportant distraction from their respective goals of destroying religion and uncritically consuming entertainment products. The difference, though, was that Gamergate had no basis in reality. The central allegation of that controversy, that a developer slept with a Kotaku writer in order to secure a positive review of her game, was blatantly untrue. No such review existed, which posed a problem for anyone who viewed himself as the protagonist in a battle “vs. FEMINISM.” In order to continue this all-out war on feminists—the curious replacement creationists for a new decade that lacked for them—these New-New Atheists had to break with reality altogether.

The heirs to New Atheism may have a new target and a remodeled ethos, but their rhetorical crutches remain the same. They announce at every opportunity that they revere logic, evidence, and science, even if the opposite is plainly true. We saw this play out with James Damore, the engineer who was fired from Google after spreading a memo critiquing the company’s pro-diversity policies. Damore argued in his memo, titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” that biological differences between men and women, not sexism, could account for the lack of gender parity in the tech industry. In the memo, he repeatedly used the favored buzzwords of atheist pedants. He wrote that he “strongly value[s] individualism and reason,” claimed that “the Left tends to deny science” and asked that Google “be open about the science of human nature.” The repetition of these sentiments failed to strengthen his case, which was made from gut feeling and justified retroactively with garbled logic and irrelevant studies. An investigation by Wired found that two of the researchers Damore cited disagreed with the conclusions he drew from their work, with one telling them that “It is unclear to me that this sex difference would play a role in success within the Google workplace (in particular, not being able to handle stresses of leadership in the workplace. That’s a huge stretch to me).”

(Continue Reading)

[jackblankhsh]

Wedding Crash

Because I did not receive an invitation to the wedding I felt a desire to attend.  I reasoned if they really didn’t want me to come, the bride and groom could’ve taken better steps to prevent me from knowing about the impending nuptials.  Seeing how they brazenly mentioned it on social media, I felt indirectly invited.  Alluding to an open bar, frankly, they might as well have told a moth about a flame. So, in the interest of saving money, with hope of kindling a chance of romance, I ventured downtown to the wedding of Jackie Sanchez and some guy.  

I met Jackie in high school.  The first time I saw her I learned an erection can swell to a painful degree – dick feeling like a rock about to explode apart.  Long licorice colored hair, caramel skin, and sneakers decorated in white out doodles, she inspired feelings I’ve never learned to properly express.  Mainly that’s because there’s no way to charmingly say, “So I was jerking off the other day, thinking of you, and…” whatever comes next is irrelevant.  For some reason most folks aren’t flattered to learn they’re in the spank bank.  Maybe it’s something everyone fears they won’t live up to.  I don’t know, I’ve never had a problem failing people.

Hitching a ride from my buddy Sid, I told him to head to the Art Institute.  He pulled over to the curb, put the car in park, and said, “Do not go to Jackie’s wedding.”

Struggling to put on a tux while seated passenger side, “I resent the implication of your accusation.”

He sighed, “You had four years in high school, four years to ask her out.”

I nodded, “Truth fact.  However, life is a continuous opportunity for those willing to try.  I’m not dead.  Ergo…”

“Fuck yourself,” Sid said, then for emphasis, “Error go fuck yourself.”

“Are you gonna drive me to the Art Institute?”

Shifting the car into gear Sid remarked, “Only to see you fail.”

I truly believe it’s the amount of faith we have in one another that explains why the world is the way it is.  

#

Sneaking into any kind of event is an art form.  The amount of security dictates the level of infiltration skill required to achieve a successful sneak.  For instance, breaking into an eighth grade graduation is very different from photo-bombing the President at the State of the Union.  One simply requires ice cream cake and a hammer, while the eighth grade graduation involves chloroform, white wine, peanut dust, and a child sized coffin.

I originally considered crashing the actual wedding, but since it took place in a church I could not.  God and I have an understanding, and though we clearly have little respect for one another, I abide by our agreement:  I stay out of the churches, God stays out of evolution, and the Winter Olympics.  So instead I aimed at the reception.  

Security didn’t appear to be anything other than Art Institute guards.  Instead of preventing flash photography two doorstops in blue blazers checked invites and IDs against a list on a clipboard.  Once again I felt like they left the door wide open. Out of myriad gambits, the way one guard blatantly scratched his ass, hand down the back of his pants to get at bare skin, I decided to go with the maneuver known as the Hideous Hideaway.  

I called up a video on my phone then approached the entrance.  

A guard said, “Good afternoon.  May I see your invitation?”

“Sure thing.” Smiling I fumbled in my pockets, pretending to be unsure of its location.  In the process I pulled out my cell phone which seemed to inspire my remark, “Oh, hey, have you seen this yet?”

I pressed play on the video.  It featured insects devouring a man’s penis while he writhed in agony.  The millipede scrambling down his urethra is as far as most get, missing out on the young woman who comes along to save his cock by stomping the bugs to death.  These two made it all the way to the end.  That made things easier.

As expected, one guard asked, “Where’d you get that?”

I informed her of the link’s location, and while the two hurried to share the hideous spectacle with their friends, I slipped inside.  It almost felt too easy.  Then I stepped into the banquet hall where I immediately bumped into Jackie’s brother Alvaro.  

Alvaro Sanchez Junior always impressed me until he spoke.  He possessed the regal bearing and beauty of an Aztec emperor. Unfortunately, he often spoke with a toxic tone symptomatic of silver spoon poisoning.  This stemmed from the fact Sanchez Senior held a low level, but well connected political position; and many expected Alvaro, as eldest, to assume his father’s spot; regardless of the realities of democracy that political seat belonged to him – voters be damned.  Groomed, practically from birth, to be, as Alvaro liked to say “a leader of men,” he took a method approach to his future.  Like a Strasburg disciple, he stayed in the character of king almighty every moment of the day.  

We literally bumped into one another when, as I stood perfectly still, he walked into me. For a moment I tensed, expecting him to recognize me.  Alvaro never cared for me.  I based this on the fact he often told me, “I don’t care for you.”  However, he assumed from the second rate quality of my tux that I worked as a server.  An assumption made plain when he said:

“Watch where I’m going, and get me some crab puffs, or I’ll have you fired.”  He and a buddy high fived, yet didn’t linger.  So I headed for the open bar.  

There I collected a pair of cocktails, one for each hand.  Draining the glasses steadily, I orbited the banquet hall.  Staying in one spot ran the risk of prolonged conversation, chancing the development of holes in my cover – anonymity my best camouflage.  Still I paused every so often to dance in and out of conversations, killing time saying things like:  

“Baseball is a hell of a game if you can stay drunk… I’ve never been to Guayaquil, but that iguana park sounds fascinating… well, you’d be surprised.  Tuberculosis kills all kinds of career opportunities lemme tell ya (cough, cough)… Oh, I know the best man.  We used to sell runaways to the circus… No ma’am, I don’t think the bride’s dress is too tight.  She’s having trouble sitting because the groom, well, he likes to drill that ass.”

In retrospect, I could have been milder in some regards.  Yet, no one caught on to the presence of a crasher.  I’ve been to several weddings.  They all tend to be the same affair.  A nebula of tables adorned with floral centerpieces, ringed by a smattering of guests with various degrees of connectivity.  Wedding receptions are the only occasion where it’s okay to openly rank family and friends, status defined by seating assignments. Therefore, the trick to remaining discrete involved finding a table with the least desired family and friends. There I could sit, pretending to share in the minimalist joy of having at least been invited.  

“That’s better than Aunt Frida.  No one invites her anywhere.”

“That’s because she’s dead.”

“Only on the inside.  She’s a real downer.”

Still, I occasionally chanced brief hellos with those I recognized.  Her Aunt Morena, who wrote Xicana literature, a woman with a helmet of hair redefining Chicana archetypes.  Grandpa Emilio, whom I always thought of as the old guitarist.  I saw his beloved instrument beside his chair – Ana from the alley of the kiss – and hoped I’d get a chance to hear him play once more.  Cousins Fabiana and Facundo forever locked in a debate about the realism of football.  Friend of the family and party regular Vincent Redon in the 800th retelling of the woman at her toilette he saw after the hurricane ripped her house open. Jackie’s family and friends gathered, while I snuck booze in the background – it felt like old times.  

When dinner arrived, instead of eating I slipped outside for a smoke.  Exiting the room, I jokingly asked the guards if I needed a hand stamp to get back in.

One laughed, “Nope, but you gotta watch this.”  

He showed me a video of four women explosively shitting on the floor.  They then used the excrement as finger paint to draw floral designs on one another like sewer hippies.  I made an exaggerated display of comical disgust.  Delighted, the guards waved me off, and returned to finding more revolting videos.  

Outside I felt my phone buzz.

Sid texted, “I can’t believe you’re still in there.”

“Believe it,” I typed back.

“How much longer?”

Good question, I thought.  

After high school Jackie and I didn’t keep in touch.  By then we’d gone down very different roads.  We used to be kids searching for how to be who we wanted to be, following breadcrumbs laid out by albums, films, and books.  We could agree on the significance of a song, but not the whole album; the brilliance of a line from, though not the entire film, or book.  It seemed to me we were only off by a slight degree, that one shared element would bring us into sync.  But by the time we graduated… we took comfort in dissimilar realities, that one thing never having materialized.

Over a decade later, when social media blossomed, we got back in touch; however, it rarely amounted to more than peripheral interactions.  

Post:  Look at dis cutest kittie!

“Liked” by Jackie Sanchez. 

Strolling back to the banquet area, it dawned on me my infatuation with Jackie stemmed mostly from not dating her.  We never had a romantic relationship, so it never failed; therefore it could’ve been anything.  Possibilities are endless in the absence of contrary evidence.  Because I could only imagine us together I could always imagine us perfectly.  And oddly enough, fantasies have a way of making promises.  

Promises like if I got the DJ to play Patti Smith’s “Because the Night”, the song would inspire the words I needed to say to win her heart.  Seizing one last bold chance for love go up to the head table while the song fills the air, and speak – about this time I realized I hadn’t merely been vividly imagining the scenario, but actually now stood in front of the head table, Jackie staring over her pollo relleno in wide eyed disbelief.  

“Howdy do?” I said, immediately regretting my very existence.  If nothing else, I doubt any romantic victory ever began with howdy do, although I could be wrong.

Jackie blinked, “I’m good.  How… how are you?”

“Not bad.” I put my hands in my pockets, wondering how many times I’d have to punch myself in the throat with my keys before I finally killed myself.  I said, “It’s been a while.”

“Yes it has,” she nodded, “The last time I saw you, you set my boyfriend’s car on fire.”

“This is that guy?” her husband said.  He suddenly looked desperate to call the police.  

Smiling, I said, “That is indeed me.”  

“What are you doing here?” Jackie asked.

I sincerely believe honesty is the best move.  However, on this occasion, I lied, “Well, to tell you the truth, I’m here to steal a painting, saw y’all in here, and thought I’d stop by to say congratulations.”

“Thanks?” her husband said.

“Thank you,” Jackie smiled.  She got up, hurried around the table to hug me.  She smelled amazing, the kind of aroma that cures depression.  She whispered in my ear, “You’ll go to jail if you steal a painting.  Please tell me this is some deranged romantic stunt.”

It felt like an opening, yet I oddly enough knew better.  I squeezed her gently, “Nope.”  Stepping away from her I waved to the groom, “Once again, congratulations.  I’d stay, but timing is everything.  Don’t want to miss my moment.”

Heading out, feeling several eyes on me, I texted Sid:  "be out front, engine running, backseat open.“

Minutes later, running down the steps of the Art Institute, carrying one of Monet’s “Haystacks” – I had to steal something to diminish the lie – I found myself wondering what else I needed to let go of.  Diving into the backseat of Sid’s car, we peeled out, rocketing home.  

Glancing in the rearview Sid said, “What the fuck is that?”

“One of six, 25 technically – they can spare one.”

He cracked a beer, “So how was the reception?”

“A little too clear.”  

My impression of the past would no longer be the same, but that’s just growing up.  I tapped Sid on the shoulder.  He handed me a beer.  Opening it I thought, "Here’s to you Jackie.  I’m glad you’re happy.”

Sid said, “You know alotta marriages end in divorce.”

“Yeah.” But I didn’t feel like hoping for that. I felt like finding another dream girl, only this time actually trying to hold her instead of chasing the mirage.